Boonta Vista - EPISODE 37: Big Wiener Style

Episode Date: March 4, 2018

Andrew, Lucy and Ben are watching Michaelia Cash go down in the anals of history. We also discuss the recent Woolworths' pokies scandal and the logistics of draining a swamp. Support the show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista Don't forget to rate & subscribe on iTunes if that's your thing. _____________________________ Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista iTunes: tinyurl.com/y8d5aenm Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/s?fid=144888&refid=stpr Pocket Casts: pca.st/SPZB RSS: tinyurl.com/kq84ddb

Welcome to Vista Socialist Club. It is episode 37. I'm Andrew. I'm here with Ben. Hello Ben all the way up there in first place. How's a feel? It feels great. That's good. So I want you to feel. And right down at the bottom. Right down in the dirt. Right down in the muddy bitch. You know, I haven't actually been in the in first place for a while. It's just interesting to me. Well, look, Lucy is dead last this week because we just had to spend a lot of time trying to get her gaming rig where she does all of her professional racism to work for long enough for us to do the show. Yeah. Yeah. So why you've been relegated to just the... Fair enough. I will accept it. Yep, you've been relegated to the Theo spot. Uh, Theo is not with us. He's, he's doing a thing.

Do you know what he's doing, Ben? What's he doing? Uh, I believe he's doing some sort of soldering course, or at least some part of his degree that requires him to do something to do with soldering. Mm-hmm. It's very masculine for Theo. Yeah. Very masculine.

He is absolutely going to burn himself for the soldering iron and it's not even going to be turned on. I stepped on a turned on soldering iron in bare feet when I was a kid. Oh, don't do that. Why was it so turned on? Had it been watching pornography? Uh, on... That's the only thing that turns anyone on, isn't it, Lucy? Yeah, it's the only way to become aroused.

It is. It is. It is. to view pornography. Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that the class is just going to involve them being handed lengths of solder and then just having to bend them back and forth till they snap. And then it'll be like you did it. Oh, that seems safer, yeah.

Well, done, Theo. Yeah. Well, it's nice and safe. So, folks, it's been another one of these weeks of lots of eventful stuff happening in Australian politics. Now I should just pause that sense to say, not eventful in the sense of like improving anyone's life or, you know, any kind of policies or any of that sort of stuff. Just sheer political bullshit drama because of course, there's nothing going on at the moment in terms of

The government actually trying to run the country It's just it's sheer Pants-shitting panic on just about every level Every attempt to kind of calm things down just makes it a lot worse But before we get into that There's just a little a little clip that we thought would be worth playing.

And that is, of course, from a Nationals MP today, who blessed us with another beautiful turn of phrase when she was describing how Australia should of course, this is the standard Nationals line, Australia, what you've got to do is this is the standard nationals line, Australia what you got to do is really lean into the mining. If there's one thing we should be doing, it's digging up as much coal as possible, and sending it wherever for money, because that's apparently the only thing National's MP is interested in. But as part of her speech, she dropped a sweet little jam on us. Should we take a listen? If we do not exploit our natural advantages, we will fail as a nation and be relegated

to the anals of history as a nation that wasted a continent. Classic. Classic. Classic. Classic. That... You heard it, folks, relegated to the butt-haul of history. Incredible. She's right. Look, who among us hasn't only ever read a word and never had to say it out loud. Oh, I wonder if her like speech writer was just off to the side going. It's definitely, I think it's definitely the best one of that type of things since former

Prime Minister, disgraced former Prime Minister dropped his absolute classic. I may not be the suppository of all wisdom. Oh, that's a good one. That was, that was a really good one. And I feel like that was the last really classic, like genital or butt-hole related slip of the tongue for a politician. Um, so I, I really enjoyed this one, you know, I was very into it. There was like, so the camera angle that that video comes from, that, that, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was, that was, that was, that was a really, that was a really really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was, that was, that was, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, that was a really, there was like, so the camera angle that that video comes from, there's only

someone on like the Nationals, like a backbencher or whatever, in the distance behind her. I was really hoping that his eyes were just going to go wide and terror or something at the moment, but he doesn't appear to react because he's a apparently very humorous man. Hmm. Hmm. So shout out to Nationals MP, Michelle Landry, for what I'm sure is pretty much going to be your only noteworthy contribution to discourse in your time in the government. So moving on to other people who are not having a great time at the moment. We have of course, Michaelia Cash?

We'll say it with a big question mark. I think so. She was the minister for women. And she got pulled from that one for just being really, really shit at her job in general. I think so. So, Ben, take us through, if you will, a little bit of the history leading up to her current predicament, which I believe started off last year with some raids. You're absolutely right. If you cast your mind back to the year 2017 in the month of October, the

Australian Federal Police conducted an aid, fucking Jesus, conducted a raid on the Melbourne and Sydney officers of the Australian Workers Union and a few people at the time were somewhat perturbed at the fact that there were already camera crews from like 7 and 9, setting up outside before the police the police the fact that they were already camera crews from like seven and nine setting up outside before the police arrived. I'm not you know a a police expert I just think generally raids work better if the people don't have time to hide stuff. If they're more of a surprise, you know?

Yes, but of course, this raid wasn't about finding anything. It was about entrenching the idea that unions are corrupt. So, say you're a minister or ministers that's in the anti-union Conservative Party in Australia, and you want to perpetuate that idea. And for some reason you know a raid is happening on those unions. It would be really beneficial to you if all the news crews saw it.

So you give them a tip off. You tell them that's going to happen and that is what happened. Somebody from within the Office of Michaelia Cash told, well, no one knows quite how many people they told or even how they were told. But there were quite a few, obviously there were news crews there, and as Alice Workman from BuzzFeed News reported, at least two journalists came to them and said that they had been told. In the wake of that, someone was let go from Michaela Cash's office, although...

I don't think someone was let go from Michaela Cash's office. It... I would say somebody was thrown under the bus slash somebody fell on their sword basically to shield Michaela Cash from further scrutiny because yeah the timeline was that she was being questioned about this by in the Senate and she had spent the entire day saying I don't know anything about this and then they broke that like the dinner break and she came back and said, oh, my most senior chief of staff has just informed me that he made the media aware of this stuff and I have accepted his resignation

so everyone can stop asking questions now. I don't even know if they were that explicit about it. I don't think they said this is why we let him go. I think they just said we let go someone from the staff. And obviously it was clearly them just throwing someone under a bus. I had very much... I know it was it was the specific dude because remember how he disappeared for a while? Like the police wanted to interview him and they just couldn't find him for weeks and weeks until he eventually turned up again? Well that was quite strange. It's a whole thing. I don't think they ever actually said we let him go because he told the police. I don't remember them, I mean, told those journalists.

