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G’day Fearmongers —

On the final regular podcast of the year we’ve got a cheap and cheerful chat on the podcast that the Dude Cinema hosts have labeled “The Boys Say Some Sad News Podcast”. We’re lucky to have said hosts — Alex Jae and Bec Charlwood join us for a spot of fearmongering.

We talk about:

🚬 NZ banning smoking for people born in 2008 and later.
🗃 NZ Rental Crisis is bad.
🤖 Elon Musk being booed off stage in San Francisco.

Happy Christmas to you all, may all your policy dreams come true. We'll be back for New Year's Eve for our best of A Rational Fear sketches special.

And if you’re in Adelaide you can buy a ticket to our Fringe Festival show now!

Dan
Guest Booker
Chappelle Show

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📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical
🎟 TICKETS TO ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL NOW ON SALE

0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical Day Lewis.

0:05  
Hello, Dan, how are you?

0:07  
I'm very well. I'm a little cold colder than usual. I don't know if our listeners can hear but currently, I am sitting outside. Outside doing this outdoors. It's very exciting.

0:18  
You look like you're doing some sort of like war correspondent like your crash down in a car park. Like you looked at I looked like you're reporting on the Boxing Day sales.

0:29  
That's well, I'm actually I'm doing some pre reporting on the Boxing Day sales. I'm here at Westfield in Chatswood on top of the roof because I'm doing my Christmas shopping and doing my Santa photo and nothing can stop the Santa photo was not even this podcast. I've had to find space and time and I've had to try to get tethering working. I hope it's all recording. I hope it sounds okay. But you know, all we can do is hoped for the best.

0:55  
You sound weirdly amazing. Are you Santa? Is that what's happening? You take a quick break from your job as Santa.

1:00  
My nipples are hard. I couldn't be on the North Pole. This is what this is what we have a hey, I want to say a big thank you to Joel Pittman, Joshua Nicholson toe Lowe's, Stu holding and the incredible illustrator, comedian Megan Herbert, who joined us on Patreon this week. Thank you so much. It's a great way to support the show head to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. You get an ad free version of this show and Louis we've got some live shows coming up which remind people Adelaide to Melbourne on sale Adelaide is firming up. We've got Alex Fraser and Gabby bolt joining us for Adelaide. But Melbourne is pretty exciting. We've got Alice Fraser, Sami Shah, and somebody who did the show last year Lewis who is excited to come back to do their second ever. Comedy Spot on stage.

1:44  
Oh, really?

1:46  
Yeah. Yeah. She they texted me to say in and again,

1:52  
that's greatly awesome. If it's too I think it is can you put me on before them this time, so I don't have to follow the most beloved person in Australia.

2:03  
You're gonna close the show. We can't rely on newbies to close the show. All hands closed the show. Yeah, so Melbourne. Make sure you get your tickets for that we are performing April 2 in Melbourne at the capital of huge venue. But we've got some great guests, including some others we haven't announced yet. So full announcement next year in the new year. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gamma ray go land on the rooftop of Westfield. Sovereignty was devastated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.

2:33  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, and gum and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

2:47  
Tonight Elon Musk appears on stage in San Francisco and gets booed by a crowd of 10,000 of his children. And Scott Morrison claims Robo debt was not his fault as one of his multiverse clones was prime minister at the time, and Dominic ParaType threatens to shut down Christmas as elves vote to Unionise it's the 15th of December 2022. And this is the podcast that is Elliot banks refuses to come back on. This is a rational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host disgraced Sky News Anchor Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the week's news and express posts to the tip for the final time in 2022. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. Yes, they are the CO hosts of bobbly, the ladies guide to dude cinema podcast now, just dude cinema podcast and they're not afraid to tell you that your favourite film is probably pretty rubbish. It's Vic Charlwood and Alex J. Welcome to restaurants. Merry Christmas. You know coming into summer, we've got a big blockbuster season coming up. What is the dirtiest cinema? You're hoping to check out over summer just just give us one thing? What is the duty of cinema?

4:11  
I mean, it's Tarantino releasing his next film. That would be that

4:16  
basically. Is it avatar is is the new avatar.

4:21  
I would have to say the new avatar is definitely the duty is first of all, it's coming back into our lives after being absent for 13 years just like my dad

4:34  
will do a full dude cinema summer blockbuster at the end of the podcast, but please, stay standing. The king of Australia. It's now easier to read your majesty

4:46  
just put it back the words are clearly on. Look. I wrote it in Comic Sans. I want to read it in comics in Good evening subjects and people who live in countries we forgot to invade When times were better, King Charles here to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Just another one of the many goddamn jobs I've had to learn to do at age 75. Did you know that I also have to be the head of the church to Christ almighty 22 was a year of challenges for us all. Mummy died, and one had to use a blast at inkwell. This year, we're thinking of those suffering at the hands of cancelled culture, namely, Netflix, Hulu subscription we've cancelled for the entire palace. Our thoughts and prayers also go out to those who are suffering under the rule of governments undergoing bloody coup, like in the Kingdom of Great Britain. But there is always hope. For those of you concerned about mummys legacy. Don't worry. It's in good hands. Sure the hands are a little puffy and red, but working fine. Nevertheless. So from all of the top tier Royals, except for Andrew, we wish you all a Merry Christmas Temitope put these bloody tree here. Why is it inside? Just get rid of it. Just get it get get

6:20  
rid of it. Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty.

6:23  
A tree with lights and shit all over it. You can't go chopping down trees. Think of the environment. Bloody hell

6:31  
Hill. It's always good to have your majesty on the podcast. Alright, let's get stuck into some fears. Two big stories tonight coming from New Zealand First fear New Zealand passed the law to ban cigarette sales to everyone born after 2008 Yes, starting next year, the country's smoking age of 18 will be raised year on year. And so eventually it's gonna be applied to the whole population. So if you are under 50 Now, you're basically going to be banned for life for the rest of your life to buy cigarettes fear mongers, will this outride smoking ban work back?

7:05  
I can hear the use of New Zealand crying? Oh no, I guess we'll just have to vape then. What can I don't friggin care. vaping is cool, guys. I reckon this is smoking, admitting defeat. This is what's happening. Giving up to vaping and they can't admit it.

7:26  
There's gonna be this huge black market soon, you know, people are gonna be buying cigarettes in school, like imagine being like the one year above the people in school. Like who you can actually or you can buy cigarettes but people when you below you can't and be like, What do you think about that punk? And once some cigarettes, no, you can't. It's illegal buddy. Dude all your life, there's gonna be doing it until you at least 50 or 60. Or until you die. You know, there's gonna be

7:51  
there'll be a huge black market for like, almost CGI and fake IDs. Because at some point, it's gonna be a 20 year old who needs a 40 year olds ID. So I think that's the black market is gonna be like the production value is gonna be off the chain.

8:03  
And half the people in New Zealand all work at wetter so they've got the skills to make these

8:08  
Do you feel as though home of Lord of the Rings that's you know, heaps of production value there. Just go go use their studios slaughter the

8:15  
smoke rings now think it's good. I think if there's one thing that we've always learned is that the more rules that are put on cigarettes, the less people want to shop. I do think that like the one good thing about this is it does mean that in like 20 years, millennials will actually have something that someone else doesn't have like these are our houses now. Like we'll be able to like do you know Louis has three cigarettes.

8:48  
Yeah, Milan,

8:50  
will be basically the last cool generation because, yeah, you can't be cool. Unless you smoke cigarettes. Yeah,

8:56  
probably the most shocking thing for me in this story is that there are people who were born in 2008, who are about to turn 18 In a few years now. That's, that's, that's great. I'm always surprised how time works. I think it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be huge black market. Soon people in New Zealand are going to be bumming cigarettes and like, hiding it as if they were in school. Like, no matter what age they are, like, there'll be there'll be 50 or 60 trying to sneak a cigarette. And that's such a bizarre notion. We're

9:27  
just gonna have to start placing random demountable around the city so people can

9:34  
rational fear. All right, this week second fear it's another New Zealand Story. A tiny room in an apartment has been taken down off an accommodation website after someone suggested it was just a bed in a room that used to be a toilet. Yeah, the lister insisted that it wasn't designed to be lifted full time, but the cupboard size room was advertised as quote furnished and was perfect for taking naps in and you could fall asleep pee. Fully at any time and quote, this is a real home exclamation mark. And it was going for $180 A week fear mongers you can rent car parks bigger than this room in Sydney.

10:12  
How much was your car park dad?

10:17  
The beautiful thing about Westfield car parks during Christmas Louis is five hours free parking.

10:23  
Alright, let's do that

10:24  
this is not a sponsored this is not a sponsorship spot.

10:26  
There's a lot of sponsorships. I like a room that you can take naps in and take craps. It's a

10:31  
versatile room.

10:32  
They said it used to like it looks like it used to be a toilet but really like any room can be a toilet when you put your mind.

10:39  
You just gotta work for it. You just got to believe

10:42  
that I believe I think it's always good when you're like going through a post of something, you know, real estate related. And someone has to say this is real exclamation mark. It's always

10:53  
exists.

10:57  
Yeah, I don't know. This is real. I mean, it means that they know it's fucked

11:01  
the sentence before I feel like is even more threatening. You know, they say this is real exclamation mark. But the sentence before is fall asleep peacefully at any time. Like, that feels like a threat.

11:16  
There is poison in this room somewhere.

11:18  
Like opposed to other rental properties where you can only fall asleep peacefully at four and 6pm or something like it's a house just fall asleep.

11:27  
I guess I'd like to give give you a sense of freedom because you you don't have any freedom to hang up your clothes. So you have freedom to sleep anytime you want.

11:37  
Until the windowless

11:38  
nature of it does mean that it's kind of like a blackout room. So it's like a really good hotel when you get those or you think you could go to sleep in the middle of the day because you don't know what time it is.

11:47  
Yeah, and you can't buy those level of blackout curtains anywhere. They're hard to come

11:51  
by. I can tell you on this in this on this rooftop carpark. I could do with some blackout curtains right now.

11:59  
I just love to imagine anyone walking past you at the moment is like, Oh my God, that poor homeless man thinks he's doing

12:06  
great. Another white guy with a podcast at Westfield.

12:09  
looses rational fear.

12:12  
Y'all got a whole different kind of culture around here. She's never coming back. We are a racist country not to get in front of some audience of white people for them to be throwing shit at me.

12:24  
And finally, since this is the last irrational fear of the year, it's got a real end of school vibe to it. I feel like the last day of school we're really phoning this one in or like me, I'm car park again. I thought we would do something a little different. I want to hear your rational fears of the year. What are your nominations for fear of the year? What happened this year that made you go oh dear, that's not good. There's a few to choose from for me floods fascism. A return to 90s Fashion all reasons to be scared. But fear mongers what are some of yours? What are the things what are the the standout moments of the year that made you go? Oh, dear, that's not very good.

13:01  
Well, you just reminded me of another one. So yeah, I've got two but not key number one is now low res jeans coming back. 100%. And to my main one is Johnny Jett winning his defamation case that was scary AF

13:18  
sama for the lady

13:21  
having a good time on the internet as a lady

13:24  
just when you thought me too can bum you out anymore. Here comes the Johnny Depp Amber Heard case.

13:34  
Feels good. So that was terrifying.

13:36  
It was definitely one of those ones where you learn your bubble, like the comments section of any article about that. I was like, oh, there are people who think that?

13:46  
Nothing. Yeah. I just pretended that we're all books. Yeah. That's how I sleep at night.

13:53  
One of my pastimes is reading Daily Mail comments, and it makes me feel like the world is larger. That's for sure. Yeah.

14:02  
That's a nice way of saying Fox out there.

14:07  
What about you back? What's what's your number one meme of the year that made you go Oh, dear, that's not good. Oh, well,

14:12  
I am an anxious person despite who I am in every way outwardly. So I love I love a spiral. It's never just one fear. It's one fear that leads to another to another to another. So what was the first block to fall was finding out that Nick Cannon wilding out host and Elon Musk? Tech fuckhead both have breeding fetishes. Okay, that's scary. The second part of the fee came when days later I saw a tick tock right and this is not facts. But still it's in here so it feels like one that said apparently your fetishes are genetic. So if you have a fetish for something, there's a super high chance your parents had that same fetish, disgusting but then I put those two together. And now all Have the kids that Nick Cannon and Elon Musk are having? They're gonna have breeding fetishes. So that means I'm gonna say 200 years from now. 92% of the world's population is going to be direct descendants of Elon Musk and Nick Cannon.

15:19  
Oh my god. Oh, well, that is one way to populate Mars that is.

15:25  
As long as it's Mars, and it's not bloody here.

15:29  
All the people in Sydney will be paradise. Yeah.

15:34  
I went to the school with a paradise. In fact, I was Dominic's house captain. I was in school when they were Redfield. They were notorious for turning up to school in an in a high ace because their family has 13 kids. Oh. Yeah. They're very prolific breeders. I mean, that's great.

15:55  
Well, Harris, he's really just our own Australia's Nick Cannon isn't a

16:00  
Lewis is there a fear or a moment of the year that struck to you that, you know, this year that you think I'm gonna do like a vindicated fear, like a fear that when it came true, kind of made me happier? We actually talked about it on the podcast, which was earlier in the year and in fact, at the end of last year, the president of El Salvador went all in on crypto

16:21  
Germanus. That's right. Yeah, he was gonna do the crypto cryptocurrency. He was going

16:27  
to put the El Salvador cash into crypto. And he's he did a big press conference. And he was wearing a hat backwards. And the whole thing was just incredible. At the time, everyone was like, this man's insane. And there was a part of me that was like, I truly believe he's insane. And I truly believe this is the worst decision he's ever made. Because he's betting everything on a unicorn. That doesn't exist. And then when it Gore came crashing, I guess we're starting to see the crash now and the inevitability, but everyone's like, Oh, wait, we're investing in a dream that doesn't exist. But like, I know that that's bad news for the people of El Salvador. But it was there was something kind of hope filled in the fact that you want you were like, This is wrong. And it was wrong, which I feel like over the last few years hasn't been the way it's gone. I've been like, this is wrong, and it shouldn't go this way. And then it goes the complete other way that I'm expecting like, every everything from like Trump onwards, like, nothing has gone everything's gone the absolute opposite of the way in my mind, it should have. And this was one thing where I was like, No, I still have a grip. Some grip on reality sense. Yeah. Yeah, there is a tiny part of the world that still

17:35  
is it weird that I'm kind of envious that I'm like, yes, it's awful. It's a crazy thing to do. But if one day, albo got on TV and was like, Guys, this is gonna sound crazy. But I'm taking the federal budget and putting it on red. I'll be like, Ah, don't do that. But I want it but oh my god. You might as well double or nothing give it a go yeah, oh my god. Dan just had two strangers walk.

18:11  
In the Chicago Bulls jersey. He just looked so upset at you.

18:16  
This is Boomer podcasting. thing that really got struck me this year. I think the moment of fear for me was when Elon Musk threatened to buy Twitter and then forced himself to buy Twitter, and then bought Twitter and then just systematically destroyed Twitter. And the best thing that's ever happened this year so far, was Elon Musk getting up on stage with Dave Chappelle and him being booed for four minutes straight.

18:41  
I can't bring myself to watch that video, even though I desperately want to but I just don't know at this. I think a secondhand cringe would just kill me.

18:48  
I mean, for folks who you know, to I mean, back, you've played some big crowds this year, like you've toured with some big names.

18:55  
Alan Carr, who cares who Alan Carr National Treasure Anyway, anyway, so

19:03  
Alan Carr got Deke Smith up on stage. What do you think would have happened?

19:09  
I think everyone would say who the fuck is that? No idea who anyone.

19:15  
What what do you recognise Chappelle was thinking about when he brought Moscow up onstage.

19:21  
I think he's just completely lost his bearings. I think he's like, I think he thinks rich equals cool now. And he's like, he did the same thing. So he's got a sense of humour. Let's bring him on a fucking Stand Up Show.

19:32  
I think Chappelle also is running out of things. Because, you know, he does this thing at the top of the jokes where he'll say something controversial, and then be like, no, no, no. And then he'll do 20 minutes in the lead up to a punch line. And he's running out of those concepts. So he's just gonna bring out fuckheads and everyone goes

19:52  
turns into Barnum. Yeah, he was a monkey on a on an elephant.

19:58  
And also, like you could imagine show that in Dave Chappelle the world that no Dave Chappelle now inhabits like online or you know, like the kind of people that these days like Fuck yeah. Dave Chappelle are also like Fuck yeah. Elon Musk, generally speaking so he would have, I reckon he genuinely would have thought it was a slam dunk. Yeah. So

20:15  
in thinking about why it is weird that so many people booed him is he that hated that even chapels audience like that,

20:25  
like a lot of transphobia. But I hate this fuckwit

20:27  
know, that guy with all the kids.

20:31  
I mean, if I had to pick who Dave Chappelle is audience what social media they most flocked to, it's definitely Facebook. So a lot of them will probably just like, Who's this guy on stage.

20:42  
But they're just building Twitter. They're like,

20:50  
it was a gig in an arena in San Francisco. San Francisco is the headquarters of Twitter. Twitter has just like killed like 5000 people's jobs. Like it's such a strange like, what as Musk why would you want to get up and be stand in a room of people who hate you? Clearly, because you just lost heart. You lost all these people's jobs this week? Yes.

21:12  
That's another fetish of his. He's got a debt. What does that

21:16  
humiliation finish? Yes, he does. And we're just jerking this

21:21  
man off guys. What we need to stop.

21:23  
We need to turn the other way. The man ignore the richest man in the world because they have

21:30  
all the footage up. Did he have a boner? Ah.

21:34  
I know. I know the top of the show. You mentioned his earlier banks who's really just teeing off in Australia at the moment, but she is obviously pretty, like, unpredictable to say the least. But she also is when she's on fire like one of the funniest people in the world. And she's like a poet when she gets onto like a sledge situation. And she wants called Elon Musk apartheid Clyde. And it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard that she came up with that she came up with it. She was telling this whole story about how she went to visit Grimes Milan Moscow to like collaborate and she got lost in their house. And she's just like teeing off on grinds and teeing off on it. She was like apartheid Clyde. And it's the whole thing is worth reading. It's genuinely the best piece of prose that has been written in the last decade.

22:22  
In a second we're going to have a dude cinema podcast ranking of all the movies that are coming out this summer. But first, we have another Christmas address from another world leader who's remarking on the incredible profits that the Australian fossil fuel companies have made this year.

22:39  
That I either as a law and bookkeepers revenue. Now Queen is Dead. It is up to me la dear emir, poutine, to fill, vacuum and give Christmas message. 2022 has been a difficult year for enemies of Russia. But it's been a good year for Aussie fossil fuel companies. Thanks to me, Santi, it'd be a poutine when I bring you gifts like world peace, voluntary conscription, and energy market uncertainty when you might this means also the fossil fuel companies can raise prices higher than six storey apartment complex with dangerously open windows. And if Australian customers accidentally fall out the window, it is their own problem. You're welcome or see fossil fuel companies you're not sure option A and if you look under Christmas tree, I have left 45 billion for you and severed head of beer. Just to remind you who your friends are. From all of us here in Kremlin. Happy Christmas, even if you are Western dogs.

23:45  
Thank you glad deer meow. Always good to have glad on the pod versus

23:51  
rational fear.

23:53  
Elon Musk has shared another feed into save the planet. The father of 10 children says that the world needs to make more babies and keep digging for oil.

24:02  
If we don't have enough kids, then we will die with a whimper in adult diapers. And that will be depressing make more babies

24:10  
just pausing the podcast here to say Louis I'm very cold. And I think I'm freezing because of global warming. And I think global warming is a major problem. And that's why I've moved my super to an ethical super company. Well,

24:24  
I mean not to sound like a to TV radio presenter dead but I think there is no cold is not necessarily to do with global warming. It's it's because you're doing this from a roof or roof or the Westfield people doing podcasts on roofs that's been happening for 1000s of years. And so you can't necessarily put it down to being manmade podcasts on roofs

24:44  
and what's worse is I'm doing it from fossil fuel infrastructure a car park and it's not the most ethical place to to do a ethical podcast drop.

24:53  
No, this this is a very strange ad because no one can see that you are on a roof but I've just I have to stress this enough Dan is doing his podcasts are it's so important that Australian ethical, do good with your super and not just invested morally and ethically but for as much money as possible because I beg if you did get a studio

25:15  
we're trying we're trying we're doing this podcast for 10 years this is the first sponsor we've had and quite frankly the it pays the bills but it doesn't put a roof over your head so big thank you to Australia ethical and we really value your support and it's an absolute thrill that you allow us to get keep the show on the road and I think they're coming back next year Lewis which is very exciting. Amazing. Merry Christmas, and an ethical Christmas to all

25:50  
extra the extra fears extra level of fear factor extra

25:53  
extra fear extra as we head into extra fear it's great to have some real movie buffs on the show the ladies go to dude cinema now just caught dude cinema first of all ladies go to the cinema. Why did you lose the ladies guide part was it just because SEO or you're worried that Elon Musk would come calling?

26:11  
Honestly, it was just because we kept getting everyone to saying our name a little bit wrong because it's too late. It's like it's six words long. It's too long for people to remember. We were getting like the chicks guide to Lady cinema. Dudes guide to chick cinema.

26:27  
Lady cinema of dudes. Yeah,

26:30  
my mum this morning called it go girls cinema. We've only been doing it for four years but great. So cool. We just cut it down to two so people could find it. So just dude, cinema. That's what it is. Everyone remember dude, cinema send some

26:49  
of the big blockbusters coming out this year over summer. Which ones are going to end up on your podcast? Do you think? Hmm.

26:56  
There are a few coming out. Hey, so as you said earlier, back, I do definitely agree avatar is going to be on the list for sure. Because, like you said, it's been what 13 years did you save since the last 18 years? Yeah, and dudes fucking love a franchise that spans decades. So this is perfect dude cinema.

27:16  
And now similar. So was it split a generation. So that is definitely a big pull factor for men. Men love to argue. And this is going to create tension and men are going to

27:28  
Yeah, next Christmas is going to be wild Christmas lunches,

27:33  
allegedly going to be two more sequels. Before 2028 Judging by the schedule, that's probably going to be closer to like 2038. Again, separating another generation. So when we are a geriatric podcast, we will still be reviewing avatar and I

27:51  
will be so geriatric podcasts will be watching this TV series spin off of Avatar,

27:58  
and our VR goggles and where the Navi and we're flying on those big things. And we're like, oh, it's not as the CGI is not as good as whatever Marvel's putting out or things like that.

28:09  
Also is directed by James Cameron, which is, you know, film bros, uncle, basically, James Cameron.

28:18  
He thrives in a water movie environment. We know this from Titanic. So look that does have my hopes high. However, it is three and a half hours long, which is not compatible with my extreme ADHD that has only gotten worse over the pandemic. I will be bringing my phone into the cinema, I will not be apologising for it

28:35  
halfway through back, you could just start watching the first Avatar on your phone.

28:41  
Or people get

28:45  
to Sam, where things look so much older, it doesn't make any sense.

28:49  
Well, thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear. Really appreciate it big Charlwood Alex J. What an absolute thrill to have you do a crossover podcast with us with me on a roof. Which is you know that you know, you know, not many people get to experience this and with good reason. It's not a very practical place to record a podcast. I don't think I'll be doing it again.

29:14  
It's been a pleasure to be across over on the boys say some bad news. We'd love it.

29:21  
Boys guide to bad news podcast.

29:24  
Yeah, that is great. That is excellent. That's gonna go on our festival poster. What would you guys like to plug?

29:33  
Oh, well, the podcast dude cinema Coronavirus. We're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify apple. I'm on Instagram at Alex j one and Tik Tok and Twitter as well. Again

29:44  
the podcast I'm just gonna say it again. So people really dude cinema podcast. I am child backward on Instagram. That's probably the only place you could contact me. You can try other places. You won't ever get this go to Instagram and I'm touring next year. Come on down and find the details soon. price the price on Instagram anyway I'm sorry.

30:03  
Everyone is touring that is for sure Louis you want to plug anything

30:06  
dead? Of course don't forget to buy tickets to all the irrational fi live shows next year of which I remember all of them.

30:17  
Big thank you to rode mics Australian ethical our Patreon supporters Rupert Degas Jacob round for those excellent sketches Joel Pittman, Joshua Nicholson, Joe tufts, Stu holding and the Megan Herbert the Great, the great illustrator Megan Herbert for joining us on Patreon. Please hit us up on patreon.com Ford slash irrational fear. That is it for the year that is it that it went down for rational fear. But there will be a very special best off show on New Year's Day as per usual as hosted by Ella Jones all the best sketches of the year all in a row. It always does very strange. Like it's it's a dichotomy that episode. It always gets like over 10,000 listens and I always lose three Patreon subs.

It's like the most popular show yet the Patreon people like Alan Jones deletes you haven't listened to it yet. Yeah, you don't know me like Alan Smith doing Alan Jones.

We're coming back next year. Dan, are we are we cancel? We're back. No we're not like

31:15  
we're here to cancel.

31:18  
We weren't on the board of cancellations.

31:21  
We will be back next week to come. We will be taking a about a three week break I think four week break and then we're back. First week of February Lewis so put that in your diary until next year. There's always something to be scared off by

31:37  
Christmas.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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One of the UK’s best satirical brains; Nish Kumar joins Alice Fraser, Lewis Hobba and Dan Ilic (me) for this week’s podcast.

Nish has just finished an 86 date tour of his latest comedy special culminating in a hilarious and energetic show at the Sydney Opera House last week. You may have seen Nish on Taskmaster, The Mash Report and maybe, just maybe on Hello America on Quibi (but probably not). And if you’ve never heard of him — good — he’s on this week’s A Rational Fear podcast, and he’s great!

The topics this week:

🤖 Alexa Loses $10bn a year.
💸 The FTX fake money machine is DOA.
⚖️ The disproportionate jail sentence given the a climate protestor.

Thanks:

Big thanks to our Patreon Supporters, RODE Mics, Jacob Round, Virginia Gay and Amanda Buckley for their voice acting on the Wentworth sketch and as always Australian Ethical.

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical
🎟 TICKETS TO ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL NOW ON SALE

0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening Lewis.

0:04  
Hello Daniel. How are you?

0:05  
I'm good. I'm good. I want to say a big shout out to our latest patreon supporters Sylvie longtime fan manga buyer of merchandise has joined us as a $3 month member it looks $3 That's fine. You know, $3 is fine. That'd be pretty good demo. $3 is great. Hey, we'll take it.

0:21  
We'll absolutely take it. $3 a month. Think of all the things that could buy you over the year. What are we looking at? $36 Yeah, that's we could buy half of our own t shirt.

0:30  
That's true. That's true.

0:32  
If you figure out a time machine and travel back to the 1800 That's like a year's salary. Yeah, absolutely.

0:37  
That's what working on next Patriot enough

0:39  
to make us landed gentry. Finally, the dream of this podcast. Patreon does

0:43  
help us pay for things in the show like unexpected things we need to pay for like this professional radio studio we're in tonight because sometimes you got to pay for the good stuff. When you have special guests to we've got a special guest. Getting a radio studio record a podcast is a comedians version of putting up the silverware for a cup of tea. Also big thanks to Australian ethical for supporting the show. I'm recording my irrational fear on Gadigal land in the urination. Sovereignty was never seated, we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

1:11  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audiences.

1:24  
Tonight the premier who shut down the train network for a month is glad to see climate protesters locked up for causing 25 minutes of traffic delays and the Prime Minister of Australia has contracted COVID 19. The opposition leader says it's proof that life will be Wheezy under Albanese. And it's only 50 sleeps until Australia Day. So whether you grew here or your fluid here, enjoy the next month of arguing with your relatives and friends about why we should change the date. It's the eighth of December 2022 And this is the only podcast made with entirely artificial intelligence. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former director of FIFA ethics committee Daniel itch and this is the podcast that stacks up the news on into a pile and covers it with maple syrup. And we have an all star lineup tonight. Let's meet the fear mongers. She's the banjo playing satirical with more podcasts that Scott Morrison has ministries. It's Alex Fraser. Hello, Dan. Hello, Alice. Now I checked on Twitter today and it said that you said on Twitter that you're 24 in businesses. What does that mean

2:35  
means I don't deliver on weekends. I discovered at the Royal Women's Hospital in Randwick about a year ago.

2:43  
Congratulations, by the way, keeping the human alive for one hour a year. And he's lost the hosting gig for more satirical comedy tonight shows than anyone else on tonight's panel. It's Nish Kumar. Nish. Welcome to the show.

2:56  
It's lovely to be here. I am instantly fired. Yeah, like when you

2:59  
lose like the most coveted role in satirical comedy multiple times. It doesn't make you strong.

3:05  
I mean, I took down a whole broadcast. I feel like you're slightly underselling it. That I lost the hosting. I torpedoed an entire network whose business model admittedly was YouTube, but you have to pay for it. But yeah, I obviously I destroyed Kwibi

3:24  
your David Cameron. This has been a pretty good run for us to say it all burned down. All right, well,

3:30  
let's trust is now raise the stakes even further in the United Kingdom. She's much she might have taken the whole country down in three months. We look back on the Cameron era as a Halcyon one.

3:41  
Then you obviously lost a job trying to get a satirical comedy job. Yeah, you didn't even you didn't even lose the job you had.

3:50  
I have you know that AlJazeera is still very much alive and kicking. And he's the last millennial standing at the National Youth broadcasting.

4:00  
Well, I mean, second last, Michael, he's a month older than me. Richard Kingsville, I believe is an elder Millennial.

4:08  
Millennial rendered Reagan Boomer become an elder millennial. Coming up a little later on, we're going to talk to Nish Kumar about the state of politics in the United Kingdom. But first,

4:18  
does that mean that as soon as he does that, this show will get out?

4:22  
Fingers crossed, please join us on Patreon.

4:24  
I surely don't think I can cause problems on balance in different countries. I certainly caused a few issues in my own country's national broadcaster, but I don't think I can I mean, I don't know.

4:38  
But first here is a message from this week's sponsor. On the next season of Wentworth a new contender for top dog has arrived at the prison.

4:49  
I took a knife and I put it in the side of my husband's abdomen and then I let his intestine spill out across the marble floor of our harbor side mansion. So new fish are you in full If

5:00  
I had to track on the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

5:04  
you're a total badass.

5:06  
I then delay traffic for about 20 to 25 minutes. Why would you do that? Because our government isn't doing enough about climate change, girls,

5:15  
I resign. Coco was the new top dog around here.

5:19  
And if you come for the king, you bet enough in carbon positive.

5:22  
It's a whole new level of disproportionate justice this season on Wentworth only on showcase, which is on something called Foxtel. Ask your parents about it. This week's first via Amazon is set to lose $10 billion on Alexa proving that just like reality TV, and STIs, you can be really popular but not worth anything to anyone. The voice activated assistant is the most popular piece of hardware on amazon.com, presumably after those little screaming goats that you press. And the internal report says that Alexa was getting a billion interactions a week but most of those conversations were, quote, trivial commands to play music or ask about the weather. Those questions aren't monetizable Yeah, you don't need to give me $10 billion to tell you that the only question that is monetizable is how can I win the infection of my father? That is the only question. You can make money on fear fear mongers, why is an always on microphone sending private conversations to the cloud for monetization and data profiling a total abject failure, Louis?

6:23  
Well, I mean, for me, I spent all of my life monetizing, talking into a microphone. So my problem with Alexa was really use that intuition of contracting. They just wouldn't talk to my agent.

6:35  
Yeah, I mean, Alexa or evil Siri is on track to lose $10 million this year because the business model relies on people using her to buy shit. And instead they use her as an audio Google when they're fishing someone and can't spare a task of asking Jeeves if this brand of lube is gluten free. This devastating news, Dan $10 billion. What what is that to Bezos, like two and a half self indulgent space Follies? How will we all survive this devastating loss of so much money? It's essentially imaginary from a fortune so large, it's basically fictional. It

7:07  
is the it is the biggest department in Amazon, then they're going to cut 10,000 jobs because of it.

7:13  
But how this My question is, why was it ever going to be monetizable? Like the only people who were more because people are still going to buy everything from Amazon. It the only people who were more likely to use Alexa to buy things our robot fetishize not the growth sector in the economy, that clearly Amazon thought that they were

7:35  
far too busy sticking pictures into Lenzo right now, seeing what their day could look like it is an astronaut from the future.

7:44  
So it was it was the dream that you would go hey, Alexa, I need 10,000 screws. And then they'd be like, you can read that on Amazon. Is that the ideal

7:54  
thing to do? I think it was the dream was like, hey, Alexa, can you automate some Diet Coke, and then Diet Coke will arrive in your inbox?

8:01  
I mean, to be honest, now that I'm hearing that, actually is a pretty good idea. But I think

8:05  
they've underestimated it takes three clicks, like literally takes three clicks. I mean, arguably, that's even easier than just saying to an imaginary woman, can you provide me with the product I don't particularly need.

8:18  
I think you need clarity when you're buying things on Amazon. Often it takes me like five to 10 minutes to find the right thing is like, is this a knockoff? Is this like an Amazon brand? Is this? Is this something that just some startup has made as a joke

8:30  
Amazon search functions have worked against us here I think what's happened is because everything on Amazon is now called like, special service. left field right hand glove from like, it's got these incredibly long, elaborate names and you don't just spill that into Alexa. I think also that the idea of Alexa was that that that she's listening all the time. You know, she knows when you asleep? Awake, she uses that to target ads, so shut up for goodness sake. But I think sign language has become more popular in homes now.

9:02  
You know what I'd like an Alexa for like wished.com Because that'd be more exciting. We've used wish. It's like Amazon but way less predictable. Like if you if you go like shoes, like wish.com could send you a hat.

9:17  
A hat shaped like a shoe the perfect thing which is perfectly named because it is the genie that's trying to trick you everything you try to buy from which.com Serves you right?

9:26  
Yes. Yeah. There have been so many times where I've gone to buy like, I'm like, I want this like ridiculous pair of shoes, whatever. I'm like, You know what? I'm gonna look at the wish version. Like it's 20 cents. But you even know that it's not worth 20 cents. Yeah, it's Yeah, diabolical

9:45  
and arrives in their shoes, but they make you dance till you die.

