A Rational Fear

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We're joined this week by fearmongers:

Dave Warneke
Jess Perkins
Lewis Hobba
and Dan Ilic

And we cover:

• National Press Club 
• Elon Musk's private jet
• Facial recognition

PLUGS:
Listen to Jess and Dave on 'Do Go On': Website

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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 Bertha Foundation.

Dan Ilic  0:04  
G'day Lewis. How are you?

Lewis Hobba  0:06  
Good evening Daniel. I'm well I'm well how are you?

Dan Ilic  0:09  
I'm really good. I feel I feel it's good having a week off, isn't it like it's good when NBN besets your podcast with Whoa, that you can actually record and you have to take a week off from doing it. God. Yeah. Every week.

Lewis Hobba  0:20  
You think you were taken down by the powers that be? You think you're getting too powerful?

Dan Ilic  0:24  
Yeah, I have been in getting into quite quite a Twitter stash every time Tim Wilson tweets. I don't know if you've seen this. Tim Wilson is all of a sudden turned into it like an environmentalist. I've seen it. Yeah. It's quite the transformation for some guy who has been at the EPA for years trying to rip down every bit of climate policy. He's the guy that's like, Hey, come on over and we can do it.

Lewis Hobba  0:49  
It actually makes you really wonder what it's like when he catches up with his old but like, do they? Like when he goes back to the IPA for the secret meetings when he puts the hood on and he goes underground? And they when they're finished with the chanting? Like, Are they friendly to him? Or like they go we know what you're doing him and it's okay. Or they like you trader used to be one of us.

Dan Ilic  1:09  
Oh, we know what you're doing just you know, getting one more time we need to keep the power keep the power to him, placate them keep those votes away from I mean, we will talk to Georgia steel a little bit about this later on. But I feel like there's this incredible moment. We're in right now where liberals are trying to pretend to be environmentalists because all the quote unquote conservative environmentalist votes are now heading towards these climate independence, which is pretty interesting. So

Lewis Hobba  1:34  
it is there on edge. I'm on edge as well. Actually, I have to admit, I haven't been to this part of my bedroom in a few days. In the middle of the night, like Three nights ago. I thought I saw a cockroach over here. And so I came over like 3am with a shoe. And I whacked the cockroach and it felt like a dead cockroach would. And then it was too late in the night for me to deal with the body of a cockroach. I was like I can't kill but I can't clean up. I went

Dan Ilic  1:58  
somewhere there's a mass grave of cockroaches from where you're sitting right now.

Lewis Hobba  2:02  
Sydney is a mass grave of cockroaches. I am I haven't been back here for three days. And this is what's coming over to my computer. I thought I'm gonna have to deal with the dead body. That cockroach got here. And there is no dead body of a cockroach twist dude still alive somewhere in this room. And now I can start thinking about it.

Dan Ilic  2:20  
Well, you are a Victorian by nature. So I assume you're not adjusting to Sydney cockroaches yet? I mean, 15 years, but you still haven't adjusted to the big Sydney cockroach.

Lewis Hobba  2:32  
I don't know how people live here. Like I don't. I don't know how, like, they live here and were just renting from the cockroaches in this city. It's wild.

Dan Ilic  2:42  
Well, I gotta tell you, that is an apt metaphor for all of Australia right now. We are all just renting from the cockroaches. Big shout out to everyone who turned up to our opera house show that was cancelled and show you that opera house show is going to be rescheduled for June. So hang on to your tickets. And we'll see you in June. And hello to anyone who may have been thinking go to bed thinking about going to a Judas Nielsen show at the Judith Nielsen institute that's now going to be rescheduled for May because of the whole Omicron stuff. So just a bit of housekeeping out of the way. I say we start tonight's show. What do you reckon, Louis?

Lewis Hobba  3:18  
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Dan Ilic  3:19  
I'm recording my irrational fear on Gadigal land in the Eora. Nation sovereignty was never said we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Unknown Speaker  3:25  
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  3:39  
Tonight, Morrison scraps empathy training and instead spends $200,000 on basic grocery costs consultancy, and Bitcoin has halved in value sparking concerns of a crypto winter where crypto bros will be forced to live with their parents and only communicate to each other via podcasts, also known as a crypto Summit, and In a surprise move, Scott Morrison agrees with Matt McGowan's decision to keep wa borders sharp saying that anything to prevent Perth based comedians from infecting the eastern states with improv is a good thing. It's the fourth of February and this is a podcast with more side either Grace time, this is a rational fear.

Hi, welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former Supreme Court Judge Dan Ilic. And rational fear if you this is your first time listening. It's kind of like the rat tests of podcast it's it's painful as negative but ultimately, more than once a week it gets a little annoying. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. First time fear mongers Indeed, He is the Multiple Award nominated podcaster and comedian from the do go on podcast. He's got a tiny head, but it's filled with facts. It's Dave Warner. Hey,

Dave Warnake  4:55  
hello. Great to be here. Good evening.

Dan Ilic  4:59  
Yeah, I can't believe you guys. They're up to 103 127 episodes friend and 27. That is an incredible incredibly prolific well done,

Dave Warnake  5:06  
thank you. Some would say too much, but I say never enough, we will never stop

Lewis Hobba  5:11  
you. Your podcast is notable for being one of the only comedy podcasts that requires preparation. Yes, probably. Like you've actually really shot yourself in the foot.

Dave Warnake  5:22  
It's a choice we regret every single week.

Dan Ilic  5:26  
And she also is the co host of that podcast she's just returned from the frontlines of battling COVID-19 Her tests may be negative, but her laughter is contagious. Also from do go on is Jess Perkins.

Jess Perkins  5:39  
Oh my god what a delight thank you so much for having me. Perfect timing to be on a podcast that's you know really focused on news and politics when you still have brain fog and when to say roll because that's where

Dan Ilic  5:54  
she doesn't think she knows she's got brain frog. And he's the only Boomer left at Triple J.

Lewis Hobba  6:01  
Richard king so have you heard that? Richard Kings I can't leave until it like I can stay there as long as he's there because I'm the second oldest man in the back of my head like a whole I write most of Elvis

Dan Ilic  6:21  
Hey, I wanted to give everyone a bit of a joke keeper update now folks who are Patreon members have already seen this. They're already aware of what's going on. But I thought I'd update everyone who listens normally. So

Lewis Hobba  6:34  
here's a bit of a just gonna be sorry, Dan, if I can interrupt is this for the podcast, this is gonna be a largely visual presentation.

Dan Ilic  6:40  
For me allegedly. This is why you need to be a streamer like the seven people who are 21 people who are streaming right now. So you know this is

Lewis Hobba  6:48  
you are listening on the podcast. Maybe just skip ahead two minutes.

Dan Ilic  6:52  
Well, we do video content turn. And if you've been seeing our videos, John, John boy, our video assistant takes our stream and cuts it up and puts it out onto the internet every Friday and Saturday and Sunday. So I don't have to. It's amazing. We've got a guy who, who makes videos and puts them on the internet.

Lewis Hobba  7:07  
Yeah, I'm just saying this is not what I say in front of me is that you've got a slideshow. And I just wonder if how long you like podcasts before you realise you can't do a fucking slideshow.

Dan Ilic  7:22  
Here's the thing. If you want to see these pictures, go to the Patreon a rational fear.com forward slash Patreon and you can get a taste

Unknown Speaker  7:33  
for it. There's a guy does it.

Dan Ilic  7:37  
But if you want to see it, if you want to see it, you got to pay for it. This is what we're trying to do. I'm trying to funnel people Louis from the free thing to the thing that gets paid. So making money on the podcast, I understand and I know you work at the ABC taxpayer dollars fund your cushy dope smoking lifestyle going on watching your Kanye West in your Vera blues all around the country. And you're hot tracks and the bankers and the flippers and the flumes. But come on, mate. We're gonna try and make money on these things somehow.

Lewis Hobba  8:07  
I don't care. I don't get paid for this podcast.

Dan Ilic  8:11  
So anyway, I wanted to kind of give you a breath. So you may remember we did we had a billboard in Josh Frydenberg electric in in Hawthorne, and it was a billboard you weren't allowed to put any political messaging up. So we put up this billboard that says hey, it's time to buy a standing desk because you're about to lose your seat. And that got lovely billboard was kind of handled plenty of space for someone to vandalise it and they did they fertilise it with a good Frydenberg right along the bottom of it not next to Hey, empty blank space, but Frydenberg at the bottom, so,

Dave Warnake  8:43  
you know they worried that he wasn't gonna get it.

Dan Ilic  8:46  
Perhaps Yeah. So as a result, this got an ATC warning and it got taken down. So I tried to get another one up. So I tried to get a billboard up saying hey, go to Hawaii is a wonderful Hawaiian holiday hilarious Hawaii joke. And they said that was too political. And then I'll hit is Yeah, Hawaiian hideaway for when things get too hot at home bushfires. And they said, No, that's too political. You can't play that up. You know, I can't advertise her way that's too political. I said yep. Okay, all right. So but by the time we got around to negotiating the billboards, Bates had been gone. And so I decided to put one up in Bundaberg to attract the ire of our friend of the show who we like to make fun of on the show rather, Keith Pitt, Keith Pitt who is who's the MP for Hinkler up there. He is famous for not talking about battery power. He hates batteries. He can't even say the word battery. He goes on Sky News in this great Sky News interview from a few months back you may remember where he couldn't even say the word battery. It's fantastic. So I decided to do a billboard with a vibrator that says Hey Keith, batteries give you power in the dark. And unfortunately, the out of home company said that was too political and also to 62 Sexy so I decided to give this one a go. I said hey, outdoor company how about this one? It's a billboard. And it says Do you know batteries can give you power in the dark with a flashlight and

Dave Warnake  10:11  
a flashlight. Come on.

Dan Ilic  10:13  
Well hang on a second. They said well, that was too political and they wouldn't run it. And then I said, How about this is the one batteries Wow. And they said actually, you know, we'll compromise we'll put batteries Wow up in the main street of Bundaberg that's not political. But as Dave keen eyes have discovered that the flashlight was actually a flashlight

Dave Warnake  10:42  
where I didn't realise I don't know

Dan Ilic  10:48  
guys, we did get them over by putting a sex toy on the main street of Bundaberg critical thing about this is that this is actually above a battery shop some one of our listeners went and took a photo of it so batteries WoW is actually above the shop

Lewis Hobba  11:07  
everyone's gonna think it's an ad for the battery shop

Dan Ilic  11:10  
for the battery shop and like so if you are in bonded Bundaberg and you're going down Mira road, I think it's merubah Rhodia merubah Street, head on down there, check out our batteries. Wow, take a photo with a selfie and we'll we'll put it on our social so

Lewis Hobba  11:26  
if you are a standing desk company and you know there's a billboard anywhere near your shop, let us know because Dan can put the Josh standing billboard above there. Do another joke that no one will understand.

Dan Ilic  11:40  
We've got more billboards lighter and more visual jokes for the podcast later on. When we have Georgia steel. She's the independent candidate for Hughes will run our billboards that are ending up in her electorate will also ask her how will she deal? or rather how will Craig Kelly deal with running against a competent person. But first of all, let's have a message for this week's sponsor. In these uncertain times, it's important to be fiscally responsible our nation's on the edge of an economic cliff with very little interest in interest rates

Unknown Speaker  12:11  
at a record low 0.1%.

Dan Ilic  12:15  
And with the stock market sliding faster than a test cricketer into your DMS $50 billion wiped off the value of Australian shares today, there's only one place to put your money that will see guaranteed returns political donations. starting as low as $25,000 you can be guaranteed enormous returns such as $21 million of subsidies and grants for your fossil fuel projects. That's the return of 840% Imagine how many politicians you could buy off with that kind of fuck you can ask your financial advisor if political donations are right for you. Political Donations, it's as safe as houses owned by parliamentarians in Canberra. Jason says apply check the PTS for details Oh, actually there is no PDS just a handshake. So you know, whatever. No rules. This week's first fear when the group chat goes public, it seems that the only gigs that are not cancelled other ones that should be the National Press Club this week. Prime Minister Scott Morrison put on his first ever solo show in over a year the critics gave it zero stars after being pummelling from journalists on questions around accountability and transparency and the price of bread. It was a bombshell text message sent years ago that made the headlines. And now it was brought to light by the Union made of Christian Porter and channel 10s. Most senior litigant, Peter van Onselen he read out the text from a put allegedly from premier Gladys Berejiklian and a senior woman minister who said that Scott Morrison was a psycho and a horrible, horrible man. Now, if Peter van Onselen was going to be rude to the Prime Minister's face Why even go in the first place?

Unknown Speaker  13:59  
Well, you know, I've maybe there's some bravery to it for you know, speaking to someone face to face. I don't know I I love this so much. Because more and more. I'm starting to Yeah, be a bit more mindful about what I'm texting to people. Because of screenshots. I'm just terrified of screenshots. I can't even say that I'd be you know, saying anything particularly bad but you just never know.

Lewis Hobba  14:25  
If I ever let if I leaked the our text message thread between you and a Perko. It would just be you asking me every week are you my best friend?

Jess Perkins  14:37  
I'll get you Monday. And when I do you better believe I'm screenshotting that

Dan Ilic  14:43  
it really goes against the first rule of politics, which is never ever put anything into writing ever. Like why why would you even why would you

Lewis Hobba  14:50  
do that? Why didn't they like put it on the like telegram you know, the one that disappears?

Dan Ilic  14:57  
Oh, yeah, tell it that one way Snapchat a jello. Yeah. Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  15:00  
that's right, then you can put it with a little dick pic. It's gone? Well,

Dan Ilic  15:04  
I mean, the benefit of a telegram of an actual physical tell around is that you have to say stop every few words. So it'll be like, Scott Morrison is horrible, horrible Stop, man stop horrible. So you would kind of have that mix that mix up, you wouldn't actually

Lewis Hobba  15:18  
knock yourself out. Like, he's a complete psycho stop. Maybe I should.

Dan Ilic  15:27  
Now, these texts were actually sent years ago, like, you know, up to two years ago, some people suggesting this is because PVOH, who is now like a litigant in a court case, due to a bully bullying case taken against him at Channel 10 is throwing a bit of a dead cat on himself to deflect attention from himself and put it back on the Prime Minister. Do you think this was a good strategy to deflect attention from himself?

Unknown Speaker  15:48  
I think is well, he was saying on radio that it's like, there was a question of why now. And he was sort of like, oh, you know, these things take time to verify. And, you know, it's not that it's convenient. But it is it's it took took some time for to get to me and then for me to verify. So you know, nothing's us.

Dan Ilic  16:07  
Yeah, no, it's it's really pretty weird timing that he's done this at this time. It does

Lewis Hobba  16:12  
also feel though, like I do sometimes think that journalists have a sense of the prevailing winds. You know, and I do think that, you know, two years ago, if you just said stood in front of Scott Morrison and gone, everyone saying your complete psycho, that story might not have like, hit the way it does right now. It was just like the same way the opinion polls came out that showed his unprepared Prime Minister writing was way up. That he was if the election was tomorrow, he would lose. I feel like there is a bit of a sense of like the people who maybe a year ago, were I'm not saying giving him an easy run, but maybe not necessarily looking for the cracks. And now looking for those cracks and trying to stick a little crowbar in

Dave Warnake  16:56  
as in like the people on his team from the coalition or from No, I

Lewis Hobba  16:59  
just I mean, I'm not saying Peter van onsens on his team. But I may just I do think that you do get a sense I think sometimes with a variety of politicians over the years, that when a politician starts to wane in popularity when they start to feel a little less like Teflon. People do start to get kicked the bird in these sort of National Press Club chats.

Dan Ilic  17:22  
Louis, can I just say that was a very non political answer. That was very good if you considered running for politics. That was that was very good not naming any names. Nothing very specific at all, could generalise hand wavy That was excellent.

Lewis Hobba  17:35  
Thank you so much. I should have done my hand like that I should have done.

Dan Ilic  17:40  
Obama thumbs.

Lewis Hobba  17:41  
I'm not saying anyone's on anyone's team. Just saying it seems like there are fewer people on his team now than they used to be. If you got a theory about who might be the texting minister

Unknown Speaker  17:53  
was Colonel Mustard in the library with a smartphone, a rational fear. Thank you for that.

Dan Ilic  18:00  
This week second fear Elon Musk, a rich guy and space coward has been jumping into the DMS of teenagers making demands Jack Sweeney and 19 year old college student build a twitter bot that tracks and publishes the location of Elon Musk's private jet Nim mask isn't too happy about this. He jumped in the kids dams and asked and offered him $5,000 To shut it down. Jack demanded 50,000 and a Tesla and then Elon back down and then blocked him. Now Dave should a lot of paid out this kid. Well, I

Dave Warnake  18:31  
mean, five grand from Elon Musk, the world's richest or second richest person is like that's like five cents from an average person is that's like a normal person offering to not spit on you. You're not going to take that. You want more? You're gonna go 50 grand. That honestly. That's still a drop in the ocean from ask if he wants it. If he doesn't want us to know that he's travelled 240,000 kilometres on his private plane. He should pay up.

Dan Ilic  18:57  
Yeah, that that whole trip probably cost him $50,000 It is my Jack was really kind he's like, you know, I'm I'm a college student just kind of, you know, I just need 50,000 pair of my college debt and a Tesla. Come on, do you can give that to me. I think it's a great idea. It's it's such a lowball offer as well.

Lewis Hobba  19:14  
I'm sort of on the other side of this. I kind of feel like people What he's basically done is gone. I'm stalking a person and I'm making sure everyone else can stalk him too. But and then before the trials even gone is that he's got the character defence out he's like, I'm just a uni student. I'm just looking for this. Like this is still extortion. Like you are epic thing you're doing. This is like I don't know if anyone has ever been stalked, but it's not a lot of fun. And you'll notice

Dan Ilic  19:42  
are you saying this because you just put a down payment on a Gulfstream Is this done you

Lewis Hobba  19:49  
don't follow up I've upgraded from scooter to Gulfstream. All of the normal cars but I genuinely do believe and I say this so rarely Am I Elon Musk's I don't.

Dave Warnake  20:02  
I'm all for this. It's like a prison style electronic GPS monitor for billionaires, which I think personally they should all have for their crimes committed against society. Should all happen, we should know where they are at all time. And I will say that it is I think it's publicly available data that this kid's just smart enough to use bots, which sort of put it all together and make a neat Twitter account about it's not like he's hacking anything. It's all out. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  20:28  
It's just putting it this is making the public publicly available data more public. Yeah, putting it into a

Jess Perkins  20:37  
nice dinner for other people as well as any like, not just Elon Musk, like He's really He's covering his bases because if they all fork up, you know, between 550 grand, he's gonna be fine.

Dan Ilic  20:48  
There Bill Gates, a Drake. Apparently, Drake has got a really awesome jet like it's a 767 which can hold

Lewis Hobba  20:55  
you saying that we the tone of surprise, right? Like, you guys know that? Right? Because a private jet is a crazy person in the world. I would have had a private jet.

Dan Ilic  21:06  
Nobody's like it's so expensive.

Dave Warnake  21:10  
Seats over 200 people it's

Dan Ilic  21:13  
Yeah, but like I can understand, I can understand like Elon Musk having a private jet. But Drake is like a performing artist, like you know that

Lewis Hobba  21:21  
Drake has has like had more time in the numbers like as a number one artist than the Beatles, and they had to split it four ways. He's one guy.

Dan Ilic  21:30  
I know what things are worth you know, we're the number one comedy podcast in Australia and I'm begging people join the Patreon

Lewis Hobba  21:38  
where the Drake of Australian podcasting he has some shit going on that we did not want to be associated with.

Dan Ilic  21:48  
Right Good. Excellent. Oh, great. Drake is cancelled but he's got a private jet swings and roundabouts. If you saw Elon Musk flying into Australia, what would you do?

Dave Warnake  21:58  
Obviously, run to the airport with a guy, you know how

Unknown Speaker  22:07  
I love you a lot.

Dave Warnake  22:08  
Let's say give me five grand and I won't take a selfie with you and see what

Lewis Hobba  22:13  
when you're in the grace a couple of years ago, and Elon Musk was there? No. And yeah, it was while he was building the battery at a in South Australia. So he was there with his at the time, girlfriend Amber Heard. And I was there with Australian of the deal. And Olcott has the name dropping on this. I was having a I was having a beer with Dylan. And we looked over and he's like, over my over my shoulder is Elon Musk. I look over I'm like, fuck, man. It's Elon musk and amber hurt. And I'm like, don't move. I'm gonna get a photo. And before I can even get my phone out deal and all God has done on one ad and gone straight to Elon Musk and he's having a chat with a coffee. Is that still an Orca? Yeah. And so I I'm like, Oh, do it. Oh, God, Concetta Elon Musk. I guess I'll just take quick snap of deal and chatting to Elon, and then I can send it to deal on LIDAR. And I left my phone out. And as soon as I left my phone up his security pointed like a laser at my phone, so that my phone flashed like my phone wouldn't take the photo because it would just say it was just a white flash. And then the bouncer he's like, security guy looked at me and gave me this like smile and a shake of the head. And I put the phone down and I like gave him a little imaginary tip of the cap. And I think well.

Dave Warnake  23:32  
It sounds like you're, I was like some men in black style technology. Let's come up and just watch your memory of everything.

Lewis Hobba  23:39  
Totally. I'd forgotten about it until right then.

Unknown Speaker  23:43  
Today, Australians will come together in every corner of our nation across the globe to reflect, respect, and celebrate. I'd like to thank the National Australia Council's partners. Chevron.

Voice Over  23:57  
Your fear isn't rational.

Dan Ilic  23:59  
This week's third fear Peter Dutton, once your face, attender has appeared on a government website to build a giant facial recognition database, it's got a catchy name, everyone can remember the national Driver Licence facial rescue recognition solution or endler. For for short. First, I think it needs a catchy name I've got I've got one needs a name that I think people can trust. I think people would really love Robo face. I think you know, it'd be great the database could. She's meant to provide secure National Real Time and online services through facial recognition matches. So you know, like if settling send you a robo debt, you just show your face to a robo face and Robo face talks to Robo debt. And it says you're the wrong person. And then Robo debt apologises for the robo snafu and you don't go to Robo. Here's the thing though the laws that allow such a service haven't actually been passed yet. So technically, the thing if it gets built is illegal. fear mongers, the Human Rights Commissioner Ed centre is pretty worried about This does Robo face worry you Louis.

Lewis Hobba  25:03  
Well, I mean how could it What could possibly go wrong Dan? I mean I love how often is the Human Rights Commissioner worried in this country you know? I know what it's like to wake up every day anxious and my life is not his life you know what I mean? Like you just

Dan Ilic  25:22  
know the Lewis you must be You must be so scared of Tony Martin robbing a bank and you're getting

Lewis Hobba  25:30  
i I'm content, I'm worried about it every day, every day it takes Tony Martin I'm just like, how's the finances? Do you have so much to live for? I just think that the amount of times we completely ignore human rights in this country at the moment like it's got to a point like human rights. It's something we're interested in, but we're not so much caring about it.

Dan Ilic  25:54  
Dave and Jesse worried about this? Yeah,

Dave Warnake  25:56  
I'm not surprised to hear that Peter Dutton is after literally anyone else's face in this country I'll take it I'll take anyone any of them

Lewis Hobba  26:07  
next it's gonna be Robo here he's just like just looking for photos I'm just trying out a few new looks on

Dan Ilic  26:18  
God well there's a bit as Mr. Potato Head he can you know interchange his facts I think that's kind of his the next transition of the spot right.

Jess Perkins  26:27  
All right, then take it even further. And like you know, CCTV, facial recognition. I love the idea of me being tracked at all.

Lewis Hobba  26:38  
And just because you like attention

Jess Perkins  26:41  
it's because I fear being kidnapped. Why would I be a target of that? Not sure. I don't have wealthy parents. I've got no money of my own. Nobody would miss me.

Dan Ilic  26:54  
It's interesting. A few states have already bought into this and they're already kind of adding the driver's licence photos to the database the Queensland has mania and I think Victoria have done that already. Does this mean like people are going to be turning up to like Vic Roads in finding disguises now like to make sure the government has a wacky picture of them they won't be disguised as if they're

Lewis Hobba  27:13  
only using driver's licence photos they'll only be able to track you in the street if you're not smiling

Dan Ilic  27:20  
Yeah, it's bad news for Grace time.

Yeah, oh, I mean, I look pretty different to the photo I took in like 2005 So I like the idea that there's

Unknown Speaker  27:35  
no

Dan Ilic  27:42  
idea there's a skinny Jon Lovitz getting arrested for my bad crime.

Unknown Speaker  27:49  
The Prime Minister's Office is accused of plotting to keep documents from its controversial carpark scheme as secret.

Unknown Speaker  27:56  
The Auditor General found the government pushed projects into seats the coalition needed to win at the last election, they seize

Unknown Speaker  28:03  
a rational view.

Dan Ilic  28:06  
Joining us now is a woman who is determined to take the seat of us from well known intellect Craig Kelly, but the question is, how will she proved that she has the chops to do so? Please welcome Georgia Steele. Welcome, Georgia. Thanks, Dan.

Georgia Steele  28:19  
Thanks for having me.

Dan Ilic  28:20  
It's really great to have you quite a privilege now first of all, Georgia, many people would know you from your 2018 appearance and ITV is love Ireland. How has your audience in reality TV prepared you Oh, sorry. I'm reading the wrong bio here. That's a different George's deal. Is yours. Okay, here it is. Oh, yes, he go. Sutherland local corporate litigator? What makes you think you have the diligence and competence to be the member of us over a failed furniture salesman and a conspiracy theorist?

Georgia Steele  28:47  
Well, the introduction says it all doesn't it Dan. Local and a corporate litigator go any further than

Lewis Hobba  28:56  
someone who doesn't live in us and isn't in Sydney from Sydney originally. How did Craig like how did how, you know what I mean? Like, this

Dan Ilic  29:06  
is huge. To me. Sound is a pretty feels like a pretty middle class. Yeah. Wealthy southern people are educated. They're like, first of all, how? How did he even get in like, and how is he perceived now?

Georgia Steele  29:18  
Well, Craig Kelly was a captain's pick, at least for the last two elections. He has actually been voted in by the people of us four times, and is currently serving his 12th year in Parliament. But for the last couple of times, and particularly the last election, Scott Morrison intubate and saved Craig Kelly as the liberal party's pre selected candidate. So that's the reason that he got elected again last time, unfortunately, with a swing towards so that was when I started thinking, all right, well, I did not expect that to happen. And something different has to happen next time.

Dan Ilic  29:56  
So what was the catalyst for you? Was there a moment you went? I can't have No, this guy representing me on the federal stage, like what was the thing that was one if you can, yeah, very genuine, we ran out of time,

Georgia Steele  30:08  
I couldn't possibly break it down to one. I was just appalled, obviously, that he was my representative, appalled and embarrassed. And so I started volunteering for some of the local political community groups. And then at the same time, became increasingly desperate about what was not happening happening on the climate action front, in our country, and so forth. You know what? I could give this a red hot Rahzel. Watching those politicians up there and thinking, I think that me and a few of my friends can probably have a crack at this. So decided to.

Dave Warnake  30:40  
So did you. Do you want to be a politician? Or are you just happy to get rid of Craig once he's gone? Job done? Yeah,

Georgia Steele  30:47  
that's a good question. Dave. No one's actually asked me that. I don't particularly want to be a politician. It just got to a point where it was so dire.

Dan Ilic  30:57  
I'm so glad you said that. Because you know, this, that clip is going to be circulating all around the way. People will go. Oh, that she said it on some podcast and people come on the podcast, the rest of the story.

Georgia Steele  31:11  
Yeah. When I've been in the House of Representatives for 25 years. See, she's a liar.

Lewis Hobba  31:17  
I want to be a politician normally, that's where the Nationals end up. Do you ever consider becoming a national?

Unknown Speaker  31:22  
Yeah, I'll just go straight. No for that. Louis.

Dan Ilic  31:27  
I noticed you launched your your crowdfunding kind of campaign this week? It sounds very well polished. Have you had any, like major donors like from Chevron, or shell or chip in, you know, to kind of swing your vote?

Georgia Steele  31:41  
No, no, can't say that. I have. We're running a community campaign community donations. And, you know, Craig, Kelly's an asset in that regard. So we're not doing too badly on the fundraising front?

Dan Ilic  31:54  
How are you going in the street with folks and like face to face? Like, what are folks telling you about the feeling of the electorate? And do you come across any liberal fans who are like, you know, I'm not really into Craig. But I am a diehard liberal.

Georgia Steele  32:11  
Yeah, loads, loads, I speak to, you know, obviously, he uses a safe liberal seat. It's been a safe liberal seat for a long time. They have won on first preferences for the last, you know, several elections. And so there are a lot of diehard rusted on liberal voters here. A lot of them tell me that they can't put up with Craig Kelly any longer, but actually, more of them tell me that they're just overall fed up with the way Government's going at the moment with the robots and the scandals and you know, the lack of integrity. That's the number one issue with the people that I talk to on the street. I think everyone except that, you know, Craig Kelly, is who he is. And we need to move on from that. But there's broader issues at play now. And people are just upset generally with the government and the Liberal Party in particular.

Lewis Hobba  32:58  
I mean, if it is a sort of safe liberal seat, I imagine there must be some policies you have that are crossing over in that area. What do you think are like the main issues in your area, apart from getting rid of Craig Kelly, you're hoping to bring forward here?

Georgia Steele  33:14  
Well, as I said, Before, I decided to run because I wanted to get action on climate change that that is my number one aim in doing what I'm doing. We live in a beautiful electrode actually used takes in the Royal National Park and a number of river systems and beaches. And so I think the people here actually want to maintain their beautiful surroundings and their lifestyle. But also, back to integrity. I can't believe what the federal government has been getting away with over the last few years. I don't think many of us can. I mean, even to the point where Craig Kelly got up to his worst shenanigans last year, and you know, really got a tiny little slap on the wrist and go over there and sit back down. You'll be right.

Dan Ilic  33:56  
That's right. When you got seven guests in for a dressing down in this in the Prime Minister's only,

Unknown Speaker  34:02  
exactly a dressing down and then it was only a few months later that he just decided to leave himself. So, you know, every day we use some scandal that's coming out of the federal government, and they're supposed to be representing all of us and they're supposed to be serving us. And I think that's the concept that we really lost in federal politics, that we're serving the public that there's no you know, personal gain to be had here.

Dan Ilic  34:27  
We're seeing quite the shift or the pivot, if you like, in the attitude to climate particularly in seats that are under threat from climate independence. Like Tim Wilson, Tim Wilson, and Goldstein is all of a sudden this crazy environmentalist who is going around to all the renewable businesses in his electorate telling everybody what a great job solar panels are doing and and he's really big on batteries and he's eating kombucha that is that is like carbon neutral. And it's so fascinating because for years he's been putting of the IPA where he is systematically tried to destroy every bit of carbon abatement or, or emissions policy and burn it all to the ground. And you see something very similar happening in Wentworth with Dave Sharma, Dave Sharma handing out flyers that unfortunately had a epic typo. But he wouldn't understand what the typo meant, had a typo that said, Net Zero climate action. That was the title of the fly, which is amazing. So you have all these, like, all of a sudden, you've got these liberals who aren't well versed in climate trying to be climate heroes. That's not happening in your electorate for a pretty good reason, isn't it? Because there is no one in the liberal party who's standing up to you yet? What's happening in the Liberal Party? What Why are they taking their time to get someone to go against you?

Georgia Steele  35:51  
I think the answer to that is because they're a complete shambles. They're trying to find a candidate that Scott Morrison can conveniently parachute into Hughes, like they've done over the last couple of elections with Craig Kelly. I'm currently running against a Liberal Party empty chair. And, you know, that's, that's fine by me. I like

Dan Ilic  36:25  
the Liberal Party by that chair from Craig Kelly's old shop.

Georgia Steele  36:31  
Yeah, so it's Craig Kelly in an empty chair in the Liberal Party. Right. That's, that's what I'm up against in queues. So it's good. It's gonna be an interesting time. But yeah, the Liberal Party is taking us for granted and ignored us for a very long time. It's no surprise that they haven't bothered pre selecting anyone yet.

Dan Ilic  36:46  
I mean, I kind of you're the wrong person answers. But do you think UAP has any kind of traction at all in here? It's like, do you think the United Australia party? You know, the Clive Palmer party? The Craig Kelly, Polly, is there an audience for that message in use at all?

Unknown Speaker  37:03  
No, I think I'm the perfect person to ask about that actually. started probably about 2.4% of the vote in queues in the 2019 election. And Craig Kelly,

Lewis Hobba  37:13  
the chair get,

Unknown Speaker  37:16  
you know, closer, closer to 50. And he was roundly disliked before he left the Liberal Party. And now he's terrorising people all over the country with his text messages and billboards and, and advertising in every traditional media he can find. So

Dave Warnake  37:35  
can I ask how many contacts you have in your phone? And have you messaged them all yet?

Unknown Speaker  37:42  
A lot? And yes. Oh, my free contacts, you know, phone numbers that I didn't have to buy.

Lewis Hobba  37:56  
I mean, they are spending a lot of money, though. Is that something that worries you? We'll be talking about the amount of political advertising that, you know, Australia party had done. Just just on the podcast the other week, and it's, you know, what's the 60 million? 60 million? Yeah, yeah, compared to, you know, other major party Labour Party had spent whatever, 500,000 or something comparatively, it was nothing.

Dan Ilic  38:17  
Oh, yeah. Then that was on YouTube, they spent $5 million on YouTube and the Labour Party have spent like $37,000 or something? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  38:23  
Well, I mean, we all know that Clive Palmer spent $84 million to hand the 2019 election back to the Liberal Party, and in spending that amount of money did not win a single seat. So we can fully expect that to happen again. Where his strategy will ultimately land is unclear. But in answer to your question, no, I'm not worried about it. I mean, I can't possibly compete with that kind of money. But what I don't have in terms of money on the ground I have in people on the ground, and I'm in my electorate, I'm working with my community, and they're the ones who are going to vote. Come.

Lewis Hobba  39:02  
Check. We've actually got a million dollar donation. Very good. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  39:11  
fine. Let's get it in there. Full disclosure, and then I'll get into parliament, I'll make sure that no one can donate $60 million to anyone.

Dan Ilic  39:20  
Well, that rolls me out. Well, I was 60 million lying around.

Lewis Hobba  39:26  
Being independent, is has historically been quite tough, not impossible, but tough. Do you think that there's been more of a conversation around it certainly in the media, people zali Steggall have sort of changed the narrative around that as well as others. But if you found that people are like, potentially, I guess you don't necessarily have a yardstick to measure it against but more receptive to the idea of an independent now and potentially they might have been previously.

Unknown Speaker  39:50  
Yeah, I do. I'm finding people to be very receptive to the idea of an independent. The seat of Hughes has never been held by an independent and so it's a big change. To ask the people around you to vote for an independent, I think they voted 92% of the vote at the last election for one of the two or three major parties. But I think that people like zali Steggall and Helen Haynes MP have really opened people's eyes to the power that independence can have in Parliament, and open people's eyes to the ways in which the two party system is failing us. And people are starting to really get to the point where they're going to be willing to try something different. Because if we keep doing what we've always done, we'll get the same result.

Dan Ilic  40:34  
This is an interesting question from Kieran Castellina. On YouTube, what about preferences, how you be, how you kind of dish out preferences and your how to votes and things like that?

Unknown Speaker  40:43  
That is the number one question that I get asked from everywhere from people that I meet on the street on social media, even to the point that today I put up an FAQ list on my website so that people can check it out. I will not be suggesting preferences on my how to vote card preferences do not belong to candidates, they belong to voters. And this is a misconception that I'm really really keen to clear up. Preferences are the voters superpower. And all they need to do is spend a very small amount of time once every three years, check out the candidates in their seat, check out their platforms, check out their qualifications and vote. I will of course be asking people to vote one Georgia steel, but then I will say Please rank the remaining candidates in order of your preference. That is what preferences are.

Dan Ilic  41:35  
I will just chime in here. If you want to know more about preferences, go to the irrational fear email list irrational fear.substack.com. Drop us your email and check out the first column from Kara Schlegel. From this week. She's written a great explainer on preferences and how they work. And preferences are pretty important. So make sure you check out that article from Kara Schlegel Georgia thank you so much. I'll have you know that you know while we were not you know going to donate to your campaign. We have done some joke keeper billboards in your electorate, and your neighbouring electric car could Can we just run them by you and see what you think I'd love to I'd love to know how you you know how you rank these. First of all, is this one. Let's put this one up here. This is it. Hawaiian hideaway. So when things get too hot at home, bushfire sound now on how would you feel about that one?

Unknown Speaker  42:24  
Yes, I like it. I like it and subtle. Shade. Just very delicately down. I like what you've done.

Dan Ilic  42:30  
What about this one? This is good to visit the old growth stumps of Tasmania. It's got a little upturned wombat there and mom and daughter on a hike through the hog crest dumps in Tasmania.

Unknown Speaker  42:43  
That's one of the ones that you really don't want to laugh at but can't help yourself. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  42:48  
maybe I should point out it was done by a Tasmanian artist. So you know, we're, we're okay there. Here we go. What about this one here? This is another one like kind of a jobs one, you know, a jobs for the future. It's got a picture of a woman a little girl and a graduation outfit. It says in 2035 Cassie will be qualified to put former politicians in jail for historical climate crimes. Climate prosecutor is one of 1 million new jobs in one main Australian jobs in a fossil free future. What do you think of this one?

Unknown Speaker  43:15  
Bring it on. That's the short 13 years away totally fake Happy Taking it to them. I'm in favour

Dan Ilic  43:24  
and finally in anger Dean in Hughes we've got this one going up.

Unknown Speaker  43:30  
And immediately

Dan Ilic  43:33  
Welcome Welcome to anger in the place where Scott Morrison last did anything well look you're

Unknown Speaker  43:43  
just opened this week a campaign office in anger doing across the road from McDonald's. You know, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna be making anger doing great again.

Dan Ilic  43:55  
Oh, could you at least me and getting clean again? That would be great.

Unknown Speaker  43:59  
I'll give it a give it a shot. Georgia steel.

Dan Ilic  44:02  
Thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear.

Unknown Speaker  44:04  
Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me.

Dan Ilic  44:06  
Let's see if the show big thank you to all of our guests. Georgia steel. Just Perkins Dave Warner key Jason. Dave, what would you like to plug?

Dave Warnake  44:13  
I think we should plug our podcast yes do go on, which is a history based comedy programme where for the last six years, we've taken it in turns to research a topic, bring it back to the others and try and make jokes about it.

