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This month on News Fighters host Dylan Behan takes an in-depth look at the 2023 “Goldilocks” Budget. Somehow treasurer Jim Chalmers and Labor have lucked out with a once-in-15-year surplus, but can they use it to help those out in the cold while not overheating the economy with inflation? Meanwhile Peter Dutton and the coalition argue that instead of giving a tiny increase to welfare recipients, this money would be better used to fund holidays and the mining industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
Jim Chalmers 00:01
This is News Fighters, where we fight the news so you don't have to.
Dylan Behan 00:10
Yes welcome to episode 123 of news fighters from May 2023. News fighters, chase the vibes. I'm Dylan Bay and you might know me from A Rational fear as being the onstage Hobbit DJ guy and occasional wacky clips merchant and I'm here with the biggest news story of the week.
Journalist 00:27
It's budget night and we'll see something we haven't in 15 years.
Dylan Behan 00:31
Yes, that's right for the first time in 15 years. Is it Michael Jackson back from the dead and live in concert? Or is it Kevin Rudd? Not a laughingstock? Oh, perhaps it's a livable apartment in Sydney for under $600,000? No, of course they were talking about the first
Once a month on A Rational Fear on the podcast feed we present a different kind of show:
Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation is a long form conversation with a climate leader from around the world.
This month Dan Ilic talks with Ketan Joshiis one of Australia's great thinkers on energy, climate change, politics and technology. This is a great wide ranging chat about all those topics.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Dan Ilic 0:04 Hello, Lynn.
Linh Do 0:05 Hey Dan. Longtime no chat.
Dan Ilic 0:06 I know I know we took a summer break a siesta over summer, but now we are back.
Linh Do 0:11 We are back. 2021 still feels like 2022 not gonna lie still working from home
Dan Ilic 0:17 not 2022 but 2020 as well, is that what you meant by two?
Linh Do 0:22 We actually still in 2021, I had clearly been very optimistic, projecting myself into the future.
Dan Ilic 0:27 Now for those who are new around here. This is the greatest moral podcast of our generation. It's a monthly long form chat with leaders on climate action from around the world. It appears right here on the irrational fear feed and this week. I'm very excited about this conversation. Lin you haven't heard or you haven't heard it yet, but I can't wait for you to hear it. It is with mega energy climate nerd technology brain katan Joshi, and he is like my favourite person about climate and the environment and technology on Twitter. Do you follow him?
Linh Do 0:58 I do follow him. And I recommend people ask me the question of Oh, how should I engage on climate? I'm always like, so this this guy. This is like how do you follow him? Sometimes he tweets about Norway because he lives there now. But like 90% of the type of climate and like good stuff,
Dan Ilic 1:14 that Firstly, I guess we should get the climate news out of the way I'm recording my end of the greatest moral podcast of our generation on gadigal land and the eora nation what whose land are you on?
Linh Do 1:23 Lynn wonderland of the well wandering people of the Kulin nation,
Dan Ilic 1:26 sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's stop the shop.
Unknown Speaker 1:29 Despite global warming. irrational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.
Unknown Speaker 1:42 This is called Don't be afraid the heat waves and drove greatest mass extinction. We're facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate criminals.
Unknown Speaker 1:57 ration
Unknown Speaker 1:59 all of this with the global warming and a lot of it's a hoax book, right, a small
Unknown Speaker 2:03 podcast about generation for short, all right,
Dan Ilic 2:08 let's get stuck into the climate news. So the last couple of months, I guess there's been a hell of a lot of it. Let's just do some highlights recently, I reckon. Despite everything, the federal government, you know, supporting gas supporting fossil fuels, it looks like they can't even do that properly. I don't know if you've seen this piece by Reuters is a great scathing opinion piece, basically saying Australia's energy policy is in such disarray. While they are trying to support fossil fuels and completely negging on renewables, they haven't even managed to support fossil fuels enough to keep Exxon from closing their oil refinery in altona. In Melbourne 2020. There were non oil refineries in Australia, but now there's only two for the whole country.
Linh Do 2:51 COVID really did impact clearly a whole bunch of different sectors. And it's so funny, right? Because we definitely say the Australian Government is one of the biggest supporters of fossil fuels all around the world, to the point where the European Parliament is about to vote on something soon to punish polluters, I a people like Australia, it's, you know, we're being punished for internationally, but back home, still not doing a good job. And
Dan Ilic 3:11 that's incredible. And you know, who's next after the EU, apparently, Japan is going to import is going to be doing some climate tariffs work as well. But of course, it is a bit more of a tension there because Japan is a much bigger trading partner with Australia than than the EU is But still, to have the EU, implement tariffs and then Japan implement tariffs. And Kerry is now talking about implementing tariffs from the United States. So all of our biggest trading partners are going to be punishing us for not acting on climate.
Linh Do 3:40 We're so wedged in that we're not even quite in a corner anymore. And we're not even really in the picture in the game, you've essentially got the four biggest economies in the world saying, Hey, we're gonna do stuff on climate businesses that operate here, we're going to respond, what are you doing Australia?
Dan Ilic 3:53 You may remember Around this time, last year, there was going to be talk about a gas powered recovery from COVID. And things like that. Well, let me tell you, the a mo the organisation that basically is the industry body for running the energy in Australia ran a workshop with a whole bunch of stakeholders floating how a gas powered by gas, lead recovery is going to work. And it turns out that half of the stakeholders described it as completely not useful. Which is extraordinary to see. So you know, this, it's so interesting to see how the government has come through and said, We want to do this gas powered recovery. But the industry's like, Nah, that's really shit idea. We're not gonna do any of that.
Linh Do 4:36 Well, when your normal friends aren't even willing to back You're right. I recommend you can't keep calling them your friends anymore. And we definitely are saying it's the biggest owners of fossil fuel. So like a GL and whatnot, some of the finance, like none of them want to touch any of these projects.
Dan Ilic 4:50 Yeah, it's really interesting, like two thirds of the participants in the AMA said that they would prefer to do make Australia a hydrogen superpower and that's pretty exciting, too. Know, the industry is like more buoyant about climate action than the government is.
Linh Do 5:06 Yep. The Australian Federal Government has more than one pickle to deal with at the moment. Hey, so maybe they are slowly going to be so wedged in that they're gonna have to start responding. Was
Dan Ilic 5:14 that a pun Lin? were you telling you, it took me about a certain kind of pickles is a small one. Excellent. Last month at the National Press Club, the pm actually stated a preference for a movement to 2050 target. insiders next week, Catherine Murphy said that she totally believes that scomo would love a net zero by 2050 target. But and he would totally sign the liberals up if it weren't for the National Party. Apparently Canada enjoys a holding him back. And it's so strange to see like if the liberals and the coalition take those people away from from their party and they do sign up to a net zero 50 target then that would almost be more progressive on climate than labour. It's so it's kind of it's this strange games like labour does want to show their cards and be aggressive on climate because they'll get attacked by the coalition. But the coalition deep down I've only got like three or four troublemakers that are holding the rest of the party ransom.
Linh Do 6:06 Again, you think that as Prime Minister of Australia, you might be able to do something on climate but it's clear that this like coalition that they've got going on is it's still a coalition. Each house feels like strange bedfellows at this moment in time.
Dan Ilic 6:18 I don't know if you saw this story, and New Zealand's chief environment advisor has said that we need to up the ticket prices for New Zealand flights to prevent tourists from coming to New Zealand.
Linh Do 6:28 When he first saw the headlines, I couldn't tell if it was some sort of nimbyism and some sort of luck. We've like sorted out COVID no one come here. But then I read the details. I was like, ah, interesting. It's actually a really good step, I think and it helps embed some of the learnings that we've had over COVID. Right. The Travelling is a privilege, not a right. And if it's a privilege, how do we actually pay for it when most of the world never get to fly anywhere?
Dan Ilic 6:50 I mean, it's pretty interesting that they have this chief environment and advice for a New Zealand the cool quote is controversial though it may be I'm in favour of putting off some people from coming to New Zealand. I just don't believe the idea that the number of international visitors to New Zealand can grow and grow and grow without limits. I just don't believe that it's credible. All right. So if a higher price for the privilege of flying to New Zealand, put some people off good.
Linh Do 7:12 I reckon that makes sense. Because you know, what if travel is now all about experiences, and all of that sort of stuff, the more rare and precious you can make something like the more people want to be instagramming about it. So if there's not a million Instagram photos from New Zealand, but only a couple of 100,000 they just gonna get far more traction. I'm all for this idea.
Dan Ilic 7:30 And Lin Brisbane might have some stiff competition for the 32 Olympic Summer Games.
Linh Do 7:35 That's right. And I'm pretty keen to head to Finland, not just for Santa Claus, but also the coldest town in Finland. A pretty cold country is keen to harness the 2032 not Winter Olympics, but Summer Olympics because you know, climate change is heating the world up.
Dan Ilic 7:48 Here's a little taste of there being video.
Unknown Speaker 7:54 Coming soon,
Unknown Speaker 7:55 what a great video. I
Dan Ilic 7:56 mean, they did show volleyball beach volleyball being played in the snow, do you think there'll be ready in time to get rid of that snow for the 2032 Olympics?
Linh Do 8:04 pretty optimistic. What's the difference between snow and sad, you know, small little particles, I can say if we don't tackle climate action, Finland, they're going to be the hearts of the next Olympics.
Dan Ilic 8:14 You know, it's really interesting, rational fear we made a sketch, like 2014 remember when Sochi hairy
Linh Do 8:21 head of the time
Dan Ilic 8:23 derivative in Sochi held the Winter Olympics and they ran out of snow in Russia. Like import they like would stockpiling snow for four weeks before and then they would try to make snow but they couldn't get enough snow. Anyway, so are we at irrational fear. We made a video for Queensland holding the 2038 nuclear winter games.
Linh Do 8:46 You're basically your profit. The International Olympic commission should bring you on board as a staff member they should do away with their voting system and just have to predict where it will the Olympics will be held in the future.
Dan Ilic 8:58 You don't want to do I'm going to fly in the video sketch to the end of the interview with Qatar joshy. So you'll you'll hear it in the podcast but also I'll add the link in the show notes so you can watch it later. Right now though, I'm gonna play you my conversation with Qatar Joshi.
Unknown Speaker 9:11 You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation.
Dan Ilic 9:17 Our next guest on the greatest moral podcast of our generation is one of the most gifted science communicators that we have in Australian media. crotons writing is funny, sad, and it cuts through with clarity. He doesn't mince words, and he never misses his targets, of which there are many. And I hope we get to talk about all of his targets on this podcast. It could turn joshy Hello, Tom, thanks for joining us on the greatest moral podcast of our generation.
Ketan Joshi 9:41 Hi, it's good to be here. Yes, we will just list all of my enemies
Dan Ilic 9:46 one by one. Let's start off with we started off with
Ketan Joshi 9:51 That's a hard one. If you want to talk about what I've been reading about over the past few days show
Dan Ilic 9:56 Yeah. What have you been reading about?
Ketan Joshi 9:58 Um, I've been reading about Bitcoin.
Dan Ilic 10:02 I'm so glad I'm so glad you brought this up because I want to ask you questions about NF T's and how artists are going to ultimately destroy the Earth.
Ketan Joshi 10:13 Okay, so do you want for your listeners? Do you want like a rundown of what the basics of this whole thing?
Dan Ilic 10:18 Yes plays. This is one of the one of the topics I wanted to pick your brain about. Because let me just let me just kind of flag with you. I have been dabbling in NF T's I've been trying to buy artwork from Australian comedians. And I've lost about 200 bucks plugging money into Ethereum wallets, and then trying to get a theory and wallets to connect with platforms to buy NF T's and it just hasn't worked. But I've been thinking about, as, I don't know, if you realise this kitten, but when you've got a podcast about climate change, it's not incredibly profitable. So I've been trying to figure out ways to take the sketches we do an irrational fear and monetize them with ease. At the same time fully realising the irony, the irony that I could be making things worse for the planet. So please enlighten me as to what the hell is going on with NF T's and intellectual property and how that intersects with climate change.
Ketan Joshi 11:15 Yeah, okay. So there's a lot of like, this is actually a little bit like climate change in that there's people trying to explain it through through analogies and metaphors, I'm going to try and avoid that because you know, it get you kind of, you just end up swimming around in like, you know, mixed metaphors. And it's very confusing and scary, basically, the way I've always understood, so I so just a bit of background, I used to work at the CSI role, specifically in the data science part of the business called Data 61. So we did, we actually did a bit of stuff on blockchain technology, and its various uses. And it's described as a distributed ledger, which is basically imagine you've got an Excel spreadsheet on your computer. Imagine that that spreadsheet replicates across 1000 100,000 computers at the same time. So if you put the word pou into a cell in your Excel spreadsheet, that would who appears in 100,000, other copies instantaneously, right?
Dan Ilic 12:11 Oh, so it's just like Twitter, great.
Ketan Joshi 12:14 That is distributed ledger. So it is, it is a pretty fancy way of doing especially and because copy of it is replicated across so many things, then if one person makes a change to it, then it's sort of copied across. So with that means there's a high level of trust in this, there's no single authority that you sort of have to rely on. Now, Bitcoin sort of operates on similar technology, right? You have this distributed ledger, but what you do is they've taken that technology and tried to make a currency out of it, that means you have to have something, some challenge to get value from this currency, you can't just kind of randomly distribute imaginary tokens of currency. So what they came up with is, well, what we'll do is create a process that is incredibly hard. And by making it so difficult, what happens is it takes some amount of work to acquire one of these coins, a Bitcoin, and it's called proof of work. That's the name of it. That's the name of the technology. And the best way I've seen it described is, imagine if keeping your car idling 24 seven, solved, the imaginary Sudoku is that you can exchange for heroin.
Dan Ilic 13:29 So you said you were gonna get into metaphors. But that is a very accurate metaphor, I enjoy that.
Ketan Joshi 13:35 It is my one loud metaphor. And I'm gonna spend it on that one on that tweet, because it was fantastic. So basically, to win a Bitcoin, you have to generate as many random numbers as you possibly can, it takes a lot of computational power. And that amount of computational power increases, because you need to actually have a balance between who is winning this currency who's winning these tokens, and the amount of computational power that's in the system, which means the system actually adapts as you get more and more computational power, which means basically, bring it all together, it takes more and more energy to get the next coin. Yeah. And so what you end up with is the situation in, you know, all of this sort of technology aside, you end up with this reality of you have these vast, vast quantities of server farms, sitting there just like buzzing with noise and hate just spinning out as many random nodes as they possibly can to get as much of this currency as they can. So it's called mining, they call it Bitcoin mining. And so when you see things like Bitcoin consumes as much energy as this particular country, it's because it does, like it takes that much literal, physical electrical power to run these computers to generate these transactions. Every time new coins are discovered. It takes even more How to get to the next point, right? A bit more. Yes, yeah. And so all of these dynamics, I'm simplifying, because I'm simplifying all of these dynamics very, very heavily. But the basic consequence is that by design, proof of work, and Bitcoin requires a lot of energy. So if you want to change that, if you want to change it from requiring a huge amount of energy to requiring not much energy to change the design, and actually there are people working on this, right. So there are different ways you can prove, you could introduce difficulty without having the difficulty being that you just consume ludicrous quantities of energy, right? You can have other forms of difficulty, right? There's different types of these things called proof of stake, for instance. So how many bitcoins that someone already have in their virtual wallet or something like that, right? reading into these, there's actually some hope, essentially, that you can have these things, not consuming world melting amounts of energy.
Dan Ilic 15:55 So what you're saying is that we could possibly fund this podcast by selling bits of it, and also not destroy the Earth at the same time.
Ketan Joshi 16:04 Yeah, so so it just that brings it back to what you were describing earlier, which has been described as like crypto art or non fungible tokens or NF T's very inaccessible names, basically, it's generating the serial number of a unique piece of work. So it can be a tweet, or it can be a piece of art or whatever. And that serial number is stored on a blockchain right, which means it's, it's on that spreadsheet that's replicating across a trillion billion different computers, which means when as soon as you generate it, you put you put the serial number you put this tweet is owned by Tom joshy, he paid 100 bucks for it. It's this sort of very highly trustable system, right? Which is, which is pretty good, right? Like this is something that is obviously a lot of value to artists is to have a more discreet, like almost like copyrightable sense of ownership for the art that they create,
Dan Ilic 16:55 to deal in the digital space where you create something and it goes up and you hope it goes viral. But there's no monetary gain from anything. Speaking as someone who has gone viral so many times if I had one cent for every time I've gone viral, absolutely be able to buy a new car. But
Ketan Joshi 17:13 yeah, I mean, this is what people have been trying to do with like, you know, when you see a viral tweet on Twitter, and below it, someone's written like, you know, here's my SoundCloud or whatever, like, please send me some cash. Like they'll put the code off the link there and say, can you please just help fund my you know, getting through university?
Dan Ilic 17:30 Whatever Katon? I don't know, if you realise you are. You're just outlining my business plan. So that's exactly what we do on irrational fear. We will we will go viral. Usually, this is this is no, this is no secret to irrational fear listeners. But we will create a sketch put it up on Twitter and I will write who made this. And then right underneath it, I made this subscribe to the podcast.
Ketan Joshi 17:57 So this is a real source of frustration. And like Bitcoin, it raises this fundamental question. And it's not it's not limited to Bitcoin, it's actually something that the whole energy and climate world is facing. right at this moment, which is basically is this worth it, is what we're doing worth it. So is the value that you get from copywriting. And paying for a piece of art worth the X number of kilowatt hours that was required to process this transaction. And crypto operates on a slightly different system to Bitcoin. It has the same fundamental sort of proof of work system, but it's slightly more efficient. Because you're not playing this random number game. It's actually it's actually going through this process where a whole bunch of different transactions get bundled, bundled together, it's still relatively high consuming, right, like it's still a relative decent amount of energy. And I was just looking at this one chart this morning from this website called Digi economist, and they look at the power consumption for the thing that runs crypto on NF T's which is called aetherium. Yeah, and it's it's still pretty high, you know, it's not quite as high as Bitcoin. But, you know, like that, there is still sort of some options for bringing that down. Yeah. But fundamentally, there is still this really, like almost really hard to solve problem underneath at all, which is that it requires a lot of energy. And of course, the problem with consuming a lot of energy is that we live in a fossil fuel world, predominantly fossil fueled world. Yeah. And to consume a lot of energy. You just have to consume a lot of fossil fuels.
Dan Ilic 19:32 Yeah, I've seen so many, countless numbers of vice documentaries about warehouses in China and, and orders crammed with AMD RISC chips that are all like mining Bitcoin. And there's like dude with their shirts off like plugging like plugging cables here and there. And then and then there's on the other side in rich countries like Iceland. You see these, these stories about Bitcoin factories that are built in Iceland in real Cold air is to use the natural cooling of the of the environment to to mine Bitcoin and using geothermal technology to kind of power these, these Bitcoin mining factories, but it's such a, it's it's such a headache like you're just like, you know, you, you think one thing is going to save the planet but ended up just completely destroying it.
Ketan Joshi 20:23 This is this is why this is why I kind of got sucked into it a bit because there's actually nothing really like it. There's nothing where the ratio between how much energy it consumes. And to be honest, it doesn't really seem to have clear societal benefits, right?
Dan Ilic 20:40 Yeah, you've got all these or you got all these like blockchain edge Lords who were talking about how Oh, you know, we're only at 00 point 3% of what we've explored with blockchain. I think it's gonna have exponential growth. I'm like, well, that's so much more energy
Ketan Joshi 20:56 efficient thing. Good.
Dan Ilic 20:58 Yeah, it doesn't seem seem good.
Ketan Joshi 20:59 Yeah. Well, it's actually worth mentioning the the renewable versus fossil energy thing, because something you hear a lot is basically, that Bitcoin miners will hunt out the cheapest and most surplus energy, right. So, of course, you know, renewable energy has gotten a lot cheaper over the past decade, wind and solar in particular. But what we're actually seeing is that there isn't surplus wind and solar, wind and solar being deployed and very carefully managed ways around the world, such that they do what they're meant to do, which is displace fossil fuels, instead of just sort of feeling this like rising addition of Bitcoin mining demand, and then leaving the fossil fuel system as it is like, that's not a good thing. That's not a good outcome. Yeah. And so what they're actually drawn to is hydro, in particular. And in China, what you find is that there are hydro assets that aren't particularly well interconnected into other parts of China, which means they have potential output, if so, reservoirs that are sort of like full Yeah, that they could never, they could never really set that could that is way more than local demand, right? So the logic of Bitcoin miners as well, we kind of just, you know, we like, flow into those into those bits of surplus and consume that. So, you know, it's like, it's not really changing the situation at all. And it's not quite how that manifests in the real world. Yeah, because what is happening is that every part of the renewable energy world that is like stranded or surplus, what we're finding is that we actually need to connect it up to the world to start displacing fossil fuels. I mean, China is a particularly great example of where there's a lot of coal happening. So those renewable assets need to be going towards displacing fossil fuels. So if they're stranded, that's not a good thing. And to lock them into being stranded by saying, we'll give you a revenue stream, from your surplus from from mining Bitcoin is basically diverting that action to link it all together, to start pushing down on fossil fuels. Yeah, that's not a good thing. And then, on top of that, this is whole push within the Bitcoin mining community to actually specifically use fossil fuels so actively and consciously seek out fossil fuel mining operations, so so oil and gas, and to say, well, you guys, through the process of extracting oil and gas from the ground, you get this thing where methane leaks from these sites, right. So what they do is either they just let it let me think seep into the atmosphere, which is extremely bad. Or they burn it off, which is slightly less bad. This is all in the process of extracting fossil fuels, which eventually get burned. What is the logic in actively seeking out fossil fuels in that case, so So what they're saying is like, well, because all of this waste product, all of this waste me, young, these mining sites will either be released or burned, we may as well just burn that burn that waste to mine Bitcoin. So fine, you can see these videos, and it's not a secret, you know, they're very sort of open about it. You see these videos of like these shipping containers at oil and gas fields. And they'll just slowly pan the camera around from like, you know, this sort of classic like oil drilling thing, you know, they've got like the big weight on one end. Yeah. And they'll pan they'll pan around from that oil drilling thing to this shipping container that's buzzing, you know, like, like, it's full of Hornets. And it's full of like LED lights. And it's a little seven farm that's mining Bitcoin, because they're taking the gas, but they're still burning gas. And, yeah, when you burn gas it creates it creates greenhouse gas emissions. So the net impact of what they're doing is, it's either nothing or it's worse because when you look at the websites of these companies, they're like, Look, we're actually doing this to help the optics of the fossil fuel industry, the venting and flaring problem of methane at these sites has been under has been the subject of criticism for a long time. In you know, Biden's administration, the US is like we have to crack down on all these like waste methane issues at these sites. So the Bitcoin miners come in and they're like, don't worry about the waste. Just burn you can just burn the fossil fuel to mine Bitcoin and it's actually an environmental benefit.
Dan Ilic 25:27 Has anyone? Is anyone seriously trading off that though? Is anyone seriously putting that in a press release saying that, you know, hey, you know, where the where the do Gooding oil company that's flaring off our methane to mine Bitcoin?
Ketan Joshi 25:40 Yeah, it's not just the companies that are sort of, you know, offering this as a pathway but like the, like these massive giants like Ecuador. So, you know, Ecuador being the state owned oil company here in Norway, where I live. They, they have been investing in this because they're like, we're actually we're actually solving the problem.
Dan Ilic 26:04 I never thought I never thought I'd say this, but I can next year I will heading out to election i can i can just say Scott Morrison saying we're going to have a Bitcoin led recovery. A blockchain lead recovery.
Ketan Joshi 26:15 Oh my god. Yeah. So I mean, actually, you know, they're actually awesome. I saw a tweet yesterday like another another Norwegian oil and gas company announced their intention to sort of invest in Bitcoin not not specifically using methane to generate it, but to just did they taking the cash that they have, and just investing in Bitcoin, with some weird promises about using stranded renewable energy assets, but no clarity on what they mean. Yeah. And someone you know, someone tweeted at like all the Australian oil and gas companies like Woodside HCl and origin being like, Hey, guys, why aren't you doing? This is a great idea. So so to bring it all together? Yeah, basically, what I've been been finding out is that, first of all, it contains a lot of energy. I think people sort of know this, like they've seen it in articles, you know, they've read about all the comparisons. That's a little mystery. But with Bitcoin mining, in particular, there seems to be this like energy pushing them towards fossil fuels. And it's because what they are drawn towards is not zero emissions power, they are drawn towards cheap stranded power. And oil and gas mining operations actually fit that bill really nicely. Demand for fossil fuels is going to decrease very significantly. And so if these Bitcoin miners step up and say, well, don't worry about all the, you know, people not wanting your fossil fuels, will take them, the price of those fossil fuels will drop very significantly due to due to the fall in demand. And they will probably be there to be like, well, don't worry about your coal mine, your gas mine, your oil extraction thing, we'll just take that energy that you're extracting, and use it to mine Bitcoin. And they can kind of say, Well, you know, they'll sort of like frame it in this like tortured logic of, we're actually doing an environmental benefit. But really, they're monetizing the this sort of side this like waste stream from the fossil fuel industry. So anyway, I've written a sort of very long post about this, because I think it's actually a very nice summary of a relatively important debate that we're all having, which is like, how do we manage energy? You know, do we live in like a high energy world, low energy world who gets it? How do we connect up renewable energy? How do we figure out what to do with fossil fuel companies? Like do we congratulate them if they're doing something that sounds vaguely like it's environmentally beneficial? Or do we remain critical of them? All these questions are really big and important. I'll publish that pace. Probably later this week. I'm not sure when this podcast will go out. But if anyone wants to read three to 4000 word, rant for me about this. I don't know why you would want to, then yeah, it'll be published soon, we'll be able to buy it an open seat on IO as a nifty question. Yeah, I mean, the crypto art thing as well is is an interesting cultural comparison, because Bitcoin is just full of libertarians. Yeah. You know, plenty of whom are not particularly influential types are right. Yes. Yeah. And so well, yeah. And also, you know, also not particularly open minded towards, like collective climate action and like government regulation, fossil fuel companies and things like that. But then, like, the art community is very, very different. You know, like, it's really, of course, it's a lot of environmentally conscious people, people who you would sort of think are a lot more into like climate action and environmental justice and things like that. And of course, you see a very different reaction. Now you see a lot of backlash from with In the arts community against the sort of like, I guess, the excesses of this, but then there's also a lot of people who are like, well, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because if we can really bring the energy consumption down, the concept is really sound and really beneficial for a lot of people who would like to get paid for the stuff that they're doing. So there is some work, you know, to try and rescue I guess, to try and cleave it away from the Bitcoin libertarian world and into this like, basically like a useful technological tool to help artists get paid.
Dan Ilic 30:33 I think that's where that's where I am right now, as I create, I like thinking like, you know, how, how do we use this to get paid, but how do we also not not destroy the Earth at the same time? I think it's really interesting that you kind of mentioned that, that the oil industry, the fossil fuel industry, are using Bitcoin as a delay tactic, considering they are the kings of delay tactics and your your book in your book windfall. It's just, it's just like 400 pages of delay tactics. I think I think that some, I think one of the one of the things I love about your writing patterns, is just how clear it is, and how often you return back to first principles all the time, I really appreciate that. Like, I think you whenever you talk about coal, you kind of talk about it, how it's just the sunlight trapped in a rock, or you're always talking about climate change, about how the government is slowly trying to kill its citizens. And one of my favourite motifs is an idea how you, you kind of return to again and again and again about how it's just a handful of powerful individuals that are responsible for the position that we're in. And one of the things one of the, my, my favourite senators in the book is about house when you're articulating Australia's last decade of climate action, and he said it was squashed into the boot of a callous few lately protecting their own manufactured realities. It's such a when you when you kind of write like that. And when you return back to first principles, the obfuscation kind of floats away. And you're kind of left with this bare naked truth as to kind of the position we're in and the absurdity that the Australian Government is in is in, in particular, where what have you learned by moving to Oslo? And looking back at Australia?
Ketan Joshi 32:17 Yeah, this is this is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, because what is happening this year is this global environment, this like sort of global climate meeting in November called cop 26. Conference of Parties, it was meant to be the it's the sort of the five year check in. And it was meant to be last year 2020, obviously, delayed due to COVID-19. It may not even happen this year, if if the vaccination stuff goes slowly. So that means that the whole world kind of stands up in their podiums and says, Well, this is where we're at with climate change. And so that means Australia also stands up and says, this is where we're at, we're checking in, it's been five years, six years since the Paris Agreement started. And that means the sort of trapped world that every country has been living in, you know, looking at their own climate politics.
Dan Ilic 33:16 What are you trying to say every country has their own version of the camera bubble?
Ketan Joshi 33:20 Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah, basically, essentially, yeah, this is something else that's actually become very clear is that as I have existed Australia's timezone, it's actually pretty tough to get people to think about different countries, when they're when they're really sort of into their own in their own particular area. I mean, maybe I think maybe America might be the worst offender of this, because they sort of, there's a lot of things that happen in there that they treat is like the first time that it's
Unknown Speaker 33:46 like, no, no.
Ketan Joshi 33:48 Many of these things have happened elsewhere.
Dan Ilic 33:50 Yeah. And the matrix is early in the metric systems, the big one there, I think.
Ketan Joshi 33:54 Yeah, absolutely. But what what Australia is going to is finding out this year and what we'll what we're only at the very start of, and will become more intense as the year goes on, is that a lot of things have become saturated, and because they're saturated, people get people lose their sensitivity to how bad and horrific The situation is. So to give you an example, in the UK, in the past few weeks, this coal mine that was proposed is called Cumbria. And it's like this. On the scale of UK is coal mines. It's it's relatively big, right? Because coal mining in the UK has declined over the over the past century, to almost nothing. There's a couple of really small ones. And of course, coal fired power generation in the UK has also declined to almost nothing. It is functionally no longer really playing a role on the grid in the UK. This coal mine has been proposed. It's an underground coal mine. I was looking at the discourse around it, and it's Intense right like this, the local council, the UK Government, climate activists, investors, the debate on this one Coal Mine is just like this really, really launched focus. And I was looking at it and I was like, hmm, Gee, I wonder how that coal mine compares to like Australia's current, like list of planned coal mines, so nonoperational coal mines in Australia, but the ones that are sort of at various stages of like, you know, getting towards operation, and I put it onto this chart, which is basically looking at the number of mega tonnes of output of coal per year from each coal mine,
Dan Ilic 35:39 will I need to get it? Well, I need to get a skew bag for the rest of the Senate.
Ketan Joshi 35:45 Well, I'll try not to describe it too vividly. But basically, it's like this tiny little red dot and like Australia's planned coal mines, several orders of magnitude greater. I found that really stunning, right? Because it's not like the level of outrage and emotion within Australia's leadership within political circles is is equivalently larger than the level of outrage at this one tiny planned coal mine in the UK? And of course, like, the reason is obvious, right? Is because that plant coal mine in the UK is new. It's like a new unfamiliar thing for UK people to go, Oh, my God, a coal mine. Are you kidding me? Like, why? Why are we building a coal mine? That's bonkers. Like we, you know, we're holding, we're hosting cop 26 at the end of the year, and you're building a damn coal mine. And then, you know, you look at Australia. You know, just to give one single example, though, is this amazing? This is amazing court case being brought against the Australian Federal Government, on the grounds that expanding a coal mine, expanding a planned coal mine. And just the expansion of this coal mine dwarfs the magnitude of this coal mine in the UK. And, and like, that got some attention that this court case being brought by a group of teenagers, but it didn't get anywhere near the magnitude of attention that the Cumbria Coal Mine is getting in the UK, and its saturation, right? Like, it's just like this, you know, it's not like people don't care. It's just that if they were to care by the same order of magnitude, then they wouldn't be able to function as human beings, right? Like the like, you just you would be so overwhelmed by how much you should care about, about like the production line of new coal in Australia. Yeah. And the other thing that's worth noting is that this production line of new coal extraction in Australia, is globally very, very significant. There was this report last year from the International Energy Agency that looked at the coal production in different countries. And they're like, Look, there's a few countries in the world that are just going to be the engine of new coal production in coming years. And Australia is one of them. There's other countries like Indonesia, actually, Germany is up there, as well, because Germany really seems to be big on coal mining is a couple of others. I can't quite recall from the report, but Australia is basically a key player. Right? And oh, and sorry, of course, China, it but China uses a lot of the coal that it produces, right? It's not a big net exporter. Australia is one of the countries that actually supplies it to elsewhere in the world. So that is really the sort of the key thing that I felt looking back on Australia, because it's this barrage, this daily barrage over new things, that because it obviously becomes extremely difficult to maintain outrage about because it's just so proportional II, massive in Australia, and compared to other countries where, like the UK, for instance, where the horrific stuff still happens, but it happens more frequently, which means which lets you have the emotional capacity to go, oh my god, and you call mine and talk about this. Whereas in Australia, you get this phenomenon where like with coal mining, for instance, you kind of have to concentrate all of your feelings onto one symbolic example, like the Carmichael coal Adani, coal mine, Donnie.
Unknown Speaker 39:13 Yeah, yeah.
Ketan Joshi 39:14 Yeah, it's like the only way you can emotionally manage because if you were to spread it equally across all the coal mines planned in Australia, you would never have the you would melt into a puddle. The brain capacity. Yes. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 39:27 It's one of those things like to communicate it you need just like a very simple emoji and the stopper Danny thing really symbolises that and even though stop Danny's actually stopped everything happening in the Galilee basin. That's kind of that's kind of in the Galilee basin is filled with hundreds of cold coal companies all vying for the coal underneath underneath the Galilee basin. Yeah, Ben Adani is the easiest Danny's like this Dinis, like the signpost that we all rally behind and even when they change the name to bribe us, we still you stop it down because I don't know, I
Ketan Joshi 40:00 just use the all of the wrong things that are done in the past. I treat them as a completely new company. So that's basically why I write the way I do in a sense, because I, because I always want to. I want to try and describe things in a slightly different or literal way. We often rely on shorthand to talk about this topic, because of course, like it's just a, it's just a weird new complex sciency, you know, economic like, Techno political thing. Yeah. So if sometimes you just sort of read describe what you're talking about in a slightly different way, then it just resets that emotional exhaustion,
Dan Ilic 40:43 it almost makes it sound, you know, climate action, and going carbon neutral sound completely achievable as well. Like, I think one of the one of the things you constantly mentioned in your book is, is like you re, you return to again, and again, is saying that no, even if one molecule of co2 equivalent is stays in the ground, that's great. You know, like, when you when you put it down, when you put it as my noodle is that you like, Oh, yeah, shit, yeah, that's what this is all about. It's about keeping the stuff in the ground,
Ketan Joshi 41:12 that sort of links it back to renewable energy in my own advocacy of renewable energy, because we can confirm that, you know, grids are finite. Like, if you if you have 100, people demanding electricity, and then you know, 50 of those people get it from wind and solar, whereas they otherwise would have got it from coal and gas, then that's an emissions reduction, we can confirm that this, oddly enough, was actually almost controversial last decade, like this is something you know, wind and solar were kind of treated as like a sideshow of like, Oh, you know, they're there. But they're generating so randomly that we don't really know they're there, whether they're reducing emissions a lot. It's kind
Dan Ilic 41:50 of strange. Like, I feel like there's a couple of conversations happening at different levels of government in Australia with that is still the case, like in federal government, you have a whole bunch of right wing conservatives who who kind of have that same, it's still that same dialogue, that same conversation, whereas a lot of other conservatives are kind of kind of on the renewables train at a state level. And you kind of see the shift in mode in conversation, the main, if you will, that renewables aren't reliable is kind of disappearing.
Ketan Joshi 42:23 Yeah, I split it in the book, I split it into three sort of categories, right. One is price. One is like grid security or reliability, and the other is emissions. And so it's just been this three pronged fight to prove that, like, renewables can perform those three functions. And so, in each of those three, the balance of discourse has been in exactly the wrong direction. Like you had this, like, you, I'm sure, you know, your listeners will recognise this is like whole decade of like, renewables are too expensive, that no one can afford them. And of course, what we what we're discovering now is that the majority of price falls and electricity prices in Australia, I'd usually to renewables
Dan Ilic 43:03 renewable energy. Yeah,
Ketan Joshi 43:05 won't last forever, of course, but it's actually it's pretty damn good that that's happening. The next thing has been grid reliability. You know, South Australia had its blackout. And then suddenly, everyone was like, Oh, see, you know, wind and solar cause blackouts. And now we're realising that strong to this one.
Dan Ilic 43:20 This was really fascinating. In your book, you spent a lot of time dissecting the 2016 blackout in South Australia, why did you just disband? Why did you decide to spend so many pages dissecting? What was it five seconds of grid problems in Australia?
Ketan Joshi 43:37 My long suffering editor actually convinced me to pare that down the book actually would have been substantially longer.
Dan Ilic 43:46 And I say, as a reader, I really enjoyed it. It might have been my favourite part of the book.
Ketan Joshi 43:51 Yeah, because because it was the it's actually my favourite. No, sorry. It's my second favourite part of that. But my favourite part is the community and issue pot, which maybe we can come to later. Yeah, the mismatch between reality and discourse that was the greatest, I think it has had the most noticeable impacts on the way energy policy happens in Australia. So back then back in, like sort of 2016 2017 the narrative was like, if you build more wind and solar, it's gonna cause blackouts. I promise you it's going to cause blackouts. What was happening is that a lot of wind and solar was being built because it was incentivized under the renewable energy target, and blackouts, grid stress were increasing, because climate change is happening and heat waves are becoming more intense and longer. bushfires are impacting parts of electricity infrastructure like transmission lines. And that means there's more more stress on the grid. And coal, coal and gas fired power stations are getting older and less, they're becoming more susceptible rather to moments of great stress. So all these moments were like heat waves That just blatantly worsened or intensified by climate change, causing calling gas plants to basically shut down or power lines to get wrecked. Those were all blamed on wind and solar, because they were like, well, CCC hypothesis has been proved, like we told you that the presence of wind and solar would cause all these problems. This has actually changed somewhat since then, what we're going to see now is over the next few years in Australia, it's going to shift away from a narrative about renewables and towards the closure of coal and gas fired power stations, right? It will initially be mostly about coal, because there's this phenomenon that is about to happen in Australia's grades where coal simply loses its profit, profitability, wind and solar are so cheap, as a fundamental of the way they operate in that you don't have to extract the fuel that they use, you get it from the atmosphere and space, then coal simply can't compete. Because it's more expensive, you need to dig a hole out of the ground and transport it. This is without a carbon tax, without any, you know, without any form of carbon pricing essentially, in Australia at all. So this, this is something that's going to accelerate. And what is going to happen is that these companies that operate these, these, these power stations will say, this is really bad. All of our coal fired power stations are going to blip offline, and it's going to cause chaos, there's going to be blackouts, there's going to be price rises, because renewables, wind and solar will not be able to pick up the slack. So it's sort of an extension of that of that debate from like, sort of the mid 2015 onwards, that wind and solar can't provide reliable power, but it's going to be it's not going to be used as a reason to attack wind and solar. It's going to be used as a justification for keeping coal plants running longer.
Dan Ilic 46:55 And that means for subsidies. Yeah, yeah.
Ketan Joshi 46:59 Yeah, this is my prediction. I think that this is the way it's going to go over the next like one or two years. And you're already sort of starting to see some signs of it like is in what we what we know, for absolute Sure, is that Australia will not align to ambitious, strong climate targets, unless it's shut down shuts down its coal fired power plants before they're set to retire. Because every coal plant has it has a date on it, that it's like it that it retires. And you can put those dates into a spreadsheet and say, if they run to that day, what are the emissions? And then you can say what emissions Do we need to be under to align with climate targets. And of course, letting those coal plants run to the end date means we blow past our carbon, we emit way more than we should, if you were to sort of assign a 1.5 degree global target to Australia. So there's just no there's absolutely no escaping that math. And think back to last year, where a coal fired power station in New South Wales called Adel a relatively big one is usually close in 2022. For very, very close, right, like this is this is right around the corner. The reaction from the government was initially, we have to keep this open. We need to extend its lifespan for another five years. That did not go down particularly well, because the even the owners were like, I don't think we can do that. It was just the quantity of government money that would have been required. It was it was beyond the pale even for that. So then they said, Look, what we think is that the the owner of that coal fired power station should be forced to sell it to someone who will agree to keep it open. And Australia's government like toyed around with that idea for a while it didn't work. And the latest that we saw was Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor standing up in front of the cameras and saying, Listen up energy market, you have been very naughty. This coal plant is due to shut down very soon. And we feel that the replacement capacity hasn't been put in place. So we so we are threatening to build a 1000 megawatt gas fired power station as a punishment. Because you've been so naughty, and you haven't built you haven't replaced the capacity of this coal fired power station, that we're going to build another fossil fuel power station to replace it as punishment. So you can so what the reason is, is because
Dan Ilic 49:27 the gas the gas powered recovery is blackmail to keep the coal industry going. Is that what you're saying?
Ketan Joshi 49:34 Ah, look, it's confusing. I can't quite follow your logic if the gas fired recovery. But essentially, essentially, the The reason I bring this up is it's actually a really nice example of how big the absolute key debates This is really extremely central to Australia's entire climate issue is shutting down coal fired power stations before For them in to retire. When a coal plant when a coal plant reaches its retirement date, the government can't even handle it shutting down on its minister.
Dan Ilic 50:11 It sounds it sounds like the government is so sick, like absolutely sick. Like it's that they've got an illness.
Ketan Joshi 50:19 Yeah. So so this is what I this is kind of links back to what I mean when I say like saturation, right? Because such a such a bad situation of like, they can't even handle the absolute baseline basic starting point of this issue, to control emissions to where they need to be controlled to that. You look at the way it's covered stuff like this. And people it's like, almost like people just don't want to and when I say people start I mean, I mean, you know, I guess like the bulk of like coverage in like News Corp and like large media outlets, you know, they sort of almost can't deal with how bad the situation is. They sort of like cover it like, yeah, I guess Hey, let's go up and suggested 1000 megawatt gas fired power station, environmental groups criticised it. Yeah. Next one, let's move on. Yeah. And it's like, if you can imagine the, I guess, like trying sort of related back to COVID-19. And the tone of like, emergency not not just from Australian citizens, but from media outlets to you know, the sort of really, those this air of like, this is an actual emergency and it needs to be treated as such. You know, bad decisions were criticised as, as such, you know, that, like it didn't really matter, that people would be seen as being too biassed in favour of saving lives from the impacts of COVID-19. They did it anyway, because they felt is journalists, you know, it was their sort of duty to serve the public interest and criticise bad policy decisions on the grounds of protecting the lives of people vulnerable to the impacts of this disease. The very same logic of like, well, the government ought to be criticised on the grounds that they're allowing the emissions of the substance which causes harm to human life doesn't really come into play. And it's frustrating. Another good example is actually, the next biggest sector of Australia's emissions is transport. Australia, you know, it's just a lot of cars, a lot of big cars, not as much public transport as they could be in big cities, not as much active transport like walking and cycling as they could be in the big cities. And consequently, Australia has very high transport emissions, even relative to the population. The upside is that decarbonizing transport is just as much is just as feasible as power, right? Like we have the technology, you know, bicycle hills, like ebikes, public transports, electric vehicles, electric buses, all these sorts of things, long distance transport as well. There's a lot of different options available. Australia could start now very easily on decarbonizing transport, and a few months ago, this long awaited plan came out from Australia's government and it was just this huge struggle they just like, we're not gonna bother, like we're just going to electric vehicles will probably eventually get cheaper, right? That's that's completely in arguable and they're sort of looking at that they're sort of holding that and going, Hey, look, you know, electric vehicles are gonna get cheaper. So why is everyone panicking. And of course, the reason that we're panicking is that you need to put some force into the system. Yeah, make it go quicker
Dan Ilic 53:35 to make go quick, because we're running out of time. And I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed that kind of attitude that I saw on Twitter from a lot of conservatives like see, we don't need to help the sector, the sector is going to sort itself out. And then, of course, two years ago, when there was an election going on, you had mykhailiuk cash, gay trainees are gonna lose their use and lose their weekends if labour has its way. It's such a peculiar fact up argument, that it just makes my head hurt so bad. It's incredibly frustrating to see that some states treasurer's, like in South Australia and New South Wales, are even considering putting a tax on on a vase. Like why would you want to put an economic disincentive to buy an Eevee at this juncture,
Ketan Joshi 54:24 this is a very sort of salient problem to me, because, you know, I live in Oslo, in Norway and Noy has, you know, easily leads the world and the deployment of electric vehicles, but it's actually really interesting when you dig into the policy mechanisms that we use, right? So it's this really fine balance between at the very start, you have relatively strong incentives for abs, but you actually need to need to go through this process is Evie start filtering into the fleet of private vehicles in a country, you actually then need to kind of flick it the other way around a little bit and start to rebalance. The level of like taxation, so things like, there was this great interview with the head of the Norwegian electric vehicle Association where she talks about the fact that of course, every single thing that people do has some impact on society. So even using a private vehicle, even if it's electric, you know, that has, you need to use a road. To do that there's infrastructure that must be maintained, you pay a toll when use certain road tires emit particulates, that sort of thing. But there's also benefits relative to a combustion engine vehicle, of course, there's no air pollution in the greenhouse gas emissions is quieter, there's less air pollution, all that sort of stuff. So you need to then have this balancing act of like, don't let ABS be entirely excluded, because there are some impacts from usage of a private vehicle or, you know, most of the activities, of course, that humanity that like people do in cities as well. And what has happened in those states in Australia, is they've just mucked up the order quite badly. So they've started, they've started with the strict, like, you know, they started with a disincentive. And then they're like, we'll get to the we'll get to the step one, after we've done Step six, like so. And it's like, no, that's gonna Of course, that decreases the deployment of electric vehicles. I interviewed the head of the Norwegian Navy Association about this. And they're like, you just kind of see like the look on their face. It's like squinting at you like, they're like, why are you doing this in precisely the wrong order?
Unknown Speaker 56:36 That's crazy.
Dan Ilic 56:37 So you are a prolific tweeter. And your tweets are some of the most enjoyable tweets, particularly around energy and environment. Probably, I would say the best Twitter person to follow if you want if you're into environment stuff. One of my favourite tweets was you publishing a story from the Australian and it was like a bad a KPMG report. And he said consequences of mining now considered major threat to mining says, say miners, and for me, that was probably the most underrated tweet of 2020 and should have should have got far more tweets than the 43 retweets I got. I don't know when you hit 20. Do you think? Do you think this is definitely gonna be a 43? Or this is definitely gonna hit 500? Like what what was going through your mind when you hit tweet when you hit tweet on that one?
Ketan Joshi 57:22 I never, I can never tell the my often my crappiest tweets send out the most popular and my best ones end up the least appreciated.
Dan Ilic 57:30 And one of my I think I kind of made a connection today is like there was some data pulled together by KPMG, which made me think about today's big energy news story about the federal government spending $9 million on consultants to work out how best to subsidise the gas industry. And those consultants weren't KPMG. And clearly, Boston Consulting Group is happy to come up with different kinds of information for the game. Yeah,
Ketan Joshi 57:58 it's actually I intend to write about this one right about this one, too, because it's a really, really fascinating story. And it's great work from the Australia Institute for for, you know, having that scoop and sort of getting those documents that tell them, my writing is split into two halves at the moment. One is one is, you know, sort of renewables focus, like grid energy technology stuff. And the other half is actually critique fossil fuel industry critique. And also like in general sort of climate plan critique, because what we're seeing a lot of is, is not just fossil fuel companies, but many other companies, is sensing the change in the wind and going, Oh, okay, well, we need to come up with a climate plan. What do we do? You know, like, do we, we need to reduce our emissions from a company, you know, whatever the company is, and you've got this whole spectrum of like, really, really good ones, where people are very, you know, very consciously recognise that their environmental footprint. Actually a good example of a good one is Google, surprisingly enough, I fully expected them to go for, you know, greenwashing crappy plans, but they've got a fantastic plan where they, where they match, they actually turn their data centres into demand matching for renewables. So it actually helps ease the integration of renewable energy. So bad one, isn't actually there was a really good article last year, I can't find it, because I needed to write my thing. But it examined Boston Consulting group's own net zero plan. And what they, and they have this, you know, with every one of these netzero plans, what happens is you get this really sort of like, flashy media thing, where it's like, Look, you know, here's another one. Here's another company, you know, showing that they're sort of caring about climate change. And often these are actually really good signals, these netzero plans, so they do hit they do do some good in that everyone's kind of watching this happen, and they're going like, Oh, fantastic, you know, now we now we need to do it. But then the next step after everyone kind of agrees that we all need to do this is to dig into the details of that plan and say, well, actually you need to improve this particular thing. Boston Consulting Group did this really interesting thing. And then zero plan where they don't really change the number of flights that they consultants take very much. They kind of just fill it in with offsets, right. So this is either like planting trees, or having a technology that sucks carbon carbon from the air. Those are the kind of the two types of offsets, they call them natural technological offsets. There's a lot of controversy around both with with the tree stuff, obviously, you need to actually have something that removes carbon permanently. Obviously, we got it from the ground, we've got it from deep underground. And if you kind of just have it on the surface, in a tree or in the soil, very unstable, re released back into the hemisphere. There's also some controversy around you know, there's a lot of projects that are sort of sold is like, we're building this we're planting this tree specifically because you paid us to do it. But of course, that tree may have been planted anyway. So it's not additional, there's no additionality is the word. Carbon removal has a lot more hope going for it. But it's it's a long way off. And then often the promise of carbon removal just get to us. As like, you know, we'll just continue burning fossil fuels, because we recommend like 2049, someone will just have this amazing technology that will just suck all the carbon out that we've spent 29 years releasing, it's like
Dan Ilic 1:01:09 the same, the same, the same kind of false promise of carbon capture storage, just like Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we've got these two, we've got these two plants, and we think they're working, but we're not quite sure, but they don't really work. But we'll just say we've got them. So it means we don't have to do anything for another 15 years.
Ketan Joshi 1:01:23 Yeah, and I often often produce these charts with like, here's how much they've released. And here's how much they've captured. And it's just like a ridiculous. visible, we've got to like squint at your laptop or phone. So So BCG offset their flights, you know, show instead of saying we're gonna figure out a way to fly less, they just said they just call it in with trees, and they will just continue, will largely continue doing what we're doing. But it will just have we're just commentaries and it's like, okay, that's actually that's actually not a particularly great thing to do. Because it's not reducing the amount of carbon that's being added to the atmosphere, the planting of trees is probably a good thing. And it certainly helps. But then you can't have that as the thing that you're relying on, you actually need to reduce your emissions as well. Yeah. So bcj were on my radar last year. And then there are a lot of companies that work is enabling for the fossil fuel industry without actually being specifically digging up fossil fuels themselves. Of course, the other category is like public relations, like marketing, advertising, things like
Dan Ilic 1:02:23 that, I was gonna say Can Can could could be CJ possibly lower their carbon emissions by not working for the Australian Government and working out how to burn more fossil fuels.
Ketan Joshi 1:02:34 You know, it's not captured in their annual report, like you won't see, here's a list of our clients. You know, here's Exxon Mobil, here's the Australian Government, blah, blah, blah, you won't see that sort of stuff. And there's a lot of actually really good groups. There's one in Australia called calms declare, there's another one as well. I've completely forgotten the name. But basically what they
Dan Ilic 1:02:51 thought of another one called a podcast declare as well.
Ketan Joshi 1:02:55 Oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen I've seen that Twitter account. Yeah, it's good. I mean, like this is basically, this is really important stuff. Because I think to some degree, we underestimate the impact of particularly advertising. You know, like consultancies, obviously, play a pretty big role in this sort of stuff. Like you can see the impact there. With BCG in the Australian Government, their marketing and advertising is going to become a much much bigger thing as decarbonisation moves from like grid stuff, like, you know, huge wind and solar farms out in rural areas, and into our homes. So like cars, you know, the type of stovetop that you have decisions that you make around like, where you put your money, you know, like which super which super funds, you put your money and that sort of thing. All of this is actually becoming way more individual. And so marketing and Mass Communication are going to be really, really big things this decade, the I was just tweeting this morning about the gas industry, they they really don't want people building new homes without connections to the gas network. The more people choose not to connect their new home to gas, the less value their infrastructure has, and it's freaking them out. Because you know, induction cooktops work amazingly well. You don't fill your home with fossil fuel protected like you don't know burning a fossil fuel inside your damn heart.
Dan Ilic 1:04:12 You're not putting me in your house where you live.
Ketan Joshi 1:04:16 There's an interesting side issue right equity of course, like I've been a lifelong renter,
Dan Ilic 1:04:22 you and I are similar in similar positions where like it'd be all well and good to be able to do renovations to place we live to have an induction stove top to have electricity beaming from our rooms to our homes and doing all these ones and having a having a Tesla in the driveway. First of all, I've got to get a driveway. And yeah, so like to do all these things when you're when you actually don't have the power to do any of that yourself. If you're not a homeowner, that's a very different game to play. As a consumer myself, I try to make choices that are that thoughtful like a carbon offset my car even though I even though I'm totally aware of the nature of carbon offset, it still makes me feel good.
Ketan Joshi 1:05:10 No, it's certainly something that you should do. I mean, like, as long as they're, as long as they're like high quality, you know, as long as they're verified, and that you are in a situation where you can't afford to purchase an electric car, or, you know, you live in a certain spot where you can't live your life without, like, it's not feasible for you to walk or catch, you know, use a bicycle or catch public transport. And in Australia, of course, there are many, many, many instances of where that's the case for most people, then I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with deciding to try and do some other action it doesn't need doesn't even have to be an offset, you know, you can like funds like a community solar organisation, or you know, you can you can purchase greenhouse electricity, like, there's a bunch of different things that you can do, that don't have to be a one for one emissions cancelling thing that really helped a lot. This is actually a really important point because the debate between individual action and like systemic regulatory action on climate change really rebounds between these two things, and people just get caught up in this rebounds, right where they just like getting buffeted around like, Oh, my God, I feel bad for not doing too much in my life that I don't know I don't feel bad at all. Because it's the corporation's you know, that should be doing it. Oh, no, I feel bad again, Oh, my God. Like, don't let yourself be emotionally battered around by this by this constantly shifting focus, right? Because
Dan Ilic 1:06:28 as you say, as you say, you should feel good for doing something good, you should feel good because you didn't put molecules in the air. So that's that's exactly
Ketan Joshi 1:06:35 right. So so the actually, the gas industry is a really good example of this. Because there's a dimension, right, there's a spectrum, where we actually get more room to make the to make emissions, lower emissions decisions in life, because of regulation, right. So the example I often use is, I live here in Oslo, I cycle my kid to childcare. But I only do that because somebody fought to get bike lanes in Seoul. And this is actually a really recent phenomenon. And Oslo suddenly, in the past few years, that bike lanes have become ubiquitous in the city. And if they weren't there, I would not be doing this, it freaks me out, I would probably be driving a car. And if I didn't have the option to drive an electric car, I'd probably be driving a fossil fuel car. Because I need to get my kids to childcare. And so it's the I've made a decision. Like I could still drive a fossil fuel car if I wanted to. But the reason that I've made the decision, this lifestyle change is because somebody fought in Oslo's council to get this like option available to me, with the gas industry as well, they are looking at marketing and advertising campaigns to get people to have gas in their homes, because it will impact regulation, because they want like a body of people out there who will stand up and say, I like my steak when it's cooked by fossil fuels. And I don't like my steak when it's cooked by electricity from those wimpy wind farms and like they need that their to be able to say, Well, I want this state government to introduce a policy where they're not going to allow the banning of gas connections, for instance, and this is happening in the US, entire states are creating these things called ban bands, which is basically Yeah, this is wild. So they're banning the banning of gas connections. That's such
Dan Ilic 1:08:24 an American thing. That's such a magazine.
Ketan Joshi 1:08:26 Yeah, similar thing is actually happening with plastics. So there are pre emptive bands of plastic bag bans, where they say you're not allowed to stop people from using plastic bags. single use single use plastic bags, because that's too much of a of a, you know, it's impinging on the freedom of whatever it really you know, of course, it's there to produce the to, to protect the petrochemical industry producing the raw materials for those plastic bags, right. But it's a growing trend, and they need and they need widespread public support. Because these are all really local issues. Now, particularly with gas network stuff, they're going to be really local issues. So they need people to be like having warm feelings towards their warm feelings towards gas and gas connections. And you can tell I've obviously been doing a lot of reading and writing about about the gas industry. But it feels kind of relevant, you know, because Australia's doing its whole gas fired recovery thing.
Dan Ilic 1:09:26 About a year ago to get the gas industry we're putting together events with influences to make people feel good about gas. So they had these wellness influences doing yoga and meditating next to a gas fired fireplace where they were breathing in me shade and particulate matter. In the sake of wellness to kind of sell gas to a whole bunch of you paid Evans types.
Ketan Joshi 1:09:51 They cited some studies where they said that looking at a flame creates psychological wellness and therefore You shouldn't be putting gas in your home. I'll give you another example, that some, you know, it's sort of within COVID, because it's sort of relevant. Last year in America, this council in California was looking to implement a ban on new gas connections, and the gas lobby in this area, threatened to bus in protesters, and sent a message saying, if you go ahead with this, what we will do is busing protesters to protest your your attempts to ban gas connections. And that that is going to spread COVID-19 in your in so they specifically used
Dan Ilic 1:10:43 weaponized COVID-19
Ketan Joshi 1:10:44 respiratory disease as a threat to force people to have the option of having another respiratory illness from having gas burning inside your home with inadequate ventilation. So, like, you can tell why I've been so obsessed with this particular like, you know, phenomenon around the world, because the gas industry starting to get pretty dirty about this stuff, right? Like they're getting really, they doing like, do you remember sort of like the old coal PR stuff from like, the 2010s? You know, where they would do like ads, you know, with a lump of coal spinning in like, you know, bright light and that sort of stuff? Yeah, yeah, they would, they would do all these, like, you know, filthy astroturf things and get like, you know, dodgy operators to come in and do PR. So like, all that sort of coal stuff from the 2010s to get the gas industry starting to kind of do a bit of, that's a really significant thing, I think we can actually prepare ourselves a bit for it, by knowing how all of these things are gonna go and kind of knowing how they operate. And that's why I write about that stuff so much, because I want to be like, Look, we know, we can actually predict very reliably what's gonna happen here. And so watch out for it and don't fall prey to the, to the lines of reasoning that they'll they'll be using.
Dan Ilic 1:12:05 Yeah, we actually made a parody on irrational fear of the little black rock, I think was gonna call it was called magical Black Rock is saying, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me play that parody for you. Now, hang on, here we go.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:21 This can provide endless kinds of environmental destruction. It'll create carbon emissions, respiratory disease, and more waterfront land than ever before, delivering more than 50 million people the motivation to move from their countries to ours, it creates jobs for 1000s of machines, built by people all over the world. due to falling demand. It's the cheapest it's been in over a decade, but consequences of using it will still look expensive. Because if we use it as fast as we can, our world will look just like this little black rock. Whatever is good for humanity. This shit is the opposite.
Dan Ilic 1:13:02 A guy that was that was 25th. September 7 2015. Yeah,
Ketan Joshi 1:13:07 Yeah, Yeah, I will. I'm certain we'll get a you know, long, slow focus on gas bottles, you know? Yeah, I know the well, the wellness, the influences stuff is the is the modern version of that of that little black rock.
Dan Ilic 1:13:23 I think it's gonna be the steak. It's gonna be cooking the steak, that'll that'll be the one that gets
Ketan Joshi 1:13:27 this. There's actually a few. There's a few partnerships that the gas industry does with I think it's like, some cooking shows in Australia. Is it Mastership? Like I remember which ones, but they do like, they get like, you know, the chef's from those shows to be like, Oh, no, I always cook with fossil fuels.
Dan Ilic 1:13:44 It makes sense. Master chefs, Master chefs set up is all guest stars, I've noticed and lasted over them. So it's one of those things where it's like, Wow, look at that. Look at that naan bread being like, completely blown out on that guest. It's really incredible. I should really let you go. Because you know, you're a busy man with the world to save. And I'm not. But I do have questions from a couple of my Patreon supporters. Susan from Patreon asks, What are your thoughts about the most likely power sources for the aviation industry over the next 50 years?
Ketan Joshi 1:14:16 Yeah, this is actually one of the this is really one of the toughest areas to sort of talk and think about with with climate action, because it's another one of those areas where you have to think about the potential of technology not not like what what it currently is. Because there's just no alternative to jet fuel. Forget for transporting people across oceans, across land, obviously, you can, people can travel along the grounds in a high speed train or a car or whatever. But across oceans ships can't really do it. The electric ships really, actually progressing a little faster than I thought there's a few really great electric ferries here in Norway. actually do surprisingly large distances already. But you know, it takes a lot of resources and materials to make the batteries for those things
Dan Ilic 1:15:07 I saw mask mask was going to stop building fossil fuel powered ships in 19 2030, I think
Ketan Joshi 1:15:14 there's some good stuff going on. And actually around this hydrogen, hydrogen is produced from a bunch of different you can make hydrogen from budget for things, but you can make it from electricity, which you can generate from renewables. And when you burn hydrogen advance cleanly, it just produces water. So it's actually a pretty, pretty good option, but you just need to develop the technology to to make engines that run hydrogen. And it's an option for planes as well. But the challenge for both batteries and hydrogen is basically energy storage for planes is that they post pretty heavy and they're both hydrogen is volatile. And so you need to have, you need to have the technology to store it in a plane safely. Batteries are far heavier. So you need to have the balance between the weight of the plane and the weight of the battery,
Dan Ilic 1:15:59 what we can do is to charge their phones before going on a plane and then plug it into the plane. And then passengers can use their energy
Ketan Joshi 1:16:08 may not last very long. Yeah. I mean, I guess it really just makes sense that, um, transporting people through the air requires a pretty wild amount of energy. What is more likely to be the best pathway for aviation is keep going, we'll let technology keep developing it, but cut off the excess of usage. And so a lot of that is actually business travel, a huge, huge proportion of total flights around the world. I think it's like 30 to 40%, I can't quite remember the exact number I need to check it is from business travel.
Dan Ilic 1:16:39 I was really grateful. Two weeks ago, I had to do a presentation in Canberra. And I was quite thankful I didn't have to go. And I could do it over zoom to seven important people in Canberra. And I could just do it from my bedroom where I am right now. And I was like, Well, you know, the only thing I've got to do is put on a tie. And I'm ready to go. And, you know, I think we've all been in COVID times that, that telecommuting and you know, stuff like video conferencing can replace a lot of that unnecessary travel.
Ketan Joshi 1:17:05 Absolutely. And the other problem, of course, is is frequent flying. So it's people who people who fly way more than you and I would ever fly. And that is also a pretty large proportion. And the problem here is course is that airlines understand that this is a very large proportion of their revenues, people who fly when they don't really need to, or really, you know, like not this isn't, you know, stuff when they're going on holidays and stuff. So this kind of overlaps with the business thing of like, you know, a crazy melting group when I haven't have a meeting and they just fly their people, you know, from New York to Los Angeles to have that meeting.
Dan Ilic 1:17:35 Yeah, maybe instead of having a gold and platinum, they should have like, brown level, you know, you've got it should gold to brown. Yeah, yeah,
Ketan Joshi 1:17:44 this is actually this is actually a sort of proposal is to have like an incentive programme for infrequent dragonflies are very nice to get rid of marketing incentives for flying essentially, which which will cut off a very large amount of demand. And of course, that would be a politically fraught thing down the line. The airlines would not be a very happy with this approach, particularly Not now.
Dan Ilic 1:18:08 One of our discord, community members adds rights. You read a lot about technology replacing coal plants with wind and solar and phasing out IC engines in favour of electric this leads to two questions. will this happen quickly enough? And even if they get replaced with renewables slash electric inside of 15 years? Is it enough? Or do we need larger systemic changes? I don't think it's, I don't think it's a quick question.
Ketan Joshi 1:18:37 Quick, I'll give you a quick answer, though. I mean, you need systemic changes to reach that rate of change, there's no doubt about it, you need to have systems in place that intervening in what may have previously been thought of as like relatively free markets. So what actually goes links back very nicely to the coal closure thing, because the owner of a coal plant won't shut it down early, unless you force them to. And to get that 15 year time frame, that's actually going to be a really, really tough systemic deep change to make. So the other side of it, of course, is that simple replacement isn't sufficient, you actually need to push down on the demand side of the equation to so that's I mentioned active transport and public transport for, it's actually a really nice example of where you need to reduce the demand for the usage of vehicles. So people own a car, but they don't use it as much as they normally would. That is also climate when right. So this is actually a really tricky thing to sort of wrap your head around because we often conflate machines existing and the use of machines. China, for instance, is actually building a fair few new coal fired power stations, but they're using them less than less. So obviously, it's not, you shouldn't be building new coal fired power stations, that's extremely bad. But keep in mind that they also use them less and less because competition from renewables is
Dan Ilic 1:19:54 increasing. peeping Neil on the discord also writes, what does he think about direct Technical intervention to reduce co2. And he says, technology solution trees won't cut it, he says. So yeah, the idea of reducing co2 with the technological device, how far away is that,
Ketan Joshi 1:20:14 on the scale that we need to this, you've got to, you've got to sort of split it out into two categories. One is getting rid of everything that's already been emitted. And the other is dealing with stuff that we're about to or that we, that we think we almost certainly will emit. So so so of course, if you ask a company like shell, they'll be like, yeah, we're not going to decarbonize very quickly, there's still a lot of admitting that we're going to do. But if you ask, if you look at if you look at ambitious climate plan, there actually is still some emissions that are gonna happen. So you know, I don't know, like a rescue helicopter, filled with jet fuel that you need to save someone from hanging off a cliff, she'll have some carbon emissions that you want to you want to remove. So and then, of course, this is historical emissions. And there's a lot you know, what are we up to last year, you know, 36 Giga tonnes in that in that single year of carbon dioxide. So not not all greenhouse gases just come with oxide. We currently last year, we removed 0.04 ish. Maybe missing a decimal point there. But you get to the proportions.
Dan Ilic 1:21:18 It's like, I don't know why I'm laughing like it's one of those things where it's like, I shouldn't be laughing. I should be being very angry. But it's a sad laugh. Yeah, I think that's what irrational fear does.
Ketan Joshi 1:21:30 What, what, what I think is actually a really important argument in favour of carbon removal is is actually a justice question. So the burden should be on those who have done the most emitting over the past century. And that's North America. That's Europe, and Australia, Oceania, some degree, all of these sort of three chunks of the world that have done a lot of historical emissions. So not the yearly amount. But if you look at the atmosphere as a stock, it's like a bucket of stuff who's contributed the most of that bucket of existing stuff that's in the atmosphere? That I think that's important. I think that's a justice question. And so shouldn't be led by fossil fuel companies, though,
Dan Ilic 1:22:05 do you think it'll get to a point where, you know, 50 years down the track, the global community will be saying, well, historically, when the rich countries need to start mopping up their historical emissions, and really paying for it, this kind of exporting mass exporting of co2 equivalent from countries like Australia, which we build out riches on, is suddenly going to be the biggest Achilles heel that we have politically in the in the, in the world.
Ketan Joshi 1:22:31 Yeah, the problem, the problem there is that Australia actually doesn't have particularly good carbon storage opportunities, somewhere like Norway has actually has really good carbon stored opportunities just for sequestering underground. There's a lot of sort of existing, like oil science offshore here in Norway. And so they're sort of trying to get ahead of the curve and and offer it as a, you know, business to say, well pay us and we'll and we'll, you know, we'll take your ship full of capture carbon and store it on the ground. And there's two sides that one is the one is the bad side, which is that fossil fuel companies may use that activity as justification for more emissions. And there's the good side, which is that we actually need to remove carbon from the atmosphere, because for the same reason that we don't emit, in that we need to reduce the stock of this substance in the atmosphere that that traps heat on Earth. So you've got to maintain both in your head at the same time, same time. Yeah, in that something good is going to be misused. It's going to be used as a delay tactic to keep the fossil fuels burning. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 1:23:34 It's a Tom, thank you so much. Look, I it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I've been a fan of yours for ages. And it's really, really great to get all nerdy with you. I think about two years ago, I went on a bit of a journey to try and learn as much as I can about this space. From my very small kind of comedy point of view. And it's in your one of the first book people that people turned me on to and haven't regretted following you on Twitter, and
Ketan Joshi 1:24:02 I love your work. I of course, I've been really enjoying the particularly like the, of course, like the fossil fuel industry, when you skewer them through through that comedy work. It's really fantastic. And it just, it just fills me with not a lot of things when it's dry these days, and sort of the dark humour of that is just fantastic to me, and makes me feel really happy. So thank you for that.
Dan Ilic 1:24:23 Well, thank you. Well, without people like you, doing the hard work and writing the great work that you do, then I've got nothing to read to make jokes about. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:35 GM, the greatest moral podcast of our generation. Welcome to Brisbane.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:40 capital is seven Queensland and bid city of the 2038 nuclear winter games thanks to industrial growth at all costs. Queensland is live life to the extreme and there's nothing more extreme than our weather. But every Cyclone has a silver lining last year Brady Denise From Ian, chalky Philippa good true Tiffany Melinda Shiro Rochelle and Dave Neely made space for new stadiums and sporting facilities and now we're ready for re rebuilding again. With the southward spread of Deva southeast Queensland now has the lowest rate of denki fever in all of southeast Queensland. But don't worry if you do catch it some of the best funded doctors in Australia just over the border in New South Wales, thanks to rising sea levels. in Brisbane, everyone shares waterfront views with some of the most ancient and deadly locals around it's now even easier to take a boat to the Great Barrier Reef Memorial oilfield it's just been refurbished and moved into the habit of speaking of water, the water wars of 2025 are a thing of the past. We now have a roster. Clean water will be available to farmers Mondays and Tuesdays coal seam gas miners Wednesdays and Thursdays residents on Fridays and theme parks on Saturdays Sundays and public holidays. But going wild can work up an appetite grabber by two weeks, literally just a bite. Queensland supermarkets now have round the clock military God ensuring the orderly distribution of rations and thanks to the Queensland government's banana buyback scheme, the cost of bananas is no longer than others. You know what they say? Queensland beautiful one day of the year otherwise by the Campbell Newman reeducation facility
The team of producers were incredible, and the production staff at the Brisbane Powerhouse were slick professional units.
You may notice there is one word we’re avoiding to say in the show. That word begins with A and ends in I, has Dan in between. We were told about 20 minutes before the show, so some minor tweaks had to happen on the fly. I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to that as we go.
Bridie Connell and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd do some topical music for us. Tom Ballard tells us that it’s all over and there’s no hope left. The Queensland Government put a bid in for the 2038 Nuclear Winter Games. MICF Pinder Prize winner Steph Tisdell give insects the tick of approval, and goes on the hunt for true love with an entomologist. Mel Buttle hopes that foodies will go extinct. Alan Jones has some thoughts on climate change. Professor Hilary Bambrick scares us all to death with what the real health ramifications are for humans on a warming planet. Lewis Hobba thinks he has solutions to the climate crisis, but ends up just blaming Queenslanders for it all.
It is truly and excellent 90 minutes of climate change banter.
00:00 — Pre Show: AFP Warning.
01:25 — Start.
02:15 — Introductions.
05:33 — Bridie and Wyatt Introduction.
16:25 — Fearsome Fears: Freedom Gas.
21:15 — Fearsome Fears: Flygskam.
25:00 — Fearsome Fears: The internet will be underwater.
27:30 — Tom Ballard: We’re all f***ed.
37:48 — Queensland’s Bid for 2038 Nuclear Winter Games.
40:16 — Steph Tisdell: Care about insects.
47:45 — Mel Buttle: Foodies must die.
1:00:30— Alan Jones’ Gloating.
1:03:35— Prof. Hilary Bambrick: Health and Climate
As we head into the long weekend known as Australian Halloween, ANZAC Day, I thought we should chat with a former solider who represents Australians at their best.
David McBride is up for a jail sentence of ‘UNLIMITED YEARS’ after he blew the whistle on astonishing accounts of misconduct and warcrimes by Australian special Forces in Afghanistan.
He did this six years ago — 2017!
He’s been in legal limbo ever since.
But now he’s forced the Australian Defence Force into court in November, and will have his moment to show he was just, and right to release the information he did.
In this conversation McBride and I chat about:
Tactics and strategy in the court room.
If media will be allowed inside his trial.
Why he's losing weight
How he finds joy in this very stressful time.
And his laugh — is it real?
This episode is followed up by one of favourite live shows from last year, our live show on Australian Secrecy on stage at the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas.
It's one of our best — and a reminder around ANZAC Day that there are Some soliders who are fighting the good fight, that need our support.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Unknown Speaker 0:04 Guy Lewis, how are you?
Lewis Hobba 0:06 Good Daniel, how are you? I'm good, what could possibly be stopping me from being as good as I've ever been?
Dan Ilic 0:11 Nothing in the news in particular. First of all, I wanted to say a big shout out to our new Patreon supporters, Damian pine and Philip boothby. Thank you so much to everyone who joins us on Patreon because it helps us make the show every week. Another way you can support a rational fee is to offset the carbon emissions of your car with a go neutral sticker for every $90 sticker go neutral by 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets, which is about the yearly emissions for your average con five bucks that comes to us. I should make a point handy, Louis that the owners shouldn't be on the individual. We need to get big polluters to pay for the pollution. But before we do that, boy, it feels nice to just drive around knowing that my emissions are offset, and I got a little sticker that to virtue signal to all of my other people on the road.
Lewis Hobba 0:57 Right? I ride a scooter. So if I go neutral that will cover me for like, two lifetimes.
Dan Ilic 1:03 You're totally fine. You're totally fine. Yeah. Also no St. Louis. This is a big announcement. And a big thank you to everyone who listens to the show, because on the weekend, we got nominated for Best Comedy podcast at the Australian podcast awards. So thank you very much
Lewis Hobba 1:18 the last time we lost that award. We lost it on the night of the last Australian election. So if you recall, we were all sitting in the crowd just watching our phones the whole time going. I this us winning or losing this award is less important than the other winner loss happening in the country right now.
Dan Ilic 1:34 Yes, that's right. I totally forgot about that. We are up against some good people though. improv tunes. A couple of comedians called Hamish and Andy. I've never heard of him, Matt dalla and Tony Martin sizzle town and Alfred's dragon friends featuring your Triple J colleague, Michael King. What we know is king beats us.
Lewis Hobba 1:56 Honestly, if I lose to Michael King, I'm gonna have to quit it. I bet Yeah. I feel like sort of like Trump about a week ago. And he was talking about job and just being like, I'm gonna lose to that guy. That guy? Well, I can't lose my, my pride won't allow it.
Dan Ilic 2:10 We need your help as well go to Australian podcast awards.com forward slash vote and vote for us and the people Choice Awards. And if you do, Lewis and I will read out all 3000 of your names.
Lewis Hobba 2:21 I mean, sure. It's a it's a it's his new podcast. We're starting. Lewis and Dan ratings. I'm recording mine. But that is
Dan Ilic 2:29 actually that's just every other podcast that does like Wikipedia. True Crime stuff. I write out Wikipedia entries. I'm recording mine of a rational fee on gadigal. land in New York nation. sovereignty was never seated, waited a treaty. Let's start the shark.
Joe Hockey 2:43 A rational fear contains naughty words
like bricks cambro.
Unknown Speaker 2:49 Gum, and section 40 of a rational fear recommended listening by immature audiences
Dan Ilic 2:56 tonight. In the Queensland election, one nation suffers the most humiliating decline since Pauline Hansen's descent down the road. And Gladys berejiklian promises to open the New South Wales Victoria border by mid November, and millions of Melbourne Knights promised to warm up back up again. And researchers have discovered that November is the longest month of 2020 and they haven't even seen December 28. This podcast was recorded on the fifth of November at 8pm. If you're listening to us from the future, we want to say we're sorry, the world is a scary place. That's why you're listening to irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear that gives you the scared a sweaty hand to hold on. I'm your host Dan Ilic former spiritual adviser to the President. And this way, we've got some great fear mongers she's a writer, performer and musician and proofing even though you live in the Central West of New South Wales, you can make a big on Tick tock, it's Gabby baltz
Unknown Speaker 4:01 Hello, Gabby. I'm gonna go on my grave
Dan Ilic 4:03 you've blown up on Tick Tock writing oz Paul musicals Has anyone given you a sponsorship endorsement
Unknown Speaker 4:08 yet? No. All I've received is a flag from 2007 in the mail from good old Kevin rod is nice. A friend of kin is very nice. Yeah, I've got got him in the camera roll and everything. But yeah, that's all I know other political donations please in the pocket of
Dan Ilic 4:24 rod and he's a former and told mentor of the Taliban. It's this Saturday is Saturday six semi shot. Can I
Unknown Speaker 4:32 semi?
Sami Shah 4:32 I just want to make it clear that the Taliban and I have mended fences.
All find ourselves.
Surprisingly they are in agreement with me about a lot of things they like watching repeats of low you know or binge watching the wires are knocked down. They love listening to ambi sound podcasts as well as different ambient sounds.
Overlap turns out
Dan Ilic 4:57 Sammy, can I ask you this in American democracy Slowly breaking down. Do you have any advice for Americans on how to live with a military code? Oh, look. Okay,
Sami Shah 5:05 so the first trick is you have to have an assassination plan in place. All right. So in in 1988, we had to get creative. We had a dictator for 10 years. At that point, we knew something. So we filled a crate of mangoes, explosives, and put on a plane and the plane exploded because the mangoes exploded. So you got to the bottom, like no one's getting in a library with a rifle anymore. That ship doesn't work. Alright, so the other thing you have to understand is dictators aren't that bad, you know? They build statues. Everyone gets a job in statue building in the baby high growth industry all of a sudden, if you torture you are this is the buyer's market. All right, so you really need to own up those skills. No.
Dan Ilic 5:57 And finally, he's the permanent guest of the Australian podcast Award nominated comedy podcast irrational fear is less How about Hello, Dan? Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 6:05 I'm also Amy Shandy.
Dan Ilic 6:08 Coming up. member for maringa The Honourable Sally steggall MP. She joins us to talk about her massive work coming up. Also, we want to ask her what it feels like to bake Tony Abbott. Figuratively of course. But first, we have a sponsor.
Russell Crowe 6:24 Good eye on Russell Crowe. In Australia, we lucky we live in a peaceful democracy with universal health care, and VBA. But others around the world aren't so fortunate. They live each day with no access to doctors education, and are forced to drink filter coffee. Their cities are mired in civil unrest. Their people are threatened by local militia with both fashion sense. And to make matters worse, they don't have sweet chilli sauce, Americans, but for just $1 a day, you can sponsor an American at globe visions adopt an American programme will pair you up with an American in need, and will build cafes in their neighbourhood that serve non processed food and flat whites will send a doctor that will both bill and distribute pharmaceuticals that they won't have to sell their house to receive. And each month you'll get a photo of your American and they'll send you a ballot for a vote that they want to cast, but couldn't because they had an outstanding parking ticket or moved house on Thursday or some other obscure bullshit. So given American Samoa and a decent chance that a good espresso, it works. I've been part of the Australian adopter Kiwi programme and look at me. I'm Russell Crowe. Very good.
Dan Ilic 7:41 It's a worthy cause. They're excellent. There's a lot of stuff going on in the news. I don't know if you notice that James Packers crown could lose their casino licence in New South Wales. The the largest battery in the southern hemisphere is coming to Victoria. But there's only one story everyone's talking about. Yes, boy, George is going to be recording a Christmas song with Delta goodrem Oh, MJ, what do you guys think? No.
Joe Hockey 8:04 way he should.
Dan Ilic 8:06 Now we're talking about of course the election as of recording right now. We don't know who will be President Biden is only about six electoral college votes away from winning. But by the time this podcast comes out, who knows maybe the next president knighted states could be Eric Trump. We don't know. The counting continues. The protests have started their parties everywhere from Michigan to Portland and even in Maricopa County, in Arizona fear mongers. I'm gonna play you a grab of some of these protests. And I want to I want you to tell me who is protesting and what are they chanting and Gabby has thankfully made us a theme song for this. So let me play that as
Unknown Speaker 8:42 well. Here we go. Sometimes they're happy. Sometimes they're ranting, let's play who is protesting and what are they chanting? Very good.
Dan Ilic 8:51 Okay, guys ready to play? All right. First up, here we go.
Lewis Hobba 9:10 Stop the stop account.
Dan Ilic 9:12 Yeah, they asked they are they could be yes. Perhaps they are indeed some of them are saying stop the count while the others one or the other say
Unknown Speaker 9:19 a count all the votes. count all
Dan Ilic 9:21 the votes? Yes, they are. They are and who are they Trump Biden supporters.
Unknown Speaker 9:26 Support Yes.
Sami Shah 9:29 inconsistency. Yeah. But only because that level of that level of inconsistency can only come from one side of the political divide, which is a drop of water. They are very much the standard themselves as well, not knowing that the shootings on the back.
Unknown Speaker 9:44 Yeah, I can relate there like when I was in year 11 and 12. I was protesting mathematics as well. So I mean,
Sami Shah 9:51 as the only known, I mean, the technical term is non white. Over here right now. All the supporters All protesters on both sides of the aisle are all white from the footage. Yeah. Is this a cultural thing that I don't understand this like the, the application of for mayonnaise or the love of DNA testing like white cultural thing the I guess,
Lewis Hobba 10:17 actually sorry I think this is proving the point of so many white supremacists for so long, which is that not all white people are the same. Some white people want to stop the counts and stuff. I want to keep the counts going. You know, where diverse people with diverse interests.
Unknown Speaker 10:30 just seems like a sequel to Eat, Pray Love, just shout. get angry, contradict each other.
Dan Ilic 10:37 Let's play the next round.
Unknown Speaker 10:38 Sometimes they're happy. Sometimes they're ranting, let's play who is protesting and what are they chanting? Alright, round
Dan Ilic 10:47 two. Here we go.
Gabbi Bolt 10:56 Are they mad at Fox?
Dan Ilic 10:58 Fox but who is mad at Fox? Trump's mad at Fox. Okay. Okay, so Trump supporters are mad at Fox because they are protesting. These Trump supporters are at the Capitol. They're protesting because Fox made the call that Joe Biden was gonna win Arizona.
Unknown Speaker 11:18 We don't like the news.
Unknown Speaker 11:21 You know what? That's not even a joke. That's just pretty much that tagline.
Unknown Speaker 11:24 No more facts. No. Yeah.
Sami Shah 11:27 Apparently, there's a story that apparently is like it's an inside source thing, but that Trump got angry. He called up rupert murdoch and yelled at him about the Arizona account. And what Murdoch didn't back down. And it's trouble in paradise. I mean, this is the most magic breakups in Miley Cyrus and Hemsworth thought like this is as much of a heartbreaking like you think some love would last forever, but clearly nothing mean dating just bullshit one
Unknown Speaker 12:02 day after he endorses the petition to a that would be the next step. Yeah, yeah. Trump on Twitter being like sign this petition I'm
Unknown Speaker 12:09 really
Dan Ilic 12:10 gonna be signing on Monday straightaway. Finally here we go.
Unknown Speaker 12:16 Sometimes they're happy sometimes they're ranting let's play who was protesting and what are they
Dan Ilic 12:22 chanting and finally this one
Joe Hockey 12:28 is covering up the fight crime family steal this election is covering up.
covering up we will not free up for the world. He was not free of Joe Biden is covering up
Unknown Speaker 12:42 his election. He's stealing their that.
Dan Ilic 12:46 Okay, so who is he? What is he channelling? I think it's Nick. Naughty. I think Nick naughty is trying to get an Oscar for
Lewis Hobba 12:57 Oh, Gary Busey. As big busying
Sami Shah 13:03 tonight, can I just say, at the heart, I've never agreed with the T shirt more. I've never had barbecue beer freedom has ever I've noticed most seen done by that T shirt.
Unknown Speaker 13:17 Nothing is more attractive.
Unknown Speaker 13:21 Nothing is more attractive than that.
Lewis Hobba 13:22 So it's also it's a fourth of July top and I reckon that guy has probably been wearing it since the Fourth of July and really enjoying the be a part of that show. My favourite
Unknown Speaker 13:32 part about that video. I saw that video earlier today is definitely the guy giving the press conference maybe waits a solid three beats for the guy to just slowly walk back in the building, and then just kind of turns around, and he's like, Alright, moving on. Do you just expect chaos like that? America just they waiting for everyone that yell at that press conference.
Lewis Hobba 13:55 He The problem was he wasn't expecting everyone to give him his freedom. Like he was waiting to get tackled or grabbed or something. And he's like, Oh, no, it appears the third part of my shirt was already allowed.
Unknown Speaker 14:07 I guess I just walked myself out.
Lewis Hobba 14:09 You feel his head back to this barbecue.
Unknown Speaker 14:13 Listening to a rational seer.
Unknown Speaker 14:16 This is an embarrassment to our
Joe Hockey 14:18 country. We were getting ready to win this election.
Frankly, we didn't win this election. By the
Dan Ilic 14:25 time this podcast comes out, you probably already know who's president we can we can only tell you things that we already it's that guy. It's the
Unknown Speaker 14:32 radium shed guy.
Lewis Hobba 14:33 I've already reached across the aisle. He's like, what's three things we can all agree on.
Dan Ilic 14:39 So in the last couple of days, what we've seen is Trump declaring that he's one only if people stopped counting, Biden managed to flip four states Trump managed to flip out he's got so bad that Kanye West sent every American a hologram ghost of their dead democracy. Even former Australian ambassador to the United States and alleged treasure for sale Joe hockey got in on the action saying the vote was right. In Washington, DC, this is him on Ben forums programme earlier this week.
Joe Hockey 15:05 The other 10,000 different organisations that are responsible for setting the rules for the US presidential election 10,000 in Australia had the Australian Electoral Commission, thank God that governs the rules for federal laws for federal elections in the US are 10 every state, and then you have counties and you have cities. And if there's a strong bias one way or the other, they do everything they can to either suppress the vote, or to to, you know, to increase about it's just it's a mess.
Unknown Speaker 15:38 So there's a chance that electoral fraud has happened.
Joe Hockey 15:42 Oh, for sure. I mean, it will be but the question is whether it's enough to change the election. And I doubt it is, but But yeah, I absolutely. did. I last thought, in Washington, DC 93% of the city voted pejabat 93%. Even my best booth and launderable. God bless him. When the kids were handing out to the Labour Party. Even my best booth, I got 83% 93% in the city. I find it hard to believe so
Unknown Speaker 16:18 he finds it hard to believe. Wow, I
Lewis Hobba 16:19 got
Unknown Speaker 16:20 it honestly, in Washington.
Lewis Hobba 16:22 Yeah. And it honestly feels like at the for the first part of the interview. He's reading a pamphlet that he's just found out there. He's just picked up a place He's like,
Unknown Speaker 16:31 do you know they have counties? Yeah.
Dan Ilic 16:34 Joe Joe, Joe? Joe hockey on TGV sounds like a guy that's just listened to a lot of American political podcasts and it's just trying to
Lewis Hobba 16:43 Yeah, he's your friend. He says like,
Unknown Speaker 16:47 my favourite thing is him not considering that a candidate can get higher than 83%.
Lewis Hobba 16:52 And also, like, the history of that is like, no democrat has got under 90% in 15 years, like Hillary Clinton got 91 Yeah, Obama got 92% it just like that. You're that you're out diplomat to that country. And every like, everyone knows
Unknown Speaker 17:09 that shit.
Joe Hockey 17:10 What is wrong with
Sami Shah 17:12 me, but that's not that's not accurate. Here's me, Rick. Ricky forgetting he wasn't our diploma. Reese told him. He was our ambassador to America, reduced anxiety. That was supposed to be his, you know, he is sentenced to his Guantanamo Bay to go there and never come back. I don't know how he got back here.
Lewis Hobba 17:36 Maybe you'd have called Getting the plum position in America failing upwards in like any other generation, except this one where you are like, Joe thinks this is the population. We're sending him to the apocalypse.
Sami Shah 17:51 Yeah, there are people right now, who are the ambassador to Syria who are like, Oh, my God.
That was
like about your hockey. All right. And I do like one thing about your hockey is that Joe hockey is actually just a random factor that i don't know i have in my head, but he's actually a Palestinian Armenian. So he's not actually a white guy. And his real name. I'm not making this up. You can look this up is Joe, aka Dorian. But they changed it a hockey to improve his chances in the family's Johnson's in resettling into him in Australia, Joe hockey domian had been running for politics. He would be in the Green Party right now. In the seat of Brunswick, or
the ambassador to America and Sammy, that's
Dan Ilic 18:43 the only reason why he was only treasurer, he would have been Prime Minister if they'd said it if they change the name to Joe cricket.
Sami Shah 18:54 They did offer it to him apparently, at one point Tony Abbott did asked him if he wanted to be the leader of the Liberal Party and john said no, because he wasn't willing to give up on emissions trading. This is a true story. I don't know why I know this much about Joe hockey. All right, I do. But this so there's a few things about him. He you know, he's actually a Palestinian Armenian. He almost became the liberal Liberal Party, and he thinks no one can be more popular than him when it turns out that's actually pretty common in the world.
Lewis Hobba 19:25 When you're literally chased out of a country for being a reviled treasure with one of the worst budgets in living memory, like and people like
Joe Hockey 19:33 me, it's while
Unknown Speaker 19:37 is everyone who knows me knows I want to make it perfectly clear to the community. I have evil in my heart.
Joe Hockey 19:45 No Fear is rational.
Dan Ilic 19:48 Final fear for this week, Georgia democratic organisers are calling out people to go to tele rooms to cure ballots. Fear mongers, when you hear the term curing ballots. What do you think that means? just leaving them for several months in a brine.
Unknown Speaker 20:06 Exactly what I thought
Sami Shah 20:09 when you put them in Brian is when you
Dan Ilic 20:12 pick Oh, yeah, let's pick a balance everyone wrong. Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 20:17 Right. Oh, of course, of course God.
Dan Ilic 20:20 Now here's the thing if a ballot has a mismatch mismatch signature or the signature is missing on the ballot, it could be tried out or people have forgotten to sign the back of the return envelope will fail to get the witness to fill out their witness information correctly, the ballot could be completely thrown out. So what's happening is volunteers are being asked to go down and sit in a room and call everyone who voted and made a made a mistake on their ballot to rectify this ballot. It's an elaborate process, they've got to sign an affidavit and fax that affidavit in or mail or send that affidavit in with a copy of their driver's licence to get that ballot revalidated. It's like so much paperwork, if you make one little mistake.
Unknown Speaker 20:59 I barely passed the HSC. I don't think I could Miss America.
Lewis Hobba 21:05 America's filing
Dan Ilic 21:08 this week is also strange for another reason in US politics, one that affects us. The United States has formally lifted the Paris Agreement this way three years ago, Trump pulled out which is normally a good thing when he pulls out. But sadly, it undermines this really important work. Our next guest was elected on her green credentials. He's a barrister, Olympian, and independent member for ringu zali. steggall. Oh, am MP good izombie. Zombies absolutely are privileged to have you with us this week. And because on Monday, something incredibly important is going to happen. And I can't help but feel like once again, it's kind of been overshadowed by the moment we're living in right now.
Zali Steggall 21:50 Well, yes, and no, I actually picked it on purpose, because I figured we were either gonna be in a good place worldwide in terms of climate. And we could reverse the decision that Trump took in terms of pulling the us out of the Paris Agreement, or the rest of the world's got to get skates on and counter the impact of the US going road when it comes to climate. So either way, our second Monday, the ninth isn't really important day for us to put a plan in place and get on with lowering our emissions.
Dan Ilic 22:22 Tell us from the very start what is going to happen on Monday? And what what how do you think it'll go?
Zali Steggall 22:28 Sure, I will look obviously, as an independent, I'm actually came into parliament, mainly to try and actually stop the weaponized you know, debate we've had in Australia around climate change and put forward a sensible plan down the middle. So I tried to bring bipartisanship to this so that we can actually help plan so I mean, producing legislation that is in it's actually conservative UK legislation that was passed in the UK, but with bipartisan support, so completely no reason why coalition can't accept it here. And actually, the UK Prime Minister is calling on the Morison government to getting to get on board with the same commitment of net zero by 2050. So the legislation is coming on Monday to the parliament present to you. There'll be a fair bit of stuff around it, my fellow crossbenchers will be speaking on it. And I've invited the prime minister to to actually take the lead and you know, actually be the leader striving needs him to be at the moment.
Dan Ilic 23:25 That's very generous of you. Haven't there been any examples where he's done that? And the last little bit that we can say,
Zali Steggall 23:33 we're looking for start around 20 with the bush fires? Oh, you know, I'll give you that. I wasn't very impressed with that part of it. But look, during the pandemic we have we've seen the Prime Minister Singh premiers, stand up with the scientists give us good factual justification for policy and it works and the Australian people have overwhelmingly complied. I mean, apart from a few people protesting we've really had whole of society, getting on board with the measures needed. And we I reckon we're leading the world in terms of how well we've done economically and health wise, on the pandemic side,
Dan Ilic 24:06 it's amazing what can happen when you listen to a bunch of scientists who actually know what they're talking about.
Unknown Speaker 24:11 Wow.
Zali Steggall 24:13 You have a policy based on facts and science. And we know with climate, we need to do the same thing as what we did with the pandemic. The pandemic is a tiny taste of what's to come with climate if we don't get our act together. So it is a perfect time for the prime minister to step up
Sami Shah 24:30 your luck closer to the Prime Minister than I will ever get to be so I have no knowledge of this. Why is it that if you know a pandemic scientist is one that finds believable, but a climate change scientist is one that you find that he can't trust in just like a Shia Sunni thing?
belief system.
Zali Steggall 24:53 Obviously, one of the horrendous things yeah, 2020 has been challenging on so many fronts, but it has seen shift towards accepting science. So I think the Prime Minister has to stick to the game we set the path on the cut on the coronavirus pandemic, we need to do the same on on our missions, we need to flatten the curve on our missions. Let's get down to net zero. And then we will feel safer.
Lewis Hobba 25:16 Do you think that I mean, the bushfires were so awful. And a lot of people who have been looking for climate change solutions for so long, I've been worried something like that would have would have to happen before anyone, obviously on a, you know, conservative side took any kind of action. And and no one wanted that to happen, obviously is devastating. And but you know, has it put politics into a position where you think the Prime Minister might be, I mean, either willing in generously or politically, if you're a ungenerous force due to the fact that he his reputation took such a pounding when he disappeared to Hawaii, that he might be sort of forced to really act this time.
Zali Steggall 25:58 Look, I think I'd be a mixture, you know, I really hope that he is the leader, that, you know, he has the opportunity to be and step up to this and bring everyone together. I acknowledge Not everyone can agree on this. But we've got a really sensible pathway forward here. And you've got the rest of the world joining in, you know, the UK, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, it you know, the list goes on, that's committed to net zero by 2050. We don't want to be missing out. We don't want to be behind our trading partners. We need to be on top of this now. Is it going to come there but grudgingly behind the ball? Or does he take the handbrake off? And he put us ahead? That's the that's the challenge. And at the end of the day, is how do you want to be remembered as you know, the power of this parliament and as the Prime Minister, we've had a pretty big year already with 2020. And ultimately, this is our biggest challenge. So I'm still hopeful to build consensus, you know, I'm not the opposition. I'm an independent, my job is to try and bring people in the room. And so that, you know, try and bring people that are a part two together for a solution.
Sammy, I think you either agree or
Unknown Speaker 27:06 Jane.
Sami Shah 27:09 No, I absolutely, positively agree. I just want to change the topic briefly for a moment, because I don't know when I'll ever get a chance to ask you this is so when you retrieve the sword from the lake and lunge into the chest, check off
your armour.
Unknown Speaker 27:34 Thank you, Sammy. That was actually my next question. That was
Zali Steggall 27:40 funny enough, during the campaign, we actually I had to match tiny on his sporting prowess. So I have both participated in the cold classic swim we both in the local runs. And he actually released a team of bodyguards did while the local five k runs and beat me to the finish line. And they were claiming that I was going to be the big wind. So but little did he know that I was saving it really for the big race, which was the important one.
Lewis Hobba 28:09 Yeah, Tony ever, it was always of the belief as a leader that he could run around the country that would justify his ability to run it.
Dan Ilic 28:16 Some people, some people who may be uncharitable might say, what's the point of an independent backbencher? throwing this in the ring and getting this into parliament? Why don't just get to fade it in? Everybody moves on? What do you say to those people?
Zali Steggall 28:29 Well, with due respect, the major parties haven't really gotten this this so far, you know, they're kind of, they keep using the issue of climate as a way of trying to beat the other side. And they only really look at their own self interest. We know 80% of Australians are concerned about climate change, sit over 60% want us to commit to net zero by 2050. Labour labour, you know, they say that they're committed to it, but they don't really have a plan. And the liberals know and the coalition know they have to do more, are they under threat from a lot of areas like orinda that want more action on climate change. So I think I am the perfect person to bring it forward. And actually said, This isn't about one side winning over the other. This is actually about the Australian people get to win. So my call has been for all of society to get behind it to get business, get industry and get health care environment groups, everyone to come forward and ask for this solution with I think Australia has had enough of the climate walls. We want 2020 to be the year we all move on. like totally,
Dan Ilic 29:29 and it's so transparent to say that particularly on state levels all around the country. And it's so weird just to have this outline of the Federal the federal coalition just doing f all and it's so it's just so it's it's so frustrating to see this. It's so frustrating to see the lack of leadership when everybody with the tail is wagging the dog in Australia, like the local governments, the state governments, the corporations, they're all they're all doing what they can and yet there is no formal action plan. From the It's so strange
Zali Steggall 30:01 to see who you think is the towel say I think the tail wagging the dog is actually that kind of ends. And, you know, the fire Queensland and rays are hanging on to fossil fuel industry in their electorates. And there are only one or two votes. And it's all the others that are following this kind of with call from these outline and pace. So I think that's a towel that we need to get rid of so that the dog can get on with the job.
Sami Shah 30:26 And someone is not a politician, you know, because that's not the background, the people in Parliament, most of the people in Canberra, this is all they do. This is all they've done the young people when they were teenagers, because they have two losers. And this is Bob they followed. It is weird. Is it like? How do you adapt to that culture, you know, as a civilian and a normal human being a functioning adult prior to this? I think I was functioning.
Zali Steggall 30:59 I have had moments where I've been quite astounded by what happens in Parliament and the way some people behave. And when I think that these are the people that are making the laws that are going to regulate everyone's life. It's quite astounding. But look, there are some good people component on both sides of the aisle that have in life experience. But if you could then curry politicians or people that have only had experienced through the party machine, and they have to have a career outside politics. I think that would be a good thing.
Dan Ilic 31:30 Like sports soon as they get an injury. They're off to Melbourne.
Zali Steggall 31:37 Yeah, if you're doing a job application, yes.
skills.
Dan Ilic 31:43 Well, Sally, thank you so much for joining us on a rational fee. Good luck on Monday, my friend Melvin directed a great little ad to promote the climate change act last week, and I think went out last week. It was very moving. It's a beautiful ad. I'll share it in the in the show notes. When we put the podcast out. It's just a kind of gripping cinematic piece that somebody trapped within the fires trying to write a letter to their MP and it's just, it's just heartbreaking. I know Melvin and I was messaging my my my wife was messaging him throughout the throughout that period when we had bushfires, and he was actually him and his his family were trapped in fires. And it was I think all of us were so shocked by that moment in January, that that was a wake up call that we needed and sadly COVID came through and wiped out the momentum for it but I don't think it's gone away. I honestly think honestly, I think people are still engaged with these issues and want to see action on this issue. And I think you have such a huge backing. And I just wish you luck.
Zali Steggall 32:44 Thank you. Well, I need you guys and everybody out there to get behind it.
Lewis Hobba 32:48 every vote counts. If you can do this, Sally, we will get all that Patreon subscribers to donate $1 will melt down those dollars and we'll make you a special gold medal. Rational peace.
Dan Ilic 33:01 We want to thank you very much at least before we go Gabby has written us a song to see us out. It's about time I have it that happened this week. Me
Gabbi Bolt 33:10 basically Yes, the Melbourne Cup happened this week. And I I've never really supported the Melbourne Cup much in my life ever. Except when I was six and I wanted the pony. But I saw that another horse died this week sorry this is sounding old very Simpsons funeral mochi. But I went and wrote this song so I've come up with a solution. I've come up with a solution that I think will please literally everyone, sports lovers, arts people, broke students like myself, everyone's happy with this so I hope you hope the government somehow hear this and hear me out. It's shameful to think as a nation we drink and celebrate the Melbourne Cup. We place all our bets hold back champagne intense while a horse coughs up along televised in disguise to the nation as a classy and fancy occasion. But instead of a whole scopes competition, here's what I'm thinking, Oh, why don't we just race the spec Titans. Check him on the Flemington track. Let them keep their fancy fascinators if they run the whole lap, I want to see you know rail who's missing his shoes and Darrell who's on his 12th glass of booze step up to the plate something nation to race for the Melbourne Cup. And I'm not saying we should change the whole damn thing. They'll still be real monetary stakes on who we think we should when school kids will dress up because they dedicated we add a spare cup to the most neighbour. Yeah. I mean, I'm not one for sports. But one thing I know I watch the shit out of that show race the spectators make them run for the big prize and if someone's breaks a leg that aren't have to be euthanized. Time for an equine intervention bringing in a new kind of athletic content. I think it would be more fun for the spectators to run in the Melbourne Cup. Yes swap the horse hooves for heels make the rich really squeal for the Melbourne Cup yes say no to horse cruelty cuz the spectators should be
Unknown Speaker 35:32 very I feel very passionate about it just off of the climate change act goes live on Monday I'll bring in my rich people should run the funding contract.
Dan Ilic 35:42 Jingle for climate change. Evie has got you. Please thank Gabby both Lewis hobas semi Shah zali steggall Thank you very much everyone. Do you have anything to plug Gabby? You wanna plug anything?
Unknown Speaker 35:54 I have music from two years ago on Spotify. Very useful. I it's okay. That's there. But apart from that nothing
Dan Ilic 36:02 follow Gabby on tik tok and Twitter semi Shah Do you ever need to plug
Sami Shah 36:06 my comedy albums are still on this Alisha? eg@emi.com you can buy those if you were searching
Dan Ilic 36:14 zali steggall I was feeling I know what you're gonna plug
Zali Steggall 36:18 he could go the climate now.com donate you both in support the climate act.
Dan Ilic 36:24 Excellent. And let us How about what are you plugging?
Lewis Hobba 36:27 a Nazi Russia I'm on holidays next week. On the show. I guess I'm just plugging yam but I'm going to Yeah, you're never been there. You're in Yeah, but say hello.
Dan Ilic 36:37 big thank you to ride bikes, the birth of foundation go nutro Our Patreon subscribers Kilian David David bluestein Maddy Palmer our discord community for a great chunk suggestions this week also want to thank Russell Crowe roupa de gas, and of course our post producer Jacob round of the tepanyaki timeline Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Good night.
You've got to make emissions to reduce emissions - Adam Bandt, Lizzy Hoo, Geraldine Quinn, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic - 25th Sept 2020
00:44:26
🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/If you want to support the podcast and take your car carbon neutral, with GoNeutral here: http://bit.ly/GoNeutralInterview: Adam BandtGeraldine QuinnLizzie HooLewis Hobbaand Dan IlicInside the Minister for Emissions Reductions office, everyday is 'opposite day.'As the saying goes:You've got to make emissions, to reduce emissions.You have to do something, by doing nothing.The only way to create emissions free hydrogen is by using greenhouse gas.The only way to encourage renewable energy is to defund renewable energy.We're living in very strange time. The rest of the world is aggressively moving to a carbon free future. China is set to decarbonise their economy by 2060. Next year at COP26 every country will be taking plans to go further, and ratchet up mechanisms for further emissions reductions, because the Paris agreement isn't going to cut it.Net 0 emissions by 2050 is no longer the big ambition, it's the status quo. A few countries will be going in hard to do even more. Leading, in other words.And when the world is doing this, where is that leaving Australia?Australia is the Shore School of the world. Outwardly rich, entitled, antagonistic, and going around spitting on poor people and taking photos of its penis on things to win points with mates, Saudi Arabia, and the USA.Instead of doing the work: transitioning the economy to a carbon free future.We're burning more gas - to lower emissions?Gaslighting figuratively and literally.DanThanks:Big thanks to The Bertha Foundation, our Patreon Supporters and RODE Mics. Jacob Round, Kate Holdsworth, Rupert Degas and David Bloustien.
We’re gearing up for a big 10-week season of weekly A Rational Fear Podcasts — but before we hit full steam, enjoy this chat with one of Australia's most prominent satirical broadcasters.
We also speak with NASA Scientist and Climate Activist: Peter Kalmus
This is a big discussion about civil disobedience and what actions may or may not work when it comes to shaking up the narrative of climate action. Dan also pushes Charlie on how he covers climate, and his thoughts on reaching the ABC audience.
Dan Ilic 0:00 G'day, welcome to A Rational Fear, another special episode of A Rational Fear light as I call it's not the full A Rational Fear. It's just a slimmed down version that is the least amount of effort to make to maintain your Patreon support. That's all it is. That's what we're doing. And we've got a great guest, Charlie Pickering needs no introduction, but I'll give you one in a second. Anyway, here we go. I'm recording my end of A Rational Fear on Gadigal Land of the Eora Nation. sovereignty with never ceaded, we need a treaty. Let's start
Simon Chilvers 0:29 the show. A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, and gum and section 40 of our A Rational Fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 0:43 Tonight the CEO of Star City casino says that even though the casino license has been revoked, customers will still be allowed to leave their kids in their car unsupervised. And Kanye West agrees to buy in principle, Paula and I agree in principle to not buy anything from Kanye West. And in a shocking misstep, Scott Morrison has signed up to a speaker's bureau initially wanted to sign up to a meandering rant bureau. Instead, it's the 19th of October. And this is A Rational Fear
Welcome to A Rational Fear I'm your host, former president of China, Dan Xi Ping and joining us onA Rational Fear light is the host of Foxtel's The Mansion it is Charlie Pickering.
Charlie Pickering 1:39 That's great. It's great that some remember by some
Dan Ilic 1:42 people that worked on the show is of that show? Yeah, it was great. Don't Charlie, one of the best moments in show business in my life. I was having lunch with you in Manly one day, and you saying, Hey, man, I've got a show coming up. Do you want to come and work on it? And I'm like, yeah, that's my chili peppers, my cherry picker impression.
Charlie Pickering 2:02 It's pretty accurate. It's pretty
Dan Ilic 2:04 good. Don't often I don't often do
Charlie Pickering 2:09 more of them come and be
Dan Ilic 2:13 waiting here by chamber impression. It's great. Yeah, I don't often do my impressions to the people who do the impressions of
Charlie Pickering 2:20 it shows extreme confidence when that's your absolute confidence with an impression used to do it to the person.
Dan Ilic 2:27 I did do my Andrew Denton impression to him at a rap party once on the microphone. And it was it went down. Well, I think Andrew was like, that doesn't? That doesn't sound like me at all. What do you what do you try it? Like? Why are you implying that I make people cry? Yeah. Hey, thanks for joining us on irrational fear. Charlie. I really appreciate I've been meaning to get you on for a long time. But you, you know, one of the busiest man in showbiz. You're like the James Brown of Australian comedy showbiz.
Charlie Pickering 2:55 Hopefully, you're talking purely about work ethic and not
Dan Ilic 2:58 talking about your work. busiest man in China,
Charlie Pickering 3:01 yes, well, I think I've done I've done very well to cultivate the image of busyness. And I think that's been probably the greatest achievement of my career. So far. Everyone thinks that I've got a lot on
Dan Ilic 3:12 Yeah, tell us easier. It's perception at a distance, you've done a great job. That's right. I kind of wanted to get you on because you're, you're always thinking about the big issues, and you kind of have to as a person who runs a inflammation refinery that is the weekly. And with a lot of the civil disobedience stuff that's been happening around climate, I thought it might be good to have a little chat with you about about your thoughts on it, and how, as someone who runs an inflammation distillery, the weekly, how you go about covering climate, like, you know, the weekly has been on for so many years now. And you've covered it in so many ways. How, let me ask you, first of all, how do you think about approaching climate stories, because it's a story that just keeps on going? I don't
Charlie Pickering 3:55 think we do it a lot. Because we do it with a philosophy of, we want to change minds that need to be changed. And if you actually wade into every single argument about climate change, based on every rhetorical thing that a conservative politician has said, or every single story that enters the news, you scream about it. People will stop listening to you and you end up changing no minds at all people stay in their positions. And it's it's funny, I've always tried to find unique arguments against the prevailing rhetoric of the conservative side of the climate change argument, I'd say conservative, it's not as the opposite of conservative because it's destructive. Like it's not conserving anything. But you know, the more fossil fuel driven side of the the, the political debate, and so the yardstick we measure our stuff by is Could someone with an open mind, have their mind made up by this, or are we just preaching to the choir voted and driving away the converted.
Dan Ilic 5:02 Are we at a point now in in climate discourse where that feels like a, I feel like that's a eight year old argument. And right now you as someone with a platform on the ABC, and you might not be changing the mind of the 65 year old demographic who watches the ABC, but you have this enormous platform to change the minds of people who are actually in power to actually inform an electorate in a way that can pressure them to put pressure on the government to do more to, you know,
Charlie Pickering 5:29 push it. It's interesting that you say that, because if you have a look at the last federal election, in Australia, and this is all through an Australian lens, the threat to the conservative power base was less what labour said or the green said, and more about the fact that the penny dropped in places like KU Yan, that that one of their priorities was climate change. And they affected an electoral change. Now, I live just down the road from Google. And I know those people will. And I know that screaming at them was never going to make up their mind that but a rational argument, and an irrational understanding of things is what made them prioritize climate change at the ballot box. Yeah. And it's, it's just interesting, it's just a matter of approach because I'll be really honest, I know my demographic at the ABC. They're not on tick tock. You know, what, around 1% of my viewing audiences on Twitter 1%,
Dan Ilic 6:33 that's it. Yeah.
Charlie Pickering 6:34 I mean, or at least that was what I was told, when I started the network. And they said, Hey, don't worry about what people are saying about you on Twitter. But if we're going to survive this, and if we're going to make the changes, we need to as a society, I think it's a multi pronged approach. And I think it's understanding where your audience is, and what changes you can affect in that audience. Now, I don't know how you get on truth, social, and convince them that climate change is real. But I've got a pretty good instinct for the the television audience of the national broadcaster. And the fact that maybe it's not about making someone believe that climate change is real. But maybe it's it's been about convincing people that climate change has to move up their list of electoral priorities and determine what they do at the ballot box. And I think to candidates being elected, has been one of those things that has taken climate action into the realm of actual possibility.
Dan Ilic 7:41 Yeah, I agree with you there. And that's something our audience knows a lot about. We've been closely following those campaigns for two years. Now. What about you know, when you're holding when you've got this platform? Do you? Do you consider yourself a part of journalism, in a sense to hold governments to account to do more on action on climate? Dude, do you have that perspective?
Charlie Pickering 8:04 I do. But more than that, I feel that I have an opportunity to hold media to account. Because a lot of the way my show works, and to be honest, it's the technical comedy construction that the Daily Show achieved. And we've all kind of followed that path of taking all the clips that are on all the TV and telling the story based on what people are seeing on TV. And so for me, you can get at a you can get a good rhetorical argument rather than being angry, say at a Conservative government for being in a pocket of fossil fuels, which there is no surprise to that. And no joke I can come up with about it is new. But picking on Kashi on breakfast TV, for yelling at climate protesters that stop traffic for 15 minutes, and showing how he's actually the unreasonable one in the conversation. That, for me is more fertile ground. Now admittedly, the ABC audience don't need to be told that Kashi isn't the barometer of intelligent conversation. But
Dan Ilic 9:14 by using media to tell the story, you actually have a shortcut to the audience because the audience knows what you're talking about because the audience is engrossed in that space as well.
Charlie Pickering 9:23 That's right. I think the media has to change as much as governments need to change. Well, I know myself, crikey, Barnaby Joyce came on my show to sell a book and suffered through the most excruciating interview of his political career. And he's had some doozies. Right. And that taught me that politicians need the media probably more than the media needs politician, head of
Dan Ilic 9:49 the weather board and iron ore the Winterboard nine go by the way, it books out do we know?
Charlie Pickering 9:55 I'm not sure how it's sold. But I will say most of the conversation was more about His family situation, that his his particularly moving memoir. So what what I think is important there is if you can change what is normal in the media, you then change the way that politicians have to interact with the media. And so I think there is there is benefit to holding the media to account as much as you hold politicians to account. Because the media at the end of the day lasts longer than governments. They shape things over a longer period of time. They are if you're angry that politicians are in the pocket of donors, or TV networks, or in the pockets of sponsors far more than you'd like. And they're open about it. Like they will invent a TV show with cold supermarkets once you do invent a TV show
Dan Ilic 10:44 I've seen on the block recently, like them putting gas the episodes without putting gas in the kitchen, and then it cuts through an ad for green gas.
Charlie Pickering 10:54 Yeah. And it's Yeah, which is once again, I mean, we need to have a stern chat with the team at the block of moving away from guests as well. I believe that the problem is so big and so urgent. And the consequences are so dire. It takes a really multi pronged approach to shifting the needle and into to actually changing mindsets over time. And it's interesting at my school, there's a parents group that they have discussions about climate change, and how to talk about climate change with family members who perhaps don't consider it that much of a priority. And that's a very different thing to me picking on Kashi, which is different to someone supergluing their hand to the road, or throwing soup on a Van Gogh, it's all part of the same picture, which is getting the consciousness of the world to move far enough that we can we can actually save the day.
Dan Ilic 11:50 What do climate protesters have to do to cut through to the mainstream? Who What do they need to glue their hand to to really capture Australia's attention? Is there a painting with us with that people will pay attention to in Australia a set Nolan backups?
Charlie Pickering 12:04 I was gonna say Sydney No, that is Ned Kelly is probably, you know, you could throw spaghetti at a Brett Whiteley. He could throw spaghetti at a pro heart. No one had noticed. But um, um, but it's, it's like. So here's the thing. I'm not 100% Convinced that throwing soup on a Van Gogh achieves much beyond being in the news bulletin that night or being a clip on Twitter. Now, that might not be the most popular opinion. But I know that my parents would never look at that and go, do you know what I really think I need to have a think about climate change. I think the protests that have been the most persuasive have been, I think the mass protests with parents and kids and you know, multigenerational peaceful street protests that get more probably more minutes or the same number of minutes on the news. But what they show is an image of regular people, families, multi generations, and hopefully people that look like the viewer concerned enough about this to get out and spend their time and effort marching? I know, that's just one form of protest. But I still find that the most persuasive I still think the peaceful civil rights marches of the 60s, were the most persuasive. Not that I think they necessarily achieved the end of the Confederacy. You know, I think we're, you know, I think it was Fran Lebowitz, who said, I'm sick of all these articles about, we need to find out what Trump voters want. She said, we know what they want, they want the fucking Confederacy. Let's stop listening to it. But um, I do think that there's lots of different forms of protest. I think the ones that interests me the most are the ones that actually persuade people to change their priorities. Well, I know that my parents would see someone throw soup on a Van Gogh, and think I'm not going to listen to their position. Now, my parents are older. But I don't think you have to convince that many people under 30 that climate change is real and we need to do something serious about it
Dan Ilic 14:19 do XR, protesters need to throw soup on David Koch. Is this what you're saying?
Charlie Pickering 14:24 I mean, I think of more soup on cash policy across the board. He's probably wise. And he'd love it. It's zany. It's wacky. It's a fun way to start the day. I don't know I guess. I've taken an approach in my broadcast career, to try to speak to the broader like the largest number of people I can and hopefully change minds because because I actually think the audience that I have with the ABC is a really important one. It's like Gen X and above. And let's be honest Gen X and above the one ones keeping the old way of doing things in the game. And you have to convince them to let go, you know, like the tail independents, and all of that. You have to convince them to shift their priorities in some way. Now, Gen X is hard because they've got young kids at the moment, and they're under slept. And it's hard for them to care about anything except getting to bed. But I do think, and it's not pretty, and it's not spectacular in their own photos of it. But it's that changing in priorities of people that I think is, is really important. And so it's funny, I've found I think, Greta tunberg is persuasive to those people beyond the right wing commentariat. I don't think anyone actually, I think I think most people are inspired by Greta tunberg. And a young person being that organized and responsible and articulate about something so important. And it's funny. The reason I think she's really persuasive is a bunch of people of the age and demographic that you need to convince go on. That's like my daughter, but my daughter's never organized a global climate protest. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. You know, there's a girl at my daughter's school who can play the flute without reading the music. I thought that was impressive. But now look at what Greta tunberg parental competitiveness,
Dan Ilic 16:21 you see what you could be doing, Jenny, you could be out there glaring at Donald Trump. But here you are playing Minecraft. I totally agree with you. I think young folks are so inspiring in this conversation. And we have our own in Australia, like Anjali Sharma, also, Jean Hinchcliffe and those young school strikes strike. It's just so inspiring and so articulate. It's one of those things where I go, well, they may not be a person that has power, like literal power, but they have a certain level of soft power that they can use, and they're using it with great effect. I think Anjali Sharma is on q&a this week. And that's so great. She's such an incredible, incredible voice, incredibly well read, credibly well spoken and just absolutely destroys people in her wake.
Charlie Pickering 17:11 But in the interest of balance, we also have to find a persuasive barrel of oil to speak against.
Dan Ilic 17:20 The sad thing about Kayla bond is it and now he's a middle aged man that he can no longer be the voice of young consider young conservatives.
Charlie Pickering 17:28 Yeah, I'm not sure if there is a rebrand available to the young conservative movement that will that will capture enough numbers to shift the needle, you know,
Dan Ilic 17:38 well, Charlie, you have very interesting thoughts. As a high and mighty TV host sitting in your ivory tower, the AVC pontificating about how the best this actually works in the ground in theory, but what if I told you we're about to speak with someone who does it for real, and is actually a NASA scientist,
Charlie Pickering 17:59 then I would withdraw everything I've said up until now.
Dan Ilic 18:02 Well, I'm very excited to have Peter columnist on the show. He is a climate scientist. He's worked at NASA. He is a bit of a master when it comes to civil disobedience and climate hate. You have done incredible work in your own space, not only as a climate scientist, but as an activist trying to raise attention for the climate emergency. What we're seeing now seems to be this incredible momentum of more people acting out in civil kind of in in civil society. But there's been so much kind of interesting conversation around whether it's appropriate or not. So, Peter, is it right to be civilly disobedient? Is this correct?
Peter Kalmus 18:41 Yeah, for me, it's common sense to fight as hard as I can for this planet. I mean, everything. food, air, water, like kids, friends, everything I love. Beautiful ecosystems depends on this planet being healthy. And I've been fighting for 16 years before I tried civil disobedience. And you know, there was a little motion in the movement over that time, especially once some Greta and the youth started doing climate strikes, but it's going to slow as a climate scientist I am. It's cold read, I am desperate. So I am desperate. And then when I did civil disobedience is very mild form of civil disobedience. So I want to push back against this notion that I'm somehow like the king. It was pretty low risk. You know, I'm a white guy. I just changed myself to a door. You know, 100 cops showed up in riot gear, we have to go viral. I gave a really impassioned speech for speech in the heart that I hadn't prepared at all in advance. I just was saying what I was feeling and that helped to go viral too. So it's really important when doing these acts, if you can speak with your genuine emotions, just be authentically you and get a camera on you while you're in a middle of the action. That can be really really powerful. But yeah, it's the the outcome of the civil disobedience was like a million times more impactful than any thing I tried before I tried civil disobedience. So to me, it's really clear that the movement should keep doing it. We don't need every single person on the movement doing civil disobedience, we could use a damn sight more than, but we do need more civil disobedience. And we need a lot of advocates, you know, activists who aren't necessarily putting themselves at great risk, but they are going into board meetings, and they're speaking out and they're speaking truth to power, and they're maybe risking their jobs a little bit to tell the truth about the climate emergency. And, you know, we can't we're not going to carbon offset our way out of this.
Dan Ilic 20:30 There's this incredible kind of pushback from people saying you shouldn't pour soup over Van Gogh's. But it seems to be that this kind of civil disobedience is really cutting through with with a large bunch of, of media all around the world, we've seen so many people going up to artworks gluing their hands to them, kind of being in the being in front of things that people love, it seems that that is like a real key way to kind of cut through and get a headline. Whereas Pete, we've we've kind of been ignoring this, this essential part of the of the discourse in kind of climate activism, do you see that as a reasonable way of protesting,
Peter Kalmus 21:09 solving climate change, it's going to take radical change at almost every level of society, because our entire society runs on burning fossil fuels, things are going to have to get a little bit impolite. And if you're clutching pearls, just because a couple of teenagers throw some soup at a painting and don't even damage it one bit. If that's like your level of like, that's all you can take that I think that reveals that you have a real problem, honestly. So yeah, things are gonna get real on the climate movement, a lot of stuffs not gonna get good, not going to be popular. But maybe people should take their anger at the world leaders who haven't been doing jack shit and the fossil fuel industry, which is what's causing this because they're taking fossil fuel money. So don't direct the anger, the activist direct to world leaders who are destroying our planet.
Dan Ilic 21:57 I think it's so interesting. Like in Australia, there have been some laws passed recently where you can go to jail for two years for interrupting the infrastructure that moves fossil fuels. And so people are moving away from people are very heavily discouraged from doing that kind of civil disobedience. So moving into the galleries and into, you know, lauded spaces where beautiful works of art, to, to glue their hands to a Picasso is this new expression of the same thing, which probably generates so much more headlines, but like we've seen in Australia, the people who have done that have actually been charged with anything, do you think we'll see more civil disobedience in places where well around things that people are actually in love with rather than infrastructure moving fossil fuels?
Peter Kalmus 22:45 That's a great question. I don't really know where the movements gonna go. But I know, one thing I've learned over 16 years of doing climate activism is that the movement does move, like it's actually a very good word for what it is because it never stays still. It's constantly evolving in response to sort of like where the culture is at, right? And it's got to constantly be pushing the limits of social norms. But yeah, you can't if you do civil disobedience, in jail, and not a single person knows about it. You've basically wasted your you have these like cards, you can play these, he's risking actions you can take, well, you got a certain number of arrests that you can play, and you don't want to waste him. So you have to people do have to know about it. So So yeah, people say, Oh, it's a media stunt. And those are the trolls that are trying to discredit the activist, but that's just the way it works. You You know, if an activist falls and gets put into handcuffs, and no one hears it, did it really happen? As far as changing? As far as social impact? It absolutely did not happen. So we do need media.
Charlie Pickering 23:54 So Peter, can I ask you, because I'll say that my response to for what desperate one of a better term attacks on paintings, but I feel conflicted in the in the way that it makes me feel when I see it. I understand that you get media attention when you throw spaghetti at a painting. But I wonder if you actually achieve a change in people's understanding or a change in people's outlook for those people that, you know, they do their recycling, and they think they're contributing, you know, the people in the middle that aren't really paying attention to it properly yet. I understand you might get on the news a lot. But do you actually change any minds?
Peter Kalmus 24:39 That's a great, great question. I admit, when I first saw the action, I was I was actually young, and I couldn't really I was so busy that I couldn't tweet for many hours. And when I first saw it, I was shocked as well. And I was like, I wonder how this is gonna play out. And then I saw the comments and they were all like, 99% of them were really negative, but somehow Over the course of the day, I was thinking about it. And I came to the conclusion that it was actually a pretty brilliant action. And I think that it's too early to say, I could be completely wrong about that. And a lot of people are telling me, I'm completely wrong about that. But that's my instinct. And so far in this movement, my instinct has been pretty good. You have to understand that action in the broader context of the movement. And you have to understand how the media has been holding back the movement and how it's been holding back climate action, what you need to, I think what's gonna start happening, and this action in the context of many other actions, well, it's they're all chipping away at media narrative. And the media narrative has to understand the truth, which is that these are young people that are terrified for their lives. They're terrified for their future. And they're trying their best to let that message get out to the public. But they don't always know how to do it. And they're trying this. They're trying that maybe something doesn't go on the news at all. Maybe something does go on the news for every civil disobedience act by 20, something that you hear about, there's probably 1000 That you didn't hear about.
Dan Ilic 26:05 They're like velociraptors, in a cage, testing out the fence to find the weakest part of the fence is this, what is this what I'm hearing?
Peter Kalmus 26:14 I wish I wish they had that much politics. And I think we're telling the story, like it's a genuine emergency, and we're not sure how to get that to happen. There's a very small minority of us, I think that fully appreciate what an emergency that we're really in. And you're right, the moderates, the people who think that you know, recycling is kind of enough, maybe they buy an electric vehicle. It's not clear how so basically the in their minds, the narrative that they have, it's very comfortable narrative, right? That they basically don't have to change their way of lives that they're not going to have to give anything up. Business as usual can continue. And we'll just put up a few solar panels by have a few more EVs recycle a little bit harder, and everything's gonna be fine. I don't think the climate science justifies that viewpoint. I think that we look at the flooding in Pakistan, a third of the country underwater, I'm really worried that we're going to start seeing what you could call mega heat waves, you know, where maybe 100,000 People die in one Heatwave, maybe even more than that, you have to understand that these trends are going up year on year, all of these trends in their system that should be flat, like temperatures, they're going up every single year. So he so it's not like, you know, some some scientists, really popular ones used to say this is the new normal. And I that used to drive me crazy. So I pushed against that because it's not the new normal. We haven't like gone to a worse place. And we're sitting there now if it's worse place. It's like an escalator to a hellish earth that we're on. And I don't think the public understands those the nature of those trends and the nature of irreversibility of this yet, I've been trying to get them understand that for 16 years. Civil disobedience isn't perfect. Some people hate us for it. I think those people are probably the people that weren't really going to be there. We're going to be holding back things, no matter what is what I'm thinking. So and it's gonna play out with
Dan Ilic 28:05 Pete as an artist, I have to say, loosely, calling comic comedy and art, as an artist have to say, well, you know, Van Gogh's dead, what does he care? You know, he's gone. He's already got the headlines, you know, there's plenty of scans of that painting somewhere else. Pete, thank you so much for joining us on A Rational Fear. Really appreciate your time. I know you only had a few minutes to join us. Thank
Unknown Speaker 28:24 you so much. Great to meet you, Charlie. Always good to talk to
Unknown Speaker 28:26 you. Great to meet you, Peter.
Unknown Speaker 28:28 Well, Charlie, Wasn't it great to talk with Peter commerce?
Unknown Speaker 28:30 Absolutely. And actually a lot of food for thought. It's interesting. I'd love to hear what Kashi has to say to.
Dan Ilic 28:41 Charlie, thanks for joining us on A Rational Fear. I'm sorry, it's taken so long to get you on the show. And that I did have the appropriate mug that I stole from, from a from a Sydney office of the of the ABC with the weekly it's it's it's it's one of my high prize to show Bismark I'm so touched.
Charlie Pickering 28:56 I'm so sorry that that I've only got my best dead ever mug which my wife made featuring Art Garfunkel and that's lovely. That's fantastic. It's a pretty great. My wife and I make, like get mugs made for each other quite regularly. But that's an absolute cracker.
Dan Ilic 29:18 Do you identify as a member of Gen X? Yeah, I do. Thank you for taking time out of your busy parenting schedule to join us. You have
Charlie Pickering 29:29 no idea. It's um, yeah, it's it's not easy. The struggle is real.
Can satire change the world? Never. Can satire be more powerful than journalism? Doubtful. Can satire be journalism? Probably not.
Australia's top satirists will ask themselves these questions and come up with the same answers during a special live event from A Rational Fear and JNI.
In this episode of A Rational Fear some of Australia's most available smart arses wrangle with their (questionable) career choices and take a deep dive into satire's ability to replace journalists at half the price.
Featuring cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, Dylan Behan (Newsfighters), Jan Fran (The Project), Ben Jenkins (The Feed), Lewis Hobba (Triple J), and Dan Ilic (A Rational Fear).
Dan Ilic 0:00 Dan Ilic here with a pre show announcement to let you know that if you missed out on tickets to the opera house show for our 10 years of irrational fear, you can listen to it now it's on the irrational fear Patreon. So go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear, become a member and you'll see the post there. The audio is a little dodgy because the recording was recorded at quite a high level. So unfortunately, the really loud music of Paul McDermott we had to cut out but the good news is we're going to try and get him on a nother live show next month, so you'll be able to hear that right here on the free fade podcasts, I think. Yeah, so go to irrational fear.com forward slash patreon to hear our 10 years of irrational fear live show live from the Sydney Opera House. It was astonishing. And let me just say Louis hubbers rant about the Queen's Jubilee was something else. It'll make you feel extremely patriotic. Right now. However, you're going to listen to an incredible live show we did at the Judith Nielsen Institute for journalism and ideas about a month ago, about two weeks before the federal election. This was a show loosely about satire versus journalism. I think it was called The joke is mightier than the pen. And we had some of the best satirist in Sydney. Join us on stage to discuss whether comedy or satire is better than journalism right there in the home the crucible of Australian journalism, which is the Judith Nielsen Institute. So please enjoy this live show. If you were a member of the Patreon you probably would have seen the video of this about a month ago. So as he does this thing you get these live shows a little before everyone else. So please go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to get early access to our live shows and our special events. All right, catch you later. We're at the Judith Nielsen Institute. It's beautiful. I'm recording my end of irrational fear I'm gonna go out to the urination. Sovereignty was never said we did a treaty. Let's stop the show.
Simon Chilvers 2:00 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, and gum and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:13 Tonight satirists declare themselves so important they don't actually have to be funny. Journalists declares themselves hilarious after putting 10 Dog pugs in a story about hot dogs. If you can wait a Walkley for a wacky headline where's the Walkley for most scathing Trump impression it's 15 days since the next sales 15 days until the next federal election Saturday stadion punch lines, this is irrational fear.
Lewis Hobba 2:42 And such natural cheers.
Dan Ilic 2:59 Putting this in putting your cheese in context, Louis and I just did a show the billboard International Comedy Festival in front of 800 people and it was slightly slightly we were used to a slightly different level of cheering
Lewis Hobba 3:11 every person here is worth 100 Melbournian
Dan Ilic 3:15 Welcome to a rational fee on your host former host of CBS his Late Late Show Dan Ilic. And this is irrational fear live at the Judith Nielsen Institute
where we'll be asking the question, is the joke mightier than the pen open open brackets? Probably not close brackets question mark. All right now we've put together a Supreme Team of Sydney's satirist to ask this question or to answer this question and what a team it is the very fact that Sydney has like five employed satirists is astonishing. It says a lot about the political comedy industrial complex, doesn't it? Let's meet our female guest tonight. They are a writer, performer, director and podcaster currently slinging topical jokes at the mainstream media from the bastion of the mainstream media. It is SBS is Ben Jenkins What is it like to be so anti authority but being a part of the authority
Ben Jenkins 4:13 tremendously ironic? I'm really digging into my Amicus roots by producing satire with government money
Dan Ilic 4:23 and we've got a three time Walkley award winning cartoonist who has jokes his sharpest pencil it's Kathy Wilcox friend of the show have you killed anyone with your with your pencil before?
Cathy Wilcox 4:41 Look just bugs I guess. infest the scanner and things like that a little wild corruption. Oh, that's
Lewis Hobba 4:50 when the radical loony kills a duck a day
Dan Ilic 4:59 and there are comedy created purveyor of wacky clips former Chase aired and the creator of the topical comedy podcasts of news fighters is Dylan Bane Dylan You're a faceless man of satire. How does that feel to have your face out here for once? I've never had this many people in my edit suite in my life. Walkley award winning opinion as to has risen to the heights of becoming one of Australia's greatest ever smart officers. It's Jan January you're at the top now you're Australia's number one smart is what makes me do
Jan Fran 5:35 you know, I just want to just create human like God like a God, just that sort of thing. I'm the spontaneous flatulence part of just FYI. So you're in for
Dan Ilic 5:49 and he's the host of Triple J drive. But what sets him apart on this panel is that he is a taller, cheaper Andrew Denton, Lewis Lewis, thanks for being Andrew Denton on this pedal.
Lewis Hobba 6:02 Thank you. Yeah, I'm the only Andrew Denton who shows up to events and 20
Ben Jenkins 6:07 if I if I get Andrew Johnson went into the machine with the fly, but it was there was a drop in.
Lewis Hobba 6:13 Not I'm not in the category of COVID. So he sends me out of his body. Does
Dan Ilic 6:18 everyone give COVID to limit your immune right now? All right, great. Now tonight as a panel, we as well as you were going to decide on this answer on the question. If jokes are better than journalism, it is a bit of a hard one. But all of us has an important role in this room. Because at the end, we're going to take a poll and then we're going to put it on this sheet which Kathy has designed and then we're going to mail it to the Governor General and it will be then sent to royal assent and we've even got
Unknown Speaker 6:58 Royal Assent
Lewis Hobba 7:05 with damping Seto to me I was like I don't know what Royal Assent Was anyone else don't know what royal was
Ben Jenkins 7:10 like don't worry the sound will fix Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 7:12 Okay side of royal decent.
Ben Jenkins 7:16 The office to get to a throne.
Dan Ilic 7:19 Rolled to said isn't that Prince Andrew? We've actually got our very own special postie. posi. Sarah is here. She's going to take take whatever we decide tonight and mail it direct to the Governor General. It's very exciting. All right. Now before we get into the nitty gritty, I just want to talk to you a little bit about news consumption in Australia. We've done a visit very research heavy, this part of the show. Now first of all, there's some pretty interesting things that are happening with media consumption in Australia right now. And it's all got to do with those damn meddling kids. In 2020, a survey of young people found that social media outrank their family and friends as television as their main source of news. Now this statistic isn't surprising. We all know that young people can't get enough of their damn phones. But when you put it in context of the bigger picture, you can see just how online as a news source has grown across generations with newspapers in the top three news sources for only the pre Boomer generation. That is crazy. Oh, that's older than Lewis. That is pretty astounding effect in 2020. For the first time, online news sources outranked all the other forms of news in terms of consumption for Australians, and also young folks, for the first time, I actually setting the agenda as to how those new sources are being influenced in Australia, which is super interesting. There was no kind of greater moment for satire. I think, though the power of satire. Then, when Facebook turned off the taps to news in Australia, I don't know if you remember this is this is on their platform in 2021. That was about 300 years ago. I think there are people in this room who weren't even born then. In case you don't remember, we made this handy explainer to remind you just what happened.
Rupert Murdoch 9:10 So why isn't there any news on your Facebook news feed and here's a quick explainer by me Rupert Murdoch left hand on general of the News Corp and assorted expeditionary forces. Now, Mark Zuckerberg owns a website, Facebook, and Google owns a website called Google's and their websites own the data of all Australians who use it, which means they know what you want before you do. They're really good at selling advertising. I own a newspapers that are really bad at selling advertising. And those newspapers own the Australian Government and the Australian government makes laws so one day on a whim I thought Geez Louise with bad at selling air, everyone 60 month interest free deals for electrical computers furniture, bedding and flooring from Harvey Norman. Some people want magnetic lashes mailings that make your bum pop and other. We have no idea. But then I said to myself, Rupert, you own a good government, just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe you can get them to force the blokes with the websites that are good at selling ads to give us money. Then I called the government to my house by private jet made them pay for it. And I said, Hello, government, man, I forget their names. If you still enjoy being the government, can you do this? And they said, We do still enjoy being the government boss. Yes. And yes, we can do that. Now the websites that are good at selling ads have to by law, give me money. And the best part about it, Googles and Facebooks give the money straight to me tax free, and we wouldn't have it any other way of why start paying tax now. Some journalists would say Oh, but there's no way to guarantee that money will be invested in New Journalism. Well, none of those journalists work for me. I don't hire. You may have noticed Facebook news is back. For now. Zuckerberg told the government is only going to pay us if he feels like it. Well, I respect that. At the end of the day, Facebook, Google and I all agree that we're not going to pay any money. Because why would you? There are a bunch of cowards.
Dan Ilic 11:59 So, what's this got to do with new satire? Well, on that day, seven out of the 10, top postings from websites on Facebook were news websites, some entertainment news, and there's a couple of satire in there too. But the very following day, nine out of the 10 links posted on Facebook, we're delivering news from satire sites, and the audience is young and you know it. Very lucky to have John here from the chaser. He is one of the one of the slaves of the chaser working for minimum wage fleeing jokes going around it boys tonight. So we got the tutor advocate makeup 12345, the top five The Chaser in six and seven in the budget advocate, and the only one website to not actually be satire in the top 10. On that day was the Penrith Panthers website. And that's arguable, that's arguable it's arguable that they don't satire. Yeah. Do they even exist? pretty astounding stuff there. For folks in the audience who don't know what is a particular advocate. It's like the onion in the outback. It's a satirical newspaper set in the outback. This is their front page for today. I really like this one about elbows latest gaff journalists trick questions backfires, as Alberto is able to name entire Rabbitohs 1971 grand final side. Very good. This is some other headlines from today. Channel Seven reveals Sonia Kruger will stay on after big brother to moderate next leaders debate. This is one from the from a few months back that I love bloke who regularly buys pictures of strangers in pub bathrooms not sure what's inside this vaccine. And this one good is always this one always rolls out whenever there's a bit of gun violence in America, Australia enjoys another peaceful day under the oppressive gun control regime. And of course, there's the chaser and the chaser has very kind of similar sort of deal on their, on their front page as well. Very funny stuff. And thankfully, Charles sent me Charles from the Chase has sent me this data about their audience. And it's pretty astounding to see, you know, 2534 35 to 44, all the way to 54. That's a huge chunk of the audience there. A bunch of those young people will start consuming the chaser and bitter at bat at their age and then continue on for years to come. But let's put it in comparison, the footprints of these kinds of websites to other mainstream media. So SBS who Ben works for on Instagram has 117,000 followers on SBS Instagram. At the very top you've got ABC News.
Lewis Hobba 14:40 Take that Ben vs loser for SBS.
Dan Ilic 14:47 ABC is Australia's most trusted news brand, that's for sure. Seven 789,000 followers on Instagram. Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to how many followers that are advocate head to toe, shaking it up two fellas, three and 1000
Jan Fran 15:05 approaching a male I
Dan Ilic 15:06 recommend reaching a mil anybody over a male 1.1 It is not under 50,000 followers. They are the biggest news brand on Instagram in Australia.
Lewis Hobba 15:17 And also they make a delicious beer.
Dan Ilic 15:24 Yeah, and also in terms of power of satire and kind of communicating ideas. A simple article like carbon capture and storage might get 25,000 clicks on ABC News. But when turned into interesting package with satire and jokes, with juice media, you can get close to a million. So satire reaches audiences. And I want to ask the fear mongers here tonight. Let's talk about it if a scoop falls in the forest, and no one is there to see it doesn't even exist. Do ratings matter here do cliques matter here?
Ben Jenkins 15:58 Well, as somebody from SPS, I have to say straight away, ratings don't matter. In fact, in fact,
I see ratings in a similar way to golf. The lower you get you win. I'm gonna go on to talk about this. In the little thing I'm talking about, I think when we talk about reach, we still have to talk about what that reach does. Because it's, you know, it's one thing to say, only certain people read this article, but heaps people saw this sketch. What what's it doing for those people? You know, what I mean? Like, like, what information is being conveyed? I'm not saying these things are completely devoid of information. But I am saying that, like, you know, what's the outcome there? Because from the creators point of view, those numbers are wackadoo Gray, like people are watching it, and they're being entertained by it, or at least they're sharing it. I hate watching whatever else, but like, to paraphrase, Tao carob, Derrick hanging from the castle, it's what you do with it, you know what I mean? Like, it's what, what's going on when people are ingesting? That is my question.
Lewis Hobba 17:01 Yeah. Like the, for example, the like, vaccine joke on the tutor about, you know, men who Beiping is in a bathroom, but won't take the vaccine that was like, you know, that was a great joke. Everyone made that joke at some point. And, but like, No, that is not helping, like you don't like if you sent that to an anti Vaxxer. They're just gonna be like, well, it's just funny, stern fucking joke. And like, don't get me wrong. It's not like you can send them a well reasoned argument that will do it either. But it's kind of like, I don't necessarily think that a satire, satire reaching an audience is the same as satire, teaching an audience and also
Ben Jenkins 17:35 as as an article like that article that languished on those low numbers like would have had one would hope it's ABC. So you know, it's gonna be good, like, a lot of interesting things that these people wouldn't necessarily have considered or heard. But yeah, I mean, I do think it's like, really interesting that like, this stuff has the cut through that it does. And I think it speaks to as much of the sort of skill and ability of the satirist as much as it does to the lack of talent in Australian media, not NSA. You know what I mean? Like, if this is, I think it's kind of going like that, if that makes sense.
Dan Ilic 18:09 Yeah, Jen, you make tons of viral kind of videos that go gangbusters. Do you ever dare to look at the analytics to see how long people have watched?
Jan Fran 18:17 That's all I'm doing? Yes, I think like it to answer the first question. If a scoop falls in the forest, no one hears it, like does it make a sound? Does it land anywhere? The short answer is not really until you need some kind of a baseline to try and decipher the new spectrum. So for example, you can say, oh, Sky News is over here. SBS is over here. Nobody watches either of those things. That doesn't really matter. But they're kind of
pretending Yeah, so I think the importance of of stories or news outlets to exist, even though they don't get a super high audience is just to be able to diversify, I suppose the media landscape, right, because we do have a diversity problem in terms of ownership rather than, you know, cultural or gender diverse.
Lewis Hobba 19:14 news.com we have the Australian and we have the Guardian male and the Herald. Plenty of news.
Dan Ilic 19:24 As a subscriber of the Sydney Morning Herald, I feel like sometimes I'm subsidizing your Twitter account.
Cathy Wilcox 19:31 You probably are. And I would say, you know, whether we whether what I do has cut through or not, is demonstrated by the fact that if I do things that are that are universally critical of the government, they love me. There's, you know, lots of retweets and lots of likes and all the rest of it. And then I do one cartoon about, you know, maybe elbows not not performing as well as he might. So I don't know if it's ringing anyone around. Less occasionally someone might say, okay, fair point, but mostly people. That's really unfair. I mean, the current changes I
Jan Fran 20:08 have water drops. Very, very
Ben Jenkins 20:11 often. It's the sort of other side of what you were saying Jen about, like, a diversified media and like, it's, obviously you want a range of views and the media is far more like, I don't mean ethnically diverse, although, I mean, that would be nice. I mean, like, you know, so it's not just one thing, but what comes from having all these little pockets is a siloing effect. And Twitter is really a good example of that where everybody's really solid on their own thing. And so the polarization there of like you making a relatively benign criticism of say the leader of Labour Party all of a sudden they just don't they don't get that from their own internal silos so they think what's happening, she's been turned.
Dan Ilic 20:57 The only time irrational fear has lost subscribers on Patreon across the month has been the day that we had Joe Hildebrand on so we can make fun of him to his face about new scopes turned to being a green environmental publication. We spent half an hour making jokes to Joe Hildebrand to his face about news Corp's track record on climate change.
Lewis Hobba 21:18 But I also think that is an interesting point in terms of like satire reaching an audience is because, like, for something like that, for instance, like we we don't make we don't make our living off irrational fear. So that's fine. Like we can go Lewis
Dan Ilic 21:32 Lewis doesn't make his living rational.
Lewis Hobba 21:36 Which is lucky because I think I'm about $1,000 in the hole to this podcast. But what all these delicious soft drinks and once again, I'm gonna cheat a bit us sponsoring my lifestyle. Nova like it means like in the future, you may not get your Hildebrand on, right? Because you can't afford to not have that or like there are plenty of satirical places, particularly places like a tutor or whatever, who again, make so much money from beer doesn't matter. But there if you if you are a freelance satirist, you can't afford to piss off your audience, though it's really interesting. It's also finished, which, whereas if you are a journalistic entity, if you're if you're part of a corporation that has some backbone, you actually have the money to fund that.
Jan Fran 22:22 Yeah, interesting. If you have some backbone? Yeah, that's the big question. This describes
Ben Jenkins 22:28 as the sub stack effect, which is, you know, that sub stack is like a newsletter service, basically, that allows you to really easily monetize,
Dan Ilic 22:35 you know, there are three people in this room who know exactly what.
Ben Jenkins 22:40 So basically, what happens is when when a journalist has a big following or columnist usually has been following, they go fuck this, I'm going to leave my outlet and go to substack get the money directly. And it's super easy to set up and your and your, your audience has to follow you. But what happens is because you're suddenly beholden, not to your editor, and not to your paper, but to the freaks, who give you money, it creates this crazy feedback loop where you start sort of writing more and more to please them and all of a sudden you have 20,000 bosses, and you see those numbers go up and down. So it's like this real time thing where it's like, is this what you want? Is this what you want? Is this what you want?
Dan Ilic 23:15 And let me know the 372 people that pay for rational fear and Patreon completely. Excellent. All right, ladies and gentlemen and other folks in the room, please give it up for Benji.
Unknown Speaker 23:28 Oh that was a great point.
Lewis Hobba 23:36 And stop talking ben Jenkins started.
Ben Jenkins 23:38 Yes, sir. Look, I'm a bit worried. Reading back over this as I was before you guys walked in that what follows is less an amusing sort of reflection on the nature of political satire and more a full blown mental breakdown. 10 years in the making, unleashed on a crowd who didn't ask for any of this. So please, bear with me because for over a decade in one form or another electron have worked for the chaser. That's where I started. I've worked in the field of political comedy, and only now having been asked to talk to you about it, do I reflect that I have no idea what it's for. And this troubles me and It troubles me. Because political comedy is a mode of comedy that unlike its less serious cousins in the sweeping halls of chuckle Manor seems to insist that it is in fact for something beyond the convenience of laughs goofs Japes, etc, from the comedian to the viewer, there's a worthiness to it inherent in the form that suggests that in the creation and ingestion of satire, something larger than entertainment is taking place. But here's the thing. Every time I try and articulate what that is, I start to sweat. Now there are two cliches that I've been carrying around in my head for the past decade that have been a comfort to me and they are this set. I can change minds where conventional journal journalism cannot, and satire holds the powerful to account. But when I hold these up, due to any kind of serious scrutiny, they fall apart now, just quickly, I just want to say for the purposes of this meltdown, I'm really only concerned with the kind of satire that hyperreactive news cycle style of political comedy, something happens in the world. And within a week, the satirist has released a piece on a week is actually quite long. You know, the headlines you saw there that was a day turn around the work that I do on the feed, that's four days. And whether that takes the form of a sketch or a comedian being serious behind a desk or a monologue or a cartoon or whatever giggle pot, we're putting our insights in and giggle pot is a technical term. So the reason I'm leaving out satirical novels, or films or TV shows is that they represent just a fraction of a fraction of comedy, political comedy currently being produced. And here in Australia, that fraction is basically a rounding error. And because it's really the only game in town, it's also where I've spent most of my career. So I feel qualified for a little mortified to reach the conclusion that when it comes to those two aims, the changing of minds and the holding of powerful to account, this ubiquitous style of political comedy is outside of the gratification of the maker and viewer. Useless. I also want to point out and I do feel this is very important in relation to you, not all hating me that what follows applies just as much to a lot of the stuff that I've produced in my career as it does to everybody else. So let's go Saturdaya changes minds. I want to ask you a question. When was the last time you changed your mind? About anything? No, what brand of home is to buy? Or what stocks to wear? That's something big something like how you feel about climate change, or what party you're vote for, or any of the handfuls of beliefs that make you you. This is an incredibly rare thing to happen to an adult. There's a really good book by an Australian philosopher called element Gordon Smith called stop being reasonable. And I read it a few years ago, and it planted this seed of doubt in my mind, that's the first question she asked in the book, when was the last time that you changed your mind? Because if this has happened to you, in the recent past, this kind of seismic shift in thinking on an issue that we're talking about here, I'll bet it was for something I'll bet it was because of something that happened to you, or to somebody you love, or a lengthy conversation you had, or just the long and boring chipping away at a premise until something just came loose. What I'm willing to bet didn't happen to you on the road to Damascus is that you watch the three minute sketch on the issue and completely changed your thinking. And there was a good reason why I'm skeptical about that. A lot of political comedy is terrible, like Voltaire's remark that the Holy Roman Empire wasn't holding or Roman nor an empire. The overwhelming majority of political comedy is neither political nor comedy. Topical satire has become in essence, the satire is saying the opposite of what they actually believe, but in a hat.
In order to enjoy most modern political comedy, you have to already be on board with the premise from the very start, the audience needs to know that the sadder is hates the people they hate, thinks the things that they think are stupid or stupid and likes the things that they like Tom Lehrer, some of you may know one of most famous satirists in America in the olden days, he had this to say of satire, he said, the audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. It is a deeply in curious way of processing the world around us. And what's more leaves zero chance that anyone who doesn't already think as you think will be persuaded that we're gonna be wrong here. I don't think for a moment that good satire reaches across the aisle and some sort of milk toast centrism. But what I am saying is that if we are going to have an endless churn of super partisan satire, where our ideological opponents are pantomime villains, we can also turn around and expect it to do anything but the mild titillation of the already faithful. And this is a point that I keep coming back to that modern political comedy is by its nature, deeply curious. I've said this in writings elsewhere, but one of I believe one of the only truly worthwhile things we can do with the time we're given on Earth is have a nice, long think about how that world works, and how we work and how the people in it work. Modern political comedy discourages that impulse in both the creator and the viewer stranding, both in an endless feedback loop of ever loud louder choruses of I know, right? I know, right? I know. Right? So let's just quickly move on to satire holds the powerful to account this gets repeated a lot. It's the breakfast is the most important meal of the day for political discourse. And it's a matter that I have to admit, I have been skeptical of for a while. One fairly obvious piece of evidence against this is that if the powerful truly were afraid of being held to account by satirical news programs that wouldn't voluntarily appear on quite so many of them. They wouldn't take to social media to share clips where they're lampooned accompanied by self effacing comment, like, not sure about this one, they wouldn't go they wouldn't go out of their way to get photos of themselves with the satirists. but many do. And obviously the satirist themselves were serious about business of holding these people to account they wouldn't pose for these photos. What we have is a relationship that looks less like say, look more like symbiosis than any kind of antagonism. And what's more, if it were true that a student mockery, incisive with the poison pen and all that was in fact a formidable weapon against tyranny, then given the abundance of both satire and tyranny, it shouldn't be difficult to find a real world example of this account holding taking place, but it is difficult, it's incredibly difficult, and why should they be afraid? I mean, the limits of satire as an agent of any kind of meaningful change are fairly well catalogued often by the satirist himself. To quote another long dead person when he founded the establishment Club in 1961. Peter Cook told reporters that he was hoping to modelled on those wonderful Berlin cabarets that did so much to stop the rise of Hitler. And speaking of Hitler, a segue that I really do try to avoid where possible. How did he feel about chaplains? Vicious skewering in The Great Dictator? Well, he fucking loved it. The man own two copies. And speaking about dictators, yeah. Wow. Speaking about dictators, there I go again. Donald Trump changed the satire calculation entirely. The Trump era despite breathless predictions did not prove a boon for the earnest desolating sent in America. A common explanation given was you can no longer ridicule politics because it itself had become so inherently ridiculous, in and of itself, that this was such a popular refrain always seemed faintly stupid to me, because it doesn't even intuitively passes true. Ridiculous, people are in fact quite easy to ridicule. It's right there in the name. But and here's the crucial point for ridicule to be enjoyable and satisfying. The party being ridiculed must be capable of shame. As crusty once said, The saps got to have dignity. It's often said that politicians are so hard to pin down post Trump is because we're living in a post truth universe. But that's gets it wrong. The universe we currently occupy is post shame. people who'd like to talk about the power of satire often invoke the Emperor's New Clothes where only a brave truth telling child is able to voice what the others won't. But the Emperor wears no clothes and the child has right the child, the crowd sees the truth of this and the Emperor is shamed. What Trump showed very clearly is that if the Emperor waits a second until the kid has set his pace, and then says, Yes, I do, actually, and then goes about his day with his cock and balls out a little shit doesn't really have a comeback.
In closing, there's one thing that satire can do. And it's offer the audience a kind of catharsis, to release of emotion of anger or frustration of rage. And while it feels good, but here's my question. Do we really want to be venting that stuff out into the ether isn't the pressure of those feelings, what drives people to make meaningful action to take that rage and focus it on organizing to effect meaningful material change? Because here's the thing, if all we're doing here is making stuff that makes us feel smart, for people who already agree with us with no real impact on those with whom we disagree on the targets of our idea, then all we're really doing is an act of self gratification. And all it really achieves is a kind of temporary, good feeling in the form of a release. And there is a word for that. Thank you. Ranking, ranking, ranking ranking.
Dan Ilic 33:22 I thought, well, that's strange.
Ben Jenkins 33:27 I couldn't find my mic.
Dan Ilic 33:31 Well, that's it for the show. So thanks very much for coming, everyone. That was really great. That was super, super good. Ben, I think about a lot of that stuff all the time. One of the rational fish shows we did was in Baga, we did climb a hill, Syria did a tour of climate vulnerable venues, and bigger was one of them. And it was remarkable after that show, sitting in the pub, having folks come up to us, and thank us for doing the show there because they wanted to laugh about climate change is they'd had like their houses or burned their house. There's like, it's just one of those things where folks were coming up to us in the pub and saying, oh, you know, that was so wonderful to hear jokes about that. And it truly felt for the first time in my 15 year career that we were useful.
Ben Jenkins 34:12 I do think though, like, I didn't put this in because I was already speaking for 45 minutes. But the other side of catharsis is a galvanizing sense. It's the it's the other side of it. So catharsis is like, you know, from the Greek it means like to purify on purge, it's like a release of something. Whereas like the galvanizing sense is the opposite of that where it actually hardens people in a good way. It makes them stronger, and it makes them feel seen and it makes them feel powerful. So I do think that's an element of it, too,
Dan Ilic 34:41 which is why we're going to Lismore to do a show it's going to be Trump is an interesting character. A lot of folks when I was in America doing satire for American, the broadcaster over there, were saying to me, Hey, you get it's got to be so good. It's got to be so good to do Trump jokes. You're so lucky Trump's in power As as people who had to make fun of Trump, did you enjoy that period caffeine?
Cathy Wilcox 35:07 It was it was sort of invigorating in the first place and then exhausting in the second place because you realize that you couldn't keep up with the amount of of stuff that he was doing. You'd be initially you know, waking up extra early to see what had happened overnight and things. And then you'd be going well, I do Trump this week. Well, no, it doesn't really matter if I do Trump this week, because he'll have done he'll do something next week. I can hold off till then. I think there's
Ben Jenkins 35:31 a deliberate strategy in a way I mean, like, it's always it's always hard to, like, you know, give any kind of credit to him and his inner workings. It's sort of like trying to work in a life of zebra but like,
Cathy Wilcox 35:43 when octuple lies does end up making a single lie worthless,
Lewis Hobba 35:48 a strategy, right? Like it was like Joby ocupado said, and he talked about chicken feed, like giving journalists chicken feed to make sure that something to nibble on. There's just like Trump was just like, fucking flog raw, like,
Dan Ilic 35:59 down the throat of a ghost. There was a lot of folks that suggested that at one particular joke, one bit of satire actually turned Trump into somebody who wanted to run for president. That joke came from Barack Obama in the White House Correspondents Dinner. Let's have a look at that joke and see if you think oh, here we go. Here it is.
Unknown Speaker 36:19 Donald Trump looks young tonight. Now I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is happier. No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest to them than Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac? All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you Mr. Trump recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Little John or meatloaf.
Unknown Speaker 37:50 You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that will keep me up at night
Dan Ilic 38:03 so angry so that was that was the joke. That was the joke that people said that was the joke that turd Trump to a guy that wanted to run for president and ruin America.
Jan Fran 38:13 That is so hard to hear. If you watch the roast of donald trump, which I can't remember what year it happened in not too far from when he ran or decided to run for president. There's all these comedians that are like, Haha, you think you're gonna become the president? illusion or, and watching it now in retrospect, you're like, What the fuck are you clowns doing?
Ben Jenkins 38:34 He was like, the complete opposite of who he was in every single way. It's quite an inspiring story. said he couldn't do it.
Jan Fran 38:43 That's kind of the problem is that you actually sort of end up exalting the man while what you're trying to do is you know, hold power to account but you make him so much more powerful than if you just said nothing
Ben Jenkins 38:54 we didn't want to have happen. It is
Lewis Hobba 38:57 truly impressive that for once a really rich guy managed to become president. A lot of stores real sand look
Dan Ilic 39:05 terrible. I'm gonna share a sketch that I dislike. I made it in 2016 before Trump was became president, and I just thought, Oh, this is a hilarious hypothetical. What if Trump did become president, and maybe this could be his White House briefing room?
You know what, when President Trump says he's gonna blow up Mars, he's just joking. He's more likely to blow with Venus since that's where women are from incredibly vicious rumors about a sex tape between the First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump in the Lincoln Bedroom. I can assure you that that tape exists, and it will be available for 699. Thank you for your question. The question was, Is it true that it is legal now to ask questions at press conferences? Yes, yes.
Unknown Speaker 39:58 You're going to jail. If
Dan Ilic 40:02 the President will not stand by while being called a bully and a misogynist, in fact, he called the Prime Minister of England just this morning and told her to quote, watch her pretty little mouth. There you go. How did you get in? Steve? Get him out. MSNBC is in here again. All right. Really? Yeah, that was my
Lewis Hobba 40:27 that was not that far off. It was a blow up Mars, but he did invent a Space Force. There was like the misogyny everywhere he did banned people from the press room. That was annoyingly prophetic.
Ben Jenkins 40:41 Because Sandra Ilitch over here. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 40:44 But oh, yeah, my I guess my point is like, Oh, well, I made that thinking that was hyperbole, but it obviously just wasn't it was just not for course, first year. Yeah. Next up, please get up for Kathy Wilcox.
Cathy Wilcox 41:06 Hi, thank you. I'm a little unrehearsed because I'm just waiting for that muse to strike me. And I'll tell you what's happening. As soon as I see the pictures, rather than then put out an argument for whether satire is more powerful than journalism because I kind of exist somewhere on the line between those things, I suppose. Somewhere I have, I have a you know, an ID card that actually calls me a journalist. So maybe, and the workplace, they're called journalists. But, but as a satirist, and a cartoonist, obviously, it's a very dangerous job. And I want to, you know, give you an idea of some of the dangers. I mean, I'm quite apart from getting assassinated, or getting arrested and being, you know, like imprisoned and things like that by regimes like totalitarian regimes and things like that. You know, obviously, that you all know about that. That's truly dangerous. So all I can talk about is the is the thin end of that wedge, you know, the little things that the sorts of dangers that I live in my day to. Day, but you know, she kind of deserved it, because
Ben Jenkins 42:27 I haven't I have a little drawing that you did for me when my wife was pregnant. Her pregnant with Moses, and I'm there too, and he got shot that might.
Unknown Speaker 42:41 So I want to
Jan Fran 42:43 meet him in the car park.
Cathy Wilcox 42:46 Okay, well, I'm really glad that Ben has introduced the idea of me getting into the room. So we everything that happens after after now is kind of relief anyway. So um, but first of all, the thing is that, that it can be surprising because you're working, especially these days, on your own, from your own house, in your own room, and not actually even in a newsroom, and never even meeting politicians and never going to Canberra and I'm not an insider. And I'm not part of a press gallery. And I've always kind of assume because I'm not one of those sort of upfront out there, cartoonists that I'm not buddies with the politicians and I, and I kind of tell myself that they don't see what I do. So it doesn't matter what I do. The first cartoon Dan, if you'd like to bring up is, is what do we got? We've got the standard rigor. So he when Scott Morrison wanted to know who knew what about the rape of or alleged sorry, rape of Brittany Higgins in in, in an office in Parliament? Phil, I'm relying on you to get to the bottom of who in my office knew what when and then submit your findings in the usual way. And you just may see that there's a super shredder in the background there. The fill in question is one filled Gretchen's a very useful man to the Prime Minister and has been for several years he's been his, you know, his his advisor and to ice and, and he's head of Prime Minister and Cabinet and so forth. So he is the one who, you know, you heard was was tasked with doing this investigation. And here's the one you found out about some weeks, months later. In fact, he had he that he had suspended that investigation, but that nobody had really heard about it. But the weird weird thing about doing this cartoon was that the day that was published I received a phone call. I picked it it's not a number I recognize Yeah. And they're on the phone is Hello Is that Kathy Wilcox? Yes, it is. Phil Gretchen's. I had filed it had been published.
Unknown Speaker 44:54 Oh, yes, I say. He said I just want Want to let you know that?
Cathy Wilcox 45:03 I don't normally wear a tie? You dreaming in the cartoon with a tie? Yes, I did. And I know I'm not quite known for not wearing a tie in the shredder.
Lewis Hobba 45:22 I think we all agree. Everyone knows me, who's been really keeping this very important report. It is my classic open car.
Cathy Wilcox 45:32 So I said, Well, now that you mentioned it, I have to admit that when I was looking up photo reference to draw you, I did see a number of features of you without a tie. Could I just I was in a hurry. And I just assumed that the ones with the ties were just further down. more full. Yeah. Yes. He said, Well, just don't do it again.
Ben Jenkins 45:57 I seem everyone in this room is rocking his signature look.
Lewis Hobba 46:05 There's a cost to Tiktok dance do the gate.
Dan Ilic 46:11 He said don't do it again. Was it sinister? What was the tone?
Cathy Wilcox 46:14 I said, I can assure you, I will be very careful not to make that mistake again. And he said, Okay. You know, I'm only joking.
Lewis Hobba 46:28 The old I'm only joking. Oh
Unknown Speaker 46:30 mankini the next time.
Cathy Wilcox 46:35 That was only the first time I ever drew him. So it's so happened as as mentioned, some weeks later, there was some tooing and froing and Senate estimates and so forth. And there was further question about what the Prime Minister knew. And there was further revelation that this, this inquiry had been suspended. So the prime minister hadn't had an answer to it, because, in fact, it had been suspended. And he had been told about that either. So and there were various other things that he hadn't been told about. So if we could flip to the next cartoon, which I consider to be a very good opportunity for a cartoonist who's been possibly possibly joked about with by a very powerful man by the Prime Minister, Australia's most senior public servant, just so everybody knew who I was talking about. The Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet feel Gretchen's does not wear a tie. He told me himself after I wrongly drew him wearing a tie. Now I apologize for this cardinal sin of a cartoonist who just put themselves in a cartoon I've ever seen. You do that outside of there? I've done a few times, but it has to be for a very good reason. This was to
Lewis Hobba 47:44 put himself in his car. Garfield
Cathy Wilcox 47:50 recently, I thought, you know, this is an informative cartoon. Recently. The pm didn't know about Britney hignett, Higgins. Right, Mr. Gachon, suspending his inquiry into who knew what the PMO backgrounding journalist about Mr. Higgins partner, where is Phil Gachon tie
Dan Ilic 48:10 is filled with the Thai
Cathy Wilcox 48:13 Prime Minister with the Prime Minister around his eyes keeping short making sure that he does a follow up phone call. Did not my dad so wanted to know if he followed up on the phone as he calls you yet. I said I think he's smart enough to know not ever to call. So that was one thing to know that the person is is watching you sort of with that closeness that they can phone you on your mobile, I'd haven't given him my mobile phone. I don't know how he knows that.
Ben Jenkins 48:47 Probably programmers who just tried to
Cathy Wilcox 48:50 yes, those friends of mine. So. So that's one thing. And the other danger for people in this position is I would say litigious politicians. You might remember that time that the then Attorney General was in a spot of bother over over allegations of what he had done in his in his care for a youth. And when he came out and finally made this speech, and it was was much waited for moment and click click, click, click click all the all the cameras are going and he's there and the lights on him and lots of close ups to his face. And Is he is he acting? Is it for real is what's he saying here? So I felt like I wanted to act him there. So for me to have to disprove something that didn't happen. And I love that isn't that this is since since Trump to say didn't happen. It's just like, it's like a little kid gone. It's gone away.
Unknown Speaker 49:52 Mummy gone away. It didn't happen. So something that didn't happen would be the end of the hall. Oh, Australia, thank you.
Cathy Wilcox 50:05 Secret trials partners and appointments to trust integrity, body matters of rule of law, if you're really gonna go looking at it, and he goes, questions the rule of law. So, it has been observed that I am a frustrated actor when I put myself in my in my work. However, this had to get past the lawyers who occasionally are given, you know, to look at my cartoon by the by the editor that I submitted to, I have enormous free rein, I submit my cartoons, mostly I don't hear Boo from anybody about it, except maybe a thanks for sending it or something like that from the sub editor. But I don't have to run ideas past an editor, I don't have to, you know, submit five, five ideas to somebody to see if they're funny, I get to just do this stuff. And it's only when something's usually legally contentious, or in very poor taste, which of course, I would never do that, that they, you know, have to have made you question something. So this one got run past the lawyers. And in the old days, there was a lawyer at the Herald who you hoped that he was the guy who was on on the night when your cartoon got lowered, because it was very easy. And he went very wide margins and you know, he, he'd wave anything through these days, we have much more sort of nervous nervous lawyers, and they're shared by by both the Herald and the age, so you can't kind of go well, this one said it's okay. So to argue with that one, so I'm, there's only me now to argue for things with the lawyers. So I argued, that are what we know they're called they're called sways they point their complaint was valuable. I am suggesting I'm suggesting, especially in in frame six, hear that he is insincere, that he is just acting. So I've made it look theatrical
Dan Ilic 51:58 to the people that podcast, it's a picture of
Cathy Wilcox 52:02 bowing is doing a very grandiose Bow. Thank you thanking people for hearing him out there. And the the lawyers said, No, that is suggesting that he's, he's not sincere. Wow. Anyway, I went away. And first of all, I said, I argued, and I said, in my cartoon, I'm not saying any more than our own journalists have written their own opinion writers and so forth. They have all, you know, question this thing. And also, I'm just using his words. And I'm, you know, and so that little bow is the only kind of affectation in a way, but I said, But if I'll take the bow, would you be okay. So, here is the cartoon all the time, except framsticks has been changed. And they went, Okay, we're okay with that. And I thought, wow, I want against the lawyer.
Dan Ilic 52:59 This time, he's got his hand on his heart.
Cathy Wilcox 53:03 There, but that is some but it's not so much that I had that I want against the lawyers. It's that that the lawyers or the newspapers, the mastheads was so intimidated by this, this guy who has proven himself to be litigious and was in the process of suing the ABC and all that sort of thing. But they were twice shy about doing anything that might draw your attention and and you know, cause him to come up anyway, nobody, nobody got hurt. Nobody got sued. And I didn't hear any more about that. But
Unknown Speaker 53:37 he got sued in the air No, I
Ben Jenkins 53:42 honestly, if you fall over and chip in your driveway, see the ABC.
Cathy Wilcox 53:48 So that's those are a couple of the dangers, therefore being watched, being potentially sued by litigious politicians now, what else do we got? Oh, yes, doing things about Russia, or Israel, or a few. There are a few like really, really delicate pieces of ground, but I have come to understand the the reaction I will get when I do something, do a cartoon that is about one of those difficult areas. And on this case, this was like, you know, like, I could have timed my watch, set my watch by this one, because I know now from years of occasionally doing things about Russia and Putin and all the rest of it that you don't get told, Oh, you're an ignorant auto, you know, you shouldn't do that. You're wrong. You got you get told. Oh, I'm really sorry that you're so ignorant, how embarrassed you should really educate yourself. You must feel so embarrassed to be so stupid. One low IQ who is normally so smart. So they do this little manipulating thing where you feel like an idiot. So you have been successfully propagandized. Cathy, there is another study scientists Don't worry that you need to make yourself aware of. Well, that was only a couple of days what was it? The third I think it was the next day that the same same day, the next day that the invasion happened. Yeah. So So you know, I think he was wrong and also I know now not to worry about that. That sort of intimidating response because it is very formulaic and and it comes at you from a usually a fairly organized lobby although that might. The final danger is whimsy. Do not engage in whimsy at all costs, not on Twitter, not when you're expected to be a political commentator ever stop to think how amazing birds nests are. I mean, if we tried to do that we'd never get it through counsel for a start. And the structural engineering so potentially three to four full grown magpies in twigs and fluff and bird poo cantilevered. Sure. That's the that's the submission to council. Yes, I do. Actually. I think every person who experiences homelessness thinks about the natural rights to make a safe mess anywhere on earth without it being illegal or the land owned by someone else missed and peeps have no idea about the trauma of being denied the right to exist. I was schooled I can tell my fuck you.
Jan Fran 56:20 Do you know what the red flag in this tweet though? Is Kathy? The Globe? Anyone that's got emojis? No. You're gonna get
Lewis Hobba 56:36 everything about everyone getting abused on Twitter is that there's so many. We simply don't have time to go through all of them. Is that because I work at Triple J, we've got a text line. And so like before, everyone has been like, I'm getting a bit abused. I'm like, welcome to the fucking
Unknown Speaker 56:55 Welcome.
Lewis Hobba 56:57 Welcome to the nightmare. Welcome to the seventh circle.
Jan Fran 57:01 Can I tell you the most delightful time that I got abused on social media after posting one of my videos to Facebook, which is really just the you know, Boomer brain graveyard at this point, but I posted it and you know, a couple of people commented whatever. And then someone underneath the video, commented, go, we'll wait. You're on my page. I clicked on the profile. And it was an older woman from Tasmania that really enjoyed bird watching.
Unknown Speaker 57:39 He got to watch with a bird watching he
Jan Fran 57:42 posted. And I thought I had to do this and the name was Mary. And I said, Hi, Mary. You're on my page. I can't go away. I'd like to you can. And then I left it and close the laptop. That was the tone that I had intended it in my mind. And I came back maybe an hour and a half later. And there was all of this vitriol against for Mary. I did it. And I started to pile on. Unwittingly, unknowingly completely unintentionally. Call it off. I deleted the whole thing. And I was close to deleting my entire Facebook.
Dan Ilic 58:32 You're a better actor and governance professional than Mark Zuckerberg.
Jan Fran 58:38 Yes, I should run Facebook.
Cathy Wilcox 58:41 Yep, no, I've done that too. I've deleted a tweet that has provoked a polemical even though it didn't wasn't meant to because yeah, likewise, it's
Dan Ilic 58:51 very the creators on stage not created anything that's dangerous like Kathy.
Ben Jenkins 58:57 I mean, I haven't done any damage to pull Mary if I get death threats, sometimes fun. It's just it's from my son used to give him apricot and lead each week until six. But it's like, I don't know. I think it's a guy. It's it's really different because I'm just like, your domain like, but there was one tweet I did, which was like, sometimes I'm just like, I'm having to go today. I'm just gonna see how many people I can piss off. And it was like right after Boris Johnson had gotten COVID. And a lot of people were like, good. And then there's all this like weird hand wringing was coming up. Well, you might not agree with him, but he's a human being. And then and then there was like, That couple of days later, Kim Jong Un was reported as ill. And I just like, I just Yeah, yeah, I just tweeted like, how have you feel about his politics? He's a human being I think we can all like, come together on metal. And it was like it was just it was deliberately just, it was just sort of on the edge of sincere that people would think I was.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:10 You tweet all the time.
Ben Jenkins 1:00:13 This didn't get me death threats. But this made Twitter unusable for me for about for about a day was during the Oscars a couple of years ago, I tweeted, this is all well and good. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we gave awards to books?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:27 And a mixture of
Ben Jenkins 1:00:30 people being like, Oh, actually, I appreciate the sentiment, but we do give books. Because I was born I just be like, No, we don't be like No, we, we do the Nobel prize goes to literature. And I'm like, that's for science. It's so sad. I have a full time job and a child. That won't give me death threats. And I told my wife because she was like, I saw this thing. Why did you do that? And I was like, oh, no, honey, but it's funny, because look at these people who say they're gonna kill me. She was like, What the fuck? And I was like, oh, that's online,
Jan Fran 1:01:03 getting a slew of like, when I did the first season and crushing everything last year. It's like, I don't really check a lot of my social media. But then, you know, once you start getting notifications from people with wraparound sunglasses, and Australian flag profiles in in their Twitter, you're like, oh, something's gone horribly wrong. And it turns out that there was a YouTuber that made a video about me, and you know, it was like, ABC leftist journaux you know, like sucking on the government T yada, yada, yada. And I kind of just I've watched the video just to make sure that there was nothing that was like, there was no call to violence or anything towards me. But I got a an unrelenting barrage on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, in my email, I'm not sure how they found my email, but I started getting emails
Dan Ilic 1:01:53 tweeted it when I started to directly talk to Jen.
Jan Fran 1:01:58 That's how they got the email. And the thing is, it's like, there is nothing that the ABC can do. They were like, well, you could just block people.
Ben Jenkins 1:02:07 I'm aware of the Navy. No, but
Jan Fran 1:02:11 that's I mean, that's kind of like partly the problem of
Dan Ilic 1:02:13 did you feel your life was at risk at any point? I didn't feel like
Jan Fran 1:02:17 my life was at risk really. But I did feel like most of the people online when you know you say something that they don't particularly like and something like this happens they'll vent online and then they'll fuck off but sometimes I think to myself What if there is just that one really hectic person who doesn't fuck off and for whatever reason has a been his bonnet about you and this thing that you said and did and then finds your address online and then shows up like that is not a ridiculous thing to think so that's that's the reality and the fact is that it doesn't matter whether you're a freelancer, whether you work for a legacy media organization, there's nothing that can be done here. I've emailed YouTube and they've come back and Ben been like, Oh, and this was for a different matter with a completely different person they like you know, nothing broke our rules of engagement or whatever it is, so there's really nothing that we can do. Well, Jen,
Dan Ilic 1:03:08 we're going to surprise you side stage we have the only time I've ever done anything kind of remotely sort of dangerous through comedy was I got I got to pull it from Manus Island making where the bloody hell are you sketch with refugees on Manus Island. Just pay for that now and we'll move on
Unknown Speaker 1:03:33 you stopped the boat. You put us in a prison in a tropical island. In 60s, I had a lot of time thing. Mostly about my mother's passport.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:44 If you want to go by boat.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:48 By plane
Unknown Speaker 1:03:51 we learned some Australia and culture. This guy this shit didn't go after six years we've been waiting to be processed Prime Minister's combo so.
Dan Ilic 1:04:22 Everyone, please give epogen friends.
Jan Fran 1:04:27 Thanks so much. I mean, turns out that I'm probably going to build a little bit on Ben's entire premise that satire does not change hearts and minds and that it does not necessarily hold the powerful to account but I'm gonna go a little bit further. And you know, write a little bit of a love letter, a manifesto, perhaps to make people entitled journalists and comedians should maybe think about shutting the fuck up a little bit more. So sometimes people call me a journalist slash comedian, which I think is a nice way of them saying that I'm a bit shoot at both. That's okay. That's fine. It's you know, it's anytime anyone uses the slash that's kind of how you know, right? Like if you go to an Italian slash Chinese Oh, you're not getting either. You're getting dysentery but in this context, I think the slash is important right journalist slash comedian because it means that I have yielded both the pen and the joke. And I can tell you unequivocally right here, ladies and gentlemen, that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, and when it comes to making the world a better place, they are both garbage. They are utterly fucking useless. No one's life has been improved by a strongly worded op ed. No one wakes up in the cancer ward and says, Oh my God, you know what changed my mind. Do you know what cured me? Jen friends Walkley award winning opinion, the Frank Winnie 91. Love the guy in the cancer ward. I mean, no one wants to be held hostage only for the cops to show up, surround the building and pull out their pawns. There's times there's you know, we can see here and we can talk about whether the joke is mightier than the pen whether the pen is mightier than the joke. You know what he's mightier than both of them subsonic missiles. And I can tell you that nobody is worried about Vladimir Putin dropping by arrow on cares. This is truly the real world. And I think that terrible things happen in the real world. You know, the planet is heating up US inflation is the highest that it has been in 40 years. Clive Palmer survived COVID Even though he is the nation's underlying health condition. If we cannot tackle all these things purely with jokes and pens, unless we use the pen of some sort of stabbing, an ambush Clive as he's burning an effigy of Mark McGowan and a Red Rooster carpark, as he tends to do. So I would go so far as to say that we are perhaps bear with me wielding the pen, and the joke a little bit too much journalists, and comedians. And we have this idea that it's there to hold people to account. And it's there to change hearts and minds. And I constantly hear this refrain that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, right? It's a bit of a sort of a cliche thing to say about sunlight. So I'll just throw another cliche thing to say about sunlight, which is that it can also make things grow. And so when we think about what we're actually putting in the sun, over and over and over again, if your intention is to disinfect it, and it ends up growing, while suddenly you have quite a big problem on your hands, everyone has a big problem on their hands. And the other thing that I would caution is that when we talk about yielding jokes or yielding pins, he turns out anyone can actually yield a joke or a pen. Everyone has an opinion now, and some of them are award winning. Actually can't secure just because it hasn't happened yet. But I truly think that everyone being or having the access to be an armchair expert, is one of the most terrible things to happen to society currently, jokes and pens are meant to help us understand the world around us right so that we can make it better but the world is very complicated and nuanced on the internet is like a pregnant ladies vagina. No matter how hard you try, you just can't see it
Dan Ilic 1:09:19 really wondering when credible to the Patreon members Jan's trying to look at it.
Jan Fran 1:09:32 They're there, it's just obscured. So there should be some ground rules perhaps in place to determine who should wield the pen and who should wield the joke and under what circumstances if you are someone who wants to talk about ivermectin, but you can't spell ivermectin you don't get to talk about ivermectin, no pan for you. Oh, no horses either. I say that it's just one suggestion this is totally off the top of my head. I've thought about it fleetingly. But I think it's a good idea. I think that we writers and journalists and jokesters, I think that we should take a backseat in this moment to a group of people who are currently at their most fuckable. Scientists. This is their window. We need science now, in my view, more than ever, especially because we have a prime minister, who as we know, loves to take policy advice from God. And from God's one true son, Lachlan. Science is what will change hearts and minds science is mightier than the pen is mightier than the joke. Art is what will change hearts and minds mightier than the pen mightier than the joke? Do you want to know what the highest form of knowledge is? It's empathy. I read that on the back of a tampon
imagine anymore. Imagine if we were obscuring all of these potential forms of knowledge, without jokes, and with articles, and with our opinions, and with our tweets, and with our commentary. What is it that we are doing to the world? It's true that, you know, you can say the joke is mightier than the pen. You can say the pen is mightier than the joke. It doesn't matter. There are things that are mightier than both of them, including hypersonic missiles. As it turns out
Unknown Speaker 1:11:59 Louis harbor
Lewis Hobba 1:12:04 we have a little bit long, I assume, because I really need to pay I don't know. That's that's pretty much how I can tell the running time of these things. So I'll I'll crack through it. But look, the reason I think, just to wrap it all up, that setters and look, I'll say setters and comedians, and I'm referring to us, and you might be like, I don't even think of myself as a satirist. I mostly ask people where they've been stuck on radio, you know, out there doing the good stuff. I'm not, I'm not John Oliver, I'm an idiot. So just accept that I'm going to use that term broadly. And let's rock let's move past it so we can all pay. But the reason I think that satirists are the new journalists is simple. We can't exist without journalists, like 100% of jokes written by political comedians get written because they read a story in the news and the news is written by journalists, like we're lazy. We're too lazy to do it. And to show how lazy we are. For the next little while. I'm just going to make the same point over and over again, using slightly different metaphors. satirise aren't disrupting journalism were leeching off it were a pilot fish attached to a shark, where the cackling hyenas picking up the bones of politicians left behind by lions. If journalists are a majestic giraffe, using its height to scan for danger way or a silly bird that lands on its head. Forced to look wherever the giraffe
is bull. Canadians are the last person in the human centipede. Just taking the research already digested and shut out by reporters and editors eating it up and then shooting it out again in a slightly different way. It's still shit. But our shit was shot by a human centipede. And that's gonna get clicks. Like journalists have to do a lot of stuff that is important and boring. Comedians want to do stuff that is frivolous and exciting. Like Can anyone here be bothered learning what an interest rate is? Like that? No, there's no such thing as a financial comedian. It would be cruel to teach us about money. Only for us to learn. We'll never get in. Like the grunt work of political journalism is getting things on the record like that's, that's the grunt stuff. That's the important stuff, like going to boring press conferences, making boring calls, getting people to say stuff, like in 2008 when a journalist got Scott Morrison on the record saying that he was in favor of a government supporting people buying houses with a housing equity scheme that was boring in 2008. And in 2017, when he said it again, and then he still supported the idea. It was boring then. But in 2022, when he attacks labor for the exact same idea, it suddenly become something, right? Something that gets the mouths of the little human centipede very excited. But good things take time, even hypocrisy, and time is something that journalists can afford to have. And look, I am not deifying journalists. They're normal people. And in fact, they're worse than normal people. Because their job is to be annoying, ideally, to people in power, that comedians or people pleasers. applause is our nourishment. Like, it's the base of our food pyramid. And so I don't think comedians are incapable of doing the work of journalists. But we're not financially motivated to piss people off like, we get paid by the ticket. So I think journalists have an employer and an employer who pays them more, the better they are at annoying people. It's the opposite of what comedians do. Like I would say the ABC has at times paid comedians to be annoying, and not in the way they pay me to be annoying, which is just by accident. But it's more of a sort of deliberate choice to pay comedians to be annoying on shows like Chase or or to nightly, which you talked about already. Very few people in comedy choose to make audiences happy by annoying powerful people on a freelance basis. It's just not a smart move. And so my point is really, that you you can't have political satire without journalists. But you can very easily have journalism, without satirists, because we're not going to do the research. And you know what? Sometimes you just need someone to look down the barrel of a camera and say Princess Diana is dead
and you need to notify that out with damn lady died.
That's some topical stuff
talk on us was run by comedians, it would be the comedy central roast, if 60 minutes was one run by comedians in a go for 50 minutes, and we charged for the fallout. If current affair was run by comedians, it'd be a bit better. Like comedians aren't useless. I mean, we're not as bad as opinion writers.
But mostly, we're just putting a shiny new package on an existing product and selling it as something new. And that is why we often end up selling it for free.
Dan Ilic 1:17:48 Well, now comes the most important part of the evening, we get to decide whether jokes are more important than journalism.
Ben Jenkins 1:17:56 This could really go either way. Really strong points.
Dan Ilic 1:18:01 We're gonna tick a box here and send it off to the Governor General. So let's see if y'all want to, I don't know maybe want to Should we do a red text? Are you going to get a black text or sorry, sorry. All right. So let's raise your hand or actually because there's a podcast by round of applause, our jokes more important than journalism. You didn't and conversely, is journalism more important than joke's?
On the panel here, just raise your hands is jokes more important than gentlemen, if
Ben Jenkins 1:18:39 I can flip it? Yes.
Cathy Wilcox 1:18:45 One counter counter case, yeah. Okay. I don't know if we've got time for this just that my dad reckons, and he's a conservative old bloke. And he only gets the newspaper The Herald because I'm in and he says, if I stopped drawing for the Herald, he will cancel his subscription. That is how powerful the sad guy is
Unknown Speaker 1:19:07 very specific. On what I'm hearing is
Dan Ilic 1:19:13 nepotism rules over. So one more time jokes is jokes better than journalism? Is journalism better than jokes?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:26 Journalism
Dan Ilic 1:19:27 is far more powerful than journalism.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:32 All right.
Dan Ilic 1:19:33 Let's send this to the Governor General. Please. Sara will you please post this immediately to David Hurley?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:44 Please give it up. Thank you, Sarah. You going to take this as quick as you can? Take it as quick as you can to the Governor General Sarah I'm Dan Jenkins got the Blue Dogs dealing with Josiah. take you to the Judas Nielsen Institute for having a drug mods and our Patreon supporters. Until next
If you live in the , Happy Democracy Sausage day to you!NT
We talk with Monica Tanfrom Repower NT about how renewables has managed to get on the agenda of all three major parties in the top end of town in the Top End.
NEW MONTHLY PODCAST:
Linh Do and I are starting a new monthly podcast on the A Rational Fear feed. Long-form conversations with leaders in climate change from around Asia-Pacific. It’s called: The Greatest Moral Podcast of Our Tim. So naturally the first conversation will be with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Here is this week's podcast — Lewis Hobba, Elyce Phillips, Jane Ball, and Dan ILic talk shit about:
💸 Superannuation changes. 🖨 Gen Z's office equipment problems. 🌓 Moon Time Extra Fear. 🤖 Robodebt and Stuart Robert's eating problem. ⛽️ and we interview Nicolette Boeler from the Smart Energy Council about the Safeguard Mechanism.
If you're in Adelaide — we're performing tomorrow at the Adelaide Fringe:
0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening Lewis.
0:05 Hello Dan. How are you?
0:07 Lewis? I'm at the start of the show. I'm energised because I want to tell the people who are listening in Adelaide and Melbourne just one thing and that is to please please for the sake of breaking even buy a ticket to the show.
0:20 Absolutely. If you happen to know the Port Adelaide Football Club get them all along. If you know this Adelaide strikers sixes
0:33 This is good. This is good. This is good local content. If you know anyone whose family ends in polites get them alone.
0:41 Oh, my family are from Adelaide originally, my mum and dad met at Adelaide University. So if you if you're at Adelaide University, you know, man, you're looking for love. Maybe one or two could have a little Lewis
0:56 or at all, Louis, depending on how your Louis is go. We've got a great show in Adelaide and we've got Gabby bolt, Alice Fraser. We've also got Andrew Hanson from the chaser. And we've also got for some reason, the South Australian Attorney General is joining us in Adelaide, which is amazing. We're gonna be talking to him about South Australia's voice, which is great. And Melbourne is selling a lot slower than we anticipated. Despite having Grace time on the show, which killed last year. You guys gotta get tickets, you gotta go go right now to Melbourne Comedy festival.com.au and buy a tickets, not even the websites probably why we aren't selling many tickets. But you should go you should go and buy a ticket because it's so it's such a huge show. And it's gonna be really great. Surprisingly, Louis, our Brisbane show is doing really well for sales. We've already sold like 120 So we're like we're killing it. The show's not even on for like another another few weeks.
1:46 It's the World Science Festival and they sent me my invite the other day and I was flicking through some of the other events that are on and we stick out. I'm like these people are very smart. And they've done a lot of research.
2:02 We've done we've got a really smart person on stage with us. His name is Dan Ilic. Her name is Jessie Christiansen She's a doctor. She runs the exoplanet library for NASA and she works with the JW S T team, the James Webb Space Telescope team so we're going to be grilling her about aliens. It's very exciting. So that is happening in Brisbane at the end of March. I'm recording my irrational feet on Gadigal land in the urination. Sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
2:33 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
2:46 Tonight with the New South Wales set to vote next Saturday, polling suggests the other guy is maintaining a strong lead whatever his name is and the creator of the comic strip Dilbert goes on a racist tirade getting him dropped from hundreds of newspapers but a job offer at the Australian and after Rupert Murdoch admits that Fox News was lying to its audience. Donald Trump has accused the media mogul of throwing his anchors under the table instead of in the sea where they obviously belong. It's the third of March 2023. And with more lies than Fox News. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to rational fear. I'm your host former only fans nurse Dan Ilic. This is the podcast that puts a shot of vodka. In your news, irrational fear let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. They're a former corporate ladder climbing shill, but now they are a children's party clown performing her show slops at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's Jane Bell welcome Jane.
3:53 Hello, hello. If anyone wants to book a clown please reach outs to her on this side of the ladder now
4:01 you just do corporate ladder comedy Do you do you turn up to kids parties and say hey, let's talk about some EBIT DA is that what happens?
4:09 I feel like I was more doing clown comedy in the workplace. And now I found my target audience so it's honestly for the best.
4:19 And she has haunted the writing rooms at hard quiz and has been published in McSweeney. She's also sells a bathing suit covered in little cute hands on her website, performing her show tropical holiday at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's Elise Phillips. Welcome, Elise.
4:34 Hello, thank you for having me.
4:36 These bathing suits on your website do they sell well they look amazing little hands on.
4:43 Literally any other piece of merch I've ever made in my life.
4:47 Really? It looks amazing. It looks it looks incredible. It looks this might sound weird, but it looks delicious.
4:56 Oh, thank you.
4:57 Thank you, men's version as well. Do you do like a speedo
4:59 ABS salutely We've got a swim trunk. Haven't got to Speedo yet. I think I think a bunch of spunk covering ham would be a good option though.
5:10 I'm ready. I put me on the waiting list.
5:12 All right. Speaking of hams, it's Louis Harbaugh.
5:18 a delight to be with you thrilled. I don't know how long it's been since our last one. It might be a week. It might be a year for three weeks,
5:26 I think two weeks. Yeah, two weeks. In
5:28 fact, Dan, I know we don't do a lot of personal business. But you were in South Africa. Did you have a nice time?
5:34 I had a great time I hung out with the my birthday of fellows from the birth of Foundation, who kind of got this podcast back on his feet for a couple of years. So it was a really amazing and inspiring time saying you know what everybody's been up to so yeah, went to Cape Town. It's really good. Good place there. I like it.
5:50 How are we looking for this season? financially? Do they call you guy over there to fight?
5:57 No, no, I strain ethical was looking after us. And if you if you're on the Patreon, you don't hear the ads. But if you are on our regular feed, of course, you'll know that Australian ethical is looking after us. So we're being looked after this year from them. But maybe maybe there could be some special birth of money later on down the line. I pitched them an idea of doing a show from the First Nations group who are sitting on a Danny's land. I thought it'd be funny to take a bunch of our friends Louis like David Simpson and Craig quarterman. And Steph Tisdall and do a comedy show. At the defenders land on the Adani land, I thought that would be really fun. So they seem to be interested in that and they may even pay for it. So
6:40 a lot of fallen to remove us right now. So now
6:44 like I like I had a realisation while I was there. We no longer live in electorates. We live in billionaires bank books. So you have to pick the billionaires you like we are. We're I'm a big fan of this birther guy, you know, and some people are big fans of Clive Palmer. So you gotta pick your pinky. You gotta pick your billionaire. New it's the new AFL.
7:04 Are you thinking of reaching out to other South African billionaires if you go
to one you keeping it to
7:16 every good joke someone does on the podcast is rewarded with one master diamond.
7:24 Speaking of sponsors, here's a message from this week's sponsor. Jim Chalmers says if you've got more than $3 million in Super you'll probably be okay with paying a normal amount of tax but tell that to the renters in your fifth investment property. Jim Chalmers wants to steal money from the super rich to give it to the slightly less super rich, is this the Australia we want? So these are confronting numbers. Jim Chalmers doesn't want you to enjoy Bollinger on your 66th birthday. He's forcing you to drink DOM pairing yuck. Instead, that's going to be a difficult time ahead. Don't let labour steal your third first class trip on the Queen Mary to this year away from you. It will get tougher before it starts to ease authorised by Rich for a sane conversation about Super Australia. Thank you Rich seawards for a sane conversation about Super really appreciate your support this week. This week's firstly it Yes, it is bad news. If you're a billionaire, you may have to pay slightly more tax on your super if it's above $3 million. The Treasurer Jim Sharma said that the new measure will only affect 80,000 people. Most of those people probably won't care or don't even notice that they're actually paying a little bit more tax. Ato statistics are absolutely zany for this. I don't know if you've seen this. And apparently there are 27 people with more than $100 million in Super there is one person, there is one person with $544 million in superannuation. Oh my god, the question must be asked, Where will these people find the money to pay slightly more tax where where? What kind of person has this has more than $3 million in this year but at least
9:05 I should fess up the $544 million one that's that's me I finally consolidated all 500 of my super accounts.
9:16 Subscribe subscription I don't see your name anywhere in the Patreon subscribe.
9:20 I tried to count off my admin and it's just as backfired her rific
9:26 love support the Patreon but with this new tax I mean, how are you?
9:31 It's in impossible. It's impossible. I'm gonna be living on base for the rest of
9:36 your day. I can't believe anyone in any journalist, any bounty hunter, any private investigator is doing anything else with their time right now other than finding that person like that's the only thing all newspapers should be on that 24/7
9:54 I would like to pitch a concept specifically to the $540 million person I assume they listen to this podcast. It's a new holiday I've thought of called Super Claus. Basically, this super, super fund owner acts as the nation's Santa Claus. He reveals Himself. And then one day a year, we can all go to them and say what we want for in our superannuation in our self managed super funds, he grabs those wishes, and he gets to live his life as beyond even human, just this legend. And then we all move on. It's a good news story. No one's angry at him for a super balance. It's just it's a new holiday.
10:39 That's about as you can to turn the tables on your parents and you can tell them that that person doesn't exist. I mean, here's the thing. Are these boomers with so much money in the bank account? Like what are they going to do in retirement? Like the the biggest iPad is only $1,900?
10:56 Yeah, I mean, you could buy maybe like three or four caravans and like, strap them on top of each other, and get like a triple decker quadruple Decker situation going on. That'd be fun.
11:06 Pete Lola on the chat has said it's Gina Reinhardt. Well, here's the thing Gina Reinhardt actually came out to news.com. Today, you and a representative said, No, it's not Gina Rinehart because Jenna Hannah is not stupid enough to lock up $544 million until she retires.
11:23 This is a tiny Venn Diagram of people who haven't discovered offshore bank accounts want to keep their money in the Australian economy. So it's some kind of like Ozzie bat law, but at the peak of their career,
11:35 you know, they say Jane about people who've got big nest eggs, and gotten complex shell companies that's
11:44 the only person I can think of who is like rich have and would be so afraid of foreigners that he wouldn't trust his money in an offshore bank is the expense. Like I reckon that
11:57 we should get him on the show. He's a friend of the show. I've got him I've got his number in my in my book. So
12:05 if there's a human being there's an Australian whose number you don't have, they don't exist. Oregon, if you scroll you through your phone, you would eventually find that person with half a billion dollars in super like there is
12:20 I should send everyone a text right away. And just tell us said it's an attack on middle Australia, middle Australia. Who could just give $3 million until they're 66 Just sitting there they're not gonna miss it. That 3 million don't miss that 3 million.
12:39 I tried to think what I would do with $3 million dollars and I Googled what can you buy with $3 million. And the first article I got was from finance samurai or someone a blog like that. And it all it said was 3 million is the new 1 million and I felt so poor. I've never felt like aspirationally I'm not even picturing the right number anymore. Yeah.
13:03 The old 1 million yet that's moving too fast. Do
13:06 you know that scene from succession by the way, Greg gets offered like $10 million. And they all talk about how sad it is to have $10 million because it's
kind of feeling millionaire.
13:20 Yeah. embarrassing to admit you've got over 3 million on your in your super account, I think embarrassingly small amount of money if you're not the 500 mil guy then who are you? That's crazy.
13:34 Yeah, yeah, the phrase I'm a millionaire has really, truly jumped the shark hasn't it? as we as we the phrase jumped the shark.
13:43 I did see an article because I think when it came out, like obviously, the message got out pretty quickly, that it was going to effect such as like small amount of the country that really no one apart from Angus Taylor perplexingly probably his brother who has a problem but he's probably got half a billion Giga litres of water in super.
14:05 This is rational fear. Angus Taylor
14:10 situation we had was some people were contributing millions of dollars into super and it's totally inappropriate. What to use,
14:18 who you're listening to are very rational here.
14:24 This week second fifth Gen Zed thanks buttons or violence. According to The Guardian Gen Zed are having trouble with physical office appliances like finding files folders, printers, copiers, fax machines, binders, basically anything with buttons is extremely difficult to work with. Jane, what's going on here? Do we need like a button pushing Bootcamp for Gen Zed before they're allowed to apply for actual jobs?
14:47 Oh my god, I I'm a millennial. I will say I'm 32 but I just feel so bad for Gen Zed, because we've went destroying the planet. We've tanked the economy. They'll never buy a home and now we still expect them to use like The Canon 1996 printer in the Kindle office space, and we're getting upset at them for not knowing how to do that, like the poor little guys just like they shouldn't have to worry about that. And they just want to be left alone on tick tock with the apps that just feed all the information straight to their brain. And we're making them interact in like a sad as places in the world which like, I don't know, offices set up in the 80s and 90s. And no wonder they don't want to do it.
15:29 It's like that Apple TV show severance. Every office is like that to them. There's a great quote quote in his article from a guy who runs workshops on intergenerational differences. He says, I joke in my sessions that my gen Zed intern didn't know how to mail a letter. He said, they asked me where the sticker went. And I said, Do you think stickers are just fine? When I
15:54 work at a Triple J, there's a millennial and Gen Zed exclusive atmosphere. And like, I'm the second I think I'm the third probably, I'm in the top five oldest people that have ever worked there. People asked me about like 2015 And I'm like, man, it was crazy.
16:16 You would say, man, it was cray cray. Yeah.
16:21 They want to leave but they can't find the elevator button. So they have to listen to I think there's you know, you do read a lot of articles where every time there's like a boomer gender divide. The old people are like you don't know how hard it is when you when you get old. No one wants to hire you. And I think this is a great opportunity. Like I think we used to have elevator operators. And I think now if you turn 60, we give you the gold watch. And then you just become a guy who pushes the button on a photocopier. It keeps you employed gives you something to do. It gets Gerald out of the house, and it keeps Gen Zeds you know, are able to use Photo copiers, everyone wins.
16:59 These are valuable skills in demand. Yeah.
17:03 I've never worked anywhere as trendy as Triple J. Like we say I've worked places
17:08 to say I love I love the way you said Triple J like yeah, like with as much denim as possible.
17:15 You also said trendy which was incredible.
17:19 I've aged out of the hottest 100 And I get to have feelings about that. Now that's
17:27 such a millennial thing to say
17:28 we have blocked your number and everyone like you.
17:32 I'll see you on Double J in 10 years.
17:37 The system is working
17:40 at least what about you? What's your thoughts? I
17:42 mean, I just I think we're being a bit too hard on these kids not knowing how to use this stuff like I am an elder millennial and I don't know how to use stuff that was used to do business in the generation before me I don't know how to use a quill or abacus or like cocaine i
18:03 and that's fine pursues rational fear
18:07 Annabelle is a typical teenager. And these days, that often means living with anxiety. Why it's so hard to turn on. There's no button,
18:15 a rational fear.
18:18 This week's third fear time on the moon we not only cover the most pressing topics on Earth in the show, but from time to time we cover Moon related disputes the moon is set to get its own timezone. That's right, it's moon time. People joke about flying to Adelaide, and they've got to turn your clock back 30 years but on the moon despite looking so much like Adelaide no one knows how far the wind back back looks. At least what is Moon time
18:42 the European Space Agency has come out and said that they think that the moon needs a time zone. I'm all for it. You know, I would love to get up onto the moon be playing some you know Dance Dance Revolution. The dress Park game where you're in a jeep, the core machine timezone? No, that's okay.
19:05 It took us a long
19:07 night, they're looking to have like an official timezone for the moon so that you know, as it's getting busier, and you've got commercial organisations flying up there, that sort of thing for everyone to be sort of on the same track. So you don't have rockets going up there. And like doing the up who's to go do go? It's all clear everyone knows exactly where they're going. And it's a lot safer and happier for everyone. A whole series of problems with doing it because like yeah, gravity is an issue so clocks go faster on the moon and like depending on where abouts on the moon it is so your clocks are running all sorts of different times all over the shop. It sounds like an absolute nightmare to figure out.
19:51 Surely the moon is going to be the right place for a sundial gravity is gold school like Let's find you know, a baby boomer who doesn't understand technology can explain a sundial younger generation or
20:13 on the moon.
20:16 I think actually, I tell you what my if I was in the European Space Agency, I'd be like, guys, I know you guys always told me I don't belong here, because I'm not a scientist and I don't understand anything. But I've got an idea. I think clocks should be banned. I think time should be banned on the moon. I think it'd be a no to so I think it should be like a chill zone where on the way, you have to put your watches or your phones in a little bag. Like you're going to see Dave Chappelle in case he says something transphobic put it in a rocket, and you have to leave it in the rocket and then the moon can be a place where we don't worry about time we can leave our troubles on Earth. Thank you.
20:52 What time do we leave to go back to whenever you want man
20:55 to move? You know what I mean? It's it's a common, it's
21:00 a common, it's a common Well, she got
21:05 to be five minutes. But I found a joke.
21:08 Very good. Yes, moon days are about 29.5 Earth days long. That is a long day, a whole month on the moon. And clocks work at different speeds. Why two clocks? I want to know why clocks work at different speeds on the surface and in orbit. That is so strange.
21:24 So it's yeah, it maybe physically Yeah, the pull of gravity on the
21:29 hands of the clock. Yeah,
21:31 wow. It's a great journey for like, for a brand to come in and start their own, you know, branded time, like you'd have like, Blue Moon beer time. That would be like even on Mars, you know, you could have Mars, Mars Bartok, that would be good.