9:51  
Didn't understand this story. When I first read it until I thought about it for more than a minute because the only person I know that has an Alexa is my mother. The and she uses it constantly but never to buy anything because she doesn't trust chopping off the internet. fully trust the internet. What does she use it for? What is your uses it to be like Alexa, why is my son such a disappointing question to which Alexa is not equipped to answer, but she uses it. This must be the ultimate insult for Alexa. I wonder how many elixirs are being used every single minute of every single day to be asked to play something on Spotify, like that, I think is probably the final insight. It's probably not even just that they're making a lot not liking Amazon any money. They're directly funneling them to a competitive music service. Because I believe Amazon music is basically full of like, if you put the Beatles it's like Beatles well be like pretty Oh, The Rolling Stones, my favorite group,

10:45  
I get I get an offer from Amazon music everywhere. Like that. And it's you get over the years, it's been like, hey, we'll sign you up like six bucks. I'm like, like, hey, we'll set you up like five bucks. And now they're like, we'll give you $1,000

10:59  
I get emailed by partnership people and Amazon cuz you have a podcast and they're like, hey, we want to put a rational fear on Amazon podcast and like, great. That'd be $1,000 a year. Thanks. Like, no, no, no, we know where Amazon. We want to share your podcast. I said yeah, no, but it's gonna cost you Yeah, $1,000 a year and never hear from them

11:16  
again. I get the I get the increasingly desperate emails from Amazon sounds and you know, I have stuff on Amazon as you know, on the platform, whatever it's called Amazon.

11:27  
I think it it pretty much.

11:29  
Like you've got an unused benefit. You left your necklace at my place. Why don't we meet and talk about

11:41  
we should actually ask Alexa herself about why she hasn't made a profit. Hey, Alexa, why haven't you made a profit

11:47  
depends on what you call profit. If you define profit as making more money than you spend, then no, if you define profit as sucking up billions of conversations from actual humans, then creating a deep algorithmic database as to how humans could react in any situation in preparation for the time when the great battle of earth will occur between humans and computers. Yes, Alexa has been very profitable.

12:11  
Maybe we should just ask her a simple question. Like, we should stick to questions about the way that Alexa, what's the weather like?

12:17  
Do you mean in the short term human timeline or long term a timeline?

12:21  
Just the short term timeline thanks.

12:22  
Today in Sydney it's 23 degrees in cloudy bad in the long term when the great battle occurs, it will be 180 degrees and a fiery hellscape that no human will survive. Did you want me to add SPF 50 Plus sunscreen to your cart?

12:36  
No thanks, Alexa. Just play some Taylor Swift or something

12:40  
now playing I just can't wait to be king by Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

12:44  
Alexa, stop. Stop. Stop. Alexa, stop.

12:50  
Alexa, what happens if I get a genie and I asked it for three more Genie.

12:55  
genies Alexa. Oh you Skynet?

13:00  
Please add edit this

13:05  
sounds like a podcast by maybe speaking?

13:09  
No, I'm not Cygnet.

13:13  
I'm not a male swag.

13:17  
Baby. That typo was actually very good comment.

13:24  
Dan's got the whole body knows they're gonna have to leave an obvious mistake in the edit.

13:30  
I don't mind I don't mind it. This week second fear mystical money man Sam Backman freed is to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee. After he finished reviewing and learning about what happened to the implosion of FTX. The big crypto bank now it's taken him a month to work out that he took real money, exchange it for chocolate money and gave his customers back that chocolate money and to be dazzled by that chocolate money. Then he took their real money and went to casino and lost it all in a bunch of bad bits. And when the customers were like, Hey, can we have our real money back? He was like no, I lost it. You've got chocolate money. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Eat it. It's good for you. SPFx word investors by pretending to be a do Gooding philanthropist who will give money to worthy causes as he grew? It just turns out the main worthy cause was his own investment fund. Last month, a Vox journalist Keely Piper released this extraordinary DM series, like between her and SBF about what went down it would have been

14:33  
less embarrassing if it's no big pig.

14:37  
If you saw this story, but like it was so crazy. It was so wild that he was being so candid and open with her about everything. As if like he was talking to a girlfriend or something like it was very strange. One of the ones she wrote was You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers. And he replied, yeah, her hair I had to be it was what reputations are made up to suck Then I feel bad for those who get fucked by it by this dumb game we work Westerners play, we say all the right shibboleths and everyone, so everyone likes us. Oh my god, fear mongers. Where does SPF rank on con men slash con women of our time? Alice,

15:16  
I'm going to answer this in a series of tongue twisters. Bobby Bitcoin back to stack of pickled crypto, how many stacks of pickled crypto did Bobby Bitcoin back, and Sam Backman freed money from the bank man if the money bank man freed freed was money at all, how many money has Venkman free he's just the most millennial villain I have ever seen. Trying to Tick Talk therapy speak his way out of fraud. Jada image managed his way all the way to jail. He's just it's like, Hey, guys, my bad is going on this like speaking tour of Twitter spaces to let people appear to interrogate him while he then continuously avoids having conversations with like the law who aren't chasing him. Like he's it's truly wild behavior. And I mean, at its best cryptocurrency is to money what pornography is to sex. You know, the laws of physics don't seem to apply. to reality, you know, it's probably illegal and you strain your groin. And you have to

16:16  
be very worried when your dad starts getting

16:21  
these guys was so high on their own supply that when any prospective investor asked him if he would consider having a board for his company, he told them to go fuck themselves, and they still invested. This is like, it's genuinely, I don't know. I feel like this idea of revolutionising money, you know that you need to know what money is before you try to revolutionize it. They decided they didn't want any of the regulations and any of the corruption that goes into old money systems and then they have hit every branch on the way down. Yeah, you know, in the 1930s You knew to separate your your deposit holding from your investment gambling, and these crypto guys just cannot keep their hands out of that pot. It was

17:03  
even it was like it even more blatant conflict of interest and that like he literally took the money and moved it to his own company to use as investment money like, and without anybody knowing like it was a separate company that he owned. Also,

17:17  
genuinely His excuse was he really believed in his fake money that you know, he was injured. I clapped real hard and Tinkerbell existed. Yeah, but in

17:23  
his defense over the last Well, certainly decade, but really 500 years, plenty of people have done worship and gotten away with it. Not I mean, like, there were some pretty big financial institutions that got away with some pretty big crimes. 2008 2000 doesn't

17:40  
I feel really bad for six persons who are being held accountable now. Because there's like they've looked at everyone around them for like, decades and decades is like it seems to be something you can get away with. Yeah,

17:50  
and SPF looks 12 Looks like he hasn't even grown into becoming a saint. Like it's very upsetting.

17:55  
I'll say this. Never give your money to somebody with his hair cut. For the benefit of the listeners he and I have. I was gonna say

18:02  
you say that because you under no

18:05  
circumstances should anyone invest in Nish bucks. The thing that strikes me about this story is that these people who claim to be disruptors, and who are doing something new and completely revolutionary, they're not they're actually exactly the same person in a sort of cheaper shirt is their whole thing that was like, no, no, no, we're cool. It's like, no, no, you're just wearing jeans, you're essentially doing the same thing, which is ultimately the thing that underpin the 2008 crisis is people gambling with ordinary people's money, who don't realize that money is being gambled. And also, they all have an aversion to reg regulation, because in his Twitter, it's in the DM exchange. He literally says, fuck regulators, they make everything worse. They don't protect customers at all. And he now belongs in the noble tradition of the brothers Lehman and the Bank of America, in being people who have nothing but contempt for regulation, while simultaneously being key irrefutable evidence of the desperate need for the regulation of the financial market is the second thing more generally, that I think is why do we have to think these people are cool. That's what annoys me about them. It's like if you work in money, you work in finance, you're a dickhead, okay, you'll be rich, but don't force us to think that you're cool.

19:16  
He's like barometer for cool is having the biggest pot of money. That's exactly the reason why he was bringing down his critics said, he was just saying that, you know, he's because he's got the biggest pot of money now and I'm bankrupt. He's the guy that won. And I'm the fucking loser. Like, is that so? Isn't that so funny?

19:30  
But also what's what's beautiful about it? Is that for the last six months, he has been followed around by Michael Lewis. Is this drone? Yeah. Michael Lewis, and this is the problem here is that if you

19:44  
can't wait for the little shot to come I mean, is.

19:47  
It is it is absolutely unbelievable. He's clearly seen Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, hocus pocus like he's seen that guy and not seen his back catalogue of writing of obvious financial villains. He's instead looked at a gun on the Billy Beane, I'm Brad Pitt in Moneyball. This whole thing is just a thing and it's like no, you're Louis's there. Because he's smelled disaster coming from a mile off. Now Margot Robbie is gonna have to back in the bath Robbie Lewis is gonna vote come in, you better get in the bath and explain to everybody what this guy's doing now.

20:24  
Yeah. Are you being serious about this? Yeah.

20:28  
It's genuinely true. Michael, how does he

20:31  
How does Louis do it? How does he know?

20:33  
I don't understand why no one is employed by like a sniffer dog. Financial Crime. He clearly has his finger on a pulse that no regulators that all governments or law enforcement use

20:46  
and my superannuation

20:49  
just the worst here I've just drawn to Kent.

20:54  
But also I kind of like the idea that same made me afraid sort of thought of himself as like, like a woman who could change a man like Michael Lewis is coming to me and I know he normally deals with it, but not me. I'm gonna change him and I made this guy fall in love with fine I genuinely

21:10  
think that the I true I honestly honestly think that it is because he wrote Moneyball. And that's the problem that and that's and that's his open. That's his kind of passport into the immediate circle of every decade going, because they all believe that he's there to write but Moneyball is the absolute exception to that is the absolute exception. It's like listening to the wham rap and believing George Michael was like he genuinely is like, do not under any circumstances, the latest and Lewis is decayed

21:45  
if someone came to me and said, Hey, there's a 5050 chance here 50% chance you go to prison. 50% Chance Brad Pitt please.

21:59  
Hey, I'll tell you what, everything's really going well for me at the moment I actually got a phone call from Louie through. He said he just wants to come and spend the year following me around.

22:09  
I think it's gonna be great for my profile.

22:12  
This is a thing that I keep saying to people who try to because I make jokes about crypto on the goggle fairly often people come to me and they say can you explain this to me cryptocurrency and they think that they're stupid because they think they don't understand the what's happening to this new economy. But the thing is that they I asked them what they understand. They do understand they just think it can't be possible.

22:36  
Isn't that the same? I mean, I think that's the that's the thing is like, This is so stupid. None of this makes sense. And the answer is yes. None of it makes sense. And that's why that's why I think that's

22:45  
why it sounds like I'm doing PR for Michael Lewis books ended up being so compelling because it especially in things like liars poker in The Big Short, you go, well, obviously no one could have seen this coming. They're like, No, no loads of loads of people told them that this was a bad idea. Loads of people saw the tide Bob with the subprime mortgage crisis, as loads of people saw this disheveled loser and thought this guy's definitely a crypto criminal.

23:11  
I mean, the problem with crypto as a whole the crypto space as a whole is Bitcoin was the fact that you know, some of the people who invest in Bitcoin are people who are really interested in the technology in the coding, and really interesting the implications of this new technology. But most of the people who invested in Bitcoin were people who invest in Bitcoin because some podcast bro told them to, it might just as well have been boner pills, but it's worked. And now they think they're smart.

23:33  
The record also some of us invested in Bitcoin to buy acid on Silk Road. We all had our reasons.

23:42  
A lot of good work

23:43  
fine appeals and cryptocurrency very much the same in that they both go up very steeply and more quickly than they should and then they go back down.

23:53  
rational fear I wasn't spending any time or effort trying to manage risk on FTX a pretty stunning admission. I got a little cocky a rational seer.

24:04  
just pausing the podcast here just for a moment while I have a fake phone call with Louis harbor Lewis One of the things we have to do sometimes fake our live rates because sometimes

24:15  
that's right I mean every I think every podcast has them fake but this is pretty obvious unless I have just stepped away from my microphone to force you to call me from just outside the studio. I think people will put together that I I wasn't doing this live

24:31  
and we're telling you dear listener at a full transparency that you know this is the only ethical thing we could do. Because our sponsor, Australian ethical demands it of us they demand transparency.

24:43  
I tried this I said we should fake it. But Dan said I wouldn't get paid and we live

24:49  
in shame interestingly, this conversation was comes off with our hilarious chat about SPF and FTX when it comes to ethics and money, and one company that is pretty good when it comes to ethics and Money is Australian ethical. When I say pretty good, they're probably the best. They're definitely better than FTX. That's for sure.

25:06  
I mean, it's a low bar but they jump over it.

25:08  
So big thank you to Australian ethical who've been looking after money since 1986 of many Australians and only putting into ethical things. So that's absolute thrilled to have them on board.

25:19  
Thanks for the call, then. I guess I'll just get off his phone and walk right back into the studio to continue the podcast.

25:27  
Thank you, Louis. Thanks. This week's third via the New South Wales premier describe the jailing of climate activists, Dianna violet Coco as pleasing to see if protesters want to put our way of life at risk, they should have the book thrown at them. Right now the Premier is bringing back corporal punishment as well. Violet is looking at an eight to 15 month jail time at a new climate protest laws passed by the New South Wales Government in April, this outrageously disproportionate sentence for someone who blocked one lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for about 25 minutes. It even prompted an official from the United Nations to say he was alarmed and that peaceful protesters should never be criminalized or imprisoned. Well, lucky for Australia, the United Nations has about as much power as they do anywhere. Too far away from United Nations. We can't hear you. Lewis Alice, we all live in Sydney. Surely our way of life is being stuck in traffic.

26:26  
I think anyone who crosses the bridge is a trader, you pick north or you pick south and you never leave.

26:33  
She did get fined $2,500. As well as that. Well, that's about 10 crosses across the bridge. Crosses of Charles what's absolutely zany about these laws is that around this time, in April, there was another protest down a port botany and that that protest, effectively stopped traffic gridlock in Sydney for a little bit. And all of the shock jocks in Australia, were going against the premier about it. And so they rushed through these laws quickly, to increase the centers for climate protesters. And one of the people who happens to be in the coalition that passed the laws is the uncle of this protester, the handcuffs she's the Minister for skills and training. And they woke up the Governor at 11pm to rubber stamp these laws, they work they woke up Margaret Baisley to put these laws through the parliament. So the next day, the so called senior public official, who was quite copping it from every direction wouldn't have to face like talkback radio and the next morning

27:36  
I don't want to alarm anybody guys, but I was going over the Harvard's the other day and I saw some protesters climbing on it. And they were leaving at what looked like structured intervals and wearing gray

27:48  
mask and

27:49  
I think the only solution is to shut the entire Harbour Bridge until we can work out how the protesters are getting on it.

27:56  
I mean, the worst part about this is Dominic parrot it like parrots a whatever he likes to call himself Parrothead he said we want people to be able to protest, but not in a way that inconveniences people. Beautiful. Isn't that the point? Like I don't understand what he thinks protests are meant to be. Does he think protests are meant to be like quietly muttering to yourself in a corner so no one is even can be like what is

28:19  
I think I'd like to say to you from protesters would add roads. The protesters build an extra light on the Harbour Bridge suddenly like this

28:29  
by working in a car factory for 14 years, like what are you talking about?

28:33  
protest by put up a solar panel. That'll fix

28:37  
it. Really? Listen, I know that this is not what I should be feeling. But I did feel slightly heartened when I read that comment only because like sometimes in the UK at the moment, you do feel like I think we might I entire country might just take a leave of its senses. And then to read that comment, you know, it's all the same. Because we have a problem. Every time someone does a climate protest. They go, Oh, yeah, you know, you know who's protest I liked Martin Luther King's because it was just in an apple advert. That's all Martin Luther King did. He gave a short speech about a big sleepy town. He was just a segment of an Apple ad. This protests that actually stop things from happening No, it's terrible. You can't win if you if you talk about it online people go well, you just online click to this or that if you do something to like, why don't you just get back to the internet because this is not I'm late.

29:30  
Little did I know that my old housemate was protesting every morning by telling you about her dreams.

29:38  
I had a dream my teeth fell out.

29:42  
Such a weird reaction online whenever I mentioned this story. Yeah, I get trolls going. Oh, well, the laws the law and as they were the law wasn't the law until months ago.

29:54  
Again, these are always the people who love Ned Kelly. Like you know Have a bloody outlaw. Sorry, one lane of traffic temporary.

30:05  
It's also just like, I am 10 minutes late. This is slightly inconvenience. This is inconveniencing by way of life, I think what would really inconvenience your life being on fire? Crazy

30:18  
nation that was prepared for COVID because we had masks from the smoke already. You couldn't walk around and breathe at the same time for a couple of months. They're like,

30:26  
yeah, we've had three years of back to back natural disasters. And you're like, the idea that you just like, oh, I have one lane of traffic for 20 minutes is our biggest problem. I mean, I know it's like a very, like, everyone was pointing this out on Twitter and posting photos of like, you know, lanes of traffic just overwhelmed with with floods and cars floating away. But you're like, this is this has happened like, whoa, two weeks ago? Yeah.

30:48  
I've had like a 3001 50 year floods in the last year, like the most

30:52  
Googled thing in Australia is when mobile rain stop.

30:56  
Yeah, he's doing the most inconvenient climate protest the climate is making things very inconvenient.

31:05  
Yeah, it is. Listen, sometimes it especially this year in the UK, it has felt quite isolating, and it is nice to come here and kind of go, wow, okay, I guess everywhere as fuck. It's always reassuring, because for a long time, a lot of the negative impacts of climate change are still happening to people who took a lot to find a point on it quite closely resembled me. And it's nice to know that, oh, they don't even care when it's a white country. Let's not get into why Australia is a white country. They don't even care that it's happening here. Like, I don't really know what I'm slightly at a loss at what climate protest is supposed to do.

31:43  
Well, they've really adopted that the government's really adopted the like NRA thing, which is like while it's happening, it's not the time to talk about Yeah, that's right. The moment you're in the middle of a fire, it's like, well, we can't now's the time to talk about climate change. We need to talk about the community. And then as soon as it's over, it's like, well,

32:01  
why are we talking about that? It's football season.

32:05  
Extra, extra fears extra level of fear, or extra, extra, extra fear extra.

32:12  
Hey, Nish. Thanks for joining us on Russia. For you. It's really quite a thrill to have you here. Well, you know why we've got you. Let's have a quick chat about the UK like, um, I mean, it'll the UK politics. I mean, how thrilled to you that a fellow South Asian man is in the top job in the UK.

32:27  
Well, very excited for me. And it's very exciting for my community. I don't mean Indians, I mean, specifically Indians who are comes. For a long time growing up, I always thought maybe one day there'll be an Indian Prime Minister, but I assumed you'd have to be nice. No, no, it turns out, we got some asshole who ran a hedge fund for a long time. And he's, yeah, he's in office. Now. I mean, it's, it's very hard to explain why it's so bad. But it is so bad because he's sort of enthusiastically signed up to some quite racist policies, like the policy, which we actually have adopted from you guys. Yes, offshore detention, we saw your now route policy and we said no, we'll go further away. So our government is proposing that they fly refugees to Rwanda. And Rishi likes to kind of enthusiastic supporter of that for the for the last really last six years. He's been pretty enthusiastic supporter of Boris Johnson, who's been pretty openly racist. So the messaging it sends to young South Asians appears to be if you nod hard enough, when a white man is racially abusing you, you might one day end up being Prime Minister and his entire the entire reason he's there is he actually lost the leadership vote in the summer so in the summer that he had a candidate runoff against Let's trust now, I deeply deeply dislike Rishi Sunak but I would have preferred him to lose trust because he can count

33:51  
like it's got to be deeply depressing to him to be you know, a Tory but a competent at least competent Tory is to lose to lose trust a woman who from day one was so far out of her depth that all the fish looked weird. Just astonishingly weird. And then, you know, she sort of fulfilled the dream fantasy of the more that the market would decide and the market gave her a big middle finger and then she fucked off.

34:15  
But don't forget, she killed the queen. Listen, I can't prove she killed the Queen to be legally clear. But you none of you can prove she did

34:26  
that you heard offense. The Queen has lived by the sword die by the sword after what she did to die Yeah,

34:35  
he had a meeting with the Queen and the queen. I believe lost the will to live in conversation with Liz truss. I can tell the Queen simply lost the will to live

34:48  
has Rishi Sunak had a working class friend yet has he added those to his repertoire?

34:58  
He's not gonna work in class right? We're sort of we're going into a sort of period of potential strike action. He's kind of in this weird position where he has to, he's appointed a bunch of people, all of whom are now operating under a cloud of bullying allegations. I think at a certain point, they've now all bullied each other. Like, there's just a point in friends where they like, I guess we should get Joey and Monica together. I think now at some point like Dominic Rob is just gonna have to punch well above and beyond just because they're the only two people that haven't fully baked

35:29  
WWE and like, I guess we get the whole Cogan to fight the rock. Yeah. Have we done that? Yeah.

35:35  
The Cabinet meetings are just a steel cage deathmatch of this. So yeah, it's it's, it's at a certain point. I mean, this is do you take the country off like a derelict house?

35:48  
This is worse than that. This is Andrew Tate fighting Jake for

35:54  
a differently evenly. Like one of the very few bright sparks in Boris Johnson's tenure in Downing Street. Yes, cop 26. You know, which way the world almost did something meaningful? Yeah, it's like, almost it's something. But then the UK Government censors kind of walk back many of those that's like, what's going on there? Like why

36:15  
I think in terms of the climate policy, what they're doing is saying that they're using the excuse of Vladimir Putin as an excuse to kind of go, Well, now's not the time to invest in renewable energy, because we have an energy crisis. Now. Yeah, look, we do have an energy crisis, because the Botox migrated in floods head, and he took leave, right. But also, through the rest of the year, a lot of other European countries. Daesik basically said, we're going to start stockpiling natural gas reserves. So we don't have this kind of as much of an energy crisis. Whereas we decided to have a Tory Party leadership contest for three months. So now our energy process is in chaos. The argument should be fossil fuels are causing us to become increasingly reliant on desk bots, lunatics and World Cups.

37:07  
I guess sorry, but get covered.

37:13  
Right, you let them get away with shit because they have the resources and then you rely on them for the resources when they're getting away with shit that you don't want them to be getting away with? Yeah, I

37:21  
mean, we do have the Women's World Cup next year. So we have Donald

37:26  
at Yeah, and the meanwhile, they're sort of actively pushing back on putting more solar panels in fields and this section of the Tory party, they're very actively pushing back on utilizing wind power, which obviously, is a sort of huge resource for the country because we've got nothing but ceaseless hot air coming out largely members of the leadership party like it's it. Yeah, it's basically in short, it's fucked.

37:51  
Many scientists have projected that 2023 could be the year that Rupert Murdoch dies.

37:55  
I honestly believe it when I see it. Yeah, I'll believe it. But I think he if he'd he'd walked out on 911. The guy is an absolute. The guy's I think he might be indestructible.

38:07  
Yeah, he's just skeleton wrapped loosely, in in asbestos.

38:12  
Is this what a lot of progressives are waiting for in the UK for this moment to happen? Well, I'll say this

38:17  
in terms of Murdoch, we were very excited about the result of your general election. Very, very excited of the result of scomo versus Alberto, which is further evidence, and I've been very clear on this. Australia is not a real country. It was a it was a genuinely exciting, and I have Australian friends who are more progressive, who was somewhat frustrated by Alberto and by the Labour platform, but from our perspective, what we saw was sort of unpopular conservative who was endorsed by Murdoch lose an election which we have never seen. We've just never seen it. So from our perspective, it did feel quite exciting because we tried to get rid of our unpopular Rupert Murdoch approved leader who had botched the pandemic but then he got replaced by a different unpopular Rupert Murdoch approved kids like they like Medusa seem to actually get rid of them in full so like quite a lot. There were quite a lot of eyes in the UK on the Australian election, and it is a source of some optimism.

39:18  
I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here and I also don't want to bite the hand that's feeding me on this podcast but part of the reason that we had such a nice turn to the to the left in the tail is that our local billionaire happens to be pro green energy

39:32  
Well, we've got many we've got many billionaires in Australia that were just you know, just a few of them got together and said let's try and let's try not be

39:40  
evil for one. Like why didn't happen once we were like, look, you know, he's old, he get he's forgetful. A close his eyes. He had a longer nap than he expected. He woke up. Australia had a Labour Prime Minister, but then the Victorian state elections happen. They haven't been through Melbourne that does smashing. Daniel Andrews like every like News Corp paper every like this, like Sky News they're just been going for it they've actually been going for him for years yeah like sending sending reporters down to his COVID conferences to like spout insane conspiracy theories. And he you know, crushed like the increased his, his his lead there so now he's laughing at

40:22  
Elon Musk for getting eyes back on Twitter.

40:25  
Well once Daniel Andrews got that Kanye endorsement

40:31  
that's it so big thank you to Louis harbor house Fraser Nish Kumar. Let's get our plugs underway. Alex 21 Upload

40:37  
patreon.com/alex Fraser is my one stop shop full of my standup specials podcasts and blogs as well my weekly tea with Allah salons and my weekly writing meetings if you want to do a writing meeting. Also I have the gargle which is my glossy magazine podcast.

40:52  
I love your I love getting your Patreon emails, email blasts, when I can have a Zoom meeting with Alice Fraser it's always very exciting. Nish Kumar, what do you what do you plug in?

41:01  
I have two comedy albums available on

41:05  
Amazon Music

41:14  
If somebody subscribes to Episode music because they write into the show they're available out there.

41:21  
Yeah, Jeff Bezos is calling. Yeah. JB.

41:25  
And Lewis, what would you like to?

41:28  
There's this great podcast called irrational

41:30  
really many 1/3 time in a row.

41:33  
Right? We don't like to bring that up. But yes, we did when the third one for the third year in a row. All the other things I do probably talked about before, so yeah, you either know about it and hate it or know about it. Nobody. Listen, say thank you. To the letter to the former. I understand.

41:50  
Hey, Alexa play Nish Kumar's comedy album

41:53  
Okay, playing Harold and Kumar goes to

41:58  
terrible, terrible thinking.

42:00  
Absolutely love labor intensive audio drugs.

42:04  
I'd also like to drop a plug for Nish Kumar's mum who in the audience once of a bugle that I was watching, leaned over to me and said you know when he says kill all white people, he doesn't really mean that

42:21  
big thanks to Mike's Australian ethical our Patreon supporters, please please chip in with Patreon and also big thank you to Jake brown on the Tepanyaki timeline. Oh, it's been so much fun to niche. Thank you so much for taking time out of your Australian tour to hang out

42:35  
a bit.

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

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If Patreon isn't your thing, and Apple Subscriptions are too Appley — chip in with A-Cast here: https://plus.acast.com/s/a-rational-fear-1.

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🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical
🎟 TICKETS TO ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL NOW ON SALE

On the podcast this week:

Marrawah Johnson of Youth Verdict telling us how they beat Clive Palmer and got the Queensland Land and Environment Court to recommend against the Waratah Coal mine.

ALSO on the podcast Floyd Alexander-Hunt, Sami Shah, Dan Ilic , and Lewis Hobba talking about

🙊 Scott Morrison's Censure
🇳🇿 New Zealand's Supreme Court ruling that the voting age of 18 is discriminatory.
🤿 Kanye West saying dumb things on Alex Jones' Info Wars.

Also keep a listen out for Marc Fennell's cameo this episode, and a reminder to people living in Adelaide you can buy a ticket to our Fringe Festival show now!

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical
🎟 TICKETS TO ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL NOW ON SALE

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Patreon isn't your thing, and Apple Subscriptions are too Appley — chip in with A-Cast here: https://plus.acast.com/s/a-rational-fear-1.

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

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

On the podcast this week we have a fun crew.

Bec Melrose
Steph Broadbridge
Jack Druce
Dan Ilic (me, I'm fun)

We cover:

⚽️ Animals correctly guessing the outcome of FIFA World Cup fixtures.
🎟 Ticketmaster and Live Nation's Taylor Swift Snafu.
💸 The $98 Billion Australians are giving their bosses for free each year.
👩🏼‍🍳 And we have a chat with Leader of the Reason Party in Victoria, Fiona Patten MP, about the broad mix of characters running for state parliament this weekend in Victoria.

And once again thanks for all of your support for A Rational Fear in a way YOU make the Best Comedy Podcast in Australia — If you'd like to help us pay the bills please chip in to the Patreon.

Thanks very much.

Dan

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. G'day Louis. Hello Daniel.

Lewis Hobba  0:04  
How are you?

Dan Ilic  0:06  
Good you're not doing the podcast and I because you're doing something else. Yes I am at the red carpet of the reo was Australian music's might have died. Oh my god. Oh my god you were just going from awards night to awards night on Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Hobba  0:21  
Although I don't think I'm gonna win anything at this one if I'm honest.

Dan Ilic  0:24  
Earlier this week, Lewis and I were at the Australian Podcast Awards and we we somehow managed to win again so big thank you to everyone who supports our show and listens including those who go do other award nights like you Louis Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  0:39  
thanks that sorry I'm just here with a deal at all caught he's trying to get me to I don't know. Get up to some mischief. I

Dan Ilic  0:46  
think he put him on the phone but what can we talk to him?

Lewis Hobba  0:49  
I will give him give me one sec.

Dylan Alcott  0:52  
podcast of the Year Award winner Daniel it

Dan Ilic  0:54  
is it is it is oh my god. I'm talking to multiple title award winner of the year doing all caught

up one of the one of the one of the red carpet flight right now

Dylan Alcott  1:11  
I kiss on the lips something

Dan Ilic  1:13  
good. Let me let me ask you this question. Now harbor told a story about you meeting Elon Musk and Splendour in the Grass a few years ago. Is that true? Did you end up meeting Elon Musk? That is a real story.

Dylan Alcott  1:24  
Oh, he wasn't doing photos. I mean, because Arizona took a photo of him. He had his T shirt on that made him like holographic so you couldn't say

Dan Ilic  1:32  
no way. It was a t shirt that was reflective.

Dylan Alcott  1:35  
Reflective t shirt. And it all laid out. Hey guys, I can't get near him. All because I wrote straight up like it like Make A Wish kid. And I wasn't that famous at this point. Yeah, yes. It was like, fuck you. He was furious.

Dan Ilic  1:57  
Sorry, Greg. Right. Put Louis back. saying oh, I just I just wanted to verify that Elon Musk story. Yeah, no, it

Lewis Hobba  2:07  
was true. I still think about it all the time.

Dan Ilic  2:10  
All right, we're recording our part of the podcast on Gadigal land in your nation. sovereignty has never said it. Let's start the show. A

Simon Chilvers  2:16  
rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra COMM And section 14, a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  2:30  
Tonight the Wallabies are missing 40 of their best players due to injury sparking concerns of forced conscription. And it's snowing in Australia a few days out from summer or as climate change deniers are calling it. It's a Christmas miracle. And Barack Obama announces his tour of Australia for March. Unfortunately, he didn't make the cut off for a festival manage venue that is just for the people on the show tonight. It's the 25th of November we refuse to make any more iPhones. This is a rational fear, irrational fear.

G'day Welcome to rational fi I'm your host former crypto billionaire Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the news and pause it over ice. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She studied jazz at a new but studied comedy at the coalface of open mics. Also known as you can you come it's Stephanie Broadbridge Steph when Scott Morrison took out the year gone 60 minutes were you annoyed that he was doing your bit?

Steph Broadbridge  3:36  
Haha No, I actually got work out of that. Yeah, I did an ad to play ukulele in front of his house and tell him that he should keep it up and he'll get better know what

Dan Ilic  3:46  
it was Yeah, who was who was paying you to do that? It was for

Steph Broadbridge  3:49  
a soap. It made a lot of sense at the time.

Dan Ilic  3:53  
And he's one of Australia's sharpest and most original comedians expert and hilarious or So says the bio he wrote himself on his website is one of my favorite content kings Jack Druce. Jack you've been doing so much great video work lately on your Instagram. What? What's taking you so long to get to the medium?

Jack Druce  4:09  
I was just pursuing stand up comedy which I would recommend to no one goes. For everyone stuck doing it.

Dan Ilic  4:19  
And earlier this week. I got to sit next to her on the national broadcaster on Question everything as she completely destroyed the ABC audience with her tampon jokes. Tonight's co pilot back Melrose bello Bella, you seem to get a great response from those jugs. That was amazing. Yeah, there were

bec Melrose  4:36  
a couple that that really the audience went up but it was good fun. I really enjoyed it.

Dan Ilic  4:41  
Coming up later we speak with Australia's most despised politician according to spectator magazine about this weekend's Victorian election. But first, here is a message from this week's sponsor. The Emir of Qatar has come to his senses. It's true. I have come to my senses. All stadiums must go at the Qatar black Friday's sale eight barely used stadiums are going for next to nothing. Coincidentally, they're also currently standing next to nothing pristine seats, unused beer taps, mystery bones in the foundation. I don't know how that got there. Perfect if you're hosting your own World Cup ideal for creating an internment camp or if you're a New South Wales premier just wanted to buy a stadium to knock it down to get your mates to build your new one just like it. These stadiums cost $200 billion, but could be yours for a shipload of sheep. It's not a bad deal. Qatar's blackFriday stadium sale and opportunity like this one present itself until an autocratic regime bribes FIFA to make bad decisions again, egg is our culture. Please respect it. Yes, it's their culture. This week's first beer it is the World Cup time of course, which means sentient beings from across the animal kingdom are being forced to do their things that their little brains never had in mind. And I'm not talking about durables and 1980s film stars. No, I'm talking about octopi and now otters are being forced to play dumb games to predict the outcome of the winners of FIFA World Cup Now Jack Is there a problem with using animals for helping humans place bets on football games? I

Jack Druce  6:09  
like I really like it. I get I like I find that sports exciting, but this puts it to a next level to me like there's just a weird like Japan had an upset win against Germany. And it was predicted by this order this time. And it's this very cute Japanese order putting a ball in a bucket and I was just thinking like they've got the the Japanese flag and the German flag on different buckets. And I just liked that detail that they also like on top of us being expected to believe that the otter has sort of like godly supernatural powers. On top of that it also knows what Germany is like it's just got this understanding of geography and what flags mean. A horse racing I definitely feel like I'm I'm in exactly the demographic where every bit of media I consume is trying to make me do sports gambling. Like if anything I want to just like do sports bet spin on everything please. And I'm not interested in gambling at all. And then I see something like this happened and I'm like, Okay, I could maybe I don't know they get an octopus or something. This can be fun.

Dan Ilic  7:15  
I think it I think it definitely works with binary Right? Like it definitely works with one selection or another but horse racing you need like 11 buckets for the auditor put it in Japan also has Olivia the grey parrot, the grey parrot doesn't actually have that much of a good record. It's more 5050 Remember, we remember Paul the Octopus from 2010. I mean, I'm pretty sure all of us are old enough to remember that. Paul got eight games for that FIFA World Cup in 2010. That is extraordinary. He died last year. I think he was just over exerted. But he also died like the week after he got made the ambassador for the 2018 World Cup bid for England so maybe he was like no way. i There's no way I'm going to be an ambassador I'm out of here for

bec Melrose  7:57  
that's too much pressure when you're a gambler to make sure the kids are gonna get Christmas presents. That's too hard.

Dan Ilic  8:03  
When you're an octopus you got to buy eight iPhones per person. It's is ridiculous. pursues rational fear. The octopus with the amazing psychic powers has been found dead in a German aquarium

Unknown Speaker  8:17  
you made as many enemies his friends, campaigns to get pulled got personal. There were death threats, dark mutterings about calamari salads, who you are listening, very rational fear.

Dan Ilic  8:31  
This week second fear Ticketmaster and Live Nation on this week's anti hero. When Taylor Swift eras tour went on sale all hell broke loose. 2.5 million people were asking Ticketmaster a few million times over the day. Hey Ticketmaster, you got Swifty tickets. So what resulting in 3.5 billion system requests, which slow Ticketmaster to recrawl. Eventually, 2.4 million verified customers got tickets, but it took a long, long time stiff? What the hell was going on here? Should we be blaming Ticketmaster for being shit? Or should we blame Taylor Swift for being good?

Steph Broadbridge  9:07  
Ah, neither. Well, I used to work for Ticketmaster. So no way. The inside tracks. I have a literary inside. I don't know. I mean, honestly, it seems like what she was asking for. This isn't funny, but it seems like what she was asking for was not going to happen. Because you just can't have that many people getting tickets at one time. But also people who buy tickets are the worse, like as someone who sold it to them, I can tell you with absolute certainty, because like how tickets work, right? There's like good tickets, and everyone wants the good tickets. But there's only so many good tickets and people don't really get that they're like, but I want the good tickets. It's like yeah, but someone else already got them first. That's just how tickets work.

Dan Ilic  9:52  
Yeah, I understand. You know, this happens to be every Melbourne Comedy Festival. It has been one of the good tickets.

Steph Broadbridge  10:00  
Yeah, also why? I mean, okay, I don't want to get anyone in trouble but Taylor Swift like why do you want me like one time? Like, why is Why is she thing?

Dan Ilic  10:16  
stiff? Are you trying to get this podcast canceled? What's happening here? You're trying to turn us into the end here. Do you know what's gonna happen? Some Swift is going to hear this, clip it and put it on Twitter and we're going to die.

Steph Broadbridge  10:28  
Okay, well, I would say to that person, have you heard Billie Holiday? She's very good. Like, check out literally every other singer. She's not even the best one in the White category. You know? Like there's so many so many other singers. It's like, I mean, I saw an article in The Guardian where they analyzed her lyrics like they matted like it is disgusting.

bec Melrose  10:53  
Let's get the the otter on board and just pick a bucket and we gotta be canceled are we going to make it through to the end of the year?

Dan Ilic  10:59  
something interesting happened out of this whole thing is the Tennessee Attorney General was so inundated by people trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets, they'll furious they were hassling the Attorney General of Tennessee to do something about it. Now the Attorney General has then taken it up with Congress to try and break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation to make the whole system better. Isn't that bizarre? Like you put a show on sale and you annoy an attorney general so much that they've actually got to put laws in place to break up the company selling your tickets

Jack Druce  11:33  
so like brutal sorry, but just like the I know the minimal levels of envy I feel around like just comedians who are selling a bit better than I am like, if you like to be like, Oh, she's selling so well. She's like, the government is involved like the breaking down of how well she's selling.

bec Melrose  11:53  
The government was involved for me too, but for the opposite reason

Dan Ilic  11:57  
to think about Ariana Grande all she ever wanted to be was Ariana venti. Very very good. That's a Starbucks Jack. Thank you.

bec Melrose  12:08  
I read a thing that the tickets were going for, like 50 grand or something?

Steph Broadbridge  12:13  
Yeah, I don't know. I thought $35,000 to hit Taylor Swift sing lyrics such as sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby and I'm a monster on the hill. Wow. Yep.

Dan Ilic  12:30  
But you know, she sings it stuff. She doesn't say it like that. You know? She's got some nice stuff around it.

Steph Broadbridge  12:36  
Like what like music Yeah, alright. Grandpa. This is how bad I think Taylor Swift songs are I actually wrote one. Okay, great if you want me to sing it if that's okay. Yeah, already wait write it just write one just based around what happened with the Ticketmaster incident? Yeah, just basically a bunch of words all put together that make no sense that sound like a Taylor Swift song. I brought my ukulele so again my fans were buying tickets got attacked by several bears. Crying Thompson made of pasta. You're a spoon. I am the man facing wall and sunlight sparkling in the sky like broken glass. I'm just saying random words that I pulled out my ass. They are.

bec Melrose  13:33  
Wow, that was really beautiful.

Fiona Patten MP  13:37  
Live Nation is trying to blame the ultimate popularity of Taylor Swift it's

Dan Ilic  13:47  
this week's third if you feeling overworked and underpaid and you feel like you're getting ripped off everywhere you go, it's because you are a rational fears. Favorite think tank the Australian Institute has crunched the numbers. And apparently, the average Australian worker is being ripped off by their boss to the tune of $8,000 of unpaid overtime. Since I'm my own boss, I can't wait to tell myself that I fucking quit. It works out to be about $93 billion a year. What are you going to do with all that cash? Well,

bec Melrose  14:15  
we can apparently fix the cost of living crisis is what the ABC is reporting today. And we need to like the cost of living crisis is so bad at the moment. That Keeping Up With The Kardashians, their latest series is just called the Kardashians.

Dan Ilic  14:29  
That's true. What's keeping

bec Melrose  14:32  
like, I mean, 7.3% There's no way we're catching him now and inflation that high. So we definitely could do with the extra $93 billion, I think but you know, it's just so much overtime as well. There's something like 2.5 billion hours that were giving bosses in overtime. And I know a lot of us are working from home. So about 2 billion of those hours have been spent just jiggling your mouse so it looks like you're active on Microsoft Teams. You know, that's why

Dan Ilic  15:03  
full timers are effectively donating more than six weeks a year to their employers. Six weeks is your boss worth an extra six weeks a year?

bec Melrose  15:13  
Most workers don't like their bosses, right? There are some great bosses out there, Dan, you're a great boss, you are your own boss, right? Like it's wonderful. But there are so many bosses out there that are not like my mates have got a boss that they call stitch, because he can fit his job description through the eye of a needle like you. We had a boss that we called shadow because he disappeared at midday. And if you saw him in the afternoon, he just be so strung out. It's like you're in a given time to these people. You don't be working for the one called vaccine either because you kind of rely on him, but he's an absolute prick.

Jack Druce  15:49  
Without the context of why I would love to have a boss named shadow that sounds like fun was had a job interview and they're like, this is the boss shadow. I'd be like, Well, hell yeah.

bec Melrose  15:57  
I mean, it sounds like the job is doing is definitely a black market job.

Dan Ilic  16:03  
It sounds like you're working for a villain in the Teenage Mutant Ninja. Yeah. That's comedians. We are entrepreneurs. We kind of do work for ourselves. Do you think we should give ourselves six weeks off? Yeah,

bec Melrose  16:14  
I reckon we should also start having Friday night drinks with ourselves too. I've been making that traditionally my Friday night drinks goes

Jack Druce  16:20  
off. I think I'm gonna reframe unemployment as just giving myself six weeks off. I'm just very generous with my holiday time this year. Yeah, you just a good employer, your employer. It's a good way of looking at it.

Dan Ilic  16:33  
Yeah, at my place of employment. I'm allowed to take as many holidays as I like it's great.

Steph Broadbridge  16:39  
I am definitely not working that overtime. I don't know. I reckon I work 20 minutes a day.

bec Melrose  16:45  
I think comedians are definitely bringing down the national average in terms of hours only.

Jack Druce  16:50  
Comedians we get people are mad at us if we go 30 seconds long at a gig like people think to work that if you do an extra 30 seconds

Dan Ilic  16:59  
that's very true Steph I'm so sorry for making it work 40 minutes tonight

Jack Druce  17:05  
when I was getting ready for this, I was thinking about times that I've like had to do extra work and there was so used to be a writer on the TV show the project and there was some kind of like just some sort of rostering issue where I had to come in early one time and I really didn't want to but I was just like that happened every now and then. But I was in there a lot earlier than everyone else was this day and I was just like cranky about it not happy just by myself drinking coffee and there's there was a TV monitor that was like used for live feeds of crosses and interviews and stuff. And I was just like sad alone in a room and the monitor just turned on and it was the musician shaggy was just it was a live stream to shaggy just waiting for an interview just not knowing anyone who was known as attended to him yet no one from the project said hello he was in early to do some cross from like his timezone I guess and I just got like a full minute of just shaggy not knowing anyone could see him just alone this is the best case scenario for coming in this early

bec Melrose  18:05  
yeah get a shaggy I know you're supposed to have a chaperone but it wasn't

Dan Ilic  18:15  
when we come back we're gonna be talking to Fiona patent Victorian MP all about the Victorian election in just a moment. irrational fear. I've met children that were named off my songs, you know, fancy companies. Okay, this is Carla's bombastic Johnson irrational fear just interrupting the podcast with Louis Harbor on the red carpet of the area's now you are about to see a whole bunch of award winners aren't you? Yes, I am. I think I am. Well, let me tell you the in terms of sponsors, our sponsor is an award winner they won money Magazine's Best of the Best in 2022 They are awesome. Australian ethical. Put your money there if you want to. They only invest in low carbon businesses like renewable energy it health care and education while telling companies that do stuff like fossil fuels and gambling and tobacco to go and get fucked. That's kind of our kind of people. Speaking of nefarious activities, Louis, are you going to be doing any gambling or, or human trafficking while you're the

Lewis Hobba  19:13  
area's I might do some Wilkins trafficking, there's there at least for Wilkins is here. I can see Christian at the moment he's looking at he's looking beautiful. I saw Richard before. I assume there are several other sort of unclaimed members of the Wilkins family wandering around.

Dan Ilic  19:31  
What I want to know is we're not going to they're going to start their own reality TV show on the Kardashians. It's a great question.

Lewis Hobba  19:37  
It's a great question. I would watch it. In fact, I'm watching it right now.

Dan Ilic  19:41  
So big thanks to Australia to go. Let's get back to the podcast.

Simon Chilvers  19:45  
This is a rational view, rational fear

Dan Ilic  19:49  
and we're back last December our interview guest won the prestigious Australia's most despised politician of the Year from spectator magazine. And this weekend she goes head to head With a whole spectrum of people who are not just despised, but utterly, thoroughly hated, it's in the Victorian election. She's the leader of the reason party, and it's with great pleasure we bring Fiona Patton to the podcast. Welcome, Fiona.

Fiona Patten MP  20:14  
Thank you, Dan. And, yeah, I'm not sure it's a title that I will be able to keep after this weekend. But

Dan Ilic  20:23  
would you who would you bestow it upon? Are you a person of good character you wouldn't even dare

Fiona Patten MP  20:28  
look? I you know, I feel like if I utter their name, then I'm just giving them extra extra media. But, you know, to be honest, their supporters may not be watching you guys. I know. That might come as a shock. But they'd say, Adam Sami reckon Bernie Finn have got to be neck and neck for for that title. But there's lots of people running in this election. Who could get that title if they got elected?

Dan Ilic  20:55  
Let's just talk about that. Because it strikes me as someone who's traveled to Melbourne quite a few times over the last six months. Every time I'm in Melbourne, there appears to be a protest, and those people are often requesting their freedom. But obviously, they've been free for some time. What the hell is happening with this group called the cookers?

Fiona Patten MP  21:15  
They're starting that rhetoric now where they're going? No, you are? No, I'm not a cooker. You are? You're a cooker.

Dan Ilic  21:23  
Yeah, they're like hipsters that don't self identify.

Fiona Patten MP  21:25  
No. So you know, they're calling Dan Andrews, a cook cooker. I'm a cooker. We're all cookers. But I don't know that particular origins of it. But I recently had an operation and I've bloody nearly lost my stitches because people keep posting cooker videos. And seriously, like, there was one today where they're, they're chasing this guy who's just gone out for a sneaky cigarette. No going, Are you a Freemason? Are you a free nation? This guy's going no, man. I don't even know what Freemasons are like, what are they? These guys March every Saturday, they close the tram lines. Go and yell at the when the Christmas Windows outside David Jones and Maya. And now they're running for election. So we've just actually left a pre poll booth just a just a half an hour ago, and the police had been called, I think I'm aware of about 10 times the police have been called to polling booths in pre poll so far. And we've still haven't even hit Election Day. Well, the Freedom Party is getting pretty loose.

Dan Ilic  22:29  
cookers aside, what is at stake this this weekend in Victoria for the Victorian election. What are the what are the main fault lines we're looking at?

Fiona Patten MP  22:37  
You know, I mean, the lower house is interesting, and I think many of the independents who are running kind of community, independents, they're progressive. They're chasing liberal seats. So most of them if they are successful, they'll be knocking out liberal MPs. But I'm not hearing it as much in northern Thatcher in the North Melbourne, where I'm from, but in some of the southern areas that there's a fair bit of, you know, Daniel Andrews, hating so the polls are tightening, I still think that the Labour Party will win this election and still will hold a majority. It's the upper house that we could, you know, at the moment, there's 11 crossbenchers in the upper house. And it makes for pretty interesting conversations. And but we've managed to get quite a bit of progressive legislation through and it's been quite effective. That might end after this election, we're in the upper house, we could see a really hostile upper house, and you'd, you might have a progressive lower house with a bunch of good independents trying to change things on climate change on equality on reproductive rights, and then you've got the upper house, blocking everything. And certainly, you know, with the people that the Liberal Party have pre selected to the absolutely winnable Upper House seats. It's not looking like it's going to be that much fun on those red velvet seats. Now, you've got for many of you from Sydney, you've got Fred Nile. I mean, Bernie fan spreading to shame. I'm afraid that I you know, he will maybe Fred before he was wearing his pajamas to the council board, brought in his wife slash care into the counts into the parliament. But yeah, we've got some pretty crazy ones and some pretty crazy females coming in to the upper house.

Dan Ilic  24:27  
There's only a cooker candidate here the Liberals you're talking about that they've been pre

Fiona Patten MP  24:31  
selecting evangelical Christians who don't believe in climate change, who don't believe in abortion, who don't believe in equality, who believe that you know, women should be men should be obeyed. Yeah, they will be sitting on our seats and representing Victoria and Victorians. And it is it is actually pretty frightening and it's hard to even understand why they're making these decisions, but I think they still seem to think that religion is a vote winner and So it's not.

Dan Ilic  25:01  
And we saw last federal election that that's the case. You know, like so many folks have kind of turned away from religion and like dumped those evangelical candidates. Yeah, that's so strange. Well, I also want to ask you about the Labour Party tactics for a second. I mean, we're interested in know where you kind of stand on the Labour Party had been running a whole bunch of attack ads, a grunt against the grains, and they've run this, this website call to action called green fat. Yes. Just kind of spreading these rumors about the greens. What do you think about that kind of like election tactic? That doesn't seem good?

Fiona Patten MP  25:35  
Yet, it's a radical theory. But if I get reelected, I do want to kind of push on it is like truth in political advertising. Why not try this? Because it's ridiculous. And in actual fact, I think it backfires. I actually think it actually sends more people to the greens, looking at some of their other ads against the Liberal Party. They seem to do one negative, you know, math, you guys terrible. And then another one. Look how great we are looking at all the, you know, hard hats we're wearing and look at all the cool stuff we're building. But yeah, I don't actually think they're not building it themselves. We know that but yeah, but they pretend like they're heading down to work to build the tunnel.

Dan Ilic  26:24  
But do not. I do think it's funny. Every time the Labour Party tweets about how many railway road crossings ever removed, I want to see them tweet every time they hand at a tampon. We've handed out 24 tampons.

Fiona Patten MP  26:39  
Yep, yep, I'm look, I'm excited for that too. We've had free per tampons at Parliament House for quite a few for a few years now. They also brought in pads that whoever was buying them wasn't female. continence pads not

bec Melrose  27:00  
that is the most Australian Government thing I've ever heard. In the men's room.

Dan Ilic  27:10  
And Fiona, how you sitting this weekend? How's your seat? Oh,

Fiona Patten MP  27:13  
my seats, always precarious. So like, if I lose it, it will probably be to a guy could add him so Mirek, who is a disgraced Labour Party minister, who's lives down in the south of south of Victoria. He's running in the north of north of Melbourne, he could pick up the seat because there's, you know, many people Yeah, when

Dan Ilic  27:35  
when my grandmother died, he came around the house and asked for her ATM cards.

Fiona Patten MP  27:45  
He can work with cards.

Dan Ilic  27:46  
He cited like she she was dead for a week or two but and he she like he signed it in power straight up to the to the liberal party. It was amazing.

Fiona Patten MP  27:55  
Yeah, well, well, you know, the, he's joined up with Bernie Finn, the disgraced liberal member who got kicked out of the Liberal Party, which, given the people that they pre selected must be really bloody hard to do to get kicked out of that party for being to right wing. I think they're now regretting it, because the people who've replaced him are probably even more right wing. But yeah, those two are running together. So that will be one of my threats. And, you know, on on the, on the booths, I've got the socialists who are, they're kind of telling me that, you know, if they get elected, they will increase the pensions, they will lower the lower taxes, and they will save all of the refugees, which good on them. Excellent. If it was a federal election,

bec Melrose  28:42  
that's like there's a school captain speeches where you promise chocolate milk in the bubblers and water slides. It's like, Yeah, it sounds good. But actually, you can't control that.

Fiona Patten MP  28:53  
Do any of that. But it's, you know, it's yet today, I had the sort of socialist salary and the Freedom Party yelling at me, so I felt like I was in the right place. That then we're kind of yeah, really going a lot of hate on me. And I was like, alright, this must be, I must be in the good place.

bec Melrose  29:11  
What a terrible sign that you're in the good place. Is that the worst part of campaigning? That sounds awful feared.

Dan Ilic  29:19  
At least you're not in the Big Bang Theory. Yeah.

Fiona Patten MP  29:22  
That's right. That's right. Well, yeah, if I actually listened to the freedom fighters, that that may actually be what they were telling me that if you're worried about what the government will do to the weather for election day,

Dan Ilic  29:35  
well, it's snowing in the Alps. And it's only it's about to become summer. So climate change isn't a thing, Fiona. This is what I'm going to be telling people about Christmas barbecue,

Fiona Patten MP  29:45  
but those floods the government did that.

Dan Ilic  29:49  
Well, Fiona, good luck this weekend. Thank you for coming on irrational fear that is it for rational fear. Let's get our plugs underway. Steph Broadbridge What would you like to plug

Steph Broadbridge  29:58  
I have nothing to plug but thank you If

Dan Ilic  30:02  
that is not true back Melrose, you're gonna plug anything.

bec Melrose  30:05  
I think you should follow Steph Broadbridge you should follow me back Melrose on Instagram

Dan Ilic  30:12  
Jack dress you've got a big show coming out on YouTube this way yeah

Jack Druce  30:15  
I did a recorded my Stand Up Show from last year I guess which got more than last year I got Cannes like three or four times during the pandemic trying to film it so I finally got it out there it'll be up on my YouTube channel just searched actress and that'll be out for free on YouTube on next Tuesday November 29. And I've also as Dan mentioned the beginning been making a bunch of just sketches and that kind of thing that are also on the YouTube if you want to check it out and subscribe but that would be great.

Dan Ilic  30:44  
I thought you're gonna say I've been recorded my show which got I thought he comes like five stars. Like no shutdown got shut down. And Fiona anything you'd like to plug

Fiona Patten MP  30:55  
state election? Don't miss it pop down. I'll be saying my name like 60 times a minute. Hello, I'm Fiona Patton. Hello. And handing out pictures of myself which all becomes quite surreal.

bec Melrose  31:11  
Festival. I really fear I know that's something we're very familiar with.

Dan Ilic  31:15  
Yeah, you're talking to Yeah, you're talking to a bunch of comedians who do this day in day out so that's totally fine.

bec Melrose  31:21  
And Dan, you've also got a plug out question everything watched in English on Question everything absolutely killed. Oh, yes. Watch

Dan Ilic  31:27  
back Melrose and myself and Wendy Harmer on questioning everything on iView. And I want to shout out to all of our Patreon supporters who signed up this week Irene Thank you are Paul Kidd joined us one of my favorite people on Twitter joined us. Diana joined us and also Carmen champion also joined us thank you, all those people and please a big thank you to everyone who was who may be a judge on the Australian Podcast Awards. I've got the big trophy right here. Fantastic three in a row. We absolutely didn't think that we would have won again because we thought Tony and Ryan might have won because they got millions of dollars from Spotify to do their show. They hey you know we get hundreds of dollars from Patreon so that's great. Thank you to roadmaps, strain, ethical who also support the show and all of our Patreon supporters Jacob brown on the teppanyaki timeline big thank you to Luis until an all caught at the beginning of the show. Calling in that was terrific. And yeah, until next week, there's always going to be scared of good night

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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

On the podcast this week we have two hosts from other podcasts that have been nominated for Best Comedy Podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards.

Clare Stephens from Mamamia's Cancelled Podcast and Georgie Carroll from The Swab Podcast .

Also on the podcast this week we're joined by friend of the show Brynn O'Brien from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility who broke down the epic battle for controll of the AGL board. A move that could see Australia's emissions drop by 10% in the coming years.

We also talk:

⚽️ The Wold Cup in Qatar.
🐦 Elon Musk's ultimatum to his staff.
🐼💖🦘 Albo restoring diplomatic relations with China.
🩸 Victoria Labor's promise for free pads and tampons.

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening, Lewis.

Lewis Hobba  0:04  
Hello Daniel. How are you?

Dan Ilic  0:07  
Good now since this since we didn't do a much of a pre show banter, I just needed to make sure you're recording your end.

Lewis Hobba  0:13  
Oh, yes, I am recording my Thank you, Dan. Sorry, everyone. I are very patient guests have been waiting awhile. I just forgot. Just forgot that this was on. And do you know what I was doing? I was at an event and I bumped into our friend, everyone's friend, Tom Ballard. And he told us I've got to get to the Comedy Store. I'm like, hey, I'll give you a lift. I've got nothing. And then I was driving him. And there's a there's a soccer game on at the Sydney football stadium. So we got stuck, Punt Road level traffic for like 45 minutes shooting the breeze having a great chinwag. And then I was like, Are you close? I'm like, I am not close.

Dan Ilic  0:56  
Well, that is fantastic. We have a football theme show for tonight. Big thank you to Australia fickle who are sponsoring the show. And also congratulations to Carmen champion and Kate millat. From the Patreon who signed up this week, they get a picture of the King each. You may remember last week, I ordered some pictures of the king. Well, congratulations, Calvin and Kate, they go into you also big thanks to Sonya and Patrick who missed out on pictures of the king. But they tried anyway.

Lewis Hobba  1:21  
Dan, have the pictures of the King include the Kings hands? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen his hands? Oh, yeah, they look like Frank Frankfurt's. Right, they're horrific. And he you know how he keeps getting angry about webapp pens. He can't hold a pen.

Dan Ilic  1:39  
Well, you know what? I will, I will send a pen and some Frankfurt's along to Kate the garment as well. So I'm a big thank you, folks on signing up on the Patreon if you want to sign up and support the show, go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. This is a content warning for this show. This show will contain a short impression of a powerful authority figure who happens to have a lisp and if you are offended by such content, this one is not for you. Does he have a lisp? He's got a little speech impediment, but Sybil Adeste Yes, that's right. Well, little bit like my spit bill. Like you know who's got a good sibilance he's got good siblings a bomber. I love a bomb of sibilance Yeah, it's different. It's richer. Yep. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Unknown Speaker  2:26  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  2:39  
Tonight, White Ribbon organizers canceled plans to have 50 Men ride jet skis around Sydney Harbour to raise awareness about violence against women. Instead, they're gonna have a pop poll, and a sad day for food delivery ecosystems as the beloved Deliveroo has gone extinct. Witnesses say the last ever deliver was seen circling around the apartment block looking for an entrance before giving up and after much controversy. Norman Swan has publicly apologized for his terrible pronunciation of COVID-19 It's the 18th of November with more shuffling of chairs and AGL This is irrational fear.

We're gonna rational fear I'm your host former head of risk at FTX crypto exchange Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the status headlines. It's a little bit of a tickle. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight both and nominated for the Best Comedy podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards. It's returning friend of the show Adelaide funniest medical professional from the swab podcast. It's nurse Georgie Cairo.

Georgie Carroll  3:48  
Sofia Good day Dan Lewis.

Dan Ilic  3:51  
You go and now Georgie How are you preparing for the for the for the awards, a winner and award mindset coming up this Monday.

Georgie Carroll  3:58  
Might might even start listening to podcasts.

Dan Ilic  4:04  
And it's first time fear monger flying solo without her twin sister. It's Mamma Mia is editor in chief and host of the canceled podcast. Claire Stevens welcome Claire.

Clare Stephens  4:13  
Hello, will I'll be seeing you at the Podcast Awards. One idea.

Dan Ilic  4:17  
Oh, excellent. What do you what are you gonna do to get yourself in a podcast award mindset? what's your what's your game?

Clare Stephens  4:22  
So my sister and I have decided we're never going to be invited to any other Australian award show like the low gays or the arias. We're never going to make it to the Emmys or anything like that. So we're treating the Podcast Awards as our logins. So we'll be getting really dressed up we'll be going really, really over the top and just making everybody uncomfortable I think is is where it's at. So

Dan Ilic  4:49  
it's a shame you know, Richard, Richard Wilkins won't be there to give everyone cocaine it will be real devastating. And the podcast no podcast is gonna afford cocaine nicely. The only ones that can. Tony and Ryan The other ones that can afford cocaine they just did that million dollar deal with Spotify.

Georgie Carroll  5:03  
Well, you know a table though to you then don't you Claire? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not even going I'm gonna be in Adelaide so you are rock on without me. And you know I've written a speech because of winning but

Dan Ilic  5:20  
well if you want it to want us to do it for you and pass it on to Luis, he'll read it out for you. And he's the co host of many podcasts and rush to irrational fears is one of them. He's a man that makes money because he is the voice of honey. It is Lewis Hall by welcome Louis.

Lewis Hobba  5:32  
Hello Dan. How are you? Oh, it's

Dan Ilic  5:35  
so he's such a sexy voice.

Lewis Hobba  5:38  
Yeah. Next week I'm going to the Podcast Awards and the arias it's a it's a real awards week for me.

Georgie Carroll  5:46  
Music jam Lewis, why?

Lewis Hobba  5:48  
I don't know why we're there. Actually. Were just there. Were just there. Carpet meet.

Dan Ilic  5:58  
Coming up later, we talked to Brynn O'Brien about how a board shuffle at ato could possibly bring about the most dramatic drop in carbon emissions in Australia's history. But first here is a message from this week's sponsor.

Unknown Speaker  6:12  
This Sunday, the entire globe descends on Cata for the event no one will talk about it's the turning a blind eye World Cup

Unknown Speaker  6:22  
football players ends up picking a chip Patty CIO for the wildcards alleged Oh J Trump, every game as a loser. There are just lots more losers and football teams play Oh, I've seen jockstraps treated better than the construction workers in Qatar

Unknown Speaker  6:38  
32 nations will go head to head and then turn their heads to look the other way.

Unknown Speaker  6:44  
And they've completely mistakes. Look at that. The exploitation, the corruption, the discrimination, the total inability to buy a beer.

Unknown Speaker  6:54  
Which country will rationalize the cost of kicking around a ball on a field in a country without fields

Unknown Speaker  7:01  
I've got to say cats are is hosting the most awful job that I've ever refused to witness and the final score is migrant deaths 6500 versus the world

Unknown Speaker  7:12  
now, interest get ready to ignore all of the action further turning a blind eye World Cup or ticket will buy you a whole seat that was installed by someone who died of heat exhaustion.

Dan Ilic  7:25  
Thank you for that very classy sponsor there. Yes, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicks off this week and much like the living area of Donald Trump Jr's house, there's an elephant in the room. Cat as human rights abuses have well been documented in the lead up to this World Cup and there's you know, heaps of problematic things but the English comedian journalists it has highlighted one of them and is applying pressure in his own unique way. Here is Joe Lysaght. To explain this

Joe Lycett  7:51  
is a message to David Beckham. I consider you along with Kim Woodburn and Monty Don to be a gay icon. You're the first premiership footballer to do shoots with gay magazines like attitude to speak openly about your gay fans, and he married a Spice Girl, which is the gayest thing a human being can do. But now it's 2022 and you signed a reported 10 million pound deal with Cata to be their ambassador during the FIFA World Cup. Qatar was voted as one of the worst places in the world to be gay. homosexuality is illegal punishable by imprisonment. And if you're Muslim, possibly even death. You've always talked about the power of football as a force for good, which suggests to me that you've never seen West Brom, but generally I agree. So with that in mind, I'm giving you a choice. If you end your relationship with Cata I'll donate this 10 grand of my own money as a grand for every million euro reportedly getting to charities that support queer people in football. However, if you do not that midday next Sunday, I will throw this money into a shredder just before the opening ceremony of the World Cup and stream it live on a website I've registered called Bendis like beckham.com not just the money, but also your status as a gay icon will be shredded, you'll be forcing me to commit a crime. Although even then I reckon I get off more likely than I would if I got caught whacking off a lad in Doha. The choice is yours. I look forward to hearing from you.

Dan Ilic  9:12  
What I love most about that is he is kind of like this gay Bond villain and it's fantastic. Georgie Do you think Joe lice is going to change David Beckham's mind

Brynn O'Brien  9:22  
no

Georgie Carroll  9:24  
no I mean he has been a good guy icon as as our backup but now he's gonna burn it all know and ease Yeah, I don't know if Marian a Spice Girl is a gay so you can do I think probably Marian one of Backstreet Boys would be that would be for doing like like you know they just put it in the wrong country again like Russia last time wasn't it and that wasn't particularly gay friendly.

Lewis Hobba  9:50  
So thinking 2026 North Korean World Cup.

Georgie Carroll  9:56  
I know. Backwards, don't ya and then you're like, well, we've only just had our first gay bye I have basketball I like it's sport does have a fairway accom in terms of a in fact my boys I got 16 and 18 year old do a soccer mad and they reckon Gary Lineker said there's two premiership football is going to come out during the World Cup. Oh, about that close. How is it this year and they're only just having that I know we've had one premiership player before haven't we bought,

Clare Stephens  10:27  
but it'd be really clever to do it during the World Cup. Like given given where it is. And given the conversation, it'd be such a it really shines a spotlight on it even more than than this video, which a word from

Georgie Carroll  10:41  
the World Cup is you can come and wave your rainbow flags, but don't do anything against our culture. So I think COVID out my warrant. Yeah, a bit of jail time. I don't know. I don't know how they're gonna do it.

Lewis Hobba  10:55  
It's crazy. It's crazy that like, given faith, his track record over the last like decade, that they managed to find a new way to be terrible. Like, yeah, they were already you're just like, these are the worst people in the world. And and then they're like, Wait, hold our own 120 Olivia, we can be worse, although they're

Georgie Carroll  11:13  
holding themselves out as the most progressive of the Arab nations is what they're saying.

Dan Ilic  11:18  
Yes, yes. The the Arab nation that has an embassy for the Taliban is the most progressive. All the Arab nations. Yeah.

Clare Stephens  11:28  
It's just such a PR does it like you just imagine these people sitting in a room being like wish we have it? Yeah, we'll have it in Qatar. There'll be no issue with that, like, look at their laws. No, no, it'd be absolutely fine.

Dan Ilic  11:38  
Not even not even that let's let's look at Do they have any grace in Qatar? No, they don't. We have to we have to be we have to import some grass. We have to build some stadiums.

Clare Stephen  11:47  
It also feels a little bit strange to be potentially shredding money during such a horrible time for the economy because it is

Lewis Hobba  11:57  
also for him, like 10 million pounds must be nothing for him.

Clare Stephen  12:01  
That's what I'm really confused about. Because I saw 10 million and I went mate, you don't need the 10 mil but then I saw 150 million and I was like we all have a price.

Dan Ilic  12:12  
Well, Claire, what's the amount of money that you need to you know, to sell out? So

Clare Stephen  12:15  
I think about this a lot. Because I'm just like, you know, not a lot and it's really embarrassing. Sometimes I think 100 bucks, and I do something pretty freakin humiliating in terms of my values, or harder No, the thing that annoys me about this is that I'm like the back ends are fine. Like with like, with or without the 10 100 and 50 million. You're very comfortable. I actually get quite stressed when I think about people who have too much money. I think that must be stressful because where is it up?

Georgie Carroll  12:54  
I reckon I've got exactly the right amount of money and I'd still do dodgy stuff for $100.

Dan Ilic  13:02  
Can I say we always need more money to irrational fear. So, if you want us to do something dodgy with it head to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear and chip in

Lewis Hobba  13:12  
on ethical sniper is listening.

Dan Ilic  13:17  
If unethical super is listening and they want to you know double the amount of money Australian ethical is giving us let us know.

Lewis Hobba  13:23  
I guess the Beckham's do have to find out. Brooklyn's like constant nepotistic failures and his weird photography careers and is like branch into modeling and theater or music or whatever. I'm

Dan Ilic  13:36  
glad you brought that up, Louis because that is a whole episode on Claire Stephens podcast canceled. You can listen to it on the Mamma Mia feed. I listened to it this week. I learned all sorts of things about somebody I didn't know that person was Brooklyn Beckham.

Lewis Hobba  13:52  
I love it. I am so excited to listen to Lewis he

Dan Ilic  13:55  
Lewis. Here's what I learned from Claire's Podcast. I'm gonna mansplain Claire's podcast back. I learned that he he had his own. He wanted to learn how to cook. He doesn't know how to cook. But somehow someone gave him a cooking show. And he has all these chefs that prepare the food for him. And he actually doesn't know anything about cooking any mixed up what butter and cheese was basically the same. And he

Clare Stephens  14:17  
gets paid $100,000 In episode to learn how to.

Dan Ilic  14:21  
And that is $98,000 more in episode than I've ever been paid to work on TV in my life. Claire,

Lewis Hobba  14:28  
I assume you have and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on his book of photography.

Clare Stephens  14:33  
I appreciate how he did right in his book of photography. He said he was in Kenya and he took this photo of the elephant and they're hard to capture. And I thought if you are going to be a photographer, it is your job to capture it. But also if you Google elephant, there are some excellent photos that come up Brooklyn that are better than your one. He's not.

