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In our first special edition election series - Jan Fran Has Issues - we’re tackling the big A - Accountability. We find out the real meaning behind pork barrelling (no it doesn’t come from the gay bear scene), and speak to Independent candidate Jo Dyer about burning down Parliament House. 

Don’t forget to catch A Rational Fear Live at Melbourne Comedy Festival on April 10 featuring Australian of the Year Grace Tame, Lewis Hobba, Alice Fraser, Dane Simpson, Vidya Rajan, DJ Andy McClelland, and special interview guest Independent candidate Zoe Daniel. 

Produced by F+K media 

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Transcript: 

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This episode is supported by the Jibb Foundation. Scott Morrison is expected to call the election next week.

Unknown Speaker  0:07  
This is our vision for Australia is about Australians getting into homes

Unknown Speaker  0:12  
this way to support people who are renting houses to help them buy a house Morrison is not fit to be Prime Minister.

Unknown Speaker  0:18  
Tonight, it'll be Labour's turn Labour will end the climate wars but don't expect

Unknown Speaker  0:23  
a radically alternative economic approach.

Robbie McGreggor  0:28  
For house issues breaking down the election on issue at a time brought to you by a rational fear.

Jan Fran  0:38  
Hello, it's Jan Fran, I'm coming to you from the lands of the Gadigal and Wango people of the Eora nation. I just want to take a minute to pay my respects to their elders past and present. If you're listening to this podcast you've tuned in to the very first episode of Jen Fran has issues I am Jen Fran, I am riddled with issues. Most of them I speak about with my shrink some of them, I save for this podcast, if you're on this feed, hoping to listen to irrational fear. And you're getting this and you're wondering, what is this? I've taken over the feed for the next eight weeks. So every Friday afternoon, up until the election, we're going to take a look at a different issue. And when I say we I mean me and this guy who has not entirely disappeared and who is forever known to my mother in law as the crazy man who put up the billboards in Times Square. Hello billboards man.

Dan Ilic  1:31  
Hello, kissing on the way does this mean now I'm your shrink and you're paying me to do my own podcast. This has worked out to be an incredible boon for me.

Jan Fran  1:42  
Hang on, let me clarify, you can absolutely play the role of my shrink. I will not be paying you a cent. Okay. All right.

Dan Ilic  1:48  
Well, what am I gonna do for the Public Service journalism? Jen is an absolute privilege to be on your podcast on my podcast feed. I'm excited to talk about all the things that we are gonna be talking about over the next eight weeks. And I'm very excited about this episode all about accountability.

Jan Fran  2:04  
Man, the a word, I put a call out on my socials. Just sort of saying to people, you know, what's the biggest issue that you think is the most important for you ahead of the upcoming election, and accountability, integrity, federal ipecac, it just kept coming up and going through all of the really SAS government spending. That's a lot of it. Before we get to it, though, before we get to the actual big issue, we're going to do something that I just do on a regular basis. And so do you then we're going to take issue with the political story that has happened over the last seven days. What are you taking issue with today, Dan,

Dan Ilic  2:43  
I'm taking issue with this extraordinary thing that's coming out of the Solomon Islands. Apparently, there's a security pact about to be signed between the Solomon Islands and China. China's going to provide a whole bunch of security services to the Solomon Islands. Now, traditionally, the Pacific Islands is the purview of Australia were the big swinging dick in the Pacific, not China. They were like protecting our little cousins on their little Pacific islands. But but it turns out China is kind of making inroads there and making a bit of a toehold in the Pacific. And it really caught a lot of foreign policy watchers in Australia flat footed, they had no idea it was gonna happen. And it's it's not surprising to me, I spent a little bit of time in on Manus Island a couple years ago. And when I was in Papua New Guinea, I couldn't help but notice the infrastructure around Port Moresby was made by Chinese companies was promoting China, big skyscrapers were going up for people that lived in in Port Moresby. And it's extraordinary say that that part of the world is becoming more and more, you know, under the influence of China, then Australia, radio Australia shut off at shortwave radio to the Pacific with our broadcasting Australian radio to the Pacific in 2017. And now, those same shortwave signals are being broadcast from China. Really, yeah, it's extraordinary and

