Boonta Vista - EPISODE 120: Ooooof!

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

Andrew, Lucy and Ben weigh in on the ACL's idea of a good "sexual ethic", Bill Gates' bad memory when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, Jameela Jamil's bad memory when it comes to George W. Bush, questions from the hotline about democracy and the ABC - and more! *** Call in and leave us a question or a message on 1800-317-515 to be answered on the show! *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Merchandise available at: boontavista.com/merchandise *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista iTunes: tinyurl.com/y8d5aenm Spotify: spoti.fi/2DBCXGA Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/s?fid=144888&refid=stpr Pocket Casts: pca.st/SPZB RSS: tinyurl.com/kq84ddb

Welcome to Bonteavista, episode 120. I'm Andrew and it's time to start the podcast as we do every single week. So if you're a new listener, this is just to help familiarize you, as we start the podcast every single week with a rousing round of, Wazza! So if you're a new listener, this is just to help familiar with you. I'm not doing this. Thank you, Lucy. Ben. Thank you, Lucy. Ben. week with a rousing round of Waza! I'm not doing this. Thank you, Lucy. Ben? Ben, you're not, I'm not.

You remember the commercial? I didn't agree to this. It went like, was a, wasa? What, was was I? I mean, I'm familiar and that's not my issue. Okay. Do you not know how to do it? No, it's not like a technical impediment, it's kind of a moral one. I'm sort of, I like to think of myself as a contrientious object, right? I just don't want to be a part of this

and I hope you respect that. He will go to prison for his beliefs. Yes. As long as it's one of the ones where you get TV. Yeah, that's pretty good. And from what I see in the Australian media they all get TV and Xboxes. They get Xboxes and Playstations? I hear the exclusives on both platforms. Every night they're having that sort of the weird like hyper the molecular gastronomy stuff that's what they get in the prisons it's like foams made from gold leaf and rare fruits. they eat better the the that. th th, like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. th. th. they all all all all all all all all all all all all all the the they all they all they all they all they all they all they all they all they all they all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all their their their their their they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they. they. they they all all all all the molecular gastronomy stuff. That's what they get in the prisons. It's like foams made from gold leaf and rare fruits. Are they eat better than most people? Yeah. Nothing wrong with a tin of beans. No, that's true. I love a tien of beans. My kids love a tiii beans. the ti teen of beans. Big big bean-centric family over there. Hey look it's a high it's a high protein

breakfast, long-lasting energy, you know, my kids will happily sit and eat like a little a little ramican of beans and some pieces of toast. And I'm like you know it guys, get in there, go to town. Your bean children. Hey let me know if you you want more beans let me know if you finish that ramican, I'll top it up. Like a waiter with a jug of beans, just waiting by the table. Fresh in your beans? Fresh in your beans, Governor. I love that.

Oh, yeah, just top me off. Just a little bit. And when? Just a little bit. And when? Just a nightcap. Oh, I shouldn't, but go on. I do have to drive. I have to drive later. Oh my goodness.

What a great restaurant that would be. Just wait is walking around with this, steaming jugs of beans. What would you call it? Oh, it's got to be a hill of beans, right? Hill, yeah, that's up there, I guess. Man, it's also Casablanca themed. It's like someone watched Casablanca took, the only thing they took away from it

was his one use of a very weird metaphor, and then themed a restaurant. Yeah, it's it. The most valuable thing I can think of is a hill of beans. So it's sort of a bottomless bean starant. Beautiful. So, what do we, what have we got here guys? We're gonna dip in the old news? You guys ever seen this news stuff? I've heard of it. I've heard of it from time and time.

I've seen it like, you know, in passing in passing in streets, I turn my eyes away. I don't like it. Don't care for it much. Yuck, I say. Disgusting. What have we got? Hey, everyone's always talking about this news. And what about old's? So from the Guardian, we have a little report here about the Australian Christian lobby, backing the sacking of employees. That's the firing of people for Americans.

They don't say sacking, right? That's a football thing. Football? Is it? Yeah, sack the quarterback man. It means kind of the same thing really. It just means tackle. Oh, that's weird. Does it specifically mean tackle or is it like specific to tackling a quarterback before he can get a pass-off? Is that what sacking quarterback? Maybe? Maybe? You should know. You fucking watch. I don't want to say the wrong thing and then everyone's like, you don't know every single rule of the football. No, they're gonna listen back to this podcast here that you got that wrong and then deny you a green card. God damn. Oh damn, I was right. In American football and Canadian football, a sack occurs when the quarterback or another offensive player acting as a passer is tackle or another offensive player acting as a passer is tackle behind the line of scrimmage before he can throw a forward pass.

Scrimmage is perhaps the funniest. It's very funny. Scrimmage. Scrimmage. That's a fucking Lord of the Rings shit. I'd draw my line of scrimage. It's a it is both a very pirate sounding word and sounds a bit like something you would eat. Yeah Scrimage is like one of those bad old-timey breakfasts that are only people that are like 80 plus eat. I feel like they'd make fun of me here for that like for a saying porridge which apparently is a very funny way to say oats or oatmeal. I feel like porridge is relentlessly bullied. It's called porridge. Porridge. Fresh in your porridge, sir.

More beans for your porridge. Oh no, I topped up his porridge with me beans jug. Oh no! Every meal he should have two ramacons in front of you. One ramicant of beans, one ramicant of porridge, and never the twain shall meet. That's it. Oh my goodness.

So the Australian Christian Lobby, uh, sacking the quarterbacks of the workplace, who do not have the appropriate Christian sexual ethic. Employees is the quarterback of the workplace. Yes, known as the worker. The Australian Christian lobby has backed calls for religious businesses such as aged care providers to gain more powers of hiring and firing employees who do not conform to religious teachings. I'm pretty sure they already have the ones where they can say, oh you're not Christian, get the fuck out of here. So I don't know what, what like additional ones they need. In a debate at the National Press Club on Wednesday the ACL director Martin Isles backed calls from the Australian Catholic

Bishops Conference for greater powers to fire employees who don't conform to a quote Christian sexual ethic. But claim that Christians don't have a special vendetta against the LGBT community? Hey, come on. Why would you think that? Why would you say that? What is a Christian sexual ethic then? Simply because we are absolutely obsessed with

queer people and their sexuality and we'll never stop talking about it. You think we've got some kind of weird thing against them and and their sexual ethics? There is a picture of Martiniles in here Lucy would you like to describe him to the people listening at home? How can I describe this man? He looks like an American fraternity brother named Chet or Rhett. His face is also quite red, he's very pale. Got a little beedy eyes. It's got a bit of a Bondi Patrick Bateman thing going on on to me. Definitely looks like a psychopath. So this intervention comes as the Attorney General Christian Porter, Christian Porter, very interesting, considered as possible amendments for the controversial religious discrimination

bill exposure draft before Parliament returns next week. At the debate, ambassador of the National Secular Lobby, Fiona Patton, warned the ACL in Catholic Church want to, quote, extend the ability to hire and fire to their commercial businesses which would be very dangerous and extremely exclusive to staff and patients of aged care. Iles defend the prospect of hiring and firing based on the quote Christian sexual ethic that sexual relations are for one man and one woman to the exclusion of others. Yeah, that's all it is. It's definitely still not about gay people.