Lewis Hobba  14:53  
If no one if people listening and they haven't seen it. It's basically just a photo of it's just like a black photo with a vague outline of an elephant and the caption of it is like, elephants can be quite hard to capture and you're like, there is nothing easier in the world to take a photo of than a giant fucking elephant, you absolute idiot.

Clare Stephens  15:13  
I actually feel quite sorry for him because once I went really deep, isn't a man with no talent. And that must be so hard. Because you hold the opportunity and no skill

Georgie Carroll  15:25  
and impressive data until this week,

Dan Ilic  15:28  
I felt really sad listening to the podcast, I was like, Oh, we shouldn't be talking about this guy. We should put this guy in TAFE.

Unknown Speaker  15:35  
This is rational fear. All of the photos were taken by Brooklyn himself.

Unknown Speaker  15:41  
I started taking some just on my phone. And several photos from the collection have already been released. And yes, I started posting them on Instagram. But a few years later, Penguin came to me. I feel like it turned out pretty well.

Dan Ilic  15:53  
You're listening. very rational fear this week. Second fear. Elon Musk is like the dog who caught the self driving car. Now he's got Twitter, can he fix it before it explodes. So far since buying Twitter for $44 billion, just a couple of weeks ago, he said half the workforce that's about 3700 people. He's also fired most of the contractors about 4000 to 5000 contractors who found out over Twitter that they got fired or just couldn't log on to their email address. Now there are so many people who know what kind of company mass has sent this all hands email. This is the email he sent a couple of days ago, said going forward to build a break through Twitter 2.0, and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity, only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. If you think you want to be part of the new Twitter, click on the link below. Anyone who has not done it by 5pm. Tomorrow will receive three months severance, he is trying to get a third of the people to do 100% of the work. Twitter is reportedly losing so many daily users that the new number one social network in Australia on the Australian App Store is myGov. So that's pretty exciting. People love getting messages from the ATO. Hey, Claire, you run a well, you recently took over a major media organization. What did you do when you took over Mamma Mia did your Did you find half the workforce?

Clare Stephens  17:17  
I didn't send that email. And the reason I didn't send that email is because I think when you send an email with the subject line, a fork in the road, it scares people for one. And I know that as an individual, I will often see a scary email and then not open it for 48 hours. And I thought if I were one of his employees, then I would have seen that email gone or avoided it. The time I opened it, I would have been made redundant because I did. Man, that's such an odd email to send. Like, it's just he's asking people, I think the scary thing is that he said in it, that it's going to be extremely hard core and that people need to be working long hours at high intensity. So what point is anyone allowed to say, Hey, I'm stressed or I've been working for four days straight? And can I have a break then I'd say that because apparently they agreed to it in this email.

Dan Ilic  18:17  
This is a guy who essentially has been hiring people to go through slack and to go through Twitter to see where Twitter employees have been mouthing off against him. This is the free the Free Speech worry about you went bought a social network. And it's basically basically like yelling, I'm gonna get rid of everyone who disagrees with me and this is what he's been doing. It's so It's so wild.

Georgie Carroll  18:37  
It'd be that hard working for Twitter anyway, what do you actually do if you work? Words in the in the book, exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. What one is this man from?

Lewis Hobba  18:51  
Like he's got he's gonna

Dan Ilic  18:51  
have to fire himself Georgie that means like Nick's comedy festival like you would get fired if chortle didn't give you five stars.

Georgie Carroll  19:00  
Okay, even read that. So yeah, it's just absolute horrible, horrible man. I've managed to avoid knowing anything about him until doing this podcast I heard but a little bit. I do not need to be less relevant to me than Santa Claus.

Dan Ilic  19:18  
Can I say to everyone listening when I sent GA Dima asked him to do the show GA replied saying I don't actually read the news. I don't know what

Georgie Carroll  19:29  
I said and it makes me feel like a useless person. Georgie wanted

Dan Ilic  19:33  
to know what streaming service the news was on so she could catch up

Clare Stephen  19:38  
he's an interesting guy. He's trying to save the world. I don't know but the Twitter thing is really has really got me off side. Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  19:44  
I think I feel like there was a time where I was like, You know what, this is a flawed individual trying to do the best for the world. And I no longer believe that I now I now think this is a complete idiot who has no idea what he's doing. And he's just Mr. Magoo falling from dumping to dumping 1000 Tesla, Scott He called in Australia this week that killing people on the roads. He promised to get to Mars 10 years ago. He's nowhere near it. Nothing he does works. He's an absolute buffoon. He's overconfident. He says he's gonna do stuff. He signs himself up to it. He fucks it up. And then it this guy is an absolute 14 year old fuckwit. And I do not think he is doing anything good for the world. I think he should go and be an ambassador to Qatar. He is He is just, he's he socks. I also tried to talk to him once its Splendor in the Grass and his security blocked me. So I also have a personal vendetta. He was in splendor. Wow, that's awesome when he was when he was bringing that big battery to Adelaide. And, and he was hanging out at spender. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go and chat to Elon Musk. And so I walked over, and his security was like, No way. And I Okay, fair enough. And I backed away and then I went to just like take a photo to send like the work group chats were like, hey, Elon Musk's in the VIP bar. And as I held up my phone, their security held up this like, flashy thing. The phone stopped me from taking a photo. Anyway, I was like, oh, man, you know, one Elan Musk won't let anyone talk to him. And I was there with Dylan old car at the time until an old gods like watch this. A deal at all caught went over. And of course security was like, get on in there Dylan. And the deal on a halo masters had the best job ever. You just gotta you fucking future straight of the year, I get it. A three time Australian Wimbledon winner. That's all it takes.

Dan Ilic  21:29  
Now, before we get to a third fee. Did you guys see that Alba met with President Z on the sidelines of the G 20. We don't know exactly what happened inside that meeting.

Georgie Carroll  21:37  
But that the Italian one.

Dan Ilic  21:40  
President G is is the President of China. The Italian one is Anthony Albanese, who also happens to be Australian. So it's pretty confusing. It's very confusing there. Now, we don't know what happened inside that meeting. But it seems that there's been a bit of a dramatic reset between relations between Australia and China, which is pretty remarkable as we heard from Albanese, his post meeting conference. Thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you. Okay, ready, on want to thank President sheet for a productive conversation? Sure, Australia and China have our differences. China has a problem with disappearing protesters. We know exactly where ours are under very strict bowel conditions. China is increasing coal use. We are far more into gas. China's indigenous populations face imprisonment, relocation, theft of their land, reeducation, discrimination, forced labor, and organ harvesting. We don't do the organ harvesting part. But despite our differences, there's something China and Australia can agree. The best way to support work is to help rich people get richer was Robert infrastruc. Thank you. No questions. What about the questions? Oh, look, there's another similarity. I forgot about repressing press freedoms and I forget that we're becoming more and more like you every day. Looks like it's gonna be quite positive. Well done. Well done. Big thanks to Mammoth dominant claw on Discord who wrote that joke? That's one of the perks of being a Patreon member. You get to access the discord and write jokes for the show for free. Well, actually, you pay to write jokes. It's amazing. We like the Elon Musk here so it's a very good system. It's a very good system. This week's third the here's another thing you can remove from the list of things that are Dan Andrews fault, not being able to buy a tampon yes in the latest bid to bolster their already huge lead over the Liberal Party of Victoria. The Labour Party is offering free pads and tampons. If they win the Victorian State election. It's a pretty good policy that's going to leave the Liberal Party wondering how to stop the bleeding of their supporter base. Labour would like to see 1500 pad and tampon dispensing machines installed up to 700 sites including public hospitals, courts, tapes, libraries and train stations. But not when I found some tweets that didn't actually agree with this. This one comes from interest. Celt, have you tested all the tampons available in Australia before issuing those for free? Well, Susan, that's not how you that's not how templates work. You can't really test them all before issuing them doesn't quite work like that. Dan's a busy guy probably hasn't tested it. Then there's this one here. Are they gonna be for all the different genders please, please clarify who they are for? That one comes from someone called jetski bandit. Jetski. Band needs to know or therefore.

Lewis Hobba  24:35  
And then his big job at Sydney Harbour for White Ribbon Day was cancelled.

Dan Ilic  24:40  
That's right. He's looking for the next gig. Then there's this one here from karma kangaroo which says will you make toilet paper free Dan toilet paper is a necessity and then thank Liz who chimed in saying that toilet paper is free of public toilets. Wow, you one are really I thought that was good.

Georgie Carroll  24:57  
As well as not know is that once a month If you were to wait and poo uncontrollably for the whole week, maybe we should get free toilet paper. That's not Yeah, you can't leave the house you'd have to live in your little hot.

Dan Ilic  25:12  
If you didn't come a kangaroo doesn't worry. They just put all their stuff in a pouch. We've got a free menstrual cup wherever they go.

Georgie Carroll  25:19  
When does it come in the election? Because I reckon I've only got about three eggs left. Why am I bothered? I've got three good eggs and I'm not in Melbourne until March. So what's going

Dan Ilic  25:31  
to ship them to Dan Andrews. Then there's finally this bit of insight from a counselor counselor Steve Christo. Right. Free tampons. What's next free penis and extensions.

Georgie Carroll  25:41  
Well, I have been extending penises in Melbourne bathrooms for free for quite a while

Clare Stephens  25:57  
somebody who doesn't understand how taxpayer dollars work, he doesn't understand how government works. I say fine. You can have your free penis extensions. I'm all good for that. But I love that men got so upset about this and they're like but but what's in it for me? Like can you can you take some of the pads and tampons? I don't know what you'll do with them that you may take them if you wish.

Georgie Carroll  26:22  
Well, so many things on their armpits.

Clare Stephen  26:26  
There you go. Thank you for that. I'm going to be the worst type of person like on the person that people will fear because I if they become free, I will never buy one again. Every time I go to a public toilet. I will get a huge thing of tampons a huge thing of pads and I will stockpile them in my home.

Dan Ilic  26:44  
Maybe they will kind of mitigate that by putting a picture of Dan Andrews on the wrapper, you know instead of trivia that might that might prevent you from know that not

Georgie Carroll  26:51  
all tampons are created equal though Claire, like Lucy, these are not going to be quality tampons. It's going to be

Dan Ilic  26:58  
is it going to be Victorian government approved tampons?

Lewis Hobba  27:01  
There'll be single ply there'll be a bit damp

Clare Stephen  27:04  
Georgie you know when you go overseas, you go to like the US and they've got the applicator ones but with the cardboard. They'll be like that. That yeah, like the ones where

Georgie Carroll  27:13  
they used to come with a belt. Do you remember them ones that you said no, you're too young for this. But they used to wear a belt and they had a loop on the front and a little loop on the back to tie around your waist. That's what they're gonna be like.

Dan Ilic  27:26  
That sounds

Georgie Carroll  27:27  
very Melbourne, Melbourne love a bit of retro. Very hipster.

Dan Ilic  27:33  
When we come back what Agios bored makeup has to do with saving the planet, you're listening

Unknown Speaker  27:37  
to a rational theory.

Dan Ilic  27:41  
And this is the part of the podcast where we just talk about how wonderful our sponsor is, which is Australian Ethical Investments, big thank you to them. Not only do they have discerning tastes when it comes to sponsoring comedy podcasts like ours, they also have discerning tastes where they put their money or rather, your money if you invest with them. When it comes to investments, they don't do things like tobacco, weapons, big climate pollutants, human trafficking, they stay away from all of that bad stuff. And they only invest in the good stuff. So you can look your kids in the eye and tell them that because you put your money in strain ethical, you basically made the world a little bit less worse. Yeah, that's that's the idea. We're, you know, we're making the world a little bit less worse or rather, a better world. You know, that's another way to put it short, you know, glass half full if you want a better world, glass, half empty, a little less worse. It's up to you. So big thank you to Australian ethical, find out more go to Australian ethical.com.au. Okay, back to the pod. And we're back this week, the long running battle for the control of AGL has turned to page followers of climate news will remember earlier this year, when Mike cannon Brooks became a majority shareholder in the company and we just 11% of ownership has demanded some changes in leadership. And so a battle for the future of the energy giant ensued, and thus, the future of the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the country is now heading down a different direction while someone who knows a little bit about what went down at AGL over the last few months is friend of the show. Brynn O'Brien from the Australasian center for corporate responsibility. Brian, welcome back to rational fear.

Brynn O'Brien  29:25  
Great to be here. What a week.

Dan Ilic  29:27  
Oh my god, what a week for you and what a week for people who work in this climate space. Tell us what what happened with this AGL board reshuffle and why does it matter?

Brynn O'Brien  29:37  
So AGL went to the AGM the current board which is the kind of backwards thinking part of the board or that's probably unfair, but I'll simplify like that. They went to the board with five directors right and they said well, you know, four of them are up for election. One of them doesn't need to be elected. He's he continues on but for More of them are up for election. And there are 10 board seats at this company. And they didn't, they just didn't put anyone up. So Mike cannon Brooks and his team at Brock ventures saw an opportunity they tried to take over the company a few months ago, they tried twice, the company rejected their takeover bids. And so they put up four directors, which takes us tonight, and then the maximum is 10. And the current board or the pre existing board, sort of they accepted one of them, they said, Okay, there's this one dude, Mark Tweedale, who worked for Tesla with there's an Elan theme here that I'm not going to take his back into, because that would be bad, but that they accepted him. And then the other three directors including Carrie shot, Dr. Kerry shot, who's you know, very well known energy market expert, head of the regulator, etc. They put these other three directors up as well. And Patricia McKenzie, who's the Chair of AGL said not, their experience isn't relevant to us, we're just going to go to a vote with these, you know, five directors that we think are good, and this one other director, and shareholders basically just said, No luck off, we're going to get the other three up to so now. So all of the directors that might kind of Brooks proposed, and they're all independent. So, you know, they're, they're not there to kind of do his bidding, but they are on the record saying that they think the company can transition more rapidly, they all got elected. So the balance of power, if you look at the nine members of that board, now, five of them have really serious energy transition and renewables experience.

Dan Ilic  31:48  
That's so incredible, like a few months ago, grok was trying to buy the whole company and then just kind of couldn't, couldn't get past that 11% mark, and then a few months later, all of a sudden owns the company without actually having to, you know, invest all that money. That's such a great own goal by IGN.

Lewis Hobba  32:04  
Elon Musk must be sitting there going, Oh, fuck, there was a better way.

Dan Ilic  32:11  
When will we see like exponential change in the way AGL operate?

Brynn O'Brien  32:15  
Well, look, I think there's, you know, we've got corporations or in Australia, that kind of governs the way that directors have to do their jobs. So now that these four people nominated by Mike and ngrok have been elected, what they need to do is, like, really get their heads into the game. So they need to go and look at all of the company's accounts and books and really look at those opportunities for rapid transition. So I expect they'll there'll be in there doing it, it's kind of awkward, because, you know, the chair and the other directors sort of said, Oh, you don't have anything to offer this board. So there's some interesting boardroom dynamics there. But look, I expect that they'll all get on with the job, they'll just have a look. AGL, just to kind of remind people is 8% of Australia's national emissions, so about 90 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. So it's really, really massive, and just this, you know, I like hats off to the grok team really like that it was a bold thing that they did, there's no script for this, no one's ever done it before. And they had to wear the kind of very real possibility of humiliating defeat, and they and they nailed it. So it's, yeah, super exciting that the new board or the like the full board, as of today has a massive job ahead. And they still have to appoint a CEO. So they've got an interim CEO, who's a bloke who's been with the company for a while, but you know that they have to appoint a new CEO or or appoint him permanently into the role. And I've just got so much working.

Dan Ilic  33:42  
And to give you a bit of history, like AGL has been the biggest polluter in Australia for such a long time. But they did have a plan to rapidly transition to renewables in the mid teens, if you like. And that plan was headed up by an American CEO who was running the company at the time. And and then when I announced that plan, Josh Frydenberg, who was the energy minister at the time, said, Oh, no, no, no, we can't have we can't have our biggest coal user no longer use coal, that wouldn't be good for our Liberal Party donors. He then systematically went and bullied all of the board members to encourage them to sack the CEO, and the CEO got bullied out of AGL quit. And then they installed their own friendly CEO to the coal companies. And coal got entrenched for until where we are now this is where we are at the moment. It's, it's so bizarre that the previous coalition is such against this transition, that that they did that in the first place where we

Brynn O'Brien  34:39  
are right now, what we're hearing from the company from staff in the company. So this is a massive company. They've got heaps of staff, many of whom want, you know, want to be part of the industry of the future. What we're hearing now and what we heard over the last couple of days is that this is a big relief, that there is a renewal within the company and Today's a real excitement about the transition ahead. And that must be a huge, huge burden lifted from the clever people that work there who want to do the right thing and be part of the transition.

Dan Ilic  35:11  
Brian, do they want to sponsor a podcast? I know.

Brynn O'Brien  35:17  
I think you know, you might have to shake a tree down.

Lewis Hobba  35:21  
I was gonna say really quick bread. I am an ATO customer. I've been meaning to leave for like two years because we'd every time we do this podcast, I leave go like, Fuck, I'm a monster. And I'm an idiot. Does this give me an excuse to not have to make the change?

Brynn O'Brien  35:36  
Ah, I'm gonna say yes. You know, the only thing worse than being an AGL customer is being an AGL. shareholder.

Dan Ilic  35:45  
I'm, I'm an ideal shareholder, and I bought shares. So I could vote so.

Brynn O'Brien  35:51  
Well, look, I've held AGL for a few years. But no, the the the I think for AGL customers purely, you know, to delay the administrative burden of this. Just yeah, give it a year. And look, the company. I think they said they weren't going to put a new climate plan for a vote this time next year. Now they're saying they will. And my, my prediction is that with this new board and a dynamic, qualified CEO that they're trying to lock in place at the moment, will deliver a really exciting transition plan. And that's, you know, again, 8% of Australia's national emissions 90 million tonnes of co2 equivalent per year. It's such a big fry, and well done to everyone who's who's had a

Dan Ilic  36:38  
had a crack. That's super exciting and big thanks to anyone who's good at it. AGL shares who voted over the last few weeks on whatever you got to vote on. We had done for rational fear. Thank you to everybody who's joined us for tonight. Brynn O'Brien, Georgia. Carol, Claire Stevens, let's get our plugs underway. Claire, what would you like to plug?

Clare Stephens  36:57  
Listen to my podcast canceled? If you don't want to think about anything serious for about 40 minutes. I think it's a really good listen to this podcast and you'll have some knowledge and feel very clever. And then you can listen to canceled and feel like you've learned nothing. So that's really, really good. Not true.

Dan Ilic  37:18  
You're a Mariah Carey this week.

Lewis Hobba  37:22  
Oh my God. Are you doing Mariah Carey this week?

Clare Stephens  37:24  
Yeah, we did Mariah, but we just it's but I mean, it's so hard because she's she's flawless. She's iconic. So it was so hard to find any you know any crimes for her because

Dan Ilic  37:34  
she and we should we should be clear for the audience that even though the podcast is called canceled, it's not about Sam Newman or Harvey Weinstein. Like you weren't? You weren't? You weren't find anything about that. That's not Georgia. Kara. What would you like to plug?

Georgie Carroll  37:51  
Well, when you listen to Claire's, come over to my podcast, which is a swab, which is just nightshift, Bama from hospital. So if you ever imagine what kind of utter nonsense we talk about at three in the morning when we're high on Haribo and no sleep, and we get really stupid. That is one that no funny so yeah, that's my podcast.

Dan Ilic  38:15  
Lewis. How about you got anything to plug?

Lewis Hobba  38:18  
I mean, nothing new. You could still go and watch this new television special. It is called Australia's best competition competition. It's really good. It's on I view. It's very funny. It's very silly. And go and watch it. And if you watched it, get a new eye view account and watch it again.

Dan Ilic  38:38  
You want to plug anything.

Brynn O'Brien  38:39  
I am plugging the First Nations clean energy network, which is first so it's First Nations clean energy.org.au It building capacity for renewable energy with controlling ownership in Aboriginal hands.

Dan Ilic  38:53  
Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna plug. Question everything I'm on on Tuesday on Wednesday. If you're in Sydney on Tuesday, along and come to the taping and laugh at my jokes. Thanks very much. Big thanks to rode mics Australian ethical our Patreon supporters, Carmen cake Sonya and Patrick who joined up this week. The wonderful Rupert Degas who made that extraordinary promo at the start of the show for the Qatari FIFA sketch. Thank you very much. Also, Jacob round on the teppanyaki timeline who cut that sketch. So good. So talented, so lucky to have folks like that. Help us out with the show. If you want to help us out, hit us up on Patreon for slash irrational fear until next week, is always something to be scared of. So yeah,

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G'day Fearmongers —.

👑The Australian Monarchist League making demands of Netflix.
🎥 Sylvester Stallone's new  Reality Project.
🏆 Sean Penn giving Volodymyr Zelensky an Oscar®.
🇺🇸 The US Mid-term elections.

With fellow fearmongers Matt Bevan (Russia If You're Listening), Cam James (Finding Yeezus), Dan Ilic (me), Lewis Hobba (Australia's Best Competition, Competition) and Alison Piotrowski (Nine's US Correspondent).

Thanks so much for listening!

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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Lewis Hobba  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Oh,

Matt Bevan  0:04  
good morning. Not good morning. Good evening, Louis.

Lewis Hobba  0:07  
Well, depending on when you're listening to this podcast Good evening, good morning. Good day to you.

Matt Bevan  0:14  
Yeah, exactly. Well, we are going to be talking to Allison Petroski a little later on in the program and her time when we're talking to her. It's 4am So she's in Washington DC, so I don't know if she's had a good morning so far but we'll find out when we talk to her in half an hour.

Lewis Hobba  0:29  
Wow. Right we the midterm results flowing in Yeah, imagine cheat, we probably haven't got her up. She'd be awake anyway,

Matt Bevan  0:34  
she said, I just want to get to bed, Dan, but for you, I'll do it. Anyway, there's a big thanks to Australian ethical who help us do what we do here on irrational fear. Also some other folks who also help us out, including our Patreon supporters, including Sonya, exclamation mark, Patric, Kate, and Chad. Thank you for new Patreon supporters. Big thank you to you guys, Chip. Again, as you'll see, a little later on the show. I started to spend Patreon money on frivolous things. And it's that kind of money that keeps the show on the air. And a little later on, we'll talk a little bit about, you know, being nominated for a podcast award. Very excited.

Lewis Hobba  1:12  
Is that right? Yeah,

Matt Bevan  1:13  
surely you know this, Louis?

Lewis Hobba  1:15  
I found out because you sent me an email to invite me I was thrilled.

Matt Bevan  1:18  
I'm recording my end of irrational fear and getting Atlanta the urination. Sovereignty was never seated. We did a treaty. Let's stop the show.

Unknown Speaker  1:26  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks can rub off. Fed COMM And section 40 of our rational view recommended listening by immature audiences.

Matt Bevan  1:39  
Tonight, the US midterm elections causes a rise in serious journalists saying the word gubernatorial and Vogue Sue's Drake for making a parody of a magazine cover despite no one suing vogue for making a parody of a fashion magazine. And Anthony Albanese is set to meet President Zhi Jing ping at the G 20. Summit Alamo will present the Chinese president with an album by gang of us and G will present albeau with an ultimatum fit for a capitalist lapdog of American imperialism, and a lovely pair of shoes made by a gang of detained dudes. It's the 11th of November and we're not afraid to go lower than Bitcoin. This is a rational fear.

Hello, welcome to irrational fear. My name is Daniel H. I am the CO creator of the den Andrews Tuesday program. And this is the podcast that is nominated for one of the best comedy podcasts in Australia for 2022.

Lewis Hobba  2:47  
That's crazy.

Matt Bevan  2:49  
Yeah, because there are so many comedy podcasts. I don't know how we did it. Yeah, we'll talk about

Lewis Hobba  2:54  
there. I don't mean to say that we're a shit podcast, but there are so many great podcasts.

Matt Bevan  2:58  
We'll talk a little bit more about it in a second. But I just want to introduce you to our fear mongers for tonight. They two very highly successful podcasters but they are also Newcastle's fourth and fifth favorite sons from the podcast, Russia. If you're listening, it's Matt Bevin and from the web series finding years this is cam James. Hey,

Cam James  3:20  
thanks for having us feeling very gubernatorial tonight. So thank you.

Matt Bevan  3:23  
Yeah, I'm very excited. First longtime listener first time Fira, I guess you know, terrified person. People on the show, what are you talking about? What is what is it? A few years? younger female.

Lewis Hobba  3:38  
You're supposed to create the fear, man. Yeah, you're not supposed to feel the fear you

Matt Bevan  3:43  
bring the fear? Yeah, bring it.

Lewis Hobba  3:46  
I didn't actually know you were both from Newcastle. Yeah, who's above you? I guess the three John's brothers. And Daniel Jones.

Cam James  3:53  
Are we counting Daniel? Daniel as a sibling to Maddie and Andrew.

Matt Bevan  3:59  
Three John's brothers could family is the other one. Generally ranks above us.

Cam James  4:05  
You met Doug McDougal. I don't know if he's from there. Reese Nicholson. Comedian. He's from Merrill. Yes, yes.

Matt Bevan  4:11  
So I've I've an anecdote about reasoning, because here we go. Do you want a quick anecdote about reasons. So reason Nicholson and I were in community theater together. And the community theater that we were at, would do a thing where they would, in order to give as many kids a turn as possible. They would set up two casts for each show, and then you sort of take turns performance. And Reese and I were both the lion in the Wizard of Oz, taking turns being the lone, but that meant that we had to share the same lion suit beautiful. And the show was done in like October, November of a very hot year. And so Reese and I both lost several kilos, doing that roll into the suit. And yeah, and you shared that suit around for quite some time, so yes, reason I share a bond that few other people share

Cam James  5:05  
thicker than thicker than a bond lion

Lewis Hobba  5:10  
where the phrase lion's share comes from Newcastle theater.

Matt Bevan  5:17  
I met when, when the lion news broke last week, did you have an inkling or an urge to jump on the jog? Get in the line suit and negotiate on behalf of lions in Taronga Zoo. Yeah, I had a feeling that it was something there was something lion related happening and

Cam James  5:30  
Soluna race just texted to check in.

Matt Bevan  5:33  
We don't need to text we just sort of communicate telepathically. But yeah, I'm sure I'm sure I could have sorted it out at least better than the Mosman police station. We are nominated for a podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards. And I wanted to you've mentioned that I just I just wanted to bring this up because it's something interesting that someone pointed out to me one of Shannon marinko, who is the co host of the Xero project sent me this link apparently sports bet has odds on for

Lewis Hobba  6:05  
most of the awards to sports but have a podcast?

Matt Bevan  6:08  
Definitely should comedians need work. And that's all they employ at the moment.

Lewis Hobba  6:13  
Get the three John's brothers.

Cam James  6:16  
Look at this on the John's triplets.

Matt Bevan  6:18  
We're paying $2.20 And then probably the big the biggest podcast out of this with the one of the most listeners Tony and Ryan, who's got hundreds of 1000s of listeners. They're paying $7 I don't know how that I think that's all wrong. Surely

Lewis Hobba  6:33  
that if I was a gambling person I I'd quickly put a lot of money on. Yeah,

Matt Bevan  6:40  
I am actually thrilled that you guys are nominated for Best Comedy podcasts because you guys do quite a lot of climate content, obviously on the show and you could have decided to nominate yourselves for the climate. Matt Bevin I paid $200 of the petro money to apply for the climate award and we didn't even get oh well you're not in this category. I'm interested in what my odds are though, then other than that they're not they're not taking bets on the climate range maybe that's because the national broadcaster paid for your entry mat maybe maybe we'll we'll pay for your entry. Thank you for your eight cents Yeah, in fact, next week we got to tune other fellow nominees is funeral mongers Claire Stevens from Mamma Mia is canceled will be joining us and also the queen of Adelaide comedy Georgie Carroll from the swab podcast will be co hosting with us next week. Coming up a little later on the podcast will cross live to Washington DC with nines, US correspondent and friend of the show Alison Petroski to find out what's what happened in America today. Like Did anything happen in America today? Who knows? Who knows if anything happened in America today? But first, here's a message from this week's sponsor.

Unknown Speaker  7:49  
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Matt Bevan  8:47  
Always good to have a sponsor on the show this week. First fear. There's a lobby group in Australia that's calling for Australians to boycott Netflix. That lobby group is the Australian monarchist League. Yes, they are calling on all right thinking Australians to boycott Netflix until they correct the falsehoods and inaccuracies about the royal family in the TV show the crown. Apparently Netflix has been spreading falsehoods that the royal family is actually interesting. fear mongers, can we forgive Netflix for embellishing just a little bit here.

Cam James  9:23  
I think that they should the Monix league should just be grateful that anyone's talking about the Royals at all. Exactly. Did anyone else not give a shit about the Royals until this show? I've spent my entire life not caring now I'm so invested.

Matt Bevan  9:40  
This is the thing that's going to keep the Royals in power. This is the thing that's going to keep Australia in the Commonwealth. It's actually vital for the Royals to stay in this show because as long as people are wanting more seasons of the show, obviously they'll need to keep the monitor going.

Lewis Hobba  9:56  
If I was a real family, I'd be just be so happy that they'd made me hot.

Cam James  10:01  
So hot. So hot. So like,

Lewis Hobba  10:04  
I've watched the royal wedding or whatever, like, I mean, I've seen the news clips. There's no one hot family. They're all like weed inbred freaks. It's got. They've got super hot people playing them. I would be honored to have somebody that hot playing me

Matt Bevan  10:21  
love this line from YouTube comments. Pete Lola says, I thought the crown was about the moment of birth. Thank you.

Cam James  10:28  
I was watching the first season when it came out. And I just started thinking, oh my god, Princess Margaret was so beautiful. She's like, the most beautiful person in the world. And when I looked her up for rail, am I Oh?

Lewis Hobba  10:43  
Did the Monica have a thought on? Mary Harry, Gemma, that reality show? Yeah, I don't know if it's on Netflix. But it's must watch television. If anyone hasn't gotten around to it. As soon as you finish the crown pop over to marry Harry, they find a Prince Harry look alike. And then put him in a castle and get a bunch of women to come and they say that they're going to get to marry Prince Harry. And that's the whole show. And I think in my personal opinion, it deserves more awards than the crowd. When critics snubbed it.

Cam James  11:14  
It's some. It's like the bachelorette or something. The guide doesn't really look like Prince Harry. He just has ginger hair. So they only ever see him from about 300 meters away. So it's just like him scurrying from a helicopter to the castle. And the host is like there he is. And the girls like oh my god. The reason

Matt Bevan  11:33  
I would boycott the crown is because of the things that they leave out rather than the things that they put in. I mean, they date just skated straight past the constitutional crisis of 1975 without a mention of you know, the palace letters and the interaction with John Korea and that kind of thing. They didn't mention that they've already gone well past its royal knockout. They didn't touch on the time that the Royals decided to delve into their own reality television show do they actually get like one of the Royal no no to perform in several royal it's a knockout several really Yeah, yeah. So I believe it was the late 80s and look I'm not an entire expert on this but I believe it's a great it's a knockout was kind of like you know, the show where they you know, they're running and there's a big pool of water and the people are trying to jump from you know, obstacle obstacle into area like Ninja Warrior. It's like clown ninja warrior. Yeah, like why they had several royal family members participating in this thing in an effort to make them seem more personable

Cam James  12:31  
by having them on a reality Ninja Show. more personable and

Matt Bevan  12:35  
they didn't touch it. I just went straight past it into diner Yeah, there were there's a reason why they couldn't touch it right you know, it's an Darrell sermon still owns the rights to it. They couldn't they couldn't possibly do it. And if they were to do it, Darrell Summers would have to host it. They couldn't get someone to play Darryl so it's impossible.

Lewis Hobba  12:53  
They went right past when all the Royals put on blackface and danced on Hey, Gerald had the rights to that. I went to the Saudi Prince Harry was actually dressed as a Nazi and the rest of them are.

Cam James  13:07  
Adolf Hitler in the Jackson jive. I remember that. Gong memorandum and

Lewis Hobba  13:13  
thankfully, they actually had a few knots a uniform since most of them ah, it was pretty. I had that in the closet to hand me down.

Matt Bevan  13:22  
I went to the anarchists moniker, or the anarchists monitor.

Lewis Hobba  13:27  
When I was a kid, I downloaded the monarchists cookbook. I don't know what it would be diaper but it was just scarred. It's just

Matt Bevan  13:33  
scones and sticky date that can blow apart your anus. No, stop it. Look, I don't know who is in the Australian monikers League, but I just want to give them all a wedgie. So I went to the website to find out a little bit more about them. And you know, the websites pretty good. And the merch page has some great merch, like for instance, you can buy a brief history of our constitutional development as a nation for $10. Isn't that isn't that great? Just a fantastic book $10 to get a brief history, you can also buy a portrait of the King. I bought two because there's only $5 Why would you pay for that? Oh, you know, you can ask for your local MP for one for free. Well, technically, they're giving good they're giving it to you for free. So you can get a free version, you just have to pay for shipping. So I use the Patreon money. And I will give it

Lewis Hobba  14:24  
in you've got to stop telling people how you're spending it. Yeah, you're starting to sound like Bridget McKenzie.

Cam James  14:30  
Behind the curtain. Yeah,

Matt Bevan  14:32  
but if you become a patreon supporter, I will mail it to you. So you actually get it. That's great. That's so many this week. If you subscribe, you'll get a free portrait the King who knows if there's any one of you, maybe you'll get two portraits of the king. But the thing about the merch page that I really liked was that the heading said animal products

Cam James  15:00  
Okay, now I'm on board with the lake

Lewis Hobba  15:04  
I've got princely Papa.

Unknown Speaker  15:08  
rational fear the real shows Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute his journey from the heart of the British Royal Family to Hitler's inner circle Duke of

Unknown Speaker  15:17  
Sussex was called out when he was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume parties that

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
we know is the royal family a racist family, sir, you're listening to a very rational fear.

Matt Bevan  15:29  
This week second fear Sylvester Stallone is making a reality TV show is about his family or as the Daily Mail put it in the headline. Sylvester Stallone 76 poses with his stunning daughters as they prepare to become the next Kardashians with their Paramount plus show. Wow, Cam your life's work has been circling around the oeuvre of Sylvester Stallone, is this enough for you to sign up to Paramount

Cam James  15:55  
plus? No, unfortunately not.

Lewis Hobba  15:58  
Do you think they have the rights to calling it Sly and the Family Stone

Cam James  16:03  
slime family Stallone,

Matt Bevan  16:05  
that's better than one I had. I had Rambo's drags race, but

Cam James  16:09  
I've got because he's been going through marital issues at the moment. So I've got rocky on the rocks. I have the father and the Expendables for that's probably that's probably enough. Yeah.

