Life Uncut - Coincidence Or Corruption? Uncut with Punter’s Politics

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Today, we’re joined by Konrad Benjamin, the voice behind Punter’s Politics. Punter's Politics is on a mission to cut through the political spin and convince everyday Aussies (or punters) that politics actually matters. Konrad is the guy with the blonde mullet known for calling out corporate power, and using satire to make us understand and give a shit about what’s going on in the world of politics. Today we wanted to speak about political issues affecting young people, independent vs legacy media, housing and of course, gas.  We chat: Konrad’s career switch from being a teacher to being a content creator Some of the less obvious ways that the government can be in bed with corporations The controversy around Aussie gas that is being given away for free How the media can skew your perception of political things Coincidence or corruption? Why Konrad doesn’t think you should cheer for a political team like you do for a sports team Why politics shouldn’t actually be complicated You can find more from the Punter’s Politics website  Punter’s Politics instagram  Punter's Politics Podcast You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Hosted by Britt Hockley & Keeshia Pettit  Produced by Keeshia Pettit Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford Recorded on Cammeraygal Land Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! XxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Keisha. And today we have, I don't want to say a left field guest, it's maybe a little bit of a left field guest. A few months ago, I vibed on the podcast, an Instagram page, and a person, And their name was Punter's Politics. Now, believe it or not, Punter's Politics has a real name, Conrad Benjamin. And I don't want this to offend you, Conrad, but I didn't actually know your name.

I just, in my head, refer to you as Punter's Politics all the time. I was like, oh, have you seen Punter's Politics? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, you have a name. It's Conrad Benjamin. And the reason I vibed Punter's Politics a couple of months ago was because I just came across it the same way many people do. It's quite a big influential page.

There's a YouTube. there's a podcast, but Conrad teaches politics in a way that is so palatable and interesting. I think there are a lot of people who, especially younger people, who want to know about politics but don't necessarily have the interest in politics. Now, I think that that is a big difference. I personally want to know who I'm voting for and why. I want to know about the policies, but I'm not overly interested in politics as something that I'd ever want to go and study. I do it just because I know it's going to affect my future. Now, the difference with Pundit's politics is he does it in a way that is full of satire. He calls out the bullshit,

but he teaches you what you want to know, but hold your attention. And I think that that is why he's cutting through. He calls bullshit on the corporate power. And I found myself watching his videos from start to finish, which was the difference with every other bit of political information that I have ever consumed. It wasn't somebody just speaking at me. It wasn't jargon. I didn't understand. I think that comes down to the fact that he's young and he was a school teacher. I just think he found his niche. That is why we wanted to talk to him today about some of the issues that are affecting everyone, the whole nation, but younger people in particular, and some of the things that are driving up our prices in Australia. We want to talk about gas

in particular. Now, I don't want to lose your interest. I do not want to lose your interest in gas because it is actually very, very interesting what is happening here in our own country Conrad welcome to the podcast wow thanks for the very kind introduction it's okay if you don't know my name most of a punter on the train as I was catching it here from Newey he just puts his hand in his shoulder like g'day punter and then he kept walking and I was like it's fine it's weird when people do say oi Conrad because then I'm like oh that person must listen to the podcast or something they're like beyond the Instagram but yeah I feel so warmed hearing that intro and that you fellow punters are also like not into politics because I don't believe

you should be into politics. I actually love politics and I've been engaged in politics for a long time, but this more recent kind of revelation, I guess over the past, probably two years, I once heard, and I want to talk to you about this today, that we should all be swing voters. It should actually be more about policy than about kind of like this tribalism style of politics. And that really changed a lot for me because it was when I realized that I tended to lean a certain way in terms of ideology and values. But a lot of the time, I actually didn't know what the various policies were and why we were being affected in different ways. And frankly, I'm going to have to ask you to explain the gas industry for dummies because I have next to no

clue. The only idea that I have about that is because I did research for this particular interview. So I feel really on the outer of stuff like that. And I think that that's how a lot of people feel about politics. They're just like, that's a bit too complex. There's all this jargon. There's all these people talking about things that I don't understand. And I feel really out of the fold. But before we get into any of that, we would love to know your accidentally unfiltered, your most embarrassing story. And as someone who has a beautiful mullet, who is a bit of a pun to themselves. A mullet should have been embarrassing. I live every day with a mullet. That is your embarrassing stories, my hair.

i'm gonna trim that and just text that to my wife beautiful mullet i came home with this haircut because i was like maybe this is my last round of the mullet you know it's just a haircut for the punters did you have it for your wedding god no oh no even i wouldn't know no wife's letting that happen definitely not i came home and she couldn't look at me and it took it takes a few days so anyway i'll clip that beautiful mullet i'll take it that's his tagline for the real food Yeah, yeah. I have a story that my wife wishes I wouldn't tell, but I think it's the best one I got.