They've just been super vague with their language ever since it happened. And we've we've spoke about, well, we spoke about this on the podcast when it happened, about how there was a bit of a furoiour around this, because a bunch of establishment journals believed that this was Alice Workman betraying her sources, even though she didn't name the dude. And she was just speaking on what you'd been told from other journalists and also there was this weird contention that this was basically the same as exposing a whistleblower even though the person who was quote whistleblowing unquote was doing it in the further service of the government you know like

so it was all pretty ridiculous. Oh there were there were of of a lot of questions and a lot of suspicion about the idea that, you know, like you were saying, it is a government that has made absolutely no secret about it, I would go so far as to say virulent loathing of unions. They pretty much try to scapegoat unions for anything to do with any kind of employment or unemployment issues or workplace relations type issues or anything like that. There's been a whole bunch of essentially show trials over the last couple of years about this sort

of stuff which haven't really turned up anything significant or satisfactory for them. And in fact that raid was about... years about this sort of stuff, which haven't really turned up anything significant or satisfactory for them. And in fact, that raid was about that very thing. What they claimed that they were doing the raid for, that they were looking for was a document that they wanted the union to turn over to them. And it turned out after doing the raid and getting all the media there to film it and having the front pages for that, you know, for the next day be, you know, union raided by police to have the nice, very clear implication of, you know, unions doing dodgy stuff and being

guilty of crimes. And it turned out that the documents that they were looking for were already on the public record because they had been like voluntarily out that the documents that they were looking for were already on the public record because they had been voluntarily given over by the Union during the Royal Commission into, you know, union activities, union crookedness. So yeah, like, I think there were a lot of questions that people raised about not just the legitimacy of the raids in that sense, in that it was very clearly for nothing other than staging an anti-union photo op. But also it kind of made people go so like why were the police doing this?

Did the government ask the police to do this? Now it's worth noting at this point that the government did create the the Registered Organizations Commission? Is that what the ROC stands for again? Yeah and so they created this body which was supposed to be you know like an impartial body to to sort of administer, yeah the registered Organizations, the Independent Regulator of Unions and Employer Associations. So essentially it's a body that, the Registered Organizations Commission, the Independent Regulator of Unions and Employer Associations. So essentially, it's a body that a conservative government set up to be able to allow them to try to police unions, but also attempt to sort of give themselves this shield of separation from it.

And essentially what it really looked like to people is that the government had asked the ROC to ask the police to do a rate on the AWU. So there's been another recent revelation which has kind of aided in that assessment which is that again Aliceman, who I believe we can all agree is a bloody ledge, absolute ledge. So yeah, yesterday a journalist came to BuzzFeed confidentially and told them that their TV newsroom had been tipped off by someone who was from Justice Minister Michael Keenan's office an hour before the raids. So that starts to kind of draw a much clearer line between essentially the police being directed to carry out this raid by the government and then a bunch of people from ministerial officers,

back-grounding journalists to get them to the rate. It's super dodgy. There haven't really been any satisfactory explanations around it. It was definitely, it was definitely another one of the recent issues, like the whole Barnaby Joyce debacle that we've covered in detail lately, it was another one of these issues where it's been a really bad look on, like, from both sides of the fence. I remember thinking at the time while all of the stuff was happening around those raids

that I didn't really see, like conservative people online saying yeah awesome stuff there were more sort of saying what's going on here like it really looks like Turnbull has directed this to happen so that he can smear his political opponents and that's probably not a great way to use the police. Yeah I don't think anyone thinks that that's a good good use of the police. Yeah well I think you know once th, th, th, th, th, once, once, once, once, th, th, th, tho, tho, tho, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the thi, 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 tho, tho, tho, tho, tho-s, thoooooooooooooooo. thooooooooooooo. their their their their their their th police. Yeah, I don't think anyone thinks that that's a good use of the police. Yeah, well I think, you know, once you've even managed to piss off like, you know, conservatives, once you've also managed to piss off, like, pro-union and pro-police people with the same move, again. Oh yeah. You fucked up.

Probably fucked up. So all of this leads us on to the events of the last couple of days. So so continue Ben. Yeah, so because Senate estimates started this week, which for our international listeners and people who don't care about the boring stuff and politics is these, a couple of separate these, a couple, separate times a year for a few weeks, senators are formed in committees where they grill public servants about how money is being spent in the country. I mean, it's ostensibly it's to see how the budget is doing in theory. But in practice, it's to see how the budget is doing in theory

but in practice it's mainly anything people want to get to the bottom of in the government they do it at sending estimates. It's it's infinitely it's infinitely spicier than question time. Oh a hundred percent mainly because while there is a chair there they're not as empowered as the speaker and the rules are slightly less strict, so people say the craziest shit to each other. They also do it over the course of like 16 hour days, so people be there at like 11 o'clock at night having been there all day and they're just screaming at each other. So it's a lot of fun. Which is great, because that's when people have their, like, you can't handle the truth moments, you know?

It's all been going on too long. Truly wonderful. After Lucy and I got shunted off SPS comedy because the government shut it down, we had now former Senator Scott Ludlum going to bat for us in Senate estimates and grill, head of the SBS over. Thank you, Scott. Why we were shut down and if he could get any, he tried to get a list of all the complaints

that were ever made from ministerial officers but the government refused to give it up. But that was, it's very nice for him. It's a good boy. Kisses to Scott. M-Kisses to Scott Lodd them. M-a- Mo'm. Kisses to Scott. Yeah, so estimate started and this was going to be one of the big spicy things to come up and McCally Cash got grilled and in the course of Labour Senator Doug Cameron asking questions about the four staff that left Cash's office

in the 120-something days since the raid took place. She snapped and started to threaten to out people for some sort of unspoken misconduct in Bill Shorten's office. So the most important pull quote from this was where she said, if you want to start discussing staff matters, be very, very careful, because I'm happy to sit here and name every young woman in Mr. Shorten's office over which rumors in this place abound, if you want to go down that path to day,

I will do it. And this plays very much into what you've been saying, Andrew. Because Julie Bishop did a similar thing during the Joyce affair, where she got asked about Joyce and she said, oh, well, I can name people who have been doing other things, which just sort of shows that they don't care about the act itself or think that it's bad. They're just trying to smear dirt. Yeah, there's no actual baseline standard. It is essentially, but have other people been doing things just as bad as us.