21:44 They tried to they tried to do this with Antarctica with like how Antarctic is like the shared continent, a little section of it. But now there's like 10 time zones all across Antarctica. But if you set up a base, countries will just set up a new base with a new research station and then decide we don't care what the timezone is where we are, we're gonna go by our home timezone. So there's all these erratic, non approved time zones throughout Antarctica as well. I feel like the moon's just gonna end up like that, like we're gonna have like China and Russia and America, we'll get there different times. And be like, we're on Russia in time and American Moon time. It's just gonna keep going.
22:23 Can you can you imagine if the Australians get there like half the team would be on daylight savings time, it would be terrible. With Antarctica,
22:31 how important is time What are you doing? You're meeting like the Russians across the border for coffee like what
22:41 I feel like the one thing that the moon and and like everyone has to worry about is not having the scientists and the like the astronauts go crazy. I feel like the one thing that will guarantee an astronaut going crazy is saying an Earth Day is 29 moon days. That is crazy astronauts you're breeding up on the moon
23:06 Thank you man with Dominic claw on the chat saying moonlight David savings time. Thank you for that. I
23:10 appreciate it. I don't like the moon. It scares me. I don't like thinking about how can you not like the moon? I don't get it doesn't make sense. A rational seer.
23:21 Stick with us. If you are a Patreon sponsor, you will hear an extra fear. We'll we'll be discussing about all things about Robo debt and Stewart Roberts particular eating habits and how they're related. But if you're not a Patreon supporter, you'll hear live read from our sponsor. And then we'll be chatting with Nicolette Bulla from the Smart Energy Council. Lewis just popping the podcast and hold here to talk about our incredible sponsor Australian ethical who do incidentally superannuation, which is the flavour of the week on this podcast. Do
23:50 you think the person with half a billion dollars is investing with Australian ethical because that would put us in a pickle because then we kind of want them to keep it
23:57 actually that's a really good point of view. Yeah, maybe maybe that person if they are with Australian ethical, they should definitely keep it because Australian ethical don't invest in things like fossil fuels. They don't invest in things like human trafficking, or weapons or pretty, you know, bad stuff. They invest ethically so that half a billion dollars, that would be that would be saving so much carbon if it was in some Bodhi else's Superfund that is so good, but that's with the straight ethical
24:22 every time you say this to me, I am sure I'm like, which super funds are investing in human trafficking. And why haven't we stopped that? Well, they're 2023 You know what I mean? Like shouts to Australian ethical for putting up and going, Hey, by the way, we don't have human trafficking. But I must admit, I sort of assumed all super funds were pretty awful human trafficking.
24:44 One Superfund does support a particular podcast that is irrational fear and that is the straight ethical thank you so much for your support straight ethical. Let's get back to the show. All right by July one this year. Labour government is going hammer and tongs trying to get in place a policy to help Australia meet its climate targets and something called the safeguard mechanism. It's something you could sounds like something you could buy in a sex shop doesn't it? It is designed to gently finger the greenhouse gas emitters without kind of rogering them entirely Joining us now to discuss the safeguard mechanism. Its longtime policy wonk and former candidate for Bradfield. Nicolette Bulla. Welcome Nicolette to rational fear.
25:26 Thanks for having me. I'm have no idea how you're gonna make this very serious topic. Remotely funny.
25:33 Oh, that's, that's good. That's what we do. If we fail, we're doing it. So it's totally fine. We're very comfortable
25:37 being not funny. Otherwise, it's never I've kept going.
25:42 Nikolay, tell us like the safeguard mechanism, like how does it meant to work? And will it work?
25:48 With the name, we don't even know what it means. I mean, I know what it's safeguarding if it's the climate complete fail if it's the fossil fuel industry, maybe remotely better. At the Smart Energy Council, we call it the big polluters programme, which is basically a shortcut to explain what it is. This mechanism is it, it limits the emissions from the country's biggest industrial sites, big factories, so there's two of them, 15 of those, they're big, they're chunk out 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year, it's about 28% of the nation's total kind of carbon budget. What's really keen to understand is they're kind of in two categories, there's half of them are these industrial processes that we can probably see, we can navigate towards a nice low carbon future things like fertilisers, steel, aluminium cement. And then there's the other half, which are basically fossil fuel operations. That's, that's coal and gas, where there really isn't any feasible technology that's going to take these guys to net zero, they just need to stop production. So what we've got is this mechanism, that's going to work for half of them and not the other half. There's three things being discussed at the moment around the mechanism, I suppose there's lots of them, but it's baselines is the first thing this is the contract about how much each of these factories can emit. In the old system. Those just weren't enforced at all people are allowed to increase their limits what's being offered now, Minister Boren suggesting that we'll have new baselines, and there'll be a kind of musical chairs thing out to 2050, a reduction of 4.9% each year. So that looks like it's, you know, going towards something like our Climate Change Act 43%, emission reductions, by 2030, and net zero by 2050. The second part is that big polluters don't actually have to reduce their emissions. Actually, they can buy offsets, we can talk about that in a minute. And the third thing is that really this sort of cap of the price that the government will pay for these at $75, these credits that have been created just are not set as sort of price that is going to create some structural adjustments for some of these industries. We're seeing much bigger prices in international markets.
28:04 We've seen in committee hearings lately, a lot of questions about prices, particularly David pokok, who was kind of pressing the architects of the safeguard mechanism on the price, basically say, Well, if it goes above 75, who pays who pays for that, and the people who may have made this kind of programme have gone on, we haven't actually thought about, we haven't actually thought about what happens when the price goes over it already. There's a lot of fossil fuel companies who have who are pricing these carbon offsets, at at $80. And more, oh, who is going to pay for that? Who's gonna pay for that? Nicolet. And they're
28:38 going to do it because of course, we don't just work in Australia, we're operating international market. So we have some companies at the moment who are doing what we call shadow pricing at $400 a time because we've seen some peaks and spikes in other markets that that kind of price. So yeah, if they're going to stay internationally competitive in terms of greenhouse emission reduction profiles, because we've got some places like the EU have got import tariffs now. So if we want to put out goods and services and sell them to places in the EU, we add an extra tariff on that because ours is heavier or more, you know, more polluting than theirs.
29:11 Wow, that's so huge that that amount of money that's wild. I was watching an episode of Clarkson's farm last night, and they were getting 180 pounds, a tonne for wheat. Like we're talking about cob. We're talking about pollution here. That is tonne. That is heaps of money. tonnes of money doesn't make sense, but it's just so much money.
29:29 There's a lot of money at the moment we made in coal and gas as well if you're exporting it overseas,
29:34 if you'd like wood to pretend to be like a greenwashing expert, how much money is there to be made in selling offsets or Shitloads? Like what's the scam? Like do we need to go by?
29:47 How do we get involved? is really the question.
29:50 We got a podcast we've we've got a podcast if I'm Nicolette
29:53 Yeah, well, okay. So you might I don't know if you heard that there's there was this thing called the chub review, which had a little look at the offset scream and how it's been going. There
30:03 were just so I'm so sorry. Just because of the nature of this programme, we have to pump the brakes on Chubb review. Committee or when they were halfway done, what did they call it?
30:16 The halfway Chester half chap review. It was the half chub review.
30:20 Sorry, Nicola, I know you're very soon. I apologise. I'm sorry to everyone listening, we can continue with the job review.
30:31 So the question is, like, how, how much money can you make? So I don't know if you want to get the spreadsheet up. But in this review, there are 165 projects. I mean, 24 point 5 million credits. Now, and this is mainly from what we call human induced regeneration, aka, planting more trees, putting some seeds in the ground, and maybe not. I mean, some of the people gave evidence and the inquiry said maybe the rain made the plants grow. So there wasn't necessarily additional. So if you want to, you know, this, this was some of the greenwashing claims come in. Now, just to be clear, the findings of the inquiry suggested that there was no overstatement in the creation of those credits. There are sort of big question marks around whether the climate understands the difference between, you know, not stopping burning coal and gas versus, you know, growing a few more plants on someone's property. Man, it's
31:32 review revealed a problem that was growing and growing.
31:37 Thank you, Louis. Can you tell us like I heard a rumour that Tony Abbott actually designed the safeguard mechanism. And surely, if Labour is getting behind some of that Tony Abbott designed to protect the environment. Surely, it'll do the opposite of what Tony Abbott is said it would do?
31:52 Well, yeah. Well, I don't know if I'm bit old. I think actually remember that. Nick, Xenophon. And his team proposed some of the changes which then the coalition at the time adopted because they had this thing called the oh, goodness, can't remember it. Some sort of, oh, credit skate, no. Direct action. That's what it was.
32:14 Yeah, yes. We all we all remember the green army, Nikolai, we were. It was people on the dole going out to plant trays, that'll save us.
32:23 And it was the biggest ideological contortion that I have experienced, where we got rid of what was basically market based mechanisms of doing some emissions trading. And we took that away, and we use taxpayers money and granted that to big polluters to do nothing much at all. It was extraordinary. And so that's when Xenophon suggested perhaps we do some of these things. And you know, to the credit, I suppose, coalition said, oh, yeah, okay, let's do some baselines and get people to report those emissions. And then let's see whether we can get them to actually reduce their emissions. But of course, if you don't enforce something, probably doesn't get done.
33:03 I love hearing in the commission, David Polka talk about Akyuz they're the they're the units of carbon offsets. Is that right? Yeah, they kind of they kind of sound like the new Bitcoin, like the way he was talking about it made me want to get in early on accute. I needed to buy, buy some Akyuz now, so in 10 years time when I'm underwater, I'll be able to buy myself a nice house on the hill.
33:23 Yeah, now that the NFT market is crashing, is there room for maybe the carbon credit like to take its place if we can make the carbon credit schemes really, really trendy? We'd like 60 year olds?
33:35 Yeah. Yeah, a series of carbon credits, but some of them are wearing fedoras. And some of them have really cool sunglasses on. Some of them have like little sailor,
33:46 maybe dead ape, we could call it
33:53 drowning. Nicolette Bill bola. Thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear to give us a little bit of clarity and leave us feeling more despondent than ever about the safeguard mechanism.
34:06 Thanks for having me.
34:08 That is it for irrational fear. Big thank you to all of our guests Nicolette Villa Jane Bell, Elise Phillips Louis harbour, what would you folks like to plug up Jane? Let's start with you.
34:19 I've got a Melbourne Comedy Festival show starting on the 29th of March it buys a pack of three called slops it is about having multiple quarterlife crisis is all through your 20s and 30s. You can find it on the Coronavirus website or on my Instagram Jane Bell MP.
34:36 Excellent lace. Yeah, I'm
34:38 also bringing a show to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival I'm starting on March 27 at the butterfly club and it's called at least Phillips tends to be on tropical holiday for 50 minutes definitely not a scam. It does what it says on the tin
34:54 I love it a great long name I'm big fan of long name Nicolette below what would you like to plug Do you have a show at the building? contest
35:02 for possible by elections in the federal state of Bradfield, after the New South Wales election, I'll be running as community independent. I'm allowed to do that. I'll just have
35:11 go for it. Yeah, yeah. We should point out that Nicolette almost almost got a seat last last time around. So this could be the Redux how excited you know, around the same time I was doing the billboard stuff, Paul, Paul Fletcher said on q&a said, what you can't do is you can't go around putting up billboards saying that Paul Fletcher is an idiot. And I thought well, that that is a great quote. That is a great quote to put on a billboard. Bradfield, which is an idiot by Paul Fletcher q&a On this date. So there's an idea for you. Oh, yes, John from radios wants to Sir remind everyone that our Adelaide show is 5pm This Saturday afternoon in the garden of unearthly delights. So for now tonight and you listen to this before before then please come along, get a ticket. We've got the Attorney General came mark from South Australia on the podcasts gonna be talking to him all about the voice Lewis. What would you like to look?
36:07 Yes at the Adelaide show, Dan. We're also going to be in Melbourne on the second and April. So buy tickets to that. It's gonna be fun. It's a technically a hometown show for me. So I'm expecting rapturous applause, perhaps some sort of motorcade. I would accept fireworks. I would like Dan Andrews to be there and personally shake my hand and walk me back to the city of Melbourne. These are just some ideas. If you're listening from Melbourne, and you're wondering how you can welcome me back home.
36:39 Yes, it's gonna be a great show. That is it for rational fear. Big thank you to rode mics, our sponsor, Australian, ethical. All of our wonderful, incredible Patreon supporters. We had a whole stack of people sign up this week. I'll shout out your names at the live show because it was so awesome. Or the amount of people that signed up Jacob round over Tepanyaki timeline. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of. Good night.
Once a month on the A Rational Fear podcast feed and email list, comedy editor, Dylan Behan, will bring you News Fighters.
Dylan has been cutting wacky clips for film and television along side me for all of my careers. I first met Dylan when he was an assistant editor at Tracks Post Production when he worked on The Ronnie Johns Half Hour with me back in 2005. And since then he’s worked in the comedy trenches with The Chaser, Tonightly, It’s Not A Race, and of course regularly appearing at A Rational Fear gigs on stage and on the mic.
For the first episode of News Fighters for 2023, host Dylan Behan looks back on an oddly quiet summer of news, a lowlight of which was the right’s outrage over Anthony Albanese going to the tennis. Also why Peter Dutton is going to do everything he can to block the Voice to Parliament (hint: because Albo is in favour of it!)
News Fighters is a comedic look at Australian news, media and political hypocrisy from TV comedy editor Dylan Behan.
0:00 G'day A Rational Fear listeners, Dan Ilic here letting you know that yes, you may have noticed I took the week off last week. That's because I'm currently in both amp amp amp and amp amp. Africa. Not Toto's Africa. But the Bertha Fellowship's Africa. Yes. They flew me out to Cape Town. After supporting the podcast for two years. They they got us all together because of COVID. We weren't able to get together before. But now we're all in one room currently. And who knows if I'll make it back? This was recorded before I left. I might have been mauled by a hippopotamus so impailed by the last ever North African Rhino. Who knows who knows, but in my place, I have a very special treat and once a month, coming up for the next few months, we've got the one and only Dylan bein, who's going to be delivering us a juicy news fighters on this feed once a month get a Dylan get a
0:48 Dan, thanks for having me. On your feed. I hope we both get to feed some sumptuous wacky clips.
0:56 Yes, yes. For those of you don't know, Dylan is a longtime collaborator of mine is TV editor. He makes wacky clips. He has this incredible podcast called news fighters, which is kind of like the monthly news in a blender. And it's drip fed, through snarky comments. Is that probably is that probably,
1:15 yes, yes, it's very much I take the months news in clip form. And I riff on the clips, and it's a very fun time to be had by all and then at the end of the show, I have an interview, which this week is going to be you.
1:28 Well, that's how convenient I'm right here. I'm ready to go. This is so amazing. So thank you for continuing on with supporting irrational fear. Your Patreon is actually helping Dylan as well. So we're gonna be getting Dylan some of the Patreon money so please, if you enjoy news fighters and irrational fear chipping in to patreon.com forward slash a rational fear. I'm recording my end of irrational fear. Well, news fighters on on Gadigal Land of the Eora Nation, what land are you on?
1:55 I'm also on Gadigal Land of the Eora Nation I believe.
1:57 There we go. There you go. This is a very this is a very you're a nation centric show. A lot of people have said that this feed is to your nation century we're gonna get some Naarm in here. Speaking of speaking of other nations, we're going to be up in meanjin. We're going to be in Brisbane on the 26th of March and we're going to be in Adelaide in two weeks. In March for so we'll see you then. Oh, of course. And we'll we'll be in Nam will be in Melbourne performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. April 2, so we're dealing with B there'll be a different DJ we hired out of pure convenience and cost sake. We found a DJ there was a DJ in Melbourne. Apparently there are no DJs in Brisbane, there are no comedy DJs in Adelaide and we had to fly them in
2:38 Andrew McClellan's a great mate of mine and will arguably do the job better than me. So enjoy that.
2:45 All right, here's this month's episode of news fighters.
2:47 Let's start the show.
2:49 This is News Fighters, where we fight the news so you don't have to with Dylan Behan.
2:57 Yes, G'day everyone. Welcome to News fighters. It's episode 121 for February 2023 News Fridays everybody loves it. Tiller on it. For those of you joining us for the very first time news fighters is a comedic look at the month in Australia news media and political hypocrisy hosted by me ex to nightly and chaser editor and 80s Rock Legend. Dylan bein. Yes. And news fighters, of course is now monthly. Here on the irrational fear podcast feed and if you love irrational fear stick around because my interview guest is none other than my new boss, Dan Ilic, who's here to talk about the New South Wales election amongst other things.
3:36 I don't mind getting a parking fine. It's in the app. I could I could see it. I can see how many points I've lost by going through that red light. I have any I haven't gone through any red LEDs.
3:43 But first Happy New Year's everyone I don't know about you. But to me, it feels like it's the first year where we're not in 2020 anymore. Yes, it's the first summer in four years here in Australia that hasn't been dominated by deadly bushfires, COVID lock downs or scary new variants. Of course the upshot of that is the media has been absolutely scrambling for news stories to report on I mean, look, somehow this made the national news
4:06 Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are making the most of their time here in Australia. It was a recent trip to a kebab shop that had the Hollywood couple wowing locals here
Nicole and Keith stopped by manly sucide kebabs for a tasty treat.
4:19 And for those of you who believe that long form interrogative interviews died when lease sales left 730 Well, I give you the most confrontational explosive interview since frost Nixon with Sunrise kebabs shop!
4:35 How exciting was it to have Nicole and Keith in your store? And most importantly, what did they order?
Is there any time of the day when a kebab isn't appropriate?
I've got to ask Do you have a specialty tasty dish is something that Keith hasn't tried yet that maybe he should give a go
4:54 may I'm gonna get him to try the lamb kebab.
4:58 What a story. How Good, good on you.
5:00 And thanks for the great kebabs. Oh, that'd be studying that interview a journalism school for decades to come. And in international news this summer there was almost a major diplomatic incident as a mysterious foreign balloon was spotted over America.
5:14 Bluey the lovable Blue Heeler pup from Australia is making her debut in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
5:21 Yes, fun fact though. bluey was actually Australia's first balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade since the Babadook. In 2015. Summer of course is also the season of sport in this country and the New Year's cricket test in Sydney gave us a telling sign that maybe COVID is finally behind us.
5:37 Matt Renshaw has actually tested positive to COVID. Now he will play but he's keeping a safe distance and he is in the starting 11 Of course he will play and it will play a full part.
5:48 Yes, that's right at the third test against South Africa and Sydney. Australian cricketer Matthew Renshaw tested positive to COVID and played anyway. never even bothered to put a mask on well, that Scott Morrison would say Australia is literally
6:03 Taking wickets in the virus! They are indeed
6:06 indeed indeed taking wickets with the virus and batting with the virus and standing 50 centimeters away I'm asked from the other players during the national anthem at the virus. We now do everything with the virus someone else who's definitely over COVID is the today's shows Karl Stefanovic
6:20 As you know, I'm not a glowing ambassador for more than two shots I've just decided that I've had COVID A couple of times and I'm done with the vaccines
6:28 wow what a surprise a millionaire TV host with paid sick leave doesn't want to get vaccinated anymore. Well let's find by me all the more jobs for me if I get sick with COVID again I can't afford to pay my rent so I'd be happy to fight waning immunity with the job every morning with my coffee yum yum tasty vaccines Nom nom nom one country that isn't completely over COVID yet, though, is China which only just rip the band aid off its COVID Zero policy in December which led to Australia having to take some steps to protect itself.
6:52 The federal government has today acted on concerns about China's surging COVID cases, announcing that travelers arriving from there will be required to take a pre departure COVID test.
7:05 Yes, that's right. Incoming travelers from China were required to take a COVID test before coming to Australia. But why exactly if it turned out they were positive? They're legally allowed to do whatever they wanted here. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Lee, it appears as though you've tested positive for COVID. Well, on your way, enjoy your shopping trip. Oh, one more thing. Is there any chance you could just do us a favor and wear a set of cricket pads and bed in the test this afternoon? That'd be great. And if I saw one sign that the media has definitely moved on from COVID It was the site of the ABCs Chief COVID alarmist and do manga Dr. Norman Swan out doing fluffy lifestyle reports.
7:41 Welcome to the program. Later we'll see Dr. Norman Swan in an ice bath.
7:50 ARARAGH !Well, I can't pretend there's no cold. It is frizzy.
7:54 Jays a slight change in tone from his reports this time three years ago, don't you think
7:59 If you let the pandemic go unchecked, huge numbers won't be able to receive treatment and will die! // It's not just the elderly who die. It's 30 and 40 year old with no obvious risk factors.
8:11 We're all Gonna die!
8:12 Well anyways, thank God we moved on and nobody is dying from COVID anymore. Thank God right.
8:18 Right now COVID is putting 50 times more Australians in hospital than the flu and killing between 50 and 100 times more people.
8:26 Meanwhile, the ABCs Chief COVID statistician Casey Briggs has even been demoted to reading other boring news stories. Evening Casey breaks with ABC News.
8:35 Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will soon be headed to Washington as Australia's next ambassador to the United States.
8:42 Dr. Rudd brings unmatched experience to the role.
8:45 Hang on a second. Dr. Rudd? Dr. Rudd? Wha what is he a doctor of backstabbing and handball? Anyways, it turns out Dr. road wasn't the only nerd that our prime minister had to contend with this summer.
8:57 One of the world's richest people. Bill Gates is meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at kirribilli. House
9:03 We haven't met before but I've admired your work.
9:08 Yes. Turns out Albert is a big fan of gates early work, especially Clippy the talking paperclip and of course, the Microsoft Windows calculator without which elbow never could have done the numbers against Gillard. True fact. It wasn't just all nerd talk. There were some actual policy announcements from the federal government this summer. Like this one, the federal government
9:26 is promising to usher in a new era of support for Australia's creative industries with a $300 million boost to arts funding. The five year plan includes the establishment of a poet laureate
9:38 Yes. And knowing Federal Labor I can probably guess who they're going to pick is their first poet laureate. I guess he's a certain ex Prime Minister
9:46 (BEEP) (BEEP) This language! These dickheads in the embassy This bloody interpreter! (BANG)
9:54 Oh, what a beautiful way with words! Move over ,Carol Ann Duffy. Look her up. The liberals of course are absolutely incensed that Anthony Albanese would prioritize the arts. Of all things. He is Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley.
10:09 The Arts is important, but this announcement demonstrates the government's misplaced priorities. They're promised an art gallery in Alice Springs. And what Alice Springs needs. Is more police on the streets.
10:23 Yes. How dare the government talk about the arts when there's any other problems occurring. The Liberals have decided the current Alice Springs Crime Wave is Anthony Albanese is Hawaii moment that he must be hammered on. At every opportunity for getting Of course, last I checked, crime is a local issue, not a federal one. And Prime Ministers aren't Santa Claus and can't be everywhere all at once. Instead, the coalition and the Murdoch media are all asking How dare Albanese spend any time anywhere other than our springs, doesn't he know His job is to be fighting crime. 24/7 like Batman,
10:57 the Prime Minister spend a lot of time at the tennis having enjoying corporate hospitality. But there are pressing issues in relation to the safety of Indigenous Australians in Alice Springs.
11:12 So the prime minister should visit Alice Springs,
11:15 there are tennis matches that went longer than Anthony Albanese, his visit on the ground in Alice Springs.
11:22 You know, of course no sign of Albo. He's not interested. He did his couple hours on the ground off he went to the tennis to chuck back beers.
11:31 And as long at the Mardi Gras as he managed to spend, certainly not as long as he spent at the tender but that was just look at the optics of this look at this being at some massives colorful celebration in the streets of Sydney when the absolute mess that labor have helped contribute to both at federal level and territory level in the in Northern Territory and particularly Alice Springs has not been solved here
11:58 to have Sky News as our lucky you know, their coalition have been in power for roughly 21 of the last 27 years. But every current societal problem is a direct result of the last nine months of the Albanese Labour Government. Why haven't they fixed everything already? Also, don't you think it's funny how the liberals hate Anthony Albanese attending the tennis but never had an issue with all the time Scott Morrison attended the footy, even like say in mid March 2020 when Australia was facing its biggest crisis in generations, with COVID lapping at our shores. On the same day Morrison announced he was banning mass gatherings. He also said Of course, I'm going to the footy this weekend.
12:36 Welcome to the program mass gatherings of more than 500 people are said to be canceled from Monday as Australian authorities tried to limit the spread of Coronavirus.
12:45 Well, I do still plan to go to the football on Saturday as I said because this is a an arrangement we're putting in place for next week as a precaution.
12:54 Anyway, speaking of massive hypocrites this week we had Oh yes, you hear that? It's the honeymoon ending for the Albanese government.
13:01 The government has rejected calls for communications minister Michelle Rowland to resign after she accepted $19,000 in donations from a gambling agency before the federal election
13:12 I have and will continue to comply with the disclosure requirements of the ASC the register of members interests and the ministerial code of conduct
13:20 no need to worry the Communications Minister complied with all the necessary political financing rules, which proves our entire political system is corrupted by money. And nobody wants to do anything about it. But personally, I'm amazed nobody saw this coming when the sports bed app actually listed Michelle Rowland as the two to one favorite for being the first labour minister to resign in disgrace. Dammit, I knew I should have gone for a same sitting week multi. Anyways, back to indigenous reconciliation. And last week was the 15th anniversary of Dr. Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations. And I'll give you one guess who couldn't be bothered turning up yet again.
14:00 Noticeably absent from the anniversary breakfast this morning. Peter Dutton says he wishes he made a different choice in 2008,
14:08 The Prime Minister's frequently able to point it out that I didn't attend the chamber for the apology 15 years ago. I've apologized for that in the past. And I repeat that apology again today.
14:21 Yes, make sure you don't invite Peter Dutton to your wedding or he'll boycott it on purpose and apologize. But Miss your 50th anniversary party on purpose again anyway, you know, like a normal emotionally stable and empathetic human being does.
14:32 I failed to grasp at the time, the symbolic significance to the stolen generation of the apology?
14:39 Yes. Peter Dutton says he finally grasps the symbolic significance of the apology. So you think it might be supportive of the even more significant voice to Parliament that's being proposed? Right.
14:50 I think the voice is not going to get up. I don't think it's going to be successful. I want an outcome that's going to bring an end to the violence this sexual assaults on children taking place in Alice Springs at the moment I want reconciliation to improve in our country. I don't want to see the escalation of domestic violence that we've seen. And I want a model that is going to help those kids enjoy the life that I would expect my kids to enjoy in a capital city. Yes,
15:19 that's right. Peter Dutton is basically saying is not going to support the voice to Parliament because it doesn't solve all the problems facing all indigenous people immediately, you know, like his government was famous for fixing. Anyways, it's quickly becoming abundantly clear that the main reason Peter Dutton and the coalition are going to oppose the voice is because Anthony Albanese is in favor of it. And for all their endless talk about wanting outcomes that improve people's lives, they've quickly forgotten that in their last decade in power, the only lives they seem to improve with the lives of landlords, CEOs and shareholders. Hilariously, people like Peter Dutton and indigenous Coalition Senator Jacinto Nampijinpa Price, have declared their opposition to the voice while simultaneously saying that what indigenous people need is for their voice to somehow be heard by political leaders in Canberra. Wait,
16:08 what if there was a strong indigenous voice coming out of the Northern Territory at the moment that they want the Prime Minister to lead to act, and to help them out that the Prime Minister is not listening to that voice? Then I think most Australians would say, Well, what? Why not?
16:21 We don't need a voice. We need ears we need we need our leadership to have to use their ears and to listen to community if
16:30 I want to make sure that those voices who have the ability to make the changes and the practical outcomes and the improvements for kids and women's and families on the ground that that's the voice that I want to hear.
16:41 Yeah, maybe done and price it right. If only there was some way indigenous people could be regularly consulted or listened to by our parliament, on the issues that affect them. What? Why isn't anybody thought of a way to do this? If they figure it out? Maybe we could vote on it in a referendum, maybe Donlin price would support that right. So in conclusion, it looks like the political year is beginning to take shape. We've got an opposition determined to set reconciliation back an entire generation just so they can score some political points against a popular new prime minister. We've got a new government whose modus operandi appears to be nothing more than appearing slightly less corrupt than the other guys they replaced and all the while the media is more focused on what kebab shop our Hollywood stars when to than holding any of these politicians to account. Good on you. And thanks for the great kebabs. I know it's only February, but right now the political landscape in Australia feels so mean and dirty. It makes me want to have a prolonged ice bath. Right, Norman Swan? Happy 2023 Everyone. All righty, welcome back to news fighters. And this month, our special interview guest I haven't had him on for two years. Believe it or not. It's an old friend of mine, the host of irrational fear Dan Ilic, the man with whom comedy would not exist in Australia. How are you going down?
18:04 That's very generous of you. Yes. I actually I actually, I actually made comedy. I invented comedy in Australia. Anybody who wants to do comedy in
18:12 half of the weekly last week was people you discovered.
18:16 That's it? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, yeah. Why isn't a weekly got me on I've been I mean, I've been doing this for so long. Go, oh, my goodness, this is the problem. This is the problem. No, you're welcome. You're welcome, Australia. I find I shot I polish them up and I let them go. That's what's my job. That's a job at irrational fear. No, we are very lucky to have a lot of funny people come through a rational fear and, and a lot of people whose careers are just coasting like my own. So, you know, it's just one of those things. It's, you know, they say you do irrational fear twice in your career. Unlike me, it's turned out to be my whole career. So they
18:50 normally I'd have you on to discuss a rational fear. But given that we're now on the irrational fear podcasts read, I think people are already subscribed to irrational fear and are quite familiar with it.
19:00 That's right. That's right. And if you're not, I'm really sorry, this is going to be this would have been a very confusing episode for you. Because this is news spiders, this, we're basically getting Dylan on to do the show once a month means one, I can have a week off once a month. And to Dylan has a place for his excellent show, and he can get paid to do it. That's when that's the great thing about this show.
19:25 So in lieu of talking to you about irrational fear, which everyone knows about, I guess we'll get to plugging the upcoming events at the end. But I figured we'd talk maybe about your a great news brand, your great politics brain. I thought maybe we'd look ahead of the year in news and politics and maybe a few, a few predictions. I guess. I guess first off, we're gonna have the New South Wales State election in March. You quite familiar with the tail movement at the last federal election? What's going to happen in the state election? We're gonna get some TEALS up are we going to, are we going to get rid of pyrrhotite? What's what's going to happen to you reckon?
19:59 I mean, there's a half which he was running. So it gets really tricky because unlike the federal election, there is no mandate for preferential voting. So there's no rules on preferential preferential voting. It's optional. It's optional. Yeah, it's optional. Yeah. So it gets really confusing. And so people will just go in there and they'll just put a one next to whoever they want and walk away. Whereas if they go through the whole ballot and label every single candidate box with a number, there are more chances that a candidate like an independent climate focus candidate, like the many of the climate 200 candidates will will get in. I reckon there's probably a lot of energy around a couple, particularly up in the northern beaches, Jackie screwby is running up there. It seems like she could probably pull together a really compelling campaign and find herself with a seat. So that's exciting. On the podcast, we had Judy Hannon from Wheeling, Billy Shire, and the Southern Highlands last week. So if you listen, if you listen to that, or if you're new to the podcast, go back and listen to that. Really interesting chat with her about how effective she might be able to be if she got a seat. And then there's a couple of others. Lane Cove has a couple of other North Shore seats that may that made her entail, but I think I think screwby is probably probably the most likely she's up and on the beaches. She comes from Sophie sconces campaign she was the Chief of Staff of Sophie sconces campaign back in the day. She is an ex Environmental Defense Lawyer. She knows climate back to front she is very much across Pep 11 which is the big fossil fuel project off the northern beaches. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that plays into her favor and not to say less she is benefiting from Sophie sconces huge grassroots campaign and a mailing list and volunteers. So that's a really interesting one. And that one will be I think I look, I think that'd be a shoo in. If she doesn't get in, I'll be very surprised.
22:00 but correct me if I'm wrong. I noticed the TEALS at the federal election, there was a big anti scomo Anti liberal movement, but I feel like Britain correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm brainwashed here, but I feel like the New South Wales liberals are definitely wearing their green on their on their sleeves. They're trying to try and be a bit more green than than the federal Liberals. Is that a fair assumption?
22:21 No, that is an accurate assumption. And they've played that card really well. You see a lot of great initiatives from New South Wales and partly because, you know, the New South Wales actually minority government right now. So they need to, they need to collaborate with a whole bunch of the other parties. So mainly the independents people like Alex Greenwich, and the greens so by it's kind of funny because the Liberals are forming coalition's with the greens in New South Wales so they can so they can go against labour that is kind of that is kind of that's kind of the fun, weird coalition we're in right now. Another interesting thing that passed was not only on climate, stuff, like raise the renewable energy zone up in north eastern New South Wales, which got passed. But stuff like really interesting social stuff, like the end of life stuff that was going on. For euthanasia in New South Wales that got passed as well. This is all because despite having an open estate Premier, who is personally morally against it, they ended up voting for it, because they are in minority government. So that's, it's kind of a interesting position that they're in right now. So realistically, it's the, it's the other groups in the in parliament that are holding the Liberals account to kind of get stuff done. So they can go about their day pretending that they are grain, but really, the grain has been pushed upon them upon the grains by the grains and the independence. So it'll be interesting to see kind of how that how that changes. Should the Liberals get out like, they're gonna go against the renewable energy zone, they still are processing a whole bunch of coal and gas projects, and they're still going out the door and, and also, when it comes to development, they're still over developing precious habitat for chlamydia free koalas. So there's this interesting case in southwest Sydney, where they've moved a whole bunch of koalas or they're trying to move a whole bunch of koalas out of Southwest Sydney, and move them to a sanctuary in the southern highlands, which happens to be owned by the same land as the developer for the development of the land development. So this is a whole bunch of stuff that when it comes to the environment, they weigh the flag and say, hey, yeah, we're super green. But really, when you look at it, it's get down to brass tacks. It's it's it's not as green as you think. So it'll be interesting to see kind of how that how that plays out. I don't know if the till movement can mobilize the same amount of anger back to your question against Dominic ParaType. And Matt Cain along those same lines. It'll be interesting to see I, you know, they're they're passionate, they're fired up. And when you've got brains like Jackie screwby, who know, climate back to front, I wouldn't be surprised if they're successful.
24:54 You mean so after 12 years in power, and on our fourth Premier, do you think that The Liberals could could could win again or will will, will people think of elbow when they vote for Labour at the state election and labor cuts across the planet? So it's hard to say it's going to be a quite honestly,
25:09 I honestly don't know, for me, it feels pretty ephemeral. Like I can't get a grip, I can't get a grip on it at all, in terms of what the electorate is feeling because here's the thing, anyone who's lived in New South Wales for a long period of time knows what life is like under a Labour government. A lot of particularly around infrastructure, what liberals have done have delivered huge amounts of infrastructure in 12 years, they've, they've made the best use of at the time, low interest rates, and they've digitized the entire they've completely revolutionized service New South Wales digitize services. It's actually a joy to interact with the government.
25:48 We all love US dollars on the app that we scanned and got free bowling.
25:54 I don't mind getting a parking fine. It's in the app. I could I could see it, I can see how many points I've lost by going through that red light. I've only I haven't gone through any red lights. But it's so I can see my working with children. In the app, everything's on the app. And it's such a joy to do that. And you know, that's something they've delivered. I'm sure a lot of governments over the last 10 years have done that. It's the exact same thing, but particularly it comes to infrastructure. You know, 12 years ago, there wasn't a metro. There wasn't a new, it wasn't open cards. There were there wasn't Opal cards. Yeah. And remember, labor trying to bring those things in. It was a real ball like it took forever. The disputes were off the chain, where where the Metro is going to go was off the chain was all dreadfully political. But somehow the Liberals managed to pull off a huge amount of infrastructure. In 10 years, the state feels almost a little bit different. But you know, the the dawn talking about Sydney? Of course, not talking about outside of outside of Sydney,
26:52 People outside of Sydney will talk about lots of problems with the hospitals and healthcare and stuff. So it's very difficult. Sydney.
27:00 Yeah, it's very different outside the metro areas, that's for sure. But yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty interesting. I don't know it could go either way. And yet, is New South Wales ready for a Labour Government? is probably how I would word it if I were running an attack this week.
27:23 It's interesting. Seems
27:24 he looks like a male model.
27:27 But can he be trusted with a budget? I think most people in New South Wales New South Wales is the least parochial state in the country. I think we care the least about local pot state politics is anyone so I think most people don't even know the elections on and when they do go to vote. They'll be like, well, I like the new tunnel. So I might vote for that. Who knows?
27:47 Yeah, I like paying $10 driving through the new tunnel. It's wonderful. Thank you.
27:52 We'll see what happens. Yeah. And on the world stage, we've got two big things this year. We've got the king Charles's coronation in May. And cop 28 is in Dubai. Let's get the Patreon funded up and go to these. I'm all for it. What are your patreon.com/irrational Fear everyone jump on it? What do you reckon?
28:11 Dylan? Let me tell you this. When the Queen died, and everyone had to replace their portrait of the Queen with the king, we bought two from the Australian Monica Association and I promised to give them out to anybody in the next two weeks, who signed up to the Patreon. No one signed up to the portrait, a framed portrait of King Charles no one signed up I think I think I've done the testing. I've done the American market research. This audience does not care about King Charles we are not we are definitely not going to be covering this kind of
28:41 I'll hang it up behind you all hang out on my wall here. I've got a nice space here.
28:45 I mean, how many spaces okay, but there's not enough room for his hands, his hands, he's fat fingers really take up a lot of space.
28:52 His ears take up the whole coin as well.
28:55 But cup 28 in Dubai, it's one of the not one of the big cups. So I don't think we would have been going there either. But I think there's there will be a cup and a couple of years in Australia. And we are actively going to get behind that to get a cup to Australia. So I'm really looking forward to that. That's for me in terms of cops coming up getting the cop to Australia, the Pacific countries in Australia co hosting a cop potentially in Brisbane. I reckon that's a great way to get active and get meaningful action on climate when it's in your own country. I think that's going to be pretty good. And as Australia's still probably one of the worst fossil fuel exporters one of the worst scope three emitters probably second or third to Russia and Saudi Arabia. That is that is the number one priority. You know, imagine if we could use that cup to limit fossil fuel exports and and wretched back fossil fuel exports over the next 10 years that will be something meaningful for the world. It's pretty interesting, but can I play you a hello Darius wacky clip. I don't know if you found this yet. This is a climate related wacky clip. This is from liberal Senator Alex antic, who's asking a question of the Home Affairs boss, Mike Zullo, where the department's focus on climate change as a national security risk is parody accommodate this, this is really quite enjoyable from Alex antic,
30:23 to Missoula. your opening statement here, which sort of front of me, you made mention of the fact that the department's work extends to dealing with the effects of climate change? Yes. And to better position Australia to deal with the increasing exposure and vulnerabilities into nationally significant crises, including those due to climate change with the greatest of respect, is it? Is that comedy parody? Or is that serious?
I'm not are you referring to a question that you've asked me? I don't understand. I
don't know the suggestion that the Department of Home Affairs is somehow prioritizing. The issue of climate change is that I'm not sure
if you've noticed, the increasing frequency and severity of weather events were responsible in supporting the Minister for emergency management happens to be at the table with policy and legislative advice. My colleague, the coordinator, General of NEMA that was questioned this morning then delivers programs I genuinely don't know how to respond to or other oddly put question, you asked me whether it's comedy, it's my job, but I don't really understand what you're asking.
31:35 They're just amazing. It's like everyone's house is being destroyed. Not an issue of national security. Taking tweezers on an airplane very important issue of national security.
31:46 Yeah, and the millions of people that are going to come to Australia after they become climate refugees, definitely not part of Home Affairs. No, no, no. This is a here's another great clip from that said it estimates as well. Senator antic again.
32:01 Well, Mr. Padilla Is it safe then to say that the department has been captured by leftist ideology?
32:11 I'm looking forward to hearing this answer.
32:15 Yes, the Department of Homeland affairs is akin to the greens you might as well have Adam bet running the Home Affairs Department.
32:21 Oh my goodness, that was them laughing not us. Like even they felt.
32:26 That was that was my Palooza laughing at the dumb question.
32:29 And before we go, that I think what's going to be the biggest issue of the year it's looking like inflation and interest rates. How do we how do we stop inflation from going out of control, any tips, any thoughts, any ideas,
32:41 you need to speed up on the spending Dylan You need to spend more and one way you can spend more is going to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear and drop us $3 A month of your hard earned cash and we kick the show on the road or more.
32:55 You can choose a higher amount you don't have to choose one of the tiers you can choose a higher amount yet.
32:59 Yeah, that's right. I hear there's a there's a famous comedian in the US they have a Patreon they would say earn like $300,000 a year on oh sorry, $300,000 a month. And the top tier is called the Rothschild team. We don't have that. But you know, if you pay us $500 a month, we will come into a show live for you somewhere.
33:21 All right. So just plug well. What's coming up with irrational fear in the near future. There's some we're going on tour. There's some great gigs coming up and what's the rest of the year look like as
33:29 well. You can go catch us in Adelaide at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. And then you can catch us at Brisbane in queue pack for the World Science Festival. Dylan, we have got incredible guests at that festival, including yourself Louis harbor. Mel Buddle is doing that show also Mark Humphries and we have a very special scientist from NASA joining us her name is her name is Dr. Christiansen Dr. Jesse Christiansen and she worked on the JW S T. The James Webb Space Telescope and she currently is building a habitat for exoplanets. This is incredible data set where all the data for every exoplanet they discover goes into this huge database. And people can look it up and find exoplanets and learn more about them which is amazing. So it's it's incredible. We're going to talk to her about aliens, life forms, looking into deep space and working on database T and working at NASA. She's Australian, so it's very exciting to have her on the show. Oh yes. And then of course April 2, we've got the Melbourne International Comedy Festival that is a huge show with call that show. irrational fear has too many guests because it's a 60 minute show, and we have too many guests for 60 minutes. Everyone's going to be limited to about five minutes each. But we'll figure out how that goes as we go along. We've got Luis myself. Andy McClinton is DJ Viraj and is doing sketches we've also gotten that's what I recommend Gabby bolt and Alice phrase and also, Grace team is joining us again as well semi Shah. So another huge, huge show that shows already About 30% sold, so please get you tickets to that one that's gonna definitely sell
35:03 out. And everyone stay subscribed because you'll have news faders on here monthly as well, including Big wrap of the New South Wales State election next month. Dan, thanks for having me on. As I'm having you on. Congratulations.
35:19 As you say me podcaster you su casa. You've heard Sue podcast. Yeah.
35:26 All right. Thanks, Dan.
35:28 Good to be with you.
35:31 Alrighty, that's news fighters for February 2023. Don't forget you can catch us every month here on the irrational fear podcast feed or watch us on YouTube at youtube.com/news fighters. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a comment or review. A big thank you to Dan Ilic for stopping by and also thanks to Tom Huaville for our sparkling new graphics. As always, these photos is written and produced and edited by me Dylan Bane for irrational fear. You can follow me on Twitter at dylabolical or email me Dylan at newsfighters.com. Don't forget, if you like the show, please support the show to keep us running by chipping in at patreon.com/irrational fear that's now patreon.com/irrational Fear and if you want to listen to one of our 120 old episodes, search for news photos on your podcast feed or you can buy our bonus Patreon episodes at us fighters.bandcamp.com. You can also find us on social media we're on Twitter and Instagram at newsfighterspod or on Facebook. But who cares about Facebook and if you hate social media, we have our own little newsletter saying what I'm up to which you can subscribe to for free at newsfighters.com All these links and the transcript are in the show notes. See you next month when I'm gonna be wrapping up and previewing the New South Wales State election. Thanks for listening, keep fighting. And bye for now.
36:58 This is News fighters where we fight the news so you don't have to.
37:05 Is there any time of the day when it kebap isn't appropriate?
Every now and then on the A Rational Fear Podcast feed we have a long-form conversation about climate change with climate leaders from all walks of life.
We call them — The Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation.
On this episode of GMPOOG: Dan Ilic hosts a conversation with journalist Nick Bryant — Media watchers in Australia would certainly know Nick's work from the BBC and of course twitter. He's often got one of the clearest eyes on Australian and global politics.
Nick is doing a special episode of his podcast, Journo, with journalists who cover climate, so he came on ARF's Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation to chat about it.
On this episode we talk about News Corp's supposed move to embracing climate change, how Pasifika journalists see themselves, and also great yarns about Greta Thunberg and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Daniel, it's with you here for another episode of The Greatest more podcasts of our generation on the irrational fear feed. If you haven't heard the gumboots before, it's largely conversations about climate change with Climate Leaders. Good and bad. We'll be back with the regular irrational fears show probably I reckon July maybe August, I'm taking a few weeks off because I am freaking exhausted after the election. I need to recharge. Think about this show. Think about how to make it better for the future. And all that stuff. You have any ideas hit me up on Twitter or email Dan at irrational fear.com We'd love to hear from you. Despite
Robbie McGreggor 0:41 global warming, or rational fear, he's adding a little more heart here with long form discussions with Climate Leaders. Good.
Unknown Speaker 0:53 This is called Don't be great. Heat waves and droughts. greatest mass extinction moral when facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate criminals,
Robbie McGreggor 1:07 Jenner raishin.
Unknown Speaker 1:09 All of this with global warming and a lot of it's a hoax
Robbie McGreggor 1:13 book, right. That's my role podcast about generation.
Unknown Speaker 1:17 For short,
Dan Ilic 1:18 many folks who listen to the podcast, you'd be familiar with the works of our next guest, Nick Bryant, BBC senior correspondent to Australia, South Asia, in Washington in New York. One thing you may not know about him is he holds a doctorate in American politics from Oxford. Like Nick has also been seconded by the Judith Nielsen Institute for journalism and ideas to host journalists, a podcast about journalism, those who dabble in it. My first question to Nick is have you ever been on a plane when they call for a doctor? Dr. Nick, Brian.
Nick Bryant 1:46 I've always yearned for that moment. And to go out the front and to say, you know, what, what do you want to know about American history? But alas,
Dan Ilic 1:54 let me talk to you about gerrymandering.
Nick Bryant 1:56 Exactly. I could talk you through the sort of checks and balances of the US Constitution. But I don't think that would particularly help as this guy's of chokey God is, you know, first class mail. No, I haven't done that. But it's very sweetly mentioned the doctor. I mean, I've I've started deploying it for the first time in what 30 years, I've, I've left the BBC now and you've done
Dan Ilic 2:16 the work. So you know, you've got to use those Doctor titles whenever you can. Like,
Nick Bryant 2:21 I've hooked up with Sydney University, actually, where that kind of title carers a bit of clout, you know, so I have actually started using it again. But yeah, it still feels very odd when anybody calls me up to Brian, I gotta look around. There must be somebody else.
Dan Ilic 2:36 Yeah. Well, I do think that American politics is so diseased that they could use your help. Brian,
Nick Bryant 2:42 that is a great way of putting it. But I think, you know, is beyond the help of a physician at the moment, America, I think it is such a sickly state. Terminal, maybe it's too strong. But yeah, it's certainly got problems. I think it's terminal in terms of United States of America as a cohesive country right now. I think we're talking about to Americans, and, you know, across the board, I think you're going to, you know, the end of Roe versus Wade will mean there's an America where you can legally get an abortion as America where you can't get an abortion, there's going to be an America where you're more prone to get a pandemic, suffer from a pandemic, like COVID, as eras of America, to Americans is going to play out in so many different aspects of American life.
Dan Ilic 3:24 Yeah. Anyway, let's talk about something that is a little bit more existential for the entire globe. You have been doing some reporting recently on people who have been doing reporting on climate this is, this is great. This is our wheelhouse here at irrational fear, Nick, as you may know, and so tell us, you have a bit of a strange climate journey in your own right. As a journalist, one of
Nick Bryant 3:46 the things I do now is present a podcast called Gerardo and we look at sort of the biggest news of the day. And one of the things we decided to look at was was climate change.
Dan Ilic 3:54 Why did you do that? Because the major parties in the last election totally forgot to mention anything about climate so strange that you would do that
Nick Bryant 4:00 either. That's the reason we did it is to make sure that people remembered Hey, there's a planet under threat here. We need to be talking about this a lot more in the media. And of course, one of the areas. One of the surprising developments since I've come back to Australia is the greening of the of the Murdoch tabloids. So we we talked about a lot of things in this this podcast, and maybe we can talk about, you know, the some of the broader issues later on. But we started with this extraordinary turnaround in the run up to the Glasgow Climate Change Conference cop 26. Just before Christmas, we woke up that day and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, it turned green, talking about breeding cattle for Australia and the possibilities of Australia becoming this sort of renewable powerhouse.
Dan Ilic 4:45 We had Joe Hildebrand on our podcast when that whole happened. We lost about 20 Patreon subscribers.
Nick Bryant 4:53 Right What what Joe was part of this wraparound Well, exactly. Joe wrote a wrote a column they had the 16 paid wraparound it wasn't only in Sydney in The Daily Telegraph, it was the Tiser in in Adelaide for Adelaide, South Australia. That's the advertiser down in Adelaide, the Courier Mail, which is in Brisbane, the was it the Herald Sunday in America, Melbourne. I mean, all of the Murdoch tabloid came together. Agreed.
Dan Ilic 5:18 It was a great six weeks, Nick, it was a great six weeks of climate change journalist.
Nick Bryant 5:23 Yeah, we were fascinated with how that came about. I mean, you know, these are titles traditionally that that have been associated with climate change skepticism that are really had a go at things like the carbon tax, they've run headlines like the zombie carbon tax, and all this kind of stuff. And we were absolutely fascinated with how that turnaround had happened.
Dan Ilic 5:40 Let's have a listen of from Ben English, the editor of the Daily Telegraph,
Unknown Speaker 5:44 the issue of climate change had never been tackled from a disinterested objective, and a straightforward journalistic investigative approach, we felt that a lot of the journalism had actually veered into activism. And there'd been a lack of curiosity about a lot of the data that have been presented, we felt that it had been written from a viewpoint that we will characterize as more elite. And I think that's why we felt that it hadn't really resonated with our readers that it had been from a lofty height and element of guilt and shame around it all. We felt it was an opportunity to actually be right at the heart of the conversation, but do it from a viewpoint of everyday Australians. Now,
Dan Ilic 6:22 Nick, I'd look at some of those wraparounds at the time, and you know, who was writing some of those articles? Who, Gina Reinhardt? Twiggy Forrest, would you call them lofty and elite, the richest woman in Australia? Would you recall her? Luffy lit. And the other thing about Ben English is quite there's like, never up until September 2021. Has any journalists covered climate change at a disinterested, objective and straightforward manner? Wow, thank God, thank God for being English and The Daily Telegraph to finally come to the party to tell us what was really happening with climate change.
Nick Bryant 6:54 I look down at that boat leapt out at me as well. But we were just fascinated with how this turnaround came about how they decided they would attend the party
Dan Ilic 7:05 six six specials in the lead up to COP is not a turn around, though. It's it's like a marketing spin for the 2050 program that Scott Morrison took to the to cop like it's such a weird, such a weird thing to kind of looking back at in retrospect. Now, that happened last year, and we haven't seen anything about climate from The Daily Telegraph since then.
Nick Bryant 7:25 Well, that's something you need to take up with Ben English. And those are questions. Those are questions that that we put to him. The you know, what I think was interesting about it, talking about the sort of longer term ramifications of it. I mean, some people thought, you know, is this Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch telling these guys to do this and telling these these editors to do this, or is this something that is or more organic and bottom up rather than top down? And, you know, very clearly bad English said, you know, wasn't a murder initiative. You know, like, they say, they've got autonomy, they can do what they want. And they decided they were going to do this, like, I saw a lot of money heading into the sort of new energy space. They follow that money that he said, all that kind of thing. And what it didn't do, Dan, as you know, is is bring about a bigger kind of, you know, come to Jesus moment, if that's indeed what it was. And I mean, I know you're skeptical about that. And me too, what it didn't do was signify something broader within the Murdoch Empire, which was this, you know, were we going to see a change in the Wall Street Journal, were we going to see a change of Fox News? Obviously, that just hasn't happened either.
Dan Ilic 8:29 Do you think this is News Corp trying to keep the coalition in power by making the move on climate in a meaningful way?
Nick Bryant 8:37 Oh, there's a lot of talk that the politics behind it was to give them cover before Glasgow wasn't there's a
Dan Ilic 8:44 lot of talk behind it that the six issues of The Daily Telegraph that came out, up until the six weeks of cup.
Nick Bryant 8:51 Yeah, and the idea of being you know, you make the deal easier between the Nationals when you're trying to get to that emissions target. I think one thing it might have done is help labor neutralize the issue. So much of Labour's political strategy ahead of the federal election was obviously, to neutralize climate changes. And this year, I remember talking to Anthony Albanese this Sunday, maybe it was the week after his. He released his climate change policy. You remember he did it a Friday afternoon a classic sort of bury the news strategy. And that's right. He had a soft launch of his campaign, just two days after that. And I remember talking to his aides just before that launch, and, and they were just delighted with have, you know, little attention was being paid. I think I think the announcement made the kind of front page of The Daily Telegraph that morning but it was kind of it was right at you had to have almost a microscope to see it. And I remember sort of, they pointed me towards a pizza Archer pizza which in the Sydney Morning Herald that talks about Labour's Environment Policy not not so much as All target as a as a zero target as a no target. And I thought they maybe they wouldn't be that happy with that characterization. But they absolutely love that characterization. They love the fact that they, they'd launched this climate change policy, and it really hadn't made any kind of tabloid splash. And maybe, you know, that change of
Dan Ilic 10:21 attitude for added to have the telegraph? Yeah, if
Nick Bryant 10:23 it was meaningful. I mean, one thing it did do, seemingly, is to neutralize the issue of climate change. But I mean, you had you had an election, obviously, where it was hardly discussed, which is, you know, extraordinary. I think, you know, if you're, if you're going to be looking back on the federal election in 2022, and in 100 years time, and climate change doesn't even really feature. You know, I think people are going to be thinking about what was going on.
Dan Ilic 10:47 Just absolutely astonishing that, you know, the media kind of skipped over climate change a lot with this election, and the major parties weren't talking about it at all. Yet. The election result is all about climate, you had these climate independents, pretty much dismantle the Liberal Party, you had these greens on the rise. The one thing that everyone wasn't talking about was the actual clincher for this election. Yeah, I
Nick Bryant 11:10 think that's absolutely fascinating. And it's a brilliant point, you know, this will be regarded as the climate change election, but it wasn't the Climate Change Campaign. from it. I thought that was fascinating. I mean, the Guardian did some quite interesting research, I think hooking up with a university, I think it was one of the ones in Melbourne, they looked at the discrepancy between the questions that were being asked on the campaign trail, and the sort of questions that were really in the uppermost in people's minds, actually, cost of living was number one, on both. But climate change, there was a discrepancy, you know, it was far higher in the minds of voters than it was in the minds of journalists, when they're asking those questions. Yeah, look, it was a really small ball campaign, I think, you know, I think journalists need to have a bit of a think about how they covered it, to be honest, because I think the the gotcha line of questioning, which rarely went into climate change, did it, it was more on the kind of it spoke about the financialization of politics in Australia, and how, you know, obsessively people focus on economic indices often rather than mental health indices, or environmental indices, or that kind of thing. You know, I think that media probably does need to have a bit of a rethink about how habit covers these campaigns, because those kind of big issues just weren't given the airing that they should have been given.
Dan Ilic 12:26 The perfect metaphor was I think, elbow second big stuff up on the campaign trail when he couldn't remember the NDIS policy. You know, that, you know, the, the forum for that press conference where they were at that at that press conference? No, where were they? They were at the Smart Energy Council.
Alex Dyson 12:44 prints, there are this Smart Energy Council Expo Albo had just jumped out of an electric semi trailer. And we're walking around the conference floor cut, like surrounded by batteries and solar panels and wind farms, right. And the thing that the journalist asked about with his NDIS policy that he didn't know the answer to and had to get a press release to read off, that is the perfect, it's a perfect summation of where this where this, this media pack was at. You're at an you're at a green tech conference, not asking anything about green tech, but trying to catch the opposition leader off off track on something other other than green tech.
Nick Bryant 13:21 Dan, it's a brilliant metaphor. I'm going to squirrel that away and use it sometime in the future, because I think it's absolutely perfect. You're right. I was actually with Alba the next day. I was with him. He went to a homeless shelter. I don't sorry, a place that was a food bank. That was that was giving people food for people that were struggling as largely a result of COVID. You know, they've seen people they've never seen before. And again, the questioning really wasn't about that. What was what happened was a rerun of the NDIS. Gotcha for the day before. So we had a cut a two day gotcha, where the reporter who asked the NDIS question kept asking it the day later. Yeah, it was kind of nuts. I think what I saw for this time, though, Dan, and I, you know, I've rarely seen this in Britain. I've seen it a lot in America, journalists getting booed, especially in Trump rallies and things like that. Yeah, I'm kind of used to that. But it's, it came as a surprise in Australia. I spent a day with Morrison and I spent a day with Albanese. And these days did not I mean, you know, they put on these kind of dreadful photo ops, you know, they, they were their high visibility jackets, you know, it looks like it's sort of transcontinental costume party. And, you know, then there's this half hour that, you know, all the journalists sign themselves up for they get to ask the questions now. My David Morrison, Mia with elbow. Those press conferences, both ended up with the journalist being heckled by members of the public, who just thought their questioning was was going too far. It was turning the election into a game a trivial pursuit. It was, you know, not treating. And it was really interesting. And, you know, what, what really worries me? I mean, talking sort of big picture is this disconnect between the public and the press now and you're seeing it across the world? You know, misinformation is the kind of benefit free of this breakdown in trust. And it really worries me. And, you know, we need to raise our game, whether it's political coverage, or whether it's climate change coverage. I mean, I just think that is an obvious thing that we all need to do as journalists, one of the things I think we should do as climate change journalists, you know, how are our kids going to look at our coverage, and when they grew up, how future generations I think that should be the test of our, our climate change coverage. And I think, you know, frankly, most of most of us are found and wanting on that front.
Dan Ilic 15:32 Yeah, I mean, I'm Ben English isn't I mean, he's obviously making great strides by alerting Tim Blair and Andrew bolt and Peter cradling set the climate coverage for The Daily Telegraph by saying it's not real.
Nick Bryant 15:43 I mean, I'll tell you one thing I did get to do in New York, which was really interesting. I got to cover the Greta tunberg speech at the United Nations. Remember when she sort of stood there and just harangue the delegates? How dare you? It was just this electrifying moment. I mean, you know, a lot of the speeches at the United Nations are known for how long they went on. I think Fidel Castro used to speak for about three days. Greta Thunberg, gave this extraordinary speech. And I mentioned it, not only because it's an extraordinary historical moment, I got to interview a couple of days before, oh, how amazing. That was fascinating. And partly because they told me beforehand, rather, doesn't do small talk,
which for a prayer is kind of paralyzing.
Dan Ilic 16:26 What was your opening line now? Well, I
Nick Bryant 16:28 said to her handlers, and Greta tunberg, is part of a very sophisticated media operation there. And it's really interesting to see her at the heart of this kind of group that uses her as this, I mean, gives her this platform and also understands the value of what she has to say, and the power of the way she says it. I said to her look, you know, I'm a Brit. I mean, we just talk about the weather, surely, surely, she wants to talk about that. But
Dan Ilic 16:53 Nick, weather is not climate.
Nick Bryant 16:56 But I mentioned it, because it was the only time in my career, that my kids actually thought I had a worthwhile job. And I think that's interesting, because I thought, you know, Dad, you should be spending more time doing climate change. And, you know, my kids actually took part in the protest that she led through the streets of New York, you know, they, they took the day off school, or whatever, they went on strike. And, you know, they were there, and they were young kids, then I mean, they were kind of 10 and eight, I think, even nine and seven. Anyway, you know, it was that classic Daddy, what did you do in the war? You know, and I think that's a good question for journalists to ask themselves. When it comes to covering covering climate change?
Dan Ilic 17:35 I think so I you know, I used to be a regular on insiders up until I put billboards in New York City making fun of climate change. And I got asked not to come on inside is because of that, like, because it was deemed that you know, that act turned me into something more than a different than a comedian and that I couldn't, I couldn't possibly go on inside as any more to make jokes about cartoons that have been written in the newspaper. So they
Nick Bryant 17:59 had you on inside. It's in that segment where? Okay, right?
Dan Ilic 18:04 I've done I've done that many times. So, but it was after that it was after I put a funny joke on myself in on a billboard in New York City, that I was deemed an activist and could no longer possibly, objectively make jokes about the cartoons that other cartoonists have done?
Nick Bryant 18:21 Well, I think it's a really interesting question, because I do think that climate change journalism fits within the model of a great tradition of campaigning journalism. You know, we used to talk about
Dan Ilic 18:39 like the macro muckraking going way back, you know,
Nick Bryant 18:43 we talk about the sort of heroic era of British newspapers when they sort of showed, you know, the drugs that cause flu minimized and and, you know, it's seen as great campaigning, journalism. And, you know, I think, for me, I think I don't see the reason why we shouldn't regard climate change as an issue where we should have great campaigning, journalism. And if journalists face the accusation that they are straying into kind of activism. Do you know what I think we can kind of, I think we can live with that. I think we can live with that. I think there are certain crises that require certainly an end to the kind of both sides tourism,
Dan Ilic 19:29 it's hard to know is James Monroe, an activist is he like, when you when you say folks like for the like, of the strident news COVID. And on the insiders, those guys are just activists for a totally other thing?
Nick Bryant 19:41 Yeah. And I think a lot of news organizations now sort of getting away from that guy on both sides or as a model. You know, the BBC, for years is sort of said the debate is over about the science. So we're not going to sort of we're not going to start our morning on the Today Show, which is the big radio show in Britain and everybody listens to with a debate Pitzer climate change activists against the climate change skeptic, we're just not bothered with that debates gone. We're moving on, we're gonna think about solutions. And I mean, maybe, maybe some would regard that as, as activism. But it's, it's just, you know, there's a truth bias there. It's not a kind of bias towards it is the truth bias. And I mean, I think that, you know, the truth bias is always the kind of key one that we should we should veer towards.
Dan Ilic 20:27 It is of course, a global issue. And you've been speaking to people all over the world about how they cover it, including the Guardians Pacific editor from Samoa.
Nick Bryant 20:37 Yeah, lunga breather, Cheryl Jackson, she is absolutely fantastic about this. I mean, I thought she was really interesting. I mean, first of all, climate change for her. It's a story that dominates the front page, the back page, and every page in between, you know, very little happens in Samoa, that doesn't involve climate change. And, you know, I was intrigued to speak to her about the challenge, you know, how do you keep telling the same story every every single day? You know, the conversation I had with her was really interesting, because she spoke about how patronizing she often thinks Western coverage of the Pacific Islands is, you know, they
Dan Ilic 21:11 gotta grab for her just
Unknown Speaker 21:12 Yeah. It has always been the sexy topic in international media to talk about the sinking islands. All the helpless little islands in the Pacific. They are sinking, they are dying. We are not about that narrative in the Pacific. We're actually about empowering. We're a proud people, Nick, you know, Polynesians, Polynesians are not taking anything lying down, you meet the Micronesians. They will not be taking this lying down, and they are not doing that. And so those are the stories we love to tell. Great.
Nick Bryant 21:47 Yeah, I love that. She's saying, you know, you've got to get away from the doom and gloom narrative, you've got to get away from the narrative that we are helpless, you know, come to Polynesia. She said, an invitation I will happily accept editor and see the laughter You know, it's it's a place that isn't of living with this, you know, kind of mournful way. She said that she said, we don't grieve every day. You know, we are a joyous people. We laugh a lot. And he Polynesians are very faithful people, they wouldn't believe in a bright future. And there's a classic sort of white savior syndrome here as well, isn't it that it needs us as the white west to come and save these Islanders? And, uh, you know, again, she just rejects that sort of paradigm. Yeah. But when it when it comes to the reporting, I thought it was absolutely wonderful to speak to her and, and to hear that because it shows that even sort of well intentioned climate change coverage can can often go a bit of skew.
Dan Ilic 22:45 Yeah. And you also spoke to Andrew McCormick, adjunct professor at Columbia University, Columbia Journalism Review. What kind of coverage does he do?
Nick Bryant 22:55 Well, he's a really interesting guy, because he was in the US Navy. And he decided, you know, what's the best way I can sort of serve? And he decided to leave the military and actually to become a climate change correspondent, you know, we were talking to him about, you know, what good climate change coverage looks like this. This problem of, you know, for me, I mean, often climate change is a, what I call a diary story, rather than the daily story. It's a subject that gets a lot of attention around the time that the big summits like Glasgow, but falls off the radar in between. And I think a lot of the coverage that you see around the big conferences is often to expiate the guilt of newsrooms, you know, I haven't been doing an athlete's that's really monster around the climate change summits, you know. And, and he sort of accepts that that's a big problem. I think one of the interesting things he sat down was that COVID has shown how creative, you know, the journalistic profession can be you know, a lot of creative energy was brought to how to cover COVID. You know, so we saw things like, you know, the redesign of front pages to accommodate, you know, daily stats to tell us how many cases there were, how many desks there were that kind of stuff. I mean, he spoke about the New York Times one day had an amazing headline during the middle of COVID in New York. And I mean, this was when 100 people a day were dying in New York City alone. And I had COVID earlier on in the fear that that that brought, you mentioned this Times headline, and that, you know, the New York Times isn't known for its sort of radical newspaper design, far from it. But they had this spike in the death rate that that actually went right through the front page, and up into the masthead. So that kind of disrupted the words New York Times and, you know, he just showed a few examples of how during COVID You know, there was a real rethink, how are we going to tell this dramatic story, how we're going to tell this kind of emergency crisis story. And he doesn't always see that same creative approach when it comes to climate change reporting, and I thought that I thought that was really interesting.
Dan Ilic 24:53 Yeah, I'd love to see the daily carbon dioxide parts per million stat on the front of the Daily Telegraph. That's what madingley shouldn't be doing. It's 113,000,413 parts per million Ben put that on the front cover.
Nick Bryant 25:07 Finding those stats is a bit tricky, is it? Because it's kind of like, you know, pretty meaningless. And I think that gets you into another area of climate change reporting, which is how do you turn the stats into interesting stories? And the way to get to that is always through the humans, the human face.
Dan Ilic 25:22 What's it going to take? What's it going to take for news orgs to really focus on climate to bring those stories to bear that are more than just a diary event? The IPCC?
Nick Bryant 25:32 Yeah. I mean, Sky News is quite interesting study is a very different entity in, in Britain, it is in, in Australia, in Australia, it's not owned by Rupert Murdoch anymore. It's, and they actually have a nightly new show devoted solely devoted to climate, you know, they have made a daily commitment to actually say, you know, I don't know how long the program is 1015 minutes every night, we're gonna bring you a, we're going to bring you climate change news. And I think that is a really welcome development, when you kind of make that that sort of commitment, because that doesn't look to me, like window dressing, that, that that feels that's that feels meaningful to me. And, you know, they've done it. And, you know, it would be good if other other news organizations follow suit as well. Because, you know, Dan, this is, you know, this is the biggie. I mean, I still think 2020 in 100 years time, you know, we'll look back on 2020. And we'll look at the wildfires in Australia as being a more significant event in terms of the future of the planet, then COVID. You know, we're looking at, we're looking at the fact that people in Sydney were wearing face masks, not because of a an infection, but because of the air quality, because the wildfires and we think that was the most significant thing that happened in 2020. A look, I think, often it requires political leadership to dramatize these issues. I mean, I was actually you know, name dropping horribly, I ended up in a small lunch with Antonio Guterres in New York around
Dan Ilic 27:06 these guys like Greta Alba. Tony a guitar as
Nick Bryant 27:13 well, you have a Trump, sir, if you weren't, but it really relates to climate change. But
this one does. And it was it was a small lunch with Antonio Guterres, you know, Secretary under the United Nations, it was in the midst of the obviously wildfires. And, you know, because I love AWS and I've pretty close eye on what was happening here, even though when I lived in, in America, you know, I just said to terrorism, why don't you fly to Australia, stand in front of one of these bushfires or sound as close as you can get. And just use it as this dramatic backdrop to say, we are saying something immeasurably different. Here we are, because he makes these speeches in New York and these sorts of doll settings, you know, the stakeout position at the UN, where they come to the microphone, and you know, it's always the same and the words are often the same as well, he just sort of repeats the same warning that he's made every year. But if you actually repeated those words, with a wildfire, a bushfire happening behind you, it would be so dramatic. And you know, guitarist is just really reluctant to do that he never wants to name and shame countries that are laggards on climate change. And Australia's obviously being one of those. And he just doesn't want to go there. And I think that has been a big problem as well. You know, journalists relies on actors who have real power and and often they are the politicians and the leaders of the UN who aren't delivering the kind of graphic pictorial leadership that sometimes journalist journalist needs to be really really effective.
Dan Ilic 28:50 I do remember a photo of him in maybe you this conversation you had with him. Nick actually had some effect on him. He he I still remember this photo of him in Fiji in his suit, waist height and water. So it wasn't quite this. He did. I can't claim credit. So maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Nick Bryant, you are the you're a faceless man behind the Antonia terrorism's photo shoot.
Nick Bryant 29:13 Anybody who's seen my face with a faceless version of me with
Dan Ilic 29:17 that's not true, Nick. You know, the other journalists Nick, Brian in New York City. He's got the got his website, Nick, Brian nyc.com. He's got a disclaimer on his website saying I'm not the BBC next, Brian. He's much more handsome than May.
Nick Bryant 29:31 Oh, I can't believe that's true. But we're there is another name Brian and he he really focuses on sex abuse against kids and he's become I think a lot of people have taken him up in sort of conspiracy theory, circles and, ya know, we, I'm constantly getting I mean, he he, for instance, discovered that Jeffrey Epstein had that, that black book and I'm constantly getting asked to do interviews about Jeffrey Epstein's black book
Dan Ilic 30:00 Yeah Well Nick thank you it's been a net oh sorry doctor Nick It's been an absolute privilege to have you on greatest moral podcast of our generation
Nick Bryant 30:07 it's nice to be on thanks thanks for having me
Recorded live, in front of a massive SOLD OUT crowd at Giant Dwarf ,some of Australia's best known journalists and a couple of Australia's least known comedians discuss the recent government crackdown on press freedom in Australia. (Waxed balls and All)
Hear what happened to Ray Martin’s interview with a top CIA contact. How Kate McClymont sends a death threat to bikie gangs. Ben Fordham gets his house AFP raid-ready and hides his embarrassing things. Alice Workman tell us what Peter Dutton really thinks about the potato comparisons. Dan Ilic breaches the espionage act live on stage. Lewis Hobba tells us why Seachange is good for democracy, and Greta Lee Jackson from the Australian Federal Police shuts the show down in breach of telling bad facts about the government.
One important takeaway from this episode is that despite the attacks on newsrooms from the Government, journalists are more determined than ever to hold the government to account than ever before — and Kate McClymont identifies as a witch.
Thanks to: DJ Dylan Behan, Greta Lee Jackson, Alison Piorowski, Sandra Sully, Network Ten, Killian David, David Bloustien, James Colley, Kate Holdsworth, Marcel Bracks, FBi Radio, Giant Dwarf, the MEAA, the Walkleys, Sleeping Giant, and GetUp!
00:00 Opening.
01:02 Introductions.
07:13 Press Freedom Discussion.
19:53 Sandra sully’s approved news.
21:20 Whistleblowers.
25:30 Social media policy restrictions.
27:59 Alice Workman vs Michaelia Cash.
36:27 Ben Fordham auctions off his embarrassing shit.
47:016 A Current Affair turn the cameras on the victims of press freedom.
50:11 Kate McClymont and race fixing.
58:50 ABC cuts having an effect already.
1:00:01 Ray martin’s missing CIA interview .
1:08:58 The afp shutdown the show.
1:10:40 AFP #QandA.
1:15:18 Lewis Hobba and why enjoying SeaChange is okay.
Australia is the most secretive liberal democracy in the world. We’d love to tell you more about it, but need our lawyer present. In this special edition of A Rational Fear where we’ll rip into Australia’s most closely-guarded secrets. How did ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓ drown? And why can’t you say a ▓▓▓▓ has arrived from ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓?
On this very special edition of A Rational Fear live on stage at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, we bring together some big names in journalism, comedy and whistleblowing to examine what went wrong with Australian Secrecy.
05:21 Dan Ilic sets the context for the ultra secretive world we live in now. 16:10 Damien Cave points out that Australia is secretive for no good reason. 26:29 Amber Schultz highlights that the press also have secrets when they shouldn't. 37:18 Kate McClymont gives you tips on how to remain secret. 43:35 David McBride talks about the personal toll for doing the right thing. 50:15 Lewis Hobba says we're all being told things we shouldn't, and none of the things we should.
Big thanks to everyone who came to the live show.
Please support the podcast on Patreon and Subscribe to the email list. We can't keep doing this kind of stuff without your help.
Oh, hello everyone. Yay round of applause We haven't even done anything. It's it's fantastic.
Joy. We're recording a live podcast of our show. So you are an integral part of the show. So it's important to clap and cheer and laugh at all the jokes no matter the quality of the jokes. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Like,
move that person to the front. Yeah. Well, we've got a seat down here for you. Particularly at the top. At the very start of the show. Dan likes to start the show with three big jokes. terrible jokes very, very in quality.
And they are wafting. Terrible, yeah, really.
Lewis Hobba 0:42
For his sake. I beg if you clap, and she just pretend they're really good.
Dan Ilic 0:49
It's a format point of the show. We want to we want to be as close to the weekly as possible.
Lewis Hobba 0:56
It's gonna be a really fun show. This is an incredible house. And let's firstly just give it a huge round of applause. Yeah. Carriageworks festival dangerous idea.
Dan Ilic 1:03
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm Dan. And I'm Louis. Yeah. And we'll introduce these folks in a second. All right, great. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never seated when at a treaty. Let's start the show.
Simon Chilvers 1:17
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 1:31
leaked documents show that top defense officials were kept in the dark about submarine contracts. When asked about it, Scott Morrison said he wouldn't talk about ongoing underwater matters.
And in order to increase transparency Anthony Albanese auditor or government ministers to leave their dream journals unlocked. And Governor General David Hurley becomes a Patreon supporter of irrational fear. No jokes. He is the best Governor General ever. Viva la Governor General. It's the 17th of September 2022. And you'll if you're listening to this it means I'm in a secret prison in Tuggeranong. This is a rational
irrational fear on your hosts former sovereign Daniel itch and this is the show live at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. This is the podcast where we make fun of the toughest topics because you know if we don't we try. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She's been uncovering lies in Sydney for over 25 years. Tonight we'll ask her for her tips about how to lie to her face. It's the host of Leia Leia, Kate McClymont.
Now Kate is not what we're talking about tonight. But everyone in this room wants to know did the husband do it?
Kate McClymont 2:55
Oh, you haven't left me with a foot to stand on.
Dan Ilic 3:00
Don't be fooled by this man's accent. He's so Australian. He makes the rest of us look like immigrants from the New York Times it's Damien caves. Damien when it comes to learning about Australia, is this something you haven't quite mastered yet?
Damien Cave 3:15
You know, I just discovered what it means to have a smoker still there.
Dan Ilic 3:22
And she's covered everything this year from Canberra to Kyiv tonight will be her toughest assignment yet, please give it up for Amber shocks.
And as a cranky journalist who is more transparent Russia or Australia
Amber Schultz 3:39
spends the metrics transparent about body composition that's transparent about ability to succumb to peer pressure. That's elbow.
Dan Ilic 3:49
And he's the former Australian Defense Lawyer turn whistleblower now professional panel guest is David McBride. David, is there anything funny about the being the enemy of the state?
David McBride 4:04
Well, it certainly makes your dating life a lot better. Say, Oh, I'm a lawyer. They're like, Oh, sickness, my boyfriend. You say I'm facing unlimited time in jail. You must be
Dan Ilic 4:22
really up for a one night stand.
Very day. And he's a government employee who's seen too much. And he's come here tonight to say enough is enough. It's Louis harbor. Lewis some. What secrets will you be revealing tonight?
What secrets? Yeah. Gosh, I'm gonna tell you. I can't What can I tell you who's gonna win the 100 100 next? The audience here would probably really care about that. All these
people are aging into the demographic. And he's on the paths and paths tonight is still in vain for the news fighters podcast.
Oh, this is great. Well, what a stellar lineup, we have got more influence and power on this panel than inside Scott Morrison's head. It's very exciting. And I don't blame him for signing up for more than one job. There's, there's, of course a labor crisis going on. It's very hard to find good help. We'll have more on the Morrison ministries a little later on. In fact, we'll hear from all of our fear mongers in just a second. But first, I'm going to do a bit of a deep dive to set the context for tonight's performances. I'm here to tell a story. There's an island in the Pacific that is on the verge of autocracy, its leaders have acquired a huge amount of power over its citizens. They raid journalists are reporting on crimes the state has committed, they lock up whistleblowers, for calling out corruption. If doctors and teachers talk about the jobs on social media, they could go to jail. And they banned reporting on certain modes of transport. So where the bloody hell are you? Well, if you answer that question out loud, you could go to jail, but I say because I'm brave. I'm not a coward. It's New Zealand and we need to keep an eye on. No, it's us. It's Australia. Prior to the National Security Information Act of 2004. The top three Australian secrets were the Vegemite recipe, the Australia two winged keel and Harold Holtz post Prime Ministerial career as a taxi driver in Bundaberg. No one ever talks about it. That's it. That's all the secrets we had in Australia, pre 2004. There was, of course, our Pine Gap. But that's more of an American CSR secret. Yeah. And the only person that can lose their job if they talk about is the prime minister. Everything else? Yes. Oh, because everything else is on the table until 911, which was or in Australia's case, our 911 was the tamper crisis. And that's when the National Information Security Act came in. And then the She'll be right. No walk and fairies version of Australia was locked away in John Howard's basement never to be seen again. Instead, we have a bunch of legislation that makes transparency harder than ever. The National Information Security Act is one thing up is the big one. Okay. Anything deemed by the government that is of a national security risk can't be reported on or it can't even go to court. And if it does go to court, you'll never hear about it. Like the case of witness J discovered in 2019, a person who was secretly jailed in the ICT, we don't know their name. We don't know their crime, their sentence or what they were sentence for. The only thing we do know is what they might look like thanks to a court sketch from the secret trial. Yeah. Look around you. It could be could be any one of us and how we know they exist in the first place was that they actually writing a memoir in jail. And the AFP went and raided their cell and they were so pissed off that the AFP raided their cell to take their memoir away. They took the ICT government to court to complain about it, and then we only find out about it because a Judge Burns read it out in court. And everyone's like, what the fuck with this secret guy got from? There was witness Kay a secret trial against a whistleblower who revealed that Australian secret agents bugged East Timor Prime Minister's office when we were negotiating Castile that was in 2004. That deal got torn up went to The Hague. There's a whole deal. They got renegotiated again, and then it wasn't until 2014. Witness Kay went to trial in secret in Australia, a decade later. Now, this should be concerning, because we don't know how many secret cases there are like this. They could be 1000s. I'm not an expert. But I think we should definitely investigate witnesses a true i. Now, that's one part secret trials, right. A couple of other things you should think about is this misnamed Freedom of Information Act, because it's not free, and you don't get any information. Journalists or anyone who is interested can actually request documents from the government. But it costs a shitloads of money. And if you're a journalist, it can take forever and go past your deadline. And they're pretty much useless when it comes back. When news organizations have the resources and time to challenge the government. It's a whole process, you got to go through the Information Commissioner, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and then the federal court. And that process can take up to three fucking years to do that which case in our hypothetical, that journalist would have been laid off by several news organizations. But on the upside is now working inside the Prime Minister and Cabinet so they can look at all the documents they want. And then this is this is the national cabinet, a regular meeting of premiers and First Ministers and the Prime Minister. It was created during COVID to talk about what COVID Presumably, we actually don't know because it's secret. South Australia might want to change the size of their rail gauge again and ruin the dream to boomers across the country in the Indian Pacific. We don't know we need to know. We just have a minute song. So that joke.
Really excited for that. Used to be called COAG I don't know if anyone remembers this. The Commonwealth Heads of Government But it was changed for two reasons. First of all, it sounded like a brand of glue. And then Scott Morrison renamed the national cabinet that so he could basically claim that all the meetings were cabinet in confidence like the real Commonwealth cabinet, but it's not. It's just made up. Morrison just fucking made it up
Lewis Hobba 10:21
for now he's a cabinet maker as well. He's a cabinet maker.
Scott Morrison 10:29
That was good. Thank you.
Dan Ilic 10:32
Thank you, sir. You're allowed to lobby. You don't have to say that was good. But I'll tell you.
There are heroes on this island like the Auditor General whose great work includes sifting through tons of Excel spreadsheets to find any anomalies exposed waste and conflicts of interest. Here's what the Auditor General has done in the last little bit. You may remember the leppington triangles sportswriting carpark roads. Yeah, pretty good. What an incredible group of public service heroes give a round of applause pretty amazing work and what was their reward? Well, the Morison government defunded the pump by $14 million. Meaning that the Australian National Audit Office can now only complete 38 audits a year 38. That's not many. I think Angus Taylor has more offshore bank accounts than that. So yeah, I don't know if you've picked up a trend here. But these secrecy laws have been around a while, but it seems like they've only been used in the last 10 years or so.
It could have gotten into power 10 years or so. Is anyone who got their theory first public ministry 10 years or so. One prominent Senior Counsel Geoggrey Watson points the day that transparency died in Australia. Here's the exact date transparency died on Friday, the eighth of November 2013. It happened at a media briefing called then by the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, you may remember it the overnight
Unknown Speaker 11:55
incident. What's become a vet photo of asylum seekers. I will not comment further in relation to onboarding matters. Thank you. This is a great public intro. In relation to on water matters. Have they been coming further in relation to on water matters? I think we've dealt with that question.
Unknown Speaker 12:16
And in terms of making that judgment, if they've done something because do customer Australia, doesn't that mean that your tax base policy
Scott Morrison 12:22
is kind of? Well, you've made a whole bunch of presumptions there, which I'm not about to speculate, maybe you can make them up for? Well, you're the one making the presumptions that may
Unknown Speaker 12:30
be the case of the overnight incident is not resolved. And that's why more information is not forthcoming. It's an ongoing
Scott Morrison 12:35
operational matter. And the persons that were at risk have all been accounted for. We're not going to go into the micro detail of these operational matters. What we are saying is that we rendered assistance, and all the people and all the people have been accounted for. So we can go around this for a lot longer. But that is the position. Scary what you get now, isn't it? Wow,
Dan Ilic 13:01
absolutely wild. You'll remember that.
David McBride 13:03
You notice Angus Campbell, before he became
Dan Ilic 13:07
chief of the defense straight after this? Yeah, like a year later, he was a chief of talent spawn. Yeah, so if you remember, do you remember that phrase, I will not comment in relation to home order matters, man. It was unrepeated every press conference for like six months until the press got bored and stopped going to those press conferences. He was even number five on the hottest 100 of that. Which is amazing. Also, it was on afternoon game shows as well. The
Unknown Speaker 13:33
final question was $7,000 Go to you go take a look at this picture. What's the well known catchphrase? It's an ongoing operational matter. Close Hey, I bet the audience knows what it was sadly, Scott, you missed out on the $7,000 which isn't enough to buy you a journalist. These are the happy you get anyway, tonight.
Scott Morrison 14:06
Yeah, I didn't get a logo.
Dan Ilic 14:09
That joke relies so heavily on people remembering birthdays catch.
Instead of showing the first competition is shown.
As Jeffrey watched an SC put it there was a hint in those words that it might have something to do with national security. But that was never the case. There was no evidence was ever produced at once the government got away with it once they got a taste for it. And that kind of secrecy is alluring and has an addictive quality. As what's inputted to me by phone, just like in sports. Once one side of the game starts cheating and gets away with it. Both sides start cheating and we're already seeing labor, hinting that they will continue on with national cabinet in secret. So this is where we are on this island today laws designed to protect its citizens instead use to protect the fragile egos of megalomaniacs. We elect. Yeah. And it seems today everything on this island is secret for no good reason as Damian cave put it in a great 2019 article titled Australian might be the world's most secretive democracy. This is what he wrote. The most recent expansion of government secrecy came last year with an espionage bill would increase criminal penalties for sharing information declassified, even if even if a document happened to be as harmless as a cafeteria menu. So the other day, I tested it out, I reached out to Aziz cafe, in the middle of Parliament House, you need a pass to get into it. Or the politicians and lobbyists go there. And I sent them a text and asked them to send me a photo of the menu and they sent it through. Fantastic and don't worry, the sources were redacted.
And in case you're wondering, they're the soup of the day is chicken. Yeah, so the guy
apparently got a problem for me to check. That's good, though. Very happy. So there we go. ever run a Festival of Dangerous Ideas, please give it up for Damien cage.
Damien Cave 16:12
Thank you. Thanks. So when I when I wrote that article, actually, you know, people thought I was crazy, calling Australia this extremely secretive democracy. But now that we have a prime minister with lots of secret jobs, maybe it's not so crazy. And maybe it's not just a crazy American who's, who's saying it? You know, since I wrote that story, there have been many more examples, lots of which you went into. But, you know, I think it's important to recognize that it's not just Canberra that this problem exists in. And, you know, I run into it all over the country when I'm dealing with people as a reporter. And I have a small story, a small example that will show you just how much it handles some of the most important issues at the local level. Like, can we get this image perhaps the giant banana, giant caveman banana? Let me back up for a minute. So we have a newsletter that The New York Times publishes every week called the Australia letter, which is basically a reporter riffing about the news of the week with a little bit of perspective. And so one week better, Odell was a wonderful writer for us. And Melbourne said, you know, I want to write about this public art thing. It's involves bananas and frogs and, and babies, and I had no idea what she was talking about. But I figured, yeah, for sure, go for it. So shockingly, after it runs, I get this email from somebody that says the subject line is immediate removal of article. And I'm wondering what on earth this is about, right. So I look in and I see that it's about the newsletter, which makes me go back and try to understand what this giant banana he-man thing is all about. And it turns out that there was an exchange being offered between, you know, a local council in Melbourne, and John Oliver, the comedian who John basically wanted to take this lovely piece of art off the hands of Melbourne and trade, and give them basically some frogs with some legs that were open a little bit wider than his approach. And along with that, he also had some babies that had been washed up on the shore and Texas, beautiful babies like this. And so he offered to trade these wonderful pieces of art for the he-man Banana. Basha was in favor of this plan. She loved the frogs, I think. So as you can see, this was a serious job of public interest journalism in Australia's greatest interests, which is why I was really surprised when I got an email and concerned I should say, and the subject line was immediate removal of article. I mean, that's a pretty big request. We don't take down articles from the New York Times, sometimes we attach a correction, maybe an Editor's Note, but take it down, I literally can't think of a single time that that's happened. And I worry that there must be some serious flaw in what beshear had written. But no, it turns out that the person in local government had an email exchange with her about whether the dollars could go into the recycling machine. And she was quoted as saying, and this is the exact quote, I don't know what the dolls are made of. So I can't officially comment either way. She wrote that in the email that her name was attached, and that it wasn't supposed to be because she did not consent to it, and was not an authorized spokesperson for the council, this council policy, she said, so at this point, I feel kind of bad. And I'm wondering like maybe this is just the person who happened to be in the office that day. So I go out and I look on LinkedIn and I discover that her actual title is Senior Advisor for media and communications. We had a bit more back and forth by email and she said that she was when she was quoted it was always without a name. Now at no point in this exchange with special did she request anonymity not that we would have granted it but the whole thing started to feel pretty ridiculous to me. I mean, here's a person who was being paid with tax dollars to give the media information demanding an article be spiked because she kind of did her job with a weird nothing burger. Have a comment about scary rubbery baby dolls. Like really, this is how far down the rabbit hole Australian secrecy is gone. But the thing is, I'd been around and I could also see this It really wasn't just her fault, right? This was bigger than her. This council did have a secrecy policy for almost everything. And everyone, just like Australia has a secrecy default for far too many things. As Dan mentioned, it's a habit, it gets addictive. She was just following the written and unwritten rules for the world's most secretive democracy. And I was pretty sure she didn't even see the context that way. So I tried to write back to her politely. And this is what I wrote. The problem here, it seems to me is the Australian practice of withholding names. In general, if you work for a public entity in a democracy, anonymity is not assumed you work for the public at taxpayer expense. And so in the future, if you don't want to be named, please make that clear in your exchange with New York Times reporters, and we can respond accordingly. She wrote me back and said, Thank you. This has been a huge lesson for me, in terms of dealing with reporters. Now again, this was her job.
Scott Morrison 20:50
So she was she was the senior media advisor.
Damien Cave 20:53
Yeah, exactly. Now, I wish that this was the only absurd example of Australia secrecy default in the years since I wrote that article, but it's not. There was also the time when I filed a public records request for some insight and what kinds of things the Foreign Investment Review Board was rejecting. I started out asking for companies and industries in the countries involved for every decision, I wanted to basically know what kinds of things were being rejected from China, in particular what or not, they said no to that. So then I just asked for numbers, lands statistics for which countries had applied and been rejected. I asked for ratios of accepted investments, anything that would give me any insight into what this very important government body was doing. And they said no to all of it. They just assumed it was a national security threat, whether or not China bought a dairy farm or not. More recently, and I'll end with this, I run into a senior Australian diplomat at an event who told me a handful of mildly insightful things about Australian foreign policies. At the end of our little chat, he looked at me in the eyes and he said, You can't quote or refer to anything I told you. I told them not to worry that I've been talking to a lot of Western officials from the US the UK a whole bunch of things on this story I was working on. So the most that I could imagine doing was combining what he said with others, and referring it to something like Western officials, in his eyes when Drew wide with fear. No, I've gotten in trouble for that. I've gotten in trouble for that, too. You can't do that you just can't. And again, none of what he told me amounted to state secrets, but he was completely stressed. It was like he feared being jailed or fired or killed for saying very, very little out. And that's really the problem here. The culture of secrecy has become so dominant in Australia that it muzzles, voices and sensors, people who are responsible for this democracy. Instead of recognizing that their roles include an obligation to the public to explain why they are what they are doing is good for the country. They behave as if telling the media and the public anything is a violation of ethics. And they are disciplined with that priority in mind, stay silent, keep information private, or else. Don't make any mistake. This is an authoritarian instinct. I've seen it in dictatorships around the world, and it's toxic and contagious. It's an attitude that strikes fear into everyone and anyone who has an urge to share important information that we deserve to know. One more thing, though some figures in Australian life, perhaps that former Prime Minister perhaps another member who we've tussled with, I think in the media quite a bit named Peter Dutton, have a far worse reputation on secrecy than others. But it is not a partisan problem. It's a political problem and a power problem and a habit problem. Even after Scott Morrison took on all those extra jobs, you did not see the Albanese government immediately promised to tackle the problem of secrecy all over government. And it's not clear if the Prime Minister ever will get around to dealing with it. This is the case even though countless studies show that secrecy undermines trust in democracy and creates the conditions for corruption and mismanagement. Australians really deserve better. My hope is that someday we get to a place where every official can speak freely, including those who have something to say about a gross baby doll washing up on shore, or a banana he-man public art project and
David McBride 23:54
I want to jump in because what you said rang true and I and I get it forget it later. But the they had a thing in the defense was about privacy, the Privacy Act, and I think people understood the idea obviously, you don't want people finding out about your sexual preference or whatever, because through some sort of a lake, but they took it very seriously. And we were in in dropping bombs on people in the Middle East. And I kid you not. There was like a senior defense lawyer. It was sort of like targeting this terrorist. It's gonna say to say a Hellfire besar they were like, I'm not sure we may be breaching their privacy guideposts the whole action
Dan Ilic 24:42
Damian has anything else? Kind of you've been here five years. Does anything else surprise you at all now due to kind of around secrecy in Australian Government?
Damien Cave 24:51
You know, I think I'm constantly surprised by moments like the one I just described where it's it's so deeply ingrained in the culture that the default setting is to just not attach a name or under an understanding of accountability at the low, low level. So that's the first thing. It's just throughout the culture. And then the second thing is, though, that I'm so pleasantly surprised when people actually trust me and do help me like there was one time I was in like the small town in South Australia doing a story about I think there was a it was a memorial to a massacre against the local Aboriginal people. And somebody in government, this was a very, really big controversial conflict in this small town. But someone quietly at some point, handed me the small blue book, and he said, This is the phone numbers for everyone in this town. You can call it whatever you want. Don't tell anyone I gave. And I don't know why he trusted me with that. But I'm so grateful to those people who, who, you know, feel that they've taken a chance on me as a journalist, and I'm and that surprises me, because it's so rare, unfortunately. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 25:49
Great. And what was the diplomat? What was he saying to you? Was he saying stuff? Like, you know, we sell a lot of shape in Australia.
Damien Cave 25:56
You know, he was like talking about like other leaders and like things that were totally part of the public record. Like, I think he maybe he thought he was saying these brilliant things, but I'd heard all of it. But
Amber Schultz 26:06
how much that has trickled down to normal conversation for I'll have dinner with a friend and they're just talking about the average Wednesday and they'll stop themselves and they'll be like, this is off the record.
Unknown Speaker 26:17
Yeah, exactly.
Damien Cave 26:18
That sense of self importance to I guess it's part of the secrecy thing. It's like whatever I'm doing it. I think it helps people sort of feel important to feel as though the menu for a restaurant might be secret.
Dan Ilic 26:27
All right, great. Well, I'm looking forward to the next secret spilled by Amber Schultz.
Amber Schultz 26:38
Last week, I went to this really glamorous event called the midwinter ball. So for those of you that don't know it's in Parliament, and it's an opportunity for journalists to cosplay as stage three tax cut recipients. We all go and the whole point of the event is to suck up to politicians and staffers and lobbyists. But what's weird is the entire thing as soon as you step through those doors, the entire event is off the record. It's all secret, which why you would have an event invite journalists and keep it off the record bewilders me it's not an ACO meeting. It's not an August meeting because if it was Scott Morrison would have leaked the Testaments and it's not despite what Senator Sarah Hanson young seem to think Met Gala event is the parliamentary ball. You know, Australia is addicted to secrecy. We've got witness que je lawyer X, you know, it sounds like a wiggle soul was Scott Morrison's ministerial appointments, whistleblowers a silence secret midwinter ball speeches, it's absolutely absurd. freedom of information requests in Australia across the past decade, have been rejected 50% year on year, those that are accepted, which is rare, but those that are accepted return pages upon pages of redacted information, so you just get a wall of black and it makes trying to figure out what the hell is going on about as difficult as reading a George RR Martin novel. But well, the government doesn't want to share any information with the public. It turns out the public is really, really happy to share information with the government. Yeah, we are we're a nation of dubbers. We love snitching It's absolutely absurd. And we didn't start like this. You know, Australia is, you know, our colonial history is a nation of convicts, and obviously the convicts aren't snitching, because the ones that snitched got stay in England. Our snitching culture is the result of some really, really successful marketing campaigns. So the government really does want whistleblowers that really wants people to come forward with information, provided, you're coming forward with information about Gen three doors down. So the first marketing campaign was Crimestoppers that started in the 80s. And that's been really successful. There's like 350,000 Tip offs per year. And about half of those actually result in a police report, which is hugely successful. And then of course, 911 happened and the government decided we need a national security hotline, we need something more tailored to terrorism. And conveniently, a lot of these national security hotline campaigns were released during elections because nothing else buys a vote like fear. So we had the if you see something, say something we had Be alert, not alarmed, and we had if it doesn't add up, speak up, we moved from loose lips sink ships to spy on your neighbor. It's normal behavior. But you know, a lot of these national security tips obviously a steeped in racism and prejudice. So Australia, we are trying to be better we are trying to be, you know, less divisive, more inclusive. So COVID presented a really fantastic opportunity of that because it meant we could dive on our neighbors regardless of race or background or socioeconomic class. It's progress, really. There was one example so there was so many people calling the police on one another often for really, really trivial things. One example was woman she's sitting home and she sees a photo scrolling through photos and she sees one where she looks absolutely shredded in her bikini from a holiday a year ago. She decides to post it on Facebook and suddenly the police are at a door. One of her Facebook friends saw that photo thought it was current and called the police on Yeah, that's how much we love snitching you know and you're worried about Zuckerberg spying on you. It's not so good for your old high school friend from 20 years ago. You know, we love snitching we have a dubbing hotline for almost everything. We have Dobbin a dealer that was launched in 2016. And DUBNER dealer has actually seen since the campaign launched, the number of people calling up about dealers double it's been really successful. Unfortunately, unfortunately, a tip off about AFLW style way Macquarie's dealer turned up nothing but crushed up bags of ibuprofen. It's a real hit and miss. We've got the job seeker Dobbin hotline which was cruelly caused it's not funny.
Kate McClymont 31:07
Scott Morrison was ringing constantly.
Amber Schultz 31:12
Which was currently called Adobe and Adobe Lightroom. Now that wasn't actually as successful because people didn't, you know, didn't really like the idea of dubbing in someone on the doll. But the people that did complain was small to medium businesses who said people that had applied for their jobs had lied on their CV, which is really funny because it just means the public is looking to John Barilaro. And taking a bit of a we also were used to we don't know, but we used to even have a hotline to dub in mislabeled seafoods. That's how much we love dubbing. Yeah. Yeah, there was a specific one for mislabeled seafood. Wow.
Damien Cave 31:47
Sounds like a micro detail.
Scott Morrison 31:50
RAM sticks.
Amber Schultz 31:53
So tip offs and Dobbins are a dime a dozen. I mean in this economy, who knows, but really a diamond doesn't. So while you can't know what subpar jokes Albanese staff wrote for him at the midwinter ball speech he can know about that job interview, you didn't show up for you know, he can know about that crushed up bag of ibuprofen you bought, or he can know about that weird photo you posted on Facebook. So while the government you know, wants information from you, but only wants really, really trivial trivial information, you know, try snitching about something of importance and you know the thing snitches get stitches closed or prosecution
Dan Ilic 32:37
and, you know, it costs money to do foi stuff. But what's the most you've ever cost Crikey. In your career as a journalist,
Amber Schultz 32:48
I probably set a record for the fastest lawsuit from a new hire because I hit three days and immediately got a consent notice. So, you know, I don't know if you know this. But Craig, he has a very long rich history of being sued for defamation. So I was proud to join that on day three.
Dan Ilic 33:05
It's kind of interesting, like you're talking about midway to Boulder, and the inverse, the immediate comparison is the White House press correspondents dinner in DC and which is like public broadcast celebrities, everyone wants to go to it. It's like, if you're a leader and you're at that event, you are going to get roasted and you if you if you fuck up on stage, you're going to eat it in front of everyone. It's like that is like the absolute icon of like that when you look at both countries, Australia and America, that's like transparency back to back
anytime you are looking at America with respect and thinking like that they are more relaxed than us. Like, we need to have a good hard look at ourselves. It's like secret dinners for the whatever for the President and wave laws. Like what are we doing? Yeah, but it's weird those because we there's a not a bowl but there's a annual invite by ABC employee like the a bunch of ABC employees get basically instructed to go down to Parliament House and kiss the ring to suck up tour, isn't it? Well, yeah. And so one no, well, one year I was told to go down and as you know, the face of youth as I was back then and and it's so weird because obviously all politicians hate young people. So they were just like, get the fuck out of here. But then they everyone was like all of the ABC celebs out there trying to like impress you know, someone who would give us money and they didn't give a shit until b one and B two came out. And those politicians were fucking bananas. Like they were all grabbing photo like they were so excited. We're just like, well, I just wouldn't got drunk with Costa
those politicians weren't obviously from Fitzroy. Exactly. And but when you're around Parliament House lately, can you tell If there's like a tone changed since the new government is coming like is there, is there a different feeling around the press color?
Amber Schultz 35:07
There is I mean slightly. We've got the little, like little postcards that have the one 800 parliamentary support services number on it, but that they're everywhere. But aside from that, the only difference is people constantly if anyone like gets too close or accidentally brushes past someone, someone will yell Jenkins about the only difference.
Dan Ilic 35:28
That's great. It's easy to make fun of the press gallery for kind of hypocrisy. They're under pressure from the government. It it's kind of interesting to see over the last couple of years how news reports have changed, particularly under the Morison government I don't know if you've noticed. Here's a clip from Channel 10 News.
Unknown Speaker 35:48
Here are the headlines approved by the Department of Communications on 10. The Royal Commission into how good is Australia has found that Australia is very good and colder than many estimates predicted. The Department of Fair go agrees with the findings saying that Aussies are getting fair a goes and more goes than ever before. And Australia's most prestigious honor the Order of Australia is having a makeover with a brand new category added to the list. So move over items and AM's there's a new metal on the podium. It's the QA, which will be awarded to the most quiet Australian and that's someone who excels at showing complete disinterest in the affairs of government and goes about their day unquestioning the world around them. Nominations are now open. So good luck to everyone. And in sports, Australia's cricket team are the best and they will win the ashes if any of the current deliver want to see the loved ones again, turning to the weather, despite what it looks like out of the window, it is fine. And definitely average temperatures for this time of year. Definitely not white hotter than usual. That is, of course all the approved news for now in the greatest country in the world. And remember, it's on Australian to not have private health insurance.
Unknown Speaker 37:09
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dan Ilic 37:10
please give it up for Kate McClymont
Kate McClymont 37:19
Right, I'm going to give you some tips tonight on how to avoid me. So I find now that often when I ring people up, I can hear them and I say, oh, it's Kate McClymont. Here, I can hit and go. But anyway, if you want to be secret, one of the things I want to advise you is not to buy a voice distorter. So I did have someone ring up to give me some very highly confidential information. And they've gone to the trouble of buying a voice distorter and it did sound like a crazed robot. But the information was absolutely fabulous. And I said at the end of the conversation, thank you so much. And now I can get you on this number for safe forgotten. Voice distorter that number still came up. Don't buy voice disorder. And too. If you want to remain secret, please use Australia Post snail mail, it's still the best way to send things. However, if you are one of the bead family, and you are sitting there sending me death threats, please wear gloves. Your fingerprints were on the envelope. And on the inside. So gloves if you really don't want to be. And one other thing I'd like to advise Eddie obeyed was in the past. When I rang his office to get some questions. He forgot to hang up. The phone on and I listened for 20 minutes, as they discussed how they were going to lie to me what they were going to say. And in the end, I had to call in on the office spoke. And I said look, Eddie, it's been so lovely hearing you talk about me. It's been so lovely hearing your plants. However, I really need a comment and I just heard them go off. They hung up. Another thing is that when a major crime figure has died, don't go behind the crypt at the funeral to discuss where the money is. This happened at many Macpherson's funeral, and I'd already been threatened so I thought I would hide behind the crypt. But on the other side of the crypt was Lenny McPherson solicitor, who was chatting away about where the money was hidden, what companies they had. So that was very handy. And having said those things I Do want to just take one moment to say that I am also an idiot when it comes to, you know, giving my own things away, Louis reminded me today that I accidentally sent a pin with my location on it to the head of the Hells Angels. Caitlin climber is here. Not so good. Then I sent a photo of my ear. How would you take a photo of your ear and send it, but I sent that to one of my colleagues who thought I, somebody had cut it off. And I was like, and then the last thing I did was that I did have my phone in my pocket. And I sent a whole lot of gibberish to Twitter. And people contacted me saying, should they call the police? Had I been kidnapped? Had I been kidnapped? And was this a secret cry for help? So I would just like to say that I too, like many of the criminals I cover am an idiot
Dan Ilic 41:10
Do you ever feel honestly feel like your life is in danger?
Kate McClymont 41:16
I always take the one of my contacts who was a detective said to me, Kate, don't worry about the ones that threaten you. It's the ones that don't. And I did get a death threat death threat delivered to my house and that did have 303 on it. And I said to my husband what that's actually our address 303 And he said it's a rifle, you idiot. And it doesn't help when you don't actually understand that you are a threat to your own house. Oh,
Dan Ilic 41:47
so if we were to send a death threat to you, what's the best kind of
Kate McClymont 41:53
with the with the fingerprints? And what
Dan Ilic 41:55
is the best way to actually stay secret from me rather than you know all the mistakes? But like, How does someone? How does someone truly avoid Kate McLemore?
Kate McClymont 42:03
No, it's very hard. Because the first thing I do is, if you come across my radar, the first thing to do is don't behave badly. That's how you can avoid me. But the first thing I do is I will do an ASIC search. If you have a company, I will find out how old you were where you used to live, whether you've got a mortgage on your house, how much you paid for your house, who lives next door who lives on the other side? What is your phone number? So
Dan Ilic 42:30
is there like other ways that you do that publicly available?
Kate McClymont 42:35
Just expensive. It's just expensive. I think I have the sort of an ASIC addiction in poker machines. I have that thing of doing an ASIC search, and my heart is racing. I'm waiting to find out who was in that company with that person. I love it.
Dan Ilic 42:53
Some people pay for Paramount plus Did you ever pull up video bed and try to read negotiate a mortgage.
Kate McClymont 43:03
Last time I did ring him up. He said to me, you put one word out of line and I will go for you. I will go for the jugular Have a nice day. So
Damien Cave 43:18
most friends say Have a nice day.
Kate McClymont 43:20
He's now in jail. And I just think having to spend eternity with your son Mosers. Punishment
Dan Ilic 43:37
David McBride is a former military officer who served with both the ADF and British armies in Ireland and Afghanistan. And he now faces unlimited years in jail after exposing cover ups of war crimes committed by Australians in Afghanistan, yet he did not get invited to the Queen's commemorations.
Unknown Speaker 43:55
Everyone please welcome David O'Brien.
Dan Ilic 44:03
David with unlimited jail on the cards, it must play havoc with your psyche. How you preparing?
David McBride 44:12
It's quite a useful terms. At first, when I was first going to court and at a legal aid lawyer, I met a guy who was a lifetime prisoner with tattoos all over me. And he was like, I'm gonna give you some tips when you go to jail, but I was like, Okay. And he said, you know, you got to keep it very tidy because some people's homes and he said, you know, said what's your cover story going to be? I said, Well, why cover story? I'm, I'm a whistleblower, and you know, fighting the government. I can't see what's going to beat me up and he was like, no, no, no. He said, they're gonna beat you up. He said, he said, I might even understand what a whistle blower is. He said, I thought was you I'd say you killed your sergeant. And I made a mental note. I thought I'm gonna get a bigger tattoo. And then And then he said, Well, how many years you're facing anyone? I said, Well, it's unlimited. And he said, What do you mean? I said, it's unlimited. And he said, Well, what? 500 years? I said, yeah, maybe 800? I said you possibly if they just had a bad day? Who knows? And he was like, you're going to do all right. He said, they might give you a double sell. So that was one of the
Dan Ilic 45:24
opioids. When you went through the process of, you know, whistleblowing, did you ever think, oh, geez, I wish I hadn't had exposed the war criminals. Yeah,
David McBride 45:37
I know, I never thought that I must have been, I never thought they were low. In the position I'm in now, where it looks like, you know, I could be going to jail for a long time for doing what I thought was the right thing. But I do sometimes think I've got to sue Hollywood, flick back, he gives me these ideas. Somehow that was the right thing to do. When actually, it was obviously a very dangerous, like
Unknown Speaker 45:58
a few good men that lets me maybe
David McBride 46:01
get a big class, I could be the richest person to jail and never get to be able to spend that money.
Dan Ilic 46:06
The sad thing is like, if you sell your story that goes really well, as a feature film, that would be terrible.
It's quite remarkable what you've done. It's a it's a real act of service for democracy. And it's really astounding, that we all know what, you know, our defense force has done on our behalf. And I think we're all better off than knowing that Does your family know that your hero
David McBride 46:35
could ever be a hero to your family. And I've tried to, I tried to try to pull the hero card a couple of times that they kids, when they're playing after they kind of want this, they want more money for the dress or something. And I'm like, Look, it's it's pretty hard for me and I am standing up for what is right and for your future and your children's future. And, and they go roll their eyes and they go dead. That's all very well when you get to get an actual job. So it doesn't cut my job. That's for sure ever with my ex wife. And I was like, telling her about try to break the news to her that the cops could be coming in numbers. I'd had secret documents that I was like, Look at Skinner, for taking on the Defence Force. And she was like, Oh, that's wonderful. Darlings was good. The falling and nails. And then I'm like I tried to make she didn't seem that impressed. I'm like, I'm really taking on the whole government that she's like, oh, yeah, that's good, darling. And I'm like, she wasn't very impressed. And I was trying to get a bit of hero. Record here. I create exactly what you think you get. And I'm like, an effectively because orchestrate everything I'm really taking on the American government and the CIA. You're upping the stakes. Yeah, I'm
Unknown Speaker 47:56
trying to get a bit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
David McBride 47:59
She's looking at a little bit of rough nails going on. It's nice, darling. She said, But I remember I've got Pilates tonight. So make sure you're home to pick up the kids job.
Dan Ilic 48:10
Yeah. When you're going through the process of whistleblow. What's the most absurd thing that you kind of encountered in with the authorities? You know, what's, what's the craziest thing?
David McBride 48:20
There's a lot that this is, you know, I went through all the secret files when I decided something was very wrong. And that offense was and I spent about six months working at night, looking for incriminating documents. And I got download them all and gave them to the ABC and said, Look, these ones, they're all selected. They're all I've highlighted the sections. Anyway, I knew these documents very well. And I'd selected them and that's why I'm facing trial. But when I was on trial, they used to take us into the Attorney General's office and especially as with all the documents were extensively to prepare our case. We're security guards and tourney generals, people watching us prepare our case in secret. And the documents were there and they were like to put it to me, he can't look at the documents because he doesn't have a security clearance at least classified and I'm like, I know what's in the fucking the documents I stole. They're like no, no exceptions. You can't look at them. And so then they these documents is precious documents. And as the time went on, I had to move them around in a safe the security guards would come around. And I think they got sick of it at one time. They had to call us up and said well, you can't have the documents today because the consignment order got mixed up and they've you know, gone to a double glazing office and we're trying to get them back as soon as we can.
Kate McClymont 49:53
Do they arrested double glazed
Dan Ilic 49:58
the rest of the Korea they came back and now framed Well, David, thank you for joining us. I hope we can get you again soon before at least before or after
Lewis Hobba 50:18
everyone understand that no, fuck yeah. That's right. We're about to get dangerous. This guy's standing up. Okay. Now secrets. We all have them. People on this panel they don't like a much zeal for disclosure is almost religious, but I'm an agnostic member in the church of full disclosure bit like the actual church. Boy, do they have some secrets? Of course some secrets deserve to be revealed. But be honest. Every now and then. A journalist uncovered something and you think to yourself, wish you hadn't told me that? Like why is it that we still don't know if the Queen killed Diana, but we do know that King Charles wants to be his wife's tampon didn't help me to know that hasn't stopped him being king. What's the point? You've just made me sad? I don't want to know these types of secrets. Oh, I haven't been out asleep for years because of this. But people like you had to go digging around. You know, when this whole thing broke the other nationals MP who thought that Barnaby should be sacked for cheating on his wife was this guy. And then you know what secrets the damn journalists found out about him. They found out that he'd been chatting to a woman who wasn't his wife using a sugar baby website. And that could have been enough. You could have stopped there. But no, you had to tell me the sex heroes. Do you remember this? When the woman said that she liked her Australian accent and he wrote I pull your clothes. Run my strong hands down your back. Softly kiss your neck and whisper get a mate
I still shudder every time someone says g'day to me. I can't you journalist has put out an article every week that says old men still gross. This specifics are ruining me. And it's not just the gross secret. See, though, like this week, someone discovered that a glazier in Chile had collapsed. No, keep that to yourself. You know, I know climate change is happening but I can't stop the glaciers from falling in Chile. I'd love to but I can and it's stressing me out. Some things are need to know right? But some things I don't need to know some things. I just need to know that the people who need to know know you know. You can just leave me out of it. Like journalists need to remember that snitches get stitches. He is a dangerous idea for you, Zipit knowing everything that's your interest. It's a great hobby. Keep it to yourself. Oh, great. You found out that the Prime Minister had 10 Secret jobs and gave out hundreds of millions of dollars. So they were basically bribes. Oh, good. Good. Now I'm confused and angry. Oh, great. We found out that dead shit politicians getting paid millions to move overseas when they get chased out of their current jobs here for being shitted them. Oh, great. Well, now I have to think about that. Well, I have to go to my poorly paid work and be competent. It's killing me. I think every journalist should be restricted to one secret per annum. On your birthday, you can tell me one secret as a treat 364 days to plan your next one. Just give me a chance to recover. And you want to be a whistleblower? Great. You can only blow one whistle at a time. I don't want to be told any more about all people secretly fucking their staff or publicly fucking the planet. Like I want to know the secret to cooking a good pizza at home. One that tastes as good as a restaurant. How do they do it? I want to know the secret to ordering clothes online that fit me the first I just want to know the secret to not being anxious all the time. And I think that starts with not knowing This stuff. Thank you.
Dan Ilic 55:02
Thank you Liz. That is it for rational Phoebe kinky for our guests. Dylan Lewis and Damien diamond MacDrive also big thanks to Robert mark our new patreon supporters Kelly Katherine Jenny the new work Daniel hobby Cecily Hardy Beck flight the official Avengers it has taken Brandon Aptech and our tech team here. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of Good night. Your fear is rational
Dan Ilic 0:00 Oh, hello everyone. Yay round of applause We haven't even done anything. It's it's fantastic.
Joy. We're recording a live podcast of our show. So you are an integral part of the show. So it's important to clap and cheer and laugh at all the jokes no matter the quality of the jokes. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Like,
move that person to the front. Yeah. Well, we've got a seat down here for you. Particularly at the top. At the very start of the show. Dan likes to start the show with three big jokes. terrible jokes very, very in quality.
And they are wafting. Terrible, yeah, really.
Lewis Hobba 0:42 For his sake. I beg if you clap, and she just pretend they're really good.
Dan Ilic 0:49 It's a format point of the show. We want to we want to be as close to the weekly as possible.
Lewis Hobba 0:56 It's gonna be a really fun show. This is an incredible house. And let's firstly just give it a huge round of applause. Yeah. Carriageworks festival dangerous idea.
Dan Ilic 1:03 Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm Dan. And I'm Louis. Yeah. And we'll introduce these folks in a second. All right, great. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never seated when at a treaty. Let's start the show.
Simon Chilvers 1:17 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 1:31 leaked documents show that top defense officials were kept in the dark about submarine contracts. When asked about it, Scott Morrison said he wouldn't talk about ongoing underwater matters.
And in order to increase transparency Anthony Albanese auditor or government ministers to leave their dream journals unlocked. And Governor General David Hurley becomes a Patreon supporter of irrational fear. No jokes. He is the best Governor General ever. Viva la Governor General. It's the 17th of September 2022. And you'll if you're listening to this it means I'm in a secret prison in Tuggeranong. This is a rational
irrational fear on your hosts former sovereign Daniel itch and this is the show live at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. This is the podcast where we make fun of the toughest topics because you know if we don't we try. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She's been uncovering lies in Sydney for over 25 years. Tonight we'll ask her for her tips about how to lie to her face. It's the host of Leia Leia, Kate McClymont.
Now Kate is not what we're talking about tonight. But everyone in this room wants to know did the husband do it?
Kate McClymont 2:55 Oh, you haven't left me with a foot to stand on.
Dan Ilic 3:00 Don't be fooled by this man's accent. He's so Australian. He makes the rest of us look like immigrants from the New York Times it's Damien caves. Damien when it comes to learning about Australia, is this something you haven't quite mastered yet?
Damien Cave 3:15 You know, I just discovered what it means to have a smoker still there.
Dan Ilic 3:22 And she's covered everything this year from Canberra to Kyiv tonight will be her toughest assignment yet, please give it up for Amber shocks.
And as a cranky journalist who is more transparent Russia or Australia
Amber Schultz 3:39 spends the metrics transparent about body composition that's transparent about ability to succumb to peer pressure. That's elbow.
Dan Ilic 3:49 And he's the former Australian Defense Lawyer turn whistleblower now professional panel guest is David McBride. David, is there anything funny about the being the enemy of the state?
David McBride 4:04 Well, it certainly makes your dating life a lot better. Say, Oh, I'm a lawyer. They're like, Oh, sickness, my boyfriend. You say I'm facing unlimited time in jail. You must be
Dan Ilic 4:22 really up for a one night stand.
Very day. And he's a government employee who's seen too much. And he's come here tonight to say enough is enough. It's Louis harbor. Lewis some. What secrets will you be revealing tonight?
What secrets? Yeah. Gosh, I'm gonna tell you. I can't What can I tell you who's gonna win the 100 100 next? The audience here would probably really care about that. All these
people are aging into the demographic. And he's on the paths and paths tonight is still in vain for the news fighters podcast.
Oh, this is great. Well, what a stellar lineup, we have got more influence and power on this panel than inside Scott Morrison's head. It's very exciting. And I don't blame him for signing up for more than one job. There's, there's, of course a labor crisis going on. It's very hard to find good help. We'll have more on the Morrison ministries a little later on. In fact, we'll hear from all of our fear mongers in just a second. But first, I'm going to do a bit of a deep dive to set the context for tonight's performances. I'm here to tell a story. There's an island in the Pacific that is on the verge of autocracy, its leaders have acquired a huge amount of power over its citizens. They raid journalists are reporting on crimes the state has committed, they lock up whistleblowers, for calling out corruption. If doctors and teachers talk about the jobs on social media, they could go to jail. And they banned reporting on certain modes of transport. So where the bloody hell are you? Well, if you answer that question out loud, you could go to jail, but I say because I'm brave. I'm not a coward. It's New Zealand and we need to keep an eye on. No, it's us. It's Australia. Prior to the National Security Information Act of 2004. The top three Australian secrets were the Vegemite recipe, the Australia two winged keel and Harold Holtz post Prime Ministerial career as a taxi driver in Bundaberg. No one ever talks about it. That's it. That's all the secrets we had in Australia, pre 2004. There was, of course, our Pine Gap. But that's more of an American CSR secret. Yeah. And the only person that can lose their job if they talk about is the prime minister. Everything else? Yes. Oh, because everything else is on the table until 911, which was or in Australia's case, our 911 was the tamper crisis. And that's when the National Information Security Act came in. And then the She'll be right. No walk and fairies version of Australia was locked away in John Howard's basement never to be seen again. Instead, we have a bunch of legislation that makes transparency harder than ever. The National Information Security Act is one thing up is the big one. Okay. Anything deemed by the government that is of a national security risk can't be reported on or it can't even go to court. And if it does go to court, you'll never hear about it. Like the case of witness J discovered in 2019, a person who was secretly jailed in the ICT, we don't know their name. We don't know their crime, their sentence or what they were sentence for. The only thing we do know is what they might look like thanks to a court sketch from the secret trial. Yeah. Look around you. It could be could be any one of us and how we know they exist in the first place was that they actually writing a memoir in jail. And the AFP went and raided their cell and they were so pissed off that the AFP raided their cell to take their memoir away. They took the ICT government to court to complain about it, and then we only find out about it because a Judge Burns read it out in court. And everyone's like, what the fuck with this secret guy got from? There was witness Kay a secret trial against a whistleblower who revealed that Australian secret agents bugged East Timor Prime Minister's office when we were negotiating Castile that was in 2004. That deal got torn up went to The Hague. There's a whole deal. They got renegotiated again, and then it wasn't until 2014. Witness Kay went to trial in secret in Australia, a decade later. Now, this should be concerning, because we don't know how many secret cases there are like this. They could be 1000s. I'm not an expert. But I think we should definitely investigate witnesses a true i. Now, that's one part secret trials, right. A couple of other things you should think about is this misnamed Freedom of Information Act, because it's not free, and you don't get any information. Journalists or anyone who is interested can actually request documents from the government. But it costs a shitloads of money. And if you're a journalist, it can take forever and go past your deadline. And they're pretty much useless when it comes back. When news organizations have the resources and time to challenge the government. It's a whole process, you got to go through the Information Commissioner, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and then the federal court. And that process can take up to three fucking years to do that which case in our hypothetical, that journalist would have been laid off by several news organizations. But on the upside is now working inside the Prime Minister and Cabinet so they can look at all the documents they want. And then this is this is the national cabinet, a regular meeting of premiers and First Ministers and the Prime Minister. It was created during COVID to talk about what COVID Presumably, we actually don't know because it's secret. South Australia might want to change the size of their rail gauge again and ruin the dream to boomers across the country in the Indian Pacific. We don't know we need to know. We just have a minute song. So that joke.
Really excited for that. Used to be called COAG I don't know if anyone remembers this. The Commonwealth Heads of Government But it was changed for two reasons. First of all, it sounded like a brand of glue. And then Scott Morrison renamed the national cabinet that so he could basically claim that all the meetings were cabinet in confidence like the real Commonwealth cabinet, but it's not. It's just made up. Morrison just fucking made it up
Lewis Hobba 10:21 for now he's a cabinet maker as well. He's a cabinet maker.
Scott Morrison 10:29 That was good. Thank you.
Dan Ilic 10:32 Thank you, sir. You're allowed to lobby. You don't have to say that was good. But I'll tell you.
There are heroes on this island like the Auditor General whose great work includes sifting through tons of Excel spreadsheets to find any anomalies exposed waste and conflicts of interest. Here's what the Auditor General has done in the last little bit. You may remember the leppington triangles sportswriting carpark roads. Yeah, pretty good. What an incredible group of public service heroes give a round of applause pretty amazing work and what was their reward? Well, the Morison government defunded the pump by $14 million. Meaning that the Australian National Audit Office can now only complete 38 audits a year 38. That's not many. I think Angus Taylor has more offshore bank accounts than that. So yeah, I don't know if you've picked up a trend here. But these secrecy laws have been around a while, but it seems like they've only been used in the last 10 years or so.
It could have gotten into power 10 years or so. Is anyone who got their theory first public ministry 10 years or so. One prominent Senior Counsel Geoggrey Watson points the day that transparency died in Australia. Here's the exact date transparency died on Friday, the eighth of November 2013. It happened at a media briefing called then by the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, you may remember it the overnight
Unknown Speaker 11:55 incident. What's become a vet photo of asylum seekers. I will not comment further in relation to onboarding matters. Thank you. This is a great public intro. In relation to on water matters. Have they been coming further in relation to on water matters? I think we've dealt with that question.
Unknown Speaker 12:16 And in terms of making that judgment, if they've done something because do customer Australia, doesn't that mean that your tax base policy
Scott Morrison 12:22 is kind of? Well, you've made a whole bunch of presumptions there, which I'm not about to speculate, maybe you can make them up for? Well, you're the one making the presumptions that may
Unknown Speaker 12:30 be the case of the overnight incident is not resolved. And that's why more information is not forthcoming. It's an ongoing
Scott Morrison 12:35 operational matter. And the persons that were at risk have all been accounted for. We're not going to go into the micro detail of these operational matters. What we are saying is that we rendered assistance, and all the people and all the people have been accounted for. So we can go around this for a lot longer. But that is the position. Scary what you get now, isn't it? Wow,
Dan Ilic 13:01 absolutely wild. You'll remember that.
David McBride 13:03 You notice Angus Campbell, before he became
Dan Ilic 13:07 chief of the defense straight after this? Yeah, like a year later, he was a chief of talent spawn. Yeah, so if you remember, do you remember that phrase, I will not comment in relation to home order matters, man. It was unrepeated every press conference for like six months until the press got bored and stopped going to those press conferences. He was even number five on the hottest 100 of that. Which is amazing. Also, it was on afternoon game shows as well. The
Unknown Speaker 13:33 final question was $7,000 Go to you go take a look at this picture. What's the well known catchphrase? It's an ongoing operational matter. Close Hey, I bet the audience knows what it was sadly, Scott, you missed out on the $7,000 which isn't enough to buy you a journalist. These are the happy you get anyway, tonight.
Scott Morrison 14:06 Yeah, I didn't get a logo.
Dan Ilic 14:09 That joke relies so heavily on people remembering birthdays catch.
Instead of showing the first competition is shown.
As Jeffrey watched an SC put it there was a hint in those words that it might have something to do with national security. But that was never the case. There was no evidence was ever produced at once the government got away with it once they got a taste for it. And that kind of secrecy is alluring and has an addictive quality. As what's inputted to me by phone, just like in sports. Once one side of the game starts cheating and gets away with it. Both sides start cheating and we're already seeing labor, hinting that they will continue on with national cabinet in secret. So this is where we are on this island today laws designed to protect its citizens instead use to protect the fragile egos of megalomaniacs. We elect. Yeah. And it seems today everything on this island is secret for no good reason as Damian cave put it in a great 2019 article titled Australian might be the world's most secretive democracy. This is what he wrote. The most recent expansion of government secrecy came last year with an espionage bill would increase criminal penalties for sharing information declassified, even if even if a document happened to be as harmless as a cafeteria menu. So the other day, I tested it out, I reached out to Aziz cafe, in the middle of Parliament House, you need a pass to get into it. Or the politicians and lobbyists go there. And I sent them a text and asked them to send me a photo of the menu and they sent it through. Fantastic and don't worry, the sources were redacted.
And in case you're wondering, they're the soup of the day is chicken. Yeah, so the guy
apparently got a problem for me to check. That's good, though. Very happy. So there we go. ever run a Festival of Dangerous Ideas, please give it up for Damien cage.
Damien Cave 16:12 Thank you. Thanks. So when I when I wrote that article, actually, you know, people thought I was crazy, calling Australia this extremely secretive democracy. But now that we have a prime minister with lots of secret jobs, maybe it's not so crazy. And maybe it's not just a crazy American who's, who's saying it? You know, since I wrote that story, there have been many more examples, lots of which you went into. But, you know, I think it's important to recognize that it's not just Canberra that this problem exists in. And, you know, I run into it all over the country when I'm dealing with people as a reporter. And I have a small story, a small example that will show you just how much it handles some of the most important issues at the local level. Like, can we get this image perhaps the giant banana, giant caveman banana? Let me back up for a minute. So we have a newsletter that The New York Times publishes every week called the Australia letter, which is basically a reporter riffing about the news of the week with a little bit of perspective. And so one week better, Odell was a wonderful writer for us. And Melbourne said, you know, I want to write about this public art thing. It's involves bananas and frogs and, and babies, and I had no idea what she was talking about. But I figured, yeah, for sure, go for it. So shockingly, after it runs, I get this email from somebody that says the subject line is immediate removal of article. And I'm wondering what on earth this is about, right. So I look in and I see that it's about the newsletter, which makes me go back and try to understand what this giant banana he-man thing is all about. And it turns out that there was an exchange being offered between, you know, a local council in Melbourne, and John Oliver, the comedian who John basically wanted to take this lovely piece of art off the hands of Melbourne and trade, and give them basically some frogs with some legs that were open a little bit wider than his approach. And along with that, he also had some babies that had been washed up on the shore and Texas, beautiful babies like this. And so he offered to trade these wonderful pieces of art for the he-man Banana. Basha was in favor of this plan. She loved the frogs, I think. So as you can see, this was a serious job of public interest journalism in Australia's greatest interests, which is why I was really surprised when I got an email and concerned I should say, and the subject line was immediate removal of article. I mean, that's a pretty big request. We don't take down articles from the New York Times, sometimes we attach a correction, maybe an Editor's Note, but take it down, I literally can't think of a single time that that's happened. And I worry that there must be some serious flaw in what beshear had written. But no, it turns out that the person in local government had an email exchange with her about whether the dollars could go into the recycling machine. And she was quoted as saying, and this is the exact quote, I don't know what the dolls are made of. So I can't officially comment either way. She wrote that in the email that her name was attached, and that it wasn't supposed to be because she did not consent to it, and was not an authorized spokesperson for the council, this council policy, she said, so at this point, I feel kind of bad. And I'm wondering like maybe this is just the person who happened to be in the office that day. So I go out and I look on LinkedIn and I discover that her actual title is Senior Advisor for media and communications. We had a bit more back and forth by email and she said that she was when she was quoted it was always without a name. Now at no point in this exchange with special did she request anonymity not that we would have granted it but the whole thing started to feel pretty ridiculous to me. I mean, here's a person who was being paid with tax dollars to give the media information demanding an article be spiked because she kind of did her job with a weird nothing burger. Have a comment about scary rubbery baby dolls. Like really, this is how far down the rabbit hole Australian secrecy is gone. But the thing is, I'd been around and I could also see this It really wasn't just her fault, right? This was bigger than her. This council did have a secrecy policy for almost everything. And everyone, just like Australia has a secrecy default for far too many things. As Dan mentioned, it's a habit, it gets addictive. She was just following the written and unwritten rules for the world's most secretive democracy. And I was pretty sure she didn't even see the context that way. So I tried to write back to her politely. And this is what I wrote. The problem here, it seems to me is the Australian practice of withholding names. In general, if you work for a public entity in a democracy, anonymity is not assumed you work for the public at taxpayer expense. And so in the future, if you don't want to be named, please make that clear in your exchange with New York Times reporters, and we can respond accordingly. She wrote me back and said, Thank you. This has been a huge lesson for me, in terms of dealing with reporters. Now again, this was her job.
Scott Morrison 20:50 So she was she was the senior media advisor.
Damien Cave 20:53 Yeah, exactly. Now, I wish that this was the only absurd example of Australia secrecy default in the years since I wrote that article, but it's not. There was also the time when I filed a public records request for some insight and what kinds of things the Foreign Investment Review Board was rejecting. I started out asking for companies and industries in the countries involved for every decision, I wanted to basically know what kinds of things were being rejected from China, in particular what or not, they said no to that. So then I just asked for numbers, lands statistics for which countries had applied and been rejected. I asked for ratios of accepted investments, anything that would give me any insight into what this very important government body was doing. And they said no to all of it. They just assumed it was a national security threat, whether or not China bought a dairy farm or not. More recently, and I'll end with this, I run into a senior Australian diplomat at an event who told me a handful of mildly insightful things about Australian foreign policies. At the end of our little chat, he looked at me in the eyes and he said, You can't quote or refer to anything I told you. I told them not to worry that I've been talking to a lot of Western officials from the US the UK a whole bunch of things on this story I was working on. So the most that I could imagine doing was combining what he said with others, and referring it to something like Western officials, in his eyes when Drew wide with fear. No, I've gotten in trouble for that. I've gotten in trouble for that, too. You can't do that you just can't. And again, none of what he told me amounted to state secrets, but he was completely stressed. It was like he feared being jailed or fired or killed for saying very, very little out. And that's really the problem here. The culture of secrecy has become so dominant in Australia that it muzzles, voices and sensors, people who are responsible for this democracy. Instead of recognizing that their roles include an obligation to the public to explain why they are what they are doing is good for the country. They behave as if telling the media and the public anything is a violation of ethics. And they are disciplined with that priority in mind, stay silent, keep information private, or else. Don't make any mistake. This is an authoritarian instinct. I've seen it in dictatorships around the world, and it's toxic and contagious. It's an attitude that strikes fear into everyone and anyone who has an urge to share important information that we deserve to know. One more thing, though some figures in Australian life, perhaps that former Prime Minister perhaps another member who we've tussled with, I think in the media quite a bit named Peter Dutton, have a far worse reputation on secrecy than others. But it is not a partisan problem. It's a political problem and a power problem and a habit problem. Even after Scott Morrison took on all those extra jobs, you did not see the Albanese government immediately promised to tackle the problem of secrecy all over government. And it's not clear if the Prime Minister ever will get around to dealing with it. This is the case even though countless studies show that secrecy undermines trust in democracy and creates the conditions for corruption and mismanagement. Australians really deserve better. My hope is that someday we get to a place where every official can speak freely, including those who have something to say about a gross baby doll washing up on shore, or a banana he-man public art project and
David McBride 23:54 I want to jump in because what you said rang true and I and I get it forget it later. But the they had a thing in the defense was about privacy, the Privacy Act, and I think people understood the idea obviously, you don't want people finding out about your sexual preference or whatever, because through some sort of a lake, but they took it very seriously. And we were in in dropping bombs on people in the Middle East. And I kid you not. There was like a senior defense lawyer. It was sort of like targeting this terrorist. It's gonna say to say a Hellfire besar they were like, I'm not sure we may be breaching their privacy guideposts the whole action
Dan Ilic 24:42 Damian has anything else? Kind of you've been here five years. Does anything else surprise you at all now due to kind of around secrecy in Australian Government?
Damien Cave 24:51 You know, I think I'm constantly surprised by moments like the one I just described where it's it's so deeply ingrained in the culture that the default setting is to just not attach a name or under an understanding of accountability at the low, low level. So that's the first thing. It's just throughout the culture. And then the second thing is, though, that I'm so pleasantly surprised when people actually trust me and do help me like there was one time I was in like the small town in South Australia doing a story about I think there was a it was a memorial to a massacre against the local Aboriginal people. And somebody in government, this was a very, really big controversial conflict in this small town. But someone quietly at some point, handed me the small blue book, and he said, This is the phone numbers for everyone in this town. You can call it whatever you want. Don't tell anyone I gave. And I don't know why he trusted me with that. But I'm so grateful to those people who, who, you know, feel that they've taken a chance on me as a journalist, and I'm and that surprises me, because it's so rare, unfortunately. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 25:49 Great. And what was the diplomat? What was he saying to you? Was he saying stuff? Like, you know, we sell a lot of shape in Australia.
Damien Cave 25:56 You know, he was like talking about like other leaders and like things that were totally part of the public record. Like, I think he maybe he thought he was saying these brilliant things, but I'd heard all of it. But
Amber Schultz 26:06 how much that has trickled down to normal conversation for I'll have dinner with a friend and they're just talking about the average Wednesday and they'll stop themselves and they'll be like, this is off the record.
Unknown Speaker 26:17 Yeah, exactly.
Damien Cave 26:18 That sense of self importance to I guess it's part of the secrecy thing. It's like whatever I'm doing it. I think it helps people sort of feel important to feel as though the menu for a restaurant might be secret.
Dan Ilic 26:27 All right, great. Well, I'm looking forward to the next secret spilled by Amber Schultz.
Amber Schultz 26:38 Last week, I went to this really glamorous event called the midwinter ball. So for those of you that don't know it's in Parliament, and it's an opportunity for journalists to cosplay as stage three tax cut recipients. We all go and the whole point of the event is to suck up to politicians and staffers and lobbyists. But what's weird is the entire thing as soon as you step through those doors, the entire event is off the record. It's all secret, which why you would have an event invite journalists and keep it off the record bewilders me it's not an ACO meeting. It's not an August meeting because if it was Scott Morrison would have leaked the Testaments and it's not despite what Senator Sarah Hanson young seem to think Met Gala event is the parliamentary ball. You know, Australia is addicted to secrecy. We've got witness que je lawyer X, you know, it sounds like a wiggle soul was Scott Morrison's ministerial appointments, whistleblowers a silence secret midwinter ball speeches, it's absolutely absurd. freedom of information requests in Australia across the past decade, have been rejected 50% year on year, those that are accepted, which is rare, but those that are accepted return pages upon pages of redacted information, so you just get a wall of black and it makes trying to figure out what the hell is going on about as difficult as reading a George RR Martin novel. But well, the government doesn't want to share any information with the public. It turns out the public is really, really happy to share information with the government. Yeah, we are we're a nation of dubbers. We love snitching It's absolutely absurd. And we didn't start like this. You know, Australia is, you know, our colonial history is a nation of convicts, and obviously the convicts aren't snitching, because the ones that snitched got stay in England. Our snitching culture is the result of some really, really successful marketing campaigns. So the government really does want whistleblowers that really wants people to come forward with information, provided, you're coming forward with information about Gen three doors down. So the first marketing campaign was Crimestoppers that started in the 80s. And that's been really successful. There's like 350,000 Tip offs per year. And about half of those actually result in a police report, which is hugely successful. And then of course, 911 happened and the government decided we need a national security hotline, we need something more tailored to terrorism. And conveniently, a lot of these national security hotline campaigns were released during elections because nothing else buys a vote like fear. So we had the if you see something, say something we had Be alert, not alarmed, and we had if it doesn't add up, speak up, we moved from loose lips sink ships to spy on your neighbor. It's normal behavior. But you know, a lot of these national security tips obviously a steeped in racism and prejudice. So Australia, we are trying to be better we are trying to be, you know, less divisive, more inclusive. So COVID presented a really fantastic opportunity of that because it meant we could dive on our neighbors regardless of race or background or socioeconomic class. It's progress, really. There was one example so there was so many people calling the police on one another often for really, really trivial things. One example was woman she's sitting home and she sees a photo scrolling through photos and she sees one where she looks absolutely shredded in her bikini from a holiday a year ago. She decides to post it on Facebook and suddenly the police are at a door. One of her Facebook friends saw that photo thought it was current and called the police on Yeah, that's how much we love snitching you know and you're worried about Zuckerberg spying on you. It's not so good for your old high school friend from 20 years ago. You know, we love snitching we have a dubbing hotline for almost everything. We have Dobbin a dealer that was launched in 2016. And DUBNER dealer has actually seen since the campaign launched, the number of people calling up about dealers double it's been really successful. Unfortunately, unfortunately, a tip off about AFLW style way Macquarie's dealer turned up nothing but crushed up bags of ibuprofen. It's a real hit and miss. We've got the job seeker Dobbin hotline which was cruelly caused it's not funny.
Kate McClymont 31:07 Scott Morrison was ringing constantly.
Amber Schultz 31:12 Which was currently called Adobe and Adobe Lightroom. Now that wasn't actually as successful because people didn't, you know, didn't really like the idea of dubbing in someone on the doll. But the people that did complain was small to medium businesses who said people that had applied for their jobs had lied on their CV, which is really funny because it just means the public is looking to John Barilaro. And taking a bit of a we also were used to we don't know, but we used to even have a hotline to dub in mislabeled seafoods. That's how much we love dubbing. Yeah. Yeah, there was a specific one for mislabeled seafood. Wow.
Damien Cave 31:47 Sounds like a micro detail.
Scott Morrison 31:50 RAM sticks.
Amber Schultz 31:53 So tip offs and Dobbins are a dime a dozen. I mean in this economy, who knows, but really a diamond doesn't. So while you can't know what subpar jokes Albanese staff wrote for him at the midwinter ball speech he can know about that job interview, you didn't show up for you know, he can know about that crushed up bag of ibuprofen you bought, or he can know about that weird photo you posted on Facebook. So while the government you know, wants information from you, but only wants really, really trivial trivial information, you know, try snitching about something of importance and you know the thing snitches get stitches closed or prosecution
Dan Ilic 32:37 and, you know, it costs money to do foi stuff. But what's the most you've ever cost Crikey. In your career as a journalist,
Amber Schultz 32:48 I probably set a record for the fastest lawsuit from a new hire because I hit three days and immediately got a consent notice. So, you know, I don't know if you know this. But Craig, he has a very long rich history of being sued for defamation. So I was proud to join that on day three.
Dan Ilic 33:05 It's kind of interesting, like you're talking about midway to Boulder, and the inverse, the immediate comparison is the White House press correspondents dinner in DC and which is like public broadcast celebrities, everyone wants to go to it. It's like, if you're a leader and you're at that event, you are going to get roasted and you if you if you fuck up on stage, you're going to eat it in front of everyone. It's like that is like the absolute icon of like that when you look at both countries, Australia and America, that's like transparency back to back
anytime you are looking at America with respect and thinking like that they are more relaxed than us. Like, we need to have a good hard look at ourselves. It's like secret dinners for the whatever for the President and wave laws. Like what are we doing? Yeah, but it's weird those because we there's a not a bowl but there's a annual invite by ABC employee like the a bunch of ABC employees get basically instructed to go down to Parliament House and kiss the ring to suck up tour, isn't it? Well, yeah. And so one no, well, one year I was told to go down and as you know, the face of youth as I was back then and and it's so weird because obviously all politicians hate young people. So they were just like, get the fuck out of here. But then they everyone was like all of the ABC celebs out there trying to like impress you know, someone who would give us money and they didn't give a shit until b one and B two came out. And those politicians were fucking bananas. Like they were all grabbing photo like they were so excited. We're just like, well, I just wouldn't got drunk with Costa
those politicians weren't obviously from Fitzroy. Exactly. And but when you're around Parliament House lately, can you tell If there's like a tone changed since the new government is coming like is there, is there a different feeling around the press color?
Amber Schultz 35:07 There is I mean slightly. We've got the little, like little postcards that have the one 800 parliamentary support services number on it, but that they're everywhere. But aside from that, the only difference is people constantly if anyone like gets too close or accidentally brushes past someone, someone will yell Jenkins about the only difference.
Dan Ilic 35:28 That's great. It's easy to make fun of the press gallery for kind of hypocrisy. They're under pressure from the government. It it's kind of interesting to see over the last couple of years how news reports have changed, particularly under the Morison government I don't know if you've noticed. Here's a clip from Channel 10 News.
Unknown Speaker 35:48 Here are the headlines approved by the Department of Communications on 10. The Royal Commission into how good is Australia has found that Australia is very good and colder than many estimates predicted. The Department of Fair go agrees with the findings saying that Aussies are getting fair a goes and more goes than ever before. And Australia's most prestigious honor the Order of Australia is having a makeover with a brand new category added to the list. So move over items and AM's there's a new metal on the podium. It's the QA, which will be awarded to the most quiet Australian and that's someone who excels at showing complete disinterest in the affairs of government and goes about their day unquestioning the world around them. Nominations are now open. So good luck to everyone. And in sports, Australia's cricket team are the best and they will win the ashes if any of the current deliver want to see the loved ones again, turning to the weather, despite what it looks like out of the window, it is fine. And definitely average temperatures for this time of year. Definitely not white hotter than usual. That is, of course all the approved news for now in the greatest country in the world. And remember, it's on Australian to not have private health insurance.
Unknown Speaker 37:09 Ladies and gentlemen,
Dan Ilic 37:10 please give it up for Kate McClymont
Kate McClymont 37:19 Right, I'm going to give you some tips tonight on how to avoid me. So I find now that often when I ring people up, I can hear them and I say, oh, it's Kate McClymont. Here, I can hit and go. But anyway, if you want to be secret, one of the things I want to advise you is not to buy a voice distorter. So I did have someone ring up to give me some very highly confidential information. And they've gone to the trouble of buying a voice distorter and it did sound like a crazed robot. But the information was absolutely fabulous. And I said at the end of the conversation, thank you so much. And now I can get you on this number for safe forgotten. Voice distorter that number still came up. Don't buy voice disorder. And too. If you want to remain secret, please use Australia Post snail mail, it's still the best way to send things. However, if you are one of the bead family, and you are sitting there sending me death threats, please wear gloves. Your fingerprints were on the envelope. And on the inside. So gloves if you really don't want to be. And one other thing I'd like to advise Eddie obeyed was in the past. When I rang his office to get some questions. He forgot to hang up. The phone on and I listened for 20 minutes, as they discussed how they were going to lie to me what they were going to say. And in the end, I had to call in on the office spoke. And I said look, Eddie, it's been so lovely hearing you talk about me. It's been so lovely hearing your plants. However, I really need a comment and I just heard them go off. They hung up. Another thing is that when a major crime figure has died, don't go behind the crypt at the funeral to discuss where the money is. This happened at many Macpherson's funeral, and I'd already been threatened so I thought I would hide behind the crypt. But on the other side of the crypt was Lenny McPherson solicitor, who was chatting away about where the money was hidden, what companies they had. So that was very handy. And having said those things I Do want to just take one moment to say that I am also an idiot when it comes to, you know, giving my own things away, Louis reminded me today that I accidentally sent a pin with my location on it to the head of the Hells Angels. Caitlin climber is here. Not so good. Then I sent a photo of my ear. How would you take a photo of your ear and send it, but I sent that to one of my colleagues who thought I, somebody had cut it off. And I was like, and then the last thing I did was that I did have my phone in my pocket. And I sent a whole lot of gibberish to Twitter. And people contacted me saying, should they call the police? Had I been kidnapped? Had I been kidnapped? And was this a secret cry for help? So I would just like to say that I too, like many of the criminals I cover am an idiot
Dan Ilic 41:10 Do you ever feel honestly feel like your life is in danger?
Kate McClymont 41:16 I always take the one of my contacts who was a detective said to me, Kate, don't worry about the ones that threaten you. It's the ones that don't. And I did get a death threat death threat delivered to my house and that did have 303 on it. And I said to my husband what that's actually our address 303 And he said it's a rifle, you idiot. And it doesn't help when you don't actually understand that you are a threat to your own house. Oh,
Dan Ilic 41:47 so if we were to send a death threat to you, what's the best kind of
Kate McClymont 41:53 with the with the fingerprints? And what
Dan Ilic 41:55 is the best way to actually stay secret from me rather than you know all the mistakes? But like, How does someone? How does someone truly avoid Kate McLemore?
Kate McClymont 42:03 No, it's very hard. Because the first thing I do is, if you come across my radar, the first thing to do is don't behave badly. That's how you can avoid me. But the first thing I do is I will do an ASIC search. If you have a company, I will find out how old you were where you used to live, whether you've got a mortgage on your house, how much you paid for your house, who lives next door who lives on the other side? What is your phone number? So
Dan Ilic 42:30 is there like other ways that you do that publicly available?
Kate McClymont 42:35 Just expensive. It's just expensive. I think I have the sort of an ASIC addiction in poker machines. I have that thing of doing an ASIC search, and my heart is racing. I'm waiting to find out who was in that company with that person. I love it.
Dan Ilic 42:53 Some people pay for Paramount plus Did you ever pull up video bed and try to read negotiate a mortgage.
Kate McClymont 43:03 Last time I did ring him up. He said to me, you put one word out of line and I will go for you. I will go for the jugular Have a nice day. So
Damien Cave 43:18 most friends say Have a nice day.
Kate McClymont 43:20 He's now in jail. And I just think having to spend eternity with your son Mosers. Punishment
Dan Ilic 43:37 David McBride is a former military officer who served with both the ADF and British armies in Ireland and Afghanistan. And he now faces unlimited years in jail after exposing cover ups of war crimes committed by Australians in Afghanistan, yet he did not get invited to the Queen's commemorations.
Unknown Speaker 43:55 Everyone please welcome David O'Brien.
Dan Ilic 44:03 David with unlimited jail on the cards, it must play havoc with your psyche. How you preparing?
David McBride 44:12 It's quite a useful terms. At first, when I was first going to court and at a legal aid lawyer, I met a guy who was a lifetime prisoner with tattoos all over me. And he was like, I'm gonna give you some tips when you go to jail, but I was like, Okay. And he said, you know, you got to keep it very tidy because some people's homes and he said, you know, said what's your cover story going to be? I said, Well, why cover story? I'm, I'm a whistleblower, and you know, fighting the government. I can't see what's going to beat me up and he was like, no, no, no. He said, they're gonna beat you up. He said, he said, I might even understand what a whistle blower is. He said, I thought was you I'd say you killed your sergeant. And I made a mental note. I thought I'm gonna get a bigger tattoo. And then And then he said, Well, how many years you're facing anyone? I said, Well, it's unlimited. And he said, What do you mean? I said, it's unlimited. And he said, Well, what? 500 years? I said, yeah, maybe 800? I said you possibly if they just had a bad day? Who knows? And he was like, you're going to do all right. He said, they might give you a double sell. So that was one of the
Dan Ilic 45:24 opioids. When you went through the process of, you know, whistleblowing, did you ever think, oh, geez, I wish I hadn't had exposed the war criminals. Yeah,
David McBride 45:37 I know, I never thought that I must have been, I never thought they were low. In the position I'm in now, where it looks like, you know, I could be going to jail for a long time for doing what I thought was the right thing. But I do sometimes think I've got to sue Hollywood, flick back, he gives me these ideas. Somehow that was the right thing to do. When actually, it was obviously a very dangerous, like
Unknown Speaker 45:58 a few good men that lets me maybe
David McBride 46:01 get a big class, I could be the richest person to jail and never get to be able to spend that money.
Dan Ilic 46:06 The sad thing is like, if you sell your story that goes really well, as a feature film, that would be terrible.
It's quite remarkable what you've done. It's a it's a real act of service for democracy. And it's really astounding, that we all know what, you know, our defense force has done on our behalf. And I think we're all better off than knowing that Does your family know that your hero
David McBride 46:35 could ever be a hero to your family. And I've tried to, I tried to try to pull the hero card a couple of times that they kids, when they're playing after they kind of want this, they want more money for the dress or something. And I'm like, Look, it's it's pretty hard for me and I am standing up for what is right and for your future and your children's future. And, and they go roll their eyes and they go dead. That's all very well when you get to get an actual job. So it doesn't cut my job. That's for sure ever with my ex wife. And I was like, telling her about try to break the news to her that the cops could be coming in numbers. I'd had secret documents that I was like, Look at Skinner, for taking on the Defence Force. And she was like, Oh, that's wonderful. Darlings was good. The falling and nails. And then I'm like I tried to make she didn't seem that impressed. I'm like, I'm really taking on the whole government that she's like, oh, yeah, that's good, darling. And I'm like, she wasn't very impressed. And I was trying to get a bit of hero. Record here. I create exactly what you think you get. And I'm like, an effectively because orchestrate everything I'm really taking on the American government and the CIA. You're upping the stakes. Yeah, I'm
Unknown Speaker 47:56 trying to get a bit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
David McBride 47:59 She's looking at a little bit of rough nails going on. It's nice, darling. She said, But I remember I've got Pilates tonight. So make sure you're home to pick up the kids job.
Dan Ilic 48:10 Yeah. When you're going through the process of whistleblow. What's the most absurd thing that you kind of encountered in with the authorities? You know, what's, what's the craziest thing?
David McBride 48:20 There's a lot that this is, you know, I went through all the secret files when I decided something was very wrong. And that offense was and I spent about six months working at night, looking for incriminating documents. And I got download them all and gave them to the ABC and said, Look, these ones, they're all selected. They're all I've highlighted the sections. Anyway, I knew these documents very well. And I'd selected them and that's why I'm facing trial. But when I was on trial, they used to take us into the Attorney General's office and especially as with all the documents were extensively to prepare our case. We're security guards and tourney generals, people watching us prepare our case in secret. And the documents were there and they were like to put it to me, he can't look at the documents because he doesn't have a security clearance at least classified and I'm like, I know what's in the fucking the documents I stole. They're like no, no exceptions. You can't look at them. And so then they these documents is precious documents. And as the time went on, I had to move them around in a safe the security guards would come around. And I think they got sick of it at one time. They had to call us up and said well, you can't have the documents today because the consignment order got mixed up and they've you know, gone to a double glazing office and we're trying to get them back as soon as we can.
Kate McClymont 49:53 Do they arrested double glazed
Dan Ilic 49:58 the rest of the Korea they came back and now framed Well, David, thank you for joining us. I hope we can get you again soon before at least before or after
Lewis Hobba 50:18 everyone understand that no, fuck yeah. That's right. We're about to get dangerous. This guy's standing up. Okay. Now secrets. We all have them. People on this panel they don't like a much zeal for disclosure is almost religious, but I'm an agnostic member in the church of full disclosure bit like the actual church. Boy, do they have some secrets? Of course some secrets deserve to be revealed. But be honest. Every now and then. A journalist uncovered something and you think to yourself, wish you hadn't told me that? Like why is it that we still don't know if the Queen killed Diana, but we do know that King Charles wants to be his wife's tampon didn't help me to know that hasn't stopped him being king. What's the point? You've just made me sad? I don't want to know these types of secrets. Oh, I haven't been out asleep for years because of this. But people like you had to go digging around. You know, when this whole thing broke the other nationals MP who thought that Barnaby should be sacked for cheating on his wife was this guy. And then you know what secrets the damn journalists found out about him. They found out that he'd been chatting to a woman who wasn't his wife using a sugar baby website. And that could have been enough. You could have stopped there. But no, you had to tell me the sex heroes. Do you remember this? When the woman said that she liked her Australian accent and he wrote I pull your clothes. Run my strong hands down your back. Softly kiss your neck and whisper get a mate
I still shudder every time someone says g'day to me. I can't you journalist has put out an article every week that says old men still gross. This specifics are ruining me. And it's not just the gross secret. See, though, like this week, someone discovered that a glazier in Chile had collapsed. No, keep that to yourself. You know, I know climate change is happening but I can't stop the glaciers from falling in Chile. I'd love to but I can and it's stressing me out. Some things are need to know right? But some things I don't need to know some things. I just need to know that the people who need to know know you know. You can just leave me out of it. Like journalists need to remember that snitches get stitches. He is a dangerous idea for you, Zipit knowing everything that's your interest. It's a great hobby. Keep it to yourself. Oh, great. You found out that the Prime Minister had 10 Secret jobs and gave out hundreds of millions of dollars. So they were basically bribes. Oh, good. Good. Now I'm confused and angry. Oh, great. We found out that dead shit politicians getting paid millions to move overseas when they get chased out of their current jobs here for being shitted them. Oh, great. Well, now I have to think about that. Well, I have to go to my poorly paid work and be competent. It's killing me. I think every journalist should be restricted to one secret per annum. On your birthday, you can tell me one secret as a treat 364 days to plan your next one. Just give me a chance to recover. And you want to be a whistleblower? Great. You can only blow one whistle at a time. I don't want to be told any more about all people secretly fucking their staff or publicly fucking the planet. Like I want to know the secret to cooking a good pizza at home. One that tastes as good as a restaurant. How do they do it? I want to know the secret to ordering clothes online that fit me the first I just want to know the secret to not being anxious all the time. And I think that starts with not knowing This stuff. Thank you.
Dan Ilic 55:02 Thank you Liz. That is it for rational Phoebe kinky for our guests. Dylan Lewis and Damien diamond MacDrive also big thanks to Robert mark our new patreon supporters Kelly Katherine Jenny the new work Daniel hobby Cecily Hardy Beck flight the official Avengers it has taken Brandon Aptech and our tech team here. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of Good night. Your fear is rational
On this week's podcast we hit the UK and Australia's slide into authoritarianism, and ask Steve Keen if Mattias Cormann's appointment to the OECD will mean anything meaningful for climate action globally.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Hello Daniel, how are you?
Dan Ilic 0:06 I'm well I'm well, I couldn't help but notice before as we come on, Mike, you, you're doing some vaping on the side there. Have you got a vape sponsor? Can you get a vape sponsor for the show? I
Lewis Hobba 0:16 thought I would get that in just before the cameras started rolling. Yeah, I would say it's my shameful habit. I had no idea that this I was actually walking behind a guy who was smoking today, and I was vaping and he was smoking and he was like five steps in front of me and obviously 10 years behind me, but a few steps in front and he was blowing smoke and it was coming back as always inhaling my vape was inhaling his smoke and I thought, yuck
Dan Ilic 0:46 Well, it's just one more thing to rag on you about you vapour. It's very exciting. I'm not ragging on our new Patreon supporters, though, because we've got some killer new ones. It's another record another week of seven new Patreon supporters. JOHN Miller, thank you for joining up fright bat became a fright manga Thank you. Oliver Kadett, Chris ebbeling Jason Halladay Brooks Santa Hugh Donaldson, thank you so much for supporting us on Patreon. If you want to support us on Patreon, go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. Now we're only a few weeks away from our Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Louis April 11 at the Melbourne Town Hall. I'm really excited about it. I can't wait to get to Melbourne. I can't wait to enjoy the festival.
Lewis Hobba 1:25 Yeah, me too. I also saw on one of my weekly forays into Twitter that you are begging for guests, which I always which makes you feel very relaxed about the
Dan Ilic 1:36 situation. No, that's not that's not true. I was after a suggestion for a big climate change name to join the show and I booked one. We've got Simon Holmes accord joining us he's mega brain on energy and climate. He knows all about the juiciest truth bombs about how Australia is missing out on the it's brand new green energy revolution. So he's going to be our interview guests which is fantastic. That's amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. Sami Shah Alice Fraser, James Colley who is the head writer the weekly and grow and transfer you and I and also Gabby bolt is due on a soundstage to for her only Melbourne show she is going to be an absolute mega star Gabby bolt. So you it's going to be one of those shows. You'll go. Oh, you know, I saw Gabby bouldered an irrational fear at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival back in 2021. Before she became an absolutely massive
Lewis Hobba 2:21 Yeah, plus that we can see if we can get some of that homes are caught money on the Patreon.
Dan Ilic 2:26 He is a patron subscriber he's a he's a Patreon supporter, so he already does
Lewis Hobba 2:31 amazing he goes by Patreon.
Dan Ilic 2:33 probably good. For more go to comedy.com Today you look for a rational fee. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land. In the eora nation sovereignty was never said we need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 2:44 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks cambro
Unknown Speaker 2:51 gum, and section 40 of
Unknown Speaker 2:53 our rational fear
Unknown Speaker 2:55 recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:58 Tonight Scott Morrison's response to the march for justice was the worst example of public tone deafness since meatloaf played at the AFL Grand Finals. It was so bad that Jenny asked him to imagine if he was a single dad. And for publicly diminishing his reputation Christian Porter announces plans to sue himself for defamation. And another COVID case confirmed in a Sydney quarantine hotel as usual. Melbourne says that we're doing it months ago. It's the 19th of March 2021. I'm spending my last job paper on lollies This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former Duke of Edinburgh Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the week's toughest stories and gives them a big hug. Only if they agree to it. Let's meet our fear mongers for the podcast this week. He's taking some time out from his gruelling hotel quarantine regime of looking out the window. It's Australia's favourite will Anderson look alike. It's Adam Hill.
Adam Hills 4:05 Not the hotel quarantine that had a case this week. Just want to point that out.
Dan Ilic 4:10 Well, how are you? How have you been spending your time Adam?
Adam Hills 4:14 I'm writing a children's book. So that's great most of my time. And being that I'm alone in a hotel room you can imagine what's taking up the rest of my time.
Lewis Hobba 4:24 children's book just like where's Wally, but it's one man alone a hotel's theory.
Dan Ilic 4:29 There is again
Adam Hills 4:31 I'm on my third draft and I'm really worried when I handed in the editors are gonna go well, we got really dark all of a sudden.
Lewis Hobba 4:39 Because I write episodes of play school, and, and every now and again, if things are not going well in your life, you can sometimes read a first draft back. I had to do one there was teaching kids how to like ask for help from a doctor that were ever sick. And I read it back. I literally had Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall and screaming in agony that he's shattered his legs Oh, where was I last night like that is Blake Lewis. Anyway, they ran it traumatised kids
Dan Ilic 5:06 and she's been busy auditioning for SBS his insight but didn't manage to get the top job what she sabotaged from within it's the feeds Alex Lee.
Alex Lee 5:15 Hello and yes, I was I was the perfect hosts. How is
Dan Ilic 5:22 the Fed going, Alex?
Alex Lee 5:23 Great. Yes, just in case for all of your baffled listeners. We made a comedy series about me trying to audition to be the new host of insight and failing miserably and you can watch an SBS on demand.
Dan Ilic 5:36 And finally, he's Elaine main. Sorry, he's a lane not main talking machine. It's Louis harbour.
Lewis Hobba 5:42 That's very straight. Do you know i speaking of being not main I'm also not lame. I put up I put on 10 kilos in the last year. I'm jacked.
Dan Ilic 5:50 So you've gone from looking like you've come out of Belson to looking like you're signed up for chadwicks. That's not too bad for you.
Unknown Speaker 5:57 deep knowledge of modelling.
Alex Lee 6:00 Writing diet Lewis
Unknown Speaker 6:03 recommends,
Lewis Hobba 6:04 I probably would have put on 20 kilos if it wasn't for the joule.
Dan Ilic 6:09 Coming up Maverick economist Professor Steve Cain joins us to talk about Mateus Coleman's appointment to the Secretary General job of the OECD what it means for Australia and climate action. Will we see him use less planes in favour of a chopper. But first, a message from this week's sponsor?
Unknown Speaker 6:26 Hi, I'm Nick Fuller. As New South Wales Police Commissioner, I love stripping down with others. But gaining consent can be a confusing process. That's why we've developed a new app to help men with important careers feel safe at night. If individuals have developed relations to a point where undergarments could be heading in a southerly direction, it's important to document the consent of each party before the engagement of horizontal proceedings. Simply take out your service New South Wales app and scroll to the sexual consent form. You and your sexual participants simply tick the boxes for the style and duration of sexual intercourse. Also note if applicable, which private high school participants attended. So we assign the most appropriate legal response should we even need to then simply sign on the screen or use a finger on the fingerprint reader. If one of your participants is too drunk to sign, definitely don't coerce them, or just place their finger on the fingerprint reader. They'll never be able to prove otherwise, then and only then can sexual intercourse proceed at a location of your choice. There is currently a 15 person limit per sexual event per household. But this will relax as COVID rules change. Now, this is important. If any participant changes their mind, it won't be automatically updated by the app. But we're assured by the Boston Consulting Group that this will be addressed in a future upgrade. So when emotions are running high, remember now app no wet. This has been a message from the New South Wales Police. Thank you.
Dan Ilic 8:01 Yes, no after no after that line courtesy of the Guardians name. And so I saw it on Twitter and I had to steal it with consent. Of course, there was his tweet, I'll share it in the show notes. Yes, this week's first fear this crazy consent app. Now the start of the day, the New South Wales Police Commissioner was floating this idea about an app to get a whole bunch of people to jump on this app to engage with swapping consent over an app to kind of quell rising sexual assaults. So it's just something that normal, you know, adults would use to swap consent before during the day. But by lunchtime, he was resoundingly made fun of on social media, and the New South Wales, police commissioner McFaul had to retract the idea saying these on radio,
Unknown Speaker 8:41 to be honest with you, the app could be the worst idea I have in 2021. But the reality is in five years, perhaps it won't but if you think about dating 10 years ago, this sort of concept of single people swiping left and right was a term that we didn't even know you know,
Dan Ilic 8:57 Mick Foley might have appointed I didn't had no idea of consent until he actually floated this whole the idea of an F v mongers. Is this a good idea? Alex?
Alex Lee 9:06 I think that was the one correct thing. He said that it was absolutely the most insane idea he could have thought of like, it's the kind of idea that you you know, you might whisper to your wife as you go to sleep and she goes, Okay, that's enough bedtime or like, something you put on the subreddit of shower ideas, but to be the New South Wales Police Commissioner, and to put it out there in the public is so crazy. And it was just, you know, after what has been a really awful few weeks, you know, for women in Australia just to display that level of ignorance about how consent works, how sex works, what the actual issue is, like, it really like bordered on not being funny, despite the many ways that it is hilarious that he said that out loud to people
Dan Ilic 10:00 I just like the constant like, backpedalling he did over the last two, like lunchtime hours on radio. I really enjoyed that. Adam, what do you think?
Adam Hills 10:09 I mean, okay, apart from the bass, like there's two ways to approach this the realistic way in the funny way. And the realistic way is, I think, if someone can force you to have sex, then they can force you to consent on an app. If someone's if someone's able to force you to do one thing, they can force you to do another thing. So that takes away the idea of the app being effective in the first place. But secondly, he also said this might be the dumbest idea I have in 2021 as if he's leaving it open for something dumber to happen.
Do you know what I mean? He's like, I don't want to call it yet. Because there's a whole bunch of months left in this year. This could go anyway,
Alex Lee 10:49 he's gonna come back next month and say, Okay, that was stupid. It was stupid to suggest an app for sexual consent. It's a robot Okay guys, sex robot and you tell the robot at all times whether you want to have sex or not. Okay, that's it. That's the good idea.
Lewis Hobba 11:06 It does make you want to sit in with a full a brainstorm session like Alright guys, it's the boys in blue blue sky thinking let's do this thing. What are we getting called? on thinking hansy crush? Who's that? Who's up there?
Dan Ilic 11:19 I've done some research on iOS there's nothing like it but Google Playstore is a bit more of a wild west. Let me show you a couple weeks and have a look at some of those reviews. Yes to sex is an app he says check out these reviews out of rubbish I couldn't get past the first page not even select my gender and it is on friendly web keep asking for locations thumbs down
Lewis Hobba 11:41 you like the bedroom I'm in the bedroom Yeah.
Dan Ilic 11:48 Person yes just six yes five stars Rakesh Yes, he
Lewis Hobba 11:52 was six that's a fun doing it.
Alex Lee 11:56 Very looking forward to now I downloaded this app to be getting some sex. Yeah, I've maybe it's like a way for bots. Like there's so many sex bots out there. Maybe yes to six is like a dating site for bots.
Lewis Hobba 12:11 And select which images in this square have. You know what I'm talking about?
Dan Ilic 12:16 There's even one code only? Yes is yes. And this one actually uses smart contracts. It uses Ethereum blockchain. So anyone with an aetherium account or aetherium will be able to verify how horny all the other people are all around the world at once. Unfortunately,
Alex Lee 12:29 anyone with an Ethereum account, has never had sex and never will.
Unknown Speaker 12:37 What's your response to the call fleece speech
Unknown Speaker 12:39 last night
Unknown Speaker 12:40 I would like to start impeaching has to be given I've got to go in a couple of minutes because I have an international call that I have to attend to irrational fear.
Dan Ilic 12:52 This week second fear one of the things people in the UK are known for is their stiff upper lip, you know their grin and bear it attitude. But that is drastically changing. British MPs have voted in favour of a bill that increases police houses for cracking down on power protests that are annoying. Yeah, it's a 307 page bill, which must have been very annoying to read. Other things. It says it's going to do incredible fines for damaging statues, like for three months to 10 years in jail. For instance, police will have the power to tell one person protest to stop shouting and could impose noise limits and have start and finish times for protests as well. It's basically ushering in a whole new era of authoritarianism. You know, when I think of annoying, loud mouth leaders that don't come anymore, more annoying than Boris Johnson, which is ironic. Adam, you live in the UK? How are you taking this?
Adam Hills 13:46 This is something I've been following for a while. So when COVID hit, you know, the government brought in a whole bunch of rules, including, you know, how many people could gather publicly, there can't be any more than 30 people, all that kind of stuff. And remember at the time, I think labour, the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn was in opposition and said, Yeah, okay, let's have a time limit on this. let's let's let's not have a law that could go forever, that stops people protesting, and then 12 months down the track, it's kind of come to fruition, but the idea that it's not just if it's annoying, if you inconvenience anyone, if you put someone you know, if you affect someone's ability to go about their business, that's the whole point of a protest. If you're not being annoying in a protest, you're throwing a fate.
Dan Ilic 14:32 And some of those extinction rebellion protests for 2019 felt really festive, you know, it felt like they were they were like, you know, it was parade it was Carnival with a existential attitude. Really, it was
Adam Hills 14:45 part of a bigger thing that and this, this happens, you know, this is the thing that happens in times of a pandemic, in times of a crisis, government introduced laws and a lot of those laws aren't lifted at the end of it. Right. And I think we've talked about this on the last leg in London. We've got to our slogan, why Make sure they don't keep the shady shit.
Dan Ilic 15:02 Have you seen a lot of examples of where sunset clauses haven't been put in place for loans like
Adam Hills 15:07 this? I mean, there's just little sneaky things like even the fact that, you know, Melbourne went into Melbourne had a five day lockdown, what, three, four weeks ago. They've come out of lockdown, but they're still not allowing international arrivals. Which is why, you know, I know this because I tried to get into Melbourne, and I've got a quarantine in Sydney, because there are no international flights coming into Melbourne at the moment. And it's just a little sneaky. It's not an infringement on people's human rights. But it's just a little sneaky. There's a similar thing going on in China that I read today where the Chinese government has said they will only accept foreign arrivals if they've been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine.
Dan Ilic 15:42 Right? Wow. Well, that's pretty good. I mean, you can get that pretty easily. They just, they knocked off the Pfizer vaccine. So it's cheaper, it's easier to get you just get on Alibaba.
Lewis Hobba 15:55 The the I remember when the extinction rebellion protests were happening in the UK, though. That's one thing. I think we actually talked about it on the show, that chief of the Met, came out and complained about a tactic that extinction, extinction rebellion protesters were using when they were getting picked up by the cops. And he made a request that they stopped doing it. And it was that they were going floppy. anytime they grabbed them, they were going there was the head of the man and his name was says Steven something. And essentially, there was a press release saying so Steven has asked you to stop being fluffy. And it was one of the all time great press releases.
Alex Lee 16:36 That's a great tactic. My son does that. Like all his limbs tend to liquid if you try and put him in his highchair. I'm gonna ban it. I'm gonna tell him it's against the law now,
Dan Ilic 16:47 but in a court of law is going slumping annoying. Is it annoying enough to get 10 years in jail?
Lewis Hobba 16:53 I think that there is a box for that on the consent app. If it doesn't work out.
Dan Ilic 16:58 Adam, this is pretty interesting. Like, from your perspective, how is all this playing with the current protest at the moment for this poor woman who was abducted by a police officer? Like how how what's the sentiment, like in the UK about these laws being passed? Well, I
Adam Hills 17:13 mean, you know, a lot of a lot of this. A lot of this has happened since I've been back in Australia. But I mean, it's, there's a word that's thrown around a lot. And it's one of those ones. It's almost become a marketing advertising term. But I think it still stands it's optics. It's the optics, when a woman is kidnapped and murdered, on the way home walking home in the middle of London, and then a peaceful vigil is held, and the optics are police kneeling on the backs of women who are holding a peaceful vigil about a woman who was murdered by a police officer, you can see how that looks terrible. And I think it's not just in Britain, if you know everything that's going on in Australia this week, with Scott Morrison's dealing with with, you know, claims of rape of sexual harassment and all that kind of stuff. It's it's, it's kind of worldwide. I mean, wasn't it? wasn't his his response to say that we didn't, there are protests happening and we're not shooting anyone. And aren't we great?
Dan Ilic 18:08 Yeah, that that's the next thing I want to talk about is isn't that that was such a crazy thing that happened earlier this week. As Monday is 1000s of people and myself included, marched across cities around Australia, all about gendered violence and inequality. Scott Morrison decided to use very loose words in question time noting that the protesters were lucky they lived in Australia because protests in other countries nearby were met with bullets. Talk about kind of lowest common denominator, fear mongers should should women feel grateful that tempt the authorities would piglets, shirting women, Alex?
Alex Lee 18:43 It seems like they weren't given that courtesy in the UK in their protests, basically. But no, I mean, it was, it's just sitting low, like you said, the very lowest bar for your government that you are not shooting protesters and then asking for credit for it. And the reason it is that is because he's not doing anything else, like he offered to go and to, for the women to come into his office and meet with him the organisers of the March, and they said, No, like, the very least you can do is come out and see all the women on the street and see what we're asking for. And he wouldn't even do that. And so, you know, all he can give him the only thing he could think of to give his government credit for and the way they've handled this is that they're not shooting people. And you know, that government can mobilise very quickly like I This isn't funny at all, but I you know, I read how after the the sexual assault of Brittany Higgins, the government very quickly moved forward, the date of the cleaning of the of the office that took place in so they so there's evidence of that that they it was due for a clean on Monday, they moved it to a Sunday. Like they can act very quickly if they need to, and if this is the only thing they can do to address this issue that, you know, hundreds of 1000s of women are asking for. It's it's, it's more than depressing.
Dan Ilic 20:08 And and when you when you when you said optics before, kind of remind me of that moment, Alex, you just mentioned how he invited the protest organisers into Parliament House. It's almost like he hasn't read any news about the kind of safe space that Parliament House has been for women over the last
Unknown Speaker 20:26 few years. It's like people want to be.
Dan Ilic 20:28 Yeah, exactly. Very strange. Louis, has this been the kind of friendly banter you've been doing on drive on Triple J?
Lewis Hobba 20:35 Yeah. Right. That was flume. Anyway, feel unsafe, give us a call. Blake, like, you know, obviously, we do a very dumb and silly show on Triple J. And so you know, we keep it pretty dumb and silly. But there are days obviously, where it's very hard to do that you guys would all know that you've all worked in jobs where you get paid to be dumb and silly. And there are days and there are weeks when that feels like you are going counter to the issue or that you are your silliness is I don't know, the wrong noise to be making and this week, it did feel like that to be honest, it was a it was a really it was a really difficult week and to say their response, do you just like oh, that's fine, I'll be silly they're gonna pay attention and then they don't like hire out man like this is it's just it's very, very bleak to say that response and just to say not no movement whatsoever from the people who need to be listening.
Alex Lee 21:33 Yeah, I do think it's so I did get a bit of perverse pleasure in reading the tweets from men who went to the march but just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that there were there was a lot of like, just here at the march just in case anyone wanted to know a man at the march and there are a lot of women coming up to me saying thank you for being at the March the march so just keep that in mind everyone.
Lewis Hobba 21:57 I really saw quite a lot of people who like mosques in the stories and then the masks off when their photo went on the grid. You can see the whole
Alex Lee 22:11 they should have sought match at the match which is just like a flashing sign that said I'm one of the good ones
Dan Ilic 22:19 Well, I don't know if you heard the full clip of Scott Morrison question time he said much worse and I'm very surprised the media didn't pick it up.
Unknown Speaker 22:25 The Prime Minister as
Unknown Speaker 22:27 it is good and right mr. speaker that so many able to gather here in this way whether in our capital or elsewhere, to do so peacefully to express their concerns and their very genuine and real frustration
Unknown Speaker 22:42 This is a vibrant liberal democracy Mr. Speaker not far from here. Such marches even now are being met with bullets not here in this country
Unknown Speaker 22:51 members on both sides
Dan Ilic 22:52 now these women or people if we can call them that and I'm asked my team and we can are lucky they went crushed by tanks Mr. Speaker, we have tanks we can do all those fine Phillies marching today. And I'm pretty sure I can say that should count themselves fortunate. We don't send them to offshore detention. Mr. Speaker, we've got plenty of women there shorts against international law, but it's fun. I was quite happy to meet these women in my office in Parliament House, just them with me surrounded by men with guns. There's no safer space. Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston is warm. I've had empathy training. I could if they wanted me to give them a massage, Mr. Speaker, calm them down, listen to their concerns. And I would have told them like I'm telling you, we all know when it comes to holding an investigation of a member of the National cabinet that Samantha for the states, Mr. Speaker and I would have been quite happy to explain that to those hysterical girls organising them after that today. And I'm definitely sure that's fine to say I've got hysterical girls of my own Mr. Speaker. Just shocking can't believe he said that kind of a labour.
Adam Hills 24:05 It's hard to believe that that his original statement came from someone who came from marketing slogan I'm not as bad as Pol Pot isn't.
Dan Ilic 24:21 next guest is one of our favourites on irrational fear. He's a maverick economist to tells it like it is I assume because I'm not smart enough to know what he's actually talking about. It's Professor Steve Cain stave Welcome to irrational fear. irrational mode after
Steve Keen 24:34 we're one of those experiencing for the last few months reading economics.
Dan Ilic 24:38 I bet I bet Now look, as an economist of regard, you kind of get into these incredible places like the OECD. So I wanted to pick your brain about the Mathias cormann appointment. You know,
Lewis Hobba 24:49 can I use my prop in really quickly before you get stuck into ICD and just say that I don't know what the day is.
Dan Ilic 24:57 Yeah, so embarrassing, but
Lewis Hobba 24:59 I just want to just Want to put that out there?
Alex Lee 25:01 You know how you find it really hard to focus on talks for long periods of time Louis removed that check. And pretend I made a joke about OCD. Okay.
Dan Ilic 25:19 I enjoyed it. Oh, yeah. So let's go back. Let's go back to the bare bones here. What is the OSI OECD and and how is Mateus as Commons appointment? significant?
Steve Keen 25:37 Yeah. So the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development was once called the rich man's club had about 20 nations and it mainly America and and Europe. And now it has about 3738 nations. And it's lastly there was quite a progressive Mexican leader, Angel guaira. And he was quite in favour of non orthodox thinking on economics, particularly after the OECD completely fluffed it back in 2007. When in their economic report for to the middle in June 2007. Their chief economist said what a fantastic year 2008 was going to be, which is gonna have an economic recession, it was going to be a book. So after that Angel established what's called the new snake, which stands for new approaches to economic challenges. And that led a lot of progressive thought into the OECD, which is how I managed to get past the past the guards at the gate. And, and, and now, Angel had been there for three terms, 15 years, which is extremely unusual. So they needed a new replacement. And nobody on the planet thought that anybody from Australia had a chance because if any part of the planet is burning, it's burning it up. It's Australia and climate change have become a major focus of the OECD in the last seven the last half, half dozen years. And lo and behold blow was down with with a Saharan wind. Matthias Korman wins the ballot, which was quite remarkable, a tribute to Australia's capacity to play the numbers game. And now a man who's in the playing numbers is leading us in something which is deadly serious, which is the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants we're putting into the biosphere. And we've been putting up modly many, many environmental organisations will concern that the OECD is lead on climate change resumed go massively into reverse under corpsman, and now we're gonna find out one way or the other.
Dan Ilic 27:39 Now, do you? What's your instinct on this? Do you think corpsman is going to be a good faith actor in the US and push the OECD on climate action? And therefore push Australia to be more progressive on climate action? Or do you think his words are meaningless? And he's just going to play the same game that he's always played?
Steve Keen 27:57 categorically? I'd say yes to that question. Sorry. Yeah, I think he's gonna he's gonna stuff the place up. But if you read his statement about it, he talked about how we needed to go guaranteed normal growth, with safeguards for human rights and environmental concerns. And so everything is the environments in the background, forget about that, you know, let's get the growth going first, and the environment could take care of itself, which it will do, it will take care of us as well. So I'm, I'm thinking will push us five badly backwards, and we'll be there. We'll go from leading on the issue to being reactive. So I'm putting me down as a sceptic of him, not climate change.
Dan Ilic 28:40 And the OECD, you know, it has this big mandate to promote policies that had some sort of economic and social well being for people all around the world. How powerful are they in terms of shaping what goes into agreements, like what we'll say caught in a few months time? Well, that's
Steve Keen 28:56 the only organisation which has the status of a nation when it goes to the mediflow. cope and so on. So there's, you know, there'll be 40 countries plus the OECD. So it has really
Dan Ilic 29:06 it's got like a nation status.
Steve Keen 29:09 Yeah. It's so it gets a seat on the board, which is unusual for an international organisation only they've got to take a backseat and do it in the backroom. The OECD is both in the back room and the front. But frankly, speaking, of course, it's the major countries that carry the the weight of the whole thing so America dominates Germany second, and and China and Russia bringing up the rear. But it does make a difference. If you have an organisation which was enabling non orthodox thought, critical thought about climate change and economics to be heard. And suddenly you've got a guy who's reading from a copy of Samuelson then I think it's a major step backwards.
Dan Ilic 29:48 And you actually you've been presenting recently to the OECD and you had a very strange moment where the Australian permanent ambassador to the OECD as soon As you came on the conference calls to talk, decided to take his camera offline. Despite him actually being part of the conversation, he turned his thing turns
Steve Keen 30:09 himself off when I was turned on. Yeah, that was not promising. I was talking about what's called modern monetary theory.
Dan Ilic 30:17 I can only guess that he he either either didn't care for you to say or to he really enjoyed what you had to say so much that he had to he needed a bit of privacy. What do you think? It was?
Steve Keen 30:29 The Tobin situation angle I haven't heard before and I'm not gonna go anywhere near it. He's, he was quite, he was invited to be discussing to Stephanie Kelton presenting arguments about what's called modern monetary theory that says the state doesn't need to borrow money from the public doesn't need to text to spend, it's got its own capacity to create money. And that's how it finances itself, and so good on him for being a discussant. But if you look at the comments on YouTube, what people had to say there about his comments where I've been pretty spot on, basically, he just trashed everything. Stephanie had to say because he fairly obviously hadn't listened to what she was saying in the first place. He's He's, he's a conventionally he has a PhD in economics. He wrote his he lectured at the A Anu. So he's got all the mainstream credentials that I have been attacking for the last 20 years of books like debunking economics, and I think he is going to basically say, to, to call it to calm and, you know, let's let's get it back on the straight and narrow. Let's go back to the good sound economics. Well, good sound economics got us into the stink in the first place. So I'm not hopeful about where the OC is going to find itself. And I think it's not quite as bad as appointing Donald Trump before a pandemic. But I think it has similarities.
Dan Ilic 31:48 Well, I, I'm pretty the way you kind of frame it, I get very kind of despond because he always say for a lot of people is this black box that is so powerful. And yet, you know, there's little we can do about it, when it comes to getting the right people in there to affect the right kind of change. I wonder, like, who are our allies in the OECD in that regard, like who are the who are the champions of climate action in that, in that, in that organisation that we should be kind of following
Steve Keen 32:16 on doubleview group called Naik, which stands for new approaches to economic challenges. That's the that's the progressive element inside the OECD. And then you've got every every country, which is a member, and there are 37 countries, every country has an ambassador, so called. And the ambassadors funnily enough, once they're appointed, they act under the auspices of the OECD, rather than their own countries, so they can't be recalled by their own country, they have to be removed by the OECD itself, there are about half a dozen to a dozen, I think the Irish rep for one is very good, the Mexican rep, there's some people who are supporters of the critical attitude towards what we're doing to the environment. But like most of these organisations, they're very much driven from the top down. And people are very loath to step outside the consensus. So if you get somebody at the top like Coleman, who proves to be somebody who will carry you know, a lump of coal into the, into the proceedings and, and talk about good economic girly men. Then we can see the OECD go quite substantially backwards, all white and say, I've got a feeling the climate might decide to intervene and say, you might not take me seriously, but I do.
Dan Ilic 33:29 Yeah, that is the worst situation we could possibly hope. Do you guys have any questions for Steve, before we wrap up?
Alex Lee 33:36 I mean, I guess I always think that our Well, you know, Mathias common he was, you know, he is toeing the party line. But this is the point where he's not part of the government anymore. He's acting off his own steam. So like, what is the justification? Do you think for this kind of black rat? fuckery? Like, what's he getting from this? Like? That's what I always want to know, with people like that, like, what's in what's in it for you to destroy the planet like? Yeah, is it just a Cush? Is it just a cushy job for him? Or do you think that there's something else going on?
Steve Keen 34:14 Well, it's certainly a cushy job as part of it. I mean, he he is a green mentioned international character, I think was he's Belgian by birth. He speaks about four or five languages. He was in Europe until his early 20s. So he's in that sense, he's an international persona, and that's a strong thing in his favour. Probably a major factor why I think that they put forward anybody else like, Who's that bloke used to be Attorney General Christians, somebody I don't think he would have gone down all that well. But Coleman certainly has a an establishment that says he'd be laughing with you here with me. I think it's a it's a major status thing for himself, relocates him back in Europe. It's all sorts of massive positives of music. First small slide. When it comes to what he's doing, I think most of these people are genuinely sincere. They really believe they're doing the right thing by the by the current climate in what they're doing. And I know economists like William Nordhaus. So I think we'll actually, I hope to see tried for eco side at some stage, given what he's done about climate, but he genuinely believes he's doing good for the climate. Now, Coleman will probably think of imposing economic discipline, and standard rule of law is all that's necessary, and he's doing the right thing. It'll be quite sure he's doing the right thing. So so they actually believe that you know that there's sincerity? I don't question it. But the funny thing is, I had a school teacher once who gave me a great insight of sincerity, we were having a class discussion about some politician fighting like crazy amongst ourselves school, the school days, and one kid pipe gun, or at least he's sincere. And the hospitals here and our teacher who normally just let us run, Riot chirped up and said, Don't override sincerity. The most sincere person you'll ever meet in your life will be the maniac chasing you down the road with an X tronic.
Unknown Speaker 36:09 A very big x
Steve Keen 36:11 is the biggest x humanity's never seen
Adam Hills 36:14 if Alex's question is, what's, what's in it for Mathias cormann? My question is what's in it for the Australian Government?
Steve Keen 36:20 That's huge. And I think that's a really important question. Because Australia's been on the nose internationally, it's actually been called out by a couple of international organisations for how badly it's behaved on climate change. And this is a way that the country which is deservedly criticised as the greatest legged on the planet now has a voice at the head of the table. So I've got a feeling that's a major reason why he was in there. And that's why I'm particularly we got to the position, mate, you, you keep us from being under attack.
Dan Ilic 36:50 Man, just for a period here, I was really excited about how Australia was the pariah internationally, but like to see that we've now got some cover because of Coleman actually hurts me a little bit. I, I worked at the 2015 cop and I did a show every night about the winners and losers of the cop negotiations in Paris. And Australia was always number one, two or three of world actors at the Yeah, in the negotiations. And so I was one of those things where it's like, well, maybe 2021 maybe this next cop coming will be a little different. And there'll be enough international pressure to turn us into a good actor, but fuck now it seems that that's gonna be harder than ever.
Lewis Hobba 37:32 You know, they say about cost in a cab.
Unknown Speaker 37:39 They made
Dan Ilic 37:42 Thank you, Professor Steve Cain. Really great to have you big thanks to all of our guests. Adam hills, Alex Lee Lewis haba and we got anything to plug Adam you got to plug anything?
Adam Hills 37:51 Yeah, go on Melbourne International Comedy Festival coming up and some shows in Canberra in Sydney.
Alex Lee 37:56 Alex Lee got some the plug. And my Dungeons and Dragons podcast. Dragon friends is also doing comedy festival but it's sold out. So who cares?
Lewis Hobba 38:06 For dragon friends is your beautiful water bottles. Would you like to tell everyone about that?
Alex Lee 38:10 Dragon friends, that's freedom a good home and I completely distanced myself from that.
Dan Ilic 38:15 Oh, yes, I saw those water bottles on Twitter and I kind of mentioned them on this show. Louis, you got anything to float?
Lewis Hobba 38:22 Yes, Dan, a rational fear the live show on the 11th of April at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Dan Ilic 38:29 And you've listeners of this show. If you use the code podcast, you get a big discount which is great. Steve Cain, you want to plug your Patreon?
Steve Keen 38:37 Yeah, Patreon on patreon.com slash Prof. Steve came to me gasbag about the idiocy of mainstream economics. I'm giving away free software at the end of the month by the way package called Ravel. So have a look at that and see what you think.
Dan Ilic 38:52 Not a concern tab. That's an unusual choice. Big thanks to rod Mike's the birth of foundation our Patreon supporters please join us on Patreon so we can keep making this show big thank you to killing David David bluestein, Kate Holdsworth, Rupert Degas and Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline. Don't forget to come to our Melbourne Comedy Festival shows Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.
Marrawah Johnson of Youth Verdicttelling us how they beat Clive Palmer and got the Queensland Land and Environment Court to recommend against the Waratah Coal mine.
🙊 Scott Morrison's Censure 🇳🇿 New Zealand's Supreme Court ruling that the voting age of 18 is discriminatory. 🤿 Kanye West saying dumb things on Alex Jones' Info Wars.
This month Dylan Behan takes an in-depth look at all the big NSW state election issues from boat ramps to cashless gaming cards to superannuation for kids and why neither major party will do anything to actual tackle the biggest cost of living issue in NSW: astronomical rents. Also we look at the two middle aged white men who are determined to promise to do as little as possible in order to get your vote this Saturday.
Announcer 0:01 This is News Fighters, where we fight the news so you don't have to.
Dylan Behan 0:09 Yes, Hi everyone. Welcome to Episode 122 of news fighters for February 2023. If you haven't listened before News Fighters is an in depth yet comedic look at the big stories in Australian news, media and politics presented by me, TV comedy editing wizard and future AUKUS submarine captain Dylan Behan. Yes, thanks for joining us this month, once again on the A Rational Fear podcast feed. We had a great time with A Rational Fear down in Adelaide at the Fringe Festival. Thanks to everyone who came out and saw us there and this weekend. We're at the Brisbane Science Festival on Sunday. Get your tickets now but, a little bit south of the border, the New South Wales State election campaign feels like it's been in full swing for months now. And I'd totally understand if you haven't been paying attention to it because most of the policy announcements have been pretty uninspiring ones like this.
Journalist 1:04 The premier was talking about water. He's hoping to hook voters with a $20 million promise to upgrade boating ramps and fishing facilities across the state.
Dylan Behan 1:13 Yes in New South Wales 2023 will go down as the year of the boat ramp state election. Oh geez. This is the least interesting New South Wales State election I've covered and I've only covered two at least back in 2019. We had the spectacle of Labour leader Michael Daly's lucky meat pie
Michael Daley 1:29 Before every election I've been doing it for 30 years are always gonna have my Lucky Pie
a pie and strawberry milk having my Lucky Pie.
Journalist 1:37 What pie having Mr. Daley?
Michael Daley 1:38 just a plain pie with strawberry milk is // eating a Lucky Pie for breakfast at a local shop // we opted for as usual fortifying election breakfast a pie and strawberry milk // For 30 years I had a Lucky Pie. No sauce beef,
Journalist 1:53 No Sauce? Are you feeling confident?
Michael Daley 1:54 Terrific. I have my lucky pie
Journalist 1:56 Hoping what he eats tonight. He's not humble pie.
Dylan Behan 2:00 Anyway, strap yourselves in everyone because this episode I'm taking a deep dive into all the big issues in the current New South Wales State election campaign. And before I begin, I'm sad to announce that I just don't have time to recap the past 12 years of scandals that have plagued the O'Farrell embed then Berejiklian Imperator a coalition governments you know, you know, all the scandals, the you know, the pork barreling or the brand stalking or the cushy overseas jobs with the boys or the fact koalas are facing extinction or the pandemic lockdown measures that unfairly targeted poor and migrant communities or the cracked rail carriages, or the stuffing up of the bushfire recovery or the stuffing up of the flood recovery or the lockout laws that said our nightlife and art scenes back by generation, or the failure of the government to implement any of the recommendations from the special commission of inquiry into the drug is or the way they've used StrikeForce rapidly to intimidate musical acts and try and get them to change their lyrics or the shocking stories of the sharing of pornographic images of Parliamentarians by other parliamentarians. I just haven't got time for any of that. Besides, I'm sure it's probably already been covered by a friendly jordiz In a funny accent. No, I'm just going to assume you're up to speed with all the corruption and scandals and we're going to jump right in to the choices facing New South Wales voters this Saturday. So I hear you asking who are the contenders for the top job? Well, first of all, is the current Premier and former treasurer, conservative liberal party leader and Millennial in name only Dominic parity. And Isn't he good at talking up his own record? Well,
Dominic Perrottet 3:23 we need to do better. Well, I've always said we've got to do better. Can we do more?
Yes, he also
Dylan Behan 3:28 needs to do better on knowing the ages of his seven young children.
Journalist 3:31 Mr. Perrottet name all seven of your kids in age order.
Unknown Speaker 3:35 Just not their age, Charlotte Amelia. Annabel, William. Harriet. Beatrice. Celeste.
Dylan Behan 3:46 I can barely afford to have a cat Perrottet has been premier for almost 18 months and he's reputations held up despite the fact that he admitted to wearing a Nazi uniform in his own 21st birthday party. Surprisingly, the Australian public were quite forgiving of this, leading to this amazing voxpop
Journalist 4:04 What did you think of him before this?
Man on the street 4:06 Well, he seemed like an upstanding member of the community. Right? Seven kids.
Journalist 4:11 What do you think of him now?
Man on the street 4:13 Seven kids in a Nazi uniform!
Dylan Behan 4:14 Yes, that also sounds like potential movie collaboration between Nancy Meyers and Mel Brooks this holidays, get ready for the heartwarming romcom seven kids and a Nazi uniform and then there's Labour leader Chris Minns. Now if you haven't heard of him, don't worry, because neither has anyone else
Journalist 4:31 on a day when a small poll found the majority of voters in the labor leaders knife edge seat. Can't name him. Do you know who this man is?
Unknown Speaker 4:40 No, I don't it's the Leader of the Opposition. I just can't remember his name and on top of my head Did you know this man?
Unknown Speaker 4:47 He's the opposition leader opposition of New South Wales, Chris something
Dylan Behan 4:50 Yeah, no worries. Good luck with that. It's not like you said is the most marginal in the entire state anyways. Also, there's probably a good reason why people in the Chinese community didn't recognize him
Journalist 5:00 Chris Minns has suffered a little lost in translation incident. Cantonese speakers pointing out. These characters when spoken aloud can also sound a lot like having to use a bathroom.
Dylan Behan 5:12 Yeah, so finally, if any Liberal staffers are caught urinating on men's posters outside polling booths on election day, they've got an excuse. The poster told them to in Cantonese! now on to Chris Minns' campaign itself and it appears to be focused on one big issue
Chris Minns 5:26 No privatization under labour. // New South Wales Labour will never sell Sydney Water //no more reckless energy privatizations // Sydney Water is on the ballot at this election campaign // and we'll do it all without privatizing Sydney Water // There's no point selling your house to fund an upgrade of your driveway.
Dylan Behan 5:44 Yes, and I think I speak for most people in Sydney when I say what's a driveway? Jeez, what's this guy's obsession with Sydney Water? Oh, that's right. It's the only asset left that hasn't been privatized under the last 12 years with the Liberals and fun fact I just discovered it turns out that humans need water to live I just discovered that thanks wiki pedia! Yes, it turns out men seems to be copying word for word Anthony Albanese is small target strategy where you don't promise anything very much and instead just say they've been in too long. Give us a go!
Chris Minns 6:12 The premier of New South Wales leads a team that's been in power for 12 years and is asking for 16 years in office. Now that's a long period of time for a team whose best days are behind them. / They're asking for 16 years in power. Their best days are behind them and their most experienced leaders have already departed // Our message to the people in New South Wales a straightforward vote for change.
Dylan Behan 6:35 Yeah, it's pretty similar to Alba's pitch from last year.
Anthony Albanese 6:38 Give us a crack
Dylan Behan 6:40 Speaking of Albanese. While Mr. Popularity Peter Dutton hasn't been seen anywhere on the New South Wales State election campaign trail. Albanese has been very visible making multiple appearances like this one.
Journalist 6:50 Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined Labour leader Chris Mintz on the campaign trail. The pair went to a pub in Balmain. Before visiting unlike our childcare center,
Dylan Behan 6:59 yes, they visited a pub then a childcare center and I think we have a clip of Albo at the childcare center here.
Anthony Albanese 7:05 No, Chris means who will be a fantastic labour premier to have a majority on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.
Dylan Behan 7:21 Oh, geez, maybe maybe switch to the light beers next time. Albo. Unfortunately Minns also appears to have stolen Scott Morrison's election campaign strategy of showing off his ship musical skills in public like he did here on the Kyle and Jackie O show.
Chris Minns 7:35 Want a little bit of Acca Dacca (plays guitar)
Dylan Behan 7:44 Thanks Minzy that will fix the housing crisis. Oh, are we going with Minzy? Sorry, I didn't any satirists listening can you have we haven't heard I haven't got a memo we go with Minzy or something bit more Ozzy like Christo or are we gonna do a scomo thing and like first name last name it so it'd be like Cri-Mi. Cri... creamy. Well, it will be his nickname. Anyways, the rising cost of living appears to be the single biggest issue for voters this election with rent, mortgages, power prices, groceries and transport costs, all eating up more and more of the weekly family budget. But don't worry, Chris Minns has a big plan
Journalist 8:23 Labor's big policy is to scrap the public sector wage cap, which currently limits pay rises to three and three and a half percent. And so
Chris Minns 8:30 we can strike a fair deal for essential workers right across New South Wales, we will remove the wages kept.
Dylan Behan 8:38 Yes, this is great news for public service workers. This will help the public service hire and retain workers and help them with their cost of living issues. However, unless there's also a rent cap, I'm not sure how this isn't going to just keep feeding inflation and keep making housing and everything else more expensive for everyone has anyone thought this through. Meanwhile, power prices are also shaping up to be a huge election issue with no lead up insight.
Journalist 9:02 Good evening, it's going to be a cold and costly winter for many in Sydney, with authorities flagging a 23% jump in power prices from July one the biggest increase ever.
power prices are set for a steep increase of around 20%. Yes,
Dylan Behan 9:17 electricity prices keep going up and up. But I think this pension has figured out a surefire way to beat the system.
Journalist 9:23 90 year old reg has an easier path,
Reg 9:26 With a bit of luck I'll die and won't have to worry about it at all.
Dylan Behan 9:29 Yes, that's one way to beat the high living costs associated with late stage capitalism just stop living. Thankfully, both parties have a plan to bring power prices down and Labour's is to create a state owned Energy Corporation and well, won't it provide immediate relief.
Chris Minns 9:47 I'm going to be honest with the people of New South Wales and say that the benefits of this policy will be felt six and seven years down the line and it's not possible for me to explain seven years they're gonna have to wait it's important that I get this out and Got to make sure that you've got firming power, particularly in relation to pumped hydro. Those projects take a lot of time
Journalist 10:06 on power bills in your state owned energy company. Seven years it'll take to have any impact on a family's energy bill. Seven years. Is that fair?
Chris Minns 10:17 I think in context, it's the right policy for what we're facing today. And the voters are smart enough to say Labour's got a plan for long term energy reform in New South Wales. The liberal party has got a cash handout.
Dylan Behan 10:28 Well, Chris Minns has a lot of faith in New South Wales voters they're thinking now prioritize long term structural reform over a quick sugar hit cash handout, which is exactly what Perrottet and the Liberals are proposing to try and fix power prices,
Journalist 10:42 a half a billion dollar elections sweetener is now an offer worth $250 per household, just for looking at a website to compare power prices.
And here's the important thing to note. You don't have to switch to get the discount. You just have to look,
is it really responsible to be paying $250 to anyone just to Google their power provider?
Dominic Perrottet 11:03 Absolutely. Because we want people to go online and see if they're on the best deal possible.
Dylan Behan 11:07 Yes, that's right. The Liberals are going to give you a turn and $50 power price discount just for going on the internet. Finally an excuse for me being online all the time. Honey, are you looking at duck videos again on the internet, no honey just shopping around for power prices. (quack noises) Meanwhile, Labour's decided to match the $250 rebate but only offer it to a much smaller number of households in a much more targeted way.
Journalist 11:34 Labour is promising the same amount, but to just half the households with only those on income support pensioners and seniors eligible
Dylan Behan 11:42 Yes, labour of course, in typical labour fashion has completely forgotten about working poor people. But since when was the labor movement about working people anyways, that's what I want to know. Sorry, working poor people, you should have been even poor. Also on the cost of living crisis, the liberals have announced a policy to try and bring down the cost of groceries and that policy is to add more bureaucracy and just watch how good premiere parity was at selling it. At the channel line debate.
Journalist 12:10 You have said that you will bring down grocery bills by appointing a new supply chain Commissioner. So for example, on a basket of groceries that costs $100, how much cheaper will that be? Well, we know
Dominic Perrottet 12:22 Liz, in terms of the cost of inflation, that the one of the biggest impacts on that is supply chain costs. And so putting this commissioner in, I can't give you $1 figure on that. But what I do know what I do know is that we can get produce from port to plate faster and working with the industry that will put downward pressure on grocery prices across our state. Yes, Dom
Dylan Behan 12:43 I'm sure those famously disorganized Fly By Night operators known as Coles and Woolworths don't know anything about logistics and have just been winging it the whole time. They definitely need some government help in this area. What the hell what what what will the supply chain Commissioner do anyways? Turn on the shaft signal to get toilet paper back on the shelves. Then we haven't even got to the Liberals big news signature cost of living policy they've announced this election, giving free money to rich babies
Journalist 13:13 An investment in children that will set up the next generation. That's how the premier describes his signature election promise of $400 per child. In an Australian first kids Future Fund,
the government would deposit $400 To start the account. Each year parents can contribute up to $1,000. With the government matching contributions dollar for dollar up to $400. Assuming interest of 7% and regular parental contributions the fund could reach between $28,500.40 $9,000 By the time the child turns 18. Only then can they withdraw it to spend on either a house deposit or for skills and education like a university degree or TAFE course, children whose parents received Family Tax benefits would get an automatic $200 A year from the government.
Dominic Perrottet 14:06 Reportedly, it furthers the central mission of our Liberal Party to spread equality of opportunity far and wide.
Dylan Behan 14:15 Yes, that's right. And nothing spreads equality more equally like making sure already we'll have kids graduate high school with an extra 50 grand in their bank account to go towards paying off their hex earlier or get them on that property ladder sooner. Now that's real equality, Liberal Party style parity tried to sound empathetic when introducing this policy.
Dominic Perrottet 14:35 Well, that is all about making sure that our children have greater opportunities than we do. Right now. It's the opposite. We burden our children with hex and housing debt before they even start. We're all worried about our kids capacity to be able to buy a home and also the cost of education.
Dylan Behan 14:52 Yes, Dom If only somebody could do something about the massive sky high cost of housing and education in this state, if only so Somebody could do something. Yes the kids Future Fund policy is such a clearly bad policy favoring the rich. It even turns Sky News accidentally left wing.
Journalist 15:10 What are these 18 year olds going to be doing with 10s of 1000s of dollars?
I'm sorry, give it back to the government for their education apparently. Hope you get into the housing market to pay you $50,000 That might cover the state government's land tax or financial duties. That's outrageous.