Unknown Speaker  44:26  
Sometimes it's really well researched, sometimes pretty poorly. But I'm always I always have a good laugh.

Dan Ilic  44:33  
It's very good. It's very enjoyable. Louis, would you like to plug anything?

Lewis Hobba  44:36  
Well, I mean, since I've got Jess Perkins here not to start a turf war and not to create a staking eating its own tail kind of inception situation where we're at a dream within a dream. But Jess Perkins and I also do a podcast as well as Dan and I doing this podcast.

Dan Ilic  44:52  
What it simply I just

Lewis Hobba  44:55  
I didn't want you to feel I didn't want you to hear about it like

Dan Ilic  44:59  
you He did that podcast.

Unknown Speaker  45:02  
Who do you think the jest is?

Dan Ilic  45:04  
She's just she really listened to podcast.

Unknown Speaker  45:11  
You should. It's great.

Lewis Hobba  45:13  
Where Michael Hague, myself and Jess Perkins here the best stories around the country on a topic. The topic this week was boats. It's coming out on Monday and I don't feel I feel like I can't tell you the stories in front of a person who's campaigning for Parliament because I don't want to. I don't want you to think you'd be like this Ga

Unknown Speaker  45:32  
Ga CEO. What would you like to plug just vote one GA steel? come election day,

Dan Ilic  45:36  
naturally. Hey, a big thank you to all of our Patreon members who signed up we've had a huge sign up over the last two weeks. I'm going to read them all out. So just hang in there. Jesse lapide Renee Ridgeway Chris Harris Pascoe, Sash de Souza, si 316801 For Emily are James Russell. Joe Wade, Brooke, Santa Matt best Zuzia Abdul Youssef. Alex Hi dakak Diane rial Dominic night from the chaser has signed up Michael Solomon Clyde, Joe still it still in LA pulis and Verona Miller X. Dana Van Dyck, Megan, Chela Collins Sky Bar, Yan yay, see Peter, and Trudeau Wow, that is so many people. Thank you for signing up to irrational fear. And you can do that too. If you want to see us continue on with this podcast. Please go to rational fear.com Or go to Patreon Ford slash irrational fear big thank you to everyone who has tuned in for the stream tonight. And that's about it. Also big thanks to roadmaps versus Foundation, and everyone who listens. So thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week. There's always something to be scared of by

Lewis Hobba  46:42  
now, let's all do it in harmony. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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We're joined this week by fearmongers:

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Bridie Connell
Lewis Hobba
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And we cover 

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• Boris Johnson
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• Play a 2012 clip from the A Rational Fear vault.

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

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

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

Dan Ilic  0:04  
Hello Lewis. How are you?

Lewis Hobba  0:06  
Daniel on well how the hell are you?

Dan Ilic  0:09  
I'm really I'm really good. I'm feeling good feeling. I'm feeling tired but I'm good otherwise I'm tired because bit a personal News. Today I mailed the last ever joke keeper billboards sticker pack out a 480 sticker packs have been mailed out to people who paid 100 bucks to get them. But as a result, Louis I've actually got quite a few stickers left over I thought I under ordered so I did an extra order and then I ended up with about about 100 More stickers per sticker that I actually ordered. So if you want a pack of these $150 valued sticker packs hang around to the end of the podcast and I'll tell you how to get them at a massive discount. Wow Lewis Do you have good olive? I haven't even sent you these?

Lewis Hobba  0:58  
No, I've got one of I got I've got these irrational fear QR code that's not in functioning anymore, obviously. But um, all QR codes. Now if you

Dan Ilic  1:10  
if you if you scan that actually exports your entire browser data to Twitter. Everyone could say everything you've ever downloaded. It's great. Oh, great. The billboard stuff is continuing. I've spent the last bit of money on some billboards around Cooke which is Scott Morrison seat. So I've got a few bit of artwork going I'm going to show you some of the artwork now this is a classic. Let's have a look here is Hawaiian hideaway for when things get too hot at home bushfire sale now one that's going up, and then we've got this one, visit the Old Grove stumps of Tasmania just a beautiful bit of artwork in a classic 1960s US national parks kind of studied that. That's beautiful. Her name is Tanya she's from Tasmania, Tasmania artist, she actually did a cracking job on this like so good. Like it's beautiful. Someone gave a huge donation to joke keeper and they wanted one particularly around the jobs of the future. So I've designed this one to go up which is in 2035, Cassie will be qualified to put former politicians in jail for historical climate crimes. And it's got this picture of this cute little girl in a graduation outfit. And it says climate prosecutor is one of the 1 million new Australian jobs for the fossil fuel free future.

Lewis Hobba  2:27  
Yeah, well she looks about six which is probably is Scott Morrison's kind of child slavery plans stay on track. You could just hop straight into the court right now.

Dan Ilic  2:38  
And we're gonna be talking a little bit about that a little later on right now. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on Gadigal land in the urination sovereignty is never seated, we need a treaty. Let's stop the show.

Unknown Speaker  2:48  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  3:01  
Tonight Victoria Health Corps a code brown on Scott Morrison's press conferences, and the Prime Minister asked the states to let kids drive forklifts in order to give George Christiansen something to do and just wait and turns out to be an even bigger shift and Justice League. It's the 21st of January 2022. And there's a high pressure system of breakfast television asking should we change the date of Australia Day that could last all week? This is a rational. Welcome to rational fear. I'm your host former chairman of Credit Suisse, Dan Ilic. And this is a podcast that vaccinates your brain once a week to make you impervious to scary news stories for at least seven days. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. First, did you know that Australian TV comedy shows have a diversity problem? 90% of the head writers are straight white men and 90% of those are James Colley from 81% of comedy shows that are on TV. It's James Colley.

James Colley  4:08  
Oh, hello, Dan. I'll always be from a rational fear. This is why I have made a push to be the official prodigal son of a Russian

Dan Ilic  4:16  
mafia, as you've got it in the name tonight. Thank you, James. Appreciate that. And when she's not being an aria Award winning musical comedian, she's busy being an aria award winning data point on Facebook. It's the ARIA award winning Brian econyl.

Bridie Connell  4:32  
Thank you for using my full title.

Dan Ilic  4:36  
Now you're there's a little bit of a delay, but I assume that's because you're beaming to us from New Zealand the place where there is no COVID where you can go to the shops and you know see your friends and put on comedy shows

Bridie Connell  4:47  
and fortunately no COVID but also no friends. Real real tough spot that I've been just kidding. I'm actually very popular. So I've done but

Lewis Hobba  4:58  
how long have you been there? I feel like you Your accents gotten stronger since I saw you last.

Bridie Connell  5:02  
As soon as I have like one conversation with my dad, it comes back fairly quickly today. And I have

Dan Ilic  5:08  
to say, I've been listening to your podcast with James Colley and there was the listening back to her like, hang on a second, right econyl All of a sudden sounds like she's throwing music.

Bridie Connell  5:21  
Not sure identity is finally been revealed.

James Colley  5:24  
We're pushing for a lot of international funding.

Lewis Hobba  5:29  
And code switching. It's very impressive, very much.

Dan Ilic  5:33  
And it's a man so tall that HR is required to hire a forklift to have a face to face conversation with him. It's Louis harbor.

Lewis Hobba  5:40  
Yes, then I can finally get those six year olds on the end of a fork and raise them up to my level.

Dan Ilic  5:46  
Here's a message from this week's sponsor.

Unknown Speaker  5:50  
Hey, Veronica milsim here to remind you that you've only got two days left to submit your favorite years for the hottest 100 Now with over 2000 years to choose from, we want to know which year you think will come out on top as the hottest year ever.

Unknown Speaker  6:06  
I thought 1989 was pretty high. No, no,

Unknown Speaker  6:09  
it's not when you will asked hot the temperature of Earth. Oh, god, it's got to be 2007. That's the year I was born and my mom was in labor for like four hours. And that was hot. Yeah. Okay. I can understand from a friction perspective. But once again, we're talking about the earth's temperature.

Unknown Speaker  6:26  
And you know, the hottest year was actually 1890 and the Earth's been getting colder every year.

Unknown Speaker  6:32  
I'm sorry. Is this Senator Malcolm Roberts.

Dan Ilic  6:35  
No, it's an attempt round come. They finally

Unknown Speaker  6:41  
get ready for the most predictable countdown. Most of the world is ignoring the hottest 100 years ever. Spoiler alert. It was last year. It's always the last year.

Dan Ilic  6:57  
Always good to have friends of the show on Veronica Milson that are you excited, Louis? So how does 100 week for you? I mean, it's like Christmas for Triple J presenters.

Lewis Hobba  7:06  
It is it's really easy. Obviously. It's always nice for Christmas not to be riddled with disease. Usually the most fun part of the hardest 100 people having parties and really the only parties people having our people who have triple Vax trying to deliberately get COVID that they have the extra immunity. So it is a bit of a somber affair. But you know, I'm sure they'll still be plenty of people who listen to those 100 who will be any absolutely shit faced with 1000 people and it will make me very nervous.

Dan Ilic  7:36  
Yeah, get shit faced on Twitch. That's the That's the name of the game. This week's first year on Thursday, Scott Morrison which should be pointed out despite everything he's still Prime Minister of Australia floated the idea that 16 year old children should be able to operate forklifts as a way to solve some of the supply chain problems that Australia is facing due to adults being sick from COVID-19 But no sooner had Scott Morrison raised the idea by the afternoon it was lowered again by some adults in the national cabinet fear mongers Is this a good idea letting 16 year olds drive something that according to the union's causes one in six workplace deaths Bridey well

Bridie Connell  8:15  
look it was not the news I was expecting today like I knew that the Liberal Party is big on like old fashioned conservative values I just didn't know that like child labor was one of them. I kind of feel excited for them because if this is a value like with the current climate the way it is there's not a lot of chimneys and therefore not a lot of chimney sweep. So I'm like this is cute. Maybe this will lead to our first like little Mary Poppins moment. We can have an adorable chorus line of like, kids on forklifts. I think the choreographic opportunities with this news a huge so I'm for it the premiere

Dan Ilic  8:52  
that would be most up for surely be dominant paradigm and he's got seven forklift drivers ready to go.

Bridie Connell  8:58  
A whole fleet

James Colley  9:01  
is exactly how Tiny Tim got his crutch to so we've wet

Lewis Hobba  9:08  
Yeah, this does feel like a bunch of schools are gonna be really excitedly doing modern adaptations of Oliver.

James Colley  9:18  
I actually really like this plate. I know this is controversial, but I really like this for two reasons. One of which is I have an eight week old and babies are expensive. So get a job honestly $100 A big W two days. You know how hard it is to spend you know how many, like 100 shirts made by other children I would have to buy to make up $100 A big W on my own.

Dan Ilic  9:41  
I was gonna say if you're buying $100 worth of merch you need a forklift to get that $100 worth of stuff to the car.

James Colley  9:48  
We are disgusting, get a job Stop, stop living off my dime. And also more importantly, because I have an eight year old I've been stuck inside for about eight weeks and I need more tick tock content. So you Give every 16 year old a forklift. Let's get this thing

Lewis Hobba  10:03  
humming. Like I have a three year old nephew and he loves trucks. Like he would be so keen for this. If I told him that he could drive a forklift, he would do it for free. He can't technically hold a fork yet, but I reckon he's about ready.

Bridie Connell  10:18  
This is what I'm worried about, Louis, because three year olds love trucks, but it makes this whole policy makes me think that they came up with it. The government while playing with Tonka Trucks, like Fine, let's do this, which would explain why they like coal mining so much, but I'm like, Sure, no, no, let's not be playing with Tonka Trucks, let's be consulting with experts and really official documents, planes.

Lewis Hobba  10:43  
The next plan is gonna be like, we're gonna build a bunch of comedic cowpox, and we've found this some really good infrastructure material, it's called Lego. And we're gonna really go

James Colley  10:54  
It's remarkable to me that what we've learned over the last couple of years is that the global supply chain can be stopped by a boat that gets very stuck when it's absolutely should not be stuck, or just not enough teenagers to operate heavy machinery. How fragile is this thing?

Bridie Connell  11:10  
You know, one of the most concerning parts of this news story to me apart from the child labor laws and the death and although you know, all the year, is that I just had a flashback to when I was 16 and I told the boy at school that I could drive a forklift because I thought it would impress him, which doesn't lie.

Lewis Hobba  11:32  
How's he gonna prove it? He's like, Oh my God, that's crazy. I've got a forklift at home we get over here Brian.

James Colley  11:39  
Yeah, she gave me a PJ a pallet jack

Dan Ilic  11:44  
I did love the best pan on Twitter I saw with this was a university professor saying the whole idea was unpalatable. I was like yes, well done. I'll pay that. I enjoyed that. How do

James Colley  11:55  
we make that person do physical labor?

Lewis Hobba  11:59  
I do think it would stimulate the economy in a lot of ways like I think not only is it just good to get kids into highly, highly dangerous trades as soon as possible. But I think there are a lot of offshoots that we haven't considered yet like you got to think that dare iced coffee you will be bringing stuff out and hit size kid size pack a weenie blues, they're gonna start flying off the shelves like this is gonna stimulate the economy from the ground up crowd would have to change

Dan Ilic  12:26  
their their their jingle there is nothing like crown from picking them up and putting them down after snack. You know to have a

James Colley  12:36  
little man Yeah, I actually worked at like 15 and 16 I worked in the back docks of Toys R Us. And can I say it was already it was already horribly horribly mismanaged. It was our system at the time was you climb up on the racks and someone will throw the screw is up to you and you try and catch them. I will take the last thing we need

Lewis Hobba  13:02  
some of those handled grabbers

Dan Ilic  13:06  
I love the reaction on Twitter to some of this. A lot of a lot of folks are saying this is a bit of a distraction from everything that's going on in terms of Dr. V on Sharma said this he said some days you drop the dead cat other days you are the dead cat. That's a really beautiful summation of that.

James Colley  13:23  
I don't know if like I'm worried that I don't know if you can still be calling this distraction because like it's like if Sideshow Bob gets up to the 14th rake and you're saying well that's just distracting from the first 30 rakes like at some point you're just tremendously shit at what it is you're supposed to be doing. Lucky GOP and the fact that time is linear makes every you have it seems like a distraction from the past.

Lewis Hobba  13:45  
There is also an element to this because it's like oh, we've run out of rat tests whatever out of rats. Oh, we run a rat because we don't have enough forklift drivers. Okay, the forklift drivers will be 16 Oh no wait, that's gonna call it's to me this feels like bringing in the cane toads. Like I've come up with a solution and that solution ends up being far worse than the original problem.

James Colley  14:05  
We are running out of 16 year old shop right the forklifts, but we are also canceling sex ed to create more teen pregnancy so we can get more 16 year olds as soon as possible.

Dan Ilic  14:15  
We love and I love this from my country's on Twitter when he wrote down at this point we're going to learn that the government has hasn't ordered enough forklifts.

Lewis Hobba  14:27  
And all you need

James Colley  14:31  
how great it would be though to rock up to year 10. For more in a forklift, two boys on each fork. Be a king of the school?

Bridie Connell  14:40  
Of course I can imagine it that's why I told that stupid lie in 2007.

Unknown Speaker  14:45  
Arsenal fair, we have been working to reduce the regulatory requirements. There are changes that we need to make around the age of forklift drivers to get quite specific

Unknown Speaker  14:54  
your fear is irrational

Dan Ilic  14:56  
this week. Second fear Boris Johnson is on the ropes again ever since Boris Johnson took over the office of Prime Minister from Theresa May. We've read for about three years that his time as prime minister will be over. But because of this whole debacle around the Christmas party in Downing Street, it could possibly be over I mean, Labour leader key Astana had very strong words about Boris Johnson. He said he broke the law, and he lied. But if that happened in Australia, you'd be gifted a portfolio with more responsibility, James, his whole career over what do you think? Well,

James Colley  15:29  
I don't think he's career's over because this is a man who has made a career out of failing upwards so they'll take him out of this and he'll end up King somehow. This is does seem like a worry because they had leaked. The story of this was a quote, Operation Save big dog, which is the best day I've ever heard for any political communication Operation Save big dog was the play to find a series of people that he could throw under the bus before him to slow the bus down just enough that he would survive.

Lewis Hobba  16:03  
It sounds like a GoFundMe for a pet.

Bridie Connell  16:06  
No, it sounds like that person in high school who really desperately wants a nickname so I was like, Yeah, everyone's calling me big dog now. Promise they are

James Colley  16:16  
Operation Safe big dog was when SEAL Team Six and birded

Dan Ilic  16:22  
operation Big Dog sounds like the sequel to Operation Dumbo drop.

Lewis Hobba  16:30  
A timely reference

Dan Ilic  16:33  
1995 it was a it was a well,

James Colley  16:35  
I one of my favorite parts of the outrage for this because it's very funny. So this all started with they had a party as the farewell for the now deputy editor of the sun before the sun broke the story without revealing that it was the deputy editor which took a little while to come out because you think he could have mentioned that the old day. I know a weird amount about this party because frankly, it was my party. I loved in the traditional way that any British outrage goes and eventually comes back to Will they suffered the queen in this that angle is it was just days before Prince Philip's funeral, which is weird, like it was just days before Prince Philip's funeral and she was harried with grief and busy asking her her son Seriously, are you a pedophile? Seriously? Are you are you though?

Dan Ilic  17:24  
Man? Isn't Christmas at the Royals this year? It would have been extremely awkward all year round.

James Colley  17:29  
Oh, yeah. You know, like you've got Philips gone. Andrews in trouble. The queen is already dead. But they've got big sunglasses on her and no one is allowed to ask any questions.

Dan Ilic  17:39  
Weekend at Lizzie's, that's what's going on there?

Lewis Hobba  17:43  
Yeah, but she starts drinking at like 9am. And you've always sort of been like, why does she do that? But the more you find out about the family, you're like, oh, fuck yeah. Founding and unit nine if my if I was a pedophile in my family that I'd been hiding for decades.

Bridie Connell  17:57  
100%

Dan Ilic  17:59  
just so do you think Bo Joe is gonna go James is Bo Joe? Is this the last offer by Joe?

James Colley  18:05  
I think it kind of has to be but then who's it? The Vinci who was like, part of the joy of this was denying the party and they'd Leakey give the press conference you had at the party addressing how we'd appropriate the party was going to be the footage of someone bringing drinks into the play, like short of photos of Boris Johnson in a party hat. Boy, we got one of those little I don't know what else they need.

Bridie Connell  18:31  
It's interesting, too, because I reckon, I think if the party was just objectively awesome, in Australia would be like, yeah, man, three more years. That was a fucking sick buddy. But just the description of like, just platters of sandwiches. It sounds like a terrible time like people are just some of them are in the garden. Like if you're gonna lose your job over a party, at least make it a really epic one. That's the real tragedy here.

Dan Ilic  19:01  
Yeah. You want to be doing coke off the treasurer's chest. That's what you want to be doing?

Lewis Hobba  19:06  
Yeah, you want a Christmas party?

James Colley  19:10  
I am shocked and disgusted that there was cocaine at a media party sickened by this and I wouldn't ever trust him. This

Dan Ilic  19:17  
might be a bit inside school for folks who listen to the podcast but Mumbrella betrayed rag that talks about the media all the time put out a put out a blog post this week saying yes, I'm letting people know that there was cocaine at the Christmas party last year. And we want to get ahead of the story as

Lewis Hobba  19:34  
it did last year, like four years ago.

Dan Ilic  19:36  
I was in for easy. I thought it was like it was December. No, no,

Lewis Hobba  19:39  
it was ages ago.

Dan Ilic  19:41  
Oh my god. This

Lewis Hobba  19:45  
honestly, like, it's so direct. It's like saying there were chips at the McDonald's birthday. It was such an insanely unnecessary post you like what were you afraid of that like other people medalists would go and go like bit Did you hear that? There was like drug versus party?

James Colley  20:04  
Are they busy snorting up at the walkway?

Dan Ilic  20:06  
Yeah, I've I got off the drugs the 2006 Lucky's maybe I should talk to somebody chattel tan.

James Colley  20:13  
Yeah. The real problem with this is there's still a media organization that can afford cocaine.

Unknown Speaker  20:21  
More than 800 police officers are in isolation tonight because of critical shortages of rapid antigen tests.

Bertha Announcement  20:29  
stampli stations have actually been forced to close in some local areas have been left without a local response.

Unknown Speaker  20:35  
Your fear is rational.

Dan Ilic  20:37  
This week's third fear Craig Kelly is up in Google and Facebook's face this week for removing United Australia party ads from their platforms. Now some of the ads that you put up were quite sensational. They make outrageous claims that aren't based in truth, you know, stuff like Craig Kelly and Clive Palmer would be good politicians, you know, stuff like that. And please vote for them, you know, stuff that everybody knows isn't true. There's also a bunch of stuff that got taken down that were or COVID conspiracies. Now out of the 57 ads that have been running on YouTube, only four got taken down, after they had been running for a week. And they'd been seen by millions and billions of people. It seems to be kind of almost pointless to even like like why even complained that four ads got removed out of 57. And millions of people already seen your ads. But what's interesting is the media is kind of focusing on this moment are the ads being pulled. But right down the bottom of all these articles has like the number has has money kind of spent by UAP on these ads. And I just want to share these these numbers for with you. Apparently 90% of all political advertising on YouTube, is done by the United Australia party. The next is done by by labor. Now the United Australia party spends $4.9 million on YouTube ads. And guess how much labour has spent? Louis Do you know how much labour would have spent? 50 grand? It's close 90 grand like $90,000 Compared to 4.9 million. Wow, isn't that just crazy. And here's, here's the thing, here's the strange thing. Like, there has been several bits of legislation to stop lying in political advertising go in front of this government for the last 10 years. But everyone in the coalition has been against it. So it's actually not illegal to lie in political advertising.

Lewis Hobba  22:29  
That sounds healthy. You're not even allowed to lie about like the shake weight, but you're fucking policy.

James Colley  22:36  
If you save it, your spray and wipe kills 100% of germs, they're gonna kick down your fucking door. Like, you know what, drink it and it will cure COVID That's cool. That's right.

Dan Ilic  22:46  
James, I forget your other head writer of grow and transfer. So you would know all of this kind of minutia, right? Well,

James Colley  22:53  
these ads are fascinating for us because they they pre roll ads and pre roll ads. Traditionally, you have five seconds to win your audience's attention. And it famously takes Craig Kelly seven seconds for his mouth to register that his brain is we're dealing as we described, the weekly we are dealing with the MP most likely to run into it wall with a tunnel painted on top of it. The stupidest person in Parliament, and that is grading on a curve. Like it is remarkable that this man is able to upload anything onto YouTube. But these ads go for so long and say so little. They're amazing. And but I've got to say if you're on YouTube, and you want to find a Craig Kelly video, the gold standard is when he is in his private apart like private the home quarantining for two weeks to enter Canberra. So instead, he sets up the red Ensign on the fence behind him, which means he is a boat, and he sits there and he bounces a ball against the wall. Like he's in the Shawshank bucket.

Dan Ilic  23:59  
I think I remember say that. Yeah. But they just so many other crazy things that he says in his YouTube ads, like there is like a Chinese Air Force Base in Western Australia. And there's a whole bunch of other kind of conspiracies like this, but they don't get taken down. But the COVID stuff gets taken down because it's it's kind of against Facebook and Google's policy to not spread misinformation about COVID.

James Colley  24:20  
Well, there's a very interesting part of this, which is that like, they have a three strike policy, they have a three strike policy, which is you should be banned for 90 days after your third strike. But gray Kelly's had, say six of his videos brought down at once. But that counts is one strike, because they were all brought down together. So it's like if you were like, well, technically I was on a crime spree so that your account was one scratch against my record.

Bridie Connell  24:45  
And that ties into something that I found funny about this reporting of the story. It's just a little semantic detail, but in a lot of the articles about this, it's like Google says it's doing all it can to take these ads down and I'm like, you though, like, I'm just weighed down by this whole point. $9 million, get all this money off me and then I can take them off the internet.

Dan Ilic  25:05  
I think it's so interesting though, that you can actually put out political advertising and you can you can line it like anyone could publish an ad saying that Scott Morrison is a good bloke who never lies, and you would never go to jail for that. Like you could even say, Barnaby Joyce is a family man who has the interests of farmers at heart and he couldn't even touch you for defamation. But you could you could spread so many lies with illegal advertising.

Bridie Connell  25:26  
Perhaps some of those products that we've mentioned before that want to spread some lies about how effective this sprays are at killing germs should just become a political party and keep their ads the same. And then they'll have no ramification.

Lewis Hobba  25:40  
Absolutely, I brought he's really onto something I would love to say companies turning into political parties to sort of both maybe get elected but also just sell products. Like if you just I just say political activists like vote Windex, yeah, don't smash the glass ceiling clean it.

Dan Ilic  25:56  
Yeah, I would. I would vote for crazy John's I mean, he looks like Craig Kelly, like crazy. John mobile phones could easily run for parliament and be great, blisteringly topical.

Bridie Connell  26:08  
It's a worry to me, though, that like even some of the cartoon spokespeople for many products that I can think of I would prefer to be leading the country. That that's a sad time. Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  26:20  
yeah. I worry that the only people who would do it would be James mowing and Dick Smith.

Unknown Speaker  26:27  
Open Society back up, restore our freedoms in this man.

Unknown Speaker  26:33  
I'm George Christensen, host of conservative one pandemic amassed the podcast, lifting the veil on the Chinese Communist Party created COVID-19 This is a rational fear.

Lewis Hobba  26:46  
A little while back, I was going I was deleting a bunch of shit from something. I found this old irrational fear joke from from before Scott Morrison was Prime Minister years and years before Scott Morrison was prime minister. It was a website that was I was actually we created Dan created, which was the Scott Morrison excuse generator. Oh,

James Colley  27:08  
I remember writing that exact face. Yeah.

Lewis Hobba  27:13  
I remember like thinking at the time, I was like, no one knows this Scott Morrison guy is I'm not sure this is gonna fly. But it would if we kept that up. It would be crashing right now.

Dan Ilic  27:22  
Is it still up? Did you? Did you find it bring it back?

Lewis Hobba  27:25  
I don't think it is. I seem to remember. I think the link was broken when I saw it.

James Colley  27:30  
Oh, yeah, it was like 2014. All the jokes are incredibly racist.

Dan Ilic  27:36  
Out of all the irrational fear kind of physical stance we've done I you know, like in the real world stuff I do. I do enjoy a good website or a good or a good billboard, as you know. But the thing that I love the most was the was the phone number was the WHO THE FUCK IS Prime Minister phone number which had the talking clock, which can tell you who was prime minister at that exact point in time because it had a great bit of code that you that would connect to the Wikipedia that would automatically change as soon as the Wikipedia entry for Australian Prime Minister was changed. So I remember on election night, just calling it hoping to hear change over and then of course, Scott Morrison won, so it's kind of pointless.

James Colley  28:16  
I missed the days where we've managed to convince Clive Palmer that we had just found a garbage bag full of the exact number of votes that he was missing. Right?

Dan Ilic  28:28  
Oh my god, you should

James Colley  28:29  
definitely go son.

Lewis Hobba  28:32  
He's back baby.

Dan Ilic  28:33  
We unfortunately have to postpone our opera house show. So for our 10 year anniversary, but I tell you what, we should probably do like a definite full retrospective kind of show. In the next few months before the election just to kind of reminisce about all if not just to be lazy and not write any new jokes. Just replay the old ones

James Colley  28:53  
to play the last 1000 years of liberal darkness.

Dan Ilic  28:56  
I was gonna play an old all the rational fi video with James Colley. But I thought I just hold off. Oh, now I'm curious. So hang on a second. Oh.

Lewis Hobba  29:08  
This is fans. Yeah, I'm really curious about this. Oh, boy. Oh, I mean, comedy is known for aging. Well, so Kali

Dan Ilic  29:17  
came to me ages ago and said I can can I be an irrational fear? This is when I was like writing irrational fear out of my out of my kitchen. And I said, Yo,

Lewis Hobba  29:26  
you just done a bullshit degree in astrophysics.

James Colley  29:31  
Yeah. And I thought, let's focus on something challenging.

Dan Ilic  29:37  
And so I kind of, I kind of wanted to go to Kings Cross and interview people in Kings Cross about, you know, this is when Kings Cross was like raging, and there were so many drunk people in Kings Cross and this is before the lockout laws happened. The whole premise of it was to ask the people of Kings trust to solve the problems and looking back at it. It's So it feels so ancient like it feels like 1000 years ago.

James Colley  30:05  
So what you need to understand is these people have just come from a Mumbrella after party.

Dan Ilic  30:11  
So this is the first one of the first ever videos we ever made for rational fear. I'm on the microphone interviewing drunk people in James You are filming as we go. Why don't we play hang on a sec, if anyone wants to stop this as we go just say hang on a sec. Here we go. rational

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
thinking cross crosses for

Unknown Speaker  30:29  
decades. How do you fix that? Well, you can't really see Australian culture you guy you get drunk and you become a dickhead. I'll tell you the problem.

Lewis Hobba  30:40  
The way to fix it

Dan Ilic  30:45  
Yeah, in retrospect, that was the solution. And housing prices went up

Unknown Speaker  30:50  
everyone's just drugs. I'm not gonna lie. Everyone's on drugs. You just got to get paid. Suggestions. Just honestly kick every violent person out of King

Unknown Speaker  31:00  
scops and dog because he's a wombat.

Unknown Speaker  31:04  
With alcohol alcohol problem I don't believe in it because guess why I'm alcoholic myself.

Unknown Speaker  31:09  
So let me ask you a question. How do we fix global warming? Turn off you hate is is a carbon tax got to do with that. That bad saving carbon or something?

Unknown Speaker  31:19  
Less mobile phones, cars all that shit. Go back to old school just walking in that

Unknown Speaker  31:25  
will get pyramids. And buses made no more buses nothing. Continue shuffling.

Unknown Speaker  31:29  
Where's the problem of China and India are the problems. Level actually.

Unknown Speaker  31:37  
I think we just go I mean by solving the whaling the whaling is a problem?

Unknown Speaker  31:43  
I don't believe in it. But actually I'll do because fucking Julian

Unknown Speaker  31:47  
I believe in global warming. You can't prove it right now. Are we warm me up? No. Cuz we're not. I'm pretty fucking cold. It's called

Unknown Speaker  31:58  
global warming tonight. Global warming will be fucking I'll take my shirt off right now. Take it off. I'll take it off.

Unknown Speaker  32:03  
Come on. It's global warming. Everyone's like it comes on stage. Hang

Bridie Connell  32:07  
on a sec. Just cuz I just need just two seconds. Here these men. All of these men now I promise you have high profile corporate jobs in Sydney

Dan Ilic  32:23  
with a short without a doubt. And they still believe the same thing.

Lewis Hobba  32:28  
They're selling the properties in Potts points that have gone up 200% Because they shut down fun in the cross.

Dan Ilic  32:33  
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure we interviewed the cost of Sydney Lux listing so I'm pretty sure that

Lewis Hobba  32:40  
those two bled out guys who were like, not just China and India like those were the people at COP 26 representing Australia to fuck me

Unknown Speaker  32:50  
what make the ice caps melt? What was it frozen ice melts, it cools down the rest of the earth.

Unknown Speaker  32:59  
What do you not let

Unknown Speaker  33:01  
me just get a lot out of government. Maybe

Unknown Speaker  33:03  
that might help. That's a big one. Yeah, get a lot out of grab a woman.

Unknown Speaker  33:07  
I don't give a fuck about global warming right getting pizzas Yana pizza. What about gay marriage? Personally? It's Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve.

Unknown Speaker  33:19  
I'm not against guys. But gay marriage is fucking a bit too fun. Guys, yeah, you guys.

James Colley  33:27  
Very disappointed in Stuart Lee on the left.

Unknown Speaker  33:32  
Guys have civil unions already. So it's exactly the same writers game like men and women marriages. Why do they have to have the same as us? Kind of like black people? Well, no, not kind of like black people. Because marriage is traditional. You can't go against tradition. That's what I'm saying. Like slavery. Not against slavery. No, slavery is pretty traditional. Its traditional. But it's wrong.

Unknown Speaker  33:57  
Like gay marriage is cool, man. Because everyone says God is like, our main merchant ship. God didn't make marriage. It's a man made thing, man. of fact, but 50 years ago that no we're voting I'm pretty sure it's a lie. I made that up in the spot. But yeah, look at it. Look at him. we're innovating. Women are marrying men and married. There's nothing wrong with it. It's

Unknown Speaker  34:24  
two males that want to get down to business buddy can ask this that. It's up to them. I'm against

Unknown Speaker  34:33  
against my religion. What about if it wasn't your religion? If it wasn't my religion, if he had a different religion?

Unknown Speaker  34:41  
What would have been sensitive about it?

Dan Ilic  34:49  
Those are the days so dies on the rest of 2012.

Bridie Connell  34:53  
The only thing that I like that that was a brief reprieve from that Frank A horrifying couple of minutes of the day was the guy who was like, for climate change. Let's get pizzas which I reckon as a policy slogan. I would vote for that party every time. Sadly, they weren't

James Colley  35:13  
called Five pizzas.

Dan Ilic  35:17  
That is it for a rational fee. Big thank you to James Koehler, he Bridey. Connell and Lewis, how about now James and Bridey? You guys have got a brand new podcast that you you want to plug on the show.

Bridie Connell  35:31  
We know two best friends who decided to start a podcast we thought it's never been done.

James Colley  35:38  
If you enjoy political satire, you're going to love us pouring through the horrible vanity albums of B list celebrities in vanity project.

Bridie Connell  35:48  
Yes, it's a very fun time. And there are a surprising amount of vanity albums out there. So we are having a great old time going through them and it's been really fun so far.

Lewis Hobba  35:58  
Who have you done a bar?

Dan Ilic  36:00  
I? Well, I've been listening to the Paris Hilton episode that you guys did with Beck shore. And I have to say, every time you play a song, I simultaneously get annoyed when you cut it off. Didn't start talking and kissing doesn't like hang on a second though. It's actually pretty good. What's going on there? Paris Hilton. She's a She's a superstar waiting to have a

Bridie Connell  36:20  
truly it's been my favorite album that we've covered so far.

James Colley  36:23  
I can tell you our next album up is Steven Seagal songs from the crystal cave and you will not have that feeling. Wow,

Bridie Connell  36:32  
you're like life will flash before your eyes if you listen to this.

Dan Ilic  36:37  
And the name of the podcast is vanity project. Is it? vanity project? Yeah, you can listen to it wherever you get podcasts big thank you also to rode mics, the birth of foundation and our Patreon supporters as well as Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. Now we had a whole stack of people sign up to Patreon from last week so big thank you to people signing up Sarah Brennan Chris Brooks Elaine van Bergen, Lucy M Peter Clayton pebbles Alinsky. Roz quirk, Sean McQueen, Abdul Youssef and Matt best you're the best so please, if you like this podcast, please subscribe to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. And if you want some joke keeper stickers for the first people to sign up to the $14 a month level I will send you out a sticker pack with all of the joke keeper stickers I can muster so please do sign up and I'll shoot you out a joke keeper sticker pack I noticed. Peter Lola on the on the text has already said free jokey billboards count me in. Well, Peter, I've already sent him an envelope. It's on the way Peter, it's going out to you. It's going out already. It's

James Colley  37:40  
going to break the back of your poster.

Bridie Connell  37:44  
Not it's a tiny child and a full clip.

Dan Ilic  37:48  
Anything else you want to plug before we go Louis?

Lewis Hobba  37:50  
No nothing for me dan.

James Colley  37:52  
I've got some vintage irrational fear sticker packs here. So

Dan Ilic  37:58  
I got that poster that says Tony Abbott bad Rastro

Well, that is it. That is it for the show. b Thank you everyone. We'll see you next time until next week. There's always something to be scared of. And you know what, you know, maybe we'll just rather than do like a long retrospective. We should just play a little bit of something from old days once once an episode or something like that. That's fun. Oh,

James Colley  38:25  
I'd love to be edited out of that.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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We're back for 2021 with a short sharp A Rational Fear. We're joined by Peppa Smith (Yamma Mamma), Travis De Vries (Awesome Black), as well as Dan Ilic and Lewis Hobba.

• KFC Chicken Shortage.
• COVID and Cannabis.
• Australian Republican Movement's new platform for voting for a head of state.

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

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

Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. This episode of irrational fears

Dan Ilic  0:05  
recorded on the land of the direwolf people sovereignty was never said When did a treaty let's stop the show. A rational

Unknown Speaker  0:11  
fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra fan COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Alan Jones  0:24  
Good morning, everyone. I'm Alan Jones debt, Ilitch has invited me to host the interview show for a rational fear as my own show. Keulen was too popular and crashed the internet after three minutes of streaming. Oh god, you know who else crashed after three minutes of my streaming July on Gilad? Now this show is dedicated to the most important people in the country, the sponsors of a rational theme, we will celebrate them all in this very special episode, the highs, the lows and be in between. This is genuinely cash for comments. Let's kick it off with a message from my very dear friend and close personal tuber Peter Dutton.

Peter Dutton  1:06  
Oh, Peter Dutton here wishing you and your family Christmas and reminding you that just like Santa Claus, I'm keeping a list of who is naughty and nice. Previously, if you were an Australian citizen, and you made a joke about a minister, for instance, a minor dog looking like a potato, there was no way he could legally tap your phone or jingle your bell. But as of today, ASIO can be my own personal health on a shelf, and I can spy on anyone I want foreign, more Australian, more Australian it looks a bit foreign or worse, the leader of the greens. So if you're gonna buy certain jokes about certain ministers, remember, potatoes have eyes and they could see when you are sleeping, and they know when you're awake. Just consider yourself lucky that Santa Claus isn't coming by boat. Whoa, whoa, whoa, authorized unopposed by Peter Dutton, Canberra.

Alan Jones  2:06  
Thank you, Peter. What a warm kind of Dare I say jolly man. Next up is another jolly fellow, the President of the United States of America's alternative reality. Donald Trump. Here he is writing a letter to fake incoming President Joe Biden way back in January 26.

Donald Trump  2:26  
Dear Joe, as you are senile, I will write this letter slowly. As I leave the White House with my wife and her lookalikes. I reflect on my time here as a career highlight of their with when I play the successful hotel owner in home alone to last in New York, even though you had the highest amount of votes in US history. I had the second highest and second is better than first. Justice two is higher than one. That's just a fact looking. So with that in mind, congratulations on pulling off a hoax election and undermining the country. I das by red cap your way and have chosen to write this letter in my finest crayons. You have ruined democracy in ways I could only dream and I usually only dream of the hamburger. But as a chick with big Tata. It has been an honor being the president of a country that would allow me to be president. Sincerely, Donald J. Trump. PS follow me on parler PPS, actually don't follow me on.