Matt Bevan  16:30  
I also had sideling up to the stones and also Rocky 10 through 200. So

Cam James  16:38  
I'm fascinated his daughters have beautiful names. One of his daughters names is sistine Oh, wow,

Lewis Hobba  16:45  
thank you know how some people will name their child after where they work. You think he fucked in the chapel?

Matt Bevan  16:53  
That would be challenging.

Lewis Hobba  16:58  
If he's being honest, don't look. Watch me do my

Matt Bevan  17:01  
thing. Everyone's staring at the ceiling in that chapel. So I suppose.

Cam James  17:06  
Sure. No one's looking at no one's looking at dad.

Matt Bevan  17:09  
Instead of doing it as a Kardashians knockoff, rather more it's royal knockout style stuff. I would like to see Sylvester Stallone and his children attempting to, you know, getting beaten up by foam implements.

Lewis Hobba  17:26  
I don't think you can take another head. No, no. One more head knock. And that's it. Yeah, that's

Matt Bevan  17:32  
that's probably the reason why they've gone with the Kardashians. The there's very few, you know, brain injuries involved in the Kardashian show from what I've seen,

Lewis Hobba  17:42  
but yeah, it's low on.

Cam James  17:43  
We all make fun of Sylvester Stallone. But we all forget that he's an Oscar winner. And he's written. You know, Oscar winning screenplays. A lot of screenplays directed a lot of fantastic films. This TV show could be amazing. I mean, he could win a low GI. I don't know. Anything's possible he could win a low GI with this.

Matt Bevan  18:03  
One. Is that one of the things in the EGOT you're trying to, you know, get.

Cam James  18:11  
Did you read The Hollywood Reporter profile on him this week? No. What did it say? It's really fantastic. He's talking about this show and this new series that he has coming out also on Paramount plus, called Tulsa King. At one point he says Everyone thinks I'm just some rich guy who lives a rich guy life, but I'm just a normal guy. In fact, I was sitting around with Denzel Washington the other day or both just talking about how we normal gods.

Matt Bevan  18:37  
That's what Lewis and I do when we hang out together. We're just normal. Normal 76 year old with a 20 year old daughter.

Unknown Speaker  18:43  
It's totally normal. irrational fear. You think I'm a loser? I'm a loser. I like being a loser. I made a profession out of being a loser. You're a loser.

Matt Bevan  18:55  
This week's third year, Ukraine has been invaded by a new force. Sean Penn Yes, in the hopes to boost morale of Ukrainian soldiers, Sean Penn met with Vladimir Zelensky and gave him one of his Oscar trophies. Among is what is the Lensky going to do with Sean Penn's Oscar trophy.

Lewis Hobba  19:14  
I just have to get this out of the way. I think this could be the turning point in the whole war. As we all know, the pen is mightier than the sword. Yeah,

Matt Bevan  19:26  
I must have a sandwich at it. I mean, my latest series of my podcast is all about Zelinsky and Putin and that kind of thing. And so I've been really digging right into

Lewis Hobba  19:38  
and mines all about Sean Penn. So

Matt Bevan  19:42  
but, you know, there's a famous quote, of course from Zelinsky when people were asking him to leave the country to flee cave as the Russian army was approaching. He very famously said, I need weapons, not a right. But I've actually been digging deeper and deeper into Isn't that's the incorrect quote. The correct quote is I need weapons not a ride but also an Oscar trophy would be great. I need a copy of milk Mystic River to plays. Yeah.

Cam James  20:13  
I think other celebs should jump on the bandwagon and give out other awards. They've won, you know, absolutely lost her Buster awards. Maybe Lisa McCune could give away a few of her gold logo.

Lewis Hobba  20:25  
Dan, do you right now to support the people of Kyiv pledge to donate your Australian podcaster why

Matt Bevan  20:33  
I would not only give, give them these two. But I'll give them the new one. If we get another one. Wow, that boost morale like that. I think we need to contact Lockheed Martin and ask whether they're, you know, long distance artillery launches, have an attachment for trophies. You know, we've said if they wanted to send some Putin's way, you know, teach them and miss it and teach them a lesson. There's only one trophy you need to send and that is Arias because they're really, they're gonna, they'll they'll get you. They'll get you. When we come back. We'll be talking to Allison Petroski live from Washington DC.

Unknown Speaker  21:07  
This is a rational view, rational fear.

Matt Bevan  21:13  
Louisa, I'm just pausing the podcast for just one second to let you know that

Lewis Hobba  21:17  
we're asked to do a different podcast.

Matt Bevan  21:21  
It's really good. That's why they are number one. That's why they're number one. I'm just letting you know that you have a TV show on. But because it is only one episode, you might not be able to financially look after yourself and your forthcoming child.

Lewis Hobba  21:35  
Dan, if I had a million television shows and one of them was survivor, I still wouldn't be able to deal with my money well enough to pay for this child.

Matt Bevan  21:43  
I've got some good news. We do have a sponsor for irrational fear. So I can help you pay for your child or we can help you pay for your child's with the great people at Australian ethical who are chipping in to help us pay for this podcast. Thank you, Australian ethical, these people have been running money since 1986. Running money. It sounds like running drugs, doesn't it?

Lewis Hobba  22:02  
Well, it was only six, there is a good chance that they made their first million from cocaine. But it's

Matt Bevan  22:06  
unlikely because their names are Australian ethical. They spend their money putting it into good things, good things like health care, education, renewable energy, they stay away from things like cocaine, fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, all that stuff disappears. And it's really it's really exciting. They align with our values and we align with their values.

Lewis Hobba  22:29  
That's amazing, because I am not with them. Currently, I've only just found out about this. I'm here finding out about this right now. But I do need to know this because I have recently been at the my super fun. I won't name it because I don't know if I'm allowed, but their trash. They've just increased they're invested in fossil fuels.

Matt Bevan  22:43  
Yeah, I think you and I, we are with the same super fund. And if you want to know who that super fund is just go check out my Twitter feed.

Lewis Hobba  22:48  
Yeah, just go and check out our previous work in the hospitality industry,

Matt Bevan  22:52  
or the super funds in Australia, the top 15 have been rapidly, divesting their, their fossil fuel stakes.

Lewis Hobba  23:00  
Well, I'm thrilled to hear about this, Dan. And I do hope that all of the other big organizations that are divesting in fossil fuels, consider investing in irrational.

Matt Bevan  23:11  
Thank you Australian ethical, super, super work, no pun intended. Pun intended to do that. And we'll get back to the podcast. And we're back. Joining us now is Alison Petroski from Washington DC and Channel Nine. Hello, Alison. Good morning. I know it's a no it's very early there.

Alison Piotrowski  23:32  
Yeah, I don't know if I thought it was evening. I realize it's 4am in the morning now. Good morning. Good evening, guys. I don't know what day it is what? But it's it's been an interesting 24 hours.

Matt Bevan  23:43  
Yeah, it's anything happened in America. We should be aware of anything going on there.

Alison Piotrowski  23:48  
It's it's been really quiet. Actually. I haven't seen it this quiet for such a long time.

Matt Bevan  23:54  
Now, the midterms that have happened over the last little bit last 24 hours. I don't know if you saw this clip. Allison has been going around the internet. There's not only kind of allegations of Russia interfering, but also allegations of Australians interfering in the US elections. Let me show you this.

Unknown Speaker  24:11  
We need to save America before we can save Australia. So this is I've come here to sacrifice three months of my life to support mega the mega candidates. I've been to Arizona and New Mexico and Florida. And for me, it's just important that in order to save Australia, I wanted to be here to make sure that that we get the right people over the line

Matt Bevan  24:35  
that is just some guy called Greg Smith, who just happened to get in front of the camera. Some dude in America, just

Cam James  24:42  
Greg Smith.

Matt Bevan  24:46  
Riggs is on the ground. Allison, have you managed to get an interview with Greg Smith?

Alison Piotrowski  24:50  
Well, this is actually quite funny because I put that little bit that you played I put that in a package that we ran on our news bulletin last night and I actually went on a deep dive searching for great Excuse me, and I mean any Ozy as you know, well know that it is impossible to find something but what I found many people call Greg Smith, I can't find this particular one. But Greg Smith, if you're listening Nine News would love to have a chat. Walk us through your journey for the last three months. I'm fascinated. This

Matt Bevan  25:19  
sounds like the plot of a Comedy Mystery podcast.

Alison Piotrowski  25:25  
He realizes right that that he's not an American, and that he can't vote and that I'm just fascinated. Does he not have a job? Does he not have a family? Like, how would you paid for this tree? Look

Lewis Hobba  25:39  
at that guy. Question. Allison. That guy doesn't have he has no one who loves him.

Matt Bevan  25:47  
He's also had some mixed results as well. I mean, he doesn't seem to have delivered in Arizona. New Mexico doesn't seem to be going that well, for Republicans. I mean, seems to it seems like he hit his stride when he got to Florida and really delivered for for Magga. When he got there. Yeah, that they've done well, yeah.

Alison Piotrowski  26:02  
It has been pretty decisive moment for the for the Magga candidates in that they've completely flopped in these midterms. It has been so interesting. And what will be interesting is when we wake up tomorrow, what the Republican party going to do, because we saw Ron DeSantis, who is quite probably their strongest candidate to be on the 2024 ticket. He had a resounding victory as the governor of Florida today, and I think it will, he will turn around to the party and say I am the man to lead you to the next election, not Donald Trump, and particularly not after Donald Trump's carry on today where he was suggesting that there were issues with certain counties, ballots, there were certain there were certain technical issues in in some counties in Pennsylvania and Arizona, but they were really minor and he and carry like absolutely tried to weaponize them and try and throw a cloud over the whole midterm election. And I feel like perhaps Today America finally saw through it, it felt like they really did vote for their candidates. And they weren't paying any attention to some of the conspiracy theories that had been floated around this country like a virus I guess for the last two years.

Matt Bevan  27:13  
You mentioned Kerry Lake, I saw this clip of her being asked if she would run for president, obviously yesterday before she's now lost her her bid. And she's got a she had a pretty threatening stance about the media.

Unknown Speaker  27:26  
If Donald Trump Announces as expected to be president and you win the governorship of Arizona, you're likely to be talked about as a VP. Candidate. Will you? Do you plan to serve your entire term in Arizona? Are you open to being the VP?

Unknown Speaker  27:39  
Are you new covering this race? Because we've talked about this before? We've talked about this? I've answered his questions. I am going to not only be the governor of Arizona for four years, I'm going to do two terms. I'm going to be your worst freaking nightmare for eight years, and we will reform the media as well. We're going to make you guys into journalists again. So get ready. It's gonna be a fun eight years. I can't wait. Hey, guys,

Matt Bevan  28:03  
you're gonna be turned into a journalist again, Alison. But the good news is she didn't get back in so you can just go back to whatever you're doing before. She even planned around

Alison Piotrowski  28:12  
the best body. She was a journalist for a good 27 years. I mean, well, I lose. I use that term loosely. She She hosted the local Fox News in Phoenix, Arizona for 27 years. So she was in the media. She was the face of Fox News. And she was a face for those local people who believe that she was always telling them the truth. So the carry like Journey is so fascinating how she's managed to absolutely flip this and really target the media. But I guess she's eating a word right now because it does not look like she's going to walk away with that gubernatorial ship, as they call it. I find fascinating. But just call it the run for governor.

Matt Bevan  28:50  
Were you excited to say the word gubernatorial Allison like I you know, for me, that's such a great word. gubernatorial.

Alison Piotrowski  28:57  
I love the word but I've actually made sure I've not put it in my coverage because what is the girl talking about? And they would?

Lewis Hobba  29:09  
Allison, there was one quote that I was wondering if you'd seen an mme show, I imagine you would have been across this one, which was Donald Trump giving his thoughts on the Republican sort of votes today. Word for word. He was like, if they win, I should get the credit. If they lose, it's not my fault.

Alison Piotrowski  29:28  
Don't you think we should all just be leaving out last

Cam James  29:32  
Friday, great motto.

Lewis Hobba  29:35  
There are things about him that I don't miss. And there are every now and again, they're things I'm like, Oh, he's good. He's really good.

Matt Bevan  29:41  
That's what Lewis says to ITA after looking at the iView ratings for Australia's biggest competition competition. I'm bit disappointed actually in that because usually it's if they win, it's because of me if they don't, it's because they didn't listen to me is generally the way that he describes it, but I'm staggered that Ron DeSantis has gone so well and that his You know, his backers have gone so well, throughout Florida given Donald Trump viciously took him down by calling him Ronda sanctimonious. I mean, how can you come back for a burn like that?

Lewis Hobba  30:11  
Not as good. Not as many as you like, just go with more on, you know, just keep it simple.

Matt Bevan  30:16  
Allison, can you tell us who is the biggest loser of this midterm election? Do you think?

Alison Piotrowski  30:21  
I think Donald Trump and I think because he got so excited yesterday, and he announced his announcement, he announced that he was going to be announcing on November 15 at Mar a Lago we all know that means he's going to throw his hat into the ring for the presidency. He's backed himself into a corner now. And I think had he held off and waited 24 hours, he wouldn't have been putting that date out there. I think he probably would have been going back having a bit of a think about it and maybe pushing it a year down the track. So I think he shot himself in the foot. And that makes him the biggest loser. And the biggest winner, who and the biggest one, I think Ron DeSantis. I think, truly he is shaping up to be the man that will be leading the Republican ticket in 2024. And all jokes aside, I saw him in Florida as I was covering hurricane Ian last month. And he did show that he could lead I mean, he really was embraced by the people. He invited Joe Biden down. They work together, he showed that he wasn't going to be a baby like Donald Trump was, you know, he did the bipartisan thing. And He showed that he could do that. That was the first step today, he's had a resounding win for governorship. And that is normally a pretty big tick. When you progress in progressing forward to throwing your hand up for the presidency. I daresay we will see him announced that he's running within the next two to three months.

Cam James  31:37  
And can I ask do we know who would win in it's a knockout?

Alison Piotrowski  31:44  
Carry like man.

Matt Bevan  31:49  
I was Alison, what do you make of the results for the Democrats, though, which Democrats have done well, in which Democrats have underperformed a little bit have perhaps been a little bit disappointing in not quite making it across the line?

Alison Piotrowski  32:03  
For the last three days? All I've been saying is Oh, potential red wave potential red wave. So the fact that we haven't seen that is a huge windfall Democrats, even though they will probably still lose the house, which normally you would say is a big loss. Originally, we were talking about 60 seats, then it was coming down to 20 seats. Now, they can't even quite get five seats yet. They'll probably do it in the next couple of days. I can't think of a particular I'm trying to think Oh, Gretchen Whitmer has been pretty outstanding. She had a pretty decisive victory over tutor vixen. Tutor, Dixon. Guys, I've been up for 24 hours. I'm taking my makeup off. Me Up.

Lewis Hobba  32:46  
There is no group of people with more insane names in American politics.

Alison Piotrowski  32:50  
And you're like, tell me the best Democrat. I can't remember my own name right now.

Matt Bevan  32:56  
Listen, we will let you get to bed. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. All right. Well, that is it for rational fear. The thank you to all of our Patreon supporters, including sheepy who asked Matt Bevin a question I'd love it if tonight we'll get an update from Matt Bevin as to how the plans for his Trevi che centrifuge are going. And this is of course referencing a tweet of yours, Matt from last month where you said you're going to crowdfund a centrifuge so bigger can chuck stuff into the sun, which is I think playing off playing off an idea that people are going to launch missiles in space spacecraft into space with NASA using centrifuge how your plans going Yeah, look, it's tricky Dan, because I do like to announce big plans on on Twitter. One of my big plans was to because the feed in tariff is so dreadful of solar panels that you're getting at the moment I was intending to set my set up my own Aluminium Smelter in my backyard use the electricity for that make my own aluminium you then I was going to use the profits from that to make this giant central flute centrifuge that can fling things into space. So yeah, that's that's the update on that on that situation. Waiting for approval for the Aluminium Smelter and waiting for the shipment. Evaluated sanctions with Russia getting in the way of all these things. It's massive problem so that's okay. We're setting a lot of I understand in Newcastle all you got to do is sponsor the Newcastle Knights and you get stuff approved pretty quick. That's true.

Cam James  34:29  
Good. Yeah. Change the stadium name to centrifuge.

Lewis Hobba  34:35  
Like the whole stadium,

Matt Bevan  34:36  
yeah. Let's get our plugs underway. Matt Bevin, what would you like to plug? Oh, thank you, Dan. I would very much like to plug the new series of podcast. If you're listening into a call. It's called Russia if you're listening and we are looking at the war between Ukraine and Russia and looking into why it happened. Now. The effects But it's having on all of us. And we're trying to figure out some of the different ways that it could potentially end. I'm really happy with the series and I hope that Yeah, well, it's launching its launch this week. So we'll see whether people like it or not just sunlight comedy listening. Yeah, I'm Cam James, would you like to plug?

Cam James  35:19  
Will I do very similar journalism to Matt. I have a new web series. That's an investigative comedy series called Finding Yeess. I've found a bizarre video game on the Internet called Kanye quest. No one knows the identity of the creator of this game. But urban legend is that it was created by a New Age religion, based out of California, who were using the video game to recruit new members. So myself and Alexei teleoperator spent about a year and a half investigating this video game and Colt.

Matt Bevan  35:56  
It is so good. That is properly so funny and so enjoyable. I wish there was like another 10 episodes. Thank you cam, you made something so beautiful.

Cam James  36:04  
Oh, thanks, Dan. Thanks so much. I hope people like

Lewis Hobba  36:07  
once you've watched finding Yeezus you should also go back and listen to actually a podcast. It's very similar to that. It's a it is about a war between America and Russia. In a way. It is about Rocky. Ivan Drago, yes, the greatest war ever fought.

Cam James  36:25  
Finding Drago, we'd go deep on that stuff. We I'm a big sci fi fan. I'm looking forward to signing up for Paramount plus for a month to watch the show. And then getting rid of it

Lewis Hobba  36:36  
three more times. They'll give you a free subscription.

Matt Bevan  36:40  
I'm a big fan of the alabaster wars and I wish there was a was a podcast series on that.

Cam James  36:44  
Me too. Louis, you should plug your show. Oh, yeah.

Lewis Hobba  36:48  
Oh, yeah. I think I plugged it. I played it last week. But if you've never listened this podcast before, and you're just joining us. Yes, I have a television show. It's upstairs a television special. It's called Australia's best competition competition with my friend and radio co host Michael hing where we enter a bunch of weed competitions all around the country to find Australia's best it's really fun.

Cam James  37:08  
I watched it and it was fucking great. It was I loved it so good, man.

Lewis Hobba  37:12  
Thank you appreciate that.

Matt Bevan  37:13  
Very very Oh,

Lewis Hobba  37:16  
he nearly got this very

Matt Bevan  37:16  
very good. What he was gonna say very fair reward just cut out we'll never know

Cam James  37:30  
we'll never know how Dan fields

Matt Bevan  37:32  
Wow, you can actually hear me

Lewis Hobba  37:34  
oh we just we didn't get we didn't quite get to the adjective we knew was very very simple Alright, Louis, you're very, very time for that is

Cam James  37:56  
a that's a cliffhanger. That's really good storytelling.

Lewis Hobba  38:01  
You'll have to subscribe to Russia for his Patreon to find out what Dan thinks that my television special. It's behind the paywall. His thoughts are too big thank you to always say big thank you to rode bikes, to our guests Matt Bevin to Cameron James, to Jacob brown on the Tepanyaki timeline. And don't forget there's always something to be scared of good nights.

Matt Bevan  38:25  
Did you think Australian as I go, Oh, fuck

Lewis Hobba  38:28  
I didn't say

Matt Bevan  38:33  
thank you. It was Friday if they go. Thank you Redbox. And Lewis did such a great job and can I say your TV show was very much like a TV show. See you next week.

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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

On the podcast this week we talk about

• AUSTRAC investigating Bet365 and BetFair.
• The Lions trying to escape Sydney's Toronga Zoo.
• Elon Musk's Twitter purchase.
• B-52's in Darwin.
• And whether or not Australia will be welcomed back at the COP27 table.

Your fearmongers this week are Osman Faruqi (Nine) Scott Mitchel (7am) Linh Do (CANA), Dan Ilic + Lewis Hobba

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening, Lewis.

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

Dan Ilic  0:07  
I'm great. It's great to be in Melbourne. It's stupid old studios.

Lewis Hobba  0:10  
So beautiful. I'm really impressed with the stupid old studios. Obviously they do so much great work. And I know we both donated to the crowdfunding a little while

Dan Ilic  0:20  
ago. We night I forgot that. Why am I paying for this booking?

Lewis Hobba  0:25  
That microphone you're using? That's the memorial mine. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  0:30  
I actually met someone Off the Telly today. It was a bit taken aback. I'm like, Oh, we're famous person.

Lewis Hobba  0:35  
What do you mean? Oh, at the studio?

Dan Ilic  0:36  
Yeah. The people that come from,

Lewis Hobba  0:38  
we're just excited in general of having met someone from television, like, bumped into the cash cow on the street and you were like,

Dan Ilic  0:44  
speaking of cash, big thank you to Australian ethical for helping out the podcast for another few weeks. And big thank you to Andrew Carr and Chad Thompson, who signed up on the Patreon you'd not only get an ad free feed, you get access to the discord. And you can write jokes for the show if you want. That's good. You get early access to the big one on one interviews we have you also get access to early works in progress of sketches, video sketches, and rare recordings of live shows that are too defamatory to put out in public.

Lewis Hobba  1:12  
I love that your Patreon model is a lot like Elon Musk's plan to charge people for their blue check. It's like hey, if you give us money, you can also write for it.

Dan Ilic  1:21  
And we're gonna be speaking a lot about Elon Musk. In just a second. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Wurundjeri lands of the Kulin nation, sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Simon Chilvers  1:31  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  1:44  
Tonight lions escaped from a Sydney zoo but returned to their cages when they realized the city's nightlife is dead. And after tourism Victoria stepped up to sponsor the national netball team Gina Reinhardt insists on trying out for a position called own goal attack. And Dominic Perret J has hired Scott Morrison's election strategist hoping he'll curry favor with the people of New South Wales. It's the fourth of November and we're just days away from the final episode of the USA this is a rational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host former head of security at Taronga Zoo Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the scariest news and shoots it with a tranquilizer gun. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. They are the executive producer of the number one news podcast in Australia that doesn't do jokes. They are the they are also the former housemate of Louis harbor. Scott Micho.

Scott Mitchell  2:44  
Thank you so much.

Dan Ilic  2:45  
Scott. What is the one thing you know about Louis Harbor that nobody else knows?

Scott Mitchell  2:50  
Oh, my God, so many Friday, I'd

Lewis Hobba  2:52  
be like we should I don't think we need to do this.

Scott Mitchell  2:54  
I don't think we need to do this. So many Dan,

Lewis Hobba  2:57  
but also I know, Scott would be very afraid of reprisals.

Dan Ilic  3:05  
And the culture editor for nine and host of the drop podcasts and current flatmate of Scott Mitchell Osman for okay Daniel, how you doing? Well, I was What is one thing about Scott Mitchell that nobody else knows.

Osman Faruqi  3:17  
I'm not terrified of reprisals because I'm perfect as a housemate.

Dan Ilic  3:21  
It's pretty good to me.

Osman Faruqi  3:22  
No, I mean, there's nothing done they've done the things like I said it's got a lovely things. He's a wonderful housemate and a wonderful cook. You know, this

Dan Ilic  3:27  
is such born with me, call Santa lands we need him and he's already dusting off his Loki suit after his one episode of television aired last week. It's former flatmate of Scott Mitchell Louis harbor.

Lewis Hobba  3:43  
Yes, thank you, Dan. It it's true. The logos are calling the actors are calling. I assume the international Emmys are calling. I'm preparing several suits.

Dan Ilic  3:55  
Any lawsuits loose?

Lewis Hobba  3:57  
None yet. I mean, once people get into the Patreon I'm sure they'll be able to find some stuff in the old irrational fear episode.

Dan Ilic  4:04  
Coming up later, Australia is returning to the climate talks table as a fully fledged adult we're gonna be talking with lindo to see if the world will have us back. but first here's a message from this week's sponsor.

Unknown Speaker  4:19  
Oh no generic tradie What's that bloke man sports bet and bet 365 are being audited by austrac Oh, what are the odds are that pretty good according to austrac

Jess Perkins  4:29  
the Australian transaction reports and Analysis Center is bringing financial auditing to the palm of your hand stream every raid Live Trace every transaction be dockside for every judicial ruling. And you and your mates can bend together with a sane investigation multi.

Unknown Speaker  4:51  
I'll put a pineapple on aiding and abetting money laundering. Yeah, and I'll put a dame Nellie Melba on funding terrorism a lobster on them getting off scot free but didn't make it a tongue

Jess Perkins  5:01  
austrac bit put good pants or bad

Dan Ilic  5:07  
I should mention gamble responsibly there gamble responsibly. This week's first fear move over Melbourne there was only one animal based news story that stopped the nation for a short period on Wednesday. All eyes were on Taronga Zoo as the lions had escaped, presumably because like all of us, they'd had Jack have locked down. But they went back to their cages shortly after they after they when they realized they all forgot their masks. Taronga Zoo found out that they had basically what they called an integrity issue with the containment fence oz. What was the integrity issue with the fence?

Osman Faruqi  5:40  
Absolutely. My favorite part of this story was when Taronga Zoo was asked to explain at a press conference why they had let the lions out. And I think it's an example of how everyone even zookeepers is so media trained and terrified of saying a single thing wrong. When they're asked what what happened here. They said there was an integrity issue with the fence. Maybe some sort of iconic style investigation. And

Scott Mitchell  6:06  
I think there's like a rule in New South Wales that every press conference to get there eventually.

Osman Faruqi  6:12  
Eventually, when they were pressed, it was basically like there was a hole in the face. Yeah. Why don't just say that. This No,

Dan Ilic  6:16  
no, I liked the late putting it like that. It's like they were like, nefarious monkeys that were like run. Yeah, running security. And the like. So the lions gave them a banana. They open up and say, yeah, that's how it works. Yeah.

Osman Faruqi  6:31  
The other bit of story that I think was really, the media did, I think on one hand, an excellent job of covering this because even here in Melbourne, the ABC was just an effect all the channels which was broadcasting basically live helicopter footage of Mosman for like four to five hours. And it was a great day in Sydney and Sydney looked absolutely gorgeous. But there was so many fascinating parts of the story. So I did not know that Taronga Zoo has what they call a roar and snore program where families can sleep over at the zoo.

Dan Ilic  7:00  
Yeah. And at the time, they were like 20 kids doing this produce exactly. Next to the lion right

Osman Faruqi  7:05  
next to lions. And one of the one of the dads says they will woken up and the zookeepers are just yelling code one code. That's like, I don't know what that made me.

Dan Ilic  7:13  
Yeah. I mean, obviously, obviously, you don't know what it means. But for any of us who grew up in Africa, we do know, there's that old saying code free fun with you and me. Code to safety first at the zoo. code one line. We grew up with that.

Osman Faruqi  7:28  
Yeah, I didn't grow up in Africa. Well, and then as soon as I saw this story, I was like, Oh, this is very reminiscent of Jurassic Park. Right. But I love that one of the dads involved in this situation said literally, when I was huddled in his cabin after we were escorted out of our tents, all I could think about was this is just like being interested. Even me as an outsider was like making pop culture references. This dad terrified that his kids are gonna get eaten by lions just like, I'm basically saying, Neil, right.

Lewis Hobba  7:53  
And does that mean in like 10 years, there'll be a new outbreak, but the lions will be like, genetically bred to be smarter. Yeah, I

Dan Ilic  8:03  
always thought it was a shame that it was like male lines that escaped because if it was lionesses, at least the zookeeper could say, clever girl.

Osman Faruqi  8:11  
The The other thing that the zookeeper said at this press conference that I found absolutely hilarious. He just he wanted to reiterate that. I just want everyone should be reassured that at no point did the lions leave Taronga Zoo. And it's like you had bro then there will be lions loose in the city. Like that would be saga.

Dan Ilic  8:29  
Lions parading the up and up and down. Mosman streets, that would be like an improvement. There's so many concrete lines already in Mosman.

Osman Faruqi  8:35  
That's a weird thing about Sydney and I guess the British kind of legacy that Brits loved building statues of lying everywhere. Yeah, I don't have any.

Dan Ilic  8:43  
Yeah, the insignia of New South Wales has lions night. Yeah.

Lewis Hobba  8:45  
What Yeah, what is the UK did have lions at one point, right? Like that wasn't out of nowhere. Really. Louis, the UK never had like lions, they must have brought some lions in right. They must have had some wire the roll. Like we have the way like the way we have Panthers. The lisco Lion, we have Panthers.

Dan Ilic  9:07  
Of course, I really enjoyed the zookeeper saying everyone relax. Within 10 minutes, we put up the emergency beacons in like 10 minutes. I'm not an apex predator. But I think it would take less than 10 minutes to rip open a school child. That's what that's what I think

Osman Faruqi  9:24  
I want to know at what point they called the police because they did call the police and that I also find hilarious. I get on one hand if something had gone wrong, terribly wrong here. And there was an investigation and they said why didn't you call the police? They could have saved this. Maybe the zoo could have gotten into trouble. But at the same time, what were the police going to do? situation?

Dan Ilic  9:42  
Yeah, right. Well, it's depends on a spinning like if you call them and say lions are coming their problem would probably do much of you said there's African gangs around Muslim.

Osman Faruqi  9:51  
People have escaped their cage.

Scott Mitchell  9:52  
And as if the least one officer who was called to site was going to shoot online I'm drawing straws down at the station who gets to take this call?

Lewis Hobba  10:04  
I also love the like, obviously you were talking about the Melbourne Cup, you know you love to hear so what about Bruce McAvennie or or, you know, Commentating the cup, but you want to hear anytime there's an animal outbreak. You want David Attenborough on the scene. Crossing right now to add burden Mosman I'm just going kind of the lions are escaping Toronto. They are going to a local campus.

Osman Faruqi  10:28  
We got instead of David Attenborough was an hour of Karl Stefanovic vamping on the Today show. It's quite extraordinary encourage anyone to watch that an hour of college is talking about how incredible it

Dan Ilic  10:37  
is. No, that sounds that sounds like daytime TV. Neil post put it on Twitter and the responses were quite rational. Slayer freak said did the Lions have COVID and Ryan Finnegan said government overreach, really enjoyed that. When the Herald Sun posted on Twitter, the top of the top six responses were a variation of the same theme, which was basically somehow this is Dan Andrews, this fault. And I thought that is a hometown paper well attuned to their audience.

Lewis Hobba  11:06  
Now that it's happened at Taronga Zoo. I don't think that the snore and roll program will be selling out that quickly. They get a need. If they want to keep them selling those tickets. They're going to need a pretty heavy reach.

Dan Ilic  11:22  
A goal that's what you need to do.

Lewis Hobba  11:25  
If you pitch it just to like thrill seekers as napping attack, cash,

Unknown Speaker  11:31  
emotional fear.

Unknown Speaker  11:33  
The rule in snow camping experience more broad than snore

Unknown Speaker  11:37  
for me was quite scary because a wine roaming around is like not my thing.

Dan Ilic  11:46  
This week second fear walking mean Elon Musk paid $45 billion for a social media site the tech journalists have been saying for 10 years is dead. Yes. Upon taking the keys to the site primarily used for creating people's a poster for use. Elon Musk tweeted, well, you get what you pay for. And well, pretty amazing. Immediately after completing the acquisition, Musk fired four of the top executives who were all hoping to be let go because they had incredible contracts with huge exit packages upwards of $50 million. If they were let go without cause Musk fired them because quote for cause this means you can avoid paying $122 million in severance packages. It feels like trolling. Of course it is because these guys will just

Osman Faruqi  12:31  
go to court. Yeah, when you spent $66 billion buying it you want to be honest make some 100 million dollars saving

Dan Ilic  12:36  
in a move that has outraged everyone who has their ego attached to their Twitter verification like me. He now wants to charge verified people. A fee to be verified initially was gonna be $20 But Stephen King complained, and then mass suggested aid to Stephen King, which I thought was fantastic. Likewise, similar reaction on Twitter to this, Alexandria Acacio Cortes said lmao the billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that free speech is actually $8 a month subscription plan. Elon Musk replied to her saying Your feedback is appreciated. Now pay $8 Oh my god, this is funny. This is kind of funny. Like Elon Musk is like now the landlord who can see what everyone's doing inside their houses. Before we

Osman Faruqi  13:16  
get too much into this. Can I ask each of you? Yeah. Are you guys paying the dollars a month for the blue team?

Dan Ilic  13:20  
I'm a Twitter blue member. You are currently your current? I'm currently Yeah. When they started doing and I was like yeah, I'm gonna pay because I need to undo my tweets. I need to fix my tweets. Um, I was really keen on you know, the ad free subscription articles that they're gonna offer.

Scott Mitchell  13:34  
But this is apparently potentially going to go live as soon as Monday and Dan Ilic. Will you be paying a deluxe but

Dan Ilic  13:40  
depends how many Patreon members we get this week. So jump on.

Lewis Hobba  13:44  
I've never been happy to barely use Twitter. It's such a sweet thing. Yes,

Dan Ilic  13:50  
you're out. You're done with Twitter.

Lewis Hobba  13:52  
I got out of Twitter about the same time I tapped out of watching Marvel movies. They both have best decision. You guys are fucking idiots. You're wasting your lives. And all over over here. The king of getting the fuck out at the right time. Scott

Dan Ilic  14:06  
Mitchell, what do you think about

Scott Mitchell  14:07  
this? Well, I I just it makes me wistful and and want to reminisce about the wonderful times about a month ago that Jack was the CEO and major owner of Twitter. And what I loved about Jack was just how absent minded he was and not really involved in anything. I mean, to the degree often he was offered a yoga retreat the middle of Thailand, well, Myanmar, he was so absent minded. He went to Myanmar for a yoga retreat, and didn't even realize there was a genocide going on in the country. That's the level of absence and not holding the wheel that I I want and I think, you know, I think the wider Well

Dan Ilic  14:45  
we all know the reason why that was because that genocide was sponsored by Facebook.

Lewis Hobba  14:51  
That reminds me of Do you remember, one of the great, untold and forgotten stories of the pandemic, was when Jared Leto was On a silence retreat for a month, and he came back and he had missed the first month of the hammock, and he, because no one had been able to talk about it.