Iles rejected the view that quote Christians have this special vendetta where it's the LGBTI community that's always going to be excluded. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said, throwing up his hands, shrugging his shoulders. Hey, hey guy, come on. He said, noting that Christianity teaches that every single one of us is a sinner and that even he himself could be sacked for an act of infidelity. Because he is currently cheating on his wife. Yes. That's...

Trust me, buddy, I could definitely get sacked. The argument could easily be mounted. That I deserve to be fired. Yeah, I'm not really not really buying this one myself. I appreciate the efforts to try and make out like it has nothing to do with gay people, but I don't know the idea that like, well number one I don't even know how a workplace is going to find out that somebody like cheated on their wife or whatever. Maybe you get divorced and at some point you're like, ah yeah, I had an affair and my wife divorced me. Do you think that one of these places is going to go, ooh, unsound Christian sexual ethic there, buddy, you're out of here? Or are they just

just going to fire gay people still? I think what they do is every morning when you come into work there's someone there with a little clipboard and they say, who'd you fuck last night? Please be truthful. And then they... A woman, other... is this your husband or wife? And so if we take the wrong box, you are out of here, so that's why you shouldn't lie. Because you will be getting fired.

They've got a little chart they consult down the left-hand side they're going married man slept with unmarried man oh no that's that's two bads. I'm sorry you're gonna get double fired. The finger goes across the top row and then stops at the right place and down down down then you hit the big X. Oh yikes. Yikes. Sorry buddy. You you're you you're you. You're not th. You're not th. You're not th. You're not th. You're not th. You're not th. th. th. th. th. th. th th th th th th th th th th. th. th. th. th th th th th thi th th th th th th th th th th th the the th the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi the the the to to the to to to to theeee to the to thee thee the X. Oh yikes. Sorry buddy. You're not making it through armed guards at the door now. He says there should be no surprises. If somebody gets a job it should be clear what the beliefs of the organization are and it shouldn't be a shock. Come on. So again, I just, none of this makes any sense to me

because these are 1,000% the same people who think that Israel for Lao shouldn't have got sacked from his like ambassador role in the rugby union because that's his personal belief and he has the freedom is the religious freedom to hold that belief and to make statements about it. And that by firing him for that, we are impinging on that. And how can a corporation even have beliefs? You know, how can they have a mission statement that says, we don't want to exclude gay people? So if you make rampantly homophobic statements, we will politely ask you to not work here anymore.

But at the same time, they think that it should be very clear what the beliefs of their organizations are, and that if you contravene those in any way, that it should be 100% legally protected to fire you. So it's just another time where I don't really get how these things gel together? It's almost like they just think that their beliefs are the important ones and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Oh, come on.

Hmm. Be a little more chat. It's a very foolish belief, obviously, because my beliefs are their own beliefs and they ones as we all know. I agree. Thank you. Well it's funny because I have my own beliefs and they seem quite important to me when I'm having them. They could be the second most important maybe I'd concede that but it's definitely mine at the top and we should all be conforming to them. Hmm. Well the good news is it says that I'm after defending the wholesale expansion of exiixting. the the. the. the. the. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their their. their. their. their. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their that section 41 of the bill only exempts religious speech from anti-discrimination laws, suggesting that this meant the ability to hire and fire on religious beliefs, quote, really has nothing to do with the bill. So good job to him for talking about it for quite a while the

public debate and demanding those rights and then being like, you know, this bill that they're putting in really has nothing to do with the thing I'm talking about. Good on that guy. I guess. Hey, speaking of fucking the wrong way. Oh no. Lucy, you've got a little story for us here. Didn't like that segue at all. But there is another Jeffrey Epstein story, Epstein. Epstein. Epstheel. Our favorite sex offender, rich man. And there are so many to choose from, because it's all of them. Yeah, it's so hard to choose, right?

Oh, dear. Well, speaking of Rich Guys, this was posted on the New York Times Twitter account today. They said Bill Gates has minimized his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, but a New York Times investigation shows that Gates and Epstein repeatedly spent time together after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. Yeah. Shucked that billionaires could be bad people. Hmm. But he's got a foundation.

He's got a foundation. He gives all this money to charity, which is definitely not something that terrible people do to ease their guilt in any way. Or is a gigantic tax write-off. Exactly. Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder whose 100 billion plus fortune has endowed the world's largest charitable organization has done his best to minimize his connections to Mr. Epstein. I didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him. He told the Wall Street Journal last month.

In fact, he never held hands. Didn't know him. Didn't know him that well. Just met the guy a few times. Took a few plane met with Mr. Ebstein on numerous occasions, including at least three times at Mr. Ebstein's palatial Manhattan townhouse and at least once staying late into the night, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the relationship.

As well as documents reviewed by the New York Times. This is the thing I don't get with this stuff is like if you had spent you know time hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein right and someone from the media came to you and said hey uh you used to hang out with his Epstein guy right? I don't understand how how so many of these people have the first impulse, which is to say, Nope. Nope. But like one time we were both at the same charity gala, we were 20 meters away from each other, he sort of tried to nod at me and I immediately turned my head away.

Turn my head away. That's how little... That's how I didn't even recognize him. Didn't even know who he was. Until someone showed me a mugshot, many years later. When it's so clear from, like, this has been happening over and over again, where people get asked, like, what was your relationship with this guy? Did you spend time together? And I'll go, nope. And they say, cool. Here's the flight logs. He's the flight logs of you taking like, you know, half a dozen flights on his private jet with him. What's up of that? And they go, g-g-goo.

G-G- Lying is famously not incriminating. Well, especially, like, yeah, I guess just there's been so many examples already of people being shown through a bunch of evidence like this to have spent a much time with him in the past. I I don't know why like Like Prince Andrew had that whole same thing didn't he where he was just like oh I was going around there to cut ties with him. Yeah, I was I was on my way there to break up with him break up with it. mean, well, maybe I do understand in the sense that if you had been hanging out with someone who was a notorious, convicted child sex offender. Yeah, I'd probably be like, yeah, I didn't know it was a sex offender though.

