A Rational Fear

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G'day Fearmongers,

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.

Cheers

Dan

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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

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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TRANSCRIPT: 

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This episode is supported by the jib foundation. Melbourne locals are not impressed with Anthony Albanese this morning,

Unknown Speaker  0:10  
this project will transform the way that Melbourne Ian's can get around the city.

Alex Dyson  0:16  
It's a theme. I said, when he tried to speak to you, but you're a tool for Murdoch, and I'm not I'm an employee of Sky News. And I know Australians know that I can be a bit of a

Unknown Speaker  0:30  
bulldozer. Scott Morrison is today said he's a bulldozer a bulldozer. Rex thinks I'm a builder.

Robbie McGreggor  0:37  
Jam frat house issues breaking down the election one issue at a time brought to you by rational fear.

Jan Fran  0:49  
Hello, and welcome to Gentran has issues. Yes, this is the podcast where we break down the election, one issue at a time and today's issue. My goodness, it's a very special issue. Because it's very close to Daniel's just heart.

Alex Dyson  1:05  
It should be yours to Jen should be close to every one of y'all as your heart is in a place your heart is melting.

Jan Fran  1:13  
What is the issue that we're going to be looking at on today's episode,

Alex Dyson  1:16  
the issue we're gonna be talking about is climate change, which is actually a pretty big issue for this audience. Gen friend or have you know, the audience listens to you?

Jan Fran  1:25  
I do not well, actually, climate change is a pretty big issue for quite a lot of Australians, the quiet Australians, the louder Australians, the rural Australians sitting Australians,

Alex Dyson  1:34  
it's super interesting to see that climate change is at the top of the list of the ABC compassed issues yet it seems to be at the bottom list of any major party wanting to talk about it. Well,

Jan Fran  1:45  
I think the thing that I like about you when it comes to climate change is you're all about using the power that you have to try and make a positive change around this issue, correct? Well, this

Alex Dyson  1:55  
is it because we all need to do it. We all need to be working using our powers where we are with the communities we're in to try and make climate change an issue to try and get action on climate change. Because we've only got a few years left before we're all living in a sauna baby. And you know, some people, some people are excited about that, you know, some people love that I'm not a big fan of that myself, you know, it's gonna get it's gonna get hot, it's gonna get wet, it's gonna get dry, it's gonna get crusty, it's gonna get fiery, it's gonna get, oh, it's gonna get all the things all at once all the time. And we just need to try and mitigate that and fix that ASAP. So we're running out of time. So we all need to use our own powers where we are to do more for the climate to make climate and the election issue. And I made that commit to myself a couple of years ago. And I said, right, I'm going to kind of really focus a rational fear on climate. And I said, right, I'm gonna buy the biggest billboard in Times Square. And it's all up to everyone where they are in their own communities to do their little bit and run now in the next couple of weeks. Well, the next 10 days is going to be a really important time to kind of make those voices heard.

Jan Fran  2:58  
Yeah, well, you're not the only one that's made that commitment. A little bit later in the show you guys gonna be hearing from two people who have also made a very big commitment to try and get some action on climate change. Albeit they've done it in two very different ways. We'll meet each of those people in just a little bit. Before we get to our main issue, though, as always, we'd like to take issue with something something that happened during the week Dan, what what be is floating around your bonnet?

Alex Dyson  3:24  
Oh, this is really buzzing in my ears right now. I tell you what, there's a clip from sunrise. With Stuart Robert going on there to talk about it talk up a brand new program a brand new government scheme to do something that already exists? Well, the

Unknown Speaker  3:39  
coalition has pledged $5 million to develop a new technology skills passport, it would provide a digital record of workers skills and qualifications and help people identify further training opportunities or credentials to progress their careers.

Alex Dyson  3:56  
Oh, from the guy that brought you the COVID cipher app and Robo debt comes Robo LinkedIn. Yes. Fantastic. I'm can't wait for the government to create LinkedIn for all of us. It already exists to it. Robert, LinkedIn, it's also it there's an offline version. It's called a resume. Sure. It's got a fancy French name, but a lot of people in English have a resume and people who will print them out and take them to job interviews. It exists it we don't need this

Jan Fran  4:25  
hang on hang on. Let's just can we give the minister just a little bit of time to explain exactly what this thing is going to do get the look it might be different. Here he is. Employment. What do you got?

Unknown Speaker  4:36  
So who's gonna benefit exactly who across Australia?

Unknown Speaker  4:39  
Well imagine an Australian that's done one year university a few vocational courses they've done a private sector course. All of that reflected all of it covered by a common credit point if you like so can all be understood. And then you can simply see what if I did this one extra course I can get that qualification. If I upgraded that I can get that qualification ever Every Australian will benefit.

Jan Fran  5:04  
Literally, no Australian is going to benefit from this. It is, as you say, very much LinkedIn with a sprinkle of Google, and quite possibly an offline paper resume. Like it's those three things put together. I don't know if we need this mic. Good, sir.

Alex Dyson  5:18  
No, no, we definitely don't need and there is also something very similar that exists at a federal level to it's called a USI, which is a unique student identifier. And that is where you can actually attach all your qualifications to but you actually don't need this. And it totally baffles me as to who is going to get this contract. It's like, is it going to be one of Stuart Roberts's mates? Is it gonna be a donor? Is it going to be the guy who created hello world? Is it going to be a is it a fossil fuel company looking to kind of get out of fossil fuels to get into tech? Is this what's gonna happen? Is it just someone who is a donor to the Liberal Party is going to get this gig? Well keep

Jan Fran  5:53  
a close eye because it's $5 million, and someone looks at to get it. And if it does go the way the COVID safe up, went? That'd be to one of the circles of hell, because costs get this it costs $9 million. And they'd identified just 17. close contacts. That's her a channel nine report.

Alex Dyson  6:15  
Jam, but what price can you put on getting COVID? You can't, can you? I mean, you can't make everything free. You can't make become a rat test free Kenya.

Jan Fran  6:23  
You know what I would not price 17 unique close contacts at $9 million. That's that's that I've done? I've crunched the numbers. They don't add up, Dan,

Alex Dyson  6:32  
well, I'm going to start a brand new app myself, it's going to allow you to send 140 character message to anyone you have the phone number two, and it's going to be called message sender. And it's going to be funded by the federal government. I'm going to take $10 million for it. I'll take that. Thank you very much, Stuart Robert.

Robbie McGreggor  6:50  
Jam frat house issues.

Jan Fran  6:53  
Okay, on to our key issue of the episode. And I would say of the last few decades, climate change, a lot of Australians care about it, not making a huge dent on the campaign trail this year. And as we know, in the last well, decade and a half down, we haven't exactly covered ourselves in glory when it comes to tackling climate change now halfway.

Alex Dyson  7:15  
Well, first of all, Jen, can I just say, if climate change is real, why am I wearing a jumper today?

Jan Fran  7:22  
Let's talk no one's talking about global cooling.

Alex Dyson  7:25  
Our colleagues? No, you're absolutely right over the last 20 years or 30 years. Well, really since Bob Hawke, every single Prime Minister has met the knife due to the nefarious activities of our fossil fuel industry. And that is a well stated fact, anytime there has been any kind of climate action implemented by the government. It's been undone by either the next government or with someone right faction within their own party. So it is it the both major parties basically have failed us and climate for a good three decades now.

Jan Fran  7:56  
So here is what we are asking. If politics and politicking and our parliamentary system can get us into this hot mess. Can it also get us out? We haven't been very good at tackling climate change. Now have we? You know how we had six Prime Ministers in a decade and accomplishment that got us labeled the Q capital of the world? Yeah, that was over climate policy. We are consistently ranked among the lowest performing developed nations in the world when it comes to cutting carbon emissions or having a clear Climate Action Plan or weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. I mean, Australians want climate action poll after poll shows this the states want it heck New South Wales has already invested $32 billion in renewable energy. Big business wants action, the business councils on board with net zero emissions by 2050. Our biggest airline is on board. The bloody minerals Council is on board. So why has our government plural sucked so hard at tackling this issue? Well, the thing that has gotten in the way of federal politics is federal politics. A toxic combination of factional fighting personality clashes free collection results, rules that allow parties to just topple a PM, although the Labour Party did change that malleable media fossil fuel lobbies and attack dog opposition leaders, none more effective than Tony Abbott. Do you remember the carbon tax the thing that sunk the Gilad government? I mean, she did say

Unknown Speaker  9:27  
there will be no Carbon Tax under the government I lead.

Jan Fran  9:31  
But who could have predicted a hung parliament at the 2010 election. This is where neither party got a majority 76 low house seats. This would lead labour to negotiate with the crossbench and ultimately to this

Unknown Speaker  9:42  
Prime Minister Julia Gilad today unveiled plans to introduce a fixed price on carbon emissions by June next year with a transition to an emissions trading scheme after that.

Jan Fran  9:54  
Yeah. Just listen, though, to the way that Julia Gillard talks about climate change and intermissions.

Unknown Speaker  10:01  
I'm determined to do it. Because climate change is real. We have never before lived with so many people on the planet emitting so much carbon pollution. If you put a price on something, then people will use less of

Jan Fran  10:15  
it. Well, we didn't put a price on carbon because, Oh, what's this?

Unknown Speaker  10:20  
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott described the announcement as an utter betrayal of Labour's election commitment, not to introduce a carbon tax and vowed to fight it every second of every day.

Jan Fran  10:33  
And that he did, my friends at

Unknown Speaker  10:37  
the trial of the Australian people left the Australian people could not trust the prime minister on this. They can't trust on anything. But the shattered and she will be judged by it. This is a labour green carbon tax, and it's gonna drive up prices, threaten jobs and do nothing at all. For the environment, any carbon tax regime, everyone will pay a great big new tax that just for starters, will drive your power bill up by $300 a year. We're not talking about changing it. We're talking about scrapping it. Can I make that crystal clear, was political desperation. It was political panic, which led her to make a bare face like this Prime Minister is not Frank, she is a fraud. This tax is all about making the essentials of modern life more expensive, we won't be able to turn on our air conditioner or our heater.

Jan Fran  11:47  
Yeah. Tony went hard on the carbon tax, especially about it driving up the cost of living. Let me tell you the reason, though, that I'm bringing all of this up. It's because years later, his chief of staff Peter Cridland made the most extraordinary admission about that time. He she is on Sky in 2017.

Peta Credlin  12:10  
Along comes a carbon tax. It wasn't a carbon tax. As you know, it was many other things in the in the military terms. We made it a carbon tax.

Jan Fran  12:19  
We made it a fight about the hip pocket and not about the environment. I'm sorry, what? It wasn't a carbon tax, you just made it up. So all that shit about not being able to turn on your air conditioner and petrol prices. That was brutal retail politics. Wow. Imagine if we curbed our carbon emissions 11 years ago, instead of having the same conversation over and over again. Thanks, politics. Here's the question though. If politics can fuck things up, can politics fix things? The so called tail independent seem to think so. They are a loosely affiliated bunch of candidates that are running on a strong climate action platform in a bid to unseat moderate liberals, they are posing a real threat in some inner city seats such as Denise Wentworth or Melbournes. Goldstein, their aim is to stack the crossbench and hold a united voice when it comes to climate policy. In the event of a hung parliament, for example, the crossbench very powerful, nothing gets done without them, as we've seen. So is this the answer to getting the strong climate action we need from our federal government? Yes, is it the answer indeed, well, at least one person thinks that it might be the answer. And that person is a gentleman by the name of Alex Dyson, who you might have heard. If you're cheeky enough like me. on Triple J.

Alex Dyson  13:57  
Tom and Alex, if you're a boomer, you may have heard of Alex dice.

From the times when radio broadcasting was a thing. Or if you're a great grandfather, you may have heard from your grandchildren and a guy today at the pre polling voted for me after his whole life voting for labour is gonna crack sasta Great. Well done congratulate

Jan Fran  14:22  
Alex dice and welcome to you running as an independent for the Victorian seat of one and how's that? How's the campaign going? You're running as an independent? Yeah, give us a bit of a of an update as to how the last few weeks have been foyer.

Alex Dyson  14:36  
Look, it's been pretty intense tonight is the six candidates forum that I will have been to Portland is the venue. It's about four hours west of Melbourne. But the vibe is good. Like people are really getting around it like it is interesting. The problem with getting bigger because I got 10% In the last election I have running as an independent. This time around we're sort of gunning for more

10% And you weren't even really trying last election. I did it with my eyes closed last time.

It was it was a good attempt. But it was a very short, like, I got my forms in eight minutes before the EAC cut off, and it was a bit of a surprise candidate.

So yeah, this time around, we've been doing it for six months, so many meetings, hundreds of people. So the getting the face and the name out there for people who didn't like to get up and go and hard listening to Triple J every morning. It's it's really, it's been really nice. And someone who you know, is your friend and say, has seen you kind of go through this bit of a trajectory. You seem to be working so hard at it, and it is so admirable. My question is like, Are you exhausted? Did you think it was gonna be this hard second time round? Like I think it's a similarly exhausting to last time. But the more momentum you get, and the more conversation you have, the more people are voting for you. You're like, Oh, my goodness, this is excellent. And your spirits get buoyed. But then, as the other candidates and parties start noticing, there's also more things to attack. And there's more interesting comments, and there's more people who know your name and then want to, you know, bring down the campaign or what kind of attacks if they've been going back into the Triple J archive from like, 2009. And putting out something obscure that you and Tom Ballard might have made a joke about? Well, they time that I turned off the Vengaboys. We like to party halfway through getting me the nickname rat dog has not been brought up by many of the candidates so far. But I was even on Facebook last night and the United Australia party were calling me a stooge, because I'd accepted $30,000, and then another $30,000, from climate 200 to help me run on an integrity and climate and respect for women basis. And, yeah, you're just sort of like, write out a response and then delete it and go now there's no point of even getting into it. But it takes up the mental, the mental space of trying to say, Yeah, well, we all like even just go okay, I am a stooge. Are you also a stooge are the other party's stages? Yeah, you just find it very difficult you start having these semantic conversations with, with people rather than how do we make Australia better together kind of conversations? Yeah, I remember having a chat with you about this, Alex Dyson some years ago. And you actually flight you said, Ah, this, this is sort of like idea floating around have, you know, any citizen, how would you feel about this gen of, you know, potentially, like running as I tried to get you to run?

Jan Fran  17:44  
And I think I said that the short answer was no. And the long answer was Fuck no. Do that. Yeah. You know, this idea has been kicking around for some time. And you actually went and did it. You did it. You've done it two years in a row. You're doing it again, in the lead up to this election. So why why? Why are you running? And does that make you a fundamentally better human being than me? No, absolutely

Alex Dyson  18:09  
not. I just I found it very hard to know people don't listen to you. Like they just don't listen to. I mean, you've been policy hasn't been changed because of the France. You know, Greta Thunberg has made a lot of noise and has got a great following. Nothing gets done. Oh, you know, it's Jan's won a Walkley. And before she won that Walkley, they had she had a swinging door that couldn't be held open. But thanks. So that Walkley, that has changed the position of that door, that door, no longer swing open willy nilly in the wind? Yeah. My friend watching the politicians say to school children, walking out of school and begging them to do something about climate change, have better targets, you know, invest more heavily. They say, well, they really shouldn't be learning in school, they don't get listened to. So I'm saying I'm running as independent. You can vote for me on these particular things. I feel more comfortable doing that, or even some of the videos putting out just saying do your research and vote for someone who represent it because just not voting in our own interest or voting through political inertia? I find extremely frustrating.

Jan Fran  19:18  
And so on some level, you must feel like the the frame of politics, our the way our political system is, is still the best way to bring about change for Australia.

Alex Dyson  19:29  
Is it the best way? That's interesting? I think it is. Yeah, that was probably the quickest way to actually make change because I've been using my keep cup. I've been trying to have shorter showers. You know, I've been recycling for many years. But unless we have an actual target and we hit the source of our biggest emissions, we're not going to get there and unfortunately, the private sector is doing the stuff like I was having. I was out on a beef farm The other day and talking with someone who's been working with the Beef Council and they've got a net zero target for 2030.

They would have Surprise, surprise. Government doesn't even have that. Yeah. And so they're getting dragged along. And it's like, yeah, what did you do to do that? I mean, it's a great project. You've been out of the bloody games, arcades while we've been doing the work, you come back and take credit for the project. It's unbelievable.

Jan Fran  20:27  
Those who are listening who are concerned about climate change, like can we just go through? I know, Dan, you are like, somehow the the store of all climate information, I don't think I've met anyone who knows more. Who is more of a climate generalists than Danny Leach, like, you have facts and figures, my dude that people do not have, or maybe I've not met

Alex Dyson  20:48  
him to meet a few more people that

Jan Fran  20:51  
I need to get out more. That's what you're saying. Okay, that's fair. But Can Can we just go like quickly through what the Labour Party is proposing what the what the coalition is proposing or the greens are proposing? And then Alex, where you fit into all of this as an independent? Okay,

Alex Dyson  21:05  
let's take a quick look, there's a couple things to think about here. There's net zero, and then there's the targets to get to net zero. So Liberal Party, the coalition promising net zero by 2050, they have no interim target, there's no 2030 Target or no 2035 Target, their emissions reduction target is 26% 26 to 28%, on 2005 levels, for around 2030. But that's a really old target. To put it in perspective, the government is saying that they've reduced emissions by 20%. But in fact, actual emissions have gone up by 4%. Their way of reducing emissions for this netzero is through hypothetical drawdown technologies like carbon capture storage, and ways to suck carbon out of the sky, which haven't been invented yet. The actual emissions created a home should go down. But what's caught our scope three emissions emissions that we export are actually going to expand because according to their 2050, net zero by 2050, Target, the export emissions are gonna go up for some reason. So it's this weird thing where they're like, no, no, no, no, we're going to export more fossil fuels. But somehow we're going to take all the carbon out of the sky and put it in a little can and put it underground. They have this slogan called technology, not taxes. But in the latest budget, they cut nearly a billion dollars over the next three years for arena and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That is the renewable energy technology agencies responsible for renewable technology. So that is that is the coalition Okay, once labor doing alright, and labor labor have a plan, they've got an interesting plan, net zero by 2050. There 2030 target is 43% on 2005 levels, that is pretty good. A lot of scientists say we actually need to be around 70%. But that is better than what liberals have actually got, which is currently zero. They've got this strategy called powering Australia, which is basically electrifying everything. They've got a national Evie electric vehicle strategy, they're going to do a whole bunch of grid upgrades to grid. So it makes it easy for renewable technology and renewables to kind of enter the grid. And they've they're promising 60 and 40,000 jobs to do that will align up with the Paris Agreement. Maybe but probably not in Australian still leads to a lot more.

Jan Fran  23:15  
Okay, the greens, you think the Greens have a much more progressive climate strategy, what is it?

Alex Dyson  23:19  
It's in the name, so they've got net zero by 2035, very, very aggressive, clean energy generation, rapid transition from coal and gas by 2030. And a huge, a huge campaign to move workers through a just transition through pensions. So that is interesting, like labour doesn't really even talk about just transition. But greens are the greens are kind of got this huge plan to kind of move workers out of these industries, either on pensions or retraining for renewables. They are also proposing something strange 100 million tonnes of negative emissions by 2040. But there's no actual way to do it yet. So they are also kind of playing in the funny funny, we hope thoughts and prayers space the Liberals are, but they are promising 100 millions tons of negative emissions, that is Australia will be in charge of sucking out 100 billion tons out of the sky of carbon that to do that 800,000 jobs and it will meet the Paris targets.

Jan Fran  24:19  
Okay, so they're the major minor parties. Alex, where are you? Where do you fit into this equation?

Alex Dyson  24:25  
I come at it from a talkback background. Okay, being in radio, I get on there and I say, What song would you like to request? Or how are we going to transition to renewables as quickly as possible? And so what I've been doing is trying to talk to people like Danny Lee, I called a an energy expert from AMU and talked through it's like, how are we going to do that and just, they were so knowledgeable. It's one of my favorite conversations of the campaign. We're talking about green hydrogen, brown, hydrogen, gray hydrogen, there's blue hydrogen. Okay, at the end of it, I just Wow, do you get calls all the time from politicians like to, to, you know, ask how we should do this. And then like, no. One one time, someone from Zaarly Steggles office called the independent for robbery and got one time that called and I was like, oh my goodness, I hope that I can campaign and I can win so that I don't have to come up and tell everyone what we should do. I'll just say listen to this person. Well, I think you've made the first mistake there that is listening to experts. Alex. No one in Parliament listens to experts. They always do a report and a review and they put their report somewhere sacred, like the bottom drawer, or the shredder and never look at it again. Yeah. Yeah.

Jan Fran  25:42  
Thank you for your time. But good luck with the rest of the campaign. And, look, we might see you running again in 2025, baby.

Alex Dyson  25:50  
Ah, well, I think it could be the day after if I was giving birth, like yourself, Jad. The very next day, it'd be like never again. Maybe. Maybe in a few years, I'll get politically lucky.

Sod myself back up for this absolute roller coaster. Who knows? That's the way. Well, thank you very much, Tim. Good to keep up the good work. And yeah, we'll talk to you after May 21. I might have to go buy a suit.

Jan Fran  26:14  
Wow. Now we're talking commitment. I don't think I've ever seen you in a suit. Damn. This episode

Alex Dyson  26:20  
of Jen Fran has issues is brought to you by Lowe's

Jan Fran  26:23  
and Tara cash.

Alex Dyson  26:25  
He's caught he's got a parliament.

Robbie McGreggor  26:29  
Jam frat house issue.

Alex Dyson  26:32  
Jen, it was so great to talk with Alex there. I really feel like that's a really great example of somebody who cares about climate and is working with in their own community to make change. And our next guest Anjali Sharma is doing that inside her community, but her community is young people.

Jan Fran  26:52  
Ah, Anjali, thanks so much for joining us on Jan. Fran has issues I can't help but notice that you are in your school uniform.

Anjali Sharma  26:59  
I am I got her that 10 minutes ago played with the dog. And now I'm here did not have time to change. But you know, the dog got a nice game of fetch, so that we go.