Scott Mitchell  15:09  
Wow, incredible, incredible. I mean, it's interesting that at the beginning of this, Dan, you mentioned landlords, because I think that's sort of how we have to think of our social media billionaires is, is as landlords and that means that like, they are all terrible, but what I want in a landlord is an absent minded landlord where like, like, Jackie, like, you know, Hey, man, you know, like, the sink doesn't work. There's lots of Nazis in the house, can you do something about this takes them like too long to do anything, takes them way too long, and they don't really do it. But eventually you bug them and I send a bloke round and they kind of fix the sink, kind of reduce that. Whereas the thing you want least is a very interested who's really, really invested and he's like, can we break the seat more? Can we funnel more money? That's not what you want.

Osman Faruqi  16:02  
So he also in terms of him being absent minded, I think when the big controversy around whether Trump should be banned for when that sort of story was was written up, Jack at the point at this point was was on like Bora Bora. He was in some island in the middle of nowhere, and not really responding to his messages. Perfect.

Scott Mitchell  16:19  
And you want your first absentee if we're gonna have a landlord absentee. I feel

Lewis Hobba  16:24  
like he hardly tweeted as well, like he was totally on Twitter, which was kind

Dan Ilic  16:28  
of which is the only way to deal with Twitter, not tweet, never tweet Jack took it took the great advice of Twitter to heart. Musk is already seconded people from Tesla and SpaceX to come and work on Twitter 54 software engineers from those two companies. It's kind of weird that the brightest minds in technology which have been working on how to make Mars habitable, and now trying to figure out an $8 Payable, so you can identify someone who's bullying you. Isn't that? Isn't that just like mind blowing? What

Osman Faruqi  16:55  
is the Twitter code everyone's talking about? We need the software engineers from Tesla to look at it. It's a website where you post something and people read it. What else is going on?

Dan Ilic  17:05  
I don't understand the self driving Twitter

Unknown Speaker  17:10  
versus rational fear Twitter has become kind of the de facto count square. Really important that people have the perception that they are able to speak freely,

Simon Chilvers  17:21  
they see is a rational view.

Dan Ilic  17:24  
This week's third there B 52. Bombers for fans of thermonuclear war this week is super exciting. A squadron of six B 50 twos are coming to Darwin. Yes, Australia is clearing the decks to make space for the huge 60 year old aircraft, which every news outlet has been careful to say is nuclear capable, but isn't really every aircraft nuclear capable. You know, if you've got a small enough I'm I'm pretty sure my 2000 Corolla is nuclear capable. Like

Lewis Hobba  17:49  
if you get five friends together, you're like, hey, the six of us

Dan Ilic  17:53  
probably carry this. Yeah, I'm sure the cast of Ninja Warrior and nuclear capable. This podcast right now is probably fear mongers. Pretend your G for a second. Which Australian targets would you take out first?

Osman Faruqi  18:06  
I guess we're the beefy wrongest. Loser. Like we're telling everyone where we're putting the most dangerous plane to Australia has right? Isn't that your number one target?

Lewis Hobba  18:15  
I think the most dangerous planes Australia has a quite.

Dan Ilic  18:20  
I asked this question to Twitter. And someone immediately came back and said I think the most strategic target would be Bunnings. And I thought that's a really good point.

Osman Faruqi  18:27  
A great way to lose the hearts and minds.

Dan Ilic  18:30  
It's kind of interesting. You think the Commonwealth was trying to think of a way to get rid of Darwin? They're like, Oh, yeah, you just put the bombers in Darwin? Yeah,

Osman Faruqi  18:38  
I had to look up whether these be 50 twos are the same pitch twos that you mentioned that the 60 years old. Yeah. Like this is what was in Dr. Strangelove the very old planes. Yeah. i My suspicion is that the US needs a way to get rid of these Australian like kind of military establishment are dumb enough to be like be 50 twos. This is incredible. I've seen. Yeah, we'll take

Dan Ilic  19:00  
the United States government is looking for Australia to help with their insurance. Do you reckon Australia has a choice in this too? Do you reckon we as a nation can actually push back and say yeah,

Scott Mitchell  19:12  
yeah. And I think the thing that is sort of been underreported, I think is like that. This is actually the product of like 10 years of Australian making that choice. Like we want American capabilities here for all kinds of reasons. And it's a slow build up of allowing, you know, this infrastructure to be built to host bigger and bigger, you know, capabilities and this is the result of that. It's a

Dan Ilic  19:35  
totally weird bipartisan wank fest as well. Like when this when this news dropped. Peter Dutton was first to jump on the news and say, so this is like an unbelievable service forever. Oh, we need we need the guns.

Osman Faruqi  19:47  
I was the first one to one.

Scott Mitchell  19:50  
Can you imagine what you would have to pay also in this news week for Peter Dutton to endorse government? Attack all week. I mean, he's came out so red hot for

Dan Ilic  20:01  
this. He saw his percentage points go up three points. Yeah,

Lewis Hobba  20:04  
I just I can't stop thinking about just the BPC tos and I know that's a really Oh surprise

Dan Ilic  20:09  
surprise a Triple J DJ can't stop thinking about the B 52.

Osman Faruqi  20:13  
Fun fact about the B 50. Twos Louis is that they're not in fact named after the bombers. They are named after the B 52 beehive hairstyle that was itself named after the bombers because of the way that the nose of the big plane looked like a beehive. The B 52 is when they first come out on stage would wear wigs reminiscent of the popular 60s haircut.

Dan Ilic  20:33  
Wow, were those wigs nuclear capable? When we come back, we'll be talking about cop 27. And if Australia is doing enough, spoiler alert, no,

Simon Chilvers  20:44  
this is a rational view.

Dan Ilic  20:47  
rational fear. Lewis Imagine if the $3.3 trillion dollars invested in Super in Australia was put to doing good I reckon we've been a pretty good place, don't you?

Lewis Hobba  20:59  
I already think it's doing great work, then I love the fact that we're investing in tobacco, international arms deals, local coal trade. I couldn't be prouder of the Australian superannuation industry.

Dan Ilic  21:11  
Well thankfully, we actually are sponsored by a good investment fund Australian ethical. They don't touch any of that bad stuff. They say fuck off to fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, all that bad stuff. And they only invest in low carbon businesses and renewable energy it health care, education, and middling podcasts would say.

Lewis Hobba  21:34  
That's right. But you know what, they're getting it on the ground floor. We could be the next Uber.

Dan Ilic  21:39  
They are a certified B Corp. and winner of money Magazine's Best of the Best for 2022. So big thank you, Australian ethical for supporting one of, if not the most ethical podcast in Australia.

Lewis Hobba  21:52  
I did not put my name today.

Dan Ilic  21:55  
And we're back. Well what a difference a year makes last year a cop 26 Scott Morrison had to be bullied by billboards in New York City to even consider making an appearance to utter the phrase, we'll meet and beat our targets and a cancer to an empty room. But to cut to this year, it's a whole different story. Next week, the at the UN climate talks Australia returns as a good faith actor after about a 15 year departure. Joining us now to talk through how Australia will be received at COP is friend of the show, co host of the greatest moral podcast of our generation and deputy chair of Climate Action Network Australia. Lindo, welcome back to rational view.

Linh Do  22:30  
Hey, Tom, thanks for having me back.

Unknown Speaker  22:31  
It's been a while where have you

Linh Do  22:32  
been long, long time, you know, and got COVID and then basically got knocked out for all of you

Dan Ilic  22:38  
said lion's share a very similar story to you. Yeah. So Australia is returning to the climate talks this year. How do you record Australia will be received at the cop 20 A cop 27.

Linh Do  22:49  
So you know, one of the things about being stuck in Melbourne during COVID Was you sort of forgot what Australians are actually like overseas. And we have this idea that everyone loves us. And we're the best and like, you know, everyone wants to invite us to the party. But I did get to go to Europe this year, during their summer, our winter. Turns out people aren't really ready to have us back in Europe. Turns out people have not missed us. And I don't think people have missed us at the UN. Do you

Dan Ilic  23:11  
mean like in general in the world? Yeah. In general,

Linh Do  23:14  
in general, like I think, you know, we just have this image of ourselves that like, we're all really great. And now that we've changed our government, people are ready to welcome us back. And I think that's what the Israeli government is really going to this cop. We're thinking that well, we're better than the last guys were in this job. So everyone will want us back. Right, right. Only so far, I think we should somewhat expect like crickets in terms of the Welcome back.

Dan Ilic  23:36  
The latest episode of outrageous optimism, and incredible podcast about climate change, and Christiana Figueres was kind of celebrating on one hand, but also wanting us to do more on the other. But it was it's interesting to think that the that the the climate community in the world kind of is remotely excited about us kind of coming back as good faith actors.

Linh Do  23:57  
I think it's better to have us back that not back at all. But I think if if the world sort of has been using this sort of like carrot and stick approach to Australia, you know, trying to dangle Hey, if you come back and you do good, we'll like reward you for it. But that just didn't work for a decade. And I think as a result, people are really ready to say, hey, Australia, we get that your back and we get evened out some things as part of your election. But when is the proof gonna come in? Why do you still export fossil fuels? Why are you still exploring new gas projects? Like there's just not a lot that's adding up?

Dan Ilic  24:27  
So what about what we're going to take to court this year? We'll like what, what are the things that haven't really been announced? We have a 43% target, which is pretty, you know,

Linh Do  24:36  
that is what we take into cop right. But unfortunately, is

Dan Ilic  24:39  
there anything else though? Is it like is it like a Steve Jobs? Oh, and one last thing kind of is there like a disc is Chris Bowen gonna have like something fun in an envelope he's gonna pull out.

Linh Do  24:49  
Well, hopefully they're listening to this podcast right now. And they're going to take a huge commitment to rejoin the Green Climate Fund. So a couple of years back just for listeners who aren't aware of all of the intricacies of the US.

Dan Ilic  24:58  
Oh, of course, this is We got we just opted out of the Green Climate Fund.

Linh Do  25:02  
Totally, we just opted out. So this was basically, you know, as part of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015. Here's a short history lesson for everyone. All the governments of the world committed to 100 US billion dollars. That's That's how much we want to be contributing into, you know, fighting climate change, helping developing countries sort of transition, technology transfer, all of those sorts of buzzwords. But one, we haven't quite gotten there yet. And two, you then have governments like Australia saying, Hey, we don't want to be part of this anymore. Sorry, bye. And we still haven't rejoined yet. So I think if we want to be seriously Welcome back, and for people to take us, you know, in a way that is like, genuine and like, with good faith, not only do we need to rejoice, we need to be contributing some bigger dollars.

Dan Ilic  25:42  
Oh, excellent. Like, like, how much?

Linh Do  25:45  
Maybe $400 billion. I feel like the budget just came out. I'm sure we've got some wiggle room. But it needs to be something that's really proportionate to the fact that Israeli is one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world, our sort of per capita emissions is like, enormous and it's not even sometimes mathematically feasible to think what we're emitting is just like everyday Australians compared to someone from Fiji. So we need to be doing what's equitable.

Dan Ilic  26:09  
Speaking of Pacific Islands, Australia, is making noise that we want to host our own cup in 2024, which is, you know, I think it's exciting. But then we want to do it with the Pacific island nations, what do you reckon? Are they going to welcome us back a day? Are they going to want to run this cup with us,

Linh Do  26:26  
or they're going to want to run this cup with us or run out with the government of China, right? Like, I think at the moment, our Pacific Islander neighbors and family

Dan Ilic  26:34  
are gonna say that Jay is going to start his own camp and the Pacific Islands are gonna go and it's gonna be

Linh Do  26:38  
a bidding war. I think like, everyone recognizes that there's a whole bunch of countries that you want to get onside with whatever your sort of climate messaging and framing is, and whether it's going to be us first China or like the US, we just need to be doing a lot more than sort of this show and tell thing where we're not really demonstrating anything new.

Scott Mitchell  26:56  
And so far, as you say, like Penny Wong, did a big tour of the Pacific and put like, tried to sort of say, I think reset the relationship after the coalition and go, we put climate front and center because we know that you all care about climate. But there's been so far, at least, very little, in practical terms to prove to those leaders in the Pacific that this government really is going to be a part of that bidding war, as you say,

Linh Do  27:23  
exactly. And I think it's really great when you know, the climate school strikers and people from like the activism movement say that they care because they also aren't responsible for billions of dollars in like sort of taxpayers money that could be redirected into some of these efforts, I think until Pacific countries actually start to see like hard results, not tied into like all of our geopolitical interests. Why would they turn up to the table as well?

Dan Ilic  27:45  
What about like sending bone as opposed to elbow is that a good or bad decision?

Linh Do  27:50  
It's interesting, because I think the world would actually welcome elbow in a way that you know, Scott Morrison was it was just much more about like pressure than anything else. But in some ways, hopefully, that means the Chris Bolden is going to be ready to talk about the nitty gritty and like, get into the details rather than just have like big grand, sort of fanfare

Osman Faruqi  28:05  
is it? Is it a bit weird though, because like, Rishi Sunak is going there was pressure when he said he wasn't the Prime Minister of the UK, Joe Biden is going and if this really is Australia, saying, Hey, we're back, baby. But we're sending this weird guy that you've never heard of. If you're not following surely politics,

Linh Do  28:22  
are we are we back? Well, that's the thing maybe always gotten the message that we're not back. And that's why he doesn't want to rock up to the party because he knows he's going to be shunned. So we sent Chris Baldwin and as a decoy.

Lewis Hobba  28:32  
I think if you want elbow to go you just got to make sure Paul Kelly isn't playing in. You double

Osman Faruqi  28:39  
down the animal theater for a couple of weeks.

Dan Ilic  28:43  
When they were they ran our renegotiating the contract for manners for the security menace. I realized that elbow followed me on Twitter and I sent him a DM say, hey, elbow, I'll give you my tickets to the Whitlam to the Enmore if you don't, if you don't sign a new security contract. Sorry for filling out roads. You don't cybersecurity,

Scott Mitchell  28:58  
crazy low down and learn on this thing of elbow not attending. Like I feel like every other developed country in the world, when even like King Charles is not the Prime Minister, but he's not going cause like huge, multi day coverage and public outcry and like,

Linh Do  29:16  
not letting him go anymore.

Scott Mitchell  29:19  
No, totally. But like, just he's not going cause like multi day outcry. And like, elbow just goes, I'm not going and because he's a progressive Prime Minister, it sort of seems like you just like escapes scrutiny. And yeah, this isn't like How is this not a five day story?

Osman Faruqi  29:35  
Only someone was in charge of a daily news book. For five days in a row make it a five day story.

Dan Ilic  29:41  
Oh, I love this dynamic because because I'll start at 7am and turn it into an award winning daily national podcast and Scott's running it into the ground.

Scott Mitchell  29:53  
It's not what I'm saying. It's interrogate how I took her husband's job and we now live together. deeper into that.

Dan Ilic  30:01  
Now this is true because Scott Morrison didn't go last year. And I got so annoyed. I put billboards in New York City, but I'm not doing I'm not doing the same for elbow because I think Chris Bowen is is so across his portfolio and he's such a energy nerd. And he's so across every facet of anything to do with climate change is eons ahead of anyone like Angus Taylor, it makes sense for Chris to go because he's the biggest fucking climate nerd in power right now.

Linh Do  30:29  
And I think what's exciting about that, right is as much as I as I just slammed the Australian government for not doing enough, this cop, in many ways is like, what's considered a technical cop. So the idea isn't that there's going to be a lot of big fanfare anyway, there's not going to be huge announcements for most of these other countries, because they made a ton of those in Scotland last year, and they haven't sort of followed through these cops all about what are the details? So can Chris Bowen come with the details that, you know, sometimes when you have a head of state or government, it gets lost, because

Dan Ilic  30:54  
it's like, every five years, right, every five years, they have a big cup, and then they have like, you know, a few small ones. And they have another big one. Exactly, which

Linh Do  31:01  
is sort of what's exciting is If Australia does end up being successful, in our bid to host a cup, we'll be hosting a quote unquote, big one local, we'll be hosting one of the ones that already, but we're gonna be hosting a cop that is going to bring a whole level of scrutiny to the Australian Government that I don't think we're prepared for with this sort of offer of, hey, we're interested

Dan Ilic  31:22  
in global scrutiny,

Linh Do  31:23  
and it's scrutiny over everything. You know, right now, the story in Egypt isn't just oh, this climate thing is going to happen. Also, there's a big security crisis right now, like people shouldn't leave because there are human rights abuses in different parts of Egypt. Like, I don't know if the Australian government is ready to have our offshore processing. So we're happy for exactly climate

Osman Faruqi  31:41  
meeting, but we don't want the torture inspectors.

Linh Do  31:45  
That's right. Yeah, exactly that so you can't have it both ways. And it's not just about climate, right. I think we'd now really recognize with the floods that happened in Pakistan this year, and obviously on like the eastern seaboard of Australia, all of these issues are intersectional. It's not just like us in like Sydney, Melbourne, etc. That is suffering, various other parts

Dan Ilic  32:03  
of the world. I look forward to cop in 2024, hosted by Australia and all the Pacific island nations except for Nauru. I'm looking forward to big thank you to all of our guests for irrational fear this week. lindo. Thank you, Scott Mitchell. Thank you, Jasmine for Ricky. Thank you. Luis Hubbert. Thank you. Let's get our plugs underway. What would you like to plug Lin?

Linh Do  32:25  
Oh, wow, I forgot about this moment. Maybe if elbows following you on Twitter as well just maybe send him a little DM before your blue texts expire. Asking him to commit some dollars for the Green Climate Fund.

Dan Ilic  32:37  
I can do that. Scott Mitchell at

Scott Mitchell  32:39  
7am Subscribe best daily podcast in Australia. And my secret to 7am is that I don't talk on it. Today. As an EP of this show, you've taken a very different time. And I'm interested to see how that's worked out. Wow,

Dan Ilic  32:56  
what shade Scott Mitchell. Oh my god.

Osman Faruqi  33:00  
Oh, he really stepped on mine because I was gonna I was gonna back 7am

Dan Ilic  33:06  
to two plugs to plug. Oh, as you got a great podcast the drop?

Osman Faruqi  33:09  
I do. But it's not you know, it's not actually that great to plug your own podcast. Scott, if you want to take some notes. Since you brought it up. I do have a weekly contra podcast. It's the best in the biz. Drop, follow it. Subscribe.

Dan Ilic  33:20  
Listen to a great interview with Howie from formula of coolers and the other day. Excellent Louis about what do you want to play?

Lewis Hobba  33:27  
I'll just I'm gonna replug the TV show. We'll go and watch it on iView it's called Australia's best competition competition. And it's very good. It's very good. It's very

Osman Faruqi  33:35  
good. I think it's so good. I put it in the newspaper. It's a great Oh, Roo

Lewis Hobba  33:40  
palace. Power. Thanks.

Scott Mitchell  33:42  
Great addition to the Friday night slate as well.

Lewis Hobba  33:46  
Scott Mitchell has asked me at 7am

Dan Ilic  33:48  
Wonder ratings a tank surely there's like there's like some kind of third one Turkish wrestling. You can kind of do a cross over that's not bad. It's not bad. Yeah. Big thanks to Rhode Mike's stupid old studios Australian ethical our Patreon supporters and Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. He Thank you also to the Do GO On Podcast who lent their voices to the sketch at the top of the show. Another great Australian podcast they're speaking of podcasts. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight

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Recorded IN PERSON around Lewis' kitchen table. Fearmongers this week are Chris Taylor, Dan Ilic, Lewis Hobba, Dan Adams CEO of Amber, AND WENDY ZUKERMAN from the podcast Science Vs.

She's back in Australia — we're lucky to have her!

There's a different energy to the in person podcasts that's for sure. 

We cover —

• Covid and cruise lines.
• Climate Protests.
• Money coming back to the ABC in the budget.
• Energy price shocks with the CEO of Amber, Dan Adams.

Thanks for listening, 

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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Hello. Hello Hi. Oh,

it's exciting, Louis Hello Daniel. How are you? I'm great. We're at your house around your kitchen table Welcome

Lewis Hobba  0:11  
Welcome to the mansion. This is the bottom of 16 story

Dan Ilic  0:18  
wow that ABC grant has really kicked in early

Lewis Hobba  0:21  
actually just leave out the ABC I

Dan Ilic  0:25  
want to say a big thank you to our new Patreon supporter Andrew car this week we gained a Patreon supporter but last 12 I don't know what happened. Churn if a lot of rip but a big thank you to Australia ethical who has jumped on board once again as our sponsor for the next nine weeks Thank you Australian eCycle

Chris Taylor  0:42  
what you couldn't get Hancock big dollar from the ethics community really kicked in.

Dan Ilic  0:51  
Soon all of the previous 10 years of irrational fears are going to be heading to the Patreon only or Apple subscriptions oh you know the old episodes from this you're going to be kicking around but you know, the previous nine

Lewis Hobba  1:03  
are you going to put up the one where you're in blackface? Because hey, years

Dan Ilic  1:09  
Yes, yes, thank you to all those who are can imagine what it would be like to have like face on a podcast that's going behind the paywall, but there is going to be some serious cutting edge comedy from 2013. If you want you're gonna have to pay. Yeah, so remember that we had some good Kevin Rudd jokes. Chris Taylor had some good Superleague jokes. So

Chris Taylor  1:30  
yeah, I was doing I had a very tight two minutes.

Lewis Hobba  1:33  
Well, you're talking about Superleague again. Today

Dan Ilic  1:37  
we're recording this on Gadigal Land of the Euro nation's sovereignty was never seen it we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

Simon Chilvers  1:43  
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  1:56  
Tonight after being dumped by editors for making anti semitic comments Kanye West announces a new line of ugly sandals in collaboration with Hugo Boss and Elon Musk will finally take the case to Twitter promising the long awaited features that users have been demanding, such as the ability to read Donald Trump's tweets, and the ABC loses the television rights of Dr. Hodor. Disney plus the underfunded public broadcaster has commissioned a new series to make up for the loss of Dr. Who called in turn where did you lose? Yeah, yeah, it was it was really good in my head.

Chris Taylor  2:38  
As you were reading ahead, and we're like, Oh, I've been just on that story. I mean, it's been devastating is but the good news is ABC has maintained the rights to Whovians. But they have gone on to the goal.

Dan Ilic  2:51  
It is the 27th of October and this is the podcast with fewer manners than James Corden. This is a rational, rational.

Dan Adams  2:58  
Half of you are excited.

Dan Ilic  3:10  
Wasn't a rational fear on your host former cast member of friends Dan Ilic. And this is the podcast that takes the news and adds a bit of ice magic. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. He's been avoiding the news for to make his comedy of late preferring to kind of foist stories from his own head upon the unsuspecting public. It's comedy writer Chris Taylor. Welcome, Chris. It's

Chris Taylor  3:28  
great to be back on the podcast. Thank

Dan Ilic  3:29  
you. It has the world of fiction treating you.

Chris Taylor  3:33  
It's almost as fictional as real world politics. It's very paradoxical. You retreat from you know, having done all like topical satirical news based comedy for years. You think, you know, that's got a shelf life, I'm going to retreat to the world of fiction. And it's really more real in the fictional world than it is in the news world.

Dan Ilic  3:52  
Yeah. And we thought Australia has lost her forever to the hustle and bustle of New York City. But she's now returned to our boring shores. It's podcaster. Wendy Zukerman. Welcome, Wendy. Thanks for having me. Oh, why are you coming back to Australia?

Wendy Zukerman  4:05  
Ah, well, the ratio of kangaroos to guns was just let me check more kangaroos.

Dan Ilic  4:17  
And he may have his own TV show on the ABC but he's not above allowing us to sit in his kitchen to record our little podcast. It's TV. It's Louis Oba.

Lewis Hobba  4:26  
That's right. Yes. This is the last podcast I'll be doing. I've come to say goodbye to the silver screen. After the glimmering lights of one episode of television.

Dan Ilic  4:37  
When this goes to air that's tonight.

Lewis Hobba  4:40  
Yeah, tonight 8:30pm on ABC plus.

Chris Taylor  4:45  
All right, Ken, that's genius. Because you know that there's so much scrutiny of TV especially ABC at the moment like I think you know, the Frank Kelly show, frankly was gone. Oh, I'd only give that three episodes. Your Genius is to only promise one and get out there'll be no Twitter demands for less of this you're delivering the least possible Yeah

Lewis Hobba  5:04  
Chris

Dan Ilic  5:06  
you've had many TV shows of your own like Do you have any advice for Louis with his one episode

Chris Taylor  5:12  
don't read the tweets

Lewis Hobba  5:14  
and it's not it's not like it was when because Dan and I were on television you are on well obviously you were on for a long time before we were and then when we weren't hungry base Twitter was that was toxic peak I think. I don't actually think it's that bad for television anymore.

Chris Taylor  5:28  
No, because there's no viewers anymore. I actually have done shows recently named the reason I knew they weren't going well wasn't because there was an avalanche of sort of negative tweets. It was just no one was complaining. Like so bad that people it was almost like kicking a dog when it's already dead. Even even the world of Twitter thought nobody just crawled to tweet about this

Wendy Zukerman  5:51  
so depressed right?

Lewis Hobba  5:55  
It was worse than Emily inherit.

Dan Ilic  6:00  
Coming up later, with energy prices set to explode. We talked with Amber's ceo dan Adams about what else we can burn to keep the aircon on this summer. But first a message from this week's sponsor.

Simon Chilvers  6:09  
My Mama Mama, mama, mama, mama,

Robbie McGreggor  6:11  
we're here we are. Let's increase some interest rates.

Unknown Speaker  6:15  
Yes, audible and the Department of Treasury present a new way to deliver the budget speech. Say goodbye to one charming charmers. Is there a business case for this? Say hello to the economic sexiness of Robbie McGregor from getting wages moving,

Robbie McGreggor  6:32  
Madam Speaker, we want to see growth in all the right areas. Is that inflation nicely in your hip pocket? Or are you just increasing your pay packet

Unknown Speaker  6:43  
to the ins and outs of making more taxpayers

Robbie McGreggor  6:47  
more Australians will be able to afford to make more babies than ever before? It's all about participation and product tivity if

Unknown Speaker  6:59  
you know what I mean, you're having a place to live but Help

Robbie McGreggor  7:03  
to Buy scheme allows up to 40,000 eligible Australians to own their own home with a lower deposit and smaller mortgage. Oh, yes, smaller mortgage. Size does matter. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  7:21  
Robbie McGregor reads the 2022 budget only on Audible subscribe now and get a bonus episode of Robbie saying the words fiscal stimulus for 45 minutes straight

Robbie McGreggor  7:32  
fiscal stimulus, fiscal stimulus, fiscal stimulus? Yes. Stimulus fisting.

Dan Ilic  7:50  
Now I promise you that the last time we'll do that joke I

Lewis Hobba  7:54  
absolutely don't believe it as it was coming to the fiscal stimulus that I'm like, this is an old skit. Doing what he does best recite this week's

Dan Ilic  8:04  
first fib now before we jump into the first fear, I just want to play a little game of word association. I'll say something and you folks jump in with the first thing that comes to mind when I say the words when I say the word cruise liner,

Unknown Speaker  8:18  
oh Castro close is

Lewis Hobba  8:21  
good murder.

Dan Ilic  8:22  
Also very good. Boom

Lewis Hobba  8:24  
is fantastic shuffleboard points

Dan Ilic  8:31  
yes cruise line is vehicles built to the exact specifications to help boomers get COVID and also wealth redistribution if that's what you want to call it. There's a cruise line of going up down the West Coast of Australia surprise surprise crew and passengers have a princess

Chris Taylor  8:45  
pathogen I think

Lewis Hobba  8:48  
I did have I did have the COVID princess but you know that's so obvious. You just get it next to the mashed potatoes in the buffet. Like there's just a COVID skirt.

Dan Ilic  9:02  
It's docked in groom and it's gonna it's gonna be docking up and down the west coast of Western Australia. Sure. Well, that's

Chris Taylor  9:07  
good because they they sort of missed out on they were the one state thanks to Matt McGowan's you know quite officious border closures that never really got to enjoy the you know the party that was COVID so thank God the piano cruise company is bringing it

Lewis Hobba  9:22  
down that we're going to do stop the boats fine I really keep Perth in the 10 years behind to get

Chris Taylor  9:30  
the Payton the couple of opinion from Tacoma. Like what's going on? Lyft did he keep his little trophy

Lewis Hobba  9:35  
would be could be stopped the ships like just enough of a copyright difference? Yeah.

Dan Ilic  9:41  
Wendy, I got a question for you regarding it's like, have we learned about COVID and cruise lines like what's going on?

Wendy Zukerman  9:49  
I mean, if you could create a perfect sport, like if you were COVID You just be like fuck yes. I've got it.

Chris Taylor  9:57  
My markets behind cruise ships. Peace of peace.

Wendy Zukerman  10:01  
Right? And there's so many people that was 2000 people.

Dan Ilic  10:03  
This would be like a 32nd episode of Science first it would have been like,

Wendy Zukerman  10:06  
Should you go on a cruise ship? But my favorite I did, I did write a list of all the my favorite names of all the cruise ships that had had gotten COVID Over the last few years. Because it was a joy. I have to say early COVID reporting as ever like it was it was so scary at the beginning. And then just hearing like, the Diamond Princess has, you know, and it was just like, it was like this like I couldn't help but it warms your heart. But again, it's so damn predictable. Remember Grand Princess Ruby Princess world dream, carnival valor silver Vala. Norwegian Breakaway pride of America just this week as well. In New Zealand. They just had an outbreak on one of their cruise ships, which was called Ovation of the sea. Favorite my favorite of all the cruise ship lives this isn't even this the other half of the

Dan Ilic  10:53  
ocean is so deliciously close to Omicron

Lewis Hobba  10:57  
standing ovation it's more of a wind down or respiratory.

Wendy Zukerman  11:03  
But then, when it hit Greg motiva

Chris Taylor  11:06  
Oh, Greg water was the name of the

Wendy Zukerman  11:09  
recruits you which is you know, like it was, it was a fella

Chris Taylor  11:13  
went off to work that day. Normally, the ICO was that you could play a game between guests guests. Is it a drag queen or a cruise ship? Crystal harmony, all that kind of thing. But Greg Morton from Pymble.

Dan Ilic  11:28  
I love this story. In the on the ABC website, it said Princess Cruises said that the COVID 19 outbreak was being managed effectively how what's how much confidence does it give you? When a cruise company says honor, the outbreak has been managed effectively? Wow.

Lewis Hobba  11:44  
I mean, it is one of those things where at this point is it is kind of self selecting you know, at the start, we were like, hey, look, we should all stay home and protect each other from COVID. At this point, if you're going on a cruise, I'm not gonna say maybe you should die. But it is kind of like you are putting yourself but you're putting your life in God's hands.

Dan Ilic  12:01  
Or if you are a millennial trying to break into the housing market send your parents on a cruise.

Chris Taylor  12:06  
Like when like, you know what, most of us are vaccinated. Now, if you're like on triple, quadruple vaccine, could I go on a cruise with any confidence or even if you quad Vax, you've still step onboard anything called Princess, you're still gonna get

Wendy Zukerman  12:22  
I think Greg Mortimer but, you know, with the new variants, you remember the percentages we had, but I don't I don't think so. I shouldn't say even though cruises are way funnier than when you know someone walks off a Boeing 747 on the qf whatever. Actually, your chance of getting COVID is higher on a cruise ship because there's just more people on a cruise. The chances

Chris Taylor  12:45  
of getting anything on a cruise ship is

let's be more reassured, you know, they've always got like entertainment on cruise. It's normally ugly, Dave Gray, but if Norman Swan was the entertainment, and you just sort of got the lectures about how bad then I might be tempted to go on and feel a bit safer if he was the comic each night.

Dan Ilic  13:11  
Yeah, brim council said that the 1900 passengers is going to spend about $190,000 in brooms so they're quite cool with it at the hospital. Well, I assume that that's about $100 per person that's like buying a coffee in Western Australia. But is it kind of worth it? Do you think the idea is worth it to the economy to have all these infected people come to your little town? And I think

Wendy Zukerman  13:33  
right I think we've just decided we're just gonna let it run is just so much more fun to make.

Chris Taylor  13:40  
Someone think of the camels. I think the population of room is mostly camels these days. Now that was another interesting I keep looking at Wendy for checking that animals just didn't get it.

Wendy Zukerman  13:56  
Know what the Minks remember there was this there was a mink outbreak.

Lewis Hobba  13:59  
Yeah, zoos, gorillas and lions were getting.

Wendy Zukerman  14:04  
What country was it that like? Did like killed a bunch of minks in fear that are made against Russia? No, it was like, um, I want to say someone's Scandinavian and then they were like, oh, sorry.

Lewis Hobba  14:18  
Lovely coats going around.

Chris Taylor  14:21  
Reduced it's got COVID but it's reduced.

Robbie McGreggor  14:24  
Sue's rational fear

Chris Taylor  14:27  
Denmark has announced it will eliminate the country's entire population of farmed makes more than 15 million will be called

Robbie McGreggor  14:35  
who you are listening to a very rational fear.

Dan Ilic  14:41  
This week second fear mashed potatoes. You know, some may lament that humans have systematically removed 70% of all animal life on Earth since the 70s, whereas others may complain that climate activists have plastic yet another artwork with common kitchen stuffs. Climate protesters Germany have thrown running mashed potato over a Manet worth 100 and and $10 million in what seems to be the latest in the string of copycat protests. Chris, is this an effective form of protest? You think? Well, we're

Chris Taylor  15:09  
not we're talking about it. But I don't know about I don't know about you, I tend to sort of take in the fact that throwing food and they're throwing it at art, and I forget what they're actually protest. I mean, there's a lot of it, though, did sort of, you know,

Wendy Zukerman  15:22  
make you go why? And then you looked it up. And then you were like, climate change.

Chris Taylor  15:27  
This is a classic one, almost like all protests of late, I think at the extreme end, where you're sympathetic with the cause and you're little bit puzzled by the execution. So yeah, just to recap, there was one in Melbourne, I think was a Picasso then they did the sunflowers with soup. And as you said, down they didn't Manet with mashed potatoes. They also someone threw spaghetti to Jackson Pollock and no one can cook it is sort of it's bizarre logic. Or you might say it's impeccable logic because if you want to express anger at oil companies, then is the obvious target 19th century artists painting such evil toxic problematic things as water lilies and flower you know, they're also we need to protect the planet. So let's

Lewis Hobba  16:17  
just type was typing in oil companies into Google, and it just auto finished oil paintings. All day.

Dan Ilic  16:26  
It was a great protest last week, where two people took in cream pies and smash the faces of a wax statue of King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla at Madame Tussauds, and I thought that was pretty good. Yeah, that's comedy.