Alan Jones  3:32  
Good on your Donald from the President of the USA to the president of Australia. Rhythm Murdoch was awarded a lifetime achievement award back in January for how many lives he's managed to suck the blood out of to stay alive himself. Ah, well, Dad Rupert,

Rupert Murdoch  3:48  
good evening paying subscriber Rupert Murdoch here saying thanks for my lifetime achievement Award. It fills me with enthusiasm for my final days of planetary destruction until I die. Well, let me tell you I'm far from done. I've ruined democracies in the UK, USA and Australia. But they're still pansy little democratic countries around the world that have yet to be torn apart by my lieutenants. Defense us little New Zealand, I'm looking at you. There's a real movement to silence conservatism, which is why my 1000s of publications, TV networks and radio stations are home to them. And let's not forget MySpace, the future of the Internet. Once Facebook and Google are taxed into submission, you'll need an account. You can even put me on your top five friends if you'd like to young people, I say do what I do. Try to destroy everything before you die leaving behind a hash of a planet that looks just like my heart. Oh, and by The Daily Telegraph all the Herald Sun confidential this week is particularly sexy believe

Alan Jones  5:01  
Rupert Murdoch will be back in just a moment to explain why the federal government is forcing big tech players like Google and Facebook to pay media proprietors for their content. And why wouldn't be listening to me talk about how many immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country, his premium stuff. But before that, here is a message from Bill Gates on why you should take a dump on

Bill Gates  5:20  
Google. Hello, I'm Bill Gates, former Microsoft founder and CEO now full time Boomer with too many resources at hand. And when I'm not planning to vaccinate the world with the latest antivirus, I'm using Bing Bing almost works as great as Google. That's why over 6% of the world trust Bing to find what they're looking for. Say you want to find the best coffee shop near you. All you have to do is go to www.bing.com and type in Spanish Civil War, and the best coffee shops will appear on your screen. And say you want to read all the latest news on your phone. Just download the Bing app and hit the latest news tab. And you can binge all the latest news on the cost of Concordia Shipra departure of Google from Australia my old friends at Microsoft are ready to make being relevant to Australia as Australia is relevant to the world. I wonder this has nothing to do with the rumors of me trying to inject you with 5g nanobots just try to search for it I'm hoping it doesn't exist. bearing

Alan Jones  6:40  
good on your bill is February rolls around so does all things budgets and to celebrate here is something very very special and strange.

Unknown Speaker  6:50  
Frydenberg industries and audible presents economic measures as you've never heard them before mother mind my money my mother from his hermetically sealed home studio in the southern highlands. Robbie McGregor Australia's most well known sexiest voice. Okay, already says the woods stimulus package for three sexy hours.

Robbie McGreggor  7:18  
stimulus package, stimulus package, stimulus package, stimulus package, stimulus package, stimulus package

Unknown Speaker  7:30  
ride the wave of fiscal foreplay,

Robbie McGreggor  7:34  
stimulus package, stimulus package or stimulus package, stimulus package

Unknown Speaker  7:42  
anomic era eroticism package ride the down Jones bull all the way until his bubble bursts stimulus package stupid.

Unknown Speaker  8:12  
Frydenberg stimulus package is guaranteed to get everyone excited except for freelancers, migrants and casual workers. If you use the offer code hashtag fuck freelancers, get a 20 minute bonus of Robin McGregor saying the words quantitative easing,

Robbie McGreggor  8:26  
quantitative easing, quantitative quantitative

Unknown Speaker  8:30  
Frydenberg stimulus package is available to download from the audible store. Now. If you're registered for GST,

Robbie McGreggor  8:38  
oh.

Alan Jones  8:43  
I've got no idea what that was. It was like living through a Labour government. We're doing a recap of the 2021 sponsors of irrational fear. And thank God the coalition is here to govern the only effective way we know how press conferences

Rupert Degas  8:58  
standby for an announcement about announcements from the Commonwealth of Australia. The federal government to secure the COVID-19 vaccine for all Australians is what we hope you picked up from the news this week. We haven't yet but we announced it. How good would that be? Just like the $2 billion national bushfire recovery fund that only existed in your brain the moment we announced it now that science and not to mention getting the arts industry back on their feet with a Coronavirus stimulus package that we haven't delivered. That was a really good announcement. We did it ages ago. Guys. Sebastian was there. And he looked sad. The federal government announcing things because doing things is the state's responsibility. Spoken by Rupert Degas, my son was being crushed because I have to read these ads to stay alive regardless of my own political opinion.

Alan Jones  9:43  
The pandemic remember that? Gosh, more like plan Demmick I feel stronger than ever. And you know who else is my good friend Jerry Harvey. Oh,

Scott Morrison  9:53  
it's the Harvey Norman swimming in money sale.

There's so much money we're drowning in it profits up 116% sales up by $462 million. As a bonus we're keeping job keeper That's right $22 million from the government to help struggling businesses during a pandemic The only thing we're struggling to do is find space to bottle this excess $22 million tax free interest free no cash back

Unknown Speaker  10:18  
the savings are huge and Harvey Norman if you're me, Jerry

Scott Morrison  10:23  
it's the Harvey Norman swimming in money sale. Oh cash that's gotta say. Say

Alan Jones  10:29  
good on your Jerry. He's a go at that one. Remember the first time the plan Demick finished and the government was literally begging people to fly the broom. The only reason to fly the broom is to sweep your life under the carpet.

Robbie McGreggor  10:44  
Federal government is giving away 800,000 Half Price plane tickets to anywhere in Australia. That is a marginal electorate. There's never been a better time to seek the seven swinging wonders of Australia. Walk through the colossal Women's Rugby Union change rooms of Red Cliff Queensland it or hike through the poisoned wasteland where they're hanging native grasslands of jam land one screw or fly to secluded Kangaroo Island just stay in your own rather check to experience how the Emperors of the Great Pyramid Scheme of Paladin once left swinging by swing seats has never been this cheap. All you have to do is just sell a little tiny part of yourself if you book through hello world use the offer code one word all lowercase. I know my tears Coleman and you'll get a surprise discount you'll have no idea about obviously free travel. There's nothing marginal about the seven swinging wonders service Australia do pack a jacket because anywhere you go, it's gonna be Bellwether

Alan Jones  12:06  
now here's one of the best ideas I've ever heard of when it comes to accountability. No, it's not a federal ipecac it's a hotline to kick the pause pour.

Bronwyn Morgan  12:15  
This episode of irrational fear is brought to you by Makayla cashes. Dobin adult ledger hotline. If you know someone who is earning hard earned money from taxpayers and is refusing to do their job, just call one 800 dole bludger Oh, are

Scott Morrison  12:29  
you said to hold on to job in the bludger? Yes. Hello to Davina Blodger.

Unknown Speaker  12:34  
Yes come on barrel. Darrow who I think we need some more information

Scott Morrison  12:39  
there all the guard SEC last week after the job keeper thing ended off with him his job back at high five for three hours a fortnight in the bug or refused aerelon

Unknown Speaker  12:46  
job seeker? Did I? Was he applying for the job? Well, I

Scott Morrison  12:50  
reckon he would if I advertised that you haven't advertised the job then now then the tax department would not right. So what are you going to do about it? You're going to ring him and tell him that he should take it away

Unknown Speaker  13:00  
that maybe I could I have your full name and contact number should click to hang up you actually need to press the red button not say click off. Thanks.

Bronwyn Morgan  13:11  
One 800 dole bludger because there's nothing more Australian than dubbing in your mates.

Alan Jones  13:18  
For a brief moment in March 2021, Australia was one of the few countries in the world that didn't have real news on Facebook. What a relief. Thankfully, Sky News was available still at the time to explain why here's Rupert.

Rupert Murdoch  13:31  
So why isn't there any news on your Facebook newsfeed? Here's a quick explainer by me Rupert Murdoch left 10 on general of the News Corp and assorted expeditionary forces. Now, Mark Zuckerberg owns a website, Facebook, and Google owns a website called Google's and their websites own the data of all Australians who use it, which means they know what you want before you do. They're really good at selling advertising. I own newspapers that are really bad at selling advertising. And those newspapers own the Australian Government and the Australian government makes laws so one day on a whim I thought Geez Louise wave bad at selling edge. Not everyone wants 60 month interest free deals for electrical computers, furniture, bedding and flooring from Harvey Norman. Some people want magnetic lashes leggings that make you bump up and other bullshit. We have no idea. But then I said to myself, Rupert, you own a perfectly good government. It's just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe you can get them to force the blokes with the websites that are good at selling ads to give us money. Then I call the government to my house by private jet made them pay for And I said, Hello government, man, I forget their names. I've had a lot of staff turnover lately. If you still enjoy being the government, can you do this? And they said, We do still enjoy being the government boss. Yes. And yes, we can do that. Now the websites that are good at selling ads have to by law, give me money. And the best part about it Googles and Facebooks give the money straight to me tax free. And we wouldn't have it any other way. Why start paying tax now? Of some journalists would say, oh, but there's no way to guarantee that money will be invested in New Journalism. Well, none of those journalists work for me. I don't hire journalists out and you may have noticed Facebook news is back. For now. Zuckerberg told the government is only going to pay us if he feels like it. Well, I respect that. At the end of the day, Facebook, Google and I all agree that we're not going to pay any money to the Australian Government. Because why would you? There are a bunch of

Alan Jones  16:14  
cowards you technology has become quite the constant in our lives. I remember when I got a TV remote control for the first time and that the click of a button you could flick between watching me on the Ernie sigley Show to watching me on the online shown to watching me on the bird show to watching me on the Graham Kennedy show to watching me on the Simon Gallagher show to watching me on the John Singleton show you're watching me on the Mike Walsh show to watching me on the Barry Crocker show to watching me on the TED Hamilton show to watching me on the Darryl summer show and to watching me on the Alan Jones Show. Now that was media diversity when it comes to new technology to keep track of consent. Dawood knows who is allowed in which holes better than a New South Wales Police Commissioner.

Scott Morrison  16:57  
Hi, I'm Nick fuller. As New South Wales Police Commissioner, I love stripping down with others but gaining consent can be a confusing process. That's why we've developed a new app to help men with important careers feel safe at night. If individuals have developed relations to a point where undergarments could be heading in a southerly direction, it's important to document the consent of each party before the engagement of horizontal proceedings. Simply take out your service New South Wales app and scroll to the sexual consent form. You and your sexual participants simply tick the boxes for the style and duration of sexual intercourse. Also note if applicable, which private high school participants attended. So we assign the most appropriate legal response should we even need to then simply sign on the screen or use a finger on the fingerprint reader. If one of your participants is too drunk to sign definitely don't coerce them or just place their finger on the fingerprint reader. They'll never be able to prove otherwise, then and only then can sexual intercourse proceed at a location of your choice. There is currently a 15 person limit per sexual event per household. But this will relax as COVID rules change. Now, this is important. If any participant changes their mind it won't be automatically updated by the app. But were assured by the Boston Consulting Group that this will be addressed in a future upgrade. So when emotions are running high, remember now at no wet. This has been a message from the New South Wales Police. Thank you.

Alan Jones  18:31  
Usually right now I'd love to have Anthony clear on the show. But unfortunately, Dan Ilic turned irrational fear don't have enough patreon supporters are caught is so cheap. Instead, here is Andrew bolts daughter, Gabby bolt blurting out a tune about how the Prime Minister of Australia can relate to women who he is related to

Gabbi Bolt  18:52  
welcome to the fifth annual Parliament House karaoke competition. I know I know Garrett comes back and wins every year. But I might not be one to pick up a hose. But I certainly have picked up a microphone before

Unknown Speaker  19:06  
Hey, kids

Unknown Speaker  19:07  
learn from my empathy consultant turns out all that I have to say is I find those guys repulsive once I a thing about how I will

Gabbi Bolt  19:16  
propose real change. But if I try to cry, maybe no one will notice anything strange.

Unknown Speaker  19:27  
cuz I'll stand up for women when they need me. But only the ones

Gabbi Bolt  19:32  
I like. Jenny and the girls only relate to my relatives. Good. I really even I haven't named names. I mean, I'm not to blame. I could have shot protesters right at the scene.

But I didn't want to know

why Jenny and the girls Yeah, Jenny

I'm personally nailing Miss Dutton. What do you think? Scott better than

Unknown Speaker  20:10  
Danny and the girls?

Alan Jones  20:13  
Oh, what a voice. Up next, some pandemic recovery packages that aren't about building out a gas pipeline. Oh, God.

Bronwyn Morgan  20:21  
The rules of federal parliament are changing from April 1 2021. Some behavior will now be quietly condemned. Whether that's accidentally quote, assaulting a silly drunk girl, or just whacking on a desk. The consequences of your actions could now be enforced with serious thinly veiled threats. Like you could lose your portfolio, lower the chances of pre selection maybe or possibly even getting a telling off by a state Premier. That's why the Prime Minister's Prime Minister for female complaints is introducing knob keeper. knob keeper provides relief for your upstanding member. Non keeper supports knobs with fully paid leave, so you can spend more time with your family if you still have one before coming back and fulfilling your promise to the Australian people while collecting $200,000 A year or your fully paid leave can be used to brief a team of lawyers so you can sue a trusted journalist who never mentioned your name for defamation. But remember, if you're not sure whether that upskirting photo or dick pic is appropriate, check with Jenny first Julie has a way of clarifying no keeper, a helping hand for our big swinging decks authorized by irrational fear on behalf of the Australian Brotherman Canberra.

Alan Jones  21:41  
Well, that explains a lot but not as much as who is eligible for those irrelevant vaccines which the government has done with absolute clarity.

Virginia Gay  21:50  
We understand there's been some confusion about who is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and who votes labor.

Rupert Degas  21:57  
That's why the federal government is clearing up the confusion with job seeker.

Virginia Gay  22:02  
Job Seeker tells you when the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be made available to groups most in need of protection first, and Liberal Party donors.

Rupert Degas  22:12  
These vulnerable communities have been identified by medical experts and focus groups.

Virginia Gay  22:18  
Group one includes people who are at increased risk of being silenced by Kancil culture,

Rupert Degas  22:24  
like journalists who haven't asked any questions, cab drivers and divorced dads with an axe to grind on facebook

Virginia Gay  22:31  
group to priority access will also be given to people working in critical services such as

Rupert Degas  22:37  
residents of marginal electorates, sharks fans, coal industry professionals,

Virginia Gay  22:42  
and men with law degrees who went to university with current or former Liberal Party Cabinet members.

Rupert Degas  22:48  
If you're not listed in groups one or two, keep checking job seeker to see when other groups of people will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine like women's scientists, union members, and Tom Ballard, who will definitely be last on the list job seeker, helping those who are more on to Australia than others get a COVID-19 vaccine first whenever they fucking arrive, authorized by someone anonymously to give us plausible deniability. Should it all go to hell camera.

Alan Jones  23:16  
Back in April Scott Morrison visited a Pentecostal church and tell them that God gave to him in a dream and told him to run for the top job as Prime Minister now, I've never called Nick grana God, and I don't think I'm about to start now.

God  23:32  
Hi, I'm God, also known as Yahweh, the Lord Jehovah, and in some circles, Jenin you may remember me for being the father of Jesus, the guy who was murdered by the mob when the local authorities claimed his safety was the responsibility of the states. Now I just want to clear a few things up. Your Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that I came to him in a vision. And I said, quote, Scott, you've got to run for Prime Minister. Well, that's not how I remember it. I remember appearing to him and saying, Scott, you've got the runs. And if you don't make it home, you'll have to stop at anger Dean McDonald's. I'm glad we could clear that up on the record. And remember, folks love one another. Although I understand that's more of an inner city a dinner party cafe, green's thing to do. Oh, and by my book is big, and it's a best seller.

Alan Jones  24:38  
May 2021. So corporate Australia ran out of patience with Coronavirus while hospitals had an oversupply of patients. Back in May the CEO of Virgin had a message for anyone wanting to travel overseas again.

Virginia Gay  24:54  
A message from Virgin Australia. You may have heard our CEO say that Cost of opening up international borders is that some people will die. Sorry for the gas. It's our first time. We want to let all Australians know that there's always a small risk of dying on one of our flights, be it from the food, overcrowding, or watching too many Adam Sandler movies on long haul connections. at Virgin Australia, we're committed to helping our customers reach their dream destination, but an unlucky few will also reach their ultimate destination. At least Virgin Australia customers can take comfort in the fact that, unlike Qantas, your death will most likely be delayed. Virgin Australia, some people will die, but probably not on time.

Alan Jones  25:47  
The NDIS is a crucial service for Australians with a disability but according to the government this year, there's only two problems with it. One, it costs money into the public servants who run it have bleeding hearts. Now to me that sounds like a preexisting condition garden.

NDIS Empathy Hotline  26:04  
Thanks for calling NDIS. Unfortunately, all of our empathetic Public Service employees are attending other customers, or they're in a meeting with human resources because of something they tweeted or are at home suffering burnout, and Your call has been diverted to our artificially intelligent empathy hotline. If you require a computer generated voice to occasionally say listening sounds like oh, yeah, and Aha, and oh, no, you poor thing. Press one. If you would like to be misdiagnosed by an artificial doctor, press two, to experience having this call being passed to an endless loop of computer generated NDIS employees for several hours. Press three to speak to the human breast for that's a little computer joke. There are no more humans, they're all fired. If you would like to meditate to the pace for sound of a dot matrix printer, stay on the line.

Alan Jones  27:09  
If we've learned anything this year about the management of the pandemic, it's not a race, because we're all gonna die sooner or later. We're not me, I'll live forever.

Rupert Degas  27:19  
This episode of irrational fear is brought to you by the National Vaccine rollout. Remember, it's not a race. It's a marathon, which is the name of a race. But in this case, no one is racing. It's more of a fun run.

Unknown Speaker  27:33  
But not funny.

Rupert Degas  27:35  
And there's no running. Because the National Vaccine rollout is the gold standard. A monetary policy that was abandoned by Australia in 1932. Steel, it sounds nice, like a gold medal. But you'd get if you won a race, which the National Vaccine rollout definitely isn't authorized by the Department of mixed metaphors and grasping at straws camera.

Alan Jones  27:55  
Well, let's clear that up. In July 2021, the federal government upped its vaccine messaging, that is to say they started vaccine messaging, only a year and a half into the pandemic. They put out an ad to encourage everyone to get the vaccine. But back in July, no one could get the vaccine. It was harder to get a vaccine that tickets to any other musical. God. That was a good show. I was in it. Oh dear.

Dan Ilic  28:19  
She was a 39 year old non essential graphic designer who was merely eight months away from being eligible for a FISA vaccine. And yet, she refused to enroll herself into St. Joseph's College. Let's be COVID-19 together, turn 40 Sooner or be the son of Liberal Party donors. Spoken by someone who never be held to account for the audit hold a syringe to Bob and Gambro

Alan Jones  28:41  
2021 was a census year, which is an old fashioned way for the government to know everything about you before we had social media and QR codes.

Rupert Degas  28:50  
Tuesday the 10th of August is senseless Nice. Each household is required by law to fill out the online form. So the Australian Bureau of Statistics can collect data on the makeup of Australia and to see if the NBN is working in your area. It then gives that data to the federal government so they can build critical services like carpark sporting facilities and hospitals in coalition seats, regardless of what the data says. The senseless providing scientific data to the Australian government so they can willfully ignore it authorized by a bunch of glittering idiots in Canberra

Alan Jones  29:22  
in August 2021 With cop 26 Only a few months away. Everyone was talking about climate change that doesn't exist. Lots of people think we've already solved it. Well, let me tell you something. David Attenborough didn't think so. God

Robbie McGreggor  29:35  
OMA series finale of who Lammott Earth things are really heating up. Mr. Morrison,

David Attenborough  29:42  
it's with regret to inform you that the snow is on fire. You need to do something. Now.

Scott Morrison  29:49  
I've always said I've got a plan and the plans the plan. It's a plan a plan that's been planned. I've always said that

Robbie McGreggor  29:56  
will David Attenborough and the Earthlings be able to stop the Your time.

David Attenborough  30:02  
Now you listen hear Scott, we've only got a couple of years left until the point of no return. The numbers are just not

Scott Morrison  30:09  
looking good. Oh, that's great, then we can blame the collapse of the earth on labor.

Robbie McGreggor  30:13  
Oh, well, they suffocate themselves and every other living creature in a toxic soup of stinky greenhouse gases.

David Attenborough  30:23  
Everything is dying, Mr. Morrison, and you're doing nothing.

Scott Morrison  30:29  
I'm not going to do anything that will cost jobs. And the most at risk jobs are those on the boards of fossil fuel companies that all need after I lose the election in a month's time. I've always said that.

Robbie McGreggor  30:39  
I find out in this book potentially lost emissaries of the show, but jumped the shark of the Renaissance.

Planet Earth is recommended for mature audiences. It contains strong sex scenes, as the whole globe gets royally

Bill Gates  31:11  
fucked

Alan Jones  31:13  
when it comes to climate change. Thank God for the big Australian and I'm not talking about Ben Robert Smith. So big strong heads do now I'm talking about bhp who are pretending to do something about their huge carbon footprint. God

Rupert Degas  31:27  
in 2021 bhp is getting rid of fossil fuels and focusing on sustainability of our province. Our profits are fragile and we must do what we can to save them. And Experts warn that our reputation will soon face a tipping point from activist shareholders from which it could never recover. That's why we're selling our coal, oil and gas assets. Some other company can bravely ignore the problem of greenhouse emissions production that will continue unabated regardless, that bhp we believe the only way to clean up the planet is to wash your own hands first. We're doing it for our children and our children's children.

Scott Morrison  32:14  
Your children ours will be inheriting the province. Yeah, BHP open cut and running.

Alan Jones  32:21  
This government is cooked a lot of flack when it comes to action on climate change doesn't exist. But no one is talking about the Minister for emissions reduction plan to keep cows alive, which will make more co2 so that plants can survive.

Dan Ilic  32:34  
At the Australian government, we know that coal powered electricity plants are running out of time. On one hand, they're old, expensive, and make climate change worse every minute they run. But on the other hand, the coal industry also provides critical baseload donations to the LMP. So that's why we're launching coal keeper. We're spending $7 billion a year to keep coal powered polluting clunkers running way past their use by date. That way the LNP can get more donations from the coal industry to stay way past our use. By Date, the government could invest in new wind, solar and storage that renewable energy is to claim to give us donations, coal keeper, a reliable source of donations at the cost of only $400 per household per year. And everyone's existence

Alan Jones  33:29  
you know, something my good friend Jerry Harvey never ceases to amaze me when it comes to generosity. Harvey Norman acknowledged that they made a matzah on job keeper and they decided to give it back. Well, not all of it there'll be stupid Harvey Norman

Scott Morrison  33:41  
is giving $6 million of job keep her cash back I caved into a huge huge, huge public pressure as all my credibility went out the door. During the pandemic our profits increased by half a billion dollars selling furniture electrical embeddings $13 billion worth not to mention $22 million in free job keep no strings attached. But we're giving back all 27% of it. Wow, that sheets million dollars $6 million that the government can spend on car parks or sporting sheds and swinging electrodes in the hope that the Australian public will lose interest in Harvey Norman. Speaking of interest, we've kept $16 million interest free. Australia has been telling me to go Harvey go Harvey go fuck myself. And that's what I've done just a little bit.

Alan Jones  34:38  
As September rolled around more voices, we're adding to the pressure on the government to adopt a net zero target. Personally, I'd like to see Net Zero benefit Simon's is by 2030 on what an ogre Oh, God. G'day.

Dan Ilic  34:51  
I'm Dan Ilic, the executive director of the Australian lapsed Catholic lobby. And I just want to say that as the group that represents the largest sector of Christian In Australia laughs Catholics, we think the only way to give hope to children for their future is to take meaningful action on climate change, as statistically the only thing that will harm children more than climate change is an exponential increase of chaplains in schools. So please, when it comes to emissions net zero by 2030 and when it comes to chaplains and schools, gross zero by 2021.

Alan Jones  35:28  
Spoken and authorized by Dan Ilic for the Australian likes Catholic lobby, Canberra come in September. The Prime Minister copped a lot of flack for using Australia's Air Force One for personal trips, like flying to have high level multilateral talks with his family on Father's Day. Disgusting. Who'd have a family

Rupert Degas  35:43  
there is only one airline that can fly you to vacation in Hawaii while your home is ablaze. There's only one airline that can fly you to discover your family's history on the other side of the world, while families at home are being made history. And there's only one airline to help you secretly see your loved ones in another city when everyone else is only allowed to travel three miles from home. Fly the entitled skies where tone deaf headphones are complimentary.

Scott Morrison  36:16  
Oh, good to you. Very good. You're the best Prime Minister ever.

Rupert Degas  36:20  
The only airline where you don't have to put your seat up if you don't want to entitled airlines direct flights now available from Canberra to a place where they filmed the White Lotus.

Alan Jones  36:32  
Back in September with Sydney clocking up its 100th Day in lockdown, so called investigative humorist Dan Ilic stone it would be funny to take the mickey out of the premieres daily press conferences, I can assure you it wasn't smart or funny and needed more Anthony Kalia.

Dan Ilic  36:50  
Okay, thank you. Thanks, everyone. Okay, great. First of all, can I say how pleasing it is to hear so many people in this apartment block, yell at apartment number two, for playing Arctic Monkeys do I want to know on loop at 3am last night, it is so pleasing to hear everybody join in with a collective Shut up. That's really important. And please, we want to see more of that behavior in this apartment block. So thank you for that. As of 8pm Last night, we have seen three new episodes of Ted lasso, and two new episodes of what we do in the shadows. Those episodes had already existed in the community, and we are just catching up to them now. So what we want to do is be able to see more of those episodes sooner, but we realize there is a limit to how many streaming services people can sign up for. But as a little treat, there will be more episodes of succession for those who persist longer than the two week trial that binge is offering currently. So that's something to look forward to. For everyone that's on binge. As is a health advice, we have been going to the toilet a lot more often. But please can I just want to remind people if you are doing a number two, please please close the door after you to avoid airborne contaminants affecting the living space. This is a real issue. So please, please keep that door shut. Okay. For lunch today. It will be a spinach and tuna salad, as is the health advice. I just want to stress here. I just want to stress that it can be tempting to order a Portuguese chicken chili chips and solo combo from the local shop and have it delivered. But it is it that's fine in normal times, but it's not conducive to the long term sustainability of someone that's been in lockdown for over 10 weeks. Okay, you just can't keep that up. So tuna and spinach it is today. Now, can I say? On the weekend? We did witness about 12,000 people down at Bondi Beach just a few blocks from here. But the numbers haven't that 9000 Those people were from the Daily Mail and Channel Nine taking photos of everyone else. So please, if you do have to go to Bondi Beach, please wear a mask. So you aren't identified by Sydney confidential. Okay. All right now we'll take your questions. I've got some here from Twitter, climate patriot. Why have I never seen you in the same room as Jon Lovitz, and David Mitchell Well, climate patriots, this is an offensive question. Okay. And I'm not going to answer it. Okay. Mary wiper. What time does Dan Murphy's open? Look across most LGs it's some it's 9am to 8pm. But there are some LG A's that do it differently. So Guilford Randwick, North Ryde, you're looking at 10am opening in Mosman. It's a different closing time. 7pm. And they do that because you can't trust rich white people. You give them an inch, they take a mile and they build a hedge around that mob and no one's allowed to walk there. Okay, Gary Moore, why do we put an extra x in anti vaxis look, Gary that was a decision taken at national cabinet. The federal health minister and wanted to put three x's in there Triple X as his he's wanting the Premier's. We just thought one was enough. So we met halfway. That's why those, there's two in anti vaxxers. Okay. Hopefully that answers your question. Guido Tsali. What is the philosophical significance of girdles theorems? Look, we I think we all know, girdle was a brilliant thinker, but a wasn't a mainstream thinker. He had a lot of gaps in his theorem. It's safe to say his his theories have more gaps than a block of Swiss cheese. So that's that. Wilco last What's for lunch? Like we said in the briefing, spinach and tuna Wilker. That is the current plan. Taking the best advice from health there. Okay. Kim Fitzgerald, why is there air? Look him? The air is here Chem. Okay. We're committed to air. And can I just stress there are some in the press who say we should get rid of it, you know, get rid of the air get rid of the virus, but that's not going to happen. Okay. Areas necessary for life. And the current advice from health is that we must make a mandatory. Okay. Thanks, Kim. Peter credal asks, Do you scrunch or fold? Look, it is a tough question. And the advice currently is to do whatever you can do in front of you. There is research still being done. Currently, we're doing both we so crunching and folding. But if all you have is the ability to scratch them scratch if you're waiting for someone to teach you how to fold. We don't suggest that at all. Strange now. You can learn to fold later. Okay? Now's the time to scratch. Okay, you can't be fussy about scrunching or folding. Alright, Miss Wolfie wolf asks, Are we there yet?

No. No. All right. Thanks very much, everyone. Thanks very much.

Alan Jones  41:58  
Thank you. At the height of lockdown tensions in September Milburn's right wing fascist tended at high vis vest and pretended to be tradies and proceeded to ride in Melbourne, fake tradies are nothing new, but usually they're reserved for the Liberal Party, not the Nazi Party. Though it's hard to tell the difference these days, that's for sure. God.

Unknown Speaker  42:18  
White brothers, white bread through one of our own here today has portrayed us due to sick. So I say unto you, here in the group chat. On the first day, we shall rise, and we shall walk and together we will fight for our tiebreak. And on the second day, toward our enemies, we shall throw ceremonial peace.

Unknown Speaker  42:45  
I've just been struck in the back of her head by a camp, then we shall

Unknown Speaker  42:49  
go to the water and walk over the bridge the West Gate Bridge to the holy promised land of Werribee. And on the third day, I will descend upon the shrine of remembrance, and they will remember who we are. We are the chosen trainees returned to us what was taken our smoko. Until then, may their rivers turn into bourbon in their backyard swept by mosquitoes, their boards. Digit with be nice, they won't be easy. We will be persecuted, crucified in the media, but they're passionate but we will rise from the ashes of our building sites. We will beat Corona with protein, vitamin C and vitamin D. Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, or I will feed them or the victim and they will remember us lest we forget in my own name. Amen.

Alan Jones  43:53  
Thanks ladies freedom loving white power traders word alone, we heard them and so did corporate Australia who was quite happy to help. At soft yakka we believe eating our meat pies and Chucky milk on the inside. So we believe the Anzacs didn't die fighting fascism during the global pandemic so we could choose to die during another global pandemic. And soft yakka we don't believe lockdowns should stop trival EMS Rocktober when it's already ruined lead September and Faith No More August soft yakka the official supplier of nappies to Melbourne tradies. So if you ask anyone inside the camera bubble, they'll tell you that the Liberal Party has a woman problem. Well, let me tell you that they're doing just fine and their latest program to address it should be put in the chat bag and be thrown out to see

Unknown Speaker  44:50  
in March of 2021. The women of Australia made it clear that they wanted things to change that up with the lack of government action when it comes to gendered violence. Many marched to Parliament has to demand the Morison government listen to what they had to say. Well, the good news is we did hear some of the many changes the Morison government made that will benefit all Australian women. When former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public about an alleged rape in a ministerial office in 2019. The Prime Minister listens to Brittany after his

Dan Ilic  45:21  
wife clarified at him using his daughter's as a theoretical example,

Unknown Speaker  45:24  
and immediately ordered an inquiry into which members of his office knew about the alleged incident so the right people can be held accountable.

Dan Ilic  45:32  
This report was due in June 2021. It has now been suspended before it could be completed due to legal advice. When a historical rape allegation against Christian Porter was made public. He was immediately stood down after 27 days and he's a position of Attorney General only to avoid a conflict of interest while launching a defamation case against a woman journalist he later a border which means he definitely didn't lose or win. And Leader of the House, Christian Porter was later temporarily reappointed the leader of the House, and in 2018

Unknown Speaker  45:58  
the Morison government commissioned the respected work report, which made 55 recommendations towards how to improve women's safety at work

Dan Ilic  46:07  
of the 12 recommendations that needed parliamentary approval, the government passed half ignoring workplace laws to ban sexual harassment and for employees to have a duty of care to take meaningful action to prevent sexual harassment from happening. With Porter gone, not gone,

Unknown Speaker  46:20  
the Prime Minister created a new women's Task Force to tackle these problems. Head on the Morison government looks forward to making the behavior of blokes like Barnaby Joyce, who resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister due to sexual harassment allegations. A thing of the past.

Dan Ilic  46:36  
Barnaby Joyce is once again the deputy prime minister. He's also been appointed to the women's task force

Unknown Speaker  46:41  
because the Morison government looks forward to the future. That's why we're holding the Women's Summit in September of 2021. With a prime minister will definitely be listening to what the many speakers will have to say.

Dan Ilic  46:53  
Scott Morrison appointed himself as main speaker at the Women's Summit. Brittany Higgins was invited last minute by a third party.

Unknown Speaker  46:59  
Ladies you asked for change. And you got it

Dan Ilic  47:03  
not technically true. The liberal party put your blind trust in us supported by Diana royal am for rational fear Canberra,

Alan Jones  47:10  
come October 15. Only two weeks out from cop 26 The biggest climate change conference the world has ever seen which still doesn't exist. Barnaby Joyce decided now was a good time to start to think about doing nothing about climate change, which still doesn't exist.

Dan Ilic  47:26  
Do Sunday. It's the biggest decision in Australian climate politics history bigger than starting the emissions trading scheme bigger than axing the emissions trading scheme bigger than implementing their renewable energy targets bigger than canceling the renewable energy targets bigger than creating the Department of climate change bigger than dismantling the Department of climate change bigger than starting a mining super profits tax they get an ending of mining super profits tax begins hitting a sunset date for old coal plants bigger than trying to use Texas to keep those old coal plants alive bigger than the High Court ruling the Environment Minister has a duty of care to Australia's children bigger than the environment. Mr. Sage, you High Court Oh kill those children if I want to use three new coal mines much much much bigger, much much bigger than the size of the barrels the nets get their pork in this Sunday, the National Party will gather to vote on whether or not to agree on net zero by 2050. Like the rest of the world. Will the National Party dare to do the bare minimum for one or will they do whatever their mining donors want to help them stay in power for another 36 months and ruin the entire thing planet for every one for ever? This Sunday, a decision bigger than Barnaby some count the national party room showdown a donation will buy your whole seat but you'll only need the edge. There ain't no party like a National Party because the national parties don't adopt new policies.

Alan Jones  48:50  
I think it's safe to say we are a premium program here and a rational fear, which is why we're very very choosy when it comes to fresh tomato sandwiches and financial sponsors.

Rupert Degas  49:00  
You live in a fast changing world. Today's Attorney General is tomorrow's backbencher. Accountability is something that can only exist if you can see something to count. When you need a sense of mystery for your big pot of money. Put your blind faith in orders blind trust because whoever is paying off a public person's legal bills should remain private, at least until after the next election. Borders blind trust is sort of program should keep going in Australia essentially forever. terms or conditions don't apply. If you're a member of the Liberal government. Check the PDS for details. No really, please check because I couldn't find any details. When I look.

Alan Jones  49:40  
Well. Would you believe it 48 hours before cop 26 The biggest climate change conference in the entire world which doesn't exist. The government rushed out a plan on a napkin to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Except the plan didn't reach that at all. Just like my ratings on Sky News. It fell short by about 50%

Dan Ilic  50:01  
It's time for another episode of Angus bull.

Scott Morrison  50:04  
Angus Taylor, welcome to the program.

Angus Taylor  50:06  
Thanks for having me species Great to be with you.

Dan Ilic  50:08  
The netzero 2050 plan from the Minister for emissions plateauing. First,

Angus Taylor  50:14  
the how. Now we are investing $20 billion in targeted r&d expenditure prioritizing key technologies like high clean hydrogen,

Dan Ilic  50:24  
clean hydrogen is the spin name for blue hydrogen, which is made from fossil fuels, which creates greenhouse gases, which adds to global warming. Anything else that may keep the fossil fuel dream alive, Minister for emissions plateauing to carbon capture and storage, carbon capture storage and mystery technology that doesn't work at scale anywhere in the world, the only thing it's managed to capture is time to delay the phasing out of fossil fuels. So what is this plan? That's not going to work going to cost? I mean, other than all life on Earth,

Scott Morrison  50:56  
the $20 billion, you mentioned there is just for the next for this decade. So what's the full cost to get to net zero?

Angus Taylor  51:04  
Well, that run rate of the money we're spending over the next decade is what we would expect into the future,

Dan Ilic  51:10  
expect to pay 20 billion each decade until we reach 2050. And if you include the 250 billion national slush fund, that may have been agreed to so that the prime minister could utter the syllables 2050 in Glasgow, that could be $310 billion. That's right $310 billion for a bunch of miracle technologies that don't work and don't cut emissions. Hope I'm not paying for it, just to

Scott Morrison  51:37  
be clear what a taxpayer is going to have to pay under your plan to get to net zero.

Angus Taylor  51:43  
Well, taxpayers are not paying anything. We're not raising taxes. I mean, that that's the important point.

Dan Ilic  51:49  
The 310 billion isn't going to be paid by taxpayers, it's going to be paid by the government who is paid by the taxpayers. Fantastic, great move. Well done. Angus. If the Minister for emissions reduction was interested in reducing emissions, he'd phase out fossil fuels and turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower, but he's not. He's interested in one thing, ensuring baseload donations from his fossil fuel friends.

Alan Jones  52:18  
One of the rational fears greatest guests in 2021 was mcnevin the self proclaimed World's Greatest high jumper. He's a national hero, just like me, Alan Jones.

Dan Ilic  52:27  
So McNabb and thanks for joining us and Australian high jumper who claims to be the greatest high jumper in the world. Welcome.

Mick Neven  52:33  
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah, that is correct. I am.

Dan Ilic  52:37  
I am. Do it's an amazing claim to be the world's greatest high jumper. What's the basis for the claim? Well,

Mick Neven  52:44  
I have never missed the jump. No one's not that. That's right. I have never noticed the bar onto the mat. So what's your highest jump 50 centimeters 50 centimeters, that's not very high. Well, that is the target that I've set for myself. And I meet and beat that target. Every time I jump.

Dan Ilic  53:05  
Now, the mentor jam record is 2.45 meters and the women's record is 2.09 meters. You're nowhere near that.

Mick Neven  53:12  
I hear but I don't worry about what other high jumpers are doing. You've never once competed at the Olympic Games. Why would I see a limbic at the heart of all those so called high jumpers making bold claims about clearly 2.4 meters and what happens? They all not the bar onto the mat, and they look pretty stupid doing it. I made them beat my target every time I can do high jumper. Yeah, it's only 50 centimeters. That's right. I don't need to jump higher. I'm less than 2% of the world type jump. If I raised the bar to even 1.5 minutes sure I could jump it so that's a clear goal. To achieve that I need to coach I'd have to start training I did objective. Why bother? I can meet the beat that 50 centimeters and it doesn't tax me

Dan Ilic  53:54  
or anyone else. Yeah, 50 centimeters. You know a primary school kid could jump that jump. So

Mick Neven  53:59  
I am the world's greatest I'd never you're not the world's greatest. The World's Greatest high jumper. Never missed the jump. Don't forget that. Never missed the jump. Make. Thanks for joining us on irrational fear. See you on the mat buddy.

Alan Jones  54:16  
Now one of the reasons I don't go on social media is to constant bullying and criticism from voices who have megaphones but no real authority. If I wanted to experience that, I've just listened to my own show. Thankfully, the government has a plan to silence the wrong kinds of speech.

Peter Dutton  54:32  
Hi, I'm Peter Dutton. And I'm calling on the tech giants to keep Australians safe on the internet by implementing trolls seeker. Trolls seeker is about protecting the most vulnerable people to criticism in society, government ministers. So if you're an anonymous internet user who can't afford a defamation lawsuit, or worse, a journalist from the ABC with an incorrect opinion. You better watch out I already see when you're sleeping. I already know when you're awake. I don't know if you've been bad or good, but I don't know who you are. And that is a problem because we can't Trump a subpoena down your chimney. So, tech giants Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Solitaire. I'm talking to you unmask your anonymous trolls now, especially the ones that look like eggs. I'm jealous, otherwise will unfriend you like they do in China, North Korea and Myanmar. Now that's how you handle a bully troll seeker. Protecting Australians who work at Parliament House trolls second does not apply to anonymous accounts run by MPs like Andrew laming Mark Latham, or Amanda Stoker, because that's just awkward fun.

Alan Jones  55:36  
Now, let me tell you something. When I got sacked from Sky News, I did it for a reason to serve Australia. I once coached the Wallabies I could cut the government easy peasy. For one. There's no point of it. Simon's in the Liberal Party. God, what an ogre. Good morning everyone and fellow Australians, many people are asking me when am I going to run for politics? Well, there's no better time to step up than after being stood down. So after being the king of broadcasting on TV, and who GB I'm joining the LNP. After all, they share my values, we both deny the existence of climate change. We both deny the existence of women. We both know how to do cash flow comment. Speaking of there's never been a better time for gas led recovery. Nine out of 10 epidemiologists agree the best way to cure a respiratory virus like COVID-19 is with a gas pipeline, pumping delicious, natural methane to everyone's home where they sleep. Turn on your gas pipe today. And when it comes to accountability, I'm not scared of a federal icoc After all, I've had to face achma a number of times. Remember when I started a race, right? I was held accountable and forced to say sorry, God, that was hard. It was only a race, right? So they've won me, Alan Jones on Alan Jones to join the Liberal Party which got us to sign me up just like Sky News were to get us to get my brave opinions on the air. So I did the next best thing I got one of my interns to start a company that I held a press conference to announce to the world that my interns company would be signing me up for a brand new all digital network cure LAN. The Morning everybody. Over the last few months I've been undergoing emergency medical treatment on my leg. It turns out I had been leaning too far to the left. God thank God they fix that up. Now while I've been away those vermin at scar news have canceled me. Yes, I'm a victim of canceled culture. So that's why I'm starting my own social network. Cancel your Foxtel subscriptions and sign up for que LAN the social network by me Alan Jones from sign up you can enjoy all the benefits of being a kulen member, Robert Menzies is still Prime Minister,

Robert Menzies  57:44  
you call a man a racist. The Wallabies win every

Alan Jones  57:47  
now and then. And for the first time in four years, the Wallabies have won mark Latham cooks up a delicious Southeast Asian inspired meal. These are the best scones. And each week a new album is released by Anthony Kelly as a I want a voice sounds like a bit like a computer but we're working that out. And the best thing is you'll be surrounded by like minded retirees over the age of 65. So you'll never have to worry about grandchildren correcting you with fake news about climate change from NASA. God global warming, what next? There's a plague or something. Give me a break. Anything you can do on Facebook you can do on Cuba LAN plus more. You can poke people. Yes, you can berate people, you can put people in a chat bag and throw them out to see you can even inside a race right at the click of a button. And the best thing is a camera can't touch you. So join que LAN the social network where free speech is for easy payments of 4999 a month and you can be friends with me Alan Jones for an extra 699 a month. That's real cash in the comments. So join cure Len today. I was gonna call up Jonestown but it was taken on Alan Jones. Well, that is it for another year. A big big thank you to Jake Brown, Dan Ilic Rupert Degas, Robin McGregor, mcnevin Virginia gay brother and Morgan, Anthony callea and all of the Patreon subscribers that Australian digital holdings including John the deep as kid to read McCoy Tenjin sing, Fred Stokes, Ned Bilham Ziqi and Alistair Bondo Mazagon. Thank you very much. honored to have you on our little podcast program. Good dad, Australia.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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This is the 3rd Episode of the monthly spin-off podcast from A Rational Fear — Julia Zemiro Asks 'Who Cares?' 

Each month for the next 4 months on the A Rational Fear podcast feed, Julia will be interviewing change makers, civic leaders, and people who organise their communities and claim their power to discover the secrets to making good things happen.

This month Julia chats with two Australian very different Australian media leaders who at the opposing ends of their career timelines

Kerry O'Brien— One Australia's most distinguished journalists. Kerry O'Brien may be off our TV screens, but he is far from retired. Kerry is busy, writing and thinking about journalism and democracy. In this chat with JZ, Kerry talks about how the atomisation of media puts our democracy at risk.

also we hear from:

Zara Seidler — The co-founder of one of the largest publishers of youth media in Australia. The Daily Aus is Australia's leading social-first news service. Offering young Australians a digestible and engaging way to access the news, all through social media. The Daily Aus reaches nearly 300,000 young people through its Instagram, Tiktok, email and podcast channels.

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, Zara & Kerry,
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. I'm recording my part of Julia's Amuro asks, Who cares on the lands of the gunman? Gara and Darwell people, sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the podcast.

Dan Ilic  0:18  
A podcast about politics for people who hate politics. This is Julia Mira asks Who cares?

Julia Zemiro  0:27  
Hello Julia here and thank you again for joining me on the irrational fi podcast feed to listen to who cares this month, Kerry O'Brien and Zara sideline to people who have been and are working in the media in Australia. Zara Seidler in her 20s with Sam Koz Lasky set up the daily oz news for millennials will be speaking to her after we speak with Kerry O'Brien, of course, carries a prominent Australian journalist and author whose long career includes 28 years as a national current affairs, television presenter and interviewer. From this day to night, four corners Lateline, the 730 report where he was editor and presenter for 15 years, he's written two books, one on former Australian Prime Minister for Keating, but more recently, a memoir on the social and political upheavals he's witnessed in half a century of journalism. And that's what I wanted to talk to him about today, because one of the biggest upheavals I think, is this independent grassroots movement. And I wanted to ask him what he thought about that and where he thought it might go.

Kerry O'Brien  1:41  
Just in terms of the phenomenon, and it is one I think it's been in the pipeline for quite a while, it's been coming to a slowly, and I think it's probably been hastening, the more people have become disillusioned and lost respect, and grown angrier and more frustrated with the political process, I don't think the state of politics in this country has been at a lower ebb in my working life as a journalist than it is now. And there are all kinds of reasons for that. But in terms of how the media deals with it, I would say, the media in its coverage of politics really reflects the state of our society to in the sense that we are digitally disrupted, generally, in all of our individual lives, and the media is disrupted, as it hasn't been, for a very, very long time. And disrupted not necessarily in a good way. I mean, what ultimately emerges, in a sense is in the lap of the gods, it's not all that easy to predict. I hope I never lose faith in the belief that the public will always be hungry for information. And that the same reasons that saw journalism gradually proliferate through the developed world as the printing presses arrived, and, and as communications improved, and so on. So I just don't see how we will ever lose that hunger. But what I also hope is that the quality of end and accuracy and responsibility of coverage doesn't continue to dissipate as it has, because of the disruption, because of the extent to which the Internet has crowded, and got in the way of the capacity of the mainstream, credible media to function as it is supposed to.

Julia Zemiro  3:34  
But I don't think we're ever going to be able to wind back to 24 hours news cycle.

Kerry O'Brien  3:39  
Well, I just think that there will be an evolution of some kind, Julia, I mean, I don't think what we've seen in the last, say 15 years, slowly, and then gathering pace. And now Now it's kind of on us is the meeting in the middle of the various news operations, and media operations. So print and television have met in the middle, we have converged, we've been talking about convergence for a long time, we now have convergence, it's still evolving. And the final form of that convergence is still there to be kind of played with speculated upon. But print, and television and radio have all met in the middle, you can see the ways that print is adapting to that. And I think it still has quite a ways to go. Whereas in one way, it's been a bit easier for for television, and radio to adapt to its online presence, particularly the ABC, because we're just changing the written word somewhat. We're changing if we're writing for online as opposed to for television. We're writing just for the oral word and the written word. Whereas for newspaper journalists who've known only print writing for print, in their past, they've got to learn the process of writing for pictures and and writing in a different way. So they'll catch up, they are catching up. You can see it They'll they're developing the interviewing skills. I mean, I can remember when I was a print journalist, you'd go with your little tape recorder and you'd sit down, you'd have a chat. And you'd cover all the ground and you'd walk away with about an hour of stuff, about 10 minutes of which was worth using. For television, you're very conscious of the clock ticking and you are you are forced to apply a real discipline and a serious thought process to the questions you really want to explore. And you've got to have a sense in your head of how long you've got to do it in. So that's an adaptation to print. But you see, outside of those things, those things on their own, would not present a difficulty. The real difficulty lies in the fact that the traditional model of journalism has gone out the window. Newsrooms have been seriously disrupted. The commercial operation has been seriously disrupted. Newsrooms and our either the same size, but the journalists are asked to do a lot more. So the the size of the newsrooms and the resources of the newsrooms haven't grown to match the demands that are now on the journalist. And secondly, where there have been attempts to cut back on the cost of operating newsrooms, the first to go, it always pretty much starts with with the human resource, which is the costly resource. And the most costly resource in a newsroom tends to be the more experienced older journalist who spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge and history, they've got the scars, they know where the bodies are buried, but they're more expensive. So if you're an accountant sitting down, to work out where you're going to make your cuts, newsrooms have blade, age and experience. And so you've now got a situation where newsrooms around Australia are, on average, probably 10 years, at least younger than they might have been 10 or 15 years ago. So an awful lot of very smart young journalists. And they are smart, or growing up without mentors, that they are developing as journalists without mentors. And if they don't have a sense of the history that's passed, then that comes at a great cost to the quality of their journalism, because because when I watch politics being reported, now I do get frustrated. I'm not the old white guy throwing a slipper at the screen, because it's not like it was in my day. I don't want to ever make that mistake. But I do see not just opportunities going begging, I see important questions, important checks and balances in the journos process, which is supposed to be fundamental to good journalism, I see those things going begging, I see them not being done. And that really worries me,

Julia Zemiro  7:34  
I've only been to parliament house a few times, couple of times to you know, beg for money for the ABC and SBS. Well, you're preaching to the converted anyway, in the group that you're speaking to, I'm always amazed at how much access journalists actually have in the house. And I sometimes think of the analogy of private schools and selective schools go with me, I went to the selective school. And while we weren't, didn't have the poshness or the money necessarily surrounding us, if you went to a pub, where there were private school kids, you'd be accepted, you'd be welcomed. You could share all the information, you knew what was happening behind the veil, you could see what was happening in those private schools, how they all behaved, and then you left with that information. And it was your little secret to keep because we're not one of them. But we're allowed in there. But we'll keep the secrets. And I sometimes feel like with journalists, they cannot really be in that house, they must know that stuff goes on that they don't report. And I'm not talking just now I'm talking 2030 years ago, and I wonder what the responsibilities there. And it can't just be about protecting a source or whatever. There's a kind of like an in joke or an inworld. That just annoys me when I hear it. And I think it's not a joke. It's not something to kind of go you're all pals and you know each other. And that's how he acts. And that's how she acts. That two I think has has come into journalism. And that's not the young ones necessarily,

Kerry O'Brien  9:02  
ideas, but I don't think it's quite the club that you painted to be. And I don't think it ever has been quite that club. But the aspects of it are true. Absolutely. But I mean, I can remember the wonderful mango McCallum, the late mango, in the days of nation review and mango was doing it on the Australian of all papers before he went to nation review. Rupert, by all accounts wasn't all that thrilled with the way he wrote but nonetheless, he went to Canberra and reflected this is like back in the 60s and reflect when he reflected on it, he could have sounded somewhat like you because because he was saying, even though he had gone through university, he had been a journalist. He was very well read that getting any was writing politics from Sydney to some degree, but when he actually got there, he was shocked at how little he knew. And so he made it his business to take his readers behind the scenes and give them a sense of how life really how the political process function, how the processes of government function, including the public service, how the parliament functioned. He made his business impact to educate. And he saw that as a part of his responsibility. You also got a laugh, a lot of laughs, reading it, and were sometimes scandalized as you read it. And other journalists, from time to time have reflected some aspects of that. But it's less I suspect, because it's a club, but that journalists can sometimes make the mistake of assuming that, that the kind of nuts and bolts of something is too mundane, it's not interesting enough to make it interesting for the public, which to me means that they're not doing their jobs, and they don't really understand why they're there. Or they take for granted that everyone knows. The other aspect that you touch on really is is the kind of behind the scenes chitchat, you know, you lift the phone to a politician, and you have an off the record check. But that is that has always been a part of journalism everywhere. And without that part of the process, journalism would be only ever bringing you a fifth of the story. It allows you to be more nuanced in your reporting, without necessarily reporting what the person has told you specifically, one private conversation might lead to another which leads to a story, which is an important story to get out. I look, I'm sure that some journalists have had favorite sources over the years that they have, that they've nurtured, and they don't want to burn their sources. So maybe they treat them a little gently. And I know that a journalist here or there who's who has who I've thought has done that, and I don't like it when I see it. But it is a more complex operation than then than it might appear sometimes from the outside looking in. I don't think it's quite the club you talk about. I'm sure journalists would like to be more in the know than they are,

Julia Zemiro  11:48  
when you watch the Westminster system that that we use that that sort of yelling across, do you ever do you ever get frustrated, there's just got to be a better way. You know, when you look at cultures around the world, you look in schools, you know, the whole idea of when you're trying to want to get to the bottom of something, you kind of you try and find ways to agree on it, rather than disagrees is constant arguing, I feel like part of the independence movement is that there might be five or six people on that crossbench being able to go well, you know what, clearly, you guys don't know how to have a conversation. So let's cut to it. And it's just not that hard. You know, I get as a trained actor, I get employed by companies to go in and help them figure out how to talk to each other, and how to communicate better. So you know, we're all happy to offer our services, our service, because we've all lost our jobs. So please, by all means, bring us in. But um, but yeah, I wonder about, I wonder about that system, will that changes? Well, one day? Well, we I mean, whether we become a republic or not that idea, it can't be the best way to spend time, because it's not it's not working. It's just not working.

Kerry O'Brien  12:52  
Yeah, look, I'm speaking as a journalist, but also as an individual. I do love some good theater.

Julia Zemiro  12:58  
Like to see some in there.

Kerry O'Brien  13:00  
Well, they used to be yes, the I agree with you, I go again, starting to walk down the track of, you know, the good old days. But the truth is that the standard of political debate today is about 50%, or less than what it was even say 15 years ago. There's always been a gladiatorial element. Paul Keating has maintained that, that he thinks the mood changed after the dismissal in 75. It was that the extent of the friendships across the party lines, behind the speaker's chair and in the privacy of various offices and so on, there was quite a bit of that went on. There were friendships across the aisle, and there was certainly a capacity to speak across the aisle. I think a lot of that has gone. And that is very unfortunate. I also think that the polarization of our politics is symptomatic of a wider polarization in the whole of our society. And that really, really, really worries me. Because I think, I think we're losing the capacity and we certainly risk losing the capacity to be able to talk to each other across our differences. Whether it's over the back fence, in the shop, in the pub, or in the parliament. And, and in the media. I think the media itself is polarized, like I can't remember it being polarized at any other time in my life. I think people are choosing now to to absorb the media that fits their views of the world. People who once upon a time might have read across the media that you might identify as right and left and in the middle, or various, you know, various places in between. People are choosing you know, they're calling it the echo chamber people are now choosing to learn their news get their news from sources that reflect their worldview. And you know, the the social platform for social platforms like Facebook. They exacerbate that they actually Aleut Lee exacerbate them. You know, some some bloody robot or some logarithmic algorithmic process is determining what I'm interested in and sending me stuff. And that's getting seriously creepy. But that polarization really does worry me really worries me because you look at what's happening, and if particularly if you couple it with with what's happened on the internet and social media, and America is the kind of leading edge of this, and the sort of bombardment of fake news and and attempts to manipulate us is crowding out, and D legitimizing the traditional news gathering and news gathering process that we might have once been able to rely on with greater confidence than we can now. So I just you put all of that. So so that kind of process I think, is just going to drive us into more polarization. And I think, I think it is driving us further and further away from the democracy we have known and come to take for granted.

Julia Zemiro  15:58  
Oh, I think it's definitely taken for granted. And you could argue that it starts in schools, and I know everyone says every, it's like, honestly, if you had to teach a kid, everything they need to know in the whole universe, it's all gonna go back to schools, and what more do they have to do in their,

Kerry O'Brien  16:11  
in home in the home don't fit in

Julia Zemiro  16:13  
the home, but gee, that's not happening, either. I mean, you know, you know, I'll sound like an old woman from the past now. But you know, my mom would by the National times the nation review the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, we had interesting magazines, you know, it was having a bit of everything there and having someone talk about, you know, and it's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, a bit of everything. And Mum would her thing was that she really wanted to compare. And she was looking at writing styles. I mean, she was a language teacher at secondary, and then tertiary. But there's a girl who, who went to school, who loved French, who had a teacher that actually said to her parents, this one should go to university. And they were like, Nah, that's not going to happen. She somehow got there, and was interested in how the place is run. But really, a lot of a lot of kids would not have that. And certainly not papers, papers, were there on the floor, and you can read them every day. We're all on our own different devices. Little may be looking at stuff, but I'm always astounded how people who I think have switched on, and also on the Women's March, you know, did you go to that? What Women's March? So people are still even though that information is there, they're not engaging with it, because they don't think it concerns them. And my way to fight against that polarization is to really be that one, that when she gets her coffee, or is at a barbecue after the niceties of five minutes, and you know, you and I get approached by random civilians all the time. I'm in, I'm like, what do you what do you get? And I don't care. Now I go straight into the conversation go, literally, what are you thinking of voting for or what, and I try and take the heat out of it, I'm not trying to have a go, I'm trying to genuinely go. And half the time. When you just explain a couple of things, or maybe offer something else, they genuinely seem enlightened by something they didn't know. And that's because you're having that one on one one to one conversation with them. And it might just sit in there for a little minute and imagine, but it's that one to one conversation with people sometimes. And we don't even have conversations without heat, let alone what we see in Parliament. So it's modeled.

Kerry O'Brien  18:29  
That's what I mean about about losing the skill and the capacity to be able to talk to each other civilly across the divide, becoming engaged on behalf of the ABC alumni in a process of trying to promote the ABC as a serious and important issue in this next election campaign, because the ABC as a as a public institution, which to me, is so fundamental, has played such a fundamental and important role in helping developments and sustain a cohesive fabric across our society. And this kind of seriously trusted institutions still in an age where there is no trust for anything. And and so I'm interested when I get some small insights into this sort of this independence movement that's taking place. And the idea of people having community discussions that aren't that they're roundtables. They're not even necessarily for big groups of people. I mean, the idea of community of our sights, small talk, relatively speaking, given that politicians and their apparatchiks turned their backs on the town hall meeting in the 70s. And I saw it happen. I can tell you the last election when any political leader in an election campaign bothered to go to big public town hall meetings was golf slash campaign in 77. Against Fraser, so that's how long it's been since but now you know the kind of the so called Town Hall. Meeting is coming back. Yes, yes. And that's not a bad development provided. It's not just part of some bullshit stitch up marketing process to create an illusion of something that's not real. And it seems to me that this independence movement is genuinely looking to the grass roots as a way of allowing its message and and the things that worry it that worry though those people are involved in it, about the kinds of things we're talking about, you know, they want to actually engage voters. And if there's one thing I hope, I'm going to be able to say again, and again, wherever I go between now and the election is make your vote count, not telling people how they should vote, but just saying, make your vote count, think about the issues that are important to you. And I hope that they see the ABC as one of them. Think about the issues that are genuinely important to you, not who's gonna not who's promising to give you an extra five bucks in your pocket or something. Those things are passing. Proper funding of various policy areas is important, of course, but isolate the key issues that are important to you, whether it's climate change, whether it is the ABC, whether it is growing corruption in the political process, whether it is lies, whatever, the idea that people, I believe, for this election, people should be challenged and feel challenged, and actually take, become interested in the challenge to really think, in some instances for the first time in their lives. What is really important to me, in this campaign, and how can I make my vote count,

Julia Zemiro  21:41  
I've always seen the election as an exam, you know, you when you go into an exam, and you've studied you feel good, because you kind of know what you're going to be saying, you can feel good about the result, the amount of times I've stood in a line at a school waiting to vote, and people are still deciding in that line. Yeah, they're still deciding in the line. And so there's something in them that goes, I won't do the homework I need to do about it. And I'm and you can that you might see someone with a friend and go with who you voting for. And it's astounding to me. So just think you can't be thinking about this right now. And I think certainly this grassroots level of independence is is more about that I, I hosted the independent candidate for Hume Penny Acuras launch. And we were in a basketball court because it was raining, we had an outdoor and indoor idea. But we went indoors in the end and 300 We didn't have a tin roof. No, we were lucky. We're very lucky that I was really worried about the acoustics as well. 350 people turned up. As you know, as the emcee, I warmed up the crowd and chatter to people beforehand. And it was really, it was quite stunning carry to see people wanting more information. Eyes wide open, for clarity for something to be able to believe in something to be a bit hopeful about, especially after the last couple of years. Others who were nervous to be there a little bit nervous, not sure why they were nervous, sort of tryna

Kerry O'Brien  23:13  
possibly feeling a little bit exposed,

Julia Zemiro  23:15  
absolutely exposed.

Kerry O'Brien  23:16  
One of the things that I think has happened, I mean, I've thought a lot about this, the impact of, of technological change the the impact of the digital age as it is now. And it's been a long road hasn't been that long a time coming really post war, post war, and it really only started to take off in the 70s. And the thing about the thing about the digital revolution is that it's a little bit like measuring a title, like measuring an earthquake, it there is a seismic shift going on, there is an exponential kind of pace, as you get further and further into that revolution. And we can I don't care how much thought we put into what's going to happen next. And then what happens after that. And then what happens after that. Try by all means, but don't get too bloody coordinate, because because you'll just end up being blindsided every time I think that the pace of change when you look at not just the pace of change, but the breadth and the range of change is unprecedented in human history, including I think, the the original industrial revolution and, and our capacity to try and stay pace with just left behind at every step of the way. When we first when we first saw the internet coming the very first rosebuds of the internet, and people started to speculate about where it would hit nobody anticipated. Facebook, nobody anticipated Google nobody anticipated any of these things. And, you know, let alone quantum physics and all the rest of it. So

Julia Zemiro  24:55  
I know I contemplated doing putting some rules around it some regulations. is around, they don't need doing it now. And at the time, you're just thinking, like even even on a level, for example, my agent for years was just worried about what do I get them to pay my actors for doing a film or television? All of a sudden, she was having to go into meetings to dis to figure out, what will I now pay my actors? What am I asking for? If the stuff goes online? If it's on the internet, what's that worth? What's happening there, the stuff just keeps moving around. If you're not gonna put a rule around it or regulation around it. It's like we let we let it all go to shit first, and then go, Oh, why people are really getting hurt by this. How do we bring it all back?

Kerry O'Brien  25:37  
I mean, look, there are so many things that feed into this. I've just been reading a terrific article, a guest essay in the New York Times, and it's headed for those who want to Google it. You are the object of a secret extraction operation. And it's by Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School. Shoshana Zubov and the author of a book called The Age of surveillance capitalism, and that's what it's about. And it says that Facebook is not just any corporation, it reached a trillion dollar status in a single decade by applying the logic of what I call surveillance capitalism, an economic system built on the secret extraction or manipulation of human data. And it says the world's liberal democracies now confront a tragedy of the quote unquote uncommons information spaces that people assumed to be public are strictly ruled by private commercial interests for maximum profit. The internet as a self regulating market, has been revealed as a failed experiment, surveillance regulating market has been revealed. As I said, failed experiment, surveillance, capitalism leaves a trail of social wreckage in its wake, and it goes on, you know, this stuff is profound, the impact of it and where it's going to go. Profound. And, and most of us are sitting in our lounge rooms with the bloody blinds drawn, or the curtains drawn, and we cringing. We don't we don't just, you know, we don't just worry about the future for our kids. We're worried about our own futures, you know, a 30 Something person who has been trained for one thing, having to contemplate how they retrain, and then retrain again, and then retrain again. And then they think, how on earth do I prepare my children for this? What's going to be the story for my grandchildren, these things. And, you know, it is no mistake that we are in an age, riddled with anxiety, riddled with anxiety. It's the it's the unseen or barely seen pandemic, alongside the highly visible pandemic that we've been through in the last two years, and in many ways, reaping a far greater, more tragic outcome. Because we are talking about, we are talking about the future of many of our of our kids, many of the youngest people in our society, their future is being ruined for them, as they grow towards even their teenage years. On there's so many potential threats. And I don't want to be alarmist I hate being alarmist. I, no point in being alarmist. But be and so people say, Well, how am I supposed to react to that? I don't know. That. You see, it's too big for government. And at the same time, the quality of government is in decline in Liberal Western democracies, we're seeing the growth of illiberal democracy through Europe, we're looking at, we're looking at the great miss that American societies become. And we have over the last 20 or 30 years increasingly seen America as what we want to be. Well, good luck with that. We're part we're already paying a price for

Julia Zemiro  28:36  
it. Yeah, I've never understood that at all. There is also another possibility. And the other possibility is to be not hopeful, because I think that's a useless word often. But there's another possibility, which is to have a kind of a vision for things that we could achieve the things that we could change. So whether it is in the renewables are kind of argument climate argument, that a renewables could make a strong economy that, you know, Australia could lead in all these ways. You know, if we could find a way I don't know, to make universities free again, and offer the opportunity for everybody to go and be in a situation where they meet different people, and do classes where you have to apply some kind of constructive criticism called critical thinking, and everyone hates the word critical thinking now. But this idea that we could also start getting excited about that kind of place to live where we have to accept change, and things will have to move. And we start to become a country that is moving forward in an exciting way. Rather than always, even though we have to be worried about the things that aren't working, and that's where our leadership can come from in terms of be it state or federal, or, you know, performers or whoever it might be that sort of has those visions in knows a bit more than us, you know, don't be afraid of being with someone that knows more than you because that's how you learn. Right?

Kerry O'Brien  30:05  
Yeah. Look, I think I think there is. I mean, there's the single biggest source of hope for me in the future, is the extraordinary range of great young people coming through, in through various public forums, wonderfully articulate, passionate, clear sighted, demanding a better way, demanding, demanding better actions, demanding action on climate change, because they're saying, You're robbing us of our future, how dare you. But at the moment, it's still fractured. You know, there's no sort of form to it that I can see. And which is why I find that that independence movement, so interesting, because it does seem to have developed as a grassroots thing. There's no hand from the top that has arranged all this. And if and the longer, I think that the mainstream parties choose to ignore the challenge that's being laid out to them, they're, the more they're going to be affected by it. Because ultimately, if this continues the way it is, if mainstream parties do not improve their act, do not reform from the middle and think seriously about getting back on the track that they once were on as responsive parties to their constituencies. Then you're going to see hung Parliament's and in multi party governments, as as much more commonplace than they have ever been in this country. And we already saw Julia Guillen, the low you had you had and more power to her for her capacity to actually bring those people together. She had independence from both sides of the political divide, broadly speaking, functioning very efficiently with her minority government, to keep pushing legislation through the parliament. at record levels, really, including some quite substantial significant legislation

Julia Zemiro  32:05  
is not the job of a prime minister to be someone who can. And I'm not saying this disparagingly about anyone, but I'm just saying surely the job, or you would want someone in that position that goes, Okay, I see your point of view, I see your point of view, we're going to bring it together, why do you think that's what's going on? Now, I'm not going to, that's the skill, right? I've got skills in what I can do, I'm certainly gonna overshoot what I can do. But those kinds of skills, that's what you need, you need someone who can do that. And they're out there, they're out there. But somehow, we're not inviting them into the fold. And it's so interesting to me, that this grassroots level of people all over the country somehow seem to be choosing in the Maine women as they candidates

Kerry O'Brien  32:48  
that that is a fascinating part of the equation, I have to say an impressive women, often,

Julia Zemiro  32:54  
grassroots movements seem to be choosing women as their candidates even though there's been men in the mix. And yet apparently, there's no place for women federally on the hill when it's done in the in the other systems. So, again, it's showing that people it's not that people don't trust women, they absolutely do the choosing them.

Kerry O'Brien  33:15  
This is you this is the same struggle that you've seen in the corporate world, as well. And funnily enough in trade unions, I think, I think trade unions were ahead of the game in that regard, because there have been some very strong female trade union leaders going back over a couple of decades. Yeah, that's just that's that's still catching up. And and even though there has been a significant increase in the numbers of women in the parliament, that very revealing series of Anabel, crabs, just shows how long it's taking any number of men to actually catch up with what the wider public has already appreciated. And that is that women have a huge and at least equal contribution to make, and in the whole process will only improve as a result of it. You

Julia Zemiro  34:01  
always hear people saying, I wish we had a just Cinder and you guys, I say she has a job already with that there were plenty of descenders around, you just have to make them get in there. And it seems like the independent way is allowing women to step up, you know, women who've already had careers and are now in the third act of something that they want to do in their life. And and it just, I mean, so eloquent, you know, zali Steggall and Helen Haynes so eloquent and how they speak and get their ideas across that I feel saying when I listened to them, I got I understand what you're saying, You're being very clear, you're being very direct, you're not mucking around, hiding anything.

Kerry O'Brien  34:39  
I mean, look, just so that we don't get too carried away with with what we're hoping as against the realities. I mean, the truth is, if you're an independent and you're settling on three or four or five key issues, that you're going to say these are my you know, stand against the tide, or no matter what, and I'm going to represent you on these issues more than any other but I also be very sensible and what else comes along, unlike the major parties, they don't have to have a whole platform. And that does make their job somewhat easier. But nonetheless, the role that they potentially can play is of really serious import, given the standards of politics generally today and the need for the mainstream parties to be forced to rethink, reassess, and reform in a way that is much more responsive to the broader public and going back to politics more as a vocation than as just another career. And that is a part of what's gone wrong.

Julia Zemiro  35:36  
But don't think that but don't you think the way they express themselves too, if you think of Rob Oakshott and Tony Windsor as well, I mean, it's just a different way of expressing yourself as well. It's, it's, they always take the heat out of the discussion and the bias. And I just saying, Well, this is how it is. And I just don't see why we can't do that more for and I hope voters start to see, that's a way of doing things that's different, that seems to be yielding more. It's an approach if you know that old you can't be what you can't see. And I know it's an old cliche term, but it's true. If you can't see that someone can actually cut through with just, you know, calm discussion. It's sort of saying, Well, I know, I know, you might not have as much power and I might still be a laborer or a liberal voter. But why can't we have more of those in our group, and there are some I'm not saying they're not.

Kerry O'Brien  36:22  
But don't forget the tourney, Windsor was in a mainstream party, he was National Party, he was in the state parliament as a National Party representative. So he had come out of the mainstream, he had come out of conventional politics. And I think, any smart individual who's got any understanding of politics, if you're going to be an independent, you got to be really clear about what it is that your potential constituency is going to find attractive, because if you can't work it out, goodbye, goodbye to your chances of ever being elected. Some of them are populist. In fact, I think, I'm just guessing here talking off the top of my head, but I think over the course of time, if you went back and counted them all, and looked at them, you'd probably find that most of them were populist, most of the successful ones like a, like a bob Katter. In this day and age, if you're going to be a successful, independent, other than like a, like a rogue, self interested, Clive Palmer, then you've got to be offering alternative around issues of trust and honesty, and responsiveness to the public. Those are the things that I imagine the key resonators, and so you've got to be prepared to practice what you preach or you'll be very quickly exposed. Because before you walk through the front door of parliament house for the first time, you've made a whole shitload of enemies.

Julia Zemiro  37:39  
And that's a technical term, everybody Shitload, there'll be in the McCrory dictionary, Shitload final question to you is, I've always been sort of, I don't quite understand why. So I'm half French, half Australian. And when I go to France, people talk about politics quite naturally, easily, openly. It can be part of any conversation. And yes, sometimes it'll get a fiery and other times, it just will not. People will protest for things much for being shut down for things go on strike for things, and it all moves along. And in Australia, I honestly feel that Australians almost need permission to speak, they like that. Firstly, they'll shut it down. And I'm talking about, you know, yes, there's a group of you know, who might have been to uni, like us, and all the rest of it, who of course, have the tools to be able to, but I'm talking about, you know, any people you meet to sort of say, you are allowed to talk about this, and you are allowed to express yourself around it and find out more about it. And I guess that's the sort of feeling I got from that basketball court of people going, I can turn up, I can be here. And it doesn't have to be under the bright lights of a q&a in an audience, which is terrifying. It can be here. And I cannot say anything, but I can sort of, I'm allowed to listen to it and maybe dare to dream or dare to believe or dare to question why Australians like that.

Kerry O'Brien  39:05  
Well, look, I think truly you need to unpack this. If you've got another hour, we're gonna have a crack at it not have to give it some really serious thought beforehand. Australians have always had a capacity to there's been no shortage of anger in politics 1970s, maybe even 16, the the conscription debates, no holds barred. They're in the middle of the First World War. Australia has thrown up some significant surprises in its politics. I do think that one thing that is so fundamentally precious to our system, which really works and is a shining example to the rest of the world, is the fact that our voting is compulsory, even if people aren't prepared to to pursue an interest in politics, that the Constitution is saying that, that the Founding Fathers I hope, I hope I'm reflecting the genuine view of the founding fathers that they understood how fundamentally important the right to vote It was that they were actually they took the view that it should be, you know, shut your ears antivaxxers that. And you know, please don't mandate my life, despite the fact that has constantly mandated in all kinds of ways many of them legitimate, that it was such a crucial key to, to a healthy democracy. As that they were that they've decreed that the voting that voting should be compulsory. Now, I'm not walking article on the constitution. So I'm assuming that that was there from the outset, it might have been presented some years later. One of the great things that's happened to differentiate Australian democracy from many others. And it's, and it's why partly, it partly explains America's problem and partly explains Britain's problem. People might grumble as they go to the polls, but for one brief moment, at least, they're forced to think about it. And some more so it does create conversations. If you're right, that people are kind of timid about expressing their own views. And you're probably more right now than you might have been in the past simply because of this sense of almost isolationism and and polarization. People are scared that because they might pick a fight, because there are so many angry people out there on this stuff, which is why I think it is a kind of a nice example of how things can be done, that people can decide to sit down in a civil environment and speak to each other and open their minds up to the views of others and feel confident enough to express their own views and start to develop their own views with others.

Julia Zemiro  41:39  
Well, on that note, Kerry O'Brien What a beautiful way to finish but a beautiful way to finish what's what's the rest of the day hold for you carry you're gonna do something raining what you ox it's pouring

Kerry O'Brien  41:51  
rain writing constantly but I came to a view very early in our time up here we came up to the north coast of New South Wales when I left 730 And my wife walked away from her job the Herald I learned very early on not to complain about the rain because you you appreciate it when it's the and and often it's the it's here in abundance and the bar and Bayview have a dry season is where you have four months without rain. But now it's wonderful, wonderful part of the world and the only what it reminds you of though is is that there are now so many manifestations of the impact of climate change already on us that again, nothing is predictable anymore. The only thing I think that is predictable as is being demonstrated season after season after season. Is that is that whatever weather patterns we've had in the past we're going to have in spades and we're going to have with greater intensity and at greater cost. Sorry

Julia Zemiro  43:02  
Jesus Christ

Kerry O'Brien  43:04  
was I say never asked a question you don't know the answer to

Dan Ilic  43:07  
what out what up Jay Z asked who cares? Sure, boy, Jay Z make some noise. No, by Jay Z joins me right. This is Julius Amira asks, Who cares?

Julia Zemiro  43:19  
Thank you, Kerry O'Brien isn't it great to hear Kerry laugh on to Zara Seidler What an impressive human being she is in her 20s She set up with Sam cars Lasky the daily oz news for millennials. And it's Australia's leading social first news organization. They're on a mission to arm Millennials with the tools they need to begin their own deep dive into the news. Their news recaps and explainers are read by over 100,000 Australians daily 85% of whom are under 34. They've also got a daily podcast you can check out. And it was just wonderful to hear her talk about how they got into this and why they thought it was necessary. And I started by asking her about how she got into it in the first place. And it went via possibly wanting to become a teacher going to Washington to work in politics, and finally getting a gig with Karen Phelps.

Zara Seidler  44:15  
Straight out of school, I thought I wanted to do teaching, I was dissuaded by those around me, perhaps because of my temperament more than anything due to that. I think that people rightly identified that I'm very opinionated, I am quite impatient at times and perhaps needed to go out there and figure out a bit more about the world and then go back to teaching a little later. So I thought I was gonna do my undergrad and then go back and do a Masters of Education. And I mean, still could happen but doesn't look very likely. So I did an international level studies degree straight out of uni, and it's a fairly open degree where you can kind of Have make your own way and figure out what you want to do. Ended up at Georgetown for an exchange and got there the weekend that Donald Trump was inaugurated.

Julia Zemiro  45:10  
Now that's in Washington for people. I mean, that's the heartbeat, isn't it? That's a hard day's politics.