Dylan Behan 15:28 Yes in talking about the Liberals trying to patch over problems that they themselves created. They're also trying to win favor with toll road drivers and public transport patrons after years. Of increases
Journalist 15:39 the premier making a promise to cut the opal cap from 50 to $40 a week saving almost $500 a year.
Some cash flow relief is coming for half a million motorists across Sydney with road toll rebates offering up to $750 back
Dominic Perrottet 15:56 and we want to use our financial strength to help budgets right across New South Wales,
Dylan Behan 16:01 Perrottet is so brazen are trying to fix the problems that his party created. That I'm amazed his election slogan isn't something like a vote Liberal this state election because only the Liberals can bring down the high prices that the Liberals are responsible for. Well, at least Sydney public transport is going to be capped at $40 a week if the Liberals win because this is a public transport system definitely worth paying money for Good evening
Journalist 16:24 Sydney's transport systems are in chaos tonight. Sydney's entire train network was brought to a standstill today leaving 1000s of passengers stranded. How are you going to get home tonight?
Commuter 16:35 I don't know.
Journalist 16:36 The entire rail network was shut down when communications failed,
Commuter 16:41 They cann't keep doing this door off. We're paying our fares
Journalist 16:44 live wires fell onto the train trapping more than 500 passengers
Commuter 16:48 I have been working for 50 years and I've never seen it this bad it's an absolute joke.
Journalist 16:53 People have been forced to wait hours for trains
Commuter 16:57 Two times this week I've missed shifts and that's money out of my paycheck
Journalist 17:00 so people are being told to avoid train travel if they can but good luck if you can find another way home // commuters advise to delay travel if they can maybe stay in town for a beer
Commuter 17:11 Absolutely crap!
Dylan Behan 17:12 Yes What a group of satisfied customers Sydney public transport communities are the official slogan of Sydney trains should just be go to the pub instead. imagine any other service or product where this counts as a good review.
Commuter 17:24 Absolutely crap.
Dylan Behan 17:26 Thank you for your compliment, sir. Can we use it in the new Sydney trains advertising campaign? Meanwhile, Labour's election winning infrastructure strategy is that they're going to build less infrastructure because you know, Sydney isn't growing at all and everything works perfectly all the time.
Journalist 17:39 A major tunnel project through the Blue Mountains would be scrapped under a Chris Minns premiership as labour seeks to tighten spending it adds to a growing list of government projects Labour will shelve including a metro from Westmead to the aerotropolis. Raising Warragamba Dam wall and the Northern Beaches
Chris Minns 17:58 are not going to sell essential assets in New South Wales to build infrastructure. Now the premier has a $50 billion infrastructure plan that is completely unfunded.
Dylan Behan 18:08 Yeah, it might be completely unfunded now, but have you seen the cost of public transport in the city? No, those new metros will be paid off in no time anyways, maybe Chris means is right. And we can't actually afford to build any more infrastructure. But personally, I can't really afford to put up with the infrastructure the way it is at the moment. I have to allow three hours a day to commute to a job 12 kilometers away if we don't build any more infrastructure in this state, me and everyone I know I just got to move to Tasmania and live in a tree house and eat bugs because that's better for my mental health than dealing with Sydney public transport on a daily basis. Anyways, at least Labour has said they're going to do something for drivers by introducing a $60 a week toll cap you know, finally getting those toll costs down to a much more manageable $3,000 a year for just driving in Sydney. But even that comes with strings and more bureaucracy attached.
Journalist 19:00 You're giving truckies and trainees of rebate to drive on the M5 and the M8. What about truckies who used the M7 to m4 they don't matter.
Chris Minns 19:11 Now they do matter. And I'd love to do more. It's one of the reasons where we're appointing Professor Allan Fels to do a full review of tolls in New South Wales.
Dylan Behan 19:19 Oh perfect. A total review reviews always work great. Just look at all the high speed rail lines Australia has now after 30 years of nonstop reviews. Oh and speaking of proposed reviews that are intended to achieve absolutely nothing that's also Labour's answer to the government's proposed cashless gaming card for pokies.
Journalist 19:39 The coalition has promised to make poker machines in pubs and clubs cashless by 2028 Labour has committed to a trial of cashless gaming on 500 of the state's 90,000 machines
Chris Minns 19:50 In relation to capitalist gaming in New South Wales. We'll have a trial of 500 machines and an independent panel that will make a recommendation to the New South Wales Government in short, Alex If it works, we'll do it. But I want to make sure that when we pursue policy in New South Wales, we know that it will work and my reluctance in relation to this and the need to have evidence based processes in place is because it's in operation in only one place around the world. And that's in Norway is part
Journalist 20:17 of this about trying to avoid a powerful campaign against the Labour Party from the club lobby?
Chris Minns 20:23 is Mis,
Dylan Behan 20:24 Yes, he's not afraid just because registered clubs donated over $400,000 to the New South Wales Labour Party between 2011 and 2021 doesn't mean Chris Minns isn't going to stand up to them. Yes. In fact, Labour's attitude to the cashless gaming card is a bit like if your flatmate proposed that the flat had a housework schedule, so the house was clean. And you're like, "look, this everyone cleaning the house on a schedule thing hasn't been proven to work anywhere or arrived. I propose a four week shared housework trial, and then we can get an independent panel to rule whether having a house work schedule is right for this house. Just because Norway has it doesn't mean it'll work here alright". Mind you. It turns out Chris Minns might not wind up having a choice on the cashless gaming card. Because if Labour is in a minority position, and they need to do a deal with the greens to form government, well, it's going to be conditional on their support.
Cate Faehrmann 21:16 The Greens will also be seeking a commitment to a mandatory statewide cashless gambling card for our support. Just to be clear, we won't settle for half measures. And we won't be fooled by a trial that has been set up to fail. Yeah, isn't it funny
Dylan Behan 21:34 how we haven't heard much from the Greens this election campaign in the media I'm guessing it's because their lefty hippie socialist policies are so out there that just alienate the mainstream.
Journalist 21:44 The greens are pushing for an immediate rent freeze demanding no new coal or gas projects, rent control, a cashless gaming card and scrapping anti protest laws.
Dylan Behan 21:54 Geez, what are the Greens thinking there? A rent freeze to bring down the cost of rent? Haven't they heard the only way to fight the cost of living crisis is to give out free money to well off parents and have inquiries and appoint powerless commissioners. Didn't they get the memo? So in conclusion, New South Wales voters are faced with an unenviable choice this state election. The Liberals and Nationals are obsessed with handing out free money to people who don't really need it in the hope that everyone forgets what a corrupt shitshow they've been the last 12 years. Meanwhile, Labour's plan if it wins is to try and appear slightly less corrupt than the other guys while kowtowing to their own special interest donors and simultaneously building nothing in the hope it makes them appear to be fiscally responsible until one day, we all wind up living in the park across the street from our work because nobody can afford to rent anywhere anymore and anyway, it takes 14 hours to get to work on the train because they're so old and overcrowded. Yes, and faced with these two terrible choices at the ballot box this Saturday. I think it's safe to say that all New South Wales voters can kind of relate to 92 year old rages attitude about the state of the world,
Reg 23:07 With a bit of luck I'll die and won't have to worry about it at all.
Dylan Behan 23:12 Alrighty, that's news fighters for February. Thanks for listening to my big New South Wales State election Deep Dive this episode took over 50 hours to create so if you enjoyed it, please pitch in to the irrational fear Patreon at patreon.com/arationalfear. News fighters is written produced and edited by me Dylan Behan for irrational fear. You can follow me on Twitter at dylabolical or email me at Dylan at newsfighters.com Don't forget all new episodes of news fighters are now on the a rational fear podcast feed subscribe at a rational fear.com or you can watch us on YouTube at youtube.com/newsfighters and news fighters is on social media on Twitter and Instagram at newsfighterspod if you want to keep up with all things news fighters, sign up for our free newsletter and news fighters.com Alrighty, that's it for now. I'll see everyone in Brisbane at irrational fear this weekend. Keep fighting and bye for now.
Announcer 24:16 This is News fighters where we find the news. So you don't have seven kids in a Nazi uniform.
Introducing the new monthly spin-off podcast from A Rational Fear — Julia Zemiro Asks 'Who Cares?'
Each month for the next 6 months, Julia will be interviewing change makers, civic leaders, and people who organise their communities and claim their power to discover the secrets to making good things happen.
This month Julia chats with:
Mark Kelly — The instigator of the 'Vote Tony Out' campaign. Hear this incredible story of agitation, and organisation. To get rid of one of the most malevolent actors in Australian political history.
also we hear from
Sally Rugg — Sally is one of the best brains in change making, and community building in the world. A long time activist, campaigner, and leader in many movements, but most notably she helped lead Australia through the complex, and emotionally traumatic fight for Marriage Equality.
If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:
We talk about Billboards, Australia being a bad actor on the world stage, meddling with the IPCC reports, prosthetic limbs to be used for COVD19 injections, Squid Game in China, and Donald Trump's new social media platform.
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Good evening not Louis Dylan good eye Dylan
Dylan Behan 0:07 where's where's Louis at? Is he at one of those triple Triple J parties hanging out with Amy shark is he's too well, we got to make her we got to be at the comedy coalface while he's off partying. You said that last week? Yeah,
Dan Ilic 0:19 that's what he's that's what he's doing this week. He's offered parties because he's got the week. He's actually holding holidays probably with Amy shark. His girlfriend Amy shark.
Dylan Behan 0:30 Puppy not giving him paid leave is doesn't deserve it.
Dan Ilic 0:34 He is away on leave this week, but it's okay. We've got home Brian Lewis. That is Dylan Bane. Welcome Dylan Bane.
Dylan Behan 0:40 Yes, normally hobo Paul Shaffer an irrational fear today I'm hobo Louis harbor.
Dan Ilic 0:44 How about Louis, how about well, man, I've had an absolutely massive week in the out of home buying billboard media. We're talking about it a little bit later on. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on gadigal land and the ordination. sovereignty was never stated. We did a trade eight Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 0:59 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks cambro. Gum, and section bought you a rational view recommended listening by emerge your audience.
Dan Ilic 1:12 Tonight New Zealand's official wizard lost his job turns out he got fired after developing a few bad habits and invited me Joyce and system nationals won't be pressured into backing and net zero target by 2050. Saying Nobody puts us man babies in the corner. And with Halloween just around the corner. party goers wishing to dress up as Matt Canavan urged to not go in cold face. It's the 21st of October, and we've committed net zero billboards by 2030. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Daniel and this is the show that fights fire with fire which turns out to make things a whole lot worse. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. Our first guest is one half of the ladies guide to dude cinema podcast. Timeout magazine calls her self deprecating and irresistibly likeable. Well let's say that it's Alex Jay.
Alex Jae 2:18 Hello, I suck but I'm really nice. They go Oh, well, it's so good.
Dan Ilic 2:24 After 100 over 100 days of trying to quell his students in zoom meetings are next fear monger has battled his way back into face to face combat in the real life classroom of life. It is comedian and teacher harijan
Harry Jun 2:37 hey, yeah, and I'm coming out swinging detentions for everybody.
Dan Ilic 2:42 What are you doing to prepare to code go back to the classroom Perry?
Harry Jun 2:45 Oh, lots of drinking. But that's pre class.
Dan Ilic 2:47 I think that's an idea of what I'm looking
Harry Jun 2:51 forward to is going face to face with the kids that have been mucking around over zoom. Just like you know, they just like being at the zoo and poking a tiger and not realizing that the zookeepers gonna stroll in and open the cage so
Dan Ilic 3:03 let's say and he's the king of where he clips and home brand Louis harbor. It's Dylan Bay and you know get a coming up. We're gonna be asking Alfa among us, what will it take for them to join Trump's new social media network? But first here is a message from this week's sponsor.
Rupert Degas 3:21 You live in a fast changing world. Today's Attorney General is tomorrow's backbencher. accountability is something that can only exist if you can see something to count. When you need a sense of mystery for your big pot of money, put your blind faith in orders blind trust, because whoever is paying off a public person's legal bills should remain private, at least until after the next election. borders blind trust is sort
Unknown Speaker 3:49 of program should keep going in Australia essentially
Unknown Speaker 3:52 forever.
Rupert Degas 3:53 terms or conditions don't apply. If you're a member of the Liberal government. Check the PDS for details. No really, please check because I couldn't find any detail when I love.
Dan Ilic 4:03 Hey, guys, in this week's first few it has been quite awake. Last week, we spoke about what would happen in New York City when we put up billboards. And I'd actually didn't believe it would happen. I don't know if you saw it at 945. A whole bunch of billboards went up in New York City shaming the Australian government action on lack of action on climate change. We did that there was all of us. So thank you very much for chipping in to make that happen. It's kind like a space launch. Like you just do a countdown to 945 and just kind of hope that it appeared on the webcam. It was a really exciting period.
Alex Jae 4:40 It's just crazy. Congratulations. That's amazing.
Harry Jun 4:43 You must be so stoked.
Dylan Behan 4:46 Also, congratulations for getting every Ozzie I know in New York together in one place to look at my social media was full of it. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 4:55 Did you see a lot of Australians like in on social media Yeah.
Dylan Behan 5:00 Ron, I know he lives in New York all my friends were down there. Admittedly, they're all TV people who probably know you too. But, but yeah, my feed was full of amazing footage from Times Square. It looked incredible.
Dan Ilic 5:10 Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. It's so good. It's so good. And now my friend Russell Crowe tweeted and said, I should get on Jake Tapper saying Jake Tapper, his producer reached out. It's like, Hey, you want to go on the show? And right? Yeah, show us thanks, Russell.
Dylan Behan 5:32 Don't forget Studio 10 dan, that was an even bigger privilege and I'm sure yeah, that's
Dan Ilic 5:37 it last Monday. Yeah, they had me on and then you know, by Ryan was hosting and he's obviously a big climate denier. It was really funny experience. Like it was really funny spirits calling like God calling into the studio 10 of his own. And all the technical directors and the producers were like, Oh, hey, Dan. It's great to have you on it's such an amazing thing that happened. Oh my god, that was incredible. It's so good to have you. And then it's like how Aidan Yes, it's the technical director here just incredible effort in new and senior mana. And then like by ride is like, yeah, mate. But if we're gonna if we're if they're gonna buy a call, we're gonna sell it. How come you're not in China doing it? Right? How can India testing on you in India and China protesting about it might well, yeah, and see, you don't say people in China protesting do yeah. And there's a good reason for that.
Harry Jun 6:37 You could generate so much electricity just from the wind that just the wash that went over his head?
Dan Ilic 6:43 Oh, man, it was wild. And yeah, it was just one of those weird things where it was two guys who weigh out of their depths on the issue. Anyway, it was great. Anyway, billboards aside, this is a reason why we did it to shame the Australian Government into action. And 945. At that point, Scott Morrison wasn't going to go to Glasgow by 245. He put out an announcement saying, Yes, he was going to Glasgow. Let's have a quick listen to that.
Unknown Speaker 7:11 first of those is overnight, I confirmed my attendance at the Glasgow summit, which I'm looking forward to attending. It's an important event.
Dan Ilic 7:19 Now that's bullshit, he would have confirmed that 1055 All right. Well, the reason why we put out these billboards was to kind of shame the Australian Government and the lack of climate action. And there was this incredible article that came out today to say that senior government officials and lobbyists have been in the IPCC trying to change the way language is written in the agreement, or, or, or references in the IPCC final text. A senior government official rejected, largely the uncontroversial conclusion that most important steps to reduce greenhouse gas was to phase out coal fired power. The Australia also asked the IPCC scientists to delete a reference to analysis of the role played by fossil fuel lobbyists and watering down climate action. And then this is a lovely bit of language that said Australian officials tried to water down language around the Green Climate funds, which is a gigantic fund where poor nations take money out of to kind of mitigate the risk against against you know, climate disasters to say oh yeah, there's other ways you can mitigate you don't need a fund to mitigate Oh my god, this is crazy. This is this is like evil villain shit going on right here and it doesn't surprise you at all that Australia is doing this fear mongers.
Harry Jun 8:33 No Look, do you know what it reminds me of when I was in uni and I had a group assignment with one other dude. And it was a 6000 word essay and I wrote the whole fucking thing. And then the night before he comes in is like all I've got a couple additions and I want to I want you to edit and delete some stuff. It's like, you weren't here the entire time. What he told me they can't take credit for this. You started a bit, James, I hope you're listening. I fucking hate you, man.
Alex Jae 8:59 James, fuck you.
Dan Ilic 9:02 James dad just did just James didn't work. A defect is that way.
Dylan Behan 9:07 So Australia is basically trying to walk water down the memo of the conference or just the conference. Generally,
Dan Ilic 9:14 there are a few bad actors. So Saudi Arabia, yeah, Australia and Japan. They're the three major companies that are trying to throw lobbyists at the situation.
Dylan Behan 9:22 Have they done this at other conferences? Does Australia turn up at like the anti child trafficking conference? Can we have more child trafficking in this memorandum? Can we push like, what the
Alex Jae 9:34 hell I'm not surprised that we're downplaying this at all because I think being like downplaying things is in Australia's blood. Like my dad is Australia, right? And his favorite thing is downplaying how much money he puts into the pokies to my mum, everything in our blood, do you know what I mean?
Dylan Behan 9:55 It's not just those countries down I was reading the article and supposedly Argentina has taken offense at the word Meatless Monday
Harry Jun 10:05 oh how it's alliteration guys
Dylan Behan 10:08 know that what's next going to be gets Taco Tuesday
Alex Jae 10:11 What? Never but that
Dan Ilic 10:13 is funny Argentina the one of the world's biggest exporters of beef and the gauchos Do they have a Gaucho as president? Is that is that there is that their problem there?
Dylan Behan 10:24 No idea what you're talking about. Listen
Alex Jae 10:28 to me you take this one doing
Dylan Behan 10:32 I know all I know is this steely? Dan album Gaucho.
Dan Ilic 10:36 Gaucho is an Argentinian cowboy.
Harry Jun 10:39 Oh, I thought you were saying gout like the medical condition show and I was like the amount of rot they've got there's probably a lot of gaps
Alex Jae 10:47 in your reality TV Yeah.
Harry Jun 10:49 Yeah, sure. That sounds sick. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 10:52 Yeah, after a glass of red wine I also have a Gaucho it's not pleasant, irrational fear.
Unknown Speaker 10:57 Russia, India and China accounted for 40% of global emissions. Do you think there'll be similar people in your position in those nations or the EU? You know, maybe for those nations a rational fear
Dan Ilic 11:09 this way second fear. The fidgets spinners prosthetic arms are all the rage on a Facebook group called Victoria sell your stuff? Matt posted this ad prosthetic arm left or right using this for COVID vaccinations best water under a winter jacket to disguise your good arm available in various skin colors registered express delivery what is going on here is there now an arms race amongst anti vaxxers
Harry Jun 11:36 gerawan I I looked at the prize very curious 15 out of box like that's pretty much money yeah, and you know we say like when things are expensive it costs an arm and a leg but now I know exactly how much
Alex Jae 11:53 I reckon was having or whatever that guy's name is Roger or whatever for a Melbourne I think he's just I can just someone just like super overestimated how many people will suddenly want to like experiment with rubber fists during lockdown? Yeah, he's got like, he's got a huge surplus of everything.
Dylan Behan 12:11 What if it does turn into an arms race? What if so many people antivaxxers were prosthetic arms that then everyone has to get the injections in that bomb? And then what if everyone was like bombs? That's just we're all just it's just going to turn into Dirk diggler territory. Basically.
Dan Ilic 12:26 It's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope. I love this. This is actually from mentone educational.com.au. They're a Melbourne based company. You can actually buy this if you work in a hospital training facility. And here's that here's the description. the realism of this advanced Veni puncture and injection is truly amazing. The soft flexible fingers are molded separately with extreme attention paid to every detail right down to the fingerprints. Flexi on of the wrist helps students maintain manipulation skills. They're replaceable skin rolls is the veins of palpated and discernible pop is felt when entering the veins well
Alex Jae 13:07 my second theory absolutely stands that is a product restriction for a rabid fist have ever seen one and I've seen many obviously
Dan Ilic 13:16 it says under normal use hundreds and hundreds of injections may be performed before the veins or skin need to be replaced complete replacement kits are available is used and a five year warranty This is great news for junkies
Harry Jun 13:28 yeah yeah you got to get the practice in it's about you know refining the chops get that aim up I can't believe I what I really liked was he stressed that it's available in various skin colors like when we're fighting for diversity and representation I'm not sure this is exactly what we were looking for all the different skins are
Alex Jae 13:51 frontline
Dan Ilic 13:52 Yeah, I really enjoyed that too. was what is right it says like the initial description is um beige also available in dark skin
Alex Jae 14:05 I live like somewhere on the ad it says like like recommended that you wear like a long winter jacket to like hide it from the nurse and I can't remember the last time I got an injection through a jacket.
Harry Jun 14:18 Yeah. hold you down and
Alex Jae 14:24 eventually bloody cashmere is killing
Dan Ilic 14:28 the ad said the headset to do that to to hide your good arm. Why are you hiding a good arm? Should we die?
Harry Jun 14:36 Do you know what would have been a better than they should have sold? Like a really oversized coat and then a full mannequin that sits on top of your shoulder like this? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like that's, that's more effective.
Dan Ilic 14:50 You took about two little kids on top of it. Yeah. And the one below is the one that's already got the vaccines. There's also a bit of a story going around about on on Instagram there are these fake digital vaccine certificates that can be loaded onto your digital wallet that have been advertised on Instagram, from a cut from a company called fake card au. This sounds like a pretty good racket like for a 10 year old who knows how to use Photoshop? Is this what the new is the new idea to get into the bar is it
Harry Jun 15:27 just I was so disappointed in the preview of the on the actual ad it look like it was done in Microsoft Paint or even the Instagram story tool? Yeah, I couldn't have done that you're trying to sell a product, but make it look good.
Alex Jae 15:42 It's just got like stickers on it. Instagram font to
Harry Jun 15:47 handle like
Dylan Behan 15:51 hard to believe Instagram, promoting something unhealthy.
Alex Jae 15:59 body image issues come from. I just like to say Nice try, because that has nothing on the forgery I used to do with my mom's signature in your tend to get off. So classy. Yeah, I've got some notes. Yeah.
Harry Jun 16:16 Did you ever do that? I would get a pen that was a bit out of ink. And then like kind of like scratch a bit, gentlemen, like, genius. It's about the little embellishments that Yeah,
Alex Jae 16:29 make it authentic
Dan Ilic 16:30 hesitate. Do you say your fair share of forged signatures?
Harry Jun 16:34 Honestly, I reckon I've approved 99% of the four signatures like Jonah, I don't even share
Alex Jae 16:44 a fallible system.
Harry Jun 16:45 I mean, the whole point is you have to see the first actual authentic parents signature to be like, that's what it looks like. But we're taught I teach like 200 kids a year, whatever. I'm not going to be going back to my file, like Oh, the L is a bit curlier than normal. Now going on the Easter show, mate,
Dan Ilic 17:01 Mr. Johnson, I have some queries about your signature that was developed over the last three years. Exactly. A friend
Dylan Behan 17:07 of mine in school, learned to forge the teacher's signature perfectly, and then would add in his sick notes with the teacher signature. And the teacher would never know.
Harry Jun 17:19 Yeah, that's a step beyond Yes. So Instagram, whoever's making those certificates, you got to step it
Dan Ilic 17:24 up, and that man now is Christian quarter.
Dylan Behan 17:30 Allegedly,
Unknown Speaker 17:32 allegedly. When the Prime Minister arrives in Glasgow in a fortnight's time, will he tell the meeting electric vehicles within the weekend? batteries to store renewable energy are as useful as the big banana and the big prawn. And renewable energy targets are nuts. It's just simply not many eyes on
Unknown Speaker 17:53 my left morphia is rational this week's
Dan Ilic 17:55 30 year Netflix grid game is a hit in China but here's the problem Netflix is banned in China How the hell is Netflix taking off in China Harry john I just
Harry Jun 18:09 love I love the fact that a show that's so transparent about criticizing capitalism is just hit the biggest business booming in China and they're like oh my God, we hate capitalism but let's fuckin make some money boys like fired up. And I feel like I did read the article it said that the government's really upset that people were you know, circling around their little firewall there and they're trying to take some kind of action against that piracy and I can think of one really entertaining way they could do that. Like just you know, rally them all up in a room that's it like and the reward can be a lifelong subscription to any VPN of your choice like
Dan Ilic 18:55 I you saying that China's already doing this in shinjang province
Harry Jun 19:02 Come on. Yeah, they know this shit.
Dan Ilic 19:04 I think it's so funny because the article goes on to say that if it was actually legal in China it would be completely ripped apart by sensors Yeah, since the sensors like strip screwed game have any meaning whatsoever. Yeah.
Alex Jae 19:22 It's just a nice show about friendship. Really? Yeah,
Harry Jun 19:25 models they play marbles and then he goes on a camp and as far
Alex Jae 19:29 as I love has a lovely time. I have to say guys, I'm so sorry. This is really embarrassing, but I do I do know how China has been watching square game. What happened was, it was actually made China and I used to date for a while and I gave my Netflix love. Totally forgot and I'm so embarrassed
Harry Jun 19:49 Alex. You know how? I know once
Alex Jae 19:54 you move on, you just want to forget And anyway,
Dan Ilic 19:58 you know how it is dating. billion people and then
Alex Jae 20:03 like this admin you have to go through after it is too much too much
Dylan Behan 20:08 I understand why it's popular in China though because all the characters are in debt right? This is the thing this is why they're all in the battle royale type thing. Well of course everyone in China is going to relate to this they've all lost all their money to this real estate company. evergrande
Dan Ilic 20:25 Yeah, yeah, this is the list of the story of high highly good well to do Chinese people they're worried
Harry Jun 20:33 that they'll think it's a documentary and it's well over
Alex Jae 20:38 right in this
Dylan Behan 20:40 I just named one of the main characters the boss character looking like Winnie the Pooh and then everyone
Dan Ilic 20:47 and finally to say is that Donald Trump is set to launch his new social media network is called truth social fear mongers what is one feature you'd like to see on truth social.
Alex Jae 21:00 I would like to see him just go full ball on truth social and just make it an only fans and I'm not proud to admit this but I would pay for that I would absolutely paid for that.
Dan Ilic 21:13 But if it was, it was Trump it would be called only 10s
Dylan Behan 21:19 Trump said one of the reasons he's setting up the social media platform is because the Taliban is all over Twitter so I think what he needs to do is get the Taliban on truth social
Dan Ilic 21:31 media even though they've got a community they can move right over
Dylan Behan 21:34 Yeah, but I did read that they're actually this is the first step he is going to be launching a subscription video on demand service so I reckon we get irrational fear on there What do you reckon
Dan Ilic 21:47 this cuz we're being silenced. We're being silenced. I can tell you how we've been times you know, I tried to put a billboard in Times Square with the rational field logo on it and they said yes
Alex Jae 21:59 cancel cancel culture is going to
Dan Ilic 22:03 they said we could only do it for 10 minutes I said I wanted an hour
Alex Jae 22:07 like we need more money like I don't have it I'm being silenced
Dan Ilic 22:11 yeah that's that's how America works. I looked into the privacy terms and conditions and that the bottom there is a address Can you guess what town truth social is going to be based out of? Florida? Bay Palm Beach Florida. Nailed it. Yeah,
Alex Jae 22:32 that's awesome. Everyone over 60 and no one under
Dan Ilic 22:38 it is destined for just boom it's it's just it's there it's ready ready to go just move the demographic over.
Dylan Behan 22:44 Well, given how good they are qR coding they'll be all over how to put this on their smartphones surely.
Dan Ilic 22:51 That is it for rational fear this week. It's a short one, but a good one big thank you to Harry john, Alex J. and Dylan Bane. What would you like to plug
Dylan Behan 22:59 news fighters or news fox news? news fighters, not fighters, some people. My podcast I was going to cover Christian Porter this week, but I don't want to get sued for defamation. So tune in. For all the latest on Melrose Melbourne's Freedom Day which is happening Friday tomorrow.
Dan Ilic 23:17 Excellent. harried you don't like anything?
Harry Jun 23:19 Yeah, I am doing a show a comedy show for FBI radio called the past notes, which is a school based comedy show where I interview guests sharing juicy stories about school and I've also got a stand up comedy show on the fourth, fifth and sixth of November. You can find all that if you look up Harry Jordan comedy, J un or get on all socials.
Dan Ilic 23:41 Excellent and now how is that how's that that comedy show on FBI going he's got a pretty good pretty good convener yeah yeah
Harry Jun 23:48 he's he's great he's pretty famous Russell Crowe knows him it's I'm hoping to get in exchange
Alex Jae 23:56 or a blog or anything I Yes, I've got a podcast called the ladies guide to do cinema that I co host with back childhood we watch all the movies that do to have told us we have to see and I've also got a comedy shows coming out for the same festival Harry's in the life out of lockdown festival I'm on the 11th 12th and 13th of November with Daniel towns and Luke ag
Dan Ilic 24:16 ah excellent painful on that one up anybody good Hey, and I want to plug something to please go to Apple podcasts and leave us a review we we had we had Joe Hildebrand on last week. We made fun of him to his face for half an hour but a lot of people who don't normally listen this podcast listened in and really complained about Would you like me to read what out because they faster faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster. When it gets to three star, the Hildebrand circle jerk. And then it goes to one Star News Corp paid comedy. You have Joe Teeth scrubber on your show. You're the teat of News Corp all caps, but also ergy Yeah, we say rude words, but we are live voting Corp shill rats. If I could vote, I would vote. News Corp rats mouth and you might get a good rating daddy Rupert spend money on you? Yeah, one star that was from a guy called Greg's penis.
Alex Jae 25:24 That is a perfect one star review. I love that. It's nonsensical. It looks like there was a lot of quotation. Just beautiful.
Dan Ilic 25:32 I mean, I'm pretty sure Greg's penis has already signed up to truth social so there's never gonna be logging on to go to Apple podcasts and give us a review. If you regularly listen this show we'd love to hear from you. And also a big thank you to all of our new Patreon supporters. We've got 15 more we lost five last week. I think Jeff caught it because of Joe said some some good turnover and abatement Sean g Russell Wyden Kerry James hiring a deal and Debbie Jeffrey Jody Fitzgerald, Mary joy Roy, Amber rubber D'Ambra, Karen advertsing, john sharp and Luanne Cotta, Michelle Dinah Fannie Fitch, Alex tight and Trudy council A big thanks to red Mike's and the birth of foundation and of course Jake brown on the tepanyaki timeline. Big thanks to you my fear mongers appreciate you joining us for irrational fear tonight.
Harry Jun 26:24 Thanks for having us.
Dan Ilic 26:26 Until next week, there's always something to be scared off.
Here is the live recording of this month's two regional shows in climate vulnerable cities — Newcastle and Bega!
This is an edited super cut of both shows, if you'd like to see/hear the full unedited shows you can watch the video on our Patreon. Where you can support us for as little as the price of a coffee a month.
June 5th — Newcastle
Kirsten Drysdale (Reputation Rehab) James Pender (Sammy J) Lewis Hobba (Triple J) Dan Ilic (Can Of Worms) Georgina Woods (Lock The Gate) + DJ Dylabolical (The Chaser / Newsfighters Podcast)
June 13th — Bega
Mick Neven (Melb. Comedy Festival) Gabbi Bolt (Tik Tok / The Chaser) Lewis Hobba (Triple J) Dan Ilic (Hungry Beast) Scott Ludlam (Former Senator) +DJ Dylabolical (The Chaser / Newsfighters Podcast)
Our next live show is on June 24th in Sydney — it is SOLD OUT!
So the next show after that is at Comedy Republic in Melbourne August 14th!
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Dan Ilic 0:04 Today Daniel is here the host of irrational fear the podcast you're listening to right now. This is just to let you know that we you're about to hear a mishmash of two of the best live shows we've done this month, we went to Newcastle, and we went to bigger to do shows roughly about climate change in very climate vulnerable areas. And the first show you're gonna hear is our Newcastle show. And let's face it when you're doing a show about climate change in coal country, the audience may require some warming up. You decide.
Unknown Speaker 0:32 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra COMM And section audio, or rational view recommends listening by immature audio. Tonight hitting
Unknown Speaker 0:45 $1.1 million, the average price of a Newcastle home has hit parity with the average cocaine habit over Newcastle nice.
Unknown Speaker 0:54 And Scott Morrison has gotten in trouble for saying our vaccine goal isn't a race, of course a leader of a country that's coming 100 and fifth in the
Unknown Speaker 1:01 world would say that. And Newcastle is the seventh biggest city in Australia. And just like camera you have trained now.
Dan Ilic 1:12 It's June 5, called Environment Day and live from New causes between nobodies head and the sun to the old genus tower.
You're absolutely right, Louis, these people have never heard our show before. All right, welcome. This is the rational V, I'm your host, former gas turbine Daniel ej. And this is the podcast that kind of rips in the news and drills down on climate change. It's a bit like q&a, but people are actually watching, which is right. And tonight we're in Newcastle, which is terrific. On tonight's show. We'll look at lessons learned from the upper hunter byelection. We'll learn how we can carbon offset our partners that work in mining. And we'll ask just how many drinks Do you need to have to pass a bulk up? Let's meet our female guests for tonight. He's the number one comedy video editor as in he's the first and the oldest comedy video editor in Australia from the chaser to nightly and the news fighters podcast. It's still in vain. And he's a part time human rights lawyer and full time clown. He's one of the writers and performers of semi Jays playground politics. It's James panda. And she's recently was the star and executive producer of her own TV show and gave birth halfway through production. She is doing it all for the writings its reputation rehabs, ghosts and draws dial wasn't all true. And she's a self described hypocrite who is on the frontlines of climate action unlock the gate but lock it back up again real quick because it's locked the gates Gina woods and as soon as he started surfing this year, our final guests became the number one radio DJ in Newcastle. I assume you're from Nova Kasserine FM
Lewis Hobba 3:15 that's Yeah, no, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here in New Orleans. It's great. Yeah, we found out that the other bit of microphone talking I do the radio show is now the number one drive show in Newcastle. And it was a huge surprise to me, because I have very soft hands. And I just didn't expect to be taken into via violin over Catherine's but I'm fucking thrilled to be here. Yeah. All right. But first, a word from our sponsor.
Unknown Speaker 3:38 We understand there's been some confusion about who is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and who votes labour. That's why the federal government is clearing up the confusion with job seeker. Job Seeker tells you when the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be made available to groups most in need of protection first, and Liberal Party donors. These vulnerable communities have been identified by medical experts and focus groups. group one includes people who are at increased risk of being silenced by kancil culture, like journalists who haven't asked any questions, cab drivers and divorce dads with an axe to grind on Facebook group to priority access will also be given to people working in critical services such as residents of marginal electorates, sharks fans, coal industry professionals, and men with law degrees who went to university with current or former Liberal Party cabinet members. If you're not listed in groups one or two, keep checking job seeker to see when other groups of people will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine like women's scientists, union members, and Tom Ballard, who will definitely be last on the list job seeker helping those who are more on Team Australia than others get a COVID-19 vaccine first whenever they fucking Arrive authorised by someone anonymously to give us plausible deniability. Should
Unknown Speaker 5:03 it all go to hell camera?
Dan Ilic 5:05 All right.
Sometimes I like to think we're winning the hearts and minds for climate justice in this country. Then I realised Oh, no, no, that's not that feeling. That's not the feeling of hope that's barely um, and the reason why we're here in this room in Newcastle is because it's important because ironically, when it comes to climate justice in Newcastle, you're at the coalface. Yeah. I was waiting for that one. Yep. Now we're gonna be talking a little bit more about the upper hunter election by by election a little later on. Now, the media was saying how labour was distraught to lose the upper hunter seat seat they haven't held in about 100 years. That's like saying, I'm distraught. I'm not an NBA player who can fly. Like labour, we're never going to win because labour forgot to stand for something. Now, the rest of the hunter, of course, is about to be turned into a fracking mess with more pipes coming out of it than Ben cousins. And much like, much like a liberal minister at a camera bar that guest live recovery is going to come upon us whether we want to or not. So I can't.
Lewis Hobba 6:19 Honestly, it's quite shocking to me how few of you have heard this podcast. I really like yeah, it's not gonna get better. I really need you to prepare yourself for an hour that
Dan Ilic 6:35 did say on the poster, an hour of jokes about the C word. Anyway,
Kirsten Drysdale 6:40 I've got to say when I was coming in a lady walk past and she like, pushed her restaurant booking back because she said, I've just walked past the Playhouse and there's a nice play on. I think I'm gonna go and see it. Sorry, lady.
Dan Ilic 6:54 Anyway, I think we're losing the battle when it comes to communicating about climate change. And I think we, I think because we're communicating badly. We're up against the carbon lobby when it comes to climate denialism. They have developed one of the most sophisticated weapons ever made boomers on Facebook that print names and put them in local shops. Now, this is the number one threat to climate change everywhere in this country. The environment doesn't stand a chance. On our side, we've had NASA the CSI arrived, David Attenborough and Avatar. And quite frankly, we can't compete with Microsoft Word Art. Look at that. These photos I'm showing you from a recent trip through country New South Wales, for the people on the podcast. This is a Henry Lawson poem about a bushfire and in curly Microsoft Word out above it says someone forgot to tell Henry Lawson in 1911. It was all caused by climate change. And you know what? They're absolutely right, because the first mention of climate change in an Australian newspaper wasn't until 1912 a whole 12 months after in the Sydney Evening News. Now Can anyone guess the number one font for climate deniers in New South Wales? Can anyone guess? Comic Sans Comic Sans very good. Excellent. Very good now Yeah, she's head of the group. Have a look at this one here. This one is a petition to stop a solar farm in both red and blue text, you know, trying to get some labour and liberal voters getting some bipartisanship here. Notice no green text on this one. I thought that was good. All right. Here's another one. This is from an A new farm a gift shop. It says that in 1939 there was a big bushfire that they called Black Friday, which is enough for this person to be convinced that the government was lying to us all about climate change because of bushfire happened once about 100 years ago. Now, the majority of it is in climate change. But as you can see here, they've mixed it up with some Tahoma and some full time use rotten Times New Roman as well, but they have reserved some Comic Sans for some particular words including ignorance and climate counts. Now the author did get a bit biblical towards the end ditching the Comic Sans and instead going for all caps. James is someone who's had some religion in the in their life. Could you please read out the the all caps as the author intended,
James Pender 9:19 and yet today we are being told by our leaders that this is the new normal.
Unknown Speaker 9:26 This time is right now we have been brainwashed into believing that the gospel of the new religion is cluttered.
Georgina Woods 9:36 I have had the opposite experience though Dan of handing out flyers about climate change and saying to people, this is where the water is coming to the water is coming. The water is coming and feeling very much.
Dan Ilic 9:46 It's a very biblical down there to build a boat. I love this man. In the bottom it says only this time it has a new and new and dangerous name and a global religion but behind it, the altar has been built, and our gullibility is about to be offered upon it. And then they've gone and undercut their entire argument by putting a Bible quote underneath. We says, none of the wicked shall understand, but the wives shall understand. And I don't understand why finally this The other thing you're gonna see around regional New South Wales here is Alan Jones articles. I call them articles but they actually are pids because you're not allowed to call them journalism because they don't have any facts. And so you're gonna see plenty of this around regional New South Wales. Also, here's another old favourite for people who can squint they put up Dorothea Mackellar has sunburned country as if they will, because there was a flood or a fire once and it was indicted. makellos palm. That's argument enough as to the climate change has always been around.
Unknown Speaker 10:51 How come they don't do that thing we all used to do in primary school where you like put a tea bag over the paper and make it look lighter up to the edges.
Dan Ilic 10:59 This one looks like the irony is I think this one's been up there. Like through 10 bushfires. It's, it's very faded. So what do we do about it? Well, friends, I've got a couple of things tonight to share with you. I've rewritten Dorothy makellos sunburnt country and and I've printed it out in Comic Sans. And I'm going to read it out to you now. And some of you will be able to take a copy of this home. I love a sunburn country. Not one of constantly ablaze with weather anomalies increasing to our scientists amaze. I love a sunburn country. Oh shit. It's on fire again. We put it out last answer send back the water cry. I love a sunburn country with once in 100 year floods now occurring monthly, we're neck deep in that they're getting bigger and more often these climate change events Sky News can go fuck itself. They're larger and more frequent. Are we corrupt? Like she fuckery County limp leaders need to accelerate just transition rather than holding on to power to boost their superannuation attenuation. So go out and tell your friends that life as we know it is fact unless we ditch our fossil fuels this lucky country's adult.
Unknown Speaker 12:14 And there is one more thing I've made for you. And that is, this is like you've moved the end of Oprah to the start.
Dan Ilic 12:22 Well, Yo, I gotta get my shit out of the way. I've made a fake op ed, here it is. Look at this. This is a fake Alan Jones op ed. He's basically repenting.
Alan Jones 12:34 I'm about to do something that I've only ever done once before. I'm about to admit that I'm wrong. The only other time I've done this is when I declared the chest was the best musical to come out of the brain of Tim Rice. And we all know that's wrong. It's jesus christ superstar incontrovertibly so. The I was wrong about chess as either they have this. Here we go. For a very long time. I used to think that climate change wasn't real. I used to think that like an ethnically 2021 Christmas album, it just wasn't happening. I used to think that the fossil fuel companies and funded my show were on struggle straight and doing it tough. And those on the land were begging for handouts, and so called compensation because their farm is now open pit mine were a bunch of winners who took two sucking off the teat of the working man if I can use that expression. But much like the 2001 Wallabies back end as evolved. And I know this is not to be true. It's wrong. If I could put all of my previous climate change denialism in a chat bag and throw that to say I would, but that's wrong, too. And we get stuck around a dolphin's neck and they die for watch, trying to unravel a bag of bad opinions to shape discourse and policy in an attire for an entire country. One metaphor
Dan Ilic 13:44 the revelation came to me when an parlane bow valine chose to go to new direction for marketing and no longer sponsor my TV show. It was in renewable energy giant national solar energy group stepped in with the help of their money, it became clearer than ever that humans were causing climate change. It's clear that we need to stop all additions of alien life and electrify everything with national solar energy grids renewable energy, it's clear we need to draw down emissions as fast as we can. It's also clear that this government needs to prevent me from being such a powerful position to influence policymakers in this country. Instead of paying billions for fossil fuel subsidies that are killing the planet. The Defence department should build a time machine that will allow a cold blooded assassin like that will build been Robert Smith on lightning huge to go back in time and strangle me to death with a big strong athletic hands before I endorse Tony Abbott as prime minister. If we can do that, then we just bought save the planet. And if we can't do that, take an insurance italiaanse in order to protect your home and contents insurance. For the worst his mother died she can throw your wife Allianz peace of mind when Mother Nature is on a period. Mother Nature The only other woman worse than Julia Gilad on Ellen Jones
Thanks very much everyone, and you can take a copy of that home with you. If there's any left outside as you leave, but if you register on the website, you'll get a free one as well in next week's email. All right, alright. Ladies and gentlemen dealing rational fear. Fear is rational. Alright.
Dylan Behan 15:33 Alright, DJ diabolical se with some wacky clips. Let's get the show on the road. It's great to be here in Newcastle. Now I don't know if any of you heard but there was a thing called a byelection on here recently. Has anyone anyone heard about this? Anyone know about this? Anyone? like hearing about the by election? But actually, I didn't think it was a by election because according to john barilaro, it was actually a horse race when we weren't just in the race. We've led over why like a good bloody racehorse.
Unknown Speaker 16:04 Now's not the time to change, change the jockey mid rise. You can't just replace the jockey The horse is broken.
Unknown Speaker 16:11 What the hell does that mean? What the hell jumbo? is john barrel IRA just wishing he was at the rice track, instead of on the campaign trail? Or is his brain only capable of holding like a single metaphor and he literally compares everything to a horse race? Like what does he do when he goes to his kids swimming Carnival? Well, Billy may the best horse win. But Dad, I mean, you're human son, not to me. You are. Yes, but if you haven't heard nationals candidate, David lizelle was out on the on the upper Hunter was right. And being the electorate talked on my research. I read that it's the electorate with the highest proportion employed in mining in all of New South Wales, which meant that john barilaro steady state nationals leader made sure to remind us during the campaign, just how much he and his party support call.
Unknown Speaker 17:10 The results minister I've actually had more mines approved in the two years since taking on the portfolio. Our track record is supporting coal, a berejiklian barrel era government and liberal National Coalition I'll use the word calling that one thing to say behind
Unknown Speaker 17:31 powering your economy. Yes, that is literally a glue a grown man yelling at a coal train like is a four year old total opportunity he just saw Thomas the Tank Engine.
Unknown Speaker 17:47 black suit makes me cough ups not that yes, the Nationals love coal. This is the message they wanted us all to take away the Nationals love cold. I love cold so much that being a video editor I put together a little montage of how much the Nationals love and support coal and coal miners into the future let's let's see how much they love.
Unknown Speaker 18:11 New South Wales deputy premier john barilaro has called for national referendum or plebiscite on nuclear energy john barrel Laura has long championed the benefits of nuclear power, mining and nuclear energy is should be part of Australia's economic future that low energy future
Unknown Speaker 18:27 The only political part of the sickens head up on this issue is the National Party. National senators earlier this year in Canberra drafted legislation allowing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in nuclear power. And the man who chairs today's nuclear parliamentarian roundtable was the Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, if you seriously
Unknown Speaker 18:48 want zero emissions, if that's what knocks you out. If that's what blows your hair back. Well, then nuclear path is where you're gonna have to go and we should start looking at nuclear. Do you think within 20 years they'll be modular nuclear reactors in Australia? I think it's a very good chance that
Unknown Speaker 19:02 it is a cheap, reliable source of energy national parties 100% behind this and we hope our coalition partners will follow us.
Unknown Speaker 19:10 Yeah, that coal miners the National Party is 100% behind nuclear. Bobby a good time to go down to the TAFE and learn how to mine uranium if you can find a type that hasn't been sold off at a loss. Yes, that's our deputy federal nationals later Bridget McKenzie there at the end saying how much she loves nuclear. And one of the reasons she said she loves to clutter is it's so much so much better than all those pesky windmills, have a look.
Unknown Speaker 19:35 If you put some nuclear power into this mix, we'd be losing a tiny percentage of the landmass that's currently on the wind farms. And we'd be able to use that for farming and a whole lot of other industries as well.
Unknown Speaker 19:48 You hear that the deputy leader of the roll party the Nationals, I don't think she's ever seen a shape paddock full of wind turbines before in her entire life. Also, Bridget I don't think you'll I think you'll find sheep crazy is wanting to put nuclear actors out in a backpack or on a rooftop. And also, Matt Canavan, who is in that story is in the montage before he reckons nuclear is really safe to those dangerous renewables.
Unknown Speaker 20:13 Overall, nuclear has been an incredibly safe technology. People die installing solar panels on roofs. The greatest energy accidents in the world have always involved petrochemicals which are inherently volatile, and we're talking about getting hydrogen root which is a very flammable and dangerous chemical.
Unknown Speaker 20:31 Yeah, last I checked, there's no HBO miniseries about people installing solar panels on roofs. And speaking of hydrogen, which he mentioned there at the end, hydrogen has also been in the news a lot lately, Scott Morrison has made it his new favourite technological buzzword for when he gets cornered by the rest of the world into talking about how we're going to have to get to net zero as you know, eventually, eventually, eventually don't I won't say windows please, please stop asking. In fact, Stormer loves hydrogen so much. He was he was name dropping out repeatedly back in April, in the days around joe biden's virtual climate day summit Have a look. Our ambition is to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world,
Unknown Speaker 21:14 that one of the most important targets that Australia has, is to be able to produce hydrogen at $2 a kilo. Mr. President in the United States, you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia, we are creating our own hydrogen ballots. And when it comes to the hydrogen valleys we can be developing all across the country.
Unknown Speaker 21:36 Yes, hydrogen Valley's also the name of the worst timing polar album. So it's comparison is having a bromance with hydrogen. Why? Well, you'll be surprised to learn that it's because our government is arguing that hydrogen made using coal and gas can still be cold clay in hydrogen, aka blue hydrogen, because you know, we'll just use carbon capture to turn it clean, I guess. It's totally a real thing. Carbon Capture works. Change the subject, speaking, speaking in which he is his Angus Taylor, on trying to argue blue hydrogen is clean hydrogen to a friend Kelly on ahran breakfast in April and Well, it sounds like he was going a bit blue in the
Unknown Speaker 22:17 face. And you've announced this week. $540 million for new hydrogen hubs and carbon capture and storage at the hydrogen hubs. A lot of people have been asking hear me here on this programme is a green hydrogen or hydrogen made with fossil fuels?
Unknown Speaker 22:35 So it's not made by the fossil fuel industry. So I'm not declaring why I'm asking it wasn't made with fossil fuels are made with renewable energy.
Unknown Speaker 22:42 The point that may make when they're asking that question is we can't possibly make anything from fossil fuels. Well, you know what, if it's zero emissions, it's fine. That's the point. It's got to be clean. fuels and how do we make it zero emissions? It will be made with anything that allows us to reduce emissions is blue. Hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions is green hydrogen, it can be done with zero emissions. You know, we made a lot of horses in this race.
Unknown Speaker 23:10 Horses again, get some new metaphors. Oh my God. That interview was such a cluster shambles. Angus Taylor went on Facebook and commented bad job Angus. Of course, one of the reasons in fact, probably the real reason that Scott Morrison loves hydrogen so much is well it can keep his millionaire mining mate magnate mates rich and we can keep digging up coal for another 50 years. But also it can make trucks got burned.
Unknown Speaker 23:38 I mean, hydrogen can be used to drive vehicles. I mean, up there in the Pilbara at the moment. They're putting him in the mining trucks. Yeah, let's
Unknown Speaker 23:45 put let's put hydrogen flammable hydrogen in vehicles because it works. So well. Last time, Dan, play the clip. go well. In conclusion, if you're saying well, who cares? We're doing the best we can we can't do any more than to get to zero emissions and help stop climate change in this country. But let's just let's just let's just look over the ditch to New Zealand and see what just didn't return promised at the Earth Day summit back
Unknown Speaker 24:16 in April. No fossil fuel subsidies part of New Zealand's four action points one price carbon to make climate related financial disclosures, mandatory three in fossil fuel subsidies and for finance adaptation.
Dan Ilic 24:36 And that's how you win a bloody horse race. Yeah. rational. Your fear is rational. It's kind of a theme throughout irrational fear and the greatest moral podcast of our generation where you have all this technical technobabble and it comes down to something so simple, how good is to send data so good, man? Well, yeah.
Lewis Hobba 24:58 I want some New Zealand has all those people falling off their solar panelled roofs. Well who'll be laughing then actually eating her words? Yeah.
Dan Ilic 25:07 Now, George, you out Newcastle local here. What was the most interesting thing to come out of the upper hunter byelection for you?
Unknown Speaker 25:19 Well, I have a slightly different take from Dylan I suppose because there was a lot of you know, headlining about coal. But in actual fact, what the National Party did during that election campaign was cancelled. The coal mine that was proposed and proved on the Liverpool Plains promised they'd never be any open cut coal mining at dark rock near Aberdeen, promised to set up an expert panel that would manage the structural adjustment of the region. You know, in the event of coals, coal exports declined and invite unions and community advocates to take part in deciding how that rolls out. And we won the by election, and then the Labour Party subsequently just tear itself completely to pieces because they didn't think that they were protocol enough during the election campaign.
Dan Ilic 26:00 Wow. Did people have the upper hand to think that we're voting for the greens?
Unknown Speaker 26:05 Well, I think it's fair to say that if the Labour Party had done the series of things that the National Party did, you know, to curtail the mining industry and plan for structural adjustment. The reaction I think in this sort of tabloid press probably would have been slightly different that they they get a different sort of treatment on it.
Lewis Hobba 26:21 So were you a member of lock the gate who would vote national
Unknown Speaker 26:26 there are many people in the lock the gate movement who vote nationally in fact, I've spoken to farmers who have you know, locked on against a resource extraction projects who also hand out how to vote cards for the National Party and find it harder find it harder to you know, to change that than they do to go and get arrested fighting mining projects.
Lewis Hobba 26:47 Yeah, right. Right. I mean, I guess based on that election Yeah, they're absolutely spot on in situ on the stock mining boat national. That makes complete sense.
Dan Ilic 26:57 Ladies and gentlemen, James panda. Hello. Diane
Unknown Speaker 27:04 says as Dylan just said, the National hunter byelection and as john Boyle our I said the nationals are back baby, and he's rider guests. But when you've been in power in the upper hand for the last 90 years, it's fair to say you're not only back if you've never gone away, have you to be clean labour last were empowering the upper hunter in 1931. And in 1931, the Labour Party still referred to itself as a Communist Party. Hitler was an unknown artist from Austria. Andrew Boldt hadn't been invented yet so while the loss for labour in the recent byelection as we've already said was a bit unexpected. I've got some ideas to help out labour in the hunter. So I'm going to go through 10 things that can help labour when in the hunter number one way more vests. Nothing says vote for me for 90 consecutive he is like a smart vest. I reckon. JOHN barrel already knows it and that fighter, so I just tie flies. Look at them. This is one PC getting shit done in your electorate. Where is this open neck shirt so you can buy from labour candidate Jeff Drayton says I'm busy appearing before I care. The electorate says no. Number two more jobs brothers are rockin nothing screams success like the John's brothers together they oversaw the most successful era in rugby league Andruw Jones famous for taking so many pictures that became a rugby league and multiple was Matthew Jones is famous for his rich Reagan character who continually called for the game to bring back the beef. I think now labour needs to harness their talents. Imagine Joey Jones on the dealings handing out how to vote cards. going door to door imagine rage Reagan advocating for return to call labour values. Like labour legend Ben chifley in his evocatively titled stump speech, bring back the chief. Perhaps short or long bow there but let's just say John's brothers and labour ladies and gentlemen unstoppable. Number three branch sacking labour needs to get serious about the brand stalking. They can't just keep hoping people will vote for them. They need to start breeding labour voters. Luckily, one thing we do know is that jobs fact the way through Newcastle in the 1990s, which means there's a whole lot of elite illegitimate children out there and given most of the routes probably happened post a 97 Premiership those kids are at voting age. So let's sign them up for Labour baby. Idea number four build a beat something every week Cody in Australia has a big something What does the hunter have other than big unemployment and a big problem with institutional child abuse? to sin if library to when they need to promise to build something big, not that. No, not a gas fired power station. We're in Newcastle. What about a big nuke? Just point the nuclear bomb mccampbell and Mikey demands or using to get rid of Gosford idea number five, get rid of Gosford let's be honest go city's a shithole odroid for anyone to get rid of gossip. I don't care how All I know is do we really need Gosford? The Central Coast Mariners and the bluetongue beanfactory are not reasons to keep a town are the number six sign over kastri and more labour candidates need to be seen saying the word Nova kastri and I don't know how the fuck that means Newcastle person, but it's a cool word. Number seven embrace the ban on a serious note ladies and gentlemen labour needs to embrace the ban on everyone's lips. Okay, and now I don't mean the ban on coal fired power station. I mean the ban on any further albums that involve Daniel Jones and Luke Steele in their co lab drains drains more like nightmares. Am I right? I am right okay.
Unknown Speaker 31:00 Adi number nine is a little bit easy. I'm running out of ideas at this point. If Should we get a minister for Semyon if Joe Fitzgibbons can lead the Labour Party to a new generation of glory? We need some less divisive portfolio making them in a surface me on swap the call for a cask of wine, then at least the inner city sir Chardonnay drinkers might actually listen to what he has to say. ID number 10. Ladies and gentlemen, keep doing the same thing later persist with a pro renewable pro climate change platform while failing to sell the benefits of a renewable economy to the workers in the fossil fuel sector. Sure, this strategy is probably not going to work. But the genius of this plan is if they commit to losing long enough sea levels will rise and wipe out the entire hunter region. So that labour can start with the remaining voting population that will probably believe in climate change because they will have seen it wipe out their whole family. And if we're lucky, there'll be some survivors from the descendants of Jeremy jobs and they'll lead the Knights to a Premiership again. Newcastle wins the hunter wins and most importantly, labour winds stickier
Dan Ilic 32:14 than other Katherine's on our panel, do any of those inspire you to vote labour Minister for simians great idea? Absolutely. put myself forward.
Lewis Hobba 32:25 Yeah, as a as a visitor. What's wrong with Gosford? Yeah, what
Dan Ilic 32:30 is wrong with gospel? Really? You've never been?
Unknown Speaker 32:35 He has been to coffee if you drive through Gosford that's
Unknown Speaker 32:39 it there's a central coast Newcastle thing it's it's you know it's it's a little cousin.
Lewis Hobba 32:45 Yeah, I fucking hate him. I'm desperate for calls. I'll say anything.
Dan Ilic 32:55 Now Melvin's recent COVID outbreak has meant that a whole bunch of music festivals have been cancelled, including the replacement for the group in the move, fresh produce, which is real shame because music festivals are where some of our biggest and brightest ideas come to light at these festivals. A few years ago, we did a show at splendour in the grass and we asked some punters there just how they would solve the rift between Israel and Palestine. In the results, were pretty interesting. So I'm asking people for solutions to big problems. How do we fix Israel and Palestine
Unknown Speaker 33:28 with ketamine? Lots of ketamine. As a matter of fact, I had this discussion. I'm not even fucking joking.
Unknown Speaker 33:36 On the motherfucking, with the whole world peace to get the United Nations in a room, a lot of the finest ecstasy in the world will be so all the leftover food that isn't even explained to those people
Unknown Speaker 33:52 just get on MDMA and forget to live a democracy. Or what if I told you that Israel had a terrific democratic government?
Unknown Speaker 33:59 Well, we all know that's not true because the Ibis group in Washington, what do they call the Ibis group?
Dan Ilic 34:07 What's your message to Benjamin Netanyahu? I don't know who he is my friend. What's your message of Benjamin Netanyahu? I'll say get brown chicken. Either one way, I'm sorry. But one of them has to be asking people to solve big problems. So I got a question for you. I've got a really big problem. What is it? Red Bull hurts my heart. told me the softball and a brother of how to be broken but there was also some sort of soul drawn on my lips. Now. How do we fix this? He said that they go for several months. Sorry, he wants Israel and Palestine. The two countries they should have splendid. Rufus just pumping 50k system on the fucking gaza strip out It'd be peace lamanites What's your message to Benjamin Netanyahu? Who's to state they use a two state solution for Israel and Palestine and the five state solution. Benjamin, Prime Minister of Israel, you need to dance under the grace and rule 10 and we will just we will look off the old days when is fully the wrong place us?
Lewis Hobba 35:39 Why do you think that is? pretty fucked?
Dan Ilic 35:51 I knew we should have opened with Israel gear on Twitter. I'm gonna put that on Twitter, because I'll get cancelled. That's why Yeah, it was on national broadcast that was on SBS at some point and we get so you know, it's on SBS. So no one watch no one you get mobile watching it on Twitter this everyone Kirsten dries down.
Unknown Speaker 36:25 Hey, guys, so look, I just want to start by checking in with everyone you know, how's your climate anxiety guys? pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. I get it. But try being may try being married to a coal miner. Well, technically, he's a diesel mechanic. But when I'm not letting my cognitive dissonance get the better of me. I call it what it is. He's a diesel mechanic who works on a coal mine, fixing the machines that dig up the call or maintaining the washing plant that sorts the coal or repairing the pump that stops the tailings dam from spilling over and polluting the surrounding waterways with toxic effluent that's a byproduct of digging up coal. My husband's the latest in a long line of miners that stretches back in his family a dozen generations all the way to Cornwall, which is where coal was invented by Captain Cook. That sounds like a lie. And it partly is. But this here is literally a book tracking my husband's quote, ancient mining family name and heritage as far back as the 1500s. It's a great grade. Although if I had known before we got married just how many murders were in the bloodline. I may have reconsidered this union. Anyway, until not so long ago, this was a perfectly honourable way to make a living, fucking kancil culture. The thing is, we're not idiots. We care about the future. We've got two kids who we love very much. Actually, if I'm being totally honest, we've got one kid we like. The other ones a bit like, take it away. My point is, my husband's job causes our family an increasingly intolerable amount of moral anxiety and makes my efforts to live a carbon neutral lifestyle really quite challenging. Put it this way. A return flight from Sydney to Melbourne puts out about 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon. My husband brings about that much carbon home and coal dust each week. Our sheets look like we've had a threesome with a chimney sweep. When you want to carbon offset a flight you literally just tick a box and pay like $2 for me to carbon offset my husband, I'd have to plant a rainforest, build a wind farm and braid predator and birds here every single day for the rest of my life. Like I sign up to 100% green energy, I ride my bike, I marching rallies, I do Earth Hour, but then my husband goes to work and repairs the overheating torque converter on a D 11. Caterpillar bulldozer and I'm back to square one. What can I do? I love the guy. He's understandably hesitant about quitting his job when we've got a mortgage and two small children to look after. And I'm understandably hesitant about encouraging him to when I'm about to go back to uni because working in the media has hardly made me a reliable breadwinner. Most of my work these days is doing most of my work these days is doing unpaid guest spots on my friend's port. You're getting paid
Lewis Hobba 39:22 for this. The applause some of them haven't heard of.
Dan Ilic 39:30 I mean, up until yesterday, I thought there's only going to be 40 of you were born. I'm so relieved. Now you're definitely getting paid a profit.
Unknown Speaker 39:37 Look, as soon as something comes up that he can jump to he will. In the meantime, I just have to do whatever I can to offset the damage. I've had some success. When we first started dating my husband drove a VA Commodore ute. I was like, dude, I work at the ABC. You can't drop me off in that thing. They'll think it's a terrorist attack. So we traded it in for Much less thirsty VW Golf. Sure it was emasculating to go from driving a high octane petrol Australian musclecar to a diesel German hatchback, but it was worth it knowing the pollution wasn't anywhere near as bad.
Unknown Speaker 40:17 Then the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal broke. And we realised he'd cocked himself for nothing. Well, not for nothing by cover story that I was dating a dental technician from the Central Coast held up a lot longer than it would have otherwise. And look, I've had other ideas. You know, I thought we could set up a GoFundMe page to support him while he re skills. But then I realised it's only socially acceptable to ask your friends for money to fund your overseas holidays, and not to help you leave an industry that's destroying the planet. Okay, then I thought, okay, like pivot pivot. What about sex work? Like for him? Not me. Know, there must be people out there who are into sort smeared. 42 year old men operating heavy machinery, you know, like, no king gets shamed these days. But then his only fans account got shut down because it just looked like he was doing horny blackface. And then I thought, and look, I know this might sound a bit crazy, but just stick with me for a moment. What if the government took some of the money from the massive profits mining companies of my digging up the nation's natural resources, and used it to help retrain the workers in those industries so that ordinary people stuck in these jobs could move on to something new, ideally, something that didn't require them to have chest x rays every two years to screen for black lung, which is not just a joke in Zoo lambda. It's a real thing. But then I remembered we are currently ruled by mouth breathing troglodytes, who would rather return to harvesting whale blubber than admit that maybe just maybe in the year 2021, one of the wealthiest and most highly educated countries in the world could find something a little bit smarter to do than digging up rocks, especially when the mining companies are going to cut and run the moment called becomes economically unviable. Which should be any second now. So anyway, having run out of options, I'm left with no choice, Chris, honey, I love you. But the only way I can truly offset you is to offset you probably shouldn't have ended. But that was the
Lewis Hobba 42:39 that was the saddest ending to a comedy bit.
Dan Ilic 42:41 I want you to know 23 cents of each ticket is going to go to carbon offsetting. Chris tonight, so thank you for that. Do you have general club? I know that's a facetious pace for this show. But is there a Is there a serious anxiety about about this?
Unknown Speaker 42:58 Yeah, absolutely. Like it like everybody gets that kind of moment. Probably every day where you go. Who's gonna end and like for us? It's very, very, very close to home. Yeah, yeah.
Lewis Hobba 43:09 I mean, I remember when you started dating your now husband, and you and I were working together in Maharashtra, the IBC. And I remember when you told you like, I was a coal miner. We were all like, oil. Well, well, you were you were a heroin junkie. Yeah, it was fun. Everyone was like, get him to her to a needle room. I'm like, absolutely. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 43:36 I mean, I've also been to your house and you've got a lot of nice stuff. So there's like, why am I doing working at ABC?
Unknown Speaker 43:44 It's also like yeah, they call it the golden handcuffs because it's you know, it's not like it's a poorly paid job and it but it is hard to jump away from something when you don't have something to jump to like, you know, we're having to take a pay cut, but there's got to be something to go to.
Dan Ilic 43:59 Is that what you think about working with ABC? Do you have golden handcuffs are
Lewis Hobba 44:03 those plastic handcuffs from a toy shop? They're very cheap. And they're they're actually quite easy to break, zip ties and you all love where you're also like, No, do me. All right, Lee.
Dan Ilic 44:17 I won't yuck. Your next guest has been trying to get people to move to a just transition to a Fossil Free future for the last 15 years. So it's safe to say she's a little tired. So please welcome Gina woods.
Gina, thank you so much for risking it and coming in sit on a panel of comedians and smart asses to talk about climate justice. It's really wonderful. First of all, you you describe yourself as a hypocrite and a failure. But isn't it in your interest that no one moves from fossil fuels so you can keep your job
Unknown Speaker 44:58 It's very true. I have I do think about that. And I, it's, it's a hit, I'm willing to take, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make go on to the doll queue become unemployed. If we could actually do this,
Dan Ilic 45:11 what do you call yourself a hypocrite and a failure? Like, why is that hard to identify every day getting up and look yourself in the mirror?
Unknown Speaker 45:19 Well, I guess it's kind of hard, but failure because I have have literally been in, you know, strategy meetings, and you know, this sort of talking to other environmentalists and kind of going, like I've been working on, you know, calling the hunter and climate change for 20 years. Like, that's still a really, really big problem, you know, it hasn't really gotten that far in all that time. So that's, that's why failure and hypocrite is really something that the that kind of ends, you know, of the world like to talk around and environmentalists because we use computers and we, you know, might drive cars and because we are all, you know, entangled in this, it's, it's, you know, we're not on the other side, we're not not part of this society. Kirsten knows it really well, like, and I think this these are so brilliant, really to illustrate that. It's not like an s&m thing, coal miners aren't aliens. People use stuff that uses fossil fuels. And I am one of them. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 46:15 Are you going out with a coal miner as well? No, but you know, I'm not ruling it out. Well, tonight, we have a lonely coal miner in the audio come on down. activist once a husband, it's a new TV show. Coming to SBS to you can have full custody of the Doug kit that you guys didn't have that. I'm just an activist standing in front of a coal miner. When we spoke earlier this week, you said I get it. You want me to explain the weirdness in the hunter. When you say that, like what is the weirdness in the hunter?
Unknown Speaker 46:53 Well, I mean, I suppose the weirdness really is this sort of exaggerated idea that people have about what it's all about. And it's sort of people from the outside the raging? Go, it's a moonscape, you know, which is kind of puts the nose out of joint to the vignerons and you know, people who kind of, you know, a farmers and tourist industry, because actually, it's very, very beautiful place. It's not a moonscape at all, and it's much
Lewis Hobba 47:14 better the Gosford stay down, Gosford,
Unknown Speaker 47:19 and you know, there's others who say the mining industry is not important at all, you know, it only employs 2% of people around the country. But in actual fact, that's a really, really large amount of people here who rely on it for their livelihoods. And that's, that's real. And so that's the weirdness is just sort of competing kind of sweeping statements about what it's all about,
Dan Ilic 47:37 do you have faith that there's going to be what we all hope for, which is a just transition and a fast transition in the next few years.
Unknown Speaker 47:47 I wouldn't describe it as faith. I mean, I'm very excited by some of the stuff going on now part of the 100 jobs Alliance, which is a sort of collaboration of environmentalists and unions to try and just sort of break this taboo of talking about what the region is going to do once the coal export industry declines. And that has really changed things a lot. So I'm excited, rather than kind of hopeful or faithful, I
Unknown Speaker 48:09 suppose.
Dan Ilic 48:10 When you're going by toe to toe on your, on your battles on the ground? How do you kind of keep an eye on the big picture? Like you're in this podcast, rational fear, we talk to a lot of climate leaders who are all focused on the macro, but you're very much someone who is now in the trenches in the pits for one for a better word, like, how do you kind of keep that eye that vision of the of the major goal whilst you're whilst you're going toe to toe with people here?
Unknown Speaker 48:39 I mean, that's pretty tricky. I guess. Like don't, because the big picture is really awful. And you can't really, you know, this is a comedy show. So apologies for bring down the tone. But
Lewis Hobba 48:51 Kirsten already talked about a divorce. So we're at rock bottom.
Unknown Speaker 48:56 Yeah, I mean, you just have to do what's in front of you. And, you know, I actually try not to read stuff about climate change much anymore, or watch the films and all that stuff. I don't, I don't engage. I just,
Dan Ilic 49:05 I just do what's in front of me. There's something to be said for the language that's wrapped around climate change, like, a lot of it is of the station and full of jargon. And but is the reality? Is there a simpler reality behind all of these huge words? Like we've got so many layers of bureaucracy, all talking about climate change, but we're talking about it in this crazy language that you never heard of before?
Unknown Speaker 49:34 Yeah, I mean, there is the reality. And I think one of the things that really fucks us up on this is that we've got this sort of really quite primary straightforward problems of rivers drying up and, you know, huge storms and big holes in the ground with no plans to fill them and you know, a huge workforce, very well paid jobs, not quite sure where they're gonna go in 20 years time, but it's all kind of obfuscated and clouded into this sort of language. have, you know the voluntary land mitigation access policy and approved methods for assessing air pollution and an American submission on this new period of public hearing? Yeah, so it's like, my job is like explaining the government to people and trying to sort of bridge that gap to say, well, when they say, you know, strategic release framework, what they mean is, they're going to be putting out new areas for coal exploration, you know, out west,
Dan Ilic 50:23 I like it was James said, He's switching off because he negotiated the TPP and has worked in The Hague. Like, now, I've got PTSD. So and how do you cut through that bureaucratic jargon to kind of make a simpler case like there's a simpler, there's a simpler world out there that many of us want to understand want to be part of. So how do you make that case?
Unknown Speaker 50:47 Yeah, I mean, I think you always have to bring and this is what I'm saying about the big picture, you have to bring it back to things that people understand and they see right in front of them. And that's why, you know, what matters to people in the hunter is the the pollution in the air and the effect that the industry has on the river and the dislocation of rural villages. And that's really immediately what people are seeing. And that's and that's where their hearts lie.
Unknown Speaker 51:09 in researching for this gig actually saw that the sea wall fell over in Newcastle. Is that to do with mining, or is it
Dan Ilic 51:18 the same old same? Oh, the Stockton Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's really well, there was a coal mine right on the beach at Stockton. unrelated to the, to the erosion that's happening.
Lewis Hobba 51:31 Wow. Breaking News, irrational fear Saturday night.
Dan Ilic 51:36 George fuses? Do you have a sense of hope to keep you going? Like, what what drives you to keep working in this space?
Unknown Speaker 51:45 Uh, well, I mean, I, there's a lot of people who live with the impacts of mining who I have worked with, you know, for all the time I've been would love the gate, which is eight years or so. And they, you know, they have no choice. They kind of stuck there. And I owe it to them to continue being being there for them, essentially. And, you know, it's, it's, it's really, it's wonderful work. It doesn't. It's very, very rewarding.
Lewis Hobba 52:10 That's all I could say, tragically, you probably have a longer career than coal miners. Oh, God. Yeah. Sorry, Kirsten. Sorry. Yeah, that's good. It's actually good news. And we just want to be forced to become unemployed. You know, we don't want to volunteer and come unemployed together. And we'll just solve the whole problem by everybody
Unknown Speaker 52:30 becoming unemployed, universal, basic income. Now, I actually wanted to ask George, because I have done a few events with George in Newcastle, and I find you don't want to embarrass you, but I find it incredibly inspiring, but also incredibly intimidating and terrifying. And I would never, ever fuck with you. And like, bit like you would have been involved in some really like heated confrontations at some of the like actions that you've been had? And are you ever scared when people are really in your face? Or do you just like really get off on that?
Unknown Speaker 53:04 At protest actions, I don't tend to get scared. No, I kind of get scared before. And then after. And then when you're there. It's just it just all flows like you're just in the moment? And have you ever been in a situation where you've actually felt like you're actually physically in danger? like someone's going to hit you or anything like that? No, I'm now have, I have been in situations where that's happening to somebody very close by. And actually, that was a forest protest. And a very dear friend of mine put his body in the way of the axe that was chopping down the tripod that my friend was sitting at the top of, which was, you know, see what i'm saying, man? It wasn't me. I was just a witness. But um, yeah, I mean, it is, I guess, it's protesting is a way to bring to the surface a lot of these contradictions and challenges and so it doesn't really provide any answers. It's just about questioning. It's just about bringing things right up close with people and going well, is this actually a good idea?
Unknown Speaker 54:00 And what about when you're in the room with people, you know, politicians or people from mining companies, you know, really high powered high profile people? Do you ever find yourself intimidated? Do you intimidate them?
Unknown Speaker 54:13 I don't know. I might. What am I good. If you want to hear this story, one of my best stories from last year, which was a difficult year for many people was having a stand up argument with Stephen galley, the head of the minerals Council in New South Wales in New South Wales parliament. And it was because he sort of walked casually past man sort of said hello, Georgina, and I just sort of, you know, I don't want to talk to you Is that a thing and and he had to go at me for not being nice to him and and I just lost it. I was gonna say this on tape. This is just for all of you. I was just sort of like, Is this just a job for you like this isn't just a job for me. I'm not just going to clock in and clock off and say, get a Steve you know, great to see you. This is actually life, you know, life affecting stuff for people that I work with, and I can't just put it all aside and, and pretend like I'm just a professional, so not a politician.
Dan Ilic 55:12 Well, George, if you ever get stuck, you could probably always just become Chair of Newcastle University. Chancellor, Chancellor. I'm hoping that posts will reopen again quite soon. Everyone Georgina woods.
Lewis Hobba 55:41 Try standing up is this it's something that I was just saying to Dan, when we got in here. I've never done comedy up before.
Dan Ilic 55:48 really unusual. It's an unusual situation. James James also said that and I maintain it's because you're the two tallest people
Lewis Hobba 55:55 look up at anyone. I feel like a small town lawyer out of there. It's always fun to try to pivot out of climate action back into comedy. So stick with me. I want to talk not about the climate, but about the vaccines. Another big topic. All right. Yeah. One more applause Hello. All right. All right. I don't know if you've heard but the COVID vaccine rollout is going very badly. Right now Scott Morrison couldn't organise a syringe on the set of Trainspotting. By the end of March, he planned to have 4 million people vaccinated and they just missed that target by 3.4 million. This week, the government revealed that hadn't vaccinated aged care workers and they didn't even know how many aged care residents had started getting shots as anyone who had been vaccinated just by asking that question, I know more than the government about vaccine rollout. But in times of crisis, I think it's very important to take the government's lead and instead of looking at what we can do, start looking at who we can blame. Let's start with the labour leaders. We all know Dan Andrews is crawling out of his hospital bed at night, throwing away his fake back brace and creeping out to sprinkle COVID under the beds of Melbourne's children. The media are obviously also to blame. Health Minister Greg hunt got very angry at the media for saying that all the people who were nervous about getting the AstraZeneca vaccine could wait until the Pfizer arrived. He said the media were promoting vaccine hesitancy the media were directly quoting Greg hunt. And that really Paul's pissed off Greg hunt, who is a Greg hunt.
The government is also very angry at boomers who have developed this vaccine hesitancy for those following at home. Yes, this is the same vaccine hesitancy the government refused to stop Craig Kelly doing. Craig Kelly fans, what the fuck? Are we in silence?
Dan Ilic 58:32 Big queuing on Viber?
Lewis Hobba 58:35 Oh, interesting. Okay, let's explore that as we go on. Wow, fuck, I didn't say I've never met somebody like Greg Kelly. It's so crazy. But actually, I think that the vaccine hesitancy problem is actually quite easy to fix because boomers stopped trusting vaccines because they believe anything they read on Facebook. So what I have done is I've prepared some Boomer friendly messaging that you can write on your own Facebook wall at any time to make boomers get their second job quicker than their second home. Yeah, that's right. I know what you own. Well, you know what else you gonna take away from me? Come on. Alright, here we go. Here's the things you can write on your Facebook wall to get famous to take the vaccine. Tell them the vaccine doesn't insert a microchip. It inserts an audio book about Graham Kennedy written by Peter fit Simon. A vaccine is just an extra hot coffee. Tell him it's an iPad. Tell him it's a painting by an indigenous artist. Tell him it's a funny tea towel. Tell him the vaccine is a mountain by tell him the vaccine is a low risk family photo. Tell him it's a podcast with Annabel Crabb. Tell them that vaccine would like to hear a story about an old neighbour who recently died. Tell him the vaccine agrees that the two years of high interest rates in the early 90s was the greatest hardship generated ever five. Tell him it's a BBC drama. Tell him it'll make Netflix easy to use. Tell him it's a carport. Tell him it's a second fridge. Tell them it doesn't use American words like diaper and store. It uses Australian words like nappy and shop.
Now, we all know that would 100% get the vaccine roll out back on track. Weirdly, that is not the approach our Prime Minister is taking. though. You might have heard this news yesterday. He's calling in the army. Yeah. Yesterday he announced in one of his trademark announcements that the new head of the National Vaccine task force would be Lieutenant General john frewin. If caught I don't know who he is either, but he's a Lieutenant General. Head of the army. If calling in the army to fix his problems, sounds extreme. Keep in mind, Scott Morrison loves to play with his army men. When he was the Minister for border protection. He called in the army to stop the boats. Then once the boat once the army had done that, he made himself a little boat shaped trophy, saying I stopped the boats. I don't know if anyone in the army got a trophy. They may have got a small participation boat. Personally, may I love the idea of getting the military to run a vaccination campaign. It's intimidating but fun. Can never quite get a read on what's going on. defence. Craig Kelly not okay with military on the fence. burners. He came around. Applause we all love. I stick with me try to stick with you if I wasn't begging but thank you.
Dan Ilic 1:02:17 Will you be closing with Gosford
Lewis Hobba 1:02:21 backless wood carving? So here we go. Now stick with me on this army thing. Okay, because I actually think it's a really good idea, right? I would love to see people's faces. When they look up to see Ben Robert Smith walking through the streets, threatening to kick anyone who won't get the vaccine out the us with a prosthetic leg is caring for some reason. All right. I knew when I asked you to stick with me that I would be losing you and I don't care. Why I stopped with the army. The Air Force involved. I want to say fighter jets dropping syringes into aged care facilities. I want to say retired veterans pull their old rifles out of the closet, toss away their bayonets, a fixer Pfizer and go back on the road john judge will fight the anti vaxxers on the beaches of Byron Bay. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, and then we'll blame the cost on Kevin Rudd awesome. Look, I get why Scotty calls up to fans anytime he's on the defensive. People trust the army and they're already on the payroll. But I really think there's another group on the payroll who are being criminally overlooked when it comes to helping the vaccine roll out. These people live in camera in a building paid for by taxpayers. They're getting taxpayer funded training every day. I'm talking about the Australian Institute of Sport. Now. The prime minister said that the vaccine rollout wasn't a race. Well, right now we have hundreds of perfectly trained athletes for an Olympics that probably won't happen. So let's put them to work and make it a race. First of all, no one knows more about experimental drug treatments that test the vaccines on them. They put things in their bodies that would stop our doctors have a locally produced vaccine that prevents COVID and is also untraceable by the anti doping authority. We store them in the call room used to a climatized l winter Olympian. Then we're on to the AI SS gold medal standard vaccine logistics. This is quite a plan. So come on the journey. All right. An Australian weightlifter lifts boxes of vaccines off the shelves then carries them to a javelin thrower, who hurls individual vaccines across the warehouse. 100 metre medley relay team will swim vaccines across the state of Tasmania, while the rest will travel in short shorts of marathon runners as they jump off to remote corners of regional Australia. The syringes passed like a relay baton from the marathon runners to the power walkers if they encounter any anti vaxxers of high jumper will frosty flop over them gracefully. Ah, Rachel Victorian centre will contain PPA from the fencing team, and one Greco Roman wrestler. Their job is to pin down vaccine hesitant burgers while our welterweight boxes strap on latex gloves. And instead of giving a left jab to the face, give an Australian a right jab and using the power of the AI si predicts we can have the nation fully vaccinated by the end of the week. Then all we need is to get Nicky Webster to sing a closing ceremony and get all the athletes back to camera for an athlete village level fuckathon. If Scott Marcy needs any more convincing, I promise when that's all over, and everyone agrees that athletes have done their job perfectly. He can get get a little gold medal that says he did it all himself
Dan Ilic 1:06:18 but didn't rush up. big thank you to DJ de la koliko Jay senda gusta Drysdale Georgina was
Unknown Speaker 1:06:27 also a big thank you to Isaac ash and then everyone here at the Civic Theatre in New Castle. Big thanks to Ryan mock the Bertha foundation go YouTube token Jacob brown to the tiffin Yaki, Tom Landry Diogenes, Virginia guy by name.
Dan Ilic 1:06:41 Until next time, there's always something to be scared of. Good. Hi, Dan Ilic here back again. That was Newcastle. And as you can tell by the end of the show, they were very much on board with what we have to say. And I should let you know if you want any of the things that I was talking about. In my section of the podcast where I do Alan Jones and Dorothy Michela sunburned country. Well, you can download them from the irrational fear newsletter. So go to WWW dot irrational fear.com. Give us your email address, and then we'll send it out, we'll send out the Dorothy Michela in Comic Sans, and the Alan's the fake Alan Jones article you can print off yourself, to put up in your regional shopfront window, we'd love to say that and please, please put it on Twitter or Facebook or email me back a picture of your Alan Jones or Dorothy McKellar, paste it up in the front window of your local shop, we'd love to see that. Before I play the biggest show. I just wanna let you know that we will be coming to Melbourne on August 14. So make sure you put that in your diary. Right now though, here are the best bits of the bigger show.
Now regional Australia How is what is the best way to beat climate denialism or to communicate the real climate facts in regional Australia?
Mick Neven 1:08:07 I think one of the ways you gotta you got to understand the way people communicate in regional Australia here I think one of those ways is a bumper stickers. And so instead of a lot of bumper stickers, you know, I replaced the fuck off we have full and with fuck off way full of too much carbon. I also
Lewis Hobba 1:08:28 like put one a tiny little bombas so you could shrink them and put them on each one of the mice that are plaguing us on the back end of every little mouse millions of spreading the message.
Gabbi Bolt 1:08:40 I think if you're going off like what my regional town where I grew up, how information spread there the most efficient way. town gossip. Like I feel like if you say something like Oh, so and so so and so so and so slept with a solar panel.
Lewis Hobba 1:08:55 You should tell the hairdresser he fucked us all the time. Don't tell anyone
Gabbi Bolt 1:09:03 Ciara solar panel. Every single person in the region.
Dan Ilic 1:09:08 It was the best sex I've ever had. Well, Gabby, you know the people here in the southeast of the continent have suffered pretty horrendous things over the last 18 months. bushfires the promise of the notion recovery fund that hasn't turned up in a city lifting podcasts coming in to do a podcast where you guys have suffered. I'm really sorry. Gabby, is there a bright side to anything that these people have been through?
Gabbi Bolt 1:09:38 Ah, well, I've brought this Sesame Street Style song. I found one that I think you might like.
Lewis Hobba 1:09:46 Can you guys hear that out the back? Yeah. Cool. Can
Gabbi Bolt 1:09:50 I have a little more in the phonebook? We can cut this out of the podcast. Cheers, john. Thanks. Anyway, you might not have Have a million bucks might not have the cats and dogs might even have your shoes and socks squad. At least Scott shook your head might not have a good next step. might not have time to take a breath. might not have any fuckin house left, but at least Scotty. He says Don't you know that I don't hold a hose? Um, no, that's not for me. Unless we're referring to a wall, but it might have promised us some relief. might have said, Hey, whatever you need, and he might pop on over to Hawaii, but he can cuz he shook your hand. Spin solo. I never said that.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:00 I resent that.
Gabbi Bolt 1:11:02 But I disagree with the premise of the question. Yeah, it's gone. Well, actually, Jen told me that bushfires are in fact bad. And until she said that to me. And she also said that How would you feel about girls died in a British fire. I really hadn't heard of that in perspective. So I decided to deal with the bushfire crisis by praying we never got another one and I feel way better. Thank you so much, Jen. He gaslights enough to start another fucking fire. I can't believe he's still in after such a failure. I can't believe he even got enough to tourism Australia might not have a fucking clue. My thought for me or you any might spend all this time protecting. But at least Scotty shook he might not possess any empathy might not uphold governing policy and he might not know how to run the fucking country but at least Scottish. The Scottish Well, he tried to that he stole your hand and then lied to you, but he will say he shook your hand.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:26 Thank you, everyone. Hello, hello. Hello. Yes, I'm the DJ normally. officially known as hobo Paul Shaffer, Dan Ilic. I do run a little podcast called news fighters, where I play funny clips and talk about them and I look we've hung a lot of shit on Scott Morrison tonight. So I just thought I'd keep it going. It's great to be back here in Vegas. I actually grew up on the south coast. Here I am there I am having my fifth birthday at the bega cheese factory. Here right here I am. Here Kubina public school there I am from 1986 What happened?
Lewis Hobba 1:13:08 Okay, the slideshow going I'm loving
Dan Ilic 1:13:11 the jugs more about Dylan's childhood. This is a this is actually this is your therapy session.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:19 And of course look, you know growing up in and around cobargo as I did have to say nothing brought me more pride than watching the news last year. And I saw this happen
Unknown Speaker 1:13:30 during the fire ravaged town of cobargo. a firefighter refuse to shake the PMS hand. Scott Morrison heckled in cobargo now you know, welcome your Parkway.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:45 Yeah, Scott Morrison. They're inventing the social distancing lack of afterwards, believe it or not, Scott Morrison refused to believe that this angle was actually directed at him.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:56 Scott Morrison today says he doesn't take it personally. I don't take it personally. I just see it as a sense of frustration.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:04 Maybe you should take it personally. Everyone hates you turned up for a photo op in the middle of a catastrophic tragedy. What about the words? You're not welcome here? You fuckwit fuck off my Do you not understand? Anyways, we are we are here to applause there Hang on a second.
Lewis Hobba 1:14:29 As a religious guy who is also obsessed with shaking hands. I wonder how he feels about the fact that like God immediately after they sent down a plague that prevented him from touching it might have been assigned. Don't touch me. Stop doing it, Scott. Alright, fine. I'll send you a fucking bad plague stop doing
Unknown Speaker 1:14:46 but we are here to talk about climate change. That's the theme of the theme of tonight. And within an election around the corner Scott Morrison has been out on the world stage in his his heart, his heart to finally answer some annoying questions like when the hell is Australia. gonna commit to net zero emissions? And isn't he nailing it? Our goal
Unknown Speaker 1:15:04 is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible. And preferably by 2050. Australia is on the pathway to net zero. Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can for Australia, it is not a question of if, or even by when for net zero, but importantly, how
Unknown Speaker 1:15:21 what a lack of Imagine if you're you have this kind of lack of commitment in your relationship. Honey, we been engaged for 12 years, when are we going to get married? Well, dear, it's not a question of if or when we get married. How about when soon as we possibly can, preferably by 2050. And when it comes to the house, Scott Morrison says, technology is the ticket. The key to meeting our climate change ambitions is commercialization of low emissions technology. My point about this, though, comes back to technology again, as why we're investing in Priority new technology solutions to our technology investment roadmap initiative, the answer is technology, not taxes. Yes, sir. is saying technology, not taxes, great technology, what kind of technology? There's lots of great technology out there. Is he talking about electric vehicles, solar batteries, pumped hydro technology is the coalition talking about let's have a look,
Unknown Speaker 1:16:18 nuclear energy should be on the table as part of Australia's energy future. It's the finding of a parliamentary committee. The Federal Energy minister Angus Taylor, meanwhile, says the government's more than willing to consider nuclear power. You
Unknown Speaker 1:16:29 know, I'm being told that Scott Morrison actually supports nuclear power. It's just he knows it's too difficult to sell politically, if you seriously want zero emissions, if that's what knocks you out. If that's what blows your hair back, well, then nuclear power is where you're going to have to go and if
Unknown Speaker 1:16:45 we are serious and progressing towards net zero emissions, I think it's almost certainly that we'll need to have some form of nuclear power here to try to achieve that.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:54 Yes, Senator Matt cannon national senator, Matt Canavan there, and he reckons nuclear is really safe. actually have a look.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:01 I have a role. Nuclear has been an incredibly safe technology. People die installing solar panels on roofs.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:07 Yes, but I can't remember there being an HBO miniseries about rooftop solar panels. But it's not just nuclear. Don't worry. There's some other technology scammers keen on
Unknown Speaker 1:17:19 our ambition is to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world that one of the most important targets that Australia has, is to be able to produce hydrogen at $2. a kilo is the President in the United States, you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia, we are creating our own hydrogen ballots. And when it comes to the hydrogen valleys we can be developing all across the country.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:45 Yes, hydrogen Valley is coincidentally also the name of the second worst King gizzard and the lizard wizard side project. The reason our government if you're wondering where this sudden obsession with hydrogen comes from, did a bit of research and it turns out that they realised they can they can get away with calling. They can call it clean hydrogen or blue hydrogen, even when it's made by burning coal or gas, thanks to this thing called carbon capture and storage is not new technology. Isn't that going well? Which the best I can figure out this kind of thing where Scott maybe has more insight into this kind of works out like I think if you fought and then plan to ceiling, the ceiling cancels out the fog, is that Yeah, is that basically Howard's showing me that if he just didn't fire to begin
Dan Ilic 1:18:30 with coming upstairs or if he fought in a jar? Oh, I put it in the ground. That's carbon capture storage. perfectly. Well, the technically, if I did it, it'd be me. Thank catches. Yes. But the extending analogy to coal plants. Is that right, Scott Ludlam?
Unknown Speaker 1:18:47 Suddenly This is on me. Yes, Scott. This is your this is your analogy. You have to land this.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:54 Anyway. Energy minister Angus Taylor loves hydrogen. Here he is on radio national talking about blue hydrogen until he's literally blue in the face.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:04 Is it green hydrogen or hydrogen made with fossil fuels?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:15 It wasn't made with fossil fuels are made with renewable energy.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:18 The point that many make when they're asking that question is we can't possibly make anything from fossil fuels. Well, you know what, if it's zero emissions, it's fine. That's the point. It's got to be clean. fuels. How do we make it zero emissions he will be made with anything that allows us to reduce emissions is blue. Hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions is green hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions. You know, we made a lot of horses in this race.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:46 That interview went so badly that Angus Taylor was later caught on Facebook saying bad, bad job, Angus.
Dan Ilic 1:19:53 But the other thing that was a very nice joke for this audience.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:58 The other the other reason Morrison loves hydrogen aside from the fact that will keep his billionaire coal mining magnate mates happy is that it can make trucks car perma.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:08 I mean hydrogen can be used to drive vehicles. I mean up there in the Pilbara at the moment they're putting him in the mining trucks.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:15 Yes, let's power some vehicles of flammable hydrogen. Let's see. How did that go last time we tried that. Let's have a look here. Oh, there we go. There's some there's some nice flammable hydrogen there in the Hindenburg. Nice and blue. I think if it wasn't black and white, sorry, a bit too soon for Hindenburg jokes. Anyways, in conclusion, the Australian Government is kicking the can down the road on climate change, not setting targets and trying to sell us dirty and dangerous unproven technologies. But if you think we can't do any better than this one, maybe we should just have a little look across the ditch to see what's
Unknown Speaker 1:20:46 happened knows fossil fuel subsidies part of New Zealand's for action points, one price carbon to make climate related financial disclosures, mandatory three ind fossil fuel subsidies and for finance adaptation.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:06 Now that's a prime minister who can probably get a handshake.
Dan Ilic 1:21:15 fame is New Zealand appear to be doing a lot better than us in many circumstances. Why is that?
Unknown Speaker 1:21:25 Scott crazy thing to be famous for. She's got a green climate change minister. Like there's a there's an interesting example. Sorry to be the Ernest one sheet,
Dan Ilic 1:21:39 this is why you're here.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:40 I'll be really quick. All right, and then these guys can carry on. You've got I think, a very different political culture. It's not saturated with rupert murdoch publications. And you've got a green labour Alliance where people are actually decent to each other. They show up at each other's press conferences, they support each other. It's not perfect. There's plenty of problems there. But I just think that political culture is very different to hear
Lewis Hobba 1:22:01 that actually sounds like more of a fantasy than Lord of the Rings. From a New Zealand perspective, as well, yeah. And they get along, and they all live in holes. In the coalition there they have hobbits I've seen Oh, thank God. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:19 I think one of the big problems. And I'm not totally familiar with the New Zealand political climate at all, but I just think you can't steal from the Treasury and govern the country at the same time. It's like, one or the other. Right?
Dan Ilic 1:22:36 Make it's your turn. Give it a crack. Yeah, everyone McNab is rational. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:45 Hello, everybody. What we're doing, of course, is we're talking about climate change. And if you look at a lot of what we're saying is pretty negative. And you think, well, how can we have hope for the future? And so I'm just trying to lighten the mood a little bit by letting us understand how we can have hope for the future. And if you do need to, you need to be optimistic and you need to be positive. And if you want to learn lessons on optimism and positivity, look no further then the quality over leadership because they have turned optimism and positivity into an art form. Okay, because they don't they don't call it being bribed by the fossil fuel industry, do they? They call it a political donation. And they call it a natural transition from politics to the Board of Rio Tinto and Anglo American. I say that that's positivity, isn't it? They don't call it they don't call it they don't call it a colossal waste of taxpayers money on soon to be useless infrastructure that we don't actually need. See, now they call it a gasoline recovery. Right, that's positivity. That's optimism. And we need to take that onto ourselves as we move forward into the future because yeah, like climate change is happening and the planet's heating up, which is bad, but if you've ever watched your done your laundry on a 45 degree day it drives like that. That's positivity. That's like yes, the polar ice caps are melting. But that also creates more room to play footy and cricket. Okay, yes, the sea levels are rising, which is bad, but the more the seas rise, the less room there is for bushfires. So that's positivity, maybe too soon, as well as positivity Scott, this is what we're trying by. No, I think maybe we should lose the term bushfire because there is a lot of negative connotations attached to the word bushfire. I think maybe we should progress in future and we should just call it like free range barbecue. like seven houses will last in today's free range barbecue. Oh, They just got a little bit overexcited they didn't. That's nice. And and you know, like, they do say that. We were you know, though one in 100 year fire events are going to become more common and we're going to see them like one one in 184 events are going to happen every five or six years, which is not great. But on the positive side, it is an opportunity to get more volunteers and people contributing to their community. You know, we're looking at the positives I was evacuated on Ash Wednesday, on Black Saturday, I spent six hours patrolling my house doing our amber patrol. And you know, the 2019 20 fires, I inhaled a lot of smoke. And like, How lucky am I that I'm only 46 years old, but I've already been through three one in 100 fire year. And I'm only 46 I can feed hates Boring. Boring, you know, like if you saying that, you know insurance premiums for fire insurance are going up. It's too expensive to get fire insurance which you which is bad, but on the positive side that just encourages self sufficiency, doesn't it? Well, you know, pennies for insurance when you can have a fight and go might stick with me.
Dan Ilic 1:26:28 Make a promise should have warned you. Many of this crowd have recently been through an extremely traumatic event. I'm moving on from Yeah, moving on. I don't know if you I should
Unknown Speaker 1:26:40 have told you. I'm moving on from the fires. I've watched the news. I think I was evacuated last Wednesday. Climate change. Worst case scenario we need to be positive right. And we don't want to I don't think we should call it the total collapse of civilization as we know it. We should call it a digital detox. Like it's not going to be a brutal fight for survival in the toxic wasteland of a planet that we destroyed through greed and stupidity. Right It's an opportunity to learn new skills. Exactly like your spirit. Like if you just pick you out or you're sitting around the front that have you ever thought about killing someone
Unknown Speaker 1:27:34 while you get on board because like and just so everyone's aware, right? I am now going to talk about killing someone but I'm doing it in a sense of positivity. I don't want you to think it is murder. Right don't think of it as murder Think of it as resource management. Being positive because you never know there could be some climate change disaster could happen before we know that no one predicted like the the permafrost is melting, releasing methane into the air which could suddenly react with all the carbon dioxide and create a thick band of smoke around the entire planet blocking out all the light from the sun every living thing on earth smothering to death, humanity starving no Lauren order anymore, and it's just me and another dude. And a can of peaches. Don't say well, if I want to eat those peaches, I'm gonna have to kill this guy. When he comes at me with with a ninth or ninth century Viking battle axe that he's looted from the home of a mediaeval weapons enthusiast. But luckily, I've got my replica US Marine K bar combat knife. Okay, so he comes in swinging the axe, I duck under it, grab his arm and just jam that knife up under his ribs like real close. You look into his eyes. You just see that shock. He's like, Oh, he's got me. Give that knife a twist. You feel that hot spurt of blood run down your arm. This thing that's in his heart. He's dead. He goes limp, drops the axe and you're up close looking into his eyes just watching his soul start to leave his body. And then with his last dying breath, you guys,
Unknown Speaker 1:29:10 I just I just
Unknown Speaker 1:29:14 I just wanted to feed my daughter. Enjoy heaven decade. When you drop into the ground and your sheep that knife you grab that canopies you tear the top off and you're stuck with your bare hands. You're shovelling peaches in your starving mouth. You've got blood and peach juice just dribbling off your chin and you have never felt so alive.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:55 Obviously I haven't given that a lot of thought. It's a well, it's just something that popped into my head when I was trying to be optimistic about the future.
Dan Ilic 1:30:16 How do you folks stay optimistic about the future? How do you keep your optimism going? where we are right now? I mean, Gabby, maybe I'll start with you, your, your 25 year young person when I wants to be optimistic? Oh, you know, I'm alive. We're here. Well, we're not when I was 25, I started my journey in terms of kind of climate action and trying to try to make the world a better place. How do you feel about it? Like, how do young people keep up?
Gabbi Bolt 1:30:38 I feel like, well, if we're talking about my very sheltered bubble of social awareness, we laugh at anything, that's crap. And that tends to just work. It doesn't. So we just laugh at terrible, terrible things.
Lewis Hobba 1:30:54 I think it's always good to keep in mind when I'm in a low point about the future of the world. And even though the current of the world is to remember that eventually, all people will die. And they are the ones who are really responsible. And that's what that's what helps me sleep at night is knowing that my grandparents are already gone, and thank God. They will never they'll never have to experience what you might have to experience. Yeah, no, my sweet grandparents who I loved but who are gone will never have to say the horrible things that I'll say my future. Yeah, yeah, I stay optimistic. Yeah, I think we've fulfilled the assignment
Unknown Speaker 1:31:31 that, you know, I think one cause for optimism, from my point of view is that as a 46 year old, I've really had the best years that I could possibly have. And whatever happens now is just done a bit. You know, I've lived a good life up
Dan Ilic 1:31:47 to now it's all peaches from Hey, mate. Can I get the vaccine then if you don't want it? I actually know I want to go back to Bali, at least one. So I'll be taking.
Gabby, the budget was about four weeks ago. And in that time, you've had time to process who the winners and the losers are?
Gabbi Bolt 1:32:14 Yeah. That's the preamble. We wrote because I wrote some a month ago. Yeah, I mean, look, there are real. No, there are no, there are some winners in the budget. I don't know if any of them are in this room. Or in this state, except for Parliament House. But I've written a song about our views in the budget. I wrote it for a little gang called the chaser who now pay me to be stupid. This This song is about the budget. everyone's favourite subject to sing about. I don't care what's in the budget. Because Murdoch says it's fine. The sky said battlers loved it. And so did Channel Nine. It's my fault that I'm unemployed. So now all my time is free. Everyone's a winner. I'll accept the AVC sorry, Louis. Murdoch back the budget. That's all I need to hear. I can relax and turn my brain off watch the footy with a beat. The country's bouncing back today. There's no way we could fail. Unless you've come from India, then you can go to jail. There's money for our billionaires because they're so oppressed. But if you're on job seeker, then they'll send you Robo debt and forget funding inquiries into indigenous dance. But I do hear that there's cash involved towards some come proof desks.
Dan Ilic 1:33:48 That one was wrong. We're lucky I guess I just remembered we're in a council chambers.
Gabbi Bolt 1:33:53 Clean your surfaces everyone clean your surfaces. Were lucky in this country. We survived the COVID plague and our budget will reflect the sensible changes that were made. So you do not get to whinge and whine about what is being paid. Unless you're over 35 or prefer your grandparents alive or if you're in public education or a victim of house rental inflation or if you want churches to pay tax little one day get a Pfizer vaccine in the healthcare sector award effector or in the centre link online. Don't worry, because Murdoch says it's fine. Yeah. Thanks. I apologise for the come desktop.
Dan Ilic 1:34:40 Our next guest has worked at the highest levels at the Australian Parliament striving for climate justice. Now he's just one of you, you know, living and working in eurobodalla Shire. Despite his name being Scott, he's here for the long haul. It's Scott.
Scott, do you um, do you It shouldn't be a name. Have you considered calling yourself scout lard? Really? We just said that okay, no. What's your next question? I know you moved here in 2018. Has anything major happened since that time? pretty quiet? No. Was it like you know packing you packed up your life in person you move to this place. Why did you choose this area to move to? I,
Unknown Speaker 1:35:26 it reminds me that Southwest TWA. And actually, it reminds me a little bit of Taranaki and New Zealand, dairy country and misty and gorgeous. But I came here more or less at random to write a book, little writer's retreat a couple of years ago, and just had all my stuff moved over. And so now you're stuck with me? Oh, that's okay.
Dan Ilic 1:35:43 And so were you here during 2019 2020?
Unknown Speaker 1:35:46 Not here, here. But out the back of tobacco that 20 Kay's from tobacco. Wow, the little town that we are so very proud of where that footage was mostly taken.
Dan Ilic 1:35:55 Do you know a few of those people in those clips? A little bit? Yes. But the whole country knows them now. What are those folks like what you know, the people in those clips? Like I think
Unknown Speaker 1:36:05 it's a it's a very down to earth place. It's surprisingly it. I mean, it's this beautiful kind of crossover of Palmer and prayer prayer flags. This whole district is just really interesting, culturally crossover country.
Dan Ilic 1:36:17 Yeah, yeah. When you were going through the bushfires, like how did you What was your story at that time, like how what happened here
Unknown Speaker 1:36:25 are supposed to be so many buddy stories in just in this room. So as probably not super special. But we were awoken about 4:35am, New Year's Eve 2019. And just evacuated as quick as we could get out of our place and sheltered in the Roma for a couple of days and spent the next six weeks I suspect, like many people down here, just dodging fires. So we evacuated four times as and ended up with the thing around us on three sides as terrifying.
Dan Ilic 1:36:55 As someone who's being part of the most powerful force in Australia. Well, not necessarily in government, but someone who's been in power. And I didn't know, you know, I missed that whole chapter of my life. Did you expect when when you're going through that thing to do that moment Did you expect are in a moment, the federal government is going to do something and we'll be looked after,
Unknown Speaker 1:37:20 we were all hoping that Morrison would helicopter in and try and shake people's hands. That's what everybody in this district was really hoping would happen. A
Dan Ilic 1:37:31 couple of people were laughing I see him
Unknown Speaker 1:37:34 harshly judging Morrison because we've since found out that he wasn't actually shaking hands. He was laying on hands and healing people with prayer. And I think if we'd known that at the time, it would have made all the difference. Not at all creepy or weird. For you.
Dan Ilic 1:37:48 What was the biggest disconnect of that moment? For a few who's you know, you've been part of Parliament, really? And you're in this moment? Did you? What What were you going through in your head
Unknown Speaker 1:38:00 disconnect is that people have been predicting this for at least 20 years, Ross Garner wrote a thing, 20 years or 15 years ago saying by the 2020s will be observing this, this is going to be a reality. So the disconnect is that we have seen this thing coming. And it's hard to pretend to be surprised. It's like being surprised by a snail creeping up on you. You know, we've seen this thing coming for an awfully long time. And now it's here.
Dan Ilic 1:38:25 Yeah. When you saw you were living through the experience of this government's inaction. What surprised you most about that moment?
Unknown Speaker 1:38:38 I was surprised they were so utterly flat footed, like before, he remember that rancid little TV ad that they put out with him kind of striding back in with the army and they've ripped a bunch of money out of disability funding, and suddenly there's going to be cash everywhere. I felt like for a unit that is basically completely in hock to the coal and gas industry, and that people have been predicting this is going to happen for decades that they would have been a little bit more prepared and at least had their lines straight. But they had absolutely no idea what to do at the guys in Hawaii. Do you have something funny to say?
Dan Ilic 1:39:09 No, no, no. I asked you Scott. You shouldn't feel like you need to be terrifying.
Lewis Hobba 1:39:15 I promise I'm not here to hurt you. Scott. was really hoping you could lighten the mood. Yeah, no. And I was wondering is yeah that's how the people came to say a fight. No, I was wondering if you knew Scott Morrison personally because you don't know him personally. Because it's so strange to me because I felt like we the previous Prime Ministers even though I have disagreed with them. I have been out ago I can see why you wanted this job. I cannot understand why the fuck he wants this job. Like, do you have any insight as to why he actually wants to be prime minister doesn't seem to have any joy from it means any sort of direction for it that he's
Unknown Speaker 1:39:54 doing God's work. He was called to it by God. Sounds Mantega. It sounds man. But that's why why
Lewis Hobba 1:40:02 do you think that's that's legitimately? Because now that he's been cold? Is he waiting for like the next coal to tell him what to do? Like? What's going on?
Dan Ilic 1:40:11 to manage your timezone? I think that would be a more appropriate job for flashing lights.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:20 No, nothing, you would ask the same question, why does this bag of custard want to be the Prime Minister? Even the religious thing doesn't quite land, like is that really his caper? Because he's doing a shit job even at that. Get him.
Dan Ilic 1:40:38 So when when the when the feds didn't turn up, and then people were left to their own devices. What did you say that
Unknown Speaker 1:40:44 was people helped each other people. People lend each other generators, people were hooning, around in Utah, putting spot fires out people just bought us food. They were folk coming out of bermagui, who were just doing enormous stuff in this big kitchen, and then just shuttling it out to where people needed it. Water got delivered. So it's all the mutual aid stuff, all the beautiful bottom up stuff was what actually happened.
Dan Ilic 1:41:10 Does it surprise you that there's no kind of support for those kind of groups, even if the government's gonna outsource this sort of support to these grassroots groups? How have you been to support these groups?
Unknown Speaker 1:41:22 There's a little bit landing now. And I think some of some of that stuff is getting a small amount institutional backing, but it's, you know, came too late, obviously, for last year. The main thing if we can learn anything from last year is that the kind of groups doing that incredible stuff do get backed up and supported.
Dan Ilic 1:41:39 We've seen stories over the last six months about this notional $2 billion and half of it being delivered war where is the winner? No Show of hands who got some of the $2 billion buddy for the podcast listener. There is a person with their hand up how much should you get? Red Cross for a really really good Red Cross for good people. And Salvation
Unknown Speaker 1:42:10 Army and they've put money the Red Cross in put me into the actual pods and the government is supposed to hire for we had signed over $10,000 Red Cross money the government
Dan Ilic 1:42:28 Wow. Wow. So that was that that's a charity plugging the get with a government fell down.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:33 There was a lot of that. Yeah, institutional charities but also just these networks of people who just had to do what needed to be done.
Dan Ilic 1:42:41 God, it's um, anyone else got stories of this? They want to share this moment of kind of?
Lewis Hobba 1:42:50 That's what you're here for. Scott tell a joke.
Dan Ilic 1:42:53 Well, Scott, plugging the incongruity of the Australian voter, after seeing whatever everything we've gone through, and seeing how labour doesn't really have a Climate Action Plan themselves, how does the Australian voter heading into election season how should they vote to see meaningful climate action?
Unknown Speaker 1:43:18 I'd say don't wait till elections roll around. I reckon that's the first mistake that we're going to make. If we hang around until an election at the time of Scott Morrison's choosing, like we just we lose another. I don't know what six to 12 months of waiting around tapping our toes, it's time to riot, like it's actually time to take a bit of power back.
Lewis Hobba 1:43:41 This is the opinion of former senator Scott Ludlam. Yeah. As a as an employee of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, distanced myself from the riot against the government comments. But I support Scott's ability to say that
Dan Ilic 1:43:58 that's real courage. Yeah, that's what they've been
Lewis Hobba 1:44:03 fucking suing us every week. Give me a break.
Dan Ilic 1:44:08 So with with when we say don't wait another six months, what what do you mean by that?
Scott Ludlam 1:44:14 There was some really courageous crew up on the roof of Andrew constancies office earlier in this week. There are school strikers in his town who've been rebelling for at least two years that I'm aware of like a really courageous crew. There's extinction rebellion chapter just flared up here and that has got a long way to run. I'm not saying like when the election comes around, check and see who's paying their bills don't vote for people who are cashing checks from Santos and the resources sector. That part's really simple, but we simply cannot wait for long enough for elections to come around. And there's so much beautiful stuff going on like in this district. Big Cheese not even as a joke or as a punchline are talking about circular economy right across the whole valley, like in a serious way. Just spend a couple hours reading this stuff. They're not fooling around. Yeah, like, if government is way, way back and the community's ready and businesses ready, then let's just get on with it and not wait for these clowns.
Dan Ilic 1:45:10 We are the leaders. Right.
Well, Scott, thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear welcome. Sorry, I was so earnest the thinking you know, that's, that's the, that's the job of this section. Just to top off your earnestness where we have a lot of Patreon supporters. So to fund the show, we've got a few in our front row here tonight, which is great. We're gonna be giving half of our Patreon tonight to the Women's Resource Centre, Baga. And the and the other half. We're gonna be giving the other half to the extinction rebellion legal fund. So that's about that, you know, that's, that's some good money going their way. So hopefully, hopefully, it's not exactly
Lewis Hobba 1:46:00 they can commit some more crime
Dan Ilic 1:46:02 is to pay their legal bills and their legal bills. Well, thank you very much. God loves
Unknown Speaker 1:46:09 a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 1:46:15 Now, Gabby, it's become evident that Scott is finding it difficult to show any kind of leadership and when he does, there's always someone behind the scenes who is incredibly powerful in his ear.
Gabbi Bolt 1:46:25 Yeah, I'm actually I was a bit of a fly on the wall recently at a parliamentary karaoke party. And he actually he got up to sing quite a bit of an elton john banger, actually, but it wasn't quite the lyricism that I was like, everyone kind of does things that like he actually sing the lyrics quite well. So I thought I'd just reenact what I heard that fateful evening at the parliament Terry
Lewis Hobba 1:46:59 Great, well, he Gabby, I'm really gonna have to actually host the party now. Any open phones? Good.
Gabbi Bolt 1:47:17 Hey, kids, learn from my empathy consultant. Turns out all that I have to say is I find these guys repulsive. I won't say a thing about how I will propose real change. But if I tried to cry, maybe no one will notice anything strange. Cuz I stand up for women when they need me, but are only the ones I like to January and the girls on the road, so my relatives could really even do I haven't name names. I mean, I'm not to blame. I couldn't have suffered testers right. But I didn't want to know why. Just Jenny and the girls. We can sing in this venue. Good. Well, then we'll write little karaoke over are ready. You know what to do?
Dan Ilic 1:48:40 expressional Thank you very much. irrational. guest tonight, Dylan, Bain and Gabby Bo Lewis, Tama MC Devin, Scotland them. I'm Daniel, it's me. Thanks to ride Mike's the Bertha foundation Patreon supporters Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight. That's it. How good was that to live shows all in one podcast. Don't say we don't give you anything for nothing, because we give you lots for nothing. Speaking of that, if you want to pay for some of the stuff you're getting for free, please jump to our Patreon patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. We need all the help we can get. We're almost off the end of our Bertha fellowship money, which means we're going to be desperate for more Patreon supporters to support the podcast. So if you want us to keep making podcasts and meet keep making funny memes to keep making sketches online, please go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fears getting more important because we've got the election coming up. You know someone's going to do it. Please hit us up patreon.com forward slash a rational fear. Also, I want to say a big shout out to Jacob brown on the tepanyaki timeline, who smashed this best bits of these two shows together. Despite Having COVID-19 Yep, absolutely champion if it very sick boy but managed to pull it off. So thank you, Jacob round. Really appreciate it. He's a bigger boy and he couldn't even come to our show in Baga which was an absolute shame. We would have loved to laugh with him there but his mom came. And that was good enough. It was like it was like having it was like I was gonna say I was like having close relative of Jacob brown there, but that's exactly what it was like. Anyway, thanks very much. Until next week, doesn't we suddenly be scared off goodbye.
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Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Grey Lewis. Good afternoon, Daniel. How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:08 I'm, well I'm well. I spoke to somebody this week and they said they are desperate to hear you play the piano by Billy Joel on your piano. They want to hear it. Is there any way we can hear it tonight?
Lewis Hobba 0:21 Tonight? Yeah, absolutely. Of course. I'm so ready and so good at hitting me letting people who say that piano takes us to learn I radiance. It's taken me two weeks and I know the piano. That's it. It's that simple. Oh, I
Dan Ilic 0:39 said about a friend to mention. I said, Man, you're just an overnight success. One day, consider the case.
Lewis Hobba 0:44 Well, I'm sorry, I'm ready to pay to mention you know, I'm ready to get asked and put some leather pants on. I can do a lot of parody songs as well. I can do a lot of good parodies of Billy Joel's Vienna. I've got 10 or 15 great parody songs all about different German towns. Good stuff.
Dan Ilic 1:05 Excellent, weird owl pub. They will call you from hell just eliphalet will will l L. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the eora nation sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Rupert Degas 1:19 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks. Canberra COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommends listening by image your audience.
Dan Ilic 1:33 Tonight Alan Jones undergoes a major knee reconstruction after doctors say he's been leaning too far to the right. And Australia purchases 1 million finds of vaccines from Poland. We ask does the government put too much faith in polls and in order to prevent COVID outbreaks Queensland deploys 100 soldiers on the New South Wales border. Yes, Australia has its own Delta Force. It's the 20th of August 2021. And this is a rational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former president of Malaysia Dan Ilic. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She smugly moved to Adelaide before the pandemic and she's still smugly there. It's the smug co host of the award winning just the GS podcast. It's Rosie Waterloo.
Rosie Waterland 2:29 Daniel I wish I was still smugly there but I moved to Melbourne the day they went into lockdown. As we were driving into the city, they announced it at the presser so I'm not so smug anymore, my friend.
Dan Ilic 2:47 Oh dear, and he's simply too handsome to ever consider being the host of a podcast but here we are. It's the other co co host of the award winning just the Jews podcast. It's Jacob Stanley.
Jacob Stanley 2:57 Hello Dan. Funny I can be smug. I'm in Far North Queensland. I dodge all of the lockdowns but I'm just I'm not rubbing it in anyone's faces. I'm really not.
Dan Ilic 3:08 Have you considered serving your state and getting down to the border to prevent New South Wales people from getting across the border? I
Jacob Stanley 3:14 think they've got it under wraps without my help. I would be a hindrance I'm sure.
Lewis Hobba 3:19 On the first time like Queenslanders have been going like Build that wall just
Dan Ilic 3:28 and he's fully vaccin ready to play sax? Move that piano over? It's Louis harbour.
Lewis Hobba 3:33 Now dude, bring the piano in. I'm throwing I'm throwing my I'm throwing my saxophone away in my constant search for like, because we're what nine weeks into lockdown now. And pretty much every two weeks I try to buy a new thing to keep me occupied. So two weeks ago was a piano. I learned a song this week. One of those like muscle pounding guns. muscles. So I got that on Monday. And
Dan Ilic 3:59 the ones that make it look like you're you're gonna learn how to you're gonna like get your jerk off muscles really strong.
Lewis Hobba 4:04 Those ones the ones gonna shake weight. They're like I don't know if I can say that. I can say the brand. This isn't like a theragun but like a cheap knockoff theragun from Amazon, and they're amazing. They're really good. Yeah, right. They usually use if you go to the gym, but obviously all gyms are closed. So I'm just using it mostly on my weak bones now.
Dan Ilic 4:26 I feel like this lockdown. I'm doing the same kind of thing. I'm just buying stuff to fill the void. I bought a wetsuit the other day. I haven't used it yet, but I've lived all my life. I don't know how to surf, I'm gonna buy the things that you need to do the surfing. So the wetsuits been hanging out there for you know, four days I've yet to go surfing. Do you have a surfboard? No, I got
Rosie Waterland 4:54 five days ago. I bought $300 rollerblades and I haven't used them yet. So I feel Yeah.
Dan Ilic 4:59 Oh great. Rosie and I we could we could go sporting do sporting things together. Coming up later we are going to be talking to the leader the greens Adam band will ask him why did the greens vote against the cprs on repeat until the year 2050 revolves around but first, here's a message from this week's sponsor
Rupert Degas 5:18 in 2021, bhp is getting rid of fossil fuels and focusing on sustainability of our province. Our profits are fragile and we must do what we can to save them. And experts warn that our reputation will soon face a tipping point for an activist shareholders from which it could never recover. That's why we're selling our coal, oil and gas assets. So some other company can bravely ignore the problem of greenhouse emissions production that will continue unabated regardless, that bhp we believe the only way to clean up the planet is to wash your own hands first. We're doing it for our children and our children's children. Your children ours there'll be inheriting the profits. Yeah, bhp open cut and running.
Dan Ilic 6:15 This week's first meet Now you may remember a Danielle bregoli. She got famous in 2016 when as a 13 year old she went on Dr. Phil and threatened to bash her mom outside the studio. She was the cashew outside girl. A few years later, she started performing hip hop under the name bad Barbie and she totally blew up. Well she turned out bad baby. Sorry, Bad Bad, bad bad. Well, earlier this year, she turned 18 and a few days after she turned 18 she got herself an only fans account and how long fair mungus do you think it took bad baby to make a million dollars? How long do you think it took bad baby to like a million dollars in her only fans account? Six months? No. Six hours. She broke the record for only fans. And she made a million dollars. She's now set to buy a $4 million house in Florida fear mongers. Is this the answer to how young people get on the property ladder? Rosie?
Rosie Waterland 7:14 I truly think it is I consider her an enterprising Gen Z Gen Z feminist on par with Malala Youssef side she's really grateful representing for young women and you know what she mentioned in an interview with variety yesterday. Yes, she's big enough. Now she's getting interviewed by a variety that she's looking to buy a house in Florida in cash. Because she knows that Florida is a tax haven
Dan Ilic 7:41 yet. This is incredible. reading this thing she's she's actually got the money smarts to back it up and she lives in Los Angeles is putting all of her stuff in Florida, so she doesn't have to pay tax genius. Incredible.
Rosie Waterland 7:57 And example to young women everywhere.
Dan Ilic 7:59 Louis, have you ever considered starting an only fans account for yourself?
Lewis Hobba 8:04 Yes, yes, I have Dan. Of course. It'll just be mostly me naked playing Billy Joel's Vienna. And I really do think there's a market for it. Because I've heard that baby's music. It's actually quite good. Like she's she's genuinely, I thought she'd make money on that. But the only fans angle didn't say coming. I mean, yeah, good on it. Why not? Do you don't have you checked out the only fans specifically Rosie, do you know what sort of stuff she's doing?
Rosie Waterland 8:29 I look, I can't say that I've had the chance to partake. But she does say that she doesn't do anything that she's uncomfortable with. It's mostly just scantily clad. Little Boomerang videos and photos. But you know what? All power to whatever she wants to do if she if she's making cash. Good on her.
Dan Ilic 8:49 Jacob, are you backing bad baby in here? Look,
Jacob Stanley 8:54 Sara Lee do so disagree with what she's done with the platform since she got her platform except for the fact that I just don't love the idea that there'll be a bunch of kids out there who want to emulate her by turning to a lack of crime in their youth so that they can end up on a show like Dr. Phil, and then launch themselves into the stratosphere as she has done so it feels icky to me.
Lewis Hobba 9:16 Yeah, I prefer the old method of spending a life in like organised crime and then making your money by selling it to underbelly to just do over and over and over. Yeah, exactly. It's a tradition. Yeah, the old school way. crime.
Dan Ilic 9:35 She makes a stack of money outside of only fans to she looks like she's got a $2 million product placement deal with her bad baby videos. she earns $40,000 per post on Snapchat. And Wow, she's she's she's looks like she's mentored. She's got so many cars. She also sounds rosy. She sounds like she actually might be a really good parent because when it comes to exposing kids to bad messages in her own music She said this, even cardi B. She turns off WAP when her kids come around.
Rosie Waterland 10:08 I personally think warp is an inspiring song. But, you know, that's just me. I mean, I do like that recently a judge in a court who had a very naughty young girl in front of her while sentencing her said you don't want to end up like the cash me outside girl, do ya? And the video of that ruling went viral and Danielle bregoli saw it and paid that girl's fine and said to the judge, you know what, I earn more in a year than you'll ever make so so I think she's looking out for the kids TV. Oh, man,
Dan Ilic 10:44 I've been doing Patreon all wrong, I should have started. Speaking of Patreon, if you want to support the podcast, you can go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. There aren't any nerds. But I tell you what, for our Patreon only subscribers, we will have a picture of Louis in his underwear.
Lewis Hobba 11:07 Reverse idli fans, which is where you and I promise, if we get enough money to keep our clothes on.
Dan Ilic 11:16 lucrative endeavour. Yeah, I actually have I actually have an only fan. So if you go to my only fans, you'll see one picture up there. I think it may. Without a beard, I put it.
Lewis Hobba 11:28 I want to see you in that wetsuit, baby. Let's do it.
Dan Ilic 11:32 That's gonna be the second picture.
Unknown Speaker 11:35 I'm mustering the face case, she wouldn't get out my face. Either. I'm breaking down her door, she's breaking down my door. I don't stop. So I started seeing that. I ran out four times in one day. And because probably back every time, this is a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 11:53 This week second fear in Serbia. a caveman who's been living in a cave for the last 20 years has come out of his cave to get the jab and encourage others to get the jab to before going back into his cave. In the words of the caveman. And when he was asked about anti vaxxers he said the virus does not pick it will come here to my cave to I want to get all three doses including the extra line. I urge every citizen to get vaccinated every single one of them. Now fear mongers. How can a caveman who's got no contact with the bottom world have more sense than people that spend all their time reading Facebook and telegram messages from Craig Kelly.
Jacob Stanley 12:30 It's what he lacks in internet connection he easily makes up for in common sense. 20 years ago when he departed from society. It was common knowledge that vaccines were good and diseases were bad. And he's just maintained what we all used to know. But a lot of us seem to have lost our ways. And I'm very excited that he's the one to be sharing this message because I think he might be the one who can win over the hearts and minds of the people of mullumbimby because he's a white guy with dreadlocks. love nothing more than that. So he's bound to get their attention and he may be able to get through to them.
Dan Ilic 13:07 You know, I've called a lot of anti vaxxers cavemen and I'm really sorry for that now. They have clearly caveman or above anti vaxxers it is absolutely disgusting on my behalf. I feel so sorry.
Lewis Hobba 13:20 This caveman Do you know if he's like staying across the world broadly? Like, what was it kind of like, we just needed to tap you on the shoulder and let you know there's been this big outbreak. Oh, by the way, the Chicago Bulls cleaned up in like the next few days. Bill Clinton is no longer someone that we like, like how many things did he have to learn from the live in the early 90s
Dan Ilic 13:42 wait till he finds out and learns about a guy called Donald Trump and his he found out about the pandemic because he like once a month goes to the supermarket. And he didn't like once every so often goes to the supermarket. He didn't know what was happening until he went to the supermarket and saw everyone wearing masks. And that's how that's how he found out about it. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 14:05 I hope this supermarket that he goes to once a week is LD and that his cave is just filled with the weird shit from the middle aisle. Yeah, this cave he knows nothing about the modern world. But he does have like a fishing line and very weirdly shaped pillow and a bunch of
Dan Ilic 14:25 and you know what? If you're living in a cave, that's exactly what you need.
Jacob Stanley 14:32 He every single one of the articles found it necessary to point out the fact that he's got a bathtub that he uses as his toilet. So there's every possibility that yes, he picked that up in the middle while
Dan Ilic 14:45 probably they do sell bathtub sometimes. No I watched the video of this guy and he's got really beautiful eyes like he's He's good looking caveman. Huh?
Rosie Waterland 14:59 Oh, are you thinking Maybe to the cave. Maybe Maybe he needs an only fans. four feet of marble that holds you up up high in this chamber of humanity who would you? Your time has expired. I
Dan Ilic 15:25 think you want to join the party at Parliament House with your own political body. Think again. Soon it's gonna be easier than ever to keep parties out of Parliament who aren't already registered as a party. Yes, the Morison government introduced a party registration integrity bill. New parties will no longer require 500 members to register, they'll need 1500 members to register. And new parties won't be able to use a name that's similar to existing parties names. For instance, you couldn't use the word liberal labour or the greens even if you spell labour correctly, or the greens party was about vegetable consumption. You couldn't do that. And you're not allowed to register a party with annoying vexatious or frivolous names. fee mongers with an election coming up has thrown a spanner into the works for any of you who've may have considered starting your own party this election, Louis? Well, I
Lewis Hobba 16:11 mean, I'm curious, I'm just sort of going back through previous names to figure out who like, what about, say like the sex party, would they have stopped the sex party getting through? Do you think
Dan Ilic 16:20 it could be a frivolous name? Yeah, like sex can be frivolous? Sex can be frivolous. Yeah. I was thinking about like, like, wouldn't you be would like the totally normal party? Would that get through? Like, if you were like, Whoa, we have a very serious palette with I'm gonna start a party called the very serious party, would they count that as frivolous?
Rosie Waterland 16:39 Well, I guess I mean, you know, how tuned into politics. I am Daniel. So I had to ask my partner Caleb about about what this story actually meant. And he explained to me that a big part of it is not trying to like tag on to someone else's name. So like, they can't get above you on the ballot and confuse people. So you can't kill yourself like liberal too, because then people might get confused and vote for you thinking they're voting for the liberals. Yes.
Dan Ilic 17:06 Oh, this is what happened to the Senate election some time ago when the Liberal Democrats got in and they were first on the ballot. And that's how we get some idiots in the Senate.
Rosie Waterland 17:15 Well, that's what Caleb said. Caleb said, but only idiots would have teach Liberal Democrats. And I said, Ah, would they though, because I probably would have done the wrong thing to maybe this is a solid rule. It may not be entirely democratic. But there are some people who would just look at that and go, Oh, that word looks familiar tick.
Lewis Hobba 17:36 It should be we should start trading every political party name, like sort of Instagram handles, they should be like, there's like liberal liberal 69 like liberal compound. And then they should be like, Liberal Party official. And so you know that that's the real well, yes. But if they need to bluetick the party names. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 17:58 I just think like, would it be nice if there was a Labour Party actually spelt labour correctly? And they were? Well, actually, if anything, there's more frivolous name is labour spelt without a you?
Lewis Hobba 18:08 Yeah, maybe I'll start a party this next election called I'm putting the EU back in labour.
Unknown Speaker 18:15 That's it. Oh, rational view. So I think we just have to live with Gladys berejiklian is absolutely right. We just have to learn to live with this disease. And we can't continue indefinitely in this stop stop life. Your fear is rational.
Dan Ilic 18:33 We've got a very special guest this week in irrational fear. It's the leader of the greens, Adam bed. Adam, welcome to irrational fear. Hi there. And First things first, why did the greens vote against the cprs? In 2009? Well,
Adam Bandt 18:47 what? voting for a carbon price. We did it for it. We got one up 2010. We got it up. And then the liberals and rupert murdoch and the fossil fuel industry came and tore it down.
Dan Ilic 19:02 So we did have one. Adam, where did the greens stand on this? On this party integrity bill, registration integrity bill, the greens was registered, were registered off the back of 500 people in Tasmania, will you be backing the government's party registration integrity bill?
Adam Bandt 19:18 No, we don't like it. And it comes as a package of measures that does not just what you've spoken about, but also starts to put a bit of a handbrake on third parties that want to get involved. And clearly that's aimed at groups like get up and so on, that the government doesn't like so it starts to restrict their activities a bit further. And I think there is a place for smaller parties and independent voices in the in Parliament. And, you know, we'd meet the thresholds, but we don't think it's right. So we're opposing it. And there's a number of other crossbenchers who are with us on that and we're hoping that the opposition will join us.
Dan Ilic 19:54 Do you think it will get in Do you reckon label will back it in?
Adam Bandt 19:58 I don't know. I don't know. And I The I think there's every chance we can stop it. In the senate at the moment things hang on one vote a lot. And if labour decides to join with us and oppose things, often sadly, that one vote is Pauline Hanson in many instances. And so like putting your faith in working out what her party is going to do on it is not a great way to run a country. But that's that's where we're at at the moment until we kick her out at this election, but so i'm not i'm not gonna predict it. But I'm, I think there's a good chance it's not gonna.
Dan Ilic 20:30 So if we kick her out of this election, and then change the law, so she can get back in I like it. Now, there's been a lot of talk about climate change this week. I mean, we hear so much about it, I'm sick of it, is it over?
Adam Bandt 20:45 Certainly not. And it's gonna go for a while. And yet the talk over the last couple of weeks has not been good. And it's another, you know, I don't I don't know what happens what what the metaphor is for after alarm bells, alarm bells ringing
Unknown Speaker 20:59 loudly,
Adam Bandt 20:59 you know, sign, I don't know what the next level is. And we're sort of running out of phrases to say what the scientists are doing. But they're basically saying, look, we're gonna, we're kind of got until the rest of this decade. And if we don't fix it, then potentially climate change becomes a runaway chain reaction, and we can't rein it in. And that's what worries me. And that's what's been occupying people this week.
Dan Ilic 21:20 I really did enjoy the scientists using code read, I think, quoting a few good men is the best way to get people's attention. That was very, very good. Now, it's only 73 days away until we are at COP the Conference of Parties 26 in Glasgow, the big climate talks. I know you're not in government, Adam, but what would you hope this Australian government takes as a national target heading into cop
Adam Bandt 21:47 75% cut our pollution by 2030. That's what has been the independent climate targets panel has said we need to do that, to do our fair share to limit global warming to one and a half degrees. And you know, above one and a half degrees, Pacific Island countries start to become uninhabitable. Right? You know, we start to see droughts that previously happened infrequently start to happen twice as often. So to do that, according to the scientists, we need 75% cuts. And you know, I didn't think I'd be in this position of saying, Boris Johnson is doing something good, but Boris Johnson is doing something good. And like we're now in this situate like he's, they're talking about nearly 70% cuts on air pollution by 2030. And Joe Biden in the US has come in and more than doubled their or effectively doubled their cuts to over 50%. And meanwhile, we're stuck with Tony Abbott's emissions targets of 26% by 2030, which are which are just woeful. So you've kind of got this situation at the moment where you've got Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and the greens on one side in Australian politics and the others, basically saying, Oh, no, look, everything's fine. We don't need to change our way.
Lewis Hobba 22:55 The only more depressing thing about Tony Abbott's climate change is Tony Abbott's gosh
Dan Ilic 23:03 oh my gosh, that's right. Yeah, they do it a podcast I totally forgot to listen to this week. Lewis
Lewis Hobba 23:14 god no. I'm doing everything I can at the moment to like minimise the things that make me feel angry and sick like I'm whatever nine weeks at the Sydney lockdown I don't need I don't need to choose to listen to Tony Abbott. Now that I am not forced to.
Dan Ilic 23:30 If you want a if you a if you want a good discount
to code Tony to get 20% off your next mattress and take it away Peter.
Lewis Hobba 23:48 Apparently apparently the Introduction Music is a banjo. He just turns on a banjo for a while it's pretty well.
Dan Ilic 23:55 What are they anyway? That could be better if it was a jeweller.
Adam Bandt 24:00 And no disrespect to you guys. But I think you know john Howard gets invited on 730 and Tony Abbott start his own podcast.
Dan Ilic 24:10 Adam ban only serious leaders get invited to come on podcast. So hey, look, I interviewed Chris Bowen today Chris Bowen is the is the shadow Environment Minister and in the same breath he gave this he gave this speech about Labour's cop targets what he would love to see not only the Austrian government had to cut it, but in the same breath, he said we need to put aside petty politics. And then at the same time, he said the greens don't have a transition plan for for workers in fossil fuels and they can't be trusted. I told him, I'm I'm pretty sure that's pretty sure that's wrong. Was I right and telling him that Chris was right and telling Chris Bowen that he was wrong.
Adam Bandt 24:48 You're correct. I mean, I've introduced the bill to establish a transitional authority to ensure that we have a phase phase out of our coal fired power stations in coal mining In a way that looks after the workers in communities in those regions, and I've, I've actually travelled around to coal communities around Australia to basically walk in, you know, the greens are here, we want to phase out coal, but we want to have a discussion with you about how we do it and held public meetings at the, you know, lift muscle group workers clubs and head guys in, you know, high vis vests with arms folded and sitting down the front glaring, and it's all the way through the stage. And they come up afterwards and they say, look, you know, it's done. I agree with everything you say, but you're the only you're the only ones who are actually being honest with us about the need for a transition.
Dan Ilic 25:34 Louis and I did a show at the hunter. Two months ago, I've been up in Newcastle. And it's so interesting talking to folks after that show, because, you know, they know, they know that fossil fuels is going to have a sunset time, they're just waiting for someone to put in the solutions to get them the next career. It's really strange.
Adam Bandt 25:53 We've sent down really badly in this country, right, like we've seen transition happen and just come in slam communities. But we've also seen that done reasonably well. You know, the car industry was a really bad example, that they just shut it down overnight. And all of a sudden, people lost their jobs, and they didn't have anything secured and move into. But we know this is coming, right and the people in these areas now what's coming. So we can say let's make this the place that we are going to create green steel and build green hydrogen, let's make it an energy and a manufacturing power base. It's not it's within our weight to do it.
Lewis Hobba 26:27 Yeah, as I say, it was really interesting when we were doing the irrational fear shows in, you know, climate, vulnerable communities, particularly communities that have a lot of fossil fuel industry. And we will be chatting to them afterwards. And so many people would say, like, no one is more guilty. They has this more sense of climate guilt than me. They're like, I go on the ground, and I know what I'm doing, but pays for my kids I get this is my life. It's what my parents did. And and the things that they like, I've got like, I couldn't have more solar panels on my roof. I couldn't have hobbies, having shorter showers, like everything I do in my life is about trying to mitigate this. But I also just don't feel like I've got a way out here. Like it's sort of what they would call the sort of golden handcuffs of that industry.
Adam Bandt 27:10 And that's up to us to do it. Right. That's what government is for government is about saying, here's the change we need to make. And we've got to look after people along the way. And the good news is like in those places in New South Wales, in Queensland, like in many of those areas, there's a lot of sun, there's wind, we could actually use that to create electricity that we then use to create other products. And we could be creating zero carbon steel here in Australia, zero carbon products to sell the risk, zero pollution or other products to sell the rest of the world like we can start doing this stuff. But we we just we just need government to do it.
Dan Ilic 27:47 Speaking of people getting in the way, I've been hosting the better futures forum this week, Adam and Matt Cain said at the forum, he said, if if you're if it gets in the way of climate action, get out of the way. He's a liberal minister, who was he talking to you? They
Adam Bandt 28:02 are most of the Liberal Party. And he also said, you know, this is your opportunity send a message by voting and I couldn't agree with him more though brains. Gonna be doing our rights for us. But thank you very much,
Dan Ilic 28:17 man. Well, I didn't let me ask you like if you could pick anyone to join you on the back bench could be from any party. Let's play a bit of fantasy back bench here. Who would you pick?
Adam Bandt 28:28 So they go on the back bench?
Dan Ilic 28:29 Yeah, you're on the front bench? Yeah. Or the front.
Adam Bandt 28:31 Okay. Joe Fitzgibbon put him on the back bench. And then
Dan Ilic 28:44 I lost bone about Matt canes quite about getting out of the way. And I said to Chris, that's a pretty decent sledge against Joe Fitz given, isn't it?
Lewis Hobba 28:55 Like how what, how worried should we all be Do you think at about the fact that that doesn't really appear to be any sort of effective? Major opposition, obviously, there's the greens in their their parties, but in terms of a you know, whether it's liberal labour, the big two, neither of them seem to have any kind of desire to make any real changes or whether it's desire. They don't seem to have the spine for it.
Adam Bandt 29:18 Well, this is what worries me is that we've got you've got the United States President Joe Biden, saying the climate crisis is an existential threat. You've got Boris Johnson and his government saying we've only got a short period of time to act. You've now got the United States, which is supposedly Australia's biggest and closest allies, ally, publicly speaking, saying Australia's targets for 2030 are not enough. We need to do something about it. And while the rest of the world is saying, waking up and listening to the alarm bell saying, right, we've only got a short period of time to turn around, and they're actually trying to do something about it. We're trying to hold them back. And it's a real real worry and like the grains are in there, trying to hold Scott Morris into account honestly, the end of the Scott Morrison government and the next election i really really do like he's the the climate deniers, they are increasing inequality in Australia and we've got to kick him out. But it's getting pretty hard to try and put the pressure on them and hold them to account when the others Labour's fighting with them to open up new gas fields in the beetaloo. Right, we should be keeping it all in the ground. And working out how to transition away from not working out how we can open up these new gas fields in the Northern Territory. And in those gas fields in the Northern Territory. There's about seven years worth of Australia's pollution there. So hearing, I'm glad that you know labour starting to take a small step towards the side of science. But what we really need to do is put the asset on Morrison in the lead up to that climate summit at the end of the year so that he goes there and joins Joe Biden and Boris Johnson instead of hanging out with Saudi Arabia and Russia, which is where we are at the moment,
Dan Ilic 30:57 some of my favourite liberal democracies. Well, thank you so much. It was absolutely great to have you join us, Adam. Appreciate that. A big thank you to all of our guests tonight. Jacob Stanley, Rosie Waterloo, Louis harbour and Adam bandt. If you got it God's got anything to plug Jacob.
Jacob Stanley 31:14 I suppose we should mention a little podcast, Just The Gist podcast you can check out just the gist podcast we release new episodes weekly ish. We share crazy wild true stories in a very easy to digest way so you'll be able to remember all the cool details and then share them at a dinner party.
Rosie Waterland 31:35 That's the first time he's ever done a plug. Good job. just comes naturally.
Dan Ilic 31:43 Rosie you wanna plug anything?
Rosie Waterland 31:45 Um, I guess I will also just say plug just the just oh and follow Jacob William Stanley on Instagram get his own account.
Dan Ilic 31:53 Oh, yeah. He's gonna get his money going. Outside go level cashola coming at him. Van. Would you like to plug anything?
Adam Bandt 32:03 Yeah, the next election is going to be really close. chance to kick Scott Morrison at bright brains and I will go now seem frivolous. And lastly, firelight Shawn walk.
Lewis Hobba 32:17 Yeah.
Adam Bandt 32:19 Funny, funny guy. And model my look and my glasses. My
Lewis Hobba 32:25 Ah, yes. All right. Adam, are you guys internally, you guys would be much more tuned in than we are you guys taking predictions on when the election obey? Yeah,
Adam Bandt 32:37 based on the based on New South Wales and the current rate of vaccination rollout, probably going to be the start of next year. But you know, Scott Morrison, I think he does think he's the chosen one, I think is every chance to do tapings he can pull it off. He's here we'll do it.
Dan Ilic 32:53 All right, well, I guess I guess it goes slow on vaccinations is this that's probably the wrong message this big thank you to rode mics our Patreon supporters. The rubber chicken comedy hub in South Melbourne has become a Patreon supporter, Maureen Morgan Simon nevel a new Patreon supporter, someone called Peter is a new Patreon supporter, Michael Madsen gubb from New economies joined us as a Patreon supporter, someone called m Gryphon. Thank you all so very much. And please head to patreon.com forward slash rational fear. We're trying to get some more money in so I can pay for an assistant and someone to teach. Until next week. Oh no, Louis, can we do you have the piano nearby?
Lewis Hobba 33:38 Ah, honestly, it's gonna it's gonna be a bit of a clusterfuck I feel like we should let everyone go. Everyone he has much more important things to do that what do you plug a piano?
Dan Ilic 33:50 I'll tell you what, next week, we're gonna hear Lewis play the piano.
Lewis Hobba 33:53 Okay, I'll try to set it up. Otherwise you just watch me use my Thera gun.
Dan Ilic 34:01 Thanks very much. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Good night.
We talk about the ins and outs of out-of-home media buying in the USA, ICAC, anti-vaxers trying to claim segregation — and we spend a good 40 minutes trying to understand why News Corp is trying to save the worldwith the promotion of climate action, when they've been such a malignant force for successive governments implementing meaningful climate policy for so long. To help us break it down we speak with the Editor at Large at the Daily Telegraph — Joe Hildebrand.
This podcast episode is best described as … chaotic good.
Hope you enjoy, let us know what you think in an Apple Podcasts review.
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Dan Ilic 0:04 Good evening Lewis. How are you? I'm
Lewis Hobba 0:05 really good, Dan. Yeah, great.
Dan Ilic 0:08 Is there anything happening interesting happening in your world? You know, anything?
Lewis Hobba 0:11 Well, I mean, I'm free. We're, we're afraid and we're day four into freedom. I'm sitting here right now in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, and air on all houses around me are parties. Now I don't know exactly how many people are there. I can't say for sure it's under 10. But it is it's, it's kicking off.
Dan Ilic 0:31 Hang on a second. Is this why we're recording one hour earlier? So you can go to a party at
Lewis Hobba 0:36 100% 100% dead. I've been in lockdown for 109 days and so have you if you think no, going out every night this week. You're an idiot.
Dan Ilic 0:47 I'm dedicated to my audience. Man, I gotta get this podcast out. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the eora nation sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 0:57 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks cambro COMM And section body or rational view recommended listening might emerge your audience.
Dan Ilic 1:10 Tonight experts claim that news cops new green campaign is just manipulating its audience use cope says it's all part of their gaslit recovery. And Peter Dutton cancels a morning team for LGBT IQ. I defend stuff angering officials, we have too many events already done and explained, including a brunch for African gang awareness. And New South Wales has reached Freedom Day with its residents relishing the opportunity to start spreading COVID again, it's the 15th of October and we're going to Broadway baby this is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former premier of New South Wales Dan Ilic. And this is the show that laughs at doing it. You're doing your own research. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She is a woman who in her professional life has to deal with members of the public calling her just another clown from the ABC. But Joke's on her because in her private life, she's a trained clown. It's Angela huapi. Air. Hello, and
Unknown Speaker 2:18 what a warm welcome
Dan Ilic 2:23 to honk the horn or something What's going on?
Ange Lavoipierre 2:26 I'm always honking the horn in my brain. And if you can't hear it, it's because you're not listening closely enough. Yeah, yeah, I'm Beloved. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 2:35 And he is a proud military man who has made dad jokes. He's stuck in trade. I'd get into pull my finger if I could, but he's in Walker Walker. It's Dane Simpson. Hey,
Unknown Speaker 2:42 I'm an untrained clown by the way so
Ange Lavoipierre 2:52 much more dangerous.
Dan Ilic 2:54 You don't need any accreditation to do this job. Let me tell you, Dane, what a great couple of years you've had you like get like skyrocketing up on the on the comedy charts in Australia.
Unknown Speaker 3:03 Yeah, it's been crazy. I love it. I'm loving every part of it. Everybody's getting around having a mad laugh at some of the silliness of my family, particularly my dad. And also he thinks he's a superstar now because he's he said my jokes. And so he's always he comes to my shows and he always ends it with if you think that's funny, come and see the real thing and he's
Dan Ilic 3:32 and he's a man for legal reasons, has nothing to do with his podcast is merely here as a guest every week. It's Louis helma.
Lewis Hobba 3:39 Yes, it's me Lewis. How about the ghost that haunts irrational fear.
Dan Ilic 3:45 Coming up, we speak cwis News. kobs most progressive Lieutenant Joe Hildebrand about just how he's rupert murdoch saving the planet. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor. This Sunday, it's the biggest decision in Australian climate politics history, bigger than starting the emissions trading scheme bigger than axing the emissions trading scheme bigger than implementing their renewable energy targets bigger than canceling the renewable energy targets bigger than creating the Department of climate change bigger than dismantling the Department of climate change bigger than starting a mining super profits tax they get an ending of mining super profits tax bigger than setting a sunset date for old coal plants bigger than trying to use taxes to keep those old coal plants alive you get in the High Court ruling any environment minister has a duty of care to Australia's children bigger than the environment Mr. Saying fuck you High Court I'll kill those children if I want to. Here's three new coal mines much, much much bigger, much much bigger than the size of the barrels the Nets get their pork in this Sunday, the National Party will gather to vote on whether or not to agree on. net zero by 2050. Like the rest of the fucking world will the National Party dare to do the bare fucking minimum for once? Or will they do whatever their mining donors want to help them stay in power for another 36 months and ruin the entire fucking planet for you? Every one for ever. This Sunday a decision bigger than Barnaby sperm count the national party room showdown a donation will buy your whole seat but you'll only need the edge. There ain't no party like a national party because the national parties don't adopt new policies. Really looking forward to Sunday though what are you guys ready You guys excited about Sunday? That is really funny.
Ange Lavoipierre 5:27 As a journalist, I have been previewing this moment for the last 10 years of my career about to happen is about to happen is about to happen. So I'm really looking forward to finally being right.
Dan Ilic 5:41 This week's first well this week's first view let's get stuck into it we made it a Broadway baby billboards I got to Time Square. Now to two weeks folks is a long time in podcasting last week we had a special edition of the podcast with Julie's amuro I don't think two weeks ago we were actually going to go to Broadway Louis Can you remember with what was happening two weeks ago I don't think we actually were talking about it absolutely
Lewis Hobba 6:04 not. I couldn't even dream of going to Kmart on Broadway shopping center I was so far away from from Broadway and what because you and I talked about it after the podcast two weeks ago like we should get on Time Square and then you sent me a message today like we get we will never be able to afford that and I don't quite know how you have
Dan Ilic 6:24 well it's been amazing because we have 1800 people chip in so much money now we've got about 150,000 in the Indiegogo and what's incredible is I reached out to a contact of from mine at fusion when I used to work in America and I said you guys know anyone Do you know anyone that buys ad space and in Times Square? And she said he sent me back his contact and this woman has done the most incredible deal guess how much it costs for an hour on the biggest billboard in Times Square anyone? grant
Lewis Hobba 6:57 prices I love that
Unknown Speaker 6:59 like you know if it was me, I'd be handing out flyers you know, like I'm still stuck in that age that that's what got me brah
Lewis Hobba 7:09 How much does it cost to advertise on Darryl McGuire's clay shooting facility in walga
Unknown Speaker 7:17 I bought my house for like a shilling you know right like it's crazy prices here welcome
Dan Ilic 7:24 shilling That is great. What is that in metric?
Unknown Speaker 7:31 I feel like I've got to do the math in my head you know when you're watching squid game and you need to do the math in your head how much the money they're making Yeah,
Dan Ilic 7:39 on on squid game I really appreciate that when you type into Google How much is it? Yeah automatically feels 25 million won in in Australian dollars. Oh yeah, Google knows these questions are coming. Yeah, so it costs it costs for an hour $100,000 so I couldn't afford an hour also I'm like financing this out of my own tax money that I have saved and my own house deposit. So I'm hoping I'm just hoping the Indiegogo arrives in three weeks so it's what we've done is we've bought 10 minutes of of screen time doesn't make sense on square How did you like
Unknown Speaker 8:19 you can't go to a supermarket and go now I just want one slice of bread like how'd you do 10 minutes This is crazy.
Dan Ilic 8:29 It's exactly like that time because time on advertising is like a fruit shop the longer it like sits on the shelf it starts to go off so the prices go down and down and down and if you book like pretty if you want like a spot tomorrow it's cheaper than if you book like three months in advance
Unknown Speaker 8:43 is here's what you don't know is my show didgeridoos he flashed up for one second and that cost me $1,000 It cost me a house cost me a walker Walker house
Lewis Hobba 8:54 Oh my god you're selling a lot of tickets in New York
Dan Ilic 8:57 how many shillings is that
Ange Lavoipierre 8:58 the I feel like then once you've run down the piggy bank a bit you could move into subliminal advertising and just
Dan Ilic 9:06 I should I should have done that. I should have done that anyway we've been getting some great press from all around the world. I was in the Daily Mail this week but my favorite stories from
Unknown Speaker 9:16 you said I've been getting a great press and then you went on to say Daily Mail which is
Dan Ilic 9:24 well I was so excited because in the in the title for the Daily Mail actually use my name they said Dan Ilic did this usually they just say some bloke did this going up I've like gone up a level
Ange Lavoipierre 9:34 you also got promoted to being controversial comedian, I noticed
Dan Ilic 9:39 is nothing more controversial than buying out of Home media space. That is that is very controversial. You know, no one's doing billboards anymore. Yeah, my favorite bit of press though came from pod save the world. We're on pod save the world this week. I'll play the clip and yes, there's a Obama's White House. Ben Rhodes and I will extremely good friends. As you can tell, by the way he pronounces my name.
Unknown Speaker 10:03 I got this buddy in Australia is going to Dan Ilic. Forgive me, Dan if I if I just butchered your last name, but Dan's a hilarious guy, and he hosts a podcast called rational fear where we got. So he reached out to me after one of our Australia said, No, no, he's the guy that put the plaque near the McDonald's, where Scott Morrison, the prime minister was alleged to have, you know, shot himself. And so he said, the latest thing that a bunch of Australians have done and I think there's overlapping circles with Australian world owes is they started like this kind of crowdfunded effort to just take out billboards in like places like Times Square, just like whacking Scott Morrison for his climate record, or like at a Glasgow in you know, just internationally pressuring the guy. So it's like that this has evolved from the plaque at the McDonald's to like a billboard in Times Square. It's it's a good thru line. What's your buddy's name again? Dan? I like okay, Dan.
Unknown Speaker 11:02 We're doing this in real time. We're building the coalition Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:08 Very positive the world view of the world I would be thrilled to work with him. Yeah. With scammers or murder. Yeah. Or any British
Dan Ilic 11:17 listeners want to wanna have some fun with Boris Johnson I say yeah, yeah, my name is Dan I like it's good to be running the show today.
Ange Lavoipierre 11:26 I think it's probably better actually.
Unknown Speaker 11:30 Yeah, it couldn't be worse it could have been I licked in so you're
Dan Ilic 11:36 yeah well, when I used to do kind of Lewis and I used to work on kind of worms and when we did that dico used to call me Danny lick and yeah, it was so anyway, so tonight well actually the billboards are going to be coming out actually before this publishes so for folks on the stream you're about to see the world exclusive of what the billboard in Times Square looks like. So are you guys ready to say this with us? Yeah. All right, here we go. So what we've got is we've got our a classic Australia net zero by 2300. This has got a bouncing kangaroo with flames on fire. It's incredible animation. That's going to be take up a whole city block in New York City. We've also got a great Australian government against humanity. AD, which is great, including to to flop This is during a deadly pandemic former commission to fix the problem by building a gas pipeline. And then the next flop says as carbon emissions reach forward in 16 parts per million the most urgent thing to do is approved for new coal mines in one month. On one of the corner billboards we've got a ad for a fake Comic Con, but instead of Comic Con, we've gone with Cali con, its special guest Matt Canavan, winner of best called cosplay 2020 and on the other side we've got a missing persons ad. Morrison last seen doing nothing answers to scomo and mykolaiv the chaser have have authored a billboard as well they sent me some artwork, which is this one called a file dump goes to Glasgow and you may have seen you may have seen this floating around people have been tagging him in tagging me in it all week it is this ad from Shaun Marsh visit Australia we're rich in sunshine wind and climate denial which is great so there you go. That's that's what some that's what's coming down the line so the biggest billboard in New York City that's fantastic you
Lewis Hobba 13:33 need to just film it for the 10 minutes and then put it on loop on YouTube so it looked like it was for an hour
Dan Ilic 13:41 well it's gonna be a three minute 20 loop people will be able to say it three times All right, let's get into the second fear I CAG vs ibac and what are some of the greatest hits of ik
Ange Lavoipierre 13:53 Ah, there's too many dimensions this is the thing I've been very effective over the years so in case anyone at all ever missed it, which just seems so distinctly unlikely but here we go. So Gladys berejiklian of course had to resign earlier this month and that was because we found out she was being investigated over the famed clay pigeon target establishment in walga Dane Simpson represent and so now that associations there forever now I'm so sorry Dane don't
Unknown Speaker 14:27 but it's it's actually well known that if you date anyone from woolgoolga we will take you down with us we do not go down if we are ever in trouble we are like your comment your comment this flame this ball of flames is now bigger with you people it's brilliant
Dan Ilic 14:45 Dana sorry and Stan had don't have you been to the walker Walker clay pigeon center. What's it No, no, I've
Lewis Hobba 14:50 never been it's just for international High Roller here. It was really expensive.
Ange Lavoipierre 14:53 It's really it's it's really well fitted out. There's like there's a little fountain like it's Should
Unknown Speaker 15:01 you also you introduce me as an Aboriginal man What do you think I'm going to be welcome at this clay pigeon place if anything it's dangerous for me to go like they might mistake click clay pigeon for me you know they like I'm hearing clear of this place now what
Lewis Hobba 15:16 welcome Olga means place at many pigeons
Unknown Speaker 15:20 It is a place of many crows is what they sort of have been building their foundations on in Walker Walker for such a long time now but one of the one of the elders from this way uncle Stan grant SR which is obviously staying grants dad has been talking about this for so long that Walker Walker means place of many dance or to dance intoxicated Lee with the spirits which is so so cool but what I find funny is that he put this out there I don't I don't use stories and this is only recent in the past like three or four years and somebody in the comments on the newspaper actually wrote you can't just come in and change tradition and blowing my mind
Lewis Hobba 16:09 Yeah, I will thank you for that correction I've been I've been I've been shooting my mouth off about place for many crows for a long time I've been wrong for a long time so apologies to all the people
Unknown Speaker 16:18 everyone has even on the walker City Council's like boards memos and stuff it's got like a little crow that's the logo so it's it's a it's something that's deep embedded in the walker Walker culture so it's only just recently that uncle Stan grants been August and grants been talking about it for a while, but it's only been adopted and starting to change in the last couple of years which is us hoping
Ange Lavoipierre 16:41 it comes up at AIPAC so there is I really think that that would be well here's my thing. Okay, so I have reached the conclusion that no one gives a shit about corruption allegations, like correct me if I'm wrong, but I am yet to find anyone who truly gives like an emotional shit I'm not talking about like, Oh, you know the story about the resignation or like getting to like re talk about Gladys and Darrell which, you know, is wonderful fodder for FM radio. You know, I'm talking about actually caring about alleged corruption. No one minds the main headline here so here we go. It's gonna blow you away. It's beautiful. Upon a Victorian Labour Party electric officer has told a corruption hearing he was ordered to buy 1000s of dollars worth of stamps with taxpayer money. And we wonder why it's not getting people hot under the collar. Like spam so quick. I can't even think of what it like maybe pet rocks, but at least that would be kooky. Like what if it was 14 $100 worth of firecrackers then? Maybe we could. Like I think they've got to they've got to watch
Dan Ilic 17:58 $800 worth of sex workers. The sexier headline here Yeah, this is this I mean, that's classic classic Labor Party fair though. That's very different. literally anything
Ange Lavoipierre 18:07 that stands like corruption has become less sexy. alleged corruption has become less sexy. Let me be
Dan Ilic 18:15 I CAC is so boring. Like what would make it more fun? What would make ipecac more fun Dan?
Unknown Speaker 18:21 I know what it is I call it and this is sort of describes the difference between aicok and ibac is if because I cakes a little bit more stronger you know like they if they come after you I catch myself you know what I mean? That's how you remember and if you if it's the other one then I back you to get out of the allegations. That's how
Dan Ilic 18:47 Yeah, I think you know, I think you know, question time itself is pretty childish, I think why not extend that childishness to like a squid game scenario put all the politicians in an arena with like Hungry Hungry Hippos? You know,
Ange Lavoipierre 19:01 I think they need to do more of like a traditional broadcast approach to this whole thing like recognize that they're in a competitive media environment, right on some drag queens to talk about the fashion crimes in the room.
Dan Ilic 19:13 Like it's a knockout it's a no calf of politicians. This is what we want to say.
Ange Lavoipierre 19:18 We want to see them fight maybe like you know, spend a couple of hours talking about pork barrel in short, but then move on to some actual pork recipes, you know.
Dan Ilic 19:29 Now on aicok, it is time for the physical challenge.
Lewis Hobba 19:34 If it was like Ninja Warrior, and at the end of instead of a million dollars cash, it was a paper bag with $14,000 worth of stamps now I'm watching.
Ange Lavoipierre 19:42 Yeah, totally. I just don't think that explored all the options. I think there is a way to really reengage the Australian electorate in the important work of these anti corruption bodies, but I just don't think they're going the right way around
Lewis Hobba 19:54 it has gogglebox ever watched I CAC.
Unknown Speaker 19:59 Rational fair For all of those still upset Gladys berejiklian has resigned this might be the remedy for you. life sized cardboard cutouts of the former New South Wales premier have been put for sale online. Apparently they are sold out
Unknown Speaker 20:13 you're listening to a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 20:16 This week's that the a small Sydney coffee shop was targeted by an anti vaxxer following the New South Wales health rules in New South Wales. This coffee shoppers received quite a swell of support now the barista and dresser cares 28 was working alone in the cafe when a man arrived and started abusing her saying you're walking implicitly into segregation after yelling at her the man walked away and he said he was very powerful and urged his visitors urged his viewers not to visit the cafe down is segregation the new black
Unknown Speaker 20:56 is at Vax is like the new black is that that's probably it for like, because it's so crazy that they are talking about a country that was actually segregated you know, and it wasn't even that long ago like we're not even reaching into that fiery history since 1967. Obviously the referendum giving Aboriginal people rights and being recognized as as real people and it's so nuts that somebody would just go Yeah, not same thing. Like that's crazy to me that the
Dan Ilic 21:29 government like oh, and also like you being anti Vax is actually a choice. Like that's Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 21:36 Yeah, like that. Yeah. And
Unknown Speaker 21:37 that the, you know, the government's going to, I don't know, go in and start like taking their kids. You know, like, that's a really dark part of our history. Yeah. A stolen generation happened to a race of people. And then just somebody who decides not to take the vaccine goes now I can relate to them. Like that's crazy to me. And I just absolutely blows my mind. I genuinely think that people really need to, like and don't get me wrong, I do understand I get that they they feel like they are mistreated. But to me it's a crazy that someone can just go on I've made choices. And now there's consequences for my choices. Since when did someone bring this in? You know, like it's Yeah, that's how the world works, idiot. Yeah,
Ange Lavoipierre 22:25 you can have too much empathy, right? You can have wet you can have too much. I mean, like, I understand what you went through and you're like, no, you're trying for empathy.
Unknown Speaker 22:40 Yeah, we've we've did some horrible things to some particularly like Aboriginal people but which which is what he's sort of like linking to but to a lot of different cultures in Australia so it's weird that that's the angle that he's decided to go down I'd be picking a lot more lighter topic if I was
Dan Ilic 23:00 here. Yeah, it's like on an iodine genocide versus getting a little NATO to put that on the scales you know, let's weigh that up here.
Unknown Speaker 23:09 Why aren't people with pimples on television more like that's where he should be going with it. You don't like
Lewis Hobba 23:18 that there was an anti Vax mom who started the yellow stars on to her kids. Oh he says heavy stuff totally like it's it's so it's between Yeah, the the like racial segregation ties and then he just like, if you are ever looking for sympathy for your cause, get the fuck away from these topics like you are you cannot as a white person sit there and I mean, it's just it is infuriating and horrifying stuff. But I will say on a lighter note that what I because that cafe, obviously, after the anti vaxxer had the big grand, the cafe went wild, filled with positive reviews, lines around the block everyone posting videos about how they were going to. So I would just like to say if there are any anti vaxxers who would like to have a rant about this podcast, we would welcome it. And if you can do it in a public place as possible. We would really appreciate it as we love subscribers.
Dan Ilic 24:15 Let's say Hang on a sec now 10 News caught up with this hashtag a very powerful anti vaxxer let's just see how mighty he is. Here we
Lewis Hobba 24:23 go. Reaching boiling point and anti vaxxer blows off steam at an innocent barista. Hang on a sec. I know we're about to get into the heavy stuff but let's I it's been a while since I've watched commercial news and full hat tip to all the puns in that first to set in like I made it's just good to
Ange Lavoipierre 24:47 piggyback as well because I don't know that like innocent barista. Like how can we know that for sure like that's really don't know what I'm already on. God is what I'm saying.
Dan Ilic 24:59 We need it. Calculating an icon for cafes. That doesn't mean
Unknown Speaker 25:03 that I'm gonna hand over my medical private information of whether I'm vaccinated or not vaccinated to buy a cup of coffee
Lewis Hobba 25:10 fresh security vision revealed his face for the first time today. And we tracked him down the man who are Hang on a second. You must be kicking himself for not wearing a mask after that. It's like oh, you know, they can track me down.
Dan Ilic 25:26 Very powerful. He looks like he looks like Louis hobas child he
Lewis Hobba 25:29 can't look like white supremacist to me. I don't I don't like it. On his dorm claims he's now sorry.
Unknown Speaker 25:39 Do you regret what you did? Absolutely wholeheartedly there's a right way and a wrong way to go about disagreeing as
Ange Lavoipierre 25:44 Hang on a sec. Hang on a sec. This is this is exactly how I would apologize when I was 15 I apologize when you're a teenager and you've been caught and you don't mean it and you're being like forced to apologize. Like it's like the child version of a court order. Like if you it's like I am so sorry for what I do. Maybe I'm being cynical,
Unknown Speaker 26:08 emotional reaction to what 20 plus moms have been locked away in our home for being completely healthy last time I checked
Lewis Hobba 26:16 It's not the first time John's publicly expressed his views regular rants or online social media streams the government
Unknown Speaker 26:23 ain't ever gonna give us back out right Hang
Unknown Speaker 26:27 on a sec Yeah, he's he's he's wearing a backwards hat I just needed to bring that up that's like if you want to be taken seriously don't do the Pucci you know arrange no one respects that dude at all.
Lewis Hobba 26:45 also given that this week the government has given back the right together is this age Paulie?
Ange Lavoipierre 26:52 like super concerned about accuracy right like its accuracy one of his core values? I'm not sure I don't know.
Dan Ilic 26:58 Yeah, neither away
Lewis Hobba 27:00 it's this has been brewing for some time having to stop Hang on a sec. Let's just take note he did say brewing. reading them all the way through it never stops. But gentlemen,
Unknown Speaker 27:15 I'm feeling very convicted today to do the right thing and send a heartfelt apology to the community and to other baristas that may have come into tracks with my anti vaccine sentiment the
Ange Lavoipierre 27:25 feelings no thick I love and I am going to borrow from this man. The casual apology like whilst apologizing to one member on every other member of that group may be offended. Apologize to roadwork is everywhere you know.
Lewis Hobba 27:46 If you did by me Feel free to watch this clip back anytime.
Unknown Speaker 27:55 Community statues Unfortunately, the whole ordeal has left a bitter taste in the mouth of bitter, bitter taste bitter taste,
Lewis Hobba 28:07 bitter taste building to Iran as well I reckon we're about to I reckon we're about to hear a bunch
Unknown Speaker 28:13 on froth in it you could sell them so looking forward to opening up and then that happened that it was just like devastating.
Unknown Speaker 28:23 But business was heaving this morning.
Dan Ilic 28:27 Perhaps stood out by some encouragement don't doubt
Lewis Hobba 28:32 that it counts.
Dan Ilic 28:33 It's I'm I'm waiting for a better latte than never is that gonna come?
Lewis Hobba 28:39 Inside state parliament.
Unknown Speaker 28:41 That community responded and has responded I encourage every member here to order a coffee from this cafe.
Lewis Hobba 28:47 Dom's also got some ground to make up with his family ground ground count. I reckon he felt like a weird sentence.
Unknown Speaker 28:59 It was like it ever
Lewis Hobba 29:01 the drama, but would he do it again?
Unknown Speaker 29:04 Let's just see what December one looks like for us, Australia, shall we? Steve had
Ange Lavoipierre 29:13 a dress like I resent to him, like addressing the nation as a whole, like the like, okay, Australia, like, come on. How do we work out how powerful he is.
Dan Ilic 29:24 And people in New South Wales named Dom have a real complex about running the state so you know, don't don't
Lewis Hobba 29:31 ask as a radio professional. You got to respect that taze. You know what I mean? Let's just see what's happening. We'll just say where I am on December 1, you like, I gotta be honest.
Unknown Speaker 29:44 It's the chocolate on top.
Lewis Hobba 29:49 Really, because again, trouble cafe he know.
Dan Ilic 29:54 If you've been following along with this podcast for a fair few years, you'll notice the trend where we mock the most Powerful news organization in the country whenever they feel their pages or airwaves with climate denial. It's kind of fun. It's like low hanging carbon emissions. It's really easy to do. But it's this week you might have seen front cover celebrating how Australia could be the number one in the new global economy the new green and gold. Joining us to explain what is going on is friend of the show who once said that Greta tunberg was the worst possible advocate for climate change, which is why he thinks he can do better himself is the former co host of Studio 10 and current ravey lefty latte sipping learning of health straight. It's the editor at large of The Daily Telegraph Joe Hildebrand. Welcome Joe.
Unknown Speaker 30:40 Hi, welcome now Can I just say you goddamn millennials, you're just never happy if you're pitching. Rupert Murdoch, he doesn't know anything about climate change on The Daily Telegraph. And everyday this beautiful 16 page wraparound saying that climate change is real we got to get to net zero. Here's all the ways we can do it. And then what do you do you just Bichon mind Simo and now you're picking
Unknown Speaker 31:06 up the small bars. local park and I cycled around on your little fixes and pretend that you're exercising
Lewis Hobba 31:18 yeah that's the pack that's the pack of having done the right thing for two decades
Unknown Speaker 31:24 we were just waiting for the right time.
Lewis Hobba 31:28 Well you missed it. It was three It was 30 years ago.
Unknown Speaker 31:32 Everyone knows that nothing real happens until the Scots get involved
Dan Ilic 31:37 now Joe Joe Don't be too funny otherwise we at the risk of humanizing you then canceled you did mention a 16 page wraparound and I did pick up today's Daily Telegraph and I'm really excited to say just what is wrapped around it oh yeah 16 months interest free from Harvey Norman Interestingly though 16 months interest free is actually the Nationals position on climate action so they take any take any interest for 16 months Okay, what is going on here? Like what is truly happening here now you are the the official poster boy for this whole initiative? What does it feel like to be a shill
Unknown Speaker 32:18 to start call Firstly, when you held up that front page I thought we were going to be talking about terrorist talkfest now that's the story
Dan Ilic 32:26 yeah you know that's the thing about News Corp they love they love freedom of speech except when terrorists are talking
Unknown Speaker 32:32 we are being funny like that I guess course old fashioned you know sour sour in your mind but you know if you're a terrorist well maybe not. I was actually thinking writing a column you know in defense of the Taliban well maybe you know, I did the one column I always wanted to write was in defense of corruption because you know surely you know look look look look at the world again
Unknown Speaker 32:58 No, the no terrorist Lives Matter hashtag. I think I think that's important and I think the cutlery supplies at the RSL that matters and now now we're just talking about it flippantly it's
Dan Ilic 33:12 jo jo has it's been it's been three minutes Joe has not answered any questions
Ange Lavoipierre 33:19 like round in this three minutes and we have covered in the podcast so far like we got the cutlery I didn't
Unknown Speaker 33:29 like people criticize down McGuire but the cutlery at the walker RSL is second to none is genuinely
Dan Ilic 33:35 like when you bought when your boss says when your boss says to you, oh, Joe, can you please get a wheel out this new campaign to help News Corp greenwash its image like how do you feel about that? What do you say? Obviously you said Yes,
Unknown Speaker 33:46 I'd say yes. And I would say we did a pretty good job. I mean, if you have a look at it, this isn't just wash. This is polished. This is Sean. You can't come to a holiday. What most people don't understand. It's been 10 years when jeans at our news companies he changes position or whatever. And then we change our position, which in fact is the position we always had. But you guys were just so disagreeable that you'd never even got credit for
Unknown Speaker 34:19 a 16 page no ads not even here. Yeah, you call it you say we're doing it for money or doing it. There's no accident. We do it all for you. We put it in nice little words. We'd love to be pictures so you can understand everything. And in what did you cop? criticize? I mean, honestly, what's the poor fella got to do he's sitting there in New York.
Dan Ilic 34:40 allowed to live is a daily show you've got two articles have you on on on that double page spread in today's paper? Well, only one's got a photo though. How come you didn't put your photo on the other one. But he's he's wondering let me just read it. Let me just read out one headline here. Solar costs a costly exercise says Gina Reinhardt, Jane and Ron Hart says the most the cheapest possible power in the world is a costly exercise and this is the opening paragraph Joe in your prime the pro climate change article you've got here. Australia's richest women woman Jenna Reinhardt is warning that rushing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without proper costings could imperil fam a family farmers and cost taxpayers billions in subsidies there's no there's no mention in this article about the billions of subsidies the general gets.
Unknown Speaker 35:29 Well firstly, that article was written by our far right national environment reporter David Mills so I can't wrap for him but if you're okay yeah, look for his work in the Adelaide advertiser you will say this guy is arriving like Hey mate, Andrew bolt looks like look like Tim Flannery. It's disgusting and I'm trying to distance myself from him as we speak
Dan Ilic 35:51 we haven't distanced himself very well because you're you're both of your articles are on either side of his article like that's gonna talk to you to talk to your layout persons
Unknown Speaker 35:59 it's difficult for people to get their heads around but my article is the one underneath my name and the giant picture of my head that's how we differentiate them and and also we're not i'm not sure we may be pro climate change I think I thought I think you mean pro action on climate change but in fact we're not even that because we're
Dan Ilic 36:20 pro climate action fair and balanced. Yes, fair and balanced likes like our friends at Fox News. So tell us why is this position rolling out Joe? Why Why is why now a few months out from a federal election is this position in News Corp the most powerful newspaper company in Australia rolling out right now why
Unknown Speaker 36:41 cuz you asked us to you. You keep going on about and then we give it to you.
Ange Lavoipierre 36:50 Are you taking requests now that you're doing things because other people in Australia asked you to? Is that like a
Unknown Speaker 36:59 Joseph Walton GoFundMe page?
Dan Ilic 37:06 So what kind of priority Joe what kind of priority is this new campaign is your zero emissions campaign like well, what kind of priorities News Corp taking with
Unknown Speaker 37:15 it was a 16 page wraparound on Monday's newspaper how much more priority do
Dan Ilic 37:22 amazing 16 pages
Unknown Speaker 37:25 pocket there weren't even any ads on it because we do you guys were talking about that too. Even though you've got your little gaps in your Sleeping Giants and you're mad I think which is saying oh withdrawal advertising until they realized that the only way to get money is to embrace action on climate change. price action on climate change.
Dan Ilic 37:48 Joe Joe, Joe, we're not attacking you personally. But what are you doing this? Like, what when when they came to you and said could you be the face of this? What did you say?
Unknown Speaker 38:04 I said I said sorry come again.
Lewis Hobba 38:07 You No.
Unknown Speaker 38:11 Oh, I get and I said yeah, yeah.
Dan Ilic 38:18 This is this is like it's so strange. Like, for years, Murdoch papers have done irreparable damage to climate action to Australia. Inc. Going against all the policies that successive Australian Governments have put in championing for dismantling those policies. And then you think 16 pages will do the trick. Do you think 16 pages will save the world?
Unknown Speaker 38:42 Well, David, I would argue with a few of those heroic assumptions, the drivers overwhelmingly endorsed Kevin Rudd in 2007. He doesn't seem to remember that these days, as much credit for it. But certainly The Daily Telegraph in the Australian firmly endorsed his prime ministership, in the lead up to the election as all newspapers do, and they editorialize in favor of one candidate or another one party or another. So that certainly happened. And then when the Kevin Rudd was rolled by the greens, when when the greens actually were the ones who knifed his emissions trading scheme in the senate alone,
Dan Ilic 39:25 did they just do that by themselves? That wasn't that wasn't the right of that wasn't the rise of the Labour Party.
Unknown Speaker 39:33 I'm glad I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked. So So firstly, the rise of the Liberal Party. No.
Lewis Hobba 39:42 Climate change show it's such an absolute
Unknown Speaker 39:54 climate change the right you
Dan Ilic 39:56 need to fly these job because you're drowning. That's what I want to ask you. Is this kind of a ride across the news club Empire is is all of news club gonna embrace this this whole move to net zero emissions?
Unknown Speaker 40:09 I do not know. We are a FREE and independently spirited organization which values editorial freedom and so yeah which
Lewis Hobba 40:17 is I feel like Johnny Depp weed Barnaby Joyce just off camera
Unknown Speaker 40:31 way All right. Free and impartial organization now is something that all they examine all the metro editors so the editors of the major Metro dailies decided upon in a an editorial board meeting so
Dan Ilic 40:50 independently decided to go along this mission that which is terrific but he never say the same headline on the front page of any news cope newspaper ever you never say like all these court papers all around Australia never run the same front page ever. They don't do that.
Unknown Speaker 41:06 That's because I haven't had one written by me before. I could even do the same one I just hit crazy, those Queensland's I just go and do their own thing. It must be written by Jeanette young.
Dan Ilic 41:18 Well, here is a here's a great clip from Sherry moccasins book launch earlier this week. Joe love your thoughts on this is Tucker Carlson until he about climate change. One of your one of your colleagues in America
Unknown Speaker 41:29 shares point about the international scientific community but clowning itself and degrading its own moral authority. These are the same people and these are the same governments who when COVID finally has will use their moral authority to impose a global warming regime on the west. And that is absolutely the plan. They say it constantly. And in order to do that, they're going to need people to believe that there is such a thing as scientific consensus, and that their point of view is an expression of that consensus. And what we've learned in the past two years, and I'm trying not to use profanity at your air, but that's that's not true. It's bs actual, that these are political actors using the residual respect that people in the West have for science in order to get what they want politically. And once we know that it's impossible to unknown.
Dan Ilic 42:19 So Joe, what is your colleague mean that what are what are scientists who are investigating climate change? What do they want to do? They want to run a country? Is this what he's saying?
Unknown Speaker 42:29 I'm not I'm not sure. I'm trying. I'm busy trying to unknown that. I don't know precisely what he's saying. But I don't really care how many sees whatever he wants. Yeah, we are. We are,
Dan Ilic 42:46 Joe. Joe, I know you've got a job, you got a family. I mean, Jenny, you got to get a job as
Unknown Speaker 42:56 my opinion and say whatever I like Tucker Carlson has a job in which he can express his opinion and say whatever he likes sharing my job.
Lewis Hobba 43:04 But don't some of those opinions need to be checked by like facts. As a journalist,
Unknown Speaker 43:11 by the way, I believe that legally defensible position of an opinion is an honestly held opinion based on the valuable facts.
Lewis Hobba 43:22 Theoretically, you could put legally any opinion in a newspaper. I'm just wondering whether or not you should put all opinions
Dan Ilic 43:30 also jo jo
Unknown Speaker 43:32 million monkeys and a million typewriters.
Dan Ilic 43:36 And can I I don't think it's, I don't think it's understanding or hyperbole to say, at this point in time, in the time in the history of the world, we're at a serious rule point where everybody needs to use their power to see meaningful reductions of climate emissions of greenhouse gas emissions and meaningful leadership to make that happen. The folks that News Corp get behind do not do that. They are bad actors. Why? Why don't you use your power to help these folks really align with what needs to actually be done.
Unknown Speaker 44:12 I'm leaving an editorial series that just launched with an unprecedented ad for a 16 page wrap, all of which outlined, the actions that Australia can take to get to net zero and how beneficial it would be for the country. We're following that up and have followed it up with a series of multiple double page spreads, splashes across all the metro mastheads that again, reinforce all the opportunities that come come to Australia by embracing netzero and tackling climate change and reducing carbon emissions. The series is ongoing, it is ongoing indefinitely. Our partners and countries ongoing
Dan Ilic 44:55 indefinitely. I thought you said as a limited series. You're only gonna do a bunch of
Unknown Speaker 44:59 minutes. I was limited
Dan Ilic 45:01 Oh I must have missed a master mistake
Unknown Speaker 45:04 I know it's it's going it's going for it's going for no no but News Corp Australia it's not even news it's going for at this stage about 29 years until 2015. going right up to Glasgow throughout Glasgow. We have we have contributors ranging from the Australian Conservation Foundation the World Wildlife Fund. Got an update from Adam bank in the pipeline. One from my space Yep, yep, you heard it here first. And I think we're ready
Ange Lavoipierre 45:41 for flowers to like get any of these people to participate or were they just up for it?
Unknown Speaker 45:46 No that knocking our door down there absolutely knocking our door down we broke Chris Bowen launching the Australia Institute's report. I mean, now we've got 24th Mark Carnegie I don't know what sort of people you're worried about we've got all these guys on board who are saying this if you if you're saying if you're saying that we also should silence anyone who disagrees well that is something that so Roger or anyone who believes
Dan Ilic 46:13 I couldn't help notice Joe Wallace I couldn't help notice Joe while this campaign launched, Alan Jones was harsh it was in quotes in hospital is that for a reason at all?
Unknown Speaker 46:25 Yes rupert murdoch shot his yeah he cut his brake cables on the way out any I don't I'm not sure if Alan Jones is even a columnist in the paper anymore but um but again I don't I don't understand I don't understand the logic that we do we do this we do this thing we bring out this series that outlines in full technical detail and again How am I doing this is the normal job. But hang on a minute. You used to employ Alan Jones or that you still let this person speak? I don't
Lewis Hobba 47:07 like if you knew someone if you knew someone personally who had been wrong for their whole life, and then suddenly completely changed their opinion but you'd been sitting there going I know who they are now I'm right and you're why this person and not only were they wrong, but they were telling everyone else this wrong fact and then suddenly they just pivoted it didn't bother to go Joe I gotta be honest sorry I was wrong for so long. like to just do a pivot and then a gaslight and be like no we always thought this like it's you got to understand the handbrake that you put Australia on with absolutely no warning and like not even not even a little sorry for all of the bullshit like nothing
Unknown Speaker 47:44 like thank you for noticing Louis I have always been right. And I always say I've always said exactly the same sorts of things that we're saying now in this series you can look at anything I've written anything I've say said on Sky or on radio.
Dan Ilic 47:59 I've always had gratitude and gratitude Berg is a terrible advocate for a lot because
Unknown Speaker 48:03 that's why that's why I'll have to come along she makes it she makes it look silly and ridiculous I mean, jumping up and down I mean I don't want to join the pile on against credit because she's a kid but the cult worship of grown adults who should know better who think that this is gonna somehow persuade middle Australia or country and regional Australia that this is the way to get on board that's that's madness. They're writing
Dan Ilic 48:29 kids because kids become adults Joe and and she's she's 19 she's across the science I've seen her talk I've listened to her speak she's pretty incredible.
Unknown Speaker 48:37 I don't wanna have a god I've been I've been the why the why to get people on board with tackling climate change and hitting the boys and zeros to tell them about the opportunities that are there and to tell them about the jobs the economics not to jump up and down and say
Lewis Hobba 48:59 like copyright infringement you just saying well the rest of the world has been saying for so long, it's like
Unknown Speaker 49:06 the rest of the world has actually been focused the rest of the world and if you look at a lot of the a lot of the coverage and a lot of what's been said previously, the rest of the world and many other media outlets have been focused more on the catastrophic catastrophic consequences of inaction or if you want if you want to actually persuade people and you want to get people on board, I think you offer the more carrot and less stick I'm just a positive guy. What can I say? More capitalistic,
Dan Ilic 49:34 you know like, like, like, you know like mortgage to redo your home with with with solar panels. That's a good thing to do.
Unknown Speaker 49:44 Yeah, we're doing a lot of that you should read the campaign. It's really good.
Dan Ilic 49:50 It's an editorial tubers who came on the show a few months ago, Joe and Saul's an incredible brain when he said to me said, you know, News Corp. Got to run this campaign. What do you think of it? I think I said I think that's a great thing because it actually does hit into middle Australia. It is the folks that do by the Daily Telegraph to read the rugby pages only. It is an incredible vehicle for the one with a round with the ball with the with the thing. It is incredible. It is incredible resource for folks, everyday Australians, and it is really important vehicle and a platform to tell the truth. I just guess everyone's baffled as to why you're telling it. Now,
Unknown Speaker 50:36 right? If you confuse you can read a soul Griffis plan on how households can save enormous amounts of money on their power bills in Saturday's Daily Telegraph or your favorite news quote paper wherever you live in Australia. So Griffith is a proud partner of mission zero.
Dan Ilic 50:50 Joe, thank you so much. You're gonna jump in and
Unknown Speaker 50:56 just like chatting to Joe is the conversational equivalent to untangling headphones and it's like
Unknown Speaker 51:10 everything you want, everything you ever want has done everything.
Unknown Speaker 51:13 rotten. I can finally hear that Cheers. But I've got to like, Listen, I'm not into that. Yeah. Beautiful.
Dan Ilic 51:21 Thank you for coming on and letting us ridicule you to your face. We really appreciate it. You're always extremely generous.
Unknown Speaker 51:32 There's no planet Bay.
Dan Ilic 51:34 We go. That's it for our show tonight. I want to thank all of our guests tonight Angela papa. Dane Simpson Lewis Halbert. Joe Hildebrand What would you like to plug and
Ange Lavoipierre 51:45 Oh God, I know it's gonna get the chance. Um, I've got a comedy show coming up at Sydney. It weirdly it's happening again? factory theater 11th 12th 13th of November. It's called spiders Follow me. There will be no spiders in the show. I can't contractually guarantee that but it's not likely there's going to be so many of us that probably get afraid and run away anyway. Factory theater 11 1213 spot is calling me you can find it online.
Dan Ilic 52:14 Dan Simpson well you want to play
Unknown Speaker 52:16 I've got my new show coming out. Did you read doozy I'm going to be Perth, Adelaide Melbourne all around Google me check it out. I'm all over the telly doing all these different shows as well as check it all out it's awesome also, Louis looks like youtuber Tom cardi and I
Lewis Hobba 52:35 are quite good friends that I've grown this mustache in his honor.
Dan Ilic 52:38 Oh there you go. Joe Hildebrand I not quite sure what you want to plug but what would you like to blog
Unknown Speaker 52:45 Oh apparently this campaign that the newspapers are doing called mission zero sounds real about it. But there's this thing called climate change apparently is really bad so we should get on board.
Dan Ilic 53:01 It is and they are taking it very seriously. And you can actually sign up to their email newsletter I've actually done that myself. So I went to the news corp email list and it's not under the AMPM it's not under what the buzz it's not under breaking news alert you have to scroll all the way down Blair report go pass go pass Sydney confidential go past the beat the bookies email if you want to skip that email list, it's not the real estate section. You can't sign up yet to that sports news update then go past the true crime Australia email list you don't want that's not the one you want. You definitely don't want to sign up to the divine report. That's not the that's not the one you want to sign up to go past. Extra cover a whole email all about cricket. And then at the bottom, you will see mission zero newsletter. That's the one if you're interested in climate change, the greatest moral problem of our generation, you'll want to scroll all the way to the bottom of the news corp email list to sign up to that one. So
Unknown Speaker 54:05 I want to see what she had to say.
Dan Ilic 54:10 Joe, thank you so much for joining us on rational fear again. I always enjoy having you on Big thanks to Rhode Mike's Patreon. Our Patreon supporters the Bertha foundation. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Good night.
Currently I’m on holidays in the south coast of NSW. Yesterday I found myself sitting in a local cafe with my laptop going through the year of sketches, and my favourite bits.
Suffice to say regional cafes are not used to award winning podcasters sitting in the corner laughing to themselves and maniacally writing jokes. Before they called the cops, I pulled together about an hour of some of the best bits of A Rational Fear for the year.
Some of which has previously only been avaliable behind the paywall on Patreon.
And despite how many people quit the Patreon based on the fact that "Alan Jones" was hosting the end of year special... I decided to invite him to do it again.
He's back by un-popular demand.
By doing our podcast he literally gets 100 x the audience of his YouTube show, but at this time of year it's important to be in a giving spirit, even to your enemies.
Big thank you this episode go to my in-laws, whose spare bedroom I recorded this podcast in. They too are not Alan Jones fans, but were quite obliging to allow him to seep through into the living space for 20 minutes.
It’s been another big year for us on A Rational Fear.
We did live shows around the country, played the Sydney Opera House, won Best Comedy at the Australian Podcast Awards (again), we put out 2 new series; Julia Zemiro Asks Who Cares, and Jan Fran Has Issues, as well as a limited election column by Kara Schlegl who now has her own brilliant substack you can subscribe too.
And we couldn’t have done it without the help of our listeners who support us on Patreon, on Apple Subscriptions or who pay for this otherwise free newsletter on Substack.
The thing about podcasting is the more popular you get, the more you pay in bandwidth and hosting. We also are one of the very few podcasts, or shows of any kind for that matter that actually pay our comedy guests. This is really important to us. It’s cool we can do that, and we can because of Patreon, every little bit helps.
And also in 2023 — we will hit 1,000,000 downloads.
I know! 1,000,000!
If I had a dollar for every time someone downloaded our show, I’d have enough money to buy a mouldy 1 bedroom deathtrap in Sydney with an outdoor toilet. We’ll do something special for it, we may need your help for suggestions.
Thanks for listening this year, we love making this show. It makes us feel better about the world.
0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical.
0:03 This episode of irrational fear was recorded on the land of the Darrel wall people. Sovereignty was never ceded. The first step to treaty is the voice. Let's start the show.
0:12 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed GM and section 40. Have a rational view recommended listening by immature audiences. Hey, a
0:25 rational fear fear mongers Welcome to a rational year. This is where we rip through the highlights of the year in one little podcast so you don't have to spend more than you know about an hour or so listening to us but if you can, and you want to in person, we are going to be performing live for you around Australia very soon. We are going to be at the Adelaide Fringe Festival march for Brisbane at the World Science Festival March 26. And we are going to be at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival April 2. In fact, our Melbourne lineup is so big. In fact, we've called the show irrational fear has too many guests for a one hour festival show spectacular it is going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to do it. So join us then in Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane in the first half of the year. But right now, I'm going to be handed the mic over to a good friend of mine, Alan Jones. Alan,
1:19 welcome to rational fear. Good morning, dad. Do you know who else has too many guests? No Christmas dinner and Scott Morrison said.
1:28 Well, thank you for coming back to host the end of Year special.
1:31 Good to be with you.
1:32 When you hosted last time 30 people unsubscribed from the email list and six people cancelled their Patreon memberships. Yes, well,
1:39 you know, go woke go broke. What were the listen to numbers like well, it was the most listened to episode we've ever had. Well, there you have it. You know, my own internet show on YouTube has registered its 15 subscriber. I'm more popular than Anthony clear in an area after party. Well, Alan, the floor is yours. Take it away. Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. I'm back hosting irrational year. This show is dedicated to the most important people in the country, the sponsors of irrational fear. Yes, we'll celebrate them all in this very special episode, the highs, the lows and meet in between. This is genuinely cash for comment. Okay, let's kick it off from a message from one of most popular podcasters in Australia called Mark No, not Mark Latham. The other one.
2:28 Imagine your true crime podcast hosts tracking down some of the grisly murders ever committed in Australia, only to discover that they're all already covered by other True Crime podcasts. That is the moment I discovered something so terrifying in myself that I had no choice but to turn it into a blood curdling audio experience. Hi, I'm Mark Fidel, and I host the true crime podcast is not for now. A murderer. Yes, he is. Come with me as I investigate a freshman that I come in each week until I get caught. I pick victims out at random from the white pages. I know shocking. How did I find the white pages in 2022? To find out you'll have to listen to is Mark funnel a murderer? Yes, he is available only on Audible and as a transcript from criminal court and while you're there check out my other podcast stuff Mark stall and that murder guy. Shit. I have to go now by
3:26 Coronavirus. Remember that God I barely do. I failed COVID-19 away in my brain in the same place where I still have memories of when the Wallabies lost when a match got. Well back in January 2022 The New South Wales government gave up on Coronavirus to, to them all of a sudden it no longer existed, just like climate change.
3:47 49,900 the New South Wales Government is changing the way it's counting Coronavirus cases because we only learned how to count up to 50,000 89,999 50,000. From today if you have symptoms of Coronavirus, you'll have to acquire a rapid antigen test through a series of physical challenges in your local district. The winner of each district will battle it out for the title of state champion who will then be given one rapid antigen test. And if that person tests positive they will then be added to the daily count.
4:22 We've got one more that 50,000 plus one
4:26 and if you've done report your positive test result you will be shocked oh my god Max is so hot from all of us at the New South Wales Government may the odds be ever in your favour.
4:36 countdowns on radio are still a big deal when I was still on to GB we used to have the hottest 100 liberal Prime Ministers of all time, Scott Morrison took out the top 50 Well back at generate the woker radio Triple J insisted on starting a new countdown.
4:53 Hey Veronica Milsom here to remind you that you've only got two days left to submit your favourite years for the hot is 100 now with over 2000 years to choose from, we want to know which year you think will come out on top as the hottest year ever.
5:09 I thought 1989 was pretty high. No, no,
5:12 it's not when you will asked hot the temperature of Earth.
5:15 Oh gosh, it's gotta be 2007 that's the year I was born and my mom was in labour for like four hours and that was
5:22 hot. Yeah, okay, I can understand from a friction perspective. But once again, we're talking about the earth's temperature.
5:29 You know, the hottest year was actually at 90 and the Earth has been getting colder every year since I'm sorry,
5:35 is this Senator Malcolm Roberts?
5:37 No. It's round from the from the ABC.
5:44 Get ready for the most predictable countdown most of the world is ignoring the hottest 100 years ever. Spoiler alert, it was last year. It's always the last year.
5:59 Cash flow coming is disgusting, which is why you'll never hear me do it. But if you want to support a rational fear, simply log on to patreon.com forward slash a rational fear and chip in as little as $5 a month to keep this podcast kicking along Patreon. It's like Centerlink for comedians. And when it comes to cash for comment, no one knows more about it than our political class.
6:20 In these uncertain times, it's important to be fiscally responsible
6:23 our nation's on the edge of an economic cliff
6:27 with very little interest in interest rates
6:30 at a record low 0.1%.
6:34 And with the stock market sliding faster than a Test cricket out into your DMS $50 billion wiped off the value of Australian shares. Today there's only one place to put your money that will see guaranteed returns political donations. starting as low as $25,000 you can be guaranteed enormous returns such as $21 million of subsidies and grants for your fossil fuel projects. That's the return of 840% Imagine how many politicians you could buy off with that kind of fuck you cash. Ask your financial advisor if political donations are right for you. Political Donations is as safe as houses owned by parliamentarians in Canberra.
7:18 Jason says apply check the PDS for details. Oh actually there is no PDS just a handshake.
7:23 So you know, whatever. No rules come February of 2022. As Scott Morrison was tackling eight year old boys and the footy field Australian was overrun with election fever. Everyone I know wanted Scott Morrison to win again including my former friends at Channel 960 minutes.
7:43 Sunday 60 minutes goes behind the doors of Curability house to present Australian politics like you've never seen before. It's hard. The Prime Minister Scott Morris Good morning tag and journalist cosplay. Calm Stefano
8:00 pm Good morning to you.
8:02 You know our long succession very hard journey from behind from Prime Minister to A prime Daddy, I gotta tell you, I'm coming from breakfast television journalist to chief of scomo staff. Well, it's 60 minutes of Walkley award winning 69. And then you put the finger through their watch Carl Stefanova get large to buy Scott Morrison in the launch
8:29 the big stick Sunday on nine and nine now.
8:35 I would like to see if you would marry me love your
8:41 God. That was the longest 60 minutes of my life, which is why I prefer my ads for the Liberal Party to be snack sized and presented in the aisle of the chemist warehouse.
8:53 We all want our kids to grow up healthy and not on fire which makes rising temperatures in and around the home a bit of a nuisance but if you want to do absolutely nothing about them Miko past the Liberal Party of Australia not only has the Liberal Party of Australia received donations in excess of $5 million from fossil fuel companies since 2012. Unlike other Australian political parties, the Liberal Party of Australia comes with a unique formula that combines heavy investment in the gas industry with no meaningful plan to transition to renewables or electric vehicles making them the perfect party to guarantee Australia contributes less than our fair share to the global efforts to tackle climate change. So if you want to stick your head in the sand and feel it get harder and harder, why not give the Liberal Party of Australia ago today bland power helping you vote better?
9:36 Come April 2022, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival played host to a rational theatre God knows why. We're former Australian of the Year Grace time dalliance didn't stand up for the first time ever. I remember what I did stand up for the first time ever. It was at my ACMA hearing for the coronella riots. I would never get me.
9:55 Ah, yes. Oh Crikey. What am I doing here? I'm not a comedian. But if you look up the Venn diagram of me, and these guys, you'll find that it's not actually a Venn diagram at all. It's just a great big flashing circle that says go to therapy. Yes, the natural progression from very serious Law Reform campaigning is self roasting. When Dan asked me to do this, he said, Can you please do a monologue that is topical. And I'm on a serious mission to not talk about anything political, because everyone's been accusing me of being a hack. I know that makes things a little bit difficult. So I'm really sorry to disappoint you if you came to hear me make jokes about a certain someone. I know the temptation is very real. He is like a giant self sourcing comedy putting.
Is the joke dessert that answers itself? You don't even have to tell him he just goes and grabs the ukulele all by himself.
To get around that issue, I've decided instead to reflect on one of my favourite TV shows from the early 2000s. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Which Believe it or not, translates quite well to the landscape of Australian politics. For example, the leader of Equestria Princess Celeste year has let down Australian voters yet again, with her willingness to greenwash her government's reliance on fossil fuels to neighbouring neighbouring Yes, the pawns. The pawns are coming to neighbouring pony kingdoms. She's also very sensitive about a tail tail that she wants shattered in old McDonald's farm in 1997. All right, I'll stop. I'll make a deal. Just don't shame survivors on primetime TV don't under fund support services protect alleged rapists stab people in the back bully people pork barrel. You see we've got a bit of an imbalance daily people.
Ah, yes, that naughty little flying horned party. Anyway, what I've decided to talk about this evening has absolutely nothing at all to do with politics whatsoever. And that thing is air fryers. Stick with him. Actually, I suppose they are a little bit political as one of my favourite comedians. Mark Latham has accused me of being since the airfryer came about. It has in some ways, divided the nation. That's the real Mark Latham. By the way as he calls himself on Twitter. All the other Mark Latham's are not in one nation. So will the real Mark Latham please shirt front? Sorry, I promised I wouldn't get political. It's just that I had to give him a shout out because one of the chaser interns the other day was saying that my home Tasmania isn't a real place. So I figured if Tasmania isn't real, at least I can keep living rent free in real Mark Latham was head
yeah, it's pretty much just me, Rosie Batty, the 2004 election results. And pretty much well, actually, everyone who isn't a straight white man. Probably why he's so mad all the time. It's pretty crowded up in there. And you Anyway, where was I? Yes, the humble airfryer people seem to love it or hate it. What is this cheeky little unit that just popped up? Out of nowhere? How could there possibly be this smaller version of something that does things we've already been doing this whole time. Only it gets to the point a bit quicker and cuts out all the crap
Most of its criticism seems to come from people who don't like change. But really, it's just a lightweight, metal clad Basket Case inside a pressure cooker that has a little vent and no filter Are you
15:42 catching my drift? That's an aeroplane, by the way. Doesn't really matter does it because if you're not a fan fan Guess
15:55 what I'm really trying to say is, if you don't like it, don't buy it. And that's not a political help my friends. That's just a life hack
16:13 right when I ripped off the April 2022 page of my New South Wales Fire Brigade calendar, it was clear the election in May was going to cause things to heat up. Ray Martin joined irrational fear for a quick history lesson on the Liberals greatest ever mistake. John Hewson,
16:35 a story begins in the Americas. You know, it is the birthplace of Joe Rogan. In 1987, the US stock market crashed, sending shockwaves around the global economy. At the same time, we were experiencing our own 80s hanging over there we were sitting on a housing bubble that was just about to end the years leading to the 1993 election. Were bad. How bad? Well, unemployment reached 11% 10,000. People went on the DOL in a week. And both the Victorian and South Australian state banks collapsed. The treasurer at the time you may know him as Prime Minister poor feeding. Well, he called us the recession that Australia had to have. So it was no surprise that going into the 1993 election. The opposition's John Hewson was the front runner, with some papers calling the election unlovable. But to win, he would need more than a big lead. He would need a big plan. A plan a so big it would save the economy from going down the drain. It included sweeping tax cuts, slashes to government spending, and at the centre of it all the introduction of a new 15% Goods and Services Tax. You know it is GST? He hasn't had all his bases covered. All that was left was to name that anything. It needed a name that the country could rally around a name that inspires grit and resolve. He called his fight back. Despite its simple name, fight back was complicated and confused voters. Maybe Worst of all, no one could get their head around what g is T would actually mean facts in hand and ready to face the nation. Houston sat down for primetime interview with a current affairs Mike Willacy, who would change the course of the election with one simple question.
18:33 If I buy a birthday cake from a cake shop, and an GSDs invoice to pay more or less for their birthday cake.
18:44 We may never know what went through John Houston's mind when he was asked the cost of a birthday cake. But we imagined that it might have been something like this
18:53 cake to teach us okay. Oh shit. I've got fingers milk, right even lollies. Dammit, John, you idiot. How do we miss cake? Or at night? This is what we train for cake. Mom's chunky cake. I can almost taste it. Okay, two cups of self raising flour. That's 15 cents plus GST for one cup of sugar 10 cents. Vanilla essence. Always remember to lick
19:17 the spoon. Shit, shit. Okay,
19:20 experiments. Well, it will depend where the cakes today in that shop are subject to sales tax will they're not? Firstly, they might have a sales tax on them. Let's assume that they don't have a sales tax on and then that birthday cake is going to be selling to tax free. And of course you wouldn't pay it would be exempted which there would be no GST on it. Under our system. If it was run with a sales tax today, it would attract the GST. And then the difference would be the difference between the two taxes whatever the sales tax rate is on birthday cakes how it's decorated because there'll be sales tax perhaps in some of the decorations as well. And then of course the price. The price will reflect that according
19:58 smelling blood Mike Wallasey with him for the cube has found
20:02 the birthday cake. I've been trying to make a simple example. You tell us in what you've published that the cost of cake goes down, the cost of confectionery goes up. That's icing and maybe ice cream, and then just candles on top of
20:17 luck. How can I forget candles? Johnny will
20:21 stick right in candles as you say that attract sales tax. And of course we scrapped the sales tax yet before
20:28 the public reaction with instant the GST ruin cake. And Houston's mistake was fatal. The interview gave Paul Keating everything he needed to take five back to its knees and to win the election. It's been said that he is the never again ordered dessert, and he prefers to spend his birthdays alone. And while we may never know if fight back would have saved Australia, there's one thing we could all agree on. Take it away, Mike.
20:58 That the answer to a birthday cake is so complex. You do have a problem with the overall GST GST.
21:03 The cost of living is out of control. Do you know in 2022, I had to sell my Southern Highlands estate. I just sold my Northern Highlands estate. I had to sell my Western Highlands estate so I could buy a Gold Coast mansion. It's ridiculous what's a child was baby boomer to do. Thankfully before they were booted out of office, the coalition had a good idea to solve the housing crisis.
21:23 The federal government is working hard to ensure all Australians have a home with check builder. We're building 10,000 new homes over the next 100 years using the most sustainable resource known to the coalition novelty sized checks. Previously, every single novelty sized check that a coalition politician gives to a scout Hall sporting club or small business had to be shredded at a bag in a novelty sized shredder. But with cheque builder, they will be turned into social housing. Rest your head each night in a room constructed of Scott Morrison's broken promises I'm very okay with the idea of building car parks to take your morning dump surrounded by the signature of Bridget McKenzie, I am very proud of the sports grants programme all stand in your kitchen surrounded by million dollar views of million dollar checks made out for Josh Frydenberg car parks that never got built
22:18 with respect to the car parks in my own electorate. They haven't been built as yet.
22:24 And the more promises the coalition makes the more houses we can build with cheque builder. And that's a promise you can take to the bank, Authorised by the novelty size government run by novelty sized men Canberra.