Alex Dyson  27:10  
I mean, I didn't I can't imagine the stress around that not only year 12 but also taking on the Commonwealth of Australia. Where do you find time in your life can to do this? That is that is that is a very big task you've taken upon yourself, Anjali.

Anjali Sharma  27:24  
Oh, look, I mean, when you're passionate enough about selling and all fits in, right? I have one of the one of the things that I value the most is my mother, she always encourages me to just you know, say stuff you'd love and do the things that I actually care about. I got invited to Sydney for the things that I think you're part of Jan the some debate thing and it's the day before our English sack. I'm almost like oh, just just go you know, just just just girls know, the day before. But um, yeah, we find we find time.

Jan Fran  27:55  
What a legend doing the complete opposite of what the federal government is doing, which is saying stay in school, caring about climate change so much

Anjali Sharma  28:04  
that now I'm giving them more ammo. To school, I'm very much in school.

Alex Dyson  28:10  
Jen, staying in school is a delay tactic for climate. We can't afford to have these kids in school. They're gonna be out on the streets. That's true. Maybe

Anjali Sharma  28:17  
I should run maybe I should run for parliament.

Dan Ilic  28:19  
Yeah, hey, girl,

Jan Fran  28:22  
I'm not gonna stand in your way. That's for sure.

Alex Dyson  28:25  
This is what we're talking about. This is the kind of action we're talking about. We just spoke with Alex Dyson, who's running in his community of women. And Anjali, you have done something absolutely extraordinary. For people who don't know your story. Can you give us a cliff notes, quick summary of what the last couple of years has been like for you?

Anjali Sharma  28:42  
Yeah, so in 2020, I became the lead litigant in a class action against the Federal Environment Minister Susan Lee. And basically, it was me and few of my friends. And we took the federal government to court to argue that they have a duty of care to all Australian children under the age of 18, to protect us from the impacts of climate change. It's no case groundbreaking case, because it wasn't argued under environmental law as such, but under a common law, like a duty of care, which in my mind seems pretty, you know, like seems pretty straightforward. Yes, she's a politician, she should care about us. Unfortunately, the Federal Court of Appeal did not see it that way. And a few months ago, she was found to not have this duty of care. And so that's it the cases shut now. But I guess that has been my journey over the last two years and now I'm just doing activism yelling at the government whenever I whenever I can.

Jan Fran  29:38  
Yeah, what a roller coaster of emotions because as you say, Susan Lee was found to actually have a duty of care initially, when what was that moment like for you? And I should say that this was you and I think there was maybe seven, seven other young people every time I use the word young people. Very old. I'm just gonna use it. It was you and seven others that that took Susan Lee to court and she was bound to have a duty of care towards you. When that verdict was handed down. What was that moment like for you?

Anjali Sharma  30:10  
Okay, you'll love this verdict was handed down. I was not in court. I was not fronting the media. I was in my economics class. I tested daily stuff, you federal government, I do stay in school. But yeah, so I was in my economics class, admittedly not listening, because I didn't have the federal court live stream up on my laptop did not have because the amount of legal jargon in these places like I had no idea it was going on, did not know that we want until about an hour later, when the lawyers finally, you know, got to their phones. And we're like, by the way, you're down there in Melbourne, though, we won. So that's, you know, kind of an hour later, I was like, Oh, we weren't super, super cool. It was, uh, it just knowing that the studio of care could have set a precedent for, I guess, the approval of all new fossil fuel projects as part of this in this portfolio, because it would have required her to take into account the fact that she then could be pursued with further legal action for breaching this duty of care. That would have been monumental in the course of Australian law, because it could have stopped her from approving certain really, really big fossil fuel projects. And, you know, knowing that that was the case at that point that made me so sort of hopeful and just served so happy. Like, I found out I was, I was, it was the period after and I was just like, telling my friends, I was like, we won, we won, we won, and everybody was so excited, because it means so much to us, you know, like you look at your future, and you're like, it could, it could be so terrible steps like this aren't taken. So it was a huge, huge monumental moment.

Jan Fran  31:50  
Hmm. But then it kind of all, it all turned around it all sort of like turned around for the worse really, with, as you say, the Court of Appeal rejecting the fact that the that the environment minister had a duty of care to you guys. So then what was that? Like? What was that crash? Like?

Anjali Sharma  32:05  
Yeah, well, here's the thing it happened about if I remember, right, if I remember correctly, it happened about two days after like the sheet decided to appeal about two days after we won. So I really only got to ride that high. And we won for two days, I made the most of it there. That's for sure. I can't say that I did it. But when I found out that we were being taken back to court, I was honestly disappointed but not surprised. Like when you when it's someone who has that much that much money that they have any resources at their disposal, and they believe that they can overturn this duty of care, and then just proceed with approving new fossil fuel projects every second day. And then yeah, why wouldn't you?

Dan Ilic  32:45  
Julie, I'm so sorry. Because as an Australian taxpayer, I helped to defeat you. I feel so complicit in this defeat. I wish there was a way I didn't

Anjali Sharma  32:56  
stop paying taxes. I don't know is that what is that?

Jan Fran  33:02  
I don't think that was necessarily the point of that. But yeah, that's

Anjali Sharma  33:07  
what I got from it. Yeah, you, Jan, you said that it was it took a turn for the worse. And you know, while this was while we were struck down in court, I would argue that there were some really, really amazing things that came out of it, which was that at both instances, you know, the trial when she was found to have a duty of care, and did the appeal when she wasn't the federal court and Federal Court of Appeal, fully accepted, or the climate science that was put to them by our amazing barristers. Even Susan Lee's legal team did not once try and debate the climate science, they did not call anywhere expert witnesses on the stand, they did not cross examine. The thing that was in question was never the science. So both times, the Federal Court fully accepted and wrote in their judgments that climate change is an issue. It is a pressing issue is an ever relevant issue. And that could be used in further cases. And I hope that when further cases worked out how to argue this duty of care in a way that allows the federal court to you know, come to terms with it, that they'll be able to build on that acceptance of science.

Jan Fran  34:13  
How did all of this come about? Like how did how did you decide right? I'm going to sue the Federal Environment Minister, that's what I'm going to do. How did the idea pop into your head or the the heads of the others that did it with you?

Anjali Sharma  34:29  
Honestly, we were all we will be an activist for ages. Right? So we all organize climate strikes we still do. You'll see us on the streets every you know, because we love skipping school. Right? So we're just what?

Dan Ilic  34:45  
This is why you're so inarticulate and can't string words together because you missed so much school on July.

Anjali Sharma  34:51  
Well, yes, so

Jan Fran  34:54  
we like people aren't gonna find you smoking behind the shed. No, they're gonna find you taking these Federal Environment Minister to court. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, everyone's

Anjali Sharma  35:03  
everyone's everyone's got their ways. We've all got the common objective just getting out of school, we just find ways to do it, I guess. Yeah. So we were actually approached by one of our fellow school strikers who had since graduated from the network and was working as a paralegal, working as a paralegal at equity generation lawyers. And she was just very fresh on the activism space, we were, we were all very close. And we kind of, I guess, came up with this idea together. And then we, you know, with her connections to equity generation lawyers, that's how we got in contact with the lawyers. With the barristers. It was a long process. So many legal documents, again, I talked about the legal jargon, you just it's on a different level, like, I got sent these huge documents, I was like, please like point to one word that I've ever used in like my daily life, like it was, it was crazy. But yeah, again, crazy experience

Alex Dyson  36:00  
financially, this speaks to the power that you have, as a young person connecting with other young people to do what you think must be done. And it speaks to the power of people listening as well to work in their own communities to do the same.

Anjali Sharma  36:14  
For sure. Like, if you would, if you were told me there is like, the case was filed in September 2020. If you told me and like the start of 2020, that I was, you know, three years later, I was going to be coming home from a day of YouTube and sitting on a podcast with Amgen, and I would have laughed in your face like I I've always cared about climate change, it's very, it's a very, it's an issue that's very close to my heart. Because India, the place that I come from, is very badly affected by climate change. And we're seeing that right now with horrible heat waves. But I never thought that I would have this much of an impact. And sometimes I just see my name, you know, pop up on all the Monash law schools running a forum on Sharma and the future of climate litigation. And I'm like Sharma sham that that's me. And it's not just it's not just called Sharma for the sake of Sharma. It's called shallow because that's me. It never gets, you never get used to it. But everyone has the opportunity to just like, use what is what is available to them and push for change if they care enough.

Jan Fran  37:16  
Yeah, I love that. I love that that's such a great message. But I feel as well that there's a lot of disenfranchisement with our system, particularly by people who I mean, if you're under the age of 30, in this country, the only Prime Minister you will have voted for that has served a full term is Scott Morrison. Right? Isn't that nice? That's insane. So I can understand why there would be young people who are disenfranchised with the political process for sure. You've kind of taken it a little bit of a roundabout way and gone through the courts. I mean, where does your faith lie in terms of how we can address climate change as a nation? Like what do you think is the best way to get that done?

Anjali Sharma  38:02  
That's a loaded question. Um, first thing

Jan Fran  38:05  
you're gonna have, you're gonna be cleaning up the mess. When the boomers are gone, and they're going, it's you. It's left to me. Yeah.

Anjali Sharma  38:15  
Yeah. No, well, firstly, you're you're so right. Like the, the disenfranchisement that I see like, among even my friends is it's on another level. Like, I think that with our current political system, you kind of steal young people down, you know, two separate routes, either they become completely radicalized, and they know exactly what they want. And they know exactly what matters to them, and they push for change, or they know what matters to them. Like everyone knows that climate change is an issue, you'll find no one, almost no one around my age, who doesn't believe that climate change exists. They just don't know what to do about it. Right? Um, I think that for a lot of people in Australia, the thing is that climate change has never affected their lives, right. Like for me currently, I, I talk to my family every day and they are suffering through a brutal heatwave. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm so concerned for some of my cousins and my grandma, my these people who've raised me, my family from birth, and it's so it's such a, it's such an issue that's so close to my heart. But for some people, they never actually seen climate change impact their daily lives. But that's becoming less and less prevalent now. Because we've seen the images coming out of Lismore where people sit on their roofs for hours waiting for the SES to rescue them. We've seen you know, even though we weren't affected that badly down in Melbourne, we saw the smoke roll even the 20 in the in the black summer bushfires. And so now that we're all seeing people be affected, it's hitting close to home and that is what's needed. Unfortunately, I guess, to take real climate action like we now know how real of an issue this is. We're seeing even like insurance or something. I don't know. I don't I don't care about insurance right now, but apparently prices going up. Yep, it's Yeah, that's what's needed. People need to, you know, Wes, people need to look at these stories, tell these stories, see these images? And then and then vote based on that.

Jan Fran  40:12  
Yeah. Well, that's on that on voting, obviously, the election, the 21st of May. What do you reckon that people who really care about climate change should be thinking about if there was one thing you could counsel them to have at the top of their mind before they head to the voting booth? What would it be?

Anjali Sharma  40:30  
Climate change? Just the whole thing? Yeah, I think the fact that Brits really both major parties at this point that are the problem, I would call it a people pleasing problem, actually, the fact that they take both major parties take these huge donations from fossil fuel companies, and then they have to carry this baggage. They have the vested interests of fossil fuel companies when they are in the party rooms. And when they are making decisions on how to vote. They both major parties are taking targets to the next election that aren't backed by science. Yeah. But like the science is saying that we need 75% emissions reduction targets. The Liberals have 26 to 28%, I

Jan Fran  41:14  
think by 2030 on 2005 levels. Yeah, very convoluted number. Yeah.

Anjali Sharma  41:19  
Yeah. And liberals have, sorry, labor has 43%. It's just, you know, it's not in line with the science. And it's, you know, again, you said it's convoluted number, many people won't be able to say that statistic off the top of their heads. And me too, I was a bit I was a bit rusty. But it's so clear to see that when you actually look into it, they don't have the interests of the people at heart, the people in Lismore who have just suffered the most, you know, some of the most terrible moments of their lives and the people in Sydney who are bracing for another, another summer, like the black summer, they when they vote, they vote with the interest of the fossil fuel companies. And it's just what we need now is people who don't have the interest of fossil fuel companies, when they go to vote.

Alex Dyson  42:06  
Anjali, thank you so much. I feel like as a young person, you're able to crystallize everything so succinctly. Because you don't come with the years of baggage that people like Chad and I have.

Jan Fran  42:18  
Excuse me, I grew up myself among the younger people of Australia. I'll have you know,

Alex Dyson  42:24  
I've got some news for you.

Anjali Sharma  42:27  
Know, we welcome you with.

Jan Fran  42:31  
Well, thank you, mate. And thank you for doing this chat with us. And, you know, thank you for taking it all the way to the courts. And I'm sure this is not the last that we'll hear about. We'll hear from you on climate change. And I thoroughly hope it isn't. And look, hey, 2020 fives around the corner. You know what? You'll be out of high school then.

Anjali Sharma  42:51  
No more exams, right? Oh, me.

Alex Dyson  42:56  
Like, what electorate Are you in?

Anjali Sharma  42:58  
I'm in Chisholm. I started just front and back side while walking home. So he's a bit he's a bit lost.

Alex Dyson  43:06  
Right, we need to hit the streets, you know?

Anjali Sharma  43:10  
Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, you never know where life takes you like, again, three years ago, I wouldn't have thought that I was really litigating this case. So one thing to be sure on that said, I'll always be finding opportunities to yell at the government, no matter who's in government. And I guess we'll see where that takes me. Because I know that I know that climate change really, really matters. And I'll be making my voice heard on that for a long time to come. Thank

Jan Fran  43:33  
you so much for chatting to

Alex Dyson  43:34  
us. Thanks so much. That was so good. A real privilege to chat with you.

Unknown Speaker  43:38  
Yeah, you guys too. Thank you. Jan, when

Alex Dyson  43:41  
I hear people like Angela, I think the future is gonna be okay.

Jan Fran  43:46  
Yeah. And when I hear people like Angela, I think, wow, the past was wasted, at least for me. Because I was skipping schools smoking behind the shed,

Alex Dyson  43:56  
skipping school and going to the movies wasted my time.

Jan Fran  43:59  
I was not suing any minister anywhere. But man. Yeah. What am I? Not the last we'll hear from her I'm sure. Absolutely not.

Robbie McGreggor  44:09  
Jam Fran has issues.

Alex Dyson  44:13  
Well, Jen, you know, we can't make a podcast without sponsors, as Barack Obama says, which ideals are we going to betray today? Unfortunately, we've had to take some money for some pretty dirty actors. 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 LNP. 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 GOV could invest in new wind, solar and storage that renewable energy is too clean to give us donations. goalkeeper, a reliable source of donations at the cost of only $400 per household, per year. And everyone's existence

Jan Fran  45:25  
Max sounds like a bargain. Hey, look,

Alex Dyson  45:29  
look, it's no LinkedIn. But we're trying but they're trying. Thank you government.

Jan Fran  45:35  
Thank you government indeed. And thank you to all of you wonderful listeners for tuning into our show this week. That is a wrap next week, though, hey, next week is going to be out the app is going to be out just a few days before the election. So we're going to try and wrap up a couple of these issues and also answer some of your key questions, because I even need questions answered before I head to booth next week. So that is going to be our show next week.

Alex Dyson  46:00  
And if you've got questions hit Jen or i up on social media, in our DMS for my DMs I don't know, Jen, do you care of people

Jan Fran  46:10  
getting there,

Alex Dyson  46:12  
get right in there or hit us up on irrational fear and you want to send us an audio clip on the irrational fear Instagram do that too. That way we can play your voice on this podcast. It's like radio, TalkBack. So do that big thank you to F and K media big thank you to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation on whose land Jan and I record and also big thank you to our Patreon members, so many new patreon supporters signed up this week. Also if you are in Sydney on June 4 Please come along to the a rational fear 10 year anniversary show. We are selling pretty fast. It's already at 60% sold which is fantastic. Veronica Milsom for McDermott, me, Louis Harbor, Gabby bulk and there's somebody else Oh yeah, Mark Humphreys from the television who will also be joining us as well. Dude for at the opera house this irrational fears 10 year anniversary show

Robbie McGreggor  47:01  
and remember to vote rationally

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Jan Fran Has Issues…with Housing Affordability. On the week that mortgages across the country took a hike, we speak to Greens leader Adam Bandt about how to balance wealth creation with… Idk, somewhere to live? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, we dissect the Coalition’s plan to increase affordable housing with novelty cheques. 

A Rational Fear is having our 10 year anniversary on June 4 - come see us live at the Sydney Opera House featuring Lewis Hobba (triple j), Mark Humphries, Gabbi Bolt, Sami Shah, Veronica Milsom, Paul McDermott and more. You can support us by becoming a Patreon subscriber and helping us with our cost of living. Do it. 

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TRANSCRIPT: 

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This episode is supported by the jib foundation. Well, no matter how you look at it, the first interest rate rise in almost 12 years is bad news for Scott Morrison. what today is about is what Australians are seeing as a result of our economy coming out of this pandemic,

Unknown Speaker  0:17  
Scott Morrison's economic credibility was already tattered, and now it is completely shredded.

Jan Fran  0:23  
Within hours of the Reserve Bank announcement. The rises were passed on to mortgage holders,

Unknown Speaker  0:27  
big mortgages, little wriggle room,

Unknown Speaker  0:30  
so less money on holidays and takeaways and all of those kinds of things that you spend your money on, really just makes the cost of living higher.

Jan Fran  0:37  
Yes. Hello, welcome to Jan Fran has issues this is indeed the podcast where we break down the election one issue at a time. And given what's happened this week with the Reserve Bank lifted that cash rate housing has been in the news, Daniel, oh yeah. And

Dan Ilic  0:56  
the cost of living is going up and up and up, which means less money, people can jump on to Patreon and help us make a podcast. Yeah,

Jan Fran  1:03  
God, I thought you were gonna wait for the end of this episode for plug.

Dan Ilic  1:06  
No, no, no, I can't. I can't I can't wait. The cash cash rate is going up. Jen 0.35% Jen, people aren't people aren't donating to the Patreon as often as they used to Jen, this is going to be

Jan Fran  1:17  
disaster for us gonna be a disaster for so many people.

Dan Ilic  1:20  
I'm excited this week to talk to Adam badger and he is running a killer campaign for the greens at the moment and got some interesting ideas about housing prices and what to do with housing affordability. But will we be able to get in jam? That's a good question.

Jan Fran  1:34  
Yeah, that's the quick question. One one can dream big. But yes, we are going to talk to Annabelle a little later in the show. We're also going to look at the coalition's housing policy Labour's housing policy, the greens as housing policy, and kind of put them all together and see which comes out on top. But before we do that, before we get to our main issue, as always, we'd like to take issue with something that happened this week. This week, I'm going to take issue with Scott Morrison saying that he doesn't see things through a political lens. When asked about it by a bunch of journalists, have you listened to this?

Unknown Speaker  2:07  
It's not about what it means for politics. I mean, sometimes you guys always things see things through a totally political lens. I don't.

Jan Fran  2:18  
That is great. Why not? Okay, I'm just gonna say that in the past 12 months, I've read two biographies about Scott Morrison, one called the game by Sean Kelly and one called the accidental Prime Minister by Annika Smethurst. If there is one resounding thing that you take away from both of those books, which are completely different books, by the way, yeah, one resounding thing that you take away, it's just how much of a political operative arson is. That is all I'll say.

Dan Ilic  2:48  
In fact, claiming that he doesn't look at things through a political lens isn't a political thing. Like it means the electorate, you know, the delivery drivers and the tradies around Australia got no money. He's not political. The other people are political.

Jan Fran  3:00  
Yeah, I mean, if you hey, if you're interested, I didn't intend to plug the books here. But the game by Sean candlelit by Sean Kelly, the accidental Prime Minister by Annika Smethurst have a read the other person who thinks Scott Morrison is political, because he would because he's the leader of the opposition is Albanese for this

Unknown Speaker  3:17  
guy to say that anything is not political. This is a guy who gets up in the morning and what he has for breakfast is political. This guy for everything is an opportunity to play politics. He doesn't have legislation he has legislation they sit around the cabinet they don't think about the national interest I think about how can we wedge labor on this issue in that cabinet room there's sour cream and sweet chili sauce there there's so many wages there

Jan Fran  3:46  
Oh good. God were coming in

Dan Ilic  3:50  
so many metaphors to describe this Albert should have just stuck with the breakfast thing you know what he had was political. He likes his toast and he smears it with jam and the NDIS and you know it could have gone that route.

Jan Fran  4:02  
No, I love a good 90s Cafe food reference wedges with sour cream baby.

Dan Ilic  4:10  
Yeah, they've got a good night his cafe recipe is foccacia which is what this government is doing there for catching it all up

Jan Fran  4:20  
all right, what's your issue this week then?

Dan Ilic  4:22  
My issue this week is this biker got up a Josh Frydenberg campaign launch and he he did a few impressions

Unknown Speaker  4:30  
and I live was ruined because of Josh but um I'll just finish off with a very poor to kokuboro and, and sulfur crested cockatoo.

Dan Ilic  4:56  
Now I have two big I have two big difference here that was not a soft crested cockatoo that was people who have home loans when the RBA increase the rate this week. So let's just make that absolutely clear that guy was wrong. He really missed out an opportunity to do a packet good laws, which is what the government is so

Jan Fran  5:17  
jam. How's he issues? All right. Well, to our issue of the week, it is housing and we're talking about housing. Well, I was gonna say it's been in the news this week. It hasn't. It's been in the news for the past two decades, prices have just risen slowly and slowly and slowly over an extended period of time. But this week, the RBA did raise the cash rate, which means that if you do own your own home and you have a mortgage, you'll be under some added mortgage stress. There's also the issue of rents being on the rise. So we're going to try and work out. What is the deal here with housing in Australia? Are you sick of hearing about house prices are too bad, the rising cost of housing is? Well, it's quite the problem. Two things less people can afford to buy houses and rents are on the rise. Let's look at the first issue housing affordability. This is the ratio of housing costs to household income. In the past few decades costs deposits price property costs, repayments have risen a lot, incomes, not so much. Put it this way in Sydney, Australia's most expensive city, the median house price in 1981 was $79,000. I am choking just saying that it was five times the national full time average annual salary. In 2021, the median house price was $1.31 million. That is 14 times the average income. This has led to a wee thing called housing stress, which is where you spend more than 30% of your gross not net income on your property. Want to know how many lower income households in Australia are under housing stress, more than a million. And that's based on 2017 18 figures. House prices have grown by 25% to record highs just since the start of the pandemic.