It's, um, I guess like, to me, it's, it's as though people sort of took the logic that used to be bandied about, around like, um, political donations, taking donations from lobbyists, that used to be bandied about around like political donations, taking donations from lobbyists, that kind of stuff, where everybody's logic used to basically be, oh well, you know, the other side's taking these donations and if we don't, then we'll be less resource than them by comparison and we still want to win win so we kind of we kind of got to do it to be in the game you know it's not it's not bad thing if the other side's doing it or like we can't be criticized if everyone's

doing it that kind of thing it's like people have taken that logic and just extended it to absolutely every shitty part of Australia's political system at the moment and And yeah, I mean, like I said at the time, I was watching that footage of people going into a dinner at the Prime Minister's house and yep Julie Bishop's comment when asked about it was people in glass houses, she said, before snidly turning and and walking in and another MP who was coming in put it much more explicitly by saying, oh well if that's the road they want to go down you know we can start digging dirt too we can start you know putting stuff in there. Although I did

see a piece from I think I was looking at the the Guardian's live blog of the day's events in which Catherine Murphy from the Guardian was commenting on it and saying that she she is just the the the the the they they they they they they they 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 they they they they they they they they they they they they they want they want they want they want they they want they want they want they they they they they they they they they they they they they they want they they they want they want 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 the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th is is the the th is the the the the the the th is the the the the is the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the of the day's events in which Catherine Murphy from the Guardian was commenting on it and saying that she she is just genuinely completely stunned by what seems to be the government's willingness to essentially say ah well if people are going to say stuff about us then we are just gonna throw mud at absolutely everyone and see what sticks. Not not because like she thinks they're better people going to say stuff about us, then we are just going to throw mud at absolutely everyone and see what sticks. Not because she thinks they're better people than that or anything, purely as a political tactic because as she was saying, the problem is that when you say, all right, we're

going to open the Pandora's box of hurling accusations at other people, digging into their dirty secrets, youarthing all their dirty secrets. You don't get to choose when that gets closed again. You don't then get to turn around and define what's off limits for your own party. You're basically just saying it's absolutely all in. And I feel like it's kind of safe to say that if you look back over the last 10 years of Australia's political history, the party that has thi thi thi thi th has thi thuuu th has thoe tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho the the the the the the the the theateat the. the. You're theat the the the to the the to to to to to to to the. You're the. You're th. You th. You th. You th. You th. You th. You th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thean thean to thean to thean thean to to thean to thean thean to thean the the the to to say that if you look back over the last 10 years of Australia's political history, the party that has more often than not been caught in absolutely shameless graft, you know, exploitation of political donations, the, what's the thing I'm thinking of expenses, all the expenses, scandals and stuff has pretty much been the liberalsthing I'm thinking of expenses, all the expenses scandals and stuff has pretty much been the liberals through and through.

Yep. Yeah, all their pork barreling stuff. Almost as if they're bad people. Almost as though they're shitty people, devoid of any form of moral or ethic bounds. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this week has certainly not done anything to change my opinion on that matter. Particularly regarding, yeah, Michaeli Cash's behavior on this whole thing in general,

which, yeah, like I said, it just doesn't seem to matter what it is with this government. As soon general which yeah like I said it just doesn't seem to matter what it is with this government as soon as anything is mentioned they immediately make it about labor and go into full-on attack mode and I don't think I would be the first person to say that it's probably because they have absolutely fucking nothing else to talk about they have no political agenda to speak of they have no like policies to advance beyond just cutting money from things or that kind of shit. So you know I guess I guess all you can do is get into just fights. Fights, fights, fights. I think they should fight. I think I should

physically fight. Oh now this brings me to a point. This brings me to a point. Which is very much like the Barnaby Joyce thing, the reaction to Michaela Cash's comments here have been just, just everybody is roundly dumping on her. People from all sides of politics are all just saying, wow, what an extremely shit look. And I called a little snippet of Peter Credlin, who is former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's former Chief of Staff. She, of course, was the one who got him elected by helping him employ a 100% attack dog super negative election campaign and then helped him employ a 100% negative attack dog political agenda once in office and helped him get thrown out of his own, get thrown out of the prime ministership by his own party less than halfway through his term.

So of course Sky News thoughts of themselves now there is a genius political mind let's put her on a tv show uh... and she also has the personality to go with it folks uh... her face essentially does not move while she's talking and her tone of voice never changes fantastic stuff, great viewing. Wow, you're right. Yep, totally worth paying for a subscription to Sky News.

Anyway, she had her show and had a friend of the show, Shari Markson, editor of the awful Gutta Rag Daily Telegraph on, and they were both absolutely panning Michaelia Cash using a lot of phrases like, disgusting, you know, embarrassing, all this kind of stuff saying it's absolutely inexcusable for her to turn around and in an attempt to attack a political opponent just completely shit all over all of the young women trying to make it in politics. So I wanted to ask you Lucy as the shows... You being a good ally? As the show's what? I wanted to ask you as the show's only gamer.

The show's token gamer. How do you feel about Michaelia's abuse of women and is she doing it right? As in do I think she could be more abusive to women? Yeah, yeah, how's her, how's her trolling? I mean she could have finished it with like a really long bitch? But you know, she did her best. That's, uh, look, it's pretty shitty. It's a pretty shitty way to behave if you're a woman in politics, but I don't know. I think it's just fucking stupid.

The whole thing's stupid. Everyone has had sex with their staffers. It's just, it's just the way I picture it going down in Parliament House. That place would be a black light over Parliament House, I think it would not be pretty. Look like a Jackson Pollock up in here. Fucking blue poles in there, exactly. A Jack-off Pollock.

Hmm. A Jack-off pole sack. Um, anyway. No, Jackson-Pollock. Oh, is that his name? Yeah, you're just saying it. I thought you were actually going to respect me as a woman just then and ask for like a woman's opinion. Be nice, nice to be treated like a lady on here some days. A woman's perspective? Yes. Hmm. We don't see gender. Oh, okay. No, sorry. let me, okay, let me go back and try that again. Lucy, as the show's only female host, do you think that Michaelia Cash was on her period when she made these comments? Oh, Jesus Christ.