22:36 But it turns out giant novelty checks have a supply chain issue after elections. So the coalition joined forces with the mining industry to solve the housing crisis with another policy.
22:46 The Morison government is serious about the future of Australians. That's why we're introducing whole sicker Australians will now have the opportunity to access $50,000 of their superannuation to buy their first bunker.
23:00 I'm all in on the side of those who want to buy a hole with hole seeker
23:04 live out the rest of your life hiding 10 metres underground from whatever catastrophic shitshow the world is hurtling towards who cares what 50k might grow into in 30 years time? Will there even be banks in 30 years, or a job to retire from or air withhold seeker your children and their children's children can feast on canned food or share oral histories about the outside and develop innovative ways to drink their own pee. While the earth witnesses an apocalyptic nightmare of biblical proportions.
23:39 It boosts their ultimate retirement incomes, because they're investing in their own home the best investment anyone ever makes.
23:45 No matter if you're a first bunker buyer or buying your third investment bunker, sign up for whole seeker and vote for the coalition if your main concern is the cost of living on this planet.
23:57 I believe buying a hole is the best economic decision that you can make
24:02 authorised by oh my god, you can't be serious. How far can you kick this can down the road before it all comes crashing down Canberra
24:06 may 2022 and election promises came thick and fast, including a new proposal to keep crucial death machines operational.
24:16 At the Australian government, we know that coal powered electricity plants are running out of time. On one hand, they're old, expensive, and make climate change worse every minute they run. But on the other hand, the coal industry also provides critical baseload donations to the LMP. So that's why we're launching coal keeper. We're spending $7 billion a year to keep coal powered polluting clunkers running way past their use by date. That way the LNP can get more donations from the coal industry to stay way past our use. By Date, the government could invest in new wind, solar and storage that renewable energy is too clean to give us donations, called keeper. A reliable source of donations at the cost of only four $100 per household per year, and everyone's existence
25:10 it's with regrets that in May we bid farewell to every single one of Scott Morrison's ministries, which at that point we knew nothing about, and Australia went to IKEA to pick out a new cabinet. Also, the so called comedian Mark Humphreys bid farewell to one of his characters to Barabbas loins live on stage at the Sydney Opera House for the irrational fear 10th birthday, which you could listen to only on Patreon. Please welcome the rabbits login.
25:38 Rabbits Thank you very much. Good eye on nationals MP Barabbas loins member for awful seed and until recently minister for tow bars and Special Envoy for McLeod's Daughters. Let me first say a big hello to those in the nosebleed seats. And normally that's the people at the back that after some sinus issues at my recent press club address, the first couple of rows should prepare, prepare for some splashback. Two weeks ago, the Australian people made a foolish error, electing a government that can't be trusted on energy policy. The coalition's policy, however, is crystal clear, and it is this, the sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow. That's really all we know about whether in the coalition. And I look forward to taking that level of expertise to voters in another three years time. But even more tragic than the change of government was the decision this week by my colleagues to remove me as leader of the National Party. But fear not. This does mean I will have much more time to focus on what really matters. Writing my memoirs. Inspired by Don Watson's portrait of Paul Keating recollections of a bleeding half, I was going to call mine recollections of a bleeding loins.
26:58 But focus group testing suggested people found that unappetizing even more so than that Mark Latham Alan Jones cookbook. It's an older reference, but I'll stick with it. Reluctantly, I went for something more tasteful. Hence the title, loins, warts and all. There's a lot more like that. My publisher was worried the title will make people think that the book is all about STIs when in fact only one chapter is devoted to genital warts. Now I know I know Ernest highway or Franz Kafka, but I think my writing think about it. Well, I think my writing is pretty good. Goins warts, and all may not win the Man Booker Prize, but, but it has been long listed for the Andy Griffith kids writing competition. I can also recommend the book to those participating in the MS readathon as it has been known to leave many readers with neurological damage.
28:08 So for your enjoyment, here's the taste of loins warts and all coming soon to all underwhelming street libraries. Okay, dedication. I dedicate this book to my oldest friend Trent. Trent is my youth. Chapter one. Call me Ishmael. When I asked Siri what a good opening line for a book would be she said that. But I think Siri should have said call me Barabbas because my name is Barabbas Ishmael chapter to the affair. I will never forget when I first saw her. I had an excited feeling down below. I usually only experienced during state of origin. I knew it was wrong. But the loins wants what the loins once she was cab and I wanted to give her herpes even though obviously I don't have herpes. Please consult the footnote for results of my STI test from 1998. It was a classic boy meet staffer story
29:26 the kind of romance you've read about in numerous workplace culture booklets. I was driving. I was driving her home because my electorate of Appleseed has banned Uber in favour of our own ride sharing app Utah. It's a good app because every time you ride with you to you get to ride in the youth and to show her that she holds a special place in my heart and groyne we stopped at a Mac as drive thru as I want That's the way she tantalisingly scraped a chicken nugget around the edge of a container of sweet and sour sauce. I knew it was on for young and old. She was young guy was had nothing to lose but our careers and standing in the community. I put the CD player on Joe Cocker as you can leave your head on. Not that I need a judge's permission, mind you. Visual, visual gag though it is a helpful reminder that the ladies that the Cooper doesn't come off for anyone. And although it's not in the song, I believe Joe would have also wanted me to keep on my RM Williams, which I dutifully obliged. Are you wearing protection? She asked. Yes, I said, thinking she meant the Cobra with a UV factor of 15. Plus, I wasn't taking any chances. We were like two ships passing in the night, except where one ship repeatedly rammed into the other one.
31:03 It's really good mark.
31:09 It would be ungentlemanly of me to detail our passion any further. But that's not what was agreed to in the contract with my publisher. So I must push on. If the interior of minus and Navarro could speak, I imagined it would say something like for I have to say I would be inclined to what have I done? I would be inclined to agree with the interior. That night I wasn't the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. I was I was the special envoy for getting it on. As well as bleeding the Joint Standing Committee for inappropriate use of Snagit. was more as it was heaven. I even said the correct name on more than one occasion. That night, we went on a one way trip to pleasure town with a brief detour by Streetsville because I suffered a hell of a cramp in my left calf, and needed to stretch for a bit. Thank heavens for the generous legroom of the Nissen nivara. Little did I know that pleasure town would not be our final destination, as we will be driving right on through to baby city, not a literal city, but a metaphor for the miracle of childbirth. I don't think God is the final page. When I found out she was pregnant, I knew it was time for me to accept responsibility and do the right thing. So I got down on one knee and said, Let's keep this secret until the media finds out. It was a difficult pregnancy, photos of my pregnant partner was splashed on the front pages of major tabloids, which infuriated me as I had hoped to sell them to the highest bidder. It was also difficult for my four daughters, but Abby, Burr, Emily or Eleanor and brassica. Dad, you've slipped up but no matter what we still love you is what I imagined they would say if we were still on speaking to. The birth was also difficult, especially as the obstetrician insisted that I not reach into my partner's cervix to retrieve the infant like I would do with a baby calf. That's the line okay. Good to know. Prior to the birth of my son questions had been raised about his paternity admittedly by me, but as soon as he appeared, He emptied his bowels. And as I looked at him, they're causing a complete mess and drowning in his own shit. I knew once and for all that he was definitely mine. Thank you very much.
33:58 Thank you, Miranda.
34:00 Owl Barabbas Lloyds, I'll miss having our casual off the cuff conversations about small modular nuclear reactors with you over a few drinks down at our local Pontus Chairman's lounge. And a note here about a rational fear sponsor, Australian ethical. Since 1986. Australian ethical has been managing the investments and superannuation for everyday Australians. By investing ethically, Australian ethical avoids human trafficking weapons, fossil fuels and gambling you know, all the stuff I'm into. These people don't have taste. Big thank you to Australian ethical. Come August Anthony Albanese had 100 days of office under his belt, and much like me when I've got anything under my belt, he was determined to shake it loose and show how different he was.
34:44 The Australian Labour Party is finally in charge. But don't worry conservatives. We're not here to shake things up. Good governance means more of the same but different, more of the same petroleum exploration but not on Sydney's North Shore in the Southern Ocean. More of the same destruction of sacred sites and song lines, but not for iron ore, for gas.
35:06 whatever our differences in political parties we share a love for coal seam gas drilling.
35:13 And yes, we know it looks like we've rushed into passing a bill on climate action. But don't worry, it's weeks Pearson won't change a thing.
35:21 The Australian people voted for change. And we intend to give them nothing.
35:26 Australian labour same suits, different tie. In September 2022, irrational fear performed at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and event that even I, Alan Jones, the facilitator of the race ride have never been invited to perform at a GOP cow. It's during the show on Australian secrets, Kate McClymont gave tips on how to avoid
35:54 right, I am going to give you some tips tonight on how to avoid me. So I find now that often when I ring people up, I can hear them and I say oh, it's Kate McClure I'm on here I can hit and go. But anyway, if you want to be secret, one of the things I want to advise you is not to buy a voice distorter. So I did have someone ring up to give me some very highly confidential information. And they'd gone to the trouble of buying a voice distorter. And it did sound like a crazed robot. But the information was absolutely fabulous. And I said at the end of the conversation, thank you so much. And now I can get you on this number. The safe forgotten. Voice distorter number still came up. Don't buy voice disorder. And too. If you want to remain secret, please use Australia Post snail mail, it's still the best way to send things. However, if you are one of the unburied family, and you are sitting there sending me death threats, please wear gloves. Your fingerprints were on the envelope. And on the inside. So gloves if you really don't want to be caught. And one other thing I'd like to advise Eddie obeyed was in the past. When I rang his office to get some questions. He forgot to hang up. The phone on and I listened for 20 minutes, as they discussed how they were going to lie to me what they were going to say. And in the end, I had to call in on the office. And I said look, Eddie, it's been so lovely hearing you talk about me. It's been so lovely hearing your plans. However, I really need a comment and I just heard them go off. They hung up. Another thing is that when a major crime figure has died, don't go behind the crypt at the funeral to discuss where the money is. This happened at many Macpherson's funeral, and I'd already been threatened. So I thought I would hide behind the crypt on the other side of the crypt, whistling the McPherson solicitor, who was chatting away about where the money was hidden, what companies they had. So that was very handy. And having said those things, I do want to just take one moment to say that I am also an idiot when it comes to, you know, giving my own things away. Louis reminded me today that I accidentally sent a pin with my location on it to the head of the Hells Angels. Caitlin climber is here. Not so good. Then I sent a photo of my ear. How would you take a photo of your ear and send it but I sent that to one of my colleagues who thought I somebody had cut it off and I was and then the last thing I did was that I did have my phone in my pocket. And I sent a whole lot of gibberish to Twitter. And people contacted me saying should they call the police had I been kidnapped? Had I been kidnapped? And was this a secret cry for help? So I would just like to say that I too, like many of the criminals I cover am an idiot.
39:44 October 2022 politics in Australia became so boring. We all started to tune in to the UK politics, which was like reading Harry Potter for the first time.
39:55 To outsiders the conservative party may look like it's a fucking on new Sham. polls. But to those of us on the inside, we're staying true to our promise to get Britain moving under the Tories, more British people than ever are moving to Europe. Thanks to the Conservative Party, the people of Britain are moving vigorously to keep warm, but the Conservatives are also walking the walk as a party. We're all moving offices every day moving, moving, moving. In fact, there's so much movement at Downing Street. There's a shortage of movers, even Prime Minister trusses looking at her poll numbers and having movements of her very own.
40:38 I am determined to deliver
40:42 the Conservative Party getting Britain moving figuratively, and literally
40:48 watching UK politics for the last week. It's been like trying to catch up on a sci fi TV show you've missed a couple of seasons of the baddies is still in charge but all the characters have kind of changed you kind of don't know where the story is at. Joining us now to shed light on what the hell is happening over there is satirical comedian star of McTell week hosted the DMS are open podcast on radio for extra and a cracking Twitter feed. It's Athena Coupland. Welcome, Sina.
41:12 Thank you for having me. How are you?
41:14 Good, good, you know, full full kind of disclosure. Rick suggested this story. We all looked at we all looked at each other. And we're like, none of us know what is actually happening. We need an expert What the hell is happening over there in the UK?
41:30 The fact you've called me tells me how desperately important you are. And the last I mean know even the politicians themselves that said last night they had a vote they might not be aware but like in Parliament, when you have a vote you either vote on the issue or if your party is in crisis, you vote says a tentative vote on the party. That makes sense. So last night, they were going Do you like fracking or not, but because the party was in such disarray, the break was going to turn into do like the conservatives or not basically this is a bit Fisher Price politics. Right. So
42:03 seriously, looking at your political system, it's like looking at Harry Potter. Like we didn't know.
42:08 It, just say like a fracking is like a really important issue like causes earthquakes, right? Yeah, no, no, that's not as important is to like, come you're not like how is that?
42:19 Yeah, it feels like a twist in like a reality TV show. You know, like, you know, you thought it was gonna be about fracking.
42:27 This tastes disgusting when they put in a contest and that's been evicted. So like. So genuinely, the politicians didn't know if they were voting for fracking, or for the party this morning. I was trying to find out what was it about in any case, they ended up voting for earthquakes because earthquake because we were not on a top line and it's not fair. When you sit on a fault line, you get you know, you get quakes and so why don't we Why don't we create a natural disaster so we can be on the news today? I mean, we just got on the news.
43:02 We've got a natural disaster though. It's the Tory party. You know. Fracking.
43:17 Here is how ITV said what went down last night.
43:21 It has been a night of astonishing scenes at Westminster with reports of jostling manhandling bullying and shouting outside the parliamentary lobbies in a suppose vote of confidence in the government. The deputy chief whip was reported to have left the scene saying I'm absolutely effing furious. I just don't effing care anymore before he resigned along with the chief whip, but we've just been told they have now officially on resigned. The Home Secretary has however definitely got insurance. It is total absolute abject chaos
43:58 as well so this was a that was supposedly your vote on whether or not the parties have voted lose trust this trust risk the vote to even vote on herself. First of all it was she wants fracking she thinks it sucks he thinks it's important right and just security so she missed the boat on fracking.
44:18 That's why she missed it she was she was pumping gas into the ground. She was busy fracking data number 10 Yeah,
44:25 so she missed that I wrote to say that I like me. So this is why I suppose
44:30 this is why I chose this subject because I don't know anything about it but I do know that it's very funny. And also I see a lot of myself in live traps like she's
understanding how money works or market
44:47 right? I do love I love that like ITV at the at the end that like because my brain is working in like a music and radio station when I hear so like total abject chaos. with that thing underneath, I'm just waiting for like a dubstep drop to kick in
45:11 reporters they seem to always have like such a sense of urgency that you could absolutely remix it and make it a sick club mix. Like
45:22 I'm surprised it hasn't been done already, to be honest. And you have to do these. That's the reason why these things happen so they can go viral on the internet. That's what I think to be fair, I do think I'm being a bit cynical. I do think though, they're ramping it up a bit. Just a little clip of them going crazy can go viral, because the good thing about this chaos is it was it's been chaotic for about four weeks. What we've got now if you've got pitches on MPs Avenue Arch bargy in Parliament, but this has been this as the status has been the status quo you know, this is not this is not this last night in many ways is unremarkable. It's just it was just funny because I vote in Parliament you don't have bits of paper you literally you vote with your body you go through a yes chamber or no change it's really you
46:03 don't you don't have a button
46:08 so that's all happening was
46:14 a please don't please don't think this is fisher price because we have literally no idea that's amazing.
46:21 It's incredible so the chief whip said the chief whip says it's their job to get people to vote the quote unquote right way to vote with us not against us but because you're not going to get paid for you have to physically move people if the right chamber right so what was happening last night it was they were literally getting them by the exit or whatever. Like apparently there was a bit people were like saying it was like brilliant, like they were like apparently,
46:42 Jacob Riis. Mog was one of the people manhandling which is like noodle closet.
46:50 If you let Jacob Riis, mog bad habit you get yourself to help still get some iron supplements. Protein shakes. You are withering away the cost of living crisis to doing something because Jacob Riis, mog made us do it. She came home from school, we said I'm being bullied and they've put in a kid and they're taking these Rob, I would kick them out of the house.
47:21 And being bullied by like one of those car yard like
47:26 I love this line from the chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He told a meeting of colleagues on Wednesday, he said according to someone in the room, this is what Jeremy Hunt said, this would be really interesting shit if I wasn't in the middle of it.
47:39 Fundamentally, basically, is because there's an Elisa that has no authority. When she says jump, they all sit down and pick their noses. And when when they do what she says the markets go, What the hell are you doing? You're crazy. So they're in a weird place where they can't do what they've been told. Because what they've been told is horrendous, but not doing what they're told that government can't function. And so that's what we're saying about General Electric, which is horrible because no one likes elections. They're just horrible. You tell them the TV, listen, slow mo the child crying, or whatever some would call it because video. It's just very boring. I think we should just get the formality of a general election. And we should just just edit a coup, but a nice,
48:19 nice, consider just going for Mauna Kea, like now you've got the king.
48:25 I mean, you know, I mean for the crack. I mean
48:30 what about a reverse Monica, you could have our prime minister roll over you it'd be great. Ya know,
48:35 we like your one your new ones Nice. We'd like that do
48:39 Undercover Boss but just to you know, live trust but
48:45 you know, like a school you do like exchange student trips, and you go to France so the family and they stay with you. Let's do an exchange.
48:53 Right? Yeah, I don't think we want Ms dress.
48:55 It's such fun drama. It's real, like keeping up with it quite tangy. And then and
49:09 like, it was just about work. It's very interesting. What's happened now is because and what people are forgetting is it. Boris Johnson two years ago, kicked all the reasonably smart people out of the cabinet because they were not on board this Brexit plan so if you're not with me or against me, any fill this cabinet with idiots. I mean, I don't even see those kind of people who probably weren't very skilled at what they did. And that's a one by one. We've lost anyone with a semblance of common sense. And now we're left with people who just like walking around and saying I'm important. And then you ask them to do something and they can't do anything because they're thick. And there's no one and no one in the back bench who might be good at it been in the cabinet wants to observe it. So that's been run out of options. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Read a book and get smart, but that's not going to happen. Well, that
49:59 takes time. time and
50:01 your energy crisis.
50:03 There's a real problem with the conservative party among many others. But you know, our conservative party they basically roll Prime Ministers whenever they want. They say let's get rid of this guy. Next week the next person in line, we've had enough of this person, but the UK Conservative Party has to wait 12 months before they can ever party motion to wrong someone.
50:21 You know something all of these things mean nothing. They really do mean nothing. They just they say that but they'll just change the rules. They'll change the rules and I hope they I hope they do because it's because nobody wants to talk for months. I won't lie like they're looking for windup torches. I'm telling you how power power they kind of they prepared with the press releases and the news bulletins say you're in the dark sorry about that, or whatever. So I
50:48 can recommend anything. It would be a solar foldout solar panel, you can charge your phone in the
50:52 UK it climate change
50:58 is bringing trust down and climate change is bringing this podcast down.
51:04 It really was just leaves holding you all together, wasn't it?
51:09 The crazy thing so we got rid of forests that can it can't get any worse. And now people are saying we need both shots and back. It's it's sort of it's sort of it
51:17 for now. I even heard Theresa Mays name resurfaced
51:21 where everybody roll carries.
I think he's not. Some college idli
51:39 Rick,
51:42 I'm aware of what he did. But he was just because I don't know why he was on my mind. I regret saying that.
51:48 Come November 2022. The Australian transaction reports and Analysis Centre sent shockwaves through shonky betting agencies. And as the owner of Australia's most richest horse race, the Everest May I just say austrack are the finest institution we have in Australia. They're very talented, maybe even more talented than Anthony Kalia. So to austrack I say good luck out there boys.
52:15 Oh no generic trading. What's that bloke man sports betting bet 365 are being audited by austrac Oh, what are the odds are that pretty good according to austrack
52:25 the Australian transaction reports and Analysis Centre is bringing financial auditing to the palm of your hand stream every raid Live Trace every transaction be dockside for every judicial ruling. And you and your mates can band together with a sane investigation multi
52:47 Oh put upon upon aiding and abetting money laundering. Yeah, and I'll put a dame Nellie Melba on funding terrorism a lobster on them getting off scot free. Better make it a tonne.
52:57 austrac been put good pants or bad.
53:03 Another month goes by another high profile data breach this time of a health company. If you ask me it's an absolute disgrace. There is only one way that the private information of an individual should be made public and that is on a breakfast radio show. Don't have these hackers no respect. Disgusting.
53:22 At Medibank private, we regret the recent data breach of our customers personal information. And while the hackers tried to convince us to pay their ransom as any of our customers trying to lower the cost of life saving medical treatment will tell you we never negotiate. That's why Medibank private is rebranding as of today will be known as Medibank public. So whether you have your first leaky bomb, like Phyllis Thompson of six fo in place Wangaratta or your third STI like Gustav Montague of 35 to brookstreet bonobo Queensland four to seven five whose blood type is so positive and mother's maiden name is Vaughn summer and has three points left on his licence and he's so heavily laden with debt that an extra $5,000 in fees won't make that much of a difference to him tax file number oh three one double 9381 You will get the same overpriced service without any more data breaches. Because it's too late. It's all out there now anyway. Medibank public, we feel better now that there's no more secrets.
54:21 November 2022. So the kickoff of the biggest sporting event in the world since I used to coach the wallabies, the FIFA World Cup, nothing more joyous than a month of men running around in their prime for 90 minutes. It's ballet for the commoners.
54:37 This Sunday, the entire globe descends on Cata for the event no one will talk about it's the turning a blind eye World Cup
54:47 football players that's up picking a champion eto for the wildcards alleged Oh J Trump every game as a loser. There are just lots more losers and football teams playing Oh, I've seen
54:58 jockstraps treats better than the construction workers in Qatar
55:02 32 nations will go head to head and then turn their heads to look the other way.
55:07 Oh no. They've completely mistakes. Look at that. The exploitation, the corruption, the discrimination, the total inability to buy a beer.
55:19 Which country will rationalise the cost of kicking around a ball on a field in a country without fields?
55:26 I've gotta say cats are is hosting the most awful job that I've ever refused to witness and the final stories migrant deaths 6500 versus the world now, interest
55:39 get ready to ignore all of the action further turning a blind eye World Cup or ticket will buy you a whole seat that was installed by someone who died of heat exhaustion.
55:50 The Emir of Qatar has come to his senses. It's true. I have come to my senses all stadiums must go at the Qatar Black Friday sale aid barely use stadiums are going for next to nothing. Coincidentally, they're also currently standing next to nothing pristine seats, unused beer taps, mystery bones in the foundation. I don't know how that got there. Perfect if you're hosting your own World Cup ideal for creating an internment camp or if you're a New South Wales premier just wanted to buy a stadium to knock it down to get your mates to build your new one just like it these stadiums cost $200 billion, but could be yours for a shitload of sheep. It's not a bad deal. Qatar's blackFriday stadium sale an opportunity like this won't present itself until an autocratic regime bribes FIFA to make bad decisions again.
56:37 It's our culture. Please respect it. Also in November, Anthony Albanese had his first ever bilateral with China's President G. And judging by the press conference afterwards, it sounds like we're getting married. Thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you. Okay, ready. I want to thank President sheet for a productive conversation. Sure, Australia and China have our differences. China has a problem with disappearing protesters. We know exactly where ours are under very strict bow conditions. China is increasing coal use. We are far more into gas. China's indigenous populations face imprisonment, relocation, theft of their land, reeducation, discrimination, forced labour and organ harvesting. We don't do the organ harvesting part. But despite our differences, there's something China and Australia can agree. The best way to support work is to help rich people get richer. Thank you. No questions. What about the questions? Oh, nope. There's another similarity. I forgot about repressing press freedoms and I forget that we're becoming more and more like you every day. As December rolled around New South Wales, Premier Dominic ParaType got into the Christmas spirit by saying that jailing of a climate protested for stopping traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for 20 minutes was quite pleasing to see. You know, what else is pleasing to see Anthony Kalia Live in Concert? Now there's someone who could stop traffic. One a voice.
58:14 On the next season of Wentworth, a new contender for top dog has arrived at the prison.
58:21 I took a knife and I put it in the side of my husband's abdomen and then I let his intestine spill out across the marble floor of our harbour side mansion. So new fish, or the UN for
58:33 iPad to track on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
58:37 Your time total badass.
58:39 I then delay traffic for about 20 to 25 minutes. Why would you do that? Because our government isn't doing enough about climate change. Girls.
58:48 I resign. Coco was the new top dog around here.
58:52 And if you come for the king, you better nothing carbon positive.
58:55 It's a whole new level of disproportionate justice. This season on web only on showcase which is on something called Foxtel.
59:08 Ask your parents about it. And finally a word from our King though not me the real King King Charles who just this week gave his first Christmas address.
59:17 It's now easier to read your majesty just put it back the words are clearly on it. Look, I wrote it in Comic Sans. I want to read it in comics in Yes, Your Majesty.
59:29 Good evening subjects and people who live in countries we forgot to invade when times were better. King Charles here to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Just another one of the many goddamn jobs I've had to learn to do at age 75. Did you know that I also have to be the head of the church to Christ almighty. 2022 was a year of challenges for us all. Mummy died and one had to use a blasted inkwell. This year, we're thinking of those suffering at the hands of cancelled culture, namely, Netflix, Hulu subscription we've cancelled for the entire palace. Our thoughts and prayers also go out to those who are suffering under the rule of governments undergoing bloody cool, like in the Kingdom of Great Britain. But there is always hope. For those of you concerned about mommy's legacy, don't worry. It's in good hands. Sure the hands are a little puffy and red, but working fine. Nevertheless. So from all of the top tier Royals, except for Andrew, we wish you all a Merry Christmas. Oh, God, dammit who put this bloody tree here? Why is it inside?
1:00:51 Just get rid of it. Just get it get get rid of it. Your Majesty. Of course, your majesty a tree with
1:00:57 lights and shit all over it. You can't go chopping down trees with the environment. Bloody hell.
1:01:07 Well, that's it for rational faith in the year 2022. Big thank you to everyone who listens to the show, especially those people on Patreon who chip in a small amount each month to make it happen. Also a big thank you to Jacob round on the teppanyaki timeline, all of the comedians of Australia who come into play with us and until next year, there's always something to be scared of. I'm Alan Jones.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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True to form, A Rational Fear, takes a look at week's scariest news. Catastrophic ecosystem collapse, Gerry Harvey's JobKeeper bonus, sexual assault allegations in Canberra, and Schapelle Corby on Dancing With The Stars have all been loaded into the ARF canon and ready to be shot into space.
Dan Ilic 0:00 Hi this is just a little content warning that this episode of irrational fear will cover issues of sexual assault.
Unknown Speaker 0:06 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation
Dan Ilic 0:10 Hello Lewis. Hello Daniel. How are you? I'm well I Well, I want to be a big thank you to new and returning Patreon supporters we have our Patreon supporters have gone away and have come back, which is really exciting news for everyone.
Unknown Speaker 0:23 I can understand the first part The second part is a real mystery.
Dan Ilic 0:27 No, I know. A big thank you to Gus MC, no Danny rate and pate Lola, who have all joined up in Patreon this week. big thank you to everyone. How are you, Louis? You okay? Oh, I'm alright. And I mean, it's been a bit of a week. It's been a bit of a week. That's why we're here. Well, we'll kick off. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on the land of the firewall. sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 0:52 A rational fear contains no to words like bricks cambro COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 1:05 Tonight, Attorney General Christian Porter has heard rumours that he's taking a short leave of absence but doesn't know any specifics and CHANNEL SEVEN costs repel Coby in Dancing with the Stars because March operate was unavailable and the UN chief demands Australia ends its deadly addiction to coal by 2030. In response, Scott Morrison broke into the UN chiefs house and stole his VHS recorder and sold it for a lump of the good stuff. It's the fifth of March 2021. And no journalist has ever asked me about this podcast. This is irrational fear.
Hello, welcome to rational fear. I'm your host, former Duke of Essex. Danielle it's irrational fear is the podcast that holds your hand for the scariest forest of news. And we're doing it this week. So let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She spends her days wading through the rubble of trouble from the camera bubble. It's Amy ruminococcus.
Unknown Speaker 2:10 That's a very nice way of putting it I wade through the piles of shit. That's my job.
Unknown Speaker 2:15 That's what I do.
Dan Ilic 2:15 Amy, how are your rage levels as of today for this one?
Unknown Speaker 2:20 Oh, I am incandescent with rage. I don't think I'd screen burn it all down so often in my life, and that was this Monday. So you know, it's been going great.
Dan Ilic 2:31 And he's one of Australia's most prolific comedy creators. He quit journalism for the stability of comedy. It's Adams wha Hello, Adam. And he regrets about leaving journalism after a week like this.
Unknown Speaker 2:41 It was a wise decision wasn't it? Yeah, I I'm exhausted and I'm not even involved in any way. So I kind of mentioned how you feel me? Um, yeah, full on.
Lewis Hobba 2:54 It's lucky you got out Adam, you would have been joining the mob of media bullies.
Unknown Speaker 3:01 do realise I was the lightweight among journalists. I used to write show business journals.
Unknown Speaker 3:05 That is one of the nastiest pits to be in show business journalism. I wouldn't I wouldn't want to come across you. alley Yeah, I've
Dan Ilic 3:15 been on the I've been on the nasty end of a paid afford clip on a current affair where he he said Daniel, which I've never heard of him.
Unknown Speaker 3:24 On Twitter. I don't think we've had any interactions. And then just one day I discovered I was blocked on Twitter and I was like, can you even eat? Are you bored?
Dan Ilic 3:32 And our final fearmonger is considering becoming a celebrant, I've already booked him to officiate my funeral. It's Lewis haba,
Lewis Hobba 3:38 allaudin. I tell you that I actually did drunkenly consider becoming a celebrant?
Dan Ilic 3:43 Well, I think you should I mean, you're told you're handsome. You're good with a voice.
Lewis Hobba 3:47 Thank you. I mean, I don't think that any of those are relevant qualifications to sell celebrando wedding, but um, because I get I'm sure you guys get this as well. If you talk into a microphone professionally, you get asked to emcee every wedding. Like I've emceed more weddings and I've attended. And occasionally people do pay me to DJ so I could add celebrate, then I could literally be the whole wedding.
Dan Ilic 4:10 Coming up ecosystems all around Australia and the Antarctic are suffering huge levels of decline, and are on the brink of collapse. joining us to discuss which ecosystem is likely to be last and where you should be building your eco doom. bunker is climate counsellor, Leslie Hughes. But first a message from our sponsor. It's the Harvey
Unknown Speaker 4:29 Norman swimming in money sale. There's so much money with drowning in profits up 116% sales up by $462 million. As a bonus, we're keeping job keeper that's right $22 million from the government to help struggling businesses during the pandemic The only thing we're struggling to deal with find space to bottle this excess $22 million tax free interest free no cashback the savings are huge. And Harvey Norman, if you're me it's the Harvey Norman Swimming in money sale. All cash just got a
Dan Ilic 5:07 bit of long tail out in that one. This works Firstly, the Attorney General Christian Porter claims he is innocent of any allegations of sexual assault in 1988. He was adamant that the allegations that he himself hadn't seen were completely false. It was an extraordinary press conference this week, Porter claimed that no one put to him the allegations ever. I think what he meant to say was I hadn't seen or heard anyone putting the allegations to me because the Attorney General you had a radio a mouse or pick up a phone from the hundreds of journalists trying to put the allegations to him, then maybe he would have he also had the gall to suggest that the media were trying to quote ruin his life, forgetting that someone's life was literally ruined. Worst of all consequences for Porter is that it would he would have to step down for politics and go to work in a law firm for four times the money that he's on. Now. It's a bit like Schrodinger is Korea inside his a box, and you're not quite sure whether the career is alive or dead. And the only way to find out is if you open the box, but No way. No one wanted to open that box, not even a series of successive prime ministers. The job is very important to him. After all, the twice divorced Porter only has his job. It's not like he can quit to spend more time with his families because they don't want to be near him. It was a very, very strange press conference, indeed, fear mongers what were your strangest moments from this remarkable presser? Amy, let's start with you.
Unknown Speaker 6:31 I mean, it does have to be said straight up. But he does absolutely deny it even happened at all that there was any sort of consensual relationship between him and the complainant. And he just says it doesn't it hasn't happened at all. And I have to put that out there for legal reasons, because this is a live legal issue. He has already said that he is trolling through social media and news stories and like for defamation, so he denies everything. The most extraordinary part of the press conference for me apart from some random memory of a bowl of prawns that he mentioned, he remembered from the 1988 night period in question from the complainant was that he basically said that he would be if this was independently investigated, or there was an independent inquiry, he would be the first person in history to have to disprove something that never happened. And to me, that was extraordinary, because that's the basis of every not guilty or denial plea that's ever been made. You're just you're saying it doesn't happen. That's that's part of it. If you saying it doesn't happen, then you you are asked to explain your side of the story. It's not unique. And then when he went on to say that the basically the rule of law would collapse, if he was asked to, to go through some sort of other inquiry. Because you know, anyone could make any sort of allegation and it would immediately ruin a MPs Korea, which again, is not true. You have independent inquiries all the time in the sports world, in churches, in schools, in businesses, it's not an either or situation.
Dan Ilic 8:19 Deadline deadline. If you say when he said if he stepped down, it would be the end of the rule of law. That was quite a quite a very strange line. Like I think we all remember when the pope retired, Catholicism disappeared. I think it's the same sort of thing. Same sort of logic He's going for there.
Lewis Hobba 8:37 It is what it sort of had this like vision that if a man is ever actually or a politician has ever actually convicted of a sex crime, the next day, it's the Thunderdome.
Unknown Speaker 8:47 True, yes. But like that. The the other point, though, is that we're not even talking convictions. This is not going into a criminal court. It can't. The complainant has passed away, they passed away before they made an official complaint, they withdrew it before their death. There was never any formal interview process. The police literally cannot investigate this, there is no way that they can. So this is never going to a criminal court. The only way you have to test whether he is fit to sit in the ministry is an independent inquiry, which has to be called by the Prime Minister. And he's not even being asked to to do resign. He's just basically being asked to maybe step aside while this inquiry is carried out, which is something that happens all the time. It's just It's extraordinary that we've now reached these peaks of just it's going to burn down democracy and the rule of law. If we look into this any further and the fact that the government is just picking up that line and running with it and the Prime Minister is pretending to be a passive bystander. He's like, Oh, well, you know, the police have had this I there's nothing I can do and people believe it. is extraordinary to me.
Dan Ilic 10:01 It's such it's such a passing of the buck again of all kinds of responsibility like this is exactly the scomo playbook. It's like, it's not my problem. It's somebody else's problem. It's not our problem. It's not our fault. It's not my responsibility is just continually passing the buck 730s Laura tinkle made a point that back in the olden days that some people had shame and that politicians would resign that over the slightest smell of impropriety. I think one of the one of the ones that sticks out in my mind was Peter reef, like having a massive scan around Peter rates telecard card, which is his telecom card that he gave to his son that his son racked up 40 or $50,000, with a phone calls on I don't even know how you could do that. And that almost brought down the government, but like nowadays, politicians are just sticking around, they're sticking to their guns, and tough in and out yet until they pass through. What do you think is what do you think's driving this trend
Unknown Speaker 10:56 going back to you know, like, you know, times when people just resigned over almost nothing, there was a resignation because someone took a Paddington Bear toy into Australia without declaring it and paying tax. There was a resignation because an MP brought, you know, he imported a colour television and he put down that it was a black and white television. So we didn't pay the proper amount of tax on that. And he resigned over that. Like, it's just we've gone from that to a point where we have had sports rights. And we've had, you know, questions over Angus Taylor's involvement in like, you know, certain other projects, then we've had bullying allegations during the Liberal Party leadership skills like the many many Liberal Party leadership skills spills. Then we've had the handling of the Brittany Higgins allegations and now we have a rape allegation. And we've still got a prime minister saying I don't hold a hose or an acquire inquiry. It's just insane to me.
Dan Ilic 11:55 I think I don't hold a hose is going to be the meme of his tenure. That will be the symbol of his entire Prime Ministership. Adam, what do you think about that
Unknown Speaker 12:05 idea? Yeah, I agree. I remember there was a time when people resigned. I think they probably started a lot. They stopped resigning around 27 to 2018. I remember. I think so. Barnaby Joyce, he left the legendary Liberal Party National Party in 2018. I think that was the last resignation. I can remember really, the Al Franken who was the Senator, I remember it was 2017 that he was removed. There was a accusation that he forced a woman to kiss him. And then he he demanded an investigation into himself and I think seven other women came forward. And so he resigned. Right now you've got Andrew Cuomo, he's not going anywhere on three women have come out accusing him of sexual harassment. Trudeau three times just photographed in blackface. Attorney General of Virginia, Mark herring, blackface again. All those people that are holding firm and I think it's, you know, we can blame Trump, but I think it actually goes back to Boris Johnson when he there was a you know, a number of scandals that he was involved in that just didn't touch the sides with him. It's something about those guys that just they just huge hide. Don't care what you think. Kind of love, love the fight. You know, Boris Johnson had multiple affairs. He doesn't admit to how many children he's got.
Dan Ilic 13:28 That's a great start. That is that is I don't hold a penis mate. That is
Unknown Speaker 13:34 totally fine. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 13:35 it's obfuscation right there. There was an article in nine papers today that said scomo praised Porter's gutsy performance is scomo the world's most powerful drama teacher Adams. Well, yeah, he
Unknown Speaker 13:48 like he takes the acting really seriously because it you know, as we know, the child actor and the Vic said back in the day, and
Dan Ilic 13:55 do people know this that he was a child actor in a Vicks vapour drops ad when in the 70s and 80s? I didn't know that. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:04 yeah. We're struggling to find out which ad it actually is. It's kind of hard because you know, he's got a kind of a fat ball kid in any of the kids with hair and how do you kind of pick out scomo? There's a, I can see the tricks of the trade that he's using, you know, when he was talking about the Jenny thing the other day, and he was saying that when Jenny had talked about it with Jenny, and you know, Jenny said, think about it if it was one of your daughters. He thought he was in a Ken Loach film that when he was doing that, he was really searching for the meaning and he was like, really loading those pauses, you know, you've got to be a lovey to know like, shit, he knows and he when he's standing behind people talking, you know, they've discussed the talking points beforehand. Yeah. And it's almost as though his lips are moving like he's kind of and he's kind of getting a little bit impatient with that. They're not delivering the lines. Was he would have, and you know, he kind of he kind of does he, you know, in his smoky, horrible way he he's a, he's a strong performer, whether you like him or not he kind of just he, he holds up, he keeps holding up despite the evidence being against him.
Lewis Hobba 15:19 I hit that before that performance, I think that he does with the pauses, is very reminiscent of a genuinely ANGRY DAD when you're a child. Like, I think when you're getting told off by a dad, and you can, and he yells at you, and then there's a silence that grabs you as a as like, everyone remembers that being yelled and like that. But the problem is that he started to double up on the same performance. So there was there was this one where he did that was like, come on, you know this. And then there was the exact thing from a year ago where he does the same performance. But the point of this point A year ago was that he's yelling at journalists, because like, this problem is all over the place. Women are getting raped, and we're not listening to them. And you're like, Ah, you're these performances are really now clashing.
Dan Ilic 16:06 Yeah, yeah, it's not that's not the tone we need for this particular point of view right now.
Unknown Speaker 16:11 You get out of the text and you get another take if you don't get it right. Well, I ended up
Lewis Hobba 16:17 doing we've got that one.
Dan Ilic 16:19 Scott's always got another dose up to get to show he can always try it out again. There. That's it. Yeah. Amy, I want to ask you this. I don't know if you're across this. But I saw that Porter could possibly have his fate decided for him by the EEC, by the time the next election rolls around, because because of a whole demographic shift from Wi Fi to Victoria, the IEC is planning on abolishing Potter's seat of peace. Do you? Is this the most Is this the most humane way to put Porter down?
Unknown Speaker 16:46 I don't know about that. It is a very live issue for why politics at the moment whether you know Porter's seat will exist. And it's going to be very interesting from a purely political viewpoint of how much political capital he still has in the wha branches because usually when this sort of stuff happens is the heavyweights get to move into somebody else's safe seats and that person ends up resigning. So you see those battles happen, you know, kind of everywhere I'm in labour went through one in Victoria, when Melbourne had a whole bunch of you know, re selections in terms of where the boundaries were going. And that sort of thing. There was a lot of shuffling around and who got to go where cray
Dan Ilic 17:27 cray Kelly Hughes is looking pretty attractive.
Unknown Speaker 17:34 I think you'll probably stay in who there was some talk at the time that you might want Julie Bishop's old seat and that he was making a move for that even back then because it's a much, much safer seat than his is. But it really is going to depend on how the next couple of weeks, months, like play out. And when you're talking about Morrison's performance, and I refuse to call him scomo because that is a nickname he gave himself. It is a marketing day. You cannot allow the man to just create like the man, the myth, the legend with a nickname he gave himself. So we need to like you know, move on from the scomo talk. But he performs mostly for the televisions and those pauses for the grabs. He just wants the TVs to have a neat cut of him saying he's very profound statement, cut one, cut two, boom, that's all anybody hears from the prime minister and everyone moves on. Because I think if we remember about politics, one of the key rules is that you don't want people thinking about politics because if you think about politics, you'll begin to pay attention to what the government's doing and if you're doing that you will probably vote them out. He doesn't want you thinking about it. He wants you just ignoring it. going oh, that's just a Canberra Parliament bubble thing. Move on. How about them Sharky,
Unknown Speaker 18:59 what I was talking about with the pauses was the was the in the in the my daughter's thing. He was trying to tap into an emotional place there to show us that he was human. And in doing so just look worse than normal. I thought I thought that I thought he was actually trying to go a little bit too far. And being a child actors when I was little child actors. They don't develop into proper actors that they retain. It's like, really two dimensional kind of truth that they search for. It's and it's on the nose.
Lewis Hobba 19:30 I imagined. If we ever go back and find that big sad, it'll just be some kid coughing desperately at a young Skomer going. I don't know how to explain
Unknown Speaker 19:44 that's a metaphor, the Queensland Government. I mean, that's a metaphor, the cranium, that's a matter that I'll rise with other premiers and Chief Ministers. That's really a question to the premium. That's a matter of I'm happy to take up with the other premiers and Chief Ministers a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 19:56 Let's move on to our second fear this week, as mentioned at the top of the show, There's a new wildcard entry for Dancing with the Stars chapelco rb, which makes me ask the question have TV producers run out of genuine Australian stars now, fear mongers. We're going to call Chappelle a star here. Who else should be given a crack at Dancing with the Stars? I've got a small list. I'm Ned Kelly. George Pell. My Brian brown still alive. Maybe we could get him on Dancing with the Stars.
Lewis Hobba 20:25 I like I like Chappelle on Dancing with the Stars. But I think it should be kind of like a 90s. Right. Like she should just throw down three pills. And then the episode goes for 12 hours. We just say how long she can shuffle.
Dan Ilic 20:38 This is really sad for not ignited graduates. I've always thought I thought not a graduates graduating not and now now have to go and commit some extremely drastic crimes of essays so they can get cast on the show.
Unknown Speaker 20:49 Like, let's remember though, Pauline Hanson was a star on this show, after she had, you know, got out of jail after she was, you know, wrongly convicted or expunged or whatever, they ended up staying there. And before she was back in politics, we ran out of stars a very, very long time ago. I mean, I just, I think we went through, we went through whoever was in neighbours and home in a way that wasn't a hands worth and then I think maybe they dug up some like, you know, people from Better Homes and Gardens. Then they went through some like, you know, I don't know the block contestants. And then they were like, oh, who else who's coming out of jail now Pauline Hanson?
Lewis Hobba 21:29 Yeah, but the reality TV pipeline now is this kind of like an Etch A Sketch, where you try to walk out of maps and you accidentally walk onto the block. And then when you leave and all of a sudden you're on X Factor, and you
Unknown Speaker 21:43 are in Paradise and then you're stuck in that island and you find yourself into Viber and then you just go like, you know, putting out a raft somewhere and it's I'm a celebrity Get me out of here and it's never ending Dante circle, like reality TV.
Unknown Speaker 21:57 What about the lie the cost of insiders? Phil curry on dancing and dancing stars definitely. Pay to watch that. Actually. I would pay me
Dan Ilic 22:08 a remake us on Dancing with the Stars. There you go.
Unknown Speaker 22:10 Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I would, you know, probably dropped some really unfortunate swear word and then just get voted off and then just go straight into my next reality TV show.
Unknown Speaker 22:22 And you're dancing with your mobile phones. You're watching him at all times.
Unknown Speaker 22:25 Yeah, yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 22:25 am. I'm just like, do you see what the fuck they've done?
Dan Ilic 22:31 Adam, you're an executive producer of many TV shows. Is this some? Is it appealing to you to cast Chappelle in something?
Unknown Speaker 22:38 Do you know what i like? I saw si s Australia. Oh, and I watched that with interest has done a channel seven show. I think I've watched the last you know, decade. And I really liked it and Chapelle I was very sceptical of when she came on but she was so lovely. She's a very sensitive, nice person. And that's how she came across anyway. And she won me over I was actually a little bit moved when she got voted out. I mean, she was terrible as if she shouldn't be anywhere near near, you know, she shouldn't be running 10 kilometres with a backpack on and no
Unknown Speaker 23:16 one should.
Unknown Speaker 23:18 And she, she, she was she was okay. So she's not gonna be any good at dancing. She'll be fobbed off in the first week. But you know, she'll be swayed about it and, and and take some money. I definitely think it was a brother did it.
Unknown Speaker 23:36 They seize writable view.
Dan Ilic 23:39 Turning now to activate close to this podcast heart, the end of the world. A groundbreaking report has just been released to COVID-19 ecosystems around Australia, our major threat of collapse that is deteriorated so badly. They're unlikely to recover a bit like my older brother's hairline. It's never coming back. And I feel like I'm missing. One of the authors of the report and longtime friend of the show is Professor Leslie Hughes. Leslie joins us now. Thank you, Professor Hughes for joining us. Hi, Dan.
Unknown Speaker 24:07 Great to be here.
Dan Ilic 24:08 So 19 ecosystems doesn't sound like a lot. But when you see it mapped out across the continent, the way that the report has it, it feels like the whole of Australia is it is in peril is an imminent collapse period.
Unknown Speaker 24:21 Well, in some cases, yes. The the ecosystems as you can see on the map in the paper go from right at the northern tip, right down through the continent, right from east to west, and then down to Antarctica. They're spread out all over the place. Some of them are ecosystems that are really well known, like the Great Barrier Reef and others will be ones that most people haven't heard of, but they're all in trouble.
Dan Ilic 24:47 The ones that people haven't heard of, do they need some kind of PR campaign? Is that something that we can help out with?
Unknown Speaker 24:53 Yes, I guess, I guess so. I mean, some of them aren't quite as spectacular as the Great Barrier Reef for Or the Murray Darling Basin, but they're all in trouble. They all have species that are disappearing, they all provide services to to our health and well being. In some cases, they've been in trouble for a very long time. Whereas in other cases, the the evidence of decline has been quite rapid and quite recent,
Dan Ilic 25:19 were the ones that the evidence of decline has been rapid, like, what are the ones that have kind of, you know, fallen over pretty quickly?
Unknown Speaker 25:26 Well, we've, we've seen things for coming back to the Great Barrier Reef, you know, in the last five years, we've had three major bleaching events from from underwater heat waves. And that's resulted in about 50%, of loss of all of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef, if you think about a reef system, you can see it from space, it's more than 2000 kilometres long, and we've lost half the corals. That's a pretty major event. And it's actually happened, you know, in geological time, very, very rapidly. And then a couple of years ago, for example, just over the space of a couple of days, we had massive fish gills in the menindee Lakes, as a result of, of drought and heat and loss of water, with millions of fish dying in the space of two or three days. So some of these things can happen really, really fast.
Dan Ilic 26:17 What does this kind of collapse mean for Australia's ability to feed itself to kind of, you know, provide agriculture for itself and as an agriculture nation?
Unknown Speaker 26:28 Well, indeed, to the ecosystems that we mentioned in the reporter, the Murray Darling waterways, and the Murray Darling sort of what we call riparian vegetation, which is the vegetation around the river. Over the last few decades, there's been a massive decline in rainfall. And on top of that, of course, we're removing lots of that water for irrigation and for urban uses. And those two things together, together with you know, runoff of nutrients and sediment from from agricultural fertilisers are really destroying those ecosystems. And the Murray Darling Basin is where we produce a third of our food. So when when you've got those ecosystems that are so intricately intertwined with our life support system in in, in the form of our food security, there's there's some really serious things going on.
Dan Ilic 27:23 And it sounds sounds dire. Like it sounds like there's nowhere to go.
Lewis Hobba 27:27 Is there any positive to look at it? Can we eat the fish from them and in the lake? So can we take the bleached coral and use it to decorate Byron Bay? airbnbs?
Unknown Speaker 27:36 Well, yeah, you can't eat bleached coral. And I guess you'd have to get to the fish pretty fast before they poisoned us. So there's always some creative things that you could do with that destroyed ecosystems, but it would be better to do something positive to to stop and then reverses decline.
Dan Ilic 27:55 Is there an ecosystem that's thriving right now? Is there a place in Australia this like, hell yeah, this
Unknown Speaker 27:59 is great.
Unknown Speaker 28:02 You know, I can't think of one
Lewis Hobba 28:05 goddamnit Leslie.
Unknown Speaker 28:08 I'm sorry. I mean, if you think back to the black summer bushfires, for example, the amount of area burned in those fires, is about three times the size of Tasmania is about 20% of our eucalypt forests, but that summer, so you know, that's just the East Coast and a bit of Western Australia.
Dan Ilic 28:26 I was just saying, I'm in jervis Bay right now. And we've been driving up and down the south coast. And it's a hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. It is just recovering forests. And it's so stark to drive through these places that you're I remember seeing on the news a year ago, thinking wow, like this is just this is just so epic, the amount of bush land it was burned over that summer, and it's only kind of recovering now. And I'm just thinking about all the wildlife that has gone missing, particularly over that strange, dark period.
Unknown Speaker 29:00 Yes, one of my colleagues at the University of Sydney estimated that around about 3 billion vertebrate animals that's birds, mammals and reptiles probably directly perished in the fires and of course, many more would have died of starvation and predation afterwards. So but look, the eucalypt forests that you've been driving through are recovering, they'll they'll You know, they're fairly well adapted to to fires, but they're really different thing about that summer's bushfires is that we had massive fires go through rain forests, the Gondwana rain forests that the don't burn, usually. We had some a few years ago in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area that killed trees that were 1000 years old. So what we're seeing with with climate change, increasing the severity and intensity and frequency of these fires, is places burning that have never burned in the last 1000 years.
Dan Ilic 29:57 With with this word that you've just kind of realised It's a big job to kind of kind of categorise every kind of ecosystem in Australia and put it kind of put it through the that that filter. How did this this job kind of come about? How did this piece of work get built?
Unknown Speaker 30:16 Well, there was a workshop down in Canberra at the Academy of Sciences in 2018. That brought a number of us together to talk about what we called ecological surprises. And a number of people spoke at that conference, including myself. And when the people at the conference got together afterwards, we sort of sat around and thought, Well, look, we really should write something up. So that that this, what's been talked about at the conference can be on paper and disseminated beyond these walls. And so really, for the last couple of years, that paper has been put together, more and more people came on board who are expert in particular ecosystems. It's been a massive job, there's a massive amount of data and references in this paper. But finally, to all of our great relief, it was published last week.
Lewis Hobba 31:04 I mean, given that there's, you know, 19 ecosystems, we've got the Great Barrier Reef in there, one of the most famous in Australia and the world, we still can't get anyone to do anything about that. The most famous one that we know generates billions of dollars of tourism, there's still nothing they can do about that, let alone the other 18, when you get together with your group have made these discoveries, what's the mood?
Unknown Speaker 31:32 It's a good question. I think anybody that works, both in environmental conservation and climate change, and I work in both of those areas, kind of gets pretty used to being depressed about it, or and most of the time, you know, you get you do get you do have to get hardened to it, which doesn't mean that you give up and stop going. But nothing much surprises you anymore, you know, we sort of expect the worst. And on occasion, when we get a small victory, we celebrate that. But generally, they are small and fleeting victories against a backdrop of really extraordinary loss. But I mean, the alternative is to just crawl under your donor and ignore it and hope that it all goes away or gets better. And really, that's not really an option for most of us.
Dan Ilic 32:22 I'm glad it's not an option for you lately. That's
Lewis Hobba 32:25 great. A lot of
Dan Ilic 32:29 you last time we hung out was in Paris at the climate talks. You are a representative on the Intergovernmental Panel for climate change. We're heading into cop 26 in Glasgow, first of all, what is what is cop 26 gonna look like in this kind of pandemic situation that we've got? Is it gonna be face to face?
Unknown Speaker 32:52 Look, we don't know. I mean, I guess with the vaccine rollout, especially in places like the UK, which is seems to be going pretty well, I think we would hope that it would be at least partially face to face. Of course, the Glasgow meeting was supposed to happen last year and didn't happen at all. So there's another year down the track and emissions keep going up. I think one of the really major things that will be different about this year, whether it's in person or not, is the fact that Joe Biden's administration has put climate change front and centre. So that's given an enormous boost of hope, going forward. And I think that the atmosphere in Glasgow this year, will be very different to what it might have been last year under the Trump administration. So whether it's in person or not, that's a really important difference.
Dan Ilic 33:44 And I don't want to kind of put you on the spot here. But what do you think Australia is going to take to Glasgow, do you think Australia is going to be a better actor than it has been at previous conferences of parties?
Unknown Speaker 34:00 Well, look, you've just been talking earlier in the podcast about this government's ability to just sort of soldier on unchanged regardless of extraordinary scandal, the government's attitude to climate changes is also an extraordinary scandal. But they've proved thus far to be able to sort of tough out all sorts of things. So my prediction would be is we'll go to Glasgow with no further level of ambition, then we took to Paris despite all evidence that that is not enough. I'd love to be surprised by that.
Dan Ilic 34:39 Like even with Europe in the UK standard, think about financial penalties for in tariffs on count on high carbon countries. Do you think that'll change what we take to Glasgow at all?
Unknown Speaker 34:52 Well, it might do in fact, I think that's probably the only thing that will turn this government around to being a better player in this space. You know, if places like the EU, and the US start to impose carbon tariffs on countries like Australia who are not pulling their weight, then we will have to change because we are so reliant for our economy on on our trade. So, you know, it's sad that we should be dragged kicking and screaming to that position when Australia has so much to learn from renewables and green manufacturing,
Lewis Hobba 35:30 it does seem like Australia has two options. One, that option, the smart one to Jenny starts to care. And
Dan Ilic 35:41 it's the battle for Jenny,
Unknown Speaker 35:42 you know, we should put it to Scott that his his kids and grandkids are going to live hopefully into the next century. And if we, if we carry on the way we're going with three degrees or more of temperature increase, that is pretty much an uninhabitable world that those kids and grandkids are going to be inheriting. So if he really does care about his kids, if anybody cares about their kids and future generations, they should be absolutely as passionate about climate action as I am.
Dan Ilic 36:15 And Leslie, as part of this big bit of work that you've released this week, you've kind of put together a bit of a scheme called the three A's a way that people can kind of do their kind of get involved with their own action in meaningful ways. What are the three eyes?
Unknown Speaker 36:33 Yeah, we wanted to put forward a sort of a framework of hope going forward, we didn't just want to catalogue the problems, and so many of these sorts of papers do. So the first day is awareness, you know, and that's what we've been doing with is raising awareness about the true extent of the trouble with Australian ecosystems are in. The second is anticipation. If you can anticipate future decline, hopefully, you can get in and do something about it before it happens. And the third eye, of course, is action. And what we do in the paper is for each of those ecosystems, we outline a series of management actions that if implemented, would help halt and possibly in some cases, reverse the decline. Of course, most of those are local actions that address things like habitat clearing and over allocation of freshwater and that sort of thing. But on top of all of that, is the global action that we need on climate change.
Dan Ilic 37:31 If I was not a generous person, I'd asked you why. There wasn't a fourth a Angus Taylor, why wasn't that on the list?
Unknown Speaker 37:39 Well, Angus Taylor gets the prize for the most Orwellian named ministry, you know, the Minister of emissions reduction that is wanting us to put in new coal fired power stations, you know, it does beg a belief
Lewis Hobba 37:53 he's absences. The fourth is is kind of a whole it's a it's an A Paul.
Unknown Speaker 37:59 Very good.
Dan Ilic 38:01 That's it for rational A big thank you to all of our guests, Professor Leslie Hughes
Unknown Speaker 38:05 Adams. Well,
Dan Ilic 38:06 Amy remake of St. Louis harbour, have
Unknown Speaker 38:07 you got anything to plug?
Dan Ilic 38:08 Amy, do you wanna plug anything? No,
Unknown Speaker 38:11 just speak to your MPs just be loud and angry and not at me and social media. Like just take it to the people who represent you. It's the only way you're going to get action.
Dan Ilic 38:22 atoms. Why do you want to plug anything?
Unknown Speaker 38:24 Nothing to plug then? Which is a relief, isn't it?
Dan Ilic 38:28 It's very good, Louis. How about what are you plugging?
Lewis Hobba 38:31 Nothing, Dan. on the radio show, you can listen if you like, but
Dan Ilic 38:35 yeah, no big deal. Leslie Hughes, what do you have anything to plug?
Unknown Speaker 38:39 I'd like to plug the climate Council, which is working very hard. And they're now in our eighth year to inform the Australian public about climate change.
Dan Ilic 38:48 And for the kids who are listening to this, ask your parents about what the climate Council is and how it was formed. It was this incredible story over a two week period where where one government department got shut down and the cabinet and the climate council came together with a whole bunch of public donations. And it was absolutely remarkable, very inspiring stuff. Amy, on a personal note, thank you for your hard work this week. It's been so fun watching you on Twitter, and heartening to see you at the coalface of such a very difficult story and helping all of us on twitter in particular channel outrage as to what was going on. So thank you. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 39:28 thank you for listening.
Dan Ilic 39:29 Big thanks to red marks the birth of foundation our Patreon supporters Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline Rupa degasser He's incredible voice Kelly and David Payton all the discord crew. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.
The pod must go on — from our separate homes we keep cup and carry on — on the show this week we bring you the best and brightest brains on COVID19 including Eureka Prize winner Dr. Darren Saunders, comedian Rosie Piper, Dj Dylabolical, hosts Dan Ilic and Lewis Hobba and comedian Bec Melrose drops in to do 5min from her cancelled Melbourne Comedy Festival Show.
(00:00) Preamble.
(01:40) Start.
(02:50) Introductions.
(04:27) Sponsor: Visit the 90's.
(06:22) The 3rd week of Coronarama.
(12:28) Dr. Darren Saunders gives some COVID19 answers.
(26:40) Alan Jones on the Coronavirus
(29:10) Bec Melrose does 5min of her cancelled MICF show.
(35:50) Wrap up
(36:47) News Fighters
Dan Ilic 0:00
Well, before we start, the building committee festival has been cancelled. Lewis actually predicted this the day before they actually cancelled it on our last week's show. I've actually got a clip of you Lewis predicting this. Here it is. Now before we start letting people know that our Melbourne Comedy Festival show Tickets are on sale at this stage. The Melbourne Comedy Festival is still going. Yeah, I mean, what is it? It's currently Thursday evening, I would say we have 12 hours left for you to purchase tickets, feel good about them and then feel the need to return them when the coroner predicted predicted Louis hell but what do you think about that? I mean, obviously, I'm a genius. I see everything. It's palpable tonight. It's Thursday again $60 million. It's gonna be number 37. Touch all your money. I'm 37. Now if you if you get a refund, I should let you know. become one of our subscribers on Patreon. For as little as five bucks a month you can support a rational fear to bring you podcasts and videos. This week. We actually double Our Patreon subscriber limit term to 11. And a big shout out to someone named Margot haba. Who is now donating any relation Louis maga haba hey, yeah, that's my
Lewis Hobba 1:14
mom shout for mom. She's been financially
Dan Ilic 1:18
helping me out since day job. So it's still good to know that she hasn't laid off Thank you, mom. And also, for every patient subscriber who wins will expected like 50% of that to go to restaurant fears pitcher Patreon. Thank you very much, Louis. It's very generous of you. irrational fears are coated on gadigal Land of urination. I pay my respects to elder's past, present and emerging. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:42
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, camera,
Unknown Speaker 1:48
and gum and section 40 of a rational
Unknown Speaker 1:51
fear recommended listening
Unknown Speaker 1:53
by a mature audience.
Dan Ilic 1:54
Today on irrational fear cuantas is reportedly seeking a government bailout when asked What they did with their recent $5 billion profit, a spokesman suggested it was stuck on the back of the cuantas lounge. The NFL is seeking a bailout from the government claiming that Australia won't be Australia without Rugby League, which is news to people in Western Australia, South Australia Victoria Northern Territory in Tasmania who all said who is rugby lake. Tasmania has shut its border to mainland Australia. On top of a 14 day quarantine people will be deported from the island if they don't test positive to being a close cousin. There's plenty of toilet paper for everyone. This is irrational.
Unknown Speaker 2:38
irrational.
Dan Ilic 2:50
Welcome to irrational fear. Now let's meet our fear mongers tonight billed as one of Australia's premier transgender lesbian Canadians maybe it's rise pifo Hello Hello, in 2019 he was the winner of Australia's most prestigious science prize in 2020. He's shutting down his lab because as it turns out, being good at important work is not valued in Australia. It's Dr. Darren Saunders. Good, I will look I'm fine. And as someone who is pretty good for the apocalypse and as someone who has to live with the uncertainty every day in the cutthroat, chaotic world of US public broadcasting, it's Lewis. Hello. Hello, Dan. Yes, a joy to be here. Not broadcasting. I can't hear anything. It's actually can I say, my my Cynthia virus here and everyone's been working from home. This current setup of a million people speaking from different places, has become the norm. And I feel like I'm just back in high school watching my substitute teacher struggle with the DVD player again. And on the pots and pans, it's DJ diabolical
Unknown Speaker 3:59
now Now I've always stood up the back end being the silent DJ and the whole by Paul Shaffer and I took a global pandemic to get me on the mic. You will probably regret it. Thank you, Dan.
Dan Ilic 4:09
A little later on the show broadcast. Alan Jones shares his view on Corona virus comedian Beck Melrose will be popping by two to five minutes after cancelled Melbourne Comedy Festival show and della balika will deliver us fresh new news fighters. But first, we couldn't do this show without our sponsors. Here's our first sponsor for tonight. Hi,
Unknown Speaker 4:29
I'm unindicted war criminal and foppish former Prime Minister Tony Blair. And I mean, look, these are uncertain times, right? Like 2020 his brothers coronavirus, the climate crisis and married at first sight. And since international travel has been banned, I'm inviting you to take a break and book a journey to somewhere when nothing interesting happens. The 90s I mean, look, you could learn to surf the web with Morgan Freeman.
Unknown Speaker 4:55
Click on Netscape Navigator
Unknown Speaker 4:56
and type in www dot But you thought out the vista.com
Unknown Speaker 5:02
then search for the answer to anything you want. Like why can Kevin Costner do
Unknown Speaker 5:06
an English accent? Or go on a tour of the White House with my good colleague, Bill Clinton. And in this drawer is where I put all the things I want to disappear, lock cigars use tissues and genocide in Rwanda. I've never even heard of that place. Sir. Mr. Epstein's on the phone. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 5:25
excuse me,
Unknown Speaker 5:26
Jeffrey. Hi. Of course, Saturday's great for me. Or you could even visit the set of a television commercial with Donald Trump. I don't even drink vodka. They want me to sell it because I can sell it. Vodka. It's
Unknown Speaker 5:42
fantastic. Believe me, but Oh, hang on a second. Hello. Hello Jeffrey. Jeffrey Epstein. My friend is a billionaire just like me. It's what we have in common. Saturday. I'll be there of course.
Unknown Speaker 5:57
So look, book a ticket to of the 90s when the war on terror was just sparkle in my eye. What has it hasn't finished yet? This month? Oh, good, who? Actually Don't tell me I'll watch it on DVR. So pimp your right to the 90s. Right? a time where if you wanted to enjoy an apocalypse, you have to go to the cinema. How about good deeds?
Unknown Speaker 6:22
Thank you.
Dan Ilic 6:23
This is irrational fear we're into the third week of coronavirus on last week on inside is paid event ensel and tweeted that when tweeted when the CMO into the studio he offered to shake everyone's hand. Later that afternoon the Prime Minister suggested that everyone stop shaking hands which gave us a huge release to everyone who is forced to meet the prime minister and Kobe did a monologue this week from his bath. The NBC today show as Al Roker the weatherman did the weather from his kitchen TV shows are doing shows with that audiences which is nothing new. We did we did it tonight lay all the time the difference is popular shows are seeing their audiences to stay at home and people in the middle Panic buying weed. So my friends, how is the apocalypse treating you so far?
Unknown Speaker 7:05
I think
Unknown Speaker 7:07
people would probably expect it to be worse than it is. Right. But I've been doing some thinking. Because a lot of people think that like comedy is in like a bit of crisis at the moment, right? Like the comedy festivals being cancelled and everything. And that's obviously, you know, a bad thing. But I think like, it's actually going to, sort of, in at least when like, everything kind of blows over in the end, it's actually going to set the comedy community out quite well. And I like I've been talking to a lot of comedians and whatnot. I've just got like a sort of like a list of things he that I'd like love to go through. Sort of like, tell everyone, what, what sort of good, good stuff we've got to look forward to right. So like, at least while we're all like self isolating, socially distancing and whatnot right now. There's a Everybody is being pushed to like the podcasting world, right?
Dan Ilic 8:04
Unfortunately, yeah, this is how we do it. We were unfortunately having to make a podcast over Google Hangouts. It's very shoddy.
Unknown Speaker 8:11
Yeah. Well, I think there's gonna be a lot more of that right and like obviously like, that's a great thing because all we want is a lot more straight white men telling us which movies we need to watch right? So I've talked to like a few people who have got some like podcasts in the in the works and I just want to go through some of them right now. So I've heard there's there's one coming up was called Mighty Morphin Power recap, right? Which is a it's two middle aged white men just sort of watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode by episode and going through that and I can only imagine that that is going to be some truly interesting content. Another one that is come through my my friends podcast, you should go to the fuck are you looking at again, middle aged males Come on there and discuss all the best fights that they've gotten into over their, over their lifetime. So that's a pretty good one is there's also one called, we'll just tell you a mother, we ate it all, which is essentially it's two white males and a trans woman who watched sort of that American Pie style teen sex comedies every week and discuss those and I know you're thinking that doesn't sound like it has any legs at all. It couldn't even have 100 episodes. It didn't celebrate that today. Please listen, please listen.
Dan Ilic 9:30
Is this is this your podcast? Right?
Unknown Speaker 9:33
Oh, no, it's certainly not mine. No, I don't know he's talking about I don't have any involvement in that podcast at all. Please listen. We really need it. Please listen,
Unknown Speaker 9:41
this there's certainly going to be a lot of time for binge watching. So I see those podcasts going well, I'm just not sure about the restaurant review and travel podcasts how they're gonna car living,
Unknown Speaker 9:51
may not suddenly gonna suffer. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 9:56
I think what it's gonna come down to is a lot of kind of reminiscing style. ones another one that I've heard of, sort of in the vein of in the vein of guys we fuck these chicks we've routed so I'm sure there'll be quite a lot of tasteful material covered in in that podcast yeah or
Unknown Speaker 10:12
remember what toilet paper was or what was food
Unknown Speaker 10:17
Yeah, that was that was actually quite a good thing I haven't posted I wait I wait I might move out today and left behind or who gives a crap toilet paper so we are set
Dan Ilic 10:26
oh my god that is my leaving behind gold.
Unknown Speaker 10:29
Yeah, I was surprised except
Dan Ilic 10:31
you can watch your mom with it.
Unknown Speaker 10:34
You can watch it on with gold if you try hard enough.
Unknown Speaker 10:36
Yeah, probably get to that point.
Dan Ilic 10:38
I think it's a it's a rough endorsement if someone facing a period of potential quarantine with housemates is moving out right now. Like I don't want to spend two weeks with you specifically. Thanks not even two weeks. It's like It's like people would really have to be bunkering down for if month so I pick people that are saying the next five months are going to be awful in this house if I don't move. It's gonna be a real test, particularly if you live in a share house. I think a lot of people are talking about the the rate of babies going up in nine months after this, but I think people are gonna start talking about the rate of divorces going out.
Unknown Speaker 11:20
Statistically divorces have gone up in China because of the all the all the isolation. Well, really well. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's already in this in the stats.
Unknown Speaker 11:30
Yeah, that's the biggest problem actually. Yeah. Well, Darren, what's your
Unknown Speaker 11:34
best shot his biggest problem?
Dan Ilic 11:36
Darren, what are you saying? What are you predicting will happen in five months time?
Unknown Speaker 11:40
Ah, look, I think I just want to point out that I think I was way ahead of the curve. I'm shutting down my lab because unless you're building covert test kits or vaccines, everyone's shutting down their lab. So that turned out to be quite prescient, actually. I'm just yeah, I'm, it's where are we gonna be in five months time? Well, I think the world's gonna look really different. I hate to be really heavy about that, but I think actually, you know, to put a positive slant on it, I reckon we're gonna come out the other side of much better society and a much better community. I think we're getting a really good reminder of what's actually important in life. And I think that's a good that's a good thing to hang on to. As we go into as we go into pastor it's definitely a good thing to hang on to. I've been eating I've been eating types of pasta and rice I never even knew existed this week.
Unknown Speaker 12:23
First time in about five years.
Dan Ilic 12:27
Darren, it's great to have you on the podcast because we're not experts at all. But you know, you are an expert. You are a doctor now a professor. So can you tell us I'm sure people were turning to you for all kinds of scientific advice because your head is often on the television. Often your voices often on the radio as a as a communicator of science. What are the kinds of questions I thought maybe I could ask you to collect a bunch of questions that people have been asking you and maybe you could quiz us tonight on the answers and so we'll we'll try and provide With the answers, and then you can tell us whether we're right or wrong.
Dr. Darren Saunder 13:02
Oh, this is perfect. I've got more questions than I can answer so I can feed these back to people this will be excellent. I reckon the good ones will lead off with is what? What's the effect of what bushfire smoke we all breathe in for months and months and months on what's going to happen? We've covered infection.
Dan Ilic 13:20
Your lungs will taste like smoked salmon.
Unknown Speaker 13:26
Fewer koalas are alive to die.
Unknown Speaker 13:30
That's a positive shadow that koalas can get covered up? That's a good question.
Unknown Speaker 13:33
Let's find out why I gave I gave them chlamydia.
Rose Piper 13:39
I think in effect it will have is because we were all told that we were breathing, whatever it was, like 37 dots a day or something like that. But now the economic downturn is probably going to cause some people to stop smoking. So it was like kind of getting your fixing before you before you quit, you know?
Unknown Speaker 13:57
Yeah, yeah, it's not not a bad way to look at it.
Dan Ilic 14:00
actually did buy a facemask during the bush fires that turned out to be quite handy in the long run
Unknown Speaker 14:06
ahead of the curve again,
Unknown Speaker 14:07
yeah, you're like Nostradamus
Dan Ilic 14:13
Listen to me more. But what what do you think Dan? What do you think the the ramifications of breathing in that bushfires mega?
Unknown Speaker 14:21
The actual answer is we probably don't know the guests or the hypothesis would be that we're probably a little bit more susceptible to infection all that smoke has been damaging our lungs the whole time we bring breathing it in and it's probably making us a little bit more susceptible to the infection as for having fictional play out in people had to say so it's not a good news story. That one.
Dan Ilic 14:41
There was such a weird point in kind of time where the smoke you couldn't really avoid it anywhere like you like with the corona virus. I feel like you can probably do if you don't have it, you can probably do your best to not have it for a long time. But the smoke was just so unavoidable because you couldn't really escape to any place that didn't have it.
Unknown Speaker 15:01
Yeah at one point I was sharing it the water tank where I was staying actually got permeated with smoke. It was like sharing scotch. It was not pleasant.
Unknown Speaker 15:10
Yeah, it sounds pretty good. It's not you
Dan Ilic 15:14
could you could you could sell that at a Gwyneth Paltrow resort. Out showering genuine Australian bush is a $300 so I'm just gonna make a note of that. That's actually pretty good. What's your next question? Derek? All right, next question was
Unknown Speaker 15:32
what is going to happen to everyone that's swimming and can we swimming pools? Can we swim in the ocean and avoid covert
Dan Ilic 15:39
thought calls? Were a no no rush think the ocean should be fine, right?
Unknown Speaker 15:43
I hope the ocean is fine.
Dan Ilic 15:45
That's my thought to my thought is that the ocean is antibacterial. Every
Unknown Speaker 15:53
interesting one isn't the ocean. Nobody knows the ocean. The sunlight kills a lot of germs. But if probably want to kill the viruses. But
Dan Ilic 16:03
before you go on are the answers to all your question is nobody knows. There's a lot of
Unknown Speaker 16:11
things that we're all getting it right.
Dan Ilic 16:13
It's good. All right, great. What's the next question?
Unknown Speaker 16:17
When are we gonna have a vaccine?
Dan Ilic 16:20
I got this one. I got this one. I got this one. Nobody knows.
Unknown Speaker 16:25
Louis, what do you think?
Unknown Speaker 16:26
I would have said, Yeah, nobody knows. Dan is one of the few things we do we actually don't know.
Unknown Speaker 16:34
I'm gonna I'm gonna get confident and
Unknown Speaker 16:36
get on the front foot and say within a month.
Unknown Speaker 16:38
Damn. Oh, that's a big goal. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 16:42
I was actually hoping that Louis would say that because then it would happen. Oh, that's not
Unknown Speaker 16:49
to say that I'm afraid.
Unknown Speaker 16:53
So this one I picked deliberately because I can't actually answer this one. This is ah,
Unknown Speaker 16:58
so I don't know if you saw Yes, I think it was yes. Today
Unknown Speaker 17:00
the very first human guinea pigs patients got the first test doses of one of the new vaccines. So
Unknown Speaker 17:07
where were they? Where can we get it from?
Unknown Speaker 17:10
Woollies? I think I think Trump's bought it already. Probably. That's what
Unknown Speaker 17:13
he tried to he tried to buy one of the German companies.
Dan Ilic 17:16
So where were they doing where who got
Unknown Speaker 17:18
the first vaccine? Why don't we find out? I believe they were in Europe. I could be wrong. I don't remember precisely. We've got a we got a vaccine in development in Australia that's been in animals now. So it's almost ready to test in humans. And then the trick is making enough for hundreds of millions of people that that will take a few months at least.
Dan Ilic 17:36
Right. Is that when you're gonna start your lab again, that's the that's the plan.
Unknown Speaker 17:40
We're just gearing up for that. Now.
Dan Ilic 17:42
Do you have another question for us about 19? just mash misconceptions.
Unknown Speaker 17:46
Oh, look, here's the one. Here's the question of the day or the question of the week is, why haven't they shot schools yet?
Unknown Speaker 17:53
Why haven't they shot the schools yet? That's the one that's on everyone's lips around here. Why haven't they shot the schools yet?
Dan Ilic 17:58
Because people need To know about white history and forget about colonialism. That's why schools Yeah, this time, the white man fixes everything. That is why they haven't shut the schools yet.
Unknown Speaker 18:09
There's probably too many decision makers in there who've just had the kids get to school age who have gone I'm not fucking taking them back in the house now. I feel
Unknown Speaker 18:18
like
Dan Ilic 18:20
it is consistent with like this government's long term war against teachers, namely that it's hoping that instead of having to underpaid them, though, they can just get what?
Unknown Speaker 18:42
destination crook?
Unknown Speaker 18:44
Yeah. It's funny. Remembering the value of all of these kind of jobs like nurses and teachers, right.
Dan Ilic 18:50
What is what is it Darren, I mean, you're someone who's seen the brunt of this kind of attitude from our government that there seems to be a dislike or distrust of expertise of really smart people who know things. Why is it that this government does have all got this government? Not in this not it's not particularly this government coming through all around the world? Yeah, have a have a distaste and a distrust of people with expertise and doing everything they can to seemingly defund them and get rid of them. I think
Unknown Speaker 19:22
the brutal truth of that is because they delivered some uncomfortable facts and truth to them that didn't suit their sort of political ends. And so they undermine them as much as they could, you know, people have been profiteering politically and financially for years of undermining facts and truth.
Dan Ilic 19:38
But getting rid of like that getting rid of like the pandemic unit for the CDC in America seems like a completely counterintuitive act,
Unknown Speaker 19:48
given that we're just they're just sitting around doing nothing. It's just
Dan Ilic 19:52
wasting money, and then we can get them back. We want them we know where they are. We can get them back whenever we want.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
No like firemen, they just sit around all day doing nothing get rid of them.
Unknown Speaker 20:03
Most medicine?
Dan Ilic 20:05
Do you honestly think Darren that that is like that is the motive like it's it is purely, you're you're delivering information that is too dangerous for us politically to even have.
Unknown Speaker 20:14
But I think well, you're probably I mean, if you look at the climate change, the climate change is an obvious one, you know, that's where it seems to be the lightning rod for this sort of approach of denying truth, or whatever you want to call it. And it was literally that there were some really rich people and big companies that were, you know, their profits are under threat, and they've spent a lot of money trying to prop up those profits by sitting down, you know, we saw the tobacco companies do it before them and then and then what's happened is the political parties have all figured out that that's a really good way of getting hold of power is to is to take that approach, you know, and I think that that's fine when the threat is just as existential as the as the coronavirus, but it's, you know, 20 or 40 years down the road and suddenly that model doesn't work when the threat is very real and very now, huh?
Dan Ilic 20:56
Well, here are some good things about Kovac 19. There has been a huge reduction in co2 emissions up to 10%. In some countries, because of the ban on cruise ships, the Venice canals have become extremely clear and you can see to the bottom bottom of them without pollution and sediment. And another good thing about the Cova 19 is that your revision has been cancelled for this year. So no Eurovision what are the good things have we seen out there because it covered 19 do you think
Unknown Speaker 21:25
a lot of videos of penguins loose in zoos looking at the fish for them all sounds pretty good.
Unknown Speaker 21:32
I think my favourite good news story was the directive from ISIS that came out through the way
Unknown Speaker 21:41
ISIS put out a press release banning the
Unknown Speaker 21:47
suicide bombers from going to Europe because obviously, you know, Venice, probably beautiful but you know, even all h&s sit up today. They've ended it. If terrorists you go into Europe
Unknown Speaker 22:03
you don't want to you know, blow off a building while you're feeling a bit snotty in the nose there
Unknown Speaker 22:10
is a one way ticket surely I don't quite know what they're saying.
Unknown Speaker 22:16
And then I believe the the mayor of Baltimore has ordered everyone to stop shooting each other so they can. So they can create rooms for in the hospitals for covered victims. So I think they'll be a massive downturn in street violence until we run out of toilet paper and then there'll be a massive upturn in street violence.
Dan Ilic 22:37
Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been making great content from his home he's been advocating for social distancing you may have seen earlier in the week him feeding his ponies inside his home. Here is one of him sitting in a sitting in a in a hot tub, smoking a cigar giving some very good advice.
Unknown Speaker 22:55
I just finished a bike ride and a little bit of workout and I just didn't keep staying at home all the way from the crowd and away from outside. The reason why I'm saying that is because I still see photographs and videos of people sitting outside compares all over the world and having a good time and hanging out in crowds. That is not wise, because that's how you can get the virus. That's how you get it, like contact with other people. So stay away from crowds stay away from being in restaurants and outdoor cafes, especially now it's springtime, all the kids are going to the beach and celebrate and drink and all that stuff. This is not a good idea to stay away from the crowd, go home, and then we can overcome this whole problem. This whole virus in no time, but you got to go and follow those orders. Just remember, stay at home. Don't go go to crowds, but they took it down.
Dan Ilic 23:55
Think he's been incredibly responsible. He is the most responsible vendor out there. I've been trying to tell my mom to stay away from her church and stop going to the shops. But she just ignores me She completely says she says, you young people are too worried we're at church and we're not coughing over each other. The upside of that is I can say my inheritance will be coming a little bit earlier than I expected, but it's silver linings, a silver lining, how do we convince how do we convince our parents that they should be staying home kalon that there's a property that they can buy inside their already existing property?
Unknown Speaker 24:33
negatively?
Unknown Speaker 24:38
Many negatively,
Unknown Speaker 24:41
that it just sort of folds in on itself, and then they'll never leave. They'll always be searching for that next property that we can't have
Unknown Speaker 24:49
a good excuse for them to be more xenophobic, because then they can blame someone for them. Having to be
Dan Ilic 24:57
I hate to tell this story, but my mom, you very quietly xenophobic. whenever she's telling anecdotes she will dip her voice whenever she has to name the race of the person in the anecdote so she'll be like, and then at the shops I saw, man and he just went. Well, that's nice Alicia, Alicia blunting is xenophobia.
Unknown Speaker 25:18
My mom went from complete and utter coronavirus denial to full blown prepper in 24 hours. So I had a quiet word to use.
Unknown Speaker 25:26
What was the turning point? Because I'm curious. Yeah. Cuz a lot of Berman's like everything's fine. And then they turn what was the feed for them?
Unknown Speaker 25:32
I pointed out she was letting me down. You know, I was going on TV and radio and telling everybody all this stuff. And she was basically making me look like a fool for ignoring me. And, you know, no mom wants to embarrass this unlike that. I was talking to a girl and she's gone from, you know, you need to teach the kids how to grow their own food they need to know how to so she went right back to full on 1930s self sustaining skills. Can she talk to my mom, we can swap numbers.
Unknown Speaker 25:57
I think the main thing the responsibility for all of us to do Is share our netflix possible with our parents.
Unknown Speaker 26:05
My mom the shares with me.
Dan Ilic 26:10
I'm just trying to do as many irrational fear podcasts as we can because I know as a passionate subscriber, we make a lot of money. We'll just keep listening and you'll never be able to leave the house. Thank you, Margot harbour. Thank you very much. A little later on comedian back Melrose will join us to do a type five from her cancelled Melbourne Comedy Festival shot. But I don't know if you heard this. Earlier this week. Alan Jones compared the corona virus to climate change claiming it was a high experimentally yesterday and clarified a few things. Good morning everyone. A lot of people have suggested to me that I'm not taking Corona virus seriously enough by comparing it to the hopes of climate change. Oh, God. Well, let me tell you Cova 19 as they're calling it, that some sort of scientist or something Ah God, nerds. kovat 19 is a hoax much like carbon dioxide. I haven't seen it with my own eyes so it doesn't exist. And my eyesight is very good, like posted on the door on the other side of my Southern Highlands studio where I'm broadcasting from for the next six months for no reason in particular, I could read a sign that says warning stay 1.5 metres away from this door. Nothing to do with coronavirus I've just got to keep the home studio sounding crystal clear. Don't want some sort of goose coming in here squawking at me, and I'm not talking about any easy God. Now my good friend Scott Morrison has just told me you must stop panic buying it's clearly an Australian Well let me tell you something. He got something wrong there. The only thing you should be panic buying is my new album, Alan Jones's songs for a life of isolation. Got me Alan Jones singing all of your favourites like oh bye bye
Unknown Speaker 28:00
Don't want to pay Oh
Unknown Speaker 28:07
give us a call the open line
Unknown Speaker 28:10
wonderful. Don't forget that classic don't don't
Unknown Speaker 28:16
don't sketch show close to me. And how about a cheeky Jewett? You give me feed
Unknown Speaker 28:25
when you kiss me fever when you hold me tight
Unknown Speaker 28:32
in the morning fever all throughout
Unknown Speaker 28:35
the night taken away Anthony Kalia
Dan Ilic 28:38
god what a voice wait till you hear him sing our water voice. We had to do it on Skype but still you get the idea so don't believe what you read. There is no Corona virus. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist a bit like the Bledisloe Cup. I've never seen it so we've never lost it. All ballad joads Alan Jones there.
Unknown Speaker 28:58
That's right. I haven't I haven't been travelling work for a few weeks but I feel like I just had a nice taxi ride to the airport. That was fantastic.
Dan Ilic 29:04
irrational fear and I haven't touched my face in weeks and weeks since the Melbourne International Comedy Festival has been cancelled I thought wouldn't be great to get some of our comedy Friends of the show to come and do their best tight five from the cancel shows that they can't perform in Melbourne and coronavirus is really knocked that right out of the park. Now we have to do it on Google Hangouts, but we're going to try it anyway. I thought we'd get back Melrose to give it a go since she's gonna be on the show on irrational fear next week, I thought what better way to get her to come on the show but do a bit of a warm up by doing her best High Five from her cats of Melbourne, Melbourne Comedy Festival show. So ladies and gentlemen without any further ado back Mel rose.
Unknown Speaker 29:51
Hello are legends. How are we doing?
Dan Ilic 29:53
Yeah, well.
Unknown Speaker 29:55
Good, good.
Unknown Speaker 29:57
Nice crowd work.
Unknown Speaker 30:01
What I do for a living?
Unknown Speaker 30:03
I thought I do. I'm the top five of my office gear because some I thought I wrote that thinking it'd be evergreen and I'd be able to use it forever, but we don't have offices anymore. So I might as well give it a run.
Unknown Speaker 30:17
Please come straight from work. Give us a word. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 30:23
that's all right. Don't worry.
Unknown Speaker 30:25
What's blocked isn't it? I've just started working in an office so my zest for life is draining faster than the Murray Darling I can assure you No one's talking to one another like human beings in the office. There's all this jargon and buzzwords and shit that get in the white. My favourite one they use it my work is as per my last email. Have we heard this?
Unknown Speaker 30:49
A power move. As per my last email. It's the closest you can get to saying Fuck off. You grow up at work, isn't it?
Unknown Speaker 31:00
As per my last name I haven't got the confidence to use as per my last name I like 50 Bernie brown TED Talks short of the conference it takes to use as per my last email but there's so much of this bizarre language at work I kept hearing my boss say well why don't you give that project to back she's got capacity but once we got one over the back she's got capacity pass that over the back she's got capacity
Unknown Speaker 31:25
to fucking Tupperware container
Unknown Speaker 31:28
absolutely ridiculous. And everyone works worried about AI taking their jobs robots taking our jobs. I'm not that worried yet. I've seen the test online to prove you're not a robot. I reckon it's I can't check a box. So pick out a bridge in a lineup. I don't reckon they'll be coming for our jobs anytime soon. But even when they do, like my job, I don't give a shit. Let's see you try and machine learn your way through the social obstacle course. passive aggressive If kitchen signs we did set in my office had a sign above another sign that said read the sign.
Unknown Speaker 32:11
Never mind a robot that shit would short circuit a robot.
Unknown Speaker 32:16
We are decades away from developing the kind of technology that's going to be able to definitely navigate pretending to give a fuck about nails weekend's No, but we can do the same argument about I don't mean that it's going to save us so much time. So what we're just going to find more bullshit to fill the time with anyway. All the time we saved not having to turn our own butter that bought a training time just dissolved in extra weeks in a single generation. But my boss has been trying to get in a roll up but my work amongst a spate of redundancies and he kept trying to get us to do a sweep for the last races and no one was ever came. And I felt kind of sorry for him. So All right, so I printed out photos of everyone in the office and put us all into a little bowl. You're about to pick someone out.
Unknown Speaker 33:08
Now we just have to wait and see who gets the next redundancy.
Unknown Speaker 33:13
Someone's gone home with a hammer. Someone's kids aren't going to Disneyland this year. But we'll pull it ourselves a glass of yellow and we filed into the boardroom watch the real race unfold. It's a beautiful day for it. The race it stops a nation the crow's nest regional office redundancy cop. Janet from accounts is playing up in the barriers and what do you know what Alan the it lead made it to the start after having every Monday off for the last financial quarter.
Unknown Speaker 33:45
It is a miracle.
Unknown Speaker 33:48
They're all in. The lights are on set.
Unknown Speaker 33:52
Racing in the crow's nest regional office redundancy copy combo from comms is started strong closely followed by as per my last email Do you have five for a quick chat and Kathleen What do you even do? They round the corner and who called the unions coming down the outside buffeted by clearly the intern mansplain Mark has midfield on the rails just behind no before I've had my coffee and that's sort of my job description. Coming down the street is unsolicited neck massage on med KPI and some pre k my sandwich. Just a quick one for years going steady. Peter from risk is yelling, but nobody's listening. Hop ahead to For God's sake. Rob, why do you have the microwave? Oh, we've had a fall. It's clearly the intern. Clearly the interns broken down at the 650 and Neil says millennials just can't hack it in the workplace off the road. Deborah the gender and diversity lady is going strong having a renaissance in relevance off to some dodgy comments were made at the Christmas party. Janet from accounts hasn't wasted energy on a single smile as they had for him and he called the union's out in front of Monday morning small talk common from concert Oh, good birthday song. But he comes accidental reply Oh, accidental reply. Oh, Challenge by Rich Craig left jr in the lunchroom 350 to go in the crow's nest regional office, redundancy kaput, it's over called the union number called the union. Kathleen What do you even do and get fucked at smartcard, but who's this coming down the outside? It's the favourite wrench reparations is the line down the outside. He's not going anywhere. He plays tennis with the chairman. He's utterly useless and he's here to stay at wrench taking out the crow's nest regional office redundancy cop. hoffa had to wake on fire the CEO and a further third between should have stayed in Union I'm useless but the director is my uncle.
Unknown Speaker 35:34
Thanks, guys. Thanks very much. My I lost my job but I did want a hand.
Dan Ilic 35:41
You can't say back Melrose at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival tickets are not on sale now. Well, we're gonna be back weekly with irrational fear since our Comedy Festival show isn't going so please hit us up on Patreon give us a few bucks a month. Also FBI Radio where we normally record this needs your help. So please go to FBI radio.com for slash donate and give them a few bucks particularly if you live in Sydney and you love independent radio and and great music Special thanks to this episode to Rupert de gas Jacob Brown, FBI radio, Darren Saunders Lewis haba, Rose Piper, Dillon, Bain and the wonderful Beck Melrose.
Unknown Speaker 36:25
News guys.
Dan Ilic 36:27
Thanks so much. We'll leave you with the latest news fighters on the coronavirus Dylan Do you want to introduce it?
Unknown Speaker 36:34
Sorry coronavirus I actually did it on the NBA March Madness. No one I haven't haven't.
Unknown Speaker 36:44
What's coronavirus?
Unknown Speaker 36:47
This is new spiders.
Unknown Speaker 36:52
So you don't have to. One of the
Unknown Speaker 36:54
great things about the current age of having internet and social media is being able to watch your favourite celebrity breakdown over the corona virus pandemic in real time. sama handling it better than others he is rapid kadhi Bay who had her to a cancelled
Unknown Speaker 37:09
guess why because Corona Corona virus is this
Unknown Speaker 37:19
Corona virus shake on me like a couple of weeks after she was gonna be a couple of months after she let me know soccer star motherfucking backing up all foods a man clear so a bass can move to motherfucking Antarctica which once again cardi Bay the voice of reason in an age of confusion. Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger is living his best life hanging out at home with Danny DeVito. Oh, no, wait, sorry. That's a miniature horse.
Unknown Speaker 37:45
Luna loves carrots. Whiskey loves carrots. I just said my little bitter vegan food. Oh, that was yummy. Hmm. I just had a fantastic broker that the house amount, Jim.
Unknown Speaker 37:58
Yeah, I am at home. Take Michiko Both hills stoeger
Unknown Speaker 38:05
finished a bike ride and a little bit of workout and I just you know keep staying at home.
Unknown Speaker 38:10
Yes Do like on a stay at home, but maybe don't smoke a cigar I think we might need your lungs to be as healthy as possible. Meanwhile, Michael Stipe from REM isn't coping too well. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel stop trying to help Michael Stipe And don't you dare pivot to that shiny happy people bullshit either. We need you to stay calm in this time of crisis. Now a lot of musicians are getting in on holding online quarantine concepts, including Chris Martin of Coldplay whose music is like coronavirus for your ears.
Unknown Speaker 38:49
They were Oh
Unknown Speaker 38:52
look, I'm not trying to say that keyboard sounded bad but geez I think the audio is better on Keyboard Cat Just when things couldn't look any worse, Willie Nelson son Lucas hates us about the years with the biggest cliche he could reach for.
Unknown Speaker 39:22
Now look, if any government out there is listening Scott Morrison Trump bars Angela Merkel, the UN who I don't care, please Institute an immediate indefinite ban on performances of hallelujah. This is actually a policy I've been pushing for years long before Corona virus but this is the time we can make it happen. Meanwhile, Aussies returning home from overseas are going to be facing two weeks of self isolation. And most of them seem to be handling it pretty well. Yeah, just gonna lock myself in and just have some kinds for kotlin eyes.
Unknown Speaker 39:53
You're gonna spend the next two weeks again thanks
Unknown Speaker 40:04
Okay, that's news five is an irrational fear to listen to the full episode, subscribe to news fighters on your podcasting app or check us out at news fighters calm. I'm Dylan Bane. Keep washing your hands and bye for now.
Unknown Speaker 40:16
This is News spiders where we find the news. So you don't have to
If you enjoy our little show please grab your friend's phone and subscribe them up to it, and give us a 5 star review in the Apple Podcasts store. Use the code word “Blockade” in your review to win an A Rational Fear T-shirt.
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha foundation. Good evening, Louis. Good evening, Daniel. How are you? Oh, man, I'm okay. You know, it's um, you know, I didn't wanna bring it up, but I can't not bring it up. It's day 69 of lockdown in Sydney. 69.Lewis Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 0:17 All right. Yeah. And you can eat out for two, but not three, because that's a breach of the COVID condition.
Dan Ilic 0:24 Yeah, that is true. Hey, I'm pretty excited about this show, because we've got a couple of quite a few great guests. But also, we might even hear from you and Billy Joel, a little bit later on. That's exciting. Sure,
Lewis Hobba 0:37 yeah. Look, listeners of the podcast of the last month would have had that one of my many lockdown crises was buying keyboard, a piano for children. And let me say this Dad, I can you imagine a world in which an adult who decided to learn piano would quit after a short time? Is that a thing you could imagine would only end up doing it for a week. Obviously, that's not what happened to me. I've been very diligently practising every day, but unless a man unless a man may have just played for like three days and then quit.
Dan Ilic 1:06 We can't wait to hear you play Billy Joel's Vienna at the end of the show. So stick around for that. Please don't. Please don't Oh, you could just skip the end. It's a podcast. by recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the eora nation sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:21 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommends listening by image your audience.
Dan Ilic 1:34 Tonight Joe Rogan is diagnosed with a Delta variant and COVID-19 his next podcast will offer the virus some advice on how to become the alpha and Australia Post. We'll suspend parcel pickups for four days due to having 500 staff self isolate. The pause in the service is said to cost the company as much as several Cartier watches and trade Kelly is reportedly not upset that he's receiving unsolicited phone calls from 1000s of people he texted on behalf of Clive Palmer. He's upset that those people are using 5g phones. It's the third of September 2021. And it's the 69th day of lockdown. Nice. This is a rational fear, irrational
thing Hello, welcome to rational fear. I'm your host former Joe Rogan experience Dan Ilic. Let's meet our female guests for tonight. Our first guest was one of the very first people to come watch a rational fi live at the FBI social back in 2012. Since then, he's gone on to be one of the most successful musical theatre performers this country's ever seen. It's Rob Mills, he Mills thanks so much for having me on the 16th day of Sydney's lockdown it's good to be here.
Lewis Hobba 2:54 I love the way that intro daddy implied that somehow meals he coming to our podcast is what spurred his success.
Dan Ilic 3:01 Well, that was my next question is music How did watching irrational fear all those years ago inspire you to become so successful?
Unknown Speaker 3:09 Was the what not to do? I think I loved it. I've loved it from day one. I'm so glad that it's still going to show because I think it's it's so it's so fun and reverent and, and very thought provoking. So congratulations to you guys.
Dan Ilic 3:25 The way you say that you're talking about Yeah, I feel like you're talking about irrational fear. Like you're hoping to book us into an old person's home so you know it's great.
Unknown Speaker 3:34 I mean, if they'll have you allowed anyone in at the moment my dad said that Dan he his son, the gates locked in the in the zone the gates are locked at
Dan Ilic 3:44 the moment. And she's done more home delivery to celebrities houses than a doordash worker in double Bay. It's the Rockaways herself is Julie's hero
Unknown Speaker 3:53 Hello everyone. Oh exciting. It's like we're at each other's houses I'm beside myself.
Dan Ilic 4:00 We're gonna talk about this later on. This is what we do for self care now we just you know, get our friends on the podcast Yeah. But Julia you're more than a friend you're a you're a Patreon member of the show you're a paid up supporter,
Julia Zemiro 4:12 I have a Patreon I you know what I didn't even know what a Patreon was had to look it up I didn't quite do but they did they get it wrong as a patron. I don't understand. I've got a couple of patrons. I've got indigenous x and I've got bread Goldstein's film to be buried with and you Dan, because I love you and I also got irrational fear out Louis and your good self came to the Adelaide cabaret festival a couple of years ago bits rose. We wanted more politics in cabaret, because I don't know. It seems like a really good place to have politics and cabaret. Not just songs about you know who you're not in love with anymore. And you were amazing. It was so good. You just so fulfilled the brief. Thank you.
Lewis Hobba 4:52 I do remember Julia. We're about 30 seconds into our show after our short deadline cabaret festival. One there was a guy in the back In the room, and he stood up, and he flicked a feather bow around his neck. And he said, That's not a cabaret. And then he laughed. And it was one of the greatest moments of my life. I love controversy. It's one of the top two storm outs we've had an irrational fear shows in its history was the first one. It was splendour in the grass. We were doing a show. And it was like day two and a half. And everyone obviously is just has been on whatever it is for so long. I people actually come to the tent splendour in the grass to like chill for a moment. And we started doing jokes about politics. And someone literally just stood up in the crowd in the middle screamed at us. Oh, that's good.
Dan Ilic 5:46 That's excellent. I totally forgot about that. And, of course, our last few motors Louis harbour. Well that Louis. Sorry, I skipped my intro a little later on. We're gonna be talking to Lee and man show who's going to be starting her own political party so she can run for the Senate. But will she get enough people to register? That's the big question. But first here is a message from our sponsor this week, Harvey
Unknown Speaker 6:09 Norman is giving $6 million dollars of job keep her cash by Kadena huge huge, huge public pressure as all my credibility went out the door during a pandemic our profits increased by half a billion dollars selling furniture electrical and bedding $13 billion worth Not to mention $22 million dollars in free job keep no strings attached. But we're kidding. Oh 27% of it. Wow, that $6 million $6 million that the government can spend on car parks or sporting sheds and swing electrodes in the hope that the Australian public will lose interest in the hobby normally, speaking of interest, we've kept $16 million interest free. Australia has been telling me to go Harvey go Harvey go fuck myself. And that's what I've done just a little bit.
Dan Ilic 7:06 My instruction was we need a few more cuttings in that sketch, and that will really sell early. What's the limit that you can have in escape? It depends on how many Patreon supporters we got. So we had a few more this way to come in so we could afford a few more cuttings. This week's first few coalition MPs want more school chaplains to help children suffering mentally due to alarmist climate activism? Yes, there are a few there are a few MPs in the Liberal Party who decide that apparently, you know, climate change and get up and extinction rebellion, really robbing children of hope when it comes to climate change. And the solution to that is more school chaplains. See mungus Is this the solution? Julia?
Unknown Speaker 7:53 Andrew, I think you're the one robbing the young people of Hope you're your party. Now. Look, I looked up Andrew Wallace and him and I both theories. And we're about a year apart. We're about the year apart. I say this because he talks of growing up in the 70s and 80s as I did with the threat of nuclear annihilation, so he knows exactly what he's talking about. And I can't just say that I think the thing that the thing with the threat of nuclear annihilation, he was still a button that someone had to press that you could close a door and you could lock it. Yeah. Climate change you can't get away from it's literally right there. So I think it's a bit different. I don't think it's the same. And rebirth in Aries for you. You know, he's always a little impulsive. He might be on the cusp. She might be in your Taurus. Anyway. But no, I think chaplains won't be helping what have happened to social workers. What about him? The good counsellors could bring a school counsellor in to chat to kids. It's not
Lewis Hobba 8:50 Yeah, it's wild. I like did you guys have school chaplains? Now I went to a normal school.
Dan Ilic 8:56 I went to a Catholic school. So we had we had brothers, priests, nuns, Jesus, you know, where the whole thing you know,
Rob "Millsy" Mill 9:02 went to public school Louis, and we didn't have anything we had. Who was who was often my mom. So like, Oh, that's what you get into public school. Yet someone's mom growing up, right?
Lewis Hobba 9:15 They should raise funds for more mums, just
Unknown Speaker 9:19 the support. There's a lot of people doing that in the pandemic, right. There's a lot of people locked down and just making babies that's only doing
Lewis Hobba 9:25 well by my partner's obstetricians. She's been delivering the baby boom. So she's been. She's never been busier. What a social what a social service. Jeez, that's extraordinary. Hi, look, we're all doing good whack Julia. We're all we're all doing important stuff. Well, maybe some more than others. But
Dan Ilic 9:42 I'm just pleased to hear that there's going to be another breed of baby boomers coming through to lock me out of the property market.
Unknown Speaker 9:50 I think Andrew Wallace needs to come down. I went to the climate change March, the kids did in the domain. They were extraordinary. They were there. I remember making little videos saying, you know, you can't be afraid of the word activism. You know, we're out there, you're allowed to get out and have a voice. You're allowed to join your lab to listen People to People talk. This is just such a scam. It really made me cross. When I read this, I picked up the newspaper and I throw it across the other side of the room.
Dan Ilic 10:19 know, it's interesting the comparison he makes to nuclear Armageddon, but we're actually facing as you said, we are facing Armageddon moment. And when it comes to kind of the global warming in terms of atomic bonds worth of energy, the sea is absorbing an atomic bomb words of energy, like a Hiroshima bomb, word of energy every second, that's the ocean. The ocean is dissolving that energy. So we're actually we're actually it's it's happening. It's just happening very slowly.
Unknown Speaker 10:48 Excellent stat.
Unknown Speaker 10:50 If that's if that's a real that's an excellent stat. I'm like, that's a good stat mainland. Someone made it. I made it, like put it out there. Yeah, you got you got it. You got it.
Lewis Hobba 10:59 And that's why kids are scared. You know, and I think that there's nothing better to do when there's a Hiroshima bomb per day than just have a little pray. Have a little pray and just pray.
Dan Ilic 11:12 What a great slugger to have a little prior. Right all the way every time. It's the plan.
Lewis Hobba 11:19 I think we need to get a gas plant in every school. I feel like that, you know? Yeah, every school gets a gas plant. And then the kids can just look at it and know that they will die, but they'll have a very brief moment of employment. get kids to stop squaring off Rakoff. Miss, you know, yes. Come on. We did have a chaplain at our school, and I was not religious. My parents were so anti religious, they wouldn't let me sit in any religious classes throughout my entire education. So they pulled me out of all classes, the shovel that we had gone to a school down the south coast well in Shillong in Victoria. And so everyone there was a surfer and our chaplain was a mad surfer. So I reckon he actually like, though I if there's if I can put my hand up for one chaplain, and one chaplain only was the one at our school, who I reckon would be the first guy on the picket line, like out on the in the domain in the protests just being like you putting her rashtra we're in one of our oceans. I want to go surfing, unless the surf gets better for it, so
Dan Ilic 12:22 he might be for it. There was also another cool surfer who, who could surf the waves of the Dead Sea. His name is Jesus. He could walk on water, he didn't need a surfboard. He was
Lewis Hobba 12:35 hanging 10 commandments baby.
Dan Ilic 12:41 Like, so I feel like sometimes these Christian groups speak on behalf of Christians, regardless of whether actual Christians believe them or not like the Australian Christian lobby came out last week, to say that to Colin supporters to not fear death, and instead push the state governments to end the COVID-19 lockdowns like this is what the ACL said like this is the same people who basically put the country through enormous pain but to have a marriage plebiscite. Okay, marriage privacy. It's the incredible hypocrisy of that anyway, I, I thought I would resurrect no pun intended, an old group that I'm the executive director of to send a message. On behalf of all of those people. I represent a message from the Australian lapsed Catholic lobby. Today, I'm Dan Ilic, the executive director of the Australian lapsed Catholic lobby. And I just want to say that as the group that represents the largest sector of Christians in Australia, lapsed Catholics, we think the only way to give hope to children for their future is to take meaningful action on climate change. And statistically The only thing that will harm children more than climate change is an exponential increase of chaplains in schools. So please, when it comes to emissions, net zero by 2030 and when it comes to chaplains in schools, gross zero by 2021. spoken and authorised by Dan Ilic for the Australian lapsed Catholic lobby camera. All right this week second fear Craig Kelly has been sending text messages to pretty much everyone in the entire country. I don't know if you've seen this people 1000s of people will ever Australia's been getting this text message. You can never trust the liberals labour or greens again. Authorised by Craig Kelly united Australia party click on this link to follow I know whatever what happens you click on that link Have you any of you received this text message yet? Fear mongers lawyers, you've
Unknown Speaker 14:30 got it? Yeah. Can I quickly jump in Louis. I know you've got this but my candidate really liked Tom and I'd like I've been I've been booty called by Craig Kelly. And this is very light tones.
Dan Ilic 14:46 I mean, it's fair to say your booty call days are over there behind you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. I'm in a very committed relationship. Yeah. Is there a politician out there that you would you know exactly. Probably not Yeah, you probably would never send it to me but Penny Wong does it for me.
Unknown Speaker 15:05 I definitely get received one from her no problem I turn except if she booty called me I would just want to sit quietly on a couch somewhere and just nurse a little glass of rose a and
Lewis Hobba 15:16 I feel like you wanted a skald you go tell me I've done something wrong.
Dan Ilic 15:24 That's funny. Yeah, I
Lewis Hobba 15:25 got mine. I got my butt. Obviously. I got mine because I sign up to all of Craig Kelly's email list. I I love it. I love to hear
Dan Ilic 15:34 your news. urina you and his telegram group to to download to get some in in hydroxychloroquine of course. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 15:41 yeah. I'm on the I'm on the waitlist for ivermectin. Absolutely. I'm the first through the door. You know if you can take ketamine you can take ivermectin. I've been training but I've been training for horse level drugs my whole adult life.
Dan Ilic 15:55 Now, here's the thing, apparently, you know, everyone's up in arms about this. And they're they're taking it to achma acuras had hundreds and 1000s of complaints about this text message. But apparently, political parties and charity groups are exempt from the Do Not Call register and are allowed by law to send it to you. It's under the Act called the spam act of 2003. The spam act of 2008 basically legitimises it we've got we've got on the Facebook who's deserves better is watching us on Facebook right now the Craig Kelly's electorate hello yes
Unknown Speaker 16:29 well done. I came into Hughes you doing very well. Yeah, I am. I got mine on a Saturday and I was like, come on, mate. That's a bit early anyway, I just I did reply get fat just in case he got it.
Dan Ilic 16:40 So this this kind of story is moved a little further down the line. So Ben Eltham who is a journalist at the new daily he said on Twitter Look, here is Craig Kelly's mobile number. This is the number send him a text if you like. And Warren mundane SPS board member put out a tweet rage fighting him saying you are a C word what a disgraceful human being you are. Now when I read the article, that was Cray that Lauren Monday was going to take a break off Twitter for calling a journalist to see what my immediate reaction was, well, you know, journalists can base a words I'm sure. I might as well go and have a look at this story. And when I saw the story, I was like, no, no. Ben Eltham is a national hero. That's fine.
Unknown Speaker 17:27 I wish I'd gotten found and I would definitely have sent him a text. But yeah, that is quite. I mean, do people think sometimes before they tweet, I mean, that's quite something to have said that. I mean, did he not think he's on a board?
Dan Ilic 17:43 It was a it was a wild tweet, like totally lashed out. Changing your mobile number is easy these days. My dealer does it all the time.
Lewis Hobba 17:52 I'm gonna get a new message from Craig Kelly just being like guys new number save this one is Craig. Some crackers shit coming through this. I got I've got heidrich I try to crash the car. Yeah, make sure you get your orders in before nine. The new curfew is doing a real hard one for
Unknown Speaker 18:11 somebody. Okay, peace, human rights in the circumstance that appears to be the opposition party, Labour Party, the National the greens, your fear is rational.
Dan Ilic 18:24 Alright, this week's third here, like we said at the beginning of the show, you know it's day 69 lockdown in Sydney. You know it's or day blend tea blouson of lockdown in Melbourne. I can't I can't remember. This kind of stuff is taking its toll on everyone and Rob Mills emails. You are in Victoria,
Unknown Speaker 18:43 Victoria, and Victoria now. We've been almost a whole year in lockdown. So
Dan Ilic 18:50 how are you feeling mentally? How's it all going? What would you have some tips for us to deal with lockdown. This is time round down.
Unknown Speaker 18:57 I have some tips. I saw this. On the internet the other day, it was an isolation wellbeing checklist. So I'll just run through them. It's pretty it's actually really simple. Number one, shower very important to medication if you need it. Three drink water. For a clean one thing or one space in your house.
Dan Ilic 19:16 I have to say that that is a great tip. I cleaned up my entire office this afternoon and I was ready to go. I was like you know I'm pumped to write something now made me feel really good.
Unknown Speaker 19:27 Clean space, clean mind. Next 10 something like 10 to something growing or living to have a pot plant that you can look after. Be mindfully present to maybe it's a song or a sound, a sensory feeling something that you see or, or spiritual practice. Reach out to a human outside your home. Do one thing to get your heart rate up. Do one thing that you'll be glad you did later. Do one thing just because you want to and get in at least one good laugh. I this thing is really it was like the simplest, most beautiful checklists. You are And everyone loves a list who doesn't love love ticking off the list?
Unknown Speaker 20:03 Can I add you know what I'm missing? I'm missing swimming in the ocean. Well, you know what, go with me. If you have a really cold shower for about a minute, and I mean you, you you Yelp and you'll have a lot of that going on but I felt amazing this morning after a minute under the cold shower. Man who put a spring in my step. I felt like I've gone for that quick, deep.
Unknown Speaker 20:25 Yeah, it is the greatest cold showers in the morning hot showers at night.
Dan Ilic 20:29 Every time I imagine mosey in the shower, I have to go have a cold shower. That's kind of my therapy
Unknown Speaker 20:38 I've been doing I've got regular I've got regular check ins with different friends at different times during the week we just check in go Hey, guy, we have a zoom for half an hour. And so we don't talk about COVID all the time. We usually try and watch a film or something and then debrief so we just talk about the exciting show or film.
Dan Ilic 20:56 I've got a surprise for you Julia right now we're gonna settle in and watch Robin Hood's from Disney the animated feature. So kick back, relax. What were these crazy kids get up to enjoy? Is it the moment Russell Crowe member we know the animated one the good one did you do?
Lewis Hobba 21:17 Something involving Russell Crowe was not the best of anything. Not in my present. Come on my
Dan Ilic 21:22 I was up early this morning at 4am. And I said I said on Twitter, I should go to bed or Russell Crowe replied No stay up and work. So I'm gonna stay up and work. All right now it's not for Hang on a sec. Right around the country. They're locked down freedom fighters being arrested by the cops in a crackdown to stop the kind of protests that we've seen kind of spring up. Occasionally over the last few weeks. There's a bit of a new trend to as these freedom fighters being arrested by the cops, they like to livestream their arrests because I don't know maybe some kind of self assurance thing that they're not alone, I guess. Anyway, here's a great one from this week. This is from Monica Smith, who is a major figure in the conspiracy theory lockdown world in Victoria. She runs reignite democracy Australia. This is her getting arrested and her live stream. Here it is.
Unknown Speaker 22:15 I've just been pulled over by the cops. Probably because I'm outside of my five K's but um, hang on a sec. She's outside of the five K's. Do you know why she's not scared? Because she wants to audition for survivor. She is absolutely bald. Bald and you should watch that audition type. It's pretty bad. No wonder she didn't get in.
Dan Ilic 22:35 Is that legit? Is that legit?
Unknown Speaker 22:37 Oh, yeah, it's there. And it is really quite a terrible audition. I mean, I wish I had I could have gotten my hands on her and gone mate. Come on. Look up presents, buddy. Relax. Get in there. And she keeps saying I think I'd be good contestant maybe I wouldn't maybe I wouldn't if I got to the end. Well, then I deserved it. I mean, she makes no sense whatsoever. So yeah, but she was she was gonna try and get into survivor. She says she would have had a very good social game.
Lewis Hobba 23:01 Oh, now she's an invented her own version, which is just COVID so she just walks around in ignoring all the roles and buying it off life.
Unknown Speaker 23:09 Yeah, just fine. And so I just thought I'd put the live stream on just in case. That was stupid. Oh, hang on a sec. Hang on. Hang on a sec. I'll see you believe in seatbelts beat up believe in a jab. Okay. She's not even moving. Okay, she gets
Unknown Speaker 23:34 out. moment we need to have a chat to you. That's our motto. informant. So I need to place you under arrest for that. Okay. At the moment you're under arrest for incitement? You guys been following me in my reporting? centre.
Unknown Speaker 23:50 Hang on a sec. Look at that lower jaw that real? Oh my god. Mom,
Unknown Speaker 23:58 me What you doing?
Dan Ilic 24:01 The question have you guys been following me? Yeah, they're the police and they're pulled you over to arrest you for incitement? Of course. They are. Yes. They have been following you like how they know everything about you put everything up on Facebook.
Unknown Speaker 24:15 Yeah. Isn't it possible that she's actually they'd like, yeah, we'd be following the live stream. We love it. We just want to get your autograph because
Lewis Hobba 24:23 we really think you should have been on survivor hard.
Unknown Speaker 24:26 She's auditioning for something again, that's for sure she has she moved back just to get little a camera readjust as well so that you understand that comment.
Unknown Speaker 24:37 Please share this video as much as possible. Monica Smith.
Lewis Hobba 24:43 Hang on a sec. I guess the haggis is sort of Monica Smith like just using yourself in the third person is using a lot the media
Unknown Speaker 24:52 they will know Marty Smith. on her website she describes herself as a self Describe journalist.
Dan Ilic 25:01 Well, exactly. That's exactly who are a lot of these people describe themselves as self described journalist that says that I am so I am. I am. Anyone with a podcast can become a self described journalist like us. I just said it makes it sound like more of a lunatic. So, yeah, she's self described. So then it gets weird sometimes because you know these protesters, they start to kind of make sense in their own kind of way. Here's one from Queensland about the potential truck blockade in the Gulf Coast. But then it turns into something much, much more. Hey guys,
Unknown Speaker 25:42 just a quick video down the beach. I'm going to make a quick because I keep talking and I run out of time, so
Dan Ilic 25:52 he's running out of time because he's on tik tok. So there's like a two minute limit that's running out of time. If he just not
Lewis Hobba 25:59 done that intro, he did save 10 seconds like
Unknown Speaker 26:02 word economy crosspoint to max Egan, and he went down and had a look, he couldn't see a blockade on the like south of Goldie. But he did say that there was no, I gotta make
Lewis Hobba 26:14 sure we know who makes that again is friends with Monica Smith. Yeah, he rolled out who max Hagen is.
Dan Ilic 26:22 Come on max agan auditioned for the greatest alien bakeoff, didn't you? Yeah. I'm gonna Google him and see who he
Unknown Speaker 26:30 got the traffic coming northbound. So it could be there. It might not be it might say on Google Maps, it's saying there is some sort of blockage there. So maybe it is maybe the media is just blocking it all out.
Lewis Hobba 26:41 Hang on. Hang on a sec. He literally said he went down and looked and it wasn't there. And now he's like, it's definitely not there. I've seen it's not there. But maybe the media is blocking the media can like put up a screen and hide a blockade? Is that what he thinks the media is like an invisibility cloak from Harry Potter.
Unknown Speaker 27:02 I've just googled max again. He's got great videos such as we can't let them get away with it. And the universe had a bigger plan for me. And is this what the Great Awakening really is? So Max said no. Yeah, Max word.
Unknown Speaker 27:15 With Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts and stuff like, Can we are we sure we can trust these politicians? Are they just playing both sides?
Unknown Speaker 27:27 Nothing rather than Pauline Hanson are on the same side. So also, yeah, did I know they technically politicians, but they're not. They're not
Lewis Hobba 27:36 apologists.
Dan Ilic 27:39 Just like did Malcolm Roberts and Pauline Hanson he's idea of who our politicians and who, who they shouldn't be trusting. And all of a sudden, it should be. No wonder these people don't know what to think anymore. He or
Unknown Speaker 27:53 she was the one that told the blockade to move on for people. For the people, you know, and I get it's inconveniencing people, but they were all inconvenience. So you know, I think having the power in our hands was a good idea. But are we really sure we can trust these politicians? I mean, are they just playing us? I mean, Malcolm Roberts, I mean, I really liked them. But the more time goes on the more or less, the less I trust them like, tricky, tricky from in Brisbane, a friend of mine, he's
Dan Ilic 28:23 Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on, not shaky, not tricky. Mills II remember tricky. Oh, man, I wouldn't put a pass someone named melzi to know someone called tricky, that's for sure.
Unknown Speaker 28:36 Pauline, and she didn't want to talk about conspiracies since he said is this being as used as a front to bring in a surveillance state? She's I don't wanna talk about conspiracy. So you know, why wouldn't if she knows about it, then why won't Why don't you say anything about it? Because I've heard her in in senate talking about agenda 21 and stuff. So can we trust these people? Are they just playing us? What's going on?
Unknown Speaker 29:01 Is he doing a bit lucky? Like, I feel like I've seen someone do this about someone like I feel like he's so good at what he's doing right now. But he's legit, right? This guy's
Lewis Hobba 29:12 if you close your eyes, he sounds like there is a very wonderful comedian who does impressions of these people called Greg Lawson. And the only the only version of this I've actually ever seen is Greg Lawson's version. And I've never really seen the real one and I just need to say if to Greg Lawson or anyone who has a chance to speak to him. Now I realise how good his impression is like, this guy sounds exactly like fucking Greg loss and it's why lead
Dan Ilic 29:36 dead on that is so that is so perfect. That is Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna do that from now on.
Unknown Speaker 29:42 I don't trust him at all. And Craig Kelly, he's the one that posted fine that brocade has gone ahead. And if this hasn't gone ahead, can we trust this guy to you know what I mean? I've noticed he's joined up with Clive Palmer. So, you know and bangs on about ivermectin. Yeah, sure. ivermectin. But, but yeah, so
Lewis Hobba 29:59 I met him. Yeah, I mean we all know it work so move on.
Unknown Speaker 30:02 But I'll keep you posted about the Truckee blockade. I don't know what's going on and if it's going or not going, but there's definitely no confirmation so yep,
Unknown Speaker 30:10 hang on a sec. who's who's watching him just to check in on his, his ramblings like he's the trucking blockade update who's going? Who? Lucky we got some eyes and ears on the ground. They're lucky like it's it's taking two minutes now of him rounding disease. Nothing's happening. Okay, besides that, who's yours who's using his
Unknown Speaker 30:33 irrational fear? What is shotput mean to your talk? Everything. I'm gonna go into Brisbane normally 44 years of age. And after this country logo anzacs did shut up with Scott Morrison. This is a rational fear. Our next
Dan Ilic 30:54 guest joined us last year to talk about changes to the environment protection Biodiversity Conservation Act. And as part of as part of her role at the Australian Institute. Well, she's had enough of being in a think tank and now she wants to be in a do tank. She's running for the Senate next election in a new party called the local party. The only catch is will they get enough people to be able to register. Leanne Michelle, welcome back to irrational fear.
Unknown Speaker 31:19 Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Julie. It doesn't really matter. Because I'm a self described politician. So say I am so I am. I'm under your election. Yeah, thanks.
Dan Ilic 31:33 This is a big deal. What's happening right now the federal government is wanting to rush through changes to change the way the laws work. So the parties need not not 500 members, but 1500 members to register for a local party. You're registered. You've got 500 members, but the question is, can you get 1000 more members so you can become a federal party? We just lose Leanne, on that one. I'm back. Back. lands back.
Unknown Speaker 31:58 Okay, great. Oh, what happened there? I had to wait so long for you that you are dealing with the free folk of Tasmania. And we've got little boxes for like, no,
Dan Ilic 32:13 I'm sorry. Sorry. We had you on the line for half an hour. We used all of Tasmania's bandwidth during that time. I'm so sorry.
Leanne Minshull 32:20 No, I'm joking. We are. We've got a blackout, though. But I'm going to pick up on your question. Yeah, that's just gonna plough on. So we did. We made a party, the local party, it's a height as a hybrid. It's a network of independence. That's what I was looking for. So we've got the good things, all the good stuff about being independence, but put it into a party structure. So you've still got the advantages of all of the parliamentary privileges that you get back for having a party. Right. So you
Lewis Hobba 32:48 like the IGA of politics?
Unknown Speaker 32:50 Exactly. Where your local grocer, we actually launched just before the state election in in Tasmania, they called a state election four days later, and so we couldn't get registered. So I'm hoping that history won't repeat itself because it is a bit strange going out there and saying, I'm going to run for the Senate. If you're not above the line in the Senate, if you're not a party, it's almost impossible to get elected. And at this election, the sixth seat in Tasmania will be between Jackie Landis' office manager, Eric kuebix. Because he's third on the ticket. And me if I can get myself above the line, so only Tasmanians can help vote Eric out. But everyone in Australia can help them get us above the line by joining the local party. So I can have a really good crack
Dan Ilic 33:36 is a really interesting way of framing that show there are plenty of people particularly You know, I think you could find 1000 ABC employees who would become members of the local party to get rid of Eric a bit. Well, let's quickly talk about the local party. What is the ethos? What do you stand for?
Unknown Speaker 33:55 Well, as I said, what we're trying to do is to change part of the structure of party politics. So at the moment, I don't think anyone would argue that it's toxic. It's pretty misogynistic. It's distant. It's very much an insider's club. And I try to make it local again. And we're doing that by having rules of the party like every member gets every elected member gets a conscience vote on every single piece of legislation. So there's no party line to follow. Because I think what we need at the moment are politicians who can speak their mind and vote their conscience, not just follow a Tiguan that someone gives them in the morning
Dan Ilic 34:33 is a kind of a it says it sounds like a con like a party of independence. Is that is that is it
Unknown Speaker 34:39 is it is but what holds it together and why we decided to go down this route, rather than just go for independence is that the party system is really entrenched in Australia. And I think we've got to do more than just get a few independents in, although I back getting them in. We actually hope that this starts to change the way that party politics is done, so that it's a killer. To deal with people who want to come and govern and have some overriding principles that hold them together. And the people who are getting this are the young people, it's particularly men, and it's men sort of 55 plus who I've talked with you about this, and they find that they just don't get it. They don't get that we actually have agency over the way that our political system works, and that we can change it. And all we have to do is choose to change it. And the thing that holds the one concept that binds all of the people together, all of the elected representatives, when we get them together, is that they have to hold to citizen juries a year. So you have to make decisions for your community in partnership with them. Not in consultation. Like if I make a decision about what happens in the house. I make it in partnership with my husband. I don't set up a consultation process. Yeah. So that's what we should be doing as politicians and it's what we should be demanding as communities and Australians. You guys were talking about Craig Kelly before, so I clicked on the link because I got the text. Took you the anti Vax stuff. Yeah. What time did you get it? What time did you get it? Ah, like, Yeah, he was pretty cool than me too. Sorry. Yeah, I clicked on it and went through the anti vac stuff. But the actually the important thing about that is because the got the rules have been changed. They've put it through labour and liberal voted for it. And they sort of fast tracked a lot of the normal parliamentary conventions as well. And they're doing it just before an election. Like it just sucks. Like if you really want to change it, change it after the next election. But anyway, one little rule I kept for themselves is if you've already got somebody in Parliament, then you don't need to have 500 members. What exactly Thank you, and that's so you can
Dan Ilic 36:49 lose memory you can like lose members and still maintain your spot.
Unknown Speaker 36:54 I don't I don't reckon the Northern Territory country Liberal Party who've got 500 members just quietly. That is such hypocrisy.
Dan Ilic 37:01 I've never I have no idea that that
Unknown Speaker 37:04 was a rule. That's just crazy. What that is why Clive Palmer has gone along to Kelly and said, Hey, mate, do you want to be the head of my party? Because he's already in we instantly gives karma party status. Wow. So they didn't change that rule. They left that one in surprisingly and Kara how many is he got? I remember when Cory Bernardi left parliament, although for the liberals and he or whoever he was with, and he started up the Australian Christian lobby, and he was a party and he had no members. And how I know this is because one of my friends stole my iPhone one day and signed me up to the Cory Bernardi fan club.
Dan Ilic 37:43 Yeah, I joined up to the freedom emails to Leanne and I think they were about I think they published like four emails in a year. They gave up
Unknown Speaker 37:54 anyway yet. So that's how she did it is. That is crazy. So this is why I think we need more than just a few good independency thing. It's also by the way, I mean, I you know, I am running for the Senate. If I can get the membership numbers in but the senate the part of the house of parties, basically, you can't get in, it's very hard to get in as an independent. So
Unknown Speaker 38:14 who knows? What How can we help? How can we help you? How can we help Leanne? How can we have Yeah, can
Unknown Speaker 38:19 we tell everybody to go to the local party dotnet and join up? It's easy. All you have to do is be overwriting have to be registered to vote, and you can't be a member of an existing party. That's it. And I won't even send you four emails a year. And do it or have to be Tasman. Yes. This is the beautiful part. They'll see every person in Australia who would like to help me the throne, Eric a bit at the next day. Come on, it's too good. By just signing up for our membership.
Dan Ilic 38:52 There's a lot to be said for getting regular folks who aren't professional politicians in the past. Yes. I mean, yes, do Yes. Let's let's remember Ricky Muir. We all made fun of him when he first got him because he was part of the motoring enthusiast party he got in and a quirk of quirk of like, voter preferences. But he was one of the best senators that we ever had in the Australian Parliament. And it was incredibly who's incredibly progressive, thoughtful, and always, he was always on the on the correct side of every judgement in his mind.
Lewis Hobba 39:19 He was like one of the people who was like, here's my thought, here's my stance, and then people would come to him and go, Hey, here's what were you thinking you'd go? I've heard I've listened to you. And I've changed my mind. And you're like, Where's this is this basic humanity? humanity just wrote on that ticket. Where's the where's the humanity?
Unknown Speaker 39:39 He but also, you know, he say something like Helen Haynes is a midwife and worked as a nurse. And I mean, it's people who've actually had lives and no real people and understand what it means to suffer and not have enough. And all those guys in suits, they don't get it. They do.
Unknown Speaker 39:59 Get it everyone I think goes it most people go into parliament wanting to do something good. I think the party structures to people up and I think people stay there too long. I've worked as an advisor before, like 1012 years ago. I've got the best experience now to get to Parliament. I am a publican so there it is Leann
Dan Ilic 40:26 Landy should die should wait. So Barnaby Joyce goes there so you can get go. What about Leanne's pop? You know when they go What's on the menu? is climate change on the menu? Actually, we've got a menu made up Barnaby. We've got several choices including net zero by 2030. It's delicious. You're lovely. Leanne, thank you so much for joining us. Some people can check out the local party. And and we'll put the link in the show notes as well. So thanks so much for joining us and good luck on your journey.
Lewis Hobba 40:59 Thank you. I'll get off before it blacks out. No, stay
Dan Ilic 41:02 with it. Stay. Oh, she's gone. Stay with it. I was gonna say stay with because we got a very special thing to end the programme tonight for weeks. Lewis harbour has been talking up his ability to play Billy Joel's Vienna is a lockdown project. He's been you know, to our you know, it's great to have Mills he and Julia on to music aficionados. And so we've been waiting for weeks to hear Vienna by Billy Joe as played by Louis harbour here on the podcast that's good.
Lewis Hobba 41:32 Confident that's a confident bit of work right there already. To be beautiful I in all the years I've done irrational fears the first time I've actually had fear is fucking melzi
Unknown Speaker 41:47 I mean, I look i don't i'm all i'm not missing out. I tell you what Rob will be he picked tonight. I mean, he knew that was a nice so he's in
Dan Ilic 41:57 touch the keyboard. Without further ado, here is Lewis Hello, lane, Billy Joe's Vienna.
Want to say a big thank you to all of our guests tonight. Rob Mills emails. Julius mirror. Leah menschel for the local party. Big thanks to rode bikes, and our Patreon supporters. Safford chrissa faccin Mary, Robin McLaughlin, Cam Amos, Steven James, the Linda Barrett, Sara raid, Kate golden. Nathaniel say, we had so many new Patreon supporters this week. Big Thank you. It really helps us keep the show going. This is great, Louis. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's a gold medal. I've turned around in my chair. Yeah. Do you guys want to plug anything before we go? Julie do wanna plug anything? I'm not doing anything. Not really. Thanks. Rob Mills emails, you wanna plug anything?
Unknown Speaker 43:28 I'm not doing anything because I'm in the arts. But I'd like to put by I'd like to plug my girlfriend's podcast is doing about the Paralympics called. Apparently it's really good. And also the other one is the Paralympics. What's the Paralympics? I've cried about million times this fall. It's amazing. It's pretty great.
Lewis Hobba 43:45 Anything, not just piano lessons. is beautiful. It was it was just a lovely weather when the show was really good.
Dan Ilic 43:55 Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight.
We rip into this week's presidential debate and talk with former White House Director of Communication Anthony Scaramucci on how and why Republicans are campaigning to get Donald Trump out of office.
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early in the morning for us. We don't ever do this at this time in the morning, but it's for a special occasion only.
Lewis Hobba 0:07
Yeah, it was a debate that was worthy of this kind of early rise.
Dan Ilic 0:14
And let's quickly wrap up that Patreon supporters, Fiona Parmenter, Phil Willis, Lizette, Sal, kovitch, Zen thoria West, have all chipped in the Patreon this week. Also a big special mention to Jason smail, who's taken up our top level Patreon subscription. He's paying 100 bucks a month for irrational fears. So thank you. He's one of the top of the tech guys in Silicon Valley. We travelled once to a marathon in bend in Oregon, to watch one of our friends do a marathon.
Lewis Hobba 0:43
I was waiting for the for the end of that I'm like, wait, wait, wait, you did a marathon
Dan Ilic 0:48
to watch to watch someone do that or thought. This means we're up to 91% of covering on cost for the podcast or pretty much what Trump has paid in taxes in 2017. So jump onto patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to support the show. Another way to support irrational fear is to offset your carbon emissions from your car with go neutral for every $90 you could go neutral will buy 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets, which is about a yearly emissions for a car and five bucks of that comes to us to go neutral. Click on the link in the show notes. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the Euro nation. sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:24
A Russian mafia contains naughty words like bricks. Can bro.
Unknown Speaker 1:30
And come
Unknown Speaker 1:31
and section 40 a rational fear recommended listening by immature audience
Dan Ilic 1:37
tonight after 232 seasons 2020 will be the final season of America it'll be replaced with reruns of Germany before it got good. And after the first presidential debate, the phrase come to Australia began trending on Twitter, like till Americans find out that we have three Guantanamo Bay's and far right extremist proud boys respond to Trump's request to stand back and stand by by stepping forward and standing on desk to shout out Captain my captain. It's the first of October 2020 in America. It was fun while it lasted. This is irrational fear.
This is irrational fear. Thank you for joining us. I'm former Kentucky Attorney General Dan Ilic. Let's make our fee mungus for this week, if the world's got you down you can guarantee our first guest will get you down even further. He is one half of the American history podcast the dollar Dave Anthony. Thank you Dave. Is there something you can say something you could say to cheer up our listeners? No. And she's known for speaking dick jokes to power but you can see her each week in her show news broke you can hear each week on her podcast the Situation Room and you can smell her each week putting the bins out it's Francesca fiorentini.
Francesca Fiorentini 3:01
It is very true. Very true. I compost but I don't actually have a compost. So I just put it in the trash. And like someone who's just really trying to feel better about myself. You know, that's it, just so I'm gonna almost almost help the world.
Dan Ilic 3:20
That's what this podcast is all about. You're very much on Brad. And he's a man unaccustomed to being up this early. So work it is the host of Triple J. Dr. Louis harbour.
Lewis Hobba 3:29
Yeah, I don't consider this work. Dan, this is fun.
Dan Ilic 3:31
Good. Doesn't it doesn't count as work until I stopped paying you. Robert a little later on. We've got a very special interview with former White House press secretary turned anti Trump fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci. Yes, the Butch will be here he will be joining us. But first, we've got a new sponsor. It's a bit of a library. This one here we go. Get my library music. Going to the post office can be hard. There's always long lines white supremacists hanging out there to pre screen your mail and throw milk on you. And even if you do manage to post your mail in ballot who knows how long it's going to take to get to the correct precinct for counting. And those election folks are always making mistakes putting the wrong addresses on things. This election season, make your mail in voting easy with stamps.ru stamps that are you We'll send you out a book of stamps for free that look just like us postage and you can stick them all over your mail in ballot. They'll even send you the latest updated address labels to make sure that your ballot gets to the right place so that you know your vote will be counted by someone with Wagner on their breath. Head to stamps.ru today to get a free trial from now until November that stamps.ru use the offer code Biden wins to get a free ballot facts Shredder. Who else gives you a fax shredder? It faxes your ballot to an international number beginning with plus seven then transit. Mellon voting has never been more secure with stamps.ru. Well, I mean they do pay us so it's great to have their money. Okay. humungus let's talk about the debate. There have been so many moments over the last four years when Donald Trump has almost risen to meet the demands of his office. And I think we can all agree that during last night's presidential debate, Donald Trump finally became Fira. I say debate. But it was so confusing. I thought I'd tuned into the two old guys from the Muppets breaking up. To be honest, when you think about what's going on in America and the world right now, they really should have conducted the debate of resume that way. Not because of Coronavirus or anything like that. But chris wallace would have had access to a mute button. But we lay different people took different things from the debate like conservative coalition Trump supporters who and this is true, complained that Biden didn't answer any questions. I mean, they're not run. Dive, let's start with you. How you feeling about Biden, should he have answered More questions?
Dave Anthony 5:49
Oh, well, that's a tough one. There's a couple of things with Biden, first of all, it's hard to answer question when a man just keeps jabbering at you constantly. Like there's no way it's good. But also, Biden needs a lot of time to ramp into his questions, make some mistakes, correct course. stutters Dumbo, correct course. So he needs a really long, long runway, and then he gets to come up and then crash the plane and then taken off again. So it's hard for him just in general. But But he he did, I would I would give him a two out of 10.
Dan Ilic 6:25
Fred, how did you feel that the debate? I'm,
Unknown Speaker 6:29
I'm worse than I could have imagined, you know, and you don't like I'm sure the entire world wants to see someone fillet Donald Trump on the national international stage. But no one more than an American who has to live under this regime. Let's call it what it is. So it's like, it's just the biggest you get so sorry for me, you get so hard. Like you're just like, Oh, you're so ready to go. When you watch a debate. And then, you know, did I wish there were performance enhancing drugs? Because Biden could not bring it he couldn't get it? I mean, look, he's in his. It happens. You know, in your 70s I'm sure it's only natural, not judging. But it was it was really it's hard. It's always hard to watch whether it's Clinton who you know, was respectable, or Biden who tried to level with people but really couldn't. You know, as a comic, you're like, just get some zingers. Just get a couple zingers make fun of his $70,000
Unknown Speaker 7:32
expense on his hair. That's it.
Unknown Speaker 7:35
Yeah, he and also the, the makeup factor the fact that they don't like how could you? How could you sit there and know he spent 70,000 on his hair and not say what are you paying for your makeup? $5 like just hit the guy. It's so easy. It's so easy. He is a walking talking thing to mock. It would just be non stop with anybody who just had their mental mental acuteness together such
Lewis Hobba 7:58
a tough ask I I have no idea how you would prepare to debate Donald Trump because you can go low. But if you do once you get down to that sort of street fight, he's so much better. There's no one better at kicking people in the balls on the street than he is. You do have to try to like, be there. But just like he makes you fight your fight it is. It's like playing like kids sport like on the 12 soccer or something. Sometimes a really shit team will beat a really good team, just because the complete lack of organisation throws a good team off their game.
Unknown Speaker 8:32
Yeah, I would just say though, that there is a there is a kind of comedian and David Letterman is that type of comedian who in his autobiography described how they were the Funny Kids, and he was the guy who made fun of the Funny Kids. So you need that type of person who knows how to undermine everything he says, and just keep making fun of what he is and what he's doing. highlight what he's doing and and make it seem really stupid, as opposed to just those direct hits. You take what he's saying, and you throw it back at him.
Lewis Hobba 9:06
Let's dive up to Is he
Unknown Speaker 9:11
coming? No.
Lewis Hobba 9:13
no introduction. Made the president Dave Letterman
Dan Ilic 9:17
great. What we need is another white 70 year old guy
Unknown Speaker 9:21
in the room together, maybe they can do this job.
Dan Ilic 9:25
I'll form some sort of Voltron with the rector.
Unknown Speaker 9:31
I think Al Franken would have been the perfect sort of human being to run against him if he wasn't latch. You know, that's a drop. Like that type of that type of guy.
Dan Ilic 9:41
It didn't stop Trump did it?
Unknown Speaker 9:44
It didn't. It didn't. I mean, it's hard.
Dan Ilic 9:46
It's kind of trumpian logic to kind of say someone will do it better but I it during the entire debate. I just couldn't help but think what if Warren was up there, I really felt like she would have been an incredible attack dog and would have been on the front foot and would have smiled at him. And outpaced him every step of the way.
Unknown Speaker 10:03
Yeah, I think Bernie Sanders, same thing, but more on policy, which is not really what you need, you really do need sort of style, and you need to shut him up. And I definitely think you know, Warren in her attack, even on Bernie, which came out of left field, yeah, very dinero star Gary and in my opinion, I was like, you know, good, fine. Like she could have definitely handled that. The one thing that it said about Biden, God, if there is a silver lining, it's that he actually does Listen, like one He's, uh, he, you know, cognitively, he might be, you know, slightly a little bit less sharp than he should be. But his hearings great. And if that's any sign for how he might govern, hey, that's pretty good. If we can ever get over the other side, you know, like, he hears things, he hears people he can listen. And he had to do all that
Lewis Hobba 10:57
hearing through the pieces that he put in. That's really
Unknown Speaker 11:01
it's such a sad thing. This year, you're saying it's good that he can hear
Lewis Hobba 11:10
your bass here? It's the equivalent of kind of going like he's just recovering from a fall.
Dan Ilic 11:18
Was there a moment for either of you that really made the moment of the debate?
Unknown Speaker 11:22
Well, you know, I'm a big climate change guy. So watching the talk about climate change really made my head just kind of snap and explode. And I wanted to really jump into the TV at first slap Trump and then slap Biden, like it was really just a,
Dan Ilic 11:34
they both weren't very good on that at all. Like, I know, it goes both ways. There Biden in the same paragraph, said, Doug, well, the green New Deal, the green new deal will pay for itself. And then he backed it up saying, Oh, I don't back the green new deal at all he got, he got really flustered. He was like selling something, and then immediately discounting it in the same breath. It was pretty astounding. Emily Atkins from the hated newsletter, right? The climate change section was the only section that Trump didn't interrupt because he didn't know what to say, because he doesn't know shit. And nothing particularly more when they started talking about fuel economy standards as a way to make the environment better. And upon that question, Biden said, Why have you relaxed fuel economy standards that are going to create more pollution from cars and trucks? And then Trump went on this one minute read? He said, Well, I've got it in front of me, I'm just gonna write it out fine. Like, well, well, well, not really, because what's happening is the car is much less expensive, and it's much safer car and you talk it about a tiny difference. And then what would happen because of the cost of the car, you would have at least doubled and triple the number of cars purchased. We have the old slugs out there that are 1012 years old, if you did that the car would be safer, it will be much cheaper by 30 $500. Nothing about climate change or emissions. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 12:48
Was there for I feel like there wasn't even a full sentence in there. He but let me just say, though, that he This is truly the logic they're trying to spin not the Trump administration has rollback 100 environmental regulations, they want us to die as quickly as possible. They want to burn the planet as quickly as possible. But I will say, buried in one of their like Transit Authority, sort of summaries on why they were rolling back the emissions. They said, it's too late. Like that's almost a quote, essentially, why we're making all this money and the planets going to hell anyway. So it was like, he knows and that was the other thing is Biden not being able to come back and being like, you think this guy gives a shit whether you live or die like you want? This this man who laughed in the face of the wildfires?
Dan Ilic 13:36
Trump talking about how people in Europe live in forest houses. That was pretty exciting. There's so many city forces. Yeah, there's like everyone in everyone in Europe lives in fucking Fern Gully. That's what that's all I took away from that.
Unknown Speaker 13:51
I was a city I was like, I worked for city city.
Lewis Hobba 13:57
This was advertised like they're all blue.
Dan Ilic 14:01
And one of the things that often comes up after debates like this is people will journalists mainly on Twitter go wow. The only winner of tonight's debate a comedians. Dave, comedians, the winners of moments like this in American politics.
Unknown Speaker 14:14
No, no. What the fuck? Listen, the reason that they say that is because of Jay Leno. Jay Leno. He everything everything went to just being dumb. And he just and he had the dancing ido judges when when OJ Simpson was on trial, it was like there was no morality. He just did whatever it took to get a laugh. And so since then, everyone's been like the comedian is gonna love this. No, the comedians actually have like morals and understanding. And so they get actually comedians are actually generally terrified of fascism, where other comedians support it, but most of us were pretty as a group against fascism. So we're not actually really thrilled about a debate in which a guy just flat out comes out as a fascist. Not not great. Not Huge fan.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
He's so hack. I mean, this is the thing this is I Trump is hack himself. He's a bad drunk, open mic comedy doing racist, sexist material that only gets a laugh because people are astounded he's even doing it. So that's like the laugh is like the asshole laugh. And I'm tired so boring. You can feel an audience sigh when you start to bring up the president because you're like, Ah, you can feel it in the room because nobody wants to be reminded the guy is his own satire. So why, you know eijiro one about a you know, the the people believe that there is a mysterious figure named q shrouded in darkness that runs a sex cult underground and is trying to topple Donald Trump or like, Yeah, man, we're living in bribes. Like that's,
Lewis Hobba 15:50
that's right there. We came here for fun. Yeah, it is. It is genius, though. And I know this is not like a new point. But that that is the hard thing that to get over and get around, which is how to deal with someone who it is boring to bring up his constant failure.
Dan Ilic 16:08
Yeah, totally. And it's also difficult to be a comedian against someone who is genuinely quite funny. Like he is he makes him read a bit. Trying to hit funny with funny is so difficult with someone that's already undercutting the office themselves. It's so it's so strange.
Lewis Hobba 16:25
And it's just very hard to me like that guy's a white supremacist when he's like, Yes, I'm a white supremacist. I get it. When there's no shame. You need shame. If it like this, without shame, there's nothing to stick to. It's just the throwing shit at shame Teflon pan.
Unknown Speaker 16:42
But I still want to scrape the bottom of that pan though. Like I think there's more to go and I look I want him out in November or excuse me, by the end of you know, he won't leave but you know what I'm saying? I in an ideal world by January
Dan Ilic 16:55
in an ideal world after a long protracted Civil War sometime 2023 you know, it'd be great
Unknown Speaker 16:59
you know, when stuff smouldering you know, I'd like to be able, but before he goes, I really do want to see what else he'll do for by being baited into it. He drank water on camera because people baited him into it because they said he couldn't. I think he wears adult diapers and I want to bait him into like, will he and won't his audience and his base just cheer and elation when they see the jockey and they you know, like the scene and 16 candles or whatever. They're holding up the underwear. What
Unknown Speaker 17:32
I was saying yesterday is when they were coming out and saying Biden is wearing an earpiece, Biden should have said you can inspect me for an earpiece. If we can expect inspect Donald for diapers and then just left Italy and that would be the whole conversation and it would end.
Unknown Speaker 17:48
Europe they live that far cities they call forest cities. They maintain their forests, they manage their forests. It's a forest city.
Unknown Speaker 17:56
Your fear is rational.
Dan Ilic 17:58
Our interview guest on this week's podcast shot to fame for 11 days when he was White House press secretary before being unceremoniously fired by Trump making him one of the most memorable x cast members from the apprentice West Wing condition ever. By day he manages $9 billion funds by not he's raising money for the Lincoln project and anti Trump political action committee that's run by Republicans. Welcome to irrational fear Anthony Scaramucci. It's good to be here. Thank you guys for having me on. Oh, it's great. You know, we've we've got Francesca fiorentini. We got Dave Anthony and Lewis hubby here to go. Just before we go what's what's the most appropriate way to address us at Anthony Mr. Scaramucci, the mooch
Unknown Speaker 18:36
all three of those names are better than some of the other names that have been used. So you can go with any of those names still be fine. Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 18:43
What's your least favourite?
Unknown Speaker 18:46
Oh, this is typical Ozzie question right. So I have to use psyops on you now and say Scaramucci. Call me anything you want. It's all good. I just think it's ironic. That's like your Southern Southern Italians and southern Australians are very similar. So I think I'm picking it up. Yeah, both
Dan Ilic 19:05
are riddled with Coronavirus.
Unknown Speaker 19:07
I think it's funny. Anthony, you're on a podcast with someone who's got more of an Italian name than you do. Francesca fiorentini. So,
Unknown Speaker 19:15
I noticed that right away Francesca even have more syllables than me, because I have a little bit of syllable envy right now.
Unknown Speaker 19:23
Italian.
Dan Ilic 19:24
Let's talk a little bit about the Lincoln project merge. How does someone who worked at the White House end up campaigning against the man in the White House?
Unknown Speaker 19:31
Well, you know, I wrote a lot about it back in 2019. But the short answer is I've changed a lot. I think the at the end of the day, one of my liberal critics, I think it was on television, they said well, you know, he was talking about Mexicans and rapists and 2015. And so in 2019, you disavowed your support. Nothing about him changed and my response was, well, maybe he didn't change but I have changed it become more psychologically minded, I become more aware of the tribulations and the stress that he's putting on other people. I become more aware that the ends, frankly, do not justify the means this whole moral equivocation about policy and cognitive dissonance. And so the you know, the answer to the question is it got to a point where it became impossible to support them anymore and maintain your personal integrity.
Dan Ilic 20:27
You didn't know that when you went into the White House?
Unknown Speaker 20:30
That's a big question. No, see, but no, you're asking the same question that my liberal friends ask. And so this is the big that kind of dilemma. 63 million people did vote for him. So I think you have to pay close attention to Why? Because everybody has a different reason for voting for him. So my reasons were, I was a lifelong Republican, I was working for Jeb Bush, he dropped out of the race. There were two people running it was Secretary Clinton, or, or then Donald Trump. And I made the mistake of going with Donald Trump because I was overlooking. And again, I don't justify this only now you do is apologise for it, I made the mistake of overlooking some of his moral shortcomings and some of his verbal rhetoric up because I thought it was the better of two choices. So I have to own that mistake. You know, I'm not one of these guys, that's going to sit here and try to defend it. All I can do is apologise for it. And so when you say that, I didn't know that the answer is yes, I did know that. But you're down to two choices. Imagine all of us are on the publicly traded Board of a company. And you're hiring two people, and the philosophical things that you've been with your whole career. I'm a lifelong republican i my first vote was for ronald reagan in 1984. And so I went with, that's where you went wrong? And that was a mistake. What's that?
Unknown Speaker 21:50
I said, that's where you went wrong foot in the first place?
Unknown Speaker 21:53
Yeah, well, listen, I mean, you know, there's a lot wrong with the Republican Party. So there's no question about that. I think that the republican party now, whatever you thought of it under Ronald Reagan, it is a very last party under Donald Trump, it's become a full blown personality cold, as an example of that is we don't even have a party platform in the Republican Party. You can't even I can't even tell you what it stands for anymore, because the party platform is whatever Mr. Trump wants. That's our party platform. So Karen and Vlad Amelie wash their way. And if you if you love the United States, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But if you do love the United States, I can tell you, we're our most successful when we have two very strong parties that are vigorously but civilly debating with each other and advancing the ball for progress both for the global community and for the citizens of the United States. And we're not doing that right
Dan Ilic 22:41
now. So you now you're fundraising for the Lincoln project? How is that process going? And how are the Lincoln project going in general, what what's their plan heading into the next five weeks?
Unknown Speaker 22:52
Well, I was on last night, we did live streaming before the debate, we raised a tonne of money last night, we've been doing a lot of zoom calls and gatherings remotely. And it's been very successful, they've raised 10s of millions of dollars. And their plan basically, is to eviscerate this son of a bitch. And over the next five weeks, they're going to do that. And if you look at the if you look at the ads that came out after the debate last night, I think these are very successful is what I would say to my FET friends that are Democrats, you guys got to knuckle up, you got a hard knuckle up, you have to understand the adversary better. You know, the Vice President did a good job last night. But you know, as I said to some members of his campaign, he needed an extra slice of pizza and a little bit of a spray tan or sit in the hot sun a little bit. You know, he he he needs to look more vigorous in debate number two,
Dan Ilic 23:45
and that's a very Italian yield thing to say I get a spray tan.
Unknown Speaker 23:50
Something he needed something last night because he looked to pay I was telling you the truth. He looked too pale and it looks like he's lost too much weight. You know? And you know, Francesca has probably the same mom as me. My mom has like optical nerve damage. She thinks everybody's thin, you know, you could show up 200 pounds overweight. She's like have a canola, you know, but but in the Vice President's case, he needs to be optically way more vigorous than he was last night. You know, and the good news is, you know, Donald Trump showed up the first thing I thought of when Trump showed up, he looked like the 1981 orange Corvette that I was trying to buy in high school, where unfortunately couldn't come up with enough money to buy it. That was the first thing I looked at. I mean, he literally had almost like an auto spray paint on his face. So he was optically also very disturbing.
Unknown Speaker 24:37
What's the breakdown of how much money from the link and project is actually going to ads and stuff? Because there's a lot of people online that say that you guys are just sucking in the cash.
Unknown Speaker 24:47
Yeah. Well, you'd have to ask the guys only remember, I'm not on the masthead of the Lincoln project. I am raising money for them. And I'm involved in a lot of the TV streaming but I have not taken a salary from the Lincoln Park. I'm not technically an affiliate. So meaning when you file for a packet United States, I'm not one of the name people on the pack, but I am somebody to supporting them in fundraising for them. That breakdown you'd have to get from them. I honestly don't care, whatever they're paying themselves, I think they're totally worth it. They have had the hardest knuckle ads in this election cycle, and they're having an impact on Trump, because I understand the President's personality once you're inside his melon, you can get him to do a lot of things that are mistakes for him and a lot of unforced errors. And I think the Lincoln project has been very successful about that. But because I'm not an officer of the Lincoln project, I don't know the answer of what those percentages are.
Dan Ilic 25:43
I like the idea. There's a boardroom somewhere with a whiteboard with a picture of a melon on it, and how can we get into the melon?
Lewis Hobba 25:50
Like So again, I you
Unknown Speaker 25:51
know, I can tell you, I can tell you an axiom that is totally true, because he lives in a reality distortion field, if you can get on the fox news channel, and you can speak with great truth and great clarity to his base. It sends him into orbit, literally, he's the atomic bomb emoji coming out of somebody's head, and then he'll start coming after you he'll start tweeting about you. I mean, he's still you know, he's still attached to me, he'll the last time he tweeted at me, I was on the fox news channel, explaining the destruction that he's caused to the US economy, to the destruction that he's caused to our healthcare system. Now, he's wait made us weaker, as a country as it relates to our global alliances. And so he went berserk and then started tweeting at me which, you know, listen, I'm totally capable of handling, you know, these these Republican senators. I pray for these guys, because they're very, very weak people. I mean, they're, they're intimidated by somebody that won the vote by 78,000 votes in three states. He's got them believing that he's ronald reagan from 1984. And they don't want to be tweeted at and it's sort of, you know, it's a profile in cowardice, as opposed to what Kennedy was talking about a profile encouraged.
Unknown Speaker 27:03
Mr. Scaramucci, I just have a question for you. Look, I get you're an anti Trump Republican. But arguably, he's getting the republican agenda done. He's about to confirm an anti choice, anti immigrant, anti ACA, Supreme Court Justice, the third in his tenure, what happens if he gets reelected? Ultimately, isn't the Lincoln project just kind of down without agenda? They just don't like who the the front man is. But really, if he gets reelected, you guys are probably going to go along with it because you're getting your way anyway. So where's the moral in that, I guess is what I want to do.
Unknown Speaker 27:41
I I don't see it that way. And I and I know that that's a hardcore liberal. And, you know, forgive me for saying it this way, a little bit of a cynical perspective. I don't see it that way. The the conservative agenda. That's the radical conservative agenda that you just described. That's not my agenda. If you've read stuff that I have written, I worked with the republicans in New York to equalise marriage in the state of New York, and then I work with Rob Reiner, and Chad Gryphon, on the prop eight project to nationalise the marriage equality movement. And so that's a libertarian perspective where somebody that's conservative, and I joke with some of these Danville evangelicals, you guys want a smaller government everywhere, but in my bedroom, you want a larger government in my bedroom. Moreover, the Republican Party under Trump is not classically conservative. It is a socially conservative party, which I disagree with, by the way, because that's anti libertarian ism, is a socially conservative party, but it's a quite fiscally Liberal Party. They want to deficit spend into the stratosphere, and they want to give corporations these gigantic give backs in these gigantic checks. And so for me, that's not classic conservatism. conservatism, for me is to create a platform of equal opportunity for people. I don't believe in socialism, I don't want outcomes capped. But I certainly want people that were born through no fault of their own in inner cities or in poor areas of the country, to have a platform of equal opportunity. So you really study libertarianism and conservatism. There should be a packages of services for people that come from the government, including universal health care, including universal basic income, those things are quite libertarian. If you really understand them, I would encourage you to look at something that Andrew Yang has written about them because, you know, I didn't pick my upbringing. My parents were blue collar, they were on educated, but they hustled and they worked very, very hard to put us in the middle class. And my dad had this aspirational idea about his blue collar life. He thought one of his kids would live the arc of the American dream. If you go back into the area I grew up in. those families have converted from economically aspirational Economically desperation also. So true conservatives would look at that situation and say, Okay, how can we fix that situation? What type of policies, what type of infrastructure, what type of jobs training? Do we need to create a platform of equal opportunity. But once you've got that equal opportunity, then where you go with it is is up to you. It shouldn't be capped on that on the upside. So yes, I hear you. That is a radical view. If the president wins, he will destroy our democracy. And so I don't accept the fact and nor do my friends at the Lincoln project, except the fact that Oh, we're just going to enjoy the fact that he's president and we'd like this Supreme Court that that Supreme Court pick will likely destabilise the social contract that we are in in America right now. And 75% of the people in America do not want Roe v. Wade overturned, they don't want marriage equality overturned. And this is a fringe thing for our society, I think it's very, very dangerous. So I see the republican party as a dinosaur that's about to go extinct. If they reelect President Trump, you will be with an ageing group of people that are buying my pillows and catheters in between foxnews ads, that's what you're going to be left with. I would like
Unknown Speaker 31:17
this are good catheters.
Unknown Speaker 31:21
Next to I left, that the thing you put on your face when you have like sleep apnea, but my point is, I want that party to expand. And I want that party to expand demographically. And I want that party to expand with the beautiful mosaic of colours of the United States. And I want people to think about conservatism differently than the way Trump is describing it. But that is a cynical view of conservatism. And there's a lot of people in that party that hold that view.
Dan Ilic 31:45
And I reject that view, it'd be really interesting to say how you might support universal health care once Biden wins the election, at least carry it.
Unknown Speaker 31:55
What do you mean, I will remember that the vice pres is very smart guy. He's calling for the maintenance of private insurance. And he's calling for the expansion of Obamacare. If you remember, I supported Governor Mitt Romney in 2012. And when he was governor of the state of Massachusetts, he developed something that was called romney care, right, which ultimately evolved into Obamacare. Now, we can disagree with elements of Obamacare. But I'll tell you guys something. The medicine in the United States got socialised in 1986, by Ronald Reagan. And how did that happen? He signed an obscure piece of legislation in 1986. That forced every emergency room doctor in every hospital in the country that if you walked in, and you were sick, and you came into the emergency room, they had a moral and legal obligation to take care of you. And so, you know, we we've had it, we've had this medical nationalisation, if you will, we have to come up with a more propitious way to allocate the capital and make it more efficient. But we've got to get down can't be the last nation, Western industrialised nation that doesn't have that health care.
Unknown Speaker 33:03
So we should I think the answer, if I'm understanding you correctly, is to tax billionaires like 90%, like we did back in the 40s.
Unknown Speaker 33:14
Well, you gotta be careful, I, again, I have no problem paying taxes. But I think you got you have to be careful because my money is not in a swimming pool in my backyard and hundred dollar bills. My money is spread out into a lots of companies that are creating a lot of jobs. And so what happens is, when you tack somebody at 90%, they start to curb their behaviour. And they start to do things like move their money around to avoid those taxes. And so you want to make sure that you're hitting the intersection of the tax code, where you're incentivizing people to do things that are in the bandwidth of the public good. And you're not causing their mobilisation. Look at what's going on in some of these blue states. People are migrating to the, to the red states that have no income tax
Unknown Speaker 33:56
on mostly corporations. But yes,
Unknown Speaker 33:59
listen, you know, my friend, David Tepper, he was 100 and $80 million of the New Jersey tax revenues. One person with his hedge fund. He wanted a tax break from them. They said, No, he moved. And he moved to Miami, he took the hundred and $80 million with the race to the bottom. Yeah, you know, I think I think don't here here's a message I would say to everybody on this podcast, don't get miss a locked into your point of view. Because what ends up happening is when your missile lock, you'll make this very same mistakes that I've made. When you're overly missile locked, you're not seeing it from the other side, you're not seeing the other person's perspective. And that's how we got into the problem that we're in right now. That's why we're so polarised. And that's why we go after each other so far.
Unknown Speaker 34:43
Well, I mean, another reason we're polarised is because we have been living under Neo liberalism since really hardcore since 1980. And so what that has caused is massive inequality that hasn't existed in a developed nation since the French Revolution, which didn't end Great. So It's actually not my political beliefs as much as me having lived under it for now, you know, going on 40 years as being politically aware, and watching a country dissolve, because all the social safety nets have been removed because people don't want to pay taxes, and it's really simple. Everyone should pay their fair share, and billionaires aren't millionaires overnight, and we see what Trump he gets paid $750 in taxes, and everybody else,
Unknown Speaker 35:27
we have to pay tonnes of taxes. Why? Because we don't have because I can't buy a golf course.
Unknown Speaker 35:33
Book. I'm gonna recommend a book on the podcast, if you guys know why it's called American amnesia. And it's a very practical book. It's not necessarily a less base book or right base book. It's not about left or right policy, but it's about right or wrong policy. And it's fairly centrist. And it is making your case by the way, it is making your case that we disavowed the things that got us to where we are, I am the product of a very good public school system. You can't solve the education crisis in the United States without activating public school teachers and working with their unions to enhance the quality of education for these people. You're not going to get there with charter schools, you're not going to get there with conservative jingoism or Betsy DeVos. Okay, but you can get there, we have the right technology, we have the right skill sets, and we have the right capability. And you can convince people that that is actually not necessarily a conservative principle or a liberal principle. But what a great practicality, someone who was a despicable human being Henry Ford, as an example, he was a racist. He was he had a picture of Adolf Hitler on his desk. But he was a pretty magnificent social engineer. He said once and I'll share it with everybody who said, Look, I'm going to pay my workers enough money, so that they can buy the car that they are producing. Moreover, they're going to have a single family house, and they're going to be tied to a very good school system. This way, all these blue collar people will feel aspirational. And they won't come after me in my mansion with tiki torches and pitchforks. And so he
Unknown Speaker 37:08
also had he also actually hired last actually hired men to beat up union members so that he hired he actually hired men to beat up union members. I mean, his his right hand man was one of the most brutal people in the country at the time, and he was a big
Anthony Scaramucci 37:26
I'm giving him credit for an idea. I'm sure that there was mentality in setting up those unions. You know, Roosevelt was against them before he was for them, you will find that everybody has some level of incentives and disincentives, and there is no hero to a man or a woman's valet. You know, if you really study Abraham Lincoln, he was against the abolishment of slavery in the beginning, if you really study him, he wanted to move the African Americans back to Africa. Okay, so he's not a perfect person. Jefferson wasn't Washington obviously wasn't, I certainly am not maybe the four of you are. But here's what I would say to you. Here's what I would say to you. If we go after each other, we go after each other, we're not going to solve the problems. And so there's great ideas on the left. There are some still good ideas on the right, the stuff that princess is suggesting I don't like at all. And so last thing I would say on this topic, Francesca if he wins, he is a threat to the core institutions of our democracy. And so if he wins, you have to look at it from that hierarchy, my patriotism, and my love of country. Is that a way higher order of operation than my partisanship. And so what I find so shocking about this whole thing is as this is unfolded, there are many men and women that have decided that they're clutching a personal power, and they're clutching to the partisanship, nature of this thing is more important than their love of country. So the good news though, is I remain optimistic that there's more people that see it the way we do and want him out than people that see him as somebody that they want to stay with. One last thing before you go, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his book came out and she said, Wow, wobbu she writes while we're on route to the gemba, a mooch announced I'm proud to report I cross my made a major item off my bucket list today. I assumed he would say something like riding on Air Force One, but instead the mooch said, he just took it taken a huge shift in the White House. Well, I think I remember. I remember using that word, but I think I could have said done. Fred seska. Let me turn it over to you. Do you have any brothers? I
Unknown Speaker 39:40
Yeah, I do. What am I supposed to be the voice of being couth on this? I know. Women you know women take down that. Oh, yeah, women. Here's the thing about women's bundles. Women's bundles are amazing.
Unknown Speaker 39:55
Actually, I was very proud of
Unknown Speaker 39:58
it. And I'm just saying Is your Italian brothers probably would identify with me and have empathy for my feeling of having that on my bucket list since I was age 14. But anyway, let me just put it this way it was the start of a movement, obviously.
Dan Ilic 40:12
It was also the end of a movement as well.
Unknown Speaker 40:17
That experience for me as painful as it was and in often
Unknown Speaker 40:24
it was very enlightening. Not the shit I'm talking about.
Unknown Speaker 40:31
I mean, if we're going to talk about the shift, the shift was fantastic. Okay, I'm still very proud of it. I own it. And if you have follow up questions, I'm ready to take those as well.
Unknown Speaker 40:40
I do Did you did you text someone while you were shitting
Unknown Speaker 40:44
No, no, I don't I definitely don't do that because I'm a little bit of a neat freak that way I don't really use my phone and I'm on the crapper. But God washed my hands and I was heading for the convoy that was heading out to air force one I did text my 28 year old son to let him know of the accomplishment. I think it was very proud of me as his father.
Dan Ilic 41:04
Well, most thanks so much for joining us on irrational fear. Do you have anything to plug before we go?
Unknown Speaker 41:08
Well, no, no, listen, guys, guys, I listen to the to the Reverend podcast and I love it. But read that book. Dave Anthony, I think you'll enjoy it American amnesia. It talks about it talks about the need for the reestablishment of that social contract that you're gonna
Unknown Speaker 41:23
look at a duck money if you read the book.
Unknown Speaker 41:27
Well, I I read dark money. Jane Mayer is a brilliant writer. I think that his her Opus her and I are very close friends. I've helped her on a lot of her stories. And dark money, I think is her Opus. I think that's going to be one of the seminal books of that 40 year period that you're discussing 1980 2020 and that and that book speaks to the need for change and real conservatives don't like crony capitalism, and they don't like all that special interest money corrupting the system and real conservatives. And remember the father of progressivism was Teddy Roosevelt who happened to be a Republican. They break up monopolies real conservatives recognise that monopoly power is actually predatory. It stifles innovation, and it keeps people down and it needs to be broken up and revitalised. And real conservatives actually study that stuff. And they don't just take money from special interest and do what they want, under the cover of conservatism.
Dan Ilic 42:24
Thanks, Mitch, we'll let you go and we'll finish off our show.
Unknown Speaker 42:26
Well, I mean, we had to leave it on the deuce though, right.
Unknown Speaker 42:33
I was going in the right direction. Francesca was starting to like me, then you had to bring up the deuce Jesus Christ.
Unknown Speaker 42:43
Listening to a rational seer was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck. That was the worst debate I have ever seen. Say it like it is
Dan Ilic 42:56
that was a shit show. Fred and Dave so great to have two big powered brains on with a niche that was
Unknown Speaker 43:05
them bringing the meeting we were being super fair. We had some clips but he was like very like see your you hateful lot like
Unknown Speaker 43:16
he knows his audience right? He knows this centrist audience really just wants to say that thing where they're like you guys are mean and you guys are mean let's meet in the middle. And it's like No, dude, those days are gone. There's no more meeting in the middle with any of these people like but he knows that's what the centrists want to hear that so he's
Unknown Speaker 43:32
getting money for like show me like Lincoln project if you're gonna retake the republican party and actually prove that you aren't pieces of shit show me more than ads like you're talking about the money like do it then do it because I bet you your ass if he if he wins they're gonna go away the Lincoln project will go away they'll just be like well guess what reality is now dupa do like they're gonna fucking
Dan Ilic 43:55
Lincoln project is not too dissimilar to West Wing where it's like it is a it's almost like this shot in Freud or s liberal fantasy that these people exist and people are buying Yes. And it's not quite it's not quite for conservatives but it is for liberals to to think that these people are conservative and they're buying into the shot and Friday. It's comedy gaslighting.
Lewis Hobba 44:14
It's the episode of The West Wing that I don't know if you've got to Dave where they get the the eight the like the republican the sorry, the conservative judge in and they all think he's gonna be the devil. And then they're all like, No, he's actually very smart.
Unknown Speaker 44:29
Yeah. What's your
Unknown Speaker 44:33
what's that podcast called Dave? It's called The West Wing thing. Nice. It's so funny cuz me and him started out we like had a long talk and like we can't upset the writers. We just have to play politics with this as far as writing careers are going and we started like being like, Yeah, he's a good writer, blah, blah. And then like six episodes in we're like, this guy's a misogynist piece of shit.
Unknown Speaker 44:55
turns and we're just like, fuck this guy.
Lewis Hobba 44:58
He was better when he was on cocaine.
Unknown Speaker 45:02
The thing about talking about conservatives and like that I've been living under it my whole life it doesn't exist so glad you have your little Fairyland idea what conservative is but it's never been around in my life so let me know when that kicks in with all of your conservative presidents and your conservative senate I don't know when it kicks in
Unknown Speaker 45:21
idolising Reagan is just like like his entirely you know, we believe in a social safety net like calling black women welfare queens and accusing them of eating steaks every day. Oh yeah, yeah. reaganomics you know.
Unknown Speaker 45:35
We used to have our press secretary come out and laugh at people dying of AIDS ha ha ha conservatism you know I'm Reagan was a fucking monster Reagan was so exact thing Trump was as a little less crass.
Unknown Speaker 45:49
That's exactly right.
Lewis Hobba 45:51
I remember listening to Dave your, your podcasts on Reagan listening to the dollar upon Reagan. And as an Australian, like who don't he's the only real thing of Reagan was like a, you know, comedians doing the imitation or like he used to be an actor or whatever. I was sick. Sick. Yeah, it was the it was nonstop. It was a full like, hour and a half body blow of disgust.
Unknown Speaker 46:17
Yeah, he's, he's a monster and Trump is 100% his heir apparent. And the real problem that we have is that liberals have no memory and don't know how to hold a grudge.
Lewis Hobba 46:31
I believe we call it American Asia. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 46:35
a grudge
Unknown Speaker 46:36
This is what I'm saying that like I was just think about that today. Like the Bush years, eight years, two wars, two plus fours. Like all I we absolutely should have gone after him for war crimes. But like, after eight years of bush after four years of Trump, how much more do you want to think about these people like
Dan Ilic 46:57
you? And the easiest way to erase that is easiest way to erase that is to paint some terrible paintings and go on and talk about let's forget about the war crimes. You've got pesto.
Unknown Speaker 47:11
I mean, you really have to you have to prosecute the bankers, you have to prosecute the george bush's of the world, and you have to suffer through that. Because if you don't, well, you get because now there is no rule of law. And when you say Trump is breaking the law, all those people go What about the fucking bankers? You didn't do anything about? What about the war you didn't do anything about? So you know, what's your argument? Where's your moral sort of ground? I'm
Unknown Speaker 47:35
just saying, I don't want to think about him anymore. But yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right.
Dan Ilic 47:40
Look on that nut. You know, we did had two other stories to get to, but you know, we're already going over time, so why even bother? That's irrational fear. Big thanks to our fear mongers this week. The mooch Francesca fiorentini, Dave Anthony and Louis haba. Do you guys have anything to plug Francesca?
Unknown Speaker 47:57
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at frannie FeO and watch the Situation Room every Sunday night.
Dan Ilic 48:03
bitchu ation room. It's just like a rational fear. But it's got much better graphics. It's really good. It's excellent. That's that's not hard. And Dave, you want to plug anything,
Unknown Speaker 48:14
my podcast at all by the second podcast, the West Wing thing which I do with Oscar nominated writer Josh Olson, in which we discuss how the West Wing melted all of these brains of people who are liberals and are now in charge of our country, and they don't know what to do because they think that's how politics works.
Dan Ilic 48:36
Are you talking about specifically they attack?
Unknown Speaker 48:39
I would say Pelosi Schumer, I would say Obama's entire ministration was a huge victim of westwing brain. There's a lot that I would say most of the democrats that are in charge,
Unknown Speaker 48:50
saying the podsafe people just mean
Unknown Speaker 48:54
absolutely. podsafe guys are some of the worst in their books actually describe how they, you know, would have parties and talk about which one was Toby which moves Josh? Like they're there. They're all playing. They're doing cosplay for West Wing as opposed to actually governing. And they're getting their asses kicked because of it. And we're all suffering because I saw
Dan Ilic 49:11
a great tweet from Australia and notorious Twitter Dan Dolan, who said, Well, at least the crooked media guys gave Biden five stars for this debate.
That was very erudite from from Daniel Lewis, you got anything to plug buddy?
Lewis Hobba 49:28
No, Dan, same old.
Dan Ilic 49:30
Big thanks to Bertha Foundation, road mics, and our Patreon subscribers and Big thanks to Dave bluestein for writing support on this episode and our producer Jacob brown on the tepanyaki timeline. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of goodbye.
This podcast was recorded about 1 hour before Liz Truss resigned — but is well worth a listen.
Not only do with have a stellar Australian panel featuring comedian Bea Barbeau-Scurla and Journalist Rick Morton, we brought in the big guns from the UK to help us all understand what is happening in UK politics right now.
Athena Kugblenuunleashes a cathartic and hilarious rant, that distills the situation into a joyful 15 minute conversation. If you really want to know what’s going on in the UK — listen to this podcast.
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Bronwen Morgan 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Hey, good evening, Lewis. Hello, Daniel.
Lewis Hobba 0:05 How are you? Good, good.
Dan Ilic 0:08 I'm just doing some stretches to get ready for the next 10 weeks of irrational.
Lewis Hobba 0:12 It's so good to be back. I was just trying to think I know you've been squirreling away doing episodes without me, but I can't think of the last time I was on, like six months ago. So,
Dan Ilic 0:23 I don't know. It must have been a bit at least three or four data breaches ago. I think.
Lewis Hobba 0:30 I'm currently the victim of three separate data breaches.
Dan Ilic 0:33 Hang on, are you a Medibank customer? Vina? A customer and an optics customer?
Lewis Hobba 0:37 I'm a former Optus customer actually, no, my. No, I'm currently an optics customer. I am I was a Vito MoPhO customer. In fact, a real warning sign I had during the pandemic was when vino MoPhO the wine delivery company wrote me an email to inform me that I had now bought enough wine to justify my self as a VIP customer. And that was when I was like, oh, gotta stop this.
Dan Ilic 1:02 That's that sounds like you're a VIP member at the RSL. And you don't have to go to that little room and play yeah,
Lewis Hobba 1:08 I need that like facial recognition software that's tells me buying wine online. Also my deal, which was the other data breach, that's one of the Woolworths brands and I once bought some like dining chairs from them. So there is no data about me that you cannot buy for tuppence
Dan Ilic 1:26 and I only know a whole bunch of stuff about you. I'm gonna go traveling and hire a car in your name. It does right that I'm excited about that. Louis, we have a brand new sponsor for rational fear strain ethical. We'll be hearing more about them a little later on. It's really exciting because it means Louis, you get paid.
Lewis Hobba 1:42 That's some ethics I can get behind.
Dan Ilic 1:45 I'm recording my end of a rational fee on Gadigal land into your nation's sovereignty was never seated. We did a treaty. Let's start the show.
Simon Chilvers 1:52 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:05 Tonight Lydia thought resigns as Senate deputy leader after neglecting dimension she dated a bikie. The senator will now take up the role as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee for being cool. And the cost of stage three tax cuts has jumped $11 billion, which is just enough money to bribe your own government for some tax cuts. And in order to crack down on businessman falling out of windows. Russian CEOs are moving their offices to single storey buildings without windows or stairs or in Russia. It's October 21. And we've dropped our fossil fuel sponsors. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to rational fear on your host former Deputy Senate Leader Daniel edge and this is the podcast that gives you the news but with a little bit of a tickle. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight is packing up his city life and he's moving to the country with his mum, but he's still bragging the big stories from regional Queensland from the Saturday paper it's Ricky Morton.
Rick Morton 3:15 Wow, I'm gonna have to go into hiding now. It's a status intro I've ever
Dan Ilic 3:23 the biggest regional Queensland story you're gonna be bring into the country
Rick Morton 3:26 damn levels and whether we need at least 100 More, and also local councils. I think the time is ripe to get into some dodgy, dodgy local government.
Dan Ilic 3:37 Oh, I'm excited about that DVM,
Rick Morton 3:38 it's time for you to run for what is that it's
time for me to make the money.
Dan Ilic 3:45 And according to a biography she has written about herself she has been described as manic unique, sharp, darkly funny and disarmingly beautiful. It's B by scholar. Welcome Bay.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 3:58 Hello. It's good to be back. You forgot to mention that the reason I'm disarmingly beautiful is because I'm secretly mixed race and that's like the most important part of it, obviously.
Dan Ilic 4:07 Well, I was gonna ask you what's the secret to writing a great bio about yourself? And I think you've answered it.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 4:12 Yeah, I would say it's also five years of film school. That's definitely
Rick Morton 4:17 five did you fail a few years? How do you do fine.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 4:21 I just I love hating myself
Lewis Hobba 4:23 longer than it takes James Cameron to make an avatar movie.
Dan Ilic 4:28 And in just under a week's time, our next guest will have his very own television show. But if you miss it, relax, there's only one episode. It's Louis Alba. Yes, well, it was why is there only one episode of your TV show?
Rick Morton 4:43 Well, money Dan Money, money and the ABC not having any
Dan Ilic 4:48 coming up a little later on what the hell is happening in UK politics UK comedian Athena Kulu will be joining us but first, a message from this week's sponsor.
Rupert Degas 4:59 to outsiders The conservative party may look like it's a fucking Omni shambles. But to those of us on the inside, we're staying true to our promise to get Britain moving under the Tories, more British people than ever are moving to Europe. Thanks to the Conservative Party, the people of Britain are moving vigorously to keep warm, but the Conservatives are also walking the walk. As a party. We're all moving offices every day moving, moving, moving. In fact, there's so much movement at Downing Street. There's a shortage of movers. Even Prime Minister truss is looking at her poll numbers and having movements of her very own.
Unknown Speaker 5:42 I am determined to deliver
Rupert Degas 5:46 the Conservative Party getting Britain moving figuratively. And literally.
Dan Ilic 5:52 I don't think about UK politics. So yeah, who joke that does the job. This week's first fear we're calling it a bomb threat. Yes, the bomb doesn't want to be called the bomb anymore. In fact, earlier this week, they updated their style guide for the media telling everyone that the bomb would henceforth be only spoken about in media circles as the bureau which is dumb because no Australian can spell bureaux. As a result for about 48 hours the bomb was relentlessly mocked online being told by 1000s of Australians that you're not allowed to choose your own nickname. And now in order to give the bomb the best chance have never been called the bomb again. They've had to change schools. But we are lucky enough to be joined by a member of the bomb squad right here. Rick Morton broke part of this story this week. Rick, how much did it cost the bomb to pretend to give itself a zone nickname? Well, and the
Rick Morton 6:42 current figures $220,000 But I mean add on Saturday that is more than that.
Dan Ilic 6:49 That a you that is a bombshell? Well,
Rick Morton 6:53 it's a lot more than has been publicly reported. And it has been a lot more effort and resources put in behind the scenes all because the executive team felt a little bit embarrassing that they weren't being taken seriously enough. Because bomb is it's kind of like a tee to say no you must call me Mrs. Wimmer. Rather than Bob. It's so
Dan Ilic 7:13 strange. They feel I feel like they've done this to themselves that the Bureau of Meteorology has an app that says bomb their website says bomb their social media sites handle say bomb why make the change
Rick Morton 7:23 to its ego, ego and status. And it's like you have a roomful of nerds. And you're trying to make yourself sound like you're some kind of like spy agency. It's like, except your role in law. That's
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 7:35 the first thing I thought as well. When they said the bureau I was like, Okay, this isn't like the CIA or the FBI. What are you trying to do?
Lewis Hobba 7:45 You're probably the only person in the country who could eat up the spelling, you can basically be Bureau schooler.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 7:52 Exactly, exactly. Maybe that I shouldn't change my name to bomb if it's free.
Lewis Hobba 7:58 I do think like if meteorologists want to be taken more seriously, there are a couple of things they could do. First of all, the right more. Absolutely. That'd be great. The Bureau of constantly fucking it up at the moment. Stop letting other people wear vests. You know what I mean? You just get these dorks invest. Most were the people on Australian television. Our football is girlfriends or former comedians. Like, you are not a science that we take seriously. Yeah, your spokespeople are big foods.
Dan Ilic 8:34 Louis, you've got a real good point there. I think you know, Phillip Neitzke should deliver the weather that I would take very seriously. If Dr. Das was telling me some hard truths about high pressure systems coming in from syphilis.
Lewis Hobba 8:47 light showers with the chance of your dick falling off.
Rick Morton 8:52 They also got a marketing research firm called EY sweetie to branch events, to do some sentiment analysis about you know what the mark this is back in March, what they actually understand, you know, how people relate to the Bureau of Meteorology. Everyone recognizes that as the Bureau of Meteorology at something like 51% know it as the bomb 15% recognize it as the bureau so like not even like they knew it. They knew it back in March, and they dodged a hole
that I thought like I can't believe anyone calls with that. That's just the staff of the media.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 9:24 already converted.
Dan Ilic 9:26 Now, Rick, I don't know if you can tell me if this is true or not this screenshots been going around. This is meant to be the consulting firm that was going to change the Bureau of Meteorology to the bomb. It's this. This is what the website looks like. It's a sentence with a picture of something. It's built on WordPress. It doesn't even have like contact details.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 9:45 Let us see. And in a pile of water,
Rick Morton 9:48 yes. Yes, it is, actually. And it's the person who is was the sole trader of this company. The theeword is obsessed with the word see.
Dan Ilic 9:59 It's called the Sea It's C word consultancy.
Rick Morton 10:01 It is called the C word communications agency. Okay, so it's the C bomb essentially is what they brand change was already afoot, right. But they get this guy in as a consultant that he know works by the way for the Bureau of Meteorology as a senior communications manager. And he there's a blog that he wrote on LinkedIn. And for my sins. As a journalist, I do occasionally have to go on to LinkedIn, I had to pay $600 for a yearly subscription, just to be able to message people, because life is sad, and I need help. But he's got his blog on there. And it's like, you know, what have we achieved at the theeword? It's like, we've done creative collaboration with cool cats.
Dan Ilic 10:47 Which is so funny like he does so why don't he rebrand the the bomb as a suit with a C word is they got
Rick Morton 10:54 a look, I've got to be careful here. But they got the guy with potentially the worst brand in Australia to come in, advise the the sum of $30,000.
Dan Ilic 11:06 Well, allegedly a lot more, according to your article that will be coming out on Saturday. Yes.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 11:12 But I do like wonder why they think the bomb is not serious enough. You know, like, if I hear the word bomb, you know, especially in an airport. It seriously
Lewis Hobba 11:29 must have been tough for them, because there would have been a time where they were like, alright, gang. Look, we need to find a time to release this report. And it's going to be tough, because we will need to find a time somewhere in the Australian weather landscape where things aren't so crazy that we can talk about the weather in a way that isn't intense. And over the last four years that is a very short window, but they couldn't have picked a worse worse time to release this information.
Rick Morton 11:55 It is like wild and like tenure people take the minister's office had no idea they were going to announce it this week during major flooding when people have lost their lives. But also like this obsession, right and it's been years long but and so there's other words they don't like people using internally they haven't announced this publicly but the other words they don't like our forecasts for the meteorologists probably because they're not doing forecasts anymore. They don't like weather events because that sounds too heavy like an event. It's a celebration according to the internal people have. Yeah.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 12:26 Catastrophe then.
Rick Morton 12:29 A weather happening a moment in time
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 12:32 happening. Yeah, I'm not sure emmalin movie
Rick Morton 12:35 Oh my god. Yeah, the trees are killing us.
Unknown Speaker 12:41 Some savvy social media users were very quick to snap to the handled using the accounts to slam bombs timing.
Simon Chilvers 12:49 This is a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 12:51 This week. Second fear is Sydney's nightlife coming back, Sydney is Australia's largest inhabited quiet carriage and has had locked down for lock downs. We're cool. Now after 10 years of early nights and clean Livi Sydney is staying up past its bedtime. That's a reference to something that happened in 2014. A new town bar has been granted a 4am license for the first time in 100 years. b Why is this significant? There's 4am license.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 13:17 I'm listen, I live in New Town and already the people coming in on Fridays and Saturdays causing a ruckus that I don't care for
Dan Ilic 13:29 this nimbyism to come from you.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 13:31 I'm kidding. No, I think it is like quite interesting that like kind of Newtown has become this like new hub and stuff. Because when I was 18, and stuff, it was like Kings Cross that was a place and then like six months later, lockout laws were introduced, you know, so it's kind of interesting in a way because they've just completely shifted all of the interest away from Kings Cross. Like still some of the bars there haven't recovered, but yet they're, you know, going to try and have this sort of perimeter for 4am licensing and I just wonder how that will change the whole vibe of Newtown
Dan Ilic 14:08 there's a whole there's a whole lot about this article. That seems a bit dodgy right first of all, the guy that granted the license, he has the title as the New South Wales 24 hour Commissioner, yet he's only granting a license beforehand. What about the other 20 hours?
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 14:24 I thought that 24 hour Commissioner thing was so funny it was like it's kind of like this goal to like have Sydney's economy you know make money while we sleep
Lewis Hobba 14:35 as a kind of like hard partying Jack Bauer
Dan Ilic 14:45 there's also no mention of where this bar is actually gonna be. They only kind of tell you it's between two streets which includes the train tracks. It's a very it's a very weird thing. And this This so called Fun area has been given the label by the New South Wales Government as as the late night management zone have come on down. It's gonna it's gonna revive the teachers will be like patrolling it with loud hailers. Like,
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 15:14 it's giving the exact vibe of my mom saying, Hey, you can have your friends over, you can stay up late. But then as soon as 935 comes across, she's yelling at us from her balcony.
Dan Ilic 15:26 The other thing I feel I find disconcerting about this story is the CEO kind of sounds like a serial killer. He's quite an understanding was saying, We've been looking for a basement space in Newtown for a really long time. Because it's perfect sound attenuation and lowers the risk of getting noise complaints from the residents, but there aren't many in this area. I think you still
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 15:46 tell us where the basement is. So
Lewis Hobba 15:48 that's why Jack bow has been hired. That's
Rick Morton 15:52 why we need to flood new tab.
Lewis Hobba 15:56 It is good though, because obviously when the lockout laws came in, and everyone got pushed out of the cross and sort of Paddington and Surry Hills and all those areas, the one place you could go of course was Star Casino. That a good haven't they done well haven't they been a beacon a shining light on the Hill best management the
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 16:17 best place to have some you know, some leg workouts because your feet really do be sticking to those floors.
Dan Ilic 16:24 Oh my god, they did lose their license this week. But the New South Wales Government has graciously let them continue to trade business and I assume that means people still can leave their kids in the car with the windows down. I think that's what emotional fear
Unknown Speaker 16:39 to the star casino has been found unsuitable to hold a New South Wales casino license, money laundering and
Unknown Speaker 16:46 enticing people
Unknown Speaker 16:48 to be armed nearly by gambling, organized prime links
Dan Ilic 16:56 just stop with the program here to let you know that we have a brand new sponsor on a rational fee for the next 10 weeks I'm very excited about this Australian ethical is chipping in to pay the bills. And not only that, they kind of believe in stuff we believe in like your money is worth even more than you think it's because you can use it for a force for good. We've spoken about this in the podcast before when you move your money, you can make a positive impact. You can either be part of a system that is hurtling us towards our own destruction or we can invest in doing better and that's what Australian ethical is all about. So big thank you to Australian ethical for jumping on board and supporting a rational fear. For more information go to Australian ethical.com today Yeah. This week's third fear watching UK politics for the last week it's been like trying to catch up on a sci fi TV show you've missed a couple of seasons of the baddies is still in charge but all the characters have kind of changed you kind of don't know where the story is at. Joining us now to shed light on what the hell is happening over there is satirical comedian star of McTell week hosted the DMS are open podcast on radio for extra and a cracking Twitter feed. It's Athena Coupland, welcome to Siena.
Athena Kugblenu 18:02 Thank you for having me. How are you?
Dan Ilic 18:04 Good, good, you know, full full kind of disclosure. Rick suggested this story. We all looked at. We all looked at each other. And we're like, none of us know what is actually happening. We need an expert What the hell is happening over there in the UK?
Athena Kugblenu 18:20 The fact you've called me tells me how desperately important you are. The last I mean know even the politicians themselves that said last night they had a vote and you might not be aware but like in Parliament, when you have a vote you either vote on the issue or when your party is in crisis. You vote senators tentative vote on the party. That makes sense. So last night, they were going Do you like fracking or not but it because the party was in such disarray? The break was going to turn into do like the conservatives or not basically this is a bit Fisher Price politics. Right. So
Dan Ilic 18:52 seriously, looking at your political system, it's like looking at Harry Potter. Like we didn't
Athena Kugblenu 18:57 just say like, fracking is like a really important issue. Like it causes earthquakes, right? Yeah. No, that's not as important as Do you like me or not? Like, how is that?
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 19:08 The equivalent? Yeah, it feels like a twist in like a reality TV show. You know, like, you know, you thought it was gonna be about fracking.
Rick Morton 19:17 This tastes disgusting when they put
Athena Kugblenu 19:18 in a contestant that's been evicted. So like. So genuinely, the politicians didn't know if they were voting for fracking, or for the party this morning. I was trying to find out what was it about in any case, they ended up voting for earthquakes because earthquake because we weren't on a top line. And it's not fair. When you own a city on a fault line, you get you know, you get quakes. And so why don't we Why don't we create a natural disaster so we can be on the news today? I mean, we're just not on the news.
Rick Morton 19:51 You've got a natural disaster though. It's the Tory party.
Dan Ilic 19:58 You know, The fracking here is how ITV said what went down last night.
Unknown Speaker 20:11 It has been a night of astonishing scenes at Westminster with reports of jostling men handling bullying and shouting outside the parliamentary lobbies. In a suppose vote of confidence in the government. The deputy chief whip was reported to have left the scene saying, I'm absolutely effing furious. I just don't effing care anymore before he resigned along with the chief whip, but we've just been told they have now officially on resigned. The Home Secretary has however definitely got insurance. It is total absolute abject chaos.
Athena Kugblenu 20:49 So this was that was supposedly your vote on whether or not the parties have voted, lose trust, let's just risk the vote. To even vote on herself. First of all, it was she wants fracking she picks it since he thinks it's important right into security. So she missed the boat on fracking.
Dan Ilic 21:08 That's why she missed it. She was she was pumping gas into the ground. She was busy fracking data number 10. Yeah,
Athena Kugblenu 21:15 so she missed that I wrote to say that I like me too. So
Rick Morton 21:18 this is why this is why I chose this subject because I don't know anything about it. But I do know that it's very funny. And also I see a lot of myself in live traps like she's
understand how money works or market
right? I do love I love that like ITV at the at the end that like because my brain is working in like a music and radio station when I hear like total abject chaos with that thing underneath. I'm just waiting for like a dubstep drop to kick in.
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 22:00 Reporters they seem to always have like such a sense of urgency that you could absolutely remix it and make it a sick club mix. Like
Athena Kugblenu 22:11 I'm surprised it hasn't been done already. To be honest. And you have to do these. That's the reason why these things happen so they can go viral on the internet. That's what I think to be fair, I do think I'm being a bit cynical. I do think though they're ramping it up a bit. Just a little clip of them going crazy can go viral, because the good thing about this chaos is it was it's been chaotic for about four weeks. What we've got now if you've got pictures of MPs Ave Argy bargy in Parliament, but this has been this is the status has been the status quo. You know, this is not this is not this last night in many ways was unremarkable. It was just it was just funny because he wrote in Parliament you don't have bits to pay for you literally you vote with your body you go through a yes chamber or no chambers it's really you
Dan Ilic 22:52 don't you don't have a button
Athena Kugblenu 22:58 so that's all happening was
Dan Ilic 23:04 please don't please don't think this is fisher price because we have literally no idea
Athena Kugblenu 23:10 it's incredible so the chief whip said the chief whip says it's their job to get people to vote the quote unquote right way to vote with us not against us. But because you're not going to get paid for you have to physically move people into the right chamber right. So what was happening last night it was they were literally getting them by the next and or whatever. Like apparently there was a bit people were like saying it was like brilliant. Like they were
Rick Morton 23:31 like apparently, Jacob Riis. Mog was one of the people manhandling which is like a noodle closet.
Athena Kugblenu 23:40 If you let Jacob Riis, mog bad habit you get yourself to help still get some iron supplements. Protein shakes. You are withering away the cost of living crisis to doing something because Jacob Riis, mog makes us do it. She came home from school we said I'm being bullied and they've put in a kid and they're taking these Rob I would kick them out of the house
Rick Morton 24:11 and being bullied by like one of those car yard like
Dan Ilic 24:15 the inflatable. I love this loan from the chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He told a meeting of colleagues on Wednesday he said according to someone in the room, this is what Jeremy Hunt said this would be really interesting shit if I wasn't in the middle of it
Athena Kugblenu 24:29 fundamentally, basically is because there's an Elisa that has no authority when she says jump they all sit down and pick their noses. And when when they do what she says the markets go What the hell are you doing? You're crazy. So they're in a weird place where they can't do what they've been told because what they've been told is horrendous but not doing what they're told the government can't function and so that's what we're saying we want general election which is horrible because no one likes elections. They're just horrible. You tell them the TV listen slow mo the child crying or whatever some would get it because video you It's just sort of very boring. I think we should just get the formality of a general election. And we should just just edit a coup, but in my school
Rick Morton 25:08 we're just going for monarchy like now you've got the king.
Athena Kugblenu 25:15 I mean, you know, I mean for the crack I mean,
Dan Ilic 25:19 what about a reverse Monica, you could have our prime minister roll over you. It'd be great.
Athena Kugblenu 25:24 Yeah. Your new ones Nice. We'd like that do
Rick Morton 25:28 Undercover Boss but just to you know, live trust.
Athena Kugblenu 25:34 You know, like a school exchange student trips, and you go to France to stay with the family. And they stay with you. Let's do an exchange.
Dan Ilic 25:43 Right? Yeah. I don't think we want Miss dress.
Rick Morton 25:45 It's such fun drama. It's real, like keeping up with aquatint Ian's energy
Athena Kugblenu 25:58 you foresee like it was it just about work? It's very interesting. What's happened now is because and what people are forgetting is it. Boris Johnson two years ago, kicked all the reasonably smart people out of the cabinet because they were not on board this Brexit plan at all. If you're not with me or against me, and you fill this cabinet with idiots, I mean, I don't use that word lightly. He was he first came out with people who probably weren't very skilled at what they did. And that's a one by one we've lost anyone with a semblance of common sense. And now we're left with people who just like walking around and saying I'm important. And then you ask them to do something and they can't do anything because they're thick. And there's no one and no one in the backbench who might be good at it been in the cabinet wants to serve in it. So that's been run out of options. Yes, yeah. Read a book and get smart but that's not going to happen.
Rick Morton 26:48 Well, that takes time and your energy crisis
Dan Ilic 26:52 there's a real problem with the conservative party among many others, but you know, our conservative party date basically roll Prime Ministers whenever they want. They're like let's get rid of this guy. Next week. The next person in line we've had enough of this person but the UK Conservative Party has to wait 12 months before they can ever party motion to wrong someone
Athena Kugblenu 27:11 you know something all of these things mean nothing. They really do mean nothing. They just they say that they'll just change the rules they'll change the rules and I hope they I hope they do because it's because nobody wants to talk for months. I won't lie right now looking for wind up torches. I'm telling you when you power power they're gonna they prepared with the press releases and the news bulletins say you're in the dark sorry about that or whatever. So I
Dan Ilic 27:37 can recommend anything. It would be a solar foldout solar panel that you can charge in the UK it climate change is bringing trust down and climate change is bringing this podcast down.
Rick Morton 27:53 It really was just leaves holding you all together, wasn't it?
Athena Kugblenu 27:59 The crazy thing so we got rid of Boris that can it not? It can't get any worse. And now people are saying we need both shots of back. It's it's sort of it's sort of it for now.
Rick Morton 28:07 I even heard Theresa Mays name resurfaced
Athena Kugblenu 28:11 where everybody Rolf Harris I think he's got
Dan Ilic 28:28 some, allegedly, Rick,
Athena Kugblenu 28:31 I'm aware of what he did. But he was just because I don't know why he was on my mind. I regret saying that. Were just shuffling cards. It's like, we're just Oh, no, no, no. Like, there's nobody, and I don't I don't think we should get someone who's done it before. Because we've got rid of them for a reason. You know, it's like so I think you're an ex back and then you get back and it's like, oh, you're an asshole like so we just need a fresh start clean slate. It's like Eat Pray Love. Did everything we need to go away?
Rick Morton 29:05 Spain, but you can't do that easily. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 29:09 Well, it's been a good luck. And if you get stuck for solar panel, come to Australia. We'd love to have you here. Oh,
Athena Kugblenu 29:14 I'll tell you. I'm gonna go I'm coming right now.
Dan Ilic 29:19 Oh, look, this is viral clip that keeps going surfacing every now and then whenever Jeremy hunts name comes up. It is fantastic. is a compilation of people miss pronunciate. Oh. It's a couple of people not pronouncing Jeremy hunts name correctly.
Rupert Degas 29:34 Well, first up after the news we're going to be talking to Jeremy come and hunt the culture Secretary Abed
Unknown Speaker 29:39 and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy Hunt is also expected to apologize circumstances
Unknown Speaker 29:43 change Mr. Kent Mr. Hunter. Jeremy counter cute. Jeremy Hunt. Secretary Jeremy Hunt says he's the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as described. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt according to the
Rick Morton 29:58 Health Secretary Jeremy Taylor. said the NHS friends
Unknown Speaker 30:03 looking after the health service
Unknown Speaker 30:04 somebody somewhere in government perhaps Jeremy Kent the the Jeremy I'm not gonna pronounce his surname because I might mispronounce it deliberately.
Dan Ilic 30:21 Just comedy, just comedy. I love that. Hey, I seen it. Thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear and that is it for rational fear big thank you to be Rick Cena and Louis. Let's do our plugs. And he could do you have anything to plug bait?
Bea Barbeau-Scurla 30:35 Oh, just follow me on Instagram. I gotta get that clown. That Queen bay with a K W E N underscore B EA it's the most confusing way to spell it.
Dan Ilic 30:48 We'll pop it in the show notes. Rick Morton, you've got a fantastic new substack
Rick Morton 30:52 Oh, yeah, I joined I joined the crew. So I've got a sub that could nervous laughter which is basically how I go through life. It's good. You should read it.
Dan Ilic 31:01 Yeah. Oh, subscribe. Louis harbor. Are you you plug in your TV show?
Rick Morton 31:05 I am Yeah, I thought I finally have something to plug other than my dumb radio show. I have a television show. Coming to the ABC on Thursday night. It's called Australia's best competition competition. It is where I enter a bunch of weird competitions around the country with my friend comedian Michael hing and and then we rank them and we find the best competition in Australia and it's really funny and I broke my knee doing it so
Dan Ilic 31:33 medical bills to pay Yeah. I seen a cuckoo
Athena Kugblenu 31:38 What would you like to blog Oh, just my just my Instagram and my Twitter. And the fact that you guys want that Rachel itself doesn't mind.
Dan Ilic 31:48 Big thanks to rode mics our new sponsor Australian ethical Thank you Australian ethical Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. Our new patreon supporters Michelle Brian, Mac Benny drew mayo, Anthony Bell dune and Gabby bolt has also become a patreon supporter. They're gonna be about became a Patreon supporter because she realized the opera house show she was in for rational fear is actually behind the paywall on the Patreon she wanted to hear. So if you missed out on the Sydney Opera House show, head over to Patreon you can become a member and listen to that show. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of by
Unknown Speaker 32:23 it is total, absolute abject.
Unknown Speaker 32:28 I have been in office for just under two months. I am a
Unknown Speaker 32:35 I just don't care anymore object.
⚽️ Animals correctly guessing the outcome of FIFA World Cup fixtures. 🎟 Ticketmaster and Live Nation's Taylor Swift Snafu. 💸 The $98 Billion Australians are giving their bosses for free each year. 👩🏼🍳 And we have a chat with Leader of the Reason Party in Victoria, Fiona Patten MP, about the broad mix of characters running for state parliament this weekend in Victoria.
And once again thanks for all of your support for A Rational Fear in a way YOU make the Best Comedy Podcast in Australia — If you'd like to help us pay the bills please chip in to the Patreon.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. G'day Louis. Hello Daniel.
Lewis Hobba 0:04 How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:06 Good you're not doing the podcast and I because you're doing something else. Yes I am at the red carpet of the reo was Australian music's might have died. Oh my god. Oh my god you were just going from awards night to awards night on Yeah, yeah.
Lewis Hobba 0:21 Although I don't think I'm gonna win anything at this one if I'm honest.
Dan Ilic 0:24 Earlier this week, Lewis and I were at the Australian Podcast Awards and we we somehow managed to win again so big thank you to everyone who supports our show and listens including those who go do other award nights like you Louis Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 0:39 thanks that sorry I'm just here with a deal at all caught he's trying to get me to I don't know. Get up to some mischief. I
Dan Ilic 0:46 think he put him on the phone but what can we talk to him?
Lewis Hobba 0:49 I will give him give me one sec.
Dylan Alcott 0:52 podcast of the Year Award winner Daniel it
Dan Ilic 0:54 is it is it is oh my god. I'm talking to multiple title award winner of the year doing all caught
up one of the one of the one of the red carpet flight right now
Dylan Alcott 1:11 I kiss on the lips something
Dan Ilic 1:13 good. Let me let me ask you this question. Now harbor told a story about you meeting Elon Musk and Splendour in the Grass a few years ago. Is that true? Did you end up meeting Elon Musk? That is a real story.
Dylan Alcott 1:24 Oh, he wasn't doing photos. I mean, because Arizona took a photo of him. He had his T shirt on that made him like holographic so you couldn't say
Dan Ilic 1:32 no way. It was a t shirt that was reflective.
Dylan Alcott 1:35 Reflective t shirt. And it all laid out. Hey guys, I can't get near him. All because I wrote straight up like it like Make A Wish kid. And I wasn't that famous at this point. Yeah, yes. It was like, fuck you. He was furious.
Dan Ilic 1:57 Sorry, Greg. Right. Put Louis back. saying oh, I just I just wanted to verify that Elon Musk story. Yeah, no, it
Lewis Hobba 2:07 was true. I still think about it all the time.
Dan Ilic 2:10 All right, we're recording our part of the podcast on Gadigal land in your nation. sovereignty has never said it. Let's start the show. A
Simon Chilvers 2:16 rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra COMM And section 14, a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:30 Tonight the Wallabies are missing 40 of their best players due to injury sparking concerns of forced conscription. And it's snowing in Australia a few days out from summer or as climate change deniers are calling it. It's a Christmas miracle. And Barack Obama announces his tour of Australia for March. Unfortunately, he didn't make the cut off for a festival manage venue that is just for the people on the show tonight. It's the 25th of November we refuse to make any more iPhones. This is a rational fear, irrational fear.