I wouldn't be like, no, don't I. Never met the go. Mega pedo. Although you know as someone I was talking to who recently said, you know I was talking to them about, this is my parents. I was talking my parents recently about Jeffrey Epstein. And I said, well the thing with all the stuff is like it's fucking insane because it's not like wild conspiracy shit. It's all in the public record. It's all the stuff that happened in his court case. It's all like right there out in the open. And I was talking about how the Andrew Barr, who is now Trump's attorney general, was the

one who was overseeing Jeffrey Epstein's case and allowed him to like, you know, be charged for the like a single one of the lightest offenses and they only took testimony from like one of his oldest victims so that he wouldn't get the harshest penalties and all that sort of stuff. And my mom said, yeah, well, if you're a rich person who has continued to hang out with him after that point, from your point of view, you can say, oh, well, his conviction was for this very, very, very small things.. thing. thing. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the the the their, their, their, their, their, the the the the the the the to, the to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the to, the the the the t. And, the today, today, the. thea. And, thea. And, toe. And, toe. And, toe. And, toe. was for this very, very, very, very small thing for someone who was over 18, or, you know, it was for like soliciting a sexual service from like a 19-year-old. So, so, you know, maybe it's something where in the minds of some of these rich people,

they could say, well, I have this kind of plausible deniability of, the only thing he was ever found guilty of was like the absolute most minimized version of his many, many, many, many crimes. But it's still a pretty bad look. It's not a good look, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know why people don't just go, hey look man, we hung out half a dozen times, you know, he's an influential figure, we talked about maturity and stuff, we had dinner,

you know, a handful of times. That's it. Obviously I found out about this stuff way too late. Bad look or whatever. It just, it feels to me like that would just be a better way of handling it than going, hey, I have never had any business relationship or friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. And then immediately having the newspaper go, what about all of these things? I'm immediately having to be like, oh Jeffrey Epstein.

I saw you said a Bleffrey. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. I called him a bunch. Oh, I called him Jay. I called him Jay because we were so so close. Oh dear. So employees of Mr. Gates Foundation also paid multiple visits to Mr. Epstein's mansion. Mr. Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and JPMorgan

Chase about a proposed multi-billion dollar charitable fund, an arrangement that had the potential to generate enormous fees for Mr. Epstein. Oh, that's nice for him. That's the this article. They met up several times, including after these allegations and stuff had come out. This is my favorite part. His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although it would not work for me. Mr. Gates emailed colleagues in 2011 after his first get together with Mr. Epstein.

It is indeed an intriguing lifestyle. Oh my goodness. I wonder if it would work for him for like ethical reasons or just like logistically, like, it just doesn't have time. Well his spokeswoman apparently said he was referring only to the unique decor of the Epstein residence and Epstein's habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates. Oh my goodness. How old were these acquaintances?

That's a strange phrase. Oh, he was merely referring to the giant shrine to Malock in the Grand Hall of Mr. Epstein's residence. Unique decor. Very unique decor. Billionaires have got to stick together, you know? That's true. It's a big theme this week. That's true, yeah, with all of our Ellen,

Ellen hanging out with George W. Bush and then coming out afterwards to say, hey, hey, we should all just be nice to each other, you know? That was my favorite thing about this was people doing the contrarian take of being like, oh, oh, you can't even sit near anyone without being canceled these days, then she releases a video and being like, we're friends, actually. Goodness, we're pals. Well, like, I watched a bit of the video in which she like explained how this wound up happening as though it was some wild coincidence, you know. And she starts off by saying that it's like, what's the guy's name, Jerry, the owner of

the cowboys? I do not know that. I don't know. Come on, Lucy. Jerry Seinfeld. I don't follow the. I don't know. Come on, Lucy. Jerry Seinfeld. I don't follow the cowboys. Jerry Jones. Geez. Okay, doke. Jerry Jones, another billionaire, shockingly,

who owns the Dallas Cowboys. She was like, yeah, Jerry Jones and his wife, like, contacted me and Porsche and said, hey, we'd love you to come to the game, so we'll give you tickets to the owners box and everything. And so, you know, we just went along and just happened to get seated next to George W. Bush. What a little situation this man has crafted. I like it.

Agent of chaos. Yeah, well, I love that the, but yeah, the explanation that's meant meant the explanation that's meant to make it sound like she's, you know, she's not just palling around with these people is, oh, this billionaire NFL team owner personally contacted me and my wife to give us free tickets to this thing. It's like, cool. Cool. But, but yeah, so, that engendered a lot of discourse this week around, you know, hey, when somebody invites you to hang out with a war criminal, should you just be like, cool, dapp me up. Dap me up, GWB?

Or should you be like, nice war crimes, dickhead? It's just all about kindness. You know, if we were all just more kind to each other, everything would be perfect and we could just ask them not to do their war crimes anymore. Yep and so Jamila Jamil who is from the good place. That's absolutely right. She's doing her best God bless her. Doing her best God bless her. She's like a big time like body positivity. Mm-hmm. Roll model. Do a lot of speaking out about feminism, body positivity, things like that. A lot of that kind of thing.

Um, I, now nobody canceled me. Oh no. Do not turn the cancellation ray upon me. Oh boy. I'm turning it very slowly. But I think, you're turning the big crank. Turning the big crank on the cancellation ray. I was just going to say that like a lot of the stuff that she says to me kind of has that

has the like enthusiasm of the recent convert. Oh, a hundred percent kind of vibe. Yeah, which is to say like you know. Like you, you know, I'm never going to rag on anybody for trying to learn things and be better and consider things more carefully and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, there is a very certain tone to like, there's a very certain tone to like, there's a very certain tone to like liberals and lefts who have just sort of like got into social justice and stuff pretty recently. They're very excited about it.

They're very excited about it and they also assume that everybody else doesn't know any of this stuff and it can take on quite a kind of lecturing tone, I think sometimes, which you can understand why a lot of people not really into it. So, you know, in the midst of all of this people saying, hey, George W. Bush, remember that time that he, very, very directly triggered the actions that killed like up to a million Iraqi civilians? Mark Ruffalo said that. He's, he's the good tweet of the week. Yeah, well done. The one good celeb, Mark Ruffelow. Yeah, who, and I'm paraphrasing, but he that he that he that he that he thage, that he th – th – th – th – th – th-upededededed, he th – th-up, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said-in, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said that he said that, he said that, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's th –. th –. th –. th ––––––. Yeah, who I'm paraphrasing, but he said something along the lines of, yeah, everybody's talking about, hey, we've all got to be kindness to each other, but it's very hard to

be kind to someone when they've never faced any form of justice for their, for their very, very direct involvement in war crimes and killing hundreds of thousands of people. How about we do some th. th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi the thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, tho-a, tho, tho, tho, tho, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thin, thin, thin, thoan, thin, tooan, thi. And, thi. And, thii. And, thi's thi. And, thi. And, thi. And of thousands of people. How about we do some of that first and then we can be nice to them afterwards. So in the midst of all of this Jamil or Jamil tweeted, oof! There's five O's on them. That's what does it for me on this. It's really drives it up. I genuinely think that no one would have said anything about this tweet if she had not said the thoof at a the the th. th. I I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. the. the. the. the. theemeeme. the. the. theemeemeal. th. th. to to to to to to to to to to to to th. Jememel. Jemememememememememememememememememememememememememem. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, to. Oh, to. Oh, the the to. Oh, to. Oh, the the the th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh said the oof at the start. That's definitely what it is. Can I just petition both of you here to kind of figure out? So we've got five O's on this o-f, one F, capital O at the start. How long do we think that should go if you're reading it out? Okay if you do a normal one with two o's, all right. That's a two-o-o-o-to-to-to-to-to- to-o o' to-o o' to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, to-so, to-so, to-so, to-so, to kind, to kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind to kind, to kind, to kind, to kind, to kind, to to-so, to-so, to-so, to-so, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, to-o, th-o, th-o, th-o, to-o, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-a, th-s, th-s, th-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, to-s, two O's, all right. That took you... That's a 2-0-oof to me. It's kind of a double one of those, you know? Just do, how many O's did you say? There's five O's in it, so two and a half of those, yeah. I'm sorry, that's five.