Yes, I do Andrew. As a woman, I can solidly say that she was on the rag. Yeah, we can tell. Oh, jeez. It do be like that. It do be like that. It do in fact be like that. Oh, my goodness.

I'm kind of interested, though, because my first reading of this, like when I saw the. Oh my goodness. I'm kind of interested though because my my first reading of this like when I saw the thing Cash said I didn't pass it as a slur against the women. I thought it was a slur against Shorten. Yeah I thought she was saying that Shorten was a horn dog. Yeah, he's fucking all the women. Well, she also mentioned Tony Windsor, no, sorry, not Tony Windsor, Tony Burke, who I'm not sure if there was somebody in the past with him having an affair with someone or whatever, like personally I don't really give a fuck. It's, it's just like we were saying with the Barnaby Joyce stuff, like, if you're having an affair

with someone like, whatever, it's no one's business, it's not a great move or whatever if you're into moralizing about that sort of stuff, who knows, the ins and outs of somebody's fucking personal life, whatever. I don't really give a shit. If you're abusing, like, taxpayer money to facilitate that relationship, or having, you know, you're, you're, you, you, you, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're a, you're, you're a the, you're a the, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're the, you're, you're, you're abusing like taxpayer money to facilitate that relationship or having, you know, $200,000 a year roles created just to shuffle someone into them just to get yourself out of the hot water you got yourself into, that shit and that deserves to be talked about. And if you are having a relationship with someone at work who is your subordinate, it obviously creates big conflicts of interest and wouldn't be allowed at any other remotely professional workplace in Australia. So it's just, it's fucking reasonable when that stuff

comes up to say, it's not cool. But like, but also as far as I know, there is no evidence of those other things that were they're talking about, those other people. Essentially all Michaela Cash was saying was, ah, well, I'll just rattle off every rumor I've ever heard, which is literally nothing other than saying, ah, well, you know, I'll, I'll just throw some mud, I'll just, I'll just throw some mud. I'll just do some dirt file shit. It's still just the complete misunderstanding of what the issue is with Barnaby Joyce.

Like, nobody cares about the sex part and it's still just focusing on that. Yeah, and like... As though they can be like, oh, well, labor's done it too. And, and look, I mean, like, realistically speaking, of course it would make sense for, like, parliament and the Senate and stuff to be an environment that is sort of like rife for people having affairs and everything, because the majority of people there would be spending most of their time working there away from their families for whatever chunk of the year. Of course that is the kind of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of thiiiiiii 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. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. they thi. thi. they thi. thi. thi. thi. thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. thiiii. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. working there away from their families for whatever chunk of the year. Of course that is the kind of environment that is going to make people lonely and do stupid

shit and all that sort of stuff. All the regular sort of environments that seem to produce that kind of thing. But like you're saying, that's not really the issue. The issue is purely that it really seemed like, well, I mean, the issue was essentially that she was saying that just to distract from being asked about who had replaced the staffer of hers who tipped off the police. That was what she got asked about, the ball at all on. It was a very bold miscalculation.

I'm sure you can just see the wheels, like ticking over and a head, just being like, aha, if I tap into the zeitgeist, this will get them, and then just have every single person just be like, you fucking dumb shit. You're like, whoa! Yes, it was right up there on, everybody loved it on Twitter when Penny Wong, who happened to be strolling past to this hearing at this very moment, I assume, heard this, came in and said, ah, it's pretty shit. If, you know, unless you're willing to actually back that up in any way, shape or form, you should probably, you should, you know, you should, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's to be, it was, it was to be, it was to be, it was to be, it was to be, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was it was it was, it was it was it was it was it was, it was it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's to be, it's to be, to be, to be, it's to be, to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be, it was right to be, it was right, it was right, it was to be, it was, it and said, Ah, it's pretty shit. If, you know, unless you're willing to actually back that up in any way, shape or form, you should probably apologize to the people whose reputations you are impugning.

And Michaela Cash then gave an extremely qualified non-apology. And, you know, boomer, labor, Twitter, then went crazy with Yasqueening, oh Penny Wong forced her to apologize. And the apology of course was her just her saying, if anyone has been offended by my remarks, I withdraw them, which is, yes. Which is essentially just a way to say, number one, what I said wasn't wrong, number two, I technically withdraw them from the record so that I can't be forced to back them up or do anything about it. Yeah, with facts. And of course, as plenty of people pointed out, Michaela Cash was also the Minister for Women

for several years. She was, she was indeed. Yep, so she seems to have a really great attitude towards, you know, women working around Parliament, that sort of thing. Although as Ben said, it's obviously directed at Bill Shorten and Tony Windsor. It was, it was a Bill Shorten own. You guys reckon he's a horn dog? Oh Billy?

Yeah. I don't know. He doesn't look that horny to me. He's uh... I reckon he's horny. It's even worse for me to picture than Joyce being horny. He's just so- He's just so he is. Yeah, I do not enjoy that mental image at all. I feel like he'd be like politely horny.

Oh no, he'd be he'd be a creep. He'd be like a, he'd be a capital N, capital G, nice guy. 100% I reckon. I thought I thought you meant like a super sex creep, like a, he's into the weird stuff kind of guy. Oh no, he's into very normal stuff, but it'll never happen for him. Okay, quick, quick question. Well, like we all know Malcolm Terbil 7 some boring sex, I assume that's fine. Oh, 100%. Out of a missionary lights off. Yeah, out of Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott, who are both, as far as I know,

good private school boys and all that kind of thing, Tony Abbott has his extreme Catholic psychosis. Who gets freakyer? There's definitely a self-flagellation element to Abbott's fucking. Yep. You reckon? He sees the albino guy from fucking Da Vinci Code to like beating the shit out of himself while he jerks off. He's like mad at himself.

Oh, because he's like mad at himself, like Christian guilt type thing. Oh yeah, he's into the shame. He's in pure thoughts. And also I would note that like, you know, Bill Shorten likes to go for a run and stuff, but he just, it looks like kind of regular, a regular level of fitness, so we would probably just do some normal, normal sex. Whereas Tony Abbott is insanely unnaturally fit. Yeah, I reckon he just like, he pounds it out. Oh, just for like an hour straight.