G'day Welcome to rational fi I'm your host former crypto billionaire Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the news and pause it over ice. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She studied jazz at a new but studied comedy at the coalface of open mics. Also known as you can you come it's Stephanie Broadbridge Steph when Scott Morrison took out the year gone 60 minutes were you annoyed that he was doing your bit?
Steph Broadbridge 3:36 Haha No, I actually got work out of that. Yeah, I did an ad to play ukulele in front of his house and tell him that he should keep it up and he'll get better know what
Dan Ilic 3:46 it was Yeah, who was who was paying you to do that? It was for
Steph Broadbridge 3:49 a soap. It made a lot of sense at the time.
Dan Ilic 3:53 And he's one of Australia's sharpest and most original comedians expert and hilarious or So says the bio he wrote himself on his website is one of my favorite content kings Jack Druce. Jack you've been doing so much great video work lately on your Instagram. What? What's taking you so long to get to the medium?
Jack Druce 4:09 I was just pursuing stand up comedy which I would recommend to no one goes. For everyone stuck doing it.
Dan Ilic 4:19 And earlier this week. I got to sit next to her on the national broadcaster on Question everything as she completely destroyed the ABC audience with her tampon jokes. Tonight's co pilot back Melrose bello Bella, you seem to get a great response from those jugs. That was amazing. Yeah, there were
bec Melrose 4:36 a couple that that really the audience went up but it was good fun. I really enjoyed it.
Dan Ilic 4:41 Coming up later we speak with Australia's most despised politician according to spectator magazine about this weekend's Victorian election. But first, here is a message from this week's sponsor. The Emir of Qatar has come to his senses. It's true. I have come to my senses. All stadiums must go at the Qatar black Friday's sale eight barely used stadiums are going for next to nothing. Coincidentally, they're also currently standing next to nothing pristine seats, unused beer taps, mystery bones in the foundation. I don't know how that got there. Perfect if you're hosting your own World Cup ideal for creating an internment camp or if you're a New South Wales premier just wanted to buy a stadium to knock it down to get your mates to build your new one just like it. These stadiums cost $200 billion, but could be yours for a shipload of sheep. It's not a bad deal. Qatar's blackFriday stadium sale and opportunity like this one present itself until an autocratic regime bribes FIFA to make bad decisions again, egg is our culture. Please respect it. Yes, it's their culture. This week's first beer it is the World Cup time of course, which means sentient beings from across the animal kingdom are being forced to do their things that their little brains never had in mind. And I'm not talking about durables and 1980s film stars. No, I'm talking about octopi and now otters are being forced to play dumb games to predict the outcome of the winners of FIFA World Cup Now Jack Is there a problem with using animals for helping humans place bets on football games? I
Jack Druce 6:09 like I really like it. I get I like I find that sports exciting, but this puts it to a next level to me like there's just a weird like Japan had an upset win against Germany. And it was predicted by this order this time. And it's this very cute Japanese order putting a ball in a bucket and I was just thinking like they've got the the Japanese flag and the German flag on different buckets. And I just liked that detail that they also like on top of us being expected to believe that the otter has sort of like godly supernatural powers. On top of that it also knows what Germany is like it's just got this understanding of geography and what flags mean. A horse racing I definitely feel like I'm I'm in exactly the demographic where every bit of media I consume is trying to make me do sports gambling. Like if anything I want to just like do sports bet spin on everything please. And I'm not interested in gambling at all. And then I see something like this happened and I'm like, Okay, I could maybe I don't know they get an octopus or something. This can be fun.
Dan Ilic 7:15 I think it I think it definitely works with binary Right? Like it definitely works with one selection or another but horse racing you need like 11 buckets for the auditor put it in Japan also has Olivia the grey parrot, the grey parrot doesn't actually have that much of a good record. It's more 5050 Remember, we remember Paul the Octopus from 2010. I mean, I'm pretty sure all of us are old enough to remember that. Paul got eight games for that FIFA World Cup in 2010. That is extraordinary. He died last year. I think he was just over exerted. But he also died like the week after he got made the ambassador for the 2018 World Cup bid for England so maybe he was like no way. i There's no way I'm going to be an ambassador I'm out of here for
bec Melrose 7:57 that's too much pressure when you're a gambler to make sure the kids are gonna get Christmas presents. That's too hard.
Dan Ilic 8:03 When you're an octopus you got to buy eight iPhones per person. It's is ridiculous. pursues rational fear. The octopus with the amazing psychic powers has been found dead in a German aquarium
Unknown Speaker 8:17 you made as many enemies his friends, campaigns to get pulled got personal. There were death threats, dark mutterings about calamari salads, who you are listening, very rational fear.
Dan Ilic 8:31 This week second fear Ticketmaster and Live Nation on this week's anti hero. When Taylor Swift eras tour went on sale all hell broke loose. 2.5 million people were asking Ticketmaster a few million times over the day. Hey Ticketmaster, you got Swifty tickets. So what resulting in 3.5 billion system requests, which slow Ticketmaster to recrawl. Eventually, 2.4 million verified customers got tickets, but it took a long, long time stiff? What the hell was going on here? Should we be blaming Ticketmaster for being shit? Or should we blame Taylor Swift for being good?
Steph Broadbridge 9:07 Ah, neither. Well, I used to work for Ticketmaster. So no way. The inside tracks. I have a literary inside. I don't know. I mean, honestly, it seems like what she was asking for. This isn't funny, but it seems like what she was asking for was not going to happen. Because you just can't have that many people getting tickets at one time. But also people who buy tickets are the worse, like as someone who sold it to them, I can tell you with absolute certainty, because like how tickets work, right? There's like good tickets, and everyone wants the good tickets. But there's only so many good tickets and people don't really get that they're like, but I want the good tickets. It's like yeah, but someone else already got them first. That's just how tickets work.
Dan Ilic 9:52 Yeah, I understand. You know, this happens to be every Melbourne Comedy Festival. It has been one of the good tickets.
Steph Broadbridge 10:00 Yeah, also why? I mean, okay, I don't want to get anyone in trouble but Taylor Swift like why do you want me like one time? Like, why is Why is she thing?
Dan Ilic 10:16 stiff? Are you trying to get this podcast canceled? What's happening here? You're trying to turn us into the end here. Do you know what's gonna happen? Some Swift is going to hear this, clip it and put it on Twitter and we're going to die.
Steph Broadbridge 10:28 Okay, well, I would say to that person, have you heard Billie Holiday? She's very good. Like, check out literally every other singer. She's not even the best one in the White category. You know? Like there's so many so many other singers. It's like, I mean, I saw an article in The Guardian where they analyzed her lyrics like they matted like it is disgusting.
bec Melrose 10:53 Let's get the the otter on board and just pick a bucket and we gotta be canceled are we going to make it through to the end of the year?
Dan Ilic 10:59 something interesting happened out of this whole thing is the Tennessee Attorney General was so inundated by people trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets, they'll furious they were hassling the Attorney General of Tennessee to do something about it. Now the Attorney General has then taken it up with Congress to try and break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation to make the whole system better. Isn't that bizarre? Like you put a show on sale and you annoy an attorney general so much that they've actually got to put laws in place to break up the company selling your tickets
Jack Druce 11:33 so like brutal sorry, but just like the I know the minimal levels of envy I feel around like just comedians who are selling a bit better than I am like, if you like to be like, Oh, she's selling so well. She's like, the government is involved like the breaking down of how well she's selling.
bec Melrose 11:53 The government was involved for me too, but for the opposite reason
Dan Ilic 11:57 to think about Ariana Grande all she ever wanted to be was Ariana venti. Very very good. That's a Starbucks Jack. Thank you.
bec Melrose 12:08 I read a thing that the tickets were going for, like 50 grand or something?
Steph Broadbridge 12:13 Yeah, I don't know. I thought $35,000 to hit Taylor Swift sing lyrics such as sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby and I'm a monster on the hill. Wow. Yep.
Dan Ilic 12:30 But you know, she sings it stuff. She doesn't say it like that. You know? She's got some nice stuff around it.
Steph Broadbridge 12:36 Like what like music Yeah, alright. Grandpa. This is how bad I think Taylor Swift songs are I actually wrote one. Okay, great if you want me to sing it if that's okay. Yeah, already wait write it just write one just based around what happened with the Ticketmaster incident? Yeah, just basically a bunch of words all put together that make no sense that sound like a Taylor Swift song. I brought my ukulele so again my fans were buying tickets got attacked by several bears. Crying Thompson made of pasta. You're a spoon. I am the man facing wall and sunlight sparkling in the sky like broken glass. I'm just saying random words that I pulled out my ass. They are.
bec Melrose 13:33 Wow, that was really beautiful.
Fiona Patten MP 13:37 Live Nation is trying to blame the ultimate popularity of Taylor Swift it's
Dan Ilic 13:47 this week's third if you feeling overworked and underpaid and you feel like you're getting ripped off everywhere you go, it's because you are a rational fears. Favorite think tank the Australian Institute has crunched the numbers. And apparently, the average Australian worker is being ripped off by their boss to the tune of $8,000 of unpaid overtime. Since I'm my own boss, I can't wait to tell myself that I fucking quit. It works out to be about $93 billion a year. What are you going to do with all that cash? Well,
bec Melrose 14:15 we can apparently fix the cost of living crisis is what the ABC is reporting today. And we need to like the cost of living crisis is so bad at the moment. That Keeping Up With The Kardashians, their latest series is just called the Kardashians.
Dan Ilic 14:29 That's true. What's keeping
bec Melrose 14:32 like, I mean, 7.3% There's no way we're catching him now and inflation that high. So we definitely could do with the extra $93 billion, I think but you know, it's just so much overtime as well. There's something like 2.5 billion hours that were giving bosses in overtime. And I know a lot of us are working from home. So about 2 billion of those hours have been spent just jiggling your mouse so it looks like you're active on Microsoft Teams. You know, that's why
Dan Ilic 15:03 full timers are effectively donating more than six weeks a year to their employers. Six weeks is your boss worth an extra six weeks a year?
bec Melrose 15:13 Most workers don't like their bosses, right? There are some great bosses out there, Dan, you're a great boss, you are your own boss, right? Like it's wonderful. But there are so many bosses out there that are not like my mates have got a boss that they call stitch, because he can fit his job description through the eye of a needle like you. We had a boss that we called shadow because he disappeared at midday. And if you saw him in the afternoon, he just be so strung out. It's like you're in a given time to these people. You don't be working for the one called vaccine either because you kind of rely on him, but he's an absolute prick.
Jack Druce 15:49 Without the context of why I would love to have a boss named shadow that sounds like fun was had a job interview and they're like, this is the boss shadow. I'd be like, Well, hell yeah.
bec Melrose 15:57 I mean, it sounds like the job is doing is definitely a black market job.
Dan Ilic 16:03 It sounds like you're working for a villain in the Teenage Mutant Ninja. Yeah. That's comedians. We are entrepreneurs. We kind of do work for ourselves. Do you think we should give ourselves six weeks off? Yeah,
bec Melrose 16:14 I reckon we should also start having Friday night drinks with ourselves too. I've been making that traditionally my Friday night drinks goes
Jack Druce 16:20 off. I think I'm gonna reframe unemployment as just giving myself six weeks off. I'm just very generous with my holiday time this year. Yeah, you just a good employer, your employer. It's a good way of looking at it.
Dan Ilic 16:33 Yeah, at my place of employment. I'm allowed to take as many holidays as I like it's great.
Steph Broadbridge 16:39 I am definitely not working that overtime. I don't know. I reckon I work 20 minutes a day.
bec Melrose 16:45 I think comedians are definitely bringing down the national average in terms of hours only.
Jack Druce 16:50 Comedians we get people are mad at us if we go 30 seconds long at a gig like people think to work that if you do an extra 30 seconds
Dan Ilic 16:59 that's very true Steph I'm so sorry for making it work 40 minutes tonight
Jack Druce 17:05 when I was getting ready for this, I was thinking about times that I've like had to do extra work and there was so used to be a writer on the TV show the project and there was some kind of like just some sort of rostering issue where I had to come in early one time and I really didn't want to but I was just like that happened every now and then. But I was in there a lot earlier than everyone else was this day and I was just like cranky about it not happy just by myself drinking coffee and there's there was a TV monitor that was like used for live feeds of crosses and interviews and stuff. And I was just like sad alone in a room and the monitor just turned on and it was the musician shaggy was just it was a live stream to shaggy just waiting for an interview just not knowing anyone who was known as attended to him yet no one from the project said hello he was in early to do some cross from like his timezone I guess and I just got like a full minute of just shaggy not knowing anyone could see him just alone this is the best case scenario for coming in this early
bec Melrose 18:05 yeah get a shaggy I know you're supposed to have a chaperone but it wasn't
Dan Ilic 18:15 when we come back we're gonna be talking to Fiona patent Victorian MP all about the Victorian election in just a moment. irrational fear. I've met children that were named off my songs, you know, fancy companies. Okay, this is Carla's bombastic Johnson irrational fear just interrupting the podcast with Louis Harbor on the red carpet of the area's now you are about to see a whole bunch of award winners aren't you? Yes, I am. I think I am. Well, let me tell you the in terms of sponsors, our sponsor is an award winner they won money Magazine's Best of the Best in 2022 They are awesome. Australian ethical. Put your money there if you want to. They only invest in low carbon businesses like renewable energy it health care and education while telling companies that do stuff like fossil fuels and gambling and tobacco to go and get fucked. That's kind of our kind of people. Speaking of nefarious activities, Louis, are you going to be doing any gambling or, or human trafficking while you're the
Lewis Hobba 19:13 area's I might do some Wilkins trafficking, there's there at least for Wilkins is here. I can see Christian at the moment he's looking at he's looking beautiful. I saw Richard before. I assume there are several other sort of unclaimed members of the Wilkins family wandering around.
Dan Ilic 19:31 What I want to know is we're not going to they're going to start their own reality TV show on the Kardashians. It's a great question.
Lewis Hobba 19:37 It's a great question. I would watch it. In fact, I'm watching it right now.
Dan Ilic 19:41 So big thanks to Australia to go. Let's get back to the podcast.
Simon Chilvers 19:45 This is a rational view, rational fear
Dan Ilic 19:49 and we're back last December our interview guest won the prestigious Australia's most despised politician of the Year from spectator magazine. And this weekend she goes head to head With a whole spectrum of people who are not just despised, but utterly, thoroughly hated, it's in the Victorian election. She's the leader of the reason party, and it's with great pleasure we bring Fiona Patton to the podcast. Welcome, Fiona.
Fiona Patten MP 20:14 Thank you, Dan. And, yeah, I'm not sure it's a title that I will be able to keep after this weekend. But
Dan Ilic 20:23 would you who would you bestow it upon? Are you a person of good character you wouldn't even dare
Fiona Patten MP 20:28 look? I you know, I feel like if I utter their name, then I'm just giving them extra extra media. But, you know, to be honest, their supporters may not be watching you guys. I know. That might come as a shock. But they'd say, Adam Sami reckon Bernie Finn have got to be neck and neck for for that title. But there's lots of people running in this election. Who could get that title if they got elected?
Dan Ilic 20:55 Let's just talk about that. Because it strikes me as someone who's traveled to Melbourne quite a few times over the last six months. Every time I'm in Melbourne, there appears to be a protest, and those people are often requesting their freedom. But obviously, they've been free for some time. What the hell is happening with this group called the cookers?
Fiona Patten MP 21:15 They're starting that rhetoric now where they're going? No, you are? No, I'm not a cooker. You are? You're a cooker.
Dan Ilic 21:23 Yeah, they're like hipsters that don't self identify.
Fiona Patten MP 21:25 No. So you know, they're calling Dan Andrews, a cook cooker. I'm a cooker. We're all cookers. But I don't know that particular origins of it. But I recently had an operation and I've bloody nearly lost my stitches because people keep posting cooker videos. And seriously, like, there was one today where they're, they're chasing this guy who's just gone out for a sneaky cigarette. No going, Are you a Freemason? Are you a free nation? This guy's going no, man. I don't even know what Freemasons are like, what are they? These guys March every Saturday, they close the tram lines. Go and yell at the when the Christmas Windows outside David Jones and Maya. And now they're running for election. So we've just actually left a pre poll booth just a just a half an hour ago, and the police had been called, I think I'm aware of about 10 times the police have been called to polling booths in pre poll so far. And we've still haven't even hit Election Day. Well, the Freedom Party is getting pretty loose.
Dan Ilic 22:29 cookers aside, what is at stake this this weekend in Victoria for the Victorian election. What are the what are the main fault lines we're looking at?
Fiona Patten MP 22:37 You know, I mean, the lower house is interesting, and I think many of the independents who are running kind of community, independents, they're progressive. They're chasing liberal seats. So most of them if they are successful, they'll be knocking out liberal MPs. But I'm not hearing it as much in northern Thatcher in the North Melbourne, where I'm from, but in some of the southern areas that there's a fair bit of, you know, Daniel Andrews, hating so the polls are tightening, I still think that the Labour Party will win this election and still will hold a majority. It's the upper house that we could, you know, at the moment, there's 11 crossbenchers in the upper house. And it makes for pretty interesting conversations. And but we've managed to get quite a bit of progressive legislation through and it's been quite effective. That might end after this election, we're in the upper house, we could see a really hostile upper house, and you'd, you might have a progressive lower house with a bunch of good independents trying to change things on climate change on equality on reproductive rights, and then you've got the upper house, blocking everything. And certainly, you know, with the people that the Liberal Party have pre selected to the absolutely winnable Upper House seats. It's not looking like it's going to be that much fun on those red velvet seats. Now, you've got for many of you from Sydney, you've got Fred Nile. I mean, Bernie fan spreading to shame. I'm afraid that I you know, he will maybe Fred before he was wearing his pajamas to the council board, brought in his wife slash care into the counts into the parliament. But yeah, we've got some pretty crazy ones and some pretty crazy females coming in to the upper house.
Dan Ilic 24:27 There's only a cooker candidate here the Liberals you're talking about that they've been pre
Fiona Patten MP 24:31 selecting evangelical Christians who don't believe in climate change, who don't believe in abortion, who don't believe in equality, who believe that you know, women should be men should be obeyed. Yeah, they will be sitting on our seats and representing Victoria and Victorians. And it is it is actually pretty frightening and it's hard to even understand why they're making these decisions, but I think they still seem to think that religion is a vote winner and So it's not.
Dan Ilic 25:01 And we saw last federal election that that's the case. You know, like so many folks have kind of turned away from religion and like dumped those evangelical candidates. Yeah, that's so strange. Well, I also want to ask you about the Labour Party tactics for a second. I mean, we're interested in know where you kind of stand on the Labour Party had been running a whole bunch of attack ads, a grunt against the grains, and they've run this, this website call to action called green fat. Yes. Just kind of spreading these rumors about the greens. What do you think about that kind of like election tactic? That doesn't seem good?
Fiona Patten MP 25:35 Yet, it's a radical theory. But if I get reelected, I do want to kind of push on it is like truth in political advertising. Why not try this? Because it's ridiculous. And in actual fact, I think it backfires. I actually think it actually sends more people to the greens, looking at some of their other ads against the Liberal Party. They seem to do one negative, you know, math, you guys terrible. And then another one. Look how great we are looking at all the, you know, hard hats we're wearing and look at all the cool stuff we're building. But yeah, I don't actually think they're not building it themselves. We know that but yeah, but they pretend like they're heading down to work to build the tunnel.
Dan Ilic 26:24 But do not. I do think it's funny. Every time the Labour Party tweets about how many railway road crossings ever removed, I want to see them tweet every time they hand at a tampon. We've handed out 24 tampons.
Fiona Patten MP 26:39 Yep, yep, I'm look, I'm excited for that too. We've had free per tampons at Parliament House for quite a few for a few years now. They also brought in pads that whoever was buying them wasn't female. continence pads not
bec Melrose 27:00 that is the most Australian Government thing I've ever heard. In the men's room.
Dan Ilic 27:10 And Fiona, how you sitting this weekend? How's your seat? Oh,
Fiona Patten MP 27:13 my seats, always precarious. So like, if I lose it, it will probably be to a guy could add him so Mirek, who is a disgraced Labour Party minister, who's lives down in the south of south of Victoria. He's running in the north of north of Melbourne, he could pick up the seat because there's, you know, many people Yeah, when
Dan Ilic 27:35 when my grandmother died, he came around the house and asked for her ATM cards.
Fiona Patten MP 27:45 He can work with cards.
Dan Ilic 27:46 He cited like she she was dead for a week or two but and he she like he signed it in power straight up to the to the liberal party. It was amazing.
Fiona Patten MP 27:55 Yeah, well, well, you know, the, he's joined up with Bernie Finn, the disgraced liberal member who got kicked out of the Liberal Party, which, given the people that they pre selected must be really bloody hard to do to get kicked out of that party for being to right wing. I think they're now regretting it, because the people who've replaced him are probably even more right wing. But yeah, those two are running together. So that will be one of my threats. And, you know, on on the, on the booths, I've got the socialists who are, they're kind of telling me that, you know, if they get elected, they will increase the pensions, they will lower the lower taxes, and they will save all of the refugees, which good on them. Excellent. If it was a federal election,
bec Melrose 28:42 that's like there's a school captain speeches where you promise chocolate milk in the bubblers and water slides. It's like, Yeah, it sounds good. But actually, you can't control that.
Fiona Patten MP 28:53 Do any of that. But it's, you know, it's yet today, I had the sort of socialist salary and the Freedom Party yelling at me, so I felt like I was in the right place. That then we're kind of yeah, really going a lot of hate on me. And I was like, alright, this must be, I must be in the good place.
bec Melrose 29:11 What a terrible sign that you're in the good place. Is that the worst part of campaigning? That sounds awful feared.
Dan Ilic 29:19 At least you're not in the Big Bang Theory. Yeah.
Fiona Patten MP 29:22 That's right. That's right. Well, yeah, if I actually listened to the freedom fighters, that that may actually be what they were telling me that if you're worried about what the government will do to the weather for election day,
Dan Ilic 29:35 well, it's snowing in the Alps. And it's only it's about to become summer. So climate change isn't a thing, Fiona. This is what I'm going to be telling people about Christmas barbecue,
Fiona Patten MP 29:45 but those floods the government did that.
Dan Ilic 29:49 Well, Fiona, good luck this weekend. Thank you for coming on irrational fear that is it for rational fear. Let's get our plugs underway. Steph Broadbridge What would you like to plug
Steph Broadbridge 29:58 I have nothing to plug but thank you If
Dan Ilic 30:02 that is not true back Melrose, you're gonna plug anything.
bec Melrose 30:05 I think you should follow Steph Broadbridge you should follow me back Melrose on Instagram
Dan Ilic 30:12 Jack dress you've got a big show coming out on YouTube this way yeah
Jack Druce 30:15 I did a recorded my Stand Up Show from last year I guess which got more than last year I got Cannes like three or four times during the pandemic trying to film it so I finally got it out there it'll be up on my YouTube channel just searched actress and that'll be out for free on YouTube on next Tuesday November 29. And I've also as Dan mentioned the beginning been making a bunch of just sketches and that kind of thing that are also on the YouTube if you want to check it out and subscribe but that would be great.
Dan Ilic 30:44 I thought you're gonna say I've been recorded my show which got I thought he comes like five stars. Like no shutdown got shut down. And Fiona anything you'd like to plug
Fiona Patten MP 30:55 state election? Don't miss it pop down. I'll be saying my name like 60 times a minute. Hello, I'm Fiona Patton. Hello. And handing out pictures of myself which all becomes quite surreal.
bec Melrose 31:11 Festival. I really fear I know that's something we're very familiar with.
Dan Ilic 31:15 Yeah, you're talking to Yeah, you're talking to a bunch of comedians who do this day in day out so that's totally fine.
bec Melrose 31:21 And Dan, you've also got a plug out question everything watched in English on Question everything absolutely killed. Oh, yes. Watch
Dan Ilic 31:27 back Melrose and myself and Wendy Harmer on questioning everything on iView. And I want to shout out to all of our Patreon supporters who signed up this week Irene Thank you are Paul Kidd joined us one of my favorite people on Twitter joined us. Diana joined us and also Carmen champion also joined us thank you, all those people and please a big thank you to everyone who was who may be a judge on the Australian Podcast Awards. I've got the big trophy right here. Fantastic three in a row. We absolutely didn't think that we would have won again because we thought Tony and Ryan might have won because they got millions of dollars from Spotify to do their show. They hey you know we get hundreds of dollars from Patreon so that's great. Thank you to roadmaps, strain, ethical who also support the show and all of our Patreon supporters Jacob brown on the teppanyaki timeline big thank you to Luis until an all caught at the beginning of the show. Calling in that was terrific. And yeah, until next week, there's always going to be scared of good night
We are joined by the orphans of satirical comedy shows past. From the Roast, and Tonightly, Jazz Twemlow joins us to plug his new Amazon Prime sketch show. And from The Feed, and At Home Alone Together we have Vidya Rajan to plug nutritional yeast. Then there's me Dan Ilic and Lewis Hobba — you know us already.
Lewis Hobba 0:01 Happy Friday dad. And I'm glad you told me it was Friday because I have no idea what day it is.
Dan Ilic 0:08 Well, I there's a, there's a store in Bondi that has the number of days sydneysiders have been locked down, plastered upon it. They take their menus, and they make a giant giant gribbon numbers. So the currently is 41 days we've been in lockdown. 41 days, Louis, and void. It just still feels like day five to me. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 0:27 well, I've been on a little holiday for the last week. Pretty cool holiday, obviously, just staying at home and going insane. And I was trying to think about what like what I could do to pass the time while I was here. And so I was taking inspiration from the movie Groundhog Day, because that's what we're living in. And I was like, What is he doing Groundhog Day to like, you know, improve his situation in. In the original version, he killed himself, which is not what I've always done, decided to do the thing where he learns to play piano. Remember how he how he plays? So yeah, so what have you learned? What have you learned one song? Yeah, five days ago, I bought a piano and, and I'm learning to play a song on it. And I've never played piano before. I'm terrible at it. And that's how I'm passing my time.
Dan Ilic 1:13 What's the song you're learning to play?
Lewis Hobba 1:15 Well, I'm learning to play Billy Joel's Vienna, which if you know the song is really difficult. It's so like, it's not a beginner's pace. It's a stupid, it's a foolish thing that I'm doing. But I won't rest until I learned that song.
Dan Ilic 1:30 So next week at the end of the show, you're going to play Billy Joel so yeah,
Lewis Hobba 1:34 well, I'll play you some version of it. They're like play G major. Mike. I'm just making noises. Yep,
Dan Ilic 1:43 yep, I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the eora. nation. sovereignty was never stated we need a treaty. Let's stop the shop.
VO 1:51 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks cambro COMM And section body, or rational fear recommends listening by immature audio.
Dan Ilic 2:04 So not Hillsong Pastor Brian Houston has been charged with allegedly concealing sexual assault abuse, which plays his way to becoming the Attorney General by the year's end. And hungry Jack's founder says Australia should learn to live with a virus just like they've learned to live with a whopper. And the whole state of Victoria is gone into its sixth lockdown due to an outbreak of smugness. It's the sixth of August 2021. And with more breaches than an airport holiday in this is irrational fear. irrational fear.
Hello, webinar rational fee. I'm your host former Olympic skateboarder Dan Ilic. Let's meet our fee mungus. For tonight, she's casually been a guest on everybody's satirical comedy shows over the last little bit won't be long before she has her own buy shares in Vidya Raja because she's gone to the moon.
Vidya Rajan 3:01 Everyone, happy luck.
Dan Ilic 3:05 Happy lockdown Vidya How is Victoria lockdown how's Victoria is lock number six lockdown for you.
Vidya Rajan 3:09 You know it's we're about six minutes in and this is probably dissipating.
Dan Ilic 3:18 And he got his start performing at irrational fear. Now he's has his own la dee da amazon prime Shar from the Mass Effect. It's jazz tremula
Jazz Twemlow 3:27 Hello, my boss actually is going to the moon leaving us all behind. That's very, very kind.
Dan Ilic 3:35 And it's a man who doesn't have a Netflix deal just yet Louis harbour
Lewis Hobba 3:39 no Short but sweet and accurate that introduction? Yeah. 100% accurate.
Dan Ilic 3:45 Coming up a little later on the show. We'll get on the booze and Barnaby Joyce but here is a message from this week's sponsor.
VO 3:50 Tuesday the 10th of August is senseless night. each household is required by law to fill out the online form. So the Australian Bureau of Statistics can collect data on the makeup of Australia and to see if the NBN is working in your area. It then gives that data to the federal government so they can build critical services like car parks, sporting facilities and hospitals in coalition seats, regardless of what the data says. The senseless, providing scientific data to the Australian Government so they can willfully ignore it. Authorised by a bunch of glittering idiots in camera.
Dan Ilic 4:22 All right, this week's first year Sky News been banned from posting on YouTube for a week after posting COVID denial videos. According to YouTube's three strikes in your out policy. Sky News is peddling at least three videos of misinformation about COVID My question is only three short like anyway, fee mongers awake without Sky News. How will our uncle's cope? Oh well, I
Lewis Hobba 4:47 cuz I said I've been on a little break from work over the last week. So I've basically read no news over the last week. So I'm so excited to find out from this podcast. What's been happening Fingers crossed. Some good stuff.
Jazz Twemlow 5:00 This feels like good stuff. If I'm totally honest, there's even less news for you to not read now, so you're gonna save even more time you're not doing stuff. That's great.
Dan Ilic 5:09 Yeah, that's right. There's at least one brand of news that is is banned from YouTube Vidya. How do you how do you feel about Sky News taking a break from YouTube?
Vidya Rajan 5:18 Well, I think this is just gonna galvanise the uncles to start their own channels if they aren't. From my experience of uncle. They're about like one bad night away from becoming YouTube radicals.
Lewis Hobba 5:31 He was crazy. I did sort of have a look at some of the stats about the viewership that they do have online like because we all everyone always says like Sky News. Who cares? no one watches it like this guy. And he's orthodox a joke. You know, 50,000 people something like true, worse than breakfast television numbers like really, like, almost as bad at this podcast, like almost insignificant. But they do do quite well online. So it is it is pretty massive for them. I'm sure they are. I wonder what they'll like whether this will change anything in the future football
Jazz Twemlow 6:01 really start like an outsider's outsiders channel now. It's not on YouTube. If I count more outside, can you pretend to be anyway,
Lewis Hobba 6:11 I like to imagine the Sky News will eventually just be a town crier.
Dan Ilic 6:15 Just what every good uncle should be doing for a job. You're absolutely right, Louis, their numbers are tiny on TV. And they do get millions of hits online and over the last three years have been really pummeling the YouTube channel to boost it to make sure they make the most click Beatty stuff. And Sky News has become like the top of the funnel for laundering misinformation for all of kind of the news corp Empire. So I don't know if we all remember where we were when Sherry marks and told us about the Wu Han lab theory with all the authority of a Facebook post written by divorce dad. I don't know if you you were there. I remember seeing again, you're absolutely not sad, crazy. We
Lewis Hobba 6:51 still don't have all the evidence on that, Dan.
Dan Ilic 6:55 But the great thing is, you know, the way they want why she did that was that so other news corp networks can pick up that as saying, well, we didn't say it but look at Sky News in Australia, they've reported this, and so they can point they can point to something wacky and zany that the people in the colonies have done to kind of justified telling the story to their other millions of people. It's It's It's awful.
Jazz Twemlow 7:17 I love the I love the defence of like, well, we're just putting stuff out there you know, we're providing but it's just not you know, it's like sort of it's someone saying like, Oh, it's weird. My Channel telling people to eat cyanide has been taken down like where's the barrel? And so we don't need balance on that. We don't need balance on that. It's pretty clear.
Vidya Rajan 7:34 I was back in Perth recently where my family is and one of our other friends slash uncle's has completely gone down that that rabbit hole. Wow. have you dealt with it? Well, I mean, I had to you know bite my tongue and be respectful because of like, you know, hashtag brown family vibes. But um, it was it was actually very disappointing to me because I was like, you know, half these people like white supremacists and you'll literally like they don't they don't like you. You're not on their side. But also it was like Shouldn't you be spending your time like policing your daughter's sexuality or something like what what are you doing? Back to the classic? Yeah, nothing vibrant uncle should be falling for this but I think they are
Jazz Twemlow 8:15 to become an uncle when you is because it seems like so tied to that specific relation. Like if you fall down like a queue and on hold or something and you don't have any any nephews or nieces? Do they spawn as soon as you become an uncle? If you fall prey to the ideas or is it you're the uncle first and then the idea is it seems so specific to that. But I think
Vidya Rajan 8:39 now like like Daddy, anyone can
Lewis Hobba 8:43 just choke me uncle is the new, the new. He's gone full on call.
Dan Ilic 8:51 I went through some comments about this story on The Daily Mail and I found some great ones. I thought I'd share them with you. This one is from line in the sand from Vero Beach United States. Your poor country is turning into Korea. Hmm. I'm pretty sure you mean North Korea but i think you know, we kind of get the point we kind of
Lewis Hobba 9:08 like point that Yeah, you guys are doing some great boy bands. You've got a really good mobile phone company. Like congrats
Dan Ilic 9:15 looks like really turning this thing around. won an Oscar recently. Cut the crap from Sydney Australia says no surprises there. Social media big tech have been booked burning for ages. I know that's not true. Look, we can say what you want about Amazon destroying the book industry but they didn't really do any burning. That's terrible. This is this one here from Louis from Sydney. Anybody just anybody who thinks this is good? It's completely clueless and uninformed. Soon we'll have just one government news source and we'll be told what is happening and it will fit the government narrative. Louie from Sydney has obviously never watched Sky News.
Jazz Twemlow 9:56 The one news who does feed the government narrative is gone. It's all Got a narrative now? That's great.
Vidya Rajan 10:02 Has Kevin Rudd reacted to this? Because I know this is like this wakes him up in the morning so,
Dan Ilic 10:08 yeah, this is this is gonna be this is this is Kevin Rudd bait. This is Kevin Rudd back. This is this is like a tweet. This is a thread for Kevin Rudd, where did I have it? Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 10:17 I have been following Kevin Rudd some tweets though, because I just curious because it is so easy to let me say this, like at the start of the pandemic, some friends and I were like, Who do you think would be the best Prime Minister that we've ever had right now? Like, who? And we were like Kevin Rudd, like the guy is the guy never sleeps. He says, like obsessed with detail. Like he was a nightmare. And everyone hated him internally, but like, he's the guy you want right now. But he was also like, pretty unlikable and smug by the end. So I was really curious to see what happened when he started to get a little bit of like positive press, and everyone's like, oh, he did the Pfizer jabs and old uncle calves back. And then but he hasn't, he's been really restrained on Twitter and he has not gotten smug and he must be killing it.
Dan Ilic 11:04 I don't know if you were out and about last weekend, like me, I was driving around trying to find a place to do some exercise, but it's really hard because there were cops everywhere. It was very difficult in Sydney to kind of do anything. Lastly again. And I have to say though, when it comes to lockdown protesters, the Melbourne anti lockdown protesters have they've been doing it a while they're really practice that their whole sovereign citizenship bullshit. Whereas in Sydney, the anti lockdown sovereign citizens haven't done the rating. They haven't kind of learned enough about the Magna Carta to pull off being a sovereign citizen. I've got a clip here. Let me play it for you. This is from a Sydney pro locked down protester who's been pulled over by the police. My under arrest are free to go. And committed events.
Unknown Speaker 11:49 What's the offence, sorry, what's the offence? unsecure light drunk for the Australian flag, and
Dan Ilic 11:54 also it is obviously a potential COVID which we're trying to figure out if you want to provide it. I think you're making a comment to say that you haven't committed the offence and we'll accept that. If not, then it's up to you.
Unknown Speaker 12:04 This is a sad day for Australia, the Anzac guide for this flag. And now you're penalising or attempting to and if you do this, this will go down in history. This is 74,000 people are watching live. Now we're talking about, we're talking about
Dan Ilic 12:22 it. If you're going to point your camera at a cup, just don't show them the screen. I love that the cost said you've got one person you'd like to have one person watching.
Vidya Rajan 12:37 I mean, yeah, the enzymes did die for my right to inflate my engagement.
Jazz Twemlow 12:44 I love how they use that phrase. They fought and died to sleep. So we could do something they've what they didn't fight and die so you could fight to die. That's such an inversion of what they were going
Dan Ilic 12:55 and also I mean, Tim Schafer makes a good point on YouTube, the anzacs died for England, which is absolutely correct. Let the flag that we fought under was actually
Lewis Hobba 13:04 and also they were a lot of masks. Because they had a pandemic. Yeah, and there was gas, you know, like they knew the health risks.
Unknown Speaker 13:18 Gladys berejiklian in New South Wales have been the gold standard when it comes to responding to the virus can you still describe New South Wales as having a gold standard response? This unfortunately is the state of disaster or rational fear.
Dan Ilic 13:33 This makes second fear Professor Gilbert, the CO creator of the Oxford AstraZeneca jab has a Barbie doll made in her own it's very inspirational. That's pretty amazing stuff. jazzy got a question for you. Are there Barbies that we can use to prepare kids for real world adult life when other Barbies well? I
Jazz Twemlow 13:49 mean yeah, this this It feels like the pendulum has swung too far the other way I mean, he used to be kind of happy playtime and my little pony and now kids are being told they have to you know invent a world saving vaccine when they become an adult I think it's a bit bit much like week what about you
Dan Ilic 14:04 know just too much precious
Jazz Twemlow 14:05 yeah just prepare them for what's coming like you know out of work actress still waiting for the government arts rescue package Barbie like to something that kind of destroys the illusion and creates the you know, break makes them less innocent by the time they're a full full adult or I thought oceanographer who has to clean up discarded Barbie plastic from the ocean Barbie. That's another one. Also called don't throw another Barbie on the shrimp. That was what I thought you could call call it Yeah, just do some some just original kids toys. They'll just prepare kids. For the for the trials and depression of adult life think it's either too innocent or that's just aiming too high. somewhere in the middle would be the would be the sweet spot, I reckon.
Lewis Hobba 14:49 Yeah, you're so right, because they've gone from unrealistic body expectations. Like you need to have this really thin neck and no genitals to unrealistic career expectations. Yeah, I found a spot chief that
Dan Ilic 15:04 I like to think of I was given a best new talent Loki Barbie I would be in a different place right now as a kid. Wow. Yeah, you take it a bit on Home and Away
Vidya Rajan 15:11 wondering what the Bratz dolls are marketing at the moment cuz they've always been like this CD. Yeah the bad ones are they like you know anti Vax bread and yes sausage like bread is what's happening
Jazz Twemlow 15:26 well that's the other thing is like this this Bob is very pro kind of one side of the story like what seems to be excluding all the people who you know think that the virus isn't a real thing like where's q anon who's we're falling down in internet hole Barbie or you know any of those ones as well. And weird uncle Ken, Ken has become an uncle
Lewis Hobba 15:47 just in Australia flag.
Vidya Rajan 15:50 Flashing is fine with his one view. Fear.
Unknown Speaker 15:56 Now look, I'm a member of a religious community. And my pastor knows what's going on in our church community. Because that's the responsibility of a religious leader to actually to protect the integrity of your faith community,
Dan Ilic 16:10 a rational fear. This week's third fear greenhouse gases released by New Zealand's dairy industry have hit an all time high according to the latest data, fear mongers finding cows are going to bring us all down how do we fix this video?
Vidya Rajan 16:24 I do not know. I just always love when the cows come into the global warming debate because I kind of forget like I focus on the call and then and then it's like no other thoughts are a real problem. a delightful way for humanity to go like I feel like taken out by cow farts like some genetic modification they're trying to do to the gut so that the thoughts on as powerful which you know, I'm sure would be popular in many markets. But um, yeah, I have no idea. I'm just just fascinated that these cows will bring us down and for meat and dairy I guess I switched your nutritional use recently. So I feel like I'm you know, not to be worth but I'm doing really well. Sorry. kind of work over something attritional. Yeah, I don't want to work up on you. But yeah.
Lewis Hobba 17:15 I don't even know what that means. Because she's substitute. Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker 17:20 Wow.
Dan Ilic 17:21 Do you do do you make your own cobs? Is this What's going on? No, no, I'm
Vidya Rajan 17:25 just trying to cut down dairy. You know?
Jazz Twemlow 17:28 Was it the the president of federated farmers who was saying, you know, telling us to cut agricultural emissions is virtue signalling, and it's like, as if, as if we're trying to like save the planet so we can brag about it like who we virtue signalling to like Pluto? Like who's like with its virtue signalling, if you want to kind of save the planet, the reason you do is to stop the world ending and so like calling a neurosurgeon like virtue signalling for saving people's lives, like he must love himself. It's really not the intent is good, I think. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 18:02 I'm a big fan of the brain are you
Dan Ilic 18:07 that jazz, like the big this, the best thing about that quote is like, if you can imagine that quote, in a New Zealand accent, then you don't have to take it seriously. That's what's great about it. So New Zealand to go off on some Vici singling crusade to shut down the agricultural sector to say, hey, we've reduced type of emissions. It hasn't solved anything. Hey, don't even take it seriously. It's great, shall we call us right off,
Jazz Twemlow 18:28 but you call us a bunch of latte sipping lefties. But by drinking lattes, we're actually helping the industry so to share.
Unknown Speaker 18:38 government made a list of the Top 20 marginals in order to allocate taxpayer money to projects in coalition seats and the community. Did you see that? I can't hear any other questions. You're shouting at the top of a rational fear what Australians are getting a more Carfax
Dan Ilic 18:54 we're gonna play. Hang on a second. Now, I'm gonna play a clip from the week if any of you have a comment, yell out, hang on a sec. I'll stop the tape. You chime in and we'll keep rolling. This hang on set comes from the Deputy Prime Minister at question time this week.
Unknown Speaker 19:06 I like I like going to the movies and I can't I can't read. I can't remember how it is how to do the IV either. But yeah, how is the IV a little bit the Labour Party got out by the advocator? Yeah, great. The great thing.
Jazz Twemlow 19:22 I mean, there's no joke. There's no joke here beyond like, What a weird movie like what a odd segue and reference just to pull out such a sheet part. Because that's such a long way to go. to like, bring up the water needed.
Vidya Rajan 19:40 If you say insult, it's a good thing to advocate.
Dan Ilic 19:45 This is what Albanese should be doing advocating and we don't say enough of Albanese advocate.
Vidya Rajan 19:51 He could do more.
Lewis Hobba 19:53 Yeah, it's funny that in, in within this allegedly drunken ramble. All he managed to do was say quietly thinks about how I actually didn't even bother trying to really possibly to try to get to I was just taking you know the fact that he was hammered on Well, you know, yeah allegedly probably habit.
Vidya Rajan 20:10 Yeah. compose a poem like you know a aviators from with advocator and advocate Alberni sees alliteration. Like, I just feel like maybe he helped his kids with poetry.
Dan Ilic 20:26 Barnaby Joyce, the bush poet is the deputy prime minister.
Unknown Speaker 20:30 The great ideas, man, the great ideas, man striped. All right,
Lewis Hobba 20:36 hang on a second. And he's mixing he's getting all mixed up now, isn't he? He's been to say a few. He's one of those dads who's gone to sleep on a Friday night watching one film, and he's woken up watching the castle. And he's like fire out. Howard Hughes is really slipped one minute he's a millionaire next minute. The fact that airport stealing his house.
Jazz Twemlow 20:56 I remember a movie was the Terminator, the Terminator. And the musical numbers at the end. were fantastic. Now I think I think you've seen a film or a TV
Dan Ilic 21:06 show called The West Wing in the press. The President did great governing like alderney's he does great.
Lewis Hobba 21:14 Up Prime Minister regime is sick, the leader of the opposition on a point of order, hang on a sec. You know, like I'm watching a parliamentarian or what Barnaby Joyce in particular but any politician just be hammered that publicly. He reminds me of those those old posters that people used to buy uni where it had a different spider's web on all the different drugs like all want to see Barnaby every day of the Parliament sitting. I want him to come in and be like, it's masculine today, fellas, and then we all just get to see what happens.
Dan Ilic 21:48 This is Yeah. Barnaby on Ba ba ba on. Tequila. matavai on vodka. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 21:54 just barley on MDMA just being like, actually, although I fuckin love you, mate. I really I fucking love you. I love you and I'm sweating but that's just usual I fall in love.
Jazz Twemlow 22:03 I've seen The Aviator and I can tell you we can all fly right now.
VO 22:09 I'm supposed to bring out the on weirdness. The I'm weird.
Vidya Rajan 22:13 What? What is he saying? Um, weirdness, or own weirdness. Like what is he saying?
Dan Ilic 22:22 Is my tra weirdness is kind of like omnipotent is that the thing?
Vidya Rajan 22:30 is omnipotent? I'm weird. Oh, God, why
Dan Ilic 22:32 Omni weirdness? I don't know. why
Vidya Rajan 22:35 don't why are they all convinced they're gonna coin a catchphrase. Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 22:41 Yeah, going back through the history of Australian politics, like, how many of them have managed to coin a really useful catchphrase that stuck around
Dan Ilic 22:48 conga line of sockos was the only one I can read that was that one will always tell statistics data test
Vidya Rajan 22:54 data Keating thing or
Dan Ilic 22:56 did I was kidding. Yeah.
Vidya Rajan 22:58 No kidding. It's not gonna happen.
Jazz Twemlow 23:00 So why why do you try and counter Barbies fumble and reach for a weird movie by then also just coming up with something that makes possibly even less sense. Like it's it's a I've done what the like an extra layer of an own goal is but it's like I'm goal ception at this point. It's very confusing.
Lewis Hobba 23:21 It's just a game of soccer where right at the start they always turn around they never face each other.
Dan Ilic 23:28 Like it would have been just great if he came out and called out the obvious like Barnaby is clearly blowing 1.0 here like that's what you really need to nail it down.
Vidya Rajan 23:36 Was it confirmed that he was drunk?
Dan Ilic 23:38 I don't think it I don't think it is ever good
Lewis Hobba 23:42 It's so weird that there are no cops of breathalysers in Parliament for some reason.
Dan Ilic 23:48 Yeah, you don't walk far you get the great thing about the bar is that it's a walking distance and a driving
Lewis Hobba 23:53 well I in before my like last job that I had one of the last jobs I had before I started working in Telly was working as a barman at Victorian Parliament House.
Dan Ilic 24:04 No way really. I
Lewis Hobba 24:05 didn't know. Yeah, yeah, I was a Victorian Parliament House barman for about 18 months. And yeah, just watched and I had to sort of like sign an NDA. All this like you know, let's talk about what you say in there.
Dan Ilic 24:17 It's a sign an NDA, you're breaking an NDA right now I'm
Lewis Hobba 24:20 allowed to say I worked there I just can't tell you all the people I so fucking each other.
Dan Ilic 24:30 That's for the Patreon members. point of order. The deputy prime minister has the kulacz no should continue on there. Great.
Lewis Hobba 24:41 So, so he's hammered. Elbows tried to stop him on a point of order. And the point of order is on weirdness. So like, why would you just stop him? He's like, Oh, it's on. I'm the point of order. I'm going for his own weirdness. And I like that sort of point of order. Back to Barnaby. And the first thing Barnaby says when he gets the issue is like Weird mumble that now I get under that.
Jazz Twemlow 25:05 Because now he knows he can get away with it if on if on willingness isn't a legitimate cause, well, if I've got free licence to say whatever wacky shit I want, I'm just gonna let loose. It's great.
Unknown Speaker 25:15 You're never going to get anything constructed by him. But he did have one bright idea before the other the other day. $300 per jab $300 per jab. I think that was just your ID. I think that was just your It
Dan Ilic 25:30 was so strange. It's like It's like, easy trying to have a goat the idea it's actually probably a legitimately good idea to get to put in there. It's so weird. It's good
Lewis Hobba 25:40 because so many people think it's a good idea. I like hey, Sue, like, that's a great idea. Heaps of other countries are doing it. It's working all over the place. And he's like, you know, this guy who I just called the advocator, which is obviously a great thing. It's great guys had a great idea. And let me tell you, it was just his idea. Just he's a genius, a genius.
Unknown Speaker 25:59 Nice resume he sees and I think we might as well leave it there. Whilst he was asked about alternative policies they need to be alternatives to the issues laid out in the question.
Dan Ilic 26:11 I don't know what the question was. That is it for our show. Tonight. big thank you to all of our fear mongers Vidya Rajon jazz twemlow Louis harbour and myself Dan knowledge Do you guys have any plug vicentina plug anything I
Vidya Rajan 26:26 have nothing to plug follow me on Twitter for deranged lockdown takes
Dan Ilic 26:32 a very good time. Vidya is exemplary on Twitter for deranged lockdown to eggs. I've been living off them for the last little bit. Jazz twemlow Do you really think
Jazz Twemlow 26:41 I've got the Yeah, the show the moth effect. Episode Two is coming out. Tomorrow, Friday at 11 episode ones already? Yeah, check that out too. It's very deep and weird.
Dan Ilic 26:54 Louis, do you really have to do anything to play?
Lewis Hobba 26:56 No dad, nothing at all. If anyone has any tips on how to play piano very quickly, very well. Hit me up play slide into my DMS on Instagram. But otherwise no, I'm pretty clear.
Dan Ilic 27:07 I'm looking forward to that next week to see getting a taste of where you're at. big thank you to rode mics our Patreon supporters Lance Whitford naurelle fi hen Cassandra Bennett Joe Pittman, Ashfield Sam McLean lane steed, Robin with a Y Margot Laura and Ben cook. We had so many people sign up this week. Thank you so much. It makes a huge difference. JACK makes thanks to jack brown on the tepanyaki timeline. The folks in the discord including Maddie Parma adds Killian and P McNeil. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.
Here is the latest Greatest Moral Podcast of Our Generation featuring two great brains to help you deal with talking about climate change with your family at Christmas, Sarah Wilson and Dr. Rebecca Huntley.
If you think there's even the slightest chance you'll have to talk about emissions reduction schemes with an uncle that listens only to 2GB, or feel like you may have to tell a cousin that “baseload power” isn't a thing, or tell your sister in law that a “gas led recovery” isn't going to make electricity cheaper, then this is the podcast you'll want to listen to.
Both Sarah and Rebecca give great insights into how to talk to people about climate change, and you on turn can take action yourself.
Also in this podcast Linh Do and I rip into the month of climate news, and there is a lot of it.
AND — DON'T FORGET TO GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW!
We're turning 100! Which means we're updating our will, and we'll add you to it if you come to our 100th episode live show. It's going to be a 90 minute celebration of the little satirical comedy podcast that could. Featuring some new and old friends of A Rational Fear.
Alice Fraser (The Bugle, The Last Post) Sami Shah (ABC Melbourne) Gabbi Bolt (TikTok) Lewis Hobba (Tony Martin Look-a-like) Dan Ilic (Romper Room)
+ 2-3 Special (big name) guests we will book at the last minute.
WHERE?: Giant Dwarf WHEN?: February 10th, 7:30pm-9pm HOW?: Buy Tickets Here WHY?: Best to buy a ticket first, and answer this question later.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Dan Ilic 0:04 Hello, rational fearlessness is the fourth greatest moral podcast of our generation. These are long form conversations with climate leaders that come out monthly on this very feed. And joining me is co host and fellow birth or fellow lindo gaylin.
Linh Do 0:18 Hey, hey, Dan, what's
Unknown Speaker 0:20 going on? Now? I
Dan Ilic 0:21 know something's going on your life. You suffered a major life milestone this week. Congratulations on enduring life to reach 30 years old. Well done.
Linh Do 0:28 Thank you. I feel like I have finally evolved into a fully fledged human. I think this is when I begin my adult use. This is just how it works.
Dan Ilic 0:36 Yeah, well, you will you and I were meant to start many years ago, but I only became an adult when I turned 36. So that's different.
Linh Do 0:42 Oh, I've got six years to go then that's that's pretty good. I'm really enjoying this extended youthful years and just trying to proclaim that I am young at heart if not in actuality anymore.
Dan Ilic 0:52 Well, I don't want to put any kind of climate things in context for your age. But by the time many of the nations who have committed to net zero by 2050 reach those targets, you'll be 60 How do you feel about that?
Linh Do 1:04 Off devastating but you know, when I started doing climate stuff, everyone was talking about 2020 and you know, all of the ambition that was needed by Ben, and someone surfaced up a video clip of me in my you know, teenage years saying in 2020 I'll be 30 and hopefully climate change anyway, it's like very, very clear. It's awful.
Dan Ilic 1:22 That sentence reminds me that there were so many Greta tunberg before Greta turn Berg and you were just one of them.
Linh Do 1:27 Just one of them. Yeah. And you know, I think I just didn't have a catchy enough name. And I didn't do anything as bold as striking from school. I'm still very diligent, I think Had I known then what I know now maybe I should have started striking a little bit earlier and we wouldn't have to be talking about 2015 when we're 60.
Dan Ilic 1:44 Well, people who are on this journey with us include new Patreon supporters, including Carl Christopher appears and someone called Grandmaster to sweet Thank you Grand Master to sweet. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the urination lane, whose land Are you recording on?
Linh Do 1:58 I'm on the land of the will run through people.
Dan Ilic 2:00 sovereignty was never stated we need a treaty. Let's
Unknown Speaker 2:02 start the show. Despite global warming. Rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good. This is called Don't be frightened. The heat waves and drought greatest mass extinction Morrow we're facing a man made disaster podcast ration all of this with global warming and a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about generation. For short,
Dan Ilic 2:41 yes. And this week, or rather, this month we speak to two giants of the Australian writing community on how to have difficult conversations with your family and friends about climate change. It's a it's a pretty good time of year for this episode to come out when you say Lynne
Linh Do 2:54 totally I think the holiday season is gonna be great initially because we have seen people Jitta COVID lockdowns and whatnot. But after a couple of hours, you'd be like, Oh, right. That's my Uncle Ben, here's maybe a bit of a climate denier. Is that my cousin who doesn't believe in vaccines? How do I broach some of these topics? And I find it's been a hard one to talk about for years. Well,
Dan Ilic 3:14 let me tell you, the two guests we have on the show today are going to be able to help us through those tricky conversations. We've got Sarah Wilson, and Dr. Rebecca Huntley, and they, the conversations are great. I had a really good time with them. But first, Lynn, let's Miss rip into this month's climate news. There has been a metric shit tonne of climate news this month. Incidentally, a metric shit tonne was all the carbon that Chevron managed to capture and store the golden planet wi this year. Climate nice climate jog for everyone. Are you overwhelmed by how much climate news has come out in November?
Linh Do 3:48 I think like in November, but honestly this entire year as well, I think second to COVID surely climate has sort of been really up there in terms of things are constantly being announced both like good and bad, which is great, but very overwhelming and very surprising.
Dan Ilic 4:02 First up, the treasurer isn't happy that financial institutions are deserting fossil fuels. So there's only one thing a treasurer can do launch an inquiry. According to the nine papers, federal Treasurer Josh frydenberg, has thrown his support behind a proposed inquiry that will grill financial regulators and banks over plans to pull back on lending or insuring on mining projects because of climate change. This is a this is a weird story. It's like the treasurer isn't noticing what's happening around the world.
Linh Do 4:30 Yeah, he's not at all about the macro trends. It's only about the micro and only about what's happening in his own backyard.
Dan Ilic 4:36 Should we be so surprised that a government has spent the entire pandemic trying to sell expensive gas to Australians and trying to sell coal to China who are refusing it? Is it any surprise that a government that's racked up the largest debt and living memory is giving away billions and gas royalties that they can't do the maths on fossil fuel investment?
Linh Do 4:53 Not at all. I don't think we're ever getting back in the black and you know, and even though I'm 30 now still a millennial at heart and it's so Sometimes can feel like it's much harder to get a loan for a mortgage than it is to get a loan for a big coal project. So it feels like if I just changed a couple of words in an application and be like, Hey, here's the money like go right ahead. So it's really disappointing that the government tried to make that all the more easy. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 5:14 you shouldn't be but you shouldn't be trying to buy a house where you only own the first six inches of soil. You need to be digging underneath.
Linh Do 5:22 Yes, gotta gotta dig dig, but uh, just go big ol Gerhard.
Dan Ilic 5:26 It's kind of interesting. Like, it's so funny how, you know, if the government can't get their way on something like this, they have to go, Oh, we need an inquiry. an inquiry we should get an inquiry going? Because it seems like the science and financial markets are wrong again.
Linh Do 5:40 Yep. everywhere around the world, and even like from some different state governments as well, it just does not seem to make any logical sense at all, which, I guess is not surprising when it comes to our government.
Dan Ilic 5:50 Well, it's certainly not surprising that Australia wasn't invited to speak at the UN Climate ambition summit last week. Was that something that caught you by surprise at all?
Linh Do 5:59 It didn't catch me by surprise, but it was definitely a bit of a gleeful moment, I could not believe that of all people that we were snubbed by it was Boris Johnson. I don't know what that says about skarmory. But that is not that's not something I'd want to be known for
Dan Ilic 6:11 was really interesting, because Boris Johnson, of course, is hosting cop 26 next year, so he's got to kind of be on the front foot, he's got to look like he's acting on climate change, because everyone around him is coming to the party next year, to be part of it next, next November. So he's got to actually, you know, be one of the leaders. And so that really puts you in an odd position. I think it's so funny how, you know, Scott Morrison, two weeks out from the climate ambition summit said he's not going to use Kyoto credits anymore when trying to kind of meet the Paris targets. And that would have been a good enough thing for him to allow him to speak at the climate.
Linh Do 6:45 told the reaction, right, like such unrealistic and unmatchable, like expectations are really big tantrum. And then at the very last minute be like, okay, maybe I'll concede maybe I'll do this. And like lots of people like, hey, that's great. But it's like, but was it really?
Dan Ilic 7:01 Yeah, the whole the whole conference is called the climate ambition summit. There's nothing ambitious about not cheating. Like, that's not ambitious. That's the bare minimum. It's so interesting.
Linh Do 7:13 I'm not doping.
Dan Ilic 7:14 Here's some of the things that are announced on that climate ambition summit, the UK announced they'll cut emissions by 68% of 1990 levels by 2030. That's a further 10% increase in ambition, the EU committed to the new target to 55% of carbon emissions compared to 1990. By 2030. Israel and Pakistan have committed to not building any new coal plants. I'm sure that's harder for Pakistan than Israel to do. But China also has committed to a quarter of energy consumption to come from non fossil fuels by 20 3015 countries committed to much stronger NDC or nationally determined contributions. Lean for people who don't speak climate, what is an NDC?
Linh Do 7:52 So when the NDC I can't believe it. Wow, sorry. I was just so eager to add to that, because I clearly do speak climate and climate walk the crime that doesn't get invited around to dinner party. That's right. So one of the big things that came out of the Paris Agreement was that every country agreed to an end deseo to this nationally determined contribution. And the whole idea is rather than listening to that big global world order and doing things that might not fit for your country, governments could consider what their domestic obligations were, what other issues I had going on all those sorts of things, and determine how they were going to reduce their emissions by how much and went by. And one of the things that I think is a really great feature of this, like whole MDC acronym business is the idea is, you don't just lock in your goal, once you actually lock in your goal. And then every couple of years, you revisit it, and you re assess based on how well you've been able to do. So if you like smashed it, right, let's go a little bit harder and keep pushing for an even better personal best, essentially,
Dan Ilic 8:45 is this what they call the ratchet mechanism. Lin.
Linh Do 8:49 Yes, I don't even know if ratchet is a real word. I have honestly looked it up in the dictionary before be like, is this a hatchet ratchet? What am I saying? But it's just this whole idea that we are ratcheting up so ratcheting I think means increasing. Again. I don't know if it's actually that in the dictionary, but it's how climate people use it.
Dan Ilic 9:06 Right. Excellent. I believe it's a old school like it's an old school tool, like it's a ratchet. It's like a spanner you kind of pull it and pulling mechanical, mechanical thing. Also, at the climate ambition summit, the UK, France and Sweden will stop financial support of international fossil fuel projects. It's not just Australia just writing Berg. Also net zero targets have moved forward from 2050 by Finland, Austria and Sweden. Also the small island states coalition committed to net zero by 2030. And there is going to be a tonne more money from for the Green Climate Fund support developing countries to skip the whole fossil fuel part of their industry. 500 million euros from Germany, 1 billion euros from France. Now when you compare all of those incredible announcements to Australia going, you know what, you know, we have been shading the last 20 years to meet our climate emissions. You know, tell you what we We're not going to shoot anymore since 1997. We've been filthy little cheats, but we're not going to do it anymore. Do you think that is a good enough thing to put on this put on stage in front of the world?
Linh Do 10:10 It's so embarrassing. And I really hope people continue to mistake me as being from Australia rather than Australia without, you know, some of their recent new announcements, happy to move to Vietnam.
Dan Ilic 10:21 A couple of other things quickly just seemed odd, done declared a climate emergency for New Zealand. Does it have any kind of real world implications? Lynn?
Linh Do 10:29 I mean, yes, and no, I think it's one of those things where we love to stab some politicians. And just Cinder is like definitely one that those of us in Australia really love. So he caught me by surprise that Greta toon Burg was a bit critical of that, but I think it's right like can you really stand a politician? Can you really do that while still holding them to account?
Dan Ilic 10:47 Yeah, a couple of other things quickly. One sad thing and one happy thing. The sad thing is more than $3 million dollars of the Australian future fund has been invested in the Carmichael mine, the Adani Carmichael mine, the 60 wishes, that is a quite, that's a $3 million isn't a lot of money. But it is our money that's being invested in this dog of a project
Linh Do 11:09 that might not even get up and when I say might not even highly unlikely to get out. I don't know how many years we've been talking about this. Now no one will finance this project. There's no viability for it. But we're still pouring money literally down the drain.
Dan Ilic 11:21 It was discovered by Ravana Ross, who is a human rights lawyer for the Australian Centre for International Justice. And basically she did fly on where the money was going, he was going into this project. Because a Danny has strong links to the Myanmar military regime and supplying them with logistics and support for their military, which of course has huge human rights implications because of the treatment of the Rohingya population. So that is pretty interesting, like, not only is Australia committing their own human rights, but they're indirectly supporting a Danny's support of Myanmar's human rights problems,
Linh Do 11:58 the company we keep increasingly becomes more and more depressing both on climate and human rights issues.
Dan Ilic 12:04 Let's wrap This news segment with something a bit more hopeful South Australia's liberal state government predicts that the state could boast more than 500% renewable energy by 2050. This is the Liberal government in South Australia saying South Australia is going to become a net exporter by 2050, up to 500 times their own capacity of renewable energy. Isn't
Linh Do 12:26 that incredible? It really is. And these are the big numbers that you want to hear. You know, on top of Tasmania being powered by 100% renewable energy South Australia leading the way, it's really clear that like liberal governments can do something just maybe not at the federal level right now.
Dan Ilic 12:40 It's just head butting Li crazy that the federal government can't even jump on board with any kind of climate action because they've pinned themselves into this corner where it would be politically impossible to do they've done their anger.
Linh Do 12:53 They really, really have, it feels like the Liberal Party needs a little bit of help talking about climate change within their own regs, because clearly, they're quite divided on just how we should tackle this issue.
Dan Ilic 13:04 That's it, I'm going to start a new company, rational fee is going to pivot to helping solely the Liberal Party communicate about climate change
Linh Do 13:11 with one another, like let's just stop it because it feels like there's some good eggs in that cap. And like, you know, we've heard from a few of them on this podcast. So how can we spread that good message?
Dan Ilic 13:20 I haven't got that little party money yet, so please donate to the Patreon. Still, it's really required. Anyway, let's get cracking into the interview. First up is Dr. Rebecca Huntley. She and I discuss the ins and outs of communicating climate change and climate science with basically anyone her book is called How to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference. And you'll find out by listening to her that there is, there is a couple of things that can help you with your dinner party conversations.
Unknown Speaker 13:49 You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation. First of all,
Dan Ilic 13:55 I'm a big fan. So thank you for doing this.
Rebecca Huntley 13:57 I'm a big fan of you. It's a mutual fan Association Appreciation Society.
Dan Ilic 14:03 I just remember seeing on stage years ago, a guy and you're talking about something and I just thought she's the funniest person I don't know.
Rebecca Huntley 14:11 Well, I wouldn't describe myself as Australia's funniest market research. Which I, which is a claim that I can back up having been to many market research conferences in my time.
Dan Ilic 14:23 That's what we do in irrational fear. We bring the biggest brains with the biggest laughs to the programme. So it's great that you're you're joining us. And you've written a book about how to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference. In fact, that is the title of the book. Yes, yes. That's right. You're You're now on a podcast called the greatest moral podcast of our generation. So I'm familiar with wordy titles. I thought it'd be great to get you on to talk about exactly what your book talks about. Because in the lead up to Christmas, people are going to be hanging around their lunch tables with relatives who may not agree with them on climate change. And I thought this could be a great primer for Christmas lunch. had a bit of a testy kind of moment last Christmas talking about energy and climate with one of my cousins. And thankfully, a lot of other my other my cousins are lawyers, and they came to buy defence at Christmas lunch. But it was a very interesting, it was interesting conversations. We're talking about renewables. And I was just saying, well, it's, you know, this government was saying that this government needs to invest more in renewables and really make a market incentive to have less coal. And I think my cousin at the time, probably still is a big TGV listener and said, Well, absolutely crazy that he went down the baseload power route, or the write down about all these kind of talking points that the carbon lobby have. Yeah. And then, thankfully, I've got some cousins who have done some extreme reading around energy. They're like, Well, actually, so we're having this fact often buddy
Rebecca Huntley 15:44 mentioned you killer, which put nuclear in the mix? That's always a bit of a indication of
Dan Ilic 15:49 No, no, no, no mention of nuclear. I wonder why? I don't know. Yeah, no mention of nuclear. Got a bit testy there around lunchtime. And I thought we're heading into Christmas. Maybe there's a better way to handle this conversation. Yeah, let's talk Rebecca has written a whole book about it. But the very virtue that you've written a book may not mean that you you'll have much success at your own Christmas lunch?
Rebecca Huntley 16:12 Well, look, it's interesting, I suppose the first thing I need to say is that this year, more than any other year, people are, probably people's tanks are pretty low. And they're probably feeling pretty stretched emotionally because of the year and a level of uncertainty. So I would approach these conversations with loved ones with even greater trepidation, empathy and understanding. That being said, we aren't we don't have the luxury of not talking about hard things, because people are tense, because people are going to continue to be tense. And of course, Christmases are always going to be a trigger point. But people are tired. So I think you approach it with that kind of perspective. I think what's really difficult, and I think a lot about this in writing the book. And even more since writing the book is now my whole life is the climate movement and working with people in the climate movement more broadly, is that you need to also think about your own sense of self care. Where is the best place to put my energies, one of the things I see a lot of is burnout in the movement, and people feeling like they're just such at such a low ebb. They want to walk on the streets, grabbing people by the shop, shaking the world, what are you doing? What are we doing? So my sense is unless you really want unless you've got the energy, and you feel like your relationships are close enough, you know, to try this out at the dinner table, I think the first thing to really talk about is just really understand why people feel the way they do. And for your cousin who just listens to 2g Bay, my first question is, are is GGB, the main place to get your information about climate. And for me, one of the most powerful things and I do this every now and then on Twitter, and I think the reaction that I get on Twitter is a bit of an indication of how effective this is. So sometimes when people have a doubt me about renewables, not being able to, you know, meet our energy needs, one of the things I really enjoy doing is retweeting stories about that already happening. So what's already happened, like we've just had a, we've just had it mixed, you know, some achievements in Tasmania, in South Australia, the kinds of projects that were lampooned by TJ Bay a couple of years ago, and now making enormous amounts of money. One of my favourite examples is, is the tomato, the soul powered tomato farm and Porter gusta, which is creating jobs for people who had actually been in a town that had been abandoned by the fossil fuel industry. So there are tonnes of examples all around Australia that we don't champion that gives us a sense of what is possible, right, right now and in the near future in relation to renewables.
Dan Ilic 18:49 So sitting down to Christmas lunch, the first question is to my cousin is, Oh, that's interesting. Where do you get your climate information from? Right.
Rebecca Huntley 18:58 And then I think part of it is also recognising that we get it to a lot from you know, the guardian or the rest of it. And, and, and Rebecca Holly's Twitter feed. And, look, it's really difficult. And in the end, I think one of the things that we save from the research that we do, and the search I'm doing at the moment, which which segments Australian communities around climate and how they feel is that you don't always have to convince people about the climate science to convince people about the solutions and broadly about 90% of the population thinks wants renewable energy to provide our energy needs and understand that coal and gas there are well, there might amplify the amount of jobs that the coal and gas industry can produce domestically, but they're not naive about for example, the fact that the coal industry contributes to pollution significantly, which contributes to health and things like coal seam gas, even even Alan Jones can agree that coal seam gas is not a good solution. To our energy needs, because of the consequences, it has on a whole range of things, including, you know, food security and farmers. So there are ways I think I'm always looking at ways to not to sidestep but negotiate through conversations to keep those conversations going, as part of an ongoing challenge that we all have to head towards the solutions as
Dan Ilic 20:23 quickly as this is a very easy thing for a beggar hunter researcher, who is researching all of Australia's climate values and segmenting people into demographics. If you're not Rebecca hoppy, should you read up on the latest IPCC report? Oh, going into Christmas?
Rebecca Huntley 20:39 Well, that's a really, really good point. One of the things that's fascinating in the work that we do on people who are alarmed about climate change, which is definitely on me. So when we ask people, what's their biggest, the biggest challenge they face the biggest obstacle to talking more about climate change or doing more is they feel they don't know enough about the climate science. And to tell you the truth, you don't need to know that much. You only and and you only need to know enough to help you have that conversation. And in fact, in the work that we do, which segments that community, the only segment that feel like they absolutely under the sun, understand the climate science and a really confident are talking about it. What segment is that? You could give nerds deny the only group that genuinely feel like I know all the climate science, I'm across it, right? And I'm really confident talking about it is 9% of the population that denies all the rest of us feel like we can't talk about it. Why? Because we actually respect the expertise that sits behind the climate science. We know that if pretty much every single scientist in Australia with a PhD says this is happening and it's a serious problem. We need to believe them. Because for whatever reason, and I'm I've thought about this, we just we just Australians generally respect, expertise. It says there's exclusive exclusions to that. But in general, when we say Where should we be getting our information, the CSR, the Bureau of Radiology, we trust them,
Dan Ilic 22:13 nothing kind of highlights that more than the crisis of COVID-19. I think like when you compare Australia to America, like watching Australians fall in line with the cops is more interesting than watching Americans try to grapple with their freedoms of not wearing a mask.
Rebecca Huntley 22:29 That's exactly right. And well paid Evans can get and get a certain way. There is a point where everybody goes, No, I'm sorry.
Dan Ilic 22:37 Yeah. He kind of lucky that on the rational fear, we have been making fun of those outliers, because they are so funny on Twitter and their social media is hysterical.
Rebecca Huntley 22:46 I think making fun of them is the best way forward. But we do need to be vigilant, because one of the things that's really clear is that is that the more they get an opportunity to circulate these blatant untruths, the more people assume them have followers. So once again, the research has shown this time and again, when you ask people who believe in climate change how many deniers around the community, they always put it at 20 25%. It's 9%. So we add, those views are amplified. And as a result, we think they're more widespread than they actually are.
Dan Ilic 23:20 I totally agree like talking with Matt cane the other day on irrational fear. I was like, man, what's up with your party? Why? Why are they full of climate deniers? He's like, well, Dan, I would say majority of liberals believe in climate science. And one climate action is just that we've got a few people in the federal level, who making all the noise. I think that's, that's so interesting.
Rebecca Huntley 23:41 I'm a more prepared to accept that there'll be people in the community who are climate deniers, and their job is not to run the country. You know what I mean? Their accountants, their teachers, it doesn't matter. And in the end, I think banging our head against a war to convince them is a waste of time. However, if you're in Parliament, you have a larger responsibility,
Dan Ilic 24:00 while you're saying is there a six climate deniers you need to change the minds? Well,
Rebecca Huntley 24:05 we're not going to change their mind, we need to change the mind of the people who elected them to say, they deserve better representation that's happened in Moringa. And I won't be surprised the next election you'll get a lot of those climate deniers have a significant scare certainly in the lower house. I mean, it's one thing to and this is the thing that that that in the book on tonight and the chapter on denial, I say this, there were times where I fantasise about being a climate tonight because my wife would be a lot easier. I mean, I could I could give up what I'm doing now and and pursue my love of making jam for a living or whatever, or designing you know, designing a modernist dog houses, I could do whatever I wanted to do, you know, I would be released of this kind of jewel, passion fear that I have around climate change and feeling I need to do something about it. So I get why people denied I get why people want To push back on the reality, but I cannot guess that people who represent the community empowerment cannot see the opportunity that we have right now the economic and other and broader opportunities we have on acting on climate, because for the first time in a long time, we don't have to turn ourselves into knots to make a case for renewable energy bank, something that's going to be good for people for jobs for pollution. We don't have to make that case that case has been made, which is why people like Matt cane can make that case and the Liberal Party. So that's what I don't get.
Dan Ilic 25:38 There's an insane amount of money to be made.
Rebecca Huntley 25:40 There isn't a lot of money to be made. There is a lot of benefits to communities to be made. I see it all the time. They were the most
Dan Ilic 25:47 infamous or famous versions that is that the Daylesford community yeah with their with their one wind turbine chapter two wind turbines now they're an exporter. Yeah. of electricity.
Rebecca Huntley 25:57 And the original investors are making money. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it just can't clear it's just I mean it all you need to do is add Labrador puppies and it's the most wonderful story. Almost unmitigated, wonderful story. I'm
Dan Ilic 26:12 saying the same here. You invest in renewables for your community, then you can go and make bottlenose dogs.
Unknown Speaker 26:19 Right for those Labrador puppies.
Dan Ilic 26:21 What's interesting about your book is that it's kind of like when you look at the chapter list, it kind of reads like a therapy session. Yeah. guilt, fear, anger, denial, despair, hope, lost love. Why don't you just call it a cold love? That would have been?
Rebecca Huntley 26:39 Well, look, it's interesting, because some I used to be talking to Sarah Wilson, and we've been friends for a long time. I think she and all of my friends who were very focused on emotion in their lives think it's quite funny because I'm the ultimate rationalist. right a lot of great PhD. They're constantly tase me because I'm not spiritual. I'm not emotional with a warm you know, I'm, I'm not particularly emotional. I think I can count the times I've cried in the last 10 years, probably on one hand.
Dan Ilic 27:05 I think you and Sarah have written companion books, in many respects. Your book is kind of raiza it's it is
Rebecca Huntley 27:14 it still may it's still I'm still doing the research. Oh, yeah.
Dan Ilic 27:17 So the research I but it's like it's it's a different kind of book to Sarah Sarah's is very spiritual in a, in a kind of journey, yours is, is very different based on lots of other kind of aspects. Do you think you need kind of both in your world,
Rebecca Huntley 27:32 we need 10s of 1000s of voices. And Sarah is one voice that will appeal to certain groups of people who might pick up my book and not like it other people, it will be Sarah's will be too spiritual. And they'll want to kind of understand the science. But there is an overlap, in that Sarah is actually interested in the research, like she's not a complete, she's not a paid Evans,
Dan Ilic 27:54 she's not completely distracted, our distance from her books got a lot of science,
Rebecca Huntley 27:59 it has a lot of science in it. And we have those conversations. And for me, there's a emotional personal story in it that I wouldn't have normally put in my work. But it was important to be able to acknowledge that because it's what drives my climate activism. And it's part of my climate story. And that's what we need more people developing a climate story, whatever that might look like.
Dan Ilic 28:22 And to clarify that up you what you're talking about is your kids. I mean, you're you talk about the beginning of your book about how you kind of got into this, you kind of acknowledged a little bit earlier on in our chat that you're kind of a Johnny come lately, the climate? Yeah. How does it feel to kind of come late to the climate saying, Do climate activists look at you and go, where have you been? Like,
Rebecca Huntley 28:43 I'm very, I'm very gentle in what I when I identify what have been some of the perhaps the tactical mistakes made? Because I wasn't around You don't? That whole Adani convoy, that was a big mistake. Well, I mean, I'm very careful about that site like that, by
Dan Ilic 28:59 the way, that's gonna sound bad in the trans
Rebecca Huntley 29:02 if it's pulled out, because I never doubt that what people are trying to do is get to a goal that's bigger than it is right. So I know and I know there's so much pain and suffering and genuine love in the in the climate movement. And also there is just okay, what's going to work it's one of one of the things that fascinated me about the climate move when COVID here is when COVID hit every other sector that I was involved in all other workplaces just kind of froze in the headlights. Everybody knew in the climate movement was like, Okay, what do we do now? Like they were just part of that they just had such get up and go on with it. So it's like, how do we take what we were going to do? Understand COVID and keep going and actually it sustained me in so I've, I feel like I'm getting so much from being involved with people and also there's a willingness and hunger for some new People who are prepared to spend their time helping in a collaborative sense. So it does feel like I've come light with. But I would say this one occasion when I feel guilty that is that I have spent 15 years understanding how Australians feel about everything else. And how they feel about climate change is connected to that if you're economically anxious, you're living in regional Queensland, and you always feel like government is letting you down. When you talk to somebody about climate change, they're not responding to the science, they're responding to all of that. Right, if you live in the inner city, like me, in you behind the tumeric latte curtain here, particular views about particular values about Mr. Evans tear down this wall. And then that's it. So I think in a way, it's been a circuitous path towards climate change. But all understanding and knowledge that I've got from that I've worked for years with the superannuation industry. So understanding the role that it can play now, in climate change is actually important. I've spent years working with the big supermarkets and understanding that that's going to help us well, you have spent this time doing this, what
Dan Ilic 31:10 do you think are the things that connect all those elements together?
Rebecca Huntley 31:14 Look, I think the first thing we have to we have to get is that there has been a consistent and a consistent and very effective campaign to make climate change, a question of cultural identity politics, and unravelling that is near difficult in the time that we have available. So we have to understand where people come culturally and socially to the issue in order to address it. Yeah, that's the first thing I would argue. This is why somebody like Matt Kane, and that has to inform our tactics.
Dan Ilic 31:52 Yes, it is so strange, too. I am not a liberal voter I've ever been voted liberal for a very long time, if ever, and it's one of those things where seeing Matt Cain operate at the level he's operating, and making the noises on renewables is genuinely exciting to me. Oh, it's
Rebecca Huntley 32:10 so excited, like,
Dan Ilic 32:11 Oh my god,
Rebecca Huntley 32:13 I didn't know it was outside.
Dan Ilic 32:14 That is the champion we need. I feel like there's a champion in those circles to change them.
Rebecca Huntley 32:20 In fact, when he first started talking, I remember just looking at me thinking it was like, you probably too young to remember this. It's like when you're watching Funniest Home Videos, and there's a father doing something, and you're like with his kids, and you're like, at some moment, he's going to be kicked in the nuts. And I just don't know how I tell I felt looking at Matt Cain, I thought what's gonna out there?
Dan Ilic 32:42 That was my question. My question is, are you going to be assassinate?
Rebecca Huntley 32:47 Really, I really was. She was that same? That same moment of kind of nervous tension laughter about when he was gonna be whacked, but he hasn't.
Dan Ilic 32:58 As someone who worked on Funniest Home Videos, Rebecca, how
Rebecca Huntley 33:00 did it change, the
Dan Ilic 33:01 lexicon is growing hit always the greatest growing hits,
Rebecca Huntley 33:05 I was waiting for a God Almighty growing here, and it hasn't come. And in fact, it's unlikely to come just because of what happened what they managed to push through Parliament, New South Wales Parliament last week, which is that they're just going to be creating best putting those building blocks in. And once that happens, once a community starts to see the benefit, they don't turn back, they don't turn back when they know that those things are going to work. So no, absolutely. And in fact, one of the big insights coming out of this book was the importance of in the same way that the voices of deniers have been amplified. We need to amplify the voices that that I suppose. And pique or surprise people, this person cares about climate. That's why I was so interested in farmers for climate action, around a lot of a lot about faith leaders talking about climate, from the point of view of their faith, and conservatives of all kinds really, critically important. It's important because different people have to see themselves as having as people like them talking about climate and talking about the benefits, or we don't make that connection.
Dan Ilic 34:18 One of the things you can suggest in your book is to not use catastrophic language. Yeah. This podcast is called irrational fear. It's, it's a it's kind of a joke. Oh, yeah. I'm using catastrophic language. And Rebecca using catastrophic language is fun. Yeah, absolutely. I know if you know that. So like, but why shouldn't we be doing that?
Rebecca Huntley 34:40 Well, I mean, again, it's all horses for courses for some. And this is why understanding who you're talking to, and where they are now and where you might be able to shift them is critically important. All right, if you even five or six years ago, when I was when I was concerned about climate, but it wasn't the main part of my life. I actually did have some friends in my Who would just would use this language and I would just kind of, you know, shrink away, I'm gonna be, again, you might be too young for this. I remember years ago, when Bob Carr was premiere on on New Year's Day, he released this statement about climate change. And I remember thinking about what was at stake for the environment, and I'm thinking, he's gone mad. I just couldn't understand it. Now you look back at it. And he's obviously reading the climate science. You know, it's all you know, many things you want about Bob Carr, he genuinely cares about the environment. And I wasn't receptive at that moment for that, but something happened. And now I raised the uninhabitable Earth and other things, and listen to some of the climate science and which I do every now. And then I don't do it all the time. But it's important to keep my eyes focused on the task. So I'm receptive to it. It's absolutely clear that there are other audiences that are completely unreceptive and may never grow to be receptive. We need to think about how can we shift them political behaviour, consumer behaviour, you know, bit for other reasons, right. We need to inject a sense of urgency for them that isn't about walls and fire and all the rest of it is about something else. So you distil it's all about? I'm not saying never use it, I'm saying understand the impact that it's going to have so understand the audience, why are using it and what you want to get them to do for me, I would dip into something like the uninhabitable Earth maybe once a month, or I'd tune into her site I just the other day, I was listening to some of the latest science, just about the challenge of not just reducing emissions, but drawdown like dramatic like drop when I started thinking, because every all of my work moment, is completely focused on renewables and emissions. And then I started thinking, that's just one side of the problem. Yeah, just thinking. And I started, and my friend, he was also on the zoom texted me and she said, Are you are you? Are you having a panic attack too? And I said, Yep. And badly. It was important because I walked away thinking I actually need to start doing more research on the jewel language around drawdown and emissions reduction, I have to get my head around it.
Dan Ilic 37:16 This is probably a good place to mention that you can look up the carbon emissions from your car with a go neutral sticker for $90 going to show for offset 3.5 tonnes of your carbon from your car and you can put a sticker on the back of a car, you know, I just did this Yeah, then check out the link in the show notes. And five bucks of that comes to us.
Rebecca Huntley 37:35 Now this is f this sounds like it sounds like completely fake. But actually, I did this week go.
Dan Ilic 37:43 Oh, so you got my cast away from listening to our podcast,
Rebecca Huntley 37:47 not from your podcast, sadly, bash, but I saw them on Instagram, I thought because so I'm in the situation where I want to get a Navy, but I've probably about three or four years away from getting one yeah. And you know, in a bit of a you know, COVID is meant I bless my marriage. So I don't know if huge amounts of money. So I thought this is a really good bridge between what my car is now and when I'm going to get a Navy. I mean,
Dan Ilic 38:12 it really doesn't do anything except for purchasing with other people that you're a good person, but that's
Rebecca Huntley 38:16 not a bad bet in this area. And I'm deep behind the chimeric lotto circle. It's all about the virtue signalling. I can't shame people. I have a gun. The sticker on my car. I have so many. I mean, here, you could get beaten with a Hessian bag if you walk around with a plastic bag.
Dan Ilic 38:35 Thank you so much, Rebecca, you for coming on irrational fear. I just want to maybe do a quick roleplay with you Sure. Let's pretend we're sitting down Christmas lunch. I'll be my cousin. Okay. And you can talk me around climate as
Rebecca Huntley 38:51 well look in these kinds of environments, just ending with a conversation that doesn't end in turfing, some kind of, you know, bread roll at the table isn't success, but
Dan Ilic 39:02 let's go. Okay. Well, you know, the problem with renewables is just another baseload power to to power the country. That's what we need baseload power. Why do you think that? Oh, just see everything I've read.
Rebecca Huntley 39:15 With some way
Dan Ilic 39:16 I've written in the Daily Telegraph, Andrew bolt, right headlight tells me all the time on TV, basically power. I've also done some reading on some great blogs. I can't remember the name. I've probably never be able to find a rice
Rebecca Huntley 39:28 book. Alright. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 39:30 Well, I think I think, look, there is
Rebecca Huntley 39:32 definitely issues we need to make sure for people to really embrace renewables, we really have to know that they can feel confident that it can deal with whatever happens. But you know, one of the things that's really interesting is the CSI or the chief scientist, they say that stuff is already happening like in places like South Australia and Tasmania. This is already happening. So I'm not that worried about baseload power
Dan Ilic 39:54 windows that give people cancer.
Rebecca Huntley 39:56 Yeah, I don't think that that's a thing but I am I mean, I'd be interested if you want to share that material with me. I'd really like to have a look at it. I sent
Dan Ilic 40:04 a Facebook post about people got ringing in their ears from windmills.
Rebecca Huntley 40:08 Yeah, no, I think look, I think that would probably have to put that to one side at the moment, I'd get it again. Some people like the look of windmills, some people don't. But the other day I was writing just in the Hunter Valley. Okay, so the Esma rate for children in New South Wales general generally is at about 12%. In the Hunter Valley, it's 18%. And it's all about the Open, open, you know, open pit coal mines,
Dan Ilic 40:35 where those people go to work, they can't work in windmills.
Rebecca Huntley 40:38 Well, the other thing, why should they can they can evil energy. But I suppose the other thing that we constantly do, and it's understandable, because, you know, none of us, none of us are economists at this table. Especially, you know, jobs in that sector in the hunter, getting less and less and less over time, over time, their project pretty much to disappear. You know, lots of the big renewable in lots of the big GM fossil fuel in areas want to get out of the Hunter Valley. There's lots of other opportunities in the Hunter Valley for jobs, especially if the government gets really good about investing.
Dan Ilic 41:14 Even coal is such a big exporter for us, you know, we basically run a whole country on on fossil fuels leaving the country
Rebecca Huntley 41:22 we have and that's been such an important driver to prosperity in Australia. I get that. I think one of the things that really worries me is a lot of the people that are buying that call are massively investing in renewables made real commitments to reducing emissions. And so we're going to start to say, a lot of that decline over time. We've got to be ready for what happens when it falls off.
Dan Ilic 41:42 China is building 10,000 new coal mine coal power plants a day.
Rebecca Huntley 41:48 Wow, gosh, really?
Dan Ilic 41:51 Did 10,000 a day?
Rebecca Huntley 41:54 I don't know if that's true place. Yeah. Again, look, can you send the stuff about the email and cancer stuff? Can you also send this stuff about the 10,000 coal mines? I'd really like to have a look anyway. We definitely. Do you want some chicken? I would love to have another conversation with you about this next Christmas. Anyway, you said that next week series called The Crown apparently it's really good. I don't know what it's about. So
Dan Ilic 42:17 whatever that is, you're a coward. Rebecca, a coward. You could have had me on the ropes. Gonna slandered me. It's really hard to have these conversations with people that are in your family isn't there?
Rebecca Huntley 42:29 But you know what the other thing in the book and I'm a big fan of Anna rose and worked really closely with her I once asked him should you ever argue with a climate denier? And she said only if other people around prepared to listen, overhearing the conversation?
Dan Ilic 42:44 That is a wonderful aros thing to say.
Rebecca Huntley 42:48 And I think it's true. So such great strategy. It is. So what I wasn't going to change your mind there. Bash anybody at the table, who doesn't want to talk about climate change has seen two things, ask be able to have a conversation which didn't deteriorate into name calling to there was lots of different bits of information that I throw in there, one of which is going to spark some kind of attention. But if people walk away from that conversation, thinking that two people on completely different ends of the spectrum can have an evidence kind of evidence. conversation about something that they normally see is a completely resolvable issue, then that itself is a tiny, you know, when one conversation is not going to turn people around, but a series of productive I'm not talking about respectful necessarily, because it wasn't necessarily being respectful because you caught up till by the end of it. I was over. And didn't was like yes, well, there we go. That's part of it. You know, that is so that for me, that isn't for me, the fact that I didn't lose it and say, Listen, you, knuckle bowgun shop, this is a great achievement given I've already had two glasses of champagne, and it's been a try. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 44:04 I mean, it's hard to say that and take you seriously when you've got a paper crown on your head.
Rebecca Huntley 44:12 That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right. So there we go. It is hard. And I and look, there are times where I've failed miserably. And there have been times there was one time recently where one of my daughter's friends started doing all these weird things with plastic bottles and not putting them in recycling. And I said Listen, do you know that your body is awash with a million tiny bits of micro plastic? And he looked at me absolutely terrified and ran away. And my my, my daughter said to me, Mom, like everybody knows you like like your environment, climate change, but please don't scare my friend. I'm like, Okay, okay, but it would drive me nuts. He was like doing all these weird things with plastic and putting them in the wrong place. And I went nuts. So even even the people who write books get it wrong.
Dan Ilic 44:58 You just especially 40 minutes telling me how what a rational person you are.
Rebecca Huntley 45:07 That's true. Even even the most rational people lose it. We even the most rational people.
Dan Ilic 45:14 Well, Rebecca, I'm thankful that we have less modernise dog houses in this preserve in our life, because we've got your brain to think about these problems.
Rebecca Huntley 45:23 Thank you very much. And we got your podcast, too.
Dan Ilic 45:26 Yeah. Well, that's right. That's it. You wanted more conversation? In your book, you say more people talking about climate change. So I started a podcast. Thanks, Rebecca.
Unknown Speaker 45:35 Thank you.
Dan Ilic 45:37 And that was Rebecca Hunley, she's pretty funny for a market researcher would be silent.
Linh Do 45:40 It really is. And I learned so much turns out the best way to communicate about climate change isn't just screaming at all of your relatives and friends and neighbours.
Unknown Speaker 45:49 Now you've worked with Rebecca in the past?
Linh Do 45:51 Yeah, I have worked with Rebecca, before we met through Climate Reality. And once I learned that she was working on this book about, you know, how do you speak on climate change? I think I ended up being a really great resource for her because I've made so many of these mistakes, I was able to detail, top 100 failures, that time that I spoke to the bus driver about it that time I spoke to a school teacher about it. So here are all of the things I went and did wrong
Dan Ilic 46:13 that time because all of this time you had to speak to Al Gore about it.
Linh Do 46:17 Yeah, and I like to use the word I mean, so complicated. But I think you know, given her understanding of what the actual Australian public is, like, her ability to still figure out how climate messaging resonates, regardless of political alignment, regardless of like other values, alignment, I think is really powerful. And I would definitely recommend skimming through the book, or gifting it to a couple of people over the holidays.
Dan Ilic 46:43 Next up is Sarah Wilson, we had a great chat about her book, this one wild and precious life. Pretty interesting book. It's not too dissimilar to Rebecca's in that it kind of delves into climate anxiety, and kind of tries to help you with how to have conversations with people how to deal with climate anxiety on your own. But it's much more inwardly facing and kind of is about everything. It's about the whole gamut of Sarah's climate anxiety experience. And she kind of goes on this big rambley journey all around the world to kind of talk to experts and understand nature and humans in context with nature. And it's some it's really fascinating. Here's our chat.
Unknown Speaker 47:21 You're listening to the greatest tomorrow podcast about generation.
Dan Ilic 47:26 Let me start by asking you, how's your heart at this moment?
Sarah Wilson 47:33 Thank you for reading my book that closely to quote lines back at me. My heart is in. You know what it's actually in a really solid place. This often happens after I finished writing a book, my books that taught self help tools, and they take me to a place where I have to get vigilant and real about the shit I share with everyone. You know, when you write a book about quitting sugar, you can't walk down the street eating a magnum for instance. And so when you write a book about waking up to this one wild and precious life, you've got to do exactly that. So
Dan Ilic 48:06 I was actually experiment. I was actually curious as to why he didn't call the book I quit car, but
Sarah Wilson 48:11 it doesn't. It's not evocative. It really, is it I mean, I think sort of an ex ABC journalist or a scientist in Australia Institute thought, you know, sort of consultant would write a book with that title.
Dan Ilic 48:25 I found the book, I think I tweeted the first few pages as I was reading the book, I like to think I tweeted at you I think this book is an extraordinary artefact for someone in the future to discover, because it feels like it captures a real contemporary anxiety of the moment. Is that why you wrote the book?
Sarah Wilson 48:43 Yes. Although I had to write it in real time, because it was due before the Australian bushfires, and then before COVID, and then before the Black Lives Matters, issue, reared its head, all of which is related, of course, it's the same, what I call each that kind of dready, kind of anx de cringy itch that we're all feeling. But um, I came off the back of writing. First, we make the base beautiful, which is that internal journey to understand, you know, well, for me, it was to understand my bipolar and kind of general weakness, and to share that story with people who felt the same. But then, you know, as I was doing publicity for that, and moving around the world, and also keeping up my work as a climate activist, I realised that the anxiety was now global and collective. And it was way bigger than our own personal stuff, which was a relief in many ways, because I think a lot of our anxiety that we feel is about the fact that we should be attending to something bigger than ourselves right now, this time in history. So yes, I was watching listening angsting going into really deep despairing holes. And then I thought I better write a book about this, and really try to find A hopeful path and I struggled. As you know, Dan, because you saw me in the process, you know, around Bondi, well, I
Dan Ilic 50:06 know you are very competitive. You're a very compelling leader as well, like, you know, I did see around bonda. And you would, you would you would berate me for not going to protests and stuff like that. And then, you know, eventually ended up going to those protests
Sarah Wilson 50:19 in the book.
Dan Ilic 50:20 Am I? Yeah.
Sarah Wilson 50:21 You probably didn't identify it. I mentioned those protests the September, remember? Yeah. Yeah. The September 2019, climate protests. And there was seven people that I targeted on the morning of the protest. And you were one of them. And all of you went? Yeah, I mentioned in the book.
Dan Ilic 50:39 Yeah. Because I saw you were in a cafe and you said, Are you going to the protest, as I thought about it, just really busy. And I ended up just calling my fiance and say, let's get out of work and go to the protest. And that's exactly what we did.
Sarah Wilson 50:49 And all of you I saw within 48 hours of the protest, some I saw that night celebrating or having a cocktail to celebrate the fact that they'd got engaged in it. And all of you I saw within 48 hours, and I went into a dark place when I came across all these people I thought were engaged to weren't rising to this opportunity, right, that was being laid out in front of you. And then every, every one of you went and brought people along, and then got back to me and told me that you went and said, It was awesome. Oh, I cried. I really, I cried with joy. And it was just a reminder of how awesome humans can be.
Dan Ilic 51:26 It's also a reminder of the leadership abilities that Sarah Wilson can activate me to do six,
Unknown Speaker 51:32 seven people at a time. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 51:34 well, let's talk about that. I mean, that is one of the things about your book is intense, intensely personal. But it also talks about how we all have the power in ourselves to affect change. And so people who consider themselves as powerless people, that's not true. Everybody has an iota of power. How do you help those people realise that how they have through this book? And how do you encourage them to use that power?
Sarah Wilson 51:59 Well, it's a seductive combination of statistics, right, that are backed by sort of many white lab coats, so people go must be legit, as well as sort of metaphor and story and reminders of what's happened in the past, which I think also helps people to realise that this is not humanity's first rodeo, you know, with this kind of things, a great high back colour
Dan Ilic 52:20 t shirt pandemic of the late 90s. We survived that I think we can survive it. Oh,
Sarah Wilson 52:24 I mean, yeah, human hardship, we've done it. I think one of the statistics that people really resonate with and get fired up about is the 3.5% figure of hope, as I call it. So Erica Chenoweth, scientist at Harvard, decided to look deeply into what activated change and she looked at all the peaceful protests from 1900 to 2004. and analyse each and every one of them and found that were three and a half percent of any given population, whether it's a school, a town, a village, whatever, a country, get together, and activate and unite peacefully, the change happens, three and a half percent is not a lot. And I think a lot of people find that really activating. And it's everyday people just getting behind a movement and turning up.
Dan Ilic 53:09 This is not just a community, like a nation, but they could be considered to be community like a workplace
Sarah Wilson 53:13 or school, a school. Yeah, exactly. So whatever change that you want to happen, that's going to actually take humanity forward, you only need three and a half percent. So that's one thing I'll say to anyone who feels like what's the point? How is my little bit going to make a difference? The second thing that I try to use is these sort of various metaphors. And the way that humans work is we galvanise at an exponential rate, right? So change or care begets care, action begets action, exponentially. And I'll use the example as we like to in this sports, crazy country of the footy match, or the baseball match, or whatever it is the baseball game, where the losing side is down by three points, or whatever. And there's 30 seconds left in the game, and everybody's kind of going, Oh, god, this is all over. And then out of nowhere, the losing side kind of galvanises, this Kamikaze spirit, I call it Kamikaze. Like where they toss out all the normal rules, and just go for it. And as it's kind of groups, soul movement, or moment, and way too many games in history have gone down with that sort of final try and the last 1.5 seconds or the final, you know, fucking home run or whatever. And so this is what we do. We rise to the occasion in this exponential Kamikaze way when we give a shit when we care enough about something
Dan Ilic 54:35 I certainly know through university days that you know, when I know I've got a deadline coming that it really makes me work hard. I have to say that that metaphor really resonates with me, particularly when we were running the TV show tonight lay when we knew we were ending the show and we had six weeks left on air. We threw the whole wrote rulebook out and we made some of the most incredible memorable things. People actually started turning up to the show wanting to come and watch The show
Sarah Wilson 55:00 magic happens. I call it magic.
Dan Ilic 55:02 It is Yeah, it is a strange period. And I do feel I feel so on board with you at this moment, I feel like this is the moment now that everybody needs to be pulling in the same direction and aligned. And this is anybody who's not could be left behind. And we need to encourage them to come along with us.
Sarah Wilson 55:21 Yeah, I haven't, I guess the third element that I put to all of this, and this is something that Miss is missing from the climate movement and has been for as long as I've been on this planet. It's the fact that we haven't actually shown how joyful and charming this can be. And I think I've mentioned this to you before then that I went into a dark place trying to find the hopeful path forward three clusters. And I almost gave up, you know, was about to tell my us and my Australian publishers can't do this. Haven't got an answer, sorry, somebody else will have to come up with one. And my meditation teacher sat me down. And he said, Sarah, the thing is, you love living this way. You've got to show us how this can be charming. You've got to show us how this is better than the status quo, make it look sexy and fun. And I realised what he was getting that and, and that shifted the whole dynamic of my book and where I went with it. Like I was like, absolutely, that's how humans work. This has got to be such charming, it's got to be something that we go, game on, this resonates. This is beautiful. This is wild. And that's where that wild and precious notion came into play. Our nature is to give a shit, our nature is to care and to rise to bigger things than ourselves. And we haven't had that dialogue, particularly in Australia for the last 30 years of economic opulence, you know, continued growth, we haven't had that dialogue of going to our edge firing up caring at a level where we overextend ourselves, and, but yet, that is our nature. That is where we rise to our best selves. That's when we're happiest and we're most vibrant, and we're fending and we're creating, and we're resilient, we become resilient. And so that's, that was sort of my aim. So I think that's the third element to selling this, you know, I give a final kind of message to people who have become, you know, overwhelmed and numb, is that, hey, this is awesomely vibrant, and enlivening. And, you know, like, I live minimally, and I ride a bike everywhere. And I don't do it because I'm trying to be a marshal. I do it because I love it like living any other way gives me this, like Hideki feeling, you know, I'd much rather ride a bike somewhere, and smell the air and run into people along the way. Like not literally, but and, you know, live and breathe and see things and being engaged. Because otherwise why are we here?
Dan Ilic 57:49 Yeah, the book is interesting. There's one wild and precious life is really interesting, because his journey itself, I feel like it's, it's rambley Not only is it rambley, literally because you go on a little walks, but it also figuratively, was that on purpose?
Sarah Wilson 58:05 Yeah, you might remember the bit where my father refers to the book on the family. What that
Dan Ilic 58:10 is, is a big chunk of everything. Yeah, his
Sarah Wilson 58:12 book of everything, right, because somebody was, you know, my family, my family aren't known for reading my books. So they generally rely on dad to kind of read it and do a summary. So he just referred to a series book of everything. Look, everything got us into this mess, and everything is going to be required to get us out of it. And it is overwhelming. So the way I do it, I think, you know, I do these little tiny mini chapters, some of them are a paragraph long, some of them maybe up to three pages long. And the topic requires swapping from science to philosophy to spirituality to my own personal kind of reflections on it, so that it humanises it and makes it you know, gives a bit of a pause for people to sort of absorb it at a human level. So I am unapologetic about it and I wrote first we make the beast beautiful in a similar way because anxiety requires an outlet and then analysis of all those factors as well. And so I do dance between them all. And we shouldn't try to kind of bring it all in together into a into a seamless conclusion because the complexities of life don't operate that I do ramble. And they go off over here and, and part of it was to get people comfortable with that itself, with the uncertainty and the lack of order and the chaos because that is what we're in. Right.
Dan Ilic 59:30 Did it help you with your climate anxiety or your eco anxiety? Yeah,
Sarah Wilson 59:35 it did. 100% That sounds very emphatic. But I actually I actually did, I couldn't write this book until I did have that path of hope. Until I believed it and really owned it and, and kind of stepped into it and and and felt that it was going to be the guiding sort of force for me going forward in the second half of my life. I was down, I was really struggling to see the point of my existence halfway through writing this book. And really the the struggled as I tried to grapple with ways of solving this that I share in the book. were real. I was writing it in real time. So but I do you can feel it.
Dan Ilic 1:00:20 Yeah, you can feel it, you can feel like the ups and downs of your of what is a very personal journey.
Sarah Wilson 1:00:26 And I think a lot of people are going through that, but they don't necessarily articulate it because we don't have a forum for it. Everything sort of says, This is too much influx, and there's not enough discernment going on, right. So, but I did have to get deliberate about all the shit that I was telling people to do in my book. So, you know, I do have to leave out the practices. Like I said, I can't walk down the street with eating a magnum anymore. Well, I have to be
Dan Ilic 1:00:51 one of your friends who lives in your Southern I can't walk down the street with a paper cup of coffee. Dude, Wilson says, Man,
Sarah Wilson 1:01:00 I know that's true. That became a bit of a theme in the book didn't that, but it's actually just one of those. I mean, people go, Oh, you know, one more takeaway coffee cups not going to make a difference? Yep. Sure. That's absolutely right. And in fact, recycling and cutting out plastics isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's all climate change, we've got to accept that. And so that happens at a policy level and industry and the big, big end of town, but it's the optics, right? It's the care begets care, we need to see more imagery of people giving a shit, this has got to be the dominant discourse, otherwise, we will feel hopeless, and particularly for, dare I say it, white middle class men, they are the demographic missing from the climate debate in the climate, activism space. It's it's white men that are we need to get on board. So when I whenever I see a white man in bondo, with a takeaway coffee cup, I will go out of my way and suggest that they get a key cup.
Dan Ilic 1:02:01 Well, if they're a white man in bondo, they've probably also got a podcast. So you go.
Sarah Wilson 1:02:07 Go me sitting here in your lounge room right now?
Dan Ilic 1:02:11 Well, let's talk about that a little bit. Because I think that is interesting. I feel like everyone is so busy with their lives that climate change, it sits on the back burner for a little bit. Now, I'm in the luxury of disposition, where I'm being supported by fellowship, and I can correct credits podcast and talk to great climate thinkers like you and other people. And I get to kind of use my power to kind of have some sort of discourse about climate change, and encourage others to apply pressure on those in power to do something with climate action through this medium, but if you're just a bloke who's got a job at a construction company, or what Look, what do you say to them?
Sarah Wilson 1:02:53 Well, I actually have a dialogue with a white bloke in a construction company in the book, if you remember, who walked around with a takeaway coffee cup in a cafe while seated at the cafe. And he becomes a bit of a thread in the story. What do I say to them? Well, I say to anyone, and this is not my idea comes from the American Buddhist nun Premachandran, she said, start where you are. So if you're a nurse, working nights, if you're a busy parent with three kids, juggling, whatever, that's your starting point. And I use the example in the book of someone who lives around the corner from me and she's a mom of two kids. Pretty much what you're describing doesn't feels powerless, hasn't got a forum. And she just said, so again, it was the strikes the other protests in September in 2019. And she was like, Oh, look, all the mums at my school. The parents are just going it's too hard to get into the city at that time of day with a kid. And she said, maybe, maybe I could all get a minibus. And I said, do it and I get to get on the Eventbrite set it up as a thing, you know, you can charge the tickets. Anyway, it's sold out within an hour, she'd upgraded to a coach, she ended up upgrading to two coaches, and she got over 150 people to that protest. She started where she was, as a sort of fed up Mum, with with access to Eventbrite and Mary's coaches, you know, so I thought that was a great example. And then I shared that on my social media feed. And then I know that a number of people around the country did exactly the same thing at the last minute and it managed to get a coach load of parents and students who otherwise wouldn't have gone to that rally.
Dan Ilic 1:04:36 I think starting where you are is the perfect place because in your own sphere, you have influence over other people, your peers, your friends, your family. Yeah. And that is that is completely
Sarah Wilson 1:04:49 and once you start as you know, and this is why I focus on keep cups right? Once you start once you buy a KitKat bite my friend, Kate's husband, Adam, he went and got himself a KitKat He was so proud of himself, right, you know, thought he was doing. And then he started taking a real interest in recycling and the recycling laws in the in the area. And then it started to grow further and further. So as I said before, actual care begets action and care. And so it generally grows, and then you feel empowered, you feel hopeful, the best remedy for hopelessness and despair is to actually just get engaged in whatever form possible even if it's just listening to the news an hour a day, you feel like you're part of it.
Dan Ilic 1:05:33 Yeah. As a comedian who puts on shows about climate change, I've recycled so many jokes, it makes me feel so good. I'm doing something for
Sarah Wilson 1:05:42 keep doing more and more of it. Exactly.
Dan Ilic 1:05:45 Do you get people pushing you back on your climate credentials?
Sarah Wilson 1:05:48 I'm not so much, I think because nobody? Well, most of the world struggles to understand the climate science and to be an expert in it. I think what we've worked out and I think climate scientists are wonderful at this, I interviewed, I interviewed 14 different climate scientists, three of whom were involved in the IPCC report. And they are very good at admitting they're not the best communicators. So one of them, actually Joelle. And I forgotten her surname now, but she was a lead scientist on the paper. She said to me, Listen, our work is done. The science is in. And now we need to hand the baton to people like you, Sarah, who can communicate it.
Dan Ilic 1:06:33 I have to say that was one of the biggest eye opening moments of the book, reading a book. I was like, Oh, yeah, shit, yeah. Why are we even trying to convince people? It's real anymore. We're pushing on powerful people to make change. That's right, because the science has done. Everything else needs a rollover, those who don't believe can forget it. It's about effecting change right at the top and getting that change in place.
Sarah Wilson 1:06:55 Yeah, the scientists have been working in this realm for ages, the activists have been working, and just tirelessly. And so often, I was speaking to activists who are saying something similar. They were saying, we have been going at this for 30 years, and we are exhausted. All we need you to do is come and join us. You know, don't start up a new climate movement. We've got them all here. We've got the data, blah, blah, blah. Just help us out, you know, and so, yeah, I don't get it as much in this climate space, because I don't think that there's too many people. Well, I think everybody feels a little bit, we're scared of it. We most people can't actually digest all the information and feel that they've got a really good handle on it, to be able to give me a hard time about what I'm saying.
Dan Ilic 1:07:40 Well, that's true. But also you've got a huge audience. Like, I feel like the Sarah Wilson radar consumer fan. Did you feel like you were bringing them along to a whole new topic that they haven't thought much about?
Sarah Wilson 1:07:51 Yeah, and I have a technique for that. Um, you know, I've come from MSM
Dan Ilic 1:07:56 based media. Yeah, I trust mainstream media contrast,
Sarah Wilson 1:07:59 no, no, no, that I thought he probably can trust somebody who comes from mainstream media, and has come out the other side knows the dark side, I'm gonna we're not gonna trust mainstream media, who are we going to trust at least they actually has a very good
Dan Ilic 1:08:13 page that I follow called climate sucks.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:18 A lot of good information.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:19 He was pandemic.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:21 I tried to find it, I couldn't find it.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:25 That's it. That's it.
Sarah Wilson 1:08:27 I what my technique and for anyone out there who's wanting to replicate this technique, is I tend to seed things with my audience. So I'll start talking about this writing about it in quite gentle ways, asking questions, like genuine questions, because I'm wanting to find out where people are at where their pain points at. And I actually held wine and chat groups. As I was writing this book, trying to get from people what it is that they were really struggling with, what aspect of the science, what aspect of the movement, you know, where where were they getting stuck. So I do that, and I start the conversation about three years before the book comes out. And so I do blog posts, I start to, you know, really start to build momentum. So by the time it comes out, people are already 80% onboard. They're signed on for the journey. They're signed on for the journey, they trust me, they know that I've been working this round, and they go, Oh, this is where it all went to. So it's a great marketing tool, but it's in terms of coalescing people around an idea. I think it's gonna work this way. You know, it slowly sort of start where you are. I started as somebody who could blog about this and share Instagram pictures and things and I copped the blowback back then and to answer your earlier question, I think I've spread the blowback out over about three years, and now people just accept I am where I am.
Dan Ilic 1:09:50 I think that's changed for anybody. It's painful and growing is hard.
Sarah Wilson 1:09:56 That's right. I actually don't mind Dan, I think you've probably worked that out about I try to moderate it, I kind of be the nice girl. And then I come out with something that really shifts people. And then I go into the comments and just time it all down. Well Hang on, you know, it is a sport. And I try not to get too upset about it or too invested in it. Because it's not about me, it's about people's fears. And then, and we've got to bear that in mind.
Dan Ilic 1:10:20 And so to relate this back to people who might be listening to this, who, whose own sphere of influence is probably a lot smaller than Sarah Wilson's is what you recommend they do like in the lead up to Christmas, just send a couple of text messages and say, Hey, we know we should do we shouldn't use plastic plates for Christmas. Well, I would and then come Christmas lunch, let's sign this petition like
Unknown Speaker 1:10:40 I do much.
Sarah Wilson 1:10:42 Look, what a warm up. As you know, as a comedian, you need the warm up, you need to get people's laughing muscles activated. I think that the best thing that you can do is the best place to start is where you are with yourself the most convincing and to go back to that sort of turning point in the writing of my book. I had to live and breathe it as somebody who believed my own message and did find this way of living, fun, exciting, dynamic, life affirming, because that is the most powerful way to get a message across. So anyone who's about to go and face recalcitrant relatives over Christmas, just freakin strap on your conviction. Pack your keep cup and build
Unknown Speaker 1:11:25 yourself up with charm.
Sarah Wilson 1:11:27 It really is all about with charm. And yeah, and and just be your message.
Dan Ilic 1:11:31 Yeah. Be your message. That's pretty nice. Yeah, I like that. When you're thinking about projects like this? Do you have a ultimate goal in mind? Like an ultimate outcome? What's the best possible outcome for writing a book like this for you? does it stop at the book? No. Again,
Sarah Wilson 1:11:49 this is my marketing background, my MSN background. For listeners who are wondering who the hell I am, and, and why I'm here, or how I got to be here, I was the editor of cosmopolitan. So I sort of learned how to do marketing and to take an idea out in all kinds of monetizing directions. So I generally see that a books with my books, I generally have a life in them of a couple of years. So I try to ensure the message goes further in the conversation from my point of view goes further because I write books because I'm curious. And while I do do a lot of research in the lead up to it, and then I write it. Part of it is also a little bit of a kind of poking life and wanting to see what comes back afterwards. And then that will then probably direct me into my next project. But in this case, yeah, I always knew that this was going to be a complex conversation. It's a book about everything, as my dad said, I needed to get it out there. And then I needed to go and have the conversation with people in a in a way that made everybody feel safe to discuss this stuff, and to show them how to have this discussion out in their communities. So I'm doing a tour with Live Nation, which works to this effect. It's like a giant add on. I mentioned the add on in my Borger. It's a West bengalese sub tradition of talking about complex issues, over hours and hours of cups of tea in large community settings. So that's what I'm going to be doing. But then I also have these book clubs, I've drawn up a book club, sort of schedule sheets that people can use. And then they can use that to go and discuss some of these complex issues with friends and family. So it's like
Dan Ilic 1:13:28 a training tool slash info bomb slash. And I
Sarah Wilson 1:13:31 just keep going and going. And I often don't know exactly where it needs to go. So I have a few structures in place. And then you know, and then I I just see what comes forward, but I will keep the momentum going. I don't see it stopping at a book and then I move on to something else. It's it's almost the starting point, the launchpad for the bigger discussion.
Dan Ilic 1:13:51 Do you think this climate discussion will roll into your next big project as well?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:55 Yeah,
Sarah Wilson 1:13:56 I'm not quite sure what that is. It's starting to like it always takes me six months after writing a book, to start to get the energy to go get fired up about my next thing. And it's starting to percolate, I kind of have a feeling of where it's heading, but it'll probably segue off this into bigger and deeper and Wilder, but chairs your question about where do I want this book to take people like what was my aim? The initial working title for the book, really, up until very close to publishing was Wait, you know, five years up. And essentially that is what I'm wanting people to do. Um, for selfish reasons. I wouldn't mind you know, completing my allotted 85 years on this planet in some kind of comfort.
Dan Ilic 1:14:41 And books are the kind of title do very well and just
Sarah Wilson 1:14:44 say, Do you have the word Paris and then your work? Yeah, let me just be really brutally honest. I want people to find the cup do everything they can. I want to galvanise I want us all to rally together have a wild time saving this one wild and precious life. That's what I'm after.
Dan Ilic 1:15:01 And start where you are,
Sarah Wilson 1:15:02 start where you are.
Dan Ilic 1:15:03 I think that's a great place to end.
Sarah Wilson 1:15:05 where we started. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 1:15:08 I'm Sarah Wilson, thank you for coming on the greatest moral podcast of our generation.
Sarah Wilson 1:15:13 I feel very, very privileged.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:18 GM, great, a small podcast
Dan Ilic 1:15:20 of our generation. That was the wonderful, great and dare I say famous Sara Wilson's great to have her on the podcast always like famous people in
Linh Do 1:15:29 Yeah, they're the best and nice joke there. I quit sugar, I quit carbon. I mean, it all rolls really well. Thank
Dan Ilic 1:15:36 you. Thank you very much. Um, do you read her book?
Linh Do 1:15:39 I have read her book, actually. And I have to admit, you know, as someone who already speaks climate, none of these climate books are for me, when I read them. I'm always like, no, but you should be doing more. And I was like, I don't think anyone wants to read the book that would be written for me. I think one of my big takeaways about, you know, Sarah Wilson's workflow is she's had such a fascinating life. And I just really love how she's really not just trying to tackle climate change, but like, fundamentally changed the relationship that she has with capitalism, consumerism, and how all of that interlinks with all of these other like C word things, you know, she talks about COVID, of course. And I think if you can go from like hosting Mastership, to being an advocate for climate champion, I think there's hard for all of us to figure out how we can make climate an integral part of our identities.
Dan Ilic 1:16:21 Absolutely. How can you be a climate champion as well? That's the big question for you listening to this? Well, what I do is I make a podcast when I don't know about you.
Linh Do 1:16:31 You know, I just like live and breathe in and get a little bit angry and have to remember to read hot tips on how to talk about freaking others.
Dan Ilic 1:16:39 That's the problem with climate change becomes your job and is your hobby and is also an existential crisis for you.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:44 Yeah.
Linh Do 1:16:46 Yeah. That's why no one's writing books for me, because like I am, it's a nice, it's a nice place to be. And speaking of
Dan Ilic 1:16:53 see words, Christmas is coming up next week, and we do have a special Rupert Degas who does all of the comedy voices for all the sketches of irrational fear will be joining us to go through the years best sketches we've made on the show. So I can't wait to hear how that comes about. But that's about it for greatest moral podcasts of our generation. Thank you, Lynn.
Linh Do 1:17:12 Thank you, Jan. Can't wait to be doing this again with you next year in 2021.
Dan Ilic 1:17:16 Yeah, a big thanks to rode mics, the birther Foundation, go nutro Our Patreon supporters. Also Big thanks to Jacob round on tepanyaki timeline also big thank you to Dr. Rebecca Huntley, and the wonderful Sarah Wilson. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.
Each month on the A Rational Fear podcast feed we deliver long-form conversations with leaders in climate action from Australia and around the world. This is Episode 3 of Greatest Moral Podcast of Our Generation.
This week we have two incredible voices.
Yessie Mosby is part of the ‘Torres Strait 8', a group of Torres Strait islanders who are taking the Australian Government to the UN Human Rights Council for their lack of climate action. Which, as you can imagine if you live in the Torres Strait, is quite the existential problem. And I also chat with Sophie Marjanac, is the lawyer driving the complaint.
This is a fascinating chat. If you're like me, and live in a major city in Australia, it's easy to be dismissive of sea-level rise as something that will effect other countries, other islands. Not our country.
But for those in the Torres Strait sea-level rise is ALREADY putting an entire culture, an entire race under threat. It's fitting that this podcast's schedule serendipitously lines up with NAIDOC week.
Big thanks also to my Bertha Fellow colleague, Linh Do, for covering the climate news up the top of the podcast with me.
Yes, it's another petition! But this one will update you on the complaint, and events that are being organised to support the case. Like, December 14th, there will be an online “Town Hall” for supporters and the public to meet the Torres Strait 8. If you sign the petition, you'll be the first to be invited to sign up to the event. http://ourislandsourhome.com.au/#sign
TRANSCRIPT BY OTTER AI BELOW:
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.
Yessie Mosby 0:04 Please help us we're here we need help. When we sit here in Ireland we sit, we sit as Australians. When we stand and we hold hands and we sing the national anthem, it states and we sing it with pride for let us all rejoice, advanced Australia fee and shouldn't that be recognised? Like we should be all you know, standing and supporting each other, being Australians.
Dan Ilic 0:29 G'day, welcome to the Greatest Moral Podcast of Our Generation. Joining me is Linh Do Hello, Linh. Hey, Dan, how are you doing?
I'm good. This is our third greatest moral podcast of our generation. We are making headway here. Last week's was or last month rather, was with Asha Gunzburg and Mike cannon Brookes, which I thought was pretty good. Actually. It was great.
Linh Do 0:48 I had so much positive feedback. And I think so much disbelief that you and I could relay in such big talent.
Dan Ilic 0:54 That's right. So Bill Gates, if you're out there, give us a call.
Linh Do 0:58 We're ready. We're ready. Now,
Dan Ilic 1:01 this is on the irrational fear feed. It happens once a month it is chats with climate leaders and the guests this month. Absolutely, undeniably, climate leaders, and you'll find out a little bit more about them just in a second. Before we do that, just want to thank our new Patreon supporters, Damian Payne and Philip both beads very nice of you. If you want to support a rational fear, and the greatest podcast of our generation, you need to go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. Another way you can support irrational fears to offset the carbon emissions from your car with go neutral for every $90 sticker go neutral by 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets, which is about the average yearly emissions for a car and five bucks of that comes to us and you get a little sticker get to put it on the back of your car gets a virtual signal to all those other fossil fuel burning machines out there.
Linh Do 1:49 It's how everyone wants to be stuck in traffic behind a self righteous person. There's you know, carbon offsetting all of their emissions. That's right. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 1:56 there's people behind you. Oh, God, no, that is better than me. Whatever. I'm recording my end of the greatest model podcast of our generation on the land of the gadigal. In urination, sovereignty was never stated, We need a treaty. Let's stop the shot. Despite
Unknown Speaker 2:11 global warming. A rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.
Unknown Speaker 2:23 This is called Don't be fried. Here heat waves and drove greatest mass extinction. We're facing a manmade disaster,
Unknown Speaker 2:32 podcast, climate criminals.
Unknown Speaker 2:37 ration all of this with the global warming and
Unknown Speaker 2:42 a lot of it's a hoax. Book, right? A small podcast about generation for short, all right, let's
Dan Ilic 2:48 get let's get straight into the climate news for this month, Victoria is going to be home to the largest battery in the southern hemisphere. Hey, you're a Victorian How does that make you feel?
Linh Do 2:59 Makes me feel great between COVID locked down one of the longest in Australia and you know, proof that sometimes bigger is better. I'm super excited to be home to the biggest battery. This is
Dan Ilic 3:09 great. This is like a classic pissing contest between Victoria and South Australia. This one is is also a Tesla battery. But it's going to be double the size of the South Australian veterinary.
Linh Do 3:19 It's all about competition. Although I have to say it's a is it lagging behind? I thought they've got their new renewable hydrogen project that's going to come online sometime soon. So I guess maybe Victoria is going to get a new hydrogen project soon as well.
Dan Ilic 3:32 Everyone should have a new hydrogen project. It's like what you do in 2021? Do you know Do you know anything more about that hydrogen project?
Linh Do 3:38 No, no. Well, other than it's that interesting thing where hydrogen can be renewable. And sometimes it isn't renewable as well. So I think it's important to note that this one will be renewable. And that essays already sourcing half of its energy from wind or solar, which is pretty, pretty awesome.
Dan Ilic 3:54 I saw this week that solar has made up 44% of electricity in the grid in Australia this week, which is pretty amazing.
Linh Do 4:02 It is it's all of these numbers that I think we rarely get to hear about when you just listen to the climate news. It's all doom and gloom, and you're like, wait, Australia, all of these things are happening.
Dan Ilic 4:12 Well, in speaking of doom and gloom, the USA is out of the Paris Climate accord as of this week, but don't fret, because Joe Biden, who is of course, as we know, is President Elect said last week today, the Trump administration official left the Paris Climate Agreement and in exactly 77 days, a Biden administration will rejoin it. Now the good easy healing is that it took two years for the USA to get out of the Paris Agreement, but it only is it's only gonna take about 30 days for them to get back in.
Linh Do 4:41 So for exciting party in the USA party in the Paris Agreement, it's all the good news to come. But I think more importantly than just Biden. Getting back on board with the Paris Agreement is all the plans and initiatives he has in place a $2 trillion climate plan which seems really unthinkable in Australia and hopefully that means We'll start to pick up and not be left behind
Dan Ilic 5:02 nerd do anything that will get you $2 trillion is if you have a sportsground in a marginal electorate, and you need a women's change room.
Linh Do 5:11 This is why there are so many football fields nearly I think that now have all of these like construction works happening I've noticed during COVID
Dan Ilic 5:19 this is going to be hard for the democrats coming into this because of course, climate change previously used to be something in the near future, but it is happening right now climate effects are happening. So rapidly. Extreme weather is causing so much havoc across the world and the USA, so they're going to have to really work hard at trying to convince people to do the right thing here. One interesting, big power broker, john Podesta, who is a notorious lobbyist, himself running the Hillary Clinton campaigns, he is actually joining hands with the sunrise movement to try and get fossil fuel lobbyists out of the Biden Harris White House, which is incredible.
Linh Do 6:01 There's nothing like the old establishment joining with the new establishment to actually forge the new way forward. I don't think any world really wants to see just john Podesta running things or just sunrise running things. So hopefully they'll forge a new future of what's politically possible. What is it Obama
Dan Ilic 6:15 says? The arc of history bends towards justice, but but zigs and zags? Is that what he says?
Linh Do 6:22 It's just really one big scribble.
Unknown Speaker 6:23 Yeah, it depends. He's
Unknown Speaker 6:24 drawing.
Dan Ilic 6:25 Let's just touch on this Lynn jar fits given his left the front bench of the Labour Party over climate change. Finally, Mr. Call himself member for hunter has said See you later. I am out of here. There's no way labour can win. If they take up a strong climate change position, which I don't necessarily think is true. I think he's going to be eating his words in about one year's time.
Linh Do 6:49 Yeah, but there's nothing like getting out of the way. I think if you're gonna be a soak about things all the time and not a team player, just get out of the way for people who are ready to do the work. So we're all for it.
Dan Ilic 6:58 It fits given notoriously on the right hand side of the Labour factions. He's been copying it not only from the left hand faction, but also the right faction. Some members of parliament on the right faction of labour called him the idiot from the hunter.
Unknown Speaker 7:12 Hmm.
Linh Do 7:14 So many people were saying goodbye, sir. In recent weeks with all these political announcements,
Dan Ilic 7:20 now, the other big news using bullshit now Adani is changing their name. Indian energy giant Danny is changing the name from Adani to the bravest mining and resources company. According to Adani, bravest means brave in Latin, but according to Latin experts, it doesn't quite mean brave Lin.
Linh Do 7:43 Exactly. It feels like no one at the Adani or bravest Corporation went to a private school where if you had one of those school blazers growing up, you would know that Fortis is what means brave and courageous. So even if you'd watched anything said in that sort of Roman Roman times, but it actually means krooked to formed some sort of mercenary, I've got a very apt
Dan Ilic 8:04 and a new professor said it means barbarians and Desperado or an assassin, although that is absolutely delightful that you have this coal company going in there trying to pretend to be noble, but in fact, what the reality is, is that they aren't and this is
Linh Do 8:24 exactly it's sort of a rose by any other name. I guess a disastrous climate project by any other name still is just as disastrous. This harkens back
Dan Ilic 8:33 to the time when they paid change their name in 2001, to be honest, petroleum. And I think I think it was only like four years later, they were like, let's get rid of the beyond petroleum. We don't.
Linh Do 8:44 But it was like a really good payoff stop for a while. And I think anytime very sort of name changes happen. I always have to pause and check myself. Is this someone powering the company? Or is this actually real news? Or is this fake news and can't believe it in this case with the Adani situation it Israel.
Dan Ilic 9:01 And one last bit of good news, a young Queensland man, Mark mcbay has made his Superfund one of Australia's biggest take the risks of climate change seriously, he took rest super to court, basically, because they weren't transparent on how their investments were polluting the world. And now rest has kind of come to this agreement that that not only they will be net zero emissions, but also the investments they have in their Superfund will be net zero as well, which is pretty interesting.
Linh Do 9:28 Yeah, it's great that the good news coming out of Queensland isn't just the State of Origin of results, but also something that hopefully will Bode really well for all of the other climate litigation claims out there in Australia, these lawyer
Dan Ilic 9:40 David bond and we've had on rational fear in the past. You may remember David Bandon from irrational fear when he was putting together class action with teenagers suing the government for their future. Now he's gone done this rest super case and coming up, he's got a case where he's taking to court the Commonwealth equities, basically saying that you No, you can't buy bonds in Australia, because Australian bonds are going to be worth nothing because climate catastrophes are going to wipe us out.
Linh Do 10:07 Yep, yep. And I think it's, you know, it gets a little bit nitty gritty and in legalese and can feel a bit boring. But I think the precedent that they set is really important, not just for those climate litigation cases, but what every other Superfund in Australia now has to do, regardless if they claim to be ethical or otherwise, because no one wants to be taken to court by one of their members.
Dan Ilic 10:27 You're absolutely right there. And I think this is a big win for David bond. And I think like he said, in the last year, he's had three big cases come to the front and setting precedents for all those things. I think there are really quiet people out there who are just chipping away with their own power to make things happen. And I think people like that are pretty extraordinary.
Linh Do 10:46 Exactly. I think, if you will, Superfund hasn't yet divested from fossil fuels. Definitely. Now is the time to write them a quick letter and say, hey, look at what's happening with breast suepo. What are you going to do in response?
Dan Ilic 10:57 pS, if you want to do an out of court settlement, My phone number is
you're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation. So for today's good book, I speak with two people who are at the front of a legal and existential fight for climate action. Yes, he must be and Sophie marjanovic are taking the Australian Government to the United Nations over their willful neglect of human rights due to their lack of climate action. It's two interviews one after the other. Yes, he was on the phone from his home in mastic, which is also known as York Island. So it's a bit crackly and I caught Sophie first thing in the morning in London, so it's quickly for another reason. We both have a tide. Yes, he must be is an artist and craftsman who lives on massive Island, so called York Island. In the corner of the Torres Strait. Massive is a remote teardrop shaped coral cay island that is closer to Papua New Guinea than the Australian continent. It's a tropical paradise. It's home for Yes, his family and they can trace their history on that island for thousands and thousands of years. But this fragile place at the top of the Torres Strait is disappearing, the land is slowly being washed away by rising sea levels. And yes, he and his family, the land is everything. It's their culture, their religion, their library, their encyclopaedia, it's their town hall, it's where they've stored their stories of their family and their ancestors for over 60,000 years. And in the last couple of decades, they've been losing it bit by bit. So for YesI this fight is purely existential. And as Australians wave let him down, as well as being an award winning artist. Yes, he is also the power plant attendant of the island. And I had a chat with him a couple of weeks ago, as he was walking to the power plant to get the generator running. After a few minutes of small talk, I just leapt into the big questions.
Can you remember the first time you ever heard of the idea of global warming or climate change?
Yessie Mosby 13:08 Back in the days in the 90s? We didn't understand about it and none of the elders here in the village. Understand that. And back in the days, we were told, like Wait, wait, we stand on the beach, they would tell us like this needs to be the bush and the island needs to be right right out there is the beach. It's been taken away and eaten even in the 90s even in the 90s you're
Dan Ilic 13:33 recognising that land was being taken away from you?
Yessie Mosby 13:39 Yes, but not as not as now like when when I mean land has been taken away like a metre would be taken away in a year or so. And gradually it's been washed away. But now I'll give you an incident about April month last year. We've seen in just in that one day we seen three metres taken taken away just in in a matter of hours. Oh my god and we've seen we've seen our home washed away and we see no ancestral remains to be take like the sea was taking our ancestors remains out our genealogy online is has been washed away some we try to save some we could not save. Two years ago I was my wife line. My bloodline my wife's bloodline me and my case. We were running down on the beach and helping families to pick up my wife thing sixth generation My wife is and picked up a remains tried to save what what we called her but the second emendation took her oh my
Dan Ilic 14:43 gosh, that must have been pretty stressful. How are you feeling on that day? What what kind of thoughts were going through your your brain and your heart on that day?
Yessie Mosby 14:53 Looking at that like looking like on that particular day? automatically like you it was it was Like, it's a must, you have to do it, and stuff like that. Otherwise, my children won't see, you know, their bloodline or their ancestors, practically, if it wasn't for her, they wouldn't be here today. It was like, a fight for trying to save it from Mother Nature. But Mother Nature, practically took us a night and took all of the remains. It's it's like a whitewash now out from our line each way, you know, where you could go and say, and identify a loved one and, and tell our children like this grant, great, great, great grandmother here. This is what she's for you. And you don't we don't have anything there now to go and say this, this is your grandmother, like she's not there anymore. It was tough in a way to explain to the kids because like, you know, no kid should be walking in picking up the ancestors remains, you know, they should walk on the beach with their family and pick up shells and stuff like that.
Dan Ilic 15:58 I can't agree with you more.
Unknown Speaker 15:58 Tell me about
Dan Ilic 16:01 growing up in the 90s. And how back to that moment, you're talking about how folks didn't quite understand what was happening. When did you you personally notice that things were changing in the environment around you,
Yessie Mosby 16:12 personally, personally, it started here in 2000, when I moved back out, and I realised that when we had some scientists coming out, and they were predicting about, we most probably will be, will be have to be relocated, and stuff like that. That's when it got me thinking now and had my thinking caps on and said, Well, this is not like, you know, it could be stopped in a certain way. Yes, and that's what driven me to understand. And to go a bit deeper into understanding that what's happening now, there is, you know, there is something behind that, which is causing all of this. So it wasn't like through my through the 90s. And stuff like that we weren't so much educated in about in about climate change, and global warming. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 17:04 So how did you learn? How did what were the things you did to kind of learn and how did you share that knowledge with others?
Yessie Mosby 17:11 Well, we had a lady she used to work here, she became a good friend, and she's not a part of her life. She's a part of our clan, now part of our family and, and she helped us I really well, personally and asked, but I really need to know more, I want to know more. Because it was out of fear. I was fearing about my children and their children after them.
Dan Ilic 17:33 What kind of role did she have? Was she a teacher? Or Was she a scientist, so
Yessie Mosby 17:38 she's a lawyer, a lawyer. And she used to work here in the tourist rate. And she looked and understand that we didn't understand being so remote out from mainland Australia and living so in such a remote area, she noticed that we knew what was happening. But we really didn't know what was the cause of what's so she started to give us a witness. When the scientists came out. Now, that's when my eyes opened and stuff like that. And the field struck me. What year was that? She was here like five years ago. But I really practically sat down with her to know and gain more knowledge about all of this see what's happening two years ago, right. And when she was here, she was here and witnessing right at the same time, because all the airlines had to be shut down. No planes could fly in and no planes could fly out. So they got stranded here. And while they were stranded here, they've seen exactly now what we face every monsoon season. Is that, Sophie maronick. That's, that's correct. Yes.
Dan Ilic 18:45 So 2016, she came out to the Torres Strait to check it out and have a look around. And only a couple years ago, that's when really a major education kind of process was happening with people that live on the island. On the islands. It feels like all of a sudden, you've been hit with something that is unexpected, whereas a lot of other people around the country probably knew a lot more. It must be must feel really strange to learn something that a whole bunch of other people you knew about, and must feel rude that no one ever told you about it.
Yessie Mosby 19:23 Yeah, we always asked people to come and invite like we've invited the government to come to come to our island to have a look for their eyes and look what we what we see every day the changes in the life life, how it's changed dramatically. The field which I still even still today have is we don't want to be refugees in our own country. We have a right to live in Australia should be a country which should be so proud that Australia is the only country in the world who has totally two different race of indigenous People who live on the country which has been over been here for over 60,000 years. Yeah, title and blues one is like an amputation within the Torres Strait people because what like when I was talking earlier in how the blood connections and how are we connected to the other neighbouring tribes, and stuff like that, and to lose an island within them probably next 30 to 50 years is devastating. And it's, it will affect people even more mentally, physically and spiritually mushy. The beautiful thing about my home, the aura around this island, it welcomes you, when you fly around my island and you come down to land. The island welcomes you before you even touch your foot on the island. And when you walk here, this whole island is sacred to us because our our ancestral remains is scattered right through this island. This island is not only an island, which provided us with shelter, protection and food and water. It's our library. It's our school. It's a maternity ward. Our grandparents got no gave birth on this island. We felt Well, our families on this island, our whole language, our genealogy, all I need is played and based upon this island. And not only the people living here on Laci, but also the families who, which was married out and blessed. other islands around the tourist illustrate who have blood connection back to this island. This island is love. This island is powerful. And
Dan Ilic 21:49 it's it's sacred. It's at home. What kind of conversations are you having with your families and friends about climate change right now? Like what what do you talk about?
Yessie Mosby 22:02 We always talk about every time when it comes to the full moon time when it comes to the peak of the king tides. We talk about a lot, especially when the Wind Rises and stuff like that. It's it concerns, it leaves great concerns to us. Yeah. And we always talk about like, how can we try and save what we have? And how can we try and preserve what we have now from further inundation and further erosion?
Dan Ilic 22:31 How does it feel to know that your people are not necessarily responsible for climate change yet your people must be the first to immediately adapt and change yourselves and your culture. Because of it doesn't
Yessie Mosby 22:48 make you angry. It makes us feel like you know, it makes us feel like little kids were like little kids where they you know, get they being neglected. They being child abuse. That's what we feel, right? We're feeling because we know contributors to what's happening now. But yet we are the first ones to get the pain. We're the first ones to get caught when we're suffering. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 23:14 Does it feel lonely in that same respect?
Yessie Mosby 23:17 It feels lonely in this respect here because when we cry out, we're not being heard. Yeah. We're trying our best and we're trying to go through every like we know the saying that like, you know, when one door is closed, there's many more will open. So we are running now and trying to open every single doors and seeking help. The funny thing is our forefathers, my both of my grandfathers. They joined the army to fight for the country, all of us and with our forefathers, our grandparents. They've all contributed so much to Australia to the government. And yet they were still fighting in the backyard and trying to get like you know, recognises they're like, like, please help us we're here we need help. When we sit here in Ireland, we sit we sit as indigenous Australians, we sit as Australians, when we stand and we hold hands and we sing the national anthem. It states and we sing it with pride for let us all rejoice advance Australia fee and shouldn't that be recognised? Like we should be all you know, standing and supporting each other? Being Australian YesI.
Dan Ilic 24:37 I want to know about this un project. Tell me what are you doing about taking the Australian Government to task of climate action at the UN? How does that work?
Yessie Mosby 24:47 First of all, we invited the Australian Government to come up to our home to to to to have a look in what we're facing. He refused our invitation which made us go For the further, like I was saying earlier that
Dan Ilic 25:04 our voice is not being met with singing up for help, the only thing we want is to reduce all the ammunition, the thing for the mining and stuff like that, by reducing them, it'll give us a better chance to live longer here on our island. And this is why we're taking the next step to the UN, it must feel so unfair that a one group of Australians can profit off the missions that are going out. And yet, your home is literally being taken away from you because of it. And because of other people around the world. That just must feel so unfair. so unfair.
Yessie Mosby 25:46 It's so unfair, it's just like we're running around screaming our heads off. And only only our only, like, you know, only we are hearing her own voice.
Dan Ilic 25:56 Tell me more about the United Nations project. How did you develop this idea
Yessie Mosby 26:01 really made us to go down this path because of the Paris Agreement. And we said like, if there's not gonna like things, if the government's not gonna respond to us and stuff like that, this is where we're gonna go. So we see elk. And the lady Sophie came up and said, she would love to help us and support us in this.
Dan Ilic 26:22 Great and where are you now? what's what's the, what are the next steps with this project?
Yessie Mosby 26:28 The next step now is if it's like a waiting game, but it's most probably gonna be next year, the COVID-19 is playing a very big part, which now is like, actually, like a waiting game.
Dan Ilic 26:40 You don't have a lot of time to wait,
Yessie Mosby 26:43 no. As as you're waiting, where, where we're looking at a home, getting eaten away? Have you met other people around the world
Dan Ilic 26:52 who support your cause?
Yessie Mosby 26:55 We we've met through like, zoom link up, and a lot of feedback we get from the petition of violence at home, we have big more like support which, which from our mother's mother country, Australia, and throughout the world, as well, to see that they are supporting us is like, you know, lift us up more?
Dan Ilic 27:22 What are the young people who lives and work in the Torres Strait? How do they react to climate change? And what are their views about the future? Are they hopeful
Yessie Mosby 27:34 for them, like when we when when when I sit and talk to other other young youth here on machine, they look at the future, there's no sunshine at the end of the tunnel. They just living life, as we live life now and trying to save what we can. The great fear of their means. having their children living down on mainland Australia, who don't have the sacred connection back to country,
Dan Ilic 28:03 the sort of that must make you feel incredibly disconnected,
Yessie Mosby 28:07 big time, very, very much become disconnected. What we what we practice, in our traditional customary laws won't be the same if we're going to be trying to practice in our, you know, traditional culture somewhere else. It's going to be loss of connection to our country, to our culture, and our like likelihood,
Dan Ilic 28:30 if worst comes to worst, and you have to move country. Do you think there is hope to rebuild culture?
Yessie Mosby 28:36 I don't know. Being a cultural person myself. I've grew up around very strong cultural upbringing. And I can see that it's not going to happen. At this moment. Our families who resides down in mainland Australia we have a we have the cultural link which connects them back to country.
Dan Ilic 28:59 What about see you? Yes. A what hope do you have a about drastic action that this government will take in the next couple of years?
Yessie Mosby 29:07 I'm believing in faith. And I know that the Australia government will eventually act upon their words and help us. I really don't want to go down in the negativities and think about negativities. But you know, every, every now and then negativities, come come into my mind. But I'm trying to stand on positivity and try and think positive about the outcome would be great, and it will be a success. And our home will be saved.
Dan Ilic 29:38 YesI thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear. And thank you so much for sharing your story about Messick. It sounds like a beautiful place and I hope one day COVID will be over and we can come and do a live show in the Torres Strait for you.
Yessie Mosby 29:54 It wouldn't be such a blessing if us could come up and use you use will be much more welcome But we will we will be holding a big feast for you. Oh, well,
Dan Ilic 30:05 if I, if I get to come up, maybe I can. I'll tweet Scott Morrison from Torres Strait Island and tell him I'm there and he can come up to
Yessie Mosby 30:13 it would be great.
Dan Ilic 30:15 You know who you know what would be great would be, it'd be great for you to build a house for Andrew bolt. beachside, a beautiful house and call it the Andrew bolt house and convinced Andrew bolt to move to first to move to Messick. And so he can see what a beautiful place it is added. So you can you can be convinced that climate change isn't happening.
Yessie Mosby 30:45 I'll probably try building a leaf house, a traditional house. So you have a full insight in how we live.
Dan Ilic 31:00 It's such a stark kind of reminder, when you're talking about singing the National Anthem, and being Australian, and having a culture that is so unique and separated from the homogenous Australia we all consume in the big cities. It's such a precious thing that you have that I feel like so many people don't realise that we have it together. And I it would be such a shame to to lose it because we were being ignorant and and we ran out of time. And we just decided to burn more coal instead. Yeah. What is the best way that people who live in so called Australia can support you? What is what is something everyday Australians who are living in capital cities? Who probably don't think a lot about the tourist, right? Yep. how can how can they support you?
Yessie Mosby 31:54 We have a website, which is called our islands, our home.org. And you just type that in Google our islands, our home.org
Dan Ilic 32:08 there is a petition, it'll only take you a minute to to sign a petition. But by your signing of the petition, we'll save an ancient race of people to be refugees in their own country. Your support will save a race of people we could stay and still seeing from our own soil advanced Australia fee. It's a privilege to talk with you. It's a privilege to share your story on on my podcast. And I want everyone who's listening to this to encourage them to go to the our island our home webpage and put their name on the petition and let that group of people know that that your voice is important as well. Yes, he Thank you so much.
Yessie Mosby 32:54 Thank you. You have a blessed day.
Dan Ilic 32:56 That was YesI moseby. Lane, have you met any of the Tara stripe complainants before?
Linh Do 33:02 Yes, I have had the good fortune of meeting some of the terrorists right eight before and hearing the story. I think just as you were saying, it's always a reminder of how sad the possible climate impacts could be in this country where some of the first refugees will say will be some of our First Nations people, but also still really hurtful and inspiring to say how they're taking legal action. They're doing what they can, and it's up to us not to feel pity for them. But actually, how do we stand in solidarity is always the question I have in mind.
Dan Ilic 33:34 Yeah, and how can we value this culture more and recognise that Fuck, like, we could lose an entire race of people, an entire culture will disappear if we don't take action.
Linh Do 33:48 Yeah, it's really I think, unnerving to actually be reminded of that. It's just very, a combination of like, humbling and eerie. And just a real reminder, this is the good fight that we're all trying to embark upon right now. And how do we step that up?
Dan Ilic 34:02 It's really interesting like talking to him, he he's about my age. And it's it's kind of funny, like he's on a learning journey with the science as well as you know, someone like me, and he's but his flight is so much more existential than mine.
Linh Do 34:16 Yeah, and it's so much more confrontational as a result, right. I feel sometimes even though you and I, we live in brave climate, we can go to bed at night and be like, cool. Okay, that was it for the day. I'll wake up again tomorrow. But when it's hanging over you like that? I think it just permeates into absolutely everything.
Dan Ilic 34:33 Next up is Yes, he's lawyer. So if you imagine Nick, who's the one that's been putting together this landmark human rights complaint at the UN for the tar stride, this is Sophie. Tell us about the first time your entire stride and why you were there.
Sophie Marjanac 34:47 So I first went to the Torres Strait in 2010. To work as a paralegal in Native Title law, so land rights law, and meant that as part of my job, I was lucky enough to fly around to each of the outer islands of the Torres Strait, and get to know the communities. And it's such a beautiful and magical part of the world, I feel really privileged to have been able to experience that. So I was lucky enough to be able to go fishing and swimming on some of the beautiful coral reefs, and even got used to the crocodiles
Dan Ilic 35:22 and your work when you were there as a paralegal, can you kind of explain just the day to day, what was that about?
Sophie Marjanac 35:29 So basically, we represented the island is in any negotiations relating to their land. When anyone wanted to develop anything on Native Title land, we would represent them in relation to that. And also working on Native Title claims themselves, such as the Torres Strait regional seaplane, which was the first Native Title claim over sea territory and say, country in Australia. Wow.
Dan Ilic 35:57 Can you remember the first time meeting? YesI moseby? And
Yessie Mosby 36:00 what was that like?
Sophie Marjanac 36:02 Yeah, of course, I can. Yes, a is just an all around legend. When we first met, he was put forward as the representative for asik Island by some of the elders. And I'd say that's because he's got such a real passion for the culture and traditions. And he's very young. But he knows so much about the cultural history of his family, and takes the responsibility of being a young leader really seriously.
Dan Ilic 36:29 When we're talking about climate changes. Yes, he was saying like, when he was first kind of noticing what was happening, he, everyone on the islands was was noticing the effects of climate change. But I didn't understand why it was happening. You were one of the people that kind of helped them understand how this was happening and why it was happening. Can you walk us through that moment? Like when did you start kind of letting people know there about climate change and how the earth was changing?
Sophie Marjanac 36:55 So we visited the islands in late 2018 and early 2019, and conducted community consultations. And we also conducted an analysis of the legal options for the communities and discuss that with them. It was really hard to go through the scientific evidence with them and talk to them about the real risk that the islands are facing in in the coming decades.
Dan Ilic 37:25 When I was talking with the SEC, who was saying that the first step in this journey that they're on at the moment was to invite the Commonwealth to Messick to see the land be washed away. Can you talk us through that invitation? Who did you invite? And when did you invite them and what was it like to try and get people to Messick?
Sophie Marjanac 37:44 So that invitation was was actually personally delivered by cafe cafe. Tammy is one of the claimants he's from wherever Island, which is just next to massive Island. And he actually went to New York for the climate conference in September 2019. Last year, and he personally delivered the letter to the to Australia's High Commissioner to the United Nations, in New York. And the Prime Minister did eventually respond several months later, but declined the invitation to actually go up.
Dan Ilic 38:18 said no said I'm not going to get a message on they're gonna have a look at this is Ireland, a washed away?
Sophie Marjanac 38:24 I think, honestly, if he did go there, and I really do believe that if anyone went there, I mean, you just immediately get what this is about, which is, and you can see why climate change is a human rights issue. Because you understand how deeply connected those communities are to their country, that connection must be experienced on those islands if the people and that's really the fundamental basis of the case is that if the people can't be on their island, and that's a fundamental break with their culture, and with their lives with dignity as indigenous peoples,
Dan Ilic 39:01 I just want to go back to that letter. How did that decision get made to invite the prime minister to Messick or to Tara strike? And can you talk us through the steps that you and locals there we're going to going through to kind of get this plan in action.
Sophie Marjanac 39:17 Throughout this process, we've been working with Gbk which is the good Alberta route Cod, which means warrior place and that is the peak body for the Native Title prescribed bodies corporate in the Torres Strait it's it's translates into English as the Torres Strait sea and land Council. So the board of Gbk has been clear that even though the low lying islands are most well are affected, and are leading the way in this case. They're doing on behalf of the whole region, which is which is affected in different ways. The letter we worked with GVK to prove the text of that letter and Kobe took it to New York where he was invited to speak at a conference on human rights and climate change with young climate, and environmental activists from around the world and lots of indigenous people from around the world as well.
Dan Ilic 40:14 So a few months later, the federal government said, we're not going to come visit. Oh, Scott Morrison said he's not gonna come visit. What was the next step for you in that in that case?
Sophie Marjanac 40:24 Well, to be honest, my focus is on the legal side. So I'm, I'm, I'm the lawyer. The island is Gbk. And we've partnered with Bri fifty.org, Australia who are assisting the communities with a local campaign. They are running a website and a petition and various social media accounts, and really trying to work with other grassroots groups and getting some cross indigenous solidarity, which I believe is going quite well. But my focus has really been on working on the case, and bringing those human rights arguments to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, and attempting to we hope, make a new law on this topic, because this was this is the first case where these issues have have come so squarely before the committee. And we think it really is an excellent test case, because these islands are some of the most climate vulnerable in the world. And Australia is such an outlier. And such a laggard when it comes to global climate policy. I mean, unfortunately, Australia, Lee has performed far worse and many other rich countries that the policies are simply way behind. And I believe that's quite clear from the evidence. So we're hopeful to have a good decision, no matter what the decision is, I think it really will set a precedent of some kind. And we're hoping that the Human Rights Committee will prefer
Dan Ilic 41:56 it. And how long do you think this process is going to take? Like, what point will you get an answer from from the UN?
Sophie Marjanac 42:05 I suspect that they will make a decision next year. And we're very hopeful that that it's gonna be here rather than later. But of course, these processes do move relatively slowly.
Dan Ilic 42:18 And what are the actual ramifications first for the Australian Government, if the UN comes down on the side of the Torres Strait Islanders and in the people of Messick and I mean, Australia has a long history of ignoring the UN is, I guess, is kind of what I'm saying. Yeah. Are there any other any actual ramifications? Will there be a reason to be compelled to, to change the way they go that climate action,
Sophie Marjanac 42:43 I think the Australian Government does have a terrible record in relation to complying with decisions of the human rights treaty bodies, however, other states around the world do comply with those decisions. And so I think it does have the power to make a difference globally, and not just for Australia. And it also will mean that mean, it will clarify the law and move the jurisprudence forward, and I think really give the claimants and their communities a huge moral victory. They want people to know about what's going on on their islands, they want to tell the world about that. And they want their fellow Australians to see how precious the Torres Strait is and how that that connection, that cultural connection is at risk. So I think it's an opportunity to show the Australian public not only that Australia is really behind when it comes to climate change action on the global stage, and have that authoritative decision on that, but also, to show that these are this is the cultural heritage of all of us of our country. And that's what's being lost. And, you know, similarly to what happened recently NWA, there was quite an outcry over Rio Tinto decision on the jacket gorge. And we're going to see far worse cultural destruction of cultural heritage. And as I said, that belongs to all Australians. And that's really a tragedy.
Dan Ilic 44:04 What do you think there's such a disconnect between someone who has lived and worked in Taurus, right, why do you think there's a bit of a disconnect between the tar strait islands and, and mainstream Australia?
Sophie Marjanac 44:14 Well, practically, it's quite, it's very far away from most Australian Capital Cities, and it's really quite expensive and hard to get to. So I think that does put travellers off. So that makes it very special, because it really is. It really does take quite a bit of effort to get up there. But um, there are lots of toe Strait Islander people in Queensland especially. But I think, you know, Australia is generally relatively segregated still, and I don't think we've really recovered from the truth of our history. You know, we don't really see many indigenous stories are in the mainstream media, and in TV and newspapers, which I think is a real shame.
And probably a real barrier to that
Dan Ilic 45:04 that connection. And how do you think we can bridge that disconnect? what's the what's the best way to kind of tell this story?
Sophie Marjanac 45:12 I think all for me, I think, you know, the media has such a huge role to play. And, you know, really just bringing in bringing those bringing those stories out and having people here and really understand what's happened to what what's happening in Australian history, obviously, education as well, in schools, I don't think that there's that much focus digitus history. Yeah. But then I think, you know, as a lawyer, to be honest, fundamentally, we need a constitutional change. And I think, you know, what happened with the older restatement from the heart was one of the worst tragedies on travesties of Malcolm Turnbull's Prime Ministership. I think that was just disgusting, the way that that if it was treated many indigenous leaders who worked so hard on that all the restatement from the heart, and it was, you know, a moment to actually create real change, I don't personally don't think we will have true reconciliation in Australia until we change the constitution. Constitution. And that is essentially a treaty that sets up the fundamental building blocks of our nation. And that is, that is what we need to do. And I think I don't think we can move forward until we've had come to terms with the past. And that's the basic truth of reconciliation is you have to, you have to be honest about the past. And then you have to come together and decide to walk forward together into a new future. And I think that's what we need to do.
Dan Ilic 46:48 As someone who's based in London, and you know, you you work all over the world, how do you explain that pain to people around the world that Australia has? How do you explain how backward we are all the time?
Sophie Marjanac 47:02 Well, I left constitutional law. So I think I go back to I go back to the fundamentals, which are that the legal system has always been systemically racist, quite frankly, and systemically as undervalued and devalued indigenous culture, and that, I think, permeates through our whole society, unfortunately, and and it it, it fundamentally, is not that recognition in our governing documents and in our, our way of seeing the history of our countries. And then I think that that that means that people discount indigenous history and people unfortunately, and that's carried through into everything, culturally,
Dan Ilic 47:51 in this project you're working on right now, what are the crucial timelines, time markers that are coming down, that will be met? And when is it I guess, when is it a good time to make a lot of noise about this? This particular case,
Sophie Marjanac 48:09 with the government will, the Australian Government will respond in a few months time, probably four months. I think that probably when we get the decision, we really want that to be amplified as much as possible. But as I said that the island is working with 350 dot org, Australia, and they've got quite a lot going on. Now. They're doing various activities, I believe, three Queensland, obviously COVID has been really tricky. The toe strait islands are pretty vulnerable. And so they they do need to put their health first and avoid too much trouble. But we are doing lots of things online. And I think if if people are engaged, then they could write to their local MP, especially if they live in Queensland, and really just talk to their friends and relatives about climate change and about this case, and about how climate change is putting at risk, one of the oldest continuing cultures on Earth. But in terms of timing, your question was on timing, but I'd say probably, February ish will be a moment. And hopefully we'll have the decision. I hope in the third quarter
of next year. It's really tricky for me, so I'm sort of licking my finger and putting it in the air and but around about the third quarter. Hi,
Unknown Speaker 49:34 yeah. What about you? What
Dan Ilic 49:35 for you? Who your heroes in this space? Like who do you look at and go? Damn, you know, what they've done in the past is great, and I'm a big fan of their work. And I'm trying to do that.
Sophie Marjanac 49:49 I think probably my heroes are the political leaders and elders in the toe shape who are constantly working so hard in this system that set up against them to get their voices heard, and The needs of the communities heard by government. And especially I mentioned that earlier a statement from the heart but all of the work that went into that, and the indigenous leaders who, who came together to to build that I think that was really impressive and, and such a huge achievement.
Unknown Speaker 50:21 GM pu. Great, a small podcast of our generation. Well, that
Dan Ilic 50:25 was Sophie. Thank you very much, Lynn, for joining us on on the greatest moral podcast of our generation.
Linh Do 50:31 Always great to be here.
Dan Ilic 50:32 And big thank you to YesI Sophie and Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline. Plates if you like the show chippin on Patreon patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. Right now though, I have got a sneak peek of a new podcast called staying human. It's a podcast designed to put the moments we're living in right now in perspective, life is hard because we're living through a dehumanising pandemic, we need to take care of ourselves and each other. And it's all about what humans need to get by. It is hosted by a humanist chaplain at Harvard. His name is Greg Epstein, and I had to listen to it. It's pretty good. So I've got five minutes for you to have a listen to. If you enjoy it, check out staying human on your favourite podcast player. Thanks a lot. See you next month or next week on irrational fear. Thanks, Linh.
Unknown Speaker 51:18 Hi.
Greg Epstein 51:19 When I dropped my son off on Tuesday, March 10, I had no idea that the world as I knew it was about to change forever.
I barely remember our morning routine now. The one from before, my wife would rush out the door by accident daycare centre opened at 830. But we struggled there around 945. We did something different every morning. I'd wrap him in painters tape, and we'd sing to me to the tune of Aha. He'd climb on my knees and we'd play jump the shark. We got obsessed with YouTube videos of Russian excavators stuck in quicksand. It was the first consistent, conscious experience of unconditional love in my adult life. And it was slowly starting to make me feel human in a way I never really had before. On March 10, I dropped him off, and I pulled out my phone to check Twitter on the way home. Harvard just gave students five days to pack all of their things move out and go home, read the tweet. Many can't go home because of costs and travel restrictions and they provided no guidance. And we're expected to go to class for the rest of this week. That was a keen senior computer science major from Jamaica. I'd met him a few months earlier, after a thread he tweeted went viral, a beautifully self aware vulnerable reflection on possible racial bias in the ways computer science faculty sometimes engage with students like him. Hakeem is a gifted writer. He is a passionate and compassionate young leader who turned a bad experience into a platform to fight for thousands of other students who might not be so able to fight for themselves. So it crushed me to think if even he can't cope with the situation, stranded shut down, afraid, unsure what to do next, much less how to manage the pressures of college, then how are others going to manage not just at Harvard, but all across the country and even the world? I responded without my typical overthinking, Hakeem, this is what chaplains and other advocates are for. If it's virtually impossible to go home, then you or others in your position will likely need to ask to stay. If anyone at Harvard gives you any crap about that whatsoever. That is when you call somebody like me. My name is Greg Epstein, and I'm the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT. That's like clergy for atheists, agnostics, and the non religious. I've dedicated my life to helping people for people sake, in good times, and in times, just like this. Anyway, responding to hikkim I continued, let me or others be your advocate with Harvard administrators or faculty who need to hear this student is not going anywhere. Because they can't, so you must provide safe and comfortable living spaces and extensions etc must be provided to deal with this stress, no ifs, ands, or buts. As hundreds of thousands of people like door responded to hikkim thread, I was shocked to see them also respond to my response by the thousands. This made me cry, responded The Daily Beast Smalley Jiang fast, an influential writer whose mother's influential writing influenced me as a teenager, doctors, actors, scholars and dozens of random strangers stop by on my page to comment or say thanks, but all I done was send literally a couple of tweets. The truth is, the reality of the pandemic was setting in and we all wanted we all needed to cry to cry our faces as one distinguished philosophy professor friend of mine, but we were all looking for some human kindness myself included in the face of a restless and ignorant virus just beginning to end millions and disrupt billions of lives.
A Rational Special - Hungry Beast 10 Year Reunion Show - 2019
01:20:08
A very special episode of A Rational Fear — this is the audio from the Hungry Beast 10 year reunion show that we put on a couple of months ago.
It has many of the voices and faces from the show telling stories about how it was put together and where most of the team is now.
"It’s been 10 years since the ABC TV show Hungry Beast was launched. In 2009 it brought together 20 young smart arses to create a new kind of new kind of TV show. One that was curious about the world, and didn’t take itself too seriously.
Join former Hungry Beast presenters and producers as they try to remember what happened. There’ll be stories, unseen footage, clips now banned from the internet, and anecdotes about the show that changed Australian TV forever.*
It’ll be just like Where Are They Now? — except that no one has ever asked that question.
Join, Nick Hayden, Veronica Milsom, Kirsten Drysdale, Marc Fennell, Dan Ilic, Mon Schafter, Kirk Docker, Andy Nehl and others who haven’t replied to the email yet.
Follow the money to your wallet and get a ticket to Hungry Beast Unplugged.
If you can't tell in this recording, I'm super stoked to have Alice Fraser and Andy Zaltzman on for the first ever Bugle X A Rational Fear crossover special.
We talk.
On-line Trolls. Xenobots. NFTs. UK Anti Vax Protests. and I attempt a Pun Run for Andy's sake.
After looking at all the data it was discovered that most of you don't listen all the way through the podcast, so that means most of you have never heard Lewis Hobba go on a deranged un-hinged rant about some minutiae.
So — here in this episode of A Rational Fear, we've pulled together the best bits of Lewis in about a 50min episode.
If you manage to listen all the way through
https://www.instagram.com/lewishobba/
https://twitter.com/LewisHobba
Enjoy.
Dan
Lewis Hobba 0:00 Hello, hello. Hello Daniel, I
Dan Ilic 0:01 discovered something. When I looked at the podcast analytics. Oh, yeah. What's that? That 1000s of people listen to us, hey, it wasn't discovered they tend to turn off about halfway through the podcast. All right. And what does that make you think? I think? Well, I here's what I think. I think they get they're missing out. They're missing out on a crucial component of the show, Louis?
Lewis Hobba 0:24 Yeah. Because I'll tell you what it makes me think. I always close the show. Every live show, I slave away, sometimes for up to an hour, working on a funny little series of jokes. And I put them right at the end of the show. And it's a barnstorming performance. People always say you got to stick around to the end. Louis homeboyz closes the show. He's very funny Crusher, they call me a crushes comedy. And so these table you're telling me that the 1000 people who listen to the podcast, they don't even know what I do there. They don't know why I'm there. Everyone doesn't even know what you're doing on the weekly shows. Who's this guy that's on the weekly shows. I know we listen to the live show. He just he just hangs out there writing on Dan's coattails. I mean, people have said that to me before and we'll say it to me again. But right now I'm period. Well, here's what I've done. I've put together a special of all of your bits back to back so people can enjoy you 100% of the time on this episode of rational fear. That's interesting, because I wonder how it'll be like, I do think a little bit of Louis five minutes each episode is probably good. I wonder if you put all of it back to back if it'll just sound like the unhinged ravings of a lunatic? Yeah, of
Dan Ilic 1:31 course it will. Because you are renowned for being an unhinged raving lunatic on irrational fear. Well, the good news is they can turn off any time, which turns out to be about halfway through,
Lewis Hobba 1:38 oh, my God. So the back half of this, we'll have to put the podcast out again. And then maybe finally, you'll actually listen to me.
Dan Ilic 1:50 If you want to hear more of loose, please sign up to our Patreon.
Lewis Hobba 1:53 And if you want to hear less, sign up to the Patreon and leave a little note saying less, Louis, please, and I'll just quit. I'll quit. I'll do it.
Dan Ilic 2:02 And if you are on Patreon, you are getting this first you're getting this special episode a week before everybody else. So there are there are benefits of being on the Patreon though. That's they're very scant.
Lewis Hobba 2:12 Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we we have so little to offer. But we are very, very grateful. So thank you. And thank you for listening to so much me yelling so much me yelling before people head into this 50 minute episode. Do you minutes.
Unknown Speaker 2:28 Are you insane? Well, it's your fluids. You've done so
Dan Ilic 2:31 many great bits, so we needed to put them all together. That's fucking insane. Well, you fucking destroy the show. Like you're really good. Like in the live setting. It's just that no one has heard
Lewis Hobba 2:41 God believe I've been doing this podcast for 10 years and no one's heard me.
Dan Ilic 2:46 outright. Should instead of closing the show.
Unknown Speaker 2:50 On open the show and leave
Lewis Hobba 2:53 the disrespect. So what are you gonna? What
Dan Ilic 2:55 are you gonna tell? What are you gonna tell?
Lewis Hobba 2:56 I honestly, I don't even know. From all the episodes. Yeah, yeah, there's probably some great gear there from 2013. You can cancel it. Great. Yeah, if you can take out. You can't see blackface on a podcast. Thank god. Okay, good. As long as you can't see that. We should be all sweet. I don't know what's in here. But I've been angry about so much, so much over the years. And I hope you enjoy it. And please, I love you remember that at the end? You'll see me at the back. It's a joke. I'm very tall. It's a it's a good visual gag. But the podcast was actually going to be a lot of those. So if you're listening at home, I'm sorry. I'm not the biggest event on the planet is happening right now. The World Cup of football around half the world's population will watch it but our Socceroos had been knocked out. And thank God because now we can fully focus on the other global event happening this weekend. The TV week Logie awards. Yes, good. Whoa. on other continents young boys and girls will huddle around TVs to watch Messi. Ronaldo, Iniesta and dream that they one day to may hold the golden cup aloft. And here in Australia, kids will huddle around the 79 inch flat screen and say
Unknown Speaker 4:19 mama, papa, when I grow up, can I be on the project?
Lewis Hobba 4:27 Can I sit next to Steve Price my mom ever so racist Shaw, it's easy to make fun of the logos, and that's why I'm gonna do it. Yes, I'm a hack who grabs that low hanging fruit. The height makes it easy. And then I hold it in front of grant tenure and I make him jump for it. Jump for it grant It used to be that the low yeas were vapid, they would glorify dumb and vacuous television and never acknowledge anything cool. But that's all changed now, because no one watches TV so you can safely say that every show nominated for a low GI is a cult favorite. One guy nominated for the gold low GI this year is on a show called love it all listed. The most recent episode of that show had 46,000 viewers. 46,000 Viewers, that's the ratings of my mom's Instagram Stories.
Unknown Speaker 5:39 Check her out your mom's really hot.
Lewis Hobba 5:41 I mean, the thirst traps are weird, but her unboxing videos are good. Personally, I actually think it's good to say the luggage is getting behind a little guy. And I don't just mean granted Yeah. I mean, the underground battlers with no viewers like A Current Affair. I mean, they've been talking about that list for so long, they should just do an episode on themselves. The World Cup might be big, but in Australia, no one could even see it for the first week. At least viewers know they will definitely be able to watch the logos they won't but they could if they want it. But then eventually after Optus shat the bed and finally let SPS screen the games. People got angry that the hosts from SBS was pronouncing foreign His names correctly. Lucy's Elitch host of the world game and the only person in the country able to cope with Craig Foster was he's hot but he's Shut up Craig. Lucy's elige was dragged for being multilingual by Internet commenters who are barely single lingual. I mean, it's If Lucy zellige Lola hosted the logos she would have given the gold logo to cast a fan of it. Which is a bit real for my friend Dan Ilic. When I met him he was still pretending to be white.
Dan Ilic 7:17 I decolonize
Lewis Hobba 7:19 but the log is have had a huge shakeout this year for the first time ever. Televisions night of nights will be held in Australia's shithole of shitholes the Gold Coast the gold The World Cup is being held in Russia, where the government kills people. The luggages will be held in the Gold Coast where Dreamworld kills people two years too soon, we can cut it. Of course it always used to be in Melbourne where it wasn't a very cool back alley, and there were plenty of milk crates for grant Daniel to stand on so he could look normal size people in the eye. But now it'll be in the Gold Coast wherever and I'll be so busy is vey over vomiting from the passion pop. It will actually still be back down to Greg Daniels level. Which is nice. I think. Ben Danya has big dick energy that is actually a good call. I mean, he's had enough ice he can go all night.
Sami Shah 8:29 Allegedly pursues
Unknown Speaker 8:31 rational fear.
Lewis Hobba 8:33 Now as a Victorian he lives in Sydney always kind of felt like Switzerland in the Sydney Melbourne debate. I think they're both great. You know, Melbourne has the food and the footy. Sydney has the beaches and the beauty but it was always one trump card that Melbourne had to play when it came to its victory over Sydney hidden in a little laneway was a secret spot called crown Casino.
Now as long as Sydney didn't have a crown casino it would always be Melvin's poor cousin. Everyone knew it. It's all anyone talked about up here. When will we get a crown? Where can I go if I want to gamble and eat at restaurants that already exists pretty close by? Well, you could go to star casino I'd say the star they'd say that a crown the city can never be king
and then, like a white knight riding in on his glimmering super yacht kames James Packer he built a new crown right here. It would herald a new dawn of subtle sophistication. Right here in the Emerald City. I'm talking a hidden tucked away 22 hectares of land and almost impossible to spot 75 For casino and all owned and run by a family business. The Packers for a moment, Sydney was the happiest place on earth. Then before I even got a chance to take my call Melbourne friends to Barangaroo for a hit night of gambling. I find out the crown can open in Sydney. Apparently some intern who calls himself a former Supreme Court justice suddenly decided after an 18 month investigation, the crown is unsuitable to run a casino because crown casino in Melbourne has a long history of money laundering. Melbourne isn't that keen typical? Not only does it have the better restaurants, it's better at money laundering. If I have to if I want to money launder I have to drive 10 hours down the tube to turn my drug money into chips. It's outrageous. You don't ban someone for money laundering. Remember last year when Westpac accidentally forgot to mention 19 point 5 million transactions of money laundering that gave them a little fine. No one went to prison. It was an accident. It was 19 point 5 million accidents. We crown only made one mistake one little money laundering mistake hoops punster mother has known once organized a junket for a triad gang to dumb profits of crime for over a decade.
Unknown Speaker 11:34 Look me in the eye and tell me you haven't done it.
Lewis Hobba 11:38 Honestly, telling crown they can't operate money laundering casinos. It's like telling Asha Gunzburg you can't host TV. It's what they were born to do. Without crown jobs will be lost. Can you imagine the layoffs in the triad gangs? I don't want to be the guy at Centrelink who has to tell a hitman he can't apply for job keeper. Not only will people not be able to launder money, help people gamble. Are you telling me people can just gamble on their phones?
Unknown Speaker 12:12 At any time on literally anything.
Lewis Hobba 12:16 I'm old fashioned. I book my holidays that a travel agent. I bind my horn at a sex shop. And I like to gamble in a giant penis shaped building. I don't want to gamble on a machine that fits in my pocket. I want to gamble in a big machine filled with coins like a robot leprechaun I'm worried about what will happen to the beautiful Barangaroo if crown can open its casino usually when you're not allowed in a Sydney building. It's for a normal reason like it has cracks and it's about to fall down. But right now in Sydney there is a 75 storey money laundering cop just sitting there on the harbor disord I mean, what are we gonna do with an empty building with a fucking crowd on top of it? It limits the options are you gonna rent it to crown laga it'd be as a bigger crime than money laundering. What are we going to do literally rent it out to like a royal family. The closest Australia has to a royal family is the Hemsworth there Byron house is nicer than Barangaroo. If this nanny state won't let James Packer open his money loaning factory, I do actually have a few ideas of what we could do with the empty space. Now your average Twitter teardrop will tell you that it should be used for public housing or COVID quarantine hotels. How about this? It's got a lot of CCTV cameras. Big Brother house if you think crown's reputation is too bad for a TV network to film Big Brother. Keep in mind they used to film in a dream world
just saying the standards low. Okay, it's not right. The Big Brother, I hear your groans maybe another show Ninja Warrior right across the casino floor. The first person to jump over the Jewel of the Nile swing around a roulette wheel roll Snake Eyes crack open the vault and swim through a billion dollars of laundered money wins $50,000 The rest of the money goes to crown. I don't like that idea. I got more. We all know that James Packer and Mariah Carey are well and truly over. Maybe it's not too late to rewrite the divorce. So Mariah gets Barangaroo imagine Mariah Carey living alone in a giant tower for the next 30 years while the giant facade slowly decays one day and intrepid explorer wandering through the heat wasteland that was once Sydney machetes through the IV branches that have overtaken crowns revolving doors to find Moriah in rags sauntering the empty halls singing All I Want For Christmas Is You while she mimes eating a sumptuous feast off the empty plates in a deserted Nobu. You Yes, it is an excellent idea.
Unknown Speaker 15:23 But it's not as good as money laundering.
Lewis Hobba 15:27 Just like the crown should be allowed to launder money just like they do in Melbourne. I'm sick of Sydney being number two. Do you know that New South Wales isn't even the state with the most amount of poker machines in the world? Guess what number we are? Number two. You know number one is Nevada. First, the store wins the rugby league and now this crown casino simply must be allowed to operate in Sydney. I mean, they even let Western Australia have a crown casino that's a state where you hit a jackpot anytime you dig a hole. Sydney doesn't pick up its game soon. Soon. We'll have nothing I mean, we'll have one casino but what are we Hobart
Unknown Speaker 16:11 we've already lost the cruise ship business. Don't take away our culture.
Lewis Hobba 16:18 We need a friendly place with a carpet that reminds you of a funky fruit funeral parlor with lighting that says What time is it? Who cares? And a car bag full of family wagons with the windows down just enough for the kids to breed?
I hope personally I don't see the day when there's a real estate agent out the front of Barangaroo auctioning it off and if I do 2.2 billion is actually not a bad price for an apartment Sydney so I might invest. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 16:53 Fear is irrational.
Lewis Hobba 16:56 Over the years governments in this country have declared war on many things. There was Howard's war on terror. There was Abbott's war on red tape. It was Gilbert's war on misogyny. And I sometimes like to guess who we'd be at war with if Mark Latham had won an election, maybe the moon and as wild as that would have been, it would still be less insane than the New South Wales war on music festivals. Yes, the Berejiklian blitzkrieg on fun rages ever on a Fed fast that never ends. If you notice this story, a bunch of music festivals in New South Wales have been forced to cancel because of new regulations. The government can now tell a festival how many police they're required to have, which they then need to hire off the government. In one case the festival cancelled and it was told one week out that it would have to hire an extra $200,000 worth of cops. And if you're thinking that telling people how much of a thing they are required by law to buy off you sounds like a good business model. You're right it is it is getting the tick of approval from Shark Tank. If you or I did it, it would be called racketeering, the most jaunty of crimes. It feels really strange to live in a place where it is a vote winner to attack festivals, festivals. In any other country. The word itself invokes a sense of community and fun and to wage a war against music. If you're writing an 80s film or rock opera, and you need a villain to do something, cartoonishly evil
Unknown Speaker 18:48 they were in fun life.
Lewis Hobba 18:55 If Gladys Berejiklian gets reelected on an anti music platform, then she might have noticed through a victory speech and a coke made of 101 Dalmatians. No one here cares. Not you then the trash out there. You guys are beautiful. And if you're listening at home, also beautiful. So apart from the festivals that have already been cancelled, like mountain sounds, and sci fi Arey a bunch of other festivals like laneway have announced they might have to cancel next year's festival because of these new regulatory regulations. Now in 15 years of doing laneway in Sydney, two people have had to go to hospital in 15 years. That's less people dying than a Sydney Theatre Company Matt Matt the hearts just give out when they say he got a wavy,
Unknown Speaker 19:51 he's very good. He's electric.
Lewis Hobba 19:57 And if you're a Gen X or Boomer thinking that the last The festival like sci fi carry doesn't really affect you. I would like to remind you of this famous poll. First, they came for sci fi. But I didn't speak out because they didn't like hardstyle trance. And then they came for laneway. And I didn't speak out because they didn't like fun in tight places. But then they came for Byron Bay blues and Roots Festival.
Unknown Speaker 20:29 And it was too late because I didn't say anything. And now how I say vicar and lendable
Lewis Hobba 20:40 that's right even blues fest the one you people love has announced it might leave New South Wales. That's gonna decimate the slide guitar industry.
And I don't expect music festivals to be everyone's number one voting issue. But New South Wales let a government tell them when they could and could not buy alcohol. It goes against everything I know about this country. At this point, the only thing I can think of that would get Sydneysiders actually angry is a war against F 45.
Unknown Speaker 21:22 I don't know what to do.
Lewis Hobba 21:25 What can I do? Can I repeat music festivals in a way that boomers might understand? We know boomers think drugs are bad. I mean, they did it in the 60s Obviously. But now it's us, not them so it's bad. They know that we know that boomers think young people never talk to each other because we're always on our phones. Well music festivals solve all these problems. The receptions always really shit or the 4g is jammed with people using Instagram. We can't use our phones and after a few cats, we love to talk to each other
Unknown Speaker 22:00 Oh people the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
Lewis Hobba 22:06 In New South Wales is right maybe we should just cancel thumb. Let's just stay in every weekend and once a year we'll spend all our savings to go to the domain to see whatever's left of Fleetwood Mac
break the child wants Sydney is completely given up we can segregate the entire population of Australian cities by age bracket at 20 years old, you'll be forced to move to Melbourne where you'll actually be allowed to have a good time at 30 You'll move to Brisbane to settle down get married, get sad, get divorced. You'll spend your 40s in Adelaide drinking wine and getting into cycling. And 50s The Gold Coast's for tanning and tax breaks. And then finally you'll turn 60 and you'll be ready for Sydney retirement village with no young people and no music, just cops in Messina.
Italy, Florida, humid and full of people you wish would die but won't. And when all was said to you that set it and centenarians buck, I knew I shouldn't have written that word down. It's hard to say with no teeth you'll get there eventually. And when all was said to generis commemorate the day they won the fun war, they won't have a minute silence. They'll have a lifetime of it. A rational view the UK is now being run run by Boris Johnson. The human personification of the word whoopsie. The whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. But I reckon if you asked anyone over 50 how they were feeling this week, they'd say they felt better than they felt in years, kind of like how they felt when they bought their third investment property. And that because in all this madness, there's been one little beacon of Boomer light, a warm safety blanket to wrap yourselves in one you TOPIK island in a fraud ocean of troubles. The return of CJ Yes, it isn't just Victoria that's legalized assisted dying now. Now the entire country can lay back and slowly watched the life drain from our eyes. As the biggest ABC drama of the late 90s has been directly in our homes like wistful memories, Xanax for all Are Australians the return of sea change is like getting back your franking credits you didn't need it a bit it's nice I should say quickly for anyone here under 30 see change was Round the Twist for adults I never saw sea change myself. But I got the gist from hearing my parents talk about it. It's about a high flying lawyer who leaves the sea to move to the coast and apparently diver Dan quite the dish. According to my mother, yes, Sigrid Thornton and the gang from pill they are back on your TV. It's a great day for the generation who still say channel two here's a man in the third row
Unknown Speaker 25:47 who gave you the finger little finger
Dan Ilic 25:51 if you went to his Facebook page he's probably friends with the APC thank you
Lewis Hobba 25:55 it's the ABC his family and that's it doesn't know how to use Facebook.
Unknown Speaker 26:00 He doesn't do Facebook
Lewis Hobba 26:02 sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason the ABC is doing its absolute best to give the boomers what they want on a they brought back countdown for New Year's Eve you love that. Did you count down? They keep bringing back Sphinx and specs because you think Adam Hills is nice. But they were gateway drugs. Nothing tickles and old man's wall not wallet like the ageless visa is your secret Thornton. And here's the kicker the aunties most valuable asset after Barry Cassidy's frown lines isn't even on the ABC anymore. While the AFP were writing us for the Afghan files channel line was rummaging around and stealing seachange it's one of the only shows that Australian TV with no known sexual predators I mean, thank God we let channel seven take doctor blake mysteries
Unknown Speaker 27:04 good luck to them.
Lewis Hobba 27:06 But St. James selling out that hurts. There's nothing worse than seeing something leave the integrity of the ABC to chase meaningless cash
isn't that right Ray Martin? Don't worry Ray, four corners really went downhill after you left.
Unknown Speaker 27:36 irrational fears.
Lewis Hobba 27:40 The reason I think just to wrap it all up, that satirists and look I'd say satirist, and comedians, and I'm referring to us, and you might be like, I don't even think of myself as the senators. I mostly ask people where they've been stuck on radio, you know, out there doing the good stuff. I'm not, I'm not John Oliver, I'm an idiot. So just accept that I'm going to use that term broadly. And let's roll let's move past it so we can all pay. But the reason I think that satirists are the new journalists is simple. We can't exist without journalists, like 100% of jokes written by political comedians get written because they read a story in the news and the news is written by journalists, like we're lazy. We're too lazy to do it. And to show how lazy we are. For the next little while. I'm just going to make the same point over and over again, using slightly different metaphors. satirise aren't disrupting journalism were leeching off it were a pilot fish attached to a shark, where the cackling hyenas picking it the bones of politicians left behind by lions, if journalists are a majestic giraffe, using its height to scan for danger way or a silly bird that lands are forced to look wherever the giraffe
is bull. Canadians are the last person in the human centipede. Just taking the research already digested and shut out by reporters and editors eating it up and then shooting it out again in a slightly different way. It's still shit. But our shit was shot by a human centipede. And that's gonna get clicks.
Unknown Speaker 29:36 Like journalists have
Lewis Hobba 29:37 to do a lot of stuff that is important and boring. Comedians want to do stuff that is frivolous and exciting. Like Can anyone here be bothered learning what an interest rate is? Like that? No, there's no such thing as a financial comedian. It would be cruel to teach us about money, only for us to learn. We'll never get it. I like the grunt work of political journalism is getting things on the record like that's, that's the grunt stuff. That's the important stuff, like going to boring press conferences, making boring calls, getting people to say stuff. Like in 2008, when a journalist got Scott Morrison on the record saying that he was in favor of a government supporting people buying houses with a housing equity scheme, that was boring in 2008. And in 2017, when he said it again, and that he still supported the idea. It was boring then. But in 2022, when he attacks labor for the exact same idea, it's suddenly become something, write something that gets the mounds of the little human centipede very excited. But good things take time, even hypocrisy, and time is something that journalists can afford to have. And look, I am not deifying journalists. They're normal people. And in fact, they're worse than normal people. Because their job is to be annoying, ideally, to people in power that comedians or people pleasers. Applauses are nourishment. Like it's the base of our food pyramid. And so I don't think comedians are incapable of doing the work of journalists. But we're not financially motivated to piss people off like, we get paid by the ticket. So I think journalists have an employer and an employer who pays them more, the better they are at annoying people. It's the opposite of what comedians do. Like I would say the ABC has at times paid comedians to be annoying, and not in the way they pay me to be annoying, which is just by accident. But it's more of a sort of deliberate choice to pay comedians to be annoying on shows like Chase or to nightly which you talked about already. Very few people in comedy choose to make audiences happy by annoying powerful people on a freelance basis. It's just not a smart move. And so my point is really, that you you can't have political satire without journalists, but you can very easily have journalism, without satirists, because we're not going to do the research. And you know what? Sometimes you just need someone to look down the barrel of a camera and say Princess Diana is dead
and you need to notify that out with damn lady died
that's some topical stuff.
Talk orders is run by comedians, it would be the Comedy Central Roast. If 60 minutes was one run by comedians in it go for 50 minutes and we charge for the fallout. If current affair was run by comedians, it'd be a bit better. Like comedians aren't useless. I mean, we're not as bad as opinion writers.
But mostly we're just putting a shiny new package on an existing product and selling it is something new, and that is why we often end up selling it for free.
Unknown Speaker 33:08 Emotional fear, okay, Louis, as an anemic ABC employee. What's your take on this?
Lewis Hobba 33:17 My take is the one that keeps me employed Tony so that I can afford to feed my feeble family all the soy lattes their weak bones need what's that? What are your Peter Dutton is very handsome. Manly, yet has soft and kind eyes that make you melt when you catch their gaze. His hair is thick, like a young Ray Martins. He is benevolent yet firm like a hammer, a hammer for justice and fairness. He is building a safer, cleaner, brighter Australia and Australia that makes you go wow, Australia is so safe and clean and bright. Loving Peter Dutton is like an Australian journalist interviewing Steve Bannon. You know it's wrong, but you just can't help yourself. irrational fear. I want to talk not about the climate but about the vaccines and other upbeat topic who's All right, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 34:23 one more applause
Lewis Hobba 34:28 All right. All right. I don't know if you've heard but the COVID vaccine rollout is going very badly. Right now Scott Morrison couldn't organize a syringe on the set of Trainspotting. By the end of March, he planned to have 4 million people vaccinated and they just missed that target by 3.4 million. This week, the government revealed it hadn't vaccinated aged care workers and and they didn't even know how many aged care residents had started getting shots. Has anyone had been vaccinated? All right, just by asking that question, I know more than the government about the COVID vaccine rollout. But in times of crisis, I think it's very important to take the government's lead, and instead of looking at what we can do start looking at who we can blame. Let's start with the labor leaders. We all know Dan Andrews is crawling out of his hospital bed at night, throwing away his fake back brace and creeping out to sprinkled COVID under the beds of Melbourne's children. The media are obviously also to blame. Health Minister Greg Hunt got very angry at the media for saying that older people who were nervous about getting the AstraZeneca vaccine could wait until the Pfizer arrived. He said the media were promoting vaccine hesitancy the media were directly quoting Greg Hunt. And that really pissed off Greg Hunt, who is a Greg Hunt
The government is also very angry at boomers who have developed this vaccine hesitancy for those following at home. Yes, this is the same vaccine hesitancy the government refused to stop Craig Kelly doing for Craig Kelly fans,
Unknown Speaker 36:31 what the fuck? Weird salience
Dan Ilic 36:36 B Q and on Viber.
Lewis Hobba 36:39 Oh, interesting. Okay, let's explore that as we go on. Wow, fuck, I didn't say I've never met somebody like Craig Kelly. It's so crazy. But actually, I think that the vaccine hesitancy problem is actually quite easy to fix because boomers stopped trusting vaccines because they believe anything they read on Facebook. So what I have done is I've prepared some Boomer friendly messaging that you can write on your own Facebook wall at any time to make boomers get their second job quicker than their second home. Yeah, that's right. I know what you own. What else are you gonna take away from me? Come on. All right, here we go. Here's some things you can write on your Facebook wall, to get Boomers to take the vaccine. Tell them the vaccine doesn't insert a microchip. It inserts an audio book about Graham Kennedy written by Peter Fitz Simon. A vaccine is just an extra hot coffee. Tell them it's an iPad. Tell them it's a painting by an indigenous artist. Tell them it's a funny detail. Tell them the vaccine is a mountain by telling them the vaccine is a low res family photo. Tell them it's a podcast with Annabelle crab. Tell them the vaccine would like to hear a story about an old neighbor who recently died. Tell them the vaccine agrees that the two years of high interest rates in the early 90s was the greatest hardship generated ever face. Tell him it's a BBC drama. Tell him it'll make Netflix easy to use.
Unknown Speaker 38:31 Tell them it's a carport.
Lewis Hobba 38:35 Tell him it's a second fridge. Tell them it doesn't use American words like diaper and store. It uses Australian words like nappy and shop.
Now, we all know that would 100% get the vaccine rollout back on track. But weirdly, that is not the approach our prime minister has taken. No, you might have heard this news yesterday. He's calling in the army. Yeah, yesterday he announced in one of his trademark announcements that the new head of the National Vaccine task force would be Lieutenant General John Frewin. If caught I don't know who he is either, but he's a Lieutenant General. Head of the army. If calling in the army to fix his problems, sounds extreme. Keep in mind, Scott Morrison loves to play with his army men. When he was the Minister for border protection. He called in the army to stop the boats. Then once the boat once the army had done that, he made himself a little boat shaped trophy, saying I stopped the boats. I don't know if anyone in the army got a trophy. They may have got a small participation boat. Personally May I love the idea of getting the military to run a vaccination campaign. It's intimidating but fun I can never quite get a read on what's going on. Big defense strategy. Craig Kelly not okay with military on the fence boobers you came around Applause We all love. I stick with me, so stick with us. I wasn't begging but thank
Dan Ilic 40:19 you. Will you be closing with Gosman
Lewis Hobba 40:24 Bacchus for coming. So all right. Here we go Now stick with me on this army thing okay because I actually think it's a really good idea right? I would love to see people's faces when they look up to see Ben Robert Smith walking through the streets threatening to kick anyone who won't get the vaccine up the US with a prosthetic leg he's carrying for some reason. All right. I knew when I asked you to stick with me that I would be losing you and I don't care. What's up with the Army get the Air Force in bold Odyssey fighter jets dropping syringes into aged care facilities. I want to say retired veterans pull their old rifles out of the closet, toss away their bayonets affixed the FISA, Pfizer and go back on the road.
Unknown Speaker 41:19 We'll find the anti Vax is on the beaches of Byron Bay. We shall defend our Island whatever the cost may be, and then we'll blame the cost on Kevin Rudd Oh.
Lewis Hobba 41:35 Look, I get why Scotty calls up defense Anytime he's on the defensive. People trust the army, and they're already on the payroll. But I really think there's another group on the payroll who are being criminally overlooked when it comes to helping the vaccine rollout. These people live in Canberra in a building paid for by taxpayers. They're getting taxpayer funded training every day. I'm talking about the Australian Institute of Sport. Now. The prime minister said that the vaccine rollout wasn't a race Well, right now we have hundreds of perfectly trained athletes for an Olympics, that probably won't happen. So let's put them to work and make it a race. First of all, no one knows more about experimental drug treatments that
Unknown Speaker 42:20 want to
Lewis Hobba 42:24 test the vaccines on them. They put things in their bodies that would stop once the teen doctors have a locally produced vaccine that prevents COVID and is also untraceable by the anti doping authority. We store them in the coolroom used to acclimatized our winter Olympians. Then we're on to the AIA s as gold metal standard vaccine logistics work. This is quite a plan. So come on the journey alright. An Australian weightlifter lifts boxes of vaccines off the shelves then carries them to a javelin thrower who hurls individual vaccines across the warehouse. Our four by 100 meter medley relay team will swim vaccines across the state of Tasmania, while the rest will travel in short shorts of marathon runners as they jump off to remote corners of regional Australia. The syringes passed like a relay baton from the marathon runners to the power walkers if they encounter any antivaxxers over high jumper will first be flop over them gracefully. Each regional Victorian center will contain PPE from the fencing team, and one the Greco Roman wrestler. Their job is to pin down vaccine hesitant boomers while our welterweight boxers strap on latex gloves. And instead of giving a left jab to the face, given an Australian or right jab in the using the power of the AISI predicts we can have the nation fully vaccinated by the end of the week. Then all we need is to get Nikki registered to sing a closing ceremony and get all the athletes back to Canberra for an athlete village level fuckathon. If Scott Morrison needs any more convincing, I promise when that's all over, and everyone agrees that athletes have done their job perfectly. He can get it get a little gold medal that says he did it all himself a rational fear. Okay, it's very nice to be here. Thank you so much. 10 years of this podcast, building up to this moment, a huge venue, a beautiful crowd who knows everything we've done. I think we can all agree this is the biggest event in the world this weekend. Thank you so much. I actually looked up what the 10 year anniversary is. its 13th anniversary, Tin. Tin. A good honest metal, but it's not platinum is it? Nah, it's Nope. Platinum Jubilee is it. I spent the last 10 years of this podcast complaining about how old people are ruining everything. And then who comes along to ruin our anniversary?
Unknown Speaker 45:10 The oldest person in the world?
Unknown Speaker 45:15 Her Royal Highness the Queen of England. This podcast anniversary would have been the biggest game in town. We would have sold out the concert hall or the SCG. But no, everyone's at home. Watching every minute of the Platinum Jubilee.
Lewis Hobba 45:34 Did you say she's the queen?
Unknown Speaker 45:38 Oh, including the queen. We'll get we'll get there. Don't get ahead of me one punch line that was that was all that was it.
Dan Ilic 45:54 Anyone can start a comedy podcast
Lewis Hobba 45:57 that's a joke as well.
Unknown Speaker 45:58 The fuck out. Everyone shut the fuck I
Unknown Speaker 46:07 only got three jokes and two of them ago is one more fucking thing.
Unknown Speaker 46:14 I will burn this place to the fucking grid now.
Lewis Hobba 46:19 I gotta talk about that. Not after the last podcast.
Unknown Speaker 46:23 I'd say the credit to be riding our parade for we didn't even get a parade
Lewis Hobba 46:33 the Queen's getting four four parades. She didn't go to the first one. Thanks a lot. The first parade was on Friday. She didn't even go she wasn't feeling up to it. She said. And look, I get it. She's very old. But no one was asking you to do a fucking flip. standing wave. Anyone can do it. Right. Her second event was at the Buckingham Palace. Very nice to her isn't it? She gets a palace what do we get a house? But can I just take a moment to say the staff here? The Sydney Opera House. They're incredible. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, that's true. I'd say hats off to them. But they don't get hats. No Do they know? Hats are only for the queen star. Only the Queen's people get hats. Big hats too. That's as high as the eye can see
Unknown Speaker 47:39 you've never won
Lewis Hobba 47:42 a fucking picture of the hat I swear to fucking christ diaper house this fucking clothes
Unknown Speaker 47:50 Oh my I wore a suit and I know you don't know that's unusual but it is
Dan Ilic 47:55 Dan when you sack Louis after this Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 48:00 well you could bucket habit Good luck to you. Complete the bucket Michael
Unknown Speaker 48:03 go down.
Unknown Speaker 48:04 They'll count the jokes. Unbelievable up for me thanks a lot. Anyway, we had spit before we got and now my next video about hacks so we gotta get back to
Unknown Speaker 48:24 Oh my god. Thanks a lot Australian media. Not one article all week about the hats of these good Australian podcasters
Unknown Speaker 48:32 might put on your hat.
Unknown Speaker 48:35 Put on your hat Ma. Oh, girl Gray. Thank you. Oh, now everyone guess
Unknown Speaker 48:46 why do people get so excited when the Queen wears a hat? Do they know she owns a crown? That's the best kind of
Unknown Speaker 48:58 anytime she wears the regular hat. It should be a huge disappointment. The hat is the understudy of the crown.
Unknown Speaker 49:09 A queen and a hat
Unknown Speaker 49:15 it's like Lewis Hamilton driving the formula wanted a Kia Sorento.
Unknown Speaker 49:20 It's now when I came to say put on the crown your big scrote
Lewis Hobba 49:30 I'm gonna fix it and then I'm gonna fucking fix you you have a radio show is that right? Just like this constantly. Is very aggressive.
Sami Shah 49:44 GM to the opera house to drum up Pakistani parents. You're gonna find the comedy really good.
Lewis Hobba 49:52 Sammy sounds like Tate's also my 10 year celebration come along.
Unknown Speaker 49:58 This is my moment.
Lewis Hobba 50:08 Now, some of you might think that the Queen deserves a visit as the biggest celebration than our podcast. You might think she's earned a little Jubilee after 70 years on the throne. Oil, you're wrong. I think we've done a lot more than the Queen, doing a mildly successful podcast for 10 years. On and Off is hard work. Very good one if you heard it. If starting a podcast was easy, everyone would do it.
Unknown Speaker 50:39 Again. All right from now on. All right, fresh jokes.
Dan Ilic 50:45 I can't wait for this last joke.
Lewis Hobba 50:49 The closest thing that Queen gets to doing a podcast is her royal Christmas message. And she does one of those per year. That's 70 episodes over 70 years. I mean, we've done over 100 we're crushing her. The Queen get throw herself a party when she knows what it's like to beg Patreon subscribers for $1 a month. I'll throw her a jubilee myself. If she does a Christmas message brought to you by MailChimp. The royal family hasn't done one true crime podcast and they have done so many true crime. This is true right? 18 months ago Spotify gave Prince Harry and Megan Markel $30 million to make a podcast. Did you know that $30 million to make their new podcast? Do you know how many episodes they've made? This is true in the last 18 months since I got that $30 million. One. One episode of one podcast for $30 million. Louis Yes. So
Sami Shah 51:54 while you're fact checking so disrupt you. The Queen did 69 messages of Christmas because she missed one year 1969 She missed it because she was sick right
Unknown Speaker 52:15 now that's fine. That joke wasn't structural integrity, but later that won't ruin a call back in three minutes. Good go. Oh, fuck me. Good guy,
Lewis Hobba 52:37 you know, for me to make $30 million doing this podcast based on how much money I'm getting paid to diet. I would have to do this podcast for over every week for over 2000 years. That's true. That means I would be doing it from now to the very first Christmas when Jesus was born. But no, no
Unknown Speaker 53:00 give the fucking quatre parade
Lewis Hobba 53:10 Am I losing you?
Unknown Speaker 53:12 I don't fucking close the doors none of you this is gonna be the fucking Nutcracker. No intermission
Unknown Speaker 53:30 this is gonna be the August performance in Opera
Unknown Speaker 53:32 House history. Mozart's fifth sixth seventh fucking Louis's first
Lewis Hobba 53:47 with you and the queen. No, I look. I have some good news. I have some good news. Yes, thank you indeed. If you're sick of being upstaged by the Queen like I am. The good news is she could die any second. That's not the good news. That's not the good news. I promise. She's She might be pointless, but she is a person. I hope she lives a long and happy life surrounded by all her family, even the pedophiles Now, the good news this week is that you might have seen our new government announced that there is a new Assistant Minister for the Republic. Could you say this? This is meant for the Republic? No, I think that's exciting. But I don't want you to think I'm a big Republic guy. Right. In my opinion or monetarists and Republicans? They're all as boring as each other. Right? They're all just big fucking weirdos. Yeah, big Whoo. I don't like a couple of crooked Republicans or monikers let's find out which. Like I imagine all monarchists sit in big brown leather chairs and a router waders, but also I think being a Republican in Australia. It's like demanding everyone get their appendix removed. Like it's a lot of effort to get rid of something that's just sitting They're like, who really cares if it's in or out? And that's me saying that after the last five minutes I don't even fucking care. You know, I don't need Australia to pretty common Republic, I just need attention. That's really what it boils down to. Right? But here's some more good news, right? Here's some more good news. If you promise to come back to our 20 year anniversary, there will be no Jubilee stealing our spotlight that's in 10 years. Do you know why? No ruler has ever made it past the Platinum Jubilee. They literally haven't invented the next Jubilee. It's never been done. That means that the Queen has clocked monarchy. The next celebration that the monarchy has a word for is the centenary and to make that she'd need to live for another 30 odd years. And that seems pretty unlikely. The only person who looks like the queen who might live for 30 more years is Keith Richards. Now I don't want the Queen to die. I don't but I will say this. When we come back to the Sydney Opera House in 2037. To celebrate our 25 year anniversary, they'd better be a fucking parade. And here's to our 10th anniversary. Thank you so much.
Dan Ilic 56:23 So oh my god, Louis. I mean, how are you feeling after listening to you rant for 50 minutes, I feel calm
Lewis Hobba 56:29 down. I feel calm. I feel relaxed. It really I really got it out of my system. I think anyone listening to the smooth, calm relaxed sounds of that 50 minutes. Well, it was basically a meditation tape. That was my audition for calm the app.
Dan Ilic 56:46 Big thank you to our Patreon members and rode mics for the road gear and also take a route with whatever yaki tideline and we'll see you next week. Oh, I've never seen you like this your change man.
👑The Australian Monarchist League making demands of Netflix. 🎥 Sylvester Stallone's new Reality Project. 🏆 Sean Penn giving Volodymyr Zelensky an Oscar®. 🇺🇸 The US Mid-term elections.
Lewis Hobba 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Oh,
Matt Bevan 0:04 good morning. Not good morning. Good evening, Louis.
Lewis Hobba 0:07 Well, depending on when you're listening to this podcast Good evening, good morning. Good day to you.
Matt Bevan 0:14 Yeah, exactly. Well, we are going to be talking to Allison Petroski a little later on in the program and her time when we're talking to her. It's 4am So she's in Washington DC, so I don't know if she's had a good morning so far but we'll find out when we talk to her in half an hour.
Lewis Hobba 0:29 Wow. Right we the midterm results flowing in Yeah, imagine cheat, we probably haven't got her up. She'd be awake anyway,
Matt Bevan 0:34 she said, I just want to get to bed, Dan, but for you, I'll do it. Anyway, there's a big thanks to Australian ethical who help us do what we do here on irrational fear. Also some other folks who also help us out, including our Patreon supporters, including Sonya, exclamation mark, Patric, Kate, and Chad. Thank you for new Patreon supporters. Big thank you to you guys, Chip. Again, as you'll see, a little later on the show. I started to spend Patreon money on frivolous things. And it's that kind of money that keeps the show on the air. And a little later on, we'll talk a little bit about, you know, being nominated for a podcast award. Very excited.
Lewis Hobba 1:12 Is that right? Yeah,
Matt Bevan 1:13 surely you know this, Louis?
Lewis Hobba 1:15 I found out because you sent me an email to invite me I was thrilled.
Matt Bevan 1:18 I'm recording my end of irrational fear and getting Atlanta the urination. Sovereignty was never seated. We did a treaty. Let's stop the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:26 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks can rub off. Fed COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audiences.
Matt Bevan 1:39 Tonight, the US midterm elections causes a rise in serious journalists saying the word gubernatorial and Vogue Sue's Drake for making a parody of a magazine cover despite no one suing vogue for making a parody of a fashion magazine. And Anthony Albanese is set to meet President Zhi Jing ping at the G 20. Summit Alamo will present the Chinese president with an album by gang of us and G will present albeau with an ultimatum fit for a capitalist lapdog of American imperialism, and a lovely pair of shoes made by a gang of detained dudes. It's the 11th of November and we're not afraid to go lower than Bitcoin. This is a rational fear.
Hello, welcome to irrational fear. My name is Daniel H. I am the CO creator of the den Andrews Tuesday program. And this is the podcast that is nominated for one of the best comedy podcasts in Australia for 2022.
Lewis Hobba 2:47 That's crazy.
Matt Bevan 2:49 Yeah, because there are so many comedy podcasts. I don't know how we did it. Yeah, we'll talk about
Lewis Hobba 2:54 there. I don't mean to say that we're a shit podcast, but there are so many great podcasts.
Matt Bevan 2:58 We'll talk a little bit more about it in a second. But I just want to introduce you to our fear mongers for tonight. They two very highly successful podcasters but they are also Newcastle's fourth and fifth favorite sons from the podcast, Russia. If you're listening, it's Matt Bevin and from the web series finding years this is cam James. Hey,
Cam James 3:20 thanks for having us feeling very gubernatorial tonight. So thank you.
Matt Bevan 3:23 Yeah, I'm very excited. First longtime listener first time Fira, I guess you know, terrified person. People on the show, what are you talking about? What is what is it? A few years? younger female.
Lewis Hobba 3:38 You're supposed to create the fear, man. Yeah, you're not supposed to feel the fear you
Matt Bevan 3:43 bring the fear? Yeah, bring it.
Lewis Hobba 3:46 I didn't actually know you were both from Newcastle. Yeah, who's above you? I guess the three John's brothers. And Daniel Jones.
Cam James 3:53 Are we counting Daniel? Daniel as a sibling to Maddie and Andrew.
Matt Bevan 3:59 Three John's brothers could family is the other one. Generally ranks above us.
Cam James 4:05 You met Doug McDougal. I don't know if he's from there. Reese Nicholson. Comedian. He's from Merrill. Yes, yes.
Matt Bevan 4:11 So I've I've an anecdote about reasoning, because here we go. Do you want a quick anecdote about reasons. So reason Nicholson and I were in community theater together. And the community theater that we were at, would do a thing where they would, in order to give as many kids a turn as possible. They would set up two casts for each show, and then you sort of take turns performance. And Reese and I were both the lion in the Wizard of Oz, taking turns being the lone, but that meant that we had to share the same lion suit beautiful. And the show was done in like October, November of a very hot year. And so Reese and I both lost several kilos, doing that roll into the suit. And yeah, and you shared that suit around for quite some time, so yes, reason I share a bond that few other people share
Cam James 5:05 thicker than thicker than a bond lion
Lewis Hobba 5:10 where the phrase lion's share comes from Newcastle theater.
Matt Bevan 5:17 I met when, when the lion news broke last week, did you have an inkling or an urge to jump on the jog? Get in the line suit and negotiate on behalf of lions in Taronga Zoo. Yeah, I had a feeling that it was something there was something lion related happening and
Cam James 5:30 Soluna race just texted to check in.
Matt Bevan 5:33 We don't need to text we just sort of communicate telepathically. But yeah, I'm sure I'm sure I could have sorted it out at least better than the Mosman police station. We are nominated for a podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards. And I wanted to you've mentioned that I just I just wanted to bring this up because it's something interesting that someone pointed out to me one of Shannon marinko, who is the co host of the Xero project sent me this link apparently sports bet has odds on for
Lewis Hobba 6:05 most of the awards to sports but have a podcast?
Matt Bevan 6:08 Definitely should comedians need work. And that's all they employ at the moment.
Lewis Hobba 6:13 Get the three John's brothers.
Cam James 6:16 Look at this on the John's triplets.
Matt Bevan 6:18 We're paying $2.20 And then probably the big the biggest podcast out of this with the one of the most listeners Tony and Ryan, who's got hundreds of 1000s of listeners. They're paying $7 I don't know how that I think that's all wrong. Surely
Lewis Hobba 6:33 that if I was a gambling person I I'd quickly put a lot of money on. Yeah,
Matt Bevan 6:40 I am actually thrilled that you guys are nominated for Best Comedy podcasts because you guys do quite a lot of climate content, obviously on the show and you could have decided to nominate yourselves for the climate. Matt Bevin I paid $200 of the petro money to apply for the climate award and we didn't even get oh well you're not in this category. I'm interested in what my odds are though, then other than that they're not they're not taking bets on the climate range maybe that's because the national broadcaster paid for your entry mat maybe maybe we'll we'll pay for your entry. Thank you for your eight cents Yeah, in fact, next week we got to tune other fellow nominees is funeral mongers Claire Stevens from Mamma Mia is canceled will be joining us and also the queen of Adelaide comedy Georgie Carroll from the swab podcast will be co hosting with us next week. Coming up a little later on the podcast will cross live to Washington DC with nines, US correspondent and friend of the show Alison Petroski to find out what's what happened in America today. Like Did anything happen in America today? Who knows? Who knows if anything happened in America today? But first, here's a message from this week's sponsor.
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Matt Bevan 8:47 Always good to have a sponsor on the show this week. First fear. There's a lobby group in Australia that's calling for Australians to boycott Netflix. That lobby group is the Australian monarchist League. Yes, they are calling on all right thinking Australians to boycott Netflix until they correct the falsehoods and inaccuracies about the royal family in the TV show the crown. Apparently Netflix has been spreading falsehoods that the royal family is actually interesting. fear mongers, can we forgive Netflix for embellishing just a little bit here.
Cam James 9:23 I think that they should the Monix league should just be grateful that anyone's talking about the Royals at all. Exactly. Did anyone else not give a shit about the Royals until this show? I've spent my entire life not caring now I'm so invested.
Matt Bevan 9:40 This is the thing that's going to keep the Royals in power. This is the thing that's going to keep Australia in the Commonwealth. It's actually vital for the Royals to stay in this show because as long as people are wanting more seasons of the show, obviously they'll need to keep the monitor going.
Lewis Hobba 9:56 If I was a real family, I'd be just be so happy that they'd made me hot.
Cam James 10:01 So hot. So hot. So like,
Lewis Hobba 10:04 I've watched the royal wedding or whatever, like, I mean, I've seen the news clips. There's no one hot family. They're all like weed inbred freaks. It's got. They've got super hot people playing them. I would be honored to have somebody that hot playing me
Matt Bevan 10:21 love this line from YouTube comments. Pete Lola says, I thought the crown was about the moment of birth. Thank you.
Cam James 10:28 I was watching the first season when it came out. And I just started thinking, oh my god, Princess Margaret was so beautiful. She's like, the most beautiful person in the world. And when I looked her up for rail, am I Oh?
Lewis Hobba 10:43 Did the Monica have a thought on? Mary Harry, Gemma, that reality show? Yeah, I don't know if it's on Netflix. But it's must watch television. If anyone hasn't gotten around to it. As soon as you finish the crown pop over to marry Harry, they find a Prince Harry look alike. And then put him in a castle and get a bunch of women to come and they say that they're going to get to marry Prince Harry. And that's the whole show. And I think in my personal opinion, it deserves more awards than the crowd. When critics snubbed it.
Cam James 11:14 It's some. It's like the bachelorette or something. The guide doesn't really look like Prince Harry. He just has ginger hair. So they only ever see him from about 300 meters away. So it's just like him scurrying from a helicopter to the castle. And the host is like there he is. And the girls like oh my god. The reason
Matt Bevan 11:33 I would boycott the crown is because of the things that they leave out rather than the things that they put in. I mean, they date just skated straight past the constitutional crisis of 1975 without a mention of you know, the palace letters and the interaction with John Korea and that kind of thing. They didn't mention that they've already gone well past its royal knockout. They didn't touch on the time that the Royals decided to delve into their own reality television show do they actually get like one of the Royal no no to perform in several royal it's a knockout several really Yeah, yeah. So I believe it was the late 80s and look I'm not an entire expert on this but I believe it's a great it's a knockout was kind of like you know, the show where they you know, they're running and there's a big pool of water and the people are trying to jump from you know, obstacle obstacle into area like Ninja Warrior. It's like clown ninja warrior. Yeah, like why they had several royal family members participating in this thing in an effort to make them seem more personable
Cam James 12:31 by having them on a reality Ninja Show. more personable and
Matt Bevan 12:35 they didn't touch it. I just went straight past it into diner Yeah, there were there's a reason why they couldn't touch it right you know, it's an Darrell sermon still owns the rights to it. They couldn't they couldn't possibly do it. And if they were to do it, Darrell Summers would have to host it. They couldn't get someone to play Darryl so it's impossible.
Lewis Hobba 12:53 They went right past when all the Royals put on blackface and danced on Hey, Gerald had the rights to that. I went to the Saudi Prince Harry was actually dressed as a Nazi and the rest of them are.
Cam James 13:07 Adolf Hitler in the Jackson jive. I remember that. Gong memorandum and
Lewis Hobba 13:13 thankfully, they actually had a few knots a uniform since most of them ah, it was pretty. I had that in the closet to hand me down.
Matt Bevan 13:22 I went to the anarchists moniker, or the anarchists monitor.
Lewis Hobba 13:27 When I was a kid, I downloaded the monarchists cookbook. I don't know what it would be diaper but it was just scarred. It's just
Matt Bevan 13:33 scones and sticky date that can blow apart your anus. No, stop it. Look, I don't know who is in the Australian monikers League, but I just want to give them all a wedgie. So I went to the website to find out a little bit more about them. And you know, the websites pretty good. And the merch page has some great merch, like for instance, you can buy a brief history of our constitutional development as a nation for $10. Isn't that isn't that great? Just a fantastic book $10 to get a brief history, you can also buy a portrait of the King. I bought two because there's only $5 Why would you pay for that? Oh, you know, you can ask for your local MP for one for free. Well, technically, they're giving good they're giving it to you for free. So you can get a free version, you just have to pay for shipping. So I use the Patreon money. And I will give it
Lewis Hobba 14:24 in you've got to stop telling people how you're spending it. Yeah, you're starting to sound like Bridget McKenzie.
Cam James 14:30 Behind the curtain. Yeah,
Matt Bevan 14:32 but if you become a patreon supporter, I will mail it to you. So you actually get it. That's great. That's so many this week. If you subscribe, you'll get a free portrait the King who knows if there's any one of you, maybe you'll get two portraits of the king. But the thing about the merch page that I really liked was that the heading said animal products
Cam James 15:00 Okay, now I'm on board with the lake
Lewis Hobba 15:04 I've got princely Papa.
Unknown Speaker 15:08 rational fear the real shows Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute his journey from the heart of the British Royal Family to Hitler's inner circle Duke of
Unknown Speaker 15:17 Sussex was called out when he was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume parties that
Unknown Speaker 15:22 we know is the royal family a racist family, sir, you're listening to a very rational fear.
Matt Bevan 15:29 This week second fear Sylvester Stallone is making a reality TV show is about his family or as the Daily Mail put it in the headline. Sylvester Stallone 76 poses with his stunning daughters as they prepare to become the next Kardashians with their Paramount plus show. Wow, Cam your life's work has been circling around the oeuvre of Sylvester Stallone, is this enough for you to sign up to Paramount
Cam James 15:55 plus? No, unfortunately not.
Lewis Hobba 15:58 Do you think they have the rights to calling it Sly and the Family Stone
Cam James 16:03 slime family Stallone,
Matt Bevan 16:05 that's better than one I had. I had Rambo's drags race, but
Cam James 16:09 I've got because he's been going through marital issues at the moment. So I've got rocky on the rocks. I have the father and the Expendables for that's probably that's probably enough. Yeah.
Matt Bevan 16:30 I also had sideling up to the stones and also Rocky 10 through 200. So
Cam James 16:38 I'm fascinated his daughters have beautiful names. One of his daughters names is sistine Oh, wow,
Lewis Hobba 16:45 thank you know how some people will name their child after where they work. You think he fucked in the chapel?
Matt Bevan 16:53 That would be challenging.
Lewis Hobba 16:58 If he's being honest, don't look. Watch me do my
Matt Bevan 17:01 thing. Everyone's staring at the ceiling in that chapel. So I suppose.
Cam James 17:06 Sure. No one's looking at no one's looking at dad.
Matt Bevan 17:09 Instead of doing it as a Kardashians knockoff, rather more it's royal knockout style stuff. I would like to see Sylvester Stallone and his children attempting to, you know, getting beaten up by foam implements.
Lewis Hobba 17:26 I don't think you can take another head. No, no. One more head knock. And that's it. Yeah, that's
Matt Bevan 17:32 that's probably the reason why they've gone with the Kardashians. The there's very few, you know, brain injuries involved in the Kardashian show from what I've seen,
Lewis Hobba 17:42 but yeah, it's low on.
Cam James 17:43 We all make fun of Sylvester Stallone. But we all forget that he's an Oscar winner. And he's written. You know, Oscar winning screenplays. A lot of screenplays directed a lot of fantastic films. This TV show could be amazing. I mean, he could win a low GI. I don't know. Anything's possible he could win a low GI with this.
Matt Bevan 18:03 One. Is that one of the things in the EGOT you're trying to, you know, get.
Cam James 18:11 Did you read The Hollywood Reporter profile on him this week? No. What did it say? It's really fantastic. He's talking about this show and this new series that he has coming out also on Paramount plus, called Tulsa King. At one point he says Everyone thinks I'm just some rich guy who lives a rich guy life, but I'm just a normal guy. In fact, I was sitting around with Denzel Washington the other day or both just talking about how we normal gods.
Matt Bevan 18:37 That's what Lewis and I do when we hang out together. We're just normal. Normal 76 year old with a 20 year old daughter.
Unknown Speaker 18:43 It's totally normal. irrational fear. You think I'm a loser? I'm a loser. I like being a loser. I made a profession out of being a loser. You're a loser.
Matt Bevan 18:55 This week's third year, Ukraine has been invaded by a new force. Sean Penn Yes, in the hopes to boost morale of Ukrainian soldiers, Sean Penn met with Vladimir Zelensky and gave him one of his Oscar trophies. Among is what is the Lensky going to do with Sean Penn's Oscar trophy.
Lewis Hobba 19:14 I just have to get this out of the way. I think this could be the turning point in the whole war. As we all know, the pen is mightier than the sword. Yeah,
Matt Bevan 19:26 I must have a sandwich at it. I mean, my latest series of my podcast is all about Zelinsky and Putin and that kind of thing. And so I've been really digging right into
Lewis Hobba 19:38 and mines all about Sean Penn. So
Matt Bevan 19:42 but, you know, there's a famous quote, of course from Zelinsky when people were asking him to leave the country to flee cave as the Russian army was approaching. He very famously said, I need weapons, not a right. But I've actually been digging deeper and deeper into Isn't that's the incorrect quote. The correct quote is I need weapons not a ride but also an Oscar trophy would be great. I need a copy of milk Mystic River to plays. Yeah.
Cam James 20:13 I think other celebs should jump on the bandwagon and give out other awards. They've won, you know, absolutely lost her Buster awards. Maybe Lisa McCune could give away a few of her gold logo.
Lewis Hobba 20:25 Dan, do you right now to support the people of Kyiv pledge to donate your Australian podcaster why
Matt Bevan 20:33 I would not only give, give them these two. But I'll give them the new one. If we get another one. Wow, that boost morale like that. I think we need to contact Lockheed Martin and ask whether they're, you know, long distance artillery launches, have an attachment for trophies. You know, we've said if they wanted to send some Putin's way, you know, teach them and miss it and teach them a lesson. There's only one trophy you need to send and that is Arias because they're really, they're gonna, they'll they'll get you. They'll get you. When we come back. We'll be talking to Allison Petroski live from Washington DC.
Unknown Speaker 21:07 This is a rational view, rational fear.
Matt Bevan 21:13 Louisa, I'm just pausing the podcast for just one second to let you know that
Lewis Hobba 21:17 we're asked to do a different podcast.
Matt Bevan 21:21 It's really good. That's why they are number one. That's why they're number one. I'm just letting you know that you have a TV show on. But because it is only one episode, you might not be able to financially look after yourself and your forthcoming child.
Lewis Hobba 21:35 Dan, if I had a million television shows and one of them was survivor, I still wouldn't be able to deal with my money well enough to pay for this child.
Matt Bevan 21:43 I've got some good news. We do have a sponsor for irrational fear. So I can help you pay for your child or we can help you pay for your child's with the great people at Australian ethical who are chipping in to help us pay for this podcast. Thank you, Australian ethical, these people have been running money since 1986. Running money. It sounds like running drugs, doesn't it?
Lewis Hobba 22:02 Well, it was only six, there is a good chance that they made their first million from cocaine. But it's
Matt Bevan 22:06 unlikely because their names are Australian ethical. They spend their money putting it into good things, good things like health care, education, renewable energy, they stay away from things like cocaine, fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, all that stuff disappears. And it's really it's really exciting. They align with our values and we align with their values.
Lewis Hobba 22:29 That's amazing, because I am not with them. Currently, I've only just found out about this. I'm here finding out about this right now. But I do need to know this because I have recently been at the my super fun. I won't name it because I don't know if I'm allowed, but their trash. They've just increased they're invested in fossil fuels.
Matt Bevan 22:43 Yeah, I think you and I, we are with the same super fund. And if you want to know who that super fund is just go check out my Twitter feed.
Lewis Hobba 22:48 Yeah, just go and check out our previous work in the hospitality industry,
Matt Bevan 22:52 or the super funds in Australia, the top 15 have been rapidly, divesting their, their fossil fuel stakes.
Lewis Hobba 23:00 Well, I'm thrilled to hear about this, Dan. And I do hope that all of the other big organizations that are divesting in fossil fuels, consider investing in irrational.
Matt Bevan 23:11 Thank you Australian ethical, super, super work, no pun intended. Pun intended to do that. And we'll get back to the podcast. And we're back. Joining us now is Alison Petroski from Washington DC and Channel Nine. Hello, Alison. Good morning. I know it's a no it's very early there.
Alison Piotrowski 23:32 Yeah, I don't know if I thought it was evening. I realize it's 4am in the morning now. Good morning. Good evening, guys. I don't know what day it is what? But it's it's been an interesting 24 hours.
Matt Bevan 23:43 Yeah, it's anything happened in America. We should be aware of anything going on there.
Alison Piotrowski 23:48 It's it's been really quiet. Actually. I haven't seen it this quiet for such a long time.
Matt Bevan 23:54 Now, the midterms that have happened over the last little bit last 24 hours. I don't know if you saw this clip. Allison has been going around the internet. There's not only kind of allegations of Russia interfering, but also allegations of Australians interfering in the US elections. Let me show you this.
Unknown Speaker 24:11 We need to save America before we can save Australia. So this is I've come here to sacrifice three months of my life to support mega the mega candidates. I've been to Arizona and New Mexico and Florida. And for me, it's just important that in order to save Australia, I wanted to be here to make sure that that we get the right people over the line
Matt Bevan 24:35 that is just some guy called Greg Smith, who just happened to get in front of the camera. Some dude in America, just
Cam James 24:42 Greg Smith.
Matt Bevan 24:46 Riggs is on the ground. Allison, have you managed to get an interview with Greg Smith?
Alison Piotrowski 24:50 Well, this is actually quite funny because I put that little bit that you played I put that in a package that we ran on our news bulletin last night and I actually went on a deep dive searching for great Excuse me, and I mean any Ozy as you know, well know that it is impossible to find something but what I found many people call Greg Smith, I can't find this particular one. But Greg Smith, if you're listening Nine News would love to have a chat. Walk us through your journey for the last three months. I'm fascinated. This
Matt Bevan 25:19 sounds like the plot of a Comedy Mystery podcast.
Alison Piotrowski 25:25 He realizes right that that he's not an American, and that he can't vote and that I'm just fascinated. Does he not have a job? Does he not have a family? Like, how would you paid for this tree? Look
Lewis Hobba 25:39 at that guy. Question. Allison. That guy doesn't have he has no one who loves him.
Matt Bevan 25:47 He's also had some mixed results as well. I mean, he doesn't seem to have delivered in Arizona. New Mexico doesn't seem to be going that well, for Republicans. I mean, seems to it seems like he hit his stride when he got to Florida and really delivered for for Magga. When he got there. Yeah, that they've done well, yeah.
Alison Piotrowski 26:02 It has been pretty decisive moment for the for the Magga candidates in that they've completely flopped in these midterms. It has been so interesting. And what will be interesting is when we wake up tomorrow, what the Republican party going to do, because we saw Ron DeSantis, who is quite probably their strongest candidate to be on the 2024 ticket. He had a resounding victory as the governor of Florida today, and I think it will, he will turn around to the party and say I am the man to lead you to the next election, not Donald Trump, and particularly not after Donald Trump's carry on today where he was suggesting that there were issues with certain counties, ballots, there were certain there were certain technical issues in in some counties in Pennsylvania and Arizona, but they were really minor and he and carry like absolutely tried to weaponize them and try and throw a cloud over the whole midterm election. And I feel like perhaps Today America finally saw through it, it felt like they really did vote for their candidates. And they weren't paying any attention to some of the conspiracy theories that had been floated around this country like a virus I guess for the last two years.
Matt Bevan 27:13 You mentioned Kerry Lake, I saw this clip of her being asked if she would run for president, obviously yesterday before she's now lost her her bid. And she's got a she had a pretty threatening stance about the media.
Unknown Speaker 27:26 If Donald Trump Announces as expected to be president and you win the governorship of Arizona, you're likely to be talked about as a VP. Candidate. Will you? Do you plan to serve your entire term in Arizona? Are you open to being the VP?
Unknown Speaker 27:39 Are you new covering this race? Because we've talked about this before? We've talked about this? I've answered his questions. I am going to not only be the governor of Arizona for four years, I'm going to do two terms. I'm going to be your worst freaking nightmare for eight years, and we will reform the media as well. We're going to make you guys into journalists again. So get ready. It's gonna be a fun eight years. I can't wait. Hey, guys,
Matt Bevan 28:03 you're gonna be turned into a journalist again, Alison. But the good news is she didn't get back in so you can just go back to whatever you're doing before. She even planned around
Alison Piotrowski 28:12 the best body. She was a journalist for a good 27 years. I mean, well, I lose. I use that term loosely. She She hosted the local Fox News in Phoenix, Arizona for 27 years. So she was in the media. She was the face of Fox News. And she was a face for those local people who believe that she was always telling them the truth. So the carry like Journey is so fascinating how she's managed to absolutely flip this and really target the media. But I guess she's eating a word right now because it does not look like she's going to walk away with that gubernatorial ship, as they call it. I find fascinating. But just call it the run for governor.
Matt Bevan 28:50 Were you excited to say the word gubernatorial Allison like I you know, for me, that's such a great word. gubernatorial.
Alison Piotrowski 28:57 I love the word but I've actually made sure I've not put it in my coverage because what is the girl talking about? And they would?
Lewis Hobba 29:09 Allison, there was one quote that I was wondering if you'd seen an mme show, I imagine you would have been across this one, which was Donald Trump giving his thoughts on the Republican sort of votes today. Word for word. He was like, if they win, I should get the credit. If they lose, it's not my fault.
Alison Piotrowski 29:28 Don't you think we should all just be leaving out last
Cam James 29:32 Friday, great motto.
Lewis Hobba 29:35 There are things about him that I don't miss. And there are every now and again, they're things I'm like, Oh, he's good. He's really good.
Matt Bevan 29:41 That's what Lewis says to ITA after looking at the iView ratings for Australia's biggest competition competition. I'm bit disappointed actually in that because usually it's if they win, it's because of me if they don't, it's because they didn't listen to me is generally the way that he describes it, but I'm staggered that Ron DeSantis has gone so well and that his You know, his backers have gone so well, throughout Florida given Donald Trump viciously took him down by calling him Ronda sanctimonious. I mean, how can you come back for a burn like that?
Lewis Hobba 30:11 Not as good. Not as many as you like, just go with more on, you know, just keep it simple.
Matt Bevan 30:16 Allison, can you tell us who is the biggest loser of this midterm election? Do you think?
Alison Piotrowski 30:21 I think Donald Trump and I think because he got so excited yesterday, and he announced his announcement, he announced that he was going to be announcing on November 15 at Mar a Lago we all know that means he's going to throw his hat into the ring for the presidency. He's backed himself into a corner now. And I think had he held off and waited 24 hours, he wouldn't have been putting that date out there. I think he probably would have been going back having a bit of a think about it and maybe pushing it a year down the track. So I think he shot himself in the foot. And that makes him the biggest loser. And the biggest winner, who and the biggest one, I think Ron DeSantis. I think, truly he is shaping up to be the man that will be leading the Republican ticket in 2024. And all jokes aside, I saw him in Florida as I was covering hurricane Ian last month. And he did show that he could lead I mean, he really was embraced by the people. He invited Joe Biden down. They work together, he showed that he wasn't going to be a baby like Donald Trump was, you know, he did the bipartisan thing. And He showed that he could do that. That was the first step today, he's had a resounding win for governorship. And that is normally a pretty big tick. When you progress in progressing forward to throwing your hand up for the presidency. I daresay we will see him announced that he's running within the next two to three months.
Cam James 31:37 And can I ask do we know who would win in it's a knockout?
Alison Piotrowski 31:44 Carry like man.
Matt Bevan 31:49 I was Alison, what do you make of the results for the Democrats, though, which Democrats have done well, in which Democrats have underperformed a little bit have perhaps been a little bit disappointing in not quite making it across the line?
Alison Piotrowski 32:03 For the last three days? All I've been saying is Oh, potential red wave potential red wave. So the fact that we haven't seen that is a huge windfall Democrats, even though they will probably still lose the house, which normally you would say is a big loss. Originally, we were talking about 60 seats, then it was coming down to 20 seats. Now, they can't even quite get five seats yet. They'll probably do it in the next couple of days. I can't think of a particular I'm trying to think Oh, Gretchen Whitmer has been pretty outstanding. She had a pretty decisive victory over tutor vixen. Tutor, Dixon. Guys, I've been up for 24 hours. I'm taking my makeup off. Me Up.
Lewis Hobba 32:46 There is no group of people with more insane names in American politics.
Alison Piotrowski 32:50 And you're like, tell me the best Democrat. I can't remember my own name right now.
Matt Bevan 32:56 Listen, we will let you get to bed. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. All right. Well, that is it for rational fear. The thank you to all of our Patreon supporters, including sheepy who asked Matt Bevin a question I'd love it if tonight we'll get an update from Matt Bevin as to how the plans for his Trevi che centrifuge are going. And this is of course referencing a tweet of yours, Matt from last month where you said you're going to crowdfund a centrifuge so bigger can chuck stuff into the sun, which is I think playing off playing off an idea that people are going to launch missiles in space spacecraft into space with NASA using centrifuge how your plans going Yeah, look, it's tricky Dan, because I do like to announce big plans on on Twitter. One of my big plans was to because the feed in tariff is so dreadful of solar panels that you're getting at the moment I was intending to set my set up my own Aluminium Smelter in my backyard use the electricity for that make my own aluminium you then I was going to use the profits from that to make this giant central flute centrifuge that can fling things into space. So yeah, that's that's the update on that on that situation. Waiting for approval for the Aluminium Smelter and waiting for the shipment. Evaluated sanctions with Russia getting in the way of all these things. It's massive problem so that's okay. We're setting a lot of I understand in Newcastle all you got to do is sponsor the Newcastle Knights and you get stuff approved pretty quick. That's true.
Cam James 34:29 Good. Yeah. Change the stadium name to centrifuge.
Lewis Hobba 34:35 Like the whole stadium,
Matt Bevan 34:36 yeah. Let's get our plugs underway. Matt Bevin, what would you like to plug? Oh, thank you, Dan. I would very much like to plug the new series of podcast. If you're listening into a call. It's called Russia if you're listening and we are looking at the war between Ukraine and Russia and looking into why it happened. Now. The effects But it's having on all of us. And we're trying to figure out some of the different ways that it could potentially end. I'm really happy with the series and I hope that Yeah, well, it's launching its launch this week. So we'll see whether people like it or not just sunlight comedy listening. Yeah, I'm Cam James, would you like to plug?
Cam James 35:19 Will I do very similar journalism to Matt. I have a new web series. That's an investigative comedy series called Finding Yeess. I've found a bizarre video game on the Internet called Kanye quest. No one knows the identity of the creator of this game. But urban legend is that it was created by a New Age religion, based out of California, who were using the video game to recruit new members. So myself and Alexei teleoperator spent about a year and a half investigating this video game and Colt.
Matt Bevan 35:56 It is so good. That is properly so funny and so enjoyable. I wish there was like another 10 episodes. Thank you cam, you made something so beautiful.
Cam James 36:04 Oh, thanks, Dan. Thanks so much. I hope people like
Lewis Hobba 36:07 once you've watched finding Yeezus you should also go back and listen to actually a podcast. It's very similar to that. It's a it is about a war between America and Russia. In a way. It is about Rocky. Ivan Drago, yes, the greatest war ever fought.
Cam James 36:25 Finding Drago, we'd go deep on that stuff. We I'm a big sci fi fan. I'm looking forward to signing up for Paramount plus for a month to watch the show. And then getting rid of it
Lewis Hobba 36:36 three more times. They'll give you a free subscription.
Matt Bevan 36:40 I'm a big fan of the alabaster wars and I wish there was a was a podcast series on that.
Cam James 36:44 Me too. Louis, you should plug your show. Oh, yeah.
Lewis Hobba 36:48 Oh, yeah. I think I plugged it. I played it last week. But if you've never listened this podcast before, and you're just joining us. Yes, I have a television show. It's upstairs a television special. It's called Australia's best competition competition with my friend and radio co host Michael hing where we enter a bunch of weed competitions all around the country to find Australia's best it's really fun.
Cam James 37:08 I watched it and it was fucking great. It was I loved it so good, man.
Lewis Hobba 37:12 Thank you appreciate that.
Matt Bevan 37:13 Very very Oh,
Lewis Hobba 37:16 he nearly got this very
Matt Bevan 37:16 very good. What he was gonna say very fair reward just cut out we'll never know
Cam James 37:30 we'll never know how Dan fields
Matt Bevan 37:32 Wow, you can actually hear me
Lewis Hobba 37:34 oh we just we didn't get we didn't quite get to the adjective we knew was very very simple Alright, Louis, you're very, very time for that is
Cam James 37:56 a that's a cliffhanger. That's really good storytelling.
Lewis Hobba 38:01 You'll have to subscribe to Russia for his Patreon to find out what Dan thinks that my television special. It's behind the paywall. His thoughts are too big thank you to always say big thank you to rode bikes, to our guests Matt Bevin to Cameron James, to Jacob brown on the Tepanyaki timeline. And don't forget there's always something to be scared of good nights.
Matt Bevan 38:25 Did you think Australian as I go, Oh, fuck
Lewis Hobba 38:28 I didn't say
Matt Bevan 38:33 thank you. It was Friday if they go. Thank you Redbox. And Lewis did such a great job and can I say your TV show was very much like a TV show. See you next week.
This is the 2nd last JZAC — and it's a good one. JZ has a conversation with Independent Candidate for Hume, Penny Ackery.
There is a feeling of change in country NSW.
Penny Ackery is a former special needs teacher who has been tasked by her community to represent the huge electorate of Hume.
At 17 240 sq km it spans from Boorowa in the west to Appin in the east, with Goulburn smack bang in the middle. It's currently held by the Minister for Emission Expansion, Angus Taylor. One of the most powerful ministers in the government.
But Penny has been hard at it, campaigning publicly since June 2021 — traveling the breadth of the electorate, listening, and consulting with folks about how to better represent them. It's the world's longest job interview.
JZ lives in the electorate next door and has been supporting Penny Ackery in her campaign, so if this chat sounds like two friends who are trying to make change in their communities — it's because it is.
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.
Julia Zemiro 0:04 Hi, Julia Zemiro here, I'm recording this podcast on the land of the Gundam gara people. Sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the podcast.
Dan Ilic 0:13 A podcast about politics for people who hate politics. This is Julian Zemiro asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 0:24 On this second to last podcast I'm doing with the irrational fie organization, how I love them. I wanted to speak with an independent, no matter how you look at it. One big part of Australia's 2022 election will have been the independence no matter what the result is, and I wanted to speak to one close to home Penny Ackery is an independent running in the federal electorate of Hume in New South Wales. And for the last nine years, it's been held by Angus Taylor, Minister for energy and emissions reduction, or is he anyway, Hume is enormous. I live in Whitlam, which is right next door, and it stretches from Warragamba. We're Alicia Camden and loving them in the north, down through Wollondilly, winter, Caribee, and golden, which is where Penny lives to borrow, gunning and Crookwell in the southwest. penny spent 30 years of her life in this electorate. Her most recent job has been as a teacher for kids with special needs. And she has been a teacher at Golden and picked in high schools. And during the pandemic, she was an advocate for small businesses across the electorate, showcasing what they were doing, just helping them to kind of keep alive. And I thought it was interesting to talk to an independent I've been a bit involved with independence, doing some launches, doing some webinars on Zoom, etc. Because I was fascinated by it. And I wanted to find out what it was all about why people were doing it, were people really stepping up and they absolutely were. And I think it's going to be a very interesting chapter in Australian politics, and it will be interesting to see where it goes. In the future. It feels like a circuit breaker for me. And I reckon a circuit breaker is not a bad idea. I wanted to speak to Penny about why she stepped up to run as an independent what the process was like, and what it's like in there now with a few days to go to the election day. Welcome, Penny, how you going?
Penny Ackery 2:24 I'm tired. I'm getting to the exhaustion stakes. It's been a pretty exciting journey. It's I've met so many great people. I've had a great time actually in reality, so I'm doing pretty well. I'm just getting pretty tired and a bit of exhaustion setting in
Julia Zemiro 2:40 I had a little flashback to the launch your launch. As a matter of just explaining why I'm interested in the independent movement in general. I like the way it's made people wake up a little bit to the fact that whether you like it or not, whether you think you should vote or not. There is someone in Canberra that represents your electorate and your life. And if you don't find out a bit about those people, then how can you make informed decisions when you vote, but I was excited by having read Kathy McGowan's book I was excited about people getting involved and getting enthusiastic about something that doesn't usually enthuse it make them enthusiastic, which is politics. And I almost feel like saying politics isn't even the word for it. It's just how we live. It's how we want to run our lives. It's it includes family and includes education includes all the things that we need to make a good society. But with your launch, I remember we had two options. We might be outside if it didn't rain, and then there was rain. And so we ended up in this fabulous basketball court in Golden 350 people were there. It was very exciting. You were so impressive. Penny, you just came out of that gate. How do you feel you've changed from that day of seeing all those people eagerly wanting to listen, they weren't all on board, yet. They were still figuring out what was going on to now.
Penny Ackery 4:05 I think I've just got better at being a performer. But I think what it is, is I think more confident in the message that I'm giving and more confident in putting out what we believe in and talking to people about what they want, and asking them the right questions. So as I go from gathering to gathering, I've sort of perfected a little bit or polished what I say to people, but what I've also found is that so many questions are asked and so many questions out of left field, they think oh, I didn't think about that one. But what's been really good is I've been informed a lot more about the local issues about what people care about on a national board. And I've been able to get their views as well and meld them into what I know that the electorate wants. So how in a way I've more developed rather than actually change because of the excitement that that was in there. at basketball stadium was palpable. And every time I go somewhere, it's the same feeling. Even if it's only six people, I went to Penrose Association Hall just last Tuesday, and had all these people, they're really keen to support me, but wanting to listen and to discuss. So I haven't been telling them. I've been discussing with what it is they want, how they feel about things or going, getting some ideas, learning new things. I think it's a two way conversation that's been really, really important.
Julia Zemiro 5:31 Now, I'm in the Whitlam electorate, which is right next door to the human electorate, which is the area that you're running for Hume is enormous. Are you finding that there are some some common themes that you're hearing from everyone?
Penny Ackery 5:44 Yes. And the first one I'm usually greeted with is we need to change, we have to find a way to do our democracy better, we have to make things different. And the number of people I've met that have come out and said, Gosh, I would never ever come to something like this, I would never organize something like this, you know, like, I really feel strongly that we need to get a better option. And that's, that really stuns me. Like I knew there was a little group around me that pretty keen, you know, politically aware, and so on. But there's an awful lot of people either side of the political spectrum, that are saying it's not working, this two party systems are very well, but it's breaking down, we're not getting what we need these days. And I'm going to come out, and I'm going to sort of help, I'm going to wave the banner, and I'm going to support you, because you're the middle option, you're the centrist, you're the one that will listen the out there and help make a change. So that has been the connecting thing or up climate change, or I like to talk more about a renewable energy economy, protecting the environment, climate change is a real red flag. And I like to move right away from that. Because when I say to people who don't believe in climate change, when I say well, what about our water, we need to protect it and make sure it's clean? And what about our air and what we're putting into the air. And everybody's on board with that everybody wants fresh water and clean air and food? That's good. So I think talking about that is far more productive. And then it lets us go straight on to what can we do to make it better, which is to rewire Australia, to really think about how we farming, all of those issues. And especially it doesn't matter where you go, but particularly with farmers, that's more meaningful than saying, Oh, you have to sort of take action against climate change, or what is the action. And I find people are talking to me, not just about that sort of thing. But saying, Well, it's great to have all these announcements and to say, Oh, we've got to do this, we got to do that. But so Ghana, Ghana, Ghana, it's not a let's do it. And this is what we're gonna do. And this is step one. And that's what I like to talk about, we know that we can rewire Australia, we know that we have the renewables with our business counselors already said, Yes, we need a better target. And we got to move. We've even seen a lot of our coal mining plants start looking at what we need to start looking at, we will have to shut down how can we transition? And what else can our product be? Oh, we can do renewables. I think that's a, I think that's coming. And I think people are really recognizing that a lot more. So we do talk about how we can improve our environment and how we can have renewable energy is up and down the electric, when we
Julia Zemiro 8:20 did the launch, Cathy McGowan, I think drove herself down from Victoria to attend, because that's how that's how passionate she feels about knowing full well, that one person can make a difference and change things. And she, of course, was the member for in die and had a lot of did a lot of great work for her electorate there. But what struck me on the day is that, you know, she looked at that group of 350 people and was sort of saying, you may not think that Penny knows how to be a politician yet, because she said, I didn't know I was green when I got in there. But as soon as she got in there, she realized that she did have a voice as an independent, rather than being an opposition where she was fighting for things all the time, and how fast she learnt. And I think what strikes me is that when you look at all the mainly women standing for being an independent, I find you all incredibly overqualified for the job of what I've seen men in suits do now for for 10 years. I just think when I look at you, Penny, you've worked as a teacher, as a teacher special needs, you've been doing it for a very long time, the skills that go into the patience, the focus, the empathy, they're all things that people keep saying I'm missing in, in politics, and I never understood why that would be the place where that should be missing.
Penny Ackery 9:49 Yeah, that's right. And I mean, the other one we can add to there is action and having a plan and actually getting to the end of it. And then if the plan doesn't work, changing it because as I said, I often say As a teacher, like, you know, you have kids, and you've got to teach them a concept. So, you know, you plan it out halfway through then jumping out the window. So you think, Oh, hang on, it's not working, I think I'd better do something different. So you change it straightaway. You don't wait till the end of the lesson. When it's all chaos, you do it straight away. And then you get a good outcome you don't have you know, that's that action. And that's changing what's not working. And one of the things that other people talk to me about as well is that if we're going on the wrong track, and we can see that, why do we keep doing it, like it's not going to make it better? We need to stop, evaluate and change track. And yes, it might look embarrassing, who cares if we get about an outcome. And so that's another thing people are talking about not just talking about things, but actually getting the action happening. And if it's not working the way it should look at it, and change it and do it when it's happened going wrong, not later on. So we can think of a whole lot of things even over the pandemic, things seem to be going well. And then there was a bit of a disaster. And in some cases, we just kept doing the same thing. And it didn't get better. So I think it's those sorts of skills that most people have in life, but we seem to have lost them in that political sphere, for whatever reason,
Julia Zemiro 11:11 for whatever reason, who knows? Well, I would say, for whatever reason, you know, the other thing, too, is that, as independents who are coming into politics, not from the usual route, you've got nothing to lose, and everything to gain by saying, Well, I want to do this because I want to serve you. Whereas it's clear that the system in there now many people, many of them have gotten in there, because it was something that was said to them at high school that they will possibly be perfect for one day, which is to be Prime Minister or to be treasurer or to. And when that dawned on me, it was it was a revelation, because I thought But hang on, I still haven't chosen you. I still haven't chosen you to be in charge of that party, I still haven't chosen you, I will have to kind of cross my fingers and hope you'll do the right thing. So if anything on the 21st on Saturday night, the shake up is something I'm interested in, because you know a lot of people saying oh, we can't shake things up. We don't want it to be chaotic or crazy. Well, firstly, a hung parliament isn't crazy. It's a balanced Parliament as far as I'm concerned. But secondly, we need something to change. It's not you're saying when you're when you're teaching and working with a group of 30 kids, and you've got that lesson plan, and it's not working. Of course, you have to turn it and and work with what's there. And that's, that's such a skill. I think that is such a skill.
Penny Ackery 12:32 Yes. And I think that, like you say that's what lack is lacking at the moment. And I'm in the position I am because I was passionate about getting some change. And I was selected from a group of four other people to be in this position by a whole couple of 100 people. And so I really don't have anything to lose, like, at the moment, I've got a garden out there that is so full of weeds. You know, and I've got a house that needs finishing. And I've got people that I haven't seen for a long time, I've got plenty of things I could do with my life. But so I've got nothing to lose if I if I am gonna win, but just in case I don't, I have another life to go to. It's not like I'm oh my gosh, I'm not the Prime Minister, I'm not in Parliament, oh, that was my dream. This is not my dream, this is what I need to do. Because I've been selected to do it by the community. And we are working as hard as we can to get there. Because it's going to make life better. It's going to make our democracy better. But it's not something that I chose to do. I've got other things I can do in my life. But I'm choosing to do this because people have chosen me to do it.
Julia Zemiro 13:37 I watched one of those town halls on zoom with the four candidates, including you and you were just so succinct and clear as only a teacher can be. Because that's the other thing. You know, it's people say how do you train for politics and what schools none of them went to political school. It's, it's actually teachers who get up in front of kids and talk day after day after day after day after day after day, I think have more kind of energy and more experiencing going I don't need every single person in this room to hear what I'm saying. I just need a few of you to be you know, kind of watching. I know I can see what you're doing. I can see what you're doing. I didn't I did Rick and teachers have this incredible peripheral vision and hearing. They see everything that's happening. They choose to react to the bits they've got to react to.
Penny Ackery 14:24 I love it. That's right. And I mean, it's sort of even coming to kind of and there is some conflict in Parliament at times. There are some things that are said that probably shouldn't be said. And it's as a teacher, well, you just know, like, the worst way to deal with a conflict is to continue the conflict. So just pull back and chill out. And I think that's an important skill that everybody making whatever walk of life needs to happen. Don't get hung up about what somebody's saying, pull back and reassess. And just ignore it and just go on as you're doing. And I mean, you know, as a special ed teacher, that's a great Have a skill to have. Because if you don't have it
Julia Zemiro 15:04 before you were saying, some people have been coming up to you and saying, I've never come to something like this before, I've never been engaged before. So if we're waking people up a little bit, do you think once one person is woken up, that they're awake? Like, there's no going back? Do you feel like they'll keep being engaged?
Penny Ackery 15:27 Look, I believe they will, because I think some people have just sort of gone along and voted and went and shatter their television screens, but not actually become actively involved in what's happening. Now, obviously, if we just have the same people voted back in again, that's going to be harder for them to get that engagement. When I get in, they will be able to engage, because I'll be there knocking on their door saying, Well, you know, come on, what do you think you need, you know, we need to work on this together. But even if it goes back to be the same old bad way we've got at the moment, I think those people that had been energized and decided there's better ways of doing things, and they have got a voice, I think they'll be banging on the door a lot more. And I think they've found that, you know, a lot of these volunteers, we've got 1000s of them have really networked together and formed groups of friendships. And knowing that there's, you know, there's a few of us that will actually go up and, and complain and say, Well, we haven't been answered, why haven't we? I think that might give people a real lift to be able to feel they can do that. Now.
Julia Zemiro 16:31 What have you found surprising out there talking to people,
Penny Ackery 16:34 the number of local issues that we don't know. So what I've been doing, as, I guess, educating perhaps, or passing the message around, so I visited up, they wanted me to go up to Silverdale, which is very north in the electorate, up around Warragamba Latinum. Going up there, because people were really very concerned about the lack of consultation that's happening around this new airport, the Sydney the second Sydney Airport, all the things that are happening with zoning. So people have actually built a house with a granny flat because they want to rent it out while Mum can look after the kids and it provides income. And then suddenly the rezoning happens. And they have to take the granny flat down or they're not allowed to put the second storey on. And so these people aren't being consulted. So I've been talking about that issue about the rezoning that just suddenly happens and the issues that are happening with this airport and not the lack of information about it. So hearing about that and then coming down to the Picton people who are having trouble with their bypass or haven't got one yet that's the trouble. And then going down to even Tara go which is far south here from here with their incinerator waste incinerator. So it's all the different issues that you don't realize it so it surprised me. And how many different issues are more local to that area, what has been great is to actually inform those people down, say in gunning, this is what's happening around the airport area. And let me tell you, when I go north, what's happening down here, so it's not so much surprising, but it's been it's been an experience to be able to let people know what happens on their patch is really important to them. But there's a whole lot of other things that may affect one day, especially with signing what's going to happen on their patch as well, even though at the moment might not. So maybe not so much surprising. But I've been surprised in the passion of those local people about what's happening in their area. Just two days ago, two evenings ago, I went to Crookwell Crookwell had funded over the many years and ran through voluntary assistance through a voluntary board, wonderful aged care home. And when I went into that hole to talk about what was going to happen to the aged care home because they now need to merge with United care they're going to merge with Cole was packed, there would have been a well over 200 people there. And the feeling in the room of that community, how passionate they are about keeping that aged care in their area, rather than having it closed down and move somewhere else. And the work and the effort and the volunteering that's happened to make these aged care work for so many years, and the passion they want. They have in keeping it open. That was really an eye opener rather than surprising to know that in a small community, people really work together and really care about each other. And the importance of this. There were a lot of young people there as well as older people and the nurses were there their concern about what is what is happening in aged care all over that's affecting them. That was really uplifting to know that so many communities like that can come together and really make a difference in a change.
Julia Zemiro 19:48 What always astounds me with something like aged care and early childhood care is it's all of us. Like it's not something that exists over there. I'm going To be aged care in a few years, in 20 years time, you know, we are all going to be if we're lucky to live that long, we're going to be aged care. Our friends, I don't have my own children. But you know, the beginning of childcare, the beginning of how what kind of education and getting early childhood education, that is only going to help you become a better adult, a better citizen, a better voter, it just blows my mind. So when you hear all the horrible things that happened in aged care, that certainly came out during COVID. They are all our relatives, they are our friends and family. And this community is obviously and the young people too, are saying I want to be able to visit my grandmother. Every weekend, I want to know that my grandfather's being looked after, it's, I don't want to have to drive great distances to pop in and have a cup of tea. Because that's what makes us feel like a happier person and not be stressed because we've left them somewhere on the other side of the state. And there they all were. Yeah,
Penny Ackery 20:59 that is so true. And that was one of the issues that was coming up that if that if you're likely it won't be closed, but there was a threat that it could be closed, which means that all those people from Crookwell, who have people that have lived in the area for decades, suddenly going off to some other aged care that really shows how important it is to keep those rural communities together. Because these people have built such an amazing thing, fundraising themselves, and volunteering on boards and keeping it all going for so long, that it's a special part of their town. And it's special to them, because it does keep their relatives, their moms, dads, grandparents, and so on, right within the community. So that community spirit is still there. And we need to be really aware that there are many, many, many regional communities that want that community spirit to see. It's almost like a big family of big extended family in these small communities. And we shouldn't be trying to make them bigger and bigger and bigger, we should acknowledge that. This is how some communities work best.
Julia Zemiro 21:58 But also, if at a federal level and a state level, you allow those people to keep doing what they do so well, which is take initiative, do things try and keep things together, you work as a team, you're not having to do it all as a leader, necessarily, but you're empowering others, which is what makes us interested in being better citizens. It's what makes us interested in keeping things beautiful, green, healthy, nearby, close by connected. That's that's where I've been sort of fascinated in this whole process in the last year and because of COVID, shutting us all down and separating us all of how we all come back together again. And you know, don't get people keep saying they're disconnected from voting that citizens are disconnected from voting. They're often not disconnected from the community. But it's then how it translates to, oh, who's your voice, then that goes to camera and says, Oh, can I just tell you about Crookwell I hope people are starting to see that there's a link, you know, that there's like, there's this umbilical cord that takes you there, whether you like it or not, it's there. So if you want to complain and complain, if you're not going to do anything about it, then I can't help you.
Penny Ackery 23:09 That's right, isn't it. And even, you know, I went there. And they said that I was there, I didn't speak or anything like that. I just listened and was amazed. But the number of people that came up and spoke to me about even the meal fellow from Meals on Wheels, who organizes it in Crookwell? And the saying, Look, you know, we get subsidized for seven meals, seven people, but we've actually they've actually assessed us and we've got 15. So there's an issue straightaway that go that I can take to higher levels to say, Well, you've the government has assessed that there are 15 people needing Meals on Wheels, but you're only subsidizing seven of them. So what happens to the rest of them. So it's things like that, that are really important.
Julia Zemiro 23:51 And it's insulting to be ignored that way too, because it's about detail, the devil is always in the detail. We know that we know that. You see it as well in your work as a teacher. It's the little things, the details that add up to make something work. And, again, I would say any of the people who are standing as independents in their jobs and what they've done, I think more lived and work experience, then then many of the people in charge, what can people do to help at this point, Penny.
Penny Ackery 24:19 So the best thing to do is to go onto my website, Penny accurate.com.au. And you can volunteer and there's spreadsheets there for volunteering for pre poll moving, or pre polling booths. And also obviously on the day itself, because like I mentioned, there's around about 80 polling booths on the day. So if we can have at least one preferably two people on each of those booths, that will be just enormously helpful and it will really, really make a difference. And so that's the best thing people can do at the moment. We're still you know, we're having people stand on the rail and road and on the sides of some of the other roads waving placards in the morning. so they can definitely volunteer for that. And that's a lot of fun doing that you meet lots of great people and and it's really uplifting when you have lots of honks and waves. And so that's a great thing. People are more than welcome to volunteer to do that. And again, they can volunteer through the website. The polling day is essential. And as many pre polling people that can come to man, the four polling booths beforehand is would be fantastic. Yeah, we've already got we've got a fair few already people volunteering, we've got a roster, but all the more the merrier. And minor just add, we have people coming from the Blue Mountains to do pre polling. We have people from Maggi coming to pre Paul, for us. We have people from Wellington, coming to pre Paul from Canberra. And these people have even been door knocking and letterboxing. So the feeling that we really, really need to change is not just within each separate electorate, but it's a broad thing. And people are wanting to help from outside to make that change happen.
Julia Zemiro 25:57 That's that was my case. You know, I'm in Whitlam and you know, and I wanted to come and help because I mean, I'll say quite honestly, I don't think Angus Taylor's doing any good in that community. I don't think he understands that community. And I was interested to, the only way to learn about something is to become part of it. And doing that launch was so it was a very eye opening to me to about how it works and how I found a lot of the people, like I said in, in that basketball court, I was chatting to them beforehand, we all were we all chatting while we were waiting for it to start. And some of them were curious. Some of them were undecided. Some of them had never been to something like this before. As you've said, some knew exactly what was going on. Some was saying I've got a young person in my life, or my daughter's in her teens or my son's just turned 20. And and how did they get involved? They were hungry for information. And that's been very interesting to me. Because if people are hungry for information, we've got to give it to them. And I think what's been really dispiriting is I think we've had a government in the last 10 years that doesn't want to empower people at all to know less and less and less about what's going on. And don't ask the question, read the back page, just check out what's happening in sport and entertainment. And don't look at the rest. And our lives are just intertwined with what happens in Canberra, they just end locally in our electorate, we have to be we have to care you have to care otherwise can't complain. Sorry. That's my that's my I'd have a T shirt saying can't complain if you don't get involved.
Penny Ackery 27:34 Yeah, look, that's true. And one of the other really big things that's come out through is even the volunteers people that are interested that you know, they are interested in politics, they're aware, the the lack of knowledge that people often have, about how the system works, how the actual voting works. So we've all got a bit of an idea, but I've was really informed by some of the things I've watched on YouTube about preferential voting. I thought I knew. But there's a whole lot of things wrong. Yeah, right. Okay. So what are us as volunteers and people that are talking to people on the streets, we're actually starting to educate if you like, people about what how they actually vote. And when you put a preference like what does that actually mean? Does it actually go anywhere? Or it might depend on the photo? But it's also making sure that they know which isn't the tablecloth? Or is it the little sheep? Which one are you wearing as low house with a little one, and I may not, they're educated people, but we don't, whether it's something we need to do in schools a lot more or whether it just me needs to be really hammered home when elections happen to remind people, because there's a system that works really well. But if we're informed about how we make the system work, then we empower ourselves a lot more. Acropolis the other day, I had a lady stopped me and she said, one of your door knockers came to the door, and I was in my pajamas. But my young young son came and you know, he's I think he was just turning to vote. And so this person was able to explain to him and I learned a lot she said about what you actually do on on voting day, and how you you know how the system works, but also about those other issues that I wasn't aware of, and he wasn't. So I believe we've actually not just had a an election campaign, but an education campaign to
Julia Zemiro 29:22 100%. And it's got to keep going to because I remember the first time I voted, I didn't know that there was a huge sheet of paper and the small one. Now that's like a secret, isn't it? It's like a weird secret that people turn up and go, What is going is this? Is this normal that the papers this big? Why is it this big? No one really talks about it. And whenever people do talk about it in Canberra, it's the clicks. They know all about it, because they live it and breathe it and do it. Why is that not filtering down? And if people have not preferential voted properly in the past, well then what's the result of that? she'll even mean, you know, if you don't, if you're not voting in the correct way for what you might want by accident, then something's something seriously wrong. People only seem to have to talk about how to vote, when it happened when it needs to happen, rather than going learn it every year, learned every year, this is how it is Be it at school kids can tell their parents or parents don't even know. You know. And often that happens, isn't it? Doesn't it kids often are telling they're often educating their own parents about about things. So yeah, an education campaign. Absolutely. So people can get in touch get on the website, get out there. On the night itself. Where will you be? Do you think you're going to be local, with some people with your team?
Penny Ackery 30:47 Well, we've been discussing that over the last few weeks. And at one stage, we thought I will make a place in the middle of the electorate and bus people in and then we thought, Well, somebody's got to drive home again, I think the lead, I think what we're going to try to do is have something in Golden, which is the biggest center down here. And then something up Camden way. And because we have so many volunteers up north down south, and I'm not because of the size of the electorate, I'd love to think I could get in and out, it takes us two and a half hours to get from Camden down to here. Don't think that's going to work. But especially because the results are going to come in pretty quick. And it's going to be number one meat anyway. Yeah, we thought it would. So we'll probably have two events, and seeing if we can work at so that we can actually people can stay in their own home state Bundanoon or a Ghanian or borrower, and they can zoom in and join the party. So we've yet to sort of work out the finer details of that. But to unlike in a smaller electorate, where you just have one and everybody pops in and it takes them half an hour to an hour. You know, we don't want people traveling late at night, you know that the polling booths shuts, and then they've got to rush down somewhere. So we're, we're looking at having two venues, and I'll probably stay down this area, I'll probably finish up there and then travel down. But that's the thought at the moment, but trying to see if we can get other people, the volunteers, they can stay in their own homes have their own little parties, but they connected to us. So yeah, I have to get my son in to do a bit of tech work their opinion
Julia Zemiro 32:15 of what we all want we all Penny, I've never been more engaged in the election before. I've always been keen. I've always had little election parties and watch don't get me wrong. It's going to be a very interesting, maybe historically significant night, I think the best thing about what's happened, this election is a lot more people are asking questions and wanting to find out how this system works and how we can make it better for all of us. And that is not a glib sentence, I genuinely feel like we need to keep being involved in that. And you've been a very big part in being one of those incredible independents who have a perfectly nice life. And I'm happy doing the things they're doing, but stood up, volunteered to be one of the four was chosen and has worked incessantly since So personally, I want to thank you for just being that extraordinary. Get up and try get up and do and getting finding out so much information and bring it back to us and I have all my fingers crossed for you for the night Penny. It's been a real pleasure meeting you and being part of a little bit of a part of your of your journey.
Penny Ackery 33:24 Well thanks, Julia. And I really appreciate the support that you're giving. But all the people around Australia who send me emails and best wishes and let's have a change. So far, so many people around Australia are looking for that change and all the support that you've given and other people have given. I think we were on the road to change.
Julia Zemiro 33:42 Alright, fingers crossed. Thank you. Thanks, Julia.
Dan Ilic 33:47 What out what up? Jay Z asked who cares? Should boy Jay Z makes noise novedge as a journalism hero, this is Julius Amira asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 33:57 I really want to thank penny for speaking with me today. It was actually her birthday. She told me at the end of the call. She had her brothers and family coming to visit for a barbecue that day. Also, Penny's husband, John after a long illness died a couple of weeks ago, and she's continuing with her campaign. And I really think that speaks to her commitment and energy and strength to keep on going. And she says she has said on on on her social media that it's something that he absolutely wanted her to keep going with. So and I think it's important to to tell you that Penny's campaign is crowd funded primarily by people from across the human electorate. She's not accepting funds from climate 200 As many of the Indies are, or get up or of course, she's not accepting anything from oil and gas companies or pharmaceuticals or any other special interest group. I thought it was worth pointing that out. And if you want to help, especially on polling day that's absolutely needed. So go to her website. To me, the whole election period has been a she says not just an election campaign, but an education campaign. Are you shocked? I am. I'm shocked by how many people don't quite know how the system works. And we really hopefully, will change that a bit more in the future because that's crazy. We should know a lot more about how the system works. All right. That's podcast number five. One more to go. CC
A Rational Fear — LIVE — Melbourne Comedy Festival 2022 — Grace Tame, Zoe Daniel, Alice Fraser, Dane Simpson, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic, Vidya Rajan + DJ Andy McClelland.
Thrilled to bring you the A Rational Fear LIVE show we did last month at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
It is a long and very enjoyable show featuring.
Alice Fraser Gabbi Bolt Dane Simpson Grace Tame Zoe Daniel Vidya Rajan Lewis Hobba Dan Ilic DJ Andy McClelland
It maybe one of our best shows we've ever done. Thanks to everyone who came along, and we hope to see you at our 10 year show at the Sydney Opera House on June 4th.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.
Lewis Hobba 0:10 thank you so much for coming here. This is amazing. Oh
Dan Ilic 0:13 my god. Wow. When our producer said do you want the 200 seats, the 300 seat or the 800 seat, I said, give us the 800 seat. We'll fill it almost. And
Lewis Hobba 0:26 I said give me the MCG
Dan Ilic 0:29 right tonight shows a bit of a different kind of show. If you come to Comedy Festival. This is a podcast recording I'm sorry.
Lewis Hobba 0:35 It basically just means fewer jokes. Lower the expectation,
Dan Ilic 0:40 but you get some discounts on a great mattress. It's gonna be great. We're gonna put on a great show regardless, but you have to do your job as a great audience. Can you be a great audience? Fantastic. So part of that, you know, laughing clapping cheering whistling all of that. That's good stuff. That is good stuff but heckling is out. What's
Lewis Hobba 0:57 the opinion on like, flares out? No flare, pyrotechnics of any kind.
Dan Ilic 1:02 No pirates
Lewis Hobba 1:03 weapons
Dan Ilic 1:04 Bad. Very bad unless they
Lewis Hobba 1:07 have to get rid of some stuff.
Andrew McClelland 1:09 Twain What about Twain,
Dan Ilic 1:10 Shania Twain. Perfect. So heckling is a little tricky. If you do hecho you'll be removed faster than a liberal who's won pre selection? Who made the Lebanese so you'll be out you'll be straight out of there, straight out of there. Now if you think someone next year is going to do something, just give them a stern look. The kind of look my mum gives her friends when she's got to explain what I do for a job
Lewis Hobba 1:36 that you do the tree brothers are so much better than you.
Dan Ilic 1:38 I know. They are really lovely. So we're making this a safe space for you and our people on stage. Can you do that for me? Right. We also going to cover some pretty tricky topics. Okay, so and we've got a lot of foul language. A lot of adult words will be flung at you but there will be puns as well. The worst kind of should give you full warning and that Alice Fraser is here. She's brought all the puns she has. If something does trigger you something gives you an easy feelings. Sophie Minetti is over at the sound desk over there. She's waving by the sound desk. If you need to talk to someone during the show. Go have a chat with Sophie or afterwards as well. We've got a place you guys can go. All right, great. What else we're gonna do here Oh, big thank you to our Patreon supporters. Here. We got one right here. Thank you, Tim. Thank you.
Lewis Hobba 2:26 I feel this like like when you get on a plane and they're like oh, big thank you to Oh, Qantas oneworld customers can
Dan Ilic 2:35 see more merch here. You're a Patreon supporter. Oh, fantastic. Oh my God.
Lewis Hobba 2:42 Is there anyone here tonight who's never heard of the podcasts and doesn't know why they're here?
Dan Ilic 2:49 Well, you're fine. You're about to find out sign up to get a poster. I certainly get the show. Right. Let's
Lewis Hobba 2:55 do it. Let's get the show started. The other quick thing is right at the start, Dan likes to do three jokes. And there are varying quality. But I would really appreciate it if for the benefit of those listening at home. You laugh so loudly. He he really need his brothers are so much better than he really needs this.
Dan Ilic 3:16 Thank you, Louis. All right. We're recording this episode of irrational fear on Wonderland in the Kulin nation, sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's stop the show.
Alice Fraser 3:31 Let everybody go gang prepping for irrational fear with grace to making the transition to a comedy stage. Any advice video?
Vidya Rajan 3:38 Yes, Grace. First, you've got to just start by really trusting the stage you're on. I know. It can be really scary. always like, Oh my God, is it gonna collapse? But chances are it won't even just creak and fall under you.
Grace Tame 3:50 Yeah, right. Well, I have been on a few stage just before.
Vidya Rajan 3:56 Yeah, yeah. But this is a comedy stage and much like the comedians on those stages. They're very unstable on the inside.
Alice Fraser 4:04 Any advice for hecklers Gaby?
Gabbi Bolt 4:06 It's what I mean, it's, it's a horrible person yelling horrible things at you. And we don't know what happens. And I know that that might not have happened to you before. But like, it's just you know, it's a part of the comedy world, you know.
Unknown Speaker 4:22 I reckon I've been
Grace Tame 4:24 a wreck and I've been abused before.
Vidya Rajan 4:28 Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. No, of course.
Gabbi Bolt 4:32 Of course you have.
Alice Fraser 4:33 And of course, saying stuff on stage. That's an important part of this right? Often I find it's funny because it's true. So you might just want to go on stage and just say the truth.
Grace Tame 4:44 Look, I'll give it a crack. Trust that the audience on your side and yeah, believe in yourself, I suppose. That's actually
Unknown Speaker 4:55 really good advice.
Vidya Rajan 4:57 Good way of looking at things I might just read that kit. Oh, yeah. Good advice. I think that could really help us Yeah.
Simon Chilvers 5:07 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks. And section of rational here recommended listening by emoji.
Dan Ilic 5:22 Tonight, Morrison receives a hostile reception at a new costume pub, to which Scott Morrison said I reject the premise of the statement. It's the same kind of reception I get everywhere. And the Australian Grand Prix returns to Melbourne for the first time in two years. When asked how excited that the race is back in Australia January, Ricardo said and the election has finally been cooled. But we're running out of time for Peter Dutton to call a party remaining to roll Scott Boras says My God, this is irrational.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former pre selected liberal candidate for Cooktown illage. And you're listening to irrational fear at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the petri dish of Australian culture and COVID-19 So thank you for coming here and risking your life for a comedy podcast really appreciate that. This is the podcast that takes the scariest news and laughs in its face much the same way. Scott Morrison laughs in the face of a Commonwealth integrity commission with no retrospective powers. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. Every few weeks our first fear monger starts a new satirical comedy podcast from the bugle the gargle tea with Alice and the Joe Rogan experience experience. It's Alice Fraser. I haven't listened to the Joe Rogan experience experience. What's it all about?
Alice Fraser 7:04 Oh, I think we live too scared of Joe Rogan. I think he's just a perfectly nice comedy meathead who accidentally got caught in a toxic spill at the masculinity factory.
Dan Ilic 7:12 And she's the lyrical satirical miracle that isn't here to the empirical let's get him out. Gabby, this is your first ever Melbourne Comedy Festival as a solo artist and you're already selling out what's your secret? Money
Gabbi Bolt 7:26 laundering mostly. Works well.
Dan Ilic 7:30 And he's a military man who just got married. Sorry, people. He's off the market. He's the purveyor of Wagga. Wagga is fine. His dad jokes. It's Dane Simpson. Now, I actually got that wrong. Sorry, Dane. You are the finest purveyor of jokes about your dad specifically. Does he mind?
Dane Simpson 7:50 He's too stupid understand.
Dan Ilic 7:53 And each morning he siphons the blood of 322 year olds to keep himself fresh for the National Youth broadcaster. It's tripled J's last remaining geriatric millennial Louis harbor. Lewis, how do you keep up with the Gen Zed logo? The Gen Zed lingo?
Lewis Hobba 8:12 Do I keep up with the Gen Zed lingo? Yeah, I mean, I like to just use it with lingo from my own time to make it easy. I'll say something like ah, have you? Pardon me boys? Is that the Chattanooga Choo it's lit
Dan Ilic 8:28 and he's immunity musical genius who is genetically gifted it is Andy McClellan. Thank you.
Andrew McClelland 8:35 I just here to promote my extremely nice Gilbert and Sullivan themes Comedy Festival. Come along,
Dan Ilic 8:41 and they're a changemaker cage Rattler, Dragon Slayer and she represented Australia in the 50 meter side I its face time.
Race How does one train for the 50 meter side? I
Grace Tame 9:05 well, like the legend Don Bradman, I practice against a wall every day.
Dan Ilic 9:11 Coming up later in the show, we are Zoe Daniel if this sign is big enough, or legal enough, but first a message from this week's sponsor. Now it is not cheap to rent out the forum so I hope you'll forgive our sponsor for tonight. It's called oil cares. A petroleum advocacy group dedicated to letting you know that oil well cares. Please welcome their spokesperson Vidya Rajan for a quick word on women apparently Vidya
Vidya Rajan 9:46 Yes, Dan oil cares about you about me and especially about women. Oil loved woman. Patriarchy has kept both oil Well as woman in ground for too long. I'm mushy. Hey, did you know BP actually stands for boss pussy? Squad? Yes. Goals? Yes. Grace tame the anti fracking lobby. Look, we love all sis and trans continental pipelines for sis and trans oil
Dan Ilic 10:37 Thank you Good job. Well, folks, the election is finally upon us. Today the Prime Minister and prominent gas man, Scott Morrison, called the election at the last possible date he legally could, which continues to prove just how this government is run by the Engadine doctrine. That is the principle of Miring and indecision until the march of time forces action upon you. You know, like
like shooting yourself in an egg in a McDonald's.
Lewis Hobba 11:13 Can you help yourself? Everyone got a dad? I
Dan Ilic 11:14 know. He's like, everyone's got it. He's the edge he makes shitting. Yeah, I had to explain that for my dad who lives. I don't know, if you agree. This is how the whole country is run. Everything seems to be done in a hurry at the last minute.
Lewis Hobba 11:27 It's not how I remember I seem to remember the vaccines arriving on time. Masks arriving on time, people whose houses
Dan Ilic 11:35 burned down and got immediately rebuilt only to be washed away again. Yeah,
Dane Simpson 11:39 I find the most unbelievable part of this is that your dad listens. Like, you do not have supportive parents.
Dan Ilic 11:47 I got an email today. This is I told everyone backstage, I got an email today from dad saying I just listened to the last three irrational fears. And I'm like, Well,
Lewis Hobba 11:55 I've been doing it for 10 years dad started a podcast boy, would he listen.
Andrew McClelland 12:02 You can quit comedy now that you have parental approval.
Dan Ilic 12:05 That's it. I'm gonna become a lawyer. But tonight, I thought we'd start with the story of how many of you in the room helped me for Scott Morrison to do something at the last minute, let me take you back to September, a time before the last five one in 100 year floods. It was a month out from cop 26 in Glasgow, the UN climate conference, we wanted to take a rational fear there and put shows in Glasgow in a pub like we do. But someone forgot to reply to emails from Pfizer, and we just couldn't manage to do it. So we're all stuck at home like many of you, and so I wonder what could I do from there? How could how could we have an impact from there at these conferences? So I don't know if you know, but at these conferences Australia is like enemy number one. We are like the Barnaby Joyce, but of the world. We're the third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. So naturally, we gang up with them to try and sabotage every international agreement that kind of ever comes out of these climate talks.
Lewis Hobba 13:04 You guys have probably heard all this and all the other comedy shows in Melbourne, I imagine.
Dan Ilic 13:10 The world basically the world hates us, right? And what's more, Scott Morrison was actually going to go like he actually wasn't gonna go to this conference because, quote, it would disrupt his ability to engage in my normal duties as prime minister. We wouldn't want that. Yeah. Which is so weird. It's so weird, like, doing something would prevent him from doing nothing. It's a
Alice Fraser 13:32 weird because he enjoys being far away when something's going wrong.
Dan Ilic 13:37 Exactly. So I wanted to send a message to the world at this cop that, you know, the people that represent Australia at these conferences don't necessarily represent Australians. So I bought this billboard, it cost $12,225 somewhere in the back streets of Glasgow, but put a crowdfunding campaign together. And I'm sure many people donated to here. Anyone donated to Joe keeper? Thank you. This is like, I feel like I'm reporting to the board of directors.
Lewis Hobba 14:05 Which of you gave us money?
Dan Ilic 14:08 So we could put three bits of artwork on there. So we did cuddle the koala before we make them extinct. I know some people cried. Some people laughed. That's our brand. Australia did zero by 2300. And prominent climate economist Catan Joshi reached out he said, Did you steal that from my tweet because that's actually where we're going to end up because we're not reducing emissions fast enough. And then I put up your own truth for billboards. Someone who donated $4,000 to the billboard could actually buy a truthful billboard of their own. So at 6:30am on the 27th of September, I put up this crowdfunding campaign at 8:30am I got $12,000. That's amazing. And the money kept coming. And then also somebody bought the billboard famous Australian celebrity bought it and they DM to me their request
Lewis Hobba 14:54 and I told you not to tell anyone I bought that.
Dan Ilic 14:58 Richard Wilkins yeah look sorry that our government bullshitting kind regards Australia overwhelming majority of residents. Is there a poll we could refer to? And of course, there is a poll. So that was amazing. So this told me three things people want climate action. I'm going to need more billboards. And I'm going to need bigger billboards. So I booked the biggest billboard in Times Square. It's so big. They call it Godzilla.
Lewis Hobba 15:28 That's how big it is. And weirdly, he just was like we need to make sure people see black widow
Unknown Speaker 15:38 for the Marvel Universe
Lewis Hobba 15:40 I'm like I thought it was meant to be climate change. He's like no scarred your hands has been overlooked for too long. Just been relegated to the back of the Marvel movies Magana the front
Dan Ilic 15:48 a cause $100,000 an hour but I did in New York do we did it for 16 for 10 minutes, which was great. So we got the artwork together. Now Andres who is in the audience tonight, put some of this together. Thank you, Andres.
Look at that incredible right. And then this one is actually came up. Gabby actually came up with this one.
Unknown Speaker 16:13 I can't take all the credit.
Dan Ilic 16:14 Thank you, Daddy. That was very good caller file dandy. A comic con parody, but Cali con with special guest Matt Canavan, winner of Best cold cosplay 2020 This one from Sean Marsh, we're rich and sunshine wind and climate denial. Then I turned to one of my tweets into a billboard of the Australian government against humanity. And and my favorite flop is over here during a deadly pandemic former commissioned to fix the problem by building a gas pipeline. I'm pretty sure that's not how you fucking do it.
Lewis Hobba 16:47 At this point, the only billboards in the world were owned by Dan Ilic and Franco QOTSA.
Dan Ilic 16:54 bhi pharma, and this one too? Yeah, look sorry about our government. So we got the wonderful apology there for our celebrity. So the invoices paid hundreds of Aziz RSVP, the press was invited. And also on Twitter, Russell Crowe, cch CNN, he said, Hey, Jake Tapper, have you seen this? And Jake Tapper said I had not Russell Crowe. Thanks Thank you Russell dry.
Gabbi Bolt 17:22 That hyphen is so aggressive.
Dan Ilic 17:26 October 15 9:45am. Me and my partner were by our TV trying to find the right webcam to watch this happen. We couldn't quite find the right one. We saw this one and then we saw this one this giant billboard is incredible. So these were some of the other artwork look like from the street? Absolutely amazing. And here is my favorite billboard missing person last seen doing nothing answers to scomo and the cold lovey. That was me on CNN, you know, no big deal, whatever. So it's not going to Glasgow. Yes. October 15. Well, 9:45am No. 2pm Yes.
Also, the clean grumbled about him not going so I was probably the clean but you know, whatever. We fucking made him go well done to you. Thanks, everyone. All right. So we had we had some money left over. So we upped our billboards in Glasgow, we got some ones by the freeway on the way to the convention center, some others in the suburbs of Glasgow. This one is in Armadale and Barnaby Joyce's electorate. And what's great is it's right next to the MCAS one. And everyone sees it I get people it's still up because no one wants this billboard. But people text me all the time. It's great. Horsham, Torquay. And we bought some billboards around. Scott Morrison's electric This is in cook it says visit the old bread stumps of Tasmania. Yes. Pete from Tasmania. Give it a round of applause Yes. Crisis from Tasmania.
Unknown Speaker 19:10 We're all here tonight. That means
Dan Ilic 19:15 and we got one in the Sutherland Shire Hawaiian hideaway for when things get too hot at home. bushfire sale now on this one in Engadine Welcome to Engadine the place where Scott Morrison last did anything. And this is my favorite one. A group of engineers and doctors got together and said Please can you do a billboard about the future of jobs? We're so depressed and yeah, I can do a billboard about the future jobs and young people. That's fine. So here's this one. Oh, hang on. Oh, sign up there. Oh, I fucked it. I deleted it. Sorry. But anyway,
Lewis Hobba 19:49 you could explain it. It was really great.
Andrew McClelland 19:54 You describe it. Yeah. Visual. does describe it now. Oh, yeah.
Dan Ilic 19:59 Okay, sure. So I had a picture of a young girl, and she was in a Do you want
Lewis Hobba 20:03 to act in?
Andrew McClelland 20:05 Numbers? Perhaps? Oh, yeah,
Lewis Hobba 20:06 I'll be the adorable Young.
Dan Ilic 20:08 mortarboard.
Lewis Hobba 20:09 Can you be a movie adorable young girl
Dan Ilic 20:11 adorable young girl looking up. And it said by 2035, Cassie will be qualified to put politicians in jail for historical climate crimes.
Alice Fraser 20:23 Can I? Can I just say, Dan, I just say so many people. When you talk about climate change they got I feel really helpless. I feel like I can't make a difference. Right? And if we look at this man who cannot even put up the slide that he wanted to put out a massive fucking difference in Australian politics. If he can do it, you can do.
Dan Ilic 20:46 I'm so glad Alice told you the punchline of my story, because he's waiting hold on for my Melbourne friends. Now, out of home media. They said yes, you can have a billboard in Hawthorne. But that particular billboard is for non political messaging. And I said, Can I sell a standing desk? And she said, Yes, you can sell a standing desk. So I put up this billboard in Hawthorne that says, Hey, big space. It's time to buy a standing desk, because you're about to lose your seat
with with the hope, with the hope that no one would ever dare write Josh next to it, because that would make it political. And we can't have that someone didn't write Josh. Thankfully, instead, they wrote Frydenberg. And it makes it so much more sinister. Like, hey, it's time to buy a standing desk because you're about to lose your seat.
So Media gave me a call. After a month of that being up December, they gave me a call. They said Dan, that billboard you put up with had complaints? The billboard is now political. And I said no, it's not. It's just defaced. And they said, Well, unfortunately, it is political. And we're gonna have to pull it down. I assumed it was the AC and I thought, Oh, well, the AC they're doing the due diligence. Fair enough. It doesn't have an authorized on yeah, get it. We're just making jokes. We're not a campaigner. And I said, Well, okay, fair enough. Can we replace it? Yes. Can we can replace it. Then they said no, you can't replace it. But it has been replaced since by this. I reckon that was the bloke who complained. Josh Frydenberg face now replaces our billboard, which is pretty astounding. That's
Lewis Hobba 22:56 pretty annoyingly. He is one has just gotten back in the right place. At the top.
Dan Ilic 23:03 Exactly, yeah. So Oh, media. I had another running with them. I wanted to put up a billboard in Hinkler in Bundaberg. This is Keith Pitzer electorate. He is the is the resources minister. He just basically his job is to get as much coal out as possible. And he was famous for being on Sky News last year for not being able to admit on TV that batteries could possibly store power from solar and wind. He couldn't say it on TV. He couldn't even say the word battery. So I pitched this to out of home media. I said, How about this? Hey, Keith batteries give you power in the dark with a picture of a vibrator. And they said no. To political plus, it's got a sex toy. No. I was like, Okay, thank you media. How about this? Did you know batteries can give you power in the dark with a flashlight? And they said no. To political or no. Right? And then I pitched him this I was like, I'm like, at this point. I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna fucking buy a billboard out of spite. So I said, How about this batteries? Wow. They said. They said they said yes. They said yes. But for keen eyed observers out there. There it is all the look. The only people I was very disappointed about it. But the people who were happy where the battery store that it was
but the keen eyed observers out there, you may recognize that also, it wasn't a flashlight. It was a it was a flashlight. Yeah. So climate change, as Alan said, can make you feel extremely powerless. Right and, and this is a strange moment we're in. We're 45 days away from when we all can be a little more powerful. And I want to just implore you to please Leave this election. Tell your friends and yourself. Don't vote for candidates funded by fossil fuels rational
Unknown Speaker 25:12 you need to continue to run your coal fired power stations for as long as you possibly can. Your fear is over. Gotta be
Gabbi Bolt 25:25 high. Yeah, no, the keyboards just a prop. Makes me look good. I don't actually play it at all. Recently, Scott Morrison said another great gems of advice now that we're on the topic. So if you can't afford to rent a house, buy one. I said no, that's stupid. So I've come up with a new plan. So just sorry. In the front of this area, hands up if you're a home owner. Oh my god. Sorry, I'd have to take a moment. Sorry, Andy. Do I look? Do I look okay? Yeah, here's the smell horrible.
Andrew McClelland 26:03 You got a nose ring. Is that intentional?
Gabbi Bolt 26:05 Oh? No, no. Okay. All right. I have a pitch for all of you. You're all really beautiful. Are any of you going away? Anyone nice young disposable income having things like yourselves. I'm sure there's only a matter of time until you plan a holiday and when you do I want you to take my pitch on board. Okay, DJ I'm ready
Vidya Rajan 26:43 they fired me from all the clubs Jesus Christ
Gabbi Bolt 26:57 been waited so long so let me know ready hikes
I want to take around.
Unknown Speaker 27:11 I'm going to come and say
Gabbi Bolt 27:16 don't think about it too hard. That's the right house.
Unknown Speaker 27:23 Let me sit in your house. Let me pretend that I own this $5,000 couch. I'm gonna write in your sheets 10,000 Cows sitting in your house so I gotta keep my options free. I'll never penetrate the housing market. So a lender asked, penetrate me.
Gabbi Bolt 28:01 I'm squatting at my mom's rich friend's house. It's like a luxury b&b. Being a generation
Unknown Speaker 28:12 has never been so sexy to me. I'm
Gabbi Bolt 28:14 about to say oh my god. Is that a double door fridge holy shit in this house.
Zoe Daniel 28:25 With a built in ice dispenser.
Gabbi Bolt 28:30 House you've got a dishwasher egg on no black cold in the bathroom
thank you for contributing to my deposit
Alice Fraser 28:56 against Islam as a disease we need to vaccinate ourselves against that. I'm not selling a lot of tickets. This year. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is not a flyer outside the town hall and Facebook ads do not work. Anyone here from a Facebook ad? Yeah, I made my point just I wanted to talk about social media and propaganda was looking at the online messaging from Ukraine and Russia and made me think we should talk about cyber warfare and propaganda like a proper hefty subject difficult to address properly with the tools available to a comedian. And then Elon Musk bought 9% of Twitter on the premise that he is a free speech absolutist. And I found my in Elon Musk a man with the face of a police sketch of a man
and the noble ambition that everyone should be able to speak as freely as him the richest man in the world without being subjected to rudeness from plebs who don't understand your noble ambition to call As the stars for humanity sorry humanity he is a free speech absolutist to do him credit I believe that he is he has ethical principles. I think he thinks he's a free speech absolutist. I'm sure he thinks that if you throw all the ideas in the world into a Thunderdome, the one that ends up beating all the other ones to death with its bare fists is the best idea. Of course he believes the person who ends up with the most money in the world deserves to get there by virtue because people say they're a free speech absolutist I have friends who say that I'm a believer in free speech myself, I believe in the right to offend because I know people who are offended by women talking or men crying or non binary people having hair cuts, I I even believe people have a right to offend me. I love nothing more than a good faith disagreement with people who are willing to admit they're wrong. Because I'm right. I'm talking about people who think anyone should be able to say anything because it's just words you know, it's just words, the words the one thing that's made us as a species capable of communicating, cooperating building complex machinery, and each individual having access to more information than we could acquire in a lifetime by a process of licking stuff and seeing if it was poison. You know, just words. For all the free speech absolutist surrounding the simple clarity of that ethical stance, I see very few of them discussing the fact that the moment you have an algorithm in play, you do not have free speech. We have to stop blaming people for falling for the propaganda that they see online and start holding to account the invisible hand of a market that keeps offering us shiny perfumed testicles on a plate and telling us their pearls it's not your weird aunt's fault that she keeps getting served quote information from quote doctors who quote have the quote cure for quote lizard virus. It's the fucking algorithm has decided she should be offered things she likes based on things she already likes, like a Tinder date who read you like long walks on the beach and brought eight barrels of sand to the date. I have a daughter now a whole fresh daughter and I'm terrified of the algorithms she's gonna be go straight into the algorithm. She's gonna watch Teletubbies at the age of three. And by the time she's 25 She'll be watching telly Toby's 142 We already have Fast and Furious nine. And it's amazing. We're the species that invented Russian Roulette let us take a fucking risk. Okay, sorry is gonna lead to boycotting Russia were the species that invented roulette. Let us take it like there's nothing you could have had before. You had an olive that would tell you you would love and olives. No one was like, Oh, you love too much salt and the texture of pickled rubberbands you love and all and no, you just tried one one time and it was good. Fuck the algorithm telling you things that you're going to like as though it knows you. Right? Let us gamble. That's the thing. Why were people we will always have these people do things we always have gambling and sex work and nonsense. We love nonsense. My issue is when a machine comes in and strips away all of the checks and balances and tips the slope so far downwards, that normal people can't possibly resist the worst distortions of their own characters. So it's not enough to have a card table. You've got to hide the clocks and have free drinks and flashing lights and law old people into poker machines at their local pubs. That's what the social media algorithm is. So the next time you want to blame someone for retweeting an article that they saw online and someone goes Oh, it's just words it's just free speech. It is not free speech if there is an algorithm at play, and Elon Musk can go fuck himself Thank you
Dan Ilic 33:38 Alice. Has anyone on this panel here ever been subjected to like vicious or unfounded rumors on on the internet Dad I'll take this one. Never
Grace Tame 33:55 Twitter into a year ago and I genuinely thought when I was hearing people talk about Elon Musk I thought he was I thought he
Unknown Speaker 34:03 was a malas
Lewis Hobba 34:08 and as your opinion che Yeah.
Dan Ilic 34:14 I would love to see you know how chemists warehouse has like, like fragrances for everyone. I would love to see one and chemists warehouse Elon Musk is one I'd love to see it. Not smell it not smell it. Yeah. Now what's the easiest way to reckon to teach your friends and family media literacy? Like, do you have to sit down with your parents to say I'm sorry, no. That picture while lead isn't going to make you rich?
Gabbi Bolt 34:39 I just had the luxury of shoddy not and giving it to my brother to fold out but I've never had to talk to my parents about technology once so sorry, Sam.
Alice Fraser 34:48 My dad's all over it. He's He's like all over technology. He's over technology the way a boomer it's like loves an iPad loves being on speaker, but like he does he does know some media literacy. Well, you know, Twitter is also he was the head of the media and communications Law Center at the Union.
Dan Ilic 35:07 That helps, yeah, you're dead like that.
Dane Simpson 35:09 I just genuinely I thought that there was this rumor about being online and it was just like because I have a Google
Dan Ilic 35:16 Alert. For me, right.
Dane Simpson 35:20 Arrogant superstar is talking about David Simpson. Superstar basketball player is now and I'm like, not not, not not not. Not not. There's another Dane Simpson.
Dan Ilic 35:33 Ah, I, my online doppelganger. We share the same name. His name is genuine, which he used to be the creative director in LA and now he is the creative director of Mehta. And I don't know what I'm going to do. You will be the first to know about it.
Lewis Hobba 35:55 Yeah, my doppelgangers. My name is actually Lewis Hamilton. Pava. Right. Do you like that's not a joke? That's genuine. Yeah. And so a lot of fuck, I'll just say it a lot of my like secret social media accounts and Lewis Hamilton, which started before kind of Lewis Hamilton. Like, obviously, it was good, but he wasn't like Lewis Hamilton. And now I'm just really angry at house except like, there was a time I was gonna change my name to Lewis Hamilton. I was like, I'm gonna be the most famous Lewis Hamilton the rebel. So the Grand Prix is actually particularly triggering for me.
Dan Ilic 36:27 Everyone, please give it up for Dane Simpson.
Dane Simpson 36:37 Take this
Lewis Hobba 36:38 liking. Yeah. All right.
Dane Simpson 36:40 This is gonna be a little bit heavy, but you do have permission to laugh fuck.
Dan Ilic 36:44 Yeah. Don't worry, don't just the weight of 60,000 years of your people's culture. Yeah, right here. Yep.
Dane Simpson 36:53 I'm Ernie Dingo. And it does contain images of people who may have deceased just for the mob in the room. Depending on when you're listening to this could even be fucking me. All right. aren't dead Simpson, Australia's greatest comedian and liar. Okay, so we are going to be talking about a very heavy topic today. Oh, also. Yeah, I'm from the Camilla nation. an Aboriginal guy. Milroy people. My people come from Walgett which is epic New South Wales. Little Town. So 80% Aboriginal 20% Cops now. I know like both my parents are Aboriginal. Yeah, I know that I don't look the army and that's okay. How that works is my granddad on my mom's side was a white fella. Right? So I don't know how that makes me Indian.
Just every time I come to Melbourne, I'm constantly telling people I'm not Indian. I'm Aboriginal. There's even people in this room still looking at me. I think he drove us here. I didn't. Different people. All right. I'm gonna be talking today about Australia Day. Right? And the problem with Australia Day. Obviously, there's a group of people who can't celebrate on Australia Day. And those people are people who have to work the next day. You hear? They're always complaining? Oh, you should come out. Have you? Not? I've got a work tomorrow. Loser, right? There's also other people who can't celebrate on the day. Oh, that's right, First Nation people. But why? Why can't they just join in? Straight A's is about drinking beers, having a sausage and wearing the fucking flag as a cake. I did some research into this. And I tried to figure out what how do we actually celebrate the very first Australia Day and I watched this documentary called lousy little six minutes, I encourage you to go and watch it. It was made in 1983. And it talked about the Australian government and their idea when they first ever came up with celebrating Australia in 1938. Here's a little snippet from that documentary.
Andrew McClelland 39:19 Film loading
Unknown Speaker 39:24 failure today, among the nation, we are building a great industrial civilization on this primary bases and developing a new race a new force in the culture of mind and body. In this Sunnyland both build the racial physique equal to any in the world. Australian history already bears the base and re of glory won by our volunteers on the battlefields of the Great Wall. Yet only 150 years ago, Australia was still a nameless Island inhabited by savages to mop this cloud record of progress. The government of New South Wales decided to celebrate with three months of I don't prey on Carnival.
Dane Simpson 40:01 What a lovely celebration. Yeah, 150 years ago, a nameless Island celebrated just full of savages, right? So it's, it's weird that Aboriginal people would want to get involved and celebrate on this day. Also, the documentary goes on to show the actual day and what they did to celebrate it. It's the straight government they wouldn't have done anything crook. It's not like they do like a fucking reenactment or anything like that. Taking over Australia. It's not like that, get Aboriginal people and starve them, put them in jail and threaten them if they didn't go along with what they had planned. Actually, that's exactly what they're talking to
Unknown Speaker 40:43 three flames into life as the dramatic scenes of the first landing. Duck gonna keep being acted as bomb go. With the the native gathering in corroborate to ward off the invaders, just as they then did. In the face of medicine savages, the white man had bumped up the shore of the new land. There any likelihood of an ambush? So a handful of Englishmen took possession of the continent, a vast unknown primeval land. Well, fuck,
Dane Simpson 41:14 right. It's like all Aboriginal people. Why don't you just want to join in and celebrate with us? That's weird. You should just do it. Right? But these are the foundations that we actually celebrate Australia are on. And it's not like you can sort of well, I suppose you can have the argument. Yeah, but we don't celebrate that today. It's not like the Australian government today does like a reenactment. Scott Morrison did an NPM replica to sail around Australia to mark 250 years since Captain Cook's arrival. It cost 6.7 million to do this as part of a $60 million dollar budget. 10 million more than the bushfires by the way. Crazy, crazy crazy. Ah, this is a side note. Actually, this is more for a rational fee, guys. This is part of the document as well. And I just wanted to point this out. 1938 there was Aboriginal protesters were getting some traction, and we're starting to get rights for Aboriginal people. But the Australian press put a little backstop in that and held it off for another 29 years Aboriginal people didn't get rights until 1967. And they played some propaganda 1938 What was the most biggest fear that people had? It's
Unknown Speaker 42:25 free, perhaps in the past, to free. Now, where could this be better illustrated that in Sydney's great domain, it is here the free speech has been allowed to all we had a visit from one who started this craze on a pleasure cruise, he said are getting dimension that it was a pleasure cruise organised by the government of Germany, even away in the little known interior. Amongst the primitive mediums there are townships where agents of Hitler wait and plan for the downfall of a country that has sheltered them and given them security.
Dane Simpson 42:58 Kyla had some pretty out there tactics. You know what you shoot to get on the good princess Ruby and go to Adelaide. Get your way to Alice Springs and get this guy on board. And yeah, we'll defeat Australian from the inside. Yeah, yeah. It was weird, too. Because he looks so happy without filming him. And they're like, Can we film it? Yeah, absolutely. Wait, you're not gonna say I work with the Nazis, right? Getting back to so where do we go to from here? What do we do about these foundations? Do we do we change the date? That's a popular thing. Should we change the date? If we do change the date? What should we change it to? suggestion that always comes up? We should change it to May 8. Because that's mate. Right? That's cool. I get that. The only problem with that. It's easily from the wingless birthday if we make it that we're gonna piss off all the other Wiggles. Yeah, so what do we do? What about a sporting hero? We'll make it a sporting heroes birthday. They're problematic aren't they? Moving on music. Let's let's get a musician. shanaka Let's get somebody that we all know somebody that we all love somebody that we can all get around somebody wholesome. Benli. Absolutely. We all love Bentley. Let's make it his birthday. When's his birthday? September 11.
Maybe not. Also, if we do put it on somebody's birthday, then we're taking away their special day, aren't we? And stealing something that isn't ours is how we go
We should start fresh start fresh reset, right and what date is better to start fresh and reset? is the first of January. That's when we should be doing it. If we do it the first of January we move New Year's Day to the second of January makes us unique. Right? We get a day off. Day off or Australia Day, then we've got New Year's Day on the second of January day off. Do you know who's happy everyone? Everyone, including people who had to work the next day thank you everyone.
Unknown Speaker 45:42 We're really good at Dean stuff up in Australia and making sure it can feel the rest of the world
Dan Ilic 45:53 it strikes me there's a day that's about to become available. I just don't know how many more birthdays The Queen has.
And administratively, it's already day off. Do you guys have any suggestions for days
Alice Fraser 46:16 Tuesday's? Every Tuesday losers punch a little it'll be fun.
Lewis Hobba 46:23 I mean, September 11 is no good. But September 12. Like pick it back up again.
Andrew McClelland 46:29 We could move to Halloween do it then Halloween in springtime never works. Or I told me flowers and bees and lovely things. When unless you're allergic to bees. Yeah, Halloween.
Dan Ilic 46:38 Halloween is good. I think that'd be a problem for some football players around there. Well, they may dress up as Yeah. what's your what's your ultimate suggestion? Do you think that ultimate suggestion
Dane Simpson 46:48 is to first first of January. It's Federation as well in 1901. For the people who care about that stuff. I don't.
Alice Fraser 46:57 You were saying it would ruin someone's birthday if it was on their birthday. I'm already a twin. I don't have a birthday of mine. You can have my birthday.
Dan Ilic 47:04 Thank you for being so generous Alice. Well, it's due to common irrational fear. We've got great time Lewis harbor and Zoe Daniel. But before we do that, we've just got another quick message from the show sponsor oil cares for a quick word on race apparently. Video
Vidya Rajan 47:23 That's right. Oil loves you and me and also it loves rice. I love rice. black, brown, yellow. We love Hey, have you heard of Martin Luther Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aha, that's right. We only source our product from countries of color that you didn't think about I have a dream that one day all oils will matter.
Dan Ilic 48:07 Thank you. Thank you oil forum Please give it up for Grace time.
Unknown Speaker 48:35 ADIA
Grace Tame 48:40 Look, before I get started. I just gotta give a couple of shout outs is Lily here. Did she make it? No. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 48:48 You win some you lose some.
Grace Tame 48:51 I do have to give a shout out. One of my best friends Georgie is standing in the wings. She is the pond clean.
Unknown Speaker 48:58 Yeah, come out Georgie. Georgie, Georgie.
Grace Tame 49:07 And also my partner Max who's my rock and poor old Max has been an audience a while I've been going is this funny? Is this funny? Is this funny?
Unknown Speaker 49:15 It's a bit loaded at this point.
Grace Tame 49:18 Ah, yes. Oh, crikey. What am I doing here? I'm not a comedian. But if you look up the Venn diagram of me and these guys, you'll find that it's not actually a Venn diagram at all. It's just a great big flashing circle that says go to therapy. Yes, the natural progression from very serious Law Reform campaigning is self roasting. When Dan asked me to do this, he said, Can you please do a monologue that is topical. And I'm on a serious mission to not talk about anything political, because everyone's been accusing me of Being a hack. I know that makes things a little bit difficult. So I'm really sorry to disappoint you if you came to hear me make jokes about a certain someone I know the temptation is very real. He is like a giant self sourcing comedy putting
is the joke desert that ISIS itself, you don't even have to tell him he just goes and grabs the ukulele all by himself.
To get around that issue, I've decided instead to reflect on one of my favorite TV shows from the early 2000s. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Which Believe it or not, translates quite well to the landscape of Australian politics. For example, the leader of Equestria Princess Celestia. has let down Australian voters yet again, with her willingness to greenwash her government's reliance on fossil fuels to neighboring neighboring Yes, the pawns. The pawns are coming to neighboring pony kingdoms. She's also very sensitive about a tail tail that she wants shattered in old McDonald's farm in 1997. All right, I'll stop. I'll make a deal. Just don't shame survivors on primetime TV don't underfund support services, protect alleged rapists stab people in the back bully people pork barrel. You see we've got a bit of an imbalance daily people.
Ah, yes, that naughty little flying horned pony. Anyway, what I've decided to talk about this evening has absolutely nothing at all to do with politics whatsoever. And that thing is air fryers. Stick with him. Actually, I suppose they are a little bit political. As one of my favorite comedians. Mark Latham has accused me of being since the airfryer came about. It has in some ways, divided the nation. That's the real Mark Latham by the way as he calls himself on Twitter. All the other Mark Latham's are not in one nation. So will the real Mark Latham please shirt front? Sorry, I promised I wouldn't get political. It's just that I had to give him a shout out because one of the chaser interns the other day, was saying that my home Tasmania isn't a real place. So I figured if Tasmania isn't real, at least I can keep living rent free in real might lay things head
yeah, it's pretty much just me, Rosie Batty, the 2004 election results. And pretty much well actually, everyone who isn't a straight white man. That's probably why he's so mad all the time. It's pretty crowded up in there. Anyway, where was I? Yes, the humble airfryer people seem to love it or hate it. What is this cheeky little unit that just popped up? Out of nowhere? How could there possibly be this smaller version of something that does things we've already been doing this whole time. Only it gets to the point of it quicker and cuts out all the crap
most of its criticism seems to come from people who don't like change. But really it's just a lightweight, metal clad Basket Case inside a pressure cooker that has a little vent and no filter Are you catching my drift? That's an airplane by the way doesn't really matter does it because if you're not a fan fan get into what I'm really trying to say is if you don't like it, don't buy it. And that's not a political help my friends that's just a life hack
Unknown Speaker 55:36 right that was making noise
Dan Ilic 55:51 so Grace yo, yo, in retirement from being Australian in here, you're moving into white goods is this
Unknown Speaker 56:00 nah man and fries a heavy metal.
Dan Ilic 56:05 Well, I've got a great song for you from Alice and Gabby who've written one, especially for this period that we're in in the pre election period because it's a really tough time for satirists because it involves watching a lot of news. So this is a brand new song from Gabby bolt, and that was frozen.
Unknown Speaker 56:24 Brand new. So brand new, brand new brand new.
Alice Fraser 56:28 We need the lyrics. So brand new.
Zoe Daniel 56:31 An hour ago.
Alice Fraser 56:33 I was breastfeeding Hi, Alice. Hi, Gabby.
Unknown Speaker 56:44 How are you going? Well, you know, on the one hand, can be out jobs full of laughter. We take the news and make it fun. In the morning after we're filled with familiar shame. Because when the sun comes up, we have to read the
Alice Fraser 57:11 news again. Do you know what that's like? Have you ever read the fucking news doesn't make you feel good. Fucking job.
Unknown Speaker 57:22 The 24 hour
Gabbi Bolt 57:25 news constantly confronted with badness a world that is talking an awful
Unknown Speaker 57:31 drive us madness. The 24 hour perpetual news drama crackers to troops to find
Gabbi Bolt 57:41 the wacky side of the worst of the world on a loop. reading the news it's like reading the same fairy tale for bedtime every night but you don't like the story. It's boring and it's awful. And the moral of the story is the world's entirely fucked and no one's coming to help you
Alice Fraser 58:02 we staring up the asshole of a whale sure you're learning something but at what cost?
Gabbi Bolt 58:12 is like watching the final season of Game of Thrones thing started off so well and honestly a little bit juicy and it just kind of ended with hellfire and poor writing and way too dark. I mean literally way too dark. To see the last three episodes. It was horrible at reading the news, it's like slamming
Alice Fraser 58:32 a door in your foot once an hour through the day, but the foot is your brain and the door and the internet. And the news is the grinding pain.
Gabbi Bolt 58:40 Oh horrible. News is like being that guy and Seinfeld who always gets through the door looking surprised and making the same mistake every time. What's his name? I don't know. I'd never watched Seinfeld. Yeah, me neither. No way He's name is Michael Richards. I read about in screaming racist abuse. Yeah. What did you read that in the news? Do you think this makes us happy?
Unknown Speaker 59:06 It's like puking down your Ryan dress and then rolling around in chinetti. Inside
Alice Fraser 59:11 and out. You end up feeling daddy. And you end up smelling was your likey ancient Mara and produces your ancient curse to take on oil Smith.
Gabbi Bolt 59:26 What's your advice on Russia?
Alice Fraser 59:28 I don't know. I've never made a Molotov cocktail IQ.
Unknown Speaker 59:31 They're delicious. Some people take up smoking or drown themselves in booze. Some people do try Abalones verbally just read the news.
Gabbi Bolt 59:45 I can't keep up with the Canberra Cannes, political.
Alice Fraser 59:50 Don't make me like the bright side. scotoma phobic.
Unknown Speaker 59:57 You might call it charming. but ignore the clues. It's psychological self harming. Please don't make us read the news
Dan Ilic 1:00:14 Thank you everyone. We're almost done. Please thank Jane he's gonna head off to his show
our next guest on rational fear is one of the best known Australians as a foreign correspondent reporting from war zones and political hotspots around the world. Now she's looking to swamp the swamp of Washington DC for the shake panics of Canberra is the independent candidate for Goldstein Zoe Daniel
jolly Nice shirt there, good merch. So we launched her campaign today, so that's why she's got a face on it. Looks let's get straight into it. sharri markson on Earth some tweets from your team comparing Scott Morrison to Hitler. We've all done it. So the question is, if you could go back in time, and be face to face with baby Scott Morrison would you tell his parents to not turn him into a child actor?
Zoe Daniel 1:01:21 Don't go into politics.
Dan Ilic 1:01:24 So why are you running? Why you decided to ruin your life and go into politics?
Lewis Hobba 1:01:29 Yeah, why are you turning away from the glitz and the glamour of the ABC?
Zoe Daniel 1:01:34 Well, the news was getting me down so I decided to do something more positive go into politics. What I mean, thank you grace for the for the lines, but lying, cheating, rotting, scamming, gaslighting manipulating disinformation.
Dan Ilic 1:01:53 Is this your platform? They're the reasons to do welcome to the Liberal Party. Was there a moment was there a catalyst? Was this something you went? Oh, that's too much. I'm now going in.
Zoe Daniel 1:02:05 I just been chatting in the TV too much. I couldn't do it anymore. My son who's 15 said Mum, someone's got to do something for us on these issues. And it's really hard to look your 15 year old son and your 13 year old daughter in the iron so now, too hard.
Dan Ilic 1:02:23 Well, look, if you don't mind, just want to talk about the person you're running against just for a little bit. My friend Tim Wilson, there he is. He loves He loves. He looks like he really does turn himself a bit of a greeny I have a look at his Twitter profile. He loves solar panels, wind farms. He loves carbon capture manufacturing.
Lewis Hobba 1:02:45 I think we need his paws on this image. This is extraordinary.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:49 I'm nervous about the upcoming election and this is the break I just shared
Dan Ilic 1:03:02 I mean, I don't think it's defamatory to say he looks like he's about to murder you with that branch.
Gabbi Bolt 1:03:09 I disagree. I think he looks like a newborn when you pose them with those plaques like today.
Andrew McClelland 1:03:15 It looks like a teenager experimenting with goth makeup for the first time.
Dan Ilic 1:03:20 He also loves kombucha made of made of carbon and look at the guy who runs the kombucha shop.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:29 This guy is like he don't eat those
Dan Ilic 1:03:33 guys like he just picked up the nails and started going. No, he really hates rally. Should
Unknown Speaker 1:03:39 I do that?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:43 Come on Gatorade Sachs guys. Come on.
Lewis Hobba 1:03:50 Two minutes with a hose.
Dan Ilic 1:03:51 He really hates rubbish here. Here he is picking up rubbish. I assume he's about to put that back as part of being rubbish zero. Emissions Net Zero rubbish there. So why is he turned into a greeny all of a sudden? Like, this is not the first time I've heard it. Tim Wilson being agree.
Zoe Daniel 1:04:08 Well, today we had a campaign launch. We had 2000 people there. And we have 1000s of people in the community.
Lewis Hobba 1:04:19 Just 1/10 of the size of this crowd.
Zoe Daniel 1:04:24 Something's gotta give
Dan Ilic 1:04:27 in the IPA. You could do with more solar panels on your Twitter bio, by the way, point taken. So like when people look at you and they see him being a climate hero and you being a climate hero. Who would they who should they vote for?
Zoe Daniel 1:04:44 The person who hasn't been in politics for six years and not delivered
Dan Ilic 1:04:54 I just want to play the first minute of something quickly here. Sky News ran a big smear campaign against The against the climate 200 people, people who imagine that the independents that are running, let's play a quick game of hang on a sec, as we play this if you want to chime in just say hang on a sec,
Peta Credlin 1:05:11 they call themselves voices off a gaggle of independent candidates who are set to play a significant role in the coming campaign. They say they're not a political party. These independent voices all sing from the same hymn book, climate action, political integrity, gender equality
Alice Fraser 1:05:32 How dare they hang on a second who did this school for this the guy who wrote inception? very sinister.
Lewis Hobba 1:05:44 It's like one of those challenges like Jimmy Fallon does it like I'm gonna give you the nicest words in the world and try to make them sound evil. Great actors like That's fucking extraordinary. And also did she call you a gaggle? gaggle.
Grace Tame 1:05:58 PETA wants to stay oppressed, she does. She really doesn't want gender equality.
Peta Credlin 1:06:05 And they all have another thing that binds them together. common enemy, incumbent liberal MPs.
Zoe Daniel 1:06:14 I'm Zoe Daniel, and I'm your community backed independent candidate for Goldstein.
Peta Credlin 1:06:19 Why these climate 200 Guerrilla Games matter is not just that liberal seats could fall. For the liberal campaign hard heads will waste time and money trying to hang onto electorates that by right? Shouldn't be at risk.
Alice Fraser 1:06:36 Hang on a second. Hang on a second.
Andrew McClelland 1:06:42 It's almost like we're in a democracy or something.
Alice Fraser 1:06:47 Like a waste of time and energy, doing politics, their job?
Dan Ilic 1:06:53 Isn't that the most bizarre fucked up thing? It's like when people complain about the Murdoch media. Party democracy is because they don't believe in democracy.
Lewis Hobba 1:07:04 It's rightfully this guy game. Can I just need a second?
Peta Credlin 1:07:11 The liberal MPs in them like the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. He's at home trying to shore up Kooyong. It's time he's not in a marginal seat that they've got to win. Now climate 200 is financing around 20 independent candidates. People like Zoe Daniel and it's no coincidence that they're almost all women. It's part of a deliberate ploy to live so called problem with women.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:41 So I don't want to use the word conspiracy. Certainly not a second of people who are doing their best to stop Liberals and Nationals from winning the coming election.
Alice Fraser 1:07:58 I don't want to use the word conspiracy, so I'm just gonna point and scream which
Dan Ilic 1:08:05 Zowie now that you've seen a portion of that how do you feel
Unknown Speaker 1:08:08 wow,
Zoe Daniel 1:08:09 I hadn't seen that. Thank you so much.
Dan Ilic 1:08:12 That's a minute 36 You're never gonna get back again.
Lewis Hobba 1:08:15 We've got you here talk us through the conspiracy bag of other women are putting together to get a quality
Zoe Daniel 1:08:22 right we need us at the table. Thanks very
Dan Ilic 1:08:24 much. At the end of this financial year, our birth of money runs out so I need to get your number for George Soros to continue please Thanks Daniel. Before we go Louis Texas time we got one more one more message from our sponsor or your kids for quick word on workers rights apparently no. Foreign Please give it up for Louis.
Lewis Hobba 1:09:15 Thank you so much. This is a real delight, a real privilege and an honor to be here at the Forum theatre. Okay, let's get stuck into it. If there's one thing we know our prime minister loves its tourism. The last time he did anything we even kind of liked. It was chucking Bengal on a beach and asking where the bloody hell Aya his commitment to tourism is so powerful that he walks the walk even when tourism isn't convenient. When it isn't easy. When the entire country is on fire. He puts on his little tourist shirt and he goes to Hawaii. All he wants is for people to get on a plane and travel. He's less keen on boats. But this week, there was a new Australian tourism ad that really caught my eye All right, before I play it for you, I'll give you a clue. It is not an ad for a foot fetish website. You will think it is. But it is not.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:17 We've long been a land of explorers and adventurous travelers and trailblazers. We've traversed all manner of terrains, chase the horizon in every direction, climbed higher, descend deeper, gone further. And still the quest continues. They will always be more to explore. So, where to from here? We say Bring on the beyond our boldest adventure. Yeah. Australia. We're going to the moon
Lewis Hobba 1:10:57 what when? And also what's first up? Why does going to the moon look like a gap year? It starts by saying we're a land of explorers. Maybe they don't remember but for the last three years the only traveling we've done have been from the bed to the working from home desk. And if we're lucky to the couch for a little cry also so many fate EOC it looks like it was directed by Quentin Tarantino. The print ad for this campaign is this it's a thong on the moon. Looks like Uncle Steve got on the wrong plane to Bali. But I will say this. There is something genuinely quite sweet about the phrase get a moon it's something that Steve Irwin might have said quietly to himself while he was camping with the family. Get a moon get a tent. Get a Terry. Get a tree. Get a Steve. Let's let that settle in. I'll be safe. Now I can't wait to see what Australians do to the moon. In some ways. It's the safest place to send Australians. We can't be trusted in Asia and Europe. We will pass in the Sea of Tranquility. We will draw a deck next to Neil Armstrong's footprint. And every single one of us will drop our DAX and Moon the moon. Whose idea was this? Why are we going to the moon? You may not have heard yet, but we already put a man on there. It made the news in 1969. There at no one has been on the moon since 1973. It has less foot traffic than the doklam.
Gabbi Bolt 1:13:19 I know
Lewis Hobba 1:13:20 Australia has a history of like discovering things after they've been discovered. And we're not 60,000 years late this time. But going to the moon. It just feels weird. What are we doing? I looked into it a little right. I was like why are we going to the moon. I did some investigative journalism. I went to the get a moon website. First of all, no one's going to the moon right? A semi autonomous robot is going to the moon. They don't they don't have feet
also, we're going to build this semi autonomous robot it's going to cost us a fortune which is a waste of money because our country is already full of semi autonomous robots
that is walking around you can grab one for nothing. So what does Australia offer some unlike NASA when it comes to space exploration, we've already let him use the telescope at parks. What more could we possibly do? Well, there is something Australia does really well. We are well number one at it. And if you want to stay across this particular Australian skill set, I suggest you subscribe to this exciting magazine. The Australian mining review any fans and subscribers the centerfolds wha when you add it in the Australian mining review, you'll get to see this very relaxing news that there's The new board of Rio Tinto, oz minerals and all the big mining companies they're formed together to take our mining expertise to space. That's right. Now I don't know for sure that we're planning to mine the moon
but let's be honest, we're gonna mined the fucking moon. It's one small step for mines one giant leap for mankind. Does this suddenly make more sense to you? If you think blasting minors into space is a cool idea. You're absolutely right. It's such a cool idea. It's the plot for Armageddon. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, we're only going to be sending a little rocket to space, so it's less arm again. And it's more like Wally if it was written by Matt Canavan. As soon as you realize that we're going to the moon, this whole ad makes more sense. The only thing more Australian than a thong is a big fucking hole in the ground. Sometimes you feel like Australian politicians must look at all the rules and wonder why we have something that actually sticks up. And it's like, that's gone the wrong way. What is that some kind of reverse hole? You got to dig down boys. You got to dig down. There are gonna be people who are against mining the moon. They'll say Australia can't be trusted with the moon. Australia can't even be trusted with Australia. Give the moon to Denmark or something. Like give it to someone who knows what the hell they're doing. Not me. I'm excited. Let's go fuck up the moon. There's a reason no one goes there. You know it's boring. The moon is the third drawer of the solar system. It's there. We don't need it.
To sleep at night when you go home and you go, it's Robert ends. But here's a true fact. Right? Because I think sometimes nature tries to warn us humans when we're doing something wrong, right? Here's a true fact. The Moon moves one and a half inches away from the Earth every year. I think it knows what we're planning. And it's backing away. The good out a movie to add felt so weird to watch because we all knew something was off about it right? Like you just see it for the first time you're like, This is wrong, right? And now we know why. But I have to say it was so close to being the perfect dad so close. It was nearly an ad that captured not just the essence of one space mission, but the modern Australian mission, the very core of the Aussie spirit and add that could finally hold a candle to Bingle when it comes to showing the world who we are. It just needed one tiny change for all Australians to see it and think oh yeah, it makes total sense that our government made that ad get a mind it almost makes you wish that this was an ad for a foot fetish website. Thank you so much.
Dan Ilic 1:18:13 That is it for rational fear. Please give it up for our guest Alice Jane Lewis. Gabby Vica DJ Andy McClellan Grace freaking big thank you to Nathan abondoned overtaking family and all the great folks and marijuana and the forum sorry read on like big thank you to Sophie matinee Megan Herbert Beck Melrose Andres also big thank you to Jacob Brown, the birth of foundation rode mics and until our live show the Opera House in two months time there's always something to be scared of
The team of producers were incredible, and the production staff at the Brisbane Powerhouse were slick professional units.
You may notice there is one word we’re avoiding to say in the show. That word begins with A and ends in I, has Dan in between. We were told about 20 minutes before the show, so some minor tweaks had to happen on the fly. I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to that as we go.
Bridie Connell and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd do some topical music for us. Tom Ballard tells us that it’s all over and there’s no hope left. The Queensland Government put a bid in for the 2038 Nuclear Winter Games. MICF Pinder Prize winner Steph Tisdell give insects the tick of approval, and goes on the hunt for true love with an entomologist. Mel Buttle hopes that foodies will go extinct. Alan Jones has some thoughts on climate change. Professor Hilary Bambrick scares us all to death with what the real health ramifications are for humans on a warming planet. Lewis Hobba thinks he has solutions to the climate crisis, but ends up just blaming Queenslanders for it all.
It is truly and excellent 90 minutes of climate change banter.
00:00 — Pre Show: AFP Warning.
01:25 — Start.
02:15 — Introductions.
05:33 — Bridie and Wyatt Introduction.
16:25 — Fearsome Fears: Freedom Gas.
21:15 — Fearsome Fears: Flygskam.
25:00 — Fearsome Fears: The internet will be underwater.
27:30 — Tom Ballard: We’re all f***ed.
37:48 — Queensland’s Bid for 2038 Nuclear Winter Games.
40:16 — Steph Tisdell: Care about insects.
47:45 — Mel Buttle: Foodies must die.
1:00:30— Alan Jones’ Gloating.
1:03:35— Prof. Hilary Bambrick: Health and Climate
The pre-election blackout starts now! Don’t worry A Rational Fear is here to walk you through the world of Australian politics. Fearmongers Chris Taylor, Lewis Hobba, Lauren Bonner and Dan Ilic are here to ease the squeeze, go for growth with continuity and change.
00:00 Show Plugs
01:49 Start
02:59 Introductions
06:35 Very Fast Trains
11:40 Clive Palmer is in Fiji
14:26 Tony Abbott is giving out his mobile phone number
Thrilled to bring you this month’s Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation.
Every 4 weeks on the A Rational Fear feed, Linh Do and I (Dan Ilic) present a climate news update and a long-form conversation with leader in climate action. This month’s chat is excellent.
Two very different brains leading climate conversations in their own powerful way.
Osher is using his celebrity to draw his broad audience to his podcast where he has meaningful conversations about climate anxiety and climate action.
And Mike is using his own personal wealth and huge influence in the business community to drive innovation and wedge government into climate action.
Great chat, an honour to speak with them both in the same Zoom call.
Cheers,
Dan Ilic
The first 8minutes of the conversation sound a bit rubbish because I forgot to hit record on my Rodecaster, so we had to use the audio from the Zoom recording which isn’t as high fidelity. So bear with us, it does get better.A NOTE ON AUDIO:
This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation
Dan Ilic 0:04
to the greatest moral podcast of our generation joining me of course as she does for every one of these special greatest moral podcasts of our generations is lindow fellow Bertha Fela gaylin
Linh Do 0:15
Hello, hello, Iris. So good to be back.
Dan Ilic 0:18
This is our second greatest moral podcast of our generation. A huge thank you to everyone who listened to our Kevin Rudd episode, I think had a lot of good feedback from that, particularly around people who love the nitty gritty of climate backstabbing.
Linh Do 0:31
Yeah, the interview was amazing. And I think it just makes me even more eager to wait for when those cabinet files get released. You know, I'll be one of those geeks eagerly awaiting exactly what happened and will finally know who was the liar after all.
Dan Ilic 0:46
This of course, is out on the irrational fear feed every month we bring you an in depth conversation about climate change with climate legends and a little bit more about who is on our podcast a little later on. But first of all, a big thank you to our new irrational fear Patreon members including Nick with a K Lysa Yeager, Shelly Carr Simone Kevin and Tim Stevenson chipping in to help irrational fear jump to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to support the podcast another way to spot irrational fear is to offset the carbon emissions from your car with go neutral for every $90 sticker go neutral by 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets which is about the average yearly emissions for a car and then five bucks that comes to us to go neutral. Click on the link in the show notes. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on gadigal land and your nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show. Despite
Unknown Speaker 1:33
global warming, rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.
Unknown Speaker 1:44
This is called
Unknown Speaker 1:45
Don't be fright, the heat waves and droughts greatest mass extinction when facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate
Unknown Speaker 1:58
shiana ration
Unknown Speaker 2:01
all of this with global warming
Unknown Speaker 2:02
and a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about generation.
Unknown Speaker 2:09
For sure.
Dan Ilic 2:10
All right, listen, let's get into our climate news for this week. Story number one, Australia joins the US China and Russia in refusing to sign our latest pledge on biodiversity. Is this any kind of surprise that we are with the US Russia and China on this lid?
Linh Do 2:26
Never Never surprised. But I mean, last year during the Madrid climate negotiations, we were with Saudi Arabia and given you know, everything that we're hearing about how koalas are going extinct, the billions of animals that were wiped out, unfortunately, during the recent bush fires, you think we'd care a little bit more
Dan Ilic 2:43
than there's a lot of similarities between Australia and Saudi right, but particularly about the way we treat our journalists,
Linh Do 2:47
that is definitely for alarming, but we still call ourselves a democracy. So it's a scary path that we're headed down.
Dan Ilic 2:54
Now. The Morison government said it refused to sign this global pledge, endorsed by 64 other countries committed to reverse biodiversity loss because it was inconsistent with Australia's policies, namely, net zero by 2050, which pretty much the rest of the world is signed up to. Australia has committed to net zero but before 2100, which is absolutely hilarious. I mean,
Linh Do 3:14
we weren't really alive then. So I guess for us, that's how we have to feel better about it. That's how I go to sleep at night.
Dan Ilic 3:21
And can I say thank God, I won't be alive then because it's gonna be too hot to live. kitten joshy, the climate hero on Twitter did tweet some calculations of his own, which were taken from the government's own data a few months back, and he suggested that we're actually on track to meet our net zero targets by 2300. So that's about the double length of Australia's colonised period.
Linh Do 3:42
The numbers at that point are just eye watering. Really, it's really hard to comprehend how our policies account for multiple multiple generations from now.
Dan Ilic 3:53
It's so interesting. This is the latest pledge put together by the WWF and un, I jumped over to the latest pledge page because anybody can sign up to it and sign their organisation up to it so I put you dear listener behind the pledge. So irrational fear is now signed up to this pledge. So putting out 10,000 listeners a month behind the pledge good on us.
Unknown Speaker 4:16
Yay by diversity.
Dan Ilic 4:18
I emailed Terry Butler as well because she had some comments to say about you know, why scammer didn't sign up but she had at this point in time, she hasn't got back to me whether she actually signed up to the pledge herself, but they went to the website and if you are, if you are a head of state of a country, you can actually click through to a form and sign up your country so I actually went through and signed us up as well. But they haven't got back to me is to verify my identity. I said I was the Minister for climate action and in fear That's what I said.
Linh Do 4:50
They ignore that doesn't exist in Australia. Although you know, it's like so funny given her our head of state actually is is that the royal family is all behind by diversity like Prince Charles huge support Well, this
Dan Ilic 5:00
is the thing this is absolutely things have the google doc says Head of State for your country and technically our head of state is the claim. So maybe we are already signed up by default.
Linh Do 5:10
Well, you know, one of the benefits of colonisation and the Commonwealth and the British Empire is potentially we can follow in the footsteps of what the UK is doing right now. I like
Dan Ilic 5:19
that if Tony Abbott was was Prime Minister and Lizzy asked him to he probably signed up to that pledge.
Linh Do 5:25
Her would have thought I used to think I was a Republican in terms of you know, supporting the Republic, but here we are. All for the monarchy
Dan Ilic 5:33
story number two. Exxon's plan for surging carbon emissions revealed in Lake documents now this story is interesting it as the rest of the kind of fossil fuel industry is planning on phasing out its emissions Exxon over the next five years is planning on increasing them by 17%. Are you surprised at all by this lindo?
Linh Do 5:54
I feel like Exxon has written the playbook on big organisations and companies that we can't trust Rio Tinto has just proven that again, in Australia, it almost doesn't matter what they otherwise say they're going to be doing because there's always something that they're trying to sweep under the rug.
Dan Ilic 6:09
This is really interesting bhp. So put out an article or somebody put out an article about bhp actually doing further oil exploration even though they've signed a pledge to get out of the fossil fuel game. But they're still exploring fossil fuels. I guess they're searching for it. So they can go put up a big sign saying don't dig here. I guess this was a finding under protected.
Linh Do 6:27
It wants to know that it's there. It's almost like you know, these big companies, someone in the PR department signing up to all of these pledges, maybe the by diversity one even, but then just you know, there's another part of it where engineers or whoever are going off and exploring new oil fields. It's just really reprehensible really,
Dan Ilic 6:47
shift in person is really significant significant for a company like Exxon, if its plans are realised Exxon would add to the atmosphere, the annual emissions of a small developed nation or 26, coal fired power plants. That's, that's insane over the next five years,
Linh Do 7:06
absolutely wild. It's interesting that you've been encouraging listeners to go neutral with their carbon emissions from their car. Do you think people will now change their mind about where they fill up?
Dan Ilic 7:20
yet? Absolutely. I'm gonna get a fill up with Shell. Definitely.
Linh Do 7:28
Buddy. Sorry, that was a bit of a question.
Dan Ilic 7:32
Can I say they extremely limited, particularly around bond I'm pretty sure Mobil Exxon is the only place I can actually fill up.
Linh Do 7:39
Well, the idea is to be a good carbon advocate is to drive even further in your heart to the nearest suburb Lin visit, or petrol station. I don't think that logic works out.
Dan Ilic 7:50
Are you telling me I'm gonna have to drive from Bondi to rosebay bp to fill up now? Oh, my God.
Linh Do 7:59
You're carbon neutral. So it doesn't
Unknown Speaker 8:01
matter. It just doesn't. Just doesn't matter.
Dan Ilic 8:04
Okay. Now, Matt Canavan has been slammed for his use of the Black Lives Matter slogan. And he's got a ute. And he's got black coal matters on the back of his unit. Tell us a bit about the story.
Linh Do 8:17
Well, why do we even start sometimes, when I like wake up to the news in Australia, I'm like, of course, that just happened. Of course, that just happened. Um, given the way that we tray, our indigenous people in this country, pretty reprehensible given the way that we have, you know, gone on to other people's country, and like, you know, built new coal power stations doesn't make sense. I think the only good that I could sort of try to say from this is maybe then rules out the argument that we have in this country for supporting brown coal, which, you know, whilst all calls no good ground calls even more inefficient, even more dirty, so at least, we're prioritising within, you know, the scale of bad things we already do.
Dan Ilic 8:58
I can't believe they've appropriated this activist language for their own activist language. It really hurts my head a little bit.
Linh Do 9:05
Yep. Well, you know, they're borrowing from the people who do do things well. So maybe this is a sign that I'm campaigning for Black Lives Matter, really is working.
Dan Ilic 9:14
Just another example of why people aren't ready black culture.
Unknown Speaker 9:18
Yep, never ending.
Dan Ilic 9:20
And finally, let's talk about the 2021 budget. Lin. Katyn Joshi, as we've mentioned before, is a fantastic tweeter on climate. You got to follow him. Ke TANJ. Oh, he did this great tweet this week, while when the budget was happening, he took the budget speech hit Ctrl F and search for the word climate. It appeared only once in Josh frydenberg speech. The sentence was 1.9 billion in new funding as part of our energy plan to support low emissions of renewable technologies, helping to lower emissions and climate change followed by the sentence. We're also helping to unlock five key gas basins, isn't that just doesn't that just symbolise everything that Australia is about when it comes to emissions actually And when
Linh Do 10:00
exactly it feels like that one mention was just say say we did talk about it, don't think about it in context.
Dan Ilic 10:08
I think that was actually my tweet as well off the back of kittens was like, say they did mention it. They didn't say climate. We didn't say climate.
Linh Do 10:14
We said it. They did about us know exactly. You know, it's about making sure that everyone gets represented, even if in this case, representation literally meant nothing.
Dan Ilic 10:25
So chillin. What I love about the budget speech, every time it comes around, it's kind of like our own version of the State of the Union speech, but it's really, really shared.
Linh Do 10:34
And it's way wonky. I have never been invited to a budget party, but I've been to my fair share of State of the Union ones in the US.
Dan Ilic 10:42
Somebody plays invite lindo to their budget party,
Linh Do 10:45
foreign into financial year one, I am open to all super geeky economic party conversations
Dan Ilic 10:51
into financial year ones are the best because often companies use that instead of Christmas. And so they treat their employees very well so that you definitely want to get on that gravy train.
Unknown Speaker 11:01
Okay, good to know. Good to know.
Dan Ilic 11:03
All right. For this week's podcast, we bring you a big conversation I had last week with Asha Gunzburg and, and Mike cannon Brookes at the Smart Energy summit. What I liked about this, it was a good chat with two really random people, you know, Asha Gunzburg, and Mike cannon Brookes. What do these people have in common? Yeah, okay. Well, you know, for those who don't know, Asha is the host of the bachelor, Mike cannon. Brooks is the software developer for Atlassian and and energy entrepreneur. What do you think these people have in common? Lynn? Do they have anything in common at all?
Linh Do 11:34
Well, honestly, on the surface, not so much. I think when I look at the image of like, I am confused. It feels like definitely a sort of a joke of, you know, three very random people walk into a bar, what happens? But I think this is sort of the good thing about what's happening in Australia is we have so many people who you think wouldn't care about climate change getting on board, because they recognise we all have a stake in our future.
Dan Ilic 11:56
I mean, in the chat, I discuss it further. But I feel like the only thing that really kind of draws these two together is that probably a decade ago, climate change wasn't a central part of their work. But now it is, as with all of us. Many of you might be wondering, where are the women on the panel, I asked this as well as from the organisers as well. They said, What do you want from me? I got I got one of the most famous people on TV and I got one of the biggest billionaires and I said, Well, Oracle is either a billionaire woman or a famous woman who could also be on this panel as well. So anyway, that they said that was enough. Without further ado, please enjoy this chat with Mike cannon Brooks and Asha Gunzburg.
Unknown Speaker 12:31
You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation
Dan Ilic 12:37
to many in Australia. Asha is a handsome face and has been in the front of many of the biggest TV moments in Australia, including stuff like channel v Australian Idol, the mass singer, Bachelor franchise, there hasn't been a rose ceremony he hasn't been part of. But what you may not know about Asha is that he is also a student of the world deeply connected with thought leaders around the globe. Asha has been part of s&m think School of Creative Leadership. He's interviewed some of the most interesting brains of culture, science and society. And on his podcast better than yesterday, he's managed to pull that bachelor audience into a very interesting deep thinking space. So don't be fooled by his $70,000 hairstyle. Brain is switched on to climate change, and he regularly profiles activists, entrepreneurs in the climate space. He was even on q&a s climate solutions panel earlier this year.
Osher Gunsberg 13:24
Welcome, Marsha. Thanks, Dan. I'm really grateful to be here. To be a part of this event is a real privilege and looking ally.
Dan Ilic 13:32
And speaking of q&a, our other guests today was on the show on Monday. He's a real jet setter. In fact, when he was eight years old Mike cannon Brookes managed to buy his first computer on frequent flyer points, opting for an Amstrad pay say 20. A choice he still regrets to this very day. He is the co founder of Atlassian team collaboration software company is a passionate clean energy evangelist. He's also one of Australia's great muckrakers, probably in a previous era, we would have called him a larrikin. He uses his change for the better however, Mike has co opted the term fair dinkum power from Scott Morrison and turned it into a war cry for renewables. And using not much more than Twitter and a few phone calls. Mike was the driving force behind Australia getting one of the world's largest lithium ion batteries, which was only superseded by the one they put in the back of Peter Dutton. We welcome Mike cannon Brookes.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 14:23
Thanks Good. Good to be here man. I like that was quite an intro. I don't know we've been over the PC 20 layers of Usher's microphone that he does you guys do have some some good microphone gang during
Osher Gunsberg 14:35
mocking I know a guy. Okay.
Dan Ilic 14:39
Well, before we get away, let's have a message from our sponsor.
Unknown Speaker 14:42
It's the largest recession in history in the
Unknown Speaker 14:47
Coronavirus stimulus is said to be slash job Kiba was 1500. a fortnight now 1200 or four nights job seeker was 550. a fortnight now just 250 a fortnight economic stimulus for by 3040 and 50% off the unemployed, I've never been more motivated to get a job that doesn't exist. There's more during the largest ever climate emergency is giving billions to the fossil fuel industry for pipelines.
Unknown Speaker 15:17
Instead of ending emissions of them, every guy is opposite day taking the money for the ball and giving it to the race. You've got to have a go decade ago before it's all gone. God, God, children conditions apply for donations of $6 million or more to the Liberal Party. See the PDF for details.
Dan Ilic 15:35
Now, fellas, so it is a way of icebreaker so we can get to know each other get to understand our own our own ideas behind climate change, I thought we'd just do a little climate quiz. I've got the answers here that are given to me by Angus Taylor's office, but I want you to answer as truthfully as possible. So first of all, let's get the quiz underway. Folks, what is the best way to lower emissions? I'm sure Mike, what is the best way to lower emissions to jump in whenever you're ready? I shall. I shall go Russia.
Osher Gunsberg 16:07
I dig things out of the ground. Sell them once and somebody overseas and then burn them?
Dan Ilic 16:13
Oh, yes. That's correct. That's correct. Very good. All right, next question. Of course, Angus wrote, the best way to lower emissions is to make more emissions. That's what Angus asked me to let you know. All right. Next question. What is the one technology that's going to save the planet? suffocating from greenhouse gas? What is the one technology's going to save the planet from suffocating with greenhouse gas? Freeze? trace. Oh, I'm sorry. It's gas. greenhouse gas. All right. Well, gas. Yeah. More gas. More gas. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What is the best way to strengthen ties without Island neighbours and security partners in the Pacific? What is the best way to strengthen ties without island?
Osher Gunsberg 16:55
I should allow said Pacific to rise up and swallow them. Yes. That's very, very good.
Dan Ilic 17:02
Actually. You've done you've done your work here. All right. Excellent. Final question. The world is meeting again, a cop 26 in Glasgow next year. What's the best way to impress our global trading partners at that conference? What is the best way?
Osher Gunsberg 17:17
Again, a second shirt fronting
Dan Ilic 17:21
shirt Friday? I'll I'm not. I'm not sure that's quite right. The answer is, I'm afraid it's time to take a hodgepodge of mythical technology solutions not proven to work. And once again, be the bang whale on the supermarket trolley of progress and drag the rest of the world to the 10 items or less line. But arcia Congratulations, you have won the quiz well done.
Osher Gunsberg 17:44
That's terrible. Well, you want to get that wrong?
Dan Ilic 17:48
Oh, it's great to have you both here. Now we're all awake. Let's get stuck into the conversation, a satirist and a TV host and a software engineer, or walk into a bar and decide to make climate change the centre of what they do. How does that even happen for us three. Climate change is now part and parcel of our work. But as entertainers and creators of things 10 years ago, probably no really wasn't as important. Mike, let's start with you. How have you managed to kind of put climate at the centre of kind of what you're doing right now?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 18:17
Look, I think it's obviously a really, really important problem, if not the most existential challenge for humanity, depending on where in the spectrum you fall, I'd be towards the latter end of that spectrum personally. And I don't think it's going to take just, you know, green minded folk to solve. If you ask me, it's as much as an economic problem and a finance problem and a creative problem, storytelling problem. And we need all parts of society to get involved in solve that. Like, I've always been interested in technology, and the economics of things, business and other bits and pieces. So I happen to have some strengths that are super useful. But I, I think it's a good example, on your panel, if you need lots of different types of people to be tackling and attacking this problem.
Dan Ilic 19:03
What was there a single moment for you was like, was there like an aha moment that can you kind of brought you to this issue that you were like, wow, you know, I gotta do something I can I can do something.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:13
Look, certainly the big big battery from the intro was a large turning point for me personally, sort of got myself involved in a bit of a bingo there. And then, you know, when we got it solved, again, the reason I think that was such an amazing event is rarely have we had a lot of people shit on an ID, then the idea get built in Yeah, it gets proven in such a short period of time.
Dan Ilic 19:38
Right? If you've never worked, if you've never worked in television, like you've never worked in television that happens all the time.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:42
Well, but it was really instructive for me it because I had to learn a huge amount of content personally and got much more into the electricity system and how it works and why it works and how that affects climate change and emissions. And it was sort of a big startup a big journey for me, I suppose. But secondly, To see all of the stories in politics and other things behind it, and then to have that sort of laid, laid bare really quickly was was just a fascinating exercise. For me as someone who just says, that's just broken. Like I like fixing things that are broken.
Dan Ilic 20:15
That just seemed unjust. That was not right. People weren't saying the correct things. And I was perhaps naive before that. I think that is a really beautiful phrase like fixing things that are broken. Our show, what about you? How does how does someone go from hosting television shows in Hollywood to kind of being a climate change communicator?
Osher Gunsberg 20:33
I think, for me, it's because it became an undeniable problem, Dan, you know, became something that it was just, I was no longer able to ignore. If you'll allow me to virtuous virtue signal for just a moment, it was about 22 years ago that I stopped eating meat. When I, you know, I saw I started to struggle with how much resources were required to create the same sort of calorie of plant protein versus animal protein. And I just couldn't get by with that in mind, that's a bit weird. And that was kind of coupled with, you know, I seen with my own eyes or guns, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef in 1992. And again, in 2004, in on the same spot, and I was just bamboozled and horrified at what I saw, and, and as the years roll on, and the conversations aren't getting any more progressive, the need to start to talk about this stuff is bigger and bigger. I think, for me, oh, we can talk about it later, as far as you know, the kind of conversations that I've had around this. But Mike's got a really important point there that there's so much more going on. That trying to drive conversations about it is is really, really the only thing that I'm possibly able to do. I mean, I'm not Mike, I can't organise a massive battery to happen, you know, the way that he was able to do, but I can't have conversations and I can, like, if it gets to the point where the bloke accounts, the roses on your television and talking about climate change, it's time we did something. Okay.
Dan Ilic 22:02
I really love that. That's great. Um, Mike, did you? This is a kind of a strange question to be asking. But I, you know, I certainly ask it from a good faith position. As someone who has worked in climate kind of activism for a while. There may be some people out there who feel like you're a Johnny come lately to this space. Do you feel any kind of resentment from from folks out there? I mean, are you out to steal climate campaigners Limelight?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 22:30
I mean, simple answer is No, man, I'm trying to help people solve a problem. I've been lucky enough to get myself in a position where when I speak my mind, people listen, which is great. And like Asha is for a totally different reason. Right? When he speaks, people listen, and to solve the problem, as I said, I think you need a lot of different things. Right? And so while Yeah, sure I get on Twitter every so often, and cause a bit of a stink, I mean, have a very large fund. Now, I think we're north of a billion dollars in personal investments between my wife and I and sustainability initiatives. So you know, whenever people say and put your money where your mouth is, I'm like, that's not quite true. And, you know, fortunate enough to be able to back large projects and really make a difference and change things. Have a very different storytelling ability to Asha, because you come from a technology and economics point of view, where you can say, Hey, I firmly believe solving this problem is is an economic problem. It's as much a finance issue as a wholesale thing. I'm glad you said, Mr. Owen before, as it is a technology issue, right? I firmly we don't need a another panel, we need ways of getting more panels out more quickly. And that becomes a finance equation. Right? We can talk about that. But the nexus of technology and science and economics is a really important point to have communicated
as well as that I've got, you know,
Unknown Speaker 24:03
I don't know, I
Mike Cannon-Brookes 24:04
suppose abilities to to, you know, talk to politicians and talk to opportunities. You call them amazing opportunities, right. And, and it's great. Often when I talk to them, I'm like, trying to convince them to see how the future is going to be it's almost the as I said to someone else, the curse of people that live in technology is we see what's going to happen 1020 years down the line, but we live in a disruptive, constant world. That's what we do. And you're like, well, this is how it works. And they're like, Oh, no, but you know, the power stations have been like this for 30 years and you're like, no, you're operating on 1982 economics like this is not this is just not how it works today. So I just
Dan Ilic 24:38
love I just love watching you on q&a Monday and just the ability to cut through politicians speak with just in effect effectively. You didn't say what you're saying is bullshit but the way you said it said Oh, sounds like bullshit, but
Unknown Speaker 24:55
I was warned not
Osher Gunsberg 24:56
use the word bullshit, which is why use the word buncombe
Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:00
I would I was just one on this one. So I hope that was all right.
Dan Ilic 25:04
No, I think you're allowed to say what
Unknown Speaker 25:07
your look looks like
Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:08
politicians have a tough job though, because they, they're trying to get elected, right, almost like their primary goal is to get elected. And then their second goal is to get something done. Yeah. And I don't think it should be that way around. But that's the reality of, of what's going on. Right. And so if you don't have to get elected, you can say, well, the correct answer is actually to do this. Let me explain to you why that answer is correct. Rather than, like, let me give the answer that's correct enough to get me elected, but we'll make some form of progress.
Dan Ilic 25:38
You You both both of you, Mike, and I should have been on q&a, Mike, last night. On Monday night, you were you're very much facts and figures, driving home, what you know, and driving home a vision of what could life could be Asha, your experience was a little different on q&a. It was it was had different kind of words attached to it, you know, very emotional kind of hope and grief are all tied into that. What What was that experience like being on q&a and kind of talking about climate on q&a for you?
Osher Gunsberg 26:07
Well, for me, if anybody knows my story, it was initially it was quite terrifying. Because I actually had quite a horrible episode of climate anxiety that tipped up into the actually episodes of psychosis and manifested as paranoid delusions. And I was actually when I was living in North America at the time, I was living in Venice Beach and I would go for run down the beach, and I would I try to see the oceans swallowing the houses along the boulevard, there it was, it was really, really horrible. And so it's still Yeah, it's tricky. You know, feeling anxiety having this conversation right now. But for me, being with that discomfort being with that is the only antidote that there is to this and being an action is the only antidote that there is to climate anxiety. You can pretend that it's not there, like a cancer diagnosis, you can wish it doesn't exist. You can carry on buying packs of diaries, you can just keep going and pretend everything's gonna be fine. But you know, that thing is messed metastasizing inside your body is eating you from the inside. Similarly, we just kind of have to be with it. We have to be with how grievous we need to fail, you know, and I did say it across the summertime when I started to see it in other people's eyes, people were talking to me because I've read my book and now like, are you are I actually am because I can see the fear that I saw in myself and other people now. And I get the feeling that I'm not I'm not alone, you know, obviously down experiencing what I was experiencing, because my fear was an irrational fear, Dan, but they get it. And the only antidote, once you've had that time to grieve, and you, once you start to realise it, I think this is what conversations about climate are so hard, because once you start to realise, like, hang on, we've done what, and even if we did everything tomorrow, it would still be worse for like, 20 years. What, like, that's a horrible thing to suddenly realise. And of course, it's confronting, and people don't want to talk about it. And giving people space to feel that is important, and allowing them to be with that grief, because it's only once you've sat in it and gone right then, well, I guess waterfalls of crises are a good thing. Um, what can I do? And then you move into action. And that's really the only thing and that's really what I was trying to talk about on q&a was like, being inaction is the only antidote to climate anxiety.
Dan Ilic 28:19
Yeah. And, Mike, you are a person of action, you were just talking about kind of your ability to kind of leapfrog competitors and innovate. And to use that overused Wayne Gretzky quote, you know, skating where the puck is going to be, is Australia skating where the puck is going to be?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 28:35
Look, I don't think we are, but I think we should be. I think perhaps,
I think that the climate change problem, let's face it, the climate crisis writ large is an incredibly hard problem to solve. Right? And part of the reason it's incredibly hard problem to solve is because it's a prisoner's dilemma by nature, right? Anytime you have someone bullshit you and say, oh, we're only like a couple percent of the problem. So why do we bother? Let's Let's write it. It's like, okay, you can get upset about that. But it's going to require the entire world to come together and solve this run. However, for Australia, we have this amazing opportunity, which should frustrate us even more, because we actually have an opportunity in this. It's not just doing our 2%. It's the ability for us to build, literally the future of our country. And I think when we talk about skating, where the puck is going to be, it's not about solving again, this is where, you know, long ago now I was all about 200% renewables because just literally it is a thing that makes people think, what do you mean 200%? It's because this is an opportunity for us. We've never been able to have more energy than we need, until you think about it and go Actually, that's all we do. Export is energy. Well, that's all we export. But when I talk about fossil fuels, we are exporting energy. All we're saying is we were evolved that to export a different type of energy. That's an opportunity for us and we have just such an amazing opportunity, not just resources, you've probably had lots of people in the last two days. He's talking about sun and wind and how it could power the entire world five times over from Australia, etc. That's all totally true. We also have the opportunity in the finance community, in the talent we have here. If you think about anybody that's built large scale infrastructure projects, I care if you're building a coal mine, or a large energy export project of a different kind, you need large scale project management, you need project finance, you need engineering, you need electricians, you need all sorts of different bits and people to make this. We have all that expertise in Australia. And we have the resources and the talent. And we need to get people back to work in massive numbers. We're talking about skating where the puck is going to be the single greatest frustration at the moment is that we don't see this as an opportunity and economic opportunity that we should be embracing, which is like never before five years ago, it wasn't true, right? We didn't have the cost models and stuff that we do today.
Dan Ilic 30:54
that that would be scanning with the puppies. I think, you know, the the notion of 200% renewables or 500% renewables totally blows my mind. It's like, yeah, of course, like, it totally makes sense. And it really annoys me when you when we hearing at the moment, particularly with hydrogen that came out in the Technology Roadmap, and how hydrogens can be made with gas, brown hydrogen, and there's like, what do you like? What are you doing when we've got all this other energy we could use to make hydrogen and we've got the water, we are good by water. We are good by the resources that we need. We like we're good by Sun and water, like good. We think good. Dory anyway. So anyway, I get really annoyed when I hear these, you know, myopic ideas that kind of lock us into into fossil fuels when it's so obvious that that we could execute on something far more innovative.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 31:45
I should say that we have a sundrenched land with boundless less planes that a windswept? Yeah, well, you can, you can keep going down lots of poetry and be like, we literally want this a long time ago.
Dan Ilic 31:57
Do that someone will write it, write it down and put it in Comic Sans and email to their uncle. And it'll be used as irrefutable evidence against climate change. So I'll share for you who is someone who is kind of globally minded yourself, like what what would you like to see Australia take to Glasgow next year in terms of in terms of plan?
Osher Gunsberg 32:18
Um, look, I think the most important thing as as extraordinarily humongous as the the investment that Mike is working on with his wife, and you know, the other people that we've heard over the last two days, we really are going to have to make our country safe for foreign capital, in the in long term policy, we really going to have to make it safe, because if we're gonna get out of this, we are absolutely 100% going to need foreign investment, we're going to need investors to feel safe, and that their investments will be good for 2030 more years here in Australia. And that's what that's what's gonna have to happen. When I first went overseas to study a couple years ago. Anyone that's talked to a Dutch person will understand the directness. Hi, I'm from Australia. Oh, really? What's going on with your country? Why does the carbon tax Why? Why do you still dig up so much coal, and I found myself like having to apologise to this classroom for the people. We are at enormous risk of being overlooked by the international community and the international investment community. I think the days of Australia being like, oh, that kind of scruffy larrikin that gets a roof over here and a pat on the back and off you go, you know, the little schoolboy that's gone over, if we're not clever, we're just gonna get left out of the opportunity, the extraordinary global opportunity that's ahead of us. And countries with sun and wind and bandwidth plans to stay will they'll be the ones that that get the cake and we will be sitting around going. Alright, I guess it is yes. Pacific bass. Oh, yeah.
Dan Ilic 33:47
It I mean, it is so strange seeing how Bacary out a whole bunch of things. Mike, you you have been having conversations with a lot of politic politicians. The Liberal government is all of a sudden becoming a market interventionist, you know, with what they do with guests, but out of chat with us, as well as energy minister Matt Cain on my podcast a few weeks ago, and he actually said very few, very few liberals are actually into fossil fuels. If that's the case, why do we have the situation today where the federal government is really backing fossil fuels, but the states and territories are leading the charge in renewables? That what is that? What does that disconnect between the states and the federal, federal politicians?
Unknown Speaker 34:27
How many hours? Do you have the answer that I
Dan Ilic 34:28
think we've only got 25 minutes. But
Mike Cannon-Brookes 34:31
look, look, I think for sure the states are taking charge, which is awesome. You could argue to be to be charitable. It's one of the positives of the way that our Federation is constructed, that we do have different groups that can kind of move forward in different ways. I think obviously mats doing a great job in New South Wales. We have a lot of other states are doing an amazing job. I would remind people that the AC T is 100% renewable now. And that's where the parliamentarians federally sit in Parliament House. So that always makes me Ah, feel good that we have one of the
Dan Ilic 35:04
few only I'm sad. Often houses in the world, in fact markets, the wind from all those politicians that gets those windmills going. So
Osher Gunsberg 35:12
thank you, Dan. Thank you. You can see yourself as my
Dan Ilic 35:14
Yeah, I could write for The Daily Telegraph with puns like that.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 35:19
Look, I think it's it's a it's a complex issue, right. The federal issue obviously involves lots of different complexities that the state driven issues don't. Right. But we have to, we have to work this out. And, again, we have netzero commitments, I believe in every state and territory now, but not federally. So there's a lot of argument about whether it matters federally, does it actually matter? And the answer is, I think it still does matter. But it doesn't matter as much as it would have done if we didn't have one. Right. So I do think we are getting that moving in the right direction. There are certain things that are federally controlled, that we need to move forward on and and to be fair to them they've done put the gas stuff aside for a second. The renewable any energy infrastructure investments, they're making transmission was there great. Like we totally need those and they have to be legit federally done. They announced, you know, for Star, the south and other things that they are federally. Finally, you and I either took too long. Okay, great. wherever we are, we're gonna move forward. framework for offshore wind and offshore other things. Again, we have massive offshore resources, price of offshore has converged to basically the same as price of onshore now. So they are moving in the right direction. Would we like them to move faster? Sure. Does it help to talk and keep pushing and keep moving? Yes, I think it really does. I think the
you know, what, great state and federal we need by
Dan Ilic 36:52
Yeah, I understand that. But I mean, with all this the state with the state territories with the states and territories or committing to net zero by 2050. It shouldn't be hard for the federal government government said, yeah, we are going to commit to net zero by 2050. Because the states are doing it. So we're going to absolutely do it. And it's it's it's like pure leadership play. And it doesn't it doesn't dog whistle to fossil fuel industries or their bass or anything like that. But having a flag in the ground, everyone can run towards it. And coal is still going to be mined, there's gases still going to be pumped. But it's a federal signpost that says yeah, we're we are also good actors in the world. Like it feels like this. It's an opportunity completely missed. And it sends the wrong signal to our neighbours and other people where you know, other people in the world we have to deal with.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 37:39
Absolutely don't I mean, don't get me wrong in Madrid, we were an international prime. Right, three countries blow up those towards us, Saudi Arabia and Russia. And that not a club that you generally want to be a member of when it comes to basically what what you're doing international diplomacy, etc. Right? Why did we do that over Kyoto credits? Right, like for all the bullshit you want to put around it, that is the literally the reason that we did that. Europeans were trying to make the credits that we're trying to apply for which by the way, should never have been, they were not written into the agreement. It's total bullshit. I forget. It was on was it on q&a, someone else said, it's like, going to your second marriage and saying, Oh, I did a lot of dishes in the first one. In the second marriage, I was like, that is the best. That's why we need crave storytellers like Oscar. And that was like, the explanation. That is literally what we're trying to say is it's a different accounting system in Paris and Canada, like they're completely different. Yeah, but we were not good internationally. How many years? Can you turn off and be not good internationally, and then ask for other things, and we need strategic international diplomacy in our region. We want to be a world leading group. We have to have that. Yeah. We had shut up in Glasgow, and that should have been right now. Without anything, we would have been locked out of the room. I
Dan Ilic 38:59
Ah, yeah, I get a feeling I get. I get I get the feeling we're still gonna be left at the room with this technology roadmap, but I don't know if that'll change between now then.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 39:08
I'll show up with just the Technology Roadmap in Glasgow in 12 months time and expect to have any respect on the international community when it comes to climate and emissions.
Yeah. We can Trump adjust that
Dan Ilic 39:22
will lose all that power. Again, I'll shut in the space leadership is hard. And especially in you know, the climate space. Everyone has the ability to unlock their own personal power to affect change. You're a solo operator, though, but but you have enormous power in reaching audiences. Can you kind of paint us a picture of how you use your personal power to try and affect change in the positive ways in space?
Osher Gunsberg 39:45
I'm just another middle aged white guy in the public eye talking about something that you know he feels is a you know, compassionate thing. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 39:53
As many people have pointed out to me on twitter at this is what this panel is Yes,
Osher Gunsberg 39:58
yeah. The three whitest dudes in the room. Look, I've been in one way or another in the corner of people's television, like in the corner of people's living rooms for the past 21 years or so. So, I that buys me about an extra four seconds of your attention, you know? Because I that's that guy. Oh, yeah, the thing, what's he talking about? That gives me about an extra four seconds and a lot can happen in that four seconds, a lot can happen as far as getting people to consider, there might actually be something going on here, you may actually have a lot more power than you then you realise. And, and just try to I guess, you know, model through. I mean, I've had a lot of success on my podcast through having conversations about like, just modelling what a conversation about mental health can look like. And that has been extraordinarily helpful to a lot of people, and has been quite profound as far as effecting change. Similarly, I tried to have conversations on my on my podcast that actually sound like two adults discussing this challenge and the incredible opportunities because I think as a nation, we plant like I'm just trying to fill a gaping, aching chasm of getting the feeling like as an adult in the room that causes extraordinary anxiety in the community. We know that our government believes in science, that's how we crushed the curve on COVID. All right, we know that they're willing to spend money on things that mean something to them, they just don't want to spend money on this. We know they're not people who don't believe in graphs. There are graphs. There's current, there's there's curves, there's curves, there's things there's capacity of hospital capacity that we're all very aware of shiners they know how to read a graph. So here's a similar graph, different colours, similar capacity for sustaining life. So don't tell us you don't know what it's about. I think it's just the feeling that there's, you know, there's this kind of feeling of dread within a community that, that mom and dad just too busy arguing in the front seat, and I don't know where we're driving the kids in the back of losing their mind, we as a nation, we just want to know that mum and dad have got this, we want to know that the adults in the room are taking charge, and we'll be cool, we'll be alright. That's all we need. And we'll be fine. All right, we'll get on with doing our jobs, you get on with doing yours. And I think through that through my ability to have a conversation and a rational conversation in public on Well, this is what it sounds like to talk about the reality, to discuss the grief of what we're losing what we will lose what we cannot ever get back. And then to talk about the opportunity, extraordinary chance we have right now to rebuild that country, for our children, for our grandchildren. It's astonishing, that we don't have these conversations on a wider level and have
Dan Ilic 42:26
Can you tell us what your audience is feeling when you have these conversations? What kind of feedback you get, particularly on your climate conversations? What like, what are they saying to you?
Osher Gunsberg 42:34
I think it's a two handed thing, because I don't think you can fully appreciate, you know, the way I try to talk about it, Dan, it's I think that it's not like we don't have the ability to discuss this, we have all the ability to handle the psychology behind inaction on climate already. Okay, it is the same denial. And I can speak to this from my own experience as someone who's been sober 10 and a half years, it's the same denial that you have around alcoholism on the signs, and all you have to anything you're addicted to the amount of justification, the amount of manipulation, the amount of lying, the amount of I don't know should be right should be right? The amount of constantly using this thing that you know, is ultimately going to kill you. But you're so terrified of change, and you just can't picture any other way you keep doing it. That is that's the type of alcohol gambling, sex, whatever. Here we are, folks, here we are. But the thing about being addicted is it's a life of restriction. When you're addicted to anything, things just get smaller and smaller and smaller. Once you find your way into sobriety from that addiction, once you become recovered from that addiction, the opportunities just explode. All right. And I've seen this time and time and time again, the same psychological things that we have within our brains, that we've used to find help for people who are addicted to substances we can use to help people find out of this situation.
Dan Ilic 43:51
I totally agree with you there. Like just even having a summit like this is really important by having people who are knowledgeable and understand what the future could look like to be able to paint what that future looks like, can unlock a whole bunch of hoping everyday people like you, like you wouldn't make sorry, might not count counting you like an everyday person because you're in this industry. But like, you know, regular Joe's to kind of think big about what the future could look like. Mike listening to this for you, who has someone who has put climate at the centre of their business and their businesses, and someone who has really put their money where their mouth is, what should other businesses do? Like what's what's a great way a great simple way to get the ball ball rolling, if you if you run teams or you you run businesses, what's the great way to kind of get the ball rolling in this space to really start applying pressure to change the way they do things.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 44:46
Um, probably depends on which sort of business you're running, I suppose for large businesses, I think, and again, this is what for me it comes down to economics. I I'm a deep believer. I should say that Start that the money like that drives things. Economics drives things like economics is a study of human behaviour. Actually, it's not a study of money, right? It's about utility. And you know, when you get into supply, demand and etc, we have rational actors and game theory and everything else, right? The best way to solve this problem, if you ask me is solving the economics. And what's frustrating is we've gotten to the point that the economics is favourable. So just like if you have a house in Australia, and you're not one of the 3 million households that has panels on the roof, and you own that house, I realise if you're insisting upon building, we've got to solve those problems separately. Putting panels on will save you man, like, it's almost like, there's enough financing options out there to get those panels for free onto your roof, that you're just kind of giving away money by not having them on your roof, right, that's an economic problem that's in a good spot, not quite as batteries, but we will get there, right? If you're running a business, for some reason, people go to the business and don't think the same way. Right. One of the things I've done a lot of work with Ari 100, which is a great group trying to drive globally started by IKEA and Microsoft and Lego and others. Atlassian was one of the first members in Australia. And now we've got, I think all of the big banks and a whole bunch of other great members, john D, runs out has done a fantastic job driving large scale corporates to join. The biggest reason that convinces him to join is they will save money for their business, a business will run cheaper, right? And if you want to talk to business and get them to move, that's often the best way to do it. Right? is like, hey, what if you build next he was $8, not $10. Like, Hey, I'm interested, now I'm listening. He so I do think people's businesses can benefit from this in a financial way, right. And you can feel good while doing it. There's nothing wrong with feeling good about what you're doing. But the same problem for the the nation of Australia in terms of this could create shitloads of jobs. Oh, hang on, man. I've seen the guys into my visit. And they're not they're not doing renewables. I'm like, most of the hottest jobs being created today are in renewables. Like, we're gonna have a debate about narrow bar versus renewable energies. And in terms of jobs, the energy on when
Dan Ilic 47:09
I don't know, whoever's running Smart Energy summit sound video right now, if you could just go back and capture Mike's last 30 seconds, that'd be a great gift.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 47:18
It is the frustration. But you should take that home your business, I guess is what I'm saying is the economics of what we have in terms of today's technology is really good for your business, for your household, and for the nation of Australia because of the resources we have. And that is what the story that we need to keep telling. And it takes people a long time to understand that that is the story. And understand that that story will be better every single year. But it's already positive economics for the country. The business there. So
Dan Ilic 47:51
is that kind of what you fundamentally believe that others don't believe Mike, what's is that the disconnect?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 47:58
Yes, I believe it's a finance and economics problem. That's the best way to solve it. There's probably one thing I fundamentally believe that often others don't believe how to speak for everybody else. It's a bit like for me, it's like recycling, right? If I tell you that you should recycle 5% of population will be the do gooders and do the right thing. Soon as I pay five cents a bottle, it's like 80% of people will recycle or something. And so financial incentives and utilities actually do make a big sense in the economic world. So I do think it's a finance problem, we should remember that almost all almost all renewable technologies are large capital low input, if not zero input. What that means is all the money is spent upfront. And you know, you put panels on your roof cost you five to 10, grand, and then it's free after that you can get up with a shimmy and walk them every so often if you want to. So the 20 years are free. That's what financing does. Financing loans, etc, is about how do we make it so that you can get those panels cheaper, quicker, it's like a credit card or a mortgage. Right? These are exactly the same devices, we invented the mortgage in the Depression of the 1930s, to help people buy houses. And we said, You know what, you can live in that house for 30 years, we're gonna work out the financing equation, you're gonna pay twice the price of the house, or whatever it is over the time, but you're gonna like having a house. So this is really good. We invented the mortgage. We're constantly trying to do financing activities for all clean technologies, because the generally zero input cost, large scale capex up front, where finance is perfect. The second thing that I think I believe in is I believe in learning rights of modular technologies. deeply, deeply, deeply as a technologist. This is super important, and I believe far too few people understand this.
Dan Ilic 49:37
What is this elaborate on this? I don't know what you're talking about.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 49:41
It's all the panels batteries.
Wind turbines. These are modular technologies, right? By that I mean, if I have one panel or a million panels, I just make more of the same thing. Right? It's why chips get cheaper is because we make slightly better chips and we make a bigger factories that make more chips right naturally. A lot of That ends up being more important, right? More of the reduction of the cost of a solar panel now is coming from manufacturing scale. And installation costs then from bit asides and building better panels. But these are modular technologies, they will always win once they reach the point of scale that begets the learning rate, which makes them cheaper, which means that they get more scale, which means that they get more money, right? If you're in technology, we've seen this in chips. We've seen it in cameras, the camera in your mobile phone in 10 years, improved quality per pixels per dollar a thousandfold. Right, so we got either 1000 times cheaper, or it got 100 times cheaper and 10 times more powerful or some combination, right? This is the way that technology works when that technology is modular. Lots of technologies are not modular, and that is unfortunate. So those learning rates do not apply to everything, but they do apply to solar batteries, etc. And they are like Moore's law and chips Swanson's law and solo. These laws aren't laws of physics, but they will happen next year, I've had discussions with politicians where I say Do you realise that batteries have gotten like 10 times cheaper or three times longer lasting or twice as light, or any of these sort of facts? Now I gave it you don't know that will happen next year. And I'm like, ah, but I do. I can't tell you in the next three months. But I can tell you if I look 234 years that will absolutely continue.
Dan Ilic 51:25
Like Don't take this the wrong way. But with with your hair and stuff, it looks into your hoodie, you could be like a wizard of technology.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 51:33
But this is like if we understood this, again, we would never build any more fossil technologies at large scale, because 30 years from now, it won't make sense, right? 10 years from now what makes sense. And we kind of know that based on today. But we seem to we struggle with that future pricing equation. A lot. The learning rate of modular technologies has to be understood, as has the financing question
Dan Ilic 52:01
asked, what about the scalability of podcasts? Are there enough a podcast and to reach enough people to convince them to jump on board this clean energy train?
Osher Gunsberg 52:09
I don't know how many middle aged white men are there? Because we all need a podcast? Look, honestly, I'm just just just just vibing on Mike cannon Brookes extraordinary, like Alan Malala is kind of ability to restructure and recreate our, you know, this problem and looking at it like an engineering problem, I really have to agree with what Mark was talking about there. As heartbreaking as it is, and you're here on this resume, because you have seen the graphs and you know what's going to happen. So you are here from an emotional reason, probably all right. There's very few people here from a financial reason, once it becomes a financial reason, this will change overnight. And I've got to acknowledge at how much it sucks to wait for that economic reason to become viable. But unfortunately, that is the way of the world. And we just have to wait. But it will absolutely. Mark's already talking about these tipping points where things the cleaner, greener option is the cheaper, scalable, more replicable option. But we just have to wait for that. Which is really, really horrible if you're an endangered species. But that's you know, that's that's the truth. That's where
Mike Cannon-Brookes 53:12
we've already got that point. It's coming. Right? Like we've already gotten on a number we should we all need to stop saying it's coming. It's here. It is here today. Yeah, right in a lot of technology. And we need to say that that we've reached that point. We are beyond that point. When people talk about the cheapest source of new power generation being renewables, they're telling the truth, but they're also a couple years late. And so as a community or whatever, we need to stop saying these things are coming in the future. These both will create jobs and cheaper energy. And this is like today's world, not Tomorrow's World one Exactly. To get thrown around is fun. I'm not saying it's wrong on the fly. But why politicians is Yeah, we need some more technology, like in five years or 10 years or 20 years. We'll get there. I'm like we're fucking there right now. Yeah, we need to keep saying that. I can't stress that enough.
Osher Gunsberg 53:58
I'm agreeing. I'm agreeing with you market just yet. Which is like the I'm what I'm doing is I'm agreeing saying like the idea of pushing people to understand that the financial decision is the right decision right now. It's the emotional decision. That's the thing that people reacted, that's they will go, Oh, no, no, no sort of thing on Facebook. If it's an emotional decision, people want to shut it down and reject it. But if it's financial decision, people go, hang on what I can save money. And then that's the way that's the way and so to answer your question, Dan, I don't know how many podcasts but definitely conversations and it's everyday conversations. And it's literally is when someone says, gee, it's a nice day today. Yeah, it is. It's 30 degrees. It's the fourth of September shouldn't be 30 degrees.
Dan Ilic 54:37
question here from Christine mill. Mike. Have you considered the batteries on on the mainland? will eclipse pumped hydro storage based in Tasmania, and we'll leave the lettuce stranded.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 54:50
Ah, look, that's a deep nuance energy question. I don't do my Tasmania and I believe that leaves a lot of stranded because there it's already built. so pumped hydro has a 50 year lifetime. And if you've already kind of paid off the capex, then you should be okay with that. pumped hydro is a good example of a non modular technology. Every time you build pumped hydro, largely, the pumps are modular. But the engineering required to work out this piece of water, that bit of water, the pipes, the pumps, the the the angles, like it's an engineering project engineering projects are not very scalable. I can find any field and roll out solar panels with, you know, very, very quickly. So, yes, they will. I think one of the big things for Australia is probably about snowy Hydro and snowy hydro two, and specifically, whether that's a good investment or a bad investment. I generally fall down that that's a good investment, not a great investment. It is not the best thing we could have done with that amount of money. But it's not a terrible thing to do with the money. Right. From the point of view of storage. Will batteries be cheaper by the time that is ready? That is a great question.
Dan Ilic 55:57
Yeah, another question about the New South Wales government, which today has announced the neraby the narrabri gas project is going ahead, Mike, what are your thoughts on that project? Does it have a chance of being found?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 56:09
You're gonna get a shitload of hot water here? Um,
firstly, I think it was the independent planning commission that said they could go forward from what I understand not the New South Wales, I'm not sure how the relationship between those two To be fair, but I'm not sure if it was New South Wales Government stamp that I can I can ethically disagree with that. At some level, I have to hope that they've all done their correct work on planning and everything else and have the right controls. I don't know if the project will go forward from a financing perspective. If I was Santos, and looking at the finances, I would think that would be a struggle to get up and running. You know, you need to be betting on $1 A Giga Joule gas a long time in the future for that to all make sense. Look, if they're going to put private capital and we've done the environmental concerns, that's fine. I don't have to agree with it personally, right. But at some level, you can't just always be tearing down the structures that we have that said, Do I think it's necessary? We're gonna bring Australia's power prices down? Absolutely not like let's, I'm very clear with gas. Give me the word off the gas.
Dan Ilic 57:13
And then let's separate all these concepts because the blurring of the stories gets very confusing, like I said, on q&a. There's the extraction, there's the transport, there's the price is a
Mike Cannon-Brookes 57:24
totally different things and totally different timescales. Right, if you're talking about the next three to five years, and beyond any of that three or five years, right, they'll probably still be debating various concerns about groundwater and salt and all absolutely valid things to be debating three years from now,
Dan Ilic 57:41
do you get you get phone calls from the guest lobby? Mike, do you get phone calls saying Hey, Mike, let's turn maitain into us thing get on our side? I just wanted to say that jack, another question from Blair heavy
Mike Cannon-Brookes 57:52
told me that we've got call in the coalition and I'm gonna tell you there's also lithium ion
Unknown Speaker 57:58
high
Mike Cannon-Brookes 58:01
in there, right, we've just got to flip it from one to the other.
Dan Ilic 58:03
Blair asks my cow can the current government refuse to even see the economic benefits and pick a polluting now done energy source such as gas when it so clearly does not make financial sense? So like, what what is that? What decision Do you think in your mind that they've made?
Mike Cannon-Brookes 58:22
Look, this is where a politician has very different job than that's how our society works, right? I understand that they are trying at some level to navigate themselves away from coal and get two other things right. And and the way they did the transition fuel is also a transitionary policy platform of fossil fuels that gets you kind of away without any elegant this dismount. I don't think we need that dismount. Right, but you might need it. If you're trying to get elected, that's totally different. We don't need it from an energy point of view. We don't need it from a country point of view. We don't need it from an economic point of view. However, they are, we should give them credit. Again, sometimes people like to make these things black and white. And the answer is always a bit of grey, we should give him credit. The largest announcement made two weeks ago was a couple of hundred million bucks for renewable and energy infrastructure, transmission infrastructure. That was the largest dollar commitment. The largest job commitment was the same thing. So sometimes the announcement it's important gets buried in the, you know, the other stuff. Secondly, I think it's really important and what I would like to keep repeating, there was an implicit, we're moving to 100% renewables. In those announcements. This is the first time the government has said that on the other side, we had Alba's saying we're going to be renewable energy superpower. Let's focus on the long arc of time. That was a stratospheric shift from our current government to implicitly say whether they said we're moving to hydrogen, you definitely need gas. Let's spend a lot of time talking about gas. Wait a second. Let's go back to what you just said. Up front. You admitted we're moving on grid to 100% renewables and beyond. That's a big step. I get why you didn't like that the headline, even though I would make that the headline, and you can argue it's took too long. Doesn't matter. Yeah, we're gonna get there.
Dan Ilic 1:00:09
Is it gonna be like the NBN? Like it? They'll say that in 50 years time, they'll be like, Oh, you know what we were wrong back then we're actually actually gonna really go
Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:17
down again. Again, one of the reasons we're trying to keep them honest, I suppose about this Ladell replacement thing, and they've already come down from 1000 megawatt hours, which by the way, is a classic. If you're a politician, You make it sound bigger. You can't make it one gigawatt.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:29
What are they? What are they 1000 megawatts because
Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:31
it sounds bigger. I'm like, well, let's make it a million kilowatt plant. It's a billion watts. I don't understand the numbers. But anyway, let's just say it's already gone from 1000 megawatts to 250. Right? Wow. I put my money that never gets built.
Dan Ilic 1:00:44
I think it was seven times a court who said that he read a tweet from his last week that a 250 megawatt plant was run by 13. People think of all the job it will create.
Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:55
Hundred 50 megawatt plant. We instal that much residential solar every month in this country. Wow. 250 megawatts a month. Right. So let's go forward three and a quarter years. That's 10 gigawatts of residential solar installed without any growth whatsoever. If it flatlines from here, and it's growing like this. So if it flatlines, we'll get 10 gigawatts, two or 50 megawatts as much as people want to say it's big, it's fucking tiny. Right? It's a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of our grid, it won't get built, unless the government forces it in with subsidies. And if they do, tell us how much the subsidy is or how much the investment is, and I'll give you 345 better options. straightaway.
Dan Ilic 1:01:35
They were sending something really telling I think on insiders when spezia was interviewing skybow talking about not committing to the net, net zero 50. And scomo was like oh, yeah, no, we'll get in it serious 50 by the end of the century,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:49
it's like God, it's so frustrating.
Dan Ilic 1:01:50
And I think kitaen Joshi wrote a great piece saying, well, by the government's own admission, their emissions will get to net zero by 2300. I don't think I don't think that's a don't think we have a long arc of time, is what is what particular Blair's replied to me saying we don't have a long arc of time as well. I don't think we have that long arc of time to actually make these changes. How can we accelerate that? Or how can we put pressure on as, as voters to get our politicians to accelerate those changes to push for net zero 50 or net zero by 30? In the process,
Osher Gunsberg 1:02:24
it's got to be where you spend your money, Dan, we vote every three years or whatever down the state schools, but we vote every single day where we spend our dollars. I think there was a like a 2014 study out of Princeton that show that public protest often has a like a near zero impact on on government policy. What makes people stand up is where people are suddenly not spending their money. That's where decisions get made. And we have that choice. As a nation, we have the choice of we all decided to go like one day a week without buying petrol. People would lose their minds as a whole nation when when that's it. We're not buying petrol for a week, because when upset about the way the fuel lobbies done, it would be changed overnight. All right, we have that power, we absolutely have that power. It's just in the organisation. And it's where you spend your money. As Mark was saying, if you start if the rooftop solar keeps going in that direction. There's no way that the industry won't adjust to that. But that's people making a decision on the bottom line of their household budget, hundred percent. And that's where we have the ability to affect change every single day. You are not powerless. Every dollar you spend is a vote.
Dan Ilic 1:03:29
Thanks, Ayesha. That was brilliant. I think we're out of time. So big thanks to Mike and and Brooks and Asha Gunzburg. It's been a real privilege talking with you and yelling with you about climate change and energy transitions. I had a real wonderful time. And really, this is a highlight of my year so far. And let's face it, it's 2020. So low standards, but still pretty good stuff I have to say.
Osher Gunsberg 1:03:51
Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Mike.
Dan Ilic 1:03:52
Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot, everyone.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:56
GM, great, a small podcast
Osher Gunsberg 1:03:58
of our generation. Well in what did you think of that?
Linh Do 1:04:00
That was great. I was surprised by how entertained I was. I mean, it makes sense. You had one of Australia's most famous TV people, although that said, given given that Asha did name dropping university, I feel I need to name dropping university as well. So I'm going to name drop Harvard. So there's a Harvard academic called Erica Genworth, who actually believes civil disobedience is not only the moral choice that we have for combating climate change or any sort of other social issue, but it's one of the most powerful ways of shaping world politics. So her research, one of the things I've geeked out on, looks at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, and it's found that it's 3.5% of the population engaged in a social issue. It has never failed to bring about political change. So yes, it's important where you spend your money for sure. But actually, that's really important in Australia, what what does that look like? That looks like 900,000 people actively engaging. So you know, last year school strike alone, we had 300,000 people attend and you know, there were many people who couldn't make it. myself included, I have the flu. As you know, even pre carpet, I knew it wasn't good for me to go and spread my germs. But we look at some of the populations around the world that you know, have taken measurable action on climate change. And what do you know, 3.5% of a population has engaged so cambre, which is you know, as mentioned, 100% renewable energy paired with now. They had over 3.5% of their population go to the climate marches last year. The same is the case in New Zealand as well and a bunch of other places around the world. So, dear listeners, never forget political action is still important. But other than that great interview.
Dan Ilic 1:05:37
Lynn, can we get Erica chin was on the show.
Linh Do 1:05:40
That would be amazing. I don't think she's a billionaire. And I don't think she's very famous on TV. But I think she has like some phenomenal thoughts around. Actually we can do more than just far and we can do more than just spend our money, how we show up and how we use our voices. I think Matt is just as much
Dan Ilic 1:05:57
Big thanks to rode mics Bertha foundation go neutral, Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline. Also Big thanks to the Smart Energy Council for letting me publish this audio from this session here. irrational fear is back in two weeks, we're having a little bit of a break because we've been so flat out with Nina ayama, and Gretel a Jackson and the week after that with Zoe combs, ma and Concetta Cristo. And we'll be back with the greatest moral podcast of our generation in November, where we chat with YesI moseby. And Sophie marjanovic, who are organising a gigantic campaign for the Torres Strait, to take the Australian Government to the UN to fight them on their lack of climate action. It's a fascinating chat. You'll be in tears. I've just started editing it now. It's, it's really great.
Linh Do 1:06:39
I can't wait to listen to that, given our track record, I would think that they have a really good chance of winning. And there's so many cases again, around the world of people taking the government's to action. So got on the crew up north.
Dan Ilic 1:06:52
One of the interesting things about that chat I've had with those folks is that Sophie was saying that it doesn't matter if the UN comes down on the side of the Taurus, right? And Australia does nothing. It's often just a preset and like setting that precedent will allow other populations to take their countries to court and get the same result. And then those countries can take action. So even if we do if I call that something special we can give to the rest of the world.
Linh Do 1:07:14
Great. It's the least we can do given we won't even sign a biodiversity pledge.
Dan Ilic 1:07:18
Thanks for listening to irrational fears greatest moral podcast of our generation. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of. Bye
Ass-led recovery. 💩 - #QOnionsOnTop - July 30th 2020
00:41:37
I am Dan Ilic, I am a lawful man sending you a lawful email from the Principality of Bondi Beach. Joining Lewis and I this week is comedian, writer, performer, Vidya Rajan, and from the podcast Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps, Josh Szeps We ask the tough questions: Are tall people are more susceptible to Covid-19? Is it worth becoming a sovereign citizen? And how we are dealing with Climate Grief?.
We’re also joined by from the . She explains to us the potential changes to one of the few pieces of Commonwealth environmental legislations, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.Leanne MinshullAustralia Institute
We're Talking Fears with the Talking Pictures crew.
Yianni Agisilaou Mike Bowers Fiona Katauskas Dan Ilic + Zoe Daniel
We talk about the diplomatic boycot of the winter olympics, world leaders hitting the pingers at 4am, Andrew Laming's staffers poor choices, and we talk with Zoe Daniel about running as an independant.
This week's podcast takes you flash points for disaster around the world; India, London, and Clive Palmer's office.
Indian authorities are clamping down on criticism against Prime Minister Modi, banning critical hashtags and throwing people in jail who tweet against the PM's response to COVID19.
So at only a small personal risk to himself, Anuvab Pal unleashes his thoughts on Modi this week's podcast rather than broadcast them on twitter.
Also UK Journalist and host of Course Correction podcast, Nelufar Heydat, uploads her concerns about a new NHS COVID Vaccination Passport App, that will divide the UK into the jabs and jab-nots.
And Dom Knight from satirical comedy outfit The Chaser, brings to light one of Clive Palmer's more recent failings. A proposal for a coal mine less than 10km from the Great Barrier Reef has been rejected by the state government.
We also discuss how A Rational Fear can get some of that $19686 per minute in fossil fuel subsidies. (Spoiler: We can't, please join our Patreon ) — oh and God pops by.
Unknown Speaker 0:00 Rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, camera, and gum, and section body, or rational fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 0:13 George Christensen shocking announcement that he's leaving politics is eclipsed by the shocking revelation. He's only 42 years old. And in Canada pledges to cut its carbon emissions by 40% before 2030, which is huge if Trudeau and Victorian Government has introduced a new tax on electric vehicles. Tonight we'll teach you how to convert your Tesla to a Model T Ford. It's the 30th of April 2021. And now milkshake brings all the boys to the yard of their own volition. This is a rational fear irrational
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host the ADHD enabled dickhead Dan Ilic. This is the podcast that takes the toughest topics and breaks them open like a pink lunchbox filled with USB sticks. Joining us on the podcast tonight he's been writing and performing satire for so long it's too late to change to something more lucrative like fossil fuel extraction from the chaser it's dumb night. Yes, preferably a fossil myself now
Dom Knight 1:17 but I did try to change careers but I failed. So hello.
Dan Ilic 1:21 And this is an Afghanistan born British journalist who speaks English Farsi, Hindi and dari. But this is her first time speaking Australian from Doha debaters course correction podcast. It's nella Hidayat.
Unknown Speaker 1:34 Hello.
Dan Ilic 1:37 That was a very honourable attempt. And finally his half torso, half legs, but all heart It's Louis Alba.
Lewis Hobba 1:46 That's right. It's a very strange heart that is really leg shaped at the bottom.
Dan Ilic 1:52 Coming up a little later on the grind and event pal joins us from Kolkata to shed light on whether Prime Minister Modi is the best Indian Prime Minister of all time, or the greatest Indian Prime Minister of all time. But first a message from our sponsor.
God 2:06 Hi, I'm God, also known as Yahweh, the Lord Jehovah. And in some circles, Jenny, you may remember me for being the father of Jesus, the guy who was murdered by the mob when the local authorities claimed his safety was the responsibility of the seats. Now I just want to clear a few things up. Your Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that I came to him in a vision. And I said quote, Scott, you've got to run for Prime Minister. Well, that's not how I remember it. I remember hearing to him and saying Scott, you've got the runs. And if you don't make it home, you'll have to stop it and the dean McDonald's. I'm glad we could clear that up on the record. And remember, folks love one another. Although I understand that's more of an inner city a dinner party cafe. Greene's thing to do. Oh and buy my book is big, and it's a best seller.
Dan Ilic 3:12 All right, this week's first fear Clive Palmer's proposal a bit of cold nine near the Great Barrier Reef has been dealt with a blow saying the project is not suitable. The problem is not suitable is Clive Palmer's whole brand dinosaurs on a golf course not suitable replica of a titanic the never sailed not suitable spending $60 million on a spoiler campaign to steal votes from labour not suitable paying people who work in his nickel refinery, not suitable dome in a world where coal is king, aka Queensland. How did Clive Palmer lose out to the environment on this one?
Dom Knight 3:47 Well, it's a funny thing. I mean, I gave his holiday for the central Queensland mine came because few years ago Clive read about a Danny he read about all the years of objections. He read about the terrible environmental disaster or the ruining of the groundwater. And he just went home with Tim Tams. I've got an idea for a minute and this is where we are today. I was confused because, look, one thing that Queenslanders do not do is object to mines. You know Queensland has approved coal mines, like they're rejecting coming motorists from New South Wales. I love the coal as though with King Wally Lewis or a ship condo at surface like this is their thing. But then I remembered that Clive Palmer ran in the last election he spent was a $40 million or something I think even though $6 million 0.6% of the vote. This is in Queensland, so they've just Labour's just gone not know Clive, we hate you. You're the one man. Look, if Twiggy first proposes a coal mine Gina Rinehart Daryl summers could prefer Richard PC to get it up but Clive is the one guy who is saying no do not because they don't like Carl that is don't like Clive
Dan Ilic 4:52 urich and Clive is the liability for his own coal mine.
Dom Knight 4:57 I think so. net niloufar If you know Clive Palmer he's he's kind of like the Australian prototype for Donald Trump. except he's actually a billionaire. He was there for about three years. He turned up in a Rolls Royce. And then eventually we got rid of him big time. Yeah, billionaires in politics, it turns out don't mix. So well.
Nelufar Hedayat 5:15 No, it's shocking, because the wide and varied history of the UK has proven not to be not true. I mean, look at today's news, right. So today, we've had calls for Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister to be investigated because he didn't like the former Prime Minister's Theresa Mays wallpaper. He's accused of like spending 1000s and 1000s of pounds doing up number 10 with donor money. And you know what, one of the things that I really find true in the UK is we use the word crony to mean corrupt because we just we don't seem to be able to say corrupt. So there's accusations of cronyism, but this sort of idea of like billionaires coming in, it's I mean, I'm gonna say you got that from us. I'm just gonna say
Lewis Hobba 6:00 the fact that Boris Johnson is gone, you know what I mean, at number 10. And the first thing that I really need to put on this whole place is my personal taste. The idea that his arrogance extends so far that he can go look at this hair. Now imagine the decision I'll make on this wall.
Nelufar Hedayat 6:18 No one's gonna say that Teresa Mays like got the eye on the interior design world, right. But at the same time, he's absolutely shameless. And because he's been baseer, because I'm sure this feller is and kind of walking up with a Rolls Royce or driving up whatever the Rolls Royce, he gets away with it. There's something about politics in a developed world where if you have a personality, people are like, Oh, he's just like us. He's just like us. It doesn't matter if his ancestors are Turkish royalty, or whatever he must be. And it's that sort of gaudiness with which they kind of approach politics that that that means that they can get away with it. it's astounding.
Dom Knight 6:53 I love the Boris Johnson story and I love that the Prime Minister the UK during one of the world's worst pandemics has come out. Well, we better decorate for we can do anything else.
Nelufar Hedayat 7:03 When did you make that decision? Like when 2000 people were dead 20,000 people it's astounding to know that this is something that you know he had time for as well as having a baby. Also, he's
Lewis Hobba 7:12 such a he's such a like giant teenager that you like, how expensive is it just to buy a Reservoir Dogs poster that you're playing?
Unknown Speaker 7:24 The first order of business is to tear down these fluid delays and then put up some racing cars.
Dom Knight 7:32 I love I'm sure Boris and Clive were going everywhere. But I mean, Clive. Yep, see, right. Clive is so ridiculously flamboyant. But at the same time, he is a serious coal miner. He does all this kind of stuff. And this this proposal, the central Queensland mine was an absolute doozy guys. I mean, I had a look at it. And you know how Adani was 160 kilometres from the coast. This is 10 Yeah, 10 kilometres from the barrier. It is on the coastal floodplain, it's an open pit mine. So whenever it rains, the water just gonna wash straight onto the roof. It's extraordinary.
Dan Ilic 8:05 And I love how I love how the government said no at a state level. But then the central Queensland coal company spokesperson said, I think there's still a pathway forward to get this going.
Nelufar Hedayat 8:18 Around the world, like here in the United Kingdom, like Australia has quite a reputation of being a vanguard of being at the forefront of like climate action. And like, you know, banning plastic bags and working on all this stuff. And that's kind of Yeah, we don't know there's a billionaire coal man wandering around trying to absolutely decimate the barrier reef like why are we hearing about this? This is insane.
Lewis Hobba 8:40 Our current prime minister now will just say walked into parliament holding a lump of coal yelling that it wouldn't hurt people like people, these people are
Unknown Speaker 8:51 holding stuff. I mean, snowballs, climate change.
Dom Knight 8:56 We found out this week that he likes touching people to heal them in kind of a Christian way. So the two things he likes touching are people who don't want him to in coal. That's what we're dealing with at the moment,
Unknown Speaker 9:06 are rational fear.
Unknown Speaker 9:08 By believing someone in social media has its virtues and values, to connect people in ways
Unknown Speaker 9:15 those weapons can also be used by anyone a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 9:21 That brings us to the second fear of the week, Australia's biggest doll Blodgett is receiving $19,686 a minute in welfare and that's the fossil fuel industry. Yeah, if you think $19,686 a minute is a lot of money. Well, it is. It's it's kind of more than the Australian government spends on the army. That's more than the Australian government spends on the Air Force. It works out to be about $10 billion a year we could have. We could have 10 more ABCs for that kind of money or at least one ABC that pays Louis Well yeah, finally,
Unknown Speaker 9:52 someone plays I
Dan Ilic 9:55 mean, this is this is great like wasn't one of the biggest plays in the local industry, Exxon Mobil They make $30 billion a year over four years and yet they pay zero tax. So fear mongers let me ask you this, how can we this podcast get some of that? $19,686 a minute?
Nelufar Hedayat 10:12 Well, we can definitely start off by holding these lumps of coal you said.
Unknown Speaker 10:18 Now,
Dan Ilic 10:19 maybe I'm gonna put some recruit oil on my face and turn up in oil face, that'll probably get some sweet sweet dollars. Yeah, do we, if
Lewis Hobba 10:27 we just start digging, like if we just go in the backyard? And like, I reckon they might be called a gang and just like, get like get the dog in there, the dog can mine. How small does the dig have to be before we start getting some of those subsidies?
Nelufar Hedayat 10:38 Well, the closer to the barrier reef, the more likely we are to actually
Dom Knight 10:44 just hit out on that we'll just head out on the roof, go out there on a surfboard and just start literally drilling into coral. And money will fall from the sky.
Dan Ilic 10:54 Now this is actually a generous kind of kind of calculation from the Australia Institute, this $10 billion figure, the IMF did a calculation a few years back that put the cost of health care and the cost of the environment as factors with inside that subsidy. And the number is way bigger. It's like 29 billion US dollars a year in subsidies. It's just mind boggling now. Now you're outside of Australia. On your podcast cause correction. This week, you speak with former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilad about her time in office and her attempts to bring the emissions trading scheme to Australia. What did you learn about Australia's climate politics? Speaking with her,
Nelufar Hedayat 11:33 actually, that you guys are no better than any one of us, which is quite nice. Actually. Like I said, I mean, around the world, Australia does have a somewhat forward thinking view of climate action. And I don't know where this comes from, because it's blatantly a lie.
Unknown Speaker 11:48 Yes, yes. Yeah. Great.
Dan Ilic 11:52 It's so surprising that you say that because like ever since 1997, the Kyoto Protocol, we have been absolute, malignant assholes when it comes to the international negotiations,
Dom Knight 12:03 your highest per capita emissions.
Unknown Speaker 12:05 I mean, Whatsapp group.
Nelufar Hedayat 12:09 Europe, well, we're not Europeans anymore. Oh, got that. Wow, that just gonna pop that control for later. Now. When we spoke to the Prime Minister, she was very, I think, you know, having lost the election because of her vote because of her carbon tax. It just felt like she had experienced what it's like to be at the forefront of change in that it's awful. Many of the people I've interviewed in my life Malala Yousafzai, Twin Peaks, astronauts, politicians, all types of folks have always kind of had this veneer of like, I'm a Changemaker thing is gonna be great. But on course correction, Judy Gilad just lays it out. And she's a woman. Let's say that let's put that out there. She's a woman so people are less likely to trust her when she says things. So we got into it. We really got into the to the nub of the issue. And yeah, it's a bit disheartening to think that a the messaging is all absolutely shambolic when it comes to climate change, and be that we're gullible enough to fall for it, because we want to believe in the good news, right.
Dan Ilic 13:13 One of the things you said one of the things you said in that episode, which is really interesting was Julia kind of put the case that maybe the ETS was a hard thing to do. And even though it got torn down, it was still a worthy thing to do. Because it makes whatever comes next. Yeah. And the
Nelufar Hedayat 13:30 person, she's a good leader, when it came to the climate bill, when it comes to ETS, she absolutely did all the right things, and she knew she was going to get banned for it. I can name I know, I can't, I can't name a single leader in the world except obviously the benevolent the good and the great Narendra Modi, who would do something along those lines of putting the nation putting something that's idealistic above herself.
Dom Knight 13:53 You say that, but have you heard what our prime minister said this week in joe biden's Climate Summit, because this is impressive. This is impressive thinking it's creative. And I'm very proud of him, he managed to talk about the great carbon emissions that we have the moment all the reductions that we've made, he managed to exclude both the emissions on our exports and on our imports. So Australia's climate emissions look great if you don't count the stuff we dig out of the ground, or the ones that are you know, burnt, making things that what we import, which is every single thing that we have, it's like going to the pub and saying, Well, if you don't include all the BS that I drank, important in my body and the export of vomit at the end of the night, I'm actually sober to drive home.
Dan Ilic 14:41 No, that's it like if you don't understand that's, like
Unknown Speaker 14:46 none of the trick.
Dan Ilic 14:47 None of this is true. None of this is tricky. None of this is hard. It's like it's fake accounting. One of my favourite things that was said though, was by your prime minister now. Boris Johnson, I think get a message for the whole world. When he was talking let me play a bit of that it's vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive politically correct green active bunny hugging or however you want to put it I'm not even with bunny hugging you know what I'm driving at? You know what he's driving at? He's no he's it's not about Bernie hacking.
Nelufar Hedayat 15:24 reputation of these United Kingdom's is what he's driving out funny hugging Mother of God I really just flattened by that. I mean that man represents my life. Like he is the person that we thought was best fit.
Unknown Speaker 15:43 This is a rational view.
Dan Ilic 15:46 This week's third fear international travellers in the UK will be asked to show their COVID vaccination test status with the NHS smartphone app. It's the same app that people book their NHS tests on. For me, it's it's problematic as the NHS app is only available for people in the UK, if they want. If they want international people to use it. They should use an app that everybody else uses like Tinder or something, you know, you got the Vax swipe right away, you go off to your baggage collection. Now what other problems do you see with this NHS passport?
Nelufar Hedayat 16:15 So first of all, Michael Gove, he's kind of looking after this sort of thing. And we've got Mr. Wahby, who's in charge of the vaccination effort and trying to sort all of this stuff out, they have not come together in a consensus or a unified voice. So we literally don't know what's going on. In fact, the Guardian Today reported that the cop COVID passports that we thought were essential for going into pubs, just for quick payments of mates, or to restaurants is now being annexed and moved away into a different app into a certificate. And then there's going to be a passport, that means that you can go to some European countries, but only if you're wearing a yellow hat and holding a song. Here's my thing with all of this is COVID has shown us like just it's just been an absolute eye opener in terms of the haves and the have nots and how we have in the global north chosen to divide society. It was obviously a big raucous around the world a couple of weeks ago, when it's been proven that most of the vaccine 80% of the vaccines in the world have gone to the global north. And that's why you end up with situations that may or may not be happening in India right now.
Dan Ilic 17:15 Finally, finally, the term global South makes sense for Australia. It's like yeah, we're now in the global south. We're not getting any vaccine.
Unknown Speaker 17:24 Welcome to that. Not so, good club.
Nelufar Hedayat 17:26 One of the main things that I'm concerned about is this holiday home loophole. Right. So if you have a holiday home, you can like bypass all the queues, all the lines, forget the bureaucracy that has to come with this thing not to mention that I could probably just pick up a piece of paper, stick a sticker on it and call it a passport myself. Like there is no thoughts, no foresight, no nothing going into this and it's going to create an absolute storm of it. When it comes to student holiday time
Dom Knight 17:55 versus dad's been using that as a reason versus dead Ben jaunting off to Spain or something to his holiday house. Yeah,
Nelufar Hedayat 18:01 it's a Stanley I can't remember his name he Hanley Stanley Stanley is a legend. Not Not Not a good legend. So much of it going on in the UK. But But you know, we have a different lexicon for it in the global north in Europe. We don't call it corruption. We don't call it misplacement of public funds. We don't call it ineptitude. Within the public service. We say it's a Bumble. We say, mommy huggers, we say that it's it's all gonna be all right on the you know, on the night and all this kind of chat. So so I don't what I what I'm really terrified of is that we're going to stumble into another situation where people are going to pay the price for government ever. And that's what's happening here with this
Dan Ilic 18:46 pen. And mostly it's those people who still have got a Nokia 3310 because you know, the app doesn't work on that. Yeah,
Nelufar Hedayat 18:53 I know. I you know, I think your Tinder Tinder thing is good shout out. And if Michael Gove cabinet ministers listening right now, I would like you to think about this as a sensible option because your NHS app is actual shite.
Lewis Hobba 19:05 So you're asking for Michael Gove to get on Tinder. Is that what you're officially putting on the record?
Unknown Speaker 19:11 He'll do well,
Dan Ilic 19:12 on next we speak with an event pal from India. But before we get to him, the ABC sports reporter Jared code has a podcast and I was a guest on it. And I promised to run an ad for that show.
Lewis Hobba 19:21 Speaking of cronyism, that's
Unknown Speaker 19:25 incredible.
Lewis Hobba 19:29 This is staggering. No one
Dan Ilic 19:33 here it is.
Unknown Speaker 19:34 Hello, Norman here. This is an ad for the get Jerry on podcast, a podcast and interviews comedians, where they come up with fun and silly ways to try and convince Jerry Seinfeld to come on. Unlike me, Jerry can't be bored so it's not going to happen. But it's fun to listen to these idiots try. Whether it's standing in a park with a sign begging a quarantine Daniel suas to go on the pod or pointless Billboard at a Sydney train station. This pod is doing all it can to get Gerry's attention. And I can tell you they are so far off, Jerry is more likely to take a call from me at this stage. So subscribe to the get Jerry on pod now, someone Seinfeld's agent finally responds, asking how many listeners they have, they won't have to lie like they have to all the others. Now back to our rational fear of feeling Gary would have if he knew this podcast existed.
Dan Ilic 20:29 Now, you may have heard things that go into shit in India, but I'm not talking about the arrival of the British. That was some time ago, India's COVID cases are climbing fast. And they've hit a new global record with over 350,000 new cases per day this week with official numbers saying that around 2000 people a day are dying. But the real numbers are probably much worse. Joining us to agree with the official numbers or face arrest by Prime Minister Modi is the great and EVAP How can I innovate? What's
Anuvab Pal 20:56 it like where you are? Everything's perfectly fine. Nothing wrong at all. Just a tranquil tranquil day in India. Some people are saying that they watched a new release in the theatres just before we had the lockdown. And that release was King Kong Vs. Godzilla. And a lot of us could identify with what happened to the cities in and, and looking at those cities. People were saying, Yeah, this is a perfectly reasonable place to live. And that's how we're living right now. So So basically, we're in a Hollywood movie set, and it's everything else you hear is an exaggeration. It's made up. Just give me one second, I'm just going to turn down the surveillance camera. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now we can have a conversation. Yeah, we're all gonna die.
Lewis Hobba 21:56 so considerate of Modi to give you a volume button on camera. And that's really,
Anuvab Pal 22:01 it. You know, it's one of those things, we stopped our exports from China. So a lot of our technology isn't working, right. So as I'm just getting past that loophole by being able to turn this down, I can just tell you how bad things were just one quick example, which is, I mean, I leave the news for all the grim, morbid stuff, a petty criminal, a thief in the Central State of Madhya Pradesh, who was an expert thief, he was very good at stealing small things like car hubcaps. Lots of random steel equipment, like he was an expert, decoyed he stole a large shipment of vaccines. And he returned it with a note in Hindi saying, I'm sorry, I didn't know. These were vaccines. So even petty criminals are stepping up to do the job for the Government of India. We're in a condition where basically, I'm turning to my high school group to see if we can help each other and I hate my I read the day before I was telling my wife how the whole a bunch of third treat, you know, scumbag bastard. Now we see each other's lives. So rule is, I guess never dis your high school friends. Because even if you hate them, they'll come through when the government doesn't.
Dom Knight 23:17 I would like to thank Anna Bob's classmates signing up to the Patreon.
Unknown Speaker 23:20 Yeah.
Dan Ilic 23:23 I mean, that would be great. I know. There's a big audience in India and a vibe. So please tweet about this. Now lections are still happening in the in the state of West Bengal with around 17,000 cases per day. Still, how does one responsibly campaign to get elected there?
Anuvab Pal 23:40 Yeah. So I'm in the city where there's elections today, in central Calcutta. It's one of the phases where Calcutta is the capital of Western goal. Yeah, elections are going on. Now. I was curious to know what why an individual would come out and attend an election rally. In the middle of this right. We're in the middle of 40 degrees heat, and you are a very poor Indian person working on a farm. If you go to listen to an election rally, you're going to lose a day's work. So why would you why who in their right mind would go and listen to political speeches in the middle of this. And then I found out in true Indian fashion, there's bribery involved. So you know, one of the age old things were very good at cricket and bribery. So what they give you is they give you 500 rupees and a packet of biryani, if you go and attend these speeches, and to be honest, I would go for 500 rupees and a packet of brownie and it doesn't even matter which side you're listening to really,
Dan Ilic 24:38 what is 500 rupees worth in in dollars. How
Anuvab Pal 24:42 do you get a Coca Cola and I don't know a sandwich of some kind. But the point is, that's how you get crowds you know, and it's something we comedians should learn from. When you know we play to empty houses at the end of COVID you know, some biryani and because you're looking at these pack crowds and the media is like What the hell? Why the hell would you do this? that problem? I have no answer for I mean, you'd have to ask. Or once again, the cameras back on again are fantastic Prime Minister Modi. Every scholarly answer philosophical Hansen, Prime Minister Modi. I could do that in 3434 languages if you'd like.
Dan Ilic 25:22 I'm speaking of the hat, the very handsome and the render birdie at Facebook has banned the hashtag resign Modi. Why, why? Why can they? Why can they prevent Narendra Modi from having hurt feelings but not prevent genocide in Myanmar?
Anuvab Pal 25:34 You know, one of the things that Prime Minister Modi has understood about history is that if you constantly Forget it, then you can repeat it. And to everyone, it's new, you know, that's the thing. So, if you hadn't had the Nuremberg trials, then if you ever had something like Nazi Germany, again, people be like, Whoa, what is this? This is amazing. What is this? You know, so But if you don't, if you don't have regret, shame, if you don't ever say I'm sorry, you can keep going. You can keep doing stuff. And there's a new narrative that's, that's coming out from the government, which basically says, forget the past. Let's all worked together, forget the past. Now, the past was about six minutes. So that's a really good way to think about forget the guys lying here, this is dead. Forget
Dan Ilic 26:25 about the future now that that word help us. And speaking of the past this week, Australia is closing its borders to India. Now the rate of infection per capita in India is because it is so huge, the rate of infection is about the same as Italy and the United States and the UK about 200 per million. It's almost it's almost like there's something different between the people of India and the people of the UK and USA, but I can't put my finger on it. And in fact, do you have any idea why Australia is trading India so
Anuvab Pal 26:55 differently? It's an age old thing. It's an age old thing. It's been going on for 1000s of years. The Americans are in denial of it. And you know, all know what I'm talking about. It's the big word. It's cricket. Basically, you know what happened? I mean, some show some people that five people that follow cricket in the world, probably know that the Indian cricket team beat everyone in Australia, if they get away, they might do it again. So why not just ban everyone? Other people are saying racism, I don't think it's racism. I really think that's what it is. They just don't want these 11 people to get there again.
Dan Ilic 27:32 I think I've got a picture of two cricketers flying internally in India. This is them on a domestic flight, David Warner, and Kane Williamson on a flight internally in India. It's like the only people who have got these guys or four people on the podcast. They're dressed head to toe in hazmat kind of suits. They don't even real hazmat suits. They're like dust certs that painters wear and they've got masks on. And that's about it. Like it's not even not even a real, not even a real kind of hazmat suit.
Dom Knight 28:01 Well, the news have just come through this evening that, in fact, to Australian cricketers have found a way through the blockade or you've got to do you've just got to fly to Doha, do the tests in Doha and then come back from there and oh, and also be white and rich?
Unknown Speaker 28:18 was very, very well.
Dom Knight 28:19 I don't know who it is. They haven't been identified, but I suspect that Steve Smith and Dave wanted just sandpapering through the rules.
Lewis Hobba 28:26 Yeah, the other the other only other alternative is if you get cast in the new Thor film,
Unknown Speaker 28:32 as well.
Dan Ilic 28:33 Yeah, at this point, there are so many Hemsworth they could create their own cricket team. I think there is a thing that is 11 and Swiss brothers,
Unknown Speaker 28:40 then I might watch cricket. I mean,
Nelufar Hedayat 28:44 we should look into this Australia.
Anuvab Pal 28:48 I did see somewhere that your prime minister said he wasn't going to give a special claim to Australian cricketers to go back. And, and I think that there's good reason for it. Because, given some of your leading players spend so much time in India, a couple of them are in Bollywood films. They've done their own romantic comedies here. I just recently saw your former captain in a chewing tobacco commercial, I think they'll have a harder time proving their Australian credentials.
Dom Knight 29:14 I think if you'd seen one of Brett lays a Bollywood movies as I have, you would close the borders permanently. No restraints ever again.
Anuvab Pal 29:22 Now there you go. Tom probably knows more about Bollywood that I do. I was three minutes of that film. And then I did not watch cricket for six months. So I don't know if you've sat through it. You're a better Indian person than I am. So.
Dom Knight 29:34 Well, one question I have for you on a verb is about these numbers. And we mentioned that the rate of infection is looks on paper like the West but I talked to my wife is Indian. And she said, Look, no one believes the numbers. Both because they can't possibly catch everyone because there's slums. Things are doing really badly there. But also, people just think the government is changing the numbers. Is that the sense you get on the ground there?
Anuvab Pal 29:58 Yeah, I mean, look, there's small discrepancy. sees the just the tiny factor of 100 is the lie. So saying one, basically, numbers 100. So if you can work out what that equation is, from the lie to the actual, you'll be fine. And this goes back to an old indian thing that we have. And maybe it has something to do with being in a third world country, maybe something to do with a complex about not being rich enough as a country that people always say, you know, never, never, like, accept blame for anything. Because, you know, we have this phrase in India, where the where the prepositions are messed up, and the phrases it will come on you. It can be inappropriately translated in the West. But what they really mean is, and I don't mean to intrude on anyone's private life here, but what they really mean is, you will be blamed for it all. So you know, if say, India is reporting a million deaths, everyone be like, Oh, my God, look at India million deaths, India. And it's, it's, they teach us this in high school as well, just if you've done something wrong, don't admit it. Otherwise, it's just going to come on.
Dom Knight 31:06 He said, Prime Minister, Scott Morrison Indian.
Anuvab Pal 31:11 This The thing with the COVID COVID thing. And we did this at the last wave as well. Basically, if you don't admit, it's going on, it's not happening. And we solve Indian family conflicts that way as well. If we suppress it long enough, one or the other party will die after really resolve the problem, but what's happening is now India has a lot of good data scientists and the want to tell the world the facts, right. They want to you know, they have we have brilliant scientists, we have brilliant civic society, people who studied abroad who want to give people the reality. And what the government is saying is that these are made up numbers to make India look bad. So that's the new thing that's going on. Because it's not a pandemic. It's a fashion show, and you cannot look bad.
Dan Ilic 31:52 I want to thank you for joining us on irrational fear. And I hope you don't get arrested because of this podcast. Like so many of your country, people have been arrested for tweeting things about Modi on Twitter. So thanks. Thanks so much for joining us on irrational fear.