Jan Fran  4:05  
okay, that I had no idea about here's one

Dan Ilic  4:07  
other thing, how we've completely abrogated any kind of kind of soft power in the Pacific. Two years ago, a Pan Pacific consortium of Pacific islands asked Australia for help in developing a local television production kind of culture and to tell Pacific stories and to help with the free press and journalism. But what they got from Australia was $17 million of Australian TV shows for free. So was

Jan Fran  4:32  
it just people at the in the Pacific just watching the ferals reruns is

Dan Ilic  4:37  
worse than that it's worth the ferals is good. We're giving them Better Homes and Gardens. We're giving them neighbors we're giving them not only that beach cups, paramedics and the best one is border security. Australia is giving border security for free to the Pacific island nations so they can learn what it's like to be a brown person in a white person's country. It's very, very Mike's very awful absurd. My point is Jan is that you know, Peter Dutton and our foreign policy watchers shouldn't be surprised that the Pacific Islands have chosen to be sheltered by China because, quite frankly, we've abused them long enough with Jonah Gregg showing off the hydrangeas.

Jan Fran  5:17  
It's not the highest form of torture, torture that is. So the story I'm taking issue with this week is our prime minister Scott Morrison. He was out springing the budget, of course, which was announced on Tuesday. And I think at some point in the week, he was asked about why there were no help for renters in the budget. Right. He was doing the TV rounds. Yeah. Why is there no help for renters? This is what he said.

Unknown Speaker  5:44  
Is about Australians getting into homes. This way to support people who are renting a house is to help them buy it. Oh, I

Dan Ilic  5:49  
love the pledge. A lot of cheap pledges my favorite?

Jan Fran  5:53  
Yeah, the question was about renting. Why no relief for renters? And he pretty much said, Well, if you want relief as a renter, you should just buy a house without it's that easy. My friends, which just kind of it blew my mind a little bit. Someone described it as a as a real let them eat cake moment.

Dan Ilic  6:15  
Let them eat mortgage,

Jan Fran  6:18  
let them eat shit. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  6:21  
But you know what? Mortgage you know, mortgage is Latin for right? No, yes, pledge mod gauge.

Jan Fran  6:30  
Oh, shit, there you go. But here's the thing, though. 70% of low income people in the private rental market, they don't even have $500 in savings for emergencies, let alone enough to put down on a 5% home deposit to be part of Scott Morrison scheme. So I'm not sure where he thinks this money for a 5% deposit is going to eventuate when you have people that are in a pretty dire financial situation or renting a home and want help.

Dan Ilic  7:02  
Yeah, it's the game of Monopoly. Australia is just one big game of Monopoly, except you don't go to jail.

Robbie McGreggor  7:09  
For house issues,

Jan Fran  7:12  
you know, Australians aren't particularly, particularly trust governments. And it doesn't really matter which government it is like there is an erosion of trust in this institution of government. We know this particularly among young people. Right? Yeah. And that's mainly because there's a lack of accountability, I would say a lack of accountability with how they spend your money, why they spend your money where they spend your money, and also a lack of integrity, some might say, which is why there's a whole bunch of people that are calling for a federal integrity body, which was already supposed to happen by now, but has not look, there's been a wee bit of SUS government spending going on. There's the so called sports and car park routes, sagas where taxpayer money is alleged to have been spent on elections sweeteners in marginal seats. There's government officials paying 10 times the worth of land in Western Sydney. There's the assistant treasurer, allegedly aware of a scheme in which his brother best mate and factional supporters were paid by taxpayers for political work. There's the head of Australia Post spending $7,000 on luxury watches, there's the $100,000 donated to independent MP zali Steggall by a coal investor that was split into eight separate chunks, which means she didn't have to declare any of it. There's the cheeky million bucks that just appeared in former Attorney General Christian Porter's defamation against the ABC fund. No one knows where it came from, and an investigation into it was blocked by the government. Did I mention that all of this has happened since the last election in May 2019. This is why some labour independence certain liberals and if polling is anything to go by the Australian people want a federal ipecac that is a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption, an organization that investigates SAS as heck government spending, among other things. Now these bodies already exist in all the states. You'll remember, in October last year, the New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian, resigned after the state's ipecac revealed it was investigating whether her secret close personal relationship with disgraced former MP Darrell McGuire breached public trust. Now I'm not saying she's corrupt, but I am saying that she has very bad taste in men. thing is there's no such body in Canberra to keep an eye on our federal politicians. But the pm does want to change that making a federal ipecac and election promise on the establishment of