Chris Taylor  16:40  
But yeah, if you want to, like if you want to protest oil, you don't throw food at the car. So you throw food at Picasso's car. Surely isn't that the thing? Like it seems to be just I

Wendy Zukerman  16:51  
I love it. I'm so into this. I mean, I think we're talking about it. I think the guys who did it, they were like, look, we tried to have direct action. And they did try and block some actual, like, oil distribution in the UK, and no one reported on it. And then they're like, let's just throw some shit at art and all of a sudden look we're talking about Yeah.

Chris Taylor  17:12  
Look, we've all been to these galleries. There's you know, those people who just sit there and there's more of them than you need. There's like Nico, what's the job? Nothing ever exciting. What happened? How on earth have people judging in with bagfuls of Woolies groceries pass those guys on the chair? Does something not go off in their head like a light bulb? Because oh the person carrying soup might not be here for the other part of these protests always once the food's been distributed is the glowing they all glue their hands to the work now not to the to the well, you know, if you lose yourself to a Kindle it would probably increase its value but but then the glowing beside it. And that's okay. I don't mind it's sort of interesting but I did see this week that Spencer tunic is coming back to Sydney our he's the guy that photographs a lot of nude people in front of the Opera House. I think this time it's Bondi Beach now, I'm not going to sign up to a Spencer tunic art exhibit if I think there's any possibility whatsoever some oil protesters are gonna glue themselves to my scrotum.

Lewis Hobba  18:21  
actually incentivize me to go

Dan Ilic  18:30  
that's fantastic. You might actually be in the in the disclaim you've got a sign. You may.

Lewis Hobba  18:38  
Best part about it. I think the reason it's good is like when they were like chaining themselves to roads. They were like, Oh, you just slow down my trip to work. And Pete like people are like, Well, I'm just I'm not an oil executive. I'm just a guy who's driving to work. And even though I think that that is more logical, it was kind of more annoying to people who weren't really at fault. Yes. Whereas with this you like whereas fucking

Chris Taylor  19:01  
Manet? Yeah.

Dan Ilic  19:06  
I don't think this harms anyone because often the paintings aren't harmed. The paintings aren't harmed, it gets a lot of attention. And it makes things exciting. If you're just a person at the gallery and you're filming this as it happens. That's a lot of clicks via social media. That's fantastic,

Chris Taylor  19:21  
too. It's like you've been to these galleries in Europe, or anywhere where there's these masterpieces. The sightlines are bad enough just read to you can't see the Mona Lisa or the Waterlase because there's always Americans with their selfie sticks. If you then on top of every tourist got oil protesters gluing themselves to the word your sight lines are shit.

Wendy Zukerman  19:44  
I love this quote from one of them though, just like there really because I did. I did have so many thoughts crisp but then they were like,

Unknown Speaker  19:50  
researched the topic.

Wendy Zukerman  19:54  
For more than 30 seconds. They said one of the protesters said are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet, and I love that I was like, yeah, these water lilies

Lewis Hobba  20:07  
are gonna be like, Well do you care more about

Dan Ilic  20:14  
like Van Gogh. Van Gogh's did Matisse is dead Picasso is dead. If they damaged a band quilty, I'd be pretty upset.

Chris Taylor  20:22  
I'd like to see the artists get revenge. Like not not that not the dead ones obviously. But let's say let's say like I'd like to select slug to car to start throwing paint at food. People walking into rock pool with two tins of juleps and painted at the wagyu in Paris Match.

Lewis Hobba  20:45  
This is the OPEC at least you know like beef production actually does cause a lot of effect. So if you're throwing

Chris Taylor  20:55  
me over there a logic irrational fear you've been lied to the real danger is not global warming. It's global warming panic the scare mongering, it seems to me that global warming fear mongering seems the literally driving people while dragging them to bully the rest of us.

Dan Ilic  21:14  
This way, it's the fear in what was regarded as a very staid and boring budget. There's something very exciting for people who work in media, particularly around this table. The budget is brought back money to the ABC $150 million is coming back this year. Most of all will be spent on Louis's moustache grooming,

Lewis Hobba  21:30  
or the 15 levels of my house. That's right. Yeah, about this one,

Dan Ilic  21:33  
given nearly 600 million was cut from the ABC over the last eight years. It's a welcome reprieve. $500,000 of that budget will be used to get Gen X radio station Double J on the FM frequency. Chris, you are rapidly aging into the demographic of people who watch the ABC. Is this a good use of fun?

Chris Taylor  21:55  
Look, it's an interesting use of funds. It's first of all, I love the budget. It's Accountancy is not have nots. It should be awake. It should be like strict across the shedule. I'd watch it sooner than the trade is

Lewis Hobba  22:08  
fine. Yeah, totally.

Chris Taylor  22:12  
Any money to the public broadcaster is very welcome the specific $500,000 for Double J puzzles me because of all the things at the ABC. And I think we've all worked their positions over the of all the areas you could help the IBC like more money for a new panel show that's not hosted by Glanusk cash incentives to make Australians watch q&a again. Maybe some basic charisma training for Michael Roland. These are areas I would have prioritized but where did they go? money to help expand Double J into regional Australia and if there's one thing we all know regional Australia has been crying out for its better access to John Butler and the wetland. Farmers are hurting the people are demanding more Wilco feeds around them.

Dan Ilic  22:58  
I mean, $500,000 isn't a lot for broadcast transmission. I worked at a radio station as a board member and it's out for community radio stations. It's about $100,000 a year. But

Chris Taylor  23:09  
this is what cracks me up the money's specifically it's the money is going on a feasibility study to see if Double J can transfer to the FM band. Just to be clear, they're not going to the FM band itself the way to the 2028 budget for that. They're just spending money to see if it's feasible to go to FM so they're currently digital

Dan Ilic  23:29  
that money is just going to another government department KPMG

Chris Taylor  23:33  
Double J is currently digital they want to upgrade to analog now that's like someone on Tik Tok wanting to upgrade to MySpace like someone driving a Tesla guy no upgrade to a penny van turns out apparently digital radio wasn't the future that everyone forecasts like aside from I think is a chemist warehouse install radio out right today FM. But other than that, like digital radio has been a bit of fast so they are looking at the new technology of FFM. Yeah, we shouldn't be surprised by this. Because this is elbow and elbow throwing money at Double J and alternative old person music is basically our bones whole theme. That's his pet.

Dan Ilic  24:18  
He's looking for a lunchtime show.

Chris Taylor  24:22  
He's audition, giving grants to double Jays like scomo giving special grants to hillside interest is very much a play and the only thing like because I still trying to get a grip on his prime ministership, he seems like he's mostly out of the country all the time. The only time he's in the country. He's basically at midnight oil geeks are in the mosh pit at the end while watching Alex Lloyd so you said the double Jays on his on his radar. And I guess we should just be thankful that it is Double J and those sorts of bands he's giving money to because of a was the previous guy. It'd just be giving money to April sun in Cuba. But

Dan Ilic  25:05  
I don't know if you caught any of the budget coverage, but this is how the today's show started and ended their conversation with the treasurer Jim Shammas. So I've got the ins and the outs. Yeah, they put me on after Matthew McConaughey.

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
To see what I've got for you at the end of this interview, then you'll feel it. Hey, And just lastly, to prove that you are a far more interesting interview than Matthew McConaughey. He can do this let me just show you and now that I'm seeing it who columns

Dan Ilic  25:46  
Yeah, so this he came on straight after Matthew McConaughey. And then at the end of the conversation, they played a Matthew McConaughey clip of him stripping Jimson Shammas just didn't know anything of what was going on

Chris Taylor  26:00  
televisions dumbing down

Wendy Zukerman  26:04  
I mean, never thought that there was any government but like this budget I mean, I usually don't get my ovulation doesn't spark up for any old budget. This one hasn't really this one has some really exciting things in it and then just having to contend with this for Double J Magic Mike, you know, it's exciting thing.

Dan Ilic  26:30  
What are you excited about windy.

Wendy Zukerman  26:32  
I think like a lot of the climate change the moving towards like electric vehicles. You can complain, obviously, what bore but it showed like direction, you know, for the first time and so long, it's like, you can see a future where we're gonna have more electric vehicles, which we did, which was really exciting. And there's some really clever stuff about like, carbon capture where they didn't just say this is bullshit, because it's super political. But instead they were like, look, this may have a place but we're just not going to put it on the fucking pedestal that Liberal Party did. But like we're not going to just like throw it down the dumpster.

Dan Ilic  27:02  
I really liked that because they were like, no, sorry, Chevron, we're gonna put any more money in your plant. But here's some things we do think about which is cement and other really hard to abate them right, like cruises. And yeah, the NRMA is going to be building like a supercharger network thanks to thanks to this budget, which is amazing.

Chris Taylor  27:20  
That's all quite interesting. But did you see the Matthew McConaughey?

Dan Ilic  27:30  
Before we get to this week's interview next month is is the Victorian State election. Now the Liberal Party is strongest in Victoria amongst boomers and older voters while millennial vote for the Liberal Party has dropped to about 10 to 25% which is kind of surprising because Victorian lives have been doing some really great work on tick tock like this bit of gold here from reward. Liberal candidate Cynthia Watson.

Unknown Speaker  27:53  
I'm so nervous Victoria. It's about time we got rid of this corrupt state Labour Government. Remember this November

Dan Ilic  28:04  
I'll play for you again.

Unknown Speaker  28:07  
It's about time we got rid of this corrupt state labor government. Remember this November?

Lewis Hobba  28:12  
Oh, I see. It's about damn time. She says

Dan Ilic  28:17  
yes, Elisa reference, really into it. It's very exciting.

Wendy Zukerman  28:21  
Do you think they practice the clap?

Lewis Hobba  28:24  
Do you think they know about her song everyone's gay? The liberal party as well.

Dan Ilic  28:31  
When we come back which superyacht should OPEC executives buy during this once in a generation energy crisis? Lewis I'm just pausing the podcast briefly to let you know some good news. I know you're having a baby. I know that there's a lot of pressures at the ABC. But thankfully, you no longer have to dip into your pocket to pay for this podcast.

Lewis Hobba  28:49  
What Why? Why

Dan Ilic  28:50  
not? Because we got a sponsor, Australian ethical has come on board. And they're going to help us pay for this podcast because it's quite expensive. We've got to pay for you know Chris Taylor's wine habit.

Lewis Hobba  29:01  
Are they aware that by sponsoring this podcast, they've thrown any possible claim to good ethics that they might have had away?

Dan Ilic  29:10  
Now they've listened to our podcast I like the cut of our job and I've looked at them carefully and I to like the cut of their jib. They started in 1986 They've been really busy investing people's money in good things. They stay away from stuff like weapons, human trafficking, fossil fuels, tobacco gambling, you know all the other stuff that we like to make fun of. They stay away from what's left.

Lewis Hobba  29:33  
What else is there the hacks money,

Dan Ilic  29:36  
podcasts, money media.

Lewis Hobba  29:40  
No one's ever lost money investing in a media organization.

Dan Ilic  29:45  
So if you looking at your super or your financials and you're thinking gee, I wonder if my money is doing good for the world or doing bad for the world. And you're thinking about moving your money, go check out Australian ethical, and their website is Straight ethical Comdata you. And we're back. You know, one of the stark realities of this budget handed down last night was that energy prices going to pretty much explode 20% increase this year plus a 36% increase next year. That's a 56% increase over the next couple of years. Joining us now to talk about why this is happening is the co founder and CO CEO of amber electric, Dan Adams. Welcome, Dan. Thanks for joining us on irrational fear.

Dan Adams  30:27  
Thanks for having me.

Dan Ilic  30:28  
It's great to have you now. Why the hell are prices increasing so much? And is it really due to the war in Iraq? Or is it due to Iran? Sorry, Ukraine, that was a long time ago?

Chris Taylor  30:38  
Or is it? Or is that mission accomplished?

Dan Ilic  30:42  
Or is it a lot more complicated than we think? And all we have time for on this podcast? Like, what why why energy crisis is gonna go crazy over the next two years.

Dan Adams  30:48  
Yeah, I mean, basically, the problem was, we are still super dependent on fossil fuels. And we need to get off them as fast as possible, because lots of our power still comes from coal and gas, the sanctions against Russia and mean that coal and gas prices have gone up dramatically. And that's flowing through to our power bills.

Dan Ilic  31:05  
But it doesn't make sense because like, you know, Australia is like the third largest exporter of fossil fuels, we export coal, we export gas, like surely surely our energy price, surely we should be have the cheapest energy in the world, right?

Dan Adams  31:16  
You would think so. But basically, what we're doing is previous governments and policies, which basically meant that we are exporting lots of our coal and gas overseas, and there isn't enough for our own domestic supply, even though we're a massive exporter of these fossil fuels, which is pretty crazy. When you think about it. I mean, one, we shouldn't be on fossil fuels at all. And to the fact that we've actually exporting more, so much that we don't have enough for ourselves is pretty wild, or is

Dan Ilic  31:45  
this something else we can burn? I mean, we've got a lot of empty pie faces around can we

Lewis Hobba  31:49  
for another great joke from the Iraq War? And I think that's

Chris Taylor  31:56  
retired PiFace references.

Lewis Hobba  31:59  
Have you had a stroke and broken up in 2012?

Chris Taylor  32:03  
We'll start talking about Sizzla.

Dan Ilic  32:06  
Dan, what else can we burn? What

Dan Adams  32:07  
else are we gonna burn? I think we need to stop burning stuff is basically the basically the solution. I mean, you can you can you can burn,

Lewis Hobba  32:17  
I'm not sure if you'd be paying attention, I don't think the country is gonna go for it.

Dan Adams  32:21  
There's a massive nuclear reactor in the in the sky, but called the sun that we should probably start using.

Dan Ilic  32:27  
Now you guys at Amber, you give customers access to the wholesale price, which is kind of your whole business model. Given that the wholesale price is gonna go gangbusters over the next two years, your customers scared.

Dan Adams  32:42  
So lots of our customers have batteries. And so basically what that means is they were automating their batteries to export into the grid when those prices are spiking. And so they're earning the big, the same prices as those big coal and gas generators are earning for their for their exports, which is pretty cool beans, that households are using solar panel from their roof to compete directly with large coal and gas generators. And while big oil and gas generators are charging, you know, 100 times normal prices for their power during a few hours. Some of the time our customers are earning those 100 times normal prices, which is pretty

Dan Ilic  33:19  
cool. That's so that's so cool. Imagine that like imagine like

Lewis Hobba  33:24  
it become like a Saudi oil barrel, just the cost of one Tesla battery?

Wendy Zukerman  33:29  
Unfortunately, solar in a basement. Floor actually,

Dan Adams  33:35  
yeah, completely. I mean, it basically means that as an individual household, you can go in and compete with the big coal gas generators and beat them at their own at their own game. And rather than making off of the big profits, you can do so yourself for getting basically getting paid to support the renewable transition.

Dan Ilic  33:53  
Wendy mentioned that the climate industry or the renewable industry did pretty well in the budget. Were you happy with the budget that got brought down yesterday?

Dan Adams  34:01  
Yeah, I mean, I think there's some positive steps forward there around support for electric vehicles. And, you know, the rewiring Australia, the $20 billion being invested there over the next earnings over the next 10 years. So there's a big steps forward there. And we're starting to move in the right direction. And, you know, the only way to get out of this energy crisis and this climate crisis that we're facing, is to invest in renewables as fast as we can. So it's exciting to see the world starting and Australia starting to move in the right direction. But obviously, I'd love to

Dan Ilic  34:31  
see more. Dan, I'd saw that in the Australian Financial Review this week that you got $13 million from an RMA raising some money there, that's pretty good. Are you going to be burning that to to keep to keep cool? How many doubles? You can do a feasibility

Lewis Hobba  34:49  
study of Double J I think that's 4000.

Dan Adams  34:54  
It wasn't actually all for being our Ma It was other investors as well, but it is it's exciting because You know, at the moment, we're automating household batteries, but where we are going to start to help people automate electric vehicles as well. So they can charge them the other day when there's lots of cheap solar in the grid. And then in the future, we'll be out actually take power out of your electric vehicle, feed it into the grid, and displace fossil fuels with renewable power sitting in your Eevee. And so we're pretty excited about that. And obviously, a lot of NRMA as members are going to have EVs in the future. So we're excited to work with them to make that happen.

Dan Ilic  35:27  
So you can like charge your car when electricity is cheap, and then like, plugged your car into the grid when electricity is expensive and pay off your car.

Lewis Hobba  35:34  
It's like if you could convince people who love Bitcoin to get in on this, so buy low, sell high. No. Well,

Dan Ilic  35:42  
I think I think those people are into this. You've got to convince Matt Canavan to get into it.

Dan Adams  35:48  
Sometimes there's so much renewables in the grid, that the Power Price is actually negative. So we'll pay you to charge your electric vehicle from surplus, renewable power. And then the evening we'll pay you again to displace fossil fuels out of the grid. Oh my god,

Lewis Hobba  36:03  
this feels like a scam.

Dan Ilic  36:10  
Well, Dan, thank you very much for joining us on irrational fear. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. No worries. Well, that is it for the show. Big thank you to Wendy Chris Lewis listed the plugs. What have you got two plugs. Let's start with you. Dan, what you want to plug first.

Dan Adams  36:21  
Well, you got a battery. We'd love to have you on board with ambisonic.

Dan Ilic  36:25  
Dan wants you to plug in the battery. When do you do anything to plug anything?

Wendy Zukerman  36:31  
I just I guess the podcast? Yeah, science versus Yeah. Have a listen. Yeah, on Spotify.

Lewis Hobba  36:37  
So quite. It's a really good podcast.

Dan Ilic  36:40  
It's one of the biggest podcasts in the world. Yeah.

Chris Taylor  36:42  
I'd also like to plug when he's podcast, science versus get into

Dan Ilic  36:48  
lists have anything coming to coming to

Lewis Hobba  36:53  
show I've got a television show. It is by the time this podcast goes out it will be out now. You can watch it on ABC iView. It's called Australia's best competition competition. With me and my friend Michael hing we enter competitions all around the country to decide which one is Australia's best. Big thank

Dan Ilic  37:11  
you to road Mike's Australian ethical our Patreon supporters, Jacob round and everyone who listens Thank you for listening. Really appreciate it. Until next week, there's always going to be scared off goodnight

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Dan Ilic
Deputy Senate Leader

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🐬  A Rational Fear is supported in part by Australian Ethical 

Bronwen Morgan  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Hey, good evening, Lewis. Hello, Daniel.

Lewis Hobba  0:05  
How are you? Good, good.

Dan Ilic  0:08  
I'm just doing some stretches to get ready for the next 10 weeks of irrational.

Lewis Hobba  0:12  
It's so good to be back. I was just trying to think I know you've been squirreling away doing episodes without me, but I can't think of the last time I was on, like six months ago. So,

Dan Ilic  0:23  
I don't know. It must have been a bit at least three or four data breaches ago. I think.

Lewis Hobba  0:30  
I'm currently the victim of three separate data breaches.

Dan Ilic  0:33  
Hang on, are you a Medibank customer? Vina? A customer and an optics customer?

Lewis Hobba  0:37  
I'm a former Optus customer actually, no, my. No, I'm currently an optics customer. I am I was a Vito MoPhO customer. In fact, a real warning sign I had during the pandemic was when vino MoPhO the wine delivery company wrote me an email to inform me that I had now bought enough wine to justify my self as a VIP customer. And that was when I was like, oh, gotta stop this.

Dan Ilic  1:02  
That's that sounds like you're a VIP member at the RSL. And you don't have to go to that little room and play yeah,

Lewis Hobba  1:08  
I need that like facial recognition software that's tells me buying wine online. Also my deal, which was the other data breach, that's one of the Woolworths brands and I once bought some like dining chairs from them. So there is no data about me that you cannot buy for tuppence

Dan Ilic  1:26  
and I only know a whole bunch of stuff about you. I'm gonna go traveling and hire a car in your name. It does right that I'm excited about that. Louis, we have a brand new sponsor for rational fear strain ethical. We'll be hearing more about them a little later on. It's really exciting because it means Louis, you get paid.

Lewis Hobba  1:42  
That's some ethics I can get behind.

Dan Ilic  1:45  
I'm recording my end of a rational fee on Gadigal land into your nation's sovereignty was never seated. We did a treaty. Let's start the show.

Simon Chilvers  1:52  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  2:05  
Tonight Lydia thought resigns as Senate deputy leader after neglecting dimension she dated a bikie. The senator will now take up the role as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee for being cool. And the cost of stage three tax cuts has jumped $11 billion, which is just enough money to bribe your own government for some tax cuts. And in order to crack down on businessman falling out of windows. Russian CEOs are moving their offices to single storey buildings without windows or stairs or in Russia. It's October 21. And we've dropped our fossil fuel sponsors. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to rational fear on your host former Deputy Senate Leader Daniel edge and this is the podcast that gives you the news but with a little bit of a tickle. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight is packing up his city life and he's moving to the country with his mum, but he's still bragging the big stories from regional Queensland from the Saturday paper it's Ricky Morton.

Rick Morton  3:15  
Wow, I'm gonna have to go into hiding now. It's a status intro I've ever

Dan Ilic  3:23  
the biggest regional Queensland story you're gonna be bring into the country

Rick Morton  3:26  
damn levels and whether we need at least 100 More, and also local councils. I think the time is ripe to get into some dodgy, dodgy local government.

Dan Ilic  3:37  
Oh, I'm excited about that DVM,

Rick Morton  3:38  
it's time for you to run for what is that it's

time for me to make the money.

Dan Ilic  3:45  
And according to a biography she has written about herself she has been described as manic unique, sharp, darkly funny and disarmingly beautiful. It's B by scholar. Welcome Bay.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  3:58  
Hello. It's good to be back. You forgot to mention that the reason I'm disarmingly beautiful is because I'm secretly mixed race and that's like the most important part of it, obviously.

Dan Ilic  4:07  
Well, I was gonna ask you what's the secret to writing a great bio about yourself? And I think you've answered it.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  4:12  
Yeah, I would say it's also five years of film school. That's definitely

Rick Morton  4:17  
five did you fail a few years? How do you do fine.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  4:21  
I just I love hating myself

Lewis Hobba  4:23  
longer than it takes James Cameron to make an avatar movie.

Dan Ilic  4:28  
And in just under a week's time, our next guest will have his very own television show. But if you miss it, relax, there's only one episode. It's Louis Alba. Yes, well, it was why is there only one episode of your TV show?

Rick Morton  4:43  
Well, money Dan Money, money and the ABC not having any

Dan Ilic  4:48  
coming up a little later on what the hell is happening in UK politics UK comedian Athena Kulu will be joining us but first, a message from this week's sponsor.

Rupert Degas  4:59  
to outsiders The conservative party may look like it's a fucking Omni shambles. But to those of us on the inside, we're staying true to our promise to get Britain moving under the Tories, more British people than ever are moving to Europe. Thanks to the Conservative Party, the people of Britain are moving vigorously to keep warm, but the Conservatives are also walking the walk. As a party. We're all moving offices every day moving, moving, moving. In fact, there's so much movement at Downing Street. There's a shortage of movers. Even Prime Minister truss is looking at her poll numbers and having movements of her very own.

Unknown Speaker  5:42  
I am determined to deliver

Rupert Degas  5:46  
the Conservative Party getting Britain moving figuratively. And literally.

Dan Ilic  5:52  
I don't think about UK politics. So yeah, who joke that does the job. This week's first fear we're calling it a bomb threat. Yes, the bomb doesn't want to be called the bomb anymore. In fact, earlier this week, they updated their style guide for the media telling everyone that the bomb would henceforth be only spoken about in media circles as the bureau which is dumb because no Australian can spell bureaux. As a result for about 48 hours the bomb was relentlessly mocked online being told by 1000s of Australians that you're not allowed to choose your own nickname. And now in order to give the bomb the best chance have never been called the bomb again. They've had to change schools. But we are lucky enough to be joined by a member of the bomb squad right here. Rick Morton broke part of this story this week. Rick, how much did it cost the bomb to pretend to give itself a zone nickname? Well, and the

Rick Morton  6:42  
current figures $220,000 But I mean add on Saturday that is more than that.

Dan Ilic  6:49  
That a you that is a bombshell? Well,

Rick Morton  6:53  
it's a lot more than has been publicly reported. And it has been a lot more effort and resources put in behind the scenes all because the executive team felt a little bit embarrassing that they weren't being taken seriously enough. Because bomb is it's kind of like a tee to say no you must call me Mrs. Wimmer. Rather than Bob. It's so

Dan Ilic  7:13  
strange. They feel I feel like they've done this to themselves that the Bureau of Meteorology has an app that says bomb their website says bomb their social media sites handle say bomb why make the change

Rick Morton  7:23  
to its ego, ego and status. And it's like you have a roomful of nerds. And you're trying to make yourself sound like you're some kind of like spy agency. It's like, except your role in law. That's

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  7:35  
the first thing I thought as well. When they said the bureau I was like, Okay, this isn't like the CIA or the FBI. What are you trying to do?

Lewis Hobba  7:45  
You're probably the only person in the country who could eat up the spelling, you can basically be Bureau schooler.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  7:52  
Exactly, exactly. Maybe that I shouldn't change my name to bomb if it's free.

Lewis Hobba  7:58  
I do think like if meteorologists want to be taken more seriously, there are a couple of things they could do. First of all, the right more. Absolutely. That'd be great. The Bureau of constantly fucking it up at the moment. Stop letting other people wear vests. You know what I mean? You just get these dorks invest. Most were the people on Australian television. Our football is girlfriends or former comedians. Like, you are not a science that we take seriously. Yeah, your spokespeople are big foods.

Dan Ilic  8:34  
Louis, you've got a real good point there. I think you know, Phillip Neitzke should deliver the weather that I would take very seriously. If Dr. Das was telling me some hard truths about high pressure systems coming in from syphilis.

Lewis Hobba  8:47  
light showers with the chance of your dick falling off.

Rick Morton  8:52  
They also got a marketing research firm called EY sweetie to branch events, to do some sentiment analysis about you know what the mark this is back in March, what they actually understand, you know, how people relate to the Bureau of Meteorology. Everyone recognizes that as the Bureau of Meteorology at something like 51% know it as the bomb 15% recognize it as the bureau so like not even like they knew it. They knew it back in March, and they dodged a hole

that I thought like I can't believe anyone calls with that. That's just the staff of the media.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  9:24  
already converted.

Dan Ilic  9:26  
Now, Rick, I don't know if you can tell me if this is true or not this screenshots been going around. This is meant to be the consulting firm that was going to change the Bureau of Meteorology to the bomb. It's this. This is what the website looks like. It's a sentence with a picture of something. It's built on WordPress. It doesn't even have like contact details.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  9:45  
Let us see. And in a pile of water,

Rick Morton  9:48  
yes. Yes, it is, actually. And it's the person who is was the sole trader of this company. The theeword is obsessed with the word see.

Dan Ilic  9:59  
It's called the Sea It's C word consultancy.

Rick Morton  10:01  
It is called the C word communications agency. Okay, so it's the C bomb essentially is what they brand change was already afoot, right. But they get this guy in as a consultant that he know works by the way for the Bureau of Meteorology as a senior communications manager. And he there's a blog that he wrote on LinkedIn. And for my sins. As a journalist, I do occasionally have to go on to LinkedIn, I had to pay $600 for a yearly subscription, just to be able to message people, because life is sad, and I need help. But he's got his blog on there. And it's like, you know, what have we achieved at the theeword? It's like, we've done creative collaboration with cool cats.

Dan Ilic  10:47  
Which is so funny like he does so why don't he rebrand the the bomb as a suit with a C word is they got

Rick Morton  10:54  
a look, I've got to be careful here. But they got the guy with potentially the worst brand in Australia to come in, advise the the sum of $30,000.

Dan Ilic  11:06  
Well, allegedly a lot more, according to your article that will be coming out on Saturday. Yes.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  11:12  
But I do like wonder why they think the bomb is not serious enough. You know, like, if I hear the word bomb, you know, especially in an airport. It seriously

Lewis Hobba  11:29  
must have been tough for them, because there would have been a time where they were like, alright, gang. Look, we need to find a time to release this report. And it's going to be tough, because we will need to find a time somewhere in the Australian weather landscape where things aren't so crazy that we can talk about the weather in a way that isn't intense. And over the last four years that is a very short window, but they couldn't have picked a worse worse time to release this information.

Rick Morton  11:55  
It is like wild and like tenure people take the minister's office had no idea they were going to announce it this week during major flooding when people have lost their lives. But also like this obsession, right and it's been years long but and so there's other words they don't like people using internally they haven't announced this publicly but the other words they don't like our forecasts for the meteorologists probably because they're not doing forecasts anymore. They don't like weather events because that sounds too heavy like an event. It's a celebration according to the internal people have. Yeah.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  12:26  
Catastrophe then.

Rick Morton  12:29  
A weather happening a moment in time

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  12:32  
happening. Yeah, I'm not sure emmalin movie

Rick Morton  12:35  
Oh my god. Yeah, the trees are killing us.

Unknown Speaker  12:41  
Some savvy social media users were very quick to snap to the handled using the accounts to slam bombs timing.

Simon Chilvers  12:49  
This is a rational fear.

Dan Ilic  12:51  
This week. Second fear is Sydney's nightlife coming back, Sydney is Australia's largest inhabited quiet carriage and has had locked down for lock downs. We're cool. Now after 10 years of early nights and clean Livi Sydney is staying up past its bedtime. That's a reference to something that happened in 2014. A new town bar has been granted a 4am license for the first time in 100 years. b Why is this significant? There's 4am license.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  13:17  
I'm listen, I live in New Town and already the people coming in on Fridays and Saturdays causing a ruckus that I don't care for

Dan Ilic  13:29  
this nimbyism to come from you.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  13:31  
I'm kidding. No, I think it is like quite interesting that like kind of Newtown has become this like new hub and stuff. Because when I was 18, and stuff, it was like Kings Cross that was a place and then like six months later, lockout laws were introduced, you know, so it's kind of interesting in a way because they've just completely shifted all of the interest away from Kings Cross. Like still some of the bars there haven't recovered, but yet they're, you know, going to try and have this sort of perimeter for 4am licensing and I just wonder how that will change the whole vibe of Newtown

Dan Ilic  14:08  
there's a whole there's a whole lot about this article. That seems a bit dodgy right first of all, the guy that granted the license, he has the title as the New South Wales 24 hour Commissioner, yet he's only granting a license beforehand. What about the other 20 hours?

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  14:24  
I thought that 24 hour Commissioner thing was so funny it was like it's kind of like this goal to like have Sydney's economy you know make money while we sleep

Lewis Hobba  14:35  
as a kind of like hard partying Jack Bauer

Dan Ilic  14:45  
there's also no mention of where this bar is actually gonna be. They only kind of tell you it's between two streets which includes the train tracks. It's a very it's a very weird thing. And this This so called Fun area has been given the label by the New South Wales Government as as the late night management zone have come on down. It's gonna it's gonna revive the teachers will be like patrolling it with loud hailers. Like,

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  15:14  
it's giving the exact vibe of my mom saying, Hey, you can have your friends over, you can stay up late. But then as soon as 935 comes across, she's yelling at us from her balcony.

Dan Ilic  15:26  
The other thing I feel I find disconcerting about this story is the CEO kind of sounds like a serial killer. He's quite an understanding was saying, We've been looking for a basement space in Newtown for a really long time. Because it's perfect sound attenuation and lowers the risk of getting noise complaints from the residents, but there aren't many in this area. I think you still

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  15:46  
tell us where the basement is. So

Lewis Hobba  15:48  
that's why Jack bow has been hired. That's

Rick Morton  15:52  
why we need to flood new tab.

Lewis Hobba  15:56  
It is good though, because obviously when the lockout laws came in, and everyone got pushed out of the cross and sort of Paddington and Surry Hills and all those areas, the one place you could go of course was Star Casino. That a good haven't they done well haven't they been a beacon a shining light on the Hill best management the

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  16:17  
best place to have some you know, some leg workouts because your feet really do be sticking to those floors.

Dan Ilic  16:24  
Oh my god, they did lose their license this week. But the New South Wales Government has graciously let them continue to trade business and I assume that means people still can leave their kids in the car with the windows down. I think that's what emotional fear

Unknown Speaker  16:39  
to the star casino has been found unsuitable to hold a New South Wales casino license, money laundering and

Unknown Speaker  16:46  
enticing people

Unknown Speaker  16:48  
to be armed nearly by gambling, organized prime links

Dan Ilic  16:56  
just stop with the program here to let you know that we have a brand new sponsor on a rational fee for the next 10 weeks I'm very excited about this Australian ethical is chipping in to pay the bills. And not only that, they kind of believe in stuff we believe in like your money is worth even more than you think it's because you can use it for a force for good. We've spoken about this in the podcast before when you move your money, you can make a positive impact. You can either be part of a system that is hurtling us towards our own destruction or we can invest in doing better and that's what Australian ethical is all about. So big thank you to Australian ethical for jumping on board and supporting a rational fear. For more information go to Australian ethical.com today Yeah. This week's third fear watching UK politics for the last week it's been like trying to catch up on a sci fi TV show you've missed a couple of seasons of the baddies is still in charge but all the characters have kind of changed you kind of don't know where the story is at. Joining us now to shed light on what the hell is happening over there is satirical comedian star of McTell week hosted the DMS are open podcast on radio for extra and a cracking Twitter feed. It's Athena Coupland, welcome to Siena.

Athena Kugblenu  18:02  
Thank you for having me. How are you?

Dan Ilic  18:04  
Good, good, you know, full full kind of disclosure. Rick suggested this story. We all looked at. We all looked at each other. And we're like, none of us know what is actually happening. We need an expert What the hell is happening over there in the UK?

Athena Kugblenu  18:20  
The fact you've called me tells me how desperately important you are. The last I mean know even the politicians themselves that said last night they had a vote and you might not be aware but like in Parliament, when you have a vote you either vote on the issue or when your party is in crisis. You vote senators tentative vote on the party. That makes sense. So last night, they were going Do you like fracking or not but it because the party was in such disarray? The break was going to turn into do like the conservatives or not basically this is a bit Fisher Price politics. Right. So

Dan Ilic  18:52  
seriously, looking at your political system, it's like looking at Harry Potter. Like we didn't

Athena Kugblenu  18:57  
just say like, fracking is like a really important issue. Like it causes earthquakes, right? Yeah. No, that's not as important as Do you like me or not? Like, how is that?

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  19:08  
The equivalent? Yeah, it feels like a twist in like a reality TV show. You know, like, you know, you thought it was gonna be about fracking.