Unknown Speaker  7:12  
But part of it is stuff that, you know, we could have looked at decades ago. Eliza Owen

Jan Fran  7:17  
is a property analyst for analytics company core logic. She says there are many reasons why we are in this hot mess.

Unknown Speaker  7:25  
So when interest rates go down, and house prices go up. And really since the GFC, we've been in an environment of structurally low interest rates. And a lot of that demand also comes from innovations in finance that have allowed people to buy housing, using housing, the fact that we've seen a lot more investor participation in the market over time, which can crowd out other buyers as well. And I guess in some pockets, we've not seen development and new housing supply keep up

Jan Fran  8:00  
right Oh, two, issue number two rents, they are rising at their fastest rate in 13 years. Again, several reasons for this. Here's Eliza,

Unknown Speaker  8:09  
I think part of it has to do with COVID dynamics because you had a lot of people exiting our largest and most well supplied rental markets and scattering to these areas that maybe aren't traditional rental markets and don't have as much available stock. I think part of it could also even be due to the homebuilder policy, the fact that a lot of people have committed to purchases of new homes that haven't necessarily been built yet. So they have to live somewhere. A lot of those completions of new properties are being delayed because of supply chain issues. We've also heard anecdotes of people just seeking their own space. So rather than renting out a second bedroom, maybe they're using it as a home office. That change in demand happens pretty quickly. But an increase in rental supply happens slowly. And that's where a lot of the rub is coming from.

Jan Fran  9:07  
I must say the lack of rental relief in this year's budget was somewhat conspicuous. When asked about it, Scott Morrison said

Unknown Speaker  9:14  
this about strange getting into homes. Best way to support people are renting a house is to help them buy a house.

Jan Fran  9:20  
So short answer. There's nothing in the budget for renters, but also what the best way to support renters is to help them buy a home. What about the 30% of low income earners in the private rental market? Who don't have 500 bucks for emergencies? Let alone the 5% deposit required for Morrison's first home guarantee scheme? What about them? And speaking of that scheme, this is the coalition's plan to tackle the housing issue 50,001st homebuyers will be able to purchase a property worth up to 900k with a deposit of just 5% the government will act as guarantor for the remaining 15% So this means that you don't have to save as much and you don't have to buy mortgage insurance. Labour's plan, they are proposing a Shared Equity scheme. So 10,000 applicants need a 2% deposit to buy a home capped at 950 K, and Labour will contribute up to 40% of the purchase price of property. This hugely reduces the cost of the home, but means that you don't technically own all of it. Labour is also pledging to build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties in its first five years. They are the two major party policies, but Eliza reckons there's actually more to think about when casting your vote.

Unknown Speaker  10:41  
Think about what you want housing in Australia to be and vote that way. If you're comfortable with housing, being that source of financial wealth, gain an investment vehicle, then that's going to really inform how you're going to vote. But if you want that kind of change and focus on housing to be more of a social good, that is where people just live, then obviously that's going to be important to keep in mind when you vote as well.

Jan Fran  11:09  
housing as a social right versus housing as a way to build wealth. The coalition sees it as the latter, which is not inherently bad, it just seems to be working out for some better than others. Labour sees it that way too, although not quite as much. There is one party that sees it very much as the former though, the greens, but to turn this ship around difficult.

Unknown Speaker  11:33  
Housing has become so entrenched in our broader financial system, you know, it's something that helps people fund their aged care. It's something that helps people fund their health care. It's something that helps them build wealth in their family, and it makes up more than half of wealth for Australian households. So trying to undermine that value and take that away is pretty controversial.

Jan Fran  12:03  
Huh, it is controversial, but the greens are going to jump at the opportunity. And here to tell us how is the leader of the greens himself. Mr. Adam Bandt. Adam, welcome to Jefferson has issue.

Adam Bandt  12:16  
Hi. Thanks for having us on.

Jan Fran  12:18  
First of all, I just need to get straight into it. try our luck with this question. What is the wage price index?

Adam Bandt  12:25  
Got a search engine of your choice and have a look.

Dan Ilic  12:31  
Like I tried Bing, it didn't come? To me. I'll try Ask Jeeves. We'll go from there.

Jan Fran  12:37  
So on this app, Adam, where we're talking about housing, you know, obviously, it's been a very big topic this week, because the Reserve Bank has increased the cash rate for the first time in 10 years. Before we get into all of the policy stuff. I'm just kind of interested in, in your reflections on housing in Australia, how do you see housing? Do you see it as a way to build wealth? Do you see it as a human right? Or do you see there's a little bit of both

Adam Bandt  13:02  
housing is a human right. And it should be a key role of government to ensure that everyone's got a secure and affordable roof over their head. But that's not what it is in Australia at the moment. It's pre cooked, it's become a vehicle for investment and speculation. And so got housing prices going up and up and up, sort of turbocharged by government policies, because they've lost sight of the fact that it should be treated as a basic right, but is instead being treated as a stock market.

Jan Fran  13:34  
So talk us through your policies to kind of make housing more affordable here in Australia,

Adam Bandt  13:40  
a big problem is that prices are rising too fast, and debt is growing. And so people who want to buy a house end up with massive mortgages, but it's also pushing up the price of rents as well. So we've got we're reaching crisis point, the average mortgage when Scott Morrison came to power was about $340,000. It's about $600,000. Now, during the last 18 months, the pandemic prices went up by about 25% for buying a house. What do we need to do? Well, we need to do a couple of things. One is stop making the problem worse and stop pushing out prices. And that means reining in the billions of dollars that are given every year in tax handouts to people who've already got multiple properties to go and buy their fourth, fifth and sixth like that shouldn't be we shouldn't be spending public money on schemes that push up house prices and push them out of reach of first homebuyers.

Jan Fran  14:38  
Why are you talking about negative gearing in this instant a tax break for investors?

Adam Bandt  14:43  
Yeah, so negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts it into the weeds, but it's important stuff because it basically these are the tax breaks that say if you've got multiple investment properties, you can write off any losses as a tax break, but then when come and sell them, you can get a further tax break. So we're saying allow people who've got one investment property. So what are often called mum and dad investors like allow that to stay. So if you've got one investment property, that's okay. But for after that don't expect government support, I don't expect a government handout if you've got two or more investment properties to, to push that up. It's about $6 billion every year that the government spends on people who've got more than two investment properties on handouts in the form of negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts. So we're saying that we have to grandfather negative gearing to people who've got just one investment property. So stop fueling this problem by pouring money into the system. Secondly,

Jan Fran  15:45  
just one point on the negative gearing stuff because I know that short and took it to the last election in 2019. And he lost that last election, which says to me, I don't know, I could be wrong, but people don't want that.

Adam Bandt  15:57  
Well, I think the main reason that the last election went the way it did was because Clive Palmer bought a pretty much you know, 90% of the space available on the airwaves and spent millions of dollars in advertising like it was saturation, Parma, running attack ads on the opposition, that I reckon played a big part in the last election. But also, I think that look at it now three years on the problems a lot worse, and house prices and say 25% rise in the last 18 months, the pandemic and I think this time around, people understand that housing is cooked, and we need to do something about it, I think there would be the appetite for what I think is a sensible policy of ours of saying, allow it for people, we've got one property, but you've got to start reining it in for the for the very wealthy, we don't need to be using public money for that. And secondly, as I said, the thing that we would, the other piece of the puzzle is to have a big build of affordable housing, housing that people can rent for 25% of their income or buy into for about $300,000. And we're proposing a million homes over the next 20 years. And the cost of doing that we've had it all costed. The cost of doing that is about a third of the tax breaks. So like it's about $21 billion over 10 years to do this. We're giving $63 billion in handouts over 10 years, let's instead of giving money to people to buy their seventh house that pushes up prices and makes it harder for you to buy your first

Dan Ilic  17:30  
home, I can tell you as a first home buyer, and right now I'm looking I'm in the market for my first place, I'm already worried about my third place, I've got to you know, kind of keep that in mind the way this markets going, like, Man, I'm gonna have to scrape together my deposit for my first but I got to keep that eye on the ball for my third and fourth place because otherwise I'm going to be left behind. No landlord left behind Adam, no landlord left. I'm not even a landlord. I'm an aspiring landlord. Well,

Adam Bandt  17:57  
I think it's election, it's probably time for a renters revolution. I think the third part of it is that no one's talking about rent, it's really a deselection and more and more people are renting, in part because the housing market is so difficult. But I think we need what one of the things that debt means, I reckon, is that we need a rethink about the rights of renters, and we need to give renters more security and in other countries were renting is more than norm, you have the right for long term leases, you have more protections against being evicted at the end of your tenancy on not for no grounds. But just because the landlord might want to put up prices. And that kind of thing, I think that we need here as part of a national protection standard of renters rights to

Jan Fran  18:44  
Okay, so you've put forward 1 million publicly owned affordable homes to be built over the next 10 years. There's sort of 750,000 will be public and community house dwellings, there'll be 125,000 for rental homes that will be constructed, and 125,000 that are sort of part of a Shared Equity scheme. So that's kind of how you've, you've split that 1 million homes, as you said, it's going to cost around, you know, $21 billion. I think the parliamentary budget office had had it down for 23. But in that vicinity Anyway, the thing is, there's scope for quite a lot of volatility over the next 10 years, and just I guess, a little bit of uncertainty in terms of, you know, supply chain labor issues, construction costs, what happens to your plan if the price of construction goes up? And how do you stop it from creating knock on problems?

Adam Bandt  19:35  
I think the one certainty that you can take to the bank is that if we don't do something, then the problem is going to get worse. I mean, just look at the trend at the moment. And if we keep going with the tax breaks that we are, and without building more public and affordable housing, the problem is just going to get worse. I mean, I think that is a certainty. We're proposing a million over 20 years, right so you can 20 years sorry, I said 10 years Election costumes that you're referring to are over 10 years. That's how far ahead the parliamentary budget office looks. Look, part of the problem is that housing is being built and sold and traded for profit. It's that stock market syndrome that I was talking about before, what we're talking about is a rethink of that. And so we're saying government should be in the business of trading housing as a human right. And so we're talking about buying a building, and then renting out or selling on a not for profit basis. Okay, so yes, so some costs may go up, others may go down over the 10 years. One thing we do know is that governments around the country sit on a lot of land, they have a lot of land, from former sites, you know, former Defense sites and the life that they have. Here in Melbourne, where I live, the state government owns a lot of land in the inner city. That's we're saying bring that to the table and the Commonwealth builds houses and puts on top puts them on top. And so a lot of those will be units, sort of rather than freestanding houses, there's going to be a lot more units that are going to build, but once you start making it about being for profit, and once you start saying government's got a role in ensuring everyone's got a roof over their head, the costs come down dramatically.

Dan Ilic  21:15  
I just love this quote from the Financial Times from a couple of weeks back about how they articulated what our housing economy looks like. And the quote is the housing economy consists of residents buying and selling property from into each other forever higher prices, using borrowed money in a surreal pyramid of paper wealth creation. It's like it somehow it requires a journalist from outside of Australia to look at Australia with fresh eyes to go, oh, that's a bit fucked

Jan Fran  21:44  
up calling us a pyramid scheme.

Dan Ilic  21:45  
That's it. Really, that just says what negative gearing is really like bid to be able to like flip houses forever, ever increasing prices is a pyramid scheme. Yeah. If only we could build pyramids, and people could live in them. That might actually be a better way to solve the housing crisis.

Jan Fran  22:01  
That won't be a very cheap alternative, though. Dad, let me just say I think the pyramids took like 100 years to get built. Okay, what you're proposing, Adam, I think, requires a real rethink of the of housing in Australia. But we are so property obsessed in this country. I just want to give you a ridiculous story that is like the most Sydney story that has ever happened to anyone. I was going for a walk with my partner in the neighborhood. And there was a house that had a for sale sign in front of it. And it said sold. And I said to my husband, I said oh, that's the house that my sister was talking about that got sold recently, what did it sell for? And so we're standing in front of his house in front of this sign without you know, athleisure wear on trying to go on domain to find out what this house sold for. And a woman strolling a baby, just saunters past doesn't even look in our direction and says 1.8 million. And we were like, Thank you. No, hello, no stopping to chat. We're here to talk brutal real estate in Sydney,

Dan Ilic  23:07  
Adam and that woman with the press and didn't have to google anything.

Adam Bandt  23:12  
On this point of it bigger, a big briefing, like yes and no, I was explaining this, this idea of the government, you know, building housing, and people being able to rent it and fixed part of their income and to someone the other day to a journalist and they said, Yeah, it's kind of like what Menzies did, isn't it. And it's like, I don't quite know how to take that. But the comparison to Menzies like, in this instance, I'll maybe take it as a compliment. But they, like it's we use, you look at those big tower blocks, blocks that we have sort of around my electorate of Melbourne, for example, that you say that are public housing, or they were built in the 60s, right, and population has grown since then. But the big build of public and affordable housing hasn't so but it's there's been this one shift, where it used to be something the government did was take it on as a responsibility to do it. And we drop that off. But secondly, part of the reason that we're putting forward this scheme is that a chunk of the homes would be available, if people wanted to buy into you could buy into and you buy into for about 300,000 did use it to pay down and at the end of it, if you want to, you can sell it back to the government to sort of get the amount that you've gained on your, on your mortgage, or you can stay there for as long as you want. So it can be used as your first rung on the property ladder if you want to. And again, it's a Shared Equity scheme, but one that doesn't sort of just keep shoveling money into the private market to push it up, but gives people sort of a rung on the ladder.

Dan Ilic  24:39  
This is happening at a local level. My my mum, for instance, is bought into a retired retirement place owned by the Council, the local council, and it's not going to go up in value at market rates, it's only going to go up in value at a fixed rate as per council rules at about 3%. And that's in order to keep that place at a reasonable price. So that The next person can can take it over, you know, who needs aged care. And I think that is that such a makes complete sense to me. And it works on a small localized level and surely could work on it on a federal level.

Jan Fran  25:12  
This sounds like, I'm sure there will be people out there who look at this plan and go, this is a great idea. This is exactly what we need. And we need it to happen right now. What is the likelihood of this event? You're waiting, though, Adam, because elbow has said he's not going to enter into a power sharing agreement with the greens. So for the people banking on this policy? I mean, how much should they unclench their butt cheeks?

Adam Bandt  25:36  
Yeah, Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison are both sage, I look, if there's a minority Parliament, we're not going to talk to anyone. It's our way or the highway. But you know, all the commentators in polls are suggesting that that's where we're heading. And there's every chance and certainly in the Senate, but no one is going to have a majority. And I think this is the election where we can tackle housing affordability. And I think people want it tackled. And it's not just people who are struggling to get into the market. It's a parents looking at the kids going, Oh, hang on, actually something that's different from where it used to be for, for me, and I can see the problems that are coming now for future generations. We've said very, I mean, I can't speak for what Anthony Albanese and Labour will say they will do, I'll leave it up to you to turn Pete listeners to decide whether or not if they're one or two seats away from the Treasury benches, whether they're really not going to talk with people who are sitting on the crossbench. But I can just speak to what we're going to do. And what we said is that this together with climbers are going to be at the top of the list that we put on the table. And one of the things that we're saying this time that we haven't seen last time from labor is a move towards more spending in social housing. And at least they're, they're taking one step towards it. And so it's one of those one of those areas, I think, where it's ripe for agreement, and we can put our ideas on the table, they can put theirs, and I reckon it's something we where we'd have a lot of common ground to talk about.

Jan Fran  27:05  
Okay, I'm not, I'm just going to fully admit this, because there's no point in pretending I'm not hugely clueless about economics, but I do know a little bit about supply and demand. And if there's suddenly more supply in the market, the prices kind of go down. So will this drive house prices down? And is that going to piss off quite a lot of people in Australia who own homes and are hoping to maybe fund their retirement that way? Or to, you know, use that as a way to build wealth creation for their families? Well, I

Adam Bandt  27:36  
guess that's part of the reason that we're saying can you can continue to have it for your one investment property continued to take those breaks, if you'd sort of built things around that.

Jan Fran  27:45  
But I guess I want 10 properties. Well,

Adam Bandt  27:50  
good on you. But I don't know that you should be lining up for a government handout for it. I guess that's a point. You know, basically, it's there's better things to government to be spending its money on. But look, I think part of what we're talking about, is developing an alternative pathway in right and like saying, let's, let's stop that in insane, incredible price rises, like Stop it going up quite so quickly by removing a bit of the hate. But there needs to be an alternative way in and that's affordable for people. So we're saying I guess the market will continue to do what it does. And but let's develop a parallel pathway for people who are currently locked out because otherwise they'll never get in. And that's the that's the pathway where it's affordable, where it's pegged to your income, and where you can buy into, say $300,000.

Jan Fran  28:39  
I want to ask you about labor and the coalition's plan for housing. There is a catch though, you're only allowed to say one nice thing about either of those policies. So let's start with the coalition. What is one nice thing about Scott Morrison's first home buyer grant scheme?

Adam Bandt  28:57  
It is lovely for you if you are a seller of a house because it helps push up the price of housing. And as a seller, you'll probably do very well out

Dan Ilic  29:08  
of it. Interesting, that's good. That's a dumb show. My brother would be excited about that.

Jan Fran  29:13  
I can I can see you I know our listeners, Carney was saying that through very gritted teeth, okay to Labour's plan, they've got 10,000 spots, a 2% deposit required and a Shared Equity scheme of up to 40%. What's one nice thing about Labour's plan,

Adam Bandt  29:30  
it's good that they recognize that part of the solution is government building some more housing, but it's kind of a drop in the ocean because it won't touch the sides because the problem is much much bigger than that scheme will solve.

Jan Fran  29:47  
Okay, we veered from the nice

Dan Ilic  29:53  
Now Adam, can you say one nice thing about Jen before you?

Adam Bandt  29:57  
This is the loveliest podcast I've ever for being involved in.

Jan Fran  30:03  
God, if you're sincere as you were saying that with the last two, I don't know whether I believe I believe it. Yeah, exactly. Like all our episodes, we kind of like to keep voters at the center. So if you're a voter, you're going to head to the booth may 21. If housing is a really big issue for you, Adam, what would you counsel voters to think about this matter,

Adam Bandt  30:23  
so this election is going to be really close. And the greens are said to be the most powerful third party in the parliament. And if you vote greens, we will kick the Liberals out because they've pushed up housing prices and imbalance of power. One of our number top priorities will be to push the next government to tackle housing affordability by building a million new homes over the next 20 years that people can rent for 25% of their income or buy into for $300,000. We're putting renters and first homebuyers and people locked out of the housing market right at the top of our priority list.

Dan Ilic  31:01  
And if you don't get in, can we look forward to 20 million million dollar homes being built?

Adam Bandt  31:10  
Schemes Ferg goldplated bathrooms will continue to under the liberals. sure that that is the case.

Jan Fran  31:16  
Hey Adam, thanks so much for joining us on Jan. Fran has issues and talking us through all things housing and bond garage for the next few days and weeks of the campaign. Thanks very much. Jam for house issues.

Dan Ilic  31:31  
Always great to talk to Adam Ben and always great to discuss what a utopia could look like Jen.

Jan Fran  31:36  
Well somebody has to everyone else's policies it to real and to tangible someone's got to have us thinking about the bigger picture here.

Dan Ilic  31:45  
That's not true. That's not true. The coalition's policy is actually really good. Have you heard their campaign launch for it?

Jan Fran  31:51  
I haven't, but something tells me I'm about to hear it is take a listen.

Rupert Degas  31:56  
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 take your morning dump surrounded by the signature of Bridget McKenzie. I am very proud of the sports grants program 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

Unknown Speaker  32:51  
with respect to the car parks in my own electorate. They haven't been built as yet.

Rupert Degas  32:56  
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 authorized by the novelty size government run by novelty size man Canberra.

Jan Fran  33:08  
Yes. Yeah, it's good. We criticize the government for not doing enough to combat climate change in a deteriorating planet but they are recycling that's what I like.

Dan Ilic  33:21  
Yeah, hey on that recycling bit you know that recycling ad campaign they put out a few months ago about how the government is turning trash into into new things. That ad campaign costs $11 million and the actual donation the actual climate action to actually create that thing was like selling like $3 million. Yeah.

Jan Fran  33:41  
Hashtag by Oh my goodness.

Dan Ilic  33:44  
So yeah, these these guys are big on recycling. It's fantastic.

Jan Fran  33:48  
All right, what's coming up in next week's show Dan,

Dan Ilic  33:50  
next week's show we are once again going to be promising to talk to you about climate but but like on every other media organization. We will probably not talk about climate but talk about what happened on mass last night.

Jan Fran  34:01  
We are going to talk about climate that is happening next week because I know it is one of your favorite topics and we are going to squeeze it the hell in there before the election because it also happens to be quite important.

Dan Ilic  34:11  
Yeah, it is the number one topic on everyone's list According to ABC Vote Compass. So that's pretty interesting stuff. And one other thing Don't forget we are doing a live a rational fear show for our 10 year anniversary at the opera freakin house. Huge lineup, including Gabby bolt, Mark Humphries, Paul McDermott is doing it to semi shots coming up from Melbourne for it, Louis Harbor, as well as myself. Oh, and Veronica Milsom as well. It is going to be a great 10 year show. So do get you to do that. Go to comedy.com.au for that one. In the meantime, let's thank some people who have put the show together. Big thanks to everyone involved in making this show tonight. F and K media thank you so much. You are wonderful, excellent producers. Big thanks to Adam bed and big thanks to Eliza oh and big thanks to you Jan. Big thanks to the patreon supporters who keep us running big thanks to the jib foundation for five Literally supporting this podcast big thanks to rode mics for our gear. And also big thanks to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation we're generally record the show. And remember to vote rationally

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10 Years Of A Rational Fear. Sydney Opera House. June 4th 2022

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G'day Fearmongers,

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
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Zoe Daniel
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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.

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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

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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G'day Fearmongers,

Sadly there's no Jan Fran Has Issues this week as all of our producers at F&K Media have been sidelined with COVID19 — instead enjoy this 10 minute sample of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival live show to hear the full thing before it goes on the free feed in a week's time.

If you want to hear the full thing — sign up to Patreon!

www.patreon.com/ARationalFear 

If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261

0:00  
If we're really good at Dean stuff up in Australia and making sure it can feel the rest of the world

0:14  
good I feel mongers Dan Ilic. Here. There is no Jad Fran has issues this week because unfortunately, everyone on the production team has COVID-19 COVID-19 in 2022, can you believe it, but so behind the times in our team, so instead we are letting our good team rest and regain their energy because we don't break anyone. And instead, I'm giving you a free 10 minute sample of the irrational fear Melbourne International Comedy Festival live show, which is only available to our Patreon subscribers exclusively for one more week. And if you want to hear the full thing, please sign up to our Patreon like these awesome people have this month so big shout out to these people Laura Maya David pickers, Gwen Harper, Katie Maltby, Deborah Reedy, Bernadette Mortlock, Jen Mackenzie, Felicity nibs Tracy man Tiger Lily KitKat snark, St. Catherine Ford puzzling a Tassie storm Thank you puzzling what has he storm? Tom read Ozzie Jim Fein 11 Rich talk well Nam Blusky sous good on your sous Ella Griffis Tony canard, Jonathan freckle Akira unveiled Daniel Harvey, Zachary Kendall, Lucy Bauer, Michael Lynch, and AJ Heiko Val. Oh my goodness, so many people have signed up this month. So big thank you, it really makes a difference. It basically means we can pay our producers to put the show on every week. And and we can, you know, pay people to appear on the show, which is something a lot of other podcasts don't do. And that's really cool. So please, thank you very much. Here is the first 10 minutes of our festival show from last week. If you want to hear the full thing she had been to irrational fear on Patreon. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Jan Fran has issues. Oh, and also, we've got our 10 year anniversary show at the Opera House June for so if you're in Sydney, please go to the Sydney Opera House and buy a ticket there. Luis is going to be there. I'm going to be there. Mark Humphries is going to be there and I've asked a few other excellent people to be there too. It's going to be so do come along June 4 at the Sydney Opera House. Enjoy this live show. It's a crackup, probably one of our best ever live shows. Well worth signing up for the patreon to hear the full thing before it becomes free in seven days. See you.

2:33  
Thank you so much for coming here. This is amazing. Oh my

2:36  
god. Wow. You know, 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 I said give me the MCG 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.

2:58  
It basically just means fewer jokes. Lower the expectation,

3:03  
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

3:20  
what's the opinion on like, flares out? No flare, pyrotechnics of any kind. No pirates weapons Bad.

3:28  
Very bad unless they

3:29  
have to get rid of some stuff. Twain What about Twain,

3:33  
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

3:59  
that you do the tree brothers are so much better than you.

4:01  
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. Big thank you Tim. Thank you.

4:49  
I feel this like like when you get on a plane and they're like oh big thank you to our Qantas oneworld customers. You can

4:58  
see more merch here you You You're a Patreon supporter. Oh, fantastic. Oh my God.

5:05  
Is there anyone here tonight who's never heard of the podcast and doesn't know why they're here?

5:13  
You're fine. You're about to find out sign up to get a poster. I certainly get the show. Right. Let's

5:18  
do it. Let's get this show started. But 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 made his brothers and so much better than he really needs this.

5:39  
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 start the show.

5:54  
For everybody go gang prepping for irrational fear with Grace team making the transition to a comedy stage. Any advice video?

6:01  
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 Creek and fall under you.

6:13  
Yeah, right. Well, I have been on a few stage just before.

6:18  
Yeah, yeah. But this is a comedy stage and much like the comedians on those stages. They're very unstable on the inside.

6:27  
Any advice for hecklers Gaby?

6:29  
It's what I mean, it's, it's a horrible person yelling horrible things at you. And we don't know why it 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.

6:45  
I reckon I've been a wreck and I've been abused before. Oh,

6:51  
yeah, of course. Yeah. No, of course, horse you

6:56  
know, 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.

7:07  
Look, I'll give it a crack. Trust that the audience on your side and yeah, believe in yourself, I suppose. That's actually

7:18  
really good advice.

7:19  
Good way of looking at things. I might just read that. Yeah, yeah. Good advice. I think that could really help us Yeah.

7:30  
irrational fear contains naughty words like bricks and sticks of rational fear, recommend listening might you mature audience.

7:45  
Tonight, Scott 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 icon this is a rational rational

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 make 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?

9:26  
Oh, I think people are 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.

9:35  
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 laundering

9:49  
mostly. Works well.

9:52  
And he's a military man who just got married starring people. He's off the market. He's the purveyor of Wagga. Wagga is fine as dad jokes It's Dane Simpson. Now, I actually got that wrong. Sorry, Dana. You are the finest purveyor of jokes about your dad specifically. Does he mind? He's too stupid understand. And each morning he siphons the blood of 322 year olds to keep himself fresh from a national youth broadcaster. It's triple Jays last remaining geriatric millennial Louis harbor. Lewis, how do you keep up with the Gen Zed logo? The Gen Zed lingo?

10:34  
How do I keep up with the Gen Zed lingo? Yeah, I mean, I like to just fuse it with lingo from my own time to make it easy. I'll say something like, have you? Pardon me boys? Is that the Chattanooga Choo

10:48  
it's lit and he's immunity musical genius who is genetically gifted? It is Andy McClellan. Oh, thank you. I just need to promote my extremely nice Gilbert and Sullivan themes Comedy Festival. Come along, and they're a changemaker cage Rattler, Dragon Slayer and she represented Australia in the 50 meter side I it's based.

Race How does one train for the 50 meter sider?

11:28  
Well, like the legend Don Bradman? I practice against a wall every day.

11:34  
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, video.

12:09  
Yes, Dad oil cares about you about me and especially about women. Oil loved woman. Patriarchy has kept both oil and woman in ground for too long. I'm mushy. Hey, did you know BP actually stands for boss policy? Squad? Yes. Goals? Yes. Grace tame the anti fracking lobby. Look, we love all sis and trans continental pipelines for sis and trans oil

13:00  
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 his 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.

13:34  
Can you help yourself everyone got a dad I know. Everyone's got these ads he made sure

13:41  
I had to explain that for my dad who

is slowly fading that out. You know it's it's too good. I know you want to hear more of it. To hear the full thing go to patreon.com forward slash a rational fear chipping for as little as $4.50 that is like the cost of a cup of coffee chipping once a month. That photons 50 cups to us. You're paying giving us a coffee a month and which means we can put on the show so please go to irrational fear.com Or go to patreon.com forward slash rational fear. See you next week with a brand new Jad friend has issued

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🎟️ BUY TICKETS TO OUR MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOW HERE

We're joined this week by fearmonger and filmmaker Damon Gameau. 

And we cover:

• Storytelling and climate change
• Community lead climate recovery
• Regenerating our democracy 

PLUGS:

• See Damon's new film Regenerating Australia in a theatre near you

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Heading into the election your support is going to be more crucial than ever!

Thank you FEARMONGERS!

If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261

-----------------------------

Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation. 

Dan Ilic  0:04  
Good evening, Lewis.

Lewis Hobba  0:06  
Hello Daniel. How are you?

Dan Ilic  0:07  
You know what I'm I'm thoroughly exhausted.

Lewis Hobba  0:11  
Yeah, I was about to say you sound sick.

Dan Ilic  0:14  
I'm not sick. I've had two COVID tests today though, but they're both negative. I think it gets to the point where I get so busy, my voice becomes incredibly sexy.

Lewis Hobba  0:24  
Getting into SBS up late territory, which is exciting for the show.

Voice Over  0:28  
The following programme may contain nudity and traces of nuts. SBS recommends viewing by immature audiences.

Lewis Hobba  0:38  
Yeah, it's a going around though the Mardi Gras really brought back the resurgence of Coronavirus. Certainly in my friendship group. 

Dan Ilic  0:47  
Yeah, I was wondering about that because you went to Mardi Gras. Did you get a second dose of Coronavirus by-

Lewis Hobba  0:55  
No, I didn't go to the actual SCG. But I was within you know, I was in the zone about a K away at a couple of parties. It was fun. It's nice to be out and about.

Dan Ilic  1:04  
Yeah. There's an interesting story. I don't know if he saw this is incredible story about one of the 78'ers as being arrested by the police because she held up a sign saying fuck Putin or something. And the police came up to her and said, You can't hold up a sign. It's offensive. So who am I offending is like- This is a licenced venue. You can't hold up a sign because it's political and therefore offensive. And she got arrested. This is old 78'er It's incredible because the Mardi Gras is entirely a political event. The whole thing is a political event. Oh my god, 

Lewis Hobba  1:40  
that is wild

Dan Ilic  1:41  
Just you know, but that's a cop shouldn't be in the money, right? Oh, I should just get rid of them. They I think that's probably right. Yeah, they should probably probably have the Defence Force run the Mardi Gras then. You know this. So yeah,

Lewis Hobba  1:52  
they're doing everything else. Why not pull them out of pull them out of the photo ops and Lismore pull them out of the, I guess old- aged care facilities where they are now. And yeah, get him in there.

Dan Ilic  2:03  
Get them out of the medina apartments stopping people from escaping quarantine, get them down to the Mardi Gras. Let's kick off the show. Damon Gummo on the line and we're going to be talking to him in just a second. Before we get to him, we'll talk about our comedy festival show as well. So here we go. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the Eora nation. Sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show. 

Voice Over  2:23  
A Rational fear contains naughty words like Bre***, Canberra b***ble, fair d**nkum and section 4*. A rational fear recommendeds listening by immature audiences.

Dan Ilic  2:36  
Tonight with one in 100 year floods becoming more frequent Scott Morrison renames them miracle floods. And Scott Morrison prepares for another miracle election win by visiting Lismore and attempting to walk on water. And we're all waiting for Scott Morrison to launch a new National Flood Coordination Committee to drain the Beetaloo Basin. It's the 11th of March 2022. This is a rational fear. I'm so tired.

Lewis Hobba  3:12  
Honestly, I've never heard you sell those jokes with less verve in 10 years. That was it. That was rock bottom.

Dan Ilic  3:20  
Well, I just wanted to point out those jokes quickly. Like it's so interesting. Like I wrote that Scomo National floods Coordination Committee joke at the end of February when the floods really took off throughout Queensland. And not seven days later, to the date I put that tweet out. They actually gave $7.5 million for fracking in the Northern Territory. It's like we're not gonna give out flood support, but we will pay for someone to drain the middle of it. So yeah.

Lewis Hobba  3:48  
we're gonna get some of that moisture and just pump it into some seams. See what we can find.

Dan Ilic  3:53  
It's been a moisture Amy Remeikis had a great tweet today, which made my heart swell 

Lewis Hobba  3:57  
Great segue. 

Dan Ilic  3:58  
Well, yeah. Moisture, Amy Remeikis. Well known, well known wet person, Amy Remeikis, she tweeted guess with so much of the East Coast underwater, the prime minister could declare anything to do with the floods as an on water matter and refuse to talk about it.

Lewis Hobba  4:14  
That's great from Amy. Really good.

Dan Ilic  4:17  
Hey, we've got an absolutely huge Comedy Festival Show. Coming up in about four weeks time, Louis. I assume you-

Lewis Hobba  4:25  
Is it four weeks? 

Dan Ilic  4:26  
Yeah, it's it's the 10th of April. It's literally-

Lewis Hobba  4:31  
Far out

Dan Ilic  4:31  
It's literally a month away. And I assume you've seen in the lineup. Have you seen the lineup, Lewis?

Lewis Hobba  4:36  
I saw the lineup this week. I found out on Twitter like everybody else, which is how I do all of my a rational fear planning. Like, oh, Dan's tweeted out. Often sometimes, like, my girlfriend will be like, Hey, you're doing a show at the forum with Grace Tame. I'm like, No I'm not. Like no Dan just put it on Twitter. That's amazing.

Dan Ilic  4:56  
Yeah, we have a huge lineup. The problem is Lewis, I booked I accidentally booked the biggest room at the Comedy Festival. That means I now need to intentionally book The biggest lineup at the Comedy Festival. And that includes you and I. Alice Fraser 

Lewis Hobba  5:11  
Great 

Dan Ilic  5:12  
From the bugle. Who is you know, friend of the show, Gabby Bolt from the chaser. And 

Lewis Hobba  5:18  
Crushing it 

Dan Ilic  5:18  
And Gabby Bolt is absolutely, have you been following me bolts escapades at the Adelaide fringe?

Lewis Hobba  5:23  
I have. Yeah, she's absolutely nailing it to no one's surprise, but everyone saw it. 

Dan Ilic  5:27  
Yeah, just absolutely nailing it. She won Best Comedy at the Adelaide fringe this week, which is amazing. She sold out her run after doing one show to like 12 people and now she's completely sold out. And her first show at comedy festival will be on stage with us at the a rational fear, which is amazing. Dane Simpson from you know, every other TV show that's going around at the moment. He's absolutely sensational. 

Lewis Hobba  5:49  
He's the best. 

Dan Ilic  5:49  
And Australian of the Year. Lewis Hobba. No, Australian of the Year, Grace Tame.

Lewis Hobba  5:55  
Well, we could probably get Dylan Alcott if you want two Australians of the Year. 

Dan Ilic  5:59  
That's a great idea. Does Dylan, does Dylan, Dylan live in Melbourne?

Lewis Hobba  6:04  
He does. Yeah. Yeah. I could ask Dylan.

Dan Ilic  6:07  
Maybe we can have two. We can have an Australian the year face off. That would be amazing. 

Lewis Hobba  6:11  
Yeah

Dan Ilic  6:11  
Also, and DJ Andy McClelland is gonna be holding the show together. Now that it is 

Lewis Hobba  6:15  
Oh my goodness, Best Dressed Man in comedy. 

Yeah, pretty, pretty wild. So if you want to get your tickets, head to a rational fear, look at look at the lineup page and get your tickets there. Also, if you are a Patreon supporter, you get a 25% discount, then there's a limited available number of tickets for Patreon supporters so please, snap up those tickets as quickly as you can

Get in quick because the Hobba family are all buying theirs. So there's gonna be not much left by the time by all my Victorian family arrive

Dan Ilic  6:44  
Did they even bother to come to last year's Comedy Festival? Or are they just showing up to see Grace Tame?

Lewis Hobba  6:51  
They did actually come they came to our show last year as well, they'll very, they've always been very disappointed that as a Victorian we've never done a rational fear in Melbourne until last year. So- but I don't think they'll quite fill up the forum. But it does sell out quickly once my parents get on the, on board. 

Dan Ilic  7:08  
Yeah, great. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the entire Hobba clan take up one of the booths at the back of the forum.

Lewis Hobba  7:15  
It's such a fancy venue. Have you been to the forum since it got redone? It's way too nice for us. 

Dan Ilic  7:20  
Well, here's the thing in the words of words of-

Lewis Hobba  7:22  
Are we gonne need to like wear suits?

Dan Ilic  7:24  
Well, that's a great idea. That's a really good idea it's a classy venue. In the words of the Blues Brothers. It's a fucking barn. And we'll never fill it. Like it's got that edge. It's got that feeling about it. Because it's so huge. Which means we- I need we need you and I should ever think about this. What big thing we can do in the forum. I know it's only four weeks away, and there's a lot going on in the world. But we should think about what-

Lewis Hobba  7:45  
This podcast is a workshop now. I don't have any ideas. Fucking let us know.

Dan Ilic  7:50  
It is a workshop. And if you do have an idea, drop us a line and we'll include those ideas in the podcast. It's narrative building, which is wonderful. We've got an excellent guest tonight. Damon Gameau, who is a director, actor, activist, legend. He joins us right now. G'day Damon. 

Damon Gameau  8:08  
Hi Dan! Hi Lewis! 

Dan Ilic  8:10  
It is great to have you. It's excellent to have you. Thank you so much for joining us on on a rational fear. This is not like the standard format for a rational fear. I've decided to create a new format called a rational conversations. 

Damon Gameau  8:23  
Okay

Dan Ilic  8:23  
And that's the format that we roll out when I'm too lazy to book the original format. Yeah.

Lewis Hobba  8:29  
Yeah, it's-  take that! We're coming for you Richard Fidler. It's conversations two: this time it's lazier.

Dan Ilic  8:36  
Conversations quarter hour. That's what we're calling this.

Lewis Hobba  8:41  
I just saw Richard Feiler in a lift this afternoon. He's gonna be very angry at me tomorrow that we're stealing his bit.

Dan Ilic  8:45  
I'm sure I'm sure he will be. It's really exciting to have you Damon. For a long time. I followed your work with 2040. And of course, that sugar movie which you made it- now you've got a brand new kind of 17 minute hope for kind of a treaties on what Australia could be like. You know, you've got Aboriginal voices to Parliament, renters using solar panels, communities owning owning their own power, utes being used to make money to power the grid, transparency and democracy. My question to you Damon is when did you move from making documentaries about sugar to making science fiction films?

Damon Gameau  9:21  
Basically, having two daughters really was the big wake up the first one, really, I'd always been sort of interested in ecological things and climate but didn't really understand it enough. And then once I had the daughter, the first daughter, it just suddenly raced to the top of the queue. And the more I sort of read about it and tried to engage with it, I just thought, oh, man, we need all storytellers or artists or musicians. Everyone needs to get hands on deck for this topic. And we need to change culture or try and shift it really, really quickly. So I looked at some of the psychology around that the neuroscience and just sort of spoke to enough people that said that, you know, if we keep banging people over the head with this stuff, it can be paralysing for a lot of people so we need to offer up different narratives at the same same time not to shy away from those urgent narratives, but to also offer up and give people a sense of what life might be like on the other side of this crisis and let them feel the benefits, see how it would impact their lives and their communities. And so I guess that's the path I've taken. And 2040, obviously, was that experiment. But we really saw how it did motivate people to get involved and bring to life some of the solutions that we showed in the film. So I guess this is a kind of another version of that, but closer to home, less global issues and more about our own country and what we could do in the next eight years by by 2030. And again, get people to feel all those benefits that would come from a transition.

Dan Ilic  10:36  
Certainly, I think one of the one of the reasons why, you know, we're doing this kind of come in conversation theme show today is because the news, quite frankly is so grim right now, like it's a little too hard to kind of talk about I don't know about you, Lewis, I certainly feel like what we're going through right now in the east coast of Australia feels like 2020 bushfires all over again. And and you have a pretty strange connection to this kind of period right now as well.

Damon Gameau  11:04  
Yeah, I live up there. I've live up I have lived up there for like, the last six years. And yeah, I mean, it's hard to describe, and everyone's sort of heard about it. But it was a bit of a warzone last week just to just to experience a region that runs out of petrol and there's no food on the supermarket shelves and you see roads collapsing and landslides and lose internet and phone connection at the time you actually need it more than ever. It was an extraordinary moment. But I'll tell you that even though we're focusing a lot on, on that dire scenario, just the you know, these stories are now merging about what the community did. I just think that's the silver lining here. That without any help. And without any telecommunications, the kind of coordination and networking efforts that kicked in, we're just really I think there's a lot of lot to learn from what happened in terms of a few people that had satellite connections then took and fed all the things that were needed, they set up hubs, people came to those hubs and said, right, what do you need, I'm here to help. They generated kind of helicopter rides, excess fuel, mattresses, food medicines, had people trekking into rescue people. I mean, it was just an extraordinary decentralised process, where egos were cast aside, if anyone tried to claim ownership that was shunned to the side. And anyone who just you know, it was just get on with it or go away. And just to see humans do that, and have strangers you know, scrubbing the mud off walls, or people I'd never met or cooking meals, or some of the kids just writing messages on the food containers saying, you know, stay well, I hope you well, you know, just remarkable stuff. So this is what we're capable of as human beings. And to be honest, we just deserve so much better because our leaders are the least amongst us. And we and we deserve to be treated as we are, which is good human beings. But unfortunately, our system rewards sociopaths. And they're the ones-

Dan Ilic  12:48  
that is so true, our system supports sociopaths

Damon Gameau  12:53  
And at the top and so then they get to set the rules of the game. So we are a group of largely altruists being governed by a small minority of sociopaths. And we've got to change that because if you look at ancient tribes and hunter gatherers, they ostracise that person from the tribe. They ridicule them, or banished them. In some cases, they killed them because then you destabilise the group, and we fucking reward them. And-

Dan Ilic  13:16  
And the sociopaths started the system, they built the system so they can thrive.

Damon Gameau  13:21  
Correct! And when are we going to wake up to that, you know, like, it's not just climate. You look across any, any organisation right now, this is just how we operate. If we could change that flawed architecture. We're not going to get anywhere

Dan Ilic  13:31  
The corporate world is filled with psychopaths, like stabbing each other to get to the top. It's just-

Damon Gameau  13:36  
It's one of the highest rates. Yeah, I think it's 30% in the corporate sector. So-

Dan Ilic  13:39  
that's how Lewis Hobba got to the top of his industry just by-

Lewis Hobba  13:43  
Well, yeah, I, I've looked at that I've, I look very worryingly at those Lists, Top 10 lists of sociopaths because it's always like politicians at the top, and then it's just like, comedians are in there. And then it's like, and then there's actually and then there's a special type for radio hosts. And then it goes into people who work in like, the sort of corporate world if I'm like, I feel like I'm ticking quite a few of those boxes.

Damon Gameau  14:07  
You're gonna get banished Lewis, you're gonna ostracise-

Lewis Hobba  14:09  
No way. I'm gonna become prime minister. I'll remember this conversation Damon.

Dan Ilic  14:12  
Damon Gameau, you're on Lewis Hobba's shit list.

Lewis Hobba  14:19  
From prison Damo. So where are you now, Damon?

Damon Gameau  14:24  
I'm in downtown Bendigo. So we started to we opened in Sydney on Friday night and then we had an opening in Melbourne on Sunday night. And then we're now on a tour of the country 72 screenings in the lead up to the election and all around so anyone that does want to see the film, come along, check it out, and the great discussion with panel afterwards and some live performers and First Nation speakers and we'd really trying to get people out and about again and communicating and talking face to face and then explaining what regeneration is and what it could be in this country and get them a bit more optimistic.