Unknown Speaker  9:41  
a Commonwealth integrity commission. We actually have a formal carefully considered proposal.

Jan Fran  9:48  
The only problem is that formally considered proposal was announced ahead of the last election and is yet to eventuate.

Unknown Speaker  9:57  
It is now more than 1/3 halcyon days since Scott Morrison promised to have a national anti corruption body while tick tock, Mr. Morrison,

Jan Fran  10:09  
don't you just know that Anthony Albanese really wants to go the full Samuel L Jackson here, tick tock motherfucker, he could never now the coalition has put forward a proposal for an integrity commission, except that proposed body wouldn't even have the power to conduct public hearings, something that transparency advocates say. Kind of important. I'm going to deduce that this was probably the point that independent MP Helen Haynes went off this shit and put forward her own more robust federal integrity commission bill. I gotta tell you, she really tried to move it along and get it debated in the House of Reps last year. But that move was blocked by the coalition on a technicality which led the member for Crocodile's Bob cutter to say the most honest thing he's maybe ever said.

Robbie McGreggor  11:00  
Rarely. A lot of us are very confused. I'm one of the dumber ones

Jan Fran  11:04  
some truth bombs. They're from Bob. But we're all confused mate. Because despite saying it wants one, the coalition has dilly dally post own backtracked and generally come across like it does not want that federal ipecac at all. Here's Scott Morrison going off about how unfairly the New South Wales I CAC treated Gladys Bay

Unknown Speaker  11:26  
walk was done to Gladys Berejiklian. The people of the South Wales no wasn't absolute disgrace to speak on and I'm not going to allow Mr. Feet member for sure. I'm not going to allow that sort of a process which seeks to Mr. Speaker seek to publicly humiliate people on matters that have nothing to do with the issues which before such a condition.

Unknown Speaker  11:49  
Yeah, somebody gets robbed, they reported to the police.

Jan Fran  11:53  
And a master's is executive director of the trans National Research Institute on corruption at the Australian National University

Unknown Speaker  12:00  
taxpayers quite often don't know they're getting robbed. It's a people controlling the money and the people controlling the decisions are doing this behind a closed door. Adam says

Jan Fran  12:09  
the type of integrity body that we end up with, that's the crucial bit,

Unknown Speaker  12:15  
I think we can do a lot more damage by putting something half hearted in.

Jan Fran  12:20  
He says even if you're someone who really wants to see this government implement a federal ipecac,

Unknown Speaker  12:26  
what just a little bit longer to get something, you know, that's actually going to that's going to last and going to be a little bit more proof against political interference in the into the future.

Jan Fran  12:39  
Now, that might not be until after the election.

Unknown Speaker  12:43  
If one of the independent bills that sort of based on this pretty well done research. If one of those was to actually be put forward for a vote, I think that would be far better than the thing that's been proposed by the current major political party. If the opposition comes into play, and they heavily reliant on independence, you might see an appropriate bill come forward.

Jan Fran  13:11  
Well, there are a bunch of independents running this year who are pushing for a strong federal integrity body. And depending on what that crossbench looks like, in a few months time, the major parties may have no choice but to listen to them. There you go. That is your eyecare crap for your Friday afternoon. One of those independents, by the way, is Jo Dyer. She's going to be running in the South Australian seat of Boothby, which is currently held by the Liberal Party. Now, Jo's really interesting one because Jo reckons that Canberra stinks. But she doesn't just want to make a few changes. She wants to burn down the house and reconstruct modern politics. These are not my words, by the way. That is the name of her book. And Jo joins us now. Good day, Jo.