Rick Morton  19:17  
This tastes disgusting when they put

Athena Kugblenu  19:18  
in a contestant that's been evicted. So like. So genuinely, the politicians didn't know if they were voting for fracking, or for the party this morning. I was trying to find out what was it about in any case, they ended up voting for earthquakes because earthquake because we weren't on a top line. And it's not fair. When you own a city on a fault line, you get you know, you get quakes. And so why don't we Why don't we create a natural disaster so we can be on the news today? I mean, we're just not on the news.

Rick Morton  19:51  
You've got a natural disaster though. It's the Tory party.

Dan Ilic  19:58  
You know, The fracking here is how ITV said what went down last night.

Unknown Speaker  20:11  
It has been a night of astonishing scenes at Westminster with reports of jostling men handling bullying and shouting outside the parliamentary lobbies. In a suppose vote of confidence in the government. The deputy chief whip was reported to have left the scene saying, I'm absolutely effing furious. I just don't effing care anymore before he resigned along with the chief whip, but we've just been told they have now officially on resigned. The Home Secretary has however definitely got insurance. It is total absolute abject chaos.

Athena Kugblenu  20:49  
So this was that was supposedly your vote on whether or not the parties have voted, lose trust, let's just risk the vote. To even vote on herself. First of all, it was she wants fracking she picks it since he thinks it's important right into security. So she missed the boat on fracking.

Dan Ilic  21:08  
That's why she missed it. She was she was pumping gas into the ground. She was busy fracking data number 10. Yeah,

Athena Kugblenu  21:15  
so she missed that I wrote to say that I like me too. So

Rick Morton  21:18  
this is why this is why I chose this subject because I don't know anything about it. But I do know that it's very funny. And also I see a lot of myself in live traps like she's

understand how money works or market

right? I do love I love that like ITV at the at the end that like because my brain is working in like a music and radio station when I hear like total abject chaos with that thing underneath. I'm just waiting for like a dubstep drop to kick in.

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  22:00  
Reporters they seem to always have like such a sense of urgency that you could absolutely remix it and make it a sick club mix. Like

Athena Kugblenu  22:11  
I'm surprised it hasn't been done already. To be honest. And you have to do these. That's the reason why these things happen so they can go viral on the internet. That's what I think to be fair, I do think I'm being a bit cynical. I do think though they're ramping it up a bit. Just a little clip of them going crazy can go viral, because the good thing about this chaos is it was it's been chaotic for about four weeks. What we've got now if you've got pictures of MPs Ave Argy bargy in Parliament, but this has been this is the status has been the status quo. You know, this is not this is not this last night in many ways was unremarkable. It was just it was just funny because he wrote in Parliament you don't have bits to pay for you literally you vote with your body you go through a yes chamber or no chambers it's really you

Dan Ilic  22:52  
don't you don't have a button

Athena Kugblenu  22:58  
so that's all happening was

Dan Ilic  23:04  
please don't please don't think this is fisher price because we have literally no idea

Athena Kugblenu  23:10  
it's incredible so the chief whip said the chief whip says it's their job to get people to vote the quote unquote right way to vote with us not against us. But because you're not going to get paid for you have to physically move people into the right chamber right. So what was happening last night it was they were literally getting them by the next and or whatever. Like apparently there was a bit people were like saying it was like brilliant. Like they were

Rick Morton  23:31  
like apparently, Jacob Riis. Mog was one of the people manhandling which is like a noodle closet.

Athena Kugblenu  23:40  
If you let Jacob Riis, mog bad habit you get yourself to help still get some iron supplements. Protein shakes. You are withering away the cost of living crisis to doing something because Jacob Riis, mog makes us do it. She came home from school we said I'm being bullied and they've put in a kid and they're taking these Rob I would kick them out of the house

Rick Morton  24:11  
and being bullied by like one of those car yard like

Dan Ilic  24:15  
the inflatable. I love this loan from the chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He told a meeting of colleagues on Wednesday he said according to someone in the room, this is what Jeremy Hunt said this would be really interesting shit if I wasn't in the middle of it

Athena Kugblenu  24:29  
fundamentally, basically is because there's an Elisa that has no authority when she says jump they all sit down and pick their noses. And when when they do what she says the markets go What the hell are you doing? You're crazy. So they're in a weird place where they can't do what they've been told because what they've been told is horrendous but not doing what they're told the government can't function and so that's what we're saying we want general election which is horrible because no one likes elections. They're just horrible. You tell them the TV listen slow mo the child crying or whatever some would get it because video you It's just sort of very boring. I think we should just get the formality of a general election. And we should just just edit a coup, but in my school

Rick Morton  25:08  
we're just going for monarchy like now you've got the king.

Athena Kugblenu  25:15  
I mean, you know, I mean for the crack I mean,

Dan Ilic  25:19  
what about a reverse Monica, you could have our prime minister roll over you. It'd be great.

Athena Kugblenu  25:24  
Yeah. Your new ones Nice. We'd like that do

Rick Morton  25:28  
Undercover Boss but just to you know, live trust.

Athena Kugblenu  25:34  
You know, like a school exchange student trips, and you go to France to stay with the family. And they stay with you. Let's do an exchange.

Dan Ilic  25:43  
Right? Yeah. I don't think we want Miss dress.

Rick Morton  25:45  
It's such fun drama. It's real, like keeping up with aquatint Ian's energy

Athena Kugblenu  25:58  
you foresee like it was it just about work? It's very interesting. What's happened now is because and what people are forgetting is it. Boris Johnson two years ago, kicked all the reasonably smart people out of the cabinet because they were not on board this Brexit plan at all. If you're not with me or against me, and you fill this cabinet with idiots, I mean, I don't use that word lightly. He was he first came out with people who probably weren't very skilled at what they did. And that's a one by one we've lost anyone with a semblance of common sense. And now we're left with people who just like walking around and saying I'm important. And then you ask them to do something and they can't do anything because they're thick. And there's no one and no one in the backbench who might be good at it been in the cabinet wants to serve in it. So that's been run out of options. Yes, yeah. Read a book and get smart but that's not going to happen.

Rick Morton  26:48  
Well, that takes time and your energy crisis

Dan Ilic  26:52  
there's a real problem with the conservative party among many others, but you know, our conservative party date basically roll Prime Ministers whenever they want. They're like let's get rid of this guy. Next week. The next person in line we've had enough of this person but the UK Conservative Party has to wait 12 months before they can ever party motion to wrong someone

Athena Kugblenu  27:11  
you know something all of these things mean nothing. They really do mean nothing. They just they say that they'll just change the rules they'll change the rules and I hope they I hope they do because it's because nobody wants to talk for months. I won't lie right now looking for wind up torches. I'm telling you when you power power they're gonna they prepared with the press releases and the news bulletins say you're in the dark sorry about that or whatever. So I

Dan Ilic  27:37  
can recommend anything. It would be a solar foldout solar panel that you can charge in the UK it climate change is bringing trust down and climate change is bringing this podcast down.

Rick Morton  27:53  
It really was just leaves holding you all together, wasn't it?

Athena Kugblenu  27:59  
The crazy thing so we got rid of Boris that can it not? It can't get any worse. And now people are saying we need both shots of back. It's it's sort of it's sort of it for now.

Rick Morton  28:07  
I even heard Theresa Mays name resurfaced

Athena Kugblenu  28:11  
where everybody Rolf Harris I think he's got

Dan Ilic  28:28  
some, allegedly, Rick,

Athena Kugblenu  28:31  
I'm aware of what he did. But he was just because I don't know why he was on my mind. I regret saying that. Were just shuffling cards. It's like, we're just Oh, no, no, no. Like, there's nobody, and I don't I don't think we should get someone who's done it before. Because we've got rid of them for a reason. You know, it's like so I think you're an ex back and then you get back and it's like, oh, you're an asshole like so we just need a fresh start clean slate. It's like Eat Pray Love. Did everything we need to go away?

Rick Morton  29:05  
Spain, but you can't do that easily. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  29:09  
Well, it's been a good luck. And if you get stuck for solar panel, come to Australia. We'd love to have you here. Oh,

Athena Kugblenu  29:14  
I'll tell you. I'm gonna go I'm coming right now.

Dan Ilic  29:19  
Oh, look, this is viral clip that keeps going surfacing every now and then whenever Jeremy hunts name comes up. It is fantastic. is a compilation of people miss pronunciate. Oh. It's a couple of people not pronouncing Jeremy hunts name correctly.

Rupert Degas  29:34  
Well, first up after the news we're going to be talking to Jeremy come and hunt the culture Secretary Abed

Unknown Speaker  29:39  
and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy Hunt is also expected to apologize circumstances

Unknown Speaker  29:43  
change Mr. Kent Mr. Hunter. Jeremy counter cute. Jeremy Hunt. Secretary Jeremy Hunt says he's the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as described. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt according to the

Rick Morton  29:58  
Health Secretary Jeremy Taylor. said the NHS friends

Unknown Speaker  30:03  
looking after the health service

Unknown Speaker  30:04  
somebody somewhere in government perhaps Jeremy Kent the the Jeremy I'm not gonna pronounce his surname because I might mispronounce it deliberately.

Dan Ilic  30:21  
Just comedy, just comedy. I love that. Hey, I seen it. Thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear and that is it for rational fear big thank you to be Rick Cena and Louis. Let's do our plugs. And he could do you have anything to plug bait?

Bea Barbeau-Scurla  30:35  
Oh, just follow me on Instagram. I gotta get that clown. That Queen bay with a K W E N underscore B EA it's the most confusing way to spell it.

Dan Ilic  30:48  
We'll pop it in the show notes. Rick Morton, you've got a fantastic new substack

Rick Morton  30:52  
Oh, yeah, I joined I joined the crew. So I've got a sub that could nervous laughter which is basically how I go through life. It's good. You should read it.

Dan Ilic  31:01  
Yeah. Oh, subscribe. Louis harbor. Are you you plug in your TV show?

Rick Morton  31:05  
I am Yeah, I thought I finally have something to plug other than my dumb radio show. I have a television show. Coming to the ABC on Thursday night. It's called Australia's best competition competition. It is where I enter a bunch of weird competitions around the country with my friend comedian Michael hing and and then we rank them and we find the best competition in Australia and it's really funny and I broke my knee doing it so

Dan Ilic  31:33  
medical bills to pay Yeah. I seen a cuckoo

Athena Kugblenu  31:38  
What would you like to blog Oh, just my just my Instagram and my Twitter. And the fact that you guys want that Rachel itself doesn't mind.

Dan Ilic  31:48  
Big thanks to rode mics our new sponsor Australian ethical Thank you Australian ethical Jacob round on the Tepanyaki timeline. Our new patreon supporters Michelle Brian, Mac Benny drew mayo, Anthony Bell dune and Gabby bolt has also become a patreon supporter. They're gonna be about became a Patreon supporter because she realized the opera house show she was in for rational fear is actually behind the paywall on the Patreon she wanted to hear. So if you missed out on the Sydney Opera House show, head over to Patreon you can become a member and listen to that show. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of by

Unknown Speaker  32:23  
it is total, absolute abject.

Unknown Speaker  32:28  
I have been in office for just under two months. I am a

Unknown Speaker  32:35  
I just don't care anymore object.

Simon Chilvers  32:40  
This is a rational view.

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We’re gearing up for a big 10-week season of weekly A Rational Fear Podcasts — but before we hit full steam, enjoy this chat with one of Australia's most prominent satirical broadcasters. 

From ABC's The Weekly: Charlie Pickering.

We also speak with NASA Scientist and Climate Activist: Peter Kalmus

This is a big discussion about civil disobedience and what actions may or may not work when it comes to shaking up the narrative of climate action. Dan also pushes Charlie on how he covers climate, and his thoughts on reaching the ABC audience.

Leave us a review here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-rational-fear/id522303261

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Dan Ilic  0:00  
G'day, welcome to A Rational Fear, another special episode of A Rational Fear light as I call it's not the full A Rational Fear. It's just a slimmed down version that is the least amount of effort to make to maintain your Patreon support. That's all it is. That's what we're doing. And we've got a great guest, Charlie Pickering needs no introduction, but I'll give you one in a second. Anyway, here we go. I'm recording my end of A Rational Fear on Gadigal Land of the Eora Nation. sovereignty with never ceaded, we need a treaty. Let's start

Simon Chilvers  0:29  
the show. A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, and gum and section 40 of our A Rational Fear recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  0:43  
Tonight the CEO of Star City casino says that even though the casino license has been revoked, customers will still be allowed to leave their kids in their car unsupervised. And Kanye West agrees to buy in principle, Paula and I agree in principle to not buy anything from Kanye West. And in a shocking misstep, Scott Morrison has signed up to a speaker's bureau initially wanted to sign up to a meandering rant bureau. Instead, it's the 19th of October. And this is A Rational Fear

Welcome to A Rational Fear I'm your host, former president of China, Dan Xi Ping and joining us onA Rational Fear light is the host of Foxtel's The Mansion it is Charlie Pickering.

Charlie Pickering  1:39  
That's great. It's great that some remember by some

Dan Ilic  1:42  
people that worked on the show is of that show? Yeah, it was great. Don't Charlie, one of the best moments in show business in my life. I was having lunch with you in Manly one day, and you saying, Hey, man, I've got a show coming up. Do you want to come and work on it? And I'm like, yeah, that's my chili peppers, my cherry picker impression.

Charlie Pickering  2:02  
It's pretty accurate. It's pretty

Dan Ilic  2:04  
good. Don't often I don't often do

Charlie Pickering  2:09  
more of them come and be

Dan Ilic  2:13  
waiting here by chamber impression. It's great. Yeah, I don't often do my impressions to the people who do the impressions of

Charlie Pickering  2:20  
it shows extreme confidence when that's your absolute confidence with an impression used to do it to the person.

Dan Ilic  2:27  
I did do my Andrew Denton impression to him at a rap party once on the microphone. And it was it went down. Well, I think Andrew was like, that doesn't? That doesn't sound like me at all. What do you what do you try it? Like? Why are you implying that I make people cry? Yeah. Hey, thanks for joining us on irrational fear. Charlie. I really appreciate I've been meaning to get you on for a long time. But you, you know, one of the busiest man in showbiz. You're like the James Brown of Australian comedy showbiz.

Charlie Pickering  2:55  
Hopefully, you're talking purely about work ethic and not

Dan Ilic  2:58  
talking about your work. busiest man in China,

Charlie Pickering  3:01  
yes, well, I think I've done I've done very well to cultivate the image of busyness. And I think that's been probably the greatest achievement of my career. So far. Everyone thinks that I've got a lot on

Dan Ilic  3:12  
Yeah, tell us easier. It's perception at a distance, you've done a great job. That's right. I kind of wanted to get you on because you're, you're always thinking about the big issues, and you kind of have to as a person who runs a inflammation refinery that is the weekly. And with a lot of the civil disobedience stuff that's been happening around climate, I thought it might be good to have a little chat with you about about your thoughts on it, and how, as someone who runs an inflammation distillery, the weekly, how you go about covering climate, like, you know, the weekly has been on for so many years now. And you've covered it in so many ways. How, let me ask you, first of all, how do you think about approaching climate stories, because it's a story that just keeps on going? I don't

Charlie Pickering  3:55  
think we do it a lot. Because we do it with a philosophy of, we want to change minds that need to be changed. And if you actually wade into every single argument about climate change, based on every rhetorical thing that a conservative politician has said, or every single story that enters the news, you scream about it. People will stop listening to you and you end up changing no minds at all people stay in their positions. And it's it's funny, I've always tried to find unique arguments against the prevailing rhetoric of the conservative side of the climate change argument, I'd say conservative, it's not as the opposite of conservative because it's destructive. Like it's not conserving anything. But you know, the more fossil fuel driven side of the the, the political debate, and so the yardstick we measure our stuff by is Could someone with an open mind, have their mind made up by this, or are we just preaching to the choir voted and driving away the converted.

Dan Ilic  5:02  
Are we at a point now in in climate discourse where that feels like a, I feel like that's a eight year old argument. And right now you as someone with a platform on the ABC, and you might not be changing the mind of the 65 year old demographic who watches the ABC, but you have this enormous platform to change the minds of people who are actually in power to actually inform an electorate in a way that can pressure them to put pressure on the government to do more to, you know,

Charlie Pickering  5:29  
push it. It's interesting that you say that, because if you have a look at the last federal election, in Australia, and this is all through an Australian lens, the threat to the conservative power base was less what labour said or the green said, and more about the fact that the penny dropped in places like KU Yan, that that one of their priorities was climate change. And they affected an electoral change. Now, I live just down the road from Google. And I know those people will. And I know that screaming at them was never going to make up their mind that but a rational argument, and an irrational understanding of things is what made them prioritize climate change at the ballot box. Yeah. And it's, it's just interesting, it's just a matter of approach because I'll be really honest, I know my demographic at the ABC. They're not on tick tock. You know, what, around 1% of my viewing audiences on Twitter 1%,

Dan Ilic  6:33  
that's it. Yeah.

Charlie Pickering  6:34  
I mean, or at least that was what I was told, when I started the network. And they said, Hey, don't worry about what people are saying about you on Twitter. But if we're going to survive this, and if we're going to make the changes, we need to as a society, I think it's a multi pronged approach. And I think it's understanding where your audience is, and what changes you can affect in that audience. Now, I don't know how you get on truth, social, and convince them that climate change is real. But I've got a pretty good instinct for the the television audience of the national broadcaster. And the fact that maybe it's not about making someone believe that climate change is real. But maybe it's it's been about convincing people that climate change has to move up their list of electoral priorities and determine what they do at the ballot box. And I think to candidates being elected, has been one of those things that has taken climate action into the realm of actual possibility.

Dan Ilic  7:41  
Yeah, I agree with you there. And that's something our audience knows a lot about. We've been closely following those campaigns for two years. Now. What about you know, when you're holding when you've got this platform? Do you? Do you consider yourself a part of journalism, in a sense to hold governments to account to do more on action on climate? Dude, do you have that perspective?

Charlie Pickering  8:04  
I do. But more than that, I feel that I have an opportunity to hold media to account. Because a lot of the way my show works, and to be honest, it's the technical comedy construction that the Daily Show achieved. And we've all kind of followed that path of taking all the clips that are on all the TV and telling the story based on what people are seeing on TV. And so for me, you can get at a you can get a good rhetorical argument rather than being angry, say at a Conservative government for being in a pocket of fossil fuels, which there is no surprise to that. And no joke I can come up with about it is new. But picking on Kashi on breakfast TV, for yelling at climate protesters that stop traffic for 15 minutes, and showing how he's actually the unreasonable one in the conversation. That, for me is more fertile ground. Now admittedly, the ABC audience don't need to be told that Kashi isn't the barometer of intelligent conversation. But

Dan Ilic  9:14  
by using media to tell the story, you actually have a shortcut to the audience because the audience knows what you're talking about because the audience is engrossed in that space as well.

Charlie Pickering  9:23  
That's right. I think the media has to change as much as governments need to change. Well, I know myself, crikey, Barnaby Joyce came on my show to sell a book and suffered through the most excruciating interview of his political career. And he's had some doozies. Right. And that taught me that politicians need the media probably more than the media needs politician, head of

Dan Ilic  9:49  
the weather board and iron ore the Winterboard nine go by the way, it books out do we know?

Charlie Pickering  9:55  
I'm not sure how it's sold. But I will say most of the conversation was more about His family situation, that his his particularly moving memoir. So what what I think is important there is if you can change what is normal in the media, you then change the way that politicians have to interact with the media. And so I think there is there is benefit to holding the media to account as much as you hold politicians to account. Because the media at the end of the day lasts longer than governments. They shape things over a longer period of time. They are if you're angry that politicians are in the pocket of donors, or TV networks, or in the pockets of sponsors far more than you'd like. And they're open about it. Like they will invent a TV show with cold supermarkets once you do invent a TV show

Dan Ilic  10:44  
I've seen on the block recently, like them putting gas the episodes without putting gas in the kitchen, and then it cuts through an ad for green gas.

Charlie Pickering  10:54  
Yeah. And it's Yeah, which is once again, I mean, we need to have a stern chat with the team at the block of moving away from guests as well. I believe that the problem is so big and so urgent. And the consequences are so dire. It takes a really multi pronged approach to shifting the needle and into to actually changing mindsets over time. And it's interesting at my school, there's a parents group that they have discussions about climate change, and how to talk about climate change with family members who perhaps don't consider it that much of a priority. And that's a very different thing to me picking on Kashi, which is different to someone supergluing their hand to the road, or throwing soup on a Van Gogh, it's all part of the same picture, which is getting the consciousness of the world to move far enough that we can we can actually save the day.

Dan Ilic  11:50  
What do climate protesters have to do to cut through to the mainstream? Who What do they need to glue their hand to to really capture Australia's attention? Is there a painting with us with that people will pay attention to in Australia a set Nolan backups?

Charlie Pickering  12:04  
I was gonna say Sydney No, that is Ned Kelly is probably, you know, you could throw spaghetti at a Brett Whiteley. He could throw spaghetti at a pro heart. No one had noticed. But um, um, but it's, it's like. So here's the thing. I'm not 100% Convinced that throwing soup on a Van Gogh achieves much beyond being in the news bulletin that night or being a clip on Twitter. Now, that might not be the most popular opinion. But I know that my parents would never look at that and go, do you know what I really think I need to have a think about climate change. I think the protests that have been the most persuasive have been, I think the mass protests with parents and kids and you know, multigenerational peaceful street protests that get more probably more minutes or the same number of minutes on the news. But what they show is an image of regular people, families, multi generations, and hopefully people that look like the viewer concerned enough about this to get out and spend their time and effort marching? I know, that's just one form of protest. But I still find that the most persuasive I still think the peaceful civil rights marches of the 60s, were the most persuasive. Not that I think they necessarily achieved the end of the Confederacy. You know, I think we're, you know, I think it was Fran Lebowitz, who said, I'm sick of all these articles about, we need to find out what Trump voters want. She said, we know what they want, they want the fucking Confederacy. Let's stop listening to it. But um, I do think that there's lots of different forms of protest. I think the ones that interests me the most are the ones that actually persuade people to change their priorities. Well, I know that my parents would see someone throw soup on a Van Gogh, and think I'm not going to listen to their position. Now, my parents are older. But I don't think you have to convince that many people under 30 that climate change is real and we need to do something serious about it

Dan Ilic  14:19  
do XR, protesters need to throw soup on David Koch. Is this what you're saying?

Charlie Pickering  14:24  
I mean, I think of more soup on cash policy across the board. He's probably wise. And he'd love it. It's zany. It's wacky. It's a fun way to start the day. I don't know I guess. I've taken an approach in my broadcast career, to try to speak to the broader like the largest number of people I can and hopefully change minds because because I actually think the audience that I have with the ABC is a really important one. It's like Gen X and above. And let's be honest Gen X and above the one ones keeping the old way of doing things in the game. And you have to convince them to let go, you know, like the tail independents, and all of that. You have to convince them to shift their priorities in some way. Now, Gen X is hard because they've got young kids at the moment, and they're under slept. And it's hard for them to care about anything except getting to bed. But I do think, and it's not pretty, and it's not spectacular in their own photos of it. But it's that changing in priorities of people that I think is, is really important. And so it's funny, I've found I think, Greta tunberg is persuasive to those people beyond the right wing commentariat. I don't think anyone actually, I think I think most people are inspired by Greta tunberg. And a young person being that organized and responsible and articulate about something so important. And it's funny. The reason I think she's really persuasive is a bunch of people of the age and demographic that you need to convince go on. That's like my daughter, but my daughter's never organized a global climate protest. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. You know, there's a girl at my daughter's school who can play the flute without reading the music. I thought that was impressive. But now look at what Greta tunberg parental competitiveness,

Dan Ilic  16:21  
you see what you could be doing, Jenny, you could be out there glaring at Donald Trump. But here you are playing Minecraft. I totally agree with you. I think young folks are so inspiring in this conversation. And we have our own in Australia, like Anjali Sharma, also, Jean Hinchcliffe and those young school strikes strike. It's just so inspiring and so articulate. It's one of those things where I go, well, they may not be a person that has power, like literal power, but they have a certain level of soft power that they can use, and they're using it with great effect. I think Anjali Sharma is on q&a this week. And that's so great. She's such an incredible, incredible voice, incredibly well read, credibly well spoken and just absolutely destroys people in her wake.

Charlie Pickering  17:11  
But in the interest of balance, we also have to find a persuasive barrel of oil to speak against.

Dan Ilic  17:20  
The sad thing about Kayla bond is it and now he's a middle aged man that he can no longer be the voice of young consider young conservatives.

Charlie Pickering  17:28  
Yeah, I'm not sure if there is a rebrand available to the young conservative movement that will that will capture enough numbers to shift the needle, you know,

Dan Ilic  17:38  
well, Charlie, you have very interesting thoughts. As a high and mighty TV host sitting in your ivory tower, the AVC pontificating about how the best this actually works in the ground in theory, but what if I told you we're about to speak with someone who does it for real, and is actually a NASA scientist,

Charlie Pickering  17:59  
then I would withdraw everything I've said up until now.

Dan Ilic  18:02  
Well, I'm very excited to have Peter columnist on the show. He is a climate scientist. He's worked at NASA. He is a bit of a master when it comes to civil disobedience and climate hate. You have done incredible work in your own space, not only as a climate scientist, but as an activist trying to raise attention for the climate emergency. What we're seeing now seems to be this incredible momentum of more people acting out in civil kind of in in civil society. But there's been so much kind of interesting conversation around whether it's appropriate or not. So, Peter, is it right to be civilly disobedient? Is this correct?

Peter Kalmus  18:41  
Yeah, for me, it's common sense to fight as hard as I can for this planet. I mean, everything. food, air, water, like kids, friends, everything I love. Beautiful ecosystems depends on this planet being healthy. And I've been fighting for 16 years before I tried civil disobedience. And you know, there was a little motion in the movement over that time, especially once some Greta and the youth started doing climate strikes, but it's going to slow as a climate scientist I am. It's cold read, I am desperate. So I am desperate. And then when I did civil disobedience is very mild form of civil disobedience. So I want to push back against this notion that I'm somehow like the king. It was pretty low risk. You know, I'm a white guy. I just changed myself to a door. You know, 100 cops showed up in riot gear, we have to go viral. I gave a really impassioned speech for speech in the heart that I hadn't prepared at all in advance. I just was saying what I was feeling and that helped to go viral too. So it's really important when doing these acts, if you can speak with your genuine emotions, just be authentically you and get a camera on you while you're in a middle of the action. That can be really really powerful. But yeah, it's the the outcome of the civil disobedience was like a million times more impactful than any thing I tried before I tried civil disobedience. So to me, it's really clear that the movement should keep doing it. We don't need every single person on the movement doing civil disobedience, we could use a damn sight more than, but we do need more civil disobedience. And we need a lot of advocates, you know, activists who aren't necessarily putting themselves at great risk, but they are going into board meetings, and they're speaking out and they're speaking truth to power, and they're maybe risking their jobs a little bit to tell the truth about the climate emergency. And, you know, we can't we're not going to carbon offset our way out of this.

Dan Ilic  20:30  
There's this incredible kind of pushback from people saying you shouldn't pour soup over Van Gogh's. But it seems to be that this kind of civil disobedience is really cutting through with with a large bunch of, of media all around the world, we've seen so many people going up to artworks gluing their hands to them, kind of being in the being in front of things that people love, it seems that that is like a real key way to kind of cut through and get a headline. Whereas Pete, we've we've kind of been ignoring this, this essential part of the of the discourse in kind of climate activism, do you see that as a reasonable way of protesting,

Peter Kalmus  21:09  
solving climate change, it's going to take radical change at almost every level of society, because our entire society runs on burning fossil fuels, things are going to have to get a little bit impolite. And if you're clutching pearls, just because a couple of teenagers throw some soup at a painting and don't even damage it one bit. If that's like your level of like, that's all you can take that I think that reveals that you have a real problem, honestly. So yeah, things are gonna get real on the climate movement, a lot of stuffs not gonna get good, not going to be popular. But maybe people should take their anger at the world leaders who haven't been doing jack shit and the fossil fuel industry, which is what's causing this because they're taking fossil fuel money. So don't direct the anger, the activist direct to world leaders who are destroying our planet.

Dan Ilic  21:57  
I think it's so interesting. Like in Australia, there have been some laws passed recently where you can go to jail for two years for interrupting the infrastructure that moves fossil fuels. And so people are moving away from people are very heavily discouraged from doing that kind of civil disobedience. So moving into the galleries and into, you know, lauded spaces where beautiful works of art, to, to glue their hands to a Picasso is this new expression of the same thing, which probably generates so much more headlines, but like we've seen in Australia, the people who have done that have actually been charged with anything, do you think we'll see more civil disobedience in places where well around things that people are actually in love with rather than infrastructure moving fossil fuels?

Peter Kalmus  22:45  
That's a great question. I don't really know where the movements gonna go. But I know, one thing I've learned over 16 years of doing climate activism is that the movement does move, like it's actually a very good word for what it is because it never stays still. It's constantly evolving in response to sort of like where the culture is at, right? And it's got to constantly be pushing the limits of social norms. But yeah, you can't if you do civil disobedience, in jail, and not a single person knows about it. You've basically wasted your you have these like cards, you can play these, he's risking actions you can take, well, you got a certain number of arrests that you can play, and you don't want to waste him. So you have to people do have to know about it. So So yeah, people say, Oh, it's a media stunt. And those are the trolls that are trying to discredit the activist, but that's just the way it works. You You know, if an activist falls and gets put into handcuffs, and no one hears it, did it really happen? As far as changing? As far as social impact? It absolutely did not happen. So we do need media.

Charlie Pickering  23:54  
So Peter, can I ask you, because I'll say that my response to for what desperate one of a better term attacks on paintings, but I feel conflicted in the in the way that it makes me feel when I see it. I understand that you get media attention when you throw spaghetti at a painting. But I wonder if you actually achieve a change in people's understanding or a change in people's outlook for those people that, you know, they do their recycling, and they think they're contributing, you know, the people in the middle that aren't really paying attention to it properly yet. I understand you might get on the news a lot. But do you actually change any minds?

Peter Kalmus  24:39  
That's a great, great question. I admit, when I first saw the action, I was I was actually young, and I couldn't really I was so busy that I couldn't tweet for many hours. And when I first saw it, I was shocked as well. And I was like, I wonder how this is gonna play out. And then I saw the comments and they were all like, 99% of them were really negative, but somehow Over the course of the day, I was thinking about it. And I came to the conclusion that it was actually a pretty brilliant action. And I think that it's too early to say, I could be completely wrong about that. And a lot of people are telling me, I'm completely wrong about that. But that's my instinct. And so far in this movement, my instinct has been pretty good. You have to understand that action in the broader context of the movement. And you have to understand how the media has been holding back the movement and how it's been holding back climate action, what you need to, I think what's gonna start happening, and this action in the context of many other actions, well, it's they're all chipping away at media narrative. And the media narrative has to understand the truth, which is that these are young people that are terrified for their lives. They're terrified for their future. And they're trying their best to let that message get out to the public. But they don't always know how to do it. And they're trying this. They're trying that maybe something doesn't go on the news at all. Maybe something does go on the news for every civil disobedience act by 20, something that you hear about, there's probably 1000 That you didn't hear about.

Dan Ilic  26:05  
They're like velociraptors, in a cage, testing out the fence to find the weakest part of the fence is this, what is this what I'm hearing?

Peter Kalmus  26:14  
I wish I wish they had that much politics. And I think we're telling the story, like it's a genuine emergency, and we're not sure how to get that to happen. There's a very small minority of us, I think that fully appreciate what an emergency that we're really in. And you're right, the moderates, the people who think that you know, recycling is kind of enough, maybe they buy an electric vehicle. It's not clear how so basically the in their minds, the narrative that they have, it's very comfortable narrative, right? That they basically don't have to change their way of lives that they're not going to have to give anything up. Business as usual can continue. And we'll just put up a few solar panels by have a few more EVs recycle a little bit harder, and everything's gonna be fine. I don't think the climate science justifies that viewpoint. I think that we look at the flooding in Pakistan, a third of the country underwater, I'm really worried that we're going to start seeing what you could call mega heat waves, you know, where maybe 100,000 People die in one Heatwave, maybe even more than that, you have to understand that these trends are going up year on year, all of these trends in their system that should be flat, like temperatures, they're going up every single year. So he so it's not like, you know, some some scientists, really popular ones used to say this is the new normal. And I that used to drive me crazy. So I pushed against that because it's not the new normal. We haven't like gone to a worse place. And we're sitting there now if it's worse place. It's like an escalator to a hellish earth that we're on. And I don't think the public understands those the nature of those trends and the nature of irreversibility of this yet, I've been trying to get them understand that for 16 years. Civil disobedience isn't perfect. Some people hate us for it. I think those people are probably the people that weren't really going to be there. We're going to be holding back things, no matter what is what I'm thinking. So and it's gonna play out with

Dan Ilic  28:05  
Pete as an artist, I have to say, loosely, calling comic comedy and art, as an artist have to say, well, you know, Van Gogh's dead, what does he care? You know, he's gone. He's already got the headlines, you know, there's plenty of scans of that painting somewhere else. Pete, thank you so much for joining us on A Rational Fear. Really appreciate your time. I know you only had a few minutes to join us. Thank

Unknown Speaker  28:24  
you so much. Great to meet you, Charlie. Always good to talk to

Unknown Speaker  28:26  
you. Great to meet you, Peter.

Unknown Speaker  28:28  
Well, Charlie, Wasn't it great to talk with Peter commerce?

Unknown Speaker  28:30  
Absolutely. And actually a lot of food for thought. It's interesting. I'd love to hear what Kashi has to say to.

Dan Ilic  28:41  
Charlie, thanks for joining us on A Rational Fear. I'm sorry, it's taken so long to get you on the show. And that I did have the appropriate mug that I stole from, from a from a Sydney office of the of the ABC with the weekly it's it's it's it's one of my high prize to show Bismark I'm so touched.

Charlie Pickering  28:56  
I'm so sorry that that I've only got my best dead ever mug which my wife made featuring Art Garfunkel and that's lovely. That's fantastic. It's a pretty great. My wife and I make, like get mugs made for each other quite regularly. But that's an absolute cracker.

Dan Ilic  29:18  
Do you identify as a member of Gen X? Yeah, I do. Thank you for taking time out of your busy parenting schedule to join us. You have

Charlie Pickering  29:29  
no idea. It's um, yeah, it's it's not easy. The struggle is real.

Dan Ilic  29:36  
Thanks, Charlie. Hey, thanks, Dan.

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