Zara Seidler  45:15  
It is. Yeah, you nailed that. It was quite an awakening, I think that I had thought I was political. And then I went over there and got a whole new sense of what being political really is. My understanding of being political was caring about things. And when I went there, it was a full embodiment, it was a head to toe, you know, you have thrown your life into this, it is affecting your day to day in a way that I mean, Trump really brought a new sense to, to engage during one's everyday life. But I will acknowledge that I had had a privileged upbringing where I chose issues that mattered to me and I cared deeply about those, but day to day wasn't really affected by decision making. And so I got to see that up close when I went to DC. And I also did a fellowship with Hillary Clinton's campaign director, who was obviously quite jaded post election. And so it was this just really, yeah, it was really quite life changing. I mean, I was extremely young. So

Julia Zemiro  46:29  
how can we didn't turn you off, though?

Zara Seidler  46:32  
I just honestly, and it sounds so contrived, the passion that people had the fact that this guy was still going into Georgetown, and teaching a bunch of teenagers about politics after he'd lost the biggest election in history, I just something, it just appealed to me even more. And it made me angry, I think more than anything, because the day after Trump's election, I had the Women's March. And that was just on the complete other side of the spectrum. So both deeply political experiences, but but my, you know, interaction with those was very different. So I came back, just really excitable and I wrote myself a note, I actually found it recently that said that I didn't want to become complacent when I got back, that I didn't want to just be one of those people that said, that had an amazing experience, but then never channeled it into anything. Hilariously, I ended up coming back and working for Sky News. But what a

Julia Zemiro  47:27  
great experience to be in the kind of the Belly of the Beast there and sort of go, how stuffs done here and what sort of tactics is in this world,

Zara Seidler  47:37  
I often find in in my role, now, I get a fair bit, not a fair bit, that's an exaggeration, I get some comments about my time at Sky News and people thinking that I am aligned with the Murdoch way of thinking. And to that I just respond that I was a young kid who needed a job, and that it was an amazing foot in the door. And when the media market is owned, you know, two thirds owned by the same person, you don't really have a whole lot of choice as a young person who's interested. So it was a really great experience. And my role there was to set up guests for their interviews, Karen was one of those guests. Kind of just tutor ear off a bit, and then sent an email out into the world hoping that it would land and somehow got put in touch with someone who puts me in touch with someone and ended up working for Karen, for a very short period, which was wonderful and, you know, reinvigorated my my love and passion for public policy and all the likes of that.

Julia Zemiro  48:46  
So when great when you came back from America, do you come back to Australia and often feel this Australians are just so afraid to speak up? We're so afraid to have an opinion. We will not talk about politics, we won't our cup will go settle down. I need to get excited about it. And you're like, if not, when now? If not now When? And I'm getting excited by and affected by as you said, the the daily decisions that are made on our behalf, whether we like it or not. Did you come back to Australia and have your shoulders kind of drop and go? Come on everyone?

Zara Seidler  49:20  
I did. I definitely did. I think that I was in a unique position because like you I grew up in a family where it was kind of always the conversation. Like there was never a time that I remember we were talking about politics. When I noticed it most acutely was with my friends. It was that I would kind of speak at them. And would it be getting a whole lot back in terms of excitement around certain things. I would say though, that if there was any time where people seem to care, it was that time it was because and I think it has something to do with the way that Americans Politics is based on this real value system that I don't think we've identified exists in Australia despite the fact that it does. And so there, it's this, like sweeping ideology that's, you know, connected to these big systems of how you see the world. And you either agree with Trump or you don't. And that's, you know, it's very two dimensional, I found that to be quite a stark difference to how we see Australia and that people consider things to be on a lesser scale for some reason. And I know, we're obviously a lot smaller, but no decision affects us any more or less than it would being in a different country with a different light on

Julia Zemiro  50:37  
one an amazing experience to you know, wasn't necessarily going to be interested in politics. And you have this time in Washington, you come and work with Karen and to work within and pendant at such close quarters. And she achieved so much, and was one of one of those first lots of examples of how much an independent can actually achieve. And now look what's going on. I mean, I mean, Zoe, Daniel has just stepped up as gold. It is very exciting. And I mean, you know, there is some very experienced people out there, stepping up, as they say, because it's not easy to this assumption that doing something like that. I'm sure you experienced that with Karen, and her life, but it's, you know, you're also stepping into a world of extreme dizziness, and you'll never see, again, all of that. But when that finished, did you think I'm onto my next independent, I'm going to get into this, how can I get into into the with this world,

Zara Seidler  51:38  
I went a different route. What attracted me so much to Karen was that I agreed with everything she was about there was there was no part of it, that I feel this with the party two party system is that you love some of it, and then you hate some of it. And you just have to take it, I never really liked that and never saw myself reflected in in that sort of style of politicking. So, with no other independent, that really appealed to me or had a job. I moved into government relations.

Julia Zemiro  52:14  
But sometimes when I'm on rock quiz, and I get my contestants up, and I ask them what they do, they'll say something like government relations, and I'll go

Zara Seidler  52:21  
and what is it? What is their lovely euphemism?

Julia Zemiro  52:25  
It's like, you know, I mean, communication to you, but what do you communicate? So tell me, in your own words, what is government?

Zara Seidler  52:34  
Government Relations is, I don't know if this is a flattering picture of it. To me, it was using the connections that you had in the political system, to affect change on behalf of a client. So ultimately, it is lobbying. And my role during that time, was to specifically have those relationships with the independent politicians, so members of the crossbench. And that was fascinating. Because the thing with that is that you get across every policy in you could ever think of because you're not married or tied to one client with one policy area, you learn about health, about science, about tech, and it's sort of just this amazing, deep dive into a whole lot of things. And I really, I really enjoyed it, I think, I think it taught me a lot, I learned so much about communication, and how to communicate a point effectively, and concisely and in a way, funnily enough, it's kind of the opposite way, but in a way that makes sense to a politician who needs to get across things really quickly.

Julia Zemiro  53:43  
Yeah. And he is still catching up with friends and having great discussions about this great job you've gotten. They're still blinking and going yet, when you start talking Zara about

Zara Seidler  53:51  
the night as a drink. Yeah, no.

Julia Zemiro  53:55  
And why are they interested? I mean, you've you've probably had similar schooling, you're in a similar area, are they? That this is what always fascinates me? I'm not saying you're gonna be a hardcore not about politics. But you know, you're either in it or you're not. And I still can't quite, you know, if you stopped paying someone in the street and say, Who do you think controls your life? No, I do. And you go, Well, you know, there is this umbilical cord to what's happening in Canberra, and people choose to ignore that or at their peril, or go, Look, I'll just vote for the light whoever I voted for last time. What what is it for them? Are they just busy off with uni? Do they genuinely don't see that it affects them?

Zara Seidler  54:36  
I think that both the media and the political class have not. I don't want to take agency away from the individual. But I think and this is the problem that I've been trying to solve, that there has not been enough communication in the style and the way that is accessible to this generation that makes them realize They care and why they need to care and what is at stake here. I think that there's a lot of assumed knowledge.

Julia Zemiro  55:07  
This is what the daily odds does, it makes it clear, it kind of separates, you know, the complicated set, not even the complicated stuff. It just sort of isolates those moments. And those are stories and ideas that can actually make sense to someone.

Zara Seidler  55:24  
To exactly it. And that assumed knowledge part. And that component was the driving force. It was, how do we provide context to the headlines that people are reading every day because people turn off when they feel dumb. And I know that, that it people in my life have said that to me before it's, well, I don't contribute to conversations because I don't know enough. And I don't want to come across as dumb or uninformed. And I completely understand that I would feel the same way. And so what we're trying to do is really provide that backstory that context to a headline, or a concept or a political mechanism, so that people feel empowered to then get into the discussion or vote a certain way, because they know that there is a level of information that sets the foundation of their knowledge.

Julia Zemiro  56:15  
So you're working in government relations. Lobbying, and, and what how do you meet Sam? Or how do you go on to this other?

Zara Seidler  56:27  
Uh, my timeframes are really murky. But

Julia Zemiro  56:30  
I mean, they can be general for a day. Yeah,

Zara Seidler  56:34  
I was sick that night. So Sam started the daily orders a number of years ago. And he, he taken the name on Instagram, he had the idea, didn't do anything about it, and then put it on either Instagram or LinkedIn, we kind of gray and saying, I want to do this with someone. Is anyone interested? And I had like, eight friends send it to me. And I say no, you know what? I know. It's as if my friends listened to me. And just kind of have to complain. No, they know, my friends are absolutely wonderful. But I yeah, I just remember being sent it. And we are part of the same community, but had never met each other. And we went for coffee. And we were like, oh my god, we're the same person in two different bodies. Like this is insane. We had exactly the same ideas we had, I mean, different upbringings, but the same values and belief system. And we have been best friends since that day. There's not been a day since then, that we haven't spoken. And I think that was four years ago, I love from there grew the daily hours. And for a number of years, it was just a side hustle. There was nothing else to it, it was it we'll do this everyday because we want our friends to have something to talk about on a date, or we want to not have friends, which very much happens and family members texts made the morning of an election saying Who am I voting for? So it was an attempt to address all of those issues with the one answer, which was, let's give you accessible, digestible Quick News bites and not actually disrupt the way that you consume information, we're going to just put it in your way so that when you're going about you're scrolling, you get a chunk of information, and you're smarter than when you started.

Julia Zemiro  58:29  
And how do you know it's working? You know, you're starting it off. And like anything, it starts slowly, and I knew it sort of jumped and grew. But how do you know that this side hustle is making a difference of people getting in touch with you? And they're saying, I get this now? And I'm getting interested? Like, have you seen people go down new kind of, you know, wormholes of inflammation or

Zara Seidler  58:51  
school question. I think for the first little while, it wasn't like, I don't think there was any indication that it was working, or that it was successful. But we just kept doing it every day, because we loved it. And we didn't really have an audience. As it grew, it became very clear to us through just anecdotal evidence that people were starting to rely on it as their sole news source. That's a massive responsibility for people that are doing this before and after their very long day jobs. That was terrifying. But also, we have always positioned ourselves we say we're the entree to the news diet. So take us, you know, it come with us and then off, you go into the world and you can consume whatever else, and at least you again, have that foundation. So we grew more. Yeah, our audience grew and then COVID happen and then here we added COVID affect you. Everyone suddenly had a reason to care about politicians, because in a way that I think, like we discussed earlier Politics had touched people personally in their day to day life before, especially the more privileged among us. This affected every single person. So no matter who you are, no matter where you lived, no matter what you did. And so suddenly, we had people who previously wouldn't have known the name of their premier or chief minister, texting saying, What time is it on? Like, I need, I need an update. I need everything. And so we went from whatever we were doing before to doing just, we will translate these press conferences for you. And that was just clearly what people wanted. Yeah, yes. And we just continued to grow and grow. And we started hearing more about what our audience wanted. And that was a really gratifying thing to have that audience important to have young people saying, I've heard this around. Can you just explain it for me? And so it continued to grow. There were a number of other events. And I've spoken about this before, but Black Lives Matter movement, the US presidential election, and COVID taken together or really just, yeah, put a rocket ship under our I don't even know what the word for that is.

Julia Zemiro  1:01:11  
They put a run. Wherever it did it blue thing. He got it going? What a rocket.

Zara Seidler  1:01:18  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That. And yeah, yeah.

Julia Zemiro  1:01:22  
It's, it's hard to find good things that came out of COVID. But one of them is that yeah, there's definitely. And the thing is to it doesn't even have to be the word politicization. It's actually just being involved in a civic engagement and engagement. Yeah, with what's going on around you. The work is so great. On daily ours, it's so accessible, it's so clear, it does, it's not dumbed down at all it is the clarity of it is what I love so much. And I know that people who, as I said before, it's not just 20, that 20 year old group that that listens and reads, what shocks you, as you're putting work together is anything that you see in the way it's all put together, or what's out there, that shocks you about media,

Zara Seidler  1:02:05  
just how much assumed knowledge there is. And it's not even about the concept. It's about the historical happenings that kind of predate that event, I just

Julia Zemiro  1:02:21  
so what happened you just so how can we change that? Like, you know, I still think that, like, I think, I think, say in terms of the arts, for instance, you know, we still have such a problem in this country, just legitimizing it full stop, people have gone to see shows, sure, but in terms of training in terms of what needs to be done in terms of the discipline involved in in terms of it being a full time job, if you're lucky. And not being a side hustle, and don't keep asking people to do stuff for free. I sometimes think Well, the best way to make good audiences is at school, you give them the jargon and the vocabulary to read a play on stage to understand what that there's a stage manager to understand what film is to understand that there's layers of meaning and understanding to go to dance and go, I'm not quite sure how to get into this, but I'm feeling something I'm not sure what it is. Like, for me, it's art. I don't know enough about it. And I there's no point me going to a gallery unless I'm with a friend who just gets it right. And it's so different. It's so good. Because you they go oh my god, you've got this whole knowledge and you can share it with me. I'll hopefully I can share some rock music with you later. But um, but it's it's a sense of going you make better audiences for something and not by necessarily marking them on it. Maybe we could just do it because it's interesting and fun, and makes you feel good to sing a song every day. That's cool with a whole group of people and go and we're not getting marked on that. We just generally did that because it was enjoyable. Great. Yeah. Maybe we could do that with media unless you unless you take Media Studies at school.

Zara Seidler  1:03:55  
That is something I have thought about for so long, is actually texted some of my old school teachers to just say whether there would be an appetite, because having media literacy at a school age. I mean, our school leavers are at voting age, and it's too late, then it is too late when we are trying to mean it's not too late. It's never too late. But I think it is later than it should be when we're at the daily hours are intercepting these people. I think it should be as early as possible. And it's a completely a political non partisan. Yeah, I think in my head, I've always thought of a civics and a media course. And I've always thought of someone coming in. I mean, at school, we had all of these like study skills, things that they just brought in external people to run. And they were like, cool, hip, young kids, and you're like, Oh, I like you like maybe I'll listen to what you say. And in my head, I think that way of doing it would be really useful and working with the teachers alongside them. but actually having experts in the room to talk to the need for media literacy, so that when these people go and finish school, they have at least that foundation of knowledge to then go out and seek out their own information. You cannot expect a school age student to know what they can't know. And I really see it as something that needs to happen.

Julia Zemiro  1:05:22  
But yeah, the media literacy thing would is ridiculous that we're not sort of harnessing it there. And then people are lost and absolutely feel stupid. And no one knows.

Zara Seidler  1:05:32  
Exactly. And I think the big thing to point out is that, no wonder no wonder you feel that way. And that's not wrong. And you're, you haven't done anything wrong to feel that way. You've just been underserviced in this department, for lack of a better term. And I think, often times there can be this condescending tone that is implied when talking to people who might not be involved in our, you know, civil society, when it's how can we actually engage them? Let's not isolate them further. Let's try bring them in. And how do we do that?

Julia Zemiro  1:06:09  
There was a time when I remember when Natasha stopped Despoiler joined Parliament, and we're a similar age. And I remember thinking, wow, I mean, and a lot of fuss was made about how young she was. And because she did it with the Democrats. Maybe that was the only way that could happen. It could only happen through a slightly off center party. But um, but she was about the only one really, I mean, or maybe I paid attention because she was a woman. But you know, it's not. And what's interesting to me is that now all these independents that are stepping up, they're mostly women. Yeah, I mean, bar a couple. And it's interesting to me that all of a sudden, you know, apparently, we're a country that doesn't like being run by a woman. And yet grass roots are going, we absolutely choose you to be the person to run,

Zara Seidler  1:07:00  
you know that it's electorally advantageous to have someone that will appeal to the electorate, and it's just turning out to be women every day.

Julia Zemiro  1:07:09  
Good grace. Now, when you when you got into the daily Oz, surely part of the enjoyment too, is that you have creative control.

Zara Seidler  1:07:18  
I mean, I actually, we had a job interview today with someone who we are looking at hiring. And they asked about the bureaucracy of our organization, and what bureaucracy? What red tape there is done? Yeah, I mean, it is, we, I think this was something that was really important during COVID. We don't have to wait on anyone, we don't have to get approval for anything, we don't have to fight upwards for anything it is, we do what we want. And I think that lends itself to listening a lot more to what our audience wants to. And so we're really guided by what is happening in their lives, what they are interested in what they want, you know, as a talking point, before a date, and to have that freedom. I mean, it's just, I'm in my dream job. And I'm 24 I can't quite imagine a world that is better than this. It's amazing. There's a lot

Julia Zemiro  1:08:18  
of fast made about how the young uns Sam, but I kind of think God, I mean, in your 20s, if you switched on, that's where you have a lot of energy,

Zara Seidler  1:08:25  
you've got a lot of couldn't do this at any other point, I'm exhausted, you know what I mean? It's like, you've

Julia Zemiro  1:08:31  
got this amazing energy, and it's like, I'm going to use it while I'm here. Well, I can. Yeah, it's a good, good idea. You also incorporate serious news story. I mean, you know, Sam puts it as the necessity of news. It's sort of having that in there. You do hard news, you're not going to be doing, you know, fun stuff for fun. But you're doing intent, you do tend to include a good news story. And what was the idea behind that?

Zara Seidler  1:08:57  
That a lot of people said that they didn't read the news, because it made them feel really shitty. And I understand that it can be really shitty, just not a good enough reason to turn off. And I also think that you can turn off if it doesn't affect you, which again, goes to one's privilege. So I just wanted to eliminate that excuse altogether. Yeah. And like, Yep, the news can be shitty. Here's a great story to end the day with. And I'll tell you finding the good news is the longest thing. It is the longest task in a day by an absolute mile. It is so difficult to find a good news story every single day of the week. And that is horrible. I don't blame the people that say it's dark. It is dark, but we always find them.

Julia Zemiro  1:09:47  
But the funny thing is, though, you is it isn't a good news story, what we want to try and turn our bad news stories into because you know, if you see that something's been dressed, addressed if you see that climate change is being addressed, or we're going to start Looking at renewables in a fundamental way you go, that is the good news story. You know, today having a liberal across the floor for for something is the good news part of saying, you see, you can work together, we can have those conversations. But again, there's a lot of assume knowledge into why that could be seen as a good news.

Zara Seidler  1:10:18  
Exactly, exactly. There's a lot of assumed knowledge. And also, I mean, this goes against what I've said this whole time at, I've been speaking in a personal capacity and in a professional capacity. We we really value impartiality. And so we've taken a position on a couple of issues, things like climate change, not political, not a political game. It is our future. We care deeply about that. We will always put good news that is about action on climate change. Yeah, that can be seen as political for a couple of people. Yeah. As they make it known to us every single time it happens. But that's just the editorial position that we decided to take. But yeah, what's good news to set, one person might not be good news to another person. And that's when you have a quarter of a million people who are following your every move that can get quite sticky very quickly.

Julia Zemiro  1:11:11  
And do you feel a pressure though, that one day, you'll find yourself trying to please your audience more than saying, Well, hang on, we started this because we're into the hard news, and we're into the necessity of news. So no, we've got to, we've got to stick to what we initially said.

Zara Seidler  1:11:29  
I don't see it becoming an insurmountable problem. It's, it's like they're always going to be there. We respect the opinions and the views of our audience. And as I said, we will take, you know, guidance from them. But we this is our thing, they can go elsewhere, if they don't like honestly, yeah, like someone said something about the way that we were reporting COVID numbers, and I was like, mate, just look for them yourself, then like, it's just, you can seek out the information without coming here. It's a freemium news service that no one is making, you follow. But I mean, we have to do stuff that some popular all the time in the subject matter itself, like no one wants to write about taxation. And that doesn't mean we're not going to do it, because you need to know about it. And so it's funny, because an indication of success for us at a very superficial level is no likes and comments, which is bizarre. And so there's a very quick rate, and we can gauge very, very quickly what the audience cares and doesn't care about. But to us, that doesn't ever affect the editorial process, it really informs it.

Julia Zemiro  1:12:41  
I think it's something like tax to you know, people are horrified that say, in a country like Denmark, you know, half of their salary goes into tax, but they have paid parental leave for men and for women, you know, they want for nothing, their university is free, because they believe that, you know, every kid no matter where they come from, shall be able to have the choice to go to uni, if they want to go to uni, I mean, free university, I had free university in, you know, the age I'm at, but um, I mean, that's a pipe dream. Now, you know, and it would be so that mean, that would be a monumental thing to be able to say you can go to uni for a certain amount of time, at least for free.

Zara Seidler  1:13:19  
It's really, I haven't thought about this before, but I'm thinking about it now. And you say that what I feel is missing right now, at least among the cohort that I speak to and hang out with, is there is no sense of aspiration in our politics, no one is aspiring to reach, you know, the levels of Yeah, of what you just described of having free, you know, it's just like, how do we, how do we change what we're in now? I could better within the limitations of what we know, I don't get a sense that there's any like big thinking happening.

Julia Zemiro  1:14:04  
But there's no big thinking happening from the people in charge of

Zara Seidler  1:14:07  
who it is probably that trickle down effect. It's that there's no big thinking at the top. So how can there be big thinking at the bottom? Yeah, I'm

Julia Zemiro  1:14:16  
behind. Yeah, yeah, we really are. Oh. Now, as we, as we finish off, what do you do you and Sam see yourself doing the daily AWS for another five years, 10 years, you hand it over, and then you do something else?

Zara Seidler  1:14:35  
I mean, I don't want to be the person that I refer to earlier, which is a person that thinks that they are among peers, and speaking to peers when they're not. So when we are no longer the age of our audience, I think that that's a good indication that we're in the wrong place. For now, it's really great that we feel like we're growing with them that as they learn, we learn and it's just this beautiful to full relationship unless someone forces me and I'd like to stay. We're just starting to grow our newsroom. were recruiting lots of young journalists and to have you know, that just passion and excitement and people wanting to rock up to work every day. I'm not quite sure I'll find it anywhere else.

Julia Zemiro  1:15:19  
I know you've kind of quit, you know, when you create your own job

Zara Seidler  1:15:22  
peak too early. I know. I know every disappointment.

Julia Zemiro  1:15:26  
But at least you've seen disappointment too. You've seen a lot of hard work going to a campaign like Karen's, and you see that there's incredible highs and incredible lows. And absolutely, until you've you kind of do need to experience that I guess to kind of go Oh, yeah, well, you know, and q&a. What was that? Like? How did you find that show?

Zara Seidler  1:15:45  
I felt like it was studying for the HSC. Yes, I like tried to get across so much. And then they ask you one specific thing on something you're like, Oh, wow. Not quite where my mind was gonna go with that one. Um, I think I mean, it. It was my dream as a kid to be on q&a. I just like, in I am. I'm Jewish. No, I said that so strangely, but for my Bar Mitzvah. When I was 12, my friends did a speech for me. And in it, they like embodied different parts of my personality. And one of them was them pretending to be on q&a. And they've nose just kills me and ham raising it. Yeah. Lots to lots to learn lots to improve on but it was just I'm so lucky. That that's all really I was very fortunate. And I will. Really, yeah, remember that one?

Julia Zemiro  1:16:42  
Zara. What a delight to talk to you. Onwards and upwards. Young lady.

Zara Seidler  1:16:47  
Thanks so much lovely to chat Woman of the Year.

Dan Ilic  1:16:51  
Julia Zemiro asks, Who cares? A big

Julia Zemiro  1:16:53  
thank you to Kerry O'Brien and Zara Seidler for talking with me today. And a big thanks to irrational fear our Patreon supporters, the birther Foundation, and to our post producer Jacob Brown, who makes us sound great on equipment from the wonderful people at road. Join me next month, which will be 2022 to find out who else cares. I promise I'll find people. We do care and I do hope you'll get to have a break and arrest. Alright, see you soon. Bye

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

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We're Talking Fears with the Talking Pictures crew.

Yianni Agisilaou
Mike Bowers
Fiona Katauskas
Dan Ilic
+ Zoe Daniel

We talk about the diplomatic boycot of the winter olympics, world leaders hitting the pingers at 4am, Andrew Laming's staffers poor choices, and we talk with Zoe Daniel about running as an independant.

PATREON 💸:

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THANKS:

Big thanks to The Bertha Foundation, our Patreon Supporters, RODE Mics, and Jacob Round

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G'day Fearmongers,

If you can't tell in this recording, I'm super stoked to have Alice Fraser and Andy Zaltzman on for the first ever Bugle X A Rational Fear crossover special. 

We talk.

On-line Trolls.
Xenobots.
NFTs.
UK Anti Vax Protests.
and I attempt a Pun Run for Andy's sake.

Cheers

Dan

PATREON 💸:

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We have a very loose, dude-heavy podcast this week, that is back to back bros being bros. There is ribbing, slander, sledging, marijuana, bitcoin, and as promised rhyming.

Joining Lewis Hobba (Triple J) and Dan Ilic (Third Person Writer) on the podcast this week are two of our old friends in comedy and broadcasting Matt Okine and Alex Dyson (All Day Breakfast) ripping into the news of the week. We also talk through all things Australian Podcast Awards we give Dom Knight (The Chaser), and Andy Lee (Hamish and Andy) a call. We also get a brief La Niña whether report direct from the Bureau of the Brolly CEO, Tim Bailey.

You can now get our classic billboard artwork through our RedBubble store as stickers! And if you're an Indiegogo #JokeKeeper supporter your stickers will be going out in the mail next week!

PATREON 💸:

If you enjoy our podcast, emails and important climate change conversations, you can also chip in here like a good sovereign citizen  www.patreon.com/arationalfear

THANKS:

Big thanks to The Bertha Foundation, our Patreon Supporters, RODE Mics, Lee Constable, Kilian David, David Bloustien on Discord and Jacob Round on the teppanyaki timeline.

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Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Good evening, Lewis.

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

Dan Ilic  0:07  
I'm good. I'm just kind of warming up you know for the big week ahead of us. And not only are we trying to get a bugle a rational fear crossover show next next week, but we've got the the Podcast Awards coming up. Do we? Like some Thursday? Thursday? Yeah, this coming Thursday. Yeah. Next week next. Did you know about this? I bought your ticket. We normally the great thing is we normally record on Thursday night so well, you will you wouldn't be doing anything anyway. Cuz usually schedule Thursday nights for us. Yeah, but you didn't. You didn't know that? No.

Lewis Hobba  0:43  
Look, it's it's a whole week ahead. And that's long term plan. But I cannot wait. I'm excited. I've been excited for months. The night free. I've got myself a new suit. I'm ready to go.

Dan Ilic  0:56  
Good. Let's call one other person who's also getting ready for the big night. Now we've got some stiff competition. There's the Boggy Creek community podcast the Candyman. A couple of blokes called Hamish and Andy housewarming, as we know, we spoke to them last week. But then we've got our old friends called The Chaser already Pete Lawler in the in the in the text has said, how do we vote for the chaser podcast? Any words? Thank you, Peter. Thank you very much for that. I just thought we'd give them a call and see how they're going. See how they're preparing for the night. Let's give DOM Knight a call. He's the co host of The Chaser podcast along with

Lewis Hobba  1:32  
you've been on a Danny poster. Do you get do you get a section of the award? You have shares in the award? Yeah,

Dan Ilic  1:37  
I do. I'm gonna say hello. Hello, Tom. Nice.

Unknown Speaker  1:41  
Hello, is this Dan Ilic it is Dan Ilic Chen

Dan Ilic  1:45  
Lewis haba. Hi, Tom.

Unknown Speaker  1:47  
Hello Lewis. taba. I'm in the middle of an Uber. Night in Sydney to watch I have the pleasure of speaking to the two of you. Well, we

Dan Ilic  1:54  
just wanted to know see how you're going. How you're preparing for the Podcast Awards coming up. We got we got a stiff competition with you also nominated for Best Comedy podcast. What are you doing to prepare?

Dom Knight  2:05  
were nominated.

Dan Ilic  2:08  
Hang on, you don't even you didn't even know you're nominated. Am I the only one that cares about these Podcast Awards?

Unknown Speaker  2:13  
Oh, no. flattering. It's flattering. But I don't want to get my hopes up because you guys will be winning the title holders?

Dan Ilic  2:22  
Yeah. Which means we got a lot to lose. Namely this glass trophy.

Dom Knight  2:27  
Ah, I mean, you say that but we didn't put billboards in you know Times Square.

Lewis Hobba  2:35  
It's over we've already lost Yeah, where the pranksters now chase up all is Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  2:42  
We're just happy to be there. Honestly. We we've our strategy this whole year has been bulk we do 10 podcasts a week. Yeah, you do one podcast a week not even every week. Sometimes you get Julia to Mrs. Amuro to do it for you. nominated? I'm just happy to be there. Oh, I will carry a bag I'll get your autograph.

Dan Ilic  3:06  
Why did you go from Why did you go from doing one podcast a day to doing two podcasts a day? That's that seems crazy to me.

Unknown Speaker  3:14  
Well with three seem too many you know the reason is, although we have talked about a late night version maybe if we can get hot

Dan Ilic  3:29  
dogs, but it's still you can get Roland Dean on satirist

Unknown Speaker  3:34  
actually you know what getting Ron Dean on and not telling him it was a joke. Now we did two a day because what we were doing is we have great guests like you know that Danny would start from rational fear semi friend of both of our shows, we just copied your playbook Gabby boss, and he's a co host he always knew we'd have them on and then we cut to cut down the interview we would have a 20 minute lovely chatting to cut it down to him in Philly. Nice, you know, radio show cell phone that we have in the morning. So we can just put them up as an afternoon session and it's

Dan Ilic  4:13  
lovely. Oh, I say you've actually done it for less work. That's clever.

Unknown Speaker  4:18  
More podcast, less work and also more fun we had done Tony Martin on actually if I'm completely honest with you, we've asked Tony Martin how to win the podcast award. And we were we were bad mouthing your podcast beat him. And so we're gonna we're gonna join forces and duties all shows up.

Dan Ilic  4:42  
Very good. Well, we will be unbeatable next year. Thank you, Dom. Good luck.

Unknown Speaker  4:46  
All the best incoming second.

Dan Ilic  4:51  
Dark Night from the taste of podcast there. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the Euro nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's stop this.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  5:13  
Tonight Peter Dutton wins a defamation case against Shane bezzie. clearing up any confusion as to whether he's a rape apologist which he is not. And George christison compares COVID restrictions to Nazi Germany, while historians compare Christiansen to Hitler's one ball, and Powershop is found to be part of a shell company. It's the 26th of November 2021. And Peter Dutton is not a rape apologist. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former first woman president of Sweden Daniel itch. And this is the podcast that takes the scariest news stories and puts the word freedom in the headline to make them seem nice and acceptable. Let's meet our female guests for tonight. Straight from the red carpet to the luxurious world of independent podcasting. Here's the music maker filmmaker baby make a joke make some would call him a polymath. We just call him POLYMATH.

Matt Okine  6:14  
Oh kind, like guys, how's it going?

Dan Ilic  6:18  
Well, well, Matt, you make a lot of things. And you've been making mercans lately how sales has Merkin sales going? Yeah, so

Matt Okine  6:25  
I found a ball of my old hair underneath my house. My dad found it. And now you gotta understand that this hair must have been there since when I used to cut my hair at home by myself which would have been when I was maybe 1617. So we're looking at Vintage you know 1999 or 2001 Vintage. It aged pretty well. And we just saw it pop the cork on it and take it to a wig maker. So yeah back on this because look at this I got the I got the map at Tassie just sitting out the front here. The best right of forehead on my bloody head these days.

Unknown Speaker  7:02  
Terrifying. Wow.

Dan Ilic  7:03  
Well, you're you're you're a real you know, middle aged man with a with your kid. You've got your

Matt Okine  7:09  
shirts when I sneeze. For God's sake. Well, I used to be licked man.

Dan Ilic  7:15  
Alright, use broadcaster. And he's the former independent candidate for wedding. But now he spends his time as a small business owner doing it tough. It's Alex Dyson.

Alex Dyson  7:25  
How low I know one independent run. And now as a small business. I don't have to go with the liberals. I mean, the economy now. I've taken one peek at it. And it's tough to get on that tray. Elena, let's guard

Dan Ilic  7:41  
when you decided to become a small business owner, did you ever think you'd be one of those ones that were doing it tough?

Alex Dyson  7:46  
Of course, but I know no other way when it comes to business. I find the toughest way to try and do everything including getting insurance setting up the internet. There is no easy way to do it. But I'm just looking forward now that Melbourne is open to capacity that Comedy Club is up and running. I'm just hoping that the the money trickles down. You know, I'm just waiting

Lewis Hobba  8:07  
for a joke. No. Alex Dyson opened a really fun, awesome, amazing comedy venue pretty much the same week as COVID came by COVID headlining every night.

Matt Okine  8:22  
I've been taking the stage. Yeah.

Alex Dyson  8:24  
Yeah. Yeah. It's been pretty bizarre with people originally not allowed to be in Melbourne. And then one time, Brisbane people came down and had to give you shoot off stage because there was a COVID outbreak in Brisbane. It's been Yeah, up and down. But we're out and out and about now and even Dan helix came through one time as well, Dan.

Dan Ilic  8:42  
Oh, yeah. No, it's fine. It's fantastic.

Alex Dyson  8:45  
You would just suspect.

Dan Ilic  8:48  
Yeah, no living is I've been invited to perform at comedy Republic. Full disclosure, full disclosure, but COVID has locked us down several times. So we haven't been able to do it just yet. Oh, hang on a sec. Guys. friend of the show, Andy Lee is just texting me. Let's just give him a quick story about Andy you're on the podcast with a Lewis Alex dice at a meta kind. How are you today, Eddie?

Lewis Hobba  9:15  
Hello, guys.

Dan Ilic  9:16  
How are you all? Well, look, we were just calling we just called dumb Knight because he's also nominated as for Best Comedy at the Podcast Awards coming up. Do you did you did you?

Unknown Speaker  9:25  
What do you How are you preparing for the Podcast Awards?

Unknown Speaker  9:28  
When other comedy or other podcast the

Dan Ilic  9:30  
podcast that was the next Thursday night? Just tell people

Unknown Speaker  9:38  
where are they? Are they online? Or is there an event? It's an event like

Dan Ilic  9:43  
it's at the Ritz. It's at the Ritz cinema in Randwick in Sydney. You got to buy a ticket everything there isn't

Unknown Speaker  9:50  
run by it. They're like a governing podcast,

Dan Ilic  9:52  
audio, podcast, Gods Ed Australian podcast award PayPal,

Alex Dyson  9:57  
you know it's actually purchased by the petroleum company. And

Dan Ilic  10:05  
Santos is running the podcast

Unknown Speaker  10:09  
in all seriousness who are podcasting, some renegade being off the grid

Unknown Speaker  10:17  
you know it's kind of like do your own research

Unknown Speaker  10:22  
you're the one telling me

Matt Okine  10:24  
it's not the first time these have been on and it's not the first time you've been nominated Andy so I'm just imagining a warehouse somewhere with all of your awards that you never picked up you didn't even know they exist

Dan Ilic  10:38  
Do you have a trophy room in your house that you that you can barely get into?

Alex Dyson  10:43  
No, no, we had to build a separate house when Andy when he jumped on the all day breakfast podcast with Matt and Alex, you gave us a little tour of your very organized cupboards so I'm sure that if there is a cupboard it would be pristine.

Unknown Speaker  11:02  
That's true. I do like things fairly ordered.

Matt Okine  11:06  
By trophies will be organized in weight, shape and ability to kill someone is currently the most dangerous award trophy.

Unknown Speaker  11:20  
Yeah, well, I mean, believe it or not, Hamish and I have won two hours. Well, and then and that is the the most of it I mean, I feel like an imposter most of my life. But definitely, winning an area is where Hamish and I feel like the most impossible.

Matt Okine  11:38  
I've got one guy's the 2020 moment of the year, I may as well be holding up a clump of dirt according to Andy Lee

Lewis Hobba  11:54  
left more awards on the podium. He's never known about the rest of the rest of our lives.

Unknown Speaker  12:00  
That's not true. I'm humbled and humbled to be amongst great other performers that I have too many to list at

Matt Okine  12:13  
least one of them Andy.

Dan Ilic  12:22  
Andy, lay thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear and good luck at the Podcast Awards next Thursday night.

Unknown Speaker  12:28  
It means the world to me. Only do I only do what I do for awards. Yeah, I hope hopefully. Good luck to you guys.

Dan Ilic  12:39  
Thanks, Andy. Bye.

Alex Dyson  12:41  
Well, Hamish and Andy versus irrational fear in the comedy section alongside the chase mad and I mean, we took one look at that. And we said no thanks. And we're over to the best entertainment category. That's how you

Matt Okine  12:57  
try to be comedy. That's the way I would like

Lewis Hobba  13:02  
to watch you try and fail.

Dan Ilic  13:06  
Earlier this year, when at home alone together was up for Best Comedy at the actor awards. Tim mentions drama show won the Best Comedy it was like

Matt Okine  13:15  
in the same awards.

Alex Dyson  13:16  
I guess they give guess they give awards to

Dan Ilic  13:20  
dramas now for comedy.

Lewis Hobba  13:22  
Chris Tyla originated that show and he was like, I can't believe all I had to do when a comedy actor was write a drama.

Dan Ilic  13:31  
Show is totally derail today. But that's good. This week's first fear. Now if you're a subscriber to the times in the UK, you may have read this intriguing story. Taliban makes first deal selling cannabis to Australians. Now according to the story published in The Times a real website in the UK, the proper news website in the UK, an Australian company called C farm has invested 300 million pounds in a cannabis processing plant in Afghanistan to sell the good stuff back to Australians. This isn't the time this is like like a legit news site. But here's the thing. The story wasn't actually true. And see farm which is a medical advice company in Australia had to issue a statement on their website saying otherwise basically saying we have no connection with cannabis or the Taliban. We have no idea where the Taliban media release came from. Now fear mongers if you were a company that was dealing with the Taliban, isn't that just the kind of press release you would put out?

Lewis Hobba  14:32  
The Australia Wheat Board get embroiled in the Taliban

Alex Dyson  14:36  
AWB? I think that was Iraq.

Lewis Hobba  14:39  
Yeah, yeah. Who were absolutely

Alex Dyson  14:41  
fine and so there was nothing to say that.

Matt Okine  14:44  
Why Why would they be why would they be doing stuff with the Taliban when like, don't we have enough weed here?

Dan Ilic  14:52  
Well, that's that I totally agree. That's what's so if you that was what's so iffy about the original story, right? Like if they'd said the fire If the if the story had like nominated which Australian sales selling to or would have believed it like if they said oh yeah, the Taliban was selling cannabis to Chappelle Kobe's dad I would have gone yeah sounds about right

Lewis Hobba  15:09  
yeah do you know for a fact that this we'd hear it Matt

Matt Okine  15:14  
I've heard heard about it I've been shocked by seeing its use at some of the parties.