So let me try this. Ooh. Too long? That was about four or five of them. Yeah, that was a that. That four. That four. That four. That four. That one four. That one four. That one. That one. That one. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, to th. Oh, to to th. Oh, to tho. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, that last one was good. Okay. Jamil, Jamil twee tweets. Ooh, learning today about the full extent of Bush's heinous presidency. We weren't taught much about him at school. We just heard he was stupid. As an aside, we were dealing with our own epic nightmare of a prime minister back then. What a monstrous leader. I now understand the rage. For me, the kicker is... dealing with our own epic nightmare of a prime minister back

then. But Tony Blair was quite as far as I remember significantly involved in this stuff. Well, it'd be like you could perfectly transpose this onto Australian politics and say oh I never knew anything about I never knew anything about George W. Bush because we were all too busy being angry at John Howard for some kind of they for some sort of event in 2003 that we were all really mad at him for. I can't remember what it is was something that something that something that engendered the largest protests in Australian history, hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets of every capital city in the country.

Not ringing a bell what the actual problem was. It was just something about John Howard, real dickhead. An epic nightmare, that guy. What gets me here is the, uh, didn't learn much about him in school. As many people... As though that is the only way. But as many people have pointed out, she is 33 years old. In 2003, she was 17.

Yep. So it just feels like they were a couple of years after that outside of school that might have been the primo time to have heard about these things. Well, it's just a bad tweet. It is not good. I do agree with her saying afterwards that we should support people growing and learning. I obviously very much agree with that as a concept. I mostly just can't believe that you

have so many followers and not think just for a second before tweeting this and think, you know what, I'm going to get dunked on. People are going to think I am a bit silly on the back of this one. Oh my goodness. Hey, should we take a question from the mail bag? Yeah, maybe we should have a mail bag theme one of these days. I'll just steal the Blues Clues one. We'll get Steve from Blues Clues on here to sing it. Maybe we can get him on Fiver to do something. No, he's doing stuff for the new Blues Clues.

He is. He is with new Blues Clues host, Josh, who is a snack. Yeah well I guess he's kind of he's taken a snack crown now that Steve doesn't have any hair anymore right? Yeah exactly. Yeah I mean no offense to any of our bald listeners it's just for some people great look. For other people it's just like hey you're not the Steve of my youth. Hmm. So as you may know we have set up the Boutavista hotline. That's 1-800-317515 where you can call in and leave a message for us. And you can say things like, hey, you guys are all great looking, wonderful opinions. I don't want to kiss each and every one of you. That's the kind of thing you can...

I mean, no one's done it yet, but you could do that if you want to. But we have received some voice bells from our beloved listeners. So if we would like to jump in and check some of these out, what are you thinking, you keen? I'm excited. All right, here we go. Hi, Bunker. Hi, Binty. Media and journalists and our first-time taller here, who won't be leaving my name because I work in government. So, democracy, right?

I'm all for it, though, there seems to be this very significant banner in the works, in that life has been designed to ensure that usually the majority of the people who win are simply the people who are best at advocating and talking that usually the majority of the people who win are simply the people who are best at advocating and talking up themselves, rather than the skills that actually manage to buffeting in an ethical way that's best for the community. It's kind of like that guy in the workplace whose primary skills have to be really, being really good at job interviews rather than his actual job, highly problematic. What do you think? Do you agree and if so, how would

you change things to make things better while also avoiding a society falling under the sum of a malevolent dictator. Thank you. Well there you go, thank you, sweet nameless listener. We could make up a name. I want more questions to just end with what do you reckon? What do you reckon? So yeah the question there of course being what's the deal with politics invariably winding up being mainly people who are good at just selling themselves? Yeah, I think we've seen like, I think we've seen a lot of that in, I want to say the Labour Party specifically recently, because I think that like, I think that for the Liberal Party, like when you, yeah, when you sort of stand for those policies and people vote for them, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, kind, kind, kind, kind, kind, it, kind, kind, kind, kind, it, it, kind, kind, kind, kind, it, kind, it, kind, it, it, kind, it, kind, it, it, it, it, it, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thi, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the, the, the, the, that for the liberal party, like when you, yeah, when you sort of stand for those policies and people vote for them, it kind of doesn't matter whether you're a piece

of shit or not. In some cases, like if you're George Christensen, it seems to actively help. If you're somebody who gets out and says, I'm going to get out there and razz all the snowflakes, then people who are into that shit will go, tho.............. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. It, th. It, th. It, th. It, th. It, th. It, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, theee. theee. to. to. the. the. the. the. the. thi. th. th. th. th. th people who are into that shit will go cool. But I think for people like the Labour Party it seems like there's been a lot of folks who are just straight up pure like career climber types. Very much. I think this is just a problem in general though. I think the hugest problem with politics is that there's a really limited amount of people who are genuinely in there purely because they want to make a change. I feel like for most people the realities of the day-to-day life of politics you have to have some there's some kind

of ego sort of narcissistic aspect to it for most politicians, not everyone obviously, but you don't get anywhere in politics without having that kind of cult of personality kind of thing. Well I guess it's a bit like the old, the old the old the old the old the old the old, the old, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the realities the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities realities, the realities realities, the realities realities realities, the realities realities realities realities realities realities, the realities realities realities realities realities, the realities realities realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the realities, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th tho-d-d-d-d-due, tho-due-today-today realities, tho-today realities, thi realities, thi-today realities, thi realities, thi of cult of personality kind of thing. Well I guess it's a bit like the old Dunning Kruger principle. Are you familiar with that? Vakly. It's one of those things people always say on Twitter like Strawman. Oh nice. The Dunning Kruger thing was some paper by someone named Dunning and someone else named Kruger, where they basically observe that in like workplace type scenarios that it's the people who... Oh, the people who think that they're less competent or you know what I'm saying.

Well, people who are highly competent don't think of themselves as highly competent because things come to them naturally and so they assume that things sort of come naturally to everyone. Whereas people who are not that competent, a lot of the time will consider themselves to be highly competent. Overestimate their own abilities. Yeah, and champion themselves as such. I think in some cases that type of thing can lead to some people who, you know, have a lot of good ideas and could make very positive changes kind of going, yeah, but you know, why would anyone care what I think? Like why should I have more of a say or more of a voice than anybody else?