Dan Ilic  14:55  
I watched the film this evening it was a delightful kind of very hopeful exercise in really short circuiting your brain into thinking about what could be, and I think thinking about better futures is a whole part of bringing communities with with us on this journey. And I think it's such a really important tool to kind of to do that. I think it's a great little great little bit of content that hopefully folks will will really connect with them. 

Damon Gameau  15:26  
Yeah, that was the point is that how can we, if we can't see it first, and how can we strive for it. And then so much in this climate story, we've told stories of sacrifice and depravity, all the things we have to give up. So people retreat to fear and they shut down and they disengage. And then this is all too hard. But to coax them and bring them along, we've got to show them the opportunities and get them to feel what it would be like to live in that community. And this is based on a- we did a four month listening campaign with a really wide diverse range of Australian's. 

Dan Ilic  15:54  
Hang on, hang on. You go on a listening tour. You're going on a nationwide campaign. Are you gonna be running me running for Parliament Damon?

Damon Gameau  16:03  
No thanks. I don't have the sociopathic thing like Lewis does.

Lewis Hobba  16:07  
Yeah, just send me you notes, tell me what you want. Give me your wish list, I'll get it done.

Damon Gameau  16:11  
It was just I guess that I didn't want it to be my vision. So we went and consulted and asked a whole group of Australians from indigenous groups, to tradies to farmers to teenagers and said, you know, what kind of country do you want in 2030. And so they're the ones that really shaped that narrative. And, and overwhelmingly, they talked about, you know, more thriving communities, a fixed regenerated democracy, amplified indigenous voices, you know, action on climate change all the things we talked about, they were saying in slightly different ways. So farmers were talking about greener hills or clean rivers that existed in Australia 30 years ago, whereas teenagers are saying climate action. So there were just points that we could agree on and find that commonality. And then really, we talked about, you know, let's not make this a feature, because people don't have that capacity anymore to sit down. And, and in this space,

Dan Ilic  16:55  
It's got to be a TikTok video, it's gotta go on TikTok.

Damon Gameau  16:59  
Unfortunately that's where we're at, you know, it's like, you know, after everything that's going on, no one's gonna sit down and watch an hour and a half of the reef dying, or the forest burning. We see it so much, that I think we've got to be very strategic with our storytelling in this moment. And, and again, be careful who our messengers are. And that's why you've seen in the film, you know, Kerry O'Brien, Sandra Sully, these people that we've grown up, and we're used to them delivering these messages that we trust, or how about they read these different news stories that hopefully we see in the next 10 years?

Dan Ilic  17:26  
Yeah. And there's so many folks who you've kind of roped into this Tim Flannery Zali, Steggall, David Pokok. friend of the show, Patrick Abood, Georgie Tunny, yeah, loads, loads and loads and loads of folks, different voices from everywhere, 

Lewis Hobba  17:40  
David, what the- part of the research that you're doing that was talking about community that feels like the more amorphus one that I don't, I'm curious to know what people meant when they were talking about that. 

Damon Gameau  17:52  
So I guess a lot of the people we met in regional areas, were saying, you know, that we missed the Lions Club with a sports club where you could all go and get together and exchange face to face. And there was this huge, you know, community spirit, like I talked about in the Northern Rivers right now of people coming together and interacting and helping, and that happened after the fires. But as soon as COVID kicked in all that dissipated, and people went back into their homes, they went online, they started reading different narratives about what was going on. And it just destroyed and broke all that fabric of the community. So that's what they want back. It's like, we want to be able to walk down the street and know the person who the, butcher and know the guy who does the newspaper. And it's just that sense, they want back. And because of this system that's eroded that and stripped it and jobs have been taken out of those communities, we've got this chance if we are going to move to a low carbon economy, to bring and keep the profits in those communities. You know, this is where Helen Haynes and others are doing a great job where they're saying, Well, if you're going to build a solar farm in our community, how about we propose a bill that keeps 20% of the profits in our community. So all that money isn't just leaving this space, I think that's how we've got to think about this holistically. It's not about just getting to net zero as fast as we can, we've got to do it in a way that's equitable, that restores lands, and that keeps these communities thriving. So so we don't go down an American Road where these people were left behind, and they're voting for authoritarian nutjobs. Because they feel they feel neglected, you know, and we've got to do that in this country and make sure we listen to these people.

Dan Ilic  19:15  
Totally 100%. And there's so many great little examples of where that stuff is already happening where community owned power is happening, like, you know, Hepburn Springs and other folks, other folk places like that. Yeah, we're, we're folks have- own their own batteries, own our own windmills, own their own grid systems. And they are in charge of their own destiny, and they are making bank like making money by selling that electricity to other cities next door, like-

Damon Gameau  19:43  
There's a project and solar project down in Canada where they had, like 260,000 investors, so they did an equity crowd fund so that all the community could buy a bit of that energy like, that's the future. You know, that's because we don't want to get to net zero and have this enormous income inequality and a fractured society. That's just it's not theirs. point,

Dan Ilic  20:00  
if you want to buy a bit of a rational fear's energy, just go to arationalfear.com join up to the Patreon cheap in $3 a month. You can be a shareholder of a rational fear.

Lewis Hobba  20:11  
It's just like microbreweries for power.

Damon Gameau  20:15  
Exactly. Decentralise it.

Lewis Hobba  20:17  
Obviously, opinions and voices that you listen to that made the film were very positive. And you know, you had the vision that they had. Was there anyone out there going? You know what, at 2030? I just want to have some nutjob in charge. I don't want to have it. I don't have to make any decision. I just want the lizard people gotten rid of like, Was there anyone out there who were like, Whoa, we'll take that on board. 

Damon Gameau  20:39  
There were a couple of loose cannons. And they were just talking about it was more that they'd given up. They were like, you know, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But we're fucked, you know, like, there's nothing we can do that sort of, and that's really dangerous, right? That nihilism where you do just retreat, and Netflix and mobiles. And while it's all too hard, and to be honest, that is a narrative that's been perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry through the since the 90s. Because they know if people don't think it's possible, they'll just disengaged and shut off and won't even care. So there was a bit of that. And it really was down to the disillusionment around our democracy and how much money is in the system. Now, no one really represents their values, which, again, is why I think we're just seeing this incredible resurgence of independence, because these are people that genuinely represent their their values. And we've got people like Helen or Cathy McGowan that are taking their constituents into Parliament House to teach them about democracy, rotate people and what, that's democracy. And so when people see that they go, Alright, I want some of that instead of this stiff, you know, posturing, spin Hardy nonsense, we've got the so long in this country, people are just fed up, you know, so I think this is an incredible moment really quite potentially historic moment in our country where we had Simon Holmes a court on our panel the other night in Melbourne, and even he's saying how surprised he is at the momentum they've gained, and that, you know, seven to nine of them have a legitimate shot, they're far ahead of the expectations where he thought they'd be so far out if we had three or four independence win. We would potentially wake up to a different country the next day and head off in a very different direction around climate. So you know, it is important, this is a big moment for our country.

Dan Ilic  22:10  
Damon, can I just ask you something? You're just an actor? What do you know?

Damon Gameau  22:16  
You're right, mate, I'm just an actor. I'm actually a dad who just is scared shitless. And so I went and spoke to a shit tonne of scientists over the last six years, and just tried to help the communication process because as you know, we love these scientists are so amazing. Sometimes they speak in a language that's just like, Hmm, we don't know what 1.5 degree means. We don't want to anthropogenic means we don't know what Net Zero even means. Most of us. So I think, you know, artists, musicians, songwriters going to help those scientists and, and try and disseminate some of that complexity and put it into language that might help people or move them emotionally. Yeah, I just want more filmmakers to do that. So that's my role. I don't pretend to be the expert in this stuff. But I just happen to speak regularly to some incredible people around the world that really, you know, fuel me up and keep me going. And I just want to help amplify their messages

Lewis Hobba  23:04  
The vision that you have in the film, is there like, I guess I don't know is is that possible? Like, is it? Is it pure fantasy? Is it like, let's try it, let's aim for the stars and land on the cloud or whatever? Or a scientist going like, no, no, no, like, with the right will, this is actually achievable in this time.

Damon Gameau  23:24  
100%. So we made sure that everything there is already happening or scalable. And it is, as Dan mentioned, there are solar gardens there, there's a you know, a Bi- Bi Directional charge that goes into a battery to to power your home. But that's already here that you can do that in a Nissan LEAF right now. In fact, that battery is about three or four times bigger than a power wall Tesla Powerwall that you'll get some people already charging up their car that the local charging station and then running that outside. Already, it's just scaling up all these things. 

Dan Ilic  23:53  
I love those. I love that love going to Westfield a charge up my car to bring it home to run the house. Thank you Hoyts.

Lewis Hobba  24:02  
Yeah, it's really changing the perception of like living in your van you're like, Well, I'm living in my in my car, but it's kind of just my Nissan lease which is also my house. Very confusing.

Damon Gameau  24:12  
This is how transformation this could be we show in the film that for tradies, you know, you can go on plug in all your power tools run the generator off off the battery in your ute. I mean that's, that's on our doorstep, it's already happening in America and other countries. So absolutely. It had to feel plausible and real. Otherwise, it's what's the point but if it's too utopian and too far removed, then then it's impossible goal and people would switch off from it. So no, it's very tangible and practical,

Dan Ilic  24:36  
Damon, I don't know if you know, this podcast is all about kind of communicating similar messages. We have had lots of great brains on the show. And in the last few years talking about this. In fact, the name a rational fear stems from the idea back in 2012, when we started the show that no one in the media was talking about climate change. And all they were talking about were irrational fears. So we wanted to talk about the rational fears So no feels like we know for 10 years this podcast has been, you know, part of that conversation. It feels like right now there is a huge momentum and you can feel it. You can you can feel it in the streets. I was at the pub today. And I saw two old blokes who were on the table next to me. And they were just talking about the floods that we're talking about the lack of funding for the floods, and then they launched into a complex analysis of Mike cannon Brooks's deal with AGL. And these guys are like, 7080 a couple of beers in going out. Yeah, they, you know, buy the whole thing. Shut it down. Start something brand new. That's not just like, oh my god, that is that was a moment for me today. I was like, this could be something extraordinary right now.

Damon Gameau  25:45  
Yeah, it reminds me Paul Hawken, who I work with a lot he's he always says this is that the weather isn't going to the weather is going to be the thing that makes this the great the biggest moment in human history. Because each time we have a big event like this, you lose another chunk of deniers and more people come on side I think right? Okay. There was a big flood at least more than we had a fire now we've got another flood. All right. This is a bit unusual. That's another record flood. I've never seen that in Sydney running down the streets and manly. So you start to go okay, maybe this isn't we were we don't need to believe a paper or IPCC report, we can actually feel it in our shoes and see it running down the street. So yeah-

Dan Ilic  26:20  
It speaks to resilience right now. Right? Like it speaks- like people are saying this in the like, you know, I'm in the position now where I'm looking at buying houses, like, houses. A house to live in. And so it's one of those things where I'm like, right, okay, where do we live? Where's climate resilient? Where do we buy? How do we when we buy how do we how do we make our house climate resilient to be, you know, safe against bush fires and floods and? And COVID?

Damon Gameau  26:46  
Yeah, it's, it's Yeah. And again, I think that the people in Lismore than some of my friends is that they're not going to build their they rebuilt five years ago. And now they're thinking, Where the hell are we going to go? So we've got legitimate climate refugees in this country right. Now, you could argue that Mallacoota and those bushfires the same, but absolutely, Lismore. Like Norco, which is the big built company there, they're not going to stay there, they're going to go somewhere else. Why would you rebuild there because you know, what's coming. So, you know, that's the dilemma we have now here, because we've left it so late, we've got to also mitigate while we're implementing the solutions at the same time, so there's this huge infrastructure that has to happen to protect us from what's coming. But at the same time, we need to sort of flip all of our systems, but, you know, I think we can do it. I absolutely think we can do it because of that groundswell that's now there, and more and more people are on board.

Dan Ilic  27:33  
And so may is going to be a real crunch time. And if it feels like the last chance, like May, the May election, honestly, for Australia is short and important election for Australia. But I feel like honestly, it is a very important election for the world. Because it'll determine how much giga tonnes of carbon get released from Australia and get put into the atmosphere all from the being burnt all around the world. That is our carbon. And it feels like this election in Australia is, is probably the one of the most important in the world. We'll also

Lewis Hobba  28:08  
Because we're such we drag our feet so much in any sort of international conference that people end up like lowering the bar of expectation to meet our low bar. Yeah. So it's not just Australia, it does affect the world

Dan Ilic  28:19  
Totally right. And Damon, I loved in your video, you had a line in there that I'm pretty fond of, which is we need to lead our leaders. And I think that is a really lovely, really lovely sentiment. And it's something that I've been thinking a lot, particularly since cop, you know about that, you know,

Damon Gameau  28:36  
Well, this is how history has always worked. Historically, there's never been a government that sort of set off in a direction. It's always come from pressure. And that's, you know, whether that's the human rights movement, or the suffragettes or the abolitionist, whatever it is, they've always put the pressure and then finally, they've succumbed. I mean, my favourite story is this, the suffragettes, which, obviously, in the light of 19th century, were right on the cusp of something, and even the President Grover Cleveland, in 1905, who was the US president said, no sensible woman wants to vote. And then 10 years later, look, this has happened before and, and again, with the abolitionist, all those people that didn't want to change was saying, if we give up slaves, the other country will have an economic advantage, exactly what we're saying about fossil fuels. And then that shifted so quickly. So you know, we've just got to keep going. And we've just got to trust that the dam wall is going to break very soon. And you can feel it right now. The discussions in politics discussion, the corporate sector has never been higher in terms of what's going on. And, and I think a lot of these groups that I speak to, they want to change, they're just so enmeshed in the old system, and the structures and the policies that are protected that old system that they're really struggling to know how to get out of it and unravelled quickly. And so that's the dilemma for a lot of them, but they are having the conversations even, you know, top banks, all these kind of organisations, because they've got kids and they can see the floods, they know what's happening. Yeah, so I guess that gives me hope that it just we're not too far away from what could be a really dramatic change in the direction we head.

Dan Ilic  30:05  
I saw Matt Canavan put out a an article this week saying that ESG accounting is going to bring evil upon the world. ESG is environmental, sustainable and governance accounting. And it's the way all these big institutions are moving, moving away from gross profit accounting and profits. They're they they're trying to think about ways to account for the good of a business aside from profit. And it's just so funny that Matt Canavan said, this new way is actually going to bring evil upon the world. When the evil right now that is facing the world is due to people like Matt Canavan and fossil fuels, you know?

Damon Gameau  30:42  
Yeah, it's extraordinary, and just how interconnected like that was, what shocked me was just once it was really laid there, how much money was invested in Russian oil and gas and drum companies all around the world, and countries and even our own country, you know, some of our biggest super funds, you know, huge hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, propping up this war machine. Let's be frank 40% of Russians, incomes comes from their coal and gas, oil and gas. So we have to be very honest about what our money is doing, and be very smart about and really think about what impact it's having if we're really going to believe in ESGs, where we're being exposed right now with climate and the war. Is that where is your money? And what's it actually contributing to?

Dan Ilic  31:20  
Yeah, the big stat is that, you know, Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. But now that Russia isn't selling, does that make us a second baby? Yeah. Great, we're moving up the table of bad people.

Lewis Hobba  31:38  
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, noted, climate hero, Elon Musk this week was also tweeting. He's like, look guys. I don't want to say it, but we got to start getting more oil and gas out of the ground. Say, you own an electric car company. That's, that's your business? Yeah, it's not not on that one.

Dan Ilic  31:58  
Hey, Damon, thank you very much. Before we go, you know, we were in conversation on October around the around COP 26. When the a rational fear joke keeper billboard campaign, funded by 2000 Australians went into high gear,

Damon Gameau  32:15  
Is this how you're buying your houses? Is this how you're getting your houses, through do that campaign?

Dan Ilic  32:19  
How much do you think $190,000 buys in billboards? You know, every- here's the thing, you know, Clive Palmer, spending $80 million in advertising. And they're like, every time somebody sees an ad, someone tags me and it's like, oh, Daniel, you need to buy a billboard here. And like, dude, the billboard money's gone like this. I've spent it all on billboards, it doesn't buy you very much.

Lewis Hobba  32:41  
You could just buy six billboards Dan and shape them into a sort of long house.

Dan Ilic  32:46  
I bought about 25 billboards or something like that, you know. So there's that. That's how much it gets. Yes. But billboards in Times Square are expensive people. It's very expensive. But one of the billboards we tried to get was actually animating our billboards on the side of the SEC armadillo in in Glasgow, but it didn't kind of come to fruition. Damo, tell us what happened there. Like, you know, I went on the project, I put my personal integrity on the line. Er;;, you know, people go on the project, they do that, too. It's a risk, it's a risk. But I put my personal integrity on the line, and Australian media told people that we would animate the billboard outside of the Convention Centre, what happened there,

Damon Gameau  33:27  
I have to I have to publicly apologise to you. And I felt such waves of shame around that, because I was telling you the story that we were invited by COP too... So they basically said to us, you've got four hours to project whatever you like on the Friday night, primetime with all the delegates there, you can project whatever you like, on the building. And so that's when I reached out to you. And then we started sending their proposals and they said, saying, yeah, no, you can't do that. That's we'd modify it. And they'd say, no, no, you can't do that. And so we just got this watered down. And it really, to be honest, really exposed how inadequate copies and it makes sense, because we've had 26 of them and our emissions have raised, you know, almost 50%, since we've had them, but just their their lack of willingness to actually call out the truth. We even got to a point when we said, can we just list the top three emitters of fossil fuels and like, you know, Russia, Australia, and now you can't even do that. Can we even have this young Australian say I hope my leaders switch to more renewable energy and utilise all the sun now you can't do that. So, really demoralising process for us. So we ended up doing this really saccharin safe, you know, eco porn shots of last nature and whales. Like just like-

Dan Ilic  34:37  
Beyond petroleum.

Damon Gameau  34:40  
I was really sad actually. And we had some really, you know, heated debates of them saying Here we are, like, really? You've just had an IPCC report saying a code read for humanity. And we can't even you know, we're our hands are tied so I apologise mate because I really did think we had a great chance to do something exciting there. And we just got absolutely COP washed

Dan Ilic  35:01  
Yeah, COP. Yeah. That's totally fine. Like, and when you said, Oh yeah, you can do whatever you want. I was like, No, he's not. No, he's wrong about that. He hasn't he hasn't done a lot of these UN things in the past as he, you know, is this his first rodeo, I don't know. I don't think so

Damon Gameau  35:19  
Why, they said it. Those are the exact words. And they said, Yeah, please go, we want to be edgy. We want to be bold. So okay, here's some

Lewis Hobba  35:27  
Classic client.

Dan Ilic  35:28  
Damon, thank you so much for coming on and telling us about your region project. What's the name of the film, actually,

Damon Gameau  35:34  
it's called Regenerating Australia. And we're touring the country right now. And I, what I didn't say, which is really exciting is that WWF put up $2 million as a fund, off the back of it. So any community that watches the film and sees something that resonates like a community battery, or an urban food project, they can apply for that money, and there's that money and there's subject matter experts to take them through the process, develop the idea. So really, again, this is this idea of taking the power back into our own hands and getting it done ourselves. So really, that's why we're encouraging people to come along and I must admit, even since the floods, just the, the screens have been a lot more full and really great questions. So it's a good night to have a discussion about where we're headed.

Lewis Hobba  36:13  
What's next on you tour? What are the next couple of dates? 

Damon Gameau  36:16  
Shepparton tomorrow. Then Yakkandana. And then through other parts of Banala, and then back through Melbourne, then into Sydney then regional New South Wales, Queensland, WA, Tassi,e South Australia. We're doing it all just try and get it done before the election.

Dan Ilic  36:30  
Amazing. Well, good luck and I hope to catch a screening in Sydney that'll be there'll be absolutely awesome

Damon Gameau  36:39  
Jump on a panel if you want to come and be part of the conversation

Dan Ilic  36:42  
Mate I'm just a comedian I don't know what's, what's fucking going on

Damon Gameau  36:44  
Cause you've got so much time

Dan Ilic  36:49  
There was a, Peter Fitzsimons put out a tweet earlier this week saying which comedians are like Zelinsky that we can follow into battle I'm gonna put up Mark Humphreys and Dan Ilic and I was like yeah, Dan Ilic. I'm like no, no, don't I- I don't want to lead us into battle thanks very much. I'm doing really 

Damon Gameau  37:11  
I'm buying a new house

Dan Ilic  37:11  
Yeah, I'm really busy. Yeah, buying multiple houses and and I've got to get an asai bowl and yeah,

Lewis Hobba  37:17  
I spent the last week trying to buy the last dehumidifier in Sydney so got no time to run for PM.

Dan Ilic  37:23  
Oh, do you do you have mushrooms in your ceiling yet? Louis?

Lewis Hobba  37:27  
I have my house is riddled with mould. Oh never experienced anything like it. Yeah. And obviously again goes without saying in the spectrum of people suffering this country. I am not in on the list. 

Dan Ilic  37:38  
No. Yeah. 

Lewis Hobba  37:39  
But yeah, never never experienced anything like this. It's um, yeah, and everyone knows everyone I've spoken to in Sydney. It's just my jeans have got mould my shoes have got mould. And he's just fucking covered in mould. It's like it's the weight. I'm like I feel like this is you know, in War of the Worlds when you like, the thing that brought them down in the end was not even the aliens. It was the particles, like, fuck, where the aliens? There's gonna be fucking black mould we're all gonna drop dead.

Dan Ilic  38:04  
Lewis, that's it. The thing that brought us down is co2.

Lewis Hobba  38:07  
Yeah, I know. It's like, Fuck, I was worried about the nuclear war. It should have been the fucking mould.