So my wife and I were traveling for a few years around the world a little bit and we're in Turkey and it was washing day and we went, oh, let's while we wait for it to like wash, we'll go out to this beautiful restaurant or whatever. We'll go to a nice place, you know. We're on tightening the purse strings. You treat yourself. We treat yourselves and we're like we're in Cappadocia

with all the balloons and stuff. And we're like, all right, let's go to a nice restaurant. And like low tables, cushions everywhere. And we're like, yeah, we'll sit outside at the front. It's a beautiful view. Anyway, I'm sitting this thing there, meals come and we're eating and this bloke walks past with his wife and, and he just kind of looks at me and then he double takes and then he just starts going off at me.

I don't know what he's saying. In Turkish. In Turkish. I don't know what he's saying, but he's saying something and I'm like, well, like what, like what's going on? And you know, food's just come and we're sitting there. And then this other bloke looks at me and says, he's upset that you've expose yourself and I'm like what were you sitting there naked I know and I look down

and my left nut has dropped out because it's washing day dropped out of what my shorts you had no clean underwear and it's a low table so I'm kind of sitting cross-legged and it was just flapped out and it was just dropped out and it was so warm that there's no cool breeze to kind to remind me. You either have giant nuts or very short shorts. I don't know which one it is. Short shorts and sitting quite low. That is so funny.

And I managed to get through the story, which is good. This is good for my wife. I haven't mentioned the words ball sack. So she said, don't say the words ball sack. This is a safe space for ball sack. My testicle had escaped.

My gentleman's vegetable. I love that was only the left one though yeah just one well it's like on the you know straddle either side so how quickly did you rectify it and did you apologize well the guy had gone and so I quickly slipped him back in his home well that's the thing because you sit on the ground you sit on the ground there so you have to be cross-legged and this was a few years ago so short shorts were in I was wearing quite hot pants shorts when board shorts were a little bit above the knee they're back below the knee now. You know what you're, you were actually really lucky because

I think that they'll put you in prison there for indecent exposure. That's not a joke. I think a girl went to prison recently for dancing on a flagpole. Yeah. So if you're rolling around with your nut out. Anyway, thank God you're here. Yeah, I made it. Look, you are pretty big in the content world now, but it wasn't always the case. You are pretty new to it. You were a teacher beforehand. Talk to us a little bit about that part of your life and what made you end up leaving to take this different career? Because all of a sudden just doing a YouTube and an Instagram and be like, hey, my career is going to be now online talking about politics is very different from being a teacher. And did you ever have short shorts with your ball exposed as a teacher?

Well, no, you'd be in prison. I would be in prison. So yeah, hopefully no ex-students are listening to this. Yeah, I was a teacher probably five or six years and I just got into it. My dad's principal and you kind of go into the world you see and you get used to like eight weeks, nine weeks off a year holiday. Went into the corporate world for a little bit and went, I can't do this. I need slightly more time off. My wife was a teacher at the time as well. We were both teachers. And so I taught for a little bit, but I think it's such a restricted down the line environment where there's so many rules, obviously for everything. You can't get your balls out yeah so many rules so many rules but they I guess you like they tell you what to teach

right there's a curriculum so I guess yeah yeah and I mean it takes a toll a little bit I enjoyed it enough it was it definitely was an interesting job there's some upside of like teaching students connecting like engaging and and what were you teaching I was teaching just a mix of a whole bunch of stuff so I taught a bit of like civics and citizenship economics like grade 10 was pretty You go to a bit of PE because if you can't do teach, if you can't teach, you teach PE. So I taught a bit of PE. Because PE teachers are listening right now. But I liked economics.

I really liked that because I think that explains the whole political landscape. And as I taught more economics, just basic stuff to kids, I was like, oh, this explains a lot. And I think the moment where I kind of began to transition into doing what I'm doing now is teaching a class of year 10 students. and just teachers, you don't have time to prep. You just wing it. That's what you do. I was pretty good at winging it. And so I'd open the textbook. All right, do an assignment. What's it going to be? Let's find out. In the textbook, there was a table with sustainable economic goals and ranking Australia based on how well we're doing in clean air, clean water, women in the workforce, corruption, you name it. We rank it. In that moment, I'm like, oh, politics is pretty easy.