Lewis Hobba  15:25  
Oh yeah. Christian the arias I imagined it was a lot of Fury from you

Matt Okine  15:30  
know, I tell you what, I wasn't aware to the areas because I didn't have all the windows open so there was no there wasn't any anything like that going on but I would have liked a bit more fresh air in these COVID times

Lewis Hobba  15:40  
if you are an old man. Well, I mean come on

Dan Ilic  15:46  
Tim on YouTube says wait is the most cultivated crop in Australia apart from Wait Oh hey guys so we don't even need Taliban's wait surely you

Lewis Hobba  15:54  
hit up the Taliban for heroin

Dan Ilic  15:58  
Well, that's that's it yeah. No, you

Lewis Hobba  16:02  
say that's their strength it's one of their strengths.

Alex Dyson  16:03  
When it comes to international trade I think is there's more often than not there's a bit of a vey it's the opposite is true because I know isn't this parts where Australia sends camels to Saudi Arabia and it almost sand as well because our sand is better for mixing concrete or something like that. So potentially there's a little bit of a mix there and we're selling weed to the Taliban

Dan Ilic  16:25  
Wow. Oh my god next. Zealanders

Matt Okine  16:29  
are a good politician Alex. Commerce.

Lewis Hobba  16:35  
No one makes better sand than Australia.

Dan Ilic  16:39  
Oh, no, we've we've got the we've got the cleanest most pristine sand that we sell it sell around the world. Absolutely.

Lewis Hobba  16:46  
Are you guys investing in way do you guys strike me as like, I remember you and I used to share a desk the three of us and I overheard Oh, we lost the desk to the left. There was always a lot of chat about some nice investments going on between the two of you. I feel like both of you could be heavily invested in this upcoming I mean not invested in personally but financial. I thought

Matt Okine  17:08  
about it but no, I haven't I haven't looked into it. I feel like ships already sailed once it's already happened, you know, then it's then it's no good. I'm all I'm all in on the crypto now. Of course you

Dan Ilic  17:20  
get to that and say the thing about waiting Australia hasn't been legalized yet. So there's still a market yet to be made, like still a proper legal market ready to be made. Like I remember seeing one big story coming out of the United States when Wade was kind of legalized everywhere that the biggest thing to invest in was empty warehouse space, because that was the biggest demand for the new way to economy. So soon as that takes over. I'm gonna be by myself a

Matt Okine  17:43  
warehouse. You should be able to just Airbnb you're like open spaces for weed growers. I mean, it's like, Hey, I've got a I've got a closet in my house. If anyone wants to start their own farm,

Lewis Hobba  17:57  
maybe it's a good time to invest in like 711 Like all Canadian stalls, there's a line around the corner. Just trying to get under those neon lights.

Matt Okine  18:11  
It's like how did you how did you how did you afford this mansion? clear eyes?

Dan Ilic  18:19  
Yeah, Doritos, and tubes that I bought. I bought futures I bought futures in Doritos. Well, the story actually got picked up from a a Afghan news network called pack walk Afghan news network. And this is what their website looks like. And they've got a slogan and this slogan is reflecting the truth. And clearly, a reflection of the truth is a lie. And that was clearly clearly that's that's what people should know from that slogan. But this this website is so old school, they've actually got a hit counter on their stories and down the bottom. We've got a hit count of 853 people checked out the original story. They also put out a retraction for the story. So they printed a retraction and it was a C farm Australia says no deal with the Taliban. That's why the

Alex Dyson  19:10  
double digits, isn't it? Yes.

Dan Ilic  19:14  
Alex, you ready for the hit number on this 124?

Lewis Hobba  19:23  
Cypress Hill 24 hits from the bomb

Alex Dyson  19:30  
Yes, Louis.

Dan Ilic  19:32  
rational fear very confused. I'm one of the dumber one sup y'all. I'm really in a rational fear this week second fear El Salvador's President reveals plan for volcano powered Bitcoin city. President announced his government will build a seaside Bitcoin City at the base of a volcano Oh my god moto con you are big into crypto What the hell is going on here

Matt Okine  20:04  
with the positive sis man that's real bad look, I just love the way that this President announced it. He was on stage what looked like like a rock concert. And he had his hat backwards, which is the international sign for cool especially from a president I mean, come on this guy just

Alex Dyson  20:25  
the president he had on the side el presidente

Matt Okine  20:29  
hat backwards. He's talking about cities that are like made from volcano energy. I mean, this is this is the future man.

Dan Ilic  20:39  
I'm gonna play I'm gonna play some of the video I'll play the start of the the launch video. This is a gigantic rock concert. Is a volcano going off this fireworks? It looks like splendor as an animated GIF picture of the President has a UFO flying over then UFO is putting a beam down to earth and dropping the president back onto Earth. And now this is more fireworks el presidente

Alex Dyson  21:10  
I tried to be a cool politician at

Dan Ilic  21:16  
this this is the guy look at him he's easy young president like he's 40 years old like he's he is you know a co president. He's like the Elon Musk of presidents.

Matt Okine  21:27  
Yeah look it's pretty it's pretty impressive. I mean, the mining of the Bitcoin is planned to be you know done by the volcano energy it's built on volcano energy. I don't know what volcano energy is I just keep saying it.

Dan Ilic  21:41  
It's like It's like mother Miss like mother energy it comes in a different can but they're gonna build they gotta build the city next to these volcanoes like that's that like name one time name one time in history that that has gone wrong

Alex Dyson  21:57  
well I'm pretty sure that it was the people in Pompeii first used Bitcoin

Lewis Hobba  22:02  
and frozen still under the all the ash just mining their coins.

Dan Ilic  22:15  
Yeah, it's gotta wait for

Matt Okine  22:18  
the gas. Well, they say the volcano has never erupted, but it has phased and smoked quite regularly. So it is.

Lewis Hobba  22:28  
I think el presidente has faced and smoked quite regularly

Matt Okine  22:35  
alright you buddy, Bitcoin city and El Salvador and I'll call you from my

Dan Ilic  22:41  
yacht. I mean, this guy does have this guy does have a sense of the Elon Musk's about him like he. He said, If you want to build Bitcoin spread all over the world we should build, we should build some Alexandria's. The President called himself a dictator on Twitter as a joke.

Lewis Hobba  22:57  
So he's modeling himself after the ancient pharaohs. Is that the is that the bit?

Dan Ilic  23:02  
Alexandria was a Macedonian so the Alexander the Great was a Macedonian so maybe he's Mali himself after the great Macedonians.

Alex Dyson  23:09  
That's the the information you come to know I'd love for the best poverty podcast. quickfire fact checking people

Matt Okine  23:22  
believes that Bitcoin will be worth $1 million in five years. So they're investing they're buying something like $5 billion worth of bitcoin which they believe will you know, go tenfold and then they'll pay back their bond shareholders everybody wants to move into the city pays invest into it and they get it all back so

Lewis Hobba  23:41  
because El Salvador a fact right like they currencies Fox, they're like this guy's this guy is or has is basically he's like what else? Like what, what could be worse than where we are now? And I kind of shoot for the moon situation that they're in, you know, like, it is. It is exciting. I'll give him that.

Dan Ilic  24:02  
And it does it does have an element of you know, Futurism it's got it's got like leadership wrapped up in it because you know, he got us he kind of just dragging people to this space where they may or may not want to be you know, it's hard for me to make fun of this because it's kind of ticks all of my boxes to

Matt Okine  24:21  
exactly right. I mean, how many one night stands we all do at Triple J and ain't no bloody UFOs dropping us off on stage but we did it.

Alex Dyson  24:30  
One Night Stand is a concert series put on by

Lewis Hobba  24:33  
Jay Yeah, the ABC has about the same budget as El Salvador I think do sort of feel like we are playing well in there. And that's

Alex Dyson  24:42  
the problem with the ABC I say we I'm not in the in the broad church anymore, but it is stuck in the past a little bits got the old older viewers. I want to see either Botros cap on backwards coming out of an alien spaceship with the Oscar winner Morning,

Lewis Hobba  25:01  
Australia. Can I just say we actually last year there is a guy he's on Twitter his name's I don't won't name him. There is a person whose job it is at the AVC to, like, tell you when something is against the policies of the ABC. And last year, in the depths of the lockdown, you guys would know this trying to do a daily show in the depths of COVID pandemic, it was a hard time to come up with funny bits. The tough thing and I decided we were like let's make a let's make a Bitcoin. Let's do hopper and hang coin. And we sort of did a quick checks with the ABC we're like, hey, we want to launch our own currency. How would that be? And the guy wrote back, this is the most illegal request I've ever read.

Matt Okine  25:50  
It's about Shanghai, Sam and he's got to go Strv Shanghai San Mr. Speaker, Shanghai, Sam Hammond still works at racist Bridgeton let us lose connections to China, but it wasn't racist to call Sam Dastyari Shanghai. I didn't use either of those phrases. Bring it on a rational fear.

Dan Ilic  26:10  
This week's third fear it feels like we've been talking about the next federal election for some time, but the thing hasn't even been called yet. Some of my sources are saying could be first week of May. So I'm saying it could be as early as February. I have an insider saying it could be called on January 27 for a march election. But it feels like we're very much in election territory with heaps of independents announcing they're running against coalition MPs. Allegra spender this week said she's running against Dave Sharma. And when you look at her CV, it's like the school captain versus the guy everyone wants to give a wedgie to but can't because his dad pays for everyone's tickets to splendor. And Tim and Tim Wilson seat of Goldstein, it was announced or Goldstein rather, it was announced that former ABC journal and former correspondent Zoe Daniels will be running now with all of these credible, well funded serious independents rising to challenge the conservatives. Whereas labor in all of this what are they doing Alex Dyson, what tactics are labor wheeling out to battle back these concert, these independent rhyming? Rhyming, rhyming?

Alex Dyson  27:08  
They're using rhyming? And I feel that's a strong policy. I mean, they've dropped the negative getting rid of negative gearing they've stopped a lot of the taxes on the the higher income earners, they've really rolled back a few of the environmental policies. And they going with rhyming from the Shire has popular data looking at the distrustful nature of Scott Morrison and they've thought look, the last time we were in power it became because of a rhyme Kevin oh seven and won the election from from Johnny Howard. And I go Why would we go with something that doesn't work? It's back to the rhyming.

Dan Ilic  27:50  
Well, I mean, that's complicated because it's one more word than the three words slogan like hello from the Shire. Yeah. I think they're I think the maybe maybe people will be too dumb to kind of get the run.

Alex Dyson  28:01  
No, no, I think why from the shy you can you can accept the fourth word if it if it does rhyme. Okay, you can also go the suck from cook. Scott Morrison is in the electorate of cook, so they're good. I was thinking you could say the Josh Frydenberg policies the fried and Burger King Hindenburg is a three slogan for you could come through Peter Dutton could be the sinister minister, or who must not be defamed, which is a reference reference to the recent defamation case. There's very good I think coming with these they're gonna come in for a very strong showing whenever that election may drop because it's worked throughout the years over the over the distance I did it's all proof method.

Dan Ilic  28:48  
I've got three one for Sharma. The leech from the beach. Joyce, I'll go Joyce's moist. Iconic one doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, I

Lewis Hobba  28:59  
think that'll that'll come back on you. No one wants to hear.

Dan Ilic  29:02  
I've been trying really, really hard to come up with one for Greg Hunt, but I'm stuck. So, Matthew, nothing like

Lewis Hobba  29:11  
orange, you know, you just

Alex Dyson  29:13  
exactly. But I think I think Scott Morrison is they've sensed this, the liberals are panicking. They're not sure what to do. And so coming into next year, they're going to have to find someone who rhymes with the year that it's seen in order to get the victory. And so I think we can announce irrational fear. It's Gladys Liu 22 Lu 22. Going for the big seat in the lodge, I think is the only way that the Liberals gonna be able to counter this new tactic from labor.

Lewis Hobba  29:40  
Is there any way like what if Owlboy put like an all mouse over the Oh, to change it into a more of an EU sound? Oh, l Boo.

Matt Okine  29:48  
Boo. What are you gonna use if you run for parliament again? I mean, what's your slogan?

Dan Ilic  29:57  
Yeah, yeah, pre selected for the Liberal Party. Who would you

Matt Okine  30:01  
Dyson the nice one

Alex Dyson  30:04  
the nice dice I try so hard to work with a few but we'll see how it goes in water

Matt Okine  30:13  
you just using things that people said to you at high school

Alex Dyson  30:18  
a lot of my friends always complimented me to how hard I tried Yeah, it was really awesome.

Lewis Hobba  30:25  
Okay I'm Euro you know you're a professional rerun artist you're a rapper in in now

Matt Okine  30:32  
represent 2021 and check it out on

Dan Ilic  30:34  
the bottom on the Boilermakers are open for business for political consulting.

Lewis Hobba  30:39  
I would imagine Boilermakers would be a key demographic for for blue collar stuff.

Matt Okine  30:45  
Yeah, yeah. So what what do you think what would I do in terms of?

Dan Ilic  30:51  
Like, how would you? How would you? How would you set the Liberal Party members with rhymes?

Matt Okine  30:55  
I don't know. The only thing I could think of was Scott either thought he and I didn't even know if that sounds like a positive thing. is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't I don't even know anymore.

Dan Ilic  31:05  
It's you're the only you're the only person on this podcast that's allowed to said so that's

Matt Okine  31:11  
offensive saying that.

Lewis Hobba  31:15  
It stands for that. That hole over there. Oh,

Matt Okine  31:19  
that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Is it? Oh, it is.

Dan Ilic  31:24  
Yes. That however there Yeah, yeah. Um,

Matt Okine  31:26  
I'd like to officially apologize.

Alex Dyson  31:31  
Getting up at the Australian flags in the background. I want to say sorry, but I will not be stepping down as a result of referring

Dan Ilic  31:43  
that icon you can say whatever you like Scott Morrison has proved it like this whole sank Shanghai Sam thing where he's kind of comments where people are calling you and saying, Oh, why what? Why is it racist to talk about glares, Gladys Berejiklian is not racist. Talk about saying, oh, Shanghai, Sam. And he's like, No, I don't. I don't know what you're talking about. And, and of course, Scott Morrison said Shanghai, Sam 1000 times.

Alex Dyson  32:04  
I never said that. It's like, Mike, you said it. 13. We know the number of times you've

Lewis Hobba  32:11  
both written down like he tweeted it. And then you said, you said yeah, there's no media. It's not on.

Matt Okine  32:20  
I just I would love to be able to just lie. Like, it's pretty impressive.

Dan Ilic  32:26  
Question. Yeah. I just love the idea of being able to say I reject the premise of the question. The question, the question, you're speeding, you're doing 150 and a 40. I reject the premise.

Lewis Hobba  32:41  
Does it come down to do you think there's like, do you think you could learn you could go away for a weekend? And I would just be like, Matt, your surname is Archein. And you would just be like, no, no, it's not.

Matt Okine  32:53  
And you'll be like, you can I can see the poster in the background. I'd be like, I reject what you see.

Alex Dyson  33:00  
There are many posters in many places. Obviously. Do you do any practice to run?

Absolutely not. That is funny. My first interview, like I literally submitted the papers in order to run for parliament Australia Day $2,000 and 100 signatures, you entered into the IAC. And away you go. And so I did that. And I was like, I've got a few things to do. So I won't actually start writing until a week or two afterwards. But when the names went through, journals started calling me I was like, Is this you? Are you are you running for? I yeah, I haven't officially an LCSW. But yes, and so I started doing interviews, and I was way out of practice, though good

to work around Europe, but I was not ready to go. I went to Shanghai and I didn't bring that up. But I did go.

Matt Okine  33:47  
I didn't I didn't realize that you make money from losing an election?

Alex Dyson  33:52  
You can? Absolutely,

Matt Okine  33:53  
yeah. So what how does it work again.

Alex Dyson  33:56  
So if you get over 4% of the vote, you get your deposit back your original $2,000. So that's your breakeven point. And then for every vote it over 4% You the AAC gives you about $2.96 eligibility in electoral funds is

Dan Ilic  34:15  
unlike good crowdfunding This is run

Alex Dyson  34:20  
by getting the vote in one and against that dantian I was eligible to recoup up to $29,000 of my costs in the election, but I only printed like 20 T shirts and got like 500

Dan Ilic  34:35  
but you needed you needed someone to give you an invoice for consulting Alex does.

Alex Dyson  34:39  
Exactly I needed some political consultants to play the game.

Matt Okine  34:43  
That means that next time you could Oh, cuz I mean, you what you did a dance and you jumped into a river. Right? And

Alex Dyson  34:50  
I reject the premise of the question. He was a salt, a salt water body of water.

Matt Okine  34:55  
Okay, well, I mean, you know, you could have probably claimed the dry cleaner At least for that, you know, and next time now you know that if that's how much money you could get for your campaign, you you, you got a budget of $29,000 I'm thinking and I

Alex Dyson  35:10  
spent it on skywriter Yes.

Lewis Hobba  35:16  
We said on the show talking about the evils of political corruption it's so nice to just talk about the fun of it.

Dan Ilic  35:25  
Well, that is almost it for a rational fear

Tim Bailey  35:28  
rational for you whether Tim Bailey yet Dan willing for one with a linear system coming from the eventually that'll turn into a lateral Karateka. Terry under the fridge. If you're in Perth, it's going to get hot and spicy with a love bomba porta, there's no need to rush out to supplies. As a bond. My layout is highly unlikely. But if you're in South Australia and Tasmania, you may want to fatten up because a Macarena is coming your way. Last time we saw one of those was in 1996. And it didn't go away for us. And in the long term forecast heading into the holidays, we can expect a high pressure bill is never dead, forming right across Australia. So being a despot and fill up on gasoline at your local server with a discount

Dan Ilic  36:17  
on that. Thanks Tim Balian set kind of comedy wins your best comedy podcasts 20

Alex Dyson  36:29  
Battle con stop writing the notes we need to take this back over to all day breakfast. Takeout best entertainment

Lewis Hobba  36:38  
no boss

Dan Ilic  36:45  
that is it for me. He goes Paris embrace. Let's wrap up the show big thank you to meadow Kai and Alex Dyson and Louis harbor and Tim Bailey and Alex lay and dub night. Folks, what would you like to plug Matt?

Matt Okine  37:00  
Look, I'd love to plug our podcast Matt nice all day breakfast, as well as my book being black and chicken and chips. Oh yeah. Just before Christmas. Also my show the other guy on Stan or Hulu if you're in the states and Boilermakers 2021. Man, Spotify check it out

Alex Dyson  37:18  
now. But um, yeah, jump on all day breakfast if you like podcasts every day, instead of once a week and like comedy club comedy Republic in the middle of Melbourne. Just get on it. Get it on Oh, beautiful place harbor harbor and hang 3pm weekdays triple.

Matt Okine  37:34  
I also say that for any kids, any parents out there with toddlers, I'm doing we're doing our first diversity kids show me and my music partner klp. Making kids music. We're nominated for an IRA yesterday, we lost to bully.

Lewis Hobba  37:47  
The most insane field a kid's album. Like it was an old guy. He was still putting your shoes on, like wiggles and bluee like the biggest children's artist in Australia in the world.

Matt Okine  38:06  
Anyway, we're doing our first live shows next month. So come along.

Dan Ilic  38:09  
Thank you, Louis. You're gonna plug anything?

Lewis Hobba  38:12  
No, not for me. I agree with all the previous plugs. hoburne Lincoin. Keep your eyes peeled.

Dan Ilic  38:19  
I like I can tell you we've got a rational fear live and we've got our 10 year anniversary show at the Opera House January 29. We've got some stellar people on the lineup and I think I can I can say this we got we got we got Amy remaking she's coming. And we got some we got somebody I don't get a lot of other people. I can't tell you. I can't tell you that yet. I can't say better yet. But I just Yeah, great. Tim and McCain. All right. Great. Great. So we got quite a few good people coming down the line. It's very exciting. So January Night at the Opera House. Big thank you to rode mics, the Bossa Foundation, our Patreon supporters, Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. Until next time, there's always something to be fearful from. Lewis did you want to say something?

Lewis Hobba  39:01  
Dan? Yeah, have you asked the opera house how much it would be to advertise on their sales?

Dan Ilic  39:07  
I haven't, I can't buy that. You've got to like, you know, you gotta like you know,

Matt Okine  39:12  
anyone can do it. You can

Alex Dyson  39:13  
you gotta be able to rice rice horses around the place. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  39:19  
I feel like I feel like I feel like the Time Square was better than the sales. I feel like that was what you need to

Alex Dyson  39:25  
do. You need to buy a racehorse name it irrational fear and when the trifle

Matt Okine  39:33  
ever asked in the copper, whatever,

Dan Ilic  39:36  
on the Billboard front, on the Billboard front though we did have a billboard rejected from a Paris Metro Kathy Wilcox designed us a great billboard with Scott Morrison breaking up with Emmanuel Macron via text and an apology from the Australian people to the French, but I got rejected because it's too political. couldn't run it. Like ah, that was a bummer. But I've done some research and I've got some sweet billboard space penciled in Engadine

Lewis Hobba  40:03  
Paris of New South Wales and I believe it's a soft g it's already

Dan Ilic  40:17  
and there's a whole bunch of Billboard space I want to buy a billboard in Bundaberg, which is Keith Pitts electorate, and there's a is a big one, there's a digital one there that's solar powered. And we're gonna say a picture of a vibrator and say, batteries can work in the dark case. They're two, they're two things that are coming down the line. So and if you are someone who has donated to the Indiegogo and you waiting for the stickers, they're going to be going out next week. And also the who gives a crap stuff is going to be going up over the next couple of weeks as well. So big thank you to everyone who's donated there. That's it. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week on irrational fear.

Ira Glass  41:02  
From WBEZ, Chicago and NPR. I'm Ira Glass from the makers of This American Life and serial comms a new 10 part podcast that explores the hurt feelings of a very powerful man. Introducing Peter Dutton wins rape apologist defamation case. It's a podcast series in three acts, act one. Here's the shocking story of how a government minister who's responsible for locking up children and island Gulags had his reputation torn to shreds. When an unemployed man on Twitter called him a rape apologist. We'll hear from experts. Whether or not Peter Dutton is a rape apologist isn't the question is whether his reputation is damaged by a tweet from an unemployed man on Twitter that called him a rape apologist. Which I want to be absolutely clear. He probably isn't. In our two we'll hear from people who have read the tweet for the very first time. Does he look like a rape apologist? Well, in my honest opinion, he looks like a potato. But can a potato be a rape apologist? A canola apologist baby and x three will read out every single headline about Peter Dutton winning his rape apologist defamation case. Download Peter Dutton wins rape apologist defamation case wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there, download our hit series on Barnaby Joyce. funnier real. I'm Ira Glass

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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

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On the podcast this week we are joined by fearmongers who go way back to Hungry Beast: Kirk Docker (You Can't Ask That), Kirsten Drysdale (Reputation Rehab), Lewis Hobba (Triple J) and Dan Ilic (Out Of Home Media Buyer).

We're also joined by Michael Mazengarb from RenewEconomy.com.au who gives us break down on the spurious modelling behind the Australian Government's Net Zero by 2050 target that they took to COP26.

On the agenda this week:

• Australian Podcast Awards

• Alan Jones' Social Network

• Dave Sharma's Typos

• Golden Shower Rock and Roll

• Eddie Obeid's family business

• Australia's Greatest High Jumper

• Does Australia's Net Zero by 2050 modelling add up? (It doesn't)

Cheers

Dan Ilic
Hammer Purveyor

PATREON 💸:

If you enjoy our podcast, emails and important climate change conversations, chip in here:  www.patreon.com/arationalfear

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👕 BUY OUR MERCH HERE

Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation. Good evening, Lewis.

Dan Ilic  0:05  
Hello. How are you?

Lewis Hobba  0:06  
Hello, Daniel. I'm really good. How are you?

Dan Ilic  0:08  
I'm really good. I'm really good. It's been a couple of weeks since we've done a podcast. I've almost forgotten how to do a podcast. I did. Yeah, it's

Lewis Hobba  0:16  
any consolation. No one listening to the podcast would have thought you knew what you were doing before?

Dan Ilic  0:21  
Well, we've had a huge bump in the ratings were about 1000 up from last month, which is huge. So there are people listening. So thank you for listening everyone. And also, I Something happened between over the last two weeks we didn't even get to talk about and that is, we have been nominated for an Australian podcast Award for Best Comedy podcasts. 2021 which is great. We're that guy for two in a row. Yeah, we go over to on the road and we I'm confused because sizzle town was there like our arch nemesis because they always won and they're not on this list. I don't know. Whatever happened to Tony mountain sizzle down

Lewis Hobba  0:54  
Tony, Tony Martin, just that he just isn't finding anymore. After 60 years of being one of the kindest, funniest, best gentle bit of Australian comedy, he's lost it and it's canceled coach's fault. You can't do comedy anymore.

Dan Ilic  1:07  
Many people will say that you have replaced Tony Martin as the tall skinny guy with glasses. Yeah, they can only be one tall, skinny man with glasses in comedy is

Lewis Hobba  1:16  
genuinely every time Tony Manon and I are in the room together. Someone will come up to us and say, Can we get a photo with the two of you? And Tony Martin is so bored of it and it brings me so much joy didn't

Dan Ilic  1:27  
You didn't when you didn't you cast as a young Tony Martin for Tony mountain film.

Lewis Hobba  1:33  
It's it's this is a bit of a long story. I'll try to cut it as quickly as possible. When I was like 23 and I was at film school. And I'd never done any performing. I just done like a little bit of stand up. I was really like supergreen happened to be at Eddie perfect engagement party. And lucky Hume the actor bailed me up at this party and started chatting. And he was like, mate, Tony Martin's a mate of mine. And you look exactly like him. You sound exactly like Tony Martin. Um, I came out and sort of my comedy heroes that is so kind of you lucky him. And he's like, you'll never believe it. Me and Tony are working on a life story of Tony Martin. Right now we're looking for a young Tony Martin, and it's got to be you. And I you could you believe how excited I was. It was genuinely the happiest night of my life. And he took my number. A week later, he sent me Tony Martin's book in the post and he's like, this is the book, learn it. We're gonna be hearing this is like, you got to learn this so that when you retire in the same room, you're ready to go right. Then I heard nothing more about. And then six months later, I happened to be a cookie bar in Melbourne, and bumped into Tony Martin. And I'm like, and I went up to him like, hey, sorry, my name is Louis. We haven't met but I'm a big fan. And we're talking for about five minutes. And then he goes Wait, you're Louis haba right. Yeah, I am. He goes like he told me about you. And I was like, oh yeah. He told me about the project. How's it going? He's like, Oh, like he's full of shit. That's not going anywhere. My young

Dan Ilic  3:03  
Shatta Wale things that are going some places I will do want to say a big big hello to the Big Creek community podcast Candyman podcast The Chaser report our friends at the chase Oh, Oscar nominated, good personal friends Hamish and Andy were nominated. And the housewarming podcast, who of course is hosted by one of your old housemates Marty smiley,

Lewis Hobba  3:25  
and one of the housemates a longtime housemate of one of our guests on the podcast today as well. But yeah, he does a podcast all that housemates. And as far as I can tell, he's spoken to every one of the people who used to live with except me. So I'm unsure of what his what his problem is what he's afraid of.

Dan Ilic  3:42  
I'm just getting him on the phone right now. Let's have a quick chat with him about that. I want to confront this issue before we start our podcast.

Lewis Hobba  3:48  
Me to actually want to get the answer to this.

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
You won't answer did you do?

Lewis Hobba  3:55  
Did you tell him he's calling? He'll be doing something? You know, I

Dan Ilic  3:58  
told him I told him we're gonna call him just after right?

Lewis Hobba  4:00  
That's even more perfect. Of course, he's not answering.

Dan Ilic  4:05  
Oh, he's doing this. You know why? You know why? He's not answering. He's not answering. He

Lewis Hobba  4:09  
knows. I'm gonna ask him. I'm not on the podcast a day. You called Mighty slowly. I

Marty Smiley  4:13  
can't get to the phone right now. But if you'd leave your name and your number, or just shoot me a text, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Dan Ilic  4:21  
Oh, here we go here and he's he's only on the other line. Marty Smiley? Yeah. Were you trying to? Were you trying to do your best to destroy the irrational fear podcasts? For not answering your phone?

Unknown Speaker  4:35  
Time is limited.

Dan Ilic  4:39  
Just humanity. Now we got Louis Harbor on the line. And also we got your former another former flatmate Kirk Docker. And Lewis has one serious question about your podcast even though he's nominated for Best Comedy podcast. He's got one burning question. He wants to ask you about it or not

Unknown Speaker  4:54  
get on it.

Lewis Hobba  4:56  
I mean, obviously congratulations on the nomination and best of luck. I was wondering why you know episode one of the podcast, Kirk Tucker, who's on our podcast who joins us now was on it. So many other of your other housemates on it. So many other Triple J comedians on it. Basically everyone you know, that I know has been on it except me. I'm just wondering why

Mick Neven  5:24  
it's a difficult vetting process.

Lewis Hobba  5:28  
In fact, not only that you texted me to ask for a bunch of people's numbers from triple Jason like Oh, my can you get you got Linda Mariana is number I'm like yeah. Number one for I'd love to hear on the podcast. Oh, would you someone who you've never lived with and don't know

Unknown Speaker  5:50  
let's be honest. There's a reason for it. And you have a secret about exactly

Unknown Speaker  5:57  
I knew it.

Dan Ilic  6:00  
That wants to come out. Kirk maybe you can bring some insight into why hasn't Louis been invited on the house morning podcast and as guest number one yourself?

Kirk Docker  6:11  
He scared because Louis will dish up dirt that Marty will not want known to be public. He knew that if I came on the podcast I would say sort of funny things nice things backing him up but he was worried about Lewis Lewis has got that acid tongue and what might be revealed what dodgy dirty you know stuff might be revealed from the mighty smiley you know vault All right, well, you know, I wanted out there

Dan Ilic  6:39  
Marty if you do win Best Comedy podcast, will you then have Lewis haba on your podcast

Unknown Speaker  6:45  
as a guest Look, let me do that on this site now. What do you think? Look? I think there's just a lot of diversity that we need to really look at there's a lot of boxes you don't really keep Louis really hard to say but if you're if something comes up you know let you know. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  7:07  
tall white man in his late 30s Definitely not in the demographic Alright, let's get rid of the house. Well, good luck with the Podcast Awards Marty.

Unknown Speaker  7:19  
Bye.

Lewis Hobba  7:20  
Thank you good luck to you do not

Dan Ilic  7:25  
think we got notice. Oh my god. Oh, well.

Kirk Docker  7:30  
That's how to keep still nice Dan.

Dan Ilic  7:32  
Here we go. I'm recording my end of irrational fear and gotta go Land of the Eora nation sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's stop the shot

Unknown Speaker  7:39  
of Russian will field contains naughty words like bricks. Canberra. Fan COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening might emerge your audience.

Dan Ilic  7:52  
Tonight Rupert Murdoch urges Donald Trump to move on from his 2020 defeat, Donald Trump responded by signing an executive order to cancel his Neo post subscription and spreading her back the Queen has had to cut back on driving and horse riding. Doctors have reminded her that she isn't a sprightly 94 year old anymore. And with 360 days until cop 27 We'll have the CEO of Santos here with all the tips on how you can buy off politicians before the silly season. It's the 19th of November and a big Happy International Men's Day to men. But not all men. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former conservator of the Britney Spears estate Dan illage. And this is the podcast that looks at the scariest news in the feed and gives it a wedgie joining us on the podcast and had to tell us how they're going to celebrate International Men's Day. This week's featured Mungus before she was a TV presenter and investigative journalist she represented Australia the highest levels of competitive field hockey, pull up in your shooting pads. It's Kirsten Drysdale.

Kirsten Drysdale  9:06  
Hey, it's an off to the trees. I'll take it.

Dan Ilic  9:09  
Okay, Kirsten, how I how are you going to be celebrating International Men's Day? Tomorrow

Kirsten Drysdale  9:15  
I'm going to leave my kids at home with my husband and go out with the girls for drinks.

Dan Ilic  9:20  
And our next fear monger spends his days talking with the most misunderstood people in society fresh from a week of interviewing porn stars. Get fluffed for the creator of you can ask that Kotoka

Kirk Docker  9:30  
thank you and welcome and fluffers unfortunately aren't real. I thought they were they flat they fluff themselves. Yeah. It's one of the things I learned yesterday was that one of the big preparations that some female porn stars do is stretching their holes. That's a very, very important part to do before they get into the set. So it's there's no fluffers it's them themselves in the bathroom, doing as they call it, ladies.

Kirsten Drysdale  9:58  
That sounds like something they shouldn't Teach Like women who are going to give birth how to do like, that would be useful.

Kirk Docker  10:04  
Yeah, I'm also doing an episode on postnatal depression at the moment. So it's sort of you know, you can, you know, you can compare notes across different episodes sometimes.

Kirsten Drysdale  10:13  
Sorry, where did the fluffer myth myth start in? Why do we think this fluffers

Kirk Docker  10:17  
I think Boogie Nights something like that. It's not like Boogie Nights,

Dan Ilic  10:21  
it's got to be got to be so many. It's got to be like decades before that, like that was a mean before Boogie Nights surely?

Kirk Docker  10:28  
Well, I think what they do now is the men anyway, they inject their, you know, old fellow with something and that's what keeps them going the whole time. So it you know, an injection has replaced the fluff, in a sense that they can inject it with this special stuff, and it just stays hard for as long as necessary. Wow,

Lewis Hobba  10:44  
this stuff is so vague and terrifying. Does that mean?

Kirk Docker  10:51  
Well, they put it in and it stays hard till it till till all day. And the problem they have now is that they need to ejaculate on command. So when you can check it on command, that's what puts the shoot over over time. And that's what people get really, really annoyed about. So the real skill in a male porn star is being able to ejaculate like that when you do that you get you get hired.

Dan Ilic  11:13  
That's amazing. Wow. So is it like Sally no gaps or something? Is that where they inject? Or is it

Kirk Docker  11:19  
something it's something along those lines? It's something that keeps them you know, it's something that keeps them rock hard rock hard,

Kirsten Drysdale  11:27  
and sorry, Coke why? Why do you know all this stuff at the moment? What's the project?

Kirk Docker  11:31  
Well, one of the episodes of the new you can ask that is porn performance. When I say stars because we are delving into you know, only fans and the full breadth of how porn looks in 2021 but there are some stars in there and there are everything in between.

Dan Ilic  11:46  
Coming up a little later on, we take a look at the outcomes of cop 26 And just how far off net zero emissions the government's own modeling said it will be with renewal economies Michael amazing garb. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor.

Alan Jones  12:01  
warning everybody over the last few months I've been undergoing emergency medical treatment on my leg. It turns out I had been leaning too far to the left. God thank God they fix that up. Now while I've been away those vermin at Sky News have canceled me. Yes, I'm a victim of canceled culture. So that's why I'm studying my own social network. Cancel your Foxtel subscriptions and sign up for Q and Latin the social network by me Alan Jones from sign up you can enjoy all the benefits of being a q ln member, Robert Menzies is still Prime Minister, you call a man a racist, the Wallabies when every now and then and for the first time in four years, the Wallabies have one mark Latham cooks up a delicious Southeast Asian inspired meal. These are the best scones. And each week a new album is released by Anthony Kelly as a I want to voice sounds like a bit like a computer, but we're working that out. And the best thing is you'll be surrounded by like minded retirees over the age of 65. So you'll never have to worry about grandchildren correcting you with fake news about climate change from NASA. God, global warming, what next? There's a plague or something. Give me a break. Anything you could do on Facebook, you can do on cue LAN plus more. You can poke people. Yes, you can berate people, you can put people in a chat bag and throw them out to see you could even inside a race right at the click of a button. And the best thing is a camera can't touch you. So join que LAN the social network where free speech is for easy payments of 4999 a month and you can be friends with me Alan Jones for an extra 699 a month. That's real cash in the comments. So join kulen today.

Dan Ilic  13:44  
I was gonna call up Jonestown but it was taken on Alan Jones. It's good to see Alan Jones breaking out into the digital space. It's very good. This week's first video I wanted to talk about my my local member. I don't know if you saw this this this happened earlier this year on speeding International Men's Day. On International Women's Day my local member went to edgecliff Station and handed out flowers to female commuters saying Happy International Women's Day. Let's make it a day when we strive to improve the respect dignity and equality for every woman everywhere. Did you do you guys remember this at all through this moment?

Lewis Hobba  14:24  
I do remember that? Yeah. It was I mean such a such a touching gesture.

Kirsten Drysdale  14:30  
I mean, like I was gonna say beautiful thought beautiful thought. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  14:34  
No just so good. Just so wild that in a year when no parliament is completely rocked by rape allegations sexual assault allegations of misconduct by so many parliamentarians. That's what he came up with for International Women's Day to handout.

Kirk Docker  14:51  
I box popped in that area and I swear all biddies love that stuff in there. I think he's on the money. You're handing out flowers. It's a perfect response in that part of city I think I'm over. I love it.

Lewis Hobba  15:02  
He must have known the photo on Twitter was gonna be an absolute nightmare.

Kirsten Drysdale  15:08  
You know, it's like thing of like, you know, flowers make amends for anything. So he's just trying to hand out flowers to all the women in the world to make amends.

Dan Ilic  15:17  
Yeah, like it's it's like a complete Band Aid solution for everything that his government has done over the over the last couple years, on behalf of above have meant was women.

Lewis Hobba  15:29  
Yeah, but yeah, also, there's that thing with flowers where there are some people who are suspicious of receiving them because they assume that it's like, they're like, why are you getting me these? What have you done? I mean, a lot.

Kirsten Drysdale  15:42  
Yeah, that was pre emptive flowers. That was March that was pre emptive flowers, but all the shit that was to come for the rest of the year. Oh, right.

Dan Ilic  15:50  
Yeah, it was like, it was like carbon credits. It was like, it's like bullshit credits. Yeah, yeah. The tone deafness continues. About a month before cop Dave Sharma went on this whole kind of transition to being like a climate warrior. He's trying to talk a lot like Greta tunberg, to kind of involve himself to the climate can concern in Wentworth. And so he's been really going full on with this. In fact, he sent out this email about a month ago, this is what he said on the email. It says, rapid and large emissions are needed from right now. What is missing from that sentence is the word reduction, rapid large scale emissions reduction are needed inundated right now. See, it's this weird thing where he's accidentally telling the truth. And the accidentally telling liberal policy when he should be being on the front foot and talking about emissions reduction. This is crazy. And also, just two days ago, he went pamphleteering around the Paddington handing out pamphlets and meeting new voters. And this is what he was doing here handing out these flyers. Now if you look carefully, can you can you guys notice anything suspicious about this this photo of Dave Sharma holding a baby and holding a flyer? Can you can you see anything? Anything weird about this picture?