Yeah. Whereas I think it can be the incompetent overestimates of themselves out there who go, you know what people need to hear? my ideas. Yeah, I don't think I could ever believe in myself that leads people to make podcasts. That's right. But as far as like solutions to that, I think one of the very obvious core issues in Australian politics and probably Western politics in general at the moment is just this whole matter of politicians being able to like vote for their own pay rises and and if you want to install any kind of mechanism to to deal with like corruption or anything like that then the people that that that mechanism would be targeted at have to vote in favor of it becoming reality. So, you know, if you're talking about any kind of

federal, you know, corruption watchdog or anything like that, then you have to get both of the major political parties to say, yes, we are both open to creating this thing and funding it and letting it exist independently outside of our ability to tell them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them to them the their to to to their to to to to to to to to tho to to to to to to to thi to to to to to to to to to to to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote to vote thi to vote thi thi thi to vote thi to vote thi to vote to thi to thi thi thi. the the the the the the. the. the. the. the. the. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. the. the both open to creating this thing and funding it and letting it exist independently outside of our ability to tell them what to do, and also it needs to be retroactive so that crimes that have done in the past can be exposed and all that sort of stuff. I think a lot of the, I think a lot of the mechanisms for a lot of the mechanisms for changing like what people's incentives are to get into politics are a bit broken at the moment. I think a lot of people have the kind of similar idea of like a politician's salary should be like more closely aligned to just a normal workers salary.

Well, but then how will we get the Titans of Industry in there? Oh, yeah. How will we get the CEOs not to go private but to, uh, we need their big sky thinking in their dexterity in their, uh, what's the other thing CEOs have? A big dick energy. Big dick energy. Yeah. Yeah. They're very tall. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. They're the the their. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their. But their their their their their their their their their their their their their normal. their normal. their normal. their normal. their normal. their normal. their normal. their their their their their their their the's the other thing CEOs have? Big Dick energy. Big Dick energy. Yeah. They're very tall. It's a very common argument that you hear against the ideas of just paying people a normal wage instead of like a, you know, $200,000 base salary for people who just kind of sit around and never do anything. Yeah, we've moved away too far from like the idea that these people are public servants.

They're there to serve us, not the other way around. And it's definitely not treated that way anymore. It's supposed to be a representative of a local community, you know? And yeah, so I think that like... Less money. That's the simple answer. Well, I mean, I guess I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I'm that that that that that that that that that that that that that that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I that's. I'm. I'm. I'm. I that's. I that's. I that's that's th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I'm the the the th. I th. I'm th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th guess what I'm saying is that like that there are absolutely people out there like Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott who say things like like Ben saying that they say oh but if you paid people less if you didn't compensate them so well then you know you wouldn't be able to get the

best and brightest which is what we need in politics as though Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce are the best and brightest. As though, since leaving, since getting voted out of Parliament, as though Tony Abbott has gone on to like head up an innovative startup or something, instead of just sitting around and going, oh, I want to get voted back in. Also, I mean, this helps, like, if the thing that was going to stop someone from getting into politics is that they'd only be getting to be getting to be getting to be getting to be to be th th th th th the the th the the the the the the the the the the, thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th, th, th, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi.. thi. thi. thi. thi. the. thi. the. thi. thi. thi. the, thi, thi, this helps, like, if the thing that was going to stop someone from getting into politics is that they'd only be getting paid $200,000 a year, maybe we don't want them. Yeah, and that's just what I think about that and the expenses, like every year or two when we have an expenses scandal because people have been claiming all sorts of wild shit against their expenses and invariably they say oh whoops there was a

mistake someone forgot to carry the one I'll just give you that money back we've spoken about that on the show before like how infuriating it is both to see that someone has stolen 50,000 dollars from their workplace which is funded by taxpayers but then when they get caught they get to say oh that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. tho tho tho tho thi thi. tho. they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi tho. tho. tho. thoooo thoo. the thoooooo. they say say they say they say they're they're they they're workplace, which is funded by taxpayers. But then when they get caught, they get to say, oh, that was just an error on someone's part. It definitely wasn't me. And I'll just give it back, because it's doubly infuriating that someone both gets

to get caught doing it and just give it back. And also, also that they have $50,000 on hand to just give back. So yeah, I think a lot of that incentivization, every year or two when we do have an expense of scandal, a lot of reporters will sort of say something, you know, to the tune of, hey, it's kind of an open secret that a lot of politicians think that they don't get paid highly enough as it is and they look at expenses as a way of smoothing that out, you know, pays for all of their travel, all their accommodation, all their food, all their everything, all the gifts

they get, all that sort of shit, so that not only are they making at an absolute base level, like 200,000. If if you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you th, if you th, if you th, if you their th, if you are their th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it, it, it's, it, th.. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th, th. th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a th. th. th. th. that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that th000. If you're talking about being like a front bench minister, if you're a member of various committees, if you're in cabinet, if you're a prime minister, a deputy prime minister, this like goes up by wild amounts. But then you also manage to do it in a way where you can be like getting the taxpayer to pay you to rent a property that you own yourself from yourself that kind of stuff like people can be paying your

rent on one of your investment properties to yourself while you're away from home so I think if a lot of that sort of stuff was taken out of it I think that that would make a big difference to what kinds of people said. You would definitely change what kind of person goes into this kind of thing. Or perhaps democracy is just not the ideal system. We just haven't got a better one. I have a very simple solution to this actually. Is that every politician anytime they are speaking to each other or speaking to the public, or even in public in any capacity. They have to be in the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the to be in to be in the to be in the to be in the the to be in the the the the th. the the, the, the, theateateateateate, thi. theateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateate. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I the, the, thin, the, the, the. theaaa. thea. theaauuuuuuuu. theaueaueaueaueaueaueau. thea. thea to each other or speaking to the public or even in public in any capacity. They have to be in the beepy wheelchair from Star Trek the original series where you can only communicate via beeps. So any potential they have for sort of cult of personality, charisma, or you know the

ability to win people over just by dating, sorry, debating more effectively but not necessarily with a better argument, you know what I mean? Gone with the BP wheelchair. So you're really just, you're really democratizing the delivery of statements. Yeah, absolutely. And because it takes a very, very, very long time to communicate with the BP wheelchair, you'd really want to prioritize for facts. You're thinne what you're saying,to prioritize for facts. You're not going to be trying to use demagoguery, you're just going to be like, this is the text of the bill.

I'll say one other thing, which I know, I know for a lot of people, is probably getting into extreme like boomer shit territory. But I think that there is a pretty significant problem in Australia and again in other countries as well with media organizations and access journalism. I think there is a distinct issue with how many political journalists in this country seem to have like very cozy relationships with politicians. Not the midwinter ball. The fucking midwinter ball. A beloved institution, the midwinter ball.

Yeah, and it's shit like that. And the White House correspondence dinner and stuff where it's like, yeah, once a year we all get together as good buddies and all have a big laugh about this dumb shit show that we're in. And like, it's all of that where it's like, no, it's meant to be an adversarial relationship. You guys are meant to be friends. We might disagree, but we should just be kind to each other. We should just be kind of each other.