Anuvab Pal 32:06 It's my pleasure by the way My name is not about Paul, this never happened. But I wish you guys wherever you are. Good luck.
Dan Ilic 32:15 That's it for the show tonight. big thank you to Dom night nella had died and Louis harbour and an EVAP How do you guys got anything to plug? Don't you wanna plug anything?
Dom Knight 32:23 I'm doing absolutely nothing other than this has been wonderful.
Dan Ilic 32:27 What would you like to plug
Nelufar Hedayat 32:29 in podcasts out right now across all reputable podcasts? Sure. Which is Spotify, Apple podcasts and Stitcher and all of that. Please listen. It's really good. I'm in it could
Dan Ilic 32:37 cause correction. It is very good. All check it in the show notes. Louis, you want to plug anything?
Lewis Hobba 32:41 Oh, you know what, actually, yeah, for the first time in the history of this podcast. I actually have launched a new podcast in the last few weeks. Yeah, it's called simply the jest. It's from our radio show that we do on Triple J. It is though, like most insane stories, that Triple J listers which might not mean much to you know that. They're basically like a bunch of beautiful, psychotic wild grumps. Every week, we give them a topic and anyone in the country can call in and tell their story very quickly. And we hear about 20 and then we pick our favourite one and it is Darius
Dan Ilic 33:18 Lewis and I have shows coming up in Vega and Newcastle. Stay tuned for that. And we've also got a show coming up in Chippendale sometimes, which just got moved this week, which is fantastic. big thank you to rode mics, the birther Foundation, our wonderful Patreon supporters, Jacob brown on the tepanyaki timeline. The incredible Rupert Degas for his incredible God voice over at the stone at the start of the show. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight
On the podcast this week we are joined by fearmongers who go way back to Hungry Beast: Kirk Docker (You Can't Ask That), Kirsten Drysdale (Reputation Rehab), Lewis Hobba (Triple J) and Dan Ilic (Out Of Home Media Buyer).
We're also joined by Michael Mazengarb from RenewEconomy.com.au who gives us break down on the spurious modelling behind the Australian Government's Net Zero by 2050 target that they took to COP26.
On the agenda this week:
Australian Podcast Awards
Alan Jones' Social Network
Dave Sharma's Typos
Golden Shower Rock and Roll
Eddie Obeid's family business
Australia's Greatest High Jumper
Does Australia's Net Zero by 2050 modelling add up? (It doesn't)
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation. Good evening, Lewis.
Dan Ilic 0:05 Hello. How are you?
Lewis Hobba 0:06 Hello, Daniel. I'm really good. How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:08 I'm really good. I'm really good. It's been a couple of weeks since we've done a podcast. I've almost forgotten how to do a podcast. I did. Yeah, it's
Lewis Hobba 0:16 any consolation. No one listening to the podcast would have thought you knew what you were doing before?
Dan Ilic 0:21 Well, we've had a huge bump in the ratings were about 1000 up from last month, which is huge. So there are people listening. So thank you for listening everyone. And also, I Something happened between over the last two weeks we didn't even get to talk about and that is, we have been nominated for an Australian podcast Award for Best Comedy podcasts. 2021 which is great. We're that guy for two in a row. Yeah, we go over to on the road and we I'm confused because sizzle town was there like our arch nemesis because they always won and they're not on this list. I don't know. Whatever happened to Tony mountain sizzle down
Lewis Hobba 0:54 Tony, Tony Martin, just that he just isn't finding anymore. After 60 years of being one of the kindest, funniest, best gentle bit of Australian comedy, he's lost it and it's canceled coach's fault. You can't do comedy anymore.
Dan Ilic 1:07 Many people will say that you have replaced Tony Martin as the tall skinny guy with glasses. Yeah, they can only be one tall, skinny man with glasses in comedy is
Lewis Hobba 1:16 genuinely every time Tony Manon and I are in the room together. Someone will come up to us and say, Can we get a photo with the two of you? And Tony Martin is so bored of it and it brings me so much joy didn't
Dan Ilic 1:27 You didn't when you didn't you cast as a young Tony Martin for Tony mountain film.
Lewis Hobba 1:33 It's it's this is a bit of a long story. I'll try to cut it as quickly as possible. When I was like 23 and I was at film school. And I'd never done any performing. I just done like a little bit of stand up. I was really like supergreen happened to be at Eddie perfect engagement party. And lucky Hume the actor bailed me up at this party and started chatting. And he was like, mate, Tony Martin's a mate of mine. And you look exactly like him. You sound exactly like Tony Martin. Um, I came out and sort of my comedy heroes that is so kind of you lucky him. And he's like, you'll never believe it. Me and Tony are working on a life story of Tony Martin. Right now we're looking for a young Tony Martin, and it's got to be you. And I you could you believe how excited I was. It was genuinely the happiest night of my life. And he took my number. A week later, he sent me Tony Martin's book in the post and he's like, this is the book, learn it. We're gonna be hearing this is like, you got to learn this so that when you retire in the same room, you're ready to go right. Then I heard nothing more about. And then six months later, I happened to be a cookie bar in Melbourne, and bumped into Tony Martin. And I'm like, and I went up to him like, hey, sorry, my name is Louis. We haven't met but I'm a big fan. And we're talking for about five minutes. And then he goes Wait, you're Louis haba right. Yeah, I am. He goes like he told me about you. And I was like, oh yeah. He told me about the project. How's it going? He's like, Oh, like he's full of shit. That's not going anywhere. My young
Dan Ilic 3:03 Shatta Wale things that are going some places I will do want to say a big big hello to the Big Creek community podcast Candyman podcast The Chaser report our friends at the chase Oh, Oscar nominated, good personal friends Hamish and Andy were nominated. And the housewarming podcast, who of course is hosted by one of your old housemates Marty smiley,
Lewis Hobba 3:25 and one of the housemates a longtime housemate of one of our guests on the podcast today as well. But yeah, he does a podcast all that housemates. And as far as I can tell, he's spoken to every one of the people who used to live with except me. So I'm unsure of what his what his problem is what he's afraid of.
Dan Ilic 3:42 I'm just getting him on the phone right now. Let's have a quick chat with him about that. I want to confront this issue before we start our podcast.
Lewis Hobba 3:48 Me to actually want to get the answer to this.
Unknown Speaker 3:54 You won't answer did you do?
Lewis Hobba 3:55 Did you tell him he's calling? He'll be doing something? You know, I
Dan Ilic 3:58 told him I told him we're gonna call him just after right?
Lewis Hobba 4:00 That's even more perfect. Of course, he's not answering.
Dan Ilic 4:05 Oh, he's doing this. You know why? You know why? He's not answering. He's not answering. He
Lewis Hobba 4:09 knows. I'm gonna ask him. I'm not on the podcast a day. You called Mighty slowly. I
Marty Smiley 4:13 can't get to the phone right now. But if you'd leave your name and your number, or just shoot me a text, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Dan Ilic 4:21 Oh, here we go here and he's he's only on the other line. Marty Smiley? Yeah. Were you trying to? Were you trying to do your best to destroy the irrational fear podcasts? For not answering your phone?
Unknown Speaker 4:35 Time is limited.
Dan Ilic 4:39 Just humanity. Now we got Louis Harbor on the line. And also we got your former another former flatmate Kirk Docker. And Lewis has one serious question about your podcast even though he's nominated for Best Comedy podcast. He's got one burning question. He wants to ask you about it or not
Unknown Speaker 4:54 get on it.
Lewis Hobba 4:56 I mean, obviously congratulations on the nomination and best of luck. I was wondering why you know episode one of the podcast, Kirk Tucker, who's on our podcast who joins us now was on it. So many other of your other housemates on it. So many other Triple J comedians on it. Basically everyone you know, that I know has been on it except me. I'm just wondering why
Mick Neven 5:24 it's a difficult vetting process.
Lewis Hobba 5:28 In fact, not only that you texted me to ask for a bunch of people's numbers from triple Jason like Oh, my can you get you got Linda Mariana is number I'm like yeah. Number one for I'd love to hear on the podcast. Oh, would you someone who you've never lived with and don't know
Unknown Speaker 5:50 let's be honest. There's a reason for it. And you have a secret about exactly
Unknown Speaker 5:57 I knew it.
Dan Ilic 6:00 That wants to come out. Kirk maybe you can bring some insight into why hasn't Louis been invited on the house morning podcast and as guest number one yourself?
Kirk Docker 6:11 He scared because Louis will dish up dirt that Marty will not want known to be public. He knew that if I came on the podcast I would say sort of funny things nice things backing him up but he was worried about Lewis Lewis has got that acid tongue and what might be revealed what dodgy dirty you know stuff might be revealed from the mighty smiley you know vault All right, well, you know, I wanted out there
Dan Ilic 6:39 Marty if you do win Best Comedy podcast, will you then have Lewis haba on your podcast
Unknown Speaker 6:45 as a guest Look, let me do that on this site now. What do you think? Look? I think there's just a lot of diversity that we need to really look at there's a lot of boxes you don't really keep Louis really hard to say but if you're if something comes up you know let you know. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 7:07 tall white man in his late 30s Definitely not in the demographic Alright, let's get rid of the house. Well, good luck with the Podcast Awards Marty.
Unknown Speaker 7:19 Bye.
Lewis Hobba 7:20 Thank you good luck to you do not
Dan Ilic 7:25 think we got notice. Oh my god. Oh, well.
Kirk Docker 7:30 That's how to keep still nice Dan.
Dan Ilic 7:32 Here we go. I'm recording my end of irrational fear and gotta go Land of the Eora nation sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's stop the shot
Unknown Speaker 7:39 of Russian will field contains naughty words like bricks. Canberra. Fan COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening might emerge your audience.
Dan Ilic 7:52 Tonight Rupert Murdoch urges Donald Trump to move on from his 2020 defeat, Donald Trump responded by signing an executive order to cancel his Neo post subscription and spreading her back the Queen has had to cut back on driving and horse riding. Doctors have reminded her that she isn't a sprightly 94 year old anymore. And with 360 days until cop 27 We'll have the CEO of Santos here with all the tips on how you can buy off politicians before the silly season. It's the 19th of November and a big Happy International Men's Day to men. But not all men. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former conservator of the Britney Spears estate Dan illage. And this is the podcast that looks at the scariest news in the feed and gives it a wedgie joining us on the podcast and had to tell us how they're going to celebrate International Men's Day. This week's featured Mungus before she was a TV presenter and investigative journalist she represented Australia the highest levels of competitive field hockey, pull up in your shooting pads. It's Kirsten Drysdale.
Kirsten Drysdale 9:06 Hey, it's an off to the trees. I'll take it.
Dan Ilic 9:09 Okay, Kirsten, how I how are you going to be celebrating International Men's Day? Tomorrow
Kirsten Drysdale 9:15 I'm going to leave my kids at home with my husband and go out with the girls for drinks.
Dan Ilic 9:20 And our next fear monger spends his days talking with the most misunderstood people in society fresh from a week of interviewing porn stars. Get fluffed for the creator of you can ask that Kotoka
Kirk Docker 9:30 thank you and welcome and fluffers unfortunately aren't real. I thought they were they flat they fluff themselves. Yeah. It's one of the things I learned yesterday was that one of the big preparations that some female porn stars do is stretching their holes. That's a very, very important part to do before they get into the set. So it's there's no fluffers it's them themselves in the bathroom, doing as they call it, ladies.
Kirsten Drysdale 9:58 That sounds like something they shouldn't Teach Like women who are going to give birth how to do like, that would be useful.
Kirk Docker 10:04 Yeah, I'm also doing an episode on postnatal depression at the moment. So it's sort of you know, you can, you know, you can compare notes across different episodes sometimes.
Kirsten Drysdale 10:13 Sorry, where did the fluffer myth myth start in? Why do we think this fluffers
Kirk Docker 10:17 I think Boogie Nights something like that. It's not like Boogie Nights,
Dan Ilic 10:21 it's got to be got to be so many. It's got to be like decades before that, like that was a mean before Boogie Nights surely?
Kirk Docker 10:28 Well, I think what they do now is the men anyway, they inject their, you know, old fellow with something and that's what keeps them going the whole time. So it you know, an injection has replaced the fluff, in a sense that they can inject it with this special stuff, and it just stays hard for as long as necessary. Wow,
Lewis Hobba 10:44 this stuff is so vague and terrifying. Does that mean?
Kirk Docker 10:51 Well, they put it in and it stays hard till it till till all day. And the problem they have now is that they need to ejaculate on command. So when you can check it on command, that's what puts the shoot over over time. And that's what people get really, really annoyed about. So the real skill in a male porn star is being able to ejaculate like that when you do that you get you get hired.
Dan Ilic 11:13 That's amazing. Wow. So is it like Sally no gaps or something? Is that where they inject? Or is it
Kirk Docker 11:19 something it's something along those lines? It's something that keeps them you know, it's something that keeps them rock hard rock hard,
Kirsten Drysdale 11:27 and sorry, Coke why? Why do you know all this stuff at the moment? What's the project?
Kirk Docker 11:31 Well, one of the episodes of the new you can ask that is porn performance. When I say stars because we are delving into you know, only fans and the full breadth of how porn looks in 2021 but there are some stars in there and there are everything in between.
Dan Ilic 11:46 Coming up a little later on, we take a look at the outcomes of cop 26 And just how far off net zero emissions the government's own modeling said it will be with renewal economies Michael amazing garb. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor.
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Dan Ilic 13:44 I was gonna call up Jonestown but it was taken on Alan Jones. It's good to see Alan Jones breaking out into the digital space. It's very good. This week's first video I wanted to talk about my my local member. I don't know if you saw this this this happened earlier this year on speeding International Men's Day. On International Women's Day my local member went to edgecliff Station and handed out flowers to female commuters saying Happy International Women's Day. Let's make it a day when we strive to improve the respect dignity and equality for every woman everywhere. Did you do you guys remember this at all through this moment?
Lewis Hobba 14:24 I do remember that? Yeah. It was I mean such a such a touching gesture.
Kirsten Drysdale 14:30 I mean, like I was gonna say beautiful thought beautiful thought. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 14:34 No just so good. Just so wild that in a year when no parliament is completely rocked by rape allegations sexual assault allegations of misconduct by so many parliamentarians. That's what he came up with for International Women's Day to handout.
Kirk Docker 14:51 I box popped in that area and I swear all biddies love that stuff in there. I think he's on the money. You're handing out flowers. It's a perfect response in that part of city I think I'm over. I love it.
Lewis Hobba 15:02 He must have known the photo on Twitter was gonna be an absolute nightmare.
Kirsten Drysdale 15:08 You know, it's like thing of like, you know, flowers make amends for anything. So he's just trying to hand out flowers to all the women in the world to make amends.
Dan Ilic 15:17 Yeah, like it's it's like a complete Band Aid solution for everything that his government has done over the over the last couple years, on behalf of above have meant was women.
Lewis Hobba 15:29 Yeah, but yeah, also, there's that thing with flowers where there are some people who are suspicious of receiving them because they assume that it's like, they're like, why are you getting me these? What have you done? I mean, a lot.
Kirsten Drysdale 15:42 Yeah, that was pre emptive flowers. That was March that was pre emptive flowers, but all the shit that was to come for the rest of the year. Oh, right.
Dan Ilic 15:50 Yeah, it was like, it was like carbon credits. It was like, it's like bullshit credits. Yeah, yeah. The tone deafness continues. About a month before cop Dave Sharma went on this whole kind of transition to being like a climate warrior. He's trying to talk a lot like Greta tunberg, to kind of involve himself to the climate can concern in Wentworth. And so he's been really going full on with this. In fact, he sent out this email about a month ago, this is what he said on the email. It says, rapid and large emissions are needed from right now. What is missing from that sentence is the word reduction, rapid large scale emissions reduction are needed inundated right now. See, it's this weird thing where he's accidentally telling the truth. And the accidentally telling liberal policy when he should be being on the front foot and talking about emissions reduction. This is crazy. And also, just two days ago, he went pamphleteering around the Paddington handing out pamphlets and meeting new voters. And this is what he was doing here handing out these flyers. Now if you look carefully, can you can you guys notice anything suspicious about this this photo of Dave Sharma holding a baby and holding a flyer? Can you can you see anything? Anything weird about this picture?
Kirsten Drysdale 17:09 Is a baby looks like it's passing out?
Dan Ilic 17:11 The baby doesn't look like it's passing out.
Lewis Hobba 17:13 Is it a chokehold?
Kirk Docker 17:14 Who does baby kissing anymore? I didn't know baby kissing was still
Dan Ilic 17:20 all the babies around backside you can't go around just kissing babies.
Kirk Docker 17:24 Well, actually it's baby Stranglehold only really
Kirsten Drysdale 17:28 well look if the baby's not breathing out it's not spreading virus right so it's fine.
Lewis Hobba 17:33 Wow, that's the only person with children it's because it says netzero climate action full sentence like he promises to do climate action.
Dan Ilic 17:47 That's right it says Net Zero climate action on the on the flyer once again. He's the only truthful politician in in the Liberal Party.
Kirsten Drysdale 17:58 Did I saw your tweet that Dan and I kind of thought you photoshopped the close up. Are you saying that is actually his flyer?
Dan Ilic 18:07 This is it. I've got to hit I walked up the street and I found one look at this net zero climate action.
Kirsten Drysdale 18:16 I thought that was a joke from you.
Lewis Hobba 18:18 Yeah, so like, that's Boy Who Cried Wolf from dead he's been photoshopping shit for so many years that no one really
Kirsten Drysdale 18:28 jumped in. But that's his real pamphlet.
Dan Ilic 18:30 She's real pamphlet. It's not a joke. This is what he was handing out. This is Net Zero climate action which is extensively Liberal Party policy. I wanted to share with you what I'm going to do for tomorrow for International Men's Day. I'm going to dress up in Liberal cosplay in a chambray shirt and chinos and head on down edgecliff station. And because it is International Men's Day, the only tone deaf thing I could think of today would be handy handout hammers to a bunch of people in edgecliff station. That feels
Lewis Hobba 19:00 really dangerous. I don't think that many people are trained to just have exposed hammers. Maybe I'm paranoid but that that feels dangerous.
Dan Ilic 19:07 That's what's so exciting about this idea it's quite a malevolent idea who gets a hammer who gets a hit No one gets a hammer
Kirk Docker 19:15 Are you suggesting they should nail something that's what your hammer something is?
Dan Ilic 19:20 I didn't even know what you're wanting it and what did they show me by handing out flowers to women? Like it's just the same exactly the same thing I'm just gonna hand out hammers to men take your free hammer Happy International Men's Day.
Kirsten Drysdale 19:31 I look like really good hands. Man. Like really? Like well waited How much did that yeah,
Dan Ilic 19:38 they're about they're about 10 bucks 15 bucks each so you know this is what the this is what the Patreon money is funding
Lewis Hobba 19:46 and you paid for me this is an outrage
Dan Ilic 19:50 Alright, let's move on to this this week second fear this week second fear if you go see musical act bras against you may get you may get more than you bargained for when lead singer Sophie Your wrist, brought up a fan on stage and then lay him down and basically gave him a Golden Shower during a cover song of Rage Against the Machine. Now some fans were disgusted by this others said it was a real pisser Kirk, should we be disgusted by this or just, you know, have this behavior normalized?
Kirk Docker 20:19 Well, it's interesting you say people were disgusted because if you read the news.com article about it, everyone was disgusted. It was a stomach churning stance. It was shocked the crowd the man spewed the urinal, but if you actually watch the footage, the man had the time of his he was having a good time there it was being pieced on it was actually amazing moment and it's the reporting of it has been that it's been disgusting, but in actual fact, he was mopping up the urine. He was throwing on the crowd, he was dancing jiggling, she had to actually kick him off the stage. She's like, get off man. I'm done. I've done feasting on you get off. I think it's fantastic look, I have a couple of weeks ago I interviewed trough man the myth for this trough man and I don't know you guys know who trough
Lewis Hobba 21:05 I honestly can't believe he managed to get trough man. Like I genuinely thought trough man. Like the Penrith Panther, just the thing that people said at night times?
Kirk Docker 21:15 Well, that's Look, the trough man is a legendary guy in Sydney that people thought was a myth. Was he alive was he did the story was that over the last 40 years, he would lay in urinals at parties at the Mardi Gras after party etc. and at certain time, and it would appear in these little little tiny shorts and people he would lay in the trough and people would be okay. And he had the time of his life so much so that he's become this legend where he shorts and now framed and hung at Stonewall and you can see his urine soaked short so that now dried and hung there. And if I've learned anything from speaking to trough men or any other people who are into watersports or golden showers, as they call it, is that they have the time of their life. And all I'd say is that unless you've tried it, don't knock it. I think that golden showers may have something for it that we don't quite know. And if we had the courage to try it, we might be as into it as old made on stage the other day.
Dan Ilic 22:09 Do you think this is why you know terrorists in Guantanamo Bay when they were waterboarded decided to just hang out there and not give any secrets? Because they were actually being gold being done but with golden showers instead?
Lewis Hobba 22:23 Jesus Christ
Dan Ilic 22:24 too much too much. No.
Kirk Docker 22:27 Just enough.
Unknown Speaker 22:30 I think I think for this
Dan Ilic 22:30 for this for this musical artist. It's so strange because now people are like, I hadn't heard of brass attack before this.
Lewis Hobba 22:37 I don't know if there are brass against a fan.
Dan Ilic 22:39 Thank you.
Kirsten Drysdale 22:42 A longtime fan.
Lewis Hobba 22:44 I'm more of a fan of pissing on people. But now I've become a fan of brass. But I
Dan Ilic 22:48 haven't heard I haven't I haven't heard of brass against until this moment. And now I feel like that's their thing. That's what they do that like that's the thing that people are gonna be going to say they're gonna be down to brass against to have to say Sofia piss on people.
Lewis Hobba 23:02 When have you wanted to hear a description of the genre of music they make? Honestly, is the best thing that could possibly happen to you. Which is they do brass band covers. Heavy Metal, which genuinely sounds like the worst. Like, honestly, 1000 people compare Sunday before I would go. Nightmare.
Kirk Docker 23:25 And so like having crazy acts that rock artists do is every day something new you know what I mean? This is as old as time that the Rockstar will do something wacky to get attention. So it's it's yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting that it's back on the agenda. Rockstar is doing something wacky on stage. And
Kirsten Drysdale 23:41 I agree. I agree, Kirk. I thought it was awesome. I didn't think it was. I mean, it kind of is disgusting. But that's why it was so fucking awesome. And I don't think it should be normalized.
Lewis Hobba 23:54 Like Carol's. Awesome, let me bring this out.
Dan Ilic 23:59 And no,
Kirsten Drysdale 24:00 I don't think they're gonna do it on today's show. But um, no. And I also like, I reckon that that video, like that moment that is going to be like the defining cultural moment of the end of the COVID era. I say, because it's like we've spent two years like being paranoid about other people and their bodies and their disgusting fucking fluids that's coming out of them. And we're kind of through it all. And now it's just yeah, I'm gonna piss on your face like that. She's just embracing that we can be close again.
Lewis Hobba 24:30 Yeah, 2021 it's more okay to piss on someone's face than it is to sneeze without covering it with your elbow.
Unknown Speaker 24:40 Scott Morrison elaborately deceive the French the idea that a nuclear reactor with enough weapons grade uranium to make many many bonds can be treated like a power pack for money is incredible. I mean, it is just bullshit. A
Alan Jones 24:57 rational fear
Dan Ilic 24:58 this week's third fear well Eddie obeyed and his son Moses chillaxing. Behind bars, the tentacles of the family wealth seem to be uncovered every single day and there are two more brothers implicated with a dodgy property deal in Hawks Nest. fear mongers, if you were a criminal mastermind, would you just have offspring for the sole purpose of laundering money? Kirsten, not worth it? If you've got like two kids, are you going to be like getting them into the family business,
Lewis Hobba 25:27 so to speak crime family?
Kirsten Drysdale 25:29 I'm going to send them out to work as soon as they can. Yeah, but not not for me. I don't want anything more to do with them. Like know, they can just you know, start paying board and rent. But the thing this story was like, for me, it was like, you know, those like really infuriating property stories, where they it's you know how I bought my first home at 24. And like, seven parents seven paragraphs deep, you discover that these like little bleached teeth fuckers inherited a million dollars from their parents, and that's how they bought their house. So this story is like that. Except the children. They inherited $30 million from their dad who stole it from the New South Wales Government. And they're not like buying a three bedroom merrickville They're like buying up secretly by the way Aboriginal owned land on the sleepy coastal towns and they're putting up high rise developments there. Were nobody wants them. That's that's the story. Yes. Amazing.
Dan Ilic 26:27 Yeah. How I buy how I bought a high rise development with one simple trick. My dad stole the money. My dad stole some money from the government.
Lewis Hobba 26:37 But do you think my dad as someone who has kids now it's you would just be at some point you go it you raising you has been such a nightmare? But the least you can do for me? Is risk going to prison?
Kirsten Drysdale 26:51 Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like can continue my corrupt dealings and make this this money grow even more? Yes. Yeah. No, no, you get to hold that over them forever.
Dan Ilic 27:01 No, idiot Bates any gone to prison for 10 months. So you know, that land was bought that land was bought for 600,000 A couple of years ago, after he gets out of prison. The market would be huge. Like those lands already gone up, like Daisley triple.
Kirsten Drysdale 27:16 I'm just like, how do you have you like get busted? Like you stole the 30 million is that's there's no question about that. That is like 100% proven we know that he's stolen 30 million, but they don't have to give it back. You know, like, if you steal a car and they find you with the car, you the car goes back to the owner, like how did they just get to keep the 30 million
Lewis Hobba 27:35 Danna you're you're you're the only born and bred New South house person in the in on the podcast
Dan Ilic 27:42 also. loso also Lebanese person. So yeah, yeah. Sure.
Lewis Hobba 27:48 That that's gonna make my next question seem more loaded than I wanted to. Which is when was the last time you South Wales had a leader who wasn't correct?
Dan Ilic 27:57 Do you know what I actually think it was a friend of the show Bob Carr. I think that was the last time we had a leader that wasn't really, that really didn't kind of, you know, put his foot in it.
Kirsten Drysdale 28:07 He left with a clean slate in me. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 28:09 I mean, we haven't rather we haven't hasn't been discovered what he's done yet. Like, we need to call we need to call Kate McClymont and ask her to get her on the podcast again and say
Lewis Hobba 28:21 what is Bob done? Because like in Victoria, there are people right now with nooses and guns on the street. Because Dan Andrew has, like made pretty similar decisions to most of the premiers around the country. Yeah. Whereas in New South Wales, you can literally steal $30 million and no one cares. No, it's so staggering that it does no one gives a fuck of it like
Dan Ilic 28:41 no you can miss allies and you can mess up lockdown and you can resign for being alleged allegedly corrupt, and then people will leave flowers at your office like this.
Lewis Hobba 28:56 Yeah, it's incredible and you know, people you can just be like on leaving over a bottle of grain and everyone will go yep, that seems reasonable checks out. No more questions here. Do you like obviously it's not that
Dan Ilic 29:07 I think it's because people in Sydney so property obsessed. When they say stuff like this, they go well, whatever you have to do to get ahead, you know? Good on. Good on Darryl. He really tried it on
Kirk Docker 29:18 Do you think any in the family into watersports property there at
Unknown Speaker 29:31 the agreements that's come out of Glasgow have an eye to green light for more coal production. That's good news for the world because it might be the most important thing for the world to do. The next few decades is to bring more and more people out of poverty, and coal and cheap energy helps do that
Dan Ilic 29:46 a rational here in a moment, we're going to be talking with Michael Mason garb about Australia's place in the world stage and how we are absolutely the worst country in the world when it comes to climate negotiations. But I've actually got someone special on the line right Now we've actually got the world's greatest high jumper who happens to be an Australian. So mcnevin Thanks for joining us and Australian high jumper who claims to be the greatest high jumper in the world. Welcome.
Mick Neven 30:10 Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, that is correct. I am.
Dan Ilic 30:14 I am. Do it's an amazing claim to be the world's greatest high jumper what's the basis for the claim?
Mick Neven 30:21 Well, I have never missed the jump. No one's No, that's right. I have never noticed the bar onto the mat.
Dan Ilic 30:30 So what's your highest jump 50 centimeters 50 centimeters that's not very
Lewis Hobba 30:35 high.
Mick Neven 30:36 Well, that is the targets that I've set for myself and I meet and beat that targets every time I jump.
Dan Ilic 30:42 Now the mentor jump record is 2.45 meters and the women's record is 2.09 meters you're nowhere near that I hear but I don't worry about what other high jumper doing you've never once competed at the Olympic Games.
Mick Neven 30:55 Why would I see a leaf pick a hot Fs although so called high jumpers, making bold claims about query 2.4 meters and what happens? They all not the bar onto the mat, and they look pretty stupid doing it. I made them beat my target every time I can do high jumper Yeah,
Dan Ilic 31:12 it's only 50 centimeters. That's right.
Mick Neven 31:15 I don't need to jump higher. I'm less than 2% of the world. I've jumped if I raise the bar to even 1.5 minutes sure I could jump it so that's a clear goal. To achieve that I need to coach I'd have to start training I need objective. Why bother? I can beat that 50 centimeters and it doesn't take me
Unknown Speaker 31:31 or anyone
Dan Ilic 31:31 else. Yeah 50
Mick Neven 31:33 centimeters you know a primary school kid could jump that jump Oh, I am the world's greatest I've never you know the world's great are the world's greatest high jumper never missed the jump Don't forget that. Never missed the jump. Nick thanks for joining us on irrational fear. See you on the mat buddy. Cop 26
Dan Ilic 31:52 is over and while Australia's once again the bad guy at the international talks we didn't quite manage to derail the entire thing know that prestigious title went to India the last minute when they decided to change the phrasing of the words phase out to phase down for cold two which most of the other countries went What the fuck is phasing down? Joining us to discuss cop 26 in Australia is modeling to net zero is from renewable economy. Michael amazing garden. Welcome Michael. Hi everyone. And Michael is also a Patreon member as well which is really cool. So it's really cool to have you on Michael.
Lewis Hobba 32:26 I love the rational fear getting in some pay to play here.
Dan Ilic 32:30 For full disclosure, Michael pays us to do the podcast about three $3 a month.
Kirk Docker 32:38 Did you see the hammers Stan just for Dan just bought some really nice hammer. Well done.
Dan Ilic 32:45 As a Patreon member, how do you feel about me buying hammers to pull us down tomorrow?
Michael Mazengarb 32:50 I'll be lining up at
Kirsten Drysdale 32:55 me over the head. Dan.
Lewis Hobba 32:57 Give me back my money.
Dan Ilic 32:59 Michael, I just wanted to quickly before we get going quickly just to explain the netzero modeling that got released a couple of weeks after cop had all kind of been done and dusted. It was really remarkable. First of all, Scott Morrison came out before cop to say oh yes, you know, we're going to meet our net zero, we're going to get net zero by 20 2050 and then refused to release the modeling until last week. What did that modeling show? And how far away? Are we actually from meeting net zero?
Michael Mazengarb 33:24 That's a good question. Firstly, it was really funny because they went out and announced that Australia was committing to zero emissions by net 50. And they promised this modeling. And then we found out in Senate estimates they hadn't actually finished right. The reason why it was released so late is because they were still behind the scenes putting together the document. And then when it did come out, what we see is that rather than meeting net zero emissions, the plan that the government has put out has is on track to reduce emissions by 85%. And there's a nice 15% gap in the plan that the government just is saying that hopefully we'll have some technologies that might just appear and help us bridge that gap. But they haven't actually baked in a plan to net zero.
Dan Ilic 34:10 There's actually this 15% gap where How can I go about calling it a net zero by 2050? Target. So this
Michael Mazengarb 34:17 is like you can go look at the modeling. And you can say there's a nice chart that the government has put together and they say, Look, we're expecting to reduce Australia's emissions by about a further 60% that they're going to go and by, you know, up to sort of 20% worth of offsets from overseas, and then just this gap, and they are they're saying that hopefully will overachieve and hopefully you know, who knows some crazy fantastic technology will come along and bridge that gap but they don't know what it is and they don't have any idea about when or if that technology will come along.
Lewis Hobba 34:53 So the plan over the next 30 years is do a little bit of work, plant a few trees and pray
Michael Mazengarb 34:59 pretty much They're just counting on everyone else. Basically, it's counting on these innovations and technologies emerging from overseas, not even trying to sort of make them happen here in Australia by sort of investing in Australian research or Australian innovation, then really just counting on it happening overseas. It's the fingers crossed. Right? Like, it's sort of like closing your eyes and taking a swing, and then hopefully, we'll get to 2050 with zero net emissions, but they don't actually know that we're going to do it for sure, man, it's
Kirk Docker 35:32 Michael, can I ask you a question? What I what I Can I ask a dumb question. What is Boris and actually scared off by actually just going we'll just do it. You know, we'll just be zero emissions by like I can't I just from the outside, I can't quite work out what is the is it? Is it just the the bowing down to call? Is it that they worry about being real at what is actually they're scared of actually about to say yes, we'll just do it.
Michael Mazengarb 35:58 So the modeling actually answers that question. So they modeled a few different alternate scenarios. One scenario is we actually do get to zero net emissions. And we plan that and we bridge that lost 15%, basically, by investing in carbon sequestration, and doing that through planting trees. And that modeling shows, that scenario shows that the coal sector and the gas sector lose out in the order of about $4.9 billion. But landholders, so farmers benefit by almost an equivalent amount. And so they have this scenario that says we can actually get to zero net emissions call losers out, farmers win. But we're not going to pick that scenario, because that's a negative impact on the economy that they don't like. So we're going to go to this 85%. So it's purely this comparison between farmers versus fossil fuels, and the government picked fossil fuels.
Lewis Hobba 36:58 My favorite thing about it is that usually when someone releases something like modeling, or any kind of data, usually politicians will be smart enough to make it so complicated, that average people like me, can't really get to the bottom of it, you sort of get obfuscated by information. And in the end, you kind of like, it could be true. But they literally put out the like the for chunk graph, which genuinely, genuinely just had 15%. Wait, no. And it was that was what I was like, Oh, thank you for making your incompetence, easy for the incompetent, I really do appreciate that.
Michael Mazengarb 37:32 And the modeling itself is a real reflection of how the government got to its policy. So they went away and they paid McKinsey that consultancy $6 million to produce the first round of economic modeling. They then brought in a team of basically coalition aligned economists, including Brian Fisher, who their previous work was they authored modeling, which was used to attack the labour government's climate policies in the lead up to the federal election last time round, which came up with these crazy figures for how much that policy was going to cost and basically was just slammed for not having any credibility. They brought those guys in to then review and verify the McKinsey modeling. And then the department itself wrote the report. So they've really like massage this modeling together. And still, it's really explicit. And it's really clear what the government is doing, and who they're siding with.
Dan Ilic 38:30 I noticed the other last week there was a story about McKinsey employees being pissed off that there were being press ganged into doing work like this, but not not explicitly for Australia, but for to fossil fuel companies and for for bad actors on this on this on the same. Do you think these consulting groups will eventually stop doing this kind of work for the government?
Michael Mazengarb 38:54 I think I mean, for this this piece of work in particular, like the reputational damage the reputational risk that is there is quite significant if you've got your name your brand attached to what then becomes potentially sort of political modeling and political reports. You go look, it's not worth it. Like the brand damage that occurs is so significant that you know, it's probably not going to be worth the $6 million because they're going to lose out on other contracts and their reputation gets damaged.
Dan Ilic 39:24 But it is $6 million to do some maths that doesn't like if like it like if they wanted to live
Lewis Hobba 39:30 in a world where lying isn't rewarded but I don't know if we do Michael.
Michael Mazengarb 39:37 I mean I work in the the energy sector I write about energy all the time. A lot of my friends work in the energy sector. And we look at this morning you go look, we could have done a lot better than rustled up five of us we could have produced a million bucks each and done a lot better.
Dan Ilic 39:56 Is there like a website we can go to to try and A job to take the modeling away from McKinsey at a much, much more competitive price like, can we?
Michael Mazengarb 40:06 Well, that was something that interestingly, McKinsey was chosen to do this modeling, the CSIRO had actually also pitched to do the modeling. And this came out also in Senate estimates, they said, Look, we applied to the government, we would have done the modeling for the government. To CSIRO, it's gonna be some of Australia's best minds in terms of energy and climate. And they didn't pick them, they picked McKinsey, who Angus Taylor used to work for
Kirsten Drysdale 40:33 the government given given any explanation for that decision.
Michael Mazengarb 40:37 No, I think, you know, it was it was the CSIRO that sort of revealed that they had applied for it, they didn't want to really, you know, throw their, you know, the government under the bus because, you know, if you're in the CSIRO, you, you sort of pretty wary about how much control the federal government has over your funding. But, you know, we try and
Dan Ilic 40:58 find out, are they public servants out there that have done their own modeling, like, you know, in the CSIRO, what are the is the modeling done somewhere else, but it's like in a cabinet that no one can unlock and look at
Michael Mazengarb 41:10 it could be. The other thing is we have these bodies, like we have bodies, like the CSIRO, we have bodies, like the climate change authority, which still exists, but just basically sits dormant, that could be used to produce this type of modeling. previous governments have used treasury to produce this type of modeling, all of this modeling could be done in house in the government, or it could be done, you know, in a way that is done in consultation with the industry. But this route of modeling is really just sort of been a bit of a, you know, a message job from the government.
Dan Ilic 41:42 Oh, my God.
Kirk Docker 41:44 He said just that, is it just that the government gets so much money from these companies that they need it, or they actually think this is a better play for Australians, they genuinely believe this is a better play for Australians. What? I don't quite understand it still, it's still so confusing to
Michael Mazengarb 42:00 me. I don't know like, you know, it seems like you know, I sit there every day. And you look at the advances that are being achieved in wind, and solar and batteries and electric vehicles. And you think these are the technologies of the future, if you want to talk about technologies, not taxes, like these are the technologies that are emerging, and we should be investing in those. But yet, we're talking about carbon capture and storage. You know, the Australian delegation in Glasgow had the Santos, CCS irama in the official pavilion, like, I don't, and not to say like that they completely sold and, but it's hard to know, like, how they think this is playing out and what motivates them asides from maybe self interest.
Dan Ilic 42:48 It's interesting to say like, technologies like this are kind of being rolled out all around the world, like as in every single country that is beholden to fossil fuels, you see the same playbook being rolled out in every other place like carbon capture storage doesn't work anywhere yet. Every other country that is a big exporter of fossil fuels is trying it on as a way to placate their donors and to to keep fossil fuels alive another few years, but it's really just like a conceptual art sphincter in the ground like it did. It doesn't do anything like it. It's meant to capture gas, but no gas ever gets captured.
Michael Mazengarb 43:20 We have one operational project here in Australia that's out. In Gorgon in Western Australia that's been run by Chevron, it was years late, it's operating well below capacity, they they put hundreds of millions of dollars into this thing. And they can't get it fully operational because it's trying to store carbon under the seabed. But the equipment they're using to store it is getting clogged with sand. They didn't see that happening. But our one carbon capture and storage project is running at like half capacity.
Dan Ilic 43:53 When you're talking about carbon capture storage as one of the key elements of the modeling. I remember seeing a map put up on put up on Twitter, of all the places where we're going to store carbon underground, if you see this map, there's just large patches of blue where the carbon is going to be stored underground. and This Is Mythical kind of cave system. It's remarkable to kind of see that you're like, oh, wow, instead of like, instead of not putting that fossil fuel into the air, they're just gonna poison the earth, and like bury it under huge tracts of land. Deck surely doesn't seem to me any better than than chucking in the air?
Michael Mazengarb 44:33 I think, you know, I would like to have the confidence of someone who pushes carbon capture and storage because they're saying, Look, we'll just count this stuff under the ground and it will just stay there and I'll stay there forever. But like, we don't really know that much about what's going down underneath the ground like things like earthquakes happen the ground, the sort of geology is constantly moving to think that we can just put stuff down there and expect it to last for Ever is just a bit sort of, I think ambitious a bit, I think
Lewis Hobba 45:06 maybe your way if you if we want to try to like harness a very vocal like right wing group to end up sort of playing themselves, here's my here's my big play, you need to start linking to Q Anon, that carbon capture and storage is a secret government program to kill the lizard people. Now, once we get that in their heads, they're gonna be like, but the lizard we need the lizard people. And then we'll there'll be a save the lizard people campaign from Q Anon, which will end up meaning they are attacking carbon capture and storage, and then suddenly we'll have all of Q anon on the side of renewable energies.
Dan Ilic 45:45 Excellent. This is great. This is a great idea, Lewis I think you've cracked it and we all know Scott Morrison love Q anon he's got his best mate, which is these cute guy and he's out there. He's he's out there. Tell me. Tell him the state premieres. No, we should let it rip. You know these q&a on people they know what they're talking about.
Kirk Docker 46:05 I love it. I love that cute.
Dan Ilic 46:07 Well, on that note, that is it for rational fi big thank you to all of our guests this week. Have you got anything to plug cook? You can
Kirk Docker 46:14 ask that comes out in
Lewis Hobba 46:16 set a reminder, check your calendars
Kirk Docker 46:21 don't miss it.
Kirsten Drysdale 46:22 No got nothing on sorry, some hokey comp in Newcastle next week. That's about it. People can come and check you out. Tigers, tigers, mid target Miko
Kirk Docker 46:35 Johnny sagas.
Michael Mazengarb 46:37 So I work for renew economy, we write every day on climate energy electric vehicles. So if you want to get your fix on that news, renewal economy is your one
Dan Ilic 46:48 stop shop. Great. And Louis, we've got something to plug on January 29. We're going to be having our 10 year anniversary show at the Sydney Opera House.
Lewis Hobba 47:00 I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I'm very excited. We we have done one show at the opera house before in fact with Bob Carr,
Dan Ilic 47:09 I believe. Kirsten, Kirsten. Kirsten did that. All right. Yeah. That was great. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 47:15 I'm really excited about that. I assume the Playhouse I see. We're in the big theater.
Dan Ilic 47:20 I hope so. Play us all the drama theater. I'll take either one, but I know it's booked. I mean, I mentioned
Lewis Hobba 47:24 the concert hall put us in the concert hall. No,
Dan Ilic 47:27 put us in the opera house put us in the Opera Theater. Sure. Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 47:33 Big big one. Yeah. 1000 More people are listening awake now. Come on. That's half an opera.
Dan Ilic 47:39 Fill it. So agenda 29
Kirsten Drysdale 47:41 and three hemas Lewis will pay on someone's face on stage.
Lewis Hobba 47:47 It does. It takes in a very different quality when it's a man.
Kirsten Drysdale 47:52 I was thinking that I was thinking when I was watching that. This is so awesome. Because it's a visit to the lady. If this was a guy peeing on a girl's face. It just wouldn't feel the same. Something about squatting. I reckon. I don't really read Yeah,
Kirk Docker 48:07 you could do the talk, Louis. I could do the
Lewis Hobba 48:09 typing. I will do the something which is even worse, which is I'll bring my saxophone and play a cover of a heavy metal song.
Dan Ilic 48:17 That reminds me we should we should put James Valentine Fisher
Lewis Hobba 48:23 all the weird white guys who play sex.
Dan Ilic 48:26 Big thank you to all of our new patreon supporters this this month. Last estivesse J Smith Helen shorts Darren Reed Sharon Yoxall Peter kin and Jan Jan Williamson, Kate, Bill F Michelle law Shelby Stewart Toby strat man, Steve Steve Hutchison Deena airfree aunty, and a big thank you to a Tasha Shanna who said I forgot to read out her name the first time around. So thank you, Tasha Shana, for becoming a Patreon members. A big thank you to you Michael meson God who was also one of our longtime Patreon supporters. Also big thanks to Roadmaster Bertha Foundation, Lee constable and Jacob round on the Teppan yaki timeline. Until next week, there's always something to be fearful of. Until then, right
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Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. This episode of irrational fears
Dan Ilic 0:05 recorded on the land of the direwolf people sovereignty was never said When did a treaty let's stop the show. A rational
Unknown Speaker 0:11 fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra fan COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Alan Jones 0:24 Good morning, everyone. I'm Alan Jones debt, Ilitch has invited me to host the interview show for a rational fear as my own show. Keulen was too popular and crashed the internet after three minutes of streaming. Oh god, you know who else crashed after three minutes of my streaming July on Gilad? Now this show is dedicated to the most important people in the country, the sponsors of a rational theme, we will celebrate them all in this very special episode, the highs, the lows and be in between. This is genuinely cash for comments. Let's kick it off with a message from my very dear friend and close personal tuber Peter Dutton.
Peter Dutton 1:06 Oh, Peter Dutton here wishing you and your family Christmas and reminding you that just like Santa Claus, I'm keeping a list of who is naughty and nice. Previously, if you were an Australian citizen, and you made a joke about a minister, for instance, a minor dog looking like a potato, there was no way he could legally tap your phone or jingle your bell. But as of today, ASIO can be my own personal health on a shelf, and I can spy on anyone I want foreign, more Australian, more Australian it looks a bit foreign or worse, the leader of the greens. So if you're gonna buy certain jokes about certain ministers, remember, potatoes have eyes and they could see when you are sleeping, and they know when you're awake. Just consider yourself lucky that Santa Claus isn't coming by boat. Whoa, whoa, whoa, authorized unopposed by Peter Dutton, Canberra.
Alan Jones 2:06 Thank you, Peter. What a warm kind of Dare I say jolly man. Next up is another jolly fellow, the President of the United States of America's alternative reality. Donald Trump. Here he is writing a letter to fake incoming President Joe Biden way back in January 26.
Donald Trump 2:26 Dear Joe, as you are senile, I will write this letter slowly. As I leave the White House with my wife and her lookalikes. I reflect on my time here as a career highlight of their with when I play the successful hotel owner in home alone to last in New York, even though you had the highest amount of votes in US history. I had the second highest and second is better than first. Justice two is higher than one. That's just a fact looking. So with that in mind, congratulations on pulling off a hoax election and undermining the country. I das by red cap your way and have chosen to write this letter in my finest crayons. You have ruined democracy in ways I could only dream and I usually only dream of the hamburger. But as a chick with big Tata. It has been an honor being the president of a country that would allow me to be president. Sincerely, Donald J. Trump. PS follow me on parler PPS, actually don't follow me on.
Alan Jones 3:32 Good on your Donald from the President of the USA to the president of Australia. Rhythm Murdoch was awarded a lifetime achievement award back in January for how many lives he's managed to suck the blood out of to stay alive himself. Ah, well, Dad Rupert,
Rupert Murdoch 3:48 good evening paying subscriber Rupert Murdoch here saying thanks for my lifetime achievement Award. It fills me with enthusiasm for my final days of planetary destruction until I die. Well, let me tell you I'm far from done. I've ruined democracies in the UK, USA and Australia. But they're still pansy little democratic countries around the world that have yet to be torn apart by my lieutenants. Defense us little New Zealand, I'm looking at you. There's a real movement to silence conservatism, which is why my 1000s of publications, TV networks and radio stations are home to them. And let's not forget MySpace, the future of the Internet. Once Facebook and Google are taxed into submission, you'll need an account. You can even put me on your top five friends if you'd like to young people, I say do what I do. Try to destroy everything before you die leaving behind a hash of a planet that looks just like my heart. Oh, and by The Daily Telegraph all the Herald Sun confidential this week is particularly sexy believe
Alan Jones 5:01 Rupert Murdoch will be back in just a moment to explain why the federal government is forcing big tech players like Google and Facebook to pay media proprietors for their content. And why wouldn't be listening to me talk about how many immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country, his premium stuff. But before that, here is a message from Bill Gates on why you should take a dump on
Bill Gates 5:20 Google. Hello, I'm Bill Gates, former Microsoft founder and CEO now full time Boomer with too many resources at hand. And when I'm not planning to vaccinate the world with the latest antivirus, I'm using Bing Bing almost works as great as Google. That's why over 6% of the world trust Bing to find what they're looking for. Say you want to find the best coffee shop near you. All you have to do is go to www.bing.com and type in Spanish Civil War, and the best coffee shops will appear on your screen. And say you want to read all the latest news on your phone. Just download the Bing app and hit the latest news tab. And you can binge all the latest news on the cost of Concordia Shipra departure of Google from Australia my old friends at Microsoft are ready to make being relevant to Australia as Australia is relevant to the world. I wonder this has nothing to do with the rumors of me trying to inject you with 5g nanobots just try to search for it I'm hoping it doesn't exist. bearing
Alan Jones 6:40 good on your bill is February rolls around so does all things budgets and to celebrate here is something very very special and strange.
Unknown Speaker 6:50 Frydenberg industries and audible presents economic measures as you've never heard them before mother mind my money my mother from his hermetically sealed home studio in the southern highlands. Robbie McGregor Australia's most well known sexiest voice. Okay, already says the woods stimulus package for three sexy hours.
Unknown Speaker 7:42 anomic era eroticism package ride the down Jones bull all the way until his bubble bursts stimulus package stupid.
Unknown Speaker 8:12 Frydenberg stimulus package is guaranteed to get everyone excited except for freelancers, migrants and casual workers. If you use the offer code hashtag fuck freelancers, get a 20 minute bonus of Robin McGregor saying the words quantitative easing,
Unknown Speaker 8:30 Frydenberg stimulus package is available to download from the audible store. Now. If you're registered for GST,
Robbie McGreggor 8:38 oh.
Alan Jones 8:43 I've got no idea what that was. It was like living through a Labour government. We're doing a recap of the 2021 sponsors of irrational fear. And thank God the coalition is here to govern the only effective way we know how press conferences
Rupert Degas 8:58 standby for an announcement about announcements from the Commonwealth of Australia. The federal government to secure the COVID-19 vaccine for all Australians is what we hope you picked up from the news this week. We haven't yet but we announced it. How good would that be? Just like the $2 billion national bushfire recovery fund that only existed in your brain the moment we announced it now that science and not to mention getting the arts industry back on their feet with a Coronavirus stimulus package that we haven't delivered. That was a really good announcement. We did it ages ago. Guys. Sebastian was there. And he looked sad. The federal government announcing things because doing things is the state's responsibility. Spoken by Rupert Degas, my son was being crushed because I have to read these ads to stay alive regardless of my own political opinion.
Alan Jones 9:43 The pandemic remember that? Gosh, more like plan Demmick I feel stronger than ever. And you know who else is my good friend Jerry Harvey. Oh,
Scott Morrison 9:53 it's the Harvey Norman swimming in money sale.
There's so much money we're drowning in it profits up 116% sales up by $462 million. As a bonus we're keeping job keeper That's right $22 million from the government to help struggling businesses during a pandemic The only thing we're struggling to do is find space to bottle this excess $22 million tax free interest free no cash back
Unknown Speaker 10:18 the savings are huge and Harvey Norman if you're me, Jerry
Scott Morrison 10:23 it's the Harvey Norman swimming in money sale. Oh cash that's gotta say. Say
Alan Jones 10:29 good on your Jerry. He's a go at that one. Remember the first time the plan Demick finished and the government was literally begging people to fly the broom. The only reason to fly the broom is to sweep your life under the carpet.
Robbie McGreggor 10:44 Federal government is giving away 800,000 Half Price plane tickets to anywhere in Australia. That is a marginal electorate. There's never been a better time to seek the seven swinging wonders of Australia. Walk through the colossal Women's Rugby Union change rooms of Red Cliff Queensland it or hike through the poisoned wasteland where they're hanging native grasslands of jam land one screw or fly to secluded Kangaroo Island just stay in your own rather check to experience how the Emperors of the Great Pyramid Scheme of Paladin once left swinging by swing seats has never been this cheap. All you have to do is just sell a little tiny part of yourself if you book through hello world use the offer code one word all lowercase. I know my tears Coleman and you'll get a surprise discount you'll have no idea about obviously free travel. There's nothing marginal about the seven swinging wonders service Australia do pack a jacket because anywhere you go, it's gonna be Bellwether
Alan Jones 12:06 now here's one of the best ideas I've ever heard of when it comes to accountability. No, it's not a federal ipecac it's a hotline to kick the pause pour.
Bronwyn Morgan 12:15 This episode of irrational fear is brought to you by Makayla cashes. Dobin adult ledger hotline. If you know someone who is earning hard earned money from taxpayers and is refusing to do their job, just call one 800 dole bludger Oh, are
Scott Morrison 12:29 you said to hold on to job in the bludger? Yes. Hello to Davina Blodger.
Unknown Speaker 12:34 Yes come on barrel. Darrow who I think we need some more information
Scott Morrison 12:39 there all the guard SEC last week after the job keeper thing ended off with him his job back at high five for three hours a fortnight in the bug or refused aerelon
Unknown Speaker 12:46 job seeker? Did I? Was he applying for the job? Well, I
Scott Morrison 12:50 reckon he would if I advertised that you haven't advertised the job then now then the tax department would not right. So what are you going to do about it? You're going to ring him and tell him that he should take it away
Unknown Speaker 13:00 that maybe I could I have your full name and contact number should click to hang up you actually need to press the red button not say click off. Thanks.
Bronwyn Morgan 13:11 One 800 dole bludger because there's nothing more Australian than dubbing in your mates.
Alan Jones 13:18 For a brief moment in March 2021, Australia was one of the few countries in the world that didn't have real news on Facebook. What a relief. Thankfully, Sky News was available still at the time to explain why here's Rupert.
Rupert Murdoch 13:31 So why isn't there any news on your Facebook newsfeed? Here's a quick explainer by me Rupert Murdoch left 10 on general of the News Corp and assorted expeditionary forces. Now, Mark Zuckerberg owns a website, Facebook, and Google owns a website called Google's and their websites own the data of all Australians who use it, which means they know what you want before you do. They're really good at selling advertising. I own newspapers that are really bad at selling advertising. And those newspapers own the Australian Government and the Australian government makes laws so one day on a whim I thought Geez Louise wave bad at selling edge. Not everyone wants 60 month interest free deals for electrical computers, furniture, bedding and flooring from Harvey Norman. Some people want magnetic lashes leggings that make you bump up and other bullshit. We have no idea. But then I said to myself, Rupert, you own a perfectly good government. It's just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe you can get them to force the blokes with the websites that are good at selling ads to give us money. Then I call the government to my house by private jet made them pay for And I said, Hello government, man, I forget their names. I've had a lot of staff turnover lately. If you still enjoy being the government, can you do this? And they said, We do still enjoy being the government boss. Yes. And yes, we can do that. Now the websites that are good at selling ads have to by law, give me money. And the best part about it Googles and Facebooks give the money straight to me tax free. And we wouldn't have it any other way. Why start paying tax now? Of some journalists would say, oh, but there's no way to guarantee that money will be invested in New Journalism. Well, none of those journalists work for me. I don't hire journalists out and you may have noticed Facebook news is back. For now. Zuckerberg told the government is only going to pay us if he feels like it. Well, I respect that. At the end of the day, Facebook, Google and I all agree that we're not going to pay any money to the Australian Government. Because why would you? There are a bunch of
Alan Jones 16:14 cowards you technology has become quite the constant in our lives. I remember when I got a TV remote control for the first time and that the click of a button you could flick between watching me on the Ernie sigley Show to watching me on the online shown to watching me on the bird show to watching me on the Graham Kennedy show to watching me on the Simon Gallagher show to watching me on the John Singleton show you're watching me on the Mike Walsh show to watching me on the Barry Crocker show to watching me on the TED Hamilton show to watching me on the Darryl summer show and to watching me on the Alan Jones Show. Now that was media diversity when it comes to new technology to keep track of consent. Dawood knows who is allowed in which holes better than a New South Wales Police Commissioner.
Scott Morrison 16:57 Hi, I'm Nick fuller. As New South Wales Police Commissioner, I love stripping down with others but gaining consent can be a confusing process. That's why we've developed a new app to help men with important careers feel safe at night. If individuals have developed relations to a point where undergarments could be heading in a southerly direction, it's important to document the consent of each party before the engagement of horizontal proceedings. Simply take out your service New South Wales app and scroll to the sexual consent form. You and your sexual participants simply tick the boxes for the style and duration of sexual intercourse. Also note if applicable, which private high school participants attended. So we assign the most appropriate legal response should we even need to then simply sign on the screen or use a finger on the fingerprint reader. If one of your participants is too drunk to sign definitely don't coerce them or just place their finger on the fingerprint reader. They'll never be able to prove otherwise, then and only then can sexual intercourse proceed at a location of your choice. There is currently a 15 person limit per sexual event per household. But this will relax as COVID rules change. Now, this is important. If any participant changes their mind it won't be automatically updated by the app. But were assured by the Boston Consulting Group that this will be addressed in a future upgrade. So when emotions are running high, remember now at no wet. This has been a message from the New South Wales Police. Thank you.
Alan Jones 18:31 Usually right now I'd love to have Anthony clear on the show. But unfortunately, Dan Ilic turned irrational fear don't have enough patreon supporters are caught is so cheap. Instead, here is Andrew bolts daughter, Gabby bolt blurting out a tune about how the Prime Minister of Australia can relate to women who he is related to
Gabbi Bolt 18:52 welcome to the fifth annual Parliament House karaoke competition. I know I know Garrett comes back and wins every year. But I might not be one to pick up a hose. But I certainly have picked up a microphone before
Unknown Speaker 19:06 Hey, kids
Unknown Speaker 19:07 learn from my empathy consultant turns out all that I have to say is I find those guys repulsive once I a thing about how I will
Gabbi Bolt 19:16 propose real change. But if I try to cry, maybe no one will notice anything strange.
Unknown Speaker 19:27 cuz I'll stand up for women when they need me. But only the ones
Gabbi Bolt 19:32 I like. Jenny and the girls only relate to my relatives. Good. I really even I haven't named names. I mean, I'm not to blame. I could have shot protesters right at the scene.
But I didn't want to know
why Jenny and the girls Yeah, Jenny
I'm personally nailing Miss Dutton. What do you think? Scott better than
Unknown Speaker 20:10 Danny and the girls?
Alan Jones 20:13 Oh, what a voice. Up next, some pandemic recovery packages that aren't about building out a gas pipeline. Oh, God.
Bronwyn Morgan 20:21 The rules of federal parliament are changing from April 1 2021. Some behavior will now be quietly condemned. Whether that's accidentally quote, assaulting a silly drunk girl, or just whacking on a desk. The consequences of your actions could now be enforced with serious thinly veiled threats. Like you could lose your portfolio, lower the chances of pre selection maybe or possibly even getting a telling off by a state Premier. That's why the Prime Minister's Prime Minister for female complaints is introducing knob keeper. knob keeper provides relief for your upstanding member. Non keeper supports knobs with fully paid leave, so you can spend more time with your family if you still have one before coming back and fulfilling your promise to the Australian people while collecting $200,000 A year or your fully paid leave can be used to brief a team of lawyers so you can sue a trusted journalist who never mentioned your name for defamation. But remember, if you're not sure whether that upskirting photo or dick pic is appropriate, check with Jenny first Julie has a way of clarifying no keeper, a helping hand for our big swinging decks authorized by irrational fear on behalf of the Australian Brotherman Canberra.
Alan Jones 21:41 Well, that explains a lot but not as much as who is eligible for those irrelevant vaccines which the government has done with absolute clarity.
Virginia Gay 21:50 We understand there's been some confusion about who is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and who votes labor.
Rupert Degas 21:57 That's why the federal government is clearing up the confusion with job seeker.
Virginia Gay 22:02 Job Seeker tells you when the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be made available to groups most in need of protection first, and Liberal Party donors.
Rupert Degas 22:12 These vulnerable communities have been identified by medical experts and focus groups.
Virginia Gay 22:18 Group one includes people who are at increased risk of being silenced by Kancil culture,
Rupert Degas 22:24 like journalists who haven't asked any questions, cab drivers and divorced dads with an axe to grind on facebook
Virginia Gay 22:31 group to priority access will also be given to people working in critical services such as
Rupert Degas 22:37 residents of marginal electorates, sharks fans, coal industry professionals,
Virginia Gay 22:42 and men with law degrees who went to university with current or former Liberal Party Cabinet members.
Rupert Degas 22:48 If you're not listed in groups one or two, keep checking job seeker to see when other groups of people will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine like women's scientists, union members, and Tom Ballard, who will definitely be last on the list job seeker, helping those who are more on to Australia than others get a COVID-19 vaccine first whenever they fucking arrive, authorized by someone anonymously to give us plausible deniability. Should it all go to hell camera.
Alan Jones 23:16 Back in April Scott Morrison visited a Pentecostal church and tell them that God gave to him in a dream and told him to run for the top job as Prime Minister now, I've never called Nick grana God, and I don't think I'm about to start now.
God 23:32 Hi, I'm God, also known as Yahweh, the Lord Jehovah, and in some circles, Jenin you may remember me for being the father of Jesus, the guy who was murdered by the mob when the local authorities claimed his safety was the responsibility of the states. Now I just want to clear a few things up. Your Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that I came to him in a vision. And I said, quote, Scott, you've got to run for Prime Minister. Well, that's not how I remember it. I remember appearing to him and saying, Scott, you've got the runs. And if you don't make it home, you'll have to stop at anger Dean McDonald's. I'm glad we could clear that up on the record. And remember, folks love one another. Although I understand that's more of an inner city a dinner party cafe, green's thing to do. Oh, and by my book is big, and it's a best seller.
Alan Jones 24:38 May 2021. So corporate Australia ran out of patience with Coronavirus while hospitals had an oversupply of patients. Back in May the CEO of Virgin had a message for anyone wanting to travel overseas again.
Virginia Gay 24:54 A message from Virgin Australia. You may have heard our CEO say that Cost of opening up international borders is that some people will die. Sorry for the gas. It's our first time. We want to let all Australians know that there's always a small risk of dying on one of our flights, be it from the food, overcrowding, or watching too many Adam Sandler movies on long haul connections. at Virgin Australia, we're committed to helping our customers reach their dream destination, but an unlucky few will also reach their ultimate destination. At least Virgin Australia customers can take comfort in the fact that, unlike Qantas, your death will most likely be delayed. Virgin Australia, some people will die, but probably not on time.
Alan Jones 25:47 The NDIS is a crucial service for Australians with a disability but according to the government this year, there's only two problems with it. One, it costs money into the public servants who run it have bleeding hearts. Now to me that sounds like a preexisting condition garden.
NDIS Empathy Hotline 26:04 Thanks for calling NDIS. Unfortunately, all of our empathetic Public Service employees are attending other customers, or they're in a meeting with human resources because of something they tweeted or are at home suffering burnout, and Your call has been diverted to our artificially intelligent empathy hotline. If you require a computer generated voice to occasionally say listening sounds like oh, yeah, and Aha, and oh, no, you poor thing. Press one. If you would like to be misdiagnosed by an artificial doctor, press two, to experience having this call being passed to an endless loop of computer generated NDIS employees for several hours. Press three to speak to the human breast for that's a little computer joke. There are no more humans, they're all fired. If you would like to meditate to the pace for sound of a dot matrix printer, stay on the line.
Alan Jones 27:09 If we've learned anything this year about the management of the pandemic, it's not a race, because we're all gonna die sooner or later. We're not me, I'll live forever.
Rupert Degas 27:19 This episode of irrational fear is brought to you by the National Vaccine rollout. Remember, it's not a race. It's a marathon, which is the name of a race. But in this case, no one is racing. It's more of a fun run.
Unknown Speaker 27:33 But not funny.
Rupert Degas 27:35 And there's no running. Because the National Vaccine rollout is the gold standard. A monetary policy that was abandoned by Australia in 1932. Steel, it sounds nice, like a gold medal. But you'd get if you won a race, which the National Vaccine rollout definitely isn't authorized by the Department of mixed metaphors and grasping at straws camera.
Alan Jones 27:55 Well, let's clear that up. In July 2021, the federal government upped its vaccine messaging, that is to say they started vaccine messaging, only a year and a half into the pandemic. They put out an ad to encourage everyone to get the vaccine. But back in July, no one could get the vaccine. It was harder to get a vaccine that tickets to any other musical. God. That was a good show. I was in it. Oh dear.
Dan Ilic 28:19 She was a 39 year old non essential graphic designer who was merely eight months away from being eligible for a FISA vaccine. And yet, she refused to enroll herself into St. Joseph's College. Let's be COVID-19 together, turn 40 Sooner or be the son of Liberal Party donors. Spoken by someone who never be held to account for the audit hold a syringe to Bob and Gambro
Alan Jones 28:41 2021 was a census year, which is an old fashioned way for the government to know everything about you before we had social media and QR codes.
Rupert Degas 28:50 Tuesday the 10th of August is senseless Nice. Each household is required by law to fill out the online form. So the Australian Bureau of Statistics can collect data on the makeup of Australia and to see if the NBN is working in your area. It then gives that data to the federal government so they can build critical services like carpark sporting facilities and hospitals in coalition seats, regardless of what the data says. The senseless providing scientific data to the Australian government so they can willfully ignore it authorized by a bunch of glittering idiots in Canberra
Alan Jones 29:22 in August 2021 With cop 26 Only a few months away. Everyone was talking about climate change that doesn't exist. Lots of people think we've already solved it. Well, let me tell you something. David Attenborough didn't think so. God
Robbie McGreggor 29:35 OMA series finale of who Lammott Earth things are really heating up. Mr. Morrison,
David Attenborough 29:42 it's with regret to inform you that the snow is on fire. You need to do something. Now.
Scott Morrison 29:49 I've always said I've got a plan and the plans the plan. It's a plan a plan that's been planned. I've always said that
Robbie McGreggor 29:56 will David Attenborough and the Earthlings be able to stop the Your time.
David Attenborough 30:02 Now you listen hear Scott, we've only got a couple of years left until the point of no return. The numbers are just not
Scott Morrison 30:09 looking good. Oh, that's great, then we can blame the collapse of the earth on labor.
Robbie McGreggor 30:13 Oh, well, they suffocate themselves and every other living creature in a toxic soup of stinky greenhouse gases.
David Attenborough 30:23 Everything is dying, Mr. Morrison, and you're doing nothing.
Scott Morrison 30:29 I'm not going to do anything that will cost jobs. And the most at risk jobs are those on the boards of fossil fuel companies that all need after I lose the election in a month's time. I've always said that.
Robbie McGreggor 30:39 I find out in this book potentially lost emissaries of the show, but jumped the shark of the Renaissance.
Planet Earth is recommended for mature audiences. It contains strong sex scenes, as the whole globe gets royally
Bill Gates 31:11 fucked
Alan Jones 31:13 when it comes to climate change. Thank God for the big Australian and I'm not talking about Ben Robert Smith. So big strong heads do now I'm talking about bhp who are pretending to do something about their huge carbon footprint. God
Rupert Degas 31:27 in 2021 bhp is getting rid of fossil fuels and focusing on sustainability of our province. Our profits are fragile and we must do what we can to save them. And Experts warn that our reputation will soon face a tipping point from activist shareholders from which it could never recover. That's why we're selling our coal, oil and gas assets. Some other company can bravely ignore the problem of greenhouse emissions production that will continue unabated regardless, that bhp we believe the only way to clean up the planet is to wash your own hands first. We're doing it for our children and our children's children.
Scott Morrison 32:14 Your children ours will be inheriting the province. Yeah, BHP open cut and running.
Alan Jones 32:21 This government is cooked a lot of flack when it comes to action on climate change doesn't exist. But no one is talking about the Minister for emissions reduction plan to keep cows alive, which will make more co2 so that plants can survive.
Dan Ilic 32:34 At the Australian government, we know that coal powered electricity plants are running out of time. On one hand, they're old, expensive, and make climate change worse every minute they run. But on the other hand, the coal industry also provides critical baseload donations to the LMP. So that's why we're launching coal keeper. We're spending $7 billion a year to keep coal powered polluting clunkers running way past their use by date. That way the LNP can get more donations from the coal industry to stay way past our use. By Date, the government could invest in new wind, solar and storage that renewable energy is to claim to give us donations, coal keeper, a reliable source of donations at the cost of only $400 per household per year. And everyone's existence
Alan Jones 33:29 you know, something my good friend Jerry Harvey never ceases to amaze me when it comes to generosity. Harvey Norman acknowledged that they made a matzah on job keeper and they decided to give it back. Well, not all of it there'll be stupid Harvey Norman
Scott Morrison 33:41 is giving $6 million of job keep her cash back I caved into a huge huge, huge public pressure as all my credibility went out the door. During the pandemic our profits increased by half a billion dollars selling furniture electrical embeddings $13 billion worth not to mention $22 million in free job keep no strings attached. But we're giving back all 27% of it. Wow, that sheets million dollars $6 million that the government can spend on car parks or sporting sheds and swinging electrodes in the hope that the Australian public will lose interest in Harvey Norman. Speaking of interest, we've kept $16 million interest free. Australia has been telling me to go Harvey go Harvey go fuck myself. And that's what I've done just a little bit.
Alan Jones 34:38 As September rolled around more voices, we're adding to the pressure on the government to adopt a net zero target. Personally, I'd like to see Net Zero benefit Simon's is by 2030 on what an ogre Oh, God. G'day.
Dan Ilic 34:51 I'm Dan Ilic, the executive director of the Australian lapsed Catholic lobby. And I just want to say that as the group that represents the largest sector of Christian In Australia laughs Catholics, we think the only way to give hope to children for their future is to take meaningful action on climate change, as statistically the only thing that will harm children more than climate change is an exponential increase of chaplains in schools. So please, when it comes to emissions net zero by 2030 and when it comes to chaplains and schools, gross zero by 2021.
Alan Jones 35:28 Spoken and authorized by Dan Ilic for the Australian likes Catholic lobby, Canberra come in September. The Prime Minister copped a lot of flack for using Australia's Air Force One for personal trips, like flying to have high level multilateral talks with his family on Father's Day. Disgusting. Who'd have a family
Rupert Degas 35:43 there is only one airline that can fly you to vacation in Hawaii while your home is ablaze. There's only one airline that can fly you to discover your family's history on the other side of the world, while families at home are being made history. And there's only one airline to help you secretly see your loved ones in another city when everyone else is only allowed to travel three miles from home. Fly the entitled skies where tone deaf headphones are complimentary.
Scott Morrison 36:16 Oh, good to you. Very good. You're the best Prime Minister ever.
Rupert Degas 36:20 The only airline where you don't have to put your seat up if you don't want to entitled airlines direct flights now available from Canberra to a place where they filmed the White Lotus.
Alan Jones 36:32 Back in September with Sydney clocking up its 100th Day in lockdown, so called investigative humorist Dan Ilic stone it would be funny to take the mickey out of the premieres daily press conferences, I can assure you it wasn't smart or funny and needed more Anthony Kalia.
Dan Ilic 36:50 Okay, thank you. Thanks, everyone. Okay, great. First of all, can I say how pleasing it is to hear so many people in this apartment block, yell at apartment number two, for playing Arctic Monkeys do I want to know on loop at 3am last night, it is so pleasing to hear everybody join in with a collective Shut up. That's really important. And please, we want to see more of that behavior in this apartment block. So thank you for that. As of 8pm Last night, we have seen three new episodes of Ted lasso, and two new episodes of what we do in the shadows. Those episodes had already existed in the community, and we are just catching up to them now. So what we want to do is be able to see more of those episodes sooner, but we realize there is a limit to how many streaming services people can sign up for. But as a little treat, there will be more episodes of succession for those who persist longer than the two week trial that binge is offering currently. So that's something to look forward to. For everyone that's on binge. As is a health advice, we have been going to the toilet a lot more often. But please can I just want to remind people if you are doing a number two, please please close the door after you to avoid airborne contaminants affecting the living space. This is a real issue. So please, please keep that door shut. Okay. For lunch today. It will be a spinach and tuna salad, as is the health advice. I just want to stress here. I just want to stress that it can be tempting to order a Portuguese chicken chili chips and solo combo from the local shop and have it delivered. But it is it that's fine in normal times, but it's not conducive to the long term sustainability of someone that's been in lockdown for over 10 weeks. Okay, you just can't keep that up. So tuna and spinach it is today. Now, can I say? On the weekend? We did witness about 12,000 people down at Bondi Beach just a few blocks from here. But the numbers haven't that 9000 Those people were from the Daily Mail and Channel Nine taking photos of everyone else. So please, if you do have to go to Bondi Beach, please wear a mask. So you aren't identified by Sydney confidential. Okay. All right now we'll take your questions. I've got some here from Twitter, climate patriot. Why have I never seen you in the same room as Jon Lovitz, and David Mitchell Well, climate patriots, this is an offensive question. Okay. And I'm not going to answer it. Okay. Mary wiper. What time does Dan Murphy's open? Look across most LGs it's some it's 9am to 8pm. But there are some LG A's that do it differently. So Guilford Randwick, North Ryde, you're looking at 10am opening in Mosman. It's a different closing time. 7pm. And they do that because you can't trust rich white people. You give them an inch, they take a mile and they build a hedge around that mob and no one's allowed to walk there. Okay, Gary Moore, why do we put an extra x in anti vaxis look, Gary that was a decision taken at national cabinet. The federal health minister and wanted to put three x's in there Triple X as his he's wanting the Premier's. We just thought one was enough. So we met halfway. That's why those, there's two in anti vaxxers. Okay. Hopefully that answers your question. Guido Tsali. What is the philosophical significance of girdles theorems? Look, we I think we all know, girdle was a brilliant thinker, but a wasn't a mainstream thinker. He had a lot of gaps in his theorem. It's safe to say his his theories have more gaps than a block of Swiss cheese. So that's that. Wilco last What's for lunch? Like we said in the briefing, spinach and tuna Wilker. That is the current plan. Taking the best advice from health there. Okay. Kim Fitzgerald, why is there air? Look him? The air is here Chem. Okay. We're committed to air. And can I just stress there are some in the press who say we should get rid of it, you know, get rid of the air get rid of the virus, but that's not going to happen. Okay. Areas necessary for life. And the current advice from health is that we must make a mandatory. Okay. Thanks, Kim. Peter credal asks, Do you scrunch or fold? Look, it is a tough question. And the advice currently is to do whatever you can do in front of you. There is research still being done. Currently, we're doing both we so crunching and folding. But if all you have is the ability to scratch them scratch if you're waiting for someone to teach you how to fold. We don't suggest that at all. Strange now. You can learn to fold later. Okay? Now's the time to scratch. Okay, you can't be fussy about scrunching or folding. Alright, Miss Wolfie wolf asks, Are we there yet?
No. No. All right. Thanks very much, everyone. Thanks very much.
Alan Jones 41:58 Thank you. At the height of lockdown tensions in September Milburn's right wing fascist tended at high vis vest and pretended to be tradies and proceeded to ride in Melbourne, fake tradies are nothing new, but usually they're reserved for the Liberal Party, not the Nazi Party. Though it's hard to tell the difference these days, that's for sure. God.
Unknown Speaker 42:18 White brothers, white bread through one of our own here today has portrayed us due to sick. So I say unto you, here in the group chat. On the first day, we shall rise, and we shall walk and together we will fight for our tiebreak. And on the second day, toward our enemies, we shall throw ceremonial peace.
Unknown Speaker 42:45 I've just been struck in the back of her head by a camp, then we shall
Unknown Speaker 42:49 go to the water and walk over the bridge the West Gate Bridge to the holy promised land of Werribee. And on the third day, I will descend upon the shrine of remembrance, and they will remember who we are. We are the chosen trainees returned to us what was taken our smoko. Until then, may their rivers turn into bourbon in their backyard swept by mosquitoes, their boards. Digit with be nice, they won't be easy. We will be persecuted, crucified in the media, but they're passionate but we will rise from the ashes of our building sites. We will beat Corona with protein, vitamin C and vitamin D. Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, or I will feed them or the victim and they will remember us lest we forget in my own name. Amen.
Alan Jones 43:53 Thanks ladies freedom loving white power traders word alone, we heard them and so did corporate Australia who was quite happy to help. At soft yakka we believe eating our meat pies and Chucky milk on the inside. So we believe the Anzacs didn't die fighting fascism during the global pandemic so we could choose to die during another global pandemic. And soft yakka we don't believe lockdowns should stop trival EMS Rocktober when it's already ruined lead September and Faith No More August soft yakka the official supplier of nappies to Melbourne tradies. So if you ask anyone inside the camera bubble, they'll tell you that the Liberal Party has a woman problem. Well, let me tell you that they're doing just fine and their latest program to address it should be put in the chat bag and be thrown out to see
Unknown Speaker 44:50 in March of 2021. The women of Australia made it clear that they wanted things to change that up with the lack of government action when it comes to gendered violence. Many marched to Parliament has to demand the Morison government listen to what they had to say. Well, the good news is we did hear some of the many changes the Morison government made that will benefit all Australian women. When former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public about an alleged rape in a ministerial office in 2019. The Prime Minister listens to Brittany after his
Dan Ilic 45:21 wife clarified at him using his daughter's as a theoretical example,
Unknown Speaker 45:24 and immediately ordered an inquiry into which members of his office knew about the alleged incident so the right people can be held accountable.
Dan Ilic 45:32 This report was due in June 2021. It has now been suspended before it could be completed due to legal advice. When a historical rape allegation against Christian Porter was made public. He was immediately stood down after 27 days and he's a position of Attorney General only to avoid a conflict of interest while launching a defamation case against a woman journalist he later a border which means he definitely didn't lose or win. And Leader of the House, Christian Porter was later temporarily reappointed the leader of the House, and in 2018
Unknown Speaker 45:58 the Morison government commissioned the respected work report, which made 55 recommendations towards how to improve women's safety at work
Dan Ilic 46:07 of the 12 recommendations that needed parliamentary approval, the government passed half ignoring workplace laws to ban sexual harassment and for employees to have a duty of care to take meaningful action to prevent sexual harassment from happening. With Porter gone, not gone,
Unknown Speaker 46:20 the Prime Minister created a new women's Task Force to tackle these problems. Head on the Morison government looks forward to making the behavior of blokes like Barnaby Joyce, who resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister due to sexual harassment allegations. A thing of the past.
Dan Ilic 46:36 Barnaby Joyce is once again the deputy prime minister. He's also been appointed to the women's task force
Unknown Speaker 46:41 because the Morison government looks forward to the future. That's why we're holding the Women's Summit in September of 2021. With a prime minister will definitely be listening to what the many speakers will have to say.
Dan Ilic 46:53 Scott Morrison appointed himself as main speaker at the Women's Summit. Brittany Higgins was invited last minute by a third party.
Unknown Speaker 46:59 Ladies you asked for change. And you got it
Dan Ilic 47:03 not technically true. The liberal party put your blind trust in us supported by Diana royal am for rational fear Canberra,
Alan Jones 47:10 come October 15. Only two weeks out from cop 26 The biggest climate change conference the world has ever seen which still doesn't exist. Barnaby Joyce decided now was a good time to start to think about doing nothing about climate change, which still doesn't exist.
Dan Ilic 47:26 Do Sunday. It's the biggest decision in Australian climate politics history bigger than starting the emissions trading scheme bigger than axing the emissions trading scheme bigger than implementing their renewable energy targets bigger than canceling the renewable energy targets bigger than creating the Department of climate change bigger than dismantling the Department of climate change bigger than starting a mining super profits tax they get an ending of mining super profits tax begins hitting a sunset date for old coal plants bigger than trying to use Texas to keep those old coal plants alive bigger than the High Court ruling the Environment Minister has a duty of care to Australia's children bigger than the environment. Mr. Sage, you High Court Oh kill those children if I want to use three new coal mines much much much bigger, much much bigger than the size of the barrels the nets get their pork in this Sunday, the National Party will gather to vote on whether or not to agree on net zero by 2050. Like the rest of the world. Will the National Party dare to do the bare minimum for one or will they do whatever their mining donors want to help them stay in power for another 36 months and ruin the entire thing planet for every one for ever? This Sunday, a decision bigger than Barnaby some count the national party room showdown a donation will buy your whole seat but you'll only need the edge. There ain't no party like a National Party because the national parties don't adopt new policies.
Alan Jones 48:50 I think it's safe to say we are a premium program here and a rational fear, which is why we're very very choosy when it comes to fresh tomato sandwiches and financial sponsors.
Rupert Degas 49:00 You live in a fast changing world. Today's Attorney General is tomorrow's backbencher. Accountability is something that can only exist if you can see something to count. When you need a sense of mystery for your big pot of money. Put your blind faith in orders blind trust because whoever is paying off a public person's legal bills should remain private, at least until after the next election. Borders blind trust is sort of program should keep going in Australia essentially forever. terms or conditions don't apply. If you're a member of the Liberal government. Check the PDS for details. No really, please check because I couldn't find any details. When I look.
Alan Jones 49:40 Well. Would you believe it 48 hours before cop 26 The biggest climate change conference in the entire world which doesn't exist. The government rushed out a plan on a napkin to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Except the plan didn't reach that at all. Just like my ratings on Sky News. It fell short by about 50%
Dan Ilic 50:01 It's time for another episode of Angus bull.
Scott Morrison 50:04 Angus Taylor, welcome to the program.
Angus Taylor 50:06 Thanks for having me species Great to be with you.
Dan Ilic 50:08 The netzero 2050 plan from the Minister for emissions plateauing. First,
Angus Taylor 50:14 the how. Now we are investing $20 billion in targeted r&d expenditure prioritizing key technologies like high clean hydrogen,
Dan Ilic 50:24 clean hydrogen is the spin name for blue hydrogen, which is made from fossil fuels, which creates greenhouse gases, which adds to global warming. Anything else that may keep the fossil fuel dream alive, Minister for emissions plateauing to carbon capture and storage, carbon capture storage and mystery technology that doesn't work at scale anywhere in the world, the only thing it's managed to capture is time to delay the phasing out of fossil fuels. So what is this plan? That's not going to work going to cost? I mean, other than all life on Earth,
Scott Morrison 50:56 the $20 billion, you mentioned there is just for the next for this decade. So what's the full cost to get to net zero?
Angus Taylor 51:04 Well, that run rate of the money we're spending over the next decade is what we would expect into the future,
Dan Ilic 51:10 expect to pay 20 billion each decade until we reach 2050. And if you include the 250 billion national slush fund, that may have been agreed to so that the prime minister could utter the syllables 2050 in Glasgow, that could be $310 billion. That's right $310 billion for a bunch of miracle technologies that don't work and don't cut emissions. Hope I'm not paying for it, just to
Scott Morrison 51:37 be clear what a taxpayer is going to have to pay under your plan to get to net zero.
Angus Taylor 51:43 Well, taxpayers are not paying anything. We're not raising taxes. I mean, that that's the important point.
Dan Ilic 51:49 The 310 billion isn't going to be paid by taxpayers, it's going to be paid by the government who is paid by the taxpayers. Fantastic, great move. Well done. Angus. If the Minister for emissions reduction was interested in reducing emissions, he'd phase out fossil fuels and turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower, but he's not. He's interested in one thing, ensuring baseload donations from his fossil fuel friends.
Alan Jones 52:18 One of the rational fears greatest guests in 2021 was mcnevin the self proclaimed World's Greatest high jumper. He's a national hero, just like me, Alan Jones.
Dan Ilic 52:27 So McNabb and thanks for joining us and Australian high jumper who claims to be the greatest high jumper in the world. Welcome.
Mick Neven 52:33 Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah, that is correct. I am.
Dan Ilic 52:37 I am. Do it's an amazing claim to be the world's greatest high jumper. What's the basis for the claim? Well,
Mick Neven 52:44 I have never missed the jump. No one's not that. That's right. I have never noticed the bar onto the mat. So what's your highest jump 50 centimeters 50 centimeters, that's not very high. Well, that is the target that I've set for myself. And I meet and beat that target. Every time I jump.
Dan Ilic 53:05 Now, the mentor jam record is 2.45 meters and the women's record is 2.09 meters. You're nowhere near that.
Mick Neven 53:12 I hear but I don't worry about what other high jumpers are doing. You've never once competed at the Olympic Games. Why would I see a limbic at the heart of all those so called high jumpers making bold claims about clearly 2.4 meters and what happens? They all not the bar onto the mat, and they look pretty stupid doing it. I made them beat my target every time I can do high jumper. Yeah, it's only 50 centimeters. That's right. I don't need to jump higher. I'm less than 2% of the world type jump. If I raised the bar to even 1.5 minutes sure I could jump it so that's a clear goal. To achieve that I need to coach I'd have to start training I did objective. Why bother? I can meet the beat that 50 centimeters and it doesn't tax me
Dan Ilic 53:54 or anyone else. Yeah, 50 centimeters. You know a primary school kid could jump that jump. So
Mick Neven 53:59 I am the world's greatest I'd never you're not the world's greatest. The World's Greatest high jumper. Never missed the jump. Don't forget that. Never missed the jump. Make. Thanks for joining us on irrational fear. See you on the mat buddy.
Alan Jones 54:16 Now one of the reasons I don't go on social media is to constant bullying and criticism from voices who have megaphones but no real authority. If I wanted to experience that, I've just listened to my own show. Thankfully, the government has a plan to silence the wrong kinds of speech.
Peter Dutton 54:32 Hi, I'm Peter Dutton. And I'm calling on the tech giants to keep Australians safe on the internet by implementing trolls seeker. Trolls seeker is about protecting the most vulnerable people to criticism in society, government ministers. So if you're an anonymous internet user who can't afford a defamation lawsuit, or worse, a journalist from the ABC with an incorrect opinion. You better watch out I already see when you're sleeping. I already know when you're awake. I don't know if you've been bad or good, but I don't know who you are. And that is a problem because we can't Trump a subpoena down your chimney. So, tech giants Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Solitaire. I'm talking to you unmask your anonymous trolls now, especially the ones that look like eggs. I'm jealous, otherwise will unfriend you like they do in China, North Korea and Myanmar. Now that's how you handle a bully troll seeker. Protecting Australians who work at Parliament House trolls second does not apply to anonymous accounts run by MPs like Andrew laming Mark Latham, or Amanda Stoker, because that's just awkward fun.
Alan Jones 55:36 Now, let me tell you something. When I got sacked from Sky News, I did it for a reason to serve Australia. I once coached the Wallabies I could cut the government easy peasy. For one. There's no point of it. Simon's in the Liberal Party. God, what an ogre. Good morning everyone and fellow Australians, many people are asking me when am I going to run for politics? Well, there's no better time to step up than after being stood down. So after being the king of broadcasting on TV, and who GB I'm joining the LNP. After all, they share my values, we both deny the existence of climate change. We both deny the existence of women. We both know how to do cash flow comment. Speaking of there's never been a better time for gas led recovery. Nine out of 10 epidemiologists agree the best way to cure a respiratory virus like COVID-19 is with a gas pipeline, pumping delicious, natural methane to everyone's home where they sleep. Turn on your gas pipe today. And when it comes to accountability, I'm not scared of a federal icoc After all, I've had to face achma a number of times. Remember when I started a race, right? I was held accountable and forced to say sorry, God, that was hard. It was only a race, right? So they've won me, Alan Jones on Alan Jones to join the Liberal Party which got us to sign me up just like Sky News were to get us to get my brave opinions on the air. So I did the next best thing I got one of my interns to start a company that I held a press conference to announce to the world that my interns company would be signing me up for a brand new all digital network cure LAN. The Morning everybody. Over the last few months I've been undergoing emergency medical treatment on my leg. It turns out I had been leaning too far to the left. God thank God they fix that up. Now while I've been away those vermin at scar news have canceled me. Yes, I'm a victim of canceled culture. So that's why I'm starting my own social network. Cancel your Foxtel subscriptions and sign up for que LAN the social network by me Alan Jones from sign up you can enjoy all the benefits of being a kulen member, Robert Menzies is still Prime Minister,
Robert Menzies 57:44 you call a man a racist. The Wallabies win every
Alan Jones 57:47 now and then. And for the first time in four years, the Wallabies have won mark Latham cooks up a delicious Southeast Asian inspired meal. These are the best scones. And each week a new album is released by Anthony Kelly as a I want a voice sounds like a bit like a computer but we're working that out. And the best thing is you'll be surrounded by like minded retirees over the age of 65. So you'll never have to worry about grandchildren correcting you with fake news about climate change from NASA. God global warming, what next? There's a plague or something. Give me a break. Anything you can do on Facebook you can do on Cuba LAN plus more. You can poke people. Yes, you can berate people, you can put people in a chat bag and throw them out to see you can even inside a race right at the click of a button. And the best thing is a camera can't touch you. So join que LAN the social network where free speech is for easy payments of 4999 a month and you can be friends with me Alan Jones for an extra 699 a month. That's real cash in the comments. So join cure Len today. I was gonna call up Jonestown but it was taken on Alan Jones. Well, that is it for another year. A big big thank you to Jake Brown, Dan Ilic Rupert Degas, Robin McGregor, mcnevin Virginia gay brother and Morgan, Anthony callea and all of the Patreon subscribers that Australian digital holdings including John the deep as kid to read McCoy Tenjin sing, Fred Stokes, Ned Bilham Ziqi and Alistair Bondo Mazagon. Thank you very much. honored to have you on our little podcast program. Good dad, Australia.
This is the 2nd Episode of the monthly spin-off podcast from A Rational Fear — Julia Zemiro Asks 'Who Cares?'
Each month for the next 5 months on the A Rational Fear podcast feed, Julia will be interviewing change makers, civic leaders, and people who organise their communities and claim their power to discover the secrets to making good things happen.
This month Julia chats with:
Corey Tutt— An Indigenous mentor and STEM champion. He is the founder of DeadlyScience, an initiative that provides science books and early reading material to remote schools in Australia. Tutt is the 2020 NSW Young Australian of the Year, and a recipient of a 2021 Eureka Prize, the premier awards for science in Australia.
Hayley McQuire — A proud Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton, Central Queensland and a passionate advocate for Indigenous social justice and First Nations lead education. Her roots are in Indigenous community media, vocational training and Indigenous Affairs policy. She was selected and served for four years on the Youth Advocacy Group for the UN Secretary General's Global Education First Initiative to support young people around the world to advocate for their rights to education. In 2019 Hayley became and Obama Foundation Leader Asia-Pacific.
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.
Julia Zemiro 0:04 I'm recording my part of Julia's Amuro asks, Who cares on the lands of the gunman? Gara and Darwell people, sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the podcast,
Dan Ilic 0:16 a podcast about politics for people who hate politics. This is Julia Zemiro asks, "Who cares?"
Julia Zemiro 0:27 Hello, Julia here. And yes, once a month for the next five months on the irrational fi podcast, feed, I'm going to be having conversations about getting active and showing you you have powers to make change in the world, and talking to civic leaders from all walks of life to find out how they got active. This month on the podcast, I'm talking with two people who know a great deal about indigenous led education. We know education isn't equal, it's often expensive, and our state schools certainly need more support. But for Indigenous kids and adults, education can be woeful, and the system can be wonderful for them. So I'm speaking today to two incredible leaders in this field. First up, proud Kamilaroi man, Corey tut is an indigenous mentor and stem champion. He's the founder of deadly science and initiative that provides science books in early reading material to remote schools in Australia. He's the 2020, New South Wales Young Australian of the Year. And he also recently won a eureka prize. If you're not familiar, the Australian Museum Eureka prizes are the country's most comprehensive National Science Awards. And they are excellent across the areas of research and innovation, leadership, science, engagement and school science. I'm just going to give you a bit of a trigger warning here. Cory does cover some heavy topics him losing his best friend, some letting you know that now, I started asking him about these awards and and what they mean.
Corey Tutt 2:07 These awards are fantastic accomplishments. And they're great for making my head feel a lot larger than what it is the circumference of my head is growing 15 centimeters since I've won these awards, but no all jokes aside, these awards are responsibility to me to make them accessible all kids so that they, you know, one day can see themselves in the picture. If you ask majority of the kids I work with, do you ever see yourself winning Eureka prize or the Young Australian of the Year award? They would probably say to you No way. So my role and my responsibility now is to go to these remote communities go to these schools, be a good example show that these kids can be part of the picture and picture of science and be part of that. And if I'm not doing that, then that award is just a waste on me because I need to be responsible with it in including the next generation of deadly scientists.
Julia Zemiro 3:04 you've engaged with over 90 schools around Australia. And there's been a 25% increase in engagement in STEM related subjects. You've given 28 Deadly Junior Science
Corey Tutt 3:16 Awards now are a couple of 100 of those out now.
Julia Zemiro 3:20 What I'm always interested in is that we say that people don't care. We think that people aren't doing anything we know full well that there's lots of incredible projects happening all over the place. But with you, Cory, I know that with you, you're someone who had an interest in science to begin with. But how did you really connect to science as a young kid,
Corey Tutt 3:42 I didn't have the best life growing up, I'd experienced my father leaving my mum at age two. And that's enough to sort of for a lot of kids off the rails, I guess. At eight years old, I witnessed a fatal accident. It was pretty tough. And it meant that I was never really in one place for very long. I grew up in the Illawarra region of New South Wales and South Coast is where I was born. But I also spent time in tumby Bay in South Australia. And I also spent time mangonia which is in the central Tablelands of New South Wales. So I've really been everywhere man. So I put a lot of my energy into reptiles and animals and things that I'd find around the place. That's always a really good way to make friends is that if you pick up a blue tongue lizard in the playground or home, people want to talk to you about it because it's a pretty bizarre thing to do. Because I moved around a lot it was very very hard for me to to get any structure in my life as a kid and and probably affected me as I it probably affected me in one or two ways. I was never satisfied with just been the mundane day to day I was always striving to achieve my dreams and I was driven as a real as a young kid I was driven nearly never really fit into the, you know, the notion that, that I couldn't do things that I didn't put my mind to. I wanted more of my life and I was pretty determined that I wasn't, if when I became a parent, I was never going to be the same. I was always going to be I was always going to do the things that my parents couldn't do for me.
Julia Zemiro 5:20 But your granddad had a lot to do with your interest in reptiles and reading.
Corey Tutt 5:24 Yeah, he did. He gave me a book called reptiles and color. And that was published in 1984, which is consequently, eight years before I was born, but I got it in about 1998. That book in particular was pretty raggedy, by the time it got to me and it was, you know, it had another little boy's signature and I was like, maybe Happy Birthday Billy assigned, but I don't care. His name out, wrote Corey. That book was really important for me, because when I was chasing those Water Dragons, and and I was reading that they could hold their breath underwater for an hour and things like that, in that book, I would sit there with a little stopwatch, and I would chase war drags into dams. And I would, you know, I'd time it, make sure it was right, you know. But yeah, these were things that I did when I was a kid. And I learned how to read off these books. So, you know, when other kids were reading the Hungry Caterpillar, I was just reading science books.
Julia Zemiro 6:17 And did you know at that time, did you make a link that that was science? Or was it just something that kids did? Where you grew up? Was it an indigenous experience,
Corey Tutt 6:28 I don't think it was an indigenous experience or, or a science experience and such it was, it was probably me trying to contend with the bad things in my childhood and invest my energy into something that was positive. You know, a lot of kids will like me when growing up like we we sometimes grow out of it, some of us don't. And I feel like I was always connected to the culture and people.
Julia Zemiro 6:54 Is it true that a career advisor once said to you that kids like you don't go to uni, and they should stick to a trade,
Corey Tutt 7:00 I don't wish any ill harm or, or any bad wields his career advisor, he was just trying to help me, I think he, I think it was yelled, I'm going to give this kid a whack with a metaphorical stick. And that will be the thing that that drives him to do more. And it probably had the opposite effect. To be honest, when I sat across this career advisor, and I sat in this over, you know, this, this poorly designed chair that was, you know, had this poor fabric on it. And I looked across at him and I said, I wanted to be a zookeeper or wildlife documentary. And the third option was ABC sports commentator, because I thought it was pretty easy. And I could find the other two. I think at that moment, I felt very determined that I would not, you know, I would not take his advice, because I know if I, if I had worked in a trade, I would have been hopeless at it. And I really was desperate to become a zookeeper. And as you do you troll through social media when you're a kid, especially when you're a teenager, born in my time, which was MySpace, and Facebook. And when it first came out, and I saw this crazy woman with a rifle standing above a snake, and she was in this place called Boyup. Brook. And she was just, you know, a really nice lady who runs this wildlife sanctuary that that's just killing Snakes on a property. And I was like, Ah, I ended up organizing to go over to Rigali and Boyup Brook, which is 3885 kilometers from my house, didn't contact my mother or family members for three weeks. And I went over there and look, that moment for me, I, as soon as I got over there, I was introduced to this, this woman who was kind of older and her name was Norma, and she had a husband called Jim and his dog named Holly and Norma and Jim, were the first people in my life that had ever shown me love that was unconditional. But, you know, they were just proud that I was going in and working this wildlife sanctuary. And I remember that, you know, I didn't have even make toasts. To be honest, I couldn't even make you a cup of tea. And normally didn't judge me or anything like that. Normally, people would sort of laugh at someone if they didn't know how to do that. But she kind of knew that I, I didn't get shown a lot growing up, because why what how could I, you know, my mom was a single mom. And we were, you know, we were sort of moving around a lot. You know, she didn't learn those things. So how could she possibly teach me and how was he there? I was 16.
Julia Zemiro 9:41 So you've gone there all by yourself.
Corey Tutt 9:43 I've gone there all by myself. And yeah, I get a bit sad when I talk about Jim and omocha said now pass, but they were the first people that I ever met that, that didn't care. They didn't care about the baggage. I didn't care that I was from Dapto. They didn't care that I was indigenous. You know, they cared about me as a person, and from that moment from working at that wildlife sanctuary, and by the time I came back and started at narrow Wildlife Park, Jim and Norma sent me messages every single week until April last year, telling me how proud they were. They followed my journeys, they, you know, they rode the highs, and they stuck by me with the lows. And I will never ever forget what they did for me as a 16 year old and but you know, I fast forward and I'm, I'm back in narrow and I'm working at shore haven to
Julia Zemiro 10:35 how did you get that job? How did you know to find that we use looking through for jobs? Or was it a word of mouth thing
Corey Tutt 10:42 someone had, had bumped into me that worked at Taronga Zoo, and they were very keen to have me. But unfortunately, I lived in narrow, and I lived very, very far away from Mosman. And I, you know, I made the decision that it was going to be too hard because I had my red pays, but it wasn't like I couldn't drive up from now every day. So I applied for volunteer position at narrow Wildlife Park and Shoalhaven Zoo. And I remember the first day I had there, and I just come back from boy out broke, I'd come back from Western Australia, I had all this experience that, you know, I fought that I was, you know, not, I thought I was just really confident and I was really happy. And you know, it was easily the the most like it was the happiest morning in my life so far that I remember it because I got up at 5am I was meant to start at age, I got up at 5am I cooked a massive breakfast. I wore a button up shirt, which I was so proud. Like, I was just like, you know, for me, it was i i brought new shoes I you know, I had saved up to this was my first day as a zookeeper and the start of everything for me. And I remember I was sitting there and I was sitting under the, you know, under the walkway there and I was waiting for the head keeper to turn up and he turns up and he goes, Why are you so early? And I was like, because I'm keen. I'm very keen to get started, like, let's go, let's get into it. And he's like, no, no, no, settle down. And, you know, he, you know, him and I have friends now. But we had a we had a running battle. He often called me names, often, yeah, often told me that I shouldn't do zoo keeping and, and things like that. But, you know, again, I was determined to prove him wrong. You know, I was so determined to prove him wrong and get myself a zoo, a paid position and a zoo keeping uniform. And the day that the owner gave me my first narrow Wildlife Park shirt, I've still got it today in my cupboard. And because it was an our wildlife park back then, and it looked like Swiss cheese, and it had so many holes in it. I even had 10 spots because of how many holes that had in this shirt. And I was so proud of that. It was I've done it, you know, I've done it. This is the thing that it was it was my dream. I loved it. You know again, sometimes Julia that things happen and life can slip quickly, you know, change on it can change in a second then I'd had a best friend that had volunteered with the zoo. And he him and I started at the same time and he he eventually got kicked out because he he had sort of had some issues at the zoo and like it was the first time I'd met someone that was on my level that I was I was friends with and you know we we got along really well we actually got like got a similar tattoo on our left shoulder. You know we weird we're gonna move in together and because you know we're gonna do the zoo keeping thing and we had all these plans but then he had committed suicide and he had hung himself in a house that we're meant to move into. And
Julia Zemiro 14:08 sorry to hear that Corey that must have been a horrible thing to witness.
Corey Tutt 14:11 It changed everything for me. It changed everything for me and it was the second time in my life that I'd experienced death at a really young age and and not just you know older people actual young people dying and it hit me a lot harder than the accident that I'd witnessed when I was a kid because I was an adult now I was 18 What do you do when you're a baby face a 10 year old when you've you've lost your best mate and I think that you know the things I ignored at the zoo like the low pay rates the over hours we work the you know the things you have to deal with that, you know that zoo keepers have to deal with on a daily basis that aren't you know, there aren't glamorous, the zoo, the zoo life is not glamorous at all. Those are things that I decide that I, I didn't like that much anymore. I didn't have the motivation. I was struggling with my why, why am I doing this? Why was this my passion and you know, even seeing a blue tongue lizard just didn't you know, I get so much energy even now when I see a cool animal that I haven't seen in ages. And I lost that. And that is a really scary thing that is like losing, you know, it's like looking in the mirror and seeing someone completely different. I saw an ad in the the Illawarra mercury. I feel a bit stupid now talking about it. But I got in my best low suit, which was my year 10 formal suit at 18. And I got off to this guy's house and I rang up and he said, you've got an interview on Monday. So I went to his house. And he I walked in and I had a cup of tea in his eye. So you sat in Monday, and I like, what, what and I worked out quite later that I was the only person that applied. So I felt a bit stupid wearing my formal suit and to give the listeners a brief description of what my formal suit looked like. I was a massive Good Charlotte fan, where I had white volleys, white belt, black pants, white suspenders, and a white tie in a white hat. And it was a bit it was a bit of a good child. And so it's a bit of a punk. So I wore that to the alpaca
Julia Zemiro 16:22 interview and what was the job you're going to be a shear of
Corey Tutt 16:25 alpacas is no an alpaca handler.
Julia Zemiro 16:27 I handle up bright
Corey Tutt 16:29 James had been a bit creative with the title. Because he had had no like he had no people applying for this job. Wow. Anyway, we I get there and it's my first day. So the first packet that comes out, they show me how to put it down safely they go this is how you boil it down safely cuz you got to tie them down. And to show them safely. And I'm like, Oh, yep, got this. I've been feeding a formula crocodile for the last year and a half. Um,
Julia Zemiro 16:56 you know, thanks. I've
Corey Tutt 16:57 got I've got it. Yeah, it's gonna be fine. And little did I know that the first alpaca that I'll go and she would headbutt me in the face, and crack my cheekbone. And I'm crying like I'm bawling my eyes out, like trying not to cry, but I'm more crying but I'm fine. You know, James asked me if I'm right. And he could see my he could see my face, like swelling up. Little did I know that that moment with James would be my unofficial counseling where he, he was like the father, I never had in the sense that he was someone I could talk to that I was stuck sitting next to for 12 hours a day, in the car driving between jobs. And in time, time went slow. When when my best friend had time was going very, very fast. And he slowed it down for me. And I think that sharing saved my life. If it wasn't for James, I don't think I would be here. Like that's a really tough thing to comprehend. Because if I hadn't met him at that time, at that point in my life, would he have had the impact on me that he has? Probably not.
Julia Zemiro 18:05 When did deadly science come into play? When's that sort of starting up in your head?
Corey Tutt 18:10 When deadly science started, I was working as an animal technician at the University of Sydney and I started talking to these kids in Redfern and Waterloo. And we'll talk about any everything I would, you know, I'd show them some of the stuff that I was doing. I'll tell them about the researchers, I would show them on my iPhone, all this science stuff that you know was going on. And they were just so intrigued. They loved them. They were so you're and the moment that I was doing that I felt the love again that I had when I was at the zoo the days where I was so happy that I nothing could change anything for me like I was so in like I was so in the zone. And one of the kids said to me is how come I didn't get these opportunities? And this is like this is deadly. And this is science? How come I didn't get these opportunities. And, you know, I, I sort of thought about it. And then I started Googling remote schools and, and just I found out that our schools are just completely under resourced with STEM. And we naturally told Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids that sport and art are the only ways to be successful. And how about I just send you some books and this one school had 15 books in its whole school. And I ended up you know, going to Demyx and dropping down a k gets a grant of solid hard cash. And I purchased so many books that I could barely carry them out of the shop. And I sent those books at school. And I it was it was something in me that clicked because there was one school that that said hey, how about you send books to my school? My friends over here because we need more science books and more equipment and things like that. And I started a second job I worked at the handrolled pet hotels up at Duffy's force and I scrubbed and cleaned candles, I acted as a receptionist. So I probably act as a security guard at times as well. I worked really hard for a number of months I, I did things like, you know, jobs for mates, I sold some of my possessions. You know, I, I did things like that I worked extra hours. I think I sold my TV at one point to pay for these books. And then it was married and large. And actually, I met a friend, Dr. Karl. And he gave me some books. And then Mary and largers. Like you should set up a GoFundMe because people would people donate to this, you know, people like want to help you like,
Julia Zemiro 20:41 GoFundMe is such a great way to get something started. I mean, everyone's happy to chip in 10 or $20. And then if everybody does it, then you can really make something of it.
Corey Tutt 20:51 And yeah, little did I know why before like I was, I started putting it online, what I was doing, and I like at that point, I probably sent about 2000 books off, or so putting it online. And I, you know, I put this GoFundMe in place, and I was happy with just 500 bucks to be honest, because I was spending so much money on books and things. And I ended up becoming friends with this thing, this fella called Brian Cox on Twitter. And he was all right, like, you know, he's right. Yeah, he's nice. And he gave me some books. And I met him. And I didn't really know the protocol. I didn't coined Professor Cox or anything like that as a Braun.
Julia Zemiro 21:35 If you're not sure who he's talking about, it's Brian Cox, of course, from television, and him and I worked together on stargazing, and yeah, that was, that's what Twitter is for Cory, isn't it? You just go, why not just ask, he can only say no,
Corey Tutt 21:52 I gave him a blackfella handshake. And I'm not sure he was ready for that. But, you know, it grew from there. And I, I had this email come up on my phone, and I was like, and I remember really well, you have been nominated for Young Australian of the Year and I'm what, what the hell is that? Wow, I didn't even know what it was. And I ended up going and I sort of said to my mom, I'm like, you know, mom, I'd really like you to come with me, you know, to the award ceremony because I feel like you deserve to see your son and or your daughter, you know when saying worthwhile and and I wanted to bring it because I I just wanted her to I just wanted her to have a proud moment. You know, she's she hasn't always had the best and you know, and she came along and and Gladys read my name out. I went up i waddled up the stairs because I was very excited. I was very nervous. And I sat down and I handed my honor roll to my mom. I'm like, This is yours. And you know, I was gonna be honest, Julie, I was gonna have a couple of cheeky freebies and say, Wow, well done. pat myself on the back. But before I knew it, my Gladys Virgie Clinton had read my name out again. And she is like, and the youngest strolling is for New South Wales, Cory Todd, and it's like, I got up on stage and I'm like most boot shoes be kind to your mum. Yeah, and it was just like, my life changed from that moment.
Julia Zemiro 23:23 It's true that an award like an Australian of the Year young Australian, the it brings incredible opportunity, but baggage as well. Sometimes it's a big responsibility. And you say your life changed in what ways?
Corey Tutt 23:35 One, I had a camera in my face. When the time I got dragged. As soon as I got off stage, I didn't get to say anything to my partner had to deal with the expectation of this looming event where I was up against ash body, the world number one in tennis.
Julia Zemiro 23:53 What was another Australian of the Year? Well, she
Corey Tutt 23:56 was a finalist, she was the Queensland Australian of the Year and a finalist for the National one. And to be honest, I, I don't think I handled it as well as what I could have. But, you know, the the thing is, is that you only get to do these things once and I quickly learned that I could utilize my award and, and the trophy and stuff and I can go out to schools and I could put a bit of gaffer tape of my name, which sounds really bizarre. And I could let kids hold it and I could let them tell me why they should be the Australian, the and the answer is we're I'm kind of my mom. I'm kind to you know, my people in the playground. I, I, you know, I do the right thing. And, and these are the reasons why they deserve to be and there's the reasons why I deserve to be as well and everyone so
Julia Zemiro 24:46 lately, you said something before, it's very interesting. You said we often expect that Indigenous kids will thrive in sport or art. There's this notion that but that other stuffs too hard or beyond that. that must be met you sign. I mean, it's just a ridiculous thing to think, isn't it?
Corey Tutt 25:04 I remember I had a remote school once, contact me, and it was the teacher from that school. And I, you know, as I do I normally talk to the principal and I say, what do you need, and this principal turn around and told me that don't bother sending resources here, because our kids will never learn. And it's, you know, and I'm like, Why is this person in a job, and I had a quite a big extensive argument with this principle. Problem, or at least give these kids a chance, you know, lease, work with them, why try and work with them don't occupy a space where you are, you know, you are trying to mentor these kids into a future, but you will not accept resources because you don't think your kids deserve them. So it's never been easy. I've made mistakes along the way. Like, I've like anyone.
Julia Zemiro 25:55 I think if you don't make mistakes, you don't learn and at least it's worth trying. And stuffing it up sometimes, because, you know, it's pretty hard having an argument with a principal and I toured high schools doing Shakespeare in high schools when I was 27. And did two years of at different schools, you know, all over the all throughout the year, you know, driving it all van in all four of us and, and put up 200 chairs and do Shakespeare for kids. And, you know, you'd walk into some schools, and it's so funny, the vibe you would get from a head teacher or a principal would absolutely tell you what that school was about. And, yeah, I mean, some of the we just go, you know, and say hopeless, no, don't don't get any of it. You thinking, wow, well, we're here, we're gonna do it anyway. But let's surprise you. And always at the end of the show, always a teacher would come up and say, I cannot believe when you ask for volunteers, that that particular kid put his or her hand up, because they could do anything and you thinking, Yeah, well, maybe because they used to, they're in a new environment with new people.
Corey Tutt 26:57 So me also, like the T, like, teachers are great, they're worth their weight in gold, but they can quickly become burnt out. And I quickly found because of the lack of resources and support, and it's it flows down. So any of those teachers I actually have a lot of sympathy for. Because if you're burnt out that much, then it's taken a while for you to get to that point, because most teachers are starting off to make things better for our kids. And, and, you know, like, there was moments along the way, especially that after I won, you know, the the award that I had started a new job two weeks in, and I literally won that award, the second week, I was there. So all of a sudden, I was, you know, the highest achieving staff member within, you know, and this was like, you know, I'm really sorry, I can't do my job right now. Because I have to go and do this thing with SPS or deleting this ABC. And I love talking to the media, like I love it. Because I get to talk about these kids in the work. But then there was this expectation that I do my job, but also the other people in my year, especially at my employer saying, no, no, we want you to do this media thing. But we don't want to fund deadly science and we don't want to fund you. But we want you to do this media thing. And, you know, I think I've gotten better at enjoying the moment more. So when when I won this Eureka this time around, I was actually the calmest I've ever been. Because I knew that everything I've gone through to this moment right now has been for a reason. And now my reason is and my why is to help inspire these kids to be to be good people, and hopefully tomorrow be good scientists.
Julia Zemiro 28:48 Absolutely. Where's it at now? Deadly science. So what I suppose what's next for it? Or is there do you see an end and then you go and do something else?
Corey Tutt 29:00 That's a really tough question. But I like next to deadly science is that I've just hired two or three new people that, you know, I've only had, like, I've only had the one employee and that wasn't me. And I had to learn. I started paying myself, which is something that I never thought could be a thing. Yeah. Even though I was putting all this hours in, so I'm learning how to be a boss. Now I'm learning how to be the difference between being a caring boss and being someone that that needs to leave as well. And also someone that you know, let someone else take over the steering wheel for a bit because, you know, as a friend, Dr. Carr would say, micro sleeps can get you at any time. But for me, it's um, you know, I I'm starting to transition deadly science into getting more voices in so that he can, he can be a sustainable entity on its own, and I can focus on the good stuff I do. In cosmic vertigo with Carly noon and, and zooming the kids and, you know, just enjoying, like, when you do something like deadly science, there's three things that happen. You find your, you find yourself doing way too many hours, because you're so passionate. It's like being it's like having the latest Harry Potter book and you want to stay up and read as much as you can, but you're tired. But also you, you get an appreciation for what is out there. And also, the third one is that you burn out, you burn out very, very easily. And there's not many people that are going to pick you up when you burn out. So you need to support yourself with the people that can. And for me, I don't really want to be sitting in the seat of CEO in 10 years time. I want one of my deadly scientists to be sitting in there and I want it to be so good that it employs them. And they can continue to support the next generation beyond me and if I'm if I'm still around, and I'm sure I will be. I hope that I'm there to support them. And I'm there that I'm that person pick them up when they're burnt out.
Julia Zemiro 31:15 Thank you so much, Corey. Certainly 30 years of age already done so much. And yeah, I particularly love that comment at the end about burnout. You know, it's you can reach incredible heights in your work and in your life. And there's always going to be lows and in betweens, but burnout is a real issue. And when you work that hard off your own bat, you've got to look after yourself and put yourself first sometimes and I want to give out the lifeline number for anybody who might need it. One Three double 114 is a number if anything came up for you listening to that interview one three double 114 And that's a lifeline
Dan Ilic 31:58 what up Jay Z asked who cares? Sure, boy, Jay Z makes nice. No bad Jay Z jewelers zero. This is Julia zero asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 32:08 Next up, I'm talking with Haley McGuire. She's a proud damsel and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton. She's got a passion for working with young people to be critical and active drivers in their own education ecosystem. Where Indigenous ways of knowing being and doing are embedded and tied to the aspirations of both indigenous nations and their young people. To drive this work. She co founded the National indigenous youth education coalition, which is a growing collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to reclaim their indigenous rights to education. She's also an Obama Foundation leader in the Asia Pacific. But I started asking her about she was once a presenter at her local Mary radio station in Rockhampton.
Hayley McQuire 33:03 Yeah, well, actually, that was my first introduction to doing real I guess community, grassroots work. And, you know, as a millennial, I think we often get pictured as we don't even like to do phone calls. And that was definitely me. And so doing community radio forced me to actually speak to people, the under text message, and it's really built really foundational communication skills that I'm so thankful for.
Julia Zemiro 33:32 Did you have a good experience of education growing up?
Hayley McQuire 33:37 I think it was overall, positive, you know, education for, like, my family and for my parents was a priority. Because it was seen as that tool that we know that me and my siblings could use to, you know, support ourselves in the long run. But there are times when I look back on my educational experiences. And you see that, yeah, there are some things where he could see the inequity. And a lot of that has really come in hindsight, not so much when you're in the moment. Just little things like during my work experience, and in high school, and I wanted to be a teacher, I went back to my old primary school, you just see, like, the little differences in how kids are being treated or like the different expectations of Aboriginal kids. And that's not to say like there was malicious or any ill intent there. But yeah, I feel like there could have been things that were better.
Julia Zemiro 34:47 It's often said that historically, education for indigenous and Torres Strait Island people has been about assimilation and control. What is what's the state of it at the moment do you Think
Hayley McQuire 35:01 I think those, that legacy is still ongoing. You know, like, right now we're having a conversation about what we teach the next generation about the truth of our history, right? We have an education minister who was calling for a patriotic curriculum that gives a fair and that doesn't present a negative view of the past, because that might cause further indecision. But, you know, I questioned that completely, because, one, in first and foremost, it's about the experiences of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander students in the classroom. And this was an experience I had when you go into your history classroom. And you're told that Captain Cook discovered Australia that you're founded as a nation of convicts, and that's the Australian story. Well, that doesn't include, you know, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people pre colonization, but also our fights for rights in a fair quality, fair society, land rights, all of the fight, everything that Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people have achieved in this country has been fought for by our, our mob, you know, and to say that, for us wanting to fight for freedom is presenting is not consistent with that view, or a patriotic Australia, I think, is really unfair. So we see that, you know, we see this, the way that the story that we want to tell ourselves as continuing a colonial narrative, right through to, you know, our measurements of success, you know, for Aboriginal touchdown, the kids, when you think about educational success, you think attendance rates, or school retention, those are just indicators, those aren't the markers of what a good quality education is, for our people, or how we see that, you know, if you've been fortunate enough to see me in my blood, it runs film, you'll see how like this focus, hyper focus on school attendance, and actually having those metrics map to then welfare payments, that will impact a whole family, this kind of control is still continuing. And it's continuing in a lot of different ways.
Julia Zemiro 37:29 Our education minister, Alan Tudge, is, is living in a kind of an era, like the conservative 50s with the way he speaks about this constant attention to patriotism, I mean, that I don't relate to that at all. It's like everything in the government at the moment, they're completely out of touch with the fact that we have to start doing things in a new way. We have to start seeing and I I can't understand why people can't get excited by that, instead of being isn't change awful. It's like it's some changes, good. And surely anything that is inclusive, and everything that is investigating, and being curious, again, about where we've been is a good thing.
Hayley McQuire 38:07 Yeah. And I feel like, there's so many opportunities that we have to actually be leaders on a world stage, we could be leaders on climate action on a world stage. You know, we could be leaders in investing in indigenous self determined nation building and, and systems and structures that are innovative, you know, like, the Aboriginal medical services, and the origins of those are innovative, they're innovative in providing primary health care. Even the ways that we think about, you know, indigenous education and some of the work that's already happening in this space around making sure Ling Ling learning is connected, the country is connected to place, it's grounded in a holistic view of the whole Well, being of a student. You know, these are this is innovation, you know, that's coming out of indigenous communities every day. But yeah, it's it's so unfortunate, that we seem to be stifling that progress for some kind of backward ideology. We're recording
Julia Zemiro 39:25 this just before cop, part of what those of us who do believe in climate change we'd like to see is, you know, joining the rest of the world in terms of calling for changes that have to happen in terms of climate and renewables, but in involved in that has to be an understanding of or isn't this now a time to also say, how do we now really connect with our history on indigenous people what we've done what we can be, and get that treaty and get a statement from the heart where we can be united like we want to be united?
Hayley McQuire 39:58 Yeah, well, I think this thing to which people might forget about that happened with colonization is that, you know, we had a learning system and knowledge system that came from country that came from observing country and how it changed how it worked over 1000s and 1000s of years, and that's then built our identity, our culture's our ways of being and connecting. And with colonization, we brought in western education system, Western forms of Parliament, Western sciences, which were disconnected from country, you know, and so when we look at the impacts that climate change has on country, the systems that we're working in operating in, in Australia, are fundamentally at the foundational level, disconnected, you know, and so, yeah, it's about learning that history, but also, we need to think about that actually, our connection to our environment, and our connection to land, and seas and our waterways, plays a part in who we are as human beings. And as people. As long as that, you know, disconnection continues, and it continues through the different systems that uphold like our current society and the way that society works, we're not going to make the change that we need, you know, so I think it's a whole, it's a cultural change, as well,
Julia Zemiro 41:39 when I listen to you speak highly, I just think how incredible would it be? How normal should it be? How right it would be to have 15 of you in Parliament today, reminding us of that, reminding us that this is where you're living now, this is what this is. And making us connect again, it's finding connections again, with this, as you say, this country and nature, and looking after her and and also undoing trying to well, we can undo a bit try to give back in terms of what we've taken away from your people. And in terms of the incredible harm we've done as well.
Hayley McQuire 42:22 We have some incredible representation inside Parliament right now. But yeah, I feel like there's, there's so many moms out there who are young and who are doing this work at the grassroots level, even though in Parliament, it would be great. But um, there is a lot of work happening. And I think some of the people that are leading the way in this space is definitely seed, and really Telford at the who's leading that first ever grassroots Youth Climate Action Group. So but that's just one example of many really, yeah,
Julia Zemiro 42:58 to drive this work you're trying to do you co founded the National indigenous youth education coalition. And that's a growing collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to try and reclaim that, indeed, to try and reclaim I can't believe I have to say the sentence reclaiming indigenous rights to education, it's, it's so awful to have to even say that, that you don't have that. But what does that look like? How's that different?
Hayley McQuire 43:22 Well, I think the ultimate goal for us, in our mind is where we see a First Nations lead education system, you know, whatever that model is, or I mean, you know, we're still trying to figure that out. But basically, you know, in our current education, ecosystem, we have like a broad network of public schools, we've got independent schools, Catholic schools, why not? Why can't Why haven't we yet had support for a First Nations education system where, you know, local communities can actually think about how do they want to govern in deliver education on their country, one to preserve, you know, our cultural heritage, our languages and culture, however, that nation sees fit, but also to really invest in indigenous pedagogy that has been caring for this continent since time immemorial, you know, and I think at that level, there's so much that can be gained for all children to have access and opportunity to an education system that's being led by First Nations people. And you know, we often hear about like the importance of integration and you know, embedding Aboriginal tertia and perspectives into whole of systems or curriculum and yes, that's important, but we also need to think about the power dynamic. Mix at play. And through First Nations lead education system we're trying to make sure Well, we wanting to make sure that at that leadership governance level, that the power sets were first nations people in communities.
Julia Zemiro 45:15 My dad is French, and my mum's Australian. She made him overseas. And then we came to Australia. By chance, my primary school, my Ozzie primary school, had some French classes in it. So I did all my primary school in French. And I remember my parents being so thrilled that even though we weren't in France, I would be able to retain my French language. And it only occurred to me in the last few years. Why should I have the luxury of learning my language that is miles away on the other side of the world? And we weren't all as kids learning one of the many indigenous languages. I mean, it's it's so heartbreaking, Hayley. It's so heartbreaking, that that, that that was available in the 70s. And Greek school was available for kids on a Saturday. Yeah. And you couldn't learn an indigenous language anywhere. And we're lucky to have people like Stan Grant's father who, you know, tried to, you know, got that like that his language back and fought hard to make that happen. It's the inequity discontent, because, you know, you would you're thinking of that wave of migrants needed that support, but indigenous people needed that support, too.
Hayley McQuire 46:29 Yeah, and it, and it's like, that's the thing, I think, the principles around that, like, of course, you would want all young people to be able to retain that sense of self and, and connect to who they are, you know, but that same opportunity has just never been fully given to First Nations people at like, at a systemic level, I should say, you know, there has been like that grassroots movement, you know, and innovation, you know, that community members have fought for, and I think that's the great thing about the national indigenous youth education coalition is that we do get to inherit, you know, like, the activism that came through, you know, when they had a few Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander schools set up, you know, there is more, I think, public, yeah, acceptance of these rights, like you're demonstrating yourself, Julia, but it's that next is that next level now that I feel like us as young people responsible for and you know, for Aboriginal, especially young people, you know, were responsible for passing down this longest continuing culture in the world, while also facing down really complex, global challenges, like climate change, that, you know, are threatening our cultural heritage sites, or, you know, like globalization and just the tensions that that brings, or different changing kind of technology, like all these really hard issues, and then we have to think about it within the ways that this Australian government continues to treat our people, we're operating in a really complex environment, but I feel like I'm very fortunate that we've got, we stand on the shoulders of giants, really, there seems
Julia Zemiro 48:37 to be a common theme to that it's, it's your generation and down that are having to do the heavy lifting. And I for one, just want to keep saying to people, I'm here to help, like if you need sandwiches made, or you need some faxing, done, because that's my era, but don't ask me to send any complicated emails. But I mean, you know, I feel like you're just a beautiful speaker. It's I'm so heard you on many, many different podcasts like this. And, and I love it when you say that we need a stronger educational dialogue in this country. And I would certainly say that for non Indigenous education as well. I think they're kind of getting it wrong. I think that's sort of losing traction, like what are you making people for the future? How you making people for the future? And indeed, this indigenous way in this indigenous way of looking at things is actually more progressive would be more useful?
Hayley McQuire 49:28 Yeah, I think it's funny you say that like, and, again, like, I completely agree. I've been able to do some work with learning creates Australia, which is a growing alliance of different businesses, educators, you know, education providers and policymakers across the country who are wanting to connect together over what is that future of learning in Australia? And that's, yeah, that's been really positive and we've made sure that we've centered you know that first nations self determinations. And sovereignty is part of that piece of work. But really, it's it's so fundamental, you know, I feel like sometimes, and I'm, I've only been a parent for five years now. But I feel like, as you become a parent, too, you want to try and outsource things as much as you can. But you know, we can't get we, we can't look at education the same way where it's something that we outsource to the States or to the state, really, we really have to think about our young people. And that future that they're going to inherit, like, like I said before, is what the situation of Aboriginal touch on the young people is, all young people are facing a really complex future, and we don't even know what the future jobs are going to look like, or what's the future society is going to look like? And so we have to think about, well, what are those core values that we want all young people to inherit? What if we think about, you know, our future generations, like, six, seven generations from now? What do you want that society to look like? Because, really, that's what our knowledge systems do, is they connect us to those people in the future that we're not going to meet? You know, how do we? How do we want to tell them about ourselves, but also what we hope we want them to be able to? to do? You know, like, that's why I feel like education is just so fundamental, and also quite beautiful in but yeah, we are operating with in a system that came out of, you know, the last industrial revolution, revolution, you know, like, it's 150 year old kind of model. And when we look into the future, well, is this Is it adequate? You know, yeah,
Julia Zemiro 52:07 Is it adequate guy I was looking at, you know, in general, in high schools, you know, you're doing your English, Mathematics, Science and Technology, you'll do your human society in its environment. That's one of them, Personal Development, Health, Physical Education, creative arts, languages, if you're lucky, vocational education and training, geography, you know, where's the critical thinking in that, you know, where we teachers already talk about how, because my mom was a teacher, she was a language teacher, and teachers, you know, 2530 years ago, talk about how they could do their subject. They could do this subject, but they could also, you know, go off track and maybe do other bits do something real like they might do civics or they might do politics, or they might do how Parliament work at Parliament House work. So and now there's a sense that you're really quite boxed in now you are you really have to concentrate on your, on your subject. And there's, there's also no time there's way more admin now as well. And the Teachers Federation is constantly talking about pay rises, teachers haven't been their pay hasn't increased in so long, and, and yet, during the pandemic, I would have thought this was the time when everybody would have looked at teachers and gone off. That's what they do. They're incredible.
Hayley McQuire 53:23 Yeah, I feel like teachers should be. Yeah, valued just as much as we value our health practice practitioners in a way. And, you know, I think, yeah, it's, it's so you're so right, in terms of just like, those are the common things that we hear about, you know, the crowded curriculum, or, you know, the additional stress that educators have put on da. And I just think to like, taking a step back, like, you know, the type of inequity that is faced here, education system, too. We know that we got one of the most socially segregated education systems in the OECD. So the type of education that you're going to have access to, if you're from a low economic household is going to be completely different to those with wealth or who live in particular areas. You know, some of this comes through, you know, depending on you know, your situation, sometimes you don't even have that choice, over the type of education that you can give to your child. You know, those are really like, hard issues when you think about, like the importance of having a good quality, public education, you know, that's accessible to all young people and where teachers with the In that, you know, do you have a level of agency? And do you feel like they're being recognized in and rewarded? Yeah, I feel like subjects are a great way to explore content. But yeah, I think another issue that comes along is the pathway that we tend to put all young people on is towards a university pathway, which is well or bad. But when you get to those senior secondary years, there's a strong emphasis on like, your type of aches task, or you get the way that those are reined in calculated, a, you know, it's the system kind of maintaining itself. And so we need to also think about, well, how do we create broader metrics and broader ways of recognizing all the fantastic things that young people knowing can do? Like if they don't work in the arts? Or, you know, if they're a musician, or if they've done so much work for their communities? You know, how are we really recognizing that and giving currency, to the richness of that those experiences and knowledge is that young people have broader than just a, you know, a 99, on an ATAR.
Julia Zemiro 56:19 I know, I mean, I went to an acting school, you know, try that for all the acting schools got into one in Melbourne. And I was 24, by the time I got there, and the way they taught, I learned how to learn there, basically, because I finally got that, oh, you can learn by watching. Or you can learn by doing, or you can learn by it's not just all by reading and writing. And that's important. We don't just learn you got to do things if I physically don't do something. So, you know, should we be spending eight hours or six hours a day inside? Maybe that some of that time should be outside? What does the First Nations lead education system look like to you? Like if you're if you had your wildest dreams, and something wacky happened, like, I became prime minister and said, Yeah, we're making tertiary, secondary and primary free. Go for the army, the smart country, and I've gone highly Yes, here you go. Instead of spending money on submarines, you may have this money. And let's do something interesting. Is there a kind of a, a dream scenario to begin with?
Hayley McQuire 57:25 Yeah, well, for me, like, I always think about it in terms of, I think I've used enough time, I don't know if I'll reach the scope for my daughter, but hopefully my grandchild or great granny, but I do, I do want them to be able to go, like, my idea is that we'd have our own to rumble school on terrible country, and that the classroom wouldn't necessarily be the four walls and the chairs, like, yeah, that would be an option, but spending a lot of time on country where they can, I feel like just get getting that grounding of who they are as a charitable person, and like, the different responsibilities we have to country, I think would be the foundation of that curriculum. I don't think that I'd get rid of like, the school bell. I like full lunches, and recess and stuff like that. 100% Yeah. And like, you know, yeah, I just, I don't know why that's the thing, but get rid of the school bell. And I'd see it as more like, integrated with the community, you know, like, yeah, like, I'd see, like, Where could they be possibilities for shared space, you know, where community can where the school is vital hub, you know, of other community services. And, you know, like, there are great examples happening like the Murray school, they have health services run out of the school, or I'd like to see like communal, like libraries and, and that kind of stuff. But really, it's just something where there's not like that invisible wall, between the school and in the space that it's operating in. That's what I'd want to see and where all children but especially young, like Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kids, don't feel like they have to hide a bit of them, or they don't feel like they have to sacrifice. Like the best of them who they are, in order to succeed at school,
Julia Zemiro 59:34 but also to be bold and loud in it. I want to be bold and loud, like any other kid is and make noise in that language or make noise in my identity and not be told off because, you know, I'm an Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander kid doing that. Yeah, you know, there's a theory that you know, teenagers would be better off starting school at nine or 10am or later because they need the sleeping what are they in there at 7:30am doing for you know, whatever. they could start at 10. And finish at five. Because it suits the more you know, this is very western also idea about, well, you will if meet your means you're working hard if you're up at seven o'clock you're already in, then you're swamped. 20 laps. And you've done this and done that. And I really thought that COVID would be this incredible reminder. And people are talking about about I don't want to go back to how busy I was before what has busy even mean.
Hayley McQuire 1:00:27 Yeah. i The thing is, if it's if it can happen on Zoom, I'll be happy.
Julia Zemiro 1:00:36 Where do you see yourself? In the next 10 years? You know, you're, you're someone who's had the most incredible kind of you know, I mean, you're co founder of the of this indigenous youth education coalition co chair of learning creates Australia, and Obama Foundation leader in the Asia Pacific. Is there a job? Or is there a purpose, something that you feel like your pivot pivot if I can use that hideous COVID word? Pivot? Do you see you see yourself in a different position in 10 years time?
Hayley McQuire 1:01:11 Well, to use another COVID slang? Well, now more than ever, I've realized. Yeah, like in 10 years time, like, I honestly don't know, I know that by that time, I'd want. Like, I'd be out of the coalition and be run by continue to be run by young, younger people. But I think I would love to be able to play a role in I love to convene, and bring different people together around issues where, you know, multiple people aren't satisfied, you know, so whatever that kind of looks like would take shape. I feel like there's power in bringing yet different coalition's of people together. And I think that see, that's the only way forward, you know, Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'd hope to be playing some kind of service type role in that area.
Julia Zemiro 1:02:10 Have you had mentors along the way that have been able to help? And are they hard to find?
Hayley McQuire 1:02:16 Yeah, I've had, I've had a few mentors. And actually, mentoring has been really important to me. And I've just been that weird person. i Well, my first mentor is this incredible Ratterree and one over a woman, Donna Marie, he's also the CEO of indigenous Allied Health Australia. And I remember seeing her speak once in it only took one time. And I think I was like, 20. And as soon as she got off the stage, I just bailed her up and said, Can you please mentor me? And then that's been about 10 years or so now? of mentoring. So yeah, I've had some really powerful mentors, but it's just been more of that informal one. So I've met someone and just, like seeing kind of how they think and Yeah, been been able to, to learn a lot from from a few people. Now.
Julia Zemiro 1:03:15 I sometimes have had mentors who didn't even know they were my mentor. You know, this is someone you admire, and they're in your frame of reference, or maybe they're not even, but you just go Bob cheedo? Yeah, okay. Yeah, you know, this sort of, you kind of align with their system of beliefs, I guess. And you think, you know, like I said, he might be a great lecturer, or might be a great teacher, or even just a work colleague, and you think, yeah, no, she wouldn't. She wouldn't do that she wouldn't do that. And they don't even know. And then I remember years later, telling them and then going, Oh, thanks. You could have come up. And I'm like, Ah, now this. Mentoring just has you say it's touching base with with her and being able to say, I'm thinking of doing it this way. What do you reckon? You know?
Hayley McQuire 1:04:00 Yeah. Yeah. And I've been really lucky that my mentors haven't just been for me individually, but they've kind of come in and mentored, like, a whole night crew. Well, we've been trying to think about strategy, you know, like, you're just volunteering their time to help with our strategic planning or like, help us understand a particular focus or topic, like I've been able to draw on those to really help set the foundations for the coalition as well, which is, I feel like, yeah, that's, that's also the best way to use mentoring is to it's like, it's like being able to draw on your own star advisory team to
Julia Zemiro 1:04:47 really love a star advisory team. Finally, you know, this podcast is called who cares? And I'm trying to get people to kind of care a little bit more in there. Every day life, and there's no data can seem overwhelming. And if you did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you know, I mean, that's what that's what you're asking. But it's just saying, I guess, make a little bit more effort in your own life to challenge your own thinking or challenge your own habits or challenge, what you think is absolutely true. You know, that is the truth. And that well, is it? Because I also think that when we go to this next election, could it be December? Could it be March? Who knows? We don't know. But um, we're voting on lots of things. That way, we're not just voting on climate change, we're voting on how we want to be represented what we want to see. And I keep talking about the election as being like an exam people should study for, you know, you can't be going in there going, God, I didn't look anything up, I've got no idea who anyone is, you want to go in there and make good decisions about, you know, what, who you gonna vote for? And why. But in terms of this new way of looking at education, how can what can what can a person do? Like? What's the way do you start with your local community? Do you is it about donations, you know, I think everyone should be donating some money if they can, and be, you know, be smart about where you put that money, do something good with it,
Hayley McQuire 1:06:15 I'd say like, just think about, you know, education, to me is all about legacy, you know, like, you know, like you think about just even the different things that you get passed down to you within like a family kind of unit, it might be a particular meal that everyone cooks, or, you know, there's something that you do every time, you know, New Year's rolls around. Like, the what we teach, and the values we teach young people is a form of L legacy, you know, you hardly ever meet someone who can't recall their favorite teacher or can't recall a particular moment that they had at school. You know, education is just so powerful in shaping individuals and shaping our society. And so my call to action would be to look at, you know, how the who's going to invest in education, but what kind of education? Do you want an education that only serves to, that seems to be in service to some kind of political ideology? Or do you want to invest in an education that is caring about young people, and caring about young people's futures, because that is ultimately our future that we're, that we're all going to be betting on. So
Julia Zemiro 1:07:45 it's interesting, because when you speak of those traditions, you know, white folks love their traditions of having gone to this school, and I want my son to go to this school, and then my grandson will go to this school, you know, there's this sense of, you know, and there was some English background, whereas apparently, we're not allowed to celebrate the traditions and in your culture. And if yours are so important one, then why isn't an indigenous Torres Strait Islander? That's just as important to you clearly want that. So why don't you allow it in another? And in fact, why not maybe learn about it and be part of it. And I guess, you know, if they can be a Montessori school, and they can be a Steiner School, you know, you know, where people have said, I don't like the way things are done. So we want these separate kind of schools where they do different things where often it is a more experiential way of learning, actually going outside, be more, there's, there's room for it, I just, I really think we're at a point at the moment where we are going to have to do some things so differently, and the change will have to come faster, because it has to come faster. And it's just wondering if people have the courage to do it. And where do you get excited about stop seeing this downside of it? See the upside of it, you know?
Hayley McQuire 1:08:59 Yeah, I agree. I think this is the time where we can actually be asking the people who want to lead this country, what their vision is
Julia Zemiro 1:09:09 here and have one, why not have a vision, please have a
Dan Ilic 1:09:13 vision. Julissa Mira asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 1:09:16 Yes, let's have a vision. Leaders with vision. So we want what we want a bit more than that. Thank you so much, to Haley and to Cory, for doing the podcast this number two out of six podcasts in the next few months, I really have been reflecting on this notion that we are going to have to make some very, very significant changes in terms of climate in terms of wanting to reconcile with the indigenous people of this country to education, you know, how can we look at change as a good thing? How can we look at change as a necessary thing? We have to make so many of them at the moment and Finding a way to maybe switch our thinking to the good that can come out of it, how it called bind us together another the things that will separate us. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Hey, see you next month. Thanks for joining me.
Also on the podcast this week we're joined by friend of the show Brynn O'Brien from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility who broke down the epic battle for controll of the AGL board. A move that could see Australia's emissions drop by 10% in the coming years.
We also talk:
⚽️ The Wold Cup in Qatar. 🐦 Elon Musk's ultimatum to his staff. 🐼💖🦘 Albo restoring diplomatic relations with China. 🩸 Victoria Labor's promise for free pads and tampons.
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening, Lewis.
Lewis Hobba 0:04 Hello Daniel. How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:07 Good now since this since we didn't do a much of a pre show banter, I just needed to make sure you're recording your end.
Lewis Hobba 0:13 Oh, yes, I am recording my Thank you, Dan. Sorry, everyone. I are very patient guests have been waiting awhile. I just forgot. Just forgot that this was on. And do you know what I was doing? I was at an event and I bumped into our friend, everyone's friend, Tom Ballard. And he told us I've got to get to the Comedy Store. I'm like, hey, I'll give you a lift. I've got nothing. And then I was driving him. And there's a there's a soccer game on at the Sydney football stadium. So we got stuck, Punt Road level traffic for like 45 minutes shooting the breeze having a great chinwag. And then I was like, Are you close? I'm like, I am not close.
Dan Ilic 0:56 Well, that is fantastic. We have a football theme show for tonight. Big thank you to Australia fickle who are sponsoring the show. And also congratulations to Carmen champion and Kate millat. From the Patreon who signed up this week, they get a picture of the King each. You may remember last week, I ordered some pictures of the king. Well, congratulations, Calvin and Kate, they go into you also big thanks to Sonya and Patrick who missed out on pictures of the king. But they tried anyway.
Lewis Hobba 1:21 Dan, have the pictures of the King include the Kings hands? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen his hands? Oh, yeah, they look like Frank Frankfurt's. Right, they're horrific. And he you know how he keeps getting angry about webapp pens. He can't hold a pen.
Dan Ilic 1:39 Well, you know what? I will, I will send a pen and some Frankfurt's along to Kate the garment as well. So I'm a big thank you, folks on signing up on the Patreon if you want to sign up and support the show, go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. This is a content warning for this show. This show will contain a short impression of a powerful authority figure who happens to have a lisp and if you are offended by such content, this one is not for you. Does he have a lisp? He's got a little speech impediment, but Sybil Adeste Yes, that's right. Well, little bit like my spit bill. Like you know who's got a good sibilance he's got good siblings a bomber. I love a bomb of sibilance Yeah, it's different. It's richer. Yep. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 2:26 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:39 Tonight, White Ribbon organizers canceled plans to have 50 Men ride jet skis around Sydney Harbour to raise awareness about violence against women. Instead, they're gonna have a pop poll, and a sad day for food delivery ecosystems as the beloved Deliveroo has gone extinct. Witnesses say the last ever deliver was seen circling around the apartment block looking for an entrance before giving up and after much controversy. Norman Swan has publicly apologized for his terrible pronunciation of COVID-19 It's the 18th of November with more shuffling of chairs and AGL This is irrational fear.
We're gonna rational fear I'm your host former head of risk at FTX crypto exchange Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the status headlines. It's a little bit of a tickle. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight both and nominated for the Best Comedy podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards. It's returning friend of the show Adelaide funniest medical professional from the swab podcast. It's nurse Georgie Cairo.
Georgie Carroll 3:48 Sofia Good day Dan Lewis.
Dan Ilic 3:51 You go and now Georgie How are you preparing for the for the for the awards, a winner and award mindset coming up this Monday.
Georgie Carroll 3:58 Might might even start listening to podcasts.
Dan Ilic 4:04 And it's first time fear monger flying solo without her twin sister. It's Mamma Mia is editor in chief and host of the canceled podcast. Claire Stevens welcome Claire.
Clare Stephens 4:13 Hello, will I'll be seeing you at the Podcast Awards. One idea.
Dan Ilic 4:17 Oh, excellent. What do you what are you gonna do to get yourself in a podcast award mindset? what's your what's your game?
Clare Stephens 4:22 So my sister and I have decided we're never going to be invited to any other Australian award show like the low gays or the arias. We're never going to make it to the Emmys or anything like that. So we're treating the Podcast Awards as our logins. So we'll be getting really dressed up we'll be going really, really over the top and just making everybody uncomfortable I think is is where it's at. So
Dan Ilic 4:49 it's a shame you know, Richard, Richard Wilkins won't be there to give everyone cocaine it will be real devastating. And the podcast no podcast is gonna afford cocaine nicely. The only ones that can. Tony and Ryan The other ones that can afford cocaine they just did that million dollar deal with Spotify.
Georgie Carroll 5:03 Well, you know a table though to you then don't you Claire? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not even going I'm gonna be in Adelaide so you are rock on without me. And you know I've written a speech because of winning but
Dan Ilic 5:20 well if you want it to want us to do it for you and pass it on to Luis, he'll read it out for you. And he's the co host of many podcasts and rush to irrational fears is one of them. He's a man that makes money because he is the voice of honey. It is Lewis Hall by welcome Louis.
Lewis Hobba 5:32 Hello Dan. How are you? Oh, it's
Dan Ilic 5:35 so he's such a sexy voice.
Lewis Hobba 5:38 Yeah. Next week I'm going to the Podcast Awards and the arias it's a it's a real awards week for me.
Georgie Carroll 5:46 Music jam Lewis, why?
Lewis Hobba 5:48 I don't know why we're there. Actually. Were just there. Were just there. Carpet meet.
Dan Ilic 5:58 Coming up later, we talked to Brynn O'Brien about how a board shuffle at ato could possibly bring about the most dramatic drop in carbon emissions in Australia's history. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor.
Unknown Speaker 6:12 This Sunday, the entire globe descends on Cata for the event no one will talk about it's the turning a blind eye World Cup
Unknown Speaker 6:22 football players ends up picking a chip Patty CIO for the wildcards alleged Oh J Trump, every game as a loser. There are just lots more losers and football teams play Oh, I've seen jockstraps treated better than the construction workers in Qatar
Unknown Speaker 6:38 32 nations will go head to head and then turn their heads to look the other way.
Unknown Speaker 6:44 And they've completely mistakes. Look at that. The exploitation, the corruption, the discrimination, the total inability to buy a beer.
Unknown Speaker 6:54 Which country will rationalize the cost of kicking around a ball on a field in a country without fields
Unknown Speaker 7:01 I've got to say cats are is hosting the most awful job that I've ever refused to witness and the final score is migrant deaths 6500 versus the world
Unknown Speaker 7:12 now, interest get ready to ignore all of the action further turning a blind eye World Cup or ticket will buy you a whole seat that was installed by someone who died of heat exhaustion.
Dan Ilic 7:25 Thank you for that very classy sponsor there. Yes, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicks off this week and much like the living area of Donald Trump Jr's house, there's an elephant in the room. Cat as human rights abuses have well been documented in the lead up to this World Cup and there's you know, heaps of problematic things but the English comedian journalists it has highlighted one of them and is applying pressure in his own unique way. Here is Joe Lysaght. To explain this
Joe Lycett 7:51 is a message to David Beckham. I consider you along with Kim Woodburn and Monty Don to be a gay icon. You're the first premiership footballer to do shoots with gay magazines like attitude to speak openly about your gay fans, and he married a Spice Girl, which is the gayest thing a human being can do. But now it's 2022 and you signed a reported 10 million pound deal with Cata to be their ambassador during the FIFA World Cup. Qatar was voted as one of the worst places in the world to be gay. homosexuality is illegal punishable by imprisonment. And if you're Muslim, possibly even death. You've always talked about the power of football as a force for good, which suggests to me that you've never seen West Brom, but generally I agree. So with that in mind, I'm giving you a choice. If you end your relationship with Cata I'll donate this 10 grand of my own money as a grand for every million euro reportedly getting to charities that support queer people in football. However, if you do not that midday next Sunday, I will throw this money into a shredder just before the opening ceremony of the World Cup and stream it live on a website I've registered called Bendis like beckham.com not just the money, but also your status as a gay icon will be shredded, you'll be forcing me to commit a crime. Although even then I reckon I get off more likely than I would if I got caught whacking off a lad in Doha. The choice is yours. I look forward to hearing from you.
Dan Ilic 9:12 What I love most about that is he is kind of like this gay Bond villain and it's fantastic. Georgie Do you think Joe lice is going to change David Beckham's mind
Brynn O'Brien 9:22 no
Georgie Carroll 9:24 no I mean he has been a good guy icon as as our backup but now he's gonna burn it all know and ease Yeah, I don't know if Marian a Spice Girl is a gay so you can do I think probably Marian one of Backstreet Boys would be that would be for doing like like you know they just put it in the wrong country again like Russia last time wasn't it and that wasn't particularly gay friendly.
Lewis Hobba 9:50 So thinking 2026 North Korean World Cup.
Georgie Carroll 9:56 I know. Backwards, don't ya and then you're like, well, we've only just had our first gay bye I have basketball I like it's sport does have a fairway accom in terms of a in fact my boys I got 16 and 18 year old do a soccer mad and they reckon Gary Lineker said there's two premiership football is going to come out during the World Cup. Oh, about that close. How is it this year and they're only just having that I know we've had one premiership player before haven't we bought,
Clare Stephens 10:27 but it'd be really clever to do it during the World Cup. Like given given where it is. And given the conversation, it'd be such a it really shines a spotlight on it even more than than this video, which a word from
Georgie Carroll 10:41 the World Cup is you can come and wave your rainbow flags, but don't do anything against our culture. So I think COVID out my warrant. Yeah, a bit of jail time. I don't know. I don't know how they're gonna do it.
Lewis Hobba 10:55 It's crazy. It's crazy that like, given faith, his track record over the last like decade, that they managed to find a new way to be terrible. Like, yeah, they were already you're just like, these are the worst people in the world. And and then they're like, Wait, hold our own 120 Olivia, we can be worse, although they're
Georgie Carroll 11:13 holding themselves out as the most progressive of the Arab nations is what they're saying.
Dan Ilic 11:18 Yes, yes. The the Arab nation that has an embassy for the Taliban is the most progressive. All the Arab nations. Yeah.
Clare Stephens 11:28 It's just such a PR does it like you just imagine these people sitting in a room being like wish we have it? Yeah, we'll have it in Qatar. There'll be no issue with that, like, look at their laws. No, no, it'd be absolutely fine.
Dan Ilic 11:38 Not even not even that let's let's look at Do they have any grace in Qatar? No, they don't. We have to we have to be we have to import some grass. We have to build some stadiums.
Clare Stephen 11:47 It also feels a little bit strange to be potentially shredding money during such a horrible time for the economy because it is
Lewis Hobba 11:57 also for him, like 10 million pounds must be nothing for him.
Clare Stephen 12:01 That's what I'm really confused about. Because I saw 10 million and I went mate, you don't need the 10 mil but then I saw 150 million and I was like we all have a price.
Dan Ilic 12:12 Well, Claire, what's the amount of money that you need to you know, to sell out? So
Clare Stephen 12:15 I think about this a lot. Because I'm just like, you know, not a lot and it's really embarrassing. Sometimes I think 100 bucks, and I do something pretty freakin humiliating in terms of my values, or harder No, the thing that annoys me about this is that I'm like the back ends are fine. Like with like, with or without the 10 100 and 50 million. You're very comfortable. I actually get quite stressed when I think about people who have too much money. I think that must be stressful because where is it up?
Georgie Carroll 12:54 I reckon I've got exactly the right amount of money and I'd still do dodgy stuff for $100.
Dan Ilic 13:02 Can I say we always need more money to irrational fear. So, if you want us to do something dodgy with it head to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear and chip in
Lewis Hobba 13:12 on ethical sniper is listening.
Dan Ilic 13:17 If unethical super is listening and they want to you know double the amount of money Australian ethical is giving us let us know.
Lewis Hobba 13:23 I guess the Beckham's do have to find out. Brooklyn's like constant nepotistic failures and his weird photography careers and is like branch into modeling and theater or music or whatever. I'm
Dan Ilic 13:36 glad you brought that up, Louis because that is a whole episode on Claire Stephens podcast canceled. You can listen to it on the Mamma Mia feed. I listened to it this week. I learned all sorts of things about somebody I didn't know that person was Brooklyn Beckham.
Lewis Hobba 13:52 I love it. I am so excited to listen to Lewis he
Dan Ilic 13:55 Lewis. Here's what I learned from Claire's Podcast. I'm gonna mansplain Claire's podcast back. I learned that he he had his own. He wanted to learn how to cook. He doesn't know how to cook. But somehow someone gave him a cooking show. And he has all these chefs that prepare the food for him. And he actually doesn't know anything about cooking any mixed up what butter and cheese was basically the same. And he
Clare Stephens 14:17 gets paid $100,000 In episode to learn how to.
Dan Ilic 14:21 And that is $98,000 more in episode than I've ever been paid to work on TV in my life. Claire,
Lewis Hobba 14:28 I assume you have and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on his book of photography.
Clare Stephens 14:33 I appreciate how he did right in his book of photography. He said he was in Kenya and he took this photo of the elephant and they're hard to capture. And I thought if you are going to be a photographer, it is your job to capture it. But also if you Google elephant, there are some excellent photos that come up Brooklyn that are better than your one. He's not.
Lewis Hobba 14:53 If no one if people listening and they haven't seen it. It's basically just a photo of it's just like a black photo with a vague outline of an elephant and the caption of it is like, elephants can be quite hard to capture and you're like, there is nothing easier in the world to take a photo of than a giant fucking elephant, you absolute idiot.
Clare Stephens 15:13 I actually feel quite sorry for him because once I went really deep, isn't a man with no talent. And that must be so hard. Because you hold the opportunity and no skill
Georgie Carroll 15:25 and impressive data until this week,
Dan Ilic 15:28 I felt really sad listening to the podcast, I was like, Oh, we shouldn't be talking about this guy. We should put this guy in TAFE.
Unknown Speaker 15:35 This is rational fear. All of the photos were taken by Brooklyn himself.
Unknown Speaker 15:41 I started taking some just on my phone. And several photos from the collection have already been released. And yes, I started posting them on Instagram. But a few years later, Penguin came to me. I feel like it turned out pretty well.
Dan Ilic 15:53 You're listening. very rational fear this week. Second fear. Elon Musk is like the dog who caught the self driving car. Now he's got Twitter, can he fix it before it explodes. So far since buying Twitter for $44 billion, just a couple of weeks ago, he said half the workforce that's about 3700 people. He's also fired most of the contractors about 4000 to 5000 contractors who found out over Twitter that they got fired or just couldn't log on to their email address. Now there are so many people who know what kind of company mass has sent this all hands email. This is the email he sent a couple of days ago, said going forward to build a break through Twitter 2.0, and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity, only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. If you think you want to be part of the new Twitter, click on the link below. Anyone who has not done it by 5pm. Tomorrow will receive three months severance, he is trying to get a third of the people to do 100% of the work. Twitter is reportedly losing so many daily users that the new number one social network in Australia on the Australian App Store is myGov. So that's pretty exciting. People love getting messages from the ATO. Hey, Claire, you run a well, you recently took over a major media organization. What did you do when you took over Mamma Mia did your Did you find half the workforce?
Clare Stephens 17:17 I didn't send that email. And the reason I didn't send that email is because I think when you send an email with the subject line, a fork in the road, it scares people for one. And I know that as an individual, I will often see a scary email and then not open it for 48 hours. And I thought if I were one of his employees, then I would have seen that email gone or avoided it. The time I opened it, I would have been made redundant because I did. Man, that's such an odd email to send. Like, it's just he's asking people, I think the scary thing is that he said in it, that it's going to be extremely hard core and that people need to be working long hours at high intensity. So what point is anyone allowed to say, Hey, I'm stressed or I've been working for four days straight? And can I have a break then I'd say that because apparently they agreed to it in this email.
Dan Ilic 18:17 This is a guy who essentially has been hiring people to go through slack and to go through Twitter to see where Twitter employees have been mouthing off against him. This is the free the Free Speech worry about you went bought a social network. And it's basically basically like yelling, I'm gonna get rid of everyone who disagrees with me and this is what he's been doing. It's so It's so wild.
Georgie Carroll 18:37 It'd be that hard working for Twitter anyway, what do you actually do if you work? Words in the in the book, exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. What one is this man from?
Lewis Hobba 18:51 Like he's got he's gonna
Dan Ilic 18:51 have to fire himself Georgie that means like Nick's comedy festival like you would get fired if chortle didn't give you five stars.
Georgie Carroll 19:00 Okay, even read that. So yeah, it's just absolute horrible, horrible man. I've managed to avoid knowing anything about him until doing this podcast I heard but a little bit. I do not need to be less relevant to me than Santa Claus.
Dan Ilic 19:18 Can I say to everyone listening when I sent GA Dima asked him to do the show GA replied saying I don't actually read the news. I don't know what
Georgie Carroll 19:29 I said and it makes me feel like a useless person. Georgie wanted
Dan Ilic 19:33 to know what streaming service the news was on so she could catch up
Clare Stephen 19:38 he's an interesting guy. He's trying to save the world. I don't know but the Twitter thing is really has really got me off side. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 19:44 I think I feel like there was a time where I was like, You know what, this is a flawed individual trying to do the best for the world. And I no longer believe that I now I now think this is a complete idiot who has no idea what he's doing. And he's just Mr. Magoo falling from dumping to dumping 1000 Tesla, Scott He called in Australia this week that killing people on the roads. He promised to get to Mars 10 years ago. He's nowhere near it. Nothing he does works. He's an absolute buffoon. He's overconfident. He says he's gonna do stuff. He signs himself up to it. He fucks it up. And then it this guy is an absolute 14 year old fuckwit. And I do not think he is doing anything good for the world. I think he should go and be an ambassador to Qatar. He is He is just, he's he socks. I also tried to talk to him once its Splendor in the Grass and his security blocked me. So I also have a personal vendetta. He was in splendor. Wow, that's awesome when he was when he was bringing that big battery to Adelaide. And, and he was hanging out at spender. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go and chat to Elon Musk. And so I walked over, and his security was like, No way. And I Okay, fair enough. And I backed away and then I went to just like take a photo to send like the work group chats were like, hey, Elon Musk's in the VIP bar. And as I held up my phone, their security held up this like, flashy thing. The phone stopped me from taking a photo. Anyway, I was like, oh, man, you know, one Elan Musk won't let anyone talk to him. And I was there with Dylan old car at the time until an old gods like watch this. A deal at all caught went over. And of course security was like, get on in there Dylan. And the deal on a halo masters had the best job ever. You just gotta you fucking future straight of the year, I get it. A three time Australian Wimbledon winner. That's all it takes.
Dan Ilic 21:29 Now, before we get to a third fee. Did you guys see that Alba met with President Z on the sidelines of the G 20. We don't know exactly what happened inside that meeting.
Georgie Carroll 21:37 But that the Italian one.
Dan Ilic 21:40 President G is is the President of China. The Italian one is Anthony Albanese, who also happens to be Australian. So it's pretty confusing. It's very confusing there. Now, we don't know what happened inside that meeting. But it seems that there's been a bit of a dramatic reset between relations between Australia and China, which is pretty remarkable as we heard from Albanese, his post meeting conference. Thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you. Okay, ready, on want to thank President sheet for a productive conversation? Sure, Australia and China have our differences. China has a problem with disappearing protesters. We know exactly where ours are under very strict bowel conditions. China is increasing coal use. We are far more into gas. China's indigenous populations face imprisonment, relocation, theft of their land, reeducation, discrimination, forced labor, and organ harvesting. We don't do the organ harvesting part. But despite our differences, there's something China and Australia can agree. The best way to support work is to help rich people get richer was Robert infrastruc. Thank you. No questions. What about the questions? Oh, look, there's another similarity. I forgot about repressing press freedoms and I forget that we're becoming more and more like you every day. Looks like it's gonna be quite positive. Well done. Well done. Big thanks to Mammoth dominant claw on Discord who wrote that joke? That's one of the perks of being a Patreon member. You get to access the discord and write jokes for the show for free. Well, actually, you pay to write jokes. It's amazing. We like the Elon Musk here so it's a very good system. It's a very good system. This week's third the here's another thing you can remove from the list of things that are Dan Andrews fault, not being able to buy a tampon yes in the latest bid to bolster their already huge lead over the Liberal Party of Victoria. The Labour Party is offering free pads and tampons. If they win the Victorian State election. It's a pretty good policy that's going to leave the Liberal Party wondering how to stop the bleeding of their supporter base. Labour would like to see 1500 pad and tampon dispensing machines installed up to 700 sites including public hospitals, courts, tapes, libraries and train stations. But not when I found some tweets that didn't actually agree with this. This one comes from interest. Celt, have you tested all the tampons available in Australia before issuing those for free? Well, Susan, that's not how you that's not how templates work. You can't really test them all before issuing them doesn't quite work like that. Dan's a busy guy probably hasn't tested it. Then there's this one here. Are they gonna be for all the different genders please, please clarify who they are for? That one comes from someone called jetski bandit. Jetski. Band needs to know or therefore.
Lewis Hobba 24:35 And then his big job at Sydney Harbour for White Ribbon Day was cancelled.
Dan Ilic 24:40 That's right. He's looking for the next gig. Then there's this one here from karma kangaroo which says will you make toilet paper free Dan toilet paper is a necessity and then thank Liz who chimed in saying that toilet paper is free of public toilets. Wow, you one are really I thought that was good.
Georgie Carroll 24:57 As well as not know is that once a month If you were to wait and poo uncontrollably for the whole week, maybe we should get free toilet paper. That's not Yeah, you can't leave the house you'd have to live in your little hot.
Dan Ilic 25:12 If you didn't come a kangaroo doesn't worry. They just put all their stuff in a pouch. We've got a free menstrual cup wherever they go.
Georgie Carroll 25:19 When does it come in the election? Because I reckon I've only got about three eggs left. Why am I bothered? I've got three good eggs and I'm not in Melbourne until March. So what's going
Dan Ilic 25:31 to ship them to Dan Andrews. Then there's finally this bit of insight from a counselor counselor Steve Christo. Right. Free tampons. What's next free penis and extensions.
Georgie Carroll 25:41 Well, I have been extending penises in Melbourne bathrooms for free for quite a while
Clare Stephens 25:57 somebody who doesn't understand how taxpayer dollars work, he doesn't understand how government works. I say fine. You can have your free penis extensions. I'm all good for that. But I love that men got so upset about this and they're like but but what's in it for me? Like can you can you take some of the pads and tampons? I don't know what you'll do with them that you may take them if you wish.
Georgie Carroll 26:22 Well, so many things on their armpits.
Clare Stephen 26:26 There you go. Thank you for that. I'm going to be the worst type of person like on the person that people will fear because I if they become free, I will never buy one again. Every time I go to a public toilet. I will get a huge thing of tampons a huge thing of pads and I will stockpile them in my home.
Dan Ilic 26:44 Maybe they will kind of mitigate that by putting a picture of Dan Andrews on the wrapper, you know instead of trivia that might that might prevent you from know that not
Georgie Carroll 26:51 all tampons are created equal though Claire, like Lucy, these are not going to be quality tampons. It's going to be
Dan Ilic 26:58 is it going to be Victorian government approved tampons?
Lewis Hobba 27:01 There'll be single ply there'll be a bit damp
Clare Stephen 27:04 Georgie you know when you go overseas, you go to like the US and they've got the applicator ones but with the cardboard. They'll be like that. That yeah, like the ones where
Georgie Carroll 27:13 they used to come with a belt. Do you remember them ones that you said no, you're too young for this. But they used to wear a belt and they had a loop on the front and a little loop on the back to tie around your waist. That's what they're gonna be like.
Dan Ilic 27:26 That sounds
Georgie Carroll 27:27 very Melbourne, Melbourne love a bit of retro. Very hipster.
Dan Ilic 27:33 When we come back what Agios bored makeup has to do with saving the planet, you're listening
Unknown Speaker 27:37 to a rational theory.
Dan Ilic 27:41 And this is the part of the podcast where we just talk about how wonderful our sponsor is, which is Australian Ethical Investments, big thank you to them. Not only do they have discerning tastes when it comes to sponsoring comedy podcasts like ours, they also have discerning tastes where they put their money or rather, your money if you invest with them. When it comes to investments, they don't do things like tobacco, weapons, big climate pollutants, human trafficking, they stay away from all of that bad stuff. And they only invest in the good stuff. So you can look your kids in the eye and tell them that because you put your money in strain ethical, you basically made the world a little bit less worse. Yeah, that's that's the idea. We're, you know, we're making the world a little bit less worse or rather, a better world. You know, that's another way to put it short, you know, glass half full if you want a better world, glass, half empty, a little less worse. It's up to you. So big thank you to Australian ethical, find out more go to Australian ethical.com.au. Okay, back to the pod. And we're back this week, the long running battle for the control of AGL has turned to page followers of climate news will remember earlier this year, when Mike cannon Brooks became a majority shareholder in the company and we just 11% of ownership has demanded some changes in leadership. And so a battle for the future of the energy giant ensued, and thus, the future of the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the country is now heading down a different direction while someone who knows a little bit about what went down at AGL over the last few months is friend of the show. Brynn O'Brien from the Australasian center for corporate responsibility. Brian, welcome back to rational fear.
Brynn O'Brien 29:25 Great to be here. What a week.
Dan Ilic 29:27 Oh my god, what a week for you and what a week for people who work in this climate space. Tell us what what happened with this AGL board reshuffle and why does it matter?
Brynn O'Brien 29:37 So AGL went to the AGM the current board which is the kind of backwards thinking part of the board or that's probably unfair, but I'll simplify like that. They went to the board with five directors right and they said well, you know, four of them are up for election. One of them doesn't need to be elected. He's he continues on but for More of them are up for election. And there are 10 board seats at this company. And they didn't, they just didn't put anyone up. So Mike cannon Brooks and his team at Brock ventures saw an opportunity they tried to take over the company a few months ago, they tried twice, the company rejected their takeover bids. And so they put up four directors, which takes us tonight, and then the maximum is 10. And the current board or the pre existing board, sort of they accepted one of them, they said, Okay, there's this one dude, Mark Tweedale, who worked for Tesla with there's an Elan theme here that I'm not going to take his back into, because that would be bad, but that they accepted him. And then the other three directors including Carrie shot, Dr. Kerry shot, who's you know, very well known energy market expert, head of the regulator, etc. They put these other three directors up as well. And Patricia McKenzie, who's the Chair of AGL said not, their experience isn't relevant to us, we're just going to go to a vote with these, you know, five directors that we think are good, and this one other director, and shareholders basically just said, No luck off, we're going to get the other three up to so now. So all of the directors that might kind of Brooks proposed, and they're all independent. So, you know, they're, they're not there to kind of do his bidding, but they are on the record saying that they think the company can transition more rapidly, they all got elected. So the balance of power, if you look at the nine members of that board, now, five of them have really serious energy transition and renewables experience.
Dan Ilic 31:48 That's so incredible, like a few months ago, grok was trying to buy the whole company and then just kind of couldn't, couldn't get past that 11% mark, and then a few months later, all of a sudden owns the company without actually having to, you know, invest all that money. That's such a great own goal by IGN.
Lewis Hobba 32:04 Elon Musk must be sitting there going, Oh, fuck, there was a better way.
Dan Ilic 32:11 When will we see like exponential change in the way AGL operate?
Brynn O'Brien 32:15 Well, look, I think there's, you know, we've got corporations or in Australia, that kind of governs the way that directors have to do their jobs. So now that these four people nominated by Mike and ngrok have been elected, what they need to do is, like, really get their heads into the game. So they need to go and look at all of the company's accounts and books and really look at those opportunities for rapid transition. So I expect they'll there'll be in there doing it, it's kind of awkward, because, you know, the chair and the other directors sort of said, Oh, you don't have anything to offer this board. So there's some interesting boardroom dynamics there. But look, I expect that they'll all get on with the job, they'll just have a look. AGL, just to kind of remind people is 8% of Australia's national emissions, so about 90 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. So it's really, really massive, and just this, you know, I like hats off to the grok team really like that it was a bold thing that they did, there's no script for this, no one's ever done it before. And they had to wear the kind of very real possibility of humiliating defeat, and they and they nailed it. So it's, yeah, super exciting that the new board or the like the full board, as of today has a massive job ahead. And they still have to appoint a CEO. So they've got an interim CEO, who's a bloke who's been with the company for a while, but you know that they have to appoint a new CEO or or appoint him permanently into the role. And I've just got so much working.
Dan Ilic 33:42 And to give you a bit of history, like AGL has been the biggest polluter in Australia for such a long time. But they did have a plan to rapidly transition to renewables in the mid teens, if you like. And that plan was headed up by an American CEO who was running the company at the time. And and then when I announced that plan, Josh Frydenberg, who was the energy minister at the time, said, Oh, no, no, no, we can't have we can't have our biggest coal user no longer use coal, that wouldn't be good for our Liberal Party donors. He then systematically went and bullied all of the board members to encourage them to sack the CEO, and the CEO got bullied out of AGL quit. And then they installed their own friendly CEO to the coal companies. And coal got entrenched for until where we are now this is where we are at the moment. It's, it's so bizarre that the previous coalition is such against this transition, that that they did that in the first place where we
Brynn O'Brien 34:39 are right now, what we're hearing from the company from staff in the company. So this is a massive company. They've got heaps of staff, many of whom want, you know, want to be part of the industry of the future. What we're hearing now and what we heard over the last couple of days is that this is a big relief, that there is a renewal within the company and Today's a real excitement about the transition ahead. And that must be a huge, huge burden lifted from the clever people that work there who want to do the right thing and be part of the transition.
Dan Ilic 35:11 Brian, do they want to sponsor a podcast? I know.
Brynn O'Brien 35:17 I think you know, you might have to shake a tree down.
Lewis Hobba 35:21 I was gonna say really quick bread. I am an ATO customer. I've been meaning to leave for like two years because we'd every time we do this podcast, I leave go like, Fuck, I'm a monster. And I'm an idiot. Does this give me an excuse to not have to make the change?
Brynn O'Brien 35:36 Ah, I'm gonna say yes. You know, the only thing worse than being an AGL customer is being an AGL. shareholder.
Dan Ilic 35:45 I'm, I'm an ideal shareholder, and I bought shares. So I could vote so.
Brynn O'Brien 35:51 Well, look, I've held AGL for a few years. But no, the the the I think for AGL customers purely, you know, to delay the administrative burden of this. Just yeah, give it a year. And look, the company. I think they said they weren't going to put a new climate plan for a vote this time next year. Now they're saying they will. And my, my prediction is that with this new board and a dynamic, qualified CEO that they're trying to lock in place at the moment, will deliver a really exciting transition plan. And that's, you know, again, 8% of Australia's national emissions 90 million tonnes of co2 equivalent per year. It's such a big fry, and well done to everyone who's who's had a
Dan Ilic 36:38 had a crack. That's super exciting and big thanks to anyone who's good at it. AGL shares who voted over the last few weeks on whatever you got to vote on. We had done for rational fear. Thank you to everybody who's joined us for tonight. Brynn O'Brien, Georgia. Carol, Claire Stevens, let's get our plugs underway. Claire, what would you like to plug?
Clare Stephens 36:57 Listen to my podcast canceled? If you don't want to think about anything serious for about 40 minutes. I think it's a really good listen to this podcast and you'll have some knowledge and feel very clever. And then you can listen to canceled and feel like you've learned nothing. So that's really, really good. Not true.
Dan Ilic 37:18 You're a Mariah Carey this week.
Lewis Hobba 37:22 Oh my God. Are you doing Mariah Carey this week?
Clare Stephens 37:24 Yeah, we did Mariah, but we just it's but I mean, it's so hard because she's she's flawless. She's iconic. So it was so hard to find any you know any crimes for her because
Dan Ilic 37:34 she and we should we should be clear for the audience that even though the podcast is called canceled, it's not about Sam Newman or Harvey Weinstein. Like you weren't? You weren't? You weren't find anything about that. That's not Georgia. Kara. What would you like to plug?
Georgie Carroll 37:51 Well, when you listen to Claire's, come over to my podcast, which is a swab, which is just nightshift, Bama from hospital. So if you ever imagine what kind of utter nonsense we talk about at three in the morning when we're high on Haribo and no sleep, and we get really stupid. That is one that no funny so yeah, that's my podcast.
Dan Ilic 38:15 Lewis. How about you got anything to plug?
Lewis Hobba 38:18 I mean, nothing new. You could still go and watch this new television special. It is called Australia's best competition competition. It's really good. It's on I view. It's very funny. It's very silly. And go and watch it. And if you watched it, get a new eye view account and watch it again.
Dan Ilic 38:38 You want to plug anything.
Brynn O'Brien 38:39 I am plugging the First Nations clean energy network, which is first so it's First Nations clean energy.org.au It building capacity for renewable energy with controlling ownership in Aboriginal hands.
Dan Ilic 38:53 Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna plug. Question everything I'm on on Tuesday on Wednesday. If you're in Sydney on Tuesday, along and come to the taping and laugh at my jokes. Thanks very much. Big thanks to rode mics Australian ethical our Patreon supporters, Carmen cake Sonya and Patrick who joined up this week. The wonderful Rupert Degas who made that extraordinary promo at the start of the show for the Qatari FIFA sketch. Thank you very much. Also, Jacob round on the teppanyaki timeline who cut that sketch. So good. So talented, so lucky to have folks like that. Help us out with the show. If you want to help us out, hit us up on Patreon for slash irrational fear until next week, is always something to be scared of. So yeah,
This episode has a special interview with Brad Blanks from his Washington D.C. hotel, also us expat comedian Tommy Dean, viral star Lucinda 'Froomes' Price, Lewis Hobba and Dan Ilic.
We talk Tennis player entitlement, the US presidential Inauguration, and we ask if Donald and Melania are over.
BRAD BLANKS at the AVN Awards 2008 — Directed by Dan Ilic: https://vimeo.com/2174819
AND — DON'T FORGET TO GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW!
We're turning 100! Which means we're updating our will, and we'll add you to it if you come to our 100th episode live show. It's going to be a 90 minute celebration of the little satirical comedy podcast that could. Featuring some new and old friends of A Rational Fear.
Alice Fraser (The Bugle, The Last Post) Sami Shah (ABC Melbourne) Chris Taylor (Chaser) Gabbi Bolt (TikTok) DJ Tom Loud (Hot Dub Time Machine) Lewis Hobba (Tony Martin Look-a-like) Dan Ilic (Romper Room)
+ Special (big name) guests we will book at the last minute.
WHERE?: Giant Dwarf WHEN?: February 10th, 7:30pm-9pm HOW?: Buy Tickets Here
Unknown Speaker 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Unknown Speaker 0:04 Okay, Louis, how are you?
Lewis Hobba 0:05 I'm very well Daniel, how are you?
Dan Ilic 0:07 Happy New Year.
Lewis Hobba 0:09 And same to you. How's how's summer? How's life you're looking? I can't believe you're looking 10 because your light is so bright that you actually look like you've got a post apocalyptic tan.
Dan Ilic 0:20 Yeah, that's right. Well, I have been in a bunker for the last four years, so I don't know exactly what's happened, but I've emerged like a sakata and I'm ready to get my F on Yeah.
We are back. This is Episode 98. Which means Louis Episode 100 is coming up very soon. We've got a live show with Alice Fraser Gabby bolts Sammy Sha. Lewis. You're doing it I believe. I hope Great.
Lewis Hobba 0:45 Thank you again, I love to I love to hear what I'm doing on the internet.
Dan Ilic 0:49 Also, DJ Tom loud is playing the show aka hot dog Time Machine. Chris Taylor is joining us and I've got a I've got a hint of a special guest. Who will I've been trading emails with Louis to see if they would also do the show. I'll give you give. I'll give you a hint. When I
Lewis Hobba 1:05 already know they use emails.
Dan Ilic 1:10 He's recently moved to Sydney.
Lewis Hobba 1:13 Matt Damon, no, no,
Dan Ilic 1:15 there's no Matt Damon. It's not Sacha Baron Cohen. But he does facilitate people putting toys together on television.
Lewis Hobba 1:22 Oh, interesting. Interesting.
Dan Ilic 1:25 He is your professional competitor. Sometimes. I mean, let's be honest. Sometime again.
Lewis Hobba 1:30 I are not competitors. He is so much more successful than me. I would be surprised if he was aware that we are competitive.
Dan Ilic 1:37 There we go. So February 10. Giant wolf in Sydney. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:49 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks can rub
Unknown Speaker 1:56 and gum
Unknown Speaker 1:57 and section 40 of irrational fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:03 Tonight Scott Morrison scolds cricket Australia for acknowledging indigenous genocide by saying isn't changing one word in the anthem enough, and while Steve Bannon was pardoned by Donald Trump, only one of his seven shirts will be loud out of prison. And Kamala Harris becomes the 47th president of America on Oh, sorry, false alarm. I read that wrong. It's still riding. It's the 22nd of January a new day has dawned in America. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former owner operator of the greater wynwood exotic animal Park Dan Ilic. Joining us to hold our hands through the toughest of stories this week is an American expat who refuses to acknowledge that the Trump administration ever happened. You may have heard him on TGI F. It's Tommy Jane, can I tell me Hello to you. As an American How you feeling today?
Tommy Dean 3:07 I'm feeling relieved. I'm feeling like we're moving forward to borrow an Australian phrase which we should borrow more of. Like a time for unity is here but i think i think that only because Joe Biden said unity so many times it's on my mind.
Dan Ilic 3:25 And she's on a quest to meet the king of spin so far, buying out a billboard and having a hit track with collabs from flume and j flip isn't getting his attention. Who knows it's listening to French fries. Listen to what will be enough to get Shane one's attention.
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 3:39 Um, well, I got it last night he started following me.
Dan Ilic 3:42 This is this is breaking news here irrational fear.
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 3:47 It took me five years, five years of messaging back and forth but now he will be my husband.
Dan Ilic 3:54 And finally is a man with legs that just won't quit. It's
Unknown Speaker 4:02 I you know,
Lewis Hobba 4:03 it's summer. Obviously if you listen to this podcast in six months, it's American Summer. It's always summer somewhere baby. But one thing I wear shorts you know? That's Call me crazy man.
Dan Ilic 4:15 If you follow if you follow Louis on Instagram, you got some great solid takes ahead of you.
Lewis Hobba 4:20 Thank you so yeah, get him get involved, please. I don't Shane Walters and following me. You know, I will say that every every time I wear shorts, someone asked me if I'm just gone for a run and it's because I have it's because my dumb legs so skinny. All right.
Unknown Speaker 4:35 I thought it was
Lewis Hobba 4:37 always joking. That's just because armie hammer and I have friends.
Dan Ilic 4:45 Coming up later in the podcast, I have a chat with us basis train reporter Brad blanks from his washington dc hotel where he was Oh, so close to the Joe Biden inauguration. You could hear his pacemaker. But first a message from this week's sponsor
Unknown Speaker 4:59 as spreaders of misinformation are banned from social media. There's only one man you can turn to for reliable untruths. Craig Kelly there
Unknown Speaker 5:08 has been complete abandonment.
Unknown Speaker 5:11 The most trusted man in lies is backing up every ill conceived social media post and every awful conspiracy to his own website, Craig anon.com. For just $1 a week, you can get all the posts that Craig Kelly will soon be banned from posting publicly at Craig anon.com where he'll be posting anonymously under the nom de plume Craig Kelly in pay but how will you know it's Craig posts will be on hinge to be spilt and recycled from his Sky News rants.
Unknown Speaker 5:42 If you look at the peer reviewed numbers of pestilence and play, the seven seas are gonna sort of boil and rise
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Dan Ilic 6:05 All right. Let's get stuck into the first fear is the Australian Open tennis tournament or a reeducation camp? tennis players are some of the world's most privileged individuals and yet, because a few of them just brought a little bit of Coronavirus into the country with them. They've gone and got their balls in a knot feed mungus should they be complaining about being stuck in quarantine? Tommy Dane.
Tommy Dean 6:27 Yes, yes, yes, they should. Why would we know they are there. But a lot of us overlook about the professional tennis player is they only exist four times a year.
Dan Ilic 6:43 That's the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the US Open. And
Tommy Dean 6:48 sometimes the French Open a few of them appear for that. But that's you know, played into some sort of weird surface that not everyone likes.
Lewis Hobba 6:56 I love the arrogance of Australians to be like you should be lucky to be here. It's like they all live in Monaco for tax purposes. It's delightful. They're not lucky to be here. We want to be here because we have nothing else to do except watch tennis.
Dan Ilic 7:11 Novak Djokovic wrote a list of demands that he brainstormed with a bunch of other players including move as many players as possible to a private house with a tennis court to facilitate training. I don't know in Melbourne all those houses are interact which was ground zero for Coronavirus. That's never gonna happen. I have an idea. What's that? Friends?
Unknown Speaker 7:31 Put them in the Big Brother house.
Lewis Hobba 7:35 That's interesting. Now the Gold Coast open.
Tommy Dean 7:39 I'm a celebrity Get me out of here. Australian Open version? Yeah, I think it would be ideal because some of the stuff that they eat for training, it would not be something a real human would want to consume. So I think it'd be a lot of fun to watch
Dan Ilic 7:51 it is getting it he's getting to that point, though. You know, some of the players have taken their protest one step further than posted photos of themselves, holding up signs against their hotel windows saying stuff like I need practice, which kind of echoes similar signs that detained asylum seekers in Melbourne have been holding up against their windows for the last 14 months. kazakstan Yulia putintseva even held up a sign reminiscent of the BLM protests, which said I need to breathe fresh air. I'll tell you what, if I was an asylum seeker, I'd be holding up a sign against my window saying we'll play tennis for freedom. Famous is this kind of behaviour. Okay.
Lewis Hobba 8:27 Well, Australia has a proud history of skipping the cue if you're handy at sport. Like Wait, you know, it goes a long way back
Dan Ilic 8:36 to when
Lewis Hobba 8:37 we I mean, we've had a there was the entire dockage family. Remember the dockage family it was they were pretty handy at tennis, and dimeo dockage was there though, just like skipped him through. And then we had the Tatiana Grigoryeva she I'm sorry, I
Dan Ilic 8:52 did theatre 1000 silver at the Sydney Olympics and pole vaulting?
Lewis Hobba 8:57 Yeah, I mean, this is a hunger game suggestion but it doesn't feel out of the pocket for Peter Dutton to just say, every refugee competes in some sort of scratch match. We find out what they're good at suddenly is
Dan Ilic 9:11 tell me Dan, you You came here on a sports bridging visa? What sport did you do?
Tommy Dean 9:16 Oh, there's so many that was the thing at the time was i was i was a heptathlete. I could just do a little bit of everything. Now the secret with pentathlon is another choice. The decathlon just be kind of good at a lot of stuff. No need to stand out and you get to travel the world as an elite sport. I think the mistake tennis players have made is they totally focused on a single elimination sport. I can understand why a lot of that not so good. Players are deeply upset. They've had to stay here for 14 days, which is like 10 days longer than most of them have to stay here. During the actual tournament. They show up play a match pick up a check,
Lewis Hobba 9:55 go home that full quote from Dan Andrews as well when he told Novak Djokovic that he wouldn't be Giving into his list of demands the sentence he said before it was people are free to send a list of demands But no, but as soon as I heard that I was like wait, what? Wait, wait is allowed to send Daniel enters that demands. Oh my god. This is like better than Christmas. I'll put it full Dear Santa a million dollars.
Dan Ilic 10:18 I don't know if you saw this, but sports bit had put out a list of demands that know that Jovovich was going to put up next on it include karaoke and smoke machines for all the players rooms. Permission to play at any Melbourne karaoke bar. This one had quite long odds Bruce Mac have a need to join the channel nine's is truly an open coverage. But the longest one was $67. It was a slab of a bay and I thought that was pretty accurate. That was gonna be a bay.
Tommy Dean 10:45 I think a lot of them are just asking for what they would have expected to get at tournament you know, fresh towels at every change. That's easy. Violet brakes. Yeah, a couple of kids in the corner to pick the balls up for them. That's what their mission is to doesn't miss a couple of kids chasing your balls down for you.
Dan Ilic 11:06 Hey, Becca, my dad was calling room service.
Lewis Hobba 11:10 I I've been trying to think about how to solve this because I love watching the tennis. I'm not a huge tennis fan. I'm an Australian tennis fan. I care for a month a year. But I do think that we do need to come up with some sort of solution for international sport. We've got the Olympics in Tokyo coming up later on this year as well we need to come up with some sort of solution for that. And I think it should just be cruise ships like we got an old they've got tennis courts. We move all the players onto the cruise ship. TV crew trainers family, only fans girlfriends, we
Unknown Speaker 11:41 move them on the cruise ship
Lewis Hobba 11:43 and then it just sails from port to port and we can just watch from baking just pull up the Australian Open on the Ruby princess and then it's in I can pull in the US at the harbour in the US and just travel around.
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 11:56 Do you could like be put into the semifinals if you're the most popular on tik tok.
Unknown Speaker 12:03 Everyone is doing
Unknown Speaker 12:06 amazing.
Tommy Dean 12:07 There's no reason that in the world that we're moving towards we should prize honesty. There's no reason that we even have to get all together in Tokyo for the Olympics. Why not just let everyone run the event on their home track and tell us what their time was
Dan Ilic 12:27 100 metres in four seconds the baby guys sorry, well record again. A lot of records this Olympia Thank you.
Tommy Dean 12:37 Lots of records no drugs.
Unknown Speaker 12:43 Tomic schoolfriend comply,
Unknown Speaker 12:45 this is the worst part of quarantine.
Unknown Speaker 12:47 I don't wash my own hair.
Unknown Speaker 12:49 I've never washed bone hair. It's just not something that I do
Unknown Speaker 12:53 a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 12:55 This week second fear collectively the world sphincter has loosened as the peaceful passing of the USA nuclear codes went from Trump to Biden. The inauguration was a star studded affair with appearances from stars like Tom Hanks jello took to the stage to perform the 1999 hit. Let's get loud intro and outro by four minutes of this land is your land. And in a sign of unity Garth Brooks. So why first of all country singers sang the African American spiritual, Amazing Grace. It was a nice touch even if halfway through. He encouraged everyone around him at the inauguration sing along to forgetting for a moment that there was a global pandemic. You know, I was in shock not because of the request to sing, but I totally forgot that before 2016 there were celebrities other than Scott Baier. And Kid Rock I live in Alabama. Now, did you folks watch any of the inaugurations? What are your thoughts?
Lewis Hobba 13:48 Yeah, I dabbled. For me it could have used a bit more three doors down. Trump had it maybe they had all the big games, three doors down. I actually googled during the inauguration, that trot who played at Trump's rally because I remembered everyone who said no, yeah, but I didn't remember who had said yes, I remembered three doors down. But there was this guy who played the Trump inauguration, who you should go and look up. His name is DJ Ravi drums. And essentially, he is like the Timmy trumpet of the drum. For the TV trumpet fans, he's a DJ who plays the trumpet. Right? And he's Australian guy. Hugely, very rich, but quite odd. And I mean, musically. And DJ Ravi drums is that he DJs and plays the drum kit. And, and people like, first of all, how did you Where were you on the list? Who are they asking that? DJ Ravi drums is playing. We're at a point where like, like Joe, God actually actually got Bruce Springsteen. Trump got rejected by a Bruce Springsteen cover band. That is a true story. Like that's where we went and he's like, the first generation immigrant and everyone's like, what are you doing? Like this guy hates immigrants. He's just like, My dad's sick and this is the last chance I'll get to perform at inauguration in front of before my dad everyone's like, all right, Robbie drums, your eyes good enough. They're in
Tommy Dean 15:10 the USA Freedom kids. toddlers dance troupe who eventually had to sue Donald Trump's campaign to get paid for the gig. That's right. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 15:21 that's right. Well, it was a very different thing two weeks prior. We all know the story as the Capitol Building was taken over by some enthusiastic World of Warcraft cosplayers. Unfortunately, for people didn't respond. It was very sad. To me, you have a family in America, how conservative are they? And how are they managing this moment in time?
Tommy Dean 15:42 They're very conservative. They are. They're all the conservatives. They're NRA, they are Republican. They are Christian, right. It's trifecta of why I live in Australia. Very much very conservative, but they're also reasonable people, you know, so it's been kind of interesting. They've always loved Donald Trump. He's always been their president. They love the Republican Party. And at every misstep, as we would call it, they just saw it as an educational moment. We'll learn from that. That was my favourite. That's what make the most I've ever heard my mom say that since I was a kid.
Dan Ilic 16:19 We'll learn from that. Oh, he'll learn he'll learn from that. Oh my god.
Tommy Dean 16:22 How do you feel about your guy pay it off? A professional porn star?
Dan Ilic 16:27 Oh, he'll he didn't know that you didn't obviously learn anything.
Unknown Speaker 16:33 That's crazy.
Dan Ilic 16:34 It's kind of interesting. I read I read a Reuters article today in kind of preparing for the show and a part of a whole bunch of telegram channels on the app telegram where Q anon supporters are going What the hell happened? What happened to the grand plan? Well, hang on just q not exists at all What's going on? This is gonna be very disappointing for those people to come back to reality.
Lewis Hobba 16:56 Well, the guy who has been like the main queue and on a distributor like kind of people suspect he is cube but never confirmed. He sent everyone home. He his he did his post today was guys, essentially what the message was, it's over. Forget this. But the real like the real genuine friends who made along the way essentially.
Tommy Dean 17:23 I've seen posts from some of my crazy friends that have been like queue oriented, who are saying the same thing. Look, I'm a little disturbed to work out this might have been a hoax. But I'm sticking to the fact that I researched for myself. I learned a lot of stuff about me. Sure. Flat earthers are idiots but
Dan Ilic 17:44 we had a we had a reason. Firms you spent a lot of time on the internet Have you come across many q anon supporters who kind of in your world
Unknown Speaker 17:53 know
Tommy Dean 17:57 yourself bubbled you live in. Round Rock. question is how do I accidentally stumble into pitch?
Lewis Hobba 18:06 I mean, I'd like to find out that Shane Warren was a secret.
Dan Ilic 18:13 Now that the Trump administration is over focus for the former president turns to building the Presidential Library rooms have it It could be the first presidential library with a drive thru. Given that Trump has never visited a library fear mongers. What will the Donald Trump library look like firms? What do you reckon?
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 18:30 Why can McDonald's said that he could make a mega McDonald's store? It would actually be amazing. I think kids would want to go to the Trump Museum, which would be great for America.
Lewis Hobba 18:43 It would be amazing if it was like a full drive thru and you just ordered, you know, it was like, I'll have an out of the deal meal. I think that'd be great.
Dan Ilic 18:55 So someone on Twitter sent me a reply to my drive thru dragon. He said yes. And you can order a magazine. I thought that was that was very good. That was very well done. Well done. Right before Biden was sworn in to systematically dismantled Donald Trump's legacy. Trump's landed in Palm Beach, Florida, and just moments after landing milania Trump left Donald on the tarmac so that Donald could wave to the cameras all by himself, which had people on social media wondering is it finally over? As in? Is their marriage finally over thromes Is it over between Donald and Melania?
Unknown Speaker 19:31 Yes,
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 19:32 I think it'd be it's so interesting because now that the stakes aren't as high like we can really enjoy the milania like lifestyle like hopefully she can open up a bit more and let us in because she's so mysterious and Interesting.
Lewis Hobba 19:46 Interesting.
Tommy Dean 19:50 I want desperately to wish that some there's some amazing story about how she got trapped in the Trump reverse.
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 19:58 There is there isn't a amazing story and she's going to tell us one day.
Tommy Dean 20:02 I sure hope so. Cuz right now I still have my money riding on she is a terrible person to
Dan Ilic 20:10 coming up at the end of the podcast we reveal what Donald Trump wrote in a letter to Joe Biden as he took over the Oval Office.
Unknown Speaker 20:19 Exotic aka Tiger things could get a presidential pardon. annoyed this one Trump loyalists, I'll be pissed if that dipshit does make the President's list of pardons. they seize a rational here. It has
Dan Ilic 20:32 been a big event in America in the last 20 years, there's been one man on the ground, covering it just like a journalist, but I hasten to add he probably wouldn't count himself as a journalist. He is a rollicking, roving reporter, I guess is probably the best way to do it. He's one of my best mates. His name is Brad blanks. He is on the ground in Washington, DC. He was there for you know, for the inauguration. Brad, welcome to irrational fear. How you feeling on the first on the first day of a Biden presidency?
Brad Blanks 21:01 It's an honour to be on your podcast, right? Well, yeah, amazing. And you're correct. I am not a journalist. Like into the middle of the night. Yes, I am rollicking. I, I have to report something. It might not be of the highest IQ or intellect or academia, academia, but I will attempt to talk to those people and try to spin what I've learned from them to people that somehow try to understand me.
Dan Ilic 21:28 I was thinking about this this morning, Brad, before I spoke to you, I was thinking, geez, you know, if you actually took all of Brad's work, and you had a look at every single thing he's ever made, it actually is an incredible slice of American and American history. Like over two decades, you've been on the ground at some of the biggest events in America. And you do get to the heart of the story in a roundabout way.
Brad Blanks 21:54 Yes, and this one is proven very difficult. This is the heart of this story, which is essentially an inauguration where no one could get in and despair for for for the real life journalists that actually have to get a story. I'm gonna just go on the radio saying, There's men with soldiers, and I'm not walking past them right corners. I'm scared I I could do that. Get away with that. But what about the, you know, the Argentinian American correspondent that needs something. And they actually standing in the same spots as me at these locations around Washington DC, where there's really no story so
Dan Ilic 22:32 it must be strange. If there's no one out and about probably if you're local in DC, and you're just walking by the mall, you must have gotten harangued by 1000 recorders, to say how you're feeling like by the time it gets to you, you'd be like, it'd be like the SAG Awards, Brad blanks at the end of the line to the SAG Awards. Celebrities don't want to talk to you anymore. Like
Unknown Speaker 22:49 No, I've had enough
Dan Ilic 22:52 for talking to reporters for the night. I'm just trying to get some milk and bread.
Brad Blanks 22:57 cocker spaniels just been smashed by reporters from all over the world. He's like, Oh, my goodness.
Dan Ilic 23:03 What is it feeling like? What does it feel like in in about in America to start off with and then how did it feel this morning? inauguration?
Brad Blanks 23:12 Yeah, it's, it's interesting, cuz, you know, I feel better. You know, we in some sort of weird way, like, here's the thing with Trump, you always stopped when Trump was on TV on a Trump speech, and especially during COVID when he was actually carrying on television every day. It was incredible viewing from, and it was hard to because you're watching it with, you know, a comedic take or going, Oh, this is gonna be funny. And then you're realising, oh, my goodness, this is the president. This is quite serious. This is crazy what he's saying. So there's Yeah, you've had to balance yourself. And that's not very good to look at life through a lens where you're quite light hearted, and you're looking at a President speak and then you realise, oh, no, this is this is this is really shitty, what's going on? It's so so that's, that's good that that stress is off my brain.
Dan Ilic 23:58 Right? You're so right. It's just a dud dilemma, because Trump is a really entertaining but be terrifying in every single policy decision.
Brad Blanks 24:06 That's right. Yeah. And and so now we wake up and violence Yo, a lovely, sweet man. And, you know, when he does an Irish poem, it actually warms the inside of my heart, and I'm not a big whiskey drinker. But when he does an Irish poetry, I want to drink whiskey. He is that kind of guy. But I don't know how many long speeches Am I going to watch of his compared to lining up to watch Trump so in some ways, there's a pressure off and it'd be interesting to talk to like light night TV hosts, comedy writers in that field of how they how their careers to hell look for the next four years what Stephen Colbert going to do.
Dan Ilic 24:43 I'm pretty sure Stephen Colbert won't be bereft of jokes. I think there's plenty of humour to go What does what does DC feel like right now?
Brad Blanks 24:54 Yeah, so I did by I watched inauguration. It was 12 noon. You know, American East In seaboard time, I finished I went out onto the street for one more walk around, there was maybe 30 extra people on the street. And this is the one street that runs parallel to the Washington mall. And let's say about 600 700 metres away from the mall away from the White House away from the Washington Monument. And there are people out there walking around having fun playing some music, but no fanfare really not like um, it's hard to compare to like the Obama inauguration in 2008, which I will 2009 January that I went to which was 2 million people and it was just madness, you know, and fun and, and then I went to the bill clinton inauguration in 97. January and that was an absolute free for all where I was partying with death, Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders until three in the morning I like like a young backpacker, go and God bless America. So this experiences is a lot more quiet. And as I said, I walked down the street that's parallel to the mall, closest to you the White House and you know, 3040 people, more people than there were there
Dan Ilic 26:10 last night. I imagine if people were allowed to go to the inauguration you would be partying with the Golden Girls because of job.
Brad Blanks 26:17 That's right. And you'd be socially distant. You're hugging Yeah, and you know, fake hugging so yeah. A very weird experience to be a reporter behind steel fences and barricades So
Dan Ilic 26:33 did you get anything for your new york radio hit at all did you get Did you get any good? Any good content?
Brad Blanks 26:42 I've actually had a very fulfilling reporting experience like why Why? I think Tony up there no way I'll give you I'll give you the why. stuck in a bedroom doing radio reports for nine months. reporting on COVID when I've been stuck in a bedroom out the end of Long Island. I really don't know. People would call me and I have to do radio reports on how New York City's feeling and I'm like, What the hell am I gonna say Audrey got my mic. cosy. who's living in the city? Well, how the hell do I know I'm sitting in my room? I haven't left I go out to get groceries. This is
Dan Ilic 27:15 out of touch with a common man Brad you out in the Hamptons, India. banca people from all over Australia calling you to want to know what's going on is that
Brad Blanks 27:30 cow Stephen Ivica today's show or sunrises told all my mates in Australia but they seem to have Australia America burning and coming out into the real world. And it's actually not bad. The traffic's really heavy. That seems to be a lot of commerce. It's just at the Washington DC straight to shut down and there were no insurrectionists anywhere and other than just, you know, it was just it just looked like a basing cabal or Baghdad. It seems America is on the right track, then
Dan Ilic 28:02 you watch the inauguration closely. How did you feel about his speech?
Brad Blanks 28:06 Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 28:07 great. Fine,
Brad Blanks 28:08 you know, hit all the right marks. You know, I think he's speakings got better, which is interesting, you know, as a guy that's aged to the last year and he's, you know, where they say he ran, he's, he's home, he ran for president from his basement. And he's out and getting a bit of sunshine. He sounds great.
Dan Ilic 28:27 I think they've increased the font size on the autocue.
Brad Blanks 28:32 He stumbled a few times, I noticed that he repeated a couple of sentences that I'm like, Oh, poor guy, but
Dan Ilic 28:37 you we forget that he's a dyslexic rock. He's you know, he's actually dyslexic. We kind of forget this.
Unknown Speaker 28:43 That's right.
Brad Blanks 28:45 He was good. And he was one of the people that were like our G's are putting up a year ago. The Democrats are putting up a 77 year old against Trump. This is gonna be it. What are you doing? What are you doing? He just kept winning a lot along the you know, along the trail and, and now he's president and I'm, I've warmed to him. I mean, I feel good with the big guy and he's fun and cheerful and likes a joke. And now, anyway, not that. I don't vote but I thought I'd vote for him cuz he likes a joke. Yeah, it seems like a good man.
Dan Ilic 29:20 Yeah, he loves it. He loves a good smell of a woman's hair just like any other man. Well, Brad, now that Trump is gone, there's probably more hope that I will absolutely be allowed to return to America. So I have to visit you and so
Brad Blanks 29:35 will you. Please write out your secret service photo of you somewhere?
Dan Ilic 29:39 And I have no doubt I have no.
Brad Blanks 29:45 Morrison handling you? Yeah, Prime Minister Morrison is he? Does he like you? Oh, he doesn't care.
Dan Ilic 29:49 He doesn't care about NATO. Brad Brad. Nobody cares about me. I'm just a little fella with my little podcast. Yeah,
Brad Blanks 29:57 you're the most winningest podcast in History. That's right.
Dan Ilic 30:01 You don't win Best Comedy podcast. Right. Here's the trophy. You know, just like Scott Morrison, I've got a trophy on my desk.
Brad Blanks 30:11 That makes me so proud. I can always say that you brought the best out in me when I was at the porno award.
Dan Ilic 30:19 Yesterday, there was, you know, I was thinking that that trip we did in 2008 was eight there was an incredible trip all over America. And you made some funny stuff.
Brad Blanks 30:30 Yeah, it was guy. Well, you you inspire me That was good. I mean, I think I got profusely ill the night of the porn awards. Were in the press room and I got sick there. I don't know what happened. Maybe I'm not as kinky as I thought I was.
Dan Ilic 30:44 Maybe picked up an STD from the expo floor.
Brad Blanks 30:48 That expo floor. Oh, my goodness. It's like, you know, the Royal Sydney show, isn't it?
Dan Ilic 30:54 If you want to see Brad, on the floor in Las Vegas, at the porno award, something a video that I directed and produced with him. I'll add the link in the show notes. So you can check that out Brad blanks. Thank you so much for spending some of your evening with us. Thanks, Dad. What
Brad Blanks 31:09 is it for? democracy, Dan, democracy
Dan Ilic 31:11 have a safe drive back to New York City. Yeah, thanks, my
Brad Blanks 31:14 good man. Brad blanks. They're
Dan Ilic 31:17 coming to us from his own hotel room in Washington DC.
Lewis Hobba 31:20 It's interesting that the know the focus, the fact that journalists are so used to having a constant churn of insanity to report on. And now suddenly, like, everyone's wired, everyone's like, match fit for insanity, and there's no insanity to play. And I really wonder where that energy is going to go. Like, for me, if I was a world leader, I would be nervous, because for the last four years, you could shit on a stall in the middle of Parliament. And it would not be the craziest story of the day. Like you could do almost anything and get away with it. Whereas now, like I saw today that Scott like Scott Morrison opened his mouth. And I don't know if you guys saw this about talking about the 12 ships that arrived in Australia, and the day that Australia Day and whether or not it should be celebrated. And he is out his argument was, it wasn't to flash for the guys on the ships either was his was more or less his quote. And like a week ago, mid insurrection, that might not have hit the news. But today, all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, that's that's the stupidest fucking thing that I'm gonna hear today. All of a sudden, the dumbest man in the room is you you've got to like keep your shit together. Now,
Dan Ilic 32:35 after we've lived through this moment. It's kind of like, I'm thinking about Scott Morrison is Hey, what's the premises to is this was his This is what's going on. It's
Lewis Hobba 32:44 it's always so low for four years that you had to do nothing to jump over it. Now, we could be the lowest bar
Dan Ilic 32:51 or right now in America, everybody's trying out crazy each other to kind of play to the Trump base so they can consolidate the base around themselves. I don't know if you're saying like what Ted Cruz is saying is awful. And what Mike Pompeo is saying is awful. All these folks are trying to kind of position themselves to be the 2024 kind of new Trump. And so they're trying to out crazy Trump in order for those Trump people to kind of attach themselves to them. So that's kind of the kind of the really annoying thing right now is that Trump is gone. But now there's 10 more Trump's because there's his base that is ready to vote for them.
Lewis Hobba 33:28 It's a babushka doll.
Unknown Speaker 33:31 And Trump,
Tommy Dean 33:33 sort of stupid Hydra. Yeah, but I'm also I do have this little bit of hope in me that, you know, one day, we will come together because of a group of Trump supporters will be coming down the aisle, and another Trump supporter group is coming down the aisle. And they're both I sort of extended each side of crazy. And they're going to be wanting to talk about how awful The world is. And then together as two disparate groups, they will suddenly discover as one, that T shirts are still unbelievably cheap at Walmart. And they'll be so happy and they'll all buy a new t shirt that says America. It's kind of okay.
Dan Ilic 34:11 Yeah, thank God for globalism.
Tommy Dean 34:13 I have to go back to make it great again. It's always been kind. Okay. Yeah. We have to show I think it was never terrible. even talk of it being in ruin now is oversold. It's always been kind. Okay.
Dan Ilic 34:27 I think 2021 that's all you can ask for. You can ask for it. To be kind of okay.
Tommy Dean 34:33 Kind of, okay.
