CORYTALKS

Over the decades, many songs have been sung about gold. From 1970, Freda Payne’s Band of Gold, Spandau Ballet’s Gold from 1983, From the 007 film, Goldfinger, Shirley Bassey in 1965, Imagine Dragon’s Gold in 2015… I’m not acknowledging the gold themed song from terminal idiot, Kanye West, but most appropriate for today’s episode would be a band from 2011 that I’d never heard of called, 21 Pilots and their track House of Gold.

An apt title for Western Australia’s Perth Mint with an ABC Four Corners investigation that brings in to question how pure their heart, and gold is.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-06/perth-mint-gold-doping-china-cover-up-four-corners/102048622

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-08/mark-mcgowan-questioned-over-perth-mint-gold-doping-controversy/102067522

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-09/perth-mint-gold-doping-explainer/102070850

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

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More on Elon Musk… yes isn’t he.

BBC News has published a story that claims the social media site owned by Musk, Twitter is unable to protect its users from trolls under his rein.

That’s the message according to Twitter insiders. Must be a whole lot of fun working at bird central these days… well for the few who still work there. I’ll have info on an employee who had to tweet Musk to see if he was still actually employed there. True story, can’t make that up.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64804007

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64871183

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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As you may have noticed, the show is now being titled in number order. This is episode 203, because there have been 202 previous episodes and specials on this feed under different brands like Cory Talks, My Next Project, The Daily and Cory Media Podcasts.

Here in Australia the Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme has continued and with a high profile name being questioned by the commission.

I’ve done previous episodes on what the Robodebt Scheme was, and I’ll put a link to the description in the show notes (below).

Former Coalition Government, Services Minister, Stuart Robert appeared at a recent Royal Commission hearing and said he took responsibility for the harmful scheme’s implementation and has admitted that he defended it despite knowing it could be unlawful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-stuart-robert/102034796

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-03/stuart-robert-royal-commission-bill-shorten-cabinet/102049344

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-06/qld-robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-malcolm-turnbull/102058024

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Series 11 Episode 36

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

Greenwashing, according to Wikipedia is also called "green sheen", it’s a form of advertising or marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organisation's products, aims and policies are environmentally friendly.

Australia’s business watchdog, the ACCC has done some investigating and found half of businesses here could be considered having taken part in a spot of “greenwashing” themselves.

Just last week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its report and found 57% had made environmental claims that are concerning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpRWth_Lv2j/

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-‘greenwashing’-internet-sweep-unearths-widespread-concerning-claims

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Series 11 Episode 35

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

For anyone of my generation, you would have heard of the saying, “the cheque’s in the mail”. Firstly not only are cheque’s a waste of paper, they’re time consuming in cashing.

But that’s not what we’re talking about today, it’s the talk that the Australian Postal Corporation - Australia Post, or AusPost as many may call it, could be facing a major restructure, with suggestions that their operations could include less letter deliveries with an increased focus on parcel delivery.

For years I’ve held the view that like newspapers, the posting of letters is a dying art, and an increasingly expensive one at that. Australian taxpayers had propped up the car industry in this country, there’s ridiculous amounts of money thrown at fossil fuel and now Australia Post with their federally mandated community service obligations, it’s costing the public purse hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2021/22 financial year alone.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpRs8mXLvo2/

https://newsroom.auspost.com.au/article/australia-post-welcomes-community-consultation-on-modernising-postal-services

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Series 11 Episode 34

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

I don’t really want to be glib, but… data breach anyone?!

It was only revealed late last week that one of Australia’s big four banks, the ANZ had a data breach, this one not in cyberspace, rather in the real world. More on that shortly, but the Australian Information Commissioner has revealed a number of big data breaches happened in the second half of 2022.

It affected between one and ten million Aussies.