And like, I feel like a couple of times a year, you'll see an interview with like a political figure where the person who's doing the interview just asks them a very, very blunt blank question, point blank question, and they go, uh, uh, uh, uh, and they go, nope, answer it. And like, they actually press someone. And it's staggering to see how much of the time, under like, even the remotest bit of pressure to be honest and directly answer a question, that these people just cannot or will not do it. And I would love to see a lot more of that that. And that that th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thu, thu, thu, thu, thu, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, th question, that these people just cannot or will not do it. And I would love to see a lot more of that. I suspect the reason that we don't see much of it

is because, you know, if you do that and you make a fool out of a couple of politicians, they'll stop asking you questions at the press conferences, and they'll stop, you know, like Michaelaia Cash, they'll just stop extending invitations to particular people to come to their press conferences and that sort of stuff. But again, if there was some sort of solidarity in the journalistic class to say, this is the approach that we're having to this, then it'd be harder to play favorites. But again, that's all kind of very much like a, the horses bolted sort of thing. The same for to be to be to be to be to be to be to be, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's to be, it's to be, it's to be, it's to be, it's that, it's that, it's that, it's that, that, that, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, to to to come, to come, to come, to come, to come, to come, to come, to come, to th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, th. that's that's that's that's that's thi, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's that's the. the the. the. the. the the. the horses bolted sort of thing. The same for the pay stuff. It's like yeah, but that shit's never going back down.

So you know, who knows? No one knows what the answer is especially us. So thanks. Thanks I guess. Hey, you want another question that we're not going to know the answer to? Sure. All right, here we go. Cut as bad boy up. Hey, guys, I want to show. This isn't going to be very funny. Apologies in advance. It's more of a serious question.

I'll be having arguments with my girlfriend about the validity of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the 21st century. She seems to, I will have point, is that she believes they're the best of a bad brush and they need to be supported and shouldn't be criticized as heavily. And then my counter-argument is that they are too far gone. I think either butcheros being the chairman or chairwoman, whatever, whatever you like, only further sort of feels a deal on them being too far gone and that we need to look elsewhere to alternative media sources like Bunchavista as our way out and criteria and so on and so forth,

rather than rely on the ABC. And just let them, just let them privatize it. It's too far. It's, it's too far. It's too far. It's. It's, it's, it's, it's the. It's the the the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's the deal. It's a the deal. It's a deal. It's a deal. It's a deal. It's a deal the deal. It's a deal. It's a deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal the deal. It's a deal. It's a deal. It's the deal. It's too. It's too too too too too too too too. It's too too too too too too too too too too too too far. It's too too too. It's too too too to feels feels. It's too too too too. It's too too the and so forth rather than rely on the ABC. And just let them just let them privatize it. It's true by going. There's not much we can do. It's kind of infest from the ground up. So I'd love to hear you. You'll go to talk about the real systemic issues. I understand some of you with media jobs. I only didn't, you know, one corporation owns pretty much all the media here. It may be hard for you to talk about the real systemic issues directly and I respect that, but yeah, as much as you can, would love to hear your thought. Thank you very much. Well, where you go.

I love thinking that this is the kind of arguments that our listeners have in the relationships. Oh, it's delightful. What about the ABC? So it's smashing a plate against the wall. So yeah, is the ABC at a point at which it is irredeemable and should be privatized or, or something else? I'm extremely... I'm extremely... I'm so deeply pro-ABC. So, I think maybe just because I have extremely... I'm so deeply pro-ABC. I'm so deeply pro-ABC. So, I think maybe just because I have spent a large chunk for the last couple of years in my

life, watching what happens when any sort of reporting is beholden to commercial interest, it is the worst fucking shit in the whole world. And having something like the ABC where they don't have to tiptoe around certain companies, they don't have any of those sorts of concerns, facilitates some fantastic reporting. And it's having a government-funded journalistic outlet like that is not necessarily the only way to do it. Like, you know, you can have can have listener supported radio and whatever supported journalism you got your patrons you got your what have you but getting actual money to do real big stories in a way where you don't have to worry about any of that is

priceless. The ABC fuck shit up constantly but I think they're definitely a net positive good even now. Lucy? I think I agree I mean in in theory the ABC and it has been historically very good but there's certainly setbacks with having something government funded when you have a government like we do now, which is a lot of, probably a lot to do with why it's failing and why it's not as independent and as good as it used to be. I don't know.

I think we definitely need more independent sources of news when the ABC can't do as much as they used to. You know? Yeah, although I've also heard arguments about like, like, like, from, like, from, the, to, to, like, to, to, like, to, to, like, to, to, to, to, to, like, like, to, to, to, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, to, to, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, Yeah, although I've also heard arguments about like, and like from, from the right wing of, well, they're too diversified now, you know, there's too much, you know, they're in too many areas, they're doing streaming and they're doing kids' journals and all this, that and the other, which I think is fine as long as you're able to maintain whatever level of quality in those things. But yeah I guess I definitely feel more more like you're saying Ben where if I sort of think back to over the last, I mean like you said, they fuck up, they've done a bunch of stupid shit, like giving Steve Bannon a platform, that kind of stuff.

They did too. Some real stinkers and you can see exactly the same kind of, I think you can see exactly the same kind of like problems that are throughout private and public media in the responses to that where people have said, hey, uh, what the fuck are you doing? this th th th th th this th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, like, thi, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, thi thi, thi, th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. thi. thi, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to, to, to, to, to, to, thi. to thi. to thi. thi in the responses to that where people have said, hey, what the fuck are you doing? This is really bad. Why does Tom Tilly have Blair Cottrell on his fucking show? And when a whole lot of people say, ooh, we think this is a really bad move, the response is to be extremely dismissive and very like, oh well, I'm the supreme journalist and I would know like I mean Sarah Henderson has posted a lot of things on Twitter since then that I think have been very very like

Deliberately dismissive and antagonistic of their own audience in the wake of that like very kind of See you can have a white nationalist on and still be a real reporter and be friends with everyone. That is kind of a deeper and separate issue. But when I do think back to stories, stories in the Australian media that have produced some kind of like really significant public policy response to something they've all been out of the ABC. I'm sure someone will write in and say wrong you fucking idiot but but like just think about things like the like the the greyhound racing story that was that was from like what four

corners or... Sure let's say four corners or sure let's say four corners or 730 report or something but like Ben saying they don't have any obligation to say you know for example oh our parent company is is our parent company also owns like TAB which makes phenomenal amounts of money through gambling and gambling advertising and stuff like that, so we're not allowed to touch a story like this. They were able to just say, hey, here's all this completely fucked up evidence of this thing that's constantly going on everywhere. And like, that seemed to change public's sentiment about that issue like overnight.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it was four corners. I'm pretty sure. It was like one story. Well, I mean, they did some follow-ups, but that one episode they did, immediately the conversation changed. Yeah, to just, oh, I think we just shouldn't be doing this at all. And I think in the cases of those sorts of things, you can see how powerful, like independent, and like editorially independent journalism can be. And so I don't think the solution would be to privatize the ABC. I think the only thing that would happen out of privatizing the ABC would be to have another private media

corporation and have one less independent editorially or financially outlet in Australia, which in turn I think would immediately turn it into what we're seeing happening with like the free-to-air channels, which is they go, oh shit, we have to survive on money that we earn ourselves from advertising revenue and so they start spending less and less money on the quality of the content they're making and they start commissioning you know more and more like reality shows and showing stuff from overseas. Literally like that's the only way to make money reality TV is the only thing in the world that makes money for any media outlet. That's all you can do. And it's because, like I assume, because it's the cheapest shit in the world to produce.