Jo Dyer  14:04  
Hi. Just have some small ambitions there.

Dan Ilic  14:09  
Jo, thing I love about your book is that from start to finish, it's just it's a clear record almost a list of everything factor this government has done. Thank you for putting it all in one easy place for people like us to make fun

Jo Dyer  14:21  
of. It doesn't make for particularly edifying reading and it has to be said but you know, I tried to make it as entertaining as possible as we wandered through the kind of the dark chaos that has been the last two, two years in particular kind of bookended by black summer bushfires and where we are now

Jan Fran  14:41  
so Jo for someone who hasn't read your book. Tell us what is it particularly about camera that has really got your goat? Why do you think it sucks so much?

Jo Dyer  14:50  
Well, I think what's happened at the moment is that we've got this sort of terrible nexus of government which has given up on governing if it was ever in Interested in it in the first place, as opposed to just kind of holding power and wielding power for its own benefit, and the benefit of those with whom it's ideologically aligned, then we can see that money actually flows pretty directly from the government to those with whom it's ideologically aligned. So we have a do nothing government at the same time, as we really are confronting some hellishly appalling issues, like major crises, both on the kind of existential level, but also more broadly, I think, around issues of equity, some of which have been a direct result of the neglect that we've seen at Commonwealth level and others of which, you know, with the climate crisis, which is upon us, I mean, yes, neglect, but it's also willful bloody mindedness, it seems. So, that kind of terrible dawning reality that we are left with the worst leadership that we've had for some time, at the very moment when we need the best, most imaginative and most courageous leadership. Partly, that was a driving force. Partly, it was also just frustration and rage at the government's absolute refusal to be held accountable for anything, the lack of honesty. So integrity, yes, in terms of personal character and integrity in policy development, but actually just downright mendacity. And lies, is also something which seems to be characterizing our political life at the moment. And it just, you know, just isn't good enough. Like, I think that's in the end, the frustration that so many people feel particularly even the independence movement is that where we are now is just not good enough.

Jan Fran  16:46  
I think a lot of people might have that. The same sense that you have not a lot of people put their hand up and run for federal seats, though, you've decided to do that. That's a big decision. Was there a moment for you where you thought, you know, fuck it, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

Jo Dyer  17:03  
Look, there was I mean, obviously, the cause of last year for me personally was quite confronting, because I was dealing with the government refusing to hold individual members to account in any way through the whole Christian Porter imbroglio. You know that that sort of the idea that you could sort of Stonewall through credible allegations of a really heinous crime against the chief law officer, seemed to me like jaw dropping, but that was their agenda. And then similarly, when Christian Porter himself managed to embark upon a path where despite the government's best intentions, they could no longer ignore the lack of accountability through his fundraising. That I guess that was the interesting thing is that it was porters own decisions that led him to have to stand down and nothing that the government actively did. So there was a lot of incredulity about that, I guess. And that personal experience coupled with kind of the broader political agenda, but at that point, in particular, it really did look like it was going to be a seat by seat arm wrestle, as to whether or not this government could be leave it out of power. And in that scenario, every seat was absolutely vital. So I thought, Oh, well, fuck it, as you say.

Dan Ilic  18:23  
It's so interesting what you say, Jo, it just seems to be endless amounts of stonewalling at any turn, when there's any kind of scandal. It's just like, No, we're gonna shut that down. We're not gonna talk about that. No, no, we're done with that. They said, Sorry, we're moving on. It's like, hang on a second, there should be some level of accountability here, people should be fired. People are going beyond this mysterious prime ministerial code of conduct that has been put in place, time and time again, yet there are no repercussions. And Dan

Jan Fran  18:53  
just said the magic word a word accountability, which is exactly what this episode is about. How do we get more accountability in Canberra?