Dan Ilic  38:12  
I did the briefing podcast about the news. Tom Tilly had me on a few weeks ago. And he grilled me as if I was a politician about climate change being an election issues like but Dan, do people really care about climate change? And like, Tom, yeah, they do. It's like, what's your proof? Like, he was like grilling me as if I was on to 2GB. And I was Gladys Berejiklian. Like it was it was. I know, Tom. I'm friendly with Tom. I would like to think we were friends. But the grilling was so bad. I walked away going What the fuck just happened there? Why did I get grilled so bad about climate change being an election issue? And it was of course, before these floods and before La Nina. Yeah. And it fucking is an election issue. I reckon it's the number one election issue around the country right now.

Lewis Hobba  38:58  
Well, the other crazy thing is obviously Tom's a very dear friend of mine. But hey, we were Triple J for many years together. And every year hack would do a giant survey of the entire country of being like, what is the number one issue? And for young Australians every fucking year for like the last five years? It's been climate change. He's seen the research. He knows. He sees the same research. We get told that every year Oh my God. Oh, my

Dan Ilic  39:21  
God. Damon, thank you so much. We'll put the links to folks where folks can go see Regenerate Australia in the show notes. So please go check that out. How can people support you otherwise 

Damon Gameau  39:30  
Take some action on climate change. That'd be good. I've got a few social media accounts. And then we have a platform called the regenerators, which we're just about to launch, which is a big hub for Regenerative storytelling and actions linked to organisations that are doing things we've got a new sort of social platform where you can share ideas of people right around the world that are doing these kinds of solutions and learn from them. And so that all comes online in two weeks. So look out for that the regenerated, excellent

Dan Ilic  39:52  
a new social media platform. Well, I can't wait to get on there and share some views about ivermectin. 

Damon Gameau  39:57  
No, it's a social action platform.

Dan Ilic  39:58  
Oh okay. Alright.

Damon Gameau  40:00  
It's for people that actually do stuff, which I think we really need right now. Please yeah, jump on and start an ivermectin pod and a hydric- hydrochloric oxiquilin or whatever it's called.

Dan Ilic  40:11  
That's it for a rational fear. Big thank you to all of our Patreon members. Thank you so much also to the Bertha Foundation, Jacob Round of Tepanyaki timeline. Rode mics we have comedy festival tickets on sale now please check out arationalfear.com for that information or comedy.com.au you for that information. And just reminding everyone once again, it's the biggest room in Melbourne, and we really need you to buy tickets.

Lewis Hobba  40:35  
But genuinely it's gonna be amazing. Like, I was shocked like I was excited about about doing the show love going back to you know, the my birthplace to do comedy. Yeah, loving it. But then when I saw that lineup, I was like, Oh, this would be fucking great. Everyone should come to this. We had

Dan Ilic  40:51  
sometimes a code on our on our comedy festival show last year, and that was awesome. This year. Right? Grace, Grace is actually going to do comedy. She's not an interview guest. She's actually going to do comedy. I think Grace time is one of the funniest people.

Lewis Hobba  41:03  
I know. She's gonna be so much funnier thank us. It's gonna be fucking demoralising. It's gonna be like, obviously, it's gonna be a hobby for you, and you better at it than me.

Dan Ilic  41:18  
It's really good. I'm excited and hopefully we can get Grace, Gabby and Alice to maybe collab something that will be fun. Also, I'm going to try and find one. There's like we got one spot left on stage. So I'm going to be hunting down one more big awesome name to join us on

Lewis Hobba  41:33  
Dave Hughes ladies and gents.

Dan Ilic  41:37  
I saw Dave Hughes down the road in Bondi Beach the other day and he's like, Dan, what are you doing? I'm just going for a swim. I'm like come on the podcast. He's like you've got my details, just tell me like, I think I'll lose some patreon supporters if you come on the podcast Dave.

Lewis Hobba  41:52  
You'll fill out the Forum in 30 seconds.

Dan Ilic  41:55  
Big thank you to everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for this great conversation. And Damon, good luck with the tour.

Damon Gameau  42:00  
Thanks. All the best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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This is the 4th Episode of the monthly spin-off podcast from A Rational Fear:

Julia Zemiro Asks 'Who Cares?' 

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) and I 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:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261

And subscribe to our Patreon so we can keep making shows like this for you:

https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

THANK YOU TO

Julia, Jen, & Astrid.
Rode Microphones,
The Bertha Foundation,
Jacob Round.
Jess Harwood for the amazing artwork.
and our Patreon Supporters.

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

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

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We're joined this week by fearmongers:

Steve Hili
Lauren Edwards
Lewis Hobba 
and Dan Ilic

And we cover:

• Tim Wilson vs Signage in Goldstein 
• Rest in peace Queen Elizabeth? 
• The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

And in EXTRA FEAR only available on Patreon or Apple Subscription we ask Brynn O'Brien from Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility about the $10 billion buy out of major polluter AGL — https://www.accr.org.au/ 

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• See Lauren in 'Everything Is A Lie' at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 
• Follow Steve on Twitter for upcoming tour dates and other news

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-----------------------

Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation. 

Dan Ilic  0:04  
G'day Lewis.

Lewis Hobba  0:05  
Hello, Daniel. How are you?

Dan Ilic  0:07  
Good. You look so much better than you did last week.

Lewis Hobba  0:10  
Thank you. Yeah, I feel a million times better. I'm still not at 100 I'm probably at like 80% but I am yeah. Mostly recovered from COVID. Back on deck backhoe work ready to talk about World War Three.

Dan Ilic  0:23  
I'm glad you recovered just in time for the most dire times. Hey, we got a new joke. Keep a poster up at about in Sutherland Shire. Let me share it with you. I took a trip out to southern China to take a photo of it. It says Hawaiian hideaway for when things get too hot at home. This is bushfire sale now on so if you live near Sutherland station or you want to take a trip to southern station, go check it out.

Lewis Hobba  0:48  
And take yourself I don't think you can take a train trip in Sydney at the moment. So probably strike the Uber. You

Dan Ilic  0:54  
have to get an Uber take an Uber does other than station. Also, Louis. I've sent out the final perk for jokey but it's only taken 24 weeks. But finally, there's a guy who lives in Colorado. He runs a ski tech company. He ordered a plaque. And this is it here I'll shout it. It's a bronze plaque. And it says during a national crisis, the Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison stood on this spot and did nothing so that that is gonna go to Colorado for some reason. So that's fantastic. Big thank you to Steve for that.

Lewis Hobba  1:27  
That's beautiful.

Dan Ilic  1:28  
It is made it took forever to bake. But you know, it's also what was a massive success was the reordering of irrational fear. Last year, last week, we actually picked up nine new Patreon subscribers so big thank you to everyone who signed up to here extra fear, which is the phrase we're going with. It's not going with lend me your fears. Would you believe? Interesting?

Lewis Hobba  1:49  
Interesting. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, extra fee is a bit simpler. A little less fun.

Dan Ilic  1:54  
Yeah, but you know, so our listeners are simple people. They simple. Like big ideas. Simple folk, like big ideas.

Lewis Hobba  2:01  
I disagree. I think they logged my my lend me your fee is based.

Dan Ilic  2:06  
When you go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear, you get to listen to extra fear. Also, you get discounted tickets to our live shows. And we we are working on a new live show for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Put it in your diary. It's not on sale yet. But April 10 5pm. At the forum. It's it's definitely day after your show, Louis? Yeah.

Lewis Hobba  2:31  
Oh, God. Yes. Okay. It's a Sunday. Yes. Sunday, Sunday. Yeah, great. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't announced the other show, by the way. So Cafe all right. No, no, no,

Dan Ilic  2:40  
no, no. Yeah. So if you want to come to irrational fear, live on stage, we are going to play the biggest room we have ever played, Louis. It's 580 seater, which is also great. If we if it's half full, it's good for social distancing. So we're about at the forum. We're gonna play the forum, the big the big room at the forum. Yeah. I love the forum. It's beautiful. It's very exciting. So please come along to that. Tickets should be on sale. Hopefully at the end of the week.

Lewis Hobba  3:04  
It's so have you been to the new forum. I don't think we're nice enough for that theatre. Like that's, it's a really nice theatre, we're gonna need to do like a dance number.

Dan Ilic  3:13  
Okay, all right, let's do a dance number. I'm trying to get some I'm trying to get at least one really, really big name to come join us. So I'm excited. So should we go out a little known up and comer called Louis hubba is gonna make sure it's good. At the very end of this podcast tonight. Also, I'll be telling you about a brand new special election project that I'm working on Philly election and how you can be a part of it. So skip to the end. If you wanna hear about that. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on Gadigal Land of the coronation sovereignty was never said we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Voice Over  3:45  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, and gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  3:59  
Tonight after contracting COVID-19 Clive Palmer is rushed to hospital with symptoms coming out of an overdose of irony. And the summer of sequels continues to roll on as World War three kicks off in Europe but critics say it's incredibly derivative. And Sydney has had the wettest summer in over 30 years. But what is the cause La Nina or elbows new pictures? It's the 25th of February and we're not on strike. This is A Rational fear.

Welcome to A Rational fear. I'm your host, former chairman of Perth airport, Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that hold your hands through the scariest stories in the news. And we've got a couple of first time fear mongers on the show tonight which is very exciting. Vice magazine says he has the energy of a dog that needs to be taken out. But you know, he's basically book this podcast on the strength of his solo show name which is the sexy environmental So please keep your IPCC in your pants and welcome Steve Haley. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Hili  5:06  
Hello, everybody. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  5:08  
thank you. How did you feel to know that device wanted to put you down?

Steve Hili  5:13  
I know, I know. It was that just that came from. So I've done a gig. I've done a tour in Romania. Visa these up. It was very weird. By the end of the night they Yeah, it's kind of a compliment, right. Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of proud of it. But I've also Yeah, I mean, once the

Lewis Hobba  5:37  
Steve a lot of people would pay money to watch a dog on stage going so crazy that it had to be put down not people that you like, necessarily, yeah, come to your show, but people would pay pay and people would also pay money during the show to say, you know, what would happen to that talk?

Steve Hili  5:53  
Yeah, very true. And you know, again, with with the way I look at my ethnicity, some you might get some people you might enjoy me being taken out. Depending where you are in the world. So yeah, so that happens and it was lots of fun. No, it was actually it was a it was a lovely talk. And I managed to get a good quote out of it.

Dan Ilic  6:18  
And she's the host of what in the world is going on podcast and she calls herself an anti inspiration influencer so please try not to be inspired by Lauren Edwards. Welcome Lauren.

Lauren Edwards  6:29  
Oh, thank you so much. I'm just on the dog thing I'd be a two hour by the way. Dogs that's who I am in person small and terrifying. So thank you so much.

Dan Ilic  6:39  
And they call his legs the twin towers for good reason. It's Louis hobo.

Lewis Hobba  6:43  
That's right. Because all the jokes I think I have to conspiratorial Joe can't melt them.

Dan Ilic  6:54  
Coming up later, in extra fear. We talk good friend of the show. Bryn O'Brien from the Australian Centre for corporate responsibility about how the mike cannon Brookes takeover bid of AGL came to be and where it'll go from here. We'll also ask her, what will it take for Mike cannon Brooks to buy irrational fear. But first, here's a message for this week's sponsor.

Bland Power  7:15  
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 by go past 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 effort to tackle climate change. So if you want to stick your head in the sand and feel it get hotter and hotter, why not give the Liberal Party of Australia ago today bland power helping you vote better?

Dan Ilic  7:58  
I do not recommend this week's first hear Tim Wilson loves free speech just not from his electric I don't even know this guy is an IPA member freedom loving libertarian is an MP. He basically hit his social media hard this week to alert everyone in his electorate that if you support Zoe Daniel by putting up a sign in your yard, you could be a law breaker. His tweet said that law breakers shouldn't be law makers fake independents have profited by selling signs to households that they know they're going to get a fine. So much for integrity. First of all, this doesn't sound like law breaking just sounds like democracy. Second of all, the council came out to say, yeah, it's okay.

Lewis Hobba  8:41  
What was his problem with it? What did what did he say was illegal about the sign?

Dan Ilic  8:45  
He said he said that basically it contravenes Council laws that if you put up a sign on your own property, it counts as advertising and you need a permit. And if you don't have a permit, for a sign promoting, you know, other candidates, then you could get a fine from the council. So it's not so much a law, more like you're just kind of breaking Council regulations.

Unknown Speaker  9:05  
I mean, does he know that Josh Frydenberg has got signs all up around Kooyong where I live? Like, is he upset about that? Because they are everywhere?

Dan Ilic  9:12  
What is it like living in Kooyong at the moment with all those?

Lauren Edwards  9:17  
Oh, it's very blue. It also makes me feel very poor. Living in the crappiest apartment in Kooyong basically.

Lewis Hobba  9:25  
You don't have your own tennis court.

Lauren Edwards  9:28  
No, actually. We sold it to develop another high rise. I was very sad. But you know, we've got to make money somehow.

Steve Healy  9:39  
I was reading about this guy, this Tim Wilson guy because I was I was doing a little bit of research for this for this show. Right? And I was I found out he's He was apparently defended some anti vaxxers Then they because he said he said that he was that they that it's that he's in favour of freedom of speech, obviously. Yeah, as long as the anti vaxxers message isn't on a billboard.

Lewis Hobba  10:04  
Though they can pay for the billboard, it just can't be in their yard. Here's what I mean. I saw some interactions about it. And I saw someone reposting an old quote of his on one of his free speech thought experiments, which is where someone was like, Okay, you believe in the totality of free speech. Let's deal with a situation here. Where you know, we're at an Outback pub and a publican throws out someone for being black refuses to serve them. What What would you say to that? He said absolutely fine. Totally fine. That's that's free speech. That's freedom of action. He is free to throw throw out that person and then the community is free to boycott that establishment and that is just free market doing its job. So that's the kind that's the Tim

Lauren Edwards  10:48  
Wilson also blocked me on Twitter for being mean to him so I mean, I you know, to me like that's the free market baby people.

Steve Hili  10:56  
What did you do?

Lauren Edwards  11:01  
Oh, look, I'm not gonna be really honest here. I, I troll a lot of local politicians. So I'm pretty sure that it was something about franking credits and I was just a sassy bitch to him basically, and I've been blocked by a few Liberal Party members so I honestly don't remember what it was about, but it was something about franking credits.

Dan Ilic  11:21  
People on Twitter are getting really upset of me about me liking his tweets and I'm only liking them for they stay in my feed,

Lauren Edwards  11:26  
so you can save them.

Dan Ilic  11:29  
So when he does say something dumb, I can jump on it pretty quickly. Just so upset that you know, I'm going about liking stuff that don't like his tweets. I keep seeing them and like well, you know, you don't use Twitter

Lauren Edwards  11:40  
to save the brain can't keep up with all the free speech that

Steve Hili  11:44  
does sound a little bit like a Prince Andrew excuse.

Dan Ilic  11:53  
Yeah, I like those. Yeah. This is great. I really enjoyed it so much soon as Bayside clarified the rules for putting up signs Samantha maiden from the Herald Sun. The Chief Political reporter said this absolutely dead from laughing. Sam is one of the best journalists in Australia and it's great to see her having a laugh.

Lewis Hobba  12:18  
It's like lawmakers should probably be across the law before they call other people on Rikers.

Dan Ilic  12:23  
That's right. Yeah. Does this make Tim Wilson a low faker? Now? Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  12:28  
I'm a lawmaker up that's my bit. Yeah, lawmaker

Lauren Edwards  12:30  
app. I like that. It's

Dan Ilic  12:32  
so strange. Like it's so strange little kind of speech. He's willing to die like what kind of he'll is willing to die on like, this is a guy Tim Wilson is a gay man. And I think he said more on signage of signage in Bayside Council then the trampling of LGBT rights and the religious discrimination Bill was like he's got more tweets, more tweets and local local ordinances

Lewis Hobba  12:54  
across the floor. He crossed the floor to stop that signage. Daniels

Lauren Edwards  13:03  
No, absolutely not. It's very typical conservative politicians, you know, free speech, free speech and you know, everyone can say whatever they like and you're all a bunch of snowflakes until someone says something that I don't like because that really,

Lewis Hobba  13:15  
he said was like vote for me. It wasn't even like Tim Wilson. I am also running in his democratic election. He's like no rational fear,

Voice Over  13:25  
social progress. And that's what I fight for as much as economic progress. But you like redistributing wealth upwards you know, I want actually people to have a chance of being able to carve their own ladder and stand on their own two feet. And like people the ABC

your fear is rational.

Dan Ilic  13:41  
This week second fear the Queen is Dead. According to a Hollywood blog three days ago, Hollywood unlocked made the call claiming that they had spoken to sources close to Buckingham Palace. And so those sources chose to speak with Hollywood and locked out of every other publication in the world. Steve is someone from the UK what counts as a source close to Buckingham Palace? Well,

Steve Hili  14:05  
the guy she said it was a source close to the United Kingdom France right So to be fair, to be fair, the queen as look like she's been dead since 2004 hasn't really so. So it's not it's not I mean, I I'll be honest, I if if this really did happen if somebody leaked this news, the Hollywood unlocked then people in the palace of sweating apart from Prince Andrew

Dan Ilic  14:37  
we gonna need some kind of a bell to Yeah, there we go. That's

Steve Hili  14:50  
I've been looking into this I think that now this is I shit you know, this is what they say that they think that the reporter is. The name is His name's Jason Lee or something. He may have got confused. Because Mark Lonergan, who's the lead singer of the Queens of the Stone Age, he unfortunately passed away. And so this guy, for some reason thought that that meant that the Queen passed away. So it's just a case of mistaken identity. I mean,

Lauren Edwards  15:25  
it can happen like Prince Andrew really.

Steve Hili  15:31  
I mean, you know, members of the royal very look like different things, right? Prince Charles looks like a foot with a fungal infection. People look like.

Dan Ilic  15:42  
There was a time when the prince of Jordan died. Mariah Carey got up at a press conference to say, Can we just take a moment? Remember Michael Jordan, he was such a great basketball player.

Steve Hili  15:56  
Yeah, I remember that. 

Dan Ilic  15:57  
So, look, I think there's a lot of there's a lot of hubbub about the Queen dying this week, because people aren't quite sure the bit of conspiracy theories going around. I just went to Google and I typed is the into Google? Yes. How many out of the 10 autocompletes. on auction? How many were about the claim after typing in is the

Steve Hili  16:17  
All right. 

Lewis Hobba  16:19  
Three

Steve Hili  16:19  
I was gonna say seven. Yeah

Louis is closest to but the top one one is the iPhone. So Jane waterproof. And then the second one is the Queenstown live, and then followed by the third one is the iPhone 11 water proof. Followed by his Ukraine pattern, NATO. And then finally, is the queen sick. So you know, there's a lot there's a lot of people's minds on the internet people are really concerned.

Lauren Edwards  16:45  
Well, I mean, someone needs to tell the mothers of Australia, you know, all the all the mums need to know about the queen, my mother would be very upset. She doesn't know about this,

Dan Ilic  16:52  
and they want to know finds a waterproof too, which is great.

Lewis Hobba  16:54  
Well, did you see a story? It's only tangentially Queen related but the bastion of journalistic integrity here in Australia, do the story on the Queen getting COVID I'm talking of course, about a source we turn to often A Current Affair. They did a story on the Queen getting COVID and they interviewed a medical expert from Melbourne a doctor and they were as they were, they had the obviously pre recorded interview of this doctor, and they were just chucking up footage. So he was they were saying, you know, what sort of treatment is the queen going to be getting and this doctor was saying, you know, the queen will basically be getting what everybody gets, depending on how bad it is a variety of different things. And the current affair editors put up a photo of ivermectin. Oh, so, the doctor never mentioned either. But no one mentioned ivermectin, A Current Affair just for like, you know, the normal things that we talk about here on A Current Affair. The things that work like ivermectin,

Dan Ilic  17:50  
yeah. Cohen's I'm gonna use hosting woman. She's gonna use Corgi dewormer. That's.

Lewis Hobba  18:00  
I mean, she does love racehorses, right but she probably has a bit of ivermectin in one of our stables so yes, a lot of shares and ivermectin, I would say, yes. So they, they immediately apologise they took it down, they re edited and put it up but as you can imagine, the people who believe in ivermectin when they see a story that says the queen is taking either acted and then they say it taken down and then put back up without it and that has fueled like millions and millions of views curacy theories of people just going what is the queen know that we don't like the queen knows that works

Dan Ilic  18:34  
to that community

is one of the subjects of HR ah,

well yeah, I mean, she's she's on the money isn't she? God we don't

Lewis Hobba  18:51  
play for our cricket team.

Dan Ilic  18:55  
As a subject that's close to the cleaning layer like how do you feel this must be a very strange moment where you're not quite sure you know what's gonna happen with cleaning?

Steve Hili  19:04  
Well, I mean, I honestly I'm I'm very chilled out about the whole

Dan Ilic  19:12  
idea if we had Adam Hills on the show he'd be very upset because he's now a Sir He's got an MBA these days. Oh, well,

Steve Hili  19:18  
lucky. Yeah, obviously he's doing much better than me. If I if I was to be a sir I'm sure I would also suck up to him. As as it happens, I'm not I mean, obviously you don't want anyone to die there. Yeah. That

Dan Ilic  19:36  
this comment for a man with dominant chlorin YouTube to clean did die but they're trying to get a porn to the other side before someone else.

Lauren Edwards  19:45  
I don't know chess, but that's a good reference.

Journalist  19:49  
Every Australians within their rights to see you as being a hypocrite given how much electricity you consume in that big house. 

Interviewee  19:57  
My electricity consumption is actually negative. 

Journalist  20:00  
You don't think this is going to have an impact on retail prices? If you take over AGL 

Interviewee  20:04  
I do think it'sgonna have an impact on retail prices. I think we're gonna bring retail prices down 

Voice Over  20:08  
a rational fear. 

Dan Ilic  20:09  
This week's third fear it's on Russia has invaded Ukraine. understandable if a country consistently gives you zero points on Eurovision year after year, that's the kind of behaviour that you should just assume is inevitable. Of course, Russia is saying it's not an invasion, the foreign minister is saying that it's merely a group of soldiers going on vacation and soon they'll be back home in their barracks fully rested you Western scum. So not an invasion, according to Russia. But Australia has put sanctions on Russia, which I can only assume means not giving them neighbours early or humming away. Oh, no, they actually hear the actual sanctions, right. Australia has put travel bands for the eight members of Russia's Security Council. This is a big move for a country, ie Australia that until Monday allowed no one to travel to the country. This is restrictions on imports, also from Crimea and Sevastopol. I mean, what are Australians importing from there? I can only assume like depleted uranium vodka, Twitter followers.