Yeah. You don't have to script it. You don't have to pay the people who are on it much money. You can probably do it with a pretty small crew. You'd get sponsorships from every thing that they do on the show. Yep, yep, any of those like home renovation shows and stuff like they're all just one big sponsorship all that sort of shit. So you know if that's if like you I don't think it would be any kind of net benefit to the country to see the ABC turn into that and that's what would happen. It is a net good. It's not ideal especially with Ida Butros and you know the various various various various various various various various various various various various the various the various the various the various the various know, the various things that they've done that are not super independent and somewhat, you know, placing right-wing views, dangerous right-wing views on the ABC, but they are the best that we've got.

And I think that it is like a challenge as well. I think the other thing that you have to consider in order to be a bit fair to the ABC is that, that, that, that, that, the, that, the, the, th, the, th, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thi, th, th, thi, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is the, is the, they, the, they, they, they, they, to-a, they, they, they, they, they, they, is they, is they, is that you have to consider in order to be a bit fair to the ABC is that we're, you know, however many years now, deep into conservative government in this country. And they have a severe cultural vendetta against the ABC. They do, which is why I assume the ABC is bowed to a lot of their pressure in this decade or so. Well, yeah, I think it's probably very hard to say from an outside.. th, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you know, you know, you know, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thed to a lot of the pressure in this decade or so. Yeah, I think it's probably very hard to say from an outside perspective, what kind of impact that sort of stuff must have culturally, because I think that while to me the solution is to have the sort of person who is the chairman of the ABC to be the sort of person who really, really believes in the actual mission of the ABC.... the the the the thiiiiii thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, to be, to be, to be, to be thi, to be to be, to be, thi. I to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be, to be, to be to be, to be to be, to be to be to be to be, to be, to be, to be to be the sort of person who really, really believes in

the actual sort of mission of the ABC, which is to be fiercely editorially independent. You don't have to show both sides because literally every other channel on Frida Air TV shows the right-wing side. It's okay. And yeah, it's still a very trusted news source and I think the actual solution is to have staff who are really dedicated to the idea of being an editorial independent news service. But the problem is that the government of the day still gets to appoint the chairman and probably some of the board members and all that sort of stuff, which means that the day still gets to appoint, you know, the chairman and probably some of the board members and all that sort of stuff, which means that the longer a conservative government goes on, the more able they will be to influence and degrade the culture of the ABC.

So the solution, like so many other things, is to put Scott Morrison into a cannon and fire him into the sun. That is the ideal solution. But also just look at other independent news sources as well as the ABC. The ABC, it's not financially viable to do regional journalism anyway. If you're doing it purely on a profit-based venture, it won't happen which is why NewsCorp and the papers formerly known as Fairfax, wound down all their regional stuff, all the regional newsrooms are shrinking everywhere, basically all they have left is the ABC because they're the only ones that can afford to do it.

I don't know Ben, have you heard of a little outlet called the Battuta Advocates? Well, it was lovely being on the podcast with you. Had a really good time. I had a great run. Yeah, and you do raise an excellent point, which is that, you know, when any, when the ABC is forced to like close down rural outlets, I think they had something a little while ago where they were like going to stop broadcasting to a lot of places in the Asia Pacific region. And yeah, it's, yeah, and you hear the same thing from like a lot of rural people, which is like, this is the only thing that actually gives us any kind of coverage of our local area. Because so many other commercial newsrooms are just getting

more and more fragmented and everything's getting more and more kind of, you know, centrally edited, taking more and more sub-editors out, there's more and more pressure on journalists so just take news releases from companies and copy and paste them into the newspaper, all that kind of thing. So unfortunately I must come down on the defend the ABC side. We must stand. We must stand. We have no choice but to stand.

And you know, with again the caveat that like Ben said they fuck up, you know, they fuck up plenty of times But I think that there is really a range of I think there's a range of content and a range of representation That is just nowhere else in the country So you know bloody good on him. That's what I say. Good for them. Best do a terrible bunch. Good for the ABC.

Hey, well done Mr. ABC. Mr. ABC. Should I, should I very quickly read us a letter in the old, Paging Dr. Lucy, Hull. Only if you promise to play the old, paging Dr. Lucy, Hall. Only if you promise to play the theme. Okay. That's right folks. They love to hear it. They love to hear it. They love to hear it. It's time for another edition of Paging Dr. Lucy. It's time for another edition of Paging Dr. Lucy in which we check out the worst, the worst calls for advice on the worst website on the internet, Reddit, actually which one's worse, Reddit or YouTube?

That's a big question. I mean both of them have radicalized a lot of people. They sure have. I feel like with both of them you could spend more time, like you could spend time just in like subreddits or looking at types of video on YouTube that were just fine and normal and just live your life. But um... Nothing's normal on Reddit.

It's true. Case in point. Here we go. My wife's internet posting got me fired. Hi relationships, I'm honestly at a loss of what to even think about this situation so I could use some advice. Sorry for the throwaway, but as you read the story, it will be fairly clear why I'd rather not have my real account attached to this. My 32 year old, oh my, 32 year old, he is a 32 year old male. 28 year old wife of three years has been living some sort of online double life that came crashing down today and I don't think I can ever look at it the same way again.

It's going to take a bit of background so buckle up. I was called into my... Click. I was called into my boss's office yesterday and presented with a printout of my Reddit post-history with a ton of posts highlighted. Oh,, imagine. Oh boy. Imagine you got sinking, as someone said. It's horrifying thought. We have your posts.

We have a print out of your posts. Oh my god, I hate it. I don't even want to think about it. Nothing problematic, but a lot of them were made on company time, so I was let go from my position immediately. Damn. It's pretty harsh. That's pretty rough.

I have only ever posted it on my phone using data, never the company Wi-Fi, so I was stunned how they would even know what my account was or what I was doing. I was too shocked to even ask further questions. I just packed up my stuff and got out of that. I got home from work and immediately told my wife what had happened, and she looked like like like like like like like like like like like like like asked her what was wrong and tried to assure her we'd be okay that my savings carry us through until I find more work. She's a stay-at-home

mother with our two-year-old daughter so I assumed she was frightened for our future. I was honestly expecting and immediately breaks down sobbing. I had no idea what she was talking about. After trying to calm her down, she tells me that it's her fault that my post-history was sent to my boss. She tells me it's from a sit down and explain all of this. This is where things get weird and I'm still not even sure about all of it. About two years ago, my wife started participating in some subredd.