Jo Dyer  19:01  
Well, look, I think it's the interesting thing, because Scott Morrison was the original man right with the on water matters, where he just asserted that the government would no longer talk about something that was

Dan Ilic  19:12  
my favorite phrase of 2015 Oh, my God. And then

Jo Dyer  19:16  
that was sort of it. Everybody kind of moved on. He had the military props next to him and onward, we win. And, and that seems to have been where things really started to go horribly wrong. And you can trace them, you know, through Scott Morrison's various portfolios, and so on. But it seems to me that accountability in Canberra, you can do it really in two ways. And the first way as your piece touched on, is actually having a national integrity or anti corruption commission in Canberra. And that seems to me to be something that could be absolutely transformative, obviously, it can catch out the baddies and that's and you know, we've had a whole litany of government ministers of this government who seems to have done you know, supremely dodgy things when it comes to exploiting and misusing the taxpayers for personal benefit. Stewart Robert with his sky high internet bills, Susan lifeline herself up to the Gold Coast a to keep her flying hours up so she could keep her pilot's license and be so that she could buy. Yeah. So those sorts of personal they don't even start the on end just Taylor because if we've only got like 15 minutes with

Dan Ilic  20:21  
this podcast and he goes for half an hour, we can talk about everything.

Jan Fran  20:25  
But I had Angus Taylor in that script, and I had to take it out, because there were so many examples. And I was given five minutes.

Dan Ilic  20:35  
I think something was filling in this in this week's budget, Joe, is that on the page where it says Commonwealth integrity commission, there is a budget line item with a big fat zero next to it. It's almost like this government is a little bit nervous that somebody has done a little bit of corruption in the past.

Jo Dyer  20:52  
Well, you know, that's the thing. And I guess the other thing is, is, you know, so there's the personal corruption, but then there's this small kind of institutional corruption, which, you know, some people call it small c, but in the end, sort of not sure that that's appropriate. And that comes down to

Jan Fran  21:09  
all I think there is a good C word for

Dan Ilic  21:13  
the same joke there, Jan. There's plenty of people in Parliament I call the big c

Jo Dyer  21:17  
and some say some of that is around just the way that money is misused. So you know, all of the pork barreling and the car parks and the redefining North Sydney swimming pool is regional to to direct some regional funding. They're those. It's north of Sydney. I know and people visiting like going there, Ukraine, of course, it deserves regional funding. So there's all sorts of programs. And there's just more and more of those discretionary grant programs even more announced in the budget on Tuesday. But then separately from that, as well, there is the way that sectional interests, corporate interests, ideologically aligned with the government benefit from government spending. So that's like, you know, the way that can stretch suddenly went from a company with no balance sheet and no staff to $1.5 billion contracts in five years, with $101 million in profit for looking after 100 refugees. But then the way that the coalition fossil fuel donors, also just the recipient of huge grants, and there's a way even Whitehaven, you know, we've taken 70,000 tons of coal halfway across the world to Ukraine, I mean, at $31 million benefit. So these sort of insane examples that just keep coming up again, and again, and again, all of these things will be the purview actually, of a national anti corruption commission. So if Helen Haynes, his bill was passed in the first 100 days of what I hope will be a minority Labour government held to account by an independent crossbench, I think that would be absolutely transformative, because not only would things then be very squarely in the sight, like retrospectively in the sights of the commission, but politicians would know that they'd have this commission, they're scrutinizing them that is going to hold them to account. So behaviors would change. And we might see a pure a better evidence based rational policy development process. But the very fact of a cross bench and independent cross bench as well I think would play an important role. And we've already seen independence plan important role in the current parliament. And that's without holding the balance of power it does in terms of shifting the debate, strategizing around so that legislators can both get up and be voted down. So I think those two things, I'd say, would be a really great innovation for the next parliament.

Jan Fran  23:42  
Yeah, before we let you go, Jo, I don't know if many of our listeners are familiar with where you've been in, in public life in the last year and a bit, but you were very instrumental in advocating for your friend Kate, who you mentioned a little bit earlier. And now Kate, was the woman that accused the former attorney general of rape now sadly, she's no longer with us. You've been really diligent in keeping her story in the public eye. What is driving you to do that?