Yeah. Lauren, let me ask you, what is this invasion really about for you?

Lauren Edwards  21:21  
I mean, I think it's just about Dick swinging, isn't it? Isn't that the whole idea? You know, from what I understand is that Vladimir Putin has been slowly but surely chipping away at democracy for however long and now it seems to be. He's getting to towards his imperialism that he's been looking for for a while. But for me, I'd like to know, you know, do the anti lockdown people of Australia know about this? Because, you know, they're very upset about dictators and taking over and freedom. And I haven't heard a word from them about this. So I'm just a bit confused. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

Lewis Hobba  21:55  
Yeah, they've actually imposed quite a lot of restrictions in the Ukraine of their citizens to try to stay home during the invasion. That's a real double tick.

Lauren Edwards  22:04  
I feel like someone should tell the lockdown advocates and they should get over there really quick.

Steve Hili  22:09  
As a Brit, we said that we're going to respond decisively. That's what Boris said. That usually means he's going to have a party.

Lewis Hobba  22:20  
Do we think all of this could have been avoided if all those years ago when Tony Abbott said he was going to share it front Putin? And everyone in Australia was like this psycho. What are you doing? You're an idiot. And maybe in retrospect, we were all wrong. And maybe we should have let Tony just go over there and throw in hands like best case scenario. He beats Vladimir Putin, freeze Russia from the oppressive, you know, regime, worst case scenario, he loses and we get to watch Tony Abbott get punished. Like, to me, it's sort of a win win. That's That's true.

Dan Ilic  22:53  
Steve, who you have no idea what we're talking about. Back in 2014. No idea. Back in 2014. It may win MHC and 17 got shut down our prime minister then Tony Abbott, who is a raging minor Kirsten, you know, tough guy. He said he was going to shirt front, Vladimir Putin. And basically they're all that's an AFL term, isn't it? Lewis you're gonna grab someone by their shirt,

Lewis Hobba  23:15  
grab, grabbed him by the shirt and punch them in the chin.

Dan Ilic  23:19  
So here's the grab. Here's the grab here. I'll play it for you see if you can hear it. Look, I'm going to shift from Mr. Putin.

Lauren Edwards  23:27  
The Russians you already have?

Dan Ilic  23:29  
Yeah, just this great bit where he's like, I'm gonna show it from Mr. Putin. You bet I am. You bet. You know, like, just completely fuck it up. Incredible clip like it was a promise of one to one violence. Like that was the kind of diplomacy he was he was willing to do at that point.

Steve Hili  23:46  
It does feed into what a lot of the rest of the world thinks about Australia.

Lauren Edwards  23:51  
And what is that? Can you tell us what that is?

Steve Hili  23:54  
Well, basically, punch in Britain basically like Australia, but hasn't moved on in people's mind since Crocodile Dundee. So a lot of the I mean, I was having this conversation with someone the other day, he asked me who I thought the most famous Australians were. I couldn't get past Paul Hogan. Honestly.

Lewis Hobba  24:17  
He's not even an Australian citizen anymore.

Steve Hili  24:20  
Oh, yeah, I know, but tomato tomahto.

Dan Ilic  24:24  
We've had so many great exports since then, like Nicole Kidman. Hugh Jackman. Hannah Gatsby. Yeah, Ronny Chang will claim him sure of Russell Crowe. 

Lewis Hobba  24:35  
All the Hemsworths.

Dan Ilic  24:36  
Matthew Hemsworth, Luke Hemsworth. John and Steve.

Steve Hili  24:43  
But, but, ya know, still

Lewis Hobba  24:48  
still cracking I don't even think I've seen Crocodile Dundee.

Steve Hili  24:55  
Obviously, sanctions when you were talking about the sanctions. I'm like, What are they gonna say? Casselman Forex we're going into Moscow. Why is Australia gonna do?

Dan Ilic  25:05  
That's an absolutely fanboy. On that point, Nick Harcourt, who is a businessman was interviewing Vladimir Putin at APEC in 2007 in Sydney, and he asked, he asked Putin, he said, When I asked pertinent APEC, what do you think of Australia? He replied, I never think of Australia.

Lauren Edwards  25:26  
He's basically Mariah Carey. I don't know.

Lewis Hobba  25:29  
It's that classic. That famous sort of meme scene from Mad Men. You know, the one where there's a guy in an elevator talking to Don Draper. And he's like, you know, I think of you when you go home at night and how sad you must be. He goes on this whole tirade about how sad Don Draper is, and then there's a boss and Don Draper's turns around and goes, I didn't think of you at all. The elevator opens and it walks out. Oh, it's called.

Dan Ilic  25:57  
I want to give a big shout out to our Patreon supporters who all signed up to here extra fear Kaylee green Kelly Clark Trishna Lindsey guest Nicole Roz quirk, Tom bellus. A Bob bryozoa Travis more blas Philip Westbury and man with Dominic claw, who is one of our superfans, and I'm always pumping the show and read it. Thank you, man with Dominic claw. Before we get into extra fear, let's do some plugs. Steve and Lauren. You got to plug anything that shows coming up.

Steve Hili  26:23  
Right so hold on. I can you hear me? Yes. Oh, my cut out. Can you hear me now? We got it. Okay, you got me? Yeah, I so I'm not really Yeah, I don't really have anything big happening at the moment. But so so No, really? No. Thanks. for that. That was good. Yeah. Can you hear me?

Lewis Hobba  26:50  
Nothing on Yeah. How's my audio? Is this thing on? Yeah, no dates.

Steve Hili  26:55  
Follow me on Twitter. I've got some things that are happening in a few months time that I'm not really allowed to talk about yet. I will be able to talk about soon. So follow me on Twitter, Steve Healy, ha Li and all will be revealed there 

Dan Ilic  27:10  
and Lauren. You've got festival shows coming up?

Lauren Edwards  27:13  
I do. I've got my new Melbourne Comedy Festival show called Everything is a lie coming up. Not dissimilar from Vladimir Putin really coming up on April 18. For I think a week or so. And also follow me on on Instagram. I my handle is live laugh Lauren. For some anti inspiration, inspiration.

Dan Ilic  27:32  
Excellent. Now it's time for extra fear, extra extra fears extra level of fear, or extra extra extra fear extra. At the start of this week, there was a story that broke the made pretty much everyone in the do Gooding industrial complex spit out their coffee from their Cape cups. Australia's biggest polluter. AGL who is responsible for 8% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. That's one company who's responsible for pretty much the entirety of New Zealand's output. But in Australia had been bid on and been tried to be bought by friend of the show Mike cannon Brooks and Canadian capital fund Brookfield for $10 billion. The bid was an opening gambit by the billionaire it was rejected, but it's still in its early days and someone who knows all about the deal. And how it's put together is Brynn O'Brien for the Australian Centre of corporate responsibility. She's shaking her head she doesn't know. To hear that. You have to become a member of Patreon. You can we can hit subscribe on the rational feet extra channel on Apple podcasts. Brynn. Why should people pay a couple bucks to hear this chat?

Brynn O'Brien  28:37  
Look, if you're into insider trading, then you're not in luck. Don't have the inside scoop on it. If you want to hear a little bit of trash talking about the board of AGL then then that's why you should do it.

Dan Ilic  28:51  
That's on extra fear. So make sure you go ahead and do that. That is it for irrational fear. Big thanks to Steve Healy, Lauren Edwards, brain, O'Brien and Lewis haba. Also, big thank you to red Mike's the birth of foundation, our Patreon supporters and Jacob round. Until next week, there's always going to be scared off Good night. Oh, also, I'm starting a new thing. On Tuesday. If you give him your email to the irrational fear email list, you will find out something you find out about something called It's not a race. It's a content engine that is going to be ripping into fossil fuel funded candidates for the election. So if you want to know more about that, make sure you pop your email address into the rational fit email list. And I'll send you an email about that on Tuesday. And that's going to be something completely different to a rational field. So hang in there and check that out. So thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We're joined this week by fearmongers:

Georgia Hooper
James Fitzgerald
Lewis Hobba 
and Dan Ilic

And we cover:

• Clive Palmer's Waratah Coal Tademark Lapse
• Grace Tame's BONG 
• Russian doping 

PLUGS:

• 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

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

Heading into the election your support is going to be more crucial than ever!

Thank you FEARMONGERS!

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-----------------------

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

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We're joined this week by fearmongers:

Alice Tovey
Scout Boxall
Alice Fraser
and Dan Ilic

And we cover:

• Spies on dating apps
• The Religious Discrimination Bill
• That 60 minutes interview 
• The New Liberals 

PLUGS:

• See Scout Boxall in Buck Wild at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
• See Alice Tovey in One Night Only (Over Seven Nights) and The Melbourne Metropolitan Real Estate Agent of the Year Awards 2022 at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
• Support Alice Fraser on Patreon, and see Alice's show Chronos in Melbourne and Sydney  

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

Heading into the election your support is going to be more crucial than ever!

Thank you FEARMONGERS!

If you enjoyed this please drop us a review on Apple podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261

----------------

Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Hello,

Dan Ilic  0:05  
Alice Fraser, not Louis Harbour. Oh my goodness, Louis.

Alice Fraser  0:09  
However, unfortunately, for all involved except me, except me, I have made most of my career out of being the second person people call. And I'm very proud of that.

Dan Ilic  0:20  
Yeah, pour Louis, for folks tuning in, who may not also listen to Triple J drive. You this may be the first bit of news that you'll find that Lewis haba has COVID He's got the owner. He's got the spicy cough so easily. He can't join us. He gave me a call about 10 months before the show started. I said I know just the person who can fill in your big shoes. I was Fraser

Alice Fraser  0:42  
Yes. I mean, I feel like it's it's very sad that he has Coronavirus. It's one of those pieces of news though that you always feel like it should always have been the case. He is the I mean the for a grown man. He is the most like a Dickensian orphan I've ever met. He always not saying he's a sickly boy. I'm just saying that, you know if he coughs gently into a handkerchief, I wouldn't be surprised.

Dan Ilic  1:06  
Well, for me, I feel like well, Surely his sheer height puts him above the breathing height of everybody else. So he he unless he's crouching down his risk is quite low.

Alice Fraser  1:18  
Yeah, I think that's true. I have always noticed. Do you know vaping? Oh, yes. Do you know vaping? Yeah, you

Dan Ilic  1:25  
heard of vaping heard of vaping. Yeah, I know. Louis haba. Knows vaping

Alice Fraser  1:29  
I always thought that the the biggest feature of vaping as like a pre COVID thing was just knowing how big people's breath was. Because you could see you can actually see you can see Yeah, arguably vaping should be compulsory so that we can dodge a Coronavirus, or as

Dan Ilic  1:46  
Hey, big thank you to everybody who signed up to this week's Patreon I'm going to be hammering the Patreon over the next few months because we need you we need to join you need you to join up. If you love the show, please head to irrational fear.com forward slash Patreon Alice Fraser You have an exceedingly good Patreon wonderful community there. What is the top secret of running a Patreon community for me

Alice Fraser  2:08  
for you? Well, I do I do these salons where I talk to everyone and I treat them like people which is important. I don't know I just I just

Dan Ilic  2:17  
No offence to anyone my Patreon that sounds gross

Alice Fraser  2:21  
Well, I think of that like I support people on Patreon I like I support them because I'm super excited to be part of whatever they're doing. Like I want to be be a part of it. And so it's really nice like I just I just think well what would what would it be like to be a patron of me and what would I like? My own patron which I am I pay my own bills. Let me tell you

Dan Ilic  2:40  
where they go. irrational fear I think we are Patreon of yours at the very lowest level. I think it's like 50 cents a month. So it's great to be also us helping you out Alice right.

Alice Fraser  2:50  
We're gonna be talking to you like

Dan Ilic  2:54  
you also get discounted tickets to our live shows. We do have our 10 year anniversary show that has been rescheduled. It is going to be at the Opera House. So make sure you become a patron so you get a discounted ticket to that. Also you can see our us on stage with a special irrational fear show at the Judith Nielsen Institute. We're doing a show may 5. It's called is the Joker mightier than the word it's a show that satire be more powerful than journalism, right?

Alice Fraser  3:21  
I mean, it is it may 5 on May 9 Because I think you offered both and I said for one of them. I'm in Adelaide and it's May 5 Right so are you just telling me I'm off the bill. So

Dan Ilic  3:29  
I was frozen may not be on that bill, but we have to anyway, join the Patreon and you'll find it all the details is my point. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on the land of the Thoreau waltz sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start

Voice Over  3:42  
the show. A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by image your audience.

Dan Ilic  3:56  
Tonight the Minister for aged care Robert Colbeck promises to appear the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 after the next ashes test in Hobart and just in time for Valentine's Day when McDonald's is changing the shape of the nuggets box to contain a little heart cut out just to remind customers which final organ will be cut out after you eat their products. And according to The New York Times, Vladimir Putin could be planning something worse than war. His first ever solo show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival is the limit in February 2010 This is a rational

Yes, welcome. This is a rational fit. I'm your host, former Duke of York Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that puts the news in a blender with ginger and men so even the most awful stuff tastes okay. Let's make our fear mongers for tonight. While their day job is a CT transcriptionist, their passion is a blend of The Satta and finally organised cerebral chaos, which is why they're perfect for this show. irrational fear. Have your pencils ready? It's Scout Boxall

Scout Boxall  5:09  
Hello. Oh for having me. Oh my goodness. Now Scott has a court

Dan Ilic  5:14  
transcription is do you? Is it true? You talk really fast and one of those fancy machines?

Scout Boxall  5:18  
I typed so fast I typed about 97 words a minute to me. Yeah, I got the little magic thingies. I'm ready to go. I actually over in very cool news. I quit my day job. We're gonna give the performing arts ago My first step was appearing on this podcast for free

Dan Ilic  5:44  
$100 will pay you money. It's okay. Oh my goodness. Yeah, oh,

Scout Boxall  5:50  
my God reaches beyond my wildest dreams. I can't wait. I'm so stoked to be here. I would have done it for free. Anyway, I would have paid you for the privilege. Oh, great.

Dan Ilic  5:57  
Excellent. Well, I just made $100 And she holds a Bachelor of classical voice and masters screenwriting vci, which means she's completely overqualified for this podcast. It's singer songwriter and shit Sarah, Alice, Toby.

Alice Tovey  6:10  
Hello, Thank you, Dan. I'm qualified to do nothing with those pieces of paper.

Dan Ilic  6:16  
It's quite incredible. Like it like two degrees like in like the Super Fine Arts. That is. That is a commitment. Well done.

Alice Tovey  6:23  
It makes for great pub chat. Thank you, but really, they're just used to kind of cover the little crack in the wall of my main my rental property and that's

Dan Ilic  6:31  
right, excellent. And he's the co host of Triple J drive shows harbouring it's Louis harbour

Alice Fraser  6:40  
today, this one hour Actually, no, I'm gonna treat myself and just be Louis haba till midnight.

Scout Boxall  6:46  
What's your next step?

Dan Ilic  6:47  
Yeah. Yeah, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do next? What's the big fan

Alice Tovey  6:51  
back into a Fraser pumpkin? Naturally?

Alice Fraser  6:53  
Yeah, just slowly, slowly disintegrate back into myself. But I think what I will do just is revel in being tall for a bit revel in being tall.

Dan Ilic  7:00  
Yeah, Have some pity quips about Kanye West and

Alice Fraser  7:04  
go say using something high with my elbow?

Dan Ilic  7:07  
Yeah, can I can I recommend getting incredibly outraged about the quality of a quiche? That is something I know about the risk of

Alice Fraser  7:17  
such an injury that is such a specific joke. But even I Louis harbour about whom the joke is don't get the

Dan Ilic  7:23  
coming up. Later, we'll be talking with Sam Holland from the new liberals will ask him how long will it take to the new liberals to be around until they get to be called the old liberals. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor, and I really apologise this.

60 Minutes Voice Over  7:38  
Sunday 60 minutes goes behind the door to kirribilli house to present Australian politics like you've never seen before. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison Good morning calm and journalist cosplay calm Stephen pm Good morning to you. You know, our long suffering session very hard. Only for behind from Prime Minister to prime Daddy, I gotta tell you, I'm coming from breakfast television journalist to chief of scomo staff. Wow. It's 60 minutes of Walkley award winning 69 And then you put the finger through their watch cow Stefanova get lodged by Scott Morrison in the launch the big stick sounding

Dan Ilic  8:25  
on nine and nine now. I would like to see if you would marry me. Love you man. That'll make sense a little bit later on. More on 60 minutes later, but this week's first fear spies are on the dating apps and they're doing much more than invading your DMS ASIO DG Mike Burgess confirmed that that some espionage and foreign interference with democracy when we within Australia has now supplanted terrorism as the nation's principal security concern. He was thinking the nation's principal security concern was allowing religious groups to discriminate against kids that don't either work out but know. According to ASIO spies are using social media and dating apps to mine confidential information from 1000s of Australians with classified information. The DJ said ASIO is also tracking suspicious approaches on dating apps such as tinder, Bumble and hinge.

Alice Fraser  9:21  
What counts as a suspicious approach then is it like respectful? Like doesn't pick very

Dan Ilic  9:28  
immediately that is very suspicious. Yeah, yeah. It is very strange. Like, what would a suspicious approach be? Would it be like, Hey, want to come around for some Netflix and state secrets? Is that like, the first line that people would do? I

Alice Tovey  9:41  
dance as if single people didn't have enough to worry about already. Like, you've got to find someone who makes you laugh who likes those long walks on the beach, and now you got to make sure their terrorist cell looks promising. 

Scout Boxall  9:54  
I just think it's like it's insane. To me. I'm wondering whether it's like men are getting more likely to be catfished on This because I feel like women on dating apps are so suspicious all the time. And I bet I can't. It's done. It's stunning to me. I mean, how lonely do you have to be to get into bed with the enemy literally sleep? No, that's only I mean, I

Dan Ilic  10:17  
look next to it all the time. The movies like James Bond loves to get stuck on like that, you know that. That's, that's, that's, you know, that's what happens. See, I

Alice Fraser  10:25  
take this story really personally, because whenever I lose a friend from my life, they sort of just evaporate or disappear. I decided to because they're a spy now. And so they can't have contact with their own life. And that's how I soothe my feelings.

Alice Tovey  10:39  
And now  they're Mrs spy. 

Scout Boxall  10:42  
That sounds super healthy. Alice, I can't wait for you to unpack that in a Medicare rebate a therapy session. That's fantastic. I am I actually have a personal element to this because my mom dated a spy. Australian spy. Yeah, yeah. In the 80s before she met my dad, from the Treasury Department. So way less interesting. But she got fully vetted. Like they'd been dating for about nine months, he was going to pop the question. And so like some ASIO guys came over and asked her a bunch of questions. She was working in the treasury at the time, and so she passed with flying colours, and then she broke up with him. So

Dan Ilic  11:15  
did you trashed it? Did she get any state secrets while she was dating here?

Scout Boxall  11:19  
No, but she realised how gullible she was like, she was like, yeah, he just kept going on the se trips to Iran. And I just thought that sounds that sounds exotic. That sounds fun. Not sure what you're doing there for CSIRO. But I'm sure there's something interesting going on. So she's a smart lady. But she's she's booksmart not street smart. Well,

Dan Ilic  11:37  
I mean, I mean, here's something like my dad worked for ASIO. And my mom and dad dated after Oh, no, my mom dad stated as he was still working for ASIO. So they I mean, but you know, did she No. Yeah, I think eventually. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Each

Alice Tovey  11:54  
to write things with pens, and then turn into little cameras and guns, just like something's going on. 

Scout Boxall  11:59  
Everything in the house is invisible angel is like always an eye in there ready to warm up the lemon juice. You can see the secret message.

Dan Ilic  12:06  
Yeah, it was like, Please tidy, please take out the beans. But it was written in lemon ink. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't dad has never divulged any information. From his time working in ASIO. I just assumed that he was chasing down Croatian separatists that were running around the country at the time. Back in back in the 60s. So yeah. That's some really hard questions before. Before. Yeah,

Scout Boxall  12:28  
once the state speak once the state Secrets Act is expired, like

Alice Fraser  12:34  
30 More than 30 years, my dad has to know an ex CIA agent who became a meditation teacher. Oh, my God. Is that just this podcast and after

Dan Ilic  12:46  
he became a meditation teacher to deal with these PTSD?

Scout Boxall  12:49  
I was about to say he was in he was

Alice Fraser  12:51  
in Southeast Asia working for the CIA and he became interested in the Oriental religions and then interested he didn't want to keep murdering people for fun. It probably

Dan Ilic  13:01  
was a cover up of like, okay, now say hum, and also what your password is, or, Yes,

Scout Boxall  13:09  
transfixing. And I'd like and that's the dining. It's like, if you can get if you can look, if you can fuck them good enough. A little pillow talk at the end. It's like so um, what was the name of your first pet? What would be the last four numbers of your Medicare number? Just like off the bat, just like I'm so interested in you.

Alice Fraser  13:28  
I mean, if you're talking after sex, you're doing it wrong.

Scout Boxall  13:34  
Yeah, you should have your vocal cords absolutely excoriated. You shouldn't be able to make a word. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  13:39  
Normally, I wouldn't play a clip from Senator James Patterson. But he did make a pretty good point on on this issue. He also sits on the joint committee for intelligence and security.

James Patterson  13:49  
Let's remember that. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you're a six, and there are 10. It might not be your looks that they've been charmed by it might be your access to classified information.

Dan Ilic  14:02  
As someone who's a five that is very cutting is very.

Alice Tovey  14:06  
Dan, can I just say that that is a scathing recommendation from the Ministry for negging just

David Speers  14:15  
Do you agree with the sentiment that keeping wages at a relatively modest level is a deliberate feature of our economic architecture to actually drive jobs growth? Absolutely not. And Bill Shorten to even suggest that I think is actually coining I'm quoting Mateus coolmath finance minister here, Minister, your colleague,

Voice Over  14:36  
he's absolutely right. Your fear is rational.