He does that real like, that real jackhammering. Just till the sun comes up. Anyway, I'm comfortable with that at all. I'm very sorry. I've been, I've been game streaming. I'm, forget where I am, forget the etiquette. So we'll come back to that in a second, but just to round out this particular instance, just for one final super good look for the day.

Michaela Cash was coming into a Senate estimates hearing this afternoon. And Parliament House's security guards, as she was coming hearing this afternoon, and Parliament House's security guards as she was coming down the hall, rolled a big white board out to block the view of reporters who were filming down the hallway to get footage of her coming in. There's a wonderful video of them rolling the white board out and then all of the cameraman audibly laughing. Well, it reminded me a minute. It was a that, the whole that, the whole tho' the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole thi thi thi thi thi thi thi tho' tho' tho-up tho-up tho-up tho-up tho-up wa' the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole tho-up wa' tho-up wa' the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole the whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole whole.. their. their their their thi. thi. thi. thi. that. that that thate. thate. It was thoooooooo' thoo-s. It was thate. It was their their their their the whiteboard out and then all of the cameraman audibly laughing. Well it reminded me immediately of that footage from a couple of weeks ago when Donald Trump was golfing at one of his golf courses yet again on the weekend and as everybody has been mocking him for relentlessly about spending like 70% of his presidency fucking golfing.

So there were some reporters outside across the road trying to get some shots of him golfing through the trees as they do, and a big white panel van pulled up and parked across the streets directly between them and where they were shooting. So they moved down a couple of meters and then the panel van just rolled forward like five meters and then they moved back to where they were and the panel van started backing up and it was very clear that somebody had had the super awesome scheme of I know. What if we subtly pull a giant truck out there and try to block them? they won't tho the the their their their their their their their their their their they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they th. tho tho their their their they their they 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 th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. teate. te. te. theate. the. theate. the. theate. the. the. th we subtly pull a giant truck out there and try to block them? They won't even know that we're doing it on purpose as we roll

forward and backwards by like five meters. And I immediately thought that somebody must have taken inspiration from that extremely Machiavellian move and thought, ah, what if we just, what if we very, very subtly roll a large whiteboard into the hall just as she's walking here. To make it even sweeter, the Channel 9 news cameras at some other juncture before that had managed to zoom in enough on her phone whilst she was texting someone to show the text conversation saying, hey, I would like to avoid the cameras. Yep which is of course what you always say when you haven't done anything wrong and you are

not currently embattled or getting slammed in the media. Yeah it's very normal to do. I need a side entrance I need a whiteboard. So we'll see if she hangs in there. We will see if she hangs in there. I think she should have gone, well she, like, she should have gone before all the AWRAID stuff. She should have been gone after she, you know, instituted an internship program that very shockingly turned out exactly like everybody said and was just a fucking lower than minimum wage employment farm

for small businesses. Lo and behold that was what everybody who went to do those path internships reported them as being. She's also got a really she's got a stupid name. She does? It's poorly spelled. It's a bad name, it's stupid. I think it's a name for idiots. Well, you're allowed to say that because you're a woman. I can't make fun of her name or her appearance. I certainly can't make fun of her hair. Definitely not. Be very inappropriate of me to make fun of her hair. Yeah, it would be bad for you to say that she has stupid hair.

I agree. It would be a bad look for me to describe it as looking like a big fiberglass mold of a space helmet stuck to her head. It would be unkind of me to describe it as being like Eric Banners Ray Martin wig that he used to wear in full frontal. And I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say it. I'm glad you wouldn't. I appreciate your allyship always. Thank you. Thank you.

So let's come back a few minutes. So Lucy, folks, Lucy's a Twitch streamer now. I am. Streaming on Twitch! What do you tell the people what that's all about? My stream is very bad because I don't have the NBN. Um, but I play games. And everyone in my chat, everyone in my chat because they're mostly people that listen to whether Jesus ejaculated on the cross and other

such topics. It's good time, really. I'm going to say no. Well, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

I just need to clarify. Do they mean like he ejaculated while he was up, thi. So I can't remember how this came up. I'm pretty thiaaa. thia. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. thi. to. to. to. to. to. thei. the. the. the. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. t. to. t to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. th. th. before it got on it. So I can't remember how this came up. I'm pretty sure I probably brought it up, but like, what if Jesus was like, he was just into a bit of pain, you know what I mean? He couldn't jack off, but he was just, he was just like really into what was happening. Well, that was the passion of the Christ, you know? That was the passion of the Christ. Nice I've 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. I th. I th. I th. I th. I've thus thus thus thus. I'm 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. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. theeeeeeeeeeea. toeea. theeeeeeea. theeeeeeeea. theea. thea. the. the passion of the Christ, nice. I haven't seen that movie, but I assume that's mostly what happens. Yeah. They're making a sequel. Why? The Passion of the Christ too? Christ Harder? Yeah. Too Christ, too furious? Apparently.

It's set in the brief period after he's resurrected and he appears to a bunch of people and then when he disappears. Mel Gibson's working on the moment he's got the guy that paid Jesus in the first one. He's back. The first one wasn't... Jim Cavazil, I believe. Yeah, that guy. I don't know I'm from anything else.

He was the bad guy in the Count of Monte Cristo movie from the 2000 starring Guy Pierce. No wait that was the bad guy and he was the good guy I take that way. Well it depends how you feel about. No I think it's pretty objective from the count of Christian. It was right in that movie. He was also in oh he was the bad warden in the recent Straight to DVD movie Escape Plan starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone on the small screen together for the very first time. Incredible. Vinny Jones is a mean guard at the prison which is most roles that he does now. Oh I do love Vinny Jones. Yeah.

I can't think of much else. I can't think of much else he was in the thin red line. How about that? Well I mean like 500 actors were in the thin red line and most of them were cut from the movie and very upset about it. Looking at you Adrian Brody. Yes I was just reading about that recently where apparently in the original, in the shooting of the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie the movie. Uh the movie. Uh th. Uh th. Uh th. Uh 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, uh, uh, uh, th, th, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. th. the. th. I, th. I, thi, the. thi. I thi, thi, apparently in the original, in the shooting of that film, Adrian Brody was basically the lead character. Most of the plot seemed to revolve around him. He was off in the jungle for months. He recorded all this footage. He did voiceovers, all the sort of stuff, and he turned up at the premiere and bought his family and then he was not in the movie. Oh so good and like in fairness there is not a main character in that movie. Yeah I need to re-watch that actually I haven't seen it of the theyreys I got it on Blu-ray sitting there it's a visual treat what's the name of the director director director director director director director director director director director director director director director director director director director ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter 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 the they. It's a the the the they. It's a they. It's a their. It's a their he's a their he's a their he's a their he's a their he's a their he's a their he's a their he's a 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 the the the the the the the th is is a th is a the the. the. theeeeeeee. theeeeeeee. theeeee. thee. It's a the. It's a the of the? Why can I... Terence Malik. He's wonderful. Thank you.