Kirsten Drysdale  17:09  
Is a baby looks like it's passing out?

Dan Ilic  17:11  
The baby doesn't look like it's passing out.

Lewis Hobba  17:13  
Is it a chokehold?

Kirk Docker  17:14  
Who does baby kissing anymore? I didn't know baby kissing was still

Dan Ilic  17:20  
all the babies around backside you can't go around just kissing babies.

Kirk Docker  17:24  
Well, actually it's baby Stranglehold only really

Kirsten Drysdale  17:28  
well look if the baby's not breathing out it's not spreading virus right so it's fine.

Lewis Hobba  17:33  
Wow, that's the only person with children it's because it says netzero climate action full sentence like he promises to do climate action.

Dan Ilic  17:47  
That's right it says Net Zero climate action on the on the flyer once again. He's the only truthful politician in in the Liberal Party.

Kirsten Drysdale  17:58  
Did I saw your tweet that Dan and I kind of thought you photoshopped the close up. Are you saying that is actually his flyer?

Dan Ilic  18:07  
This is it. I've got to hit I walked up the street and I found one look at this net zero climate action.

Kirsten Drysdale  18:16  
I thought that was a joke from you.

Lewis Hobba  18:18  
Yeah, so like, that's Boy Who Cried Wolf from dead he's been photoshopping shit for so many years that no one really

Kirsten Drysdale  18:28  
jumped in. But that's his real pamphlet.

Dan Ilic  18:30  
She's real pamphlet. It's not a joke. This is what he was handing out. This is Net Zero climate action which is extensively Liberal Party policy. I wanted to share with you what I'm going to do for tomorrow for International Men's Day. I'm going to dress up in Liberal cosplay in a chambray shirt and chinos and head on down edgecliff station. And because it is International Men's Day, the only tone deaf thing I could think of today would be handy handout hammers to a bunch of people in edgecliff station. That feels

Lewis Hobba  19:00  
really dangerous. I don't think that many people are trained to just have exposed hammers. Maybe I'm paranoid but that that feels dangerous.

Dan Ilic  19:07  
That's what's so exciting about this idea it's quite a malevolent idea who gets a hammer who gets a hit No one gets a hammer

Kirk Docker  19:15  
Are you suggesting they should nail something that's what your hammer something is?

Dan Ilic  19:20  
I didn't even know what you're wanting it and what did they show me by handing out flowers to women? Like it's just the same exactly the same thing I'm just gonna hand out hammers to men take your free hammer Happy International Men's Day.

Kirsten Drysdale  19:31  
I look like really good hands. Man. Like really? Like well waited How much did that yeah,

Dan Ilic  19:38  
they're about they're about 10 bucks 15 bucks each so you know this is what the this is what the Patreon money is funding

Lewis Hobba  19:46  
and you paid for me this is an outrage

Dan Ilic  19:50  
Alright, let's move on to this this week second fear this week second fear if you go see musical act bras against you may get you may get more than you bargained for when lead singer Sophie Your wrist, brought up a fan on stage and then lay him down and basically gave him a Golden Shower during a cover song of Rage Against the Machine. Now some fans were disgusted by this others said it was a real pisser Kirk, should we be disgusted by this or just, you know, have this behavior normalized?

Kirk Docker  20:19  
Well, it's interesting you say people were disgusted because if you read the news.com article about it, everyone was disgusted. It was a stomach churning stance. It was shocked the crowd the man spewed the urinal, but if you actually watch the footage, the man had the time of his he was having a good time there it was being pieced on it was actually amazing moment and it's the reporting of it has been that it's been disgusting, but in actual fact, he was mopping up the urine. He was throwing on the crowd, he was dancing jiggling, she had to actually kick him off the stage. She's like, get off man. I'm done. I've done feasting on you get off. I think it's fantastic look, I have a couple of weeks ago I interviewed trough man the myth for this trough man and I don't know you guys know who trough

Lewis Hobba  21:05  
I honestly can't believe he managed to get trough man. Like I genuinely thought trough man. Like the Penrith Panther, just the thing that people said at night times?

Kirk Docker  21:15  
Well, that's Look, the trough man is a legendary guy in Sydney that people thought was a myth. Was he alive was he did the story was that over the last 40 years, he would lay in urinals at parties at the Mardi Gras after party etc. and at certain time, and it would appear in these little little tiny shorts and people he would lay in the trough and people would be okay. And he had the time of his life so much so that he's become this legend where he shorts and now framed and hung at Stonewall and you can see his urine soaked short so that now dried and hung there. And if I've learned anything from speaking to trough men or any other people who are into watersports or golden showers, as they call it, is that they have the time of their life. And all I'd say is that unless you've tried it, don't knock it. I think that golden showers may have something for it that we don't quite know. And if we had the courage to try it, we might be as into it as old made on stage the other day.

Dan Ilic  22:09  
Do you think this is why you know terrorists in Guantanamo Bay when they were waterboarded decided to just hang out there and not give any secrets? Because they were actually being gold being done but with golden showers instead?

Lewis Hobba  22:23  
Jesus Christ

Dan Ilic  22:24  
too much too much. No.

Kirk Docker  22:27  
Just enough.

Unknown Speaker  22:30  
I think I think for this

Dan Ilic  22:30  
for this for this musical artist. It's so strange because now people are like, I hadn't heard of brass attack before this.

Lewis Hobba  22:37  
I don't know if there are brass against a fan.

Dan Ilic  22:39  
Thank you.

Kirsten Drysdale  22:42  
A longtime fan.

Lewis Hobba  22:44  
I'm more of a fan of pissing on people. But now I've become a fan of brass. But I

Dan Ilic  22:48  
haven't heard I haven't I haven't heard of brass against until this moment. And now I feel like that's their thing. That's what they do that like that's the thing that people are gonna be going to say they're gonna be down to brass against to have to say Sofia piss on people.

Lewis Hobba  23:02  
When have you wanted to hear a description of the genre of music they make? Honestly, is the best thing that could possibly happen to you. Which is they do brass band covers. Heavy Metal, which genuinely sounds like the worst. Like, honestly, 1000 people compare Sunday before I would go. Nightmare.

Kirk Docker  23:25  
And so like having crazy acts that rock artists do is every day something new you know what I mean? This is as old as time that the Rockstar will do something wacky to get attention. So it's it's yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting that it's back on the agenda. Rockstar is doing something wacky on stage. And

Kirsten Drysdale  23:41  
I agree. I agree, Kirk. I thought it was awesome. I didn't think it was. I mean, it kind of is disgusting. But that's why it was so fucking awesome. And I don't think it should be normalized.

Lewis Hobba  23:54  
Like Carol's. Awesome, let me bring this out.

Dan Ilic  23:59  
And no,

Kirsten Drysdale  24:00  
I don't think they're gonna do it on today's show. But um, no. And I also like, I reckon that that video, like that moment that is going to be like the defining cultural moment of the end of the COVID era. I say, because it's like we've spent two years like being paranoid about other people and their bodies and their disgusting fucking fluids that's coming out of them. And we're kind of through it all. And now it's just yeah, I'm gonna piss on your face like that. She's just embracing that we can be close again.

Lewis Hobba  24:30  
Yeah, 2021 it's more okay to piss on someone's face than it is to sneeze without covering it with your elbow.

Unknown Speaker  24:40  
Scott Morrison elaborately deceive the French the idea that a nuclear reactor with enough weapons grade uranium to make many many bonds can be treated like a power pack for money is incredible. I mean, it is just bullshit. A

Alan Jones  24:57  
rational fear

Dan Ilic  24:58  
this week's third fear well Eddie obeyed and his son Moses chillaxing. Behind bars, the tentacles of the family wealth seem to be uncovered every single day and there are two more brothers implicated with a dodgy property deal in Hawks Nest. fear mongers, if you were a criminal mastermind, would you just have offspring for the sole purpose of laundering money? Kirsten, not worth it? If you've got like two kids, are you going to be like getting them into the family business,

Lewis Hobba  25:27  
so to speak crime family?

Kirsten Drysdale  25:29  
I'm going to send them out to work as soon as they can. Yeah, but not not for me. I don't want anything more to do with them. Like know, they can just you know, start paying board and rent. But the thing this story was like, for me, it was like, you know, those like really infuriating property stories, where they it's you know how I bought my first home at 24. And like, seven parents seven paragraphs deep, you discover that these like little bleached teeth fuckers inherited a million dollars from their parents, and that's how they bought their house. So this story is like that. Except the children. They inherited $30 million from their dad who stole it from the New South Wales Government. And they're not like buying a three bedroom merrickville They're like buying up secretly by the way Aboriginal owned land on the sleepy coastal towns and they're putting up high rise developments there. Were nobody wants them. That's that's the story. Yes. Amazing.

Dan Ilic  26:27  
Yeah. How I buy how I bought a high rise development with one simple trick. My dad stole the money. My dad stole some money from the government.

Lewis Hobba  26:37  
But do you think my dad as someone who has kids now it's you would just be at some point you go it you raising you has been such a nightmare? But the least you can do for me? Is risk going to prison?

Kirsten Drysdale  26:51  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like can continue my corrupt dealings and make this this money grow even more? Yes. Yeah. No, no, you get to hold that over them forever.

Dan Ilic  27:01  
No, idiot Bates any gone to prison for 10 months. So you know, that land was bought that land was bought for 600,000 A couple of years ago, after he gets out of prison. The market would be huge. Like those lands already gone up, like Daisley triple.

Kirsten Drysdale  27:16  
I'm just like, how do you have you like get busted? Like you stole the 30 million is that's there's no question about that. That is like 100% proven we know that he's stolen 30 million, but they don't have to give it back. You know, like, if you steal a car and they find you with the car, you the car goes back to the owner, like how did they just get to keep the 30 million

Lewis Hobba  27:35  
Danna you're you're you're the only born and bred New South house person in the in on the podcast

Dan Ilic  27:42  
also. loso also Lebanese person. So yeah, yeah. Sure.

Lewis Hobba  27:48  
That that's gonna make my next question seem more loaded than I wanted to. Which is when was the last time you South Wales had a leader who wasn't correct?

Dan Ilic  27:57  
Do you know what I actually think it was a friend of the show Bob Carr. I think that was the last time we had a leader that wasn't really, that really didn't kind of, you know, put his foot in it.

Kirsten Drysdale  28:07  
He left with a clean slate in me. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  28:09  
I mean, we haven't rather we haven't hasn't been discovered what he's done yet. Like, we need to call we need to call Kate McClymont and ask her to get her on the podcast again and say

Lewis Hobba  28:21  
what is Bob done? Because like in Victoria, there are people right now with nooses and guns on the street. Because Dan Andrew has, like made pretty similar decisions to most of the premiers around the country. Yeah. Whereas in New South Wales, you can literally steal $30 million and no one cares. No, it's so staggering that it does no one gives a fuck of it like

Dan Ilic  28:41  
no you can miss allies and you can mess up lockdown and you can resign for being alleged allegedly corrupt, and then people will leave flowers at your office like this.

Lewis Hobba  28:56  
Yeah, it's incredible and you know, people you can just be like on leaving over a bottle of grain and everyone will go yep, that seems reasonable checks out. No more questions here. Do you like obviously it's not that

Dan Ilic  29:07  
I think it's because people in Sydney so property obsessed. When they say stuff like this, they go well, whatever you have to do to get ahead, you know? Good on. Good on Darryl. He really tried it on

Kirk Docker  29:18  
Do you think any in the family into watersports property there at

Unknown Speaker  29:31  
the agreements that's come out of Glasgow have an eye to green light for more coal production. That's good news for the world because it might be the most important thing for the world to do. The next few decades is to bring more and more people out of poverty, and coal and cheap energy helps do that

Dan Ilic  29:46  
a rational here in a moment, we're going to be talking with Michael Mason garb about Australia's place in the world stage and how we are absolutely the worst country in the world when it comes to climate negotiations. But I've actually got someone special on the line right Now we've actually got the world's greatest high jumper who happens to be an Australian. So mcnevin Thanks for joining us and Australian high jumper who claims to be the greatest high jumper in the world. Welcome.

Mick Neven  30:10  
Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, that is correct. I am.

Dan Ilic  30:14  
I am. Do it's an amazing claim to be the world's greatest high jumper what's the basis for the claim?

Mick Neven  30:21  
Well, I have never missed the jump. No one's No, that's right. I have never noticed the bar onto the mat.

Dan Ilic  30:30  
So what's your highest jump 50 centimeters 50 centimeters that's not very

Lewis Hobba  30:35  
high.

Mick Neven  30:36  
Well, that is the targets that I've set for myself and I meet and beat that targets every time I jump.

Dan Ilic  30:42  
Now the mentor jump record is 2.45 meters and the women's record is 2.09 meters you're nowhere near that I hear but I don't worry about what other high jumper doing you've never once competed at the Olympic Games.

Mick Neven  30:55  
Why would I see a leaf pick a hot Fs although so called high jumpers, making bold claims about query 2.4 meters and what happens? They all not the bar onto the mat, and they look pretty stupid doing it. I made them beat my target every time I can do high jumper Yeah,

Dan Ilic  31:12  
it's only 50 centimeters. That's right.

Mick Neven  31:15  
I don't need to jump higher. I'm less than 2% of the world. I've jumped if I raise the bar to even 1.5 minutes sure I could jump it so that's a clear goal. To achieve that I need to coach I'd have to start training I need objective. Why bother? I can beat that 50 centimeters and it doesn't take me

Unknown Speaker  31:31  
or anyone

Dan Ilic  31:31  
else. Yeah 50

Mick Neven  31:33  
centimeters you know a primary school kid could jump that jump Oh, I am the world's greatest I've never you know the world's great are the world's greatest high jumper never missed the jump Don't forget that. Never missed the jump. Nick thanks for joining us on irrational fear. See you on the mat buddy. Cop 26

Dan Ilic  31:52  
is over and while Australia's once again the bad guy at the international talks we didn't quite manage to derail the entire thing know that prestigious title went to India the last minute when they decided to change the phrasing of the words phase out to phase down for cold two which most of the other countries went What the fuck is phasing down? Joining us to discuss cop 26 in Australia is modeling to net zero is from renewable economy. Michael amazing garden. Welcome Michael. Hi everyone. And Michael is also a Patreon member as well which is really cool. So it's really cool to have you on Michael.

Lewis Hobba  32:26  
I love the rational fear getting in some pay to play here.

Dan Ilic  32:30  
For full disclosure, Michael pays us to do the podcast about three $3 a month.

Kirk Docker  32:38  
Did you see the hammers Stan just for Dan just bought some really nice hammer. Well done.

Dan Ilic  32:45  
As a Patreon member, how do you feel about me buying hammers to pull us down tomorrow?

Michael Mazengarb  32:50  
I'll be lining up at

Kirsten Drysdale  32:55  
me over the head. Dan.

Lewis Hobba  32:57  
Give me back my money.

Dan Ilic  32:59  
Michael, I just wanted to quickly before we get going quickly just to explain the netzero modeling that got released a couple of weeks after cop had all kind of been done and dusted. It was really remarkable. First of all, Scott Morrison came out before cop to say oh yes, you know, we're going to meet our net zero, we're going to get net zero by 20 2050 and then refused to release the modeling until last week. What did that modeling show? And how far away? Are we actually from meeting net zero?

Michael Mazengarb  33:24  
That's a good question. Firstly, it was really funny because they went out and announced that Australia was committing to zero emissions by net 50. And they promised this modeling. And then we found out in Senate estimates they hadn't actually finished right. The reason why it was released so late is because they were still behind the scenes putting together the document. And then when it did come out, what we see is that rather than meeting net zero emissions, the plan that the government has put out has is on track to reduce emissions by 85%. And there's a nice 15% gap in the plan that the government just is saying that hopefully we'll have some technologies that might just appear and help us bridge that gap. But they haven't actually baked in a plan to net zero.

Dan Ilic  34:10  
There's actually this 15% gap where How can I go about calling it a net zero by 2050? Target. So this

Michael Mazengarb  34:17  
is like you can go look at the modeling. And you can say there's a nice chart that the government has put together and they say, Look, we're expecting to reduce Australia's emissions by about a further 60% that they're going to go and by, you know, up to sort of 20% worth of offsets from overseas, and then just this gap, and they are they're saying that hopefully will overachieve and hopefully you know, who knows some crazy fantastic technology will come along and bridge that gap but they don't know what it is and they don't have any idea about when or if that technology will come along.

Lewis Hobba  34:53  
So the plan over the next 30 years is do a little bit of work, plant a few trees and pray

Michael Mazengarb  34:59  
pretty much They're just counting on everyone else. Basically, it's counting on these innovations and technologies emerging from overseas, not even trying to sort of make them happen here in Australia by sort of investing in Australian research or Australian innovation, then really just counting on it happening overseas. It's the fingers crossed. Right? Like, it's sort of like closing your eyes and taking a swing, and then hopefully, we'll get to 2050 with zero net emissions, but they don't actually know that we're going to do it for sure, man, it's

Kirk Docker  35:32  
Michael, can I ask you a question? What I what I Can I ask a dumb question. What is Boris and actually scared off by actually just going we'll just do it. You know, we'll just be zero emissions by like I can't I just from the outside, I can't quite work out what is the is it? Is it just the the bowing down to call? Is it that they worry about being real at what is actually they're scared of actually about to say yes, we'll just do it.

Michael Mazengarb  35:58  
So the modeling actually answers that question. So they modeled a few different alternate scenarios. One scenario is we actually do get to zero net emissions. And we plan that and we bridge that lost 15%, basically, by investing in carbon sequestration, and doing that through planting trees. And that modeling shows, that scenario shows that the coal sector and the gas sector lose out in the order of about $4.9 billion. But landholders, so farmers benefit by almost an equivalent amount. And so they have this scenario that says we can actually get to zero net emissions call losers out, farmers win. But we're not going to pick that scenario, because that's a negative impact on the economy that they don't like. So we're going to go to this 85%. So it's purely this comparison between farmers versus fossil fuels, and the government picked fossil fuels.

Lewis Hobba  36:58  
My favorite thing about it is that usually when someone releases something like modeling, or any kind of data, usually politicians will be smart enough to make it so complicated, that average people like me, can't really get to the bottom of it, you sort of get obfuscated by information. And in the end, you kind of like, it could be true. But they literally put out the like the for chunk graph, which genuinely, genuinely just had 15%. Wait, no. And it was that was what I was like, Oh, thank you for making your incompetence, easy for the incompetent, I really do appreciate that.

Michael Mazengarb  37:32  
And the modeling itself is a real reflection of how the government got to its policy. So they went away and they paid McKinsey that consultancy $6 million to produce the first round of economic modeling. They then brought in a team of basically coalition aligned economists, including Brian Fisher, who their previous work was they authored modeling, which was used to attack the labour government's climate policies in the lead up to the federal election last time round, which came up with these crazy figures for how much that policy was going to cost and basically was just slammed for not having any credibility. They brought those guys in to then review and verify the McKinsey modeling. And then the department itself wrote the report. So they've really like massage this modeling together. And still, it's really explicit. And it's really clear what the government is doing, and who they're siding with.

Dan Ilic  38:30  
I noticed the other last week there was a story about McKinsey employees being pissed off that there were being press ganged into doing work like this, but not not explicitly for Australia, but for to fossil fuel companies and for for bad actors on this on this on the same. Do you think these consulting groups will eventually stop doing this kind of work for the government?

Michael Mazengarb  38:54  
I think I mean, for this this piece of work in particular, like the reputational damage the reputational risk that is there is quite significant if you've got your name your brand attached to what then becomes potentially sort of political modeling and political reports. You go look, it's not worth it. Like the brand damage that occurs is so significant that you know, it's probably not going to be worth the $6 million because they're going to lose out on other contracts and their reputation gets damaged.

Dan Ilic  39:24  
But it is $6 million to do some maths that doesn't like if like it like if they wanted to live

Lewis Hobba  39:30  
in a world where lying isn't rewarded but I don't know if we do Michael.

Michael Mazengarb  39:37  
I mean I work in the the energy sector I write about energy all the time. A lot of my friends work in the energy sector. And we look at this morning you go look, we could have done a lot better than rustled up five of us we could have produced a million bucks each and done a lot better.

Dan Ilic  39:56  
Is there like a website we can go to to try and A job to take the modeling away from McKinsey at a much, much more competitive price like, can we?

Michael Mazengarb  40:06  
Well, that was something that interestingly, McKinsey was chosen to do this modeling, the CSIRO had actually also pitched to do the modeling. And this came out also in Senate estimates, they said, Look, we applied to the government, we would have done the modeling for the government. To CSIRO, it's gonna be some of Australia's best minds in terms of energy and climate. And they didn't pick them, they picked McKinsey, who Angus Taylor used to work for

Kirsten Drysdale  40:33  
the government given given any explanation for that decision.

Michael Mazengarb  40:37  
No, I think, you know, it was it was the CSIRO that sort of revealed that they had applied for it, they didn't want to really, you know, throw their, you know, the government under the bus because, you know, if you're in the CSIRO, you, you sort of pretty wary about how much control the federal government has over your funding. But, you know, we try and

Dan Ilic  40:58  
find out, are they public servants out there that have done their own modeling, like, you know, in the CSIRO, what are the is the modeling done somewhere else, but it's like in a cabinet that no one can unlock and look at

Michael Mazengarb  41:10  
it could be. The other thing is we have these bodies, like we have bodies, like the CSIRO, we have bodies, like the climate change authority, which still exists, but just basically sits dormant, that could be used to produce this type of modeling. previous governments have used treasury to produce this type of modeling, all of this modeling could be done in house in the government, or it could be done, you know, in a way that is done in consultation with the industry. But this route of modeling is really just sort of been a bit of a, you know, a message job from the government.

Dan Ilic  41:42  
Oh, my God.

Kirk Docker  41:44  
He said just that, is it just that the government gets so much money from these companies that they need it, or they actually think this is a better play for Australians, they genuinely believe this is a better play for Australians. What? I don't quite understand it still, it's still so confusing to

Michael Mazengarb  42:00  
me. I don't know like, you know, it seems like you know, I sit there every day. And you look at the advances that are being achieved in wind, and solar and batteries and electric vehicles. And you think these are the technologies of the future, if you want to talk about technologies, not taxes, like these are the technologies that are emerging, and we should be investing in those. But yet, we're talking about carbon capture and storage. You know, the Australian delegation in Glasgow had the Santos, CCS irama in the official pavilion, like, I don't, and not to say like that they completely sold and, but it's hard to know, like, how they think this is playing out and what motivates them asides from maybe self interest.

Dan Ilic  42:48  
It's interesting to say like, technologies like this are kind of being rolled out all around the world, like as in every single country that is beholden to fossil fuels, you see the same playbook being rolled out in every other place like carbon capture storage doesn't work anywhere yet. Every other country that is a big exporter of fossil fuels is trying it on as a way to placate their donors and to to keep fossil fuels alive another few years, but it's really just like a conceptual art sphincter in the ground like it did. It doesn't do anything like it. It's meant to capture gas, but no gas ever gets captured.

Michael Mazengarb  43:20  
We have one operational project here in Australia that's out. In Gorgon in Western Australia that's been run by Chevron, it was years late, it's operating well below capacity, they they put hundreds of millions of dollars into this thing. And they can't get it fully operational because it's trying to store carbon under the seabed. But the equipment they're using to store it is getting clogged with sand. They didn't see that happening. But our one carbon capture and storage project is running at like half capacity.

Dan Ilic  43:53  
When you're talking about carbon capture storage as one of the key elements of the modeling. I remember seeing a map put up on put up on Twitter, of all the places where we're going to store carbon underground, if you see this map, there's just large patches of blue where the carbon is going to be stored underground. and This Is Mythical kind of cave system. It's remarkable to kind of see that you're like, oh, wow, instead of like, instead of not putting that fossil fuel into the air, they're just gonna poison the earth, and like bury it under huge tracts of land. Deck surely doesn't seem to me any better than than chucking in the air?

Michael Mazengarb  44:33  
I think, you know, I would like to have the confidence of someone who pushes carbon capture and storage because they're saying, Look, we'll just count this stuff under the ground and it will just stay there and I'll stay there forever. But like, we don't really know that much about what's going down underneath the ground like things like earthquakes happen the ground, the sort of geology is constantly moving to think that we can just put stuff down there and expect it to last for Ever is just a bit sort of, I think ambitious a bit, I think

Lewis Hobba  45:06  
maybe your way if you if we want to try to like harness a very vocal like right wing group to end up sort of playing themselves, here's my here's my big play, you need to start linking to Q Anon, that carbon capture and storage is a secret government program to kill the lizard people. Now, once we get that in their heads, they're gonna be like, but the lizard we need the lizard people. And then we'll there'll be a save the lizard people campaign from Q Anon, which will end up meaning they are attacking carbon capture and storage, and then suddenly we'll have all of Q anon on the side of renewable energies.

Dan Ilic  45:45  
Excellent. This is great. This is a great idea, Lewis I think you've cracked it and we all know Scott Morrison love Q anon he's got his best mate, which is these cute guy and he's out there. He's he's out there. Tell me. Tell him the state premieres. No, we should let it rip. You know these q&a on people they know what they're talking about.

Kirk Docker  46:05  
I love it. I love that cute.

Dan Ilic  46:07  
Well, on that note, that is it for rational fi big thank you to all of our guests this week. Have you got anything to plug cook? You can

Kirk Docker  46:14  
ask that comes out in

Lewis Hobba  46:16  
set a reminder, check your calendars

Kirk Docker  46:21  
don't miss it.

Kirsten Drysdale  46:22  
No got nothing on sorry, some hokey comp in Newcastle next week. That's about it. People can come and check you out. Tigers, tigers, mid target Miko

Kirk Docker  46:35  
Johnny sagas.

Michael Mazengarb  46:37  
So I work for renew economy, we write every day on climate energy electric vehicles. So if you want to get your fix on that news, renewal economy is your one

Dan Ilic  46:48  
stop shop. Great. And Louis, we've got something to plug on January 29. We're going to be having our 10 year anniversary show at the Sydney Opera House.

Lewis Hobba  47:00  
I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I'm very excited. We we have done one show at the opera house before in fact with Bob Carr,

Dan Ilic  47:09  
I believe. Kirsten, Kirsten. Kirsten did that. All right. Yeah. That was great. Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  47:15  
I'm really excited about that. I assume the Playhouse I see. We're in the big theater.

Dan Ilic  47:20  
I hope so. Play us all the drama theater. I'll take either one, but I know it's booked. I mean, I mentioned

Lewis Hobba  47:24  
the concert hall put us in the concert hall. No,

Dan Ilic  47:27  
put us in the opera house put us in the Opera Theater. Sure. Yeah.

Lewis Hobba  47:33  
Big big one. Yeah. 1000 More people are listening awake now. Come on. That's half an opera.

Dan Ilic  47:39  
Fill it. So agenda 29

Kirsten Drysdale  47:41  
and three hemas Lewis will pay on someone's face on stage.

Lewis Hobba  47:47  
It does. It takes in a very different quality when it's a man.

Kirsten Drysdale  47:52  
I was thinking that I was thinking when I was watching that. This is so awesome. Because it's a visit to the lady. If this was a guy peeing on a girl's face. It just wouldn't feel the same. Something about squatting. I reckon. I don't really read Yeah,

Kirk Docker  48:07  
you could do the talk, Louis. I could do the

Lewis Hobba  48:09  
typing. I will do the something which is even worse, which is I'll bring my saxophone and play a cover of a heavy metal song.

Dan Ilic  48:17  
That reminds me we should we should put James Valentine Fisher

Lewis Hobba  48:23  
all the weird white guys who play sex.

Dan Ilic  48:26  
Big thank you to all of our new patreon supporters this this month. Last estivesse J Smith Helen shorts Darren Reed Sharon Yoxall Peter kin and Jan Jan Williamson, Kate, Bill F Michelle law Shelby Stewart Toby strat man, Steve Steve Hutchison Deena airfree aunty, and a big thank you to a Tasha Shanna who said I forgot to read out her name the first time around. So thank you, Tasha Shana, for becoming a Patreon members. A big thank you to you Michael meson God who was also one of our longtime Patreon supporters. Also big thanks to Roadmaster Bertha Foundation, Lee constable and Jacob round on the Teppan yaki timeline. Until next week, there's always something to be fearful of. Until then, right

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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This is the 2nd Episode of the monthly spin-off podcast from A Rational Fear — Julia Zemiro Asks 'Who Cares?' 

Each month for the next 5 months on the A Rational Fear podcast feed, Julia will be interviewing change makers, civic leaders, and people who organise their communities and claim their power to discover the secrets to making good things happen.

This month Julia chats with:

Corey Tutt— An Indigenous mentor and STEM champion. He is the founder of DeadlyScience, an initiative that provides science books and early reading material to remote schools in Australia. Tutt is the 2020 NSW Young Australian of the Year, and a recipient of a 2021 Eureka Prize, the premier awards for science in Australia.

🔗 DEADLY SCIENCE
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also we hear from

Hayley McQuire — A proud Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton, Central Queensland and a passionate advocate for Indigenous social justice and First Nations lead education. Her roots are in Indigenous community media, vocational training and Indigenous Affairs policy. She was selected and served for four years on the Youth Advocacy Group for the UN Secretary General's Global Education First Initiative to support young people around the world to advocate for their rights to education. In 2019 Hayley became and Obama Foundation Leader Asia-Pacific.

🔗 NIYEC
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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:

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THANK YOU TO

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

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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

Julia Zemiro  0:04  
I'm recording my part of Julia's Amuro asks, Who cares on the lands of the gunman? Gara and Darwell people, sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the podcast,

Dan Ilic  0:16  
a podcast about politics for people who hate politics. This is Julia Zemiro asks, "Who cares?"

Julia Zemiro  0:27  
Hello, Julia here. And yes, once a month for the next five months on the irrational fi podcast, feed, I'm going to be having conversations about getting active and showing you you have powers to make change in the world, and talking to civic leaders from all walks of life to find out how they got active. This month on the podcast, I'm talking with two people who know a great deal about indigenous led education. We know education isn't equal, it's often expensive, and our state schools certainly need more support. But for Indigenous kids and adults, education can be woeful, and the system can be wonderful for them. So I'm speaking today to two incredible leaders in this field. First up, proud Kamilaroi man, Corey tut is an indigenous mentor and stem champion. He's the founder of deadly science and initiative that provides science books in early reading material to remote schools in Australia. He's the 2020, New South Wales Young Australian of the Year. And he also recently won a eureka prize. If you're not familiar, the Australian Museum Eureka prizes are the country's most comprehensive National Science Awards. And they are excellent across the areas of research and innovation, leadership, science, engagement and school science. I'm just going to give you a bit of a trigger warning here. Cory does cover some heavy topics him losing his best friend, some letting you know that now, I started asking him about these awards and and what they mean.

Corey Tutt  2:07  
These awards are fantastic accomplishments. And they're great for making my head feel a lot larger than what it is the circumference of my head is growing 15 centimeters since I've won these awards, but no all jokes aside, these awards are responsibility to me to make them accessible all kids so that they, you know, one day can see themselves in the picture. If you ask majority of the kids I work with, do you ever see yourself winning Eureka prize or the Young Australian of the Year award? They would probably say to you No way. So my role and my responsibility now is to go to these remote communities go to these schools, be a good example show that these kids can be part of the picture and picture of science and be part of that. And if I'm not doing that, then that award is just a waste on me because I need to be responsible with it in including the next generation of deadly scientists.

Julia Zemiro  3:04  
you've engaged with over 90 schools around Australia. And there's been a 25% increase in engagement in STEM related subjects. You've given 28 Deadly Junior Science

Corey Tutt  3:16  
Awards now are a couple of 100 of those out now.

Julia Zemiro  3:20  
What I'm always interested in is that we say that people don't care. We think that people aren't doing anything we know full well that there's lots of incredible projects happening all over the place. But with you, Cory, I know that with you, you're someone who had an interest in science to begin with. But how did you really connect to science as a young kid,

Corey Tutt  3:42  
I didn't have the best life growing up, I'd experienced my father leaving my mum at age two. And that's enough to sort of for a lot of kids off the rails, I guess. At eight years old, I witnessed a fatal accident. It was pretty tough. And it meant that I was never really in one place for very long. I grew up in the Illawarra region of New South Wales and South Coast is where I was born. But I also spent time in tumby Bay in South Australia. And I also spent time mangonia which is in the central Tablelands of New South Wales. So I've really been everywhere man. So I put a lot of my energy into reptiles and animals and things that I'd find around the place. That's always a really good way to make friends is that if you pick up a blue tongue lizard in the playground or home, people want to talk to you about it because it's a pretty bizarre thing to do. Because I moved around a lot it was very very hard for me to to get any structure in my life as a kid and and probably affected me as I it probably affected me in one or two ways. I was never satisfied with just been the mundane day to day I was always striving to achieve my dreams and I was driven as a real as a young kid I was driven nearly never really fit into the, you know, the notion that, that I couldn't do things that I didn't put my mind to. I wanted more of my life and I was pretty determined that I wasn't, if when I became a parent, I was never going to be the same. I was always going to be I was always going to do the things that my parents couldn't do for me.

Julia Zemiro  5:20  
But your granddad had a lot to do with your interest in reptiles and reading.

Corey Tutt  5:24  
Yeah, he did. He gave me a book called reptiles and color. And that was published in 1984, which is consequently, eight years before I was born, but I got it in about 1998. That book in particular was pretty raggedy, by the time it got to me and it was, you know, it had another little boy's signature and I was like, maybe Happy Birthday Billy assigned, but I don't care. His name out, wrote Corey. That book was really important for me, because when I was chasing those Water Dragons, and and I was reading that they could hold their breath underwater for an hour and things like that, in that book, I would sit there with a little stopwatch, and I would chase war drags into dams. And I would, you know, I'd time it, make sure it was right, you know. But yeah, these were things that I did when I was a kid. And I learned how to read off these books. So, you know, when other kids were reading the Hungry Caterpillar, I was just reading science books.

Julia Zemiro  6:17  
And did you know at that time, did you make a link that that was science? Or was it just something that kids did? Where you grew up? Was it an indigenous experience,

Corey Tutt  6:28  
I don't think it was an indigenous experience or, or a science experience and such it was, it was probably me trying to contend with the bad things in my childhood and invest my energy into something that was positive. You know, a lot of kids will like me when growing up like we we sometimes grow out of it, some of us don't. And I feel like I was always connected to the culture and people.

Julia Zemiro  6:54  
Is it true that a career advisor once said to you that kids like you don't go to uni, and they should stick to a trade,

Corey Tutt  7:00  
I don't wish any ill harm or, or any bad wields his career advisor, he was just trying to help me, I think he, I think it was yelled, I'm going to give this kid a whack with a metaphorical stick. And that will be the thing that that drives him to do more. And it probably had the opposite effect. To be honest, when I sat across this career advisor, and I sat in this over, you know, this, this poorly designed chair that was, you know, had this poor fabric on it. And I looked across at him and I said, I wanted to be a zookeeper or wildlife documentary. And the third option was ABC sports commentator, because I thought it was pretty easy. And I could find the other two. I think at that moment, I felt very determined that I would not, you know, I would not take his advice, because I know if I, if I had worked in a trade, I would have been hopeless at it. And I really was desperate to become a zookeeper. And as you do you troll through social media when you're a kid, especially when you're a teenager, born in my time, which was MySpace, and Facebook. And when it first came out, and I saw this crazy woman with a rifle standing above a snake, and she was in this place called Boyup. Brook. And she was just, you know, a really nice lady who runs this wildlife sanctuary that that's just killing Snakes on a property. And I was like, Ah, I ended up organizing to go over to Rigali and Boyup Brook, which is 3885 kilometers from my house, didn't contact my mother or family members for three weeks. And I went over there and look, that moment for me, I, as soon as I got over there, I was introduced to this, this woman who was kind of older and her name was Norma, and she had a husband called Jim and his dog named Holly and Norma and Jim, were the first people in my life that had ever shown me love that was unconditional. But, you know, they were just proud that I was going in and working this wildlife sanctuary. And I remember that, you know, I didn't have even make toasts. To be honest, I couldn't even make you a cup of tea. And normally didn't judge me or anything like that. Normally, people would sort of laugh at someone if they didn't know how to do that. But she kind of knew that I, I didn't get shown a lot growing up, because why what how could I, you know, my mom was a single mom. And we were, you know, we were sort of moving around a lot. You know, she didn't learn those things. So how could she possibly teach me and how was he there? I was 16.

Julia Zemiro  9:41  
So you've gone there all by yourself.

Corey Tutt  9:43  
I've gone there all by myself. And yeah, I get a bit sad when I talk about Jim and omocha said now pass, but they were the first people that I ever met that, that didn't care. They didn't care about the baggage. I didn't care that I was from Dapto. They didn't care that I was indigenous. You know, they cared about me as a person, and from that moment from working at that wildlife sanctuary, and by the time I came back and started at narrow Wildlife Park, Jim and Norma sent me messages every single week until April last year, telling me how proud they were. They followed my journeys, they, you know, they rode the highs, and they stuck by me with the lows. And I will never ever forget what they did for me as a 16 year old and but you know, I fast forward and I'm, I'm back in narrow and I'm working at shore haven to

Julia Zemiro  10:35  
how did you get that job? How did you know to find that we use looking through for jobs? Or was it a word of mouth thing

Corey Tutt  10:42  
someone had, had bumped into me that worked at Taronga Zoo, and they were very keen to have me. But unfortunately, I lived in narrow, and I lived very, very far away from Mosman. And I, you know, I made the decision that it was going to be too hard because I had my red pays, but it wasn't like I couldn't drive up from now every day. So I applied for volunteer position at narrow Wildlife Park and Shoalhaven Zoo. And I remember the first day I had there, and I just come back from boy out broke, I'd come back from Western Australia, I had all this experience that, you know, I fought that I was, you know, not, I thought I was just really confident and I was really happy. And you know, it was easily the the most like it was the happiest morning in my life so far that I remember it because I got up at 5am I was meant to start at age, I got up at 5am I cooked a massive breakfast. I wore a button up shirt, which I was so proud. Like, I was just like, you know, for me, it was i i brought new shoes I you know, I had saved up to this was my first day as a zookeeper and the start of everything for me. And I remember I was sitting there and I was sitting under the, you know, under the walkway there and I was waiting for the head keeper to turn up and he turns up and he goes, Why are you so early? And I was like, because I'm keen. I'm very keen to get started, like, let's go, let's get into it. And he's like, no, no, no, settle down. And, you know, he, you know, him and I have friends now. But we had a we had a running battle. He often called me names, often, yeah, often told me that I shouldn't do zoo keeping and, and things like that. But, you know, again, I was determined to prove him wrong. You know, I was so determined to prove him wrong and get myself a zoo, a paid position and a zoo keeping uniform. And the day that the owner gave me my first narrow Wildlife Park shirt, I've still got it today in my cupboard. And because it was an our wildlife park back then, and it looked like Swiss cheese, and it had so many holes in it. I even had 10 spots because of how many holes that had in this shirt. And I was so proud of that. It was I've done it, you know, I've done it. This is the thing that it was it was my dream. I loved it. You know again, sometimes Julia that things happen and life can slip quickly, you know, change on it can change in a second then I'd had a best friend that had volunteered with the zoo. And he him and I started at the same time and he he eventually got kicked out because he he had sort of had some issues at the zoo and like it was the first time I'd met someone that was on my level that I was I was friends with and you know we we got along really well we actually got like got a similar tattoo on our left shoulder. You know we weird we're gonna move in together and because you know we're gonna do the zoo keeping thing and we had all these plans but then he had committed suicide and he had hung himself in a house that we're meant to move into. And

Julia Zemiro  14:08  
sorry to hear that Corey that must have been a horrible thing to witness.

Corey Tutt  14:11  
It changed everything for me. It changed everything for me and it was the second time in my life that I'd experienced death at a really young age and and not just you know older people actual young people dying and it hit me a lot harder than the accident that I'd witnessed when I was a kid because I was an adult now I was 18 What do you do when you're a baby face a 10 year old when you've you've lost your best mate and I think that you know the things I ignored at the zoo like the low pay rates the over hours we work the you know the things you have to deal with that, you know that zoo keepers have to deal with on a daily basis that aren't you know, there aren't glamorous, the zoo, the zoo life is not glamorous at all. Those are things that I decide that I, I didn't like that much anymore. I didn't have the motivation. I was struggling with my why, why am I doing this? Why was this my passion and you know, even seeing a blue tongue lizard just didn't you know, I get so much energy even now when I see a cool animal that I haven't seen in ages. And I lost that. And that is a really scary thing that is like losing, you know, it's like looking in the mirror and seeing someone completely different. I saw an ad in the the Illawarra mercury. I feel a bit stupid now talking about it. But I got in my best low suit, which was my year 10 formal suit at 18. And I got off to this guy's house and I rang up and he said, you've got an interview on Monday. So I went to his house. And he I walked in and I had a cup of tea in his eye. So you sat in Monday, and I like, what, what and I worked out quite later that I was the only person that applied. So I felt a bit stupid wearing my formal suit and to give the listeners a brief description of what my formal suit looked like. I was a massive Good Charlotte fan, where I had white volleys, white belt, black pants, white suspenders, and a white tie in a white hat. And it was a bit it was a bit of a good child. And so it's a bit of a punk. So I wore that to the alpaca

Julia Zemiro  16:22  
interview and what was the job you're going to be a shear of

Corey Tutt  16:25  
alpacas is no an alpaca handler.

Julia Zemiro  16:27  
I handle up bright

Corey Tutt  16:29  
James had been a bit creative with the title. Because he had had no like he had no people applying for this job. Wow. Anyway, we I get there and it's my first day. So the first packet that comes out, they show me how to put it down safely they go this is how you boil it down safely cuz you got to tie them down. And to show them safely. And I'm like, Oh, yep, got this. I've been feeding a formula crocodile for the last year and a half. Um,

Julia Zemiro  16:56  
you know, thanks. I've

Corey Tutt  16:57  
got I've got it. Yeah, it's gonna be fine. And little did I know that the first alpaca that I'll go and she would headbutt me in the face, and crack my cheekbone. And I'm crying like I'm bawling my eyes out, like trying not to cry, but I'm more crying but I'm fine. You know, James asked me if I'm right. And he could see my he could see my face, like swelling up. Little did I know that that moment with James would be my unofficial counseling where he, he was like the father, I never had in the sense that he was someone I could talk to that I was stuck sitting next to for 12 hours a day, in the car driving between jobs. And in time, time went slow. When when my best friend had time was going very, very fast. And he slowed it down for me. And I think that sharing saved my life. If it wasn't for James, I don't think I would be here. Like that's a really tough thing to comprehend. Because if I hadn't met him at that time, at that point in my life, would he have had the impact on me that he has? Probably not.

Julia Zemiro  18:05  
When did deadly science come into play? When's that sort of starting up in your head?

Corey Tutt  18:10  
When deadly science started, I was working as an animal technician at the University of Sydney and I started talking to these kids in Redfern and Waterloo. And we'll talk about any everything I would, you know, I'd show them some of the stuff that I was doing. I'll tell them about the researchers, I would show them on my iPhone, all this science stuff that you know was going on. And they were just so intrigued. They loved them. They were so you're and the moment that I was doing that I felt the love again that I had when I was at the zoo the days where I was so happy that I nothing could change anything for me like I was so in like I was so in the zone. And one of the kids said to me is how come I didn't get these opportunities? And this is like this is deadly. And this is science? How come I didn't get these opportunities. And, you know, I, I sort of thought about it. And then I started Googling remote schools and, and just I found out that our schools are just completely under resourced with STEM. And we naturally told Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids that sport and art are the only ways to be successful. And how about I just send you some books and this one school had 15 books in its whole school. And I ended up you know, going to Demyx and dropping down a k gets a grant of solid hard cash. And I purchased so many books that I could barely carry them out of the shop. And I sent those books at school. And I it was it was something in me that clicked because there was one school that that said hey, how about you send books to my school? My friends over here because we need more science books and more equipment and things like that. And I started a second job I worked at the handrolled pet hotels up at Duffy's force and I scrubbed and cleaned candles, I acted as a receptionist. So I probably act as a security guard at times as well. I worked really hard for a number of months I, I did things like, you know, jobs for mates, I sold some of my possessions. You know, I, I did things like that I worked extra hours. I think I sold my TV at one point to pay for these books. And then it was married and large. And actually, I met a friend, Dr. Karl. And he gave me some books. And then Mary and largers. Like you should set up a GoFundMe because people would people donate to this, you know, people like want to help you like,

Julia Zemiro  20:41  
GoFundMe is such a great way to get something started. I mean, everyone's happy to chip in 10 or $20. And then if everybody does it, then you can really make something of it.

Corey Tutt  20:51  
And yeah, little did I know why before like I was, I started putting it online, what I was doing, and I like at that point, I probably sent about 2000 books off, or so putting it online. And I, you know, I put this GoFundMe in place, and I was happy with just 500 bucks to be honest, because I was spending so much money on books and things. And I ended up becoming friends with this thing, this fella called Brian Cox on Twitter. And he was all right, like, you know, he's right. Yeah, he's nice. And he gave me some books. And I met him. And I didn't really know the protocol. I didn't coined Professor Cox or anything like that as a Braun.

Julia Zemiro  21:35  
If you're not sure who he's talking about, it's Brian Cox, of course, from television, and him and I worked together on stargazing, and yeah, that was, that's what Twitter is for Cory, isn't it? You just go, why not just ask, he can only say no,

Corey Tutt  21:52  
I gave him a blackfella handshake. And I'm not sure he was ready for that. But, you know, it grew from there. And I, I had this email come up on my phone, and I was like, and I remember really well, you have been nominated for Young Australian of the Year and I'm what, what the hell is that? Wow, I didn't even know what it was. And I ended up going and I sort of said to my mom, I'm like, you know, mom, I'd really like you to come with me, you know, to the award ceremony because I feel like you deserve to see your son and or your daughter, you know when saying worthwhile and and I wanted to bring it because I I just wanted her to I just wanted her to have a proud moment. You know, she's she hasn't always had the best and you know, and she came along and and Gladys read my name out. I went up i waddled up the stairs because I was very excited. I was very nervous. And I sat down and I handed my honor roll to my mom. I'm like, This is yours. And you know, I was gonna be honest, Julie, I was gonna have a couple of cheeky freebies and say, Wow, well done. pat myself on the back. But before I knew it, my Gladys Virgie Clinton had read my name out again. And she is like, and the youngest strolling is for New South Wales, Cory Todd, and it's like, I got up on stage and I'm like most boot shoes be kind to your mum. Yeah, and it was just like, my life changed from that moment.

Julia Zemiro  23:23  
It's true that an award like an Australian of the Year young Australian, the it brings incredible opportunity, but baggage as well. Sometimes it's a big responsibility. And you say your life changed in what ways?

Corey Tutt  23:35  
One, I had a camera in my face. When the time I got dragged. As soon as I got off stage, I didn't get to say anything to my partner had to deal with the expectation of this looming event where I was up against ash body, the world number one in tennis.

Julia Zemiro  23:53  
What was another Australian of the Year? Well, she

Corey Tutt  23:56  
was a finalist, she was the Queensland Australian of the Year and a finalist for the National one. And to be honest, I, I don't think I handled it as well as what I could have. But, you know, the the thing is, is that you only get to do these things once and I quickly learned that I could utilize my award and, and the trophy and stuff and I can go out to schools and I could put a bit of gaffer tape of my name, which sounds really bizarre. And I could let kids hold it and I could let them tell me why they should be the Australian, the and the answer is we're I'm kind of my mom. I'm kind to you know, my people in the playground. I, I, you know, I do the right thing. And, and these are the reasons why they deserve to be and there's the reasons why I deserve to be as well and everyone so

Julia Zemiro  24:46  
lately, you said something before, it's very interesting. You said we often expect that Indigenous kids will thrive in sport or art. There's this notion that but that other stuffs too hard or beyond that. that must be met you sign. I mean, it's just a ridiculous thing to think, isn't it?

Corey Tutt  25:04  
I remember I had a remote school once, contact me, and it was the teacher from that school. And I, you know, as I do I normally talk to the principal and I say, what do you need, and this principal turn around and told me that don't bother sending resources here, because our kids will never learn. And it's, you know, and I'm like, Why is this person in a job, and I had a quite a big extensive argument with this principle. Problem, or at least give these kids a chance, you know, lease, work with them, why try and work with them don't occupy a space where you are, you know, you are trying to mentor these kids into a future, but you will not accept resources because you don't think your kids deserve them. So it's never been easy. I've made mistakes along the way. Like, I've like anyone.

Julia Zemiro  25:55  
I think if you don't make mistakes, you don't learn and at least it's worth trying. And stuffing it up sometimes, because, you know, it's pretty hard having an argument with a principal and I toured high schools doing Shakespeare in high schools when I was 27. And did two years of at different schools, you know, all over the all throughout the year, you know, driving it all van in all four of us and, and put up 200 chairs and do Shakespeare for kids. And, you know, you'd walk into some schools, and it's so funny, the vibe you would get from a head teacher or a principal would absolutely tell you what that school was about. And, yeah, I mean, some of the we just go, you know, and say hopeless, no, don't don't get any of it. You thinking, wow, well, we're here, we're gonna do it anyway. But let's surprise you. And always at the end of the show, always a teacher would come up and say, I cannot believe when you ask for volunteers, that that particular kid put his or her hand up, because they could do anything and you thinking, Yeah, well, maybe because they used to, they're in a new environment with new people.

Corey Tutt  26:57  
So me also, like the T, like, teachers are great, they're worth their weight in gold, but they can quickly become burnt out. And I quickly found because of the lack of resources and support, and it's it flows down. So any of those teachers I actually have a lot of sympathy for. Because if you're burnt out that much, then it's taken a while for you to get to that point, because most teachers are starting off to make things better for our kids. And, and, you know, like, there was moments along the way, especially that after I won, you know, the the award that I had started a new job two weeks in, and I literally won that award, the second week, I was there. So all of a sudden, I was, you know, the highest achieving staff member within, you know, and this was like, you know, I'm really sorry, I can't do my job right now. Because I have to go and do this thing with SPS or deleting this ABC. And I love talking to the media, like I love it. Because I get to talk about these kids in the work. But then there was this expectation that I do my job, but also the other people in my year, especially at my employer saying, no, no, we want you to do this media thing. But we don't want to fund deadly science and we don't want to fund you. But we want you to do this media thing. And, you know, I think I've gotten better at enjoying the moment more. So when when I won this Eureka this time around, I was actually the calmest I've ever been. Because I knew that everything I've gone through to this moment right now has been for a reason. And now my reason is and my why is to help inspire these kids to be to be good people, and hopefully tomorrow be good scientists.

Julia Zemiro  28:48  
Absolutely. Where's it at now? Deadly science. So what I suppose what's next for it? Or is there do you see an end and then you go and do something else?

Corey Tutt  29:00  
That's a really tough question. But I like next to deadly science is that I've just hired two or three new people that, you know, I've only had, like, I've only had the one employee and that wasn't me. And I had to learn. I started paying myself, which is something that I never thought could be a thing. Yeah. Even though I was putting all this hours in, so I'm learning how to be a boss. Now I'm learning how to be the difference between being a caring boss and being someone that that needs to leave as well. And also someone that you know, let someone else take over the steering wheel for a bit because, you know, as a friend, Dr. Carr would say, micro sleeps can get you at any time. But for me, it's um, you know, I I'm starting to transition deadly science into getting more voices in so that he can, he can be a sustainable entity on its own, and I can focus on the good stuff I do. In cosmic vertigo with Carly noon and, and zooming the kids and, you know, just enjoying, like, when you do something like deadly science, there's three things that happen. You find your, you find yourself doing way too many hours, because you're so passionate. It's like being it's like having the latest Harry Potter book and you want to stay up and read as much as you can, but you're tired. But also you, you get an appreciation for what is out there. And also, the third one is that you burn out, you burn out very, very easily. And there's not many people that are going to pick you up when you burn out. So you need to support yourself with the people that can. And for me, I don't really want to be sitting in the seat of CEO in 10 years time. I want one of my deadly scientists to be sitting in there and I want it to be so good that it employs them. And they can continue to support the next generation beyond me and if I'm if I'm still around, and I'm sure I will be. I hope that I'm there to support them. And I'm there that I'm that person pick them up when they're burnt out.

Julia Zemiro  31:15  
Thank you so much, Corey. Certainly 30 years of age already done so much. And yeah, I particularly love that comment at the end about burnout. You know, it's you can reach incredible heights in your work and in your life. And there's always going to be lows and in betweens, but burnout is a real issue. And when you work that hard off your own bat, you've got to look after yourself and put yourself first sometimes and I want to give out the lifeline number for anybody who might need it. One Three double 114 is a number if anything came up for you listening to that interview one three double 114 And that's a lifeline

Dan Ilic  31:58  
what up Jay Z asked who cares? Sure, boy, Jay Z makes nice. No bad Jay Z jewelers zero. This is Julia zero asks, Who cares?

Julia Zemiro  32:08  
Next up, I'm talking with Haley McGuire. She's a proud damsel and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton. She's got a passion for working with young people to be critical and active drivers in their own education ecosystem. Where Indigenous ways of knowing being and doing are embedded and tied to the aspirations of both indigenous nations and their young people. To drive this work. She co founded the National indigenous youth education coalition, which is a growing collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to reclaim their indigenous rights to education. She's also an Obama Foundation leader in the Asia Pacific. But I started asking her about she was once a presenter at her local Mary radio station in Rockhampton.

Hayley McQuire  33:03  
Yeah, well, actually, that was my first introduction to doing real I guess community, grassroots work. And, you know, as a millennial, I think we often get pictured as we don't even like to do phone calls. And that was definitely me. And so doing community radio forced me to actually speak to people, the under text message, and it's really built really foundational communication skills that I'm so thankful for.

Julia Zemiro  33:32  
Did you have a good experience of education growing up?

Hayley McQuire  33:37  
I think it was overall, positive, you know, education for, like, my family and for my parents was a priority. Because it was seen as that tool that we know that me and my siblings could use to, you know, support ourselves in the long run. But there are times when I look back on my educational experiences. And you see that, yeah, there are some things where he could see the inequity. And a lot of that has really come in hindsight, not so much when you're in the moment. Just little things like during my work experience, and in high school, and I wanted to be a teacher, I went back to my old primary school, you just see, like, the little differences in how kids are being treated or like the different expectations of Aboriginal kids. And that's not to say like there was malicious or any ill intent there. But yeah, I feel like there could have been things that were better.

Julia Zemiro  34:47  
It's often said that historically, education for indigenous and Torres Strait Island people has been about assimilation and control. What is what's the state of it at the moment do you Think

Hayley McQuire  35:01  
I think those, that legacy is still ongoing. You know, like, right now we're having a conversation about what we teach the next generation about the truth of our history, right? We have an education minister who was calling for a patriotic curriculum that gives a fair and that doesn't present a negative view of the past, because that might cause further indecision. But, you know, I questioned that completely, because, one, in first and foremost, it's about the experiences of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander students in the classroom. And this was an experience I had when you go into your history classroom. And you're told that Captain Cook discovered Australia that you're founded as a nation of convicts, and that's the Australian story. Well, that doesn't include, you know, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people pre colonization, but also our fights for rights in a fair quality, fair society, land rights, all of the fight, everything that Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people have achieved in this country has been fought for by our, our mob, you know, and to say that, for us wanting to fight for freedom is presenting is not consistent with that view, or a patriotic Australia, I think, is really unfair. So we see that, you know, we see this, the way that the story that we want to tell ourselves as continuing a colonial narrative, right through to, you know, our measurements of success, you know, for Aboriginal touchdown, the kids, when you think about educational success, you think attendance rates, or school retention, those are just indicators, those aren't the markers of what a good quality education is, for our people, or how we see that, you know, if you've been fortunate enough to see me in my blood, it runs film, you'll see how like this focus, hyper focus on school attendance, and actually having those metrics map to then welfare payments, that will impact a whole family, this kind of control is still continuing. And it's continuing in a lot of different ways.

Julia Zemiro  37:29  
Our education minister, Alan Tudge, is, is living in a kind of an era, like the conservative 50s with the way he speaks about this constant attention to patriotism, I mean, that I don't relate to that at all. It's like everything in the government at the moment, they're completely out of touch with the fact that we have to start doing things in a new way. We have to start seeing and I I can't understand why people can't get excited by that, instead of being isn't change awful. It's like it's some changes, good. And surely anything that is inclusive, and everything that is investigating, and being curious, again, about where we've been is a good thing.

Hayley McQuire  38:07  
Yeah. And I feel like, there's so many opportunities that we have to actually be leaders on a world stage, we could be leaders on climate action on a world stage. You know, we could be leaders in investing in indigenous self determined nation building and, and systems and structures that are innovative, you know, like, the Aboriginal medical services, and the origins of those are innovative, they're innovative in providing primary health care. Even the ways that we think about, you know, indigenous education and some of the work that's already happening in this space around making sure Ling Ling learning is connected, the country is connected to place, it's grounded in a holistic view of the whole Well, being of a student. You know, these are this is innovation, you know, that's coming out of indigenous communities every day. But yeah, it's it's so unfortunate, that we seem to be stifling that progress for some kind of backward ideology. We're recording

Julia Zemiro  39:25  
this just before cop, part of what those of us who do believe in climate change we'd like to see is, you know, joining the rest of the world in terms of calling for changes that have to happen in terms of climate and renewables, but in involved in that has to be an understanding of or isn't this now a time to also say, how do we now really connect with our history on indigenous people what we've done what we can be, and get that treaty and get a statement from the heart where we can be united like we want to be united?

Hayley McQuire  39:58  
Yeah, well, I think this thing to which people might forget about that happened with colonization is that, you know, we had a learning system and knowledge system that came from country that came from observing country and how it changed how it worked over 1000s and 1000s of years, and that's then built our identity, our culture's our ways of being and connecting. And with colonization, we brought in western education system, Western forms of Parliament, Western sciences, which were disconnected from country, you know, and so when we look at the impacts that climate change has on country, the systems that we're working in operating in, in Australia, are fundamentally at the foundational level, disconnected, you know, and so, yeah, it's about learning that history, but also, we need to think about that actually, our connection to our environment, and our connection to land, and seas and our waterways, plays a part in who we are as human beings. And as people. As long as that, you know, disconnection continues, and it continues through the different systems that uphold like our current society and the way that society works, we're not going to make the change that we need, you know, so I think it's a whole, it's a cultural change, as well,

Julia Zemiro  41:39  
when I listen to you speak highly, I just think how incredible would it be? How normal should it be? How right it would be to have 15 of you in Parliament today, reminding us of that, reminding us that this is where you're living now, this is what this is. And making us connect again, it's finding connections again, with this, as you say, this country and nature, and looking after her and and also undoing trying to well, we can undo a bit try to give back in terms of what we've taken away from your people. And in terms of the incredible harm we've done as well.

Hayley McQuire  42:22  
We have some incredible representation inside Parliament right now. But yeah, I feel like there's, there's so many moms out there who are young and who are doing this work at the grassroots level, even though in Parliament, it would be great. But um, there is a lot of work happening. And I think some of the people that are leading the way in this space is definitely seed, and really Telford at the who's leading that first ever grassroots Youth Climate Action Group. So but that's just one example of many really, yeah,

Julia Zemiro  42:58  
to drive this work you're trying to do you co founded the National indigenous youth education coalition. And that's a growing collective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to try and reclaim that, indeed, to try and reclaim I can't believe I have to say the sentence reclaiming indigenous rights to education, it's, it's so awful to have to even say that, that you don't have that. But what does that look like? How's that different?

Hayley McQuire  43:22  
Well, I think the ultimate goal for us, in our mind is where we see a First Nations lead education system, you know, whatever that model is, or I mean, you know, we're still trying to figure that out. But basically, you know, in our current education, ecosystem, we have like a broad network of public schools, we've got independent schools, Catholic schools, why not? Why can't Why haven't we yet had support for a First Nations education system where, you know, local communities can actually think about how do they want to govern in deliver education on their country, one to preserve, you know, our cultural heritage, our languages and culture, however, that nation sees fit, but also to really invest in indigenous pedagogy that has been caring for this continent since time immemorial, you know, and I think at that level, there's so much that can be gained for all children to have access and opportunity to an education system that's being led by First Nations people. And you know, we often hear about like the importance of integration and you know, embedding Aboriginal tertia and perspectives into whole of systems or curriculum and yes, that's important, but we also need to think about the power dynamic. Mix at play. And through First Nations lead education system we're trying to make sure Well, we wanting to make sure that at that leadership governance level, that the power sets were first nations people in communities.

Julia Zemiro  45:15  
My dad is French, and my mum's Australian. She made him overseas. And then we came to Australia. By chance, my primary school, my Ozzie primary school, had some French classes in it. So I did all my primary school in French. And I remember my parents being so thrilled that even though we weren't in France, I would be able to retain my French language. And it only occurred to me in the last few years. Why should I have the luxury of learning my language that is miles away on the other side of the world? And we weren't all as kids learning one of the many indigenous languages. I mean, it's it's so heartbreaking, Hayley. It's so heartbreaking, that that, that that was available in the 70s. And Greek school was available for kids on a Saturday. Yeah. And you couldn't learn an indigenous language anywhere. And we're lucky to have people like Stan Grant's father who, you know, tried to, you know, got that like that his language back and fought hard to make that happen. It's the inequity discontent, because, you know, you would you're thinking of that wave of migrants needed that support, but indigenous people needed that support, too.

Hayley McQuire  46:29  
Yeah, and it, and it's like, that's the thing, I think, the principles around that, like, of course, you would want all young people to be able to retain that sense of self and, and connect to who they are, you know, but that same opportunity has just never been fully given to First Nations people at like, at a systemic level, I should say, you know, there has been like that grassroots movement, you know, and innovation, you know, that community members have fought for, and I think that's the great thing about the national indigenous youth education coalition is that we do get to inherit, you know, like, the activism that came through, you know, when they had a few Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander schools set up, you know, there is more, I think, public, yeah, acceptance of these rights, like you're demonstrating yourself, Julia, but it's that next is that next level now that I feel like us as young people responsible for and you know, for Aboriginal, especially young people, you know, were responsible for passing down this longest continuing culture in the world, while also facing down really complex, global challenges, like climate change, that, you know, are threatening our cultural heritage sites, or, you know, like globalization and just the tensions that that brings, or different changing kind of technology, like all these really hard issues, and then we have to think about it within the ways that this Australian government continues to treat our people, we're operating in a really complex environment, but I feel like I'm very fortunate that we've got, we stand on the shoulders of giants, really, there seems

Julia Zemiro  48:37  
to be a common theme to that it's, it's your generation and down that are having to do the heavy lifting. And I for one, just want to keep saying to people, I'm here to help, like if you need sandwiches made, or you need some faxing, done, because that's my era, but don't ask me to send any complicated emails. But I mean, you know, I feel like you're just a beautiful speaker. It's I'm so heard you on many, many different podcasts like this. And, and I love it when you say that we need a stronger educational dialogue in this country. And I would certainly say that for non Indigenous education as well. I think they're kind of getting it wrong. I think that's sort of losing traction, like what are you making people for the future? How you making people for the future? And indeed, this indigenous way in this indigenous way of looking at things is actually more progressive would be more useful?

Hayley McQuire  49:28  
Yeah, I think it's funny you say that like, and, again, like, I completely agree. I've been able to do some work with learning creates Australia, which is a growing alliance of different businesses, educators, you know, education providers and policymakers across the country who are wanting to connect together over what is that future of learning in Australia? And that's, yeah, that's been really positive and we've made sure that we've centered you know that first nations self determinations. And sovereignty is part of that piece of work. But really, it's it's so fundamental, you know, I feel like sometimes, and I'm, I've only been a parent for five years now. But I feel like, as you become a parent, too, you want to try and outsource things as much as you can. But you know, we can't get we, we can't look at education the same way where it's something that we outsource to the States or to the state, really, we really have to think about our young people. And that future that they're going to inherit, like, like I said before, is what the situation of Aboriginal touch on the young people is, all young people are facing a really complex future, and we don't even know what the future jobs are going to look like, or what's the future society is going to look like? And so we have to think about, well, what are those core values that we want all young people to inherit? What if we think about, you know, our future generations, like, six, seven generations from now? What do you want that society to look like? Because, really, that's what our knowledge systems do, is they connect us to those people in the future that we're not going to meet? You know, how do we? How do we want to tell them about ourselves, but also what we hope we want them to be able to? to do? You know, like, that's why I feel like education is just so fundamental, and also quite beautiful in but yeah, we are operating with in a system that came out of, you know, the last industrial revolution, revolution, you know, like, it's 150 year old kind of model. And when we look into the future, well, is this Is it adequate? You know, yeah,

Julia Zemiro  52:07  
Is it adequate guy I was looking at, you know, in general, in high schools, you know, you're doing your English, Mathematics, Science and Technology, you'll do your human society in its environment. That's one of them, Personal Development, Health, Physical Education, creative arts, languages, if you're lucky, vocational education and training, geography, you know, where's the critical thinking in that, you know, where we teachers already talk about how, because my mom was a teacher, she was a language teacher, and teachers, you know, 2530 years ago, talk about how they could do their subject. They could do this subject, but they could also, you know, go off track and maybe do other bits do something real like they might do civics or they might do politics, or they might do how Parliament work at Parliament House work. So and now there's a sense that you're really quite boxed in now you are you really have to concentrate on your, on your subject. And there's, there's also no time there's way more admin now as well. And the Teachers Federation is constantly talking about pay rises, teachers haven't been their pay hasn't increased in so long, and, and yet, during the pandemic, I would have thought this was the time when everybody would have looked at teachers and gone off. That's what they do. They're incredible.

Hayley McQuire  53:23  
Yeah, I feel like teachers should be. Yeah, valued just as much as we value our health practice practitioners in a way. And, you know, I think, yeah, it's, it's so you're so right, in terms of just like, those are the common things that we hear about, you know, the crowded curriculum, or, you know, the additional stress that educators have put on da. And I just think to like, taking a step back, like, you know, the type of inequity that is faced here, education system, too. We know that we got one of the most socially segregated education systems in the OECD. So the type of education that you're going to have access to, if you're from a low economic household is going to be completely different to those with wealth or who live in particular areas. You know, some of this comes through, you know, depending on you know, your situation, sometimes you don't even have that choice, over the type of education that you can give to your child. You know, those are really like, hard issues when you think about, like the importance of having a good quality, public education, you know, that's accessible to all young people and where teachers with the In that, you know, do you have a level of agency? And do you feel like they're being recognized in and rewarded? Yeah, I feel like subjects are a great way to explore content. But yeah, I think another issue that comes along is the pathway that we tend to put all young people on is towards a university pathway, which is well or bad. But when you get to those senior secondary years, there's a strong emphasis on like, your type of aches task, or you get the way that those are reined in calculated, a, you know, it's the system kind of maintaining itself. And so we need to also think about, well, how do we create broader metrics and broader ways of recognizing all the fantastic things that young people knowing can do? Like if they don't work in the arts? Or, you know, if they're a musician, or if they've done so much work for their communities? You know, how are we really recognizing that and giving currency, to the richness of that those experiences and knowledge is that young people have broader than just a, you know, a 99, on an ATAR.

Julia Zemiro  56:19  
I know, I mean, I went to an acting school, you know, try that for all the acting schools got into one in Melbourne. And I was 24, by the time I got there, and the way they taught, I learned how to learn there, basically, because I finally got that, oh, you can learn by watching. Or you can learn by doing, or you can learn by it's not just all by reading and writing. And that's important. We don't just learn you got to do things if I physically don't do something. So, you know, should we be spending eight hours or six hours a day inside? Maybe that some of that time should be outside? What does the First Nations lead education system look like to you? Like if you're if you had your wildest dreams, and something wacky happened, like, I became prime minister and said, Yeah, we're making tertiary, secondary and primary free. Go for the army, the smart country, and I've gone highly Yes, here you go. Instead of spending money on submarines, you may have this money. And let's do something interesting. Is there a kind of a, a dream scenario to begin with?

Hayley McQuire  57:25  
Yeah, well, for me, like, I always think about it in terms of, I think I've used enough time, I don't know if I'll reach the scope for my daughter, but hopefully my grandchild or great granny, but I do, I do want them to be able to go, like, my idea is that we'd have our own to rumble school on terrible country, and that the classroom wouldn't necessarily be the four walls and the chairs, like, yeah, that would be an option, but spending a lot of time on country where they can, I feel like just get getting that grounding of who they are as a charitable person, and like, the different responsibilities we have to country, I think would be the foundation of that curriculum. I don't think that I'd get rid of like, the school bell. I like full lunches, and recess and stuff like that. 100% Yeah. And like, you know, yeah, I just, I don't know why that's the thing, but get rid of the school bell. And I'd see it as more like, integrated with the community, you know, like, yeah, like, I'd see, like, Where could they be possibilities for shared space, you know, where community can where the school is vital hub, you know, of other community services. And, you know, like, there are great examples happening like the Murray school, they have health services run out of the school, or I'd like to see like communal, like libraries and, and that kind of stuff. But really, it's just something where there's not like that invisible wall, between the school and in the space that it's operating in. That's what I'd want to see and where all children but especially young, like Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kids, don't feel like they have to hide a bit of them, or they don't feel like they have to sacrifice. Like the best of them who they are, in order to succeed at school,

Julia Zemiro  59:34  
but also to be bold and loud in it. I want to be bold and loud, like any other kid is and make noise in that language or make noise in my identity and not be told off because, you know, I'm an Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander kid doing that. Yeah, you know, there's a theory that you know, teenagers would be better off starting school at nine or 10am or later because they need the sleeping what are they in there at 7:30am doing for you know, whatever. they could start at 10. And finish at five. Because it suits the more you know, this is very western also idea about, well, you will if meet your means you're working hard if you're up at seven o'clock you're already in, then you're swamped. 20 laps. And you've done this and done that. And I really thought that COVID would be this incredible reminder. And people are talking about about I don't want to go back to how busy I was before what has busy even mean.

Hayley McQuire  1:00:27  
Yeah. i The thing is, if it's if it can happen on Zoom, I'll be happy.

Julia Zemiro  1:00:36  
Where do you see yourself? In the next 10 years? You know, you're, you're someone who's had the most incredible kind of you know, I mean, you're co founder of the of this indigenous youth education coalition co chair of learning creates Australia, and Obama Foundation leader in the Asia Pacific. Is there a job? Or is there a purpose, something that you feel like your pivot pivot if I can use that hideous COVID word? Pivot? Do you see you see yourself in a different position in 10 years time?

Hayley McQuire  1:01:11  
Well, to use another COVID slang? Well, now more than ever, I've realized. Yeah, like in 10 years time, like, I honestly don't know, I know that by that time, I'd want. Like, I'd be out of the coalition and be run by continue to be run by young, younger people. But I think I would love to be able to play a role in I love to convene, and bring different people together around issues where, you know, multiple people aren't satisfied, you know, so whatever that kind of looks like would take shape. I feel like there's power in bringing yet different coalition's of people together. And I think that see, that's the only way forward, you know, Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'd hope to be playing some kind of service type role in that area.

Julia Zemiro  1:02:10  
Have you had mentors along the way that have been able to help? And are they hard to find?

Hayley McQuire  1:02:16  
Yeah, I've had, I've had a few mentors. And actually, mentoring has been really important to me. And I've just been that weird person. i Well, my first mentor is this incredible Ratterree and one over a woman, Donna Marie, he's also the CEO of indigenous Allied Health Australia. And I remember seeing her speak once in it only took one time. And I think I was like, 20. And as soon as she got off the stage, I just bailed her up and said, Can you please mentor me? And then that's been about 10 years or so now? of mentoring. So yeah, I've had some really powerful mentors, but it's just been more of that informal one. So I've met someone and just, like seeing kind of how they think and Yeah, been been able to, to learn a lot from from a few people. Now.

Julia Zemiro  1:03:15  
I sometimes have had mentors who didn't even know they were my mentor. You know, this is someone you admire, and they're in your frame of reference, or maybe they're not even, but you just go Bob cheedo? Yeah, okay. Yeah, you know, this sort of, you kind of align with their system of beliefs, I guess. And you think, you know, like I said, he might be a great lecturer, or might be a great teacher, or even just a work colleague, and you think, yeah, no, she wouldn't. She wouldn't do that she wouldn't do that. And they don't even know. And then I remember years later, telling them and then going, Oh, thanks. You could have come up. And I'm like, Ah, now this. Mentoring just has you say it's touching base with with her and being able to say, I'm thinking of doing it this way. What do you reckon? You know?

Hayley McQuire  1:04:00  
Yeah. Yeah. And I've been really lucky that my mentors haven't just been for me individually, but they've kind of come in and mentored, like, a whole night crew. Well, we've been trying to think about strategy, you know, like, you're just volunteering their time to help with our strategic planning or like, help us understand a particular focus or topic, like I've been able to draw on those to really help set the foundations for the coalition as well, which is, I feel like, yeah, that's, that's also the best way to use mentoring is to it's like, it's like being able to draw on your own star advisory team to

Julia Zemiro  1:04:47  
really love a star advisory team. Finally, you know, this podcast is called who cares? And I'm trying to get people to kind of care a little bit more in there. Every day life, and there's no data can seem overwhelming. And if you did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you know, I mean, that's what that's what you're asking. But it's just saying, I guess, make a little bit more effort in your own life to challenge your own thinking or challenge your own habits or challenge, what you think is absolutely true. You know, that is the truth. And that well, is it? Because I also think that when we go to this next election, could it be December? Could it be March? Who knows? We don't know. But um, we're voting on lots of things. That way, we're not just voting on climate change, we're voting on how we want to be represented what we want to see. And I keep talking about the election as being like an exam people should study for, you know, you can't be going in there going, God, I didn't look anything up, I've got no idea who anyone is, you want to go in there and make good decisions about, you know, what, who you gonna vote for? And why. But in terms of this new way of looking at education, how can what can what can a person do? Like? What's the way do you start with your local community? Do you is it about donations, you know, I think everyone should be donating some money if they can, and be, you know, be smart about where you put that money, do something good with it,

Hayley McQuire  1:06:15  
I'd say like, just think about, you know, education, to me is all about legacy, you know, like, you know, like you think about just even the different things that you get passed down to you within like a family kind of unit, it might be a particular meal that everyone cooks, or, you know, there's something that you do every time, you know, New Year's rolls around. Like, the what we teach, and the values we teach young people is a form of L legacy, you know, you hardly ever meet someone who can't recall their favorite teacher or can't recall a particular moment that they had at school. You know, education is just so powerful in shaping individuals and shaping our society. And so my call to action would be to look at, you know, how the who's going to invest in education, but what kind of education? Do you want an education that only serves to, that seems to be in service to some kind of political ideology? Or do you want to invest in an education that is caring about young people, and caring about young people's futures, because that is ultimately our future that we're, that we're all going to be betting on. So

Julia Zemiro  1:07:45  
it's interesting, because when you speak of those traditions, you know, white folks love their traditions of having gone to this school, and I want my son to go to this school, and then my grandson will go to this school, you know, there's this sense of, you know, and there was some English background, whereas apparently, we're not allowed to celebrate the traditions and in your culture. And if yours are so important one, then why isn't an indigenous Torres Strait Islander? That's just as important to you clearly want that. So why don't you allow it in another? And in fact, why not maybe learn about it and be part of it. And I guess, you know, if they can be a Montessori school, and they can be a Steiner School, you know, you know, where people have said, I don't like the way things are done. So we want these separate kind of schools where they do different things where often it is a more experiential way of learning, actually going outside, be more, there's, there's room for it, I just, I really think we're at a point at the moment where we are going to have to do some things so differently, and the change will have to come faster, because it has to come faster. And it's just wondering if people have the courage to do it. And where do you get excited about stop seeing this downside of it? See the upside of it, you know?

Hayley McQuire  1:08:59  
Yeah, I agree. I think this is the time where we can actually be asking the people who want to lead this country, what their vision is

Julia Zemiro  1:09:09  
here and have one, why not have a vision, please have a

Dan Ilic  1:09:13  
vision. Julissa Mira asks, Who cares?

Julia Zemiro  1:09:16  
Yes, let's have a vision. Leaders with vision. So we want what we want a bit more than that. Thank you so much, to Haley and to Cory, for doing the podcast this number two out of six podcasts in the next few months, I really have been reflecting on this notion that we are going to have to make some very, very significant changes in terms of climate in terms of wanting to reconcile with the indigenous people of this country to education, you know, how can we look at change as a good thing? How can we look at change as a necessary thing? We have to make so many of them at the moment and Finding a way to maybe switch our thinking to the good that can come out of it, how it called bind us together another the things that will separate us. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Hey, see you next month. Thanks for joining me.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:13  
Bye

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