Dan Ilic  14:40  
This week's second fear after three years of threatening and with only three sitting days of Parliament left the coalition tried and then failed to pass a religious discrimination bill which in terms would kind of allow religious organisations to do more discriminating array freedom to discriminate? It's just what Jesus would have wanted. At 5am Thursday morning, the debate was still raging with the five liberals crossing the floor to vote with Labour and the cross benches in support of amendments that the independents put up to abolish the rights of religious schools to discriminate against gay and trans kids. Five liberals cross the floor which is pretty extraordinary now responding to criticism levelled at him by ministers of his own party Scott Morrison said I don't feel betrayed. I don't feel upset I don't feel much anything because that's the benefit of being a complete psycho. So fear mongers Did you solve this bill go down. Why does God need to help the Australian Christian lobby scout?

Scout Boxall  15:37  
Oh my god I'm so this bill hits pretty close to home for me. I went to a religious private school is a little kiddo. And as a bait Basically, first of all, I want to give a shout out to the five MPs who broke ranks. So Bridget Archer, Trent Zimmerman, Fiona Martin, Katie Allen and Dave Sharma. Like congrats to you guys for showing that good people can get in the way of a bad build, you know what I mean? But um, I think the thing that really worries

Alice Fraser  16:04  
me is pushing it.

Scout Boxall  16:07  
But but you know what I mean? Like, it's nice to see like a skerrick of conscience in the liberal party like and even if, you know, I fundamentally disagree on them on literally everything else they do. That's one good thing they did do. The sad thing now is that, like, we're now going into election where this could potentially be, like, a debate issue, like and I just really worry that trans and queer kids in schools are essentially going to get thrown under the bus as the liberal party tries to like not like themselves, like split into different factions. And it's just it's, it's really disheartening to see that like, you can Yeah, it's it's really disheartening, so it's actually been like a really, really tough week for the community. I can

Dan Ilic  16:45  
I can totally imagine it's so weird that this political football has even come into play because it's just pure culture war bullshit that absolutely doesn't need to happen I don't know if you know anything about the country right now but there's a bunch of other stuff that needs to kind of get done

Alice Tovey  17:02  
it's like a little glob yellow pen Nene going on. It's also pretty rude for like trans people to be used as political footballs when they've been historically excluded from sport

Dan Ilic  17:13  
that's a no comment. So my place to comment on

Alice Tovey  17:16  
that No, I can comment on that and I can say that's a good joke Alice 

Scout Boxall  17:20  
thank you 

Alice Tovey  17:23  
I just want to be a political little hockey puck to cut me on the ice baby I got no I got in my house. Boiling right now. Oh, my goodness.

Dan Ilic  17:30  
It's so cheap that this whole community has to be this political football at this time. Like no one needs that when there's so so much other stuff that the government actually needs to get done.

Alice Fraser  17:40  
Done. I think it's a problem that's gonna solve itself if we ignore climate change long enough and focus on this kind of stuff. Eventually, everyone will just be floating around neck deep in water and you won't have to worry about any kind of gender presentation still have gills and be fish

Scout Boxall  17:57  
as no segregated change rooms in the apocalypse. Ever everyone ships at the end of the day, maybe? 

Voice Over  18:04  
A Rational Fear. The reality is if we if you have to disclose all of your donors, people won't donate to

Dan Ilic  18:10  
a rational fear. This week's third fear Jenny Morrison is going primetime in what appears to be the puffy first of all puff pieces. 60 minutes is doing a soft lens job on Scott Morrison to curry favour with the audience no doubt. Well, Dan, Dan, I was gonna say that silence was me cutting up my comedy card.

Scout Boxall  18:28  
Oh my god the curry.

Dan Ilic  18:33  
Sam maiden wrote up a piece based on a car Stefanova interview, which Carl said the following quote regarding their 2020 trip to why also Jenny makes a killer Margarita, which is kind of strange with the whole Hawaii thing. I don't know if anyone's told Carl, but Margarita is out from Hawaii.

They're not from Hawaii,

Alice Fraser  18:53  
easily and they're a kind of pizza.

Dan Ilic  18:57  
cow goes on to say the textile scandals. I mean, there's nothing she doesn't address and she's you know, she's herself. I don't think she's the person who's manipulated by Pr boffins. She's real. I think she connects in a real way that's open and honest. incredibly refreshing. fear mongers. Why? Why does it sound like that Jenny would make a better Prime Minister than Scott Morrison.

Alice Tovey  19:18  
Because she would at this stage she used wad of paper towel would be better than Scott Morrison. At this point in time.

Dan Ilic  19:26  
We're going to play hang on a sec. Now. I'm going to play the the trailer to the 60 minutes piece. It's gonna get to it on Sunday. If you want to joke, just yell out hang on a sec. And I'll stop the tape. Here we go.

Alice Fraser  19:36  
I will say pause for a minute because I don't do colloquialisms.

Dan Ilic  19:40  
Okay, very good. You could say pause for a minute. All right, here we go. Let's play pause for a minute. Here we go. Ready? Here we go.

60 Minutes Voice Over  19:46  
Do you sleep we want in the toughest week?

Alice Tovey  19:51  
Yeah, a lot of lizards actually don't have eyelids so he probably always be sleepy but his eyes open.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
We'd like everybody it'll see. Of course I do. In the toughest,

Scout Boxall  20:03  
of course are minute. Q Q. Scott Morrison raising his hands to the camera and just showing his own stigmata. He bleeds for our sins everyone 

Alice Tovey  20:14  
we love the Catholic school joke Scouty

Alice Fraser  20:17  
I mean, also I liked the way that that question got asked of like, do you like you really like it really like as though that were a hard hitting question like, do you actually have blood

Scout Boxall  20:28  
Karl Stefanovic is really like the recapture. Like, are you human please take Can you see like three chimneys in the same that's like the extent of is

Alice Fraser  20:37  
exhausting when they say prove that you're human and you have to go off and live a full happy life. Eat me eventually die. And by then you've forgotten the Amazon password.

60 Minutes Voice Over  20:48  
Scott Morrison fights back, you might need more than a miracle this time. You might need the second coming. Well, I believe in that too.

Scout Boxall  20:56  
Oh, hang on a sec. I think he's ever made a woman come one way but also I love

Dan Ilic  21:09  
looking for my horn.

Scout Boxall  21:11  
It was such a flatulent one. I loved it. That's beautiful.

Alice Fraser  21:14  
Well, I just liked that he presented his like horrifying evangelical fervour as a kind of a fun perk of his personality. I believe in that too. And also not even gay people and you go okay, what well, you know There we go.

Unknown Speaker  21:30  
60 minutes behind the scenes in the kitchen cabinet. Observe the knives only from behind. Mr. launches his secret weapon.

Scout Boxall  21:41  
Hang on a sec. Oh, Jenny is a secret weapon. Really? Escaped guys. This is the secret weapon. Man. The secret weapon she's been the shield this whole time Jesus is the sword Jenny is the shield. She's the one that like, absorbs all of the flak all the insults and is the only woman who can bear to stand next to him on camera and be like, he's actually a really cool guy. 

Alice Tovey  22:05  
Jenny to Scott Morrison right now is like a very thick carpet that gets rolled over the road if there's nails on it so people can drive over and not get hurt.

Dan Ilic  22:16  
What would you say? He's 16 year old so

Scout Boxall  22:20  
hang on. Okay, genuine cry for help at this point. At what point do we go in and emancipate Jenny Morrison? Like she's just she's gazing out from these crazy eyes like yeah, I love this man and I love my country and I love Jesus Jenny Valle de Anza open like messengers anytime day or night we're here for you girl. Get some of the lemons make some invisible ink get one of those scholastic a Spy Kids you got you got for the kids. You can get out better you can get out slip into

Dan Ilic  22:47  
my DMs like a Chinese spy Jenny slip

60 Minutes Voice Over  22:51  
she's a night I actually felt sick to my stomach and so 

Alice Tovey  22:59  
hang on a sec. I mean yeah if scomo touched my leg like that like it was a teenage boy at a social here I'd feel sick to my stomach do can't believe he didn't leave room for Jesus on that couch. That is just uncalled for it was probably after she had one of his disgusting Gary's What is it with the man and curries all the time? Yeah, he thinks salt is a spice they're not gonna it's not gonna be a good curry. Let's let's

Alice Fraser  23:25  
not be unfair to Jenny. She's probably an absolute asshole as well.

Not assume that cheese

situation she's probably like giving him an oily massage being like a bit, you know, hot.

Scout Boxall  23:40  
Oh, go Layne Maxwell vibes, Lady Macbeth vibes

Alice Fraser  23:47  
the women in this situation. This feminist.

Scout Boxall  23:50  
I was just about to say Feminists can be absolute cants too. And that's, we love that. Then you can go to Hawaii to sink. Just hang on. Do soon. That was three years ago. It's not too soon. Hawaii is not too soon.

Dan Ilic  24:09  
When are we going to start talking about those bushfires from three years ago when when we get to talking about accountability? You know, everything is too soon for this government. Everything is too soon for Scott Morrison. He always waits until things become a crisis. Like it all starts with the anger then problem you know, it's basically builds and builds and builds and then it shuts his pants and this is the same the Engadine doctrine works right across this like putting here

60 Minutes Voice Over  24:33  
Sunday online and offline now.

Dan Ilic  24:38  
There we go. It wasn't that amazing. Who's excited? Anyone?

Scout Boxall  24:43  
I will genuinely be tuning in like it's it's like how you watch a live stream of some ferrets at the zoo. Like you just want to see what happens. There's not gonna be any substantive political debate or any like serious journalistic, you know, investigation but tiny insight into your evening of watching fair What's the zoo? Wanna Live? Yeah, what's the what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna come over here and fight me? You know? Watch it to Alice's Oh no.

Dan Ilic  25:10  
Next week we'll have three Alice's will just get up every week a new album. The 2022 federal elections are shaping up to be to be a bit of an interesting one, with the electorate becoming more and more suspicious of major parties. Many are turning to independents and minor parties and one of those minor parties has a pretty major name, the new liberals? Do they still believe in chambray shirts and chinos? Do they still believe in looking at refugees for an undetermined amount of time? Or are they like New Coke? They taste different? They're heavy on the fields. Joining us now from the new liberals is Sam Holland, who is 26 and he's going for the Queensland electorate of Ford. Hello, Sam. Welcome to irrational fear.

Sam Holland  25:49  
Hey, guys, um, thank you for having me.

Dan Ilic  25:51  
It's great to have you. First of all, let's get some business out of the way. Who are the new liberals? And what do you stand for?

Sam Holland  25:58  
It's a common misconception that the liberals were the first Liberal Party in Australia. And every time I have this conversation with someone, it's a really big thing. But we're sort of a spin off of the original liberals. And so not the old liberals, the new liberals, and the sort of competing against our really annoying older brother.

Dan Ilic  26:14  
So I like the old liberal should I be called liberal classic.

Sam Holland  26:20  
out of there, yeah, that's a good yeah. librettos

Alice Fraser  26:25  
was truly liberal. Opera joke. Well done.

Sam Holland  26:29  
Thank you. I try my best.

Alice Fraser  26:31  
I just figured I was the one. I mean, Alice. Come on.

Alice Tovey  26:34  
Oh, I got it. I giggled very well done. 

Scout Boxall  26:36  
I used to go to the opera. My parents vote Liberal. So yeah, we're all across the libretto.

Dan Ilic  26:43  
So tell me, when you say a Liberal Party, is it in the true sense of the liberal party?

Sam Holland  26:49  
Yeah, that's right. So basically, equality and trying to make everyone look using reason and logic and science and try to make the world a better place and not being corrupt. That's our main thing. Because, like, me, we really need to change that.

Dan Ilic  27:08  
When you pick a name, like the new liberals that has a, that has, like a really heavy connotation to it, is is that in order to attract liberal, previous liberal voters who are upset with the levels of kind of cronyism and corruption that are happening in the liberals, or is it to attract Labour Party voters or greens voters? Like how how, what's the thinking behind the name? I know, you're not the person who founded it, I'm just, you know, asking questions. Yeah.

Sam Holland  27:34  
It did start off as a, I guess, looking at the liberal voters who believe in liberal values, but then they just got attracted to the liberal party with a dime and nothing else. So that's where it started at. But as we get further on, it seems that the people who are really keen on sort of those sort of, they don't want to vote Liberal, but also they're not really, there's been a little bit disenfranchised of the Labour Party too. And we're trying to provide an option and we're not trying to compete against the Labour Party, we just put a broad, I guess, the Pepsi to their coke. And

Scout Boxall  28:04  
don't call yourselves the Pepsi say your car. No one's going for Pepsi

Sam Holland  28:09  
know when the LA ice

Dan Ilic  28:13  
right. Now, one of the areas that the new liberals really differentiating themselves, and this is kind of similar territory to the climate independencies big around climate change, and, and conservation. What kind of some of the big marquee policies the new liberals have around climate change?

Sam Holland  28:32  
Well, for example, we're not going to net zero by 2700 or something. Yeah, but again, it's we got to wait 2030 Like the rest of the world sees be heading for honestly, we have a plan is budgeted plan for 2035. But we think dream big, good 2030.

Dan Ilic  28:50  
That's super interesting in like, is that to do with emissions reduction? Or is that like basing it along? Fictitious things like carbon capture and storage?

Sam Holland  29:01  
No, it's a renewable they're already the cheapest and most efficient form of energy. The thing that really got me onto this is like, you always hear the arguments that renewables are a viable option. But if we all just put our super into companies that were investing in renewables, we'd already hit zero, but 2030 a little bit with any government interaction. I'm microbiologist story.

Dan Ilic  29:21  
Yes, man man with a dominant claw has put up a quote a comment saying he cites this is a scientist, what flavour of science is it really relevant to climate science? Yes, you're a microbiologist and you have put your PhD candidacy on hold so you can run for this election. Does that concern you? Like if you if you win, is that your major concern? Like you'll be like our damn I won't become a doctor for another at least another three years.

Sam Holland  29:48  
Yeah, well, yeah. So my plan is become a like an MD PhDs are both the doctors and foray into politics was not really on my plan until I saw how badly the government screwed up this because I'm like I actually, in my undergraduate degree got tested on how I'd manage Coronavirus. It was an epidemic admittedly, but let's just say the you're

Dan Ilic  30:11  
responsible for Coronavirus, you actually predicted it might happen.

Scout Boxall  30:16  
You were doing your undergrad in Wuhan. And you got me like Samuel, something's gone wrong at the lab here. We need to sort this out right now. And you're like, Oh, I'm going for politics at this point.

Sam Holland  30:28  
That's exactly what happened. You got because

Dan Ilic  30:31  
now you're in Logan city, which is, which I understand is a fairly progressive local council, particularly when it comes to climate action yet at the federal level, this the fact the federal candidate is a is a liberal, very conservative on a federal level. How, why is that? Why do you why is the local council so progressive, and so climate action oriented, but in the federal level? Of course, you know, you have the Liberal Party up

Sam Holland  30:57  
there. Yeah, issue is that the local council sort of a Sharada being really quiet, you know, quiet? Yes. Liberal. Like realistically, um, it actually I can say this now, because it's sort of come out the local councillor who is very aligned with the incumbent MP, she told me to my face if I a preference anyone above, anyone above, but she killed me, she'd fucking kill me. Whoa, and then and then on top of that, so I got at the stage where I got a campaign on this, right. And so I wanted to, like get a campaign office, and that helped this charity, I'm just using the front roof myself. And the council, like owned the property and went, Oh, too bad. You can't rent it from us.

Dan Ilic  31:43  
What happens? And so was it a liberal counsellor told you that they're going to kill you?

Sam Holland  31:48  
Yeah, it's right to buffets in front of a campaign manager.

Scout Boxall  31:51  
Do you have receipts? Oh, no.

Sam Holland  31:56  
She looks at me. She looks at me in the face. And she goes, I'm really glad you got that liberal on your shirt. Because, you know, like, that's what I believe in. I'm a real bluevoda. And I wouldn't I wouldn't be speaking to you if you didn't have the word liberal on your shirt. So obviously, I agree with your policies. And I'm like, you haven't read my policies.

Scout Boxall  32:14  
You also haven't read a dictionary? Like that's not. There's more to that word than just that party. That's insane. That's batshit insane. So yeah, Sam

Dan Ilic  32:25  
a huge concern for your life now that some liberal counsellor is going to kill you.

Sam Holland  32:30  
My boy has been blackmailed into potentially

Alice Tovey  32:35  
speedily driven BMWs in your area, my love. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  32:38  
Sam, that's not it. That's not how you answer that question. You You're meant to say, I don't mind if she kills me or not. What I can tell you is I'm getting on with the job. That's what you that's how you answer that question. I'm just focused will

Alice Fraser  32:50  
continue to do so from beyond the

Scout Boxall  32:55  
policy decisions by ouija board. It's great.

Dan Ilic  32:57  
Now one of the key policies that you're kind of working on for your local area is around koala habitat. Tell me Tell us a little bit about that.

Sam Holland  33:03  
Yeah, so um, I guess like most people, our age, sort of started thinking about this. Well, and the initial seed obviously came from the bushfires. But the second seed to the came from the friendly jordiz video about the Great Wall National Park. And so actually, on my campaign team, I have an expert who studies koalas and protecting corals and said, Hey, is that actually a good idea? He said, Yeah, it's not a bad idea. But a better idea would be connect all the existing state preservation with koalas because a larger the buyer corridor, if you connect to the existing habitats, you actually provide a better, it'd be better both the quality and it'd be cheaper to we started looking at that. And actually, we've costed it and it even actually goes past where the great quality National Park would be.

Dan Ilic  33:48  
Well, Sam, you know, you're 26. So you've got, you know, a few more runs in you. So if you don't, if you don't get up this election, there's always the next election and the election after that election after that. By then you'll be like a qualified doctor. And yeah, look even more impressive on the poster. For folks who are considering moving away from the major parties, what's one thing that you would tell them to vote for you?

Sam Holland  34:15  
My biggest thing is the anti corruption commission. We really need a proper anti corruption commission that can punish people retroactively, like corruption is a crime. It doesn't matter. Like just because there isn't a police force currently doesn't mean that you should get away with those crimes. But both political parties seem to think that like one just says don't be a police force. The other one goes, Okay, let's have a police force but only look at it from now on.

Dan Ilic  34:38  
And of course, of course, the anti the anti corruption body that the government was planning on putting up this time around actually had retrospective powers a bad idea.

Sam Holland  34:56  
I just paid a fee Dunn's face, like a Monday afternoon Hey, If you're telling me you want to put us all in jail, Scott,

Dan Ilic  35:04  
you're telling me that it costs a billion dollars a year to run the narrow detention centre like the same as it cost to run the ABC and you're not corrupt. Okay, interesting. That is it for a rational fear a big thank you to all of our guests tonight. Alice Fraser Scott box or Alice Toby Sam Holland. Big thank you. Now it's time to do the plugs. What would you like to plug scout?

Scout Boxall  35:24  
I have a show coming up at the Melbourne Comedy Festival called buck wild from the 30th of March to the 10th of April. So if anyone's in Melbourne, I'd love to see you there.

Dan Ilic  35:34  
And congratulations on becoming a 2022 Moosehead recipient. That is awesome.

Scout Boxall  35:40  
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Dan Ilic  35:42  
Cool Alice Tovey.

Alice Tovey  35:43  
Well. Yes, I have two shows coming up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. You can see my show one night only over seven nights. Or you can come and see my late night show the Melbourne metropolitan real estate agent of the Year awards 2022. With Frankie McNair Yeah, that's

Dan Ilic  35:59  
great. I I've always wanted to do a show at the MCG and have the posters of giant posters and say Dan Ilic McG one night only. And like have it like in a conference room at the MCG and then and then like and then when I could add when I sell out add more shows like new dates added. For the end. I was like waiting

Scout Boxall  36:22  
to get tickets.

Alice Fraser  36:24  
I was I have three shows at the Melbourne Comedy Night. I will be doing my show Cronos in Adelaide and Melbourne and Perth if they open the borders ever again and then in Edinburgh, but you can find me online at patreon.com/ellis Fraser it's a one stop shop for all of my standup specials podcasts blogs, and my weekly tea with Alice salons.

Dan Ilic  36:45  
Yeah, jump on there salons that's good. That's good fun, Sam. Anything you like yeah,

Sam Holland  36:50  
I have a show the opera house so he's doing that seriously. If you're in town, come on via I met me all the time and just just check out the other options, and then preference live before the liberals.

Dan Ilic  37:08  
If you want to know more about preferencing please head to irrational fears newsletter. Kar Schlegel has written a great piece on the importance of preferencing and preference where you put your preferences. So that is from two weeks ago on the rational feed newsletter, and she's coming up non Tuesday with a brand new con so stick around for that on the rational feed newsletter as well. Big thank you to rode mics the birth of foundation, our Patreon supporters Jacob Brown, Kili and David Lee constable. And also a big thanks to new patreon supporters who've signed up Meredith Harper at sea caves. Angus Templeton, Sophie haha what? Tim Baker and Catherine Thank you very much. And before we go, I've been getting some fundraising emails from the state liberals in New South Wales. So I decided to give them a call to find out what kind of perks you get. When you donate let me let me just get my phone where is it?

Good morning Liberal Party K speaking. Hi, Kate. How are you? Good. How are you? Excellent. I'm just got the donation email and I just wanted to share it. Well, I just wanted to ask you, what do I get for donating? Is there anything special?

Liberal Secretary  38:21  
I'm not sure I'll put you through to the donations who's calling play. My name is Dan. Dan, I have no problem. You have questions?

Dan Ilic  38:35  
Do you have any any perks for donating? We

Liberal Staffer  38:38  
do give merchandise for our members. They sometimes get mugged. Like it might, you know, maybe a little bit too much dices. We're looking for something in particular.

Dan Ilic  38:52  
What about like a cop? Do you get a free car park or a boat shed? I can't make any promises. I can honestly say no, that's fine. Thank you very much for your help.

Liberal Staffer  39:12  
Every day

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