Jo Dyer  24:14  
Well, I think the key thing that drives me in that regard is that Kate can't do it for herself. You know, and it really is that I should not be telling her story, I should be a mere footnote in that particular story. Because that was something that she planned to do herself and had indeed, embarked upon that journey herself. So the fact that she's not here, but she was so clear and resolute that she wanted her story told, and that she wanted Christian Porter held to account in some way. And I think that's the important thing. For me to reiterate again, is that what we have been calling for has never been an outcome. We have never said we will play, you know, judge and jury on this issue. But we have said that there needs to be a process of some sort. Where these claims are investigated. There is lots and lots of material and evidence and witness testimonies and so on, that have never been made public. They're buried deep within the vaults of the federal court through the ABC defense, certainly, they can't be reported on. And if people but they do demonstrate pretty clearly that Christian Porter has been dishonest in what he has said, happened around that time and the way he characterized his relationship with Kate. So all of these things could be tested. And certainly there needs to be something beyond what happened, or they needed. I have, you know, now that Christian is leaving public life, perhaps that is a moment where he's no longer saying he deserves to be in a position of leadership and as a private citizen, whether or not that's something that we can pursue, but certainly while he was still in public life, and certainly whilst he was still in cabinet, the idea that the only investigation which had happened was Morrison saying to Christian, well, did you do it mate and him saying, No, I promise I really did not. And that to this day, is the only investigation that has ever happened. The New South Wales police never investigated it. It's never gone anywhere independently. So far, we don't know if the coroner is going to hold an inquest. So that and that's not good enough. That's absolutely not good enough.

Dan Ilic  26:39  
Jo, thank you so much for putting your hand up to run. It's on this podcast. We don't really endorse candidates. But

Jo Dyer  26:46  
if you need to find your integrity, that's

Dan Ilic  26:49  
exactly right. But let me just put it to the audience. If you want integrity in Parliament, you want accountability. Just take a look at the budget to see who's budgeting for it. Jo. I hope that hope if you managed to get in parliament will say a budget with something more than zero next to a

Jo Dyer  27:06  
nice big number next door this year into the future.

Dan Ilic  27:10  
Thanks, Jo. Thanks, mate. Thank

Robbie McGreggor  27:15  
jam for house issues.

Jan Fran  27:18  
Weird election history. Yes, this is a segment that does exactly what it says on the bottom. I thought we should call it absolutely bonkers shit that you did not know about Australian politics. Maybe we can get that sting re done for the next episode. But weird election history. We're going to be looking at the origins in this segue Dan of the term pork barrel.

Dan Ilic  27:44  
Oh, such a weird term, isn't it? Like,

Jan Fran  27:48  
isn't it the weirdest term? Yeah,

Dan Ilic  27:50  
we talk about corruption by the way of like, pigs in buckets. It doesn't even make any sense.

Jan Fran  27:55  
Well, so for those of you who don't know what pork barreling is, for starters, it's basically a term that's used to describe politicians spending big dollars in electrodes that they want to win, right. So if there's ever any kind of suss money, going to a marginal seat ahead of an election, that's often referred to as pork barreling.

Dan Ilic  28:12  
Think of your women's chamber for a football team that doesn't have a women's football team. Think about a parking garage in a place that's never going to have a parking garage. Oh, there's so many things.

Jan Fran  28:24  
There's so many examples of pork barreling. But the question is that term where where does it come from? It comes from somewhere. And because it's such a weird term, I sort of wanted to hear a little bit about what were, you know, the people thought that term came from

Unknown Speaker  28:39  
hog barreling? Is it the initiation to get into the Australian club, the gentlemen's club

Unknown Speaker  28:45  
as a queer person, I can confer the port darling has its origins in the gay bear sea barrels. Filled with alcohol and pigs being filled with alcohol, which is pretty much Parliament creates a three dimensional sensory sexual experience. I actually may very well be an expert on the subject. So if you would like to discuss this more at length, please feel free to respond by

Jan Fran  29:10  
Yeah, probably won't be responding to that. But I love the idea of pork barreling being a sex acts that starts in the gay bear scene. I'm here today.

Dan Ilic  29:21  
Yeah. Do you want to come around? Netflix and pork barreling right around?

Jan Fran  29:28  
Absolutely not. But do you have any idea where the term actually comes from? Have you ever thought about it? Or you just thought oh, this is a weird term? I don't know maybe and then moved on with your life

Dan Ilic  29:38  
I was gonna do is like putting pork in barrels and distill it down to some kind of wine and a new bottle of wine and they give it to the premier to get a casino. Is that is that? Is that what it is?

Jan Fran  29:53  
Here is the origin of the term port barreling? I know we call this weird election history. It should be called like, darker. He gets it gets it gets pretty intense. So yes, it does come from actual pigs in barrel. It's the state's it's the 1800s, before fridges, and people used to salt pork, and they will put it in these barrels in order to preserve the pork. Right? That's, that's the only way they could do it. And it was usually these rich people that owned these barrels. Yeah. And they became, you know, that they sort of became like a commodity really, like it was almost as good as having cash. If you had these barrels of pork. You were considered rich, like you had money. No, seriously. Like,

Dan Ilic  30:38  
I love the idea of walking past someone and smelling them like, oh, that woman smells of bacon. I'm gonna marry that lady. Look, put it

Jan Fran  30:48  
this way by by about 1860 The US Treasury was nicknamed pork barrel nonnamous synonymous pork barrels became with money, right. But while the term sort of refers to corruption, yeah, now, its origins, like I said, darker, there was a journalist who sort of looked into where it came from. And he wrote around about 1919, that the term was inspired by the distribution of these salted pork to people who couldn't afford it and also to, to slaves in the American South. So, you know, slave owners, landowners would have these pork barrels. And every now and again, there would be a distribution of this salted pork. And what this journalist wrote was that oftentimes the eagerness of the slaves would result in a rush upon the pork barrel, in which he would strive to grab as much as possible for himself. And that kind of became a metaphor for like members of Congress, rushing to get their little piece of the pie for their own little electorates from the big government money coffer, we should probably, we should probably rethink the term and we should probably rethink the practice. Let's just, let's just say that

Dan Ilic  32:09  
gentle I think we need an Australian version of it. I was thinking, keg stuffing, double shaped dipping, or kangaroo pouching. Kangaroo patching is my favourite. Kangaroo has already got a passing but little bits of money in there already. So it's really good. In fact, marsupial pantry, I want to be a bit more inclusive. Kangaroo patching really, really keeps it separate. But marsupial pouching is probably where they go. They

Jan Fran  32:32  
love that, marsupial. pouching let's get it trending. Well, that is it for our show on accountability and all things related to accountability. I hope you enjoyed that. We certainly enjoyed sitting here chatting away.

Dan Ilic  32:46  
I feel I feel energized to feel excited that there might be some form of accountability on the horizon when we get a new parliament. And that's, that's my takeaway from this. I'm pumped up.

Jan Fran  32:56  
Well, next week, we're going to be covering the cost of living.

Dan Ilic  33:00  
Oh, yes. And speaking of cost of living, thanks to the Victorian Government, it is cheaper than ever to go see Comedy Festival shows because they've handed out gift vouchers to people to use an entertainment and a rational fear is doing its very own comedy first show APR 10 on stage at the forum, the biggest room after Comedy Festival, Lewis Hobba, Alice Fraser, Dane Simpson, Vidya Rajan, DJ Andy McClelland and Grace Tame Australian the year is going to be doing comedy, but also we have a special interview guests Zoe Daniel independent candidate for Goldstein so get on down to rational fear at the Comedy Festival April can and use those gift vouchers. Cost of laughing will be a lot less.

Jan Fran  33:41  
Yeah, man. If you're not happy with the slashing of the cost of living in this budget, you should be watching the cost of laughing by the Victorian Government. There's no excuse to not go and catch the show. And make sure you catch our show. Next week, Friday afternoon. See you then bye

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