Tell you what, uh, official recommendation of the show, hoe into a Terence Malik movie if you've got four hours to spare and you don't need a plot. Just get it up here. Let's get a bit of Terence right up here. Mmm. Yeah. So, let's let's quickly, let's quickly whip through one other story and then that's probably all we're going to have time for on this one. There was an interesting tale that surfaced this week.

About, a tale. It's make it sound like it, something that someone brought up a medieval tavern. Yes, yes, someone is spinning a tail. Playing the loot. Fonce upon a time. Local supermarket giant Woolworths. So basically in Australia, if you're not from here, there are two chains of supermarkets that pretty much have a monopoly,

a dual stranglehold on the old supermarket market and that is Woolworths and Coles. But not your Coles. It's not the American Coles. I didn't know there wasn't. It's spelled different. Oh yeah, like K-O. Right, gotcha.

No, this is a different Coles. A whole other different coals. It's also a different Woolworths. Yes. They also have Woolworths. Hmm. So that company, which also owns Big W, W. The W's probably for Woolworths. What else would it be for, Ben?

What else would be for? So you've got to hedge your bets with it probably. Big Wieners. It could be for big wieners. Big wieners. That's a store. They don't want you to know that, but that's what it's called. Big, big weanus. I don't want to endorse a giant mega corporation or whatever. I just want to say that if I was going to go to like the one of the big cheap stores, I always go to Kmart over Big W or Target because Kmart, a whole number pricing across the board.

They don't do 465. They got whole numbers on everything. What have you? It's always four bucks. It's always three bucks. You know what? It's just, even if they're rounding up, I don't care. of it. I like it. Yeah. I'm a simple man. There you go folks. When Ben is shopping for a place that exploits Bangladeshi children, he makes sure to get his $5 dress shirt from

Kmart. Is Kmart the American Kmart? Yes. Okay. But it is the same logo. But I don't know. It's the same company. It's definitely slave labor though. We can we can all agree on that. Yes. Oh, 100%. Ben's favorite store, Super Amart. Oh God, I have one piece of furniture from Super Amart. It's just shit. Everything there fucking sucks. It's just the most depressing place in the world.

I hate going there. The whole experience, this is very dehumanizing. It stores a big empty and sad. All the furniture is just like MDF with a thin veneer of like fake timber. Oh, it's a timber veneer. That's what you call? No. What do you call it when it's that? Just a plastic layer that's a, timber laminate? It's all all. 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, it's all, oh, it, oh, it, it, oh, it's all, it's all, it's a they. It's a they. It's a they, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's a the whole, it's a the whole, it's a the whole, it's a the whole, it, it's a they. It's a they. It, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's a they. It's a they. It's a they. It's a they. It's a they. It's a their, their, they. It's a they. It's a their, the whole, their, their, their, their, it's timber lany. It's all very rickety. It's slightly more expensive than if you bought it from like IKEA or whatever and it just looks like shit. Fuck to Super Amart. I'm declaring a fatwa on Super Amart. Today's show bought to you by Super Amart. Go into Super Amart and use the discount code, Buntavart. Go into Super Amart and kick the manager square in the balls.

Today's, well, all right, there's two things for you folks. Today's Crime Pass, today's Buntivista Crime Pass. You can visit your local Super Amart and kick the manager of the store directly in the testicles. I would like to pause for a moment and say, nice assumption on Ben's part that the only 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 the the the manager the the the the the the thage thage testicles. I would like to pause for a moment and say, nice assumption on Ben's part that the only manager of the store can be a man. Okay, well nice assumption on your part that only men have balls. So, actually, fuck. I'm saying strictly managers that have balls, I don't care what gender they are. You got him. Fuck. In fact, don't, don't ask. Just kick the manager of your nearest... I don't even care how far you drive.

Any superabart. Kick him in the forks, fucking just drive a foot right up there to the point that it cartoonishly lifts them off the ground. Fucking destroy them and then tell them that they should feel bad for working there. Even if they don't have a choice because their shit sucks. And they suck. And they're they're they're they're their uniforms. T their uniforms. T their uniforms. T their uniforms. Ture. T, their their their is their their stuff. Ture. T, their their they don't have a choice because their shit sucks. And they suck, their uniforms look like garbage, they should feel ashamed. Kick him in the groin right between however many legs that they have. Because not everybody has two legs.

You're trying to imply that I'm being able-list? No, I was just trying to make up for my slip before. I can't believe he got me, the. Yeah well. Unwokest of the week. You know I've not been inside a super A-mart for like four years and I don't know where this is coming from but this is a picture I feel very strongly. I think you should see a therapist man. You're gonna put you under hypnosis and like draw out of being in an Amart all sports and getting beaten up by jocks. It's just gonna be a memory that you have repressed of like, um, just letting up early middle-aged manager jack you off in a back room for a $10 discount on that piece of furniture that you fucking loathe. Every time you look at it, it fills you with a sick feeling.

Is that accurate? I wasn't bored with that story until you th. th. thi th. thiii 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 that's that's it fills you with a sick feeling. Is that accurate? I wasn't on board of that story until you said the loathing thing. I was like, that's not a negative memory for me. If I get a discount on anything, regardless of who's jacking off who, I'm very happy with that exchange. But you're right. It's just a horrible color. I wanted something black. I end up having to to to to get the to get 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 the the the tha. I'm, tha. I'm, thoomgathea. I'm thatheaughn. I'm thoomgatheaqqqqqq. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm thoom. I'm thoing. I'm thoing. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm the. I'm thea. I'm thea. I'm theat. I'm theat. theateat. theat. theat. theat. theat. theat. And because it's MDF, I got some, I'm sorry, it's not an MDF, it's chipboard.

I got some water on it at some point and then, you know, the laminates come right off because the chip board expanded. Is this the thing that your TV slash computer sits on? Oh no, it's like a, it's where all my books are, Yeah. Should have stuck with IKEA, pal. So there you have folks, a quick whirlwind tour of Australia's different supermarket type. No, well, not supermarkets. None of the things we've described so far are supermarkets. All right, but we started at supermarkets. We started with Woolworths and Coles. Everything else is basically just like a homewares and bullshit store.

Anyway, so the point is that not only do they own all the supermarkets, they also own some other things. Everything. All of the hardware stores, all of the chemists, like 90% of Australia's bars and bottle shops are owned between either Woolworths or Coles. There's all the BWS's and I believe BWS stands for Big Woolworth store. I believe it does, yeah. Actually stands for Big Wiener style. So part of the reason this works out super well for them is because large, I can't remember the specific alcohol license.

This might actually just be in Queensland, but if you've got like a large venue license, you also kind of get a free license to have a bottle shop within something like a five kilometer radius or whatever. So they generally own, if there's a BWS somewhere, they also own the pub that's around the corner or whatever, and they're slowly doing like in the Edgurite movie, Bloody End the Edgar Wright movie Bloody End of the World? World's End? Whatever the fuck that was called? It was the end of the world. Yeah, where they're homogenizing all the pubs, that's what they're doing. Yeah, so they own something like 400 pubs and clubs and stuff. And a bunch of these have pokeys in them, poker machines. For international listeners, Australia has a problem with

having... Serious problem. Having slot machines in like, you know, bars and and football clubs and that kind of thing. RSLs which are like retired. We're just introducing, we're getting to like this leverage team thing of one more concept that requires another explanation. Yeah I know. I just want to like I want to stress that it's very much not like other countries like in the UK they might have like one or two pokey machines in the pub. But we have like rooms full of like a hundred of them. Yeah and it's and it's not like in the states where you get you know a whole bunch of pokeys at a casino in Vegas or wherever the fuck they're just they're just kind of in a lot of places where it feels like

they shouldn't necessarily be. So yeah, they are a thing that really are a bit of a scourge in Australia. And so this story came out, some brave whistleblower has come forward and said, whistleblowers, actually it was two people. Several blowers of the whistles. Several tutors on the whistles of justice that good yeah that's beautiful actually thank you are you a poet yeah like these people have come out and said basically that that they had been part of their work in these venues had been to monitor the people playing on the poker machines, compiled databases of personal information about them,

down to things like what football teams they liked, what drinks they liked, what their names were, all this sort of stuff, so that the staff who worked at these places could chat them up, give them lots of free drinks, keep them happy. The directives from management were essentially, I'll read a quote here from, so somebody's somebody's released some of the actual like briefing sheets from these pubs. They provided the names or identifying traits of each of the actual like briefing sheets from these pubs. They provided the names or identifying traits of each of the regulars, one of whom is identified by her first...

I forgot about this. This is Lucy's favorite part of this story. In a document entitled to Gaming Daily Briefing Sheet. Staff at one part of pub are provided the names are identifying traits of each of the regulars, one of whom is identified by her first name with the note, quote, little A'sin lady spelled ASIN. So bad. It's fucking awful. There are also notes made recording the time some regulars enter. A note in red at the top of the page says, and this is all in capitals. I won't shout it but I'd like you to imagine thin that it that it th th th th th the to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the to to the the to the the to 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. the note, the note, the note, the note, the note, their their their their their their their their. their. the note. the note. the note. the note. the note. I'm the note. I'm the the. I. I'm the the. I. I. I'm the the. I'm tod, today. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. tod, today, try. today, today, today, their. their. their. their. the thetime some regulars enter. A note in red at the top of the page says, and this is all in capitals, I won't shout it, but I'd like you to imagine that it's all in capitals. We have a massive weekly target,

1.36 to beat, we need to beat, we need to be out on the floor, really pushing drinks. It's tax time so people will have to the the their. out drink cards, be out there as much as possible, do whatever you have to do to keep people in the room. Which is, I think we can all admit. Super fucked up. I mean... That's insane.

I mean, it's just so fundamentally dehumanizing as well. It's just so fundamentally dehumanizing as well, like other than just playing in, like, thoo the and just playing to people, their to drink, thi............ thi, thi, thi, thin, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thin, thi, thi, thin, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thin. thi, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I thi. thi. thi. And, I I I I I thi. And, I I I I I, I, I, I, I I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.... And, I. And, I. And, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I'm thin. thin. thin. th. th. th th th th th thin. th thin. th th thin. th th th th th th th thin. th think that these people, these regulars are coming in right, being like, oh, that's lovely, they know my name, they give me drinks from time to time. This is a really nice little friendship that I've built up with this person and the truth is these people are cynically exploiting their warm feelings towards them to get them to bankrupt them to bankrupt their....... So bankrupt their. So Australia has more poker machines per person than any country in the world. Yeah, we fucked up. We love them.

It has nearly 200,000 machines, one for every 114 people. Hmm. No good. Yes, the Pokey lobby here is relatively powerful and there's a bunch of like fucking crazy exemptions that pokey rooms get that regular bars and bar areas did not in terms of opening hours and stuff I'm pretty sure that bars with poker machine rooms got exceptions for the licensing in Sydney with the lockout laws or some form of them.

I know that they definitely do in Queensland that rooms are able to stay open later just just because they're gambling rooms which seems kind of insane. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to give a big Wunta V, fuck you, to Woolworths. Yeah. If anything else... Anticles. Well, you show me, you show me their poker machine. No, my broader point was going to be that surely this just goes to prove the point that at the end of the day there is no such thing as good corporate citizenship.

You know, all these sorts of companies will have, they'll have their charities that they do and they do their collecting the cards for donations for school supplies and that kind of shit. All that stuff is, it's PR at the end of the day. They've obviously made a calculation that it is worth, it's worth investing the money in that thing for the impact that it has on their reputation as a corporate citizen, which they can leverage into a more positive view of their brand, while in the background they're doing this kind of stuff to just absolutely fuck people as

hard as they can. I mean, like, that part of that sheet absolutely killed me where it was saying, like, it's tax time, people will have more money where there's, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're they're, they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're th.a, th. th. thate. thate. thatea, tha' tha' thatea' thaugh, that, that, that, they're they're time, people will have more money where they're, you know, they're saying people, people will have just got their tax refunds. They'll actually have a bit of spare money in the bank for once. Make sure you squeeze every last drop of that shit out of them. Just the nakedness of the intention to exploit people with a gambling problem is it's stunning it's quite jarring. As a as so this was all these two people came forward to independent MP Andrew Wilkie who's quite vocally anti-pokies and I mean as he noted you know this sort of pressure comes from the top down. It's not like this as individuals acting evilly.