I know that every time I mention this topic I go on about the need for each of us to take our personal data security seriously. We can’t keep taking the approach that it’s business and government’s problem to deal with. We all need to chip in. Those 1’s and 0’s aren’t going to protect themselves.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/data-breaches-revealed-by-australian-information-commissioner/102039710

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/anz-bank-customer-data-found-skip-bin/102037402

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coryoconnor/message

Series 11 Episode 33

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

Many people globally find the social media video sharing platform TikTok rather addictive. I’ve tried it, it’s okay, but pretty much what’s on offer with YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. But to each their own.

The privacy concerns over whether or not the Chinese Government has access to data collected by the social is up for debate.

The Canadian government has made the decision to ban TikTok from government owned phones. The Biden Administration is looking at a nationwide ban of the service in the United States and Australia could follow suit.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpMmUGMrwoi/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/united-states-ban-tik-tok-government-devices-australia/102037496

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coryoconnor/message

Series 11 Episode 32

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

Ordinarily you’d say the chickens have come home to roost, but in this case it’s the fox… Fox News Network to be precise.

Information has been revealed recently in the case of Fox News Versus Dominion, that shows former Australian, Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp and Fox News admitting that his cable TV hosts knowingly endorsed and propagated false claims of a stolen election in 2020.

I hope Dominion win their $1.6 billion US damages claim over the media mogul’s propaganda network. In a way i wish it was more. But what I’d really hope for (and something that is highly unlikely to happen), would be that Fox News gets sanctioned by America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with a watchful eye scrutinising Fox News’ operations for a period of at least five years.

Fox has no right to call itself a news organisation.

Fox News clearly put profits ahead of democracy, jumping on the stolen election bandwagon because they were losing viewers. Fox News viewers were angry because they called Joe Biden winner of the Presidential race over Donald Trump. Fox News hosts, contributors, management, all the way up the chain of command bare responsibility for creating the viewer outrage on the election results and the disgusting turn of events on January 6, 2021 outside and inside the Capitol Building in Washing DC.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpMaivYLGf0/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64794606

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/coryoconnor/message

Series 11 Episode 31

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

You’d be hard pressed to find an everyday down to Earth Aussie that hasn’t been affected in some way by the economic downturn, higher prices and interest rate hikes.

Many large companies that we deal with, often on a daily basis, are there for us, they understand what you and I are going through. How nice. How caring. How gullible do some of them think we are.

You’d remember during the age of lockdowns in Australia, the former government’s “Job Keeper” programme, whereby instead of giving employees money to survive the situation, the Coalition gave the money and millions of it to businesses to keep Australian’s in a job.

Some who legally received the payments, probably should not have been considered worthy of taxpayer funds, particularly when they still managed to record huge profits. Harvey Norman was one of those Australian companies that sought government funds via “Job Keeper”. The company was heaped with scorn for only paying back a very small percentage of the money. Some didn’t pay back a cent.

So you can understand why Australian’s might be somewhat disappointed, when in 2023, at least three big Aussie businesses are recording massive profits, yet all customers see are high and increasing prices.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-23/supermarket-profits-surge-as-inflation-spikes-coles-woolworths/102004616

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-23/qantas-profit-result-february-2023/102012212

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/03/australia-tax-transparency-report-almost-a-third-large-companies-pay-zero-income-tax

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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Series 11 Episode 30

Hi and welcome, this is Cory…

The European Union has had it in one form or another since 1995. Now the Australian government is looking to making changes to the way data protection should operate in 21st century Australia after they published recommendations of a review into this country’s privacy laws.

According to the details published by The Daily Aus on their Instagram feed, the review was asked to think about how privacy laws should be updated to encompass digital privacy.

In 1995, the EU launched the Data Protection Directive, but that was when the internet was still young.

In 2016, the European Union adopted the GDPR - the General Data Protection Regulation. It’s seen by many countries as the gold standard.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co1gjYxrgfv/

https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/legislation/history-general-data-protection-regulation_en

https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/landmark-privacy-act-review-report-released-16-02-2023

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The CORY feed. A Podcast from Cory O’Connor - on Anchor, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Spotify and more. Find clickable links and contact information for the show at the following website.

https://coryoconnor.com/pod

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