Unknown Speaker 34:35 Australia Day, it's all about acknowledging how far we've come when those 12 ships turned up in Sydney, all those years ago. It wasn't a particularly pleasant day, but the people on some on those days was either irrational fear
Dan Ilic 34:48 and that's it for rational fi A big thank you to tell me Dane listen to friends price and Louis haba. Do you folks have anything to plug Tommy's gonna plug anything
Tommy Dean 34:56 I'm going to be showing Okay
Dan Ilic 35:03 friends do you have anything to plug? Um
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 35:05 Yes I have my flats ladies remix of my song for him so the song that's going to come out next week
Unknown Speaker 35:11 well Excuse me.
Unknown Speaker 35:12 Here's where you mixing it. facility
Froomes (Lucinda Price) 35:17 is coming out next week and then wait for the album drop at least by
Unknown Speaker 35:22 August.
Dan Ilic 35:22 This is a prank gone too far for
Unknown Speaker 35:27 the whole time.
Lewis Hobba 35:29 I can't wait for the invitation to the wedding.
Dan Ilic 35:33 Louis Do you have any Do you have any shows coming up maybe
Lewis Hobba 35:36 one in February that you want to fly just I just found out about a really great show. A 100th episode of rational fi in February giant dwarf theatre you'd be mad to miss it. incredible lineup of guests, including the much better me Hamish Blake.
Dan Ilic 35:53 But perhaps we haven't sold just waiting for him so I can announce it. But he said 10 selected so I'm taking that as as as locked in as locked in as a good piece of Lego.
Lewis Hobba 36:03 I mean, that's specifically not what pencilled in a
Dan Ilic 36:08 big thanks to rode mics, the birther Foundation, our wonderful Patreon supporters with whom we cannot do this. By the way, if you are a Patreon supporter, you get discounts to the live show. So make sure you head along. Look at patreon getting a discount code plug that in. Now I'm going to leave a big thank you also to Jacob Brown, Virginia gay Rupert Degas killing David David bluestein. Our discord jockeys COVID kisah p McNeil ads pay to Lola and Miss Maddie pay will leave you with this. As is tradition. Most presidents leave each other a little handout or note wishing the incoming president Well, we've actually managed to get a copy of Donald's letter that he gave to Joe Biden, here it is.
Unknown Speaker 36:47 Dear Joe, as your senile I will write this letter slowly. As I leave the White House with my wife and her look alikes. I reflect on my time here as a career highlight of their with when I play the successful hotel owner in home alone to last in New York, even though you had the highest amount of votes in US history. I had the second highest and second is better than first, just just two is higher than one. That's just a fact. So with that in mind, congratulations on pulling off a hoax election and undermining the country. I dos by red cap your way. And I've chosen to write this letter in my finest grant. You have ruined democracy in ways I could only dream and I usually only dream of the hamburger. But as a chick with big Tata. It has been an honour being the president of a country that would allow me to be president. Sincerely, Donald J. Trump. PS Follow me on parner PPS, actually, don't follow me on
Dan Ilic 37:54 that. Thank you. That was the wonderful Rupert Degas written by Kelly and David and produced step by Jacob round. That was very good. Thanks, everyone. That's it. Love it.
On the podcast this week, we talk about the Prime Minister putting journalists on notice for asking questions, Dark Mofo's Big F Up, and BoJo dumping ScoMo via telegram over Australia's lack of action on climate change.
Each month for the next 3 months on the A Rational Fear podcast feed, Julia interviews change makers, civic leaders, and people who organise their communities and claim their power to discover the secrets to making good things happen.
This month Julia chats with two artists who have built extraordinary communities around their craft, how both these artists have shown leadership and helped their respective communities thrive in times of crisis.
Jen Cloher (Ngāpuhi & Ngati Kahu) — is a highly respected recording and performing artist living on unceded Wurundjeri land in Naarm (Melbourne) Australia. Cloher is co-founder of Milk! Records (Courtney Barnett, Tiny Ruins, Hand Habits) andI Manage My Music, a masterclass series for self-managed artists to assist self-managed artists with the challenges of creating and releasing music in Australia.
“When an artist stands up on a stage, we invite everyone in that room to tap into what it is to be human, which is something politicians are not capable of doing because they're not connected. They've got their own agenda, they're not there to bring us together”
— Jen Cloher
also we hear from:
Astrid Jorgensen — Founding Director of Pub Choir™and its COVID adaptation, Couch Choir. She is also a co-creator of Australia's Biggest Singalong which aired on SBS TV in 2021.
“It's not about competing, there is no way to win. All we can do is work together. And the sum is always greater than the parts. If you have honest and optimistic leadership.” — Astrid Jorgensen
I hope you enjoy these conversations with two great artists building community and helping other to thrive culturally and financially.
Kindest of Regards,
Dan Ilic
If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:
Julia Zemiro 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation. Hi, Julia Zemiro Here, I'm recording this podcast on the land of the Gandangara people. Sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the podcast,
Dan Ilic 0:15 a podcast about politics for people who hate politics. This is Julia Zemiro asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 0:24 Well, hello everyone. 2022 Can you believe it? Welcome back to Julia Zemiro asks, Who cares? And you know what it turns out quite a lot of people do. Today I'm talking to two incredible artists who care create and want others to experience that creativity to the both musicians Jen Cloher and Astrid Jorgensen. The Creator and conductor of public choir, but first up, Jen Cloher Ngāpuhi & Ngati Kahu who their most recent self titled album debuted at number five on the ARIA Charts and received rave reviews. And they were crowned double Jays Australian artist of the year. Now on top of that, Jen is a co founder of The Independent Melbourne label milk records and created I managed my music, a masterclass series for self manage artists just to get them on top of what it means to run your own business in music. We talk acting schools, impressing your heroes, all the training and belief that goes into being an artist, longevity, and why more than ever, we need culture to turn to. It's so good to see
Jen Cloher 1:32 you. So good to see you. Like truly,
Julia Zemiro 1:36 I mean, one of the joys of Rockwell's has been to have these incredible musicians just just a hand spin away from me onstage, and you've given me some of the best moments in my performing life. chancla
Jen Cloher 1:49 Oh, that is so sweet. That really actually means a lot because I know you've seen many people come through the hallowed halls.
Julia Zemiro 1:57 And what people might not know is my thrill to when Jen was on the desk, answering questions. And just the newest stuff is that of course you do a little biog and you'd been an acting student, you'd gone through NIDA and I was fascinated that there was someone who had trained as an actor, and then had become a musician. And I just think it's an excellent thing. And I know you didn't have a fabulous time there. Not everyone has a fabulous time at acting school. I did I did have a good time at acting school. But I do think that there are things you can learn at those places that are about asking yourself questions about who you are and how you move through the world.
Jen Cloher 2:35 Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think if anything, what, what happens go did you go to or did you go to Whopper
Julia Zemiro 2:41 CCI? They say, hey, what I love is you've said Whopper because you've obviously assuming I sing well, I don't know VCA I mean audition for NIDA too. And, you know, I got through. I mean, in case people don't realize, you know, you audition and then you might get through to the afternoon where you'll do a your third piece because you've done your first two in the morning. And I'd got through the afternoon I was convinced I was in. I mean, the process isn't finished. And then you have to go back the next week. And I didn't get in. And they tried again the following year, didn't even get through the afternoon. But by then for audition for VCA. And I was so delighted by the audition process at VCA. I was so hooked. I thought on no now I really want this. And then when I got in I was pretty, pretty excited. And it turned out to be a good a good time a good. I think I figured I feel like I learned how to learn. They're
Jen Cloher 3:39 beautiful. Yeah, I think like it taught me a lot about the industry. Maybe more so than about who I am. I think some ways I think in some ways I wasn't ready for that school. And I didn't have enough understanding of who I was. And so it really threw me or it threw me. When I was at NIDA there was the head of acting was a man called Kevin Jackson KJ as we affectionately called him and he was actually incredibly well read and was like a kind of dramaturg style kind of actor and he just knew so much about playwriting and playwrights and was one of those people that was like, include the commas don't add words respect the text, you know, the writers intention love to check off you know, one of those guys and I, I sort of like at that I was only 19 I kind of wasn't I was very young but winter fire sort of parental FIDE some of the teaching staff there. And I kind of looked up to him as like this scary Dad and I wanted to impress him and their whole kind of thing there is sort of saying what you're good And then making you do the stuff you're not good at. So they kept throwing me into like, what gowns and making me have these romantic scenes with men and be all gushy and cry and, you know, like, just not my strength. And I felt kind of almost like I was in drag. That's how far away it felt from my experience. Like, like, I was like dressing up in dress to do this thing. Anyway, he gave me this scene, and it like, broke me. And I just got this massive resentment against him. And I remember sort of at the end of, I think it was the end of first year he said, you know, you won't you don't you won't even look at me in the eyes when you walk down the hallway. And I was like, and like, that's how much shame I was carrying around not being good enough for Kevin Jackson. Anyway. I think it was three years ago, four years ago. I'm performing at the Lansdowne hotel upstairs. They had this band room. I think they've closed now which is very sad. And it was with my band. Courtney on guitar bones on bass shallaki on drums, amazing band. We've just been touring all around the world. So we were like on fire. Yeah. And we went out and we just we had two nights the Lansdowne nice little room Pat great energy. Absolutely blazed, felt amazing. Came offstage. And then someone came to the door, I think one of the merch, cute merch crew. And they were like, ah, there's a there's a man here called Kevin, who wants to say hello. And I was like,
Julia Zemiro 6:42 I don't know, Kevin. I can.
Jen Cloher 6:44 Okay. Who the hell is Kevin? Anyway? This this elderly man, elderly, like early 70s. I would say now, yeah, comes to the door. And it's Kevin Jackson. Oh, my God, my acting teacher. And he'd come along with a couple of friends who like we're gonna go and see Janklow we've got an extra ticket. And he was like, yeah, absolutely. I'll come and see Jen cloth. And he was just like, lit up. He was like, That was incredible. I loved that performance, like, blown away. Right. But here's the great bit. The next I think it was like two days later, I saw this Google Alert come up in my mail, because I have a Google alert on my name, you know, like to know what's been written about me out there. 100%
Julia Zemiro 7:35 one that got sent.
Jen Cloher 7:37 And there was a he has this website where he reviews like Sydney Theatre Company that did it did. And they're amazing reviews. They're not like some weirdo that's just writing some, you know what I mean? Like, they're really great reviews, but they're not for, you know, for the media, Vine passion project that people read them, you know, people who know read them. And he'd reviewed my gig. Online, never reviewed any music show ever. I was like, wow, rectally theater, and he had reviewed my gig as though it were a theater piece. And he was talking about like, how I embodied things. Like my strength and bla bla bla bla bla, and how Courtney was riding with the guitar, you know, it was like, the most incredible review and he loved it. And it was so beautiful and healing for me, because if there was one thing that KJ said, that stuck with me, from 25 years ago, whenever I was there, he was like, you know, your whole role as an artist is to create a body of work. That is what you will be remembered for a body of work. And it occurred to me after reading this review that he had finally come to see me as an artist that went on to create a body of work. You know, I was presenting my fourth album at that time, and I had stayed consistently with my practice. And it was just like the most beautiful kind of full circle experience to have. And and of course you have it when I would no longer care less what Kevin Jackson would think. Yeah, but to have that kind of reflected back. I think he's there just those milestones in your life as a performer.
Julia Zemiro 9:26 That's made me a little bit teary, because I think too, you know, we're talking about what our significance is in society as people who make and when I say the word art, don't run away, don't switch off. Art is lots of things. It's music, it's theater, it's it's cheap theater down the road, in a pub. It's expensive theater that a lot of people can't afford and they could possibly make that cheaper. It's opera, it's dance, it's DJing it's every it's everything that is mapable that you make to watch performance. So when we say they aren't. But when people say you love what you do you your privilege to go and do it, you go well, it can also be a calling. And if you aren't good at it and you love what you do well, why wouldn't you stay with this thing that is bringing you real life experience and making you kind of turned on. So I can turn you on and do something for you to forget your day, or to give you something else to think about or to discover something about yourself. I feel like post COVID What's going to happen next, we didn't get in general, this didn't get job caper? What are we going to do next? Like how do we I'm, I'm now what's the point of making anything if people don't value it, and I mean, from a government level to a crowd level,
Jen Cloher 10:45 you know, something that I observed throughout COVID, you know, in my industry, which is the music industry, you know, there's younger artists in my sphere, some of whom I've mentored, or worked with, either from a business angle, or from helping produce their music or whatever, whatever they kind of come to me to assist with. And I produced an album with Alice Skye, an amazing songwriter, we're Gaya, Wemba, Wemba woman from Horsham in Victoria. And also there's another great band called cable ties punk band, and also had chikoo, which is Annika ostendorf, which is a ban on milk records. And they're all kind of around a similar age. On that sort of second, you know, about to launch their second album had like, lined up labels overseas booking agents overseas, going to South by Southwest, you know, it was an it takes many, many, many years to get to that place where you are ready to launch your music into the world. And they're all, you know, like world class artists. And then I just saw everything just collapse and keep collapsing. I remember when we thought COVID was going to go like, we're like, oh, we should probably be back up during by like July, August, when we thought it was going to go for three months. Yeah. And that was a long time. Yeah, I know. I know. So that was kind of, you know, in that last day
Julia Zemiro 12:23 window there haven't like, that's not this incredible window, they've lost
Jen Cloher 12:26 this opportunity. And all of the money and the support and the time and the planning that goes into that moment. And to build that back up again, is the thing that I think I have concerns about is that you kind of lose these young artists, energetically and financially, because of what they've had to go through. In the mental, you know, like, it was a really, really, really hard time. And I think, you know, most people probably wouldn't know about it, because, you know, they don't have mates that are touring around in bands for the main part, right?
Julia Zemiro 13:08 Yeah. When you know, that whole sections of people, certainly in the arts industry, who have had to give it up and get another job completely, two years. I mean, you just can't get by. And even with all the pleading that we did, because that's what we have to always do is plead. When we you know, appeal to the government and said, you know, the flick of a pen, you genuinely could just change this, you could just go, oh, my gosh, artists or whatever, yes. All right, you get it to that didn't happen either. And you have
Jen Cloher 13:38 theories as to why oh, great, please begets Well, that's, it's no mistake. That is that is a planned. That is that is you know, you make decisions about who you're going to fund and who you're not going to fund then, as you said, there's a flick of the pen. And I think that, you know, artists are the enemy. Because we think we speak truth to power. And to have to give those people a voice is threatening. And you might be like, Oh, get off it, like as if, but no, I really believe that. We have an immense power we have an we have immense reach. We have audiences, we're influences, you know, wherever that is these days, politics and politicians, particularly the current government cannot totally scared of us. It is not an industry they want to fund. You know, you think of like, anthems like you're the Indies trading, you know, or Ruby hunters down city streets or cold chisels flame trees, or in excess Niger tonight, or what's that great in excess one that's like didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't didn't. Like who hasn't dropped down, I know that and cried in their lounge room at some point in my life, like, we shaped culture, we shaped culture through emotional connection. And that's what they're scared of. Because when an artist stands up on a stage, we invite everyone in that room to tap into what it is to be human, which is something politicians are not capable of doing because they're not connected. They've got their own agenda, they're not there to bring us together. I think that the mystery and appreciation of culture is led by our our cultural leaders, and and our politicians. And, you know, you were speaking before about how artists are viewed in France, and you often hear Australian artists coming home and saying, oh, you know, touring through Europe was amazing, we get to the venue, there'd be home cooked food for soundcheck, you'd play a show, you'd have a meal, like it was an endless stream of good alcohol, but no one got really smashed. And, you know, we were really taken care of. And I think that, that that's embedded in culture, because of the way that culture is viewed. And I think the thing that we need to remember is, and I think this is really, these are big conversations, but you know, it needs to come from our leaders, because we have, you know, it's a colonized nation state. We colonized here, 234 years ago, there was an already existing culture, that we basically built structures that they could not could not access. And, you know, all of the things that went around land stealing, you know, murder, let's just call it what it was. Yeah, it was really happening. Yes. And the issue that I think we have, that's very different to France, where you have Molly air, and the French impressionists, and centuries of culture embedded into the very fabric of existence, that's what culture is, we shouldn't call it art, its culture. Yeah. Because we have come from so many different places all around this world. And some of us have come with culture, that many of us have forgotten what that culture was, we've had to assimilate. You know, like, a lot of migrants were encouraged to assimilate whatever that means. We've given up identities to become white. There's many things that have happened. And what we find ourselves in is easy, you know, this so called multicultural country, but actually, a lot of people don't know, their culture, or where they've come from. And so the actual kind of colonized version of culture here is 200 years old, and it doesn't, whatever was it, you know, it's not like, we know, you know, like, as, as British people back, you know, back in the empire know, Shakespeare and the Bard, and, you know, there's this Wordsworth and you know, there's a sense of who we are as a people, and we have marmalade and
Australians, as a people. But when you kind of break it down, it's like, is it a barbecue? What, what, how are we? You know, and I think until we actually ask those questions, and kind of like, maybe realize that we don't quite know who we are culturally. We sort of don't value it. But this is the beautiful thing is, I really believe each and every person has the ability, unless they were adopted, and they don't know who their birth parents are. And my heart is heavy for those people. Has not just the ability but the privilege to find out who they are and where they came from. And here's the other really interesting thing. Do you know what, guess a couple of languages in the world that are teetering on the edge of extinction?
Julia Zemiro 19:41 Well, most of indigenous languages I would assume,
Jen Cloher 19:45 is bang on do you know which ones they are? No, Celtic, and Gaelic, what? And I would say jority of white Australians in this in this country. hail from either Celtic or Gaelic roots in some capacity. And I just sort of think like, you actually have the opportunity to go and connect with a language that your ancestors once spoke, and find out through ancestry.com, email that relative in I don't know, some remote part of Ireland, like, go and do some work to find out who you are and where you came from and know something about your culture, and how you came to be here. And if you were settlers, and if you were colonizers, and there's a dark past, that's okay. No, you didn't make it happen. But you are responsible for the future, you get to determine that future. And I really, really wholeheartedly believe that everyone has the opportunity to reclaim who they are. Because I don't actually believe first of all that Australia exists. It's an it's a concept, because there was already a country here, much like Europe, you know, full of different nations, I don't think French and Italian people see themselves as the same people, and neither did the 500 Plus language groups that we hear on this country. Absolutely. But I think that the issue that we have is that we've tried to make up a culture that never existed. And that's not to say that there isn't a making and weaving of that culture. But unless we know where we came from, and who our people were, how can we create anything that we feel connected to. And the reason I've been learning today on Maori and, you know, involving myself and taking part in cultural practice, which is available to me here in Nam In Melbourne, is because the more that I know who I am, and how I am connected, and the line of amazing people that I have come through in their connection to land, the more I care, more I care about you, the more I care about the river down the end of the street, the Mary Mary Mary Creek, the more I care about community, you know, it stops just being about me, my great, great grandmother, Martha to pay would have only have spoken to real Maori, and she was born in 1860. My great, my great grandmother, who Dr. topwater, who was born in 1890, would have spoken today Omar Maori at home and English out in the world. And my mother, Dorothy earch, klore, who was born in 1930, only spoke English. So that's how quickly how fast those things move just in you know, indigenous people living you know, in a colonized nation. But you think about you come from another country, you land here and I can identify with that I'm like, I kind of woke up one day Julia and went, I don't know who I am. I was sitting making a record with an indigenous woman, Alice sky, who owned it. And it occurred to me, I was like, come through a whole lot of Indigenous women. And I've never, I've never felt I just didn't feel like I, I thought I had to earn it or something like I didn't have any right to claim my bloodline. And I had sort of a lot of shame around not knowing the language or not knowing the culture. But to end my little rant. This is the I think the greatest and deepest healing is not to go and learn all about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That's great. Absolutely respect their culture, take an interest. Go and find out who you are. That's where that's where the connection begins. Because until we know who we are, never know anyone else in the way that they need to be known and
Julia Zemiro 24:05 seen. But you're someone who's always been very inquisitive. That's why I like talking to you. You're someone who really is curious. And another thing you are curious about as you are with this now is one point you asked yourself as an independent musician, how in the world are other people doing this? How are they getting by? And this ties into this idea to have you know, his artistry is music is theater important in a society because you know what, it's not an easy life to start off with. Even if you've been to a drama school, there's no guarantee you'll get work when you get out. And we've musicians sort of finding their way you observed your own practice and you're thinking, this is hard. Is it hard for anybody else? And you started a management course if you like, and I love that it's called I'm manage my music. There's no, there's no, you won't get it. There's no confusion around it. It's I manage my music In a nutshell, uh, you know, how did that come about, and I and just briefly tell us, you know, I love how you approach it to how the first day is a little bit tough.
Jen Cloher 25:10 I started those workshops because I was struggling, I was in debt, I had just released my second album, it hadn't had the same fanfare as my first album in that hadn't had a whole lot of airplay on Triple J. And I had just assumed a bunch of things that like, oh, sweet, you know, I'll just go here, and there'll be people better and, you know, not the case, you know, like that national broadcaster, had a huge effect as far as bringing people into rooms on my first album. And then when they didn't get behind the second album in the same way, what I quickly discovered was, you know, rooms were half full. I don't wasn't because my band was any worse, or that the music wasn't any good. I think it was really just a wake up call. That, you know, unless you have certain people or things, you know, in your court, it's really hard work. And so, you know, I often share that, like, oh, that year, I'd made $100,000 in my music. And I'd spent 110. And you know, that wasn't living extravagantly. Like when you think about touring around Australia was five people in a band, you're paying them, you're paying all of the engineers, you're paying flights, accommodation, higher cars, wages, you paying for publicity radio, in every state, you know, like that money, and we weren't staying in like five star hotels, I like bunk rooms in a backpack, because
Julia Zemiro 26:44 I can testify, I can testify, this lady's not a liar.
Jen Cloher 26:49 This is the truth ran. And so I realized that unless I started to look at it as a business and find out what other people were doing, I was going to not be able to do it anymore. And so really, I managed my music was inviting other artists to come in and share about their experience, how have you done it. And this is a really sort of interesting, but also very sad thing is that many of them were in debt. And if they weren't, if they weren't in debt, their managers were, which is the same thing. Because at the end of the day, as you know, we live in this massive continent. You know, that's quite expensive, long distances to travel with a relatively small population, when you think about the landmass. So we're not even as big as the greater population of Tokyo. That's the whole of Australia. I think, like, many, many years of experience helped me to distill what I think are really important, very basic, but important things. The first thing that I always say is like, get a separate bank account. Oh, now I know that sounds insane to some people. But I just had one bank account, and everything came in and everything went out of it. I wasn't, there was no business separation. So how can you have a business if you don't actually know what it's earning? What it's what it's, you know, what the expenditures are? If you're not, there's no contingency plan or savings on knowing those outgoings that are going to happen every month, or whatever it is. So that's the first thing that I did was I opened a separate bank account, which was Jen Clow music, and this was like, I don't know, 12 years ago. And then the next thing was, don't go into debt. What crazy, crazy said than done. Yeah. So cut my credit card, except for those ones that you can have that are like debit credit card, so you can't spend the bank's money. Cut it up. Oh, yeah. And because I now have this bank account, that was Janklow music, if I wanted to go and make a record and only had $3,000. And I wanted to spend six, I had to go out and find that money. And I couldn't borrow it from my partner or my friends or my family. And the beautiful thing is that it frayed those relationships up Oh, yeah, because I wasn't scheming and manipulating and trying to work out how I could milk my parents for like 2000 like tragic. That's the kind of stuff we come to when we're desperate. So it freed those relationships up. And the other thing that I think is really, really, really important that I think a lot of people don't realize is that the most important people in your career as an artist are other artists, and not managers. They're not booking agents, that actually other artists and the reason why is that that is the community that you will look to during the really tough times like COVID You know, like, those are the people that you can call up and commiserate with you can collaborate with that. lend you things because they know that it's tough that will help you out that will go on the road with you. They're actually the most important people in your life. And I think if you can get community and be involved with the community, and not debt, foundational things that I think then help you to go out and actually have a crack at it, and just be where you are, it's also
Julia Zemiro 30:23 being you know, I think sometimes artists want to be artists and not worry about the nuts and bolts of the things that put you together. But I just think you can get a bit interested in kind of excited about those bits to like I, I had a $7,000 debt because of acting school. And the third and one of the first things I got out of the blue in my first year out was a commercial for sure natural, ultra thin Maxi shields, pads. And it was a very fun ad actually was directed by a woman on film, it was quite an exciting couple of days, I won't lie. And it was a good little script. And it had a bit of a laugh at itself. But I made $10,000. And I was spending and in our own mind, I hadn't spent Jen, I was going away. And I had this accountant who said you really should pay off that hexed it. And like, really? Now my parents were telling me this, this was the guy who was doing our tax. And he said I couldn't My best advice to you would be if you could not miss it. And you'll still have $3,000 to do something with. And it was the best advice ever. Because right from the beginning as a struggling actor straight out of school. That debt was wiped.
Jen Cloher 31:43 Yeah, look, I think. Yeah, I mean, in the 10 years that I've been running, I manage my music and I actually wrapped the last one we did was in November last year, and it was for no shortage of people coming through the doors still. You know, like it was packed. And and great speakers,
Julia Zemiro 32:01 did you get different people to come in and talk to them? And yeah,
Jen Cloher 32:05 I mean, I, the series that I did during COVID was just online master classes, looking at one aspect of releasing music. And yeah, people people came in thick and fast. They were up for it.
Julia Zemiro 32:19 Does it that shows in energy, though, doesn't it that shows like people are hopeful and that people is that makes me feel good that there are people who aren't going, I'm not gonna let this beat me. I'm going to keep going and get out there and get some information because you know, what's next? Who knows? I mean, look, you know, it was particularly it affected your, your your work and my work because I still tour with Rockwell's. And we had two national tours that were canceled two years running. Because that is just run by Renegade and the people who originally made the show, there's no other money that helps out and there's just no way they could have covered anything like a border closure and having to accommodate a whole bunch of people. I do feel slightly let down that there weren't more voices clamoring and saying, let's change this because I still think people think that making art, again, don't run away, come back, come back. I don't just mean things on the wall. I mean, anything that you enjoy, you know that it comes easily that it's quick, but it's painless. All of that there's still a kind of a disconnect about that. And look, I'll bore anybody that asks how we make the different shows I do just to clarify the just the the misinformation they have about it. Yeah, look, I
Jen Cloher 33:37 think it's, you know, look, I if you said to me, what does the chemical engineer do? Honestly, I wouldn't have the foggiest. So it's no surprise that people don't really understand the nuts and bolts of our industry and really part of it. I guess part of the craft is to make it look easy, isn't it? So? If it looks and feels easy, you're doing something right.
Julia Zemiro 34:09 What's next for you then Jen like you are, you know, you co founder milk records as a way to will take back control really, and have your own label and it's been such a success. It's so extraordinary. I managed my music. Four albums, a fifth with the beautiful the stringer and Mayor Dyson, amen. I mean, you're just incredible Trejo what's next what's making you excited about the future because I must say I'm a fairly half glass full person. And I was okay for most of COVID in many ways. I'm very lucky I had a home and a partner and and I didn't, everyone was all right around me. But just in the last couple of months, I had a bit of a deep dive, just thinking I don't know if anyone's really listening to anything I think people have tuned out as to what's important and what's going on. And just recently got optimistic again, possibly because I've been back at work and I'm hanging with people who want to make things and are experts at what they do and experts, camera people and sound women and, and directors, and we're back in our good zone making good stuff for people. So what's getting you hopefully a bit excited about what's next? whatever's next?
Jen Cloher 35:29 Yeah, well, I mean, you know, similarly, I felt very, I think a lot of us really felt our good fortune and our privilege through COVID. In that, like yourself, you know, I had a really, I had secure housing, I had financial assistance, because I'd set up my business in a way that made job keeper accessible. And I was in a writing phase. So when I write I generally stay home and, and work. So I was writing and demoing and then through between lockdowns would go and record. So I've recorded my fifth album, and we're currently mixing it. And I'm so excited, like, I feel really creatively, probably the most sort of open and free and excited about making music and performing. I feel like I've really fallen in love with it in a new way. I like it, I think it's because of that thing that I was saying, like taking the time to understand more about who I am. And where I come from, means that the way that I locate and situate myself in my music is much more meaningful. There's a connection there that I've never felt before. And it feels very powerful and embodied. And he like I think there's a real healing in the music as well because of my own journey of reconnection and what what I have to offer through through that. So I've got all of these projects around the album at the moment, some of its making work back home in Aotearoa, hopefully in June, if Omicron doesn't hobble us, connecting with other Maori who are making work, and just generally artists in general film projects, maybe a cheeky little podcast.
Julia Zemiro 37:32 Ah, I mean, I'll be listening. I'll be listening. Oh,
Jen Cloher 37:37 I love a yawn. I love the rose. So here we are. But I feel really reinvigorated and excited about creating work. And I just feel so fortunate, you know, that I that I never stopped even when it's been tough. It's never been easy. You know, like, I've always had to be there pushing it along. And no one's ever kind of stepped in and gone. Oh, here go, Jen. You know, like, we're gonna do it all for you to take a chill pill. Does anyone even say chill pill anymore?
Julia Zemiro 38:11 Do just, I guess to go. Also, I guess for artists too, out there. You know, it's sort of remembering that I do remember. One great thing about VCA about acting school was at the end of the three years, they said don't wait for people to call you for work. And it was very much a school about making your own work. They had had an actual course about it. So but even as US actors, only actors in inverted commas. The idea was, you know, no one's gonna offer you work. So you'll have to go and make it yourself. And what I love is and can we finish on this final story, which is, you'd been sitting there watching some lovely musicians do a version of The Beatles, a Beatle show? And you thought I Yeah, and you thought there must be there must be another an album or some extraordinary female performer that we could do. Tell us about? Coming up with the idea and executing it.
Jen Cloher 39:09 Yes. Well, look, that was a beautiful moment in my life. Yes, having just watched another one of those kind of Beatles cover shows doing the White album that was to do the White Album. I was like, This is so boring. And it's packed full of people paying good coin to watch this really boring. Presentation. Just got to be honest, it was middle of the road. And and I was like, Yeah, God damn, I want to you know, like, what's a classic album by a woman like we need to like bring something to the stage that just isn't the same old Rolling Stones, Beatles, whatever it is loving but whatever. And actually do I love them? I actually don't love them that much.
Julia Zemiro 39:56 But you know, it's like it's like going to the theatre companies again and going Are we really going to do Shakespeare again like fine, but I mean, could we just do something not Shakespeare? It's this it's the classics as it were. And they classic because they're classic. I go, well, sometimes it's interesting to appreciate classics in opposition to something else, or alongside something else, or, you know, or maybe something else.
Jen Cloher 40:21 I just just as a side note, like a lot of people like, oh, have you seen that Beatles documentary that goes for eight hours on Disney, like, you got to watch it. It's amazing. Lauren. I was like, okay, so I went in, I was like, oh, it's amazing of must watch it. And I had many recommendations. I think I got through an hour of it. And it's not because I have some like, you know, problem with the Beatles. I'm not like some jaded old person that hates the Beatles. Like I'm up for a good show. But I was like, literally just walk in. Like these four young dudes who were like the richest people in the world at that point in time, who'd no longer toured because they didn't need to smoking cigars, and having cocktails delivered to them while they just wrote songs. I'm like, I write songs all the time. I don't need to see other people do it and be waited on hand and foot while they do.
Julia Zemiro 41:14 And yet there's a fascination for it. So I go, Well, you're all fascinated by the creative process. You're all fascinated about how it happens. But those eyes were loaded and didn't have to be worried. Could you maybe be fascinated about others who are justice, who are struggling and are just as want to get that talent going? And unless they write it and can perform it, and you can see it, and you can have the relationship? You know, there's there's an audience for everyone, and we just need to find them. Anyway.
Jen Cloher 41:44 Back to it, Julia. I know the mission you're on and I'm fully I hear you're okay for it. Thank you. So anyway, beetles aside, I came home that night, and I was like, I know. Patti Smith's horses. And then I looked on Google, I Googled it, and I was like, No way next year, it turns 40 years. 20 year commemoration of Patti Smith's the horses. I then assembled adelaider myself, Courtney Barnett, Gareth Lee, the art of the drones and tropical storm and, and a great band. And we we put on a couple of shows at the Melbourne Town Hall, which has that massive organ. And I think we did a matinee and evening show for Melbourne Festival, and they both sold out. So it's like 4000 people came through that afternoon to watch Patti Smith's horses. But the cutest thing was I got to meet Patti, when she was out playing her shows here for horses. And it was maybe like a year later in 2017, I think because we did 2016. And her her tour manager kind of got myself Courtney walked down, like all through the little holes behind the Art Center. And kind of on the wires like oh my god, I'm about to make Holly Smith. Like, that's really something you know, like, I feel a bit nervous. I thought we're just going to be like in your backstage Green Room. Everyone having a few drinks. Hey, Patti, here's Jen and Courtney Oh, Hi, how you going love your work. And then you go on. You know, but we come to this stage door opens the door to this wardrobe room or whatever. What do you call it changer. And Patty's just, they're just sitting there cause she's just formed horses on her own. Like we did it with like six performance. And we just had an audience with Patti Smith for like, 40 minutes or something just myself, Courtney and Patti. And you know, like, what do you say? I was just like, Oh, thanks so much for riding horses. But then she was like, oh, yeah, that was great. You know, some friends sent me some videos of y'all doing it and
Unknown Speaker 44:11 yeah, good stuff.
Julia Zemiro 44:12 She saw some of it. She saw some of it on she loved it. Oh, my God gave
Jen Cloher 44:17 it the thumbs up Patti gave production of forces the thumbs up. So that was a super cute moment.
Julia Zemiro 44:25 It's like, it's a bit like the Kevin Jackson moment to where you like, you have this experience and they come back to go I witnessed it and saw it. You know, it's a real, I wish I wish audiences to realize how much belief it takes to be a performer a belief that you keep moving forward and you keep finding new things. And every now and then something just works. And you savor it, you really savor it, and you remember it becomes this terrific memory that you'll think about when you're 18 you can't move anymore, and it'll be this time and COVID reminded me of that. I just thought COVID felt like this is Retirement is I've got to make more memories. I've got to make more memories for others. I want to make sure you remain like that, at least why it's something to think about while we were stuck and gone. Well, if I never tour again, I remember that great time when we did this. And that, I guess to what I love about that horses story. I know, I've heard you speak about because you had an acting background. And you sing as well, there was a moment where the two of them came together. And when you performed in that show, and you really felt like the two streams connected, and that's such a magic thing to happen. For a performer when you go, Oh, I do have this extra stuff in my kit. That is like performing a monologue. Um, and I mean, that's so petty. I mean, that's that she absolutely is what she does, and so theatrical
Jen Cloher 45:47 and so theatrical. But here's the thing as well, I mean, I think it was said, you know, many times over, you know, COVID of the past few years, we're still in it, is what did we turn to? Oh, you know, aside from your food, alcohol and our parents, we turned to literature, poetry, beautiful film and television, music podcasts, like we turned to culture to fill the cup, you know, when we couldn't be living, you know, that bigger sort of out out in the world life. And so even if we might like to think that we don't value culture we do. It's embedded, you know, it's embedded in our very souls, like, everyone looks to it, whether they know it or not to connect with the truth of who they are.
Julia Zemiro 46:45 Jen, onwards and upwards. So good to talk to you. And, and I can't wait to hear the next album.
Astrid Jorgensen 46:55 coming. It's coming.
Julia Zemiro 46:59 So great to hear from Jen. Sometimes it is good to meet your heroes.
Dan Ilic 47:03 What up Jay Z asked who cares? She boy Jay Z make some noise. No bad Jay Z. Jewelers, Amira. This is Julius Amira
Julia Zemiro 47:12 asks, Who cares? Our second guest is Astrid Johansson. She is an Australian vocalist, conductor and composer. And she's the founder and director of pub choir. She radiates intelligence and creativity and simply wants every one of us to get creative to Hello Astrid.
Astrid Jorgensen 47:32 Julia, I'm obsessed with you. I real Daisy.
Julia Zemiro 47:36 Yeah, I mean, the original Josie. Obviously, Astrid, so delighted to be talking to you. You blew my tiny mind when I saw you do pop choir. And when I was the artistic director of the Adelaide cabaret festival, you were the first thing on this, but we wanted to get because what you do for those people who don't know about public choir? Tell us what is it?
Astrid Jorgensen 47:58 Pump choir is essentially what it says on the box. It's people singing together at the pub, nice and rowdy and fun. But on another level, Trent Dalton, the wonderful Brisbane author said to me, once of his experience of coming to pub choir and experience it himself said that it is the sound of people agreed. I think it's such a beautiful way to describe any choir, it is just regular people who might not know each other at all, who might disagree with each other on so many facets of life, all coming together and sharing one singular goal for an evening. And that's what pod choir is we learn one song at the show. You don't have to prepare anything. You don't have to be good at singing, you can be truly awful. But you get to come along and we will carry each other in the crowd. And at the end of the show. We perform what we have learned from each other. It sounds very cerebral, but it's mostly me insulting a crowd of people yelling at them. But it's fun. It's awesome. It's wonderful.
Julia Zemiro 48:56 That's a beautiful description. What I love, of course, is that Astrid, you had your first singing lesson and you were so excited by the tools that you were given in that first lesson to go. Oh, right. You got excited. You wanted to share that with other people. You went teaching. And it didn't quite go. As he thought. Look,
Astrid Jorgensen 49:16 I retired quite quickly from a short not illustrious career of one year. I tried high school teaching because I found music lessons like magic. I had always been good at music. Like as as long as I can remember I've been able to hear songs with a lot of detail in my head. And I thought that was something everyone could do. But it turns out not so I thought I'll go get some lessons when I was 16. I had some singing lessons and I thought it was like a learning a spell. Like you can use your body or you have to buy anything. You just use your body. Your voice has lived there all along and if you use it in the right way you can make people feel complex emotions, like you genuinely feel like you're casting a spell over people just by kind of speaking at them. And so I thought it was like the most illuminating experience of my life that you can control this instrument. It's not just like this wild beast, and either it's good or it's not, you can actually learn to harness your voice. And I thought, Well, surely everybody will be as excited as me when I explain this to them. But it turns out that high school children were not. I tried again on my own, but I think I'm far too chaotic for the classroom. So I kind of retreated. And I really started to focus on singing in the community, community choir stuff really got me going.
Julia Zemiro 50:41 And I mean, at one point, you were organizing seven different choirs driving hundreds of kilometers to facilitate that. But something kind of kicked in again, with that a little bit. It was like, hang on. It's a lot of kids still on teaching a lot of kids who still sometimes don't want to be there, even though they're good at it. And sometimes a lot of white people, which was great, and you want, you come from a complete different background, and you're thinking,
Astrid Jorgensen 51:07 Well, I mean, I guess the realization I had was yes, it's incredible to share this magic with people about singing. But yeah, the populations that I were working with didn't reflect me. It's not that there's anything wrong with any of those things you've mentioned. But I mean, I come from a diverse background. I was 20 years old, this young, energetic female, and I was walking into what felt like retirement situations where I it was confusing to me, because I think that choir is the most wonderful, accessible equalizing experience that is so easy. Like, I think it's really become this very cerebral highbrow thing, and we sing these like, you know, difficult works from the past that actually choirs just, as Trent said, people agreeing and I really wanted to find a way to convince people like me that it was worth doing. And so that's how pub choir was born. Because I was like, what attracts young people that want to just have a good time. Obviously, alcohol. I'm not spoiling anything, but just turns out if you take the choir rehearsal that's been happening the whole time. But you just put it in a nice, fun, licensed venue. So people will come.
Julia Zemiro 52:24 The original social media posts you put out read, calling all shower singers pub choir is acquire for you. Bring your mates bring your nan, just don't bring your kids because it's a pub, no sheet music, no auditions, no solos, no commitment, no worries, we'll teach you one song in three part harmony in 90 minutes, and then we'll never do it again. Come and let out some yields $5 entry. Now look, that is one of the best bloody ins I've ever read, like you just want to go. And the most beautiful part is we'll never do it again, is this moment in time. It's not about keeping it. And even though you do film it so people can have it as something to watch later. Of course, they put their phones away, and they completely get into what you're doing. Now, when I first saw it and was part of it. I thought it was just going to be everyone just singing everything. But now you actually do teach a three part harmony. And it's like, you kind of teach up rather than teach down. You sort of go i I'm going to challenge you a little bit. And you can see people Well, you told me you can see people sometimes they get do they get frustrated does the penny drop?
Astrid Jorgensen 53:34 I think it's more of a doubt. It's like the road to Damascus comes along and they do not believe and I yell at them until they do you know, I think I'm like, I mean, a big part of it is that it's honest. So I think a lot of people who come along know that they sing out of tune. There's no point in me, but cajoling them and lying to them. We don't need leaders to lie to us.
Julia Zemiro 54:01 They do That's right.
Astrid Jorgensen 54:03 Yeah, we fall couldn't receive another lie. Thank you. And so we we crave honesty and the people that come along, they know themselves. I don't hear anyone's individual voice. But everyone who comes along has an understanding of what their voice is like. And for a lot of people they don't want you to tell them. And so beautiful. You've nailed it because they probably haven't they probably miss every night along the way. came in like too high, too sharp, and missed everything. But what I do at pub wire is I try and just be honest with them but optimistic. I think I think those are my two main kind of goals for the evening. I will be honest with the people there. I'll say well, you've absolutely missed every note. But thank you for being honest about it. Because now I can help you. I mean I say all the time of the show if you just step back and wait for the time where you have come to a perfect understanding of what you need to Do you will have missed the whole show, it would be much more efficient use of your time if you just sang what you think you should be thinking. And if it goes wrong, I'll help you. I'll let you know. And then we go from there. And we all go on this journey together. And we arrive at a destination together, as long as it starts from a place of honesty and optimism, because I believe in them.
Julia Zemiro 55:21 It's, it's a metaphor for living your bloody life as well, because it's diving in. And it's it's also permission to fail and permission to make a weird sound and permission to try again, because you rehearse it a few times, you get another go at it, like it's not the end on a meal. Now, performers might know that already, we know that's part of how we learn and all that. But all these people are not performers in general. And the look on people's faces, when they leave the sound that you actually get them to make. I mean, I just tear up every time it's just, I just can't go there, go there, I've got to do anything important afterwards, because I just get so it's so beautifully emotional. And as you say, normally often choirs are about the right sound. And there is no right sound. It's about making the sound together. And as Trent says, agreeing, when I was at acting school, at VCA, we didn't do a lot of singing, it was part of the curriculum, but there wasn't a lot of it. And at one point, she did divide the class into two and you were going which half of mine and I realized that was in the better half, which was no fun for the half of the other half, you know, so they felt like they were kind of not great at it. And we got stuff that was more challenging, but they weren't good singers in this particular year. So why not challenged them. But what she really meant to say to before she divided was that she didn't believe that every single could act, but she felt that every actor could sing and could communicate a song by acting by feeling by telling the story of it. And let's face it, you know, if we all judged every musician by the voice and Australian Idol standards, there would be no Tom Waits, there'd be no Dylan, there'd be no scratchy voices and interesting voices. And yeah,
Astrid Jorgensen 57:12 I mean, I think that the music is confusing in that way. And very challenging in that way. Because input does not necessarily equal output. You know, you could you could do everything technically correct. But that doesn't mean that your voice moves people. And you could miss most of the notes and have a really gravelly voice. And yet something is awakened in the people that listen to you. So it is an absolutely sick of artistic pursuit, being presented as a like, there is an end point, there is no finishing point to arts, you cannot complete music, go and study and then be like, Well, I've done it all. There's no there's no line, it just goes on and on. And if all of it is subjective, and I'm sick of this judgment, this laden with judgment idea about the arts, you know, your voice might be out of tune all of the time. But that's, that's a subjective criteria, you know, and I just think the one fact about voices is that every single one is unique to the user. Like, you know, you can buy pianos from the factory, but you can't buy a voice. Every single one is unique to the user. And that's worth celebrating. Even if it sucks. All the notes are on
Julia Zemiro 58:24 the new platform papers is a great volume of stories about arts and what's going on in this particular one is what future for the arts in the post pandemic world indeed. And in it you right, we all deserve to feel joy, even if we are not the best is that the man show when you when you look out onto that crowd when you're filling up a huge room of you know, up to I mean, I've got it here. 3000 people you did Truly, Madly, Deeply that great Savage Garden song 3000 people, there must have been awesome.
Astrid Jorgensen 58:53 You will think about the odds for like, 3000 regular people, there's no auditions as if all of them are going to be good. I mean, is if any of us are the best at anything. Yeah, I mean, really, let's be honest about it. There's billions of people in the world, the odds are not good for you, you know, to be the best at anything. We all exist in this vast apparatus, you know, like, the sooner you can accept that. The reality of that, letting go of the idea that we are striving to climb this piece of shit. Yeah, like if there's, there's just the odds are so poor, they're against us. And so I feel like the moment that you can accept that we exist in this vast average is so freeing. You are free now to enjoy an experience. Of course, you're not the best. When you sing, you are not the most beautiful sound in the world. And that's okay. Like, you know, I get a lot of people who come along before the show before they've had their conversion. And they say things like, you know, or absolutely tone deaf. I could never sing a note right. And I know there's no hope for me and I sort of think to myself What are you making that basing that comparison on? Are you listening to literal famous singers and then deciding that there is a chasm between you and them? Of course, like, you know, Beyonce wouldn't exist unless she was remarkable. And to compare our voice with what we hear what this curated sound that we hear everywhere on the radio, and like, you know, after the producer is ironed everything out and after everything is so schmick and clean, and then to listen to that and think, Oh, my voice isn't that good? I mean, of course, it's not come on, get off your horse, you're crazy. You know, like, you know, just accept that your voice is unique. And that is enough,
Julia Zemiro 1:00:38 you make the comparison with sport where you say, you know, we know that we can't be we're not going to be at the Olympics. So that doesn't stop us playing soccer on the weekend with friends. It doesn't stop us playing tennis with friends, it doesn't stop us doing a bit of a dance class or not being great at it, but you just love doing it with singing somehow. Is it because it's emotional? Is it because it taps it because someone in someone in the family has obviously said to them, you can't sing? I hear that all the time. Because with rock waves, we just do some scene sometimes. And we challenge them. And they like, I know, I'm the one in my family who can't sing. But is it because singing is emotional to its other activities don't bring out emotion like that maybe
Astrid Jorgensen 1:01:17 there's probably lots of factors for each individual. But I reckon, overall, I think singing feels like a personal failure, because it came from your body. You know, with them, I also learned violin and piano was a young kid, and you press keys, and you look at the string and you you know, you can see physically what you're working with. With singing. It's all internal. It's very personal. And so when things go wrong, you did it made the noise and it feels like it's such a personal failure. But I mean, I would counter that by saying that much like sports singing is a physical activity. I mean, I wish it was more physical. But I mean, I'm, it's a physical activity as if there's anything about your voice that you're embarrassed about, or that you don't like there is a physical solution, because all noise is created with your own body. So you know, if your voice you feel is too annoying, you know, you can learn to change tone of voice. And I'm not suggesting that you do that. But this idea that it's like this fixed property of our bodies is not true. And you know, I think sport does a lot better of a job of convincing society that it's okay to be average, you know, like, anyone at any physical level can find like a little kicks AFL team or a night indoor netball team, and you can be the worst and super uncoordinated and someone will have you but what do you do if you're really bad at violin? You know? I think yeah, the arts has this, this problem with kind of prestige and competition, whereas I think, you know, pop choir, at least I mean, I'm not trying to make it a big self promotion thing. But I think we have given people a space to be truly awful. And to have the loveliest time because it is okay, if there are enough of us helping each other, we can celebrate the vast average. And and I think that's what people want. In a post COVID world. Like I think all of us have spent a lot of time at home, reflecting on what is actually important. And I think comfort and happiness have really risen to the top. You know, I've noticed some of my corporate friends, they're like, they're not interested in wearing heels in a power suit to work. The way that we look has nothing to do with our performance. You know, like people are looking to work at home and they're brushing their hair less, even though this is their meeting, and they got a kid on the hip, and we are looking for comfort and we are looking for experience and I think anything we can do to offer people that especially in the arts, you know, bring it on.
Julia Zemiro 1:03:49 It's our job. Now you are an artist you had a you're making a quite a good living I am assuming with pop choir, you were doing incredible shows so many extraordinary people involved along the way. You know, Mariah Carey got involved at one point and said how fabulous that was, it was going all around the world. And then COVID hits. Now any of us that work with a live audience, all of a sudden that work literally disappeared? How did it play out for you?
Astrid Jorgensen 1:04:17 Well, it was it was a couple of touch and go brown moments there. But do you know what is incredible and I do not take this for granted. I understand that this is not everyone's story. And in fact, I think it's the exception is that we thrived throughout COVID which is unbelievable, considering that choir was often illegal during the last few years. Like my business has been illegal,
Julia Zemiro 1:04:46 I'm safe, unsafe, someone
Astrid Jorgensen 1:04:49 safe unsafe, you know you can share it the funny but once it's a song, you know those particles. So anyway, what actually happened was I reflected deep more deeply upon what happened Quite was about anyway. So yes, it was going very well. And I do grieve some of those opportunities that I think we might have lost forever, perhaps. But I had plenty of time for introspection and to consider what it is that I'm trying to do anyway, was it to fill a pub with 1000s of people? No, that's not what started pub quiet to begin with. The idea was offering people the opportunity to make art averagely and to feel safe and to enjoy the experience. And I don't, I came to the realization that we didn't even need to be near each other, we could still have that experience. And that's how couch choir was created. It's the same idea. You know, everyone is invited, no matter what your voice is, like you are invited to come and be part of this experience. But rather than it being live, people would send their performances as a video to me and my team and we would edit them together. And I think that is extraordinarily brave of all the people who are a part of it because a pub quiet just get lost in the crowd. Just go Stan, you're very loud person and blended. They'll cover any noisy mic. But at couch choir, you said your individual performance to us. And what happened was a business group, because like I was saying before, I think of all of the terrible things that have happened in the past two years. one silver lining is that I think COVID has helped us all to reframe what we consider important and I think people were sitting at home and they wanted connection, they wanted to feel like part of something bigger than themselves. Community is important to us, we have all agreed community is important. And I think people also felt this desperate need to feel okay with what they have. And we'd already been offering that was pub quiet. But we've kept quiet was an even more overt decision for people to make, I will sing by myself. And I may miss every single note. And then I will accept that and I will send it to someone else. And I trust that they will do something good with it. And so our, our audience literally doubled over over the last little while. And so I'm very grateful for this. I don't know, I guess it's kind of reiterated for me why we started in the first place, which was Yeah, to give people a safe place to create and singing is still real, no matter what infectious thing might be going on in the world. Singing always is with you inside your body. And you can cast the magic spell anytime you want. Oh,
Julia Zemiro 1:07:33 I love it. I love listening to you Astrid, it just, I mean, honestly, I would just really encourage anybody, if you've never had singing lessons, just pick a teacher for six lessons just for six and just see what you feel and what comes out of it. And there is some amazing teachers out there. They really, really, really are. It's so it's so worth doing. So I have to say, though, when COVID here, then we had a lot of time to think about all of these things and job caper came out. And all of a sudden, it seemed that the artistic community wasn't going to be able to get any of that. And again, maybe with the flick of a pen we could have have that changed. I was surprised how I expected more members of the public or punters to kind of go Yeah, that's terrible. They did a bit online etc. But there's no real change to that upheaval. Or maybe there was maybe more people spoke up than I knew, but nothing was really done about it. And again, it was very difficult for the artistic community not to feel completely ignored, and unheard and unnecessary. Until you need cheering up until you need to commute to communicate with someone in short, you need some amazing music at your you want to get a band in and do something. And I'd be interested to know what your view is of that in terms of what are we I think sometimes maybe we are not as good at explaining and sharing with audiences. What it is that we do, the work that it takes, and to maybe stop that idea of going well, you lucky that's why you do it. I find that you kind of cross this nice some divide between you are a professional musician and singer. But you engage people who are not and you make a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing.
Astrid Jorgensen 1:09:21 I mean, my approach is the more that you can invite people into the experience, the more appreciation that they have for what involves so I mean say with sport. I had tennis lessons very briefly as a kid and I was actually beaten in my only match I haven't played with by girl with one arm and us you know, thrashed six low and I thought to myself tennis song hard. But then when I go and watch tennis on the telly, I have this this understanding of of how difficult it would be to be ash body, but how much skill is involved. And until we in the arts community offer people the experience of music making in my instance, they may not be able to come to a place of appreciation of how much it involves to become a master of your craft, to go and see an incredible musician and to understand that this is not just the way that they work up, but it actually takes considerable effort and practice to get to that place. And I think, yeah, we do quite a notoriously bad job of this grass roots, creation. And it's interesting, like when we bring into the COVID conversation of you know, we felt like we were adrift in the arts community. And like, we weren't sure if we were truly appreciated. I think that there was a lot of passiveness around the consuming of art, and the Internet has everything to do with that. And, you know, I think that live music is a much richer experience than listening on your phone. But you can access music anytime you want, you know, like AI is at our fingertips, pretty much for free at all times. And so it has to be about experience, if we want to convince people of the value of what art brings into our life, it has to be experiential, because we can passively consume art all day, every day as much as we want. And so I think out of something like COVID, if we want to get people back in theaters, and experiencing the transformation that you have, as an audience member, when you are taken on this journey, when you watch a play or whatever, I think we need to start encouraging the wider community to experience art in their everyday life. Now that might be I don't know, if you're in a corporate industry, maybe you could have, instead of awkward PD, where everyone sits there checking their phone, secretly we talk about I don't know, like buzzwords and certainly bad stuff. Maybe you could have a group art class. And that might sound really silly and wishy washy. But the research is abundant and readily available, go look up, how singing can affect you physically and emotionally. Like there's so much research out there, I think that we need to start bringing the arts into the experience of life, so that people can dip their fingers in creation we need to create with some urgency in this world, because then we will understand what it takes to really, truly transform people with art. It's It's hard work. And we've got to bring people on that journey.
Julia Zemiro 1:12:41 I sometimes joke that one day when I've got no work, and I'm 65 I'll open like a drama class school. But ya know, but it'll be called, please come here if you don't want to be famous. And it would be just for the experience of the adults and children to come and go try and doing a monologue from a play, try singing something, try learning something, not to be marked on not to be rewarded by but just to try it in a safe environment. And I also think that's the way you get to learn the vocabulary of a particular genre. You said before with tennis, you had played tennis, and you saw how hard it was. So when you watch it, you have some idea. And I think if every kid you know have at school so early, we have to start choosing what we're going to do if we're going to do a language or if we're going to do music, or if we're going to do sport. And then at some point to unless you're brilliant at it, you're out. It's really hard to be average. And then you're you're told you're average, because the expectation is everyone wants to be brilliant. We don't I'd like to play really average game of netball. But we tried that once and the girls were up the women were up against you know, I did some adult netball classes. We turned up in just our gear and that team had said, yeah, now you'd have to wear anything special. And we were up against this team with bibs. And the whole thing's organized and got uniforms. I was like, What is this and they were not friendly. They did not want to have fun. And so that fun element of being at school and I think kids should sing every single day at school for fun, you do a song that is popular. You do a song that you'd enjoy, not four marks just to open your guts up and yell and sing and make noise. Because that vibration inside you. It's just good for you to do that for an hour and then get on with your day.
Astrid Jorgensen 1:14:37 Absolutely. And a very small story, just the direct precursor to public wire. The direct year before I started while I was working in Townsville at a school called St Pat's on the strand, and they had a compulsory whole school choir I was brought into the school specifically to run the fortnightly compulsory Back. In high school, high school girls being forced to sit outside in Townsville, it's hot there, if you haven't been right after assemblies, they've been sitting in the heat, sweltering sweating from every pore. And then after assembly, they remain sitting there sweaty seats and then are forced to sing with me for an hour. And can I tell you it was the most transformative, incredible, illuminating experience of my life. I thank my lucky stars that I was given the opportunity to do that kind of work within the first session. I mean, the doubt, the doubt was high, the hormones were absolutely common. There was just this like sticky sweat, you're in it. And it was mostly for me. And I decided I would not try and explain anything. And exactly what I was saying before I decided I have to go experience first. So instead of saying anything, welcome to quiet. No, I just started seeing my guts out a song that I wanted them to learn, but I let them hear it, I decided that I couldn't ask them to do anything I wouldn't be willing to do. So I just put my face in the mind saying this song is like beautifully as I possibly could. And then I pointed back at them. And I said, Now you sing. And we did it line by line and everyone shut their face. And then saying when I told them to. And so the experience is always it has to come first. Let's worry about well, how to take a beautiful breath and sit this way and do that. Nope. Let's worry about that later. And let's just start with a beautiful feeling of singing together. And then from there, we could you know, bring a new pop song every week. And it was pretty much POM choir, but sober. Thank goodness it was in a school. And yeah, just like taking a song that I thought they already knew. So they felt like they had already succeeded because they knew how it all went. But I'd seen first that seemed back in a moment, this side, try little harmony, and then we gather and it was incredible. And it just showed me my whole perception of creating and the arts had been wrong. It's not about competing, there is no way to win. All we can do is work together. And the sum is always greater than the parts. If you have honest and optimistic leadership, I think that's an important element to it. You can't just flounder. Someone has to be telling someone what to do.
Julia Zemiro 1:17:15 You say in this great piece again, the new platform papers get it to join a choir is to agree to play a small part in a collective whole. You give of yourself not for yourself, so that you may share in an outcome much bigger than yourself. I mean, isn't that? Isn't that how we should be voting isn't how we should be living? Isn't that how we should be being like together? Like that's, that's the fun part of it is never time. We're all here, isn't it?
Astrid Jorgensen 1:17:43 I mean, I like to think so. And I mean, if I I've heard that there's a parliamentary choir. And I would be willing, if you pull my leg willing to go and take the parliamentary choir because I would love to boss around some politicians with some honest but optimistic leadership and say no, if we work together, we could actually agree and create something better than we could accrue, you know, create by ourselves. I mean, I think that's pretty megalomaniac vibes for me, but no, I think it would be it would be really nice to even have that. Literal politicians working in literal harmony together. Wouldn't that be nice?
Julia Zemiro 1:18:29 That'd be That's my dream. That's literally my day.
Astrid Jorgensen 1:18:33 I'm putting it out there anyone who's in the parliamentary choir, I'm available.
Julia Zemiro 1:18:37 She's available and also let's share that let's have more compulsory whole school choirs. Oh my gosh,
Astrid Jorgensen 1:18:44 I think that it was an experience for them as well as me and I you know, we could do with a lot more of that in schools and in society in general. Let's make stuff averagely and have a lovely time.
Julia Zemiro 1:18:54 Let's make stuff avidly and have a lovely time. Astrid, you're just a ray of sunshine. And I also want to shout out to a wonderful wave in eso who works with you and plays guitar and gets us all smiling and getting into it and gives us a hand with the tune because sometimes you don't know where we're going.
Astrid Jorgensen 1:19:16 She will absolutely be listening and I bet you she's wearing the custom made Julie's Amuro shirt that she had you in her hand and she got it printed so that it would last longer the feeling so thank you for being so lovely and supportive to everything we do. Thank you and it
Julia Zemiro 1:19:31 was a thrill also that SBS made a show around pub quiet and specifically they made it around the fact that choirs hadn't been able to get together and we cut to different I hosted it with Miranda Tapsell for SBS and we cut to different choirs all around the country to check in with them in terms of what they've been doing. And you again taught we the way Vinnie live at the Sydney Town Hall to Song hunters and collect a song with Mark Seymour and it was is incredible and yeah I just I hope we get to do it again I hope we get to see that vibe again and and get out there have you done any live since
Astrid Jorgensen 1:20:10 so we've done one show in 2022 and it was incredible we did this song I Love You always forever we did it in Brisbane this beautiful song by UK singer Donald Lewis Ella view always read and she got on board Wheaton about it, she's been sharing it you know, I think even that's that's very good feedback. It's very validating to see the artists themselves be excited by a song of their own being reborn sung by you know, drunk, just people. So, you know, if you can't get along to pub like join a local choir, go and make a friend. Go and agree with someone. Go and sing a song and make something with them and you will be better for and I promise.
Julia Zemiro 1:20:55 Thank you so much Astrid. love you love you.
Astrid Jorgensen 1:20:59 Ah, you are lots of fanning delight. Thank you for having me.
Dan Ilic 1:21:02 Julia Zemiro asks, Who cares?
Julia Zemiro 1:21:04 So that's the message, everyone sing. averagely go on. I dare you. Thank you to Jen and Astrid, thanks to a rational fee and the patreon supporters the Bertha Foundation and our wonderful post producer Jacob Brown who makes us sound fabulous on equipment from road. Join me next time when we find out who else cares. Bye
We have a very loose, dude-heavy podcast this week, that is back to back bros being bros. There is ribbing, slander, sledging, marijuana, bitcoin, and as promised rhyming.
Joining Lewis Hobba (Triple J) and Dan Ilic (Third Person Writer) on the podcast this week are two of our old friends in comedy and broadcasting Matt Okine and Alex Dyson (All Day Breakfast) ripping into the news of the week. We also talk through all things Australian Podcast Awards we give Dom Knight (The Chaser), and Andy Lee (Hamish and Andy) a call. We also get a brief La Niña whether report direct from the Bureau of the Brolly CEO, Tim Bailey.
You can now get our classic billboard artwork through our RedBubble store as stickers! And if you're an Indiegogo #JokeKeeper supporter your stickers will be going out in the mail next week!
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Good evening, Lewis.
Lewis Hobba 0:05 Hello, Daniel. How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:07 I'm good. I'm just kind of warming up you know for the big week ahead of us. And not only are we trying to get a bugle a rational fear crossover show next next week, but we've got the the Podcast Awards coming up. Do we? Like some Thursday? Thursday? Yeah, this coming Thursday. Yeah. Next week next. Did you know about this? I bought your ticket. We normally the great thing is we normally record on Thursday night so well, you will you wouldn't be doing anything anyway. Cuz usually schedule Thursday nights for us. Yeah, but you didn't. You didn't know that? No.
Lewis Hobba 0:43 Look, it's it's a whole week ahead. And that's long term plan. But I cannot wait. I'm excited. I've been excited for months. The night free. I've got myself a new suit. I'm ready to go.
Dan Ilic 0:56 Good. Let's call one other person who's also getting ready for the big night. Now we've got some stiff competition. There's the Boggy Creek community podcast the Candyman. A couple of blokes called Hamish and Andy housewarming, as we know, we spoke to them last week. But then we've got our old friends called The Chaser already Pete Lawler in the in the in the text has said, how do we vote for the chaser podcast? Any words? Thank you, Peter. Thank you very much for that. I just thought we'd give them a call and see how they're going. See how they're preparing for the night. Let's give DOM Knight a call. He's the co host of The Chaser podcast along with
Lewis Hobba 1:32 you've been on a Danny poster. Do you get do you get a section of the award? You have shares in the award? Yeah,
Dan Ilic 1:37 I do. I'm gonna say hello. Hello, Tom. Nice.
Unknown Speaker 1:41 Hello, is this Dan Ilic it is Dan Ilic Chen
Dan Ilic 1:45 Lewis haba. Hi, Tom.
Unknown Speaker 1:47 Hello Lewis. taba. I'm in the middle of an Uber. Night in Sydney to watch I have the pleasure of speaking to the two of you. Well, we
Dan Ilic 1:54 just wanted to know see how you're going. How you're preparing for the Podcast Awards coming up. We got we got a stiff competition with you also nominated for Best Comedy podcast. What are you doing to prepare?
Dom Knight 2:05 were nominated.
Dan Ilic 2:08 Hang on, you don't even you didn't even know you're nominated. Am I the only one that cares about these Podcast Awards?
Unknown Speaker 2:13 Oh, no. flattering. It's flattering. But I don't want to get my hopes up because you guys will be winning the title holders?
Dan Ilic 2:22 Yeah. Which means we got a lot to lose. Namely this glass trophy.
Dom Knight 2:27 Ah, I mean, you say that but we didn't put billboards in you know Times Square.
Lewis Hobba 2:35 It's over we've already lost Yeah, where the pranksters now chase up all is Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 2:42 We're just happy to be there. Honestly. We we've our strategy this whole year has been bulk we do 10 podcasts a week. Yeah, you do one podcast a week not even every week. Sometimes you get Julia to Mrs. Amuro to do it for you. nominated? I'm just happy to be there. Oh, I will carry a bag I'll get your autograph.
Dan Ilic 3:06 Why did you go from Why did you go from doing one podcast a day to doing two podcasts a day? That's that seems crazy to me.
Unknown Speaker 3:14 Well with three seem too many you know the reason is, although we have talked about a late night version maybe if we can get hot
Dan Ilic 3:29 dogs, but it's still you can get Roland Dean on satirist
Unknown Speaker 3:34 actually you know what getting Ron Dean on and not telling him it was a joke. Now we did two a day because what we were doing is we have great guests like you know that Danny would start from rational fear semi friend of both of our shows, we just copied your playbook Gabby boss, and he's a co host he always knew we'd have them on and then we cut to cut down the interview we would have a 20 minute lovely chatting to cut it down to him in Philly. Nice, you know, radio show cell phone that we have in the morning. So we can just put them up as an afternoon session and it's
Dan Ilic 4:13 lovely. Oh, I say you've actually done it for less work. That's clever.
Unknown Speaker 4:18 More podcast, less work and also more fun we had done Tony Martin on actually if I'm completely honest with you, we've asked Tony Martin how to win the podcast award. And we were we were bad mouthing your podcast beat him. And so we're gonna we're gonna join forces and duties all shows up.
Dan Ilic 4:42 Very good. Well, we will be unbeatable next year. Thank you, Dom. Good luck.
Unknown Speaker 4:46 All the best incoming second.
Dan Ilic 4:51 Dark Night from the taste of podcast there. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the Euro nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's stop this.
Unknown Speaker 5:00 rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 5:13 Tonight Peter Dutton wins a defamation case against Shane bezzie. clearing up any confusion as to whether he's a rape apologist which he is not. And George christison compares COVID restrictions to Nazi Germany, while historians compare Christiansen to Hitler's one ball, and Powershop is found to be part of a shell company. It's the 26th of November 2021. And Peter Dutton is not a rape apologist. This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former first woman president of Sweden Daniel itch. And this is the podcast that takes the scariest news stories and puts the word freedom in the headline to make them seem nice and acceptable. Let's meet our female guests for tonight. Straight from the red carpet to the luxurious world of independent podcasting. Here's the music maker filmmaker baby make a joke make some would call him a polymath. We just call him POLYMATH.
Matt Okine 6:14 Oh kind, like guys, how's it going?
Dan Ilic 6:18 Well, well, Matt, you make a lot of things. And you've been making mercans lately how sales has Merkin sales going? Yeah, so
Matt Okine 6:25 I found a ball of my old hair underneath my house. My dad found it. And now you gotta understand that this hair must have been there since when I used to cut my hair at home by myself which would have been when I was maybe 1617. So we're looking at Vintage you know 1999 or 2001 Vintage. It aged pretty well. And we just saw it pop the cork on it and take it to a wig maker. So yeah back on this because look at this I got the I got the map at Tassie just sitting out the front here. The best right of forehead on my bloody head these days.
Unknown Speaker 7:02 Terrifying. Wow.
Dan Ilic 7:03 Well, you're you're you're a real you know, middle aged man with a with your kid. You've got your
Matt Okine 7:09 shirts when I sneeze. For God's sake. Well, I used to be licked man.
Dan Ilic 7:15 Alright, use broadcaster. And he's the former independent candidate for wedding. But now he spends his time as a small business owner doing it tough. It's Alex Dyson.
Alex Dyson 7:25 How low I know one independent run. And now as a small business. I don't have to go with the liberals. I mean, the economy now. I've taken one peek at it. And it's tough to get on that tray. Elena, let's guard
Dan Ilic 7:41 when you decided to become a small business owner, did you ever think you'd be one of those ones that were doing it tough?
Alex Dyson 7:46 Of course, but I know no other way when it comes to business. I find the toughest way to try and do everything including getting insurance setting up the internet. There is no easy way to do it. But I'm just looking forward now that Melbourne is open to capacity that Comedy Club is up and running. I'm just hoping that the the money trickles down. You know, I'm just waiting
Lewis Hobba 8:07 for a joke. No. Alex Dyson opened a really fun, awesome, amazing comedy venue pretty much the same week as COVID came by COVID headlining every night.
Matt Okine 8:22 I've been taking the stage. Yeah.
Alex Dyson 8:24 Yeah. Yeah. It's been pretty bizarre with people originally not allowed to be in Melbourne. And then one time, Brisbane people came down and had to give you shoot off stage because there was a COVID outbreak in Brisbane. It's been Yeah, up and down. But we're out and out and about now and even Dan helix came through one time as well, Dan.
Dan Ilic 8:42 Oh, yeah. No, it's fine. It's fantastic.
Alex Dyson 8:45 You would just suspect.
Dan Ilic 8:48 Yeah, no living is I've been invited to perform at comedy Republic. Full disclosure, full disclosure, but COVID has locked us down several times. So we haven't been able to do it just yet. Oh, hang on a sec. Guys. friend of the show, Andy Lee is just texting me. Let's just give him a quick story about Andy you're on the podcast with a Lewis Alex dice at a meta kind. How are you today, Eddie?
Lewis Hobba 9:15 Hello, guys.
Dan Ilic 9:16 How are you all? Well, look, we were just calling we just called dumb Knight because he's also nominated as for Best Comedy at the Podcast Awards coming up. Do you did you did you?
Unknown Speaker 9:25 What do you How are you preparing for the Podcast Awards?
Unknown Speaker 9:28 When other comedy or other podcast the
Dan Ilic 9:30 podcast that was the next Thursday night? Just tell people
Unknown Speaker 9:38 where are they? Are they online? Or is there an event? It's an event like
Dan Ilic 9:43 it's at the Ritz. It's at the Ritz cinema in Randwick in Sydney. You got to buy a ticket everything there isn't
Unknown Speaker 9:50 run by it. They're like a governing podcast,
Dan Ilic 9:52 audio, podcast, Gods Ed Australian podcast award PayPal,
Alex Dyson 9:57 you know it's actually purchased by the petroleum company. And
Dan Ilic 10:05 Santos is running the podcast
Unknown Speaker 10:09 in all seriousness who are podcasting, some renegade being off the grid
Unknown Speaker 10:17 you know it's kind of like do your own research
Unknown Speaker 10:22 you're the one telling me
Matt Okine 10:24 it's not the first time these have been on and it's not the first time you've been nominated Andy so I'm just imagining a warehouse somewhere with all of your awards that you never picked up you didn't even know they exist
Dan Ilic 10:38 Do you have a trophy room in your house that you that you can barely get into?
Alex Dyson 10:43 No, no, we had to build a separate house when Andy when he jumped on the all day breakfast podcast with Matt and Alex, you gave us a little tour of your very organized cupboards so I'm sure that if there is a cupboard it would be pristine.
Unknown Speaker 11:02 That's true. I do like things fairly ordered.
Matt Okine 11:06 By trophies will be organized in weight, shape and ability to kill someone is currently the most dangerous award trophy.
Unknown Speaker 11:20 Yeah, well, I mean, believe it or not, Hamish and I have won two hours. Well, and then and that is the the most of it I mean, I feel like an imposter most of my life. But definitely, winning an area is where Hamish and I feel like the most impossible.
Matt Okine 11:38 I've got one guy's the 2020 moment of the year, I may as well be holding up a clump of dirt according to Andy Lee
Lewis Hobba 11:54 left more awards on the podium. He's never known about the rest of the rest of our lives.
Unknown Speaker 12:00 That's not true. I'm humbled and humbled to be amongst great other performers that I have too many to list at
Matt Okine 12:13 least one of them Andy.
Dan Ilic 12:22 Andy, lay thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear and good luck at the Podcast Awards next Thursday night.
Unknown Speaker 12:28 It means the world to me. Only do I only do what I do for awards. Yeah, I hope hopefully. Good luck to you guys.
Dan Ilic 12:39 Thanks, Andy. Bye.
Alex Dyson 12:41 Well, Hamish and Andy versus irrational fear in the comedy section alongside the chase mad and I mean, we took one look at that. And we said no thanks. And we're over to the best entertainment category. That's how you
Matt Okine 12:57 try to be comedy. That's the way I would like
Lewis Hobba 13:02 to watch you try and fail.
Dan Ilic 13:06 Earlier this year, when at home alone together was up for Best Comedy at the actor awards. Tim mentions drama show won the Best Comedy it was like
Matt Okine 13:15 in the same awards.
Alex Dyson 13:16 I guess they give guess they give awards to
Dan Ilic 13:20 dramas now for comedy.
Lewis Hobba 13:22 Chris Tyla originated that show and he was like, I can't believe all I had to do when a comedy actor was write a drama.
Dan Ilic 13:31 Show is totally derail today. But that's good. This week's first fear. Now if you're a subscriber to the times in the UK, you may have read this intriguing story. Taliban makes first deal selling cannabis to Australians. Now according to the story published in The Times a real website in the UK, the proper news website in the UK, an Australian company called C farm has invested 300 million pounds in a cannabis processing plant in Afghanistan to sell the good stuff back to Australians. This isn't the time this is like like a legit news site. But here's the thing. The story wasn't actually true. And see farm which is a medical advice company in Australia had to issue a statement on their website saying otherwise basically saying we have no connection with cannabis or the Taliban. We have no idea where the Taliban media release came from. Now fear mongers if you were a company that was dealing with the Taliban, isn't that just the kind of press release you would put out?
Lewis Hobba 14:32 The Australia Wheat Board get embroiled in the Taliban
Alex Dyson 14:36 AWB? I think that was Iraq.
Lewis Hobba 14:39 Yeah, yeah. Who were absolutely
Alex Dyson 14:41 fine and so there was nothing to say that.
Matt Okine 14:44 Why Why would they be why would they be doing stuff with the Taliban when like, don't we have enough weed here?
Dan Ilic 14:52 Well, that's that I totally agree. That's what's so if you that was what's so iffy about the original story, right? Like if they'd said the fire If the if the story had like nominated which Australian sales selling to or would have believed it like if they said oh yeah, the Taliban was selling cannabis to Chappelle Kobe's dad I would have gone yeah sounds about right
Lewis Hobba 15:09 yeah do you know for a fact that this we'd hear it Matt
Matt Okine 15:14 I've heard heard about it I've been shocked by seeing its use at some of the parties.
Lewis Hobba 15:25 Oh yeah. Christian the arias I imagined it was a lot of Fury from you
Matt Okine 15:30 know, I tell you what, I wasn't aware to the areas because I didn't have all the windows open so there was no there wasn't any anything like that going on but I would have liked a bit more fresh air in these COVID times
Lewis Hobba 15:40 if you are an old man. Well, I mean come on
Dan Ilic 15:46 Tim on YouTube says wait is the most cultivated crop in Australia apart from Wait Oh hey guys so we don't even need Taliban's wait surely you
Lewis Hobba 15:54 hit up the Taliban for heroin
Dan Ilic 15:58 Well, that's that's it yeah. No, you
Lewis Hobba 16:02 say that's their strength it's one of their strengths.
Alex Dyson 16:03 When it comes to international trade I think is there's more often than not there's a bit of a vey it's the opposite is true because I know isn't this parts where Australia sends camels to Saudi Arabia and it almost sand as well because our sand is better for mixing concrete or something like that. So potentially there's a little bit of a mix there and we're selling weed to the Taliban
Dan Ilic 16:25 Wow. Oh my god next. Zealanders
Matt Okine 16:29 are a good politician Alex. Commerce.
Lewis Hobba 16:35 No one makes better sand than Australia.
Dan Ilic 16:39 Oh, no, we've we've got the we've got the cleanest most pristine sand that we sell it sell around the world. Absolutely.
Lewis Hobba 16:46 Are you guys investing in way do you guys strike me as like, I remember you and I used to share a desk the three of us and I overheard Oh, we lost the desk to the left. There was always a lot of chat about some nice investments going on between the two of you. I feel like both of you could be heavily invested in this upcoming I mean not invested in personally but financial. I thought
Matt Okine 17:08 about it but no, I haven't I haven't looked into it. I feel like ships already sailed once it's already happened, you know, then it's then it's no good. I'm all I'm all in on the crypto now. Of course you
Dan Ilic 17:20 get to that and say the thing about waiting Australia hasn't been legalized yet. So there's still a market yet to be made, like still a proper legal market ready to be made. Like I remember seeing one big story coming out of the United States when Wade was kind of legalized everywhere that the biggest thing to invest in was empty warehouse space, because that was the biggest demand for the new way to economy. So soon as that takes over. I'm gonna be by myself a
Matt Okine 17:43 warehouse. You should be able to just Airbnb you're like open spaces for weed growers. I mean, it's like, Hey, I've got a I've got a closet in my house. If anyone wants to start their own farm,
Lewis Hobba 17:57 maybe it's a good time to invest in like 711 Like all Canadian stalls, there's a line around the corner. Just trying to get under those neon lights.
Matt Okine 18:11 It's like how did you how did you how did you afford this mansion? clear eyes?
Dan Ilic 18:19 Yeah, Doritos, and tubes that I bought. I bought futures I bought futures in Doritos. Well, the story actually got picked up from a a Afghan news network called pack walk Afghan news network. And this is what their website looks like. And they've got a slogan and this slogan is reflecting the truth. And clearly, a reflection of the truth is a lie. And that was clearly clearly that's that's what people should know from that slogan. But this this website is so old school, they've actually got a hit counter on their stories and down the bottom. We've got a hit count of 853 people checked out the original story. They also put out a retraction for the story. So they printed a retraction and it was a C farm Australia says no deal with the Taliban. That's why the
Alex Dyson 19:10 double digits, isn't it? Yes.
Dan Ilic 19:14 Alex, you ready for the hit number on this 124?
Lewis Hobba 19:23 Cypress Hill 24 hits from the bomb
Alex Dyson 19:30 Yes, Louis.
Dan Ilic 19:32 rational fear very confused. I'm one of the dumber one sup y'all. I'm really in a rational fear this week second fear El Salvador's President reveals plan for volcano powered Bitcoin city. President announced his government will build a seaside Bitcoin City at the base of a volcano Oh my god moto con you are big into crypto What the hell is going on here
Matt Okine 20:04 with the positive sis man that's real bad look, I just love the way that this President announced it. He was on stage what looked like like a rock concert. And he had his hat backwards, which is the international sign for cool especially from a president I mean, come on this guy just
Alex Dyson 20:25 the president he had on the side el presidente
Matt Okine 20:29 hat backwards. He's talking about cities that are like made from volcano energy. I mean, this is this is the future man.
Dan Ilic 20:39 I'm gonna play I'm gonna play some of the video I'll play the start of the the launch video. This is a gigantic rock concert. Is a volcano going off this fireworks? It looks like splendor as an animated GIF picture of the President has a UFO flying over then UFO is putting a beam down to earth and dropping the president back onto Earth. And now this is more fireworks el presidente
Alex Dyson 21:10 I tried to be a cool politician at
Dan Ilic 21:16 this this is the guy look at him he's easy young president like he's 40 years old like he's he is you know a co president. He's like the Elon Musk of presidents.
Matt Okine 21:27 Yeah look it's pretty it's pretty impressive. I mean, the mining of the Bitcoin is planned to be you know done by the volcano energy it's built on volcano energy. I don't know what volcano energy is I just keep saying it.
Dan Ilic 21:41 It's like It's like mother Miss like mother energy it comes in a different can but they're gonna build they gotta build the city next to these volcanoes like that's that like name one time name one time in history that that has gone wrong
Alex Dyson 21:57 well I'm pretty sure that it was the people in Pompeii first used Bitcoin
Lewis Hobba 22:02 and frozen still under the all the ash just mining their coins.
Dan Ilic 22:15 Yeah, it's gotta wait for
Matt Okine 22:18 the gas. Well, they say the volcano has never erupted, but it has phased and smoked quite regularly. So it is.
Lewis Hobba 22:28 I think el presidente has faced and smoked quite regularly
Matt Okine 22:35 alright you buddy, Bitcoin city and El Salvador and I'll call you from my
Dan Ilic 22:41 yacht. I mean, this guy does have this guy does have a sense of the Elon Musk's about him like he. He said, If you want to build Bitcoin spread all over the world we should build, we should build some Alexandria's. The President called himself a dictator on Twitter as a joke.
Lewis Hobba 22:57 So he's modeling himself after the ancient pharaohs. Is that the is that the bit?
Dan Ilic 23:02 Alexandria was a Macedonian so the Alexander the Great was a Macedonian so maybe he's Mali himself after the great Macedonians.
Alex Dyson 23:09 That's the the information you come to know I'd love for the best poverty podcast. quickfire fact checking people
Matt Okine 23:22 believes that Bitcoin will be worth $1 million in five years. So they're investing they're buying something like $5 billion worth of bitcoin which they believe will you know, go tenfold and then they'll pay back their bond shareholders everybody wants to move into the city pays invest into it and they get it all back so
Lewis Hobba 23:41 because El Salvador a fact right like they currencies Fox, they're like this guy's this guy is or has is basically he's like what else? Like what, what could be worse than where we are now? And I kind of shoot for the moon situation that they're in, you know, like, it is. It is exciting. I'll give him that.
Dan Ilic 24:02 And it does it does have an element of you know, Futurism it's got it's got like leadership wrapped up in it because you know, he got us he kind of just dragging people to this space where they may or may not want to be you know, it's hard for me to make fun of this because it's kind of ticks all of my boxes to
Matt Okine 24:21 exactly right. I mean, how many one night stands we all do at Triple J and ain't no bloody UFOs dropping us off on stage but we did it.
Alex Dyson 24:30 One Night Stand is a concert series put on by
Lewis Hobba 24:33 Jay Yeah, the ABC has about the same budget as El Salvador I think do sort of feel like we are playing well in there. And that's
Alex Dyson 24:42 the problem with the ABC I say we I'm not in the in the broad church anymore, but it is stuck in the past a little bits got the old older viewers. I want to see either Botros cap on backwards coming out of an alien spaceship with the Oscar winner Morning,
Lewis Hobba 25:01 Australia. Can I just say we actually last year there is a guy he's on Twitter his name's I don't won't name him. There is a person whose job it is at the AVC to, like, tell you when something is against the policies of the ABC. And last year, in the depths of the lockdown, you guys would know this trying to do a daily show in the depths of COVID pandemic, it was a hard time to come up with funny bits. The tough thing and I decided we were like let's make a let's make a Bitcoin. Let's do hopper and hang coin. And we sort of did a quick checks with the ABC we're like, hey, we want to launch our own currency. How would that be? And the guy wrote back, this is the most illegal request I've ever read.
Matt Okine 25:50 It's about Shanghai, Sam and he's got to go Strv Shanghai San Mr. Speaker, Shanghai, Sam Hammond still works at racist Bridgeton let us lose connections to China, but it wasn't racist to call Sam Dastyari Shanghai. I didn't use either of those phrases. Bring it on a rational fear.
Dan Ilic 26:10 This week's third fear it feels like we've been talking about the next federal election for some time, but the thing hasn't even been called yet. Some of my sources are saying could be first week of May. So I'm saying it could be as early as February. I have an insider saying it could be called on January 27 for a march election. But it feels like we're very much in election territory with heaps of independents announcing they're running against coalition MPs. Allegra spender this week said she's running against Dave Sharma. And when you look at her CV, it's like the school captain versus the guy everyone wants to give a wedgie to but can't because his dad pays for everyone's tickets to splendor. And Tim and Tim Wilson seat of Goldstein, it was announced or Goldstein rather, it was announced that former ABC journal and former correspondent Zoe Daniels will be running now with all of these credible, well funded serious independents rising to challenge the conservatives. Whereas labor in all of this what are they doing Alex Dyson, what tactics are labor wheeling out to battle back these concert, these independent rhyming? Rhyming, rhyming?
Alex Dyson 27:08 They're using rhyming? And I feel that's a strong policy. I mean, they've dropped the negative getting rid of negative gearing they've stopped a lot of the taxes on the the higher income earners, they've really rolled back a few of the environmental policies. And they going with rhyming from the Shire has popular data looking at the distrustful nature of Scott Morrison and they've thought look, the last time we were in power it became because of a rhyme Kevin oh seven and won the election from from Johnny Howard. And I go Why would we go with something that doesn't work? It's back to the rhyming.
Dan Ilic 27:50 Well, I mean, that's complicated because it's one more word than the three words slogan like hello from the Shire. Yeah. I think they're I think the maybe maybe people will be too dumb to kind of get the run.
Alex Dyson 28:01 No, no, I think why from the shy you can you can accept the fourth word if it if it does rhyme. Okay, you can also go the suck from cook. Scott Morrison is in the electorate of cook, so they're good. I was thinking you could say the Josh Frydenberg policies the fried and Burger King Hindenburg is a three slogan for you could come through Peter Dutton could be the sinister minister, or who must not be defamed, which is a reference reference to the recent defamation case. There's very good I think coming with these they're gonna come in for a very strong showing whenever that election may drop because it's worked throughout the years over the over the distance I did it's all proof method.
Dan Ilic 28:48 I've got three one for Sharma. The leech from the beach. Joyce, I'll go Joyce's moist. Iconic one doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, I
Lewis Hobba 28:59 think that'll that'll come back on you. No one wants to hear.
Dan Ilic 29:02 I've been trying really, really hard to come up with one for Greg Hunt, but I'm stuck. So, Matthew, nothing like
Lewis Hobba 29:11 orange, you know, you just
Alex Dyson 29:13 exactly. But I think I think Scott Morrison is they've sensed this, the liberals are panicking. They're not sure what to do. And so coming into next year, they're going to have to find someone who rhymes with the year that it's seen in order to get the victory. And so I think we can announce irrational fear. It's Gladys Liu 22 Lu 22. Going for the big seat in the lodge, I think is the only way that the Liberals gonna be able to counter this new tactic from labor.
Lewis Hobba 29:40 Is there any way like what if Owlboy put like an all mouse over the Oh, to change it into a more of an EU sound? Oh, l Boo.
Matt Okine 29:48 Boo. What are you gonna use if you run for parliament again? I mean, what's your slogan?
Dan Ilic 29:57 Yeah, yeah, pre selected for the Liberal Party. Who would you
Matt Okine 30:01 Dyson the nice one
Alex Dyson 30:04 the nice dice I try so hard to work with a few but we'll see how it goes in water
Matt Okine 30:13 you just using things that people said to you at high school
Alex Dyson 30:18 a lot of my friends always complimented me to how hard I tried Yeah, it was really awesome.
Lewis Hobba 30:25 Okay I'm Euro you know you're a professional rerun artist you're a rapper in in now
Matt Okine 30:32 represent 2021 and check it out on
Dan Ilic 30:34 the bottom on the Boilermakers are open for business for political consulting.
Lewis Hobba 30:39 I would imagine Boilermakers would be a key demographic for for blue collar stuff.
Matt Okine 30:45 Yeah, yeah. So what what do you think what would I do in terms of?
Dan Ilic 30:51 Like, how would you? How would you? How would you set the Liberal Party members with rhymes?
Matt Okine 30:55 I don't know. The only thing I could think of was Scott either thought he and I didn't even know if that sounds like a positive thing. is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't I don't even know anymore.
Dan Ilic 31:05 It's you're the only you're the only person on this podcast that's allowed to said so that's
Matt Okine 31:11 offensive saying that.
Lewis Hobba 31:15 It stands for that. That hole over there. Oh,
Matt Okine 31:19 that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Is it? Oh, it is.
Dan Ilic 31:24 Yes. That however there Yeah, yeah. Um,
Matt Okine 31:26 I'd like to officially apologize.
Alex Dyson 31:31 Getting up at the Australian flags in the background. I want to say sorry, but I will not be stepping down as a result of referring
Dan Ilic 31:43 that icon you can say whatever you like Scott Morrison has proved it like this whole sank Shanghai Sam thing where he's kind of comments where people are calling you and saying, Oh, why what? Why is it racist to talk about glares, Gladys Berejiklian is not racist. Talk about saying, oh, Shanghai, Sam. And he's like, No, I don't. I don't know what you're talking about. And, and of course, Scott Morrison said Shanghai, Sam 1000 times.
Alex Dyson 32:04 I never said that. It's like, Mike, you said it. 13. We know the number of times you've
Lewis Hobba 32:11 both written down like he tweeted it. And then you said, you said yeah, there's no media. It's not on.
Matt Okine 32:20 I just I would love to be able to just lie. Like, it's pretty impressive.
Dan Ilic 32:26 Question. Yeah. I just love the idea of being able to say I reject the premise of the question. The question, the question, you're speeding, you're doing 150 and a 40. I reject the premise.
Lewis Hobba 32:41 Does it come down to do you think there's like, do you think you could learn you could go away for a weekend? And I would just be like, Matt, your surname is Archein. And you would just be like, no, no, it's not.
Matt Okine 32:53 And you'll be like, you can I can see the poster in the background. I'd be like, I reject what you see.
Alex Dyson 33:00 There are many posters in many places. Obviously. Do you do any practice to run?
Absolutely not. That is funny. My first interview, like I literally submitted the papers in order to run for parliament Australia Day $2,000 and 100 signatures, you entered into the IAC. And away you go. And so I did that. And I was like, I've got a few things to do. So I won't actually start writing until a week or two afterwards. But when the names went through, journals started calling me I was like, Is this you? Are you are you running for? I yeah, I haven't officially an LCSW. But yes, and so I started doing interviews, and I was way out of practice, though good
to work around Europe, but I was not ready to go. I went to Shanghai and I didn't bring that up. But I did go.
Matt Okine 33:47 I didn't I didn't realize that you make money from losing an election?
Alex Dyson 33:52 You can? Absolutely,
Matt Okine 33:53 yeah. So what how does it work again.
Alex Dyson 33:56 So if you get over 4% of the vote, you get your deposit back your original $2,000. So that's your breakeven point. And then for every vote it over 4% You the AAC gives you about $2.96 eligibility in electoral funds is
Dan Ilic 34:15 unlike good crowdfunding This is run
Alex Dyson 34:20 by getting the vote in one and against that dantian I was eligible to recoup up to $29,000 of my costs in the election, but I only printed like 20 T shirts and got like 500
Dan Ilic 34:35 but you needed you needed someone to give you an invoice for consulting Alex does.
Alex Dyson 34:39 Exactly I needed some political consultants to play the game.
Matt Okine 34:43 That means that next time you could Oh, cuz I mean, you what you did a dance and you jumped into a river. Right? And
Alex Dyson 34:50 I reject the premise of the question. He was a salt, a salt water body of water.
Matt Okine 34:55 Okay, well, I mean, you know, you could have probably claimed the dry cleaner At least for that, you know, and next time now you know that if that's how much money you could get for your campaign, you you, you got a budget of $29,000 I'm thinking and I
Alex Dyson 35:10 spent it on skywriter Yes.
Lewis Hobba 35:16 We said on the show talking about the evils of political corruption it's so nice to just talk about the fun of it.
Dan Ilic 35:25 Well, that is almost it for a rational fear
Tim Bailey 35:28 rational for you whether Tim Bailey yet Dan willing for one with a linear system coming from the eventually that'll turn into a lateral Karateka. Terry under the fridge. If you're in Perth, it's going to get hot and spicy with a love bomba porta, there's no need to rush out to supplies. As a bond. My layout is highly unlikely. But if you're in South Australia and Tasmania, you may want to fatten up because a Macarena is coming your way. Last time we saw one of those was in 1996. And it didn't go away for us. And in the long term forecast heading into the holidays, we can expect a high pressure bill is never dead, forming right across Australia. So being a despot and fill up on gasoline at your local server with a discount
Dan Ilic 36:17 on that. Thanks Tim Balian set kind of comedy wins your best comedy podcasts 20
Alex Dyson 36:29 Battle con stop writing the notes we need to take this back over to all day breakfast. Takeout best entertainment
Lewis Hobba 36:38 no boss
Dan Ilic 36:45 that is it for me. He goes Paris embrace. Let's wrap up the show big thank you to meadow Kai and Alex Dyson and Louis harbor and Tim Bailey and Alex lay and dub night. Folks, what would you like to plug Matt?
Matt Okine 37:00 Look, I'd love to plug our podcast Matt nice all day breakfast, as well as my book being black and chicken and chips. Oh yeah. Just before Christmas. Also my show the other guy on Stan or Hulu if you're in the states and Boilermakers 2021. Man, Spotify check it out
Alex Dyson 37:18 now. But um, yeah, jump on all day breakfast if you like podcasts every day, instead of once a week and like comedy club comedy Republic in the middle of Melbourne. Just get on it. Get it on Oh, beautiful place harbor harbor and hang 3pm weekdays triple.
Matt Okine 37:34 I also say that for any kids, any parents out there with toddlers, I'm doing we're doing our first diversity kids show me and my music partner klp. Making kids music. We're nominated for an IRA yesterday, we lost to bully.
Lewis Hobba 37:47 The most insane field a kid's album. Like it was an old guy. He was still putting your shoes on, like wiggles and bluee like the biggest children's artist in Australia in the world.
Matt Okine 38:06 Anyway, we're doing our first live shows next month. So come along.
Dan Ilic 38:09 Thank you, Louis. You're gonna plug anything?
Lewis Hobba 38:12 No, not for me. I agree with all the previous plugs. hoburne Lincoin. Keep your eyes peeled.
Dan Ilic 38:19 I like I can tell you we've got a rational fear live and we've got our 10 year anniversary show at the Opera House January 29. We've got some stellar people on the lineup and I think I can I can say this we got we got we got Amy remaking she's coming. And we got some we got somebody I don't get a lot of other people. I can't tell you. I can't tell you that yet. I can't say better yet. But I just Yeah, great. Tim and McCain. All right. Great. Great. So we got quite a few good people coming down the line. It's very exciting. So January Night at the Opera House. Big thank you to rode mics, the Bossa Foundation, our Patreon supporters, Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. Until next time, there's always something to be fearful from. Lewis did you want to say something?
Lewis Hobba 39:01 Dan? Yeah, have you asked the opera house how much it would be to advertise on their sales?
Dan Ilic 39:07 I haven't, I can't buy that. You've got to like, you know, you gotta like you know,
Matt Okine 39:12 anyone can do it. You can
Alex Dyson 39:13 you gotta be able to rice rice horses around the place. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 39:19 I feel like I feel like I feel like the Time Square was better than the sales. I feel like that was what you need to
Alex Dyson 39:25 do. You need to buy a racehorse name it irrational fear and when the trifle
Matt Okine 39:33 ever asked in the copper, whatever,
Dan Ilic 39:36 on the Billboard front, on the Billboard front though we did have a billboard rejected from a Paris Metro Kathy Wilcox designed us a great billboard with Scott Morrison breaking up with Emmanuel Macron via text and an apology from the Australian people to the French, but I got rejected because it's too political. couldn't run it. Like ah, that was a bummer. But I've done some research and I've got some sweet billboard space penciled in Engadine
Lewis Hobba 40:03 Paris of New South Wales and I believe it's a soft g it's already
Dan Ilic 40:17 and there's a whole bunch of Billboard space I want to buy a billboard in Bundaberg, which is Keith Pitts electorate, and there's a is a big one, there's a digital one there that's solar powered. And we're gonna say a picture of a vibrator and say, batteries can work in the dark case. They're two, they're two things that are coming down the line. So and if you are someone who has donated to the Indiegogo and you waiting for the stickers, they're going to be going out next week. And also the who gives a crap stuff is going to be going up over the next couple of weeks as well. So big thank you to everyone who's donated there. That's it. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week on irrational fear.
Ira Glass 41:02 From WBEZ, Chicago and NPR. I'm Ira Glass from the makers of This American Life and serial comms a new 10 part podcast that explores the hurt feelings of a very powerful man. Introducing Peter Dutton wins rape apologist defamation case. It's a podcast series in three acts, act one. Here's the shocking story of how a government minister who's responsible for locking up children and island Gulags had his reputation torn to shreds. When an unemployed man on Twitter called him a rape apologist. We'll hear from experts. Whether or not Peter Dutton is a rape apologist isn't the question is whether his reputation is damaged by a tweet from an unemployed man on Twitter that called him a rape apologist. Which I want to be absolutely clear. He probably isn't. In our two we'll hear from people who have read the tweet for the very first time. Does he look like a rape apologist? Well, in my honest opinion, he looks like a potato. But can a potato be a rape apologist? A canola apologist baby and x three will read out every single headline about Peter Dutton winning his rape apologist defamation case. Download Peter Dutton wins rape apologist defamation case wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there, download our hit series on Barnaby Joyce. funnier real. I'm Ira Glass
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Good evening, Lewis. Hello, Daniel. How are you? I'm, well, I I like the rest of our listeners want to know, how are you going with Billy Joel's Vienna?
Lewis Hobba 0:14 I, I've just rushed home from work. And I had five minutes to spare before the podcast started. And I just had a quick practice. And I can get from the very start to the very end in a fashion.
Dan Ilic 0:28 Oh, wow. Like, like still with stops and starts or you know, going, Okay.
Lewis Hobba 0:33 I would like if you heard it, you wouldn't be like, Oh, it's Billy Joe, you know. But for a person who hasn't touched the piano since he was five. It's functional. Like, if you knew the song, you heard me playing it, you would probably go. I reckon that guy's playing Billy Joel's piano.
Dan Ilic 0:50 Well, also, a lot of people don't know really, Joseph. It's one of the more obscure village owl songs I thought I was, I thought I was well across the oeuvre of Billy Joel. But I had never heard of Vienna till last week.
Lewis Hobba 1:03 This is exactly why I chose it. You see, because if I chose Piano Man, and I'm at a party, and here we can have parties again. And there's a piano there and I sit down and I start going there, then everyone look at me and go that guy and he knows one song, and it's piano. Whereas if I stop playing the piano, they like no one in their right mind would only learn Vienna, this guy must be a pianist because it must be the 1000 songs he knows. So it's all mind games. You know, the next one is they're going to want you to play piano like but don't worry. You're not going to go to a party until 2015. So it's totally fine. Well, much like Billy Joel I already resent piano and
Dan Ilic 1:45 a big shout out to all our new Patreon members dissuade now I'm just gonna read them out usually I'm doing at the end of the show these days, but I want to read them out because I've got some we got some good ones. Simon nevel Mars page MCAT Sharon pates Diane Swan, Stacy Smith, Lindsey Jenkins, Alex Turnbull is chipping in on into our Patreon now which is great. And also I think Greg hunt is chipping you know now on our page because someone by the name of baby w comm pumpers 69.
Lewis Hobba 2:17 I like this he gets the actual porn star Greg Hahn accidentally like
Dan Ilic 2:22 it's so messed up the widow baby w come number 69 is giving us 10 bucks amount of config thank you to all our Patreon supporters you can hit to patreon.com forward slash
Lewis Hobba 2:31 irrational fears I was just gonna say a big thank you to all the come pumped
Dan Ilic 2:35 family. big thank you to everyone related to come up pumped the 69 I'm recording my irrational fear on gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 2:46 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, camera, fed gum, and section body or rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:59 Tonight Rianna is now officially a billionaire and like all billionaires the singer is planning to head into space to open a diamond mine in the sky and Australia is ranked last among 200 countries for its action on climate change. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says it's not a race and the AC T goes into lockdown after one positive case proving that the camera bubble can be burst by a little prick. It's Friday the 13th of August what's got to drop first these COVID cases or Donda? This is irrational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former premier of Queensland Danny let's let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. And now, since breaking out as a Best Newcomer nominee, the Perth Comedy Festival he's been forced to work at the chaser and the feed is net domina. Thank you for having me. Now net what's the worst thing about working for the chaser? The sexual advances watch. These often referred to as the Lebanese Australian Louis Theroux, but don't try to pigeonhole this young Walkley winner. It's Marty smiling. Now, Marty, how many former channel vape presenters have walkways? Is it just you in Java? That's a yes,
Marty Smiley 4:20 Java won a Walkley Award for his deep dive into bone smoking.
Dan Ilic 4:30 And he's often referred to as the next Billy Joel. It's Louis Alba.
Lewis Hobba 4:33 Thank you so much. Yes. The 55 key Piano Man, my piano on the piano boy. It's like I'm doing a gritty rabid of the piano man. I'm the son of piano.
Dan Ilic 4:44 Soon we get stuck into this week's fears. But first here is a message from our sponsor. Homeless series
Unknown Speaker 4:50 finale of Palermo lots of things are really heating up.
Unknown Speaker 4:56 Mr. Morrison it's with regret to inform you that the snow is On fire, you need to do something.
Unknown Speaker 5:02 Now I've always said, I've got a plan. And the plan is the plan. It's a planning plan that's been planned. I've always said that will David Attenborough and the Earthlings be able to stop the missions in the time? Now you Listen here, Scott, we've
Unknown Speaker 5:18 only got a couple of years left until the point of no return. The numbers are just not looking good.
Unknown Speaker 5:24 Well, that's great, then we can blame the collapse of the earth online, or will they suffocate themselves and every other living creature in a toxic soup of stinky greenhouse gases?
Unknown Speaker 5:37 Everything is dying, Mr. Morrison, and you're doing nothing.
Unknown Speaker 5:42 I'm not going to do anything that will cost jobs and the most of risk jobs are those on the boards of fossil fuel companies that all need after I lose the election in eight months time. I've always said that. I find out and this the potentially last ever series of the show, but jumped the shark up to the red now songs.
Unknown Speaker 6:15 Planet Earth is recommended for mature audiences. It contains strong six themes as the whole globe gets royally fucked.
Dan Ilic 6:26 Yeah, there you go. Production date production display.
Lewis Hobba 6:31 Who's ready for fun?
Dan Ilic 6:32 Yes. The IPCC dropped their latest report this week and it was not the feel good event of the year we were promised. And the unsurprisingly bleak report basically means the earth is fact we factor and we're still fucking it. And if we would have a chance to continue as a species as in to keep on fucking each other. We need to stop fucking the planet ASAP. Fear mongers, how has the IPCC report impacted your wake net?
Nat Damena 6:58 Well, it seems like every like climate change report that comes out is like worse. It's, it's worse, and also stating the same thing over and over again, which is there's a problem. No one's ever offering any solutions.
Marty Smiley 7:16 That they just tell us it's bad that it's getting worse. And as Dan described to me at a time, it's fun.
Nat Damena 7:23 Well, I read the article today. Let's say we've got to keep the temperature of the earth below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. Otherwise, there'll be unpreventable damage to the but the article also said, If we can't do that, we'll do 1.6. And if we can't do that, we'll do 1.7
Marty Smiley 7:41 I did say that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Lewis Hobba 7:45 You think they've already given out Li look? 1.5 is the dream but we're aiming for three?
Nat Damena 7:49 Yeah, they're moving the goalposts. Yeah. Like, it's like if I said, Look, I'm going to try and eat one packet of Mac and chase tonight. I'll try the two if not
Dan Ilic 8:00 three, it is yeah, sorry. It is. It is interesting to see how this is being kind of, you know, dealt with this week across the political spectrum. I don't know if you saw the same day as that report came out the young liberals in the AC t were holding a fundraiser in Canberra, where they auctioned off a lump of coal from the Adani Carmichael mine. How much do you think a lump of coal from the Adani Carmichael mine would go for at a young liberal fundraiser? How much do you think I went for?
Unknown Speaker 8:32 Oh, god $500 It's a good question. I don't know the price of a lump of coal and I
Unknown Speaker 8:39 feel terrible about
Dan Ilic 8:40 this. Yeah, this is a very john Houston gotcha moment here. A very couldn't explain the cost of a GSA in a cake. Now these lumber coal went for 20 $600 someone paid $2,600 for a lump of coal from the Adani coal mine. Just to what I own the greens
Nat Damena 8:58 to be fair, like we do live in a world where people pay over $6,000 for bags of air from concerts.
Marty Smiley 9:03 Well, yeah, like you know, Justin Davis like the water balled or he left on stage, like I would pay a lot of money for that lump of coal that scomo had in Parliament House. I mean, that is iconic clump of coal, that one straight in the poor.
Dan Ilic 9:18 Isn't that quite indistinct from an other bunch of lumps of coal, you'd have to get it signed and authenticate a certificate
Lewis Hobba 9:24 to all lumps of coal look the same to you their age lump of coal is a snowflake beautiful and individual.
Lewis Hobba 9:37 it's funny, like the only positive if the climate change report for me was that it bumped my lockdown panic down a pig. Like 12 weeks into Sydney lockdown, I'm losing my mind my anxiety never been worse. And I'm like, well, this is the worst thing that will ever happen to me. I'm like, Oh, that's right. I'm gonna burn in 10 years. That's actually was
Marty Smiley 9:59 some Who has been caught in a climate change disaster? The New South Wales floods of this year? I can't tell you guys it's it's a very scary thing to be caught in. And I can tell anyone listening at home, you know, you don't want to be in the situation I was in. I was stuck at an Airbnb that cost $200 a night to be there for a week. And I was caught in a town that I would never want to spend more than
Lewis Hobba 10:30 48 hours in, you know, Barnaby Joyce is always like, we don't know the cost of climate change. Marty should be like 200 bucks a night.
Dan Ilic 10:39 We do know the cost we do know that we have to have the numbers and a written a custom delivery as well. So boring.
Marty Smiley 10:48 Actually cannot I mean, this is maybe a bit wrong, but floods are by far the most boring disaster. Like is it slowly encroaches. But it takes ages for the water to subside. I would go down there each day to see if I could leave over the bridge Saqqara, john to Richmond back into to New South Wales to the city. And and you know, I would go down 10 centimetres, it's it's not it's not fun.
Dan Ilic 11:14 This is that that is that is a big, big claim for a man that's currently in his 48th day of lockdown in Sydney. It's so strange and the Australian Financial Review the same day the report came out they ran an opinion piece. This is the headline for the opinion pace. It's called the headline ran. It said high quality Australian coal is lowering global carbon emissions. They ran it right and it was written. It was written by a guy called Paul Flynn and I checked out, I checked out who Paul Flynn was the opinion pace was part of the CEO and managing director of Whitehaven coal,
Marty Smiley 11:54 like, Oh, god, oh, God, we need extinction rebellion back is is what we need. We need big stunts. We need people back on the streets. And it's a bit it's a bit difficult at the moment. I like what he's
Nat Damena 12:09 doing. You know, I want to see people put a positive spin on global warming away to see about all the tissue and get out, organise a press conference and go up and say, Look, global warming, it might look bad, but it's delivering fresh clean water in Africa, one iceberg at a time.
Lewis Hobba 12:28 Like the people who I worry about the climate changes, the fire firefighters, you know, there's always like, there's stories of the one or two firefighters who get bored throughout the summer and go on lighter fire. Yes, that let's be like that. They'll never have to do that. Again. All I have to do go home and run the dryer for 24 hours like you can start a fire for the next 100 years.
Marty Smiley 12:52 Dan, would you be into doing a sort of extinction rebellion style santia you have done a lot of stunts in the past and your comedic career. Would you be interested in say building a boat? And because you've been letting people know about climate change for some time now you are a sort of NOAA of Australia. I see you as a character within the Australian political scape
Dan Ilic 13:17 Marty I think boatbuilders is a boom industry. I think there's gonna be I think for where we live in Sydney. I think boat building is going to be the future people living on boats as a future and Marty dare I say when there's a flood I will have an Airbnb on a boat you can rent out.
Lewis Hobba 13:35 Well, if there's one thing it's funny that the Australian Government has actually invested so much more in like building boats and submarines then in climate change. They're spent like $43 billion on a never ending submarine programme. And they're just like, we're not gonna fight climate change. We're just gonna make sure we can put us all of Australia underwater when the time comes
Marty Smiley 13:54 with being governed by preppers. That's Scarborough's. That's the thing. Basically.
Nat Damena 14:01 scomo doesn't look like a prime minister. He looks like him in his wife owner budgerigar farm in North Queensland. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 14:09 A 100 or two year old bedridden woman has been ordered to prove her date of birth or have a pension cut off calls and emails to send a link with
Dan Ilic 14:20 a rational fear. This week second fed national MP George Christiansen will not run for the for the Nationals after the next election in order to spend more time with these WordPress. Yes, George Christians. So there's going to start a pro freedom website in the style of Judge report. I don't know have you ever seen the Drudge Report? It's just like this terrible looking website that just has links to other websites and I don't know if you know anything about the internet. There are quite a few other websites that do that job very efficiently. So Eva has some competition. Currently, the nation first.com.au website which is his website is And it needs a password to exist. But before it went down the new daily check it out. And it said, out of the 31 links that were displayed on the websites homepage 30 are from news articles from America. The 31st article was a link to a blog that Mr. Christiansen had published in January asking former US President Donald Trump to issue a pardon to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and saying it would be a blow to the deep state.
Lewis Hobba 15:31 But he does something that isn't necessarily terrible. It's still for insane reason. Isn't that like Australian culture to just take something from America from America. But also, I love that he's
Dan Ilic 15:43 saying we blow to the deep state and George Christensen is part of the deep state he is. He's in government, he is literally a nationals party.
Marty Smiley 15:55 person is like, the next election in his mind is like, I'm already out. I am no longer a politician.
Lewis Hobba 16:03 It's like, such a like, the that approach is so like the the guy at school who no one liked, because he in his belief at Parliament, everyone is hanging out together except him. He's like, this is Barry's a group of people. That includes everyone but may
Nat Damena 16:24 feel like he wanted to start like a right wing podcast and couldn't figure out how the buttons worked
Marty Smiley 16:30 outside a bunch of links that it's got interesting blogs, there's so I'm gonna tell this and blogs are dead. It's like using Alta Vista to do your searches online.
Dan Ilic 16:41 He would be better doing a right wing podcast now. I think so. You mean you guys run a podcast? How hard is it to actually have your own podcast?
Marty Smiley 16:49 Incredibly, yeah. It's very time consuming. I'd say that. I mean, it's very easy if you don't want to do a good job. Yes.
Lewis Hobba 17:00 That's how we've always been running it. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 17:03 It's what other kind of content Do you reckon we can expect from this? This Drudge Report style? George Christian did some websites some travel reports of Southeast Asia? Yeah, maybe some recipes.
Marty Smiley 17:14 I'd love to see like a news breakdown with him with the whip, like called the whip. You know, it's just sort of crack at his way through Conservative News.
I want to say like a Watchmojo top 10 movie death that made you cry. I'd love to see Christian says listicles 10 ways you know you're a liberal. Maybe a photo gallery to his favourite lumps of call.
Dan Ilic 17:42 Big Johnny day on YouTube says parenting tips.
Lewis Hobba 17:49 Yeah, he could go daddy, blogger, plays dog use the phrase George Christensen, Ed Daddy, and the same thing.
Unknown Speaker 17:57 I know how George's mind works. If you start prodding the bear, you're going to make the situation worse for us as a complement. When you've got a thin margin, and start giving reasons for byelection a rational fear,
Dan Ilic 18:11 this week's third fear it's safe to say the New South Wales the health minister is a major hazard. Yes, Brad hazard this way caused a bit of a ruckus. Please
Lewis Hobba 18:19 get out, get my
Dan Ilic 18:21 podcast, Brad has added this way caused a bit of a ruckus in Sydney Southwest when during the daily COVID-19 briefing, he said this
Unknown Speaker 18:29 configurable, I think, probably something in the order of 90 95% a very high percentage of people are complying. And we're seeing that in places like Fairfield. They've made such a difference there and brought the numbers down to such a low level. I want to thank the people in Fairfield. But there are other communities, other people from other backgrounds, who don't seem to think that it's necessary to comply with the law and who don't really give great consideration to what they do in terms of its impact on the rest of the community.
Dan Ilic 18:57 While there are people from other backgrounds other than being from Fairfield one when my dad came out to Australia from Fairfield Hey, Tommy, life was tough back in the face back. That's why he moved to a craft fair mungus what background is Brad has on talking about his
Marty Smiley 19:19 zoom backgrounds? Is he is he gonna go at PayPal in their offices? Are they choosing the wrong setting? Was that what's going on? I can't imagine who he I mean, why does it he just say it you know libs. Always. You know, we are who we are was just sad. just name it may
Nat Damena 19:42 be amazing, like going on to Twitter and like saying like the response to this clip and everybody being like, well, what is what does he mean by that? What does he mean? He's being racist? That's what he means by Yeah,
Marty Smiley 19:55 there was no question from the press gallery. Someone would just ask Sorry, you being racist right now in a press conference about health.
Lewis Hobba 20:07 You know, talking about French au pairs, it's brown,
Marty Smiley 20:11 wild allegations and of course the mayor for Canterbury Bankstown said it was a bit of a low blow. He wasn't happy with it either. either. I will say, I did get sent a video. Yeah, and my cousin in the West when this all began, and it was one of our liberties brothers on a horse riding his way through the Main Street. Bankstown. So, look, you know, maybe there is some things that the community is doing, but I don't think we should be targeted or singled out for it.
Lewis Hobba 20:42 But I honestly think if every one was on a horse, if every Australian I actually think that'd be the like, we're all socially distanced, you can't get close. You wouldn't need a mosque. If every single Australian had a horse. No one can punch a horse if they're riding one. Sir.
Dan Ilic 21:02 Marty, I didn't watch the Olympics last week, but I didn't see any of our cousins from Lebanon in the dressage. Yeah. There was a bread hazard later on winter, kind of rub salt into the wounds and continue on with his diatribe
Unknown Speaker 21:18 here in New South Wales with people we're just a small element, small group who have caused these problems if they would just behave themselves and have an element of decency towards the rest of the community. We would sort this problem out.
Dan Ilic 21:31 There's nothing more decent than writing down the middle of Bankstown on a horse it's totally fine. We're bringing joy to the people I don't know what he's all about. And decency. Why Why is all of this talk about decency? You don't need to like lay down a coat on the on the on a paddle for a lady to cross the road these days. Yes,
Marty Smiley 21:53 kept a bond that we're trying to have a gangland war out here and there. We've got a lot of restrictions that are getting in the way at the moment. So maybe think about that before you start singing.
Lewis Hobba 22:03 Honestly, like I know that the New South Wales Police are so crazy about gang warfare, like regardless of how big or small it actually is, but can I just say I feel like if all of the gangs once again, we're on horses. I know I'm harping on about this but I'm saying give give every gang a horse and a lance. Yeah, take it back to the full jousting days. They would not be an Australian member of the public who would not be on the side of the gang like it should be like Australians love and Italian gang bed hydel Lebanese gang, gang, they'd all be mad for a host gang.
Marty Smiley 22:39 We should get you on the VR team for some of the most prominent gangs. Good Lois. emerged as a good man for the community this
Lewis Hobba 22:51 protests like people always chanted hos cops, get those animals off those horses. Just be like, put those Lebanese on those horses. get around this. No justice, no peace officers for the Lebanese.
Dan Ilic 23:14 That is it for rational view tonight. big thank you to activate Mati body smiley, Louis, all that. What would you like to plug plug folks Marty in that way
Marty Smiley 23:21 out? Yes, please. As I said, we do have a podcast. It's called house warming. We record it right here in this room actually in our share house. And it's about renting and all the woes and miseries that go with it.
Dan Ilic 23:36 And you've had some really famous people on there you've had like, lots of ex smiley,
Marty Smiley 23:45 a chap called Daniel Sloss. We had Linda Mariano this week, who revealed that she used to snap still snacks from Louis unbelievable. I
Lewis Hobba 23:53 just saw that clip a second ago. I'm like, because Linda Mariano if you don't know her is literally the nicest person I've ever met. Like she's so kind and generous and wonderful and interesting and brilliant. And the fact that for the last four years she's been stealing my snacks has changed everything I've known about her and the ones you gotta look out for this one on the horse. Lewis Would you like to plug anything? No, Dan, nothing for me.
Dan Ilic 24:24 I want to plug a podcast called irrational fear. It's really great. Make sure you head to the Patreon and chip in so we can pay for it assistant. So it's patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. Big thanks to road Mike's Patreon supporters both the foundation also Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline Rubin day guests and also Robbie McGregor. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Good night.
Thanks to so many of you who made it out to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival on the weekend. We had an absolutely cracker show from start to finish
💉 We covered the vaccination rollout. 🥔 Peter Dutton suing people on twitter for defamation. ⭐⭐⭐ Bit Clout and reputation on the blockchain. 🌏 The highjacking of the Climate Change Authority and Turnbull's sacking from the NSW Zero Emissions board. 🤴 Prince Philip's death. 🏄♀️ Netflix's new reality series set in Byron Bay: Byron Baes. 🎹 Gabbi Bolt does songs about climate change, incels, and empathy consultants.
It was a great show — I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed performing it.
We’re back on the tools for the next five weeks to laugh in the face of the scariest news.
This episode we talk about the US Government being so embarrassed at surveilling its own citizens, that they’re now telling everyone about it, and hoping someone else in the US Government will fix it.
Why won’t someone fix the legal loop holes!?
We also chat about this strange new group of conservatives who are planning to solve the meaning of life. Who is in this group? John Howard, Tony Abbott, and Jordan Peterson to name a few. They’re called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Sounds like a bunch of people who need a night on the shrooms.
Also we chat with Ange Lavoirpierre about the disaffection that Gen Z and Millennials have with politics-as-usual. And how ideas like capitalism are very much out of fashion, and the coolest new derogatory term of people who dare to participate in thrift store arbitrage.
Here more from Ange on her excellent podcast Schmeitgeist
Cheers
Dan
🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear Here's all the fun stuff you get when you sign up to Patreon. 🎧 Get an ad-free and sponsor free version of the show. 🎟 Get early access and discounts to live shows. 🎥 Get early access to final videos, and draft edits of upcoming videos. 👨🏼⚖️ Make show suggestions. 💬 Get a link to the A Rational Fear discord. If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261
Hockeyroo and Olympian Georgie Parker (not the actress) is our guest this week, and after spending 5 nights up watching the ashes, there’s few people more qualified to talk about Bazball vs Cumball.
PLEASE chip into the Patreon if you can. We need to buy some new gear for the podcast, and everything is sooo expensive. You’ll notice we’re running programatic ads now — one of the benefits of the Patreon is that you get an ad-free and sponsor free version of the show, and this week you get a little bit extra of the podcast. We’re talking about how KFC is far outpacing inflation when it comes to raising it’s prices.
Cheers,
Dan
Acting CEO.
OceanGate LLC.
PLUGS:
See Dan Ilic at It's The News:https://improvtheatresydney.com.au/events/its-the-news/
See Dan Ilic perform at Slide Night! at the Sydney Opera House: https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/comedy/slide-night
And if you're a Patreon supporter you'll hear this week's sketch. Written by Crikey's Tom Red, and read by Wendy Harmer. Gina Rinehart reads a poem outlining her position on the voice.
Something a bit different from A Rational Fear this week — Long time listeners will be familiar with our spin off — The Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation. Today we have a long form conversation with one my favourite climate voices.
This week I sat down with energy and climate journalist David Roberts from the popular climate and energy podcast Volts.
If you don't listen already you can subscribe here. But I suspect many of you like our podcast producer Jacob Round (from the Teppanyaki Timeline) are big fans.
David is in Australia to do some side events around the ALP Conference in Brisbane later this week. He's here to have conversations with folks on the opportunities that unions, workers, and capital have in the the renewable energy transition.
We cover a lot of territory in 30minutes — including what the ALP should do around climate, and what may happen to the Inflation Reduction Act (big US climate policy) if Trump gets back in. If you listen to us all the time, you may know some of this, however if you're new to the renewable space, this is a good refresher.
To Australian Ethical,Rode, and as I now live outside of the big smoke, big thanks to Dom and Charles at The Chaser for lending me their studio to record this conversation, and thanks to Jacob Round for the fast turn around edit.
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If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:
We're back with our 200th episode of our award winning podcast. 200! Time flies when you have a series of crushing deadlines to meet. Later on this year we’ll also hit 1 million downloads, that is if we’re not shot down flying from St. Petersberg to Moscow.
Sitting in the co-host seat this week we have comedian, writer, producer, theatre maker AJ Lamarque. They’re very charming, and worth a follow.
THE BANTER THIS WEEK CONSISTS OF:
🤖 India landing on the moon.
🌏 Should NZ become part of Australia?
🔌 Chris Minns’ coal kink feat. Matt Kean.
🧵 And we chat with Disrupt Burrup Hub protestor Jesse Noakes.
EXTRA FEAR:
If you sign up to the Patreon you can listen to the podcast ad-free, sponsor free and this week you’ll be able to get some EXTRA FEAR with the full conversation with Matt Kean on Chris Minns’ coal kink.
Patreon supporters also get a link to the Discord server where we make jokes about the news and discuss the podcast.
UPCOMING LIVE SHOWS:
We’ve got two live shows coming up — the Women in Media Conference Sept 9th and the Torres Strait Sept 18th. Yes performing on a Monday on Thursday Island.
NEWS FIGHTERS: How to (not) solve Australia’s cost of living of crisis!
00:19:09
On this month's episode of NEWS FIGHTERS, chief wacky clips correspondent Dylan Behan takes a deep dive into what’s driving the cost of living and housing crises in Australia, as well as all the stupid solutions proposed by our self-serving politicians.
ALSO: News Fighters is coming to the Sydney Fringe Festival! For the first time ever, we’re doing an episode LIVE ON STAGE at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville on September 15 at 6:50pm, with special guests including Dan Ilic, Stefan Pazur and more TBC. Use the promo code FRIENDS to get 10% off tickets at burgerrings.com. PLEASE COME!
News Fighters is a comedic look at Australian news, media and political hypocrisy from TV comedy editor and producer Dylan Behan.
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This week we’re explaining the Walkleys walkout by some of the most celebrated cartoonists in the country. Australia’s most prestigious Journalism Awards are sponsored by a fossil fuel company, and Megan Herbert is on the podcast to talk us through her decision.
Also Matt Bray joins us to talk about his latest creation. Gas Tycoon The Board Game. Which I should stress is NOTHING like Monopoly. Matt has launched a Kickstarter Campaign to get it off the ground. Go chip in to to support it, or you could win one of five copies by simply becoming an A Rational Fear Patreon supporter.
LIVE FROM WAIBEN THURSDAY ISLAND - Dan Ilic, Lewis Hobba, Jay Wymarra, Diat Alferink, Dane Simpson & Leon Filewood
01:15:38
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G'day Fearmongers,
Last Monday — A Rational Fear performed live on stage at the Thursday Island Bowls Club where we set the table to have a discussion about The Voice and Climate Change.
The maestro of all things arts and culture on TI Diat Alferink produced and performed in the show as well as joined by other First Nations comedians Leon Filewood, Jay Wymarra and Dane Simpson.
This was one of the most fun shows we have ever done. I know I say that after most live shows, but this show had a unique quality. Maybe it was the bowls club, maybe it was because everyone is related to each other, but this show had a sense of community, that we haven’t really experienced. It was like doing a show for your family.
We took the opportunity to talk about The Voice, and the bad actors and misinformation surrounding it, the cost of living on TI, climate change and everyone took an opportunity to bully Lewis Hobba for being white.
The show — you’ll hear — gets more and more raucous as it goes on, and for the community, it was a great opportunity for them to hear discussion about serious topics in a funny way to spark conversation about The Voice and climate change.
We were so lucky to have Aaron Smith join us for the trip to document show. The day of the show we spent running around making sketches to roll out for F-Yes. Which you can see on Instagram / Facebook / TikTok and X
Big thanks go to Diat Alferink. Diat made us feel so special, and welcomed, she even cooked us a post-show meal, that I won’t forget. Also shows like this are not possible without the Patreon and a generous Impact Grant from the team at the The Bertha Foundation.
Please follow A Rational Fear on social media, and F-Yes, and share every piece of content we’re publishing between now and the referendum.
Cheers,
Dan Ilic
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G’day Fearmongers,
I’m sure many of you who are comedy fans would have already seen the news that our friend Cal Wilson passed away this week.
Everything everyone says of Cal is right — she’s simply one of the kindest, just and joyful people who worked in comedy. We were all so lucky to be friends with her, we all thought we’d probably have her for quite a few more decades to come.
Here is a short podcast of when she performed on A Rational Fear in 2019 at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Two other things:
Vote Yes— in Tomorrow’s referendum. Thanks to everyone from A Rational Fear land who chipped into F-Yes. We’ve reached about 2 million people over the 4 weeks we ran our campaign.
SXSW SYDNEY —
If you’re the holder of a SXSW Sydney badge you can come and check out A Rational Fear on stage at the podcast stage 3.30pm October 20th. It’ll be me, Chris Taylor, Lee Constable, Antoinette Lattouf and some other fun people.
That’s it for this week’s podcast newsletter —
Vale Cale Wilson.
Vote yes.
Vome to our SXSW show.
Cheers
Dan Ilic
F-Yes
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In this conversation, Dan and Lewis interview Wendy Harmer, a comedy legend and former radio host. They discuss the evolution of comedy and radio, the impact of commercial radio, memorable interactions with radio management, and unconventional radio stunts. Wendy shares stories from her time on The Morning Crew and reflects on the cultural significance of the show. They also discuss the changing media landscape and the success of radio hosts like Kyle and Jackie O. Overall, the conversation highlights the unique and influential role of radio in the comedy industry.
Takeaways
Radio has played a significant role in the evolution of comedy, providing a platform for comedians to showcase their talent and reach a wide audience.
Commercial radio has undergone significant changes over the years, with comedians becoming a staple on radio shows and management often lacking experience in the medium.
Unconventional radio stunts and promotions have been a hallmark of the industry, with hosts often pushing boundaries to engage listeners and boost ratings.
Wendy Harmer's time on The Morning Crew was culturally significant, as she brought a female perspective to radio and helped redefine the role of women in the industry.
The media landscape has changed dramatically, with the rise of social media and digital platforms providing new avenues for content creation and consumption.
A Rational Fear is turning 1,000,000 in downloads. Buy a ticket to our 1,000,000th download live show here:
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It's tricky times to be a satirical comedian on the world stage right now.
The world is full of sad things, but it's a comedians job to find the catharsis in the contemporary anxiety.
One comedian who is doing that on the toughest of subjects is Matt Lieb.
A progressive jewish person Matt has created online sarcastic persona of the Liberal Zionist who attempts to justify the scale of violence being unleashed upon civilians in Gaza.
Matt Lieb discusses his use of humour in addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict and the risks involved in speaking out.
He highlights the challenges of navigating the minefield of criticising Israel and the consequences that individuals face for expressing their opinions. Matt also shares his experiences as a Jewish comedian and the different perspectives he brings to his comedy.
Throughout the conversation, Matt emphasises the importance of separating criticism of the Israeli government from anti-Semitism and the need for open and honest dialogue on the topic.
The conversation covers various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including language use, the perspective of Israeli comedians, the impossible situation faced by Israelis, the lack of hope for peace, imagining alternative solutions, and the role of comedy in discussing sensitive topics.
A Rational Year — Peter Dutton presents the best sketches and bits from 2023
00:40:09
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G’day Fearmongers —
Thrilled to drop our end of the year special 2023 — hosted by Peter Dutton. Sorry, we have to for balance or risk jail in 2024.
It’s been a big year —
We’ve performed in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Thursday Island. We won Best Comedy Podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards for the 4th time in a row — AND we hit 1,000,000 downloads last month so we’re putting on a big show to celebrate:
It’s at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre and the line up is stacked with ARF favourites including Charlie Pickering, Kirsty Webeck, Sami Shah, Dj Andrew McClelland and the man with the most downloads in Australia Richard Fidler.
Thanks to our friends at RØDE Microphones for hooking Lewis Hobba with a brand new RØDEecaster Duo. If you ever think about starting your own podcast or even if you have to do zoom calls from home, it’s worth the investment in some RØDE gear of your own! Buy yours here.
Thanks to everyone who came to gigs, downloaded the show, told their friends about the show, shared on social media, to our Patreon supporters who pay for the show, and to all the comedians, guests and experts who join us, Jacob Round on the teppanyaki timeline — and a special thanks to my love, Kate Holdsworth, who relentlessly writes some of the best jokes for the show when I’m in a panic, and happily endorses this stupid hobby even if it means writing emails in the holidays.
Happy New Fear everyone!
Cheers,
Dan
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John Delmenico, the editor of The Chaser, joins the podcast to discuss his role and the future of the publication. John shares his journey from dropping out of university to becoming a writer for The Chaser and eventually the editor. He talks about the process of writing satire, the challenges of covering politics, and the need for a fresh approach in 2024. John also discusses the revenue model of The Chaser and his experience as a young leader in the media industry.
John has been writing jokes for The Chaser for ages, and if you're one of those people who are terminally online you certainly would have come across his work on Twitter, as well as his fine headlines and articles.
If you like conversations about media, comedy and the craft of making jokes and business of making money from them, this is a great podcast.
Also John shares his unlikely journey from youth stoke victim to punchline king.
Alex Apollonov and Aleksa Vulovic are the co-hosts of the youtube channel Boy_Boy who have built an epic following thanks to their adventures in democracy, civics and capitalism. They share how they snuck into the super secret spy base Pine Gap and the of ramifications of getting caught.
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We’re back next week with all new A Rational Fear Podcast episodes.
But before that please enjoy this brand new podcast series I worked on with the UNSW Centre For Ideas called Preppers.
It’s about how we all need to get prepared for the end of the world together. We talk to so many great people for this podcast.
On the A Rational Fear podcast feed I’ve just put up Episode 1 but search for Preppers wherever you find podcasts or go to www.arationalfear.com to get the direct links.
If you’re heading to the Better Future Forum next week in Canberra, I’ll see you there!
Don't ask where the money is coming from - Dan Ilic, Lewis Hobba, Mark Connely & Alice Brennan
00:33:15
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In this episode of A Rational Fear, the hosts discuss a range of topics including the impact of Russian funding on YouTube influencers, the effectiveness of political propaganda, and a detailed analysis of the recent US presidential debate. They also touch on the upcoming COP31 climate conference and its implications for Australia. The conversation is filled with humour and insightful commentary on the current political landscape.
Takeaways
The influence of Russian funding on political messaging is significant.
Tim Pool's case exemplifies the intersection of media and propaganda.
Polarisation strategies are effective in shaping public opinion.
Influencers play a crucial role in disseminating political messages.
The recent US presidential debate showcased contrasting strategies between candidates.
COP31 presents both challenges and opportunities for Australia in climate discussions.
The hosts emphasise the importance of questioning funding sources in media.
Humour is a key element in discussing serious political issues.
The dynamics of political debates can shift public perception.
Future episodes will continue to explore these themes in depth.
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This week we discuss the Murdoch family's legal battles, the controversy surrounding the Australian remake of The Office, and environmental concerns related to the Betaloo Basin.
And here’s a quick plug — Grace Tame is touring around the country this month in conversation with various people including me in Sydney and Melbourne — she’s also going to Canberra and Brisbane. 🎟️ Get tickets here.
Charlotte George, Zach Mander, Wayne Smith, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic
G’day Fearmongers,
This week Peter Dutton took his Nuclear dog for a walk in Sydney and it off the leash at the CEDA conference in Sydney — the Committee for Economic Development of Australia — a very pro industry think tank that really enjoys taking government money and making things for fun and profit. This line from RenewEconomy’s publisher Giles Parkinson summed up who was in the room aside from a smattering of bankers:
Bizarrely, many of the rest were from the clean energy industry, curious to know what they might be dealing with should the Coalition return to power next year. Did they like what they heard? Not really. Did they learn anything? No.
And we can guarantee you won’t learn anything new from listening to the podcast this week either — but you will have fun. We talk about Dutton no-plans, and Zach Mander takes us shopping in Australia’s poshest Vinnies, and Charlotte George tells us about the Victorian Government’s plan to demolisth 44 block of public housing without any reasoning behind it whatsoever!
Charlotte has also just launched her comedy web series Buried which is very dark, and very funny for every parent who hasn’t had quite enough sleep (Lewis?). It stars the very funny Miriam Glaser and stars a bunch of Australian comedy legends.
In order to get a new sponsor for A Rational Fear we need to find out more about you! So please jump into our survey and answer a few questions — it’s totally anonymous — we won’t Medibank you, we swear! CLICK HERE
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UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer had one of the all time gaffes in politics this week — demanding at the Labour conference that Hamas “Free the sausages” immediately he spat out “Free the Hostages” — with a look on his face that screamed “no one heard the sausage thing…right?” — but alas it was too late.
There is nothing much funny about the middle east situation right now. This however is a gaffe that will stand the test of time. Perhaps it is so funny that waring sides in the middle east will come together in harmony and have a good old laugh over small goods. But sausages are pork products so by their inbuilt politic are antisemitic. Shame on you Kier Starmer.
In order to get a new sponsor for A Rational Fear we need to find out more about you! So please jump into our survey and answer a few questions — it’s totally anonymous — we won’t Medibank you, we swear! CLICK HERE
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While the NACC is getting knackered, climate action is getting neutered, and action on cost of living is nixed. Albo is really getting into shrinkflation.
Because some extra chips in a packet is going to solve how much that packet costs — thank goodness — without this new push, we wouldn’t have laws to protect consumers on this issue.
Oh — checks notes — we already do. They’ve been around since 2010.
This must be sweet relief to the compliance officers at Coles and Woolworths who have definitely been compliant for the last 15 years.
Also on the podcast we’re talking Trump Bibles and Fat Bears.
Thanks as always for downloading A Rational Fear — if you can chip into the Patreon or if you can’t shoot us a response on the listener survey.
Cheers
Dan
In this episode, Dan Ilic and his guests discuss a range of topics from Dan's recent debut on 'Home and Away' to audience engagement through surveys. They delve into political commentary, particularly focusing on the Australian Prime Minister's attention to trivial issues like chip packaging while neglecting more pressing matters like the cost of living. The conversation shifts to a controversial initiative in Oklahoma regarding the purchase of Bibles for schools, highlighting the selective interpretation of the Constitution and the implications of such actions. In this episode, the hosts explore the absurdity of modern merchandise, particularly focusing on the overwhelming presence of Bluey merchandise in children's lives. They also discuss the humorous and body-positive celebration of Fat Bear Week, highlighting the victory of a bear named 128 Grazer. The conversation wraps up with reflections on the themes discussed and plugs for upcoming projects from the guests.
Takeaways
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Welcome to the JokeTober episode.
Throughout October I had the privilege to run some satirical comedy workshops for 2SER, a community radio station in Sydney
Part of the “prize” of being selected as a JokeTober co-hort they got some actual jokes published on the A Rational Fear podcast — we set them a challenge to write a satirical come up with 3 satirical comedy sketches that were all recorded last Monday at the 2SER studios in Sydney.
And we’re playing those for you here!
Also with Lewis and I ripping into them providing constructive feedback.
JokeTober was such great fun. Big thanks to Paula Kruger for having us along, and to our mega brains who came along to share their comedy knowledge; Lewis Hobba, Cale Bain, Bec Melrose , Dylan Behan, John Delmenico, and Mark Humphries .
The cohort are a talented bunch and will no doubt be making biting satirical comedy for your ears for years to come. (Except Adam, who insists on being negged)
Thanks as always for downloading A Rational Fear — if you can chip into the Patreon or if you can’t shoot us a response on the listener survey.
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Howdy Fearmongers,
We’re in the home stretch — at the time of publishing, there’s only 6 days left until Americans everywhere skip work, neglect their families, and dodge bullets to line up in droves to spend a few good hours deciding who will be the comptroller, dog catcher, deputy sheriff, parking tsar, book stacker and President of the USA.
Recorded in Texas, this episode of A Rational Fear brings together a couple of Austin based poliphiles 🐘 Republican devotee James Donald Forbes McCann and 🫏 Democrat dedicatee Eve Ellenbogan as they grapple with some of the big issues facing the country in this — the Season Finale of the United States of America.
And as for me — well I may as well have turned my mic off.
Follow James Donald Forbes McCann on his podcast HERE.
And you can follow Eve Ellenbogan on Instagram HERE.
Summary
In this episode of Irrational Fear, host Dan Ilic and guests discuss the current political climate in the U.S., focusing on the upcoming elections, the role of comedy in politics, and the implications of recent Trump rallies. They delve into the hypocrisy of political values, immigration policies, and economic reforms, while also addressing media endorsements and the influence of billionaires like Jeff Bezos. The conversation touches on Israel's political stance and the integrity of the electoral system, culminating in a humorous yet critical examination of the state of democracy.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Patreon Support
01:51 Political Climate and Upcoming Elections
03:29 Trump Rally and Comedy in Politics
10:43 Hypocrisy in Political Values
12:36 Immigration and Border Policies
20:22 Economic Policies and Taxation
25:08 Media Endorsements and Jeff Bezos
29:07 Israel and Political Stances
37:24 Election Integrity and Voting Systems
Thanks as always for downloading A Rational Fear — if you can chip into the Patreon or if you can’t shoot us a response on the listener survey.
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Howdy Fearmongers,
Trying to make sense of the US Elections is a fools errand.
Well, consider us your fools.
I spent Wednesday afternoon not being able to do work, or anything really, the limit of my motor skills maxed out at flipping between live YouTube channels of US based news and refreshing the NYT app. This was the wrong choice. If I’ve learned anything from following US elections — no one knows anything, and everyone is making it up.
As the red wave continued to spill across the USA I said “F it”, and walked to the pub. My wife and I sat in the spring afternoon sun, drinking a non-alcoholic beer, (because I’m now a soy boy that has been fully cucked) and feeling grateful that we live in Australia, and surely, nothing like that could happen here. Right? 🥔
On this week’s pod we chat with US comedian, journalist, activist and friend of the pod Francesca Fiorentini (The Bitchuation Room), and also we’re lucky enough to grab Amy Remeikis in between meetings at her new gig at the Australia Institute.
We have a big conversation analysing why the Democratic party lost this election, and what another Trump administration means for climate action and what if a social media ban is just a cynical attempt at stopping 13 year olds being radicalised by Joe Rogan.
Cheers
Dan
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Direct from COP29: The juicy gossip and a beached whale
00:22:39
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Salam Fearmongers,
This week we’re connecting with two of our favourite friends of the pod who are wandering around the hall of COP29 in Baku, Azerbijan.
Linh Do & Richie Merzian.
We chat negotiations, financial commitments and how no one at COP is even talking nuclear. And how that dead whale on the shores of Baku (on the land-locked Caspian Sea), rattled everyone on Day 1 of the climate talks.
Richie and Linh also chat about Australia's bid for COP31, the quality of the meals in the football stadium where COP is being held this year, and, of course, climate celebrity sightings. Yeah, we’re TMZ now!
Cheers
Dan
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Jon Ronson on psychopaths, shame & spending time with Alex Jones
00:51:01
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G’day Fearmongers,
The privilege of being a white guy with a podcast is that you get to talk to your heroes, record those conversations and then share them with your friends, acquaintances, and 10,000 of you — our fellow fearmongers.
In this episode Jon Ronson joins us to talk about psychopathy, the evolution of public shaming in the late social media era, we try to tease out of him what his experience was like on #QandA, we touch on Trump, and then Jon tells us this incredible anecdote about sneaking into Bohemian Grove with Alex Jones. It’s wild.
The video of this podcast is ready to view only on Patreon
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Hello Fearmongers,
This is the Exit Interview for Kylea Tink, the current independant Member of Parliament for North Sydney. But not for long thanks to AEC the boundaries of North Sydney are being folded into the neighbouring electorates.
Since there is no HR department at Parliament House I took it upon myself to sit down with Kylea Tink and ask her how her time was at the company.
From this conversation it is clear that Kylea Tink is not done as she is already hinting that she could run for a neighbouring seat to the former electorate of North Sydney — is she going to Bennelong? Is she going to Berowra?
What is for certain — Kylea is going to be putting her energy in getting more community independents elected in Parliament hosue.
Thanks as always for downloading A Rational Fear — if you can chip into the Patreon or if you can’t shoot us a response on the listener survey.
Cheers
Dan
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G’day Fearmongers,
We have a very different episode of the podcast this week — we’re throwing out the rule book to bring a conversation with Millie Holten (Instagram), the brilliant creator of a new web series that is doing huge numbers on TikTok called Long Head.
Starring the incredible voices of incredible comedians Kate Dehnert, Tom Walker and Sam Campbell as the titular Long Head.
It’s a very strange and stupid series. A radical departure from the usual biting satire that folks subscribe to A Rational Fear for. Long Head is refreshingly delightful.
How did we manage to book Millie? Well Dear Listener — I am the executive producer of the series — so this email is what the National Anti-Corruption Commission would call a gross compliment of interest
Millie and I have been working on this show since 2022, and we’re so stoked that the world can finally see it. Of course — I did nothing really, mainly admin — we actually made it with a really talented team of animators including Dale Anderson, Michael Harris, and animation director Annabelle Ots.
And we were lucky enough to record the sound and have it expertly crafted and designed by Matt Perrott’s Mighty Sound in Sydney.
The whole series was generously paid for by … you the taxpayer. More specifically Screen Australia supported the project — thank you, Screen Australia!
We’d love you to watchit, and share it with your friends and family who are on TikTok. And if you know any big wigs in showbiz, please send it to them too.
Listen to Georgia and James' show Werk It Out on FBI Radio
And in EXTRA FEAR only avaliable on Patreon or Apple Subscription we ask Wayne Smith from Smartvoting.com.au why the ACNC banned the Smart Energy Council from promoting their popular bin stickers — SmartVoting.com.au
Bertha Announcement 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.
Dan Ilic 0:04 Hello, Lewis. How are you?
Lewis Hobba 0:06 Hello Dan. Yo, I'm okay. Yeah, I'm alright. Um, I missed last week because of COVID as loyal listeners would No,
Dan Ilic 0:14 no. Yes. Yes, folks folks would know that for people who have tuned in. And how was your week back on radio doing doing actual work again? Was it was it Okay, could you get through the radio shows? Okay,
Lewis Hobba 0:26 I'm genuine. I mean, obviously, as you know, I've been very outspoken on this show about how COVID is just the flu and is mainstream. So I really had to, I've had to make a lot of apologies that I got my face this week.
Dan Ilic 0:40 I remember that episode of you when when you went on Joe Rogan. And you said that on Joe Rogan.
Lewis Hobba 0:45 That's how we got our multimillion dollar contracts with Spotify. Thank you, Spotify. But yeah, it's it's genuinely ruined my brain. Like physically I'm done. I'm testing negative now. I'm Oh, good. But I haven't wasn't allowed back into the radio studio for my other job with Triple J. Yeah. And so I've been doing the show from here from this very bedroom. It has been okay. I've just been napping till like midday and then started the show.
Dan Ilic 1:12 Well, thank you. Thank you for staying up to do this week's irrational fear. Really appreciate it. You know, we don't pay you any sick leave. So if you can walk away from this at any time you want,
Lewis Hobba 1:24 thank you already pay. But yeah, I I'm thrilled to be back. I'm excited. I haven't read any news. I've just watched like six seasons of the office. And all of the all long nine hours of inventing enter the insufferably unnecessary and Adobe story on Netflix. So Oh, god, that's where my braids that.
Dan Ilic 1:45 This is the moment you start a show. And then you're like, I guess I should finish it.
Lewis Hobba 1:49 Yeah, honestly, this thing should be should be a 30 minute podcast. That's a nine hour extravaganza.
Dan Ilic 1:56 Oh, well, speaking of nine hours extravaganzas this this podcast. I'm gonna tweak the format a little bit. It's gonna be a 10 hour Showtime. No, it's in a bit in a bit to try and make money out of this podcast. I'm going to split up the podcast a little bit. You know, for the regular listeners. So for the freeloader listeners, you will hear everything until we get to our interview tonight. And if you want to listen to the interview, you can continue by hitting subscribe on the Patreon feed or through Apple digital subscriptions. It's something Louis I'm inventing called extra fear. In fact, I'm gonna get asked Jacob brown to do a sting he can put put in there or something like that. Right. Do you have any recommendations for sting for extra fear?
Lewis Hobba 2:36 Ah, Dan, don't make me riff.
Dan Ilic 2:41 Big thank you to our Patreon subscribers who signed up this week, Sam Bateman, Megan, Nick, Charlie revive and also Fiona TaskUs, who is a fantastic cartoonist and comedian in her own.
Lewis Hobba 2:53 What about ladies and gentlemen, lend me your fears. Because you're asking for money.
Dan Ilic 2:58 Lend me your fears. That's good. That's better than extra fear. All right. Lend me your fears. That's the new segment on irrational fear. We do have live shows coming up. I don't know if you know, but we've rescheduled our Sydney Opera House show to June for St. Louis. Do you want to do Splendour in the Grass? Really? Yeah, they were inviting us back July 22 24th. So that's exciting. So
Lewis Hobba 3:21 anyway, so you say
Dan Ilic 3:24 that's what I said. I said, Well, Louis is going to be there. So that'll be fine. I'm sure Louis good. So yes, blender, grass and the opera house are coming up. So please check the show notes for details. All right. I'm recording my end of irrational fear. On Gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never said we need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Voice Over 3:43 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening my image your audience.
Dan Ilic 3:57 Tonight the Prime Minister Scott Morrison claims the words I forgive you a harder to say then I'm sorry. Also, according to the Prime Minister, the hardest words of all are the federal election will be held on the and NCIS is coming to Sydney. Yes, I can't wait for them to investigate who killed Kings Cross. And a new report says land clearing in New South Wales has tripled leaving many species of birds and fish priced out of the real estate market. It's the 17th of February and we're hoping to be defamed so we can buy a house of our own this is a rational fear, irrational.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former freestyle ski gold medalist Daniel itch and this is the podcast that analyses the news the same way. Kanye West types on Instagram in all caps. Let's make our fear mongers for tonight. It's the freshest year from FBI radios inside jokes programme, they self described as hot, young and queer. And they are here to solve all of the world's problems because they're in Gen Zed, and they have all the answers and they haven't yet to be beaten down by the harsh realities of life from FBI it's Georgia and James. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Georgia Hooper 5:20 Thank you for having Oh, it's
Dan Ilic 5:23 it's just good to have some like fresh young people on the show. We're just constantly getting geriatric Millennials on the show
Georgia Hooper 5:31 you know I bring that bring the age median down a little bit for you. We're happy to open up doors to a new demo Exactly.
Lewis Hobba 5:40 Shake it up a little you were the only one who didn't know how to use the internet you're
Georgia Hooper 5:46 calling me out live on the early into the game. It is.
Lewis Hobba 5:54 I've already I've already defeated like there's nothing else that can hurt
Dan Ilic 6:00 you there's nothing left for you. Exactly. And he is 2022 RAF magazine's voted most handsome Where's Wally look like it is Louis haba
Lewis Hobba 6:09 take that to Andrew Denton and Tony. Still got it.
Dan Ilic 6:14 Yeah, I've got that copy Louis of rough magazine if you want it
Lewis Hobba 6:18 this route still exist. That's
Dan Ilic 6:21 bankrupt they went bankrupt. Later on in lend me your fears. We're gonna be talking to Wayne Smith from the Smart Energy Council and the newly formed smart voting Comdata you to tell us why he's been stickers bagging the coalition's climate action policies have put him in a sticky situation. But first, a message from this week's sponsor.
Bland Power 6:42 Today bland Poway introduces the own new national party, where traditionally the National Party was created as a party for Famas. The old new national party now uses a brand new formula that's all about coal, but with the same great look, the National Party now comes with unbreakable ties to the mining sector and a stronghold over the Liberal Party. The old new National Party is the perfect party to ensure a coalition lead Australia will continue to put coal ahead of renewables, land power, helping you buy better,
Dan Ilic 7:11 it's not recommended. Excellent. This week's first fear now we've been talking a lot on this podcast about Clive Palmer's Waratah coal and fruit which is primarily the main reason for him wanting to be in Parliament so he can have some influence about which coal mines get approved in the Galilee basin or which coal plants get up. Well, today in the Courier Mail, it was reported that the trademark for Waratah coal had expired. But the Queensland Conservation Council reregistered it. So now they own the trademark. And they after suggestions as to what to do with it. Now, before I take the fear mongers suggestions, we're actually joined by Maggie McEwen from the Queensland Conservation Council to tell us how did you pull off this incredible coup? Maggie tell us?
Maggie Mckeown 7:59 I mean, it was one of those things. We've been campaigning against Clive Palmer, who wants to build a new coal fired power station in central Queensland, which we know is crazy. And when we were looking around his website that the cobwebs dusting them away, we thought, oh, wow, that trademark has lapsed. I wonder how much we could get it for. And we purchased it this week. Really, it was pretty simple. We noticed that Clive is yet to come in and water tacos yet to comment. So we're really anticipating the
Lewis Hobba 8:34 reaction from Have you looked into whether or not he still owns the trademark for Titanic, too, because that could be a big.
Maggie Mckeown 8:41 I mean, iceberg climate change is all related. Perhaps we can
Dan Ilic 8:48 I think we should look into it. The trademark was kind of out of date for a couple of years was it? How did how did you notice that this this trademark was just kind of flapping in the wind ready for the day came?
Maggie Mckeown 8:58 Well, I mean, it's the it's a company that managed to find this antiquated, tiny backwards loophole in the local council approval process to push through this coal proposal, but it seems bizarre that they've been able to miss for five years. A trademark, but you know, it's not a very well known brand. You know, he's got a lot of other other advertising going on, as you know, we've all seen, but yeah, this one they really missed. Yeah, there's
Dan Ilic 9:25 the column golf course with the Jurassic Park. You know, I'm sure there's a trademark there and protector away. So you're asking for people with suggestions for what to do with this trademark? What are some of the best suggestions you've seen so far? Yeah.
Maggie Mckeown 9:36 I mean, it's a pretty simple competition from us. Right. And we thought it was really important to do because although lots of people know the Clive's loud and out there, they don't realise that. You know, he's pushing these projects to coal mines and a new coal fired power station, but it was just awesome to see the reaction today from people we saw some really wholesome ideas like warthog waterslide like wha hoo, that would be a wacky time, but it's a little bit more achy. Like you know, warthog colonoscopies. I'm not going there.
Dan Ilic 10:13 It's it's pretty good to like though like water taco. That's good.
Maggie Mckeown 10:18 Like my favourite so far has been war at our weddings where you know, after the speeches, you get a couple of old blokes coming out and they cover that version of Twisted Sister and everyone gets in trouble and real rowdy.
Lewis Hobba 10:32 When to take Maggie's it hasn't been any consideration for you guys just opening a coal mine raising some money for your conservation education that way.
Maggie Mckeown 10:41 Look, natural reread. That was the advice that we had to get from the lawyers right. It's like I you planning on opening a new coal power station? And we thought no, you know, that's not up our alley. Catastrophic. Climate change is our main foe aside from these coal billionaires. If someone can give us a good pitch, like we run the numbers and the profitability of a new coal power station is zero, like the Queensland consumer would be locked into really high prices. I think something like wartime waterslides is like way funner at this point,
Dan Ilic 11:15 it seemed Mungus What are your suggestions? But what to do with this trademark,
Lewis Hobba 11:18 if you wanted to stick in call you could just go like further down the line and just do diamonds.
Georgia Hooper 11:24 Who does? Now that's an ID.
Unknown Speaker 11:29 One of the ideas that did come through and harbour I think you'd probably have an inkling or some insights is like MC Waratah, like Waratah DJ dropping some fat tunes. Any thoughts? Oh,
Lewis Hobba 11:39 that's interesting. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Does anyone in the Conservation Foundation have any skills on the deck, so
Maggie Mckeown 11:48 we definitely have to outsource I'm only good at very cheesy memes.
Georgia Hooper 11:53 That's actually a good idea. Because I actually saw on the article that you were looking to list the trademark under education, training and entertainment, and entertainment really stuck out in my mind. And I was thinking warthog call Oxford Street's hottest new gay club. Yeah. Conservatives into the game. We take them to a drag show, and then walk out saved cured if even, you know what I'm saying. I think it could be really
Dan Ilic 12:22 well, you know, Matt Canavan always goes about his day in in drag cosplayers, a coal miner anyway, so you know, he could perform at that club. If you want to give your ideas to Maggie, head on into the show notes, and we'll make sure we have all the links to all the ways you can contribute to that. So Maggie, thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear. Thanks, everyone. Yeah, so our billboard campaign continues today, I took a journey to Sylvania waters in Sydney to see this one. It's, it's already up. So if you are in Sydney south, head on over to 259 Princess highway to check this out. It has a picture of a mum and a kid in the middle of a logged forest and it says visit the old growth stumps of Tasmania and that is that is currently on the Princes Highway in Sylvania. Sylvania waters, right opposite poles hamburgers, so you know, treat yourself to a hamburger. Go see our billboard, one of our billboards and there'll be more going up as we continue over the next month, which is great. So that was good to see that one going up. What
Lewis Hobba 13:29 do you think it's gonna last longer? I just noticing where that poster is Tasmania's old growth forests or payphones.
Dan Ilic 13:38 Well, here's the thing. I hate it. It's all of these new billboards on the back of payphones. And the reason why payphones exist is to hold billboards. Now let's see only that's the only reason why payphones exist. And so there's a whole whole big story about you know, councils not wanting payphones in because if they have payphones in they're gonna have advertising in a better so his whole business model is to make money off those pay phones with advertising. That's how we love capitalism. Capitalism. Feed number two, a big Happy Valentine's Day to the editors of the Daily Mail, who published a 2014 photo of grace time blazed and holding a bond with her foot a day after disasters interview with Scott Morrison on 60 minutes the headline said and forgive me I'm going to read it out the whole thing so this could take a while. Explosive Grace time delete social media picture showing her posing next to a giant bomb, as the ex Australian of the Year is criticised by Scott Boris's wife Jenny for lacking manners. Oh my god. The headlines are just so long
Georgia Hooper 14:42 take Can you just confirm that bong was in all caps? Is that what it was?
Dan Ilic 14:46 The bomb was in all caps bomb just in case it's almost like they weren't they wanted to hear the sound of a bomb being bombed when when you
James Fitzgerald 14:56 when you read onomatopoeia yes onomatopoeia
Dan Ilic 15:00 And the article continues to say the post was lifted deleted by time now 27 on Monday morning after questions from the Daily Mail about the image, it is not suggested that miss time used the bond, only that it sat on the couch in front of her in the picture, which makes sense because the Daily Mail never asked people what they do with the things that are in the pictures I just described. So far Mungus does this make her like? Well, for you, Georgia and James, you guys are in your early 20s. Are you now seeing images for future Daily Mail articles to be written about you?
Unknown Speaker 15:34 Um, no. I think I want to post more. If anything, I've been inspired, if anything,
Georgia Hooper 15:40 the goal, I think is to have the bonk Pichai in the daily man. Yeah,
James Fitzgerald 15:45 exactly. I
Unknown Speaker 15:46 personally don't see that as a bad thing. It's an iconic photograph.
Dan Ilic 15:51 I feel like there's lots of stuff in our past that we've posted. You know, Louis and I in particular, that we're not exactly proud of now in our in our 30s and 40s. That we have to go through and scrub occasionally. Have you done a big claim Louis of your past social media pictures,
Lewis Hobba 16:07 there's not that many thing, like, I think because I work at Triple J, there's very little that can come out that would be negative press, you know, for me and my and my like, essentially, if there was a photo that came out of me with a giant bomb, our ratings would increase and I would get paid more. Like if there was a photo of me at spider just like doing massive rails in like the green room with a bunch of bands. You know, they they put another level on my house. There's not Yeah, I don't have the same kind of responsibility as the Australian of the Year.
Dan Ilic 16:40 And you might end up getting an invitation to like a WAG after party as well. Which would be great. Exactly.
Lewis Hobba 16:44 That's right man. Not even tell $2.50 came up plates. Let's do this thing.
Dan Ilic 16:50 How do you feel about this story? Is it a? Is it a weird one for you? Or is it something that you go? Oh, who cares?
Unknown Speaker 16:56 I thought it was great. I loved it. I mean, honestly, what's more Australian if not Australian of the Year, then ripping a bomb on the couch with your mates. I think that the people who were complaining they need to look inside themselves and they need to know who we are as Australians and honestly if anything, I think it was a conspiracy theory theory after the whole Scott Morrison April time in Cuba events. I think it was brought up not by the daily noun, but by the band dragon who publicly came out against Scott Morrison and and hatred against his cover of this song. And I you know what happens? When a bad cover comes out? Your likes go down, your streams go down. Spotify wants to eradicate you from the app. So I think it was them. They said what are we going to do? How are we going to turn this around? Because if you look at Google at the moment what comes up when you type in April signing Cuba? It Scott Morrison Scott Morrison said personally, I think that behind this and we need to forgive the Daily Mail.
Dan Ilic 17:59 Oh, this is something that people around trouble Jagang we should get him in for like a version.
Lewis Hobba 18:07 Get again. Ah, there was obviously some chat. Yeah. We they don't normally cover all songs on like a version. But I don't think a prime minister has done it before. But let's be honest, last year's Hold on Hold number one was the wiggle. So all bets are off. I think when we look forward, on to what's happening next year, we're gonna have to get into Yeah, um, I don't think he refuses to come in to be interviewed by any of the journalists at Triple J. So it'd be it'd be the only way we get him on. I do think, though, that, like, if you look back, I wonder if she can't be the only Australian of the Year where there's a photo of her doing drugs, you know what I mean? Like, there's got to, like, the whole thing's got to be something like, I don't know, like, hurt again. I don't I mean, there's got to be some photos and like her to get in his, in his heyday, on to Tamworth Country Music Festival, right? Oh, like, Alan Botha was a Australian, like me. And thanks so much tears on television, there's just got there's no way that there aren't more. And I also think that like for going forward from here, there's no one under like, 40 who doesn't have a photo like this? So from now on, we just have to assume that anyone who is under 40, who gets any position of power has this photo and you probably just have it on them on the day they get whatever price they get. So if you're if you're a young Prime Minister, you're the first person who's currently under 40 to become prime minister. Like thank you so much. It's a real pleasure. Just want to get this out of the way here is a photo of me doing cocaine off a friend's but it was I was young. It was two years ago.
Dan Ilic 19:40 Like a slideshow? I was a different person two years ago.
Lewis Hobba 19:43 Yes. All the different drugs.
Unknown Speaker 19:45 I feel like that was the thing is that it actually opened the doors for a bunch of like politicians to come out and actually say yeah, I'm a sterner, too. I saw that a lot on Twitter this week, which was which is fine. We like good to know that our politicians Get down.
Dan Ilic 20:01 One of the more disturbing tweets is people like Dave Sharma who are desperately trying to humanise themselves at the moment Dave Sharma even tweeted saying I should I'm sure there's a photo of me like that somewhere. I don't think this stuff is remotely in the public interest.
Lewis Hobba 20:13 I honestly I would I would eat my hat if Dave Sharma has done a drug.
Dan Ilic 20:20 Danny drug Dave Shama has done his relentless pursuit of power.
Lewis Hobba 20:26 Yeah, it was also it's also like people like Dave Schobert obviously keep voting heavily in favour of draconian drug punishments. So he's like yeah, that's cool for me know whatever arrest the white guy in 10 slack so yep. Oh,
Dan Ilic 20:38 GA you brought up Dragon's response dragon also decided to repost one of the videos I made in response to the 60 minutes thing I made this video of Scott Morrison playing ukulele in a bushfire and they reposted it on their Tik Tok and now their videos had 100,000 views had three cents for every view. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, 100,000 views isn't exciting as it used to be when you get all this doesn't actually
Lewis Hobba 21:06 doesn't you realise it doesn't improve your life in any way in any tangible shape or form? That's profound.
Unknown Speaker 21:13 I'd say this to treasure dick. The federal government have shown you this. Now you should show them yours. That's what the Premier said yesterday, if the feds do it, we'll do it. The feds have done it. So treasure addicts should do the same.
Dan Ilic 21:28 A rational fear this week's the fear the Russians are revolting and doping as per usual now 15 year old Camilla Valera was done with a doping violation this week as for a test she took way back at Christmas time the test came back positive only this week for some heart medication which the Russian team is blaming. I'm mixing up the drugs with her grandfather's drugs I mean we've all been there many to grab like a handful of m&ms and you know, axes and poppy downs and Viagra happens to miss. The Cove Arbitration for Sport allowed her to skate regardless as they're still investigating it because the because Camilla is 15 years old and because she's young, she's got this like protected status. So fear mongers does this kind of exemption, just open the door for hordes of Russian teenagers or smackdown on their bowls on steroids to join the Olympics.
Unknown Speaker 22:22 Okay, okay. I enjoy me some figure skating when the events are happening. So I know maybe too much about this. I hypothetically, like, if I like stabbed you in the face, should I like not get punished
Dan Ilic 22:37 for it? I guess if you're a minor. I mean,
Unknown Speaker 22:42 that's a good point. That's a really, really good point. But so you should get punished. But I should get punished. Technically, I don't think like, okay, we're just like not gonna have this ceremony. That's really really quirky. But like I also don't think we should like attack this 15 year old girl. Not to be radical. Not to be radical because she is coached by Miss Miss Thing a terry tuberous who if y'all don't know, she's basically like Cruella de Vil. But instead of poppies. It's like, Wow, 15 year old Russian figure skaters. Wow. Basically, for the last like 10 years, she's kind of been physically and mentally like abusing these little girls to get them to like break records and do all this fun stuff. So like, um, I really don't think it was her grandfather's drugs that she took. I feel like she didn't know what she was doing. But it was very much a terry being like you do this, or you're gonna suffer more than if you don't do this. Um,
Dan Ilic 23:41 yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that that checks out is a story because Russia has this huge state sanctioned history of of taking drugs at the Olympics, like the Sochi Games, the ones that Russia ran, they actually had little doors, you could you could swap your urine for if you're a Russian athlete, so you could evade water and all the
Unknown Speaker 24:05 time. I think at this point, we just have to assume that all Russians are on performance enhancing drugs.
James Fitzgerald 24:10 Yeah.
Dan Ilic 24:13 Well, this is why the Russian Federation isn't actually isn't actually playing in these games. They're they're like, playing under.
Georgia Hooper 24:22 I mean, look at Putin. He's on something.
Lewis Hobba 24:26 He's on like, the whatever the magical drugs that like Hollywood celebrities are on because he looks right. Like he is. Yeah, he's good. He whatever, magical young blood like him, whatever, like Brad Pitt's getting, you know, he's getting Vladimir Putin's onto that.
Unknown Speaker 24:42 Exactly. And James, I want to say I hear your point. That she she's that she's like 15 years old, and she's got this like crazy coach. But um, you know, we got to watch out for these kids. They I think, I think they're onto something. I think they're smarter than we think. And we need to watch We need to watch out for them. I think they're all They're all innocent. I am a few years older than her. Uh huh. But um I could still manipulate my way to the Winter Olympics if I wanted to. So I think we got to keep one eye open on this.
James Fitzgerald 25:15 I have faith that you could Georgia Thank you emotionally manipulated
Dan Ilic 25:20 me emotional, passive aggressive manipulation all the way to the gold
coming up in extra fear, or what's the what's the new the new rate limit your fears?
Lewis Hobba 25:40 Yeah, I mean, I'm not married. I just my brain isn't like 30% At the moment that's the best way to come up with it short notice coming up
Dan Ilic 25:46 in lend me your fears. We're gonna hear from Wayne Smith from the smarter voting Comdata you as to why he's been stick as a band. But before we do that, let's hear some plugs. George and James, do you have anything to plug?
James Fitzgerald 25:57 Are you can listen to all episodes of working out with Georgia and James on Spotify now. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 26:04 We just one of the funniest things I've heard or year I got to mentor Georgia and James on FBI and they just absolutely killed it. I'm really excited to, to for people to listen to your podcast. I think it's fun. It's a fun time. All right. Since December last year, the Smart Energy Council snapped. They lost the plot with this government, ignoring renewable energy sector and continuously rubbishing the whole industry and propping up coal. So they decided they would go into battle against the with some stickers you could put on your beam in council grain with pictures of Barnaby Joyce and Scott Morrison holding call with the phrase bin them and chuck them out, which is kind of not the kind of behaviour you usually see from a pig industry body but it was quite fascinating. But last week, the Australian charities not for profits commission advised this mad Energy Council that that if they continue to sell their stickers, they would lose their tax status as a not for profit, which is a kind of a big deal away from this bad Energy Council is here to tell us what happened. And if you want to hear that, you'll have to listen in on extra fear. Hit subscribe on Apple podcasts, or sign up to a rational fear on Patreon patreon.com forward slash irrational fear.
Voice Over 27:17 Extra Extra fears extra level of fear, Extra Extra Extra fear extra.
Dan Ilic 27:24 Big thank you to all of our guests as well, Georgia and James, thank you for joining us on irrational fear as well.
Unknown Speaker 27:30 Thank you.
Dan Ilic 27:32 Thank you. And Louis, thank you for joining us in irrational fear despite your COVID
Lewis Hobba 27:38 Thank you I don't know if I did I feel like this might be one of the things where I wake up tomorrow and be like this was all a dream.
Dan Ilic 27:43 That's okay. You never listened back to the podcast anyway. Big thanks to red marks the birth of foundation our Patreon supporters Jacob brown on the Tepanyaki timeline Dave Bluestein ads on the discord and our also our other patreon supporters this month Sam Bateman, Megan Nick Celli Ruby and Fiona TaskUs thank you so much for joining us on Patreon please go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to chip in help the show stay on the road
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G’day Fearmongers!
Merry Christmas to everyone (except Raygun).
Join A Rational Fear as we break down some of the most memorable stories (to us). We gathered around table at the Tilbury Hotel — one of the earliest satirical venues in Australia, the birth place of Three Men and A Baby Grand, and the earliest incarnations of the Wharf Revue — how very fitting that we, A Rational Fear, destroy that legacy with our little podcast.
Joining Lewis Hobba and Dan are a handful of our favourite friends in comedy, Bec Melrose, Steph Broadbridge and Chris Taylor. We have a few lunch time beer, and let loose on the year 2024.
Thank You if you’ve listened to any of our podcasts this year — as the 2025 election looms you can bet your Nuclear Power Plant that we’ll be back each week covering the ins and outs of the campaign. And Lewis, will be doing a video series on instagram reels and TikTok dedicated to the election.
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SPECIAL EPISODE: News Fighters 2024 Year In Review
00:25:05
Tonightly and Media Watch wacky clips craftsman Dylan Behan is back with his annual News Fighters year in review episode taking an in depth look at 2024 in news and politics. From Dutton’s nuclear epiphany to Albo’s endless cash splashing (mostly on his own house) this year has marked an an ever increasing enshittifcation of Australian politics. Also Stefan Pazur does his annual wrap of sport and entertainment. News Fighters: where we fight the news, so you don’t have to!
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In this episode of A Rational Fear, Dan Ilic and Lewis Hobba catch up and discuss their busy start to the year, including Lewis's move to Melbourne and preparations for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. They introduce new initiatives like the A Rational Fukt Check, aimed at fact-checking political promises and disinformation during the upcoming election. The conversation also touches on the role of memes in political discourse and the importance of community engagement in combating misinformation.
On this week’s podcast we have a conversation with award-winning environmental journalist Stefano Valentino. Stefano has written extensively about the confluence of power and greenwashing, and disinformation.
We asked him about disinformation in elections, he told us about how the biggest companies get away with the claiming they have climate credentials.
And Lewis comes up with the perfect metaphor for Misinformation vs Disinformation.
See you next week!
Cheers
Dan
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In this episode, we discuss Australia's unique relationship with the United States, ANZUS, Pine Gap and wading into AUKUS submarine deal. Guests Senator Jacqui Lambie and Dr. Emma Shortis provide insights into Australia's defence strategy and the challenges posed by reliance on foreign powers.
It’s a very silly and smart conversation — about one of the most complex relationships that underpins my own anxiety.
See you at the big show
Dan
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In this episode, we discuss the upcoming election on May 3rd with Alex Fein from RedBridge and Populares’ Ed Coper.
These two people have their fingers (and toes) on the pulse more than most politicians — and the word that sums up the electorate in 2025 is “abandonment”.
And we make some ropey jokes from 2005, and get some predictions where this election will end up in 5 weeks time.
Dan Ilic 0:00 This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening, Lewis.
Lewis Hobba 0:05 Hello Daniel. How are you?
Dan Ilic 0:07 I'm great. It's great to be in Melbourne. It's stupid old studios.
Lewis Hobba 0:10 So beautiful. I'm really impressed with the stupid old studios. Obviously they do so much great work. And I know we both donated to the crowdfunding a little while
Dan Ilic 0:20 ago. We night I forgot that. Why am I paying for this booking?
Lewis Hobba 0:25 That microphone you're using? That's the memorial mine. Yeah,
Dan Ilic 0:30 I actually met someone Off the Telly today. It was a bit taken aback. I'm like, Oh, we're famous person.
Lewis Hobba 0:35 What do you mean? Oh, at the studio?
Dan Ilic 0:36 Yeah. The people that come from,
Lewis Hobba 0:38 we're just excited in general of having met someone from television, like, bumped into the cash cow on the street and you were like,
Dan Ilic 0:44 speaking of cash, big thank you to Australian ethical for helping out the podcast for another few weeks. And big thank you to Andrew Carr and Chad Thompson, who signed up on the Patreon you'd not only get an ad free feed, you get access to the discord. And you can write jokes for the show if you want. That's good. You get early access to the big one on one interviews we have you also get access to early works in progress of sketches, video sketches, and rare recordings of live shows that are too defamatory to put out in public.
Lewis Hobba 1:12 I love that your Patreon model is a lot like Elon Musk's plan to charge people for their blue check. It's like hey, if you give us money, you can also write for it.
Dan Ilic 1:21 And we're gonna be speaking a lot about Elon Musk. In just a second. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Wurundjeri lands of the Kulin nation, sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.
Simon Chilvers 1:31 A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 1:44 Tonight lions escaped from a Sydney zoo but returned to their cages when they realized the city's nightlife is dead. And after tourism Victoria stepped up to sponsor the national netball team Gina Reinhardt insists on trying out for a position called own goal attack. And Dominic Perret J has hired Scott Morrison's election strategist hoping he'll curry favor with the people of New South Wales. It's the fourth of November and we're just days away from the final episode of the USA this is a rational fear.
Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host former head of security at Taronga Zoo Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the scariest news and shoots it with a tranquilizer gun. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. They are the executive producer of the number one news podcast in Australia that doesn't do jokes. They are the they are also the former housemate of Louis harbor. Scott Micho.
Scott Mitchell 2:44 Thank you so much.
Dan Ilic 2:45 Scott. What is the one thing you know about Louis Harbor that nobody else knows?
Scott Mitchell 2:50 Oh, my God, so many Friday, I'd
Lewis Hobba 2:52 be like we should I don't think we need to do this.
Scott Mitchell 2:54 I don't think we need to do this. So many Dan,
Lewis Hobba 2:57 but also I know, Scott would be very afraid of reprisals.
Dan Ilic 3:05 And the culture editor for nine and host of the drop podcasts and current flatmate of Scott Mitchell Osman for okay Daniel, how you doing? Well, I was What is one thing about Scott Mitchell that nobody else knows.
Osman Faruqi 3:17 I'm not terrified of reprisals because I'm perfect as a housemate.
Dan Ilic 3:21 It's pretty good to me.
Osman Faruqi 3:22 No, I mean, there's nothing done they've done the things like I said it's got a lovely things. He's a wonderful housemate and a wonderful cook. You know, this
Dan Ilic 3:27 is such born with me, call Santa lands we need him and he's already dusting off his Loki suit after his one episode of television aired last week. It's former flatmate of Scott Mitchell Louis harbor.
Lewis Hobba 3:43 Yes, thank you, Dan. It it's true. The logos are calling the actors are calling. I assume the international Emmys are calling. I'm preparing several suits.
Dan Ilic 3:55 Any lawsuits loose?
Lewis Hobba 3:57 None yet. I mean, once people get into the Patreon I'm sure they'll be able to find some stuff in the old irrational fear episode.
Dan Ilic 4:04 Coming up later, Australia is returning to the climate talks table as a fully fledged adult we're gonna be talking with lindo to see if the world will have us back. but first here's a message from this week's sponsor.
Unknown Speaker 4:19 Oh no generic tradie What's that bloke man sports bet and bet 365 are being audited by austrac Oh, what are the odds are that pretty good according to austrac
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Unknown Speaker 4:51 I'll put a pineapple on aiding and abetting money laundering. Yeah, and I'll put a dame Nellie Melba on funding terrorism a lobster on them getting off scot free but didn't make it a tongue
Jess Perkins 5:01 austrac bit put good pants or bad
Dan Ilic 5:07 I should mention gamble responsibly there gamble responsibly. This week's first fear move over Melbourne there was only one animal based news story that stopped the nation for a short period on Wednesday. All eyes were on Taronga Zoo as the lions had escaped, presumably because like all of us, they'd had Jack have locked down. But they went back to their cages shortly after they after they when they realized they all forgot their masks. Taronga Zoo found out that they had basically what they called an integrity issue with the containment fence oz. What was the integrity issue with the fence?
Osman Faruqi 5:40 Absolutely. My favorite part of this story was when Taronga Zoo was asked to explain at a press conference why they had let the lions out. And I think it's an example of how everyone even zookeepers is so media trained and terrified of saying a single thing wrong. When they're asked what what happened here. They said there was an integrity issue with the fence. Maybe some sort of iconic style investigation. And
Scott Mitchell 6:06 I think there's like a rule in New South Wales that every press conference to get there eventually.
Osman Faruqi 6:12 Eventually, when they were pressed, it was basically like there was a hole in the face. Yeah. Why don't just say that. This No,
Dan Ilic 6:16 no, I liked the late putting it like that. It's like they were like, nefarious monkeys that were like run. Yeah, running security. And the like. So the lions gave them a banana. They open up and say, yeah, that's how it works. Yeah.
Osman Faruqi 6:31 The other bit of story that I think was really, the media did, I think on one hand, an excellent job of covering this because even here in Melbourne, the ABC was just an effect all the channels which was broadcasting basically live helicopter footage of Mosman for like four to five hours. And it was a great day in Sydney and Sydney looked absolutely gorgeous. But there was so many fascinating parts of the story. So I did not know that Taronga Zoo has what they call a roar and snore program where families can sleep over at the zoo.
Dan Ilic 7:00 Yeah. And at the time, they were like 20 kids doing this produce exactly. Next to the lion right
Osman Faruqi 7:05 next to lions. And one of the one of the dads says they will woken up and the zookeepers are just yelling code one code. That's like, I don't know what that made me.
Dan Ilic 7:13 Yeah. I mean, obviously, obviously, you don't know what it means. But for any of us who grew up in Africa, we do know, there's that old saying code free fun with you and me. Code to safety first at the zoo. code one line. We grew up with that.
Osman Faruqi 7:28 Yeah, I didn't grow up in Africa. Well, and then as soon as I saw this story, I was like, Oh, this is very reminiscent of Jurassic Park. Right. But I love that one of the dads involved in this situation said literally, when I was huddled in his cabin after we were escorted out of our tents, all I could think about was this is just like being interested. Even me as an outsider was like making pop culture references. This dad terrified that his kids are gonna get eaten by lions just like, I'm basically saying, Neil, right.
Lewis Hobba 7:53 And does that mean in like 10 years, there'll be a new outbreak, but the lions will be like, genetically bred to be smarter. Yeah, I
Dan Ilic 8:03 always thought it was a shame that it was like male lines that escaped because if it was lionesses, at least the zookeeper could say, clever girl.
Osman Faruqi 8:11 The The other thing that the zookeeper said at this press conference that I found absolutely hilarious. He just he wanted to reiterate that. I just want everyone should be reassured that at no point did the lions leave Taronga Zoo. And it's like you had bro then there will be lions loose in the city. Like that would be saga.
Dan Ilic 8:29 Lions parading the up and up and down. Mosman streets, that would be like an improvement. There's so many concrete lines already in Mosman.
Osman Faruqi 8:35 That's a weird thing about Sydney and I guess the British kind of legacy that Brits loved building statues of lying everywhere. Yeah, I don't have any.
Dan Ilic 8:43 Yeah, the insignia of New South Wales has lions night. Yeah.
Lewis Hobba 8:45 What Yeah, what is the UK did have lions at one point, right? Like that wasn't out of nowhere. Really. Louis, the UK never had like lions, they must have brought some lions in right. They must have had some wire the roll. Like we have the way like the way we have Panthers. The lisco Lion, we have Panthers.
Dan Ilic 9:07 Of course, I really enjoyed the zookeeper saying everyone relax. Within 10 minutes, we put up the emergency beacons in like 10 minutes. I'm not an apex predator. But I think it would take less than 10 minutes to rip open a school child. That's what that's what I think
Osman Faruqi 9:24 I want to know at what point they called the police because they did call the police and that I also find hilarious. I get on one hand if something had gone wrong, terribly wrong here. And there was an investigation and they said why didn't you call the police? They could have saved this. Maybe the zoo could have gotten into trouble. But at the same time, what were the police going to do? situation?
Dan Ilic 9:42 Yeah, right. Well, it's depends on a spinning like if you call them and say lions are coming their problem would probably do much of you said there's African gangs around Muslim.
Osman Faruqi 9:51 People have escaped their cage.
Scott Mitchell 9:52 And as if the least one officer who was called to site was going to shoot online I'm drawing straws down at the station who gets to take this call?
Lewis Hobba 10:04 I also love the like, obviously you were talking about the Melbourne Cup, you know you love to hear so what about Bruce McAvennie or or, you know, Commentating the cup, but you want to hear anytime there's an animal outbreak. You want David Attenborough on the scene. Crossing right now to add burden Mosman I'm just going kind of the lions are escaping Toronto. They are going to a local campus.
Osman Faruqi 10:28 We got instead of David Attenborough was an hour of Karl Stefanovic vamping on the Today show. It's quite extraordinary encourage anyone to watch that an hour of college is talking about how incredible it
Dan Ilic 10:37 is. No, that sounds that sounds like daytime TV. Neil post put it on Twitter and the responses were quite rational. Slayer freak said did the Lions have COVID and Ryan Finnegan said government overreach, really enjoyed that. When the Herald Sun posted on Twitter, the top of the top six responses were a variation of the same theme, which was basically somehow this is Dan Andrews, this fault. And I thought that is a hometown paper well attuned to their audience.
Lewis Hobba 11:06 Now that it's happened at Taronga Zoo. I don't think that the snore and roll program will be selling out that quickly. They get a need. If they want to keep them selling those tickets. They're going to need a pretty heavy reach.
Dan Ilic 11:22 A goal that's what you need to do.
Lewis Hobba 11:25 If you pitch it just to like thrill seekers as napping attack, cash,
Unknown Speaker 11:31 emotional fear.
Unknown Speaker 11:33 The rule in snow camping experience more broad than snore
Unknown Speaker 11:37 for me was quite scary because a wine roaming around is like not my thing.
Dan Ilic 11:46 This week second fear walking mean Elon Musk paid $45 billion for a social media site the tech journalists have been saying for 10 years is dead. Yes. Upon taking the keys to the site primarily used for creating people's a poster for use. Elon Musk tweeted, well, you get what you pay for. And well, pretty amazing. Immediately after completing the acquisition, Musk fired four of the top executives who were all hoping to be let go because they had incredible contracts with huge exit packages upwards of $50 million. If they were let go without cause Musk fired them because quote for cause this means you can avoid paying $122 million in severance packages. It feels like trolling. Of course it is because these guys will just
Osman Faruqi 12:31 go to court. Yeah, when you spent $66 billion buying it you want to be honest make some 100 million dollars saving
Dan Ilic 12:36 in a move that has outraged everyone who has their ego attached to their Twitter verification like me. He now wants to charge verified people. A fee to be verified initially was gonna be $20 But Stephen King complained, and then mass suggested aid to Stephen King, which I thought was fantastic. Likewise, similar reaction on Twitter to this, Alexandria Acacio Cortes said lmao the billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that free speech is actually $8 a month subscription plan. Elon Musk replied to her saying Your feedback is appreciated. Now pay $8 Oh my god, this is funny. This is kind of funny. Like Elon Musk is like now the landlord who can see what everyone's doing inside their houses. Before we
Osman Faruqi 13:16 get too much into this. Can I ask each of you? Yeah. Are you guys paying the dollars a month for the blue team?
Dan Ilic 13:20 I'm a Twitter blue member. You are currently your current? I'm currently Yeah. When they started doing and I was like yeah, I'm gonna pay because I need to undo my tweets. I need to fix my tweets. Um, I was really keen on you know, the ad free subscription articles that they're gonna offer.
Scott Mitchell 13:34 But this is apparently potentially going to go live as soon as Monday and Dan Ilic. Will you be paying a deluxe but
Dan Ilic 13:40 depends how many Patreon members we get this week. So jump on.
Lewis Hobba 13:44 I've never been happy to barely use Twitter. It's such a sweet thing. Yes,
Dan Ilic 13:50 you're out. You're done with Twitter.
Lewis Hobba 13:52 I got out of Twitter about the same time I tapped out of watching Marvel movies. They both have best decision. You guys are fucking idiots. You're wasting your lives. And all over over here. The king of getting the fuck out at the right time. Scott
Dan Ilic 14:06 Mitchell, what do you think about
Scott Mitchell 14:07 this? Well, I I just it makes me wistful and and want to reminisce about the wonderful times about a month ago that Jack was the CEO and major owner of Twitter. And what I loved about Jack was just how absent minded he was and not really involved in anything. I mean, to the degree often he was offered a yoga retreat the middle of Thailand, well, Myanmar, he was so absent minded. He went to Myanmar for a yoga retreat, and didn't even realize there was a genocide going on in the country. That's the level of absence and not holding the wheel that I I want and I think, you know, I think the wider Well
Dan Ilic 14:45 we all know the reason why that was because that genocide was sponsored by Facebook.
Lewis Hobba 14:51 That reminds me of Do you remember, one of the great, untold and forgotten stories of the pandemic, was when Jared Leto was On a silence retreat for a month, and he came back and he had missed the first month of the hammock, and he, because no one had been able to talk about it.
Scott Mitchell 15:09 Wow, incredible, incredible. I mean, it's interesting that at the beginning of this, Dan, you mentioned landlords, because I think that's sort of how we have to think of our social media billionaires is, is as landlords and that means that like, they are all terrible, but what I want in a landlord is an absent minded landlord where like, like, Jackie, like, you know, Hey, man, you know, like, the sink doesn't work. There's lots of Nazis in the house, can you do something about this takes them like too long to do anything, takes them way too long, and they don't really do it. But eventually you bug them and I send a bloke round and they kind of fix the sink, kind of reduce that. Whereas the thing you want least is a very interested who's really, really invested and he's like, can we break the seat more? Can we funnel more money? That's not what you want.
Osman Faruqi 16:02 So he also in terms of him being absent minded, I think when the big controversy around whether Trump should be banned for when that sort of story was was written up, Jack at the point at this point was was on like Bora Bora. He was in some island in the middle of nowhere, and not really responding to his messages. Perfect.
Scott Mitchell 16:19 And you want your first absentee if we're gonna have a landlord absentee. I feel
Lewis Hobba 16:24 like he hardly tweeted as well, like he was totally on Twitter, which was kind
Dan Ilic 16:28 of which is the only way to deal with Twitter, not tweet, never tweet Jack took it took the great advice of Twitter to heart. Musk is already seconded people from Tesla and SpaceX to come and work on Twitter 54 software engineers from those two companies. It's kind of weird that the brightest minds in technology which have been working on how to make Mars habitable, and now trying to figure out an $8 Payable, so you can identify someone who's bullying you. Isn't that? Isn't that just like mind blowing? What
Osman Faruqi 16:55 is the Twitter code everyone's talking about? We need the software engineers from Tesla to look at it. It's a website where you post something and people read it. What else is going on?
Dan Ilic 17:05 I don't understand the self driving Twitter
Unknown Speaker 17:10 versus rational fear Twitter has become kind of the de facto count square. Really important that people have the perception that they are able to speak freely,
Simon Chilvers 17:21 they see is a rational view.
Dan Ilic 17:24 This week's third there B 52. Bombers for fans of thermonuclear war this week is super exciting. A squadron of six B 50 twos are coming to Darwin. Yes, Australia is clearing the decks to make space for the huge 60 year old aircraft, which every news outlet has been careful to say is nuclear capable, but isn't really every aircraft nuclear capable. You know, if you've got a small enough I'm I'm pretty sure my 2000 Corolla is nuclear capable. Like
Lewis Hobba 17:49 if you get five friends together, you're like, hey, the six of us
Dan Ilic 17:53 probably carry this. Yeah, I'm sure the cast of Ninja Warrior and nuclear capable. This podcast right now is probably fear mongers. Pretend your G for a second. Which Australian targets would you take out first?
Osman Faruqi 18:06 I guess we're the beefy wrongest. Loser. Like we're telling everyone where we're putting the most dangerous plane to Australia has right? Isn't that your number one target?
Lewis Hobba 18:15 I think the most dangerous planes Australia has a quite.
Dan Ilic 18:20 I asked this question to Twitter. And someone immediately came back and said I think the most strategic target would be Bunnings. And I thought that's a really good point.
Osman Faruqi 18:27 A great way to lose the hearts and minds.
Dan Ilic 18:30 It's kind of interesting. You think the Commonwealth was trying to think of a way to get rid of Darwin? They're like, Oh, yeah, you just put the bombers in Darwin? Yeah,
Osman Faruqi 18:38 I had to look up whether these be 50 twos are the same pitch twos that you mentioned that the 60 years old. Yeah. Like this is what was in Dr. Strangelove the very old planes. Yeah. i My suspicion is that the US needs a way to get rid of these Australian like kind of military establishment are dumb enough to be like be 50 twos. This is incredible. I've seen. Yeah, we'll take
Dan Ilic 19:00 the United States government is looking for Australia to help with their insurance. Do you reckon Australia has a choice in this too? Do you reckon we as a nation can actually push back and say yeah,
Scott Mitchell 19:12 yeah. And I think the thing that is sort of been underreported, I think is like that. This is actually the product of like 10 years of Australian making that choice. Like we want American capabilities here for all kinds of reasons. And it's a slow build up of allowing, you know, this infrastructure to be built to host bigger and bigger, you know, capabilities and this is the result of that. It's a
Dan Ilic 19:35 totally weird bipartisan wank fest as well. Like when this when this news dropped. Peter Dutton was first to jump on the news and say, so this is like an unbelievable service forever. Oh, we need we need the guns.
Osman Faruqi 19:47 I was the first one to one.
Scott Mitchell 19:50 Can you imagine what you would have to pay also in this news week for Peter Dutton to endorse government? Attack all week. I mean, he's came out so red hot for
Dan Ilic 20:01 this. He saw his percentage points go up three points. Yeah,
Lewis Hobba 20:04 I just I can't stop thinking about just the BPC tos and I know that's a really Oh surprise
Dan Ilic 20:09 surprise a Triple J DJ can't stop thinking about the B 52.
Osman Faruqi 20:13 Fun fact about the B 50. Twos Louis is that they're not in fact named after the bombers. They are named after the B 52 beehive hairstyle that was itself named after the bombers because of the way that the nose of the big plane looked like a beehive. The B 52 is when they first come out on stage would wear wigs reminiscent of the popular 60s haircut.
Dan Ilic 20:33 Wow, were those wigs nuclear capable? When we come back, we'll be talking about cop 27. And if Australia is doing enough, spoiler alert, no,
Simon Chilvers 20:44 this is a rational view.
Dan Ilic 20:47 rational fear. Lewis Imagine if the $3.3 trillion dollars invested in Super in Australia was put to doing good I reckon we've been a pretty good place, don't you?
Lewis Hobba 20:59 I already think it's doing great work, then I love the fact that we're investing in tobacco, international arms deals, local coal trade. I couldn't be prouder of the Australian superannuation industry.
Dan Ilic 21:11 Well thankfully, we actually are sponsored by a good investment fund Australian ethical. They don't touch any of that bad stuff. They say fuck off to fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, all that bad stuff. And they only invest in low carbon businesses and renewable energy it health care, education, and middling podcasts would say.
Lewis Hobba 21:34 That's right. But you know what, they're getting it on the ground floor. We could be the next Uber.
Dan Ilic 21:39 They are a certified B Corp. and winner of money Magazine's Best of the Best for 2022. So big thank you, Australian ethical for supporting one of, if not the most ethical podcast in Australia.
Lewis Hobba 21:52 I did not put my name today.
Dan Ilic 21:55 And we're back. Well what a difference a year makes last year a cop 26 Scott Morrison had to be bullied by billboards in New York City to even consider making an appearance to utter the phrase, we'll meet and beat our targets and a cancer to an empty room. But to cut to this year, it's a whole different story. Next week, the at the UN climate talks Australia returns as a good faith actor after about a 15 year departure. Joining us now to talk through how Australia will be received at COP is friend of the show, co host of the greatest moral podcast of our generation and deputy chair of Climate Action Network Australia. Lindo, welcome back to rational view.
Linh Do 22:30 Hey, Tom, thanks for having me back.
Unknown Speaker 22:31 It's been a while where have you
Linh Do 22:32 been long, long time, you know, and got COVID and then basically got knocked out for all of you
Dan Ilic 22:38 said lion's share a very similar story to you. Yeah. So Australia is returning to the climate talks this year. How do you record Australia will be received at the cop 20 A cop 27.
Linh Do 22:49 So you know, one of the things about being stuck in Melbourne during COVID Was you sort of forgot what Australians are actually like overseas. And we have this idea that everyone loves us. And we're the best and like, you know, everyone wants to invite us to the party. But I did get to go to Europe this year, during their summer, our winter. Turns out people aren't really ready to have us back in Europe. Turns out people have not missed us. And I don't think people have missed us at the UN. Do you
Dan Ilic 23:11 mean like in general in the world? Yeah. In general,
Linh Do 23:14 in general, like I think, you know, we just have this image of ourselves that like, we're all really great. And now that we've changed our government, people are ready to welcome us back. And I think that's what the Israeli government is really going to this cop. We're thinking that well, we're better than the last guys were in this job. So everyone will want us back. Right, right. Only so far, I think we should somewhat expect like crickets in terms of the Welcome back.
Dan Ilic 23:36 The latest episode of outrageous optimism, and incredible podcast about climate change, and Christiana Figueres was kind of celebrating on one hand, but also wanting us to do more on the other. But it was it's interesting to think that the that the the climate community in the world kind of is remotely excited about us kind of coming back as good faith actors.
Linh Do 23:57 I think it's better to have us back that not back at all. But I think if if the world sort of has been using this sort of like carrot and stick approach to Australia, you know, trying to dangle Hey, if you come back and you do good, we'll like reward you for it. But that just didn't work for a decade. And I think as a result, people are really ready to say, hey, Australia, we get that your back and we get evened out some things as part of your election. But when is the proof gonna come in? Why do you still export fossil fuels? Why are you still exploring new gas projects? Like there's just not a lot that's adding up?
Dan Ilic 24:27 So what about what we're going to take to court this year? We'll like what, what are the things that haven't really been announced? We have a 43% target, which is pretty, you know,
Linh Do 24:36 that is what we take into cop right. But unfortunately, is
Dan Ilic 24:39 there anything else though? Is it like is it like a Steve Jobs? Oh, and one last thing kind of is there like a disc is Chris Bowen gonna have like something fun in an envelope he's gonna pull out.
Linh Do 24:49 Well, hopefully they're listening to this podcast right now. And they're going to take a huge commitment to rejoin the Green Climate Fund. So a couple of years back just for listeners who aren't aware of all of the intricacies of the US.
Dan Ilic 24:58 Oh, of course, this is We got we just opted out of the Green Climate Fund.
Linh Do 25:02 Totally, we just opted out. So this was basically, you know, as part of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015. Here's a short history lesson for everyone. All the governments of the world committed to 100 US billion dollars. That's That's how much we want to be contributing into, you know, fighting climate change, helping developing countries sort of transition, technology transfer, all of those sorts of buzzwords. But one, we haven't quite gotten there yet. And two, you then have governments like Australia saying, Hey, we don't want to be part of this anymore. Sorry, bye. And we still haven't rejoined yet. So I think if we want to be seriously Welcome back, and for people to take us, you know, in a way that is like, genuine and like, with good faith, not only do we need to rejoice, we need to be contributing some bigger dollars.
Dan Ilic 25:42 Oh, excellent. Like, like, how much?
Linh Do 25:45 Maybe $400 billion. I feel like the budget just came out. I'm sure we've got some wiggle room. But it needs to be something that's really proportionate to the fact that Israeli is one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world, our sort of per capita emissions is like, enormous and it's not even sometimes mathematically feasible to think what we're emitting is just like everyday Australians compared to someone from Fiji. So we need to be doing what's equitable.
Dan Ilic 26:09 Speaking of Pacific Islands, Australia, is making noise that we want to host our own cup in 2024, which is, you know, I think it's exciting. But then we want to do it with the Pacific island nations, what do you reckon? Are they going to welcome us back a day? Are they going to want to run this cup with us,
Linh Do 26:26 or they're going to want to run this cup with us or run out with the government of China, right? Like, I think at the moment, our Pacific Islander neighbors and family
Dan Ilic 26:34 are gonna say that Jay is going to start his own camp and the Pacific Islands are gonna go and it's gonna be
Linh Do 26:38 a bidding war. I think like, everyone recognizes that there's a whole bunch of countries that you want to get onside with whatever your sort of climate messaging and framing is, and whether it's going to be us first China or like the US, we just need to be doing a lot more than sort of this show and tell thing where we're not really demonstrating anything new.
Scott Mitchell 26:56 And so far, as you say, like Penny Wong, did a big tour of the Pacific and put like, tried to sort of say, I think reset the relationship after the coalition and go, we put climate front and center because we know that you all care about climate. But there's been so far, at least, very little, in practical terms to prove to those leaders in the Pacific that this government really is going to be a part of that bidding war, as you say,
Linh Do 27:23 exactly. And I think it's really great when you know, the climate school strikers and people from like the activism movement say that they care because they also aren't responsible for billions of dollars in like sort of taxpayers money that could be redirected into some of these efforts, I think until Pacific countries actually start to see like hard results, not tied into like all of our geopolitical interests. Why would they turn up to the table as well?
Dan Ilic 27:45 What about like sending bone as opposed to elbow is that a good or bad decision?
Linh Do 27:50 It's interesting, because I think the world would actually welcome elbow in a way that you know, Scott Morrison was it was just much more about like pressure than anything else. But in some ways, hopefully, that means the Chris Bolden is going to be ready to talk about the nitty gritty and like, get into the details rather than just have like big grand, sort of fanfare
Osman Faruqi 28:05 is it? Is it a bit weird though, because like, Rishi Sunak is going there was pressure when he said he wasn't the Prime Minister of the UK, Joe Biden is going and if this really is Australia, saying, Hey, we're back, baby. But we're sending this weird guy that you've never heard of. If you're not following surely politics,
Linh Do 28:22 are we are we back? Well, that's the thing maybe always gotten the message that we're not back. And that's why he doesn't want to rock up to the party because he knows he's going to be shunned. So we sent Chris Baldwin and as a decoy.
Lewis Hobba 28:32 I think if you want elbow to go you just got to make sure Paul Kelly isn't playing in. You double
Osman Faruqi 28:39 down the animal theater for a couple of weeks.
Dan Ilic 28:43 When they were they ran our renegotiating the contract for manners for the security menace. I realized that elbow followed me on Twitter and I sent him a DM say, hey, elbow, I'll give you my tickets to the Whitlam to the Enmore if you don't, if you don't sign a new security contract. Sorry for filling out roads. You don't cybersecurity,
Scott Mitchell 28:58 crazy low down and learn on this thing of elbow not attending. Like I feel like every other developed country in the world, when even like King Charles is not the Prime Minister, but he's not going cause like huge, multi day coverage and public outcry and like,
Linh Do 29:16 not letting him go anymore.
Scott Mitchell 29:19 No, totally. But like, just he's not going cause like multi day outcry. And like, elbow just goes, I'm not going and because he's a progressive Prime Minister, it sort of seems like you just like escapes scrutiny. And yeah, this isn't like How is this not a five day story?
Osman Faruqi 29:35 Only someone was in charge of a daily news book. For five days in a row make it a five day story.
Dan Ilic 29:41 Oh, I love this dynamic because because I'll start at 7am and turn it into an award winning daily national podcast and Scott's running it into the ground.
Scott Mitchell 29:53 It's not what I'm saying. It's interrogate how I took her husband's job and we now live together. deeper into that.
Dan Ilic 30:01 Now this is true because Scott Morrison didn't go last year. And I got so annoyed. I put billboards in New York City, but I'm not doing I'm not doing the same for elbow because I think Chris Bowen is is so across his portfolio and he's such a energy nerd. And he's so across every facet of anything to do with climate change is eons ahead of anyone like Angus Taylor, it makes sense for Chris to go because he's the biggest fucking climate nerd in power right now.
Linh Do 30:29 And I think what's exciting about that, right is as much as I as I just slammed the Australian government for not doing enough, this cop, in many ways is like, what's considered a technical cop. So the idea isn't that there's going to be a lot of big fanfare anyway, there's not going to be huge announcements for most of these other countries, because they made a ton of those in Scotland last year, and they haven't sort of followed through these cops all about what are the details? So can Chris Bowen come with the details that, you know, sometimes when you have a head of state or government, it gets lost, because
Dan Ilic 30:54 it's like, every five years, right, every five years, they have a big cup, and then they have like, you know, a few small ones. And they have another big one. Exactly, which
Linh Do 31:01 is sort of what's exciting is If Australia does end up being successful, in our bid to host a cup, we'll be hosting a quote unquote, big one local, we'll be hosting one of the ones that already, but we're gonna be hosting a cop that is going to bring a whole level of scrutiny to the Australian Government that I don't think we're prepared for with this sort of offer of, hey, we're interested
Dan Ilic 31:22 in global scrutiny,
Linh Do 31:23 and it's scrutiny over everything. You know, right now, the story in Egypt isn't just oh, this climate thing is going to happen. Also, there's a big security crisis right now, like people shouldn't leave because there are human rights abuses in different parts of Egypt. Like, I don't know if the Australian government is ready to have our offshore processing. So we're happy for exactly climate
Osman Faruqi 31:41 meeting, but we don't want the torture inspectors.
Linh Do 31:45 That's right. Yeah, exactly that so you can't have it both ways. And it's not just about climate, right. I think we'd now really recognize with the floods that happened in Pakistan this year, and obviously on like the eastern seaboard of Australia, all of these issues are intersectional. It's not just like us in like Sydney, Melbourne, etc. That is suffering, various other parts
Dan Ilic 32:03 of the world. I look forward to cop in 2024, hosted by Australia and all the Pacific island nations except for Nauru. I'm looking forward to big thank you to all of our guests for irrational fear this week. lindo. Thank you, Scott Mitchell. Thank you, Jasmine for Ricky. Thank you. Luis Hubbert. Thank you. Let's get our plugs underway. What would you like to plug Lin?
Linh Do 32:25 Oh, wow, I forgot about this moment. Maybe if elbows following you on Twitter as well just maybe send him a little DM before your blue texts expire. Asking him to commit some dollars for the Green Climate Fund.
Dan Ilic 32:37 I can do that. Scott Mitchell at
Scott Mitchell 32:39 7am Subscribe best daily podcast in Australia. And my secret to 7am is that I don't talk on it. Today. As an EP of this show, you've taken a very different time. And I'm interested to see how that's worked out. Wow,
Dan Ilic 32:56 what shade Scott Mitchell. Oh my god.
Osman Faruqi 33:00 Oh, he really stepped on mine because I was gonna I was gonna back 7am
Dan Ilic 33:06 to two plugs to plug. Oh, as you got a great podcast the drop?
Osman Faruqi 33:09 I do. But it's not you know, it's not actually that great to plug your own podcast. Scott, if you want to take some notes. Since you brought it up. I do have a weekly contra podcast. It's the best in the biz. Drop, follow it. Subscribe.
Dan Ilic 33:20 Listen to a great interview with Howie from formula of coolers and the other day. Excellent Louis about what do you want to play?
Lewis Hobba 33:27 I'll just I'm gonna replug the TV show. We'll go and watch it on iView it's called Australia's best competition competition. And it's very good. It's very good. It's very
Osman Faruqi 33:35 good. I think it's so good. I put it in the newspaper. It's a great Oh, Roo
Lewis Hobba 33:40 palace. Power. Thanks.
Scott Mitchell 33:42 Great addition to the Friday night slate as well.
Lewis Hobba 33:46 Scott Mitchell has asked me at 7am
Dan Ilic 33:48 Wonder ratings a tank surely there's like there's like some kind of third one Turkish wrestling. You can kind of do a cross over that's not bad. It's not bad. Yeah. Big thanks to Rhode Mike's stupid old studios Australian ethical our Patreon supporters and Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. He Thank you also to the Do GO On Podcast who lent their voices to the sketch at the top of the show. Another great Australian podcast they're speaking of podcasts. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight
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