This is companies forcing this shit on them. He said a thing to the press, either today or yesterday. I mean, we shouldn't blame the staff at these venues because I'm told they understand, because they well understand the practice is deeply unethical. Indeed, the staff hate that that th th th th th th th th th hate that they're being forced by Woolworths to spy on people and use personal information to increase gambling even though it was creating new pokey's addicts. Yeah, and, you know, obviously, as those people said, who came forward, it was essentially a situation of, well, you can do that stuff or you can not have a job. So we're, you know, we're not necessarily blaming the individuals. And another thing that is worth thaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuust a tha tha thiiii 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. their is their is their is tho. tho. tho. their is their is their is their their is their is their is their is thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. I thi. I thi. I the. I the. I theeateateateateateateateateateat. I theateateat. I theateat're not necessarily blaming the individuals

and i don't think that is worth noting just quickly uh... there is a fast approaching state election in tas mania uh... a little pubicare shaped island down the bottom of the country uh... and so they they are having an election and quite bravely the uh... Party there, who is currently in opposition, has pledged to just ban poker machines in these types of venues if they get elected. You know, they got enough problems there with their economy and poverty and unemployment rates and all that sort of stuff. They can clearly see that, you know, poker machines on the whole

just do much more damage to people in society than they're doing anybody any good. And they said, you know what, here's an idea, what if we just junk all those fucking things? Which personally, like I think it's, I think that's an extremely brave policy. Good on them for doing it. There's also an obvious implication there that they won't be taking any money from the gambling lobby for this position. In fact, the opposite has happened and apparently the liberal party has been absolutely flooded with donations and money from Australia's gambling lobby.

Tasmania has some of the most lax political donation laws in the country. So none of the donations, they can all come from different states. They don't have to be donations made from companies in Tasmania. They can come from anywhere in the country. And they don't have to be disclosed who they got the donations from or how much they were for like up to 19 months after an election. Apparently the gambling lobby down there has been just absolutely flooding the airwaves and billboards and TV and everything with anti-labor pro-liberal campaigns.

Putting up big billboards that say, Labor and the Greens think you're stupid. What's next? Don't you let them tell you what to do? Which is a great rebuttal. It's so patronizing a fucking test. They have so much contempt for the people they want to vote for them. It is just so disgusting. It's the bi. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the bill. It's to the bill. It's to the bill. It's to to to to to to to to the bill the bill bill bill bill the bill the bill the bill the bill the bill the bill the bill the bill bill bill the bill bill bill bill bill bill bill the bill bill bill bill bill bill bill bill the bill the bill. the bill. the bill. the bill. It's the bill. It's the bill. It's the bill. It's the bill. It's the bill. They have so much contempt for the people they want to vote for them. It is just so disgusting.

Yeah, so of course, if you are in Tasmania, shout out to our Tasmania listeners. Yeah, get out there and vote for, vote for labor. Get those fucking pockermissings ripped out. Do whatever you can. I can only hope that that that state being absolutely- vote for labor, get those fucking poker machines ripped out. Do whatever you can. I can only hope that that state being absolutely bombarded with that sort of shit has the effect that that sometimes has, which is for people to cop so much of that message that they can really clearly see that someone is panicking and trying to force something on them through sheer numbers, you know? just thr-toe that that the that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that icking and trying to force something on them through sheer

numbers, you know, just through sheer expenditure. And every now and then people, people, you know, they see that, they see the mind-numbing amount of money being spent on a political thing, but they can see through the lives and they can get it together and do the right thing, like vote for Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. That's not a good example. No, that's a great example. And the swamp has been drained. Has it? Has it? Finally. Finally. Let's not go any deeper on that one. Let's not. If anything, I mean, is it ultimately beneficial to no longer have swamps? Like, I feel like it would really disrupt the whole ecosystem. I mean, I feel like we need

the swamps. Like, I like, you get tortoises in them sometimes. Here's what I would do. I like those. Turtles probably actually not. Personally, I would drain the swamps, but just to see what's under the bog. And I would take out all the swamp things, all the swamp things, all that kind of stuff. I'd leave... So by swamp things, you mean the multiple incarnations of swamp thing? Alan Moore's swamp thing?

But all the different ones, the different ones from comic books, the one from the movie. Oh, with Ray Wise. What a film! So, so assuming that that's what we don't want, the swamp, I'd get those guys out of there. And I'd leave like all the crabs and the frogs and the turtles and stuff alone. And then I would just... Wait, hang on. I bet it might sound like I'm fixating on the swamp thing here. Are you saying that we need to remove swamp thing? Are you saying thin? He's the... What the fucks you're a problem? What do you be going to get swam things? I'm saying this from the perspective of the person who is a Republican candidate

demanding that the swamp be drained. And you could hardly, you could hardly say that the Republicans are the friends of the environment, could you? You could hardly say that the head of there. Let's be realistic. I just, I simply cannot comment on the relationship between Swamp Thing and the EPA. And that seems as good a place as any to leave it today, folks. Remember, if you're into it. If you would like some extra hours of all of this talk and jazz every week, you can find us over on Patreon.com

forward slash Buntavista, and you can subscribe for an extra episode every week, every goddamn week. We've even been talking about some some extra kinds of content, So we'll keep you all up to date on that soon. Thank you to the kind souls who have been giving us reviews on iTunes because you finally outbalanced the two people who said, this is very left wing. And also, this is not left wing enough. And you've brought us back up to a perfect rating of five stars. So we would like to thank you but also keep doing the five-star ratings.

It's good for my ego for a start and that's what counts. Anything else? Anything else guys? Anything else Lucy? No, no, I think that's it. Nothing. Oh, uh, just for international listeners, Barnaby Joyce got sacked. That's what the end of the story was. Yep, those weeks and weeks of stuff, he finally stepped down. But in the fine Australian tradition, he, his salary just goes down a bit,

and he still has a fucking job and a very large pension forever. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, what when I say that he's sacked, he's very much still in government. He's just no longer the deputy leader or deputy prime minister of the country. We've got another guy who wrote a series of extremely wildly homophobic things when he was the editor of a newspaper. So everything is looking great. Looking good for Australia. See you next week, folks.

Bye. Bye. the