A blog she liked. As time went on, she got more and more involved. She also began posting antagonistically toward other frequent users. Eventually, she was banned a th ago. What sort of person you've got to be to get banned from a subredd? From a subredd. About a blog. She then joined a Discord server about that same blog and began trying to get revenge on the users she had arguments with in the past on the subredet. Oh my goodness. She created multiple burner accounts to spam the subredit and to report other users to try and get them banned.

I don't know how all of this worked. I just use Reddit for a few sports subs, so I'm not too familiar with all of this. People on the subreddit started making fun of her for all of her trolling attempts, so she started doxing them. What the fuck? What the child or children. Get the fuck out of there. Just leave. Just drive. We're visiting my mother.

I don't know when we'll be back. I've seen the posts and messages. Full on doxing names, personal info. Messages that she'll send to their family or work. Oh my God. Long story short. She was doxed in retaliation, which somehow ended up with me doxed and the situation I'm in today. She's always been a normal girl, she's the love of my life and the mother of my child,

but she's an insane person on the internet. Looking at some of this shit and hearing her talk about it like it's completely normal, it's like I've never even met this person before. Please just help me figure out what I should be doing moving forward. I already printed out a lot of the posts and I'm with my daughter at my parents' house for the night. You guys don't. There's just, there. Just get out of there. Damn.

So, finding out that your wife is some kind of ultra poster. This is one of those things where where it thi thi thi thi thi, it thi, it's, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, it's, it's, it's, thi, thi, thi, th. th. th. th. th. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I's, I's, I's, I's, thi, I's thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. t ttttttttttttttt t t t tt ttttt ttttttttttttttttoday, This is one of those things where it's like, oh she's really normal and I'm she's never like this. I don't I don't believe you. No, that's definitely not true. You've just forgiven her for whatever horrible things she's doing to you in person. Yeah, for sure. You don't you don't just be this kind of person on the internet got to be warning signs, right? This is like the mask slipping. Like, this is who the person really is. It's definitely not the normal person they're pretending to be the rest of the time. Yeah, but wouldn't that also make you think, like, what sort of person are you really?

I had a, falling out with someone like maybe a year or two ago and this is only notable to me because this pretty much never happens. My friendships tend to be pretty relaxed and then at some point one of us moves to another city and then we don't see each other much anymore you know that's that's kind of it. And so it was very unusual to me to have a like a proper falling out with somebody. and then we don't see each other much anymore, you know? That's kind of it. And so it was very unusual to me to have a proper falling out with somebody. And it turns, like in the course of this falling out, they had basically said to me and my wife, ah, and you're a pair of like big leftist, communist, SJWs and all this kind of thing.

And it's all bullshit and blah blah blah. And the thing that was so stunning to me about this was, like, I've lived with this person, I've spent so much time with them, all this kind of thing. And it just, the entire time, it just had me going, did you just think this the whole whole the whole the whole years of friendship smiling happily and having nice conversations with me the whole time thinking, this fucking guy? This fucking guy, can't wait to docks him on Reddit.

Big time psycho energy, you know? So what do you do with this? What do you do with this? Do you ban your wife from the online? I think you need to really talk about this one and perhaps get your wife some therapy. I also need to know what this Reddit she was on was about... I gotta know. Why is it a subreddit for a blog?

Are we talking about something serious? Is it yeah true crime blog? Harry Potter fanfic? What are we got? You know? It sounds like it's something innocuous and she's just the kind of person that gets in fights about it. It's very worrying. You're also, she's 28, she's not like a young person. She's not like 20 years old, you know? This is insane behavior. She's got a kid. Stay at home mother. Maybe that's the problem.

Got nothing to do. Nothing to do. That's right. Me, I've never never. Parenting isn't a real job. I would never get into a fight on the internet. Me. No. The 28-year-old wife. That's. that. that. that. that. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. to. th. th. th. the th. th. the th. the the the th. the the th. th. th. th. the that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. the the the the the the the the to. the the the the to. the to. the the to. to. to. to. to. th. never will happen again on Twitter.com. I think there's a certain point for normal people. Maybe I'm wrong about this.

But I think it's a certain point where like in different online communities that I've been on a bit more than others at different points in my life. You know, I've had my little stretch of like a year or two on Reddit posting a lot, and then at some point being like, this sucks because all everybody wants to do is like debate each other about things, except that it's also always completely disingenuous. It's always, you know, nobody's actually looking to have in the mind changed. People are looking at win fights, you know? And I feel like any normal person, they do that for a while and then they go,

you know what? This doesn't really feel great as a way to spend my time. I'm probably just gonna either be a bit more chilled out about this and use it normally or stop. And apparently that is not the case for some people. Some people and like we've all known these people online, people who just seem to spend 1,000% of their time just actively agitating for a fight with any stranger they can find online all day and I'm just like, it's got to, it's got to hurt your heart, you know? It's gotta...

It does. It's definitely not good for you. It's not healthy for you. It's th, and th,? It's gotta... It's gotta... It's definitely not good for you. Gotta give you a little... It's not healthy for you. It's gotta put a little stinky brown skid mark on your salt. You know? Yeah. So don't do it.

Log off. As much as possible, as often as possible. Log off like we are. Like we are. So, as always th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, to do nowish. So as always folks, if you'd like to call in and leave a message or leave a question for us. Don't do it. Stop doing it. Stop it. Ben keeps leaving the voicemail number for a different podcast.

1,800 317-515 five the old bundivista hotline uh... you can get an extra episode of the show every week and support us by going over to patrion dot com forward slash buntavista five dollar a dues you know slapping down on the counter and you say mate not really give me my fucking bonus episode approximately seven dollar do's because it is in US dollars. That's true.

If you're an American listener, conversion rate. Five bucks cash only. Five dimes. Oh, five green, five green backs. How about that? Five Benjamin? No, it's definitely not a Benjamin. Five Lincoln's.

Is it Lincoln's? God. Was Washington on the one dollar? I don't. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. tho. tho. thi. thi. tho. tho. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. Give. Give. Give. to. Give. to. to. to. to. to. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to me me me me me me? Oh, God. Was it Washington on the one dollar? I don't know. Five Washington? Sure. You know? Don't you, are you not using currency over there or something? I use the currency?

Who knows who these old men are on the bills? You're in a barter system, I can tell. I could see a picture of a US president and it could be anyone. It could be anyone. It's some friggin old guy in a dumb wig. Oh dear. All right, well thanks for joining us everybody. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Yes, hello, Bolto Vista. This is Isarabatra. This is Cherokee City, the voice of the Australian people. And I must say, your general rhetoric on the subject of Australia's beloved Americans is not appreciated. We should all feel able to josth and harass each other in our various workplaces, be it, oh, aiciti architectural firm or a nationally syndicated broad-chief column, because the only these were mine, and therefore our greatest step-have and two laracets like myself, must receive a media palatation because of course

we will otherwise shrivel and die like a Jack ofander in the twilight hours of spring. So I'd advise you again, your rhetoric is not appreciated, and you should smother your long-term, structurally reinforced alienation for my immediate emotional well-being. Thank you very much, tough time.