We literally have a report card and it's out there for everyone to know. So I was like, all right, kids, this is 2017, it's 2020, give us the last five years, pick a metric, rank it, write a report card for the government, we'll send our letters off to the government. The kids' assignments came back, and I kid you not, on every single metric that they chose, transparency, corruption, clean water, environment, deforestation, women, whatever it is, we went backwards.

And they were like giving D grades, F grade, being like, you went backwards on this, that. From 2017 to 2020, did you say? Yeah, last five years. So some did from 2012 to 2020, some did 2015 to 2020. Just a five-year period. Just a five-year period. I was like, whatever you can get the data for.

And I'd help them sort of find that data because it's out there. It's, it's listed on heaps of websites. And that one kid puts up his hands like, sir, do they know this? Does the government know that we are going backwards on everything and not just slipping like catatonic on some rankings. And that was the moment where I went home and I was like, I'm going to send a letter to my local MP. And I was just saying, what do you want me to tell them?

Here's your results. What would you like me to say? Would you really like me to be honest with these kids and say, it's because you know that this is happening, but you're working for large corporations and this makes them money. Especially because you're, hey, I'm an employee of you. I'm an employee of the government and I'm trying to teach these kids how bad you are pretty much i'm teaching civics and citizenship and economics in a subject and

i'm trying to teach them the importance of democracy and all these sorts of things and how governments and we can improve and i didn't get a good response back did they respond it was like one of these copy paste sort of oh yes like we are making progress in like they clearly didn't engage with it i'm like no no do you want me to tell them that you're bought out that you're sold out that you don't work for us is that what because that's what explains this it explains this when you go how are we subsidizing companies that lose money deforesting koala habitat they lose money we pay them to make wood chips out of old growth forests and stuff like that what explains that because we're not making money for it because then you can say at least we make money

for it it explains it because they have corrupted the political process where politicians are beholden to them and not us so were you having these discoveries at the same time as you were teaching like were you learning alongside the kids and that was what you are your own kind of inspiration I guess in a way but like that's how I say it I inspire myself did you I guess had you had that interest at that level and that depth before this particular assignment where all of these kids had brought and you got to lay it all out in front of you you know you've had 30 kids that have gone back five years you're like oh my god actually this is a huge problem that you might not have, maybe subconsciously realized it was the issue, but like, was that, would you say that

that assignment was a really defining moment for you where you're like, wow, I need to go and do more? That was the moment where I realized I had to go do more, but I was probably six months to a year ahead of discovering this going, okay, I've got to teach some levels of civic engagement, which is politics on the very basic level. And when you have to simplify it to year 10 students, you realize, and this was my realization with the kids, politics is simple. When politicians stand up there and tell you, oh, it's complicated. You know, we've got sovereign risk. Oh, we can't do all this. It's on purpose. They want it to be boring, complex, make you zone out. And so when we check out, when we punters go, oh, it's too boring. And I get it. Trust me. I get it. That's

when the corporations sidle in, send in their lobbyists and get the politician to rig the rules for them. And that means that they leave us holding the bag. We pay more taxes. We pay for the environmental damage they cause. So the deforestation and the water pollution that has increased on those rankings, who pays for that? We do. Our taxes, when we have to pay for that environmental spill or whatever they've done, whatever the company did, the asbestos in the whatever that's recently come out, who pays to clean that up? We do. And these corporations essentially tune in when we check out. You speak about a lot of the ways that you know, they're kind of in bed together. And I know that it would be hard to give examples of

that aren't potentially risking defamation or... Oh no, I name names. Yeah, you can. But being the producer of this podcast, I'm going to be slightly more careful. What are some of kind of the overarching ways that these big corporations are in bed with the government? It's three things. It's not as simple as just money. So the easiest line is, well, they buy them out. And they do until you look at the numbers and you go, well, Our politicians are cheaper than a house in Newcastle. You can buy off a political party for the grand sum of 60 grand. I just raised $75,000 to employ a lobbyist and 75 grand to put billboards up around Australia.

I can raise 60 grand, but I guarantee it won't change anything. And I can give it to these political parties, but it won't change anything because it's not just money. It's money, media, and mates. They're the three pillars. And one's a little carrot. The money is just like, hey, here's a bit of money and we'll buy you off that way. And then like money, we're going to give it to you as a political donation.

You can use it however you wish. Correct. They just donate out of the goodness of their heart and expect nothing in return. So then bad business decision. Wink wink. Like everyone instinctually knows that money has strings and yet politicians stand up there every single day and say, yeah, it's just, they just like me and they just want to support the cause.

They love democracy. Yeah. Yeah. They love democracy. So that's the little carