The Daily Breakdown

The day has come to draw a close on the experiment that was The Daily Breakdown podcast.

I can't thank you all enough for your loyalty over the years. Your emails, support and kindness have meant the world to me - but most of all have been your responses to the difficult episodes we've been through together.

The offer remains - if you come through Canberra, please let me know - [email protected]. You've been an amazing audience.

Thank you for everything.

If you went to Labor or the Libs and said, "hey, here's $15 million, I want you to legislate to help my investments", you might be in a spot of bother. But what if you did it with individual candidates?

Anzac Day should be the ideal that binds the nation - not just the multi-generation Australians, it should be the story that makes Australia attractive to new arrivals and gives us all an ideal to aim for. Maybe that's why the left hates Anzac so much: it exposes their moral weakness.

In other news, the media keeps hammering Katherine Deves in Warringah. We explore why - and why this issue is bigger than a candidate in a seat she will lose.

Scott Morrison sure put his foot in it when he used the word 'blessed'. Or did he? There's much more to his comments than what you heard in the virtue-signalling pile on that is ruining our ability to discuss any topic in Australia.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/

'Politics is downstream of culture', which means if you control the commanding heights of culture - academia, the media, entertainment, the public sector, non-government organisations - you have enormous power beyond the ballot box.

https://www.apsc.gov.au/circulars-guidance-and-advice/circular-20225-amendment-public-sector-workplace-relations-policy-2020-public-holidays-enterprise-agreements

https://the-riotact.com/government-to-force-all-aps-staff-to-take-national-holidays-on-observed-days/551393

You're right to laugh at the Greens. Their economic policies are madness. They have no connection with reality. But if you think they're bad with money, wait till you see what they want to do wih national security. They're living in fantasy land ... and they could decide the next Prime Minister.

https://greens.org.au/own-home

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/china-not-a-big-concern-greens/news-story/02ce29cd3e3397d7fbf2367d040ba16f

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636

The left starts the culture wars and they get shirty when we realise what they're doing and fight back. That's what's happening now in the transgender debate and the opponents of common sense are circling their wagons.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/health-welfare-expenditure/health-expenditure-australia-2019-20/data

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/16/scott-morrison-faces-liberal-mutiny-over-warringah-candidate-katherine-deves-trans-views

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10727555/Zali-Steggall-avoids-Olympic-transgender-question-Katherine-Deves-slammed-comments.html?fr=operanews

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/transgender-debate-ignores-athletes-having-an-advantage/news-story/61db0fca974a2c8bec0a05eb972c599e

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-15/trans-women-in-sport-politicised-and-weaponised/100989438

https://www.science.org/content/article/new-paper-ignites-storm-over-whether-teens-experience-rapid-onset-transgender-identity

There is a movement across Australia to have a federal anti-corruption body. Well-meaning people think this will stop the most egregious examples of political skulduggery and protect the public purse. As if. The worst pilfering of the public purse doesn't occur behind closed doors. It's in the open. It's bipartisan. And there's nothing we can do about it. Today, two examples. And if you're not angry, it's because you haven't heard about them yet.

Adam Bandt should be taken seriously: he is the leader of a party that could decide the next prime minister (theoretically, we all know he would choose Labor). But being a Green, he has been lucky not to be held to the scrutiny he deserves. That's a shame. He has lots of very bad ideas, and bad ideas are hard to kill.

Today on The Breakdown, we revisit the Kumanjayi Walker episode of 15 March 2022.

On Friday, 11 March, Constable Zachary Rolfe was found not guilty on three charges, including murder, related to the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker in the Northern Territory in November 2019. As soon as the verdict was reported, the Blaktivists and the race hustlers sought to capitalise on the result.

Walker's life was horrific and he made the lives of those around him just as bad. His life and the reaction to his death tells us a lot about how can't have mature conversations about race or Indigenous disadvantage.

Instead, we patronise Indigenous Australians and avoid the harsh conversations we need to have.

Today, we have one such conversation.

Investigative journalist Kristin Shorten wrote the articles on which the bulk of this episode was based. This is journalism at its absolute finest: tough, difficult, uncompromising, truthful storytelling. It can't have been an easy assignment on any level. It's the reason you pay for journalism - these are the stories that need to be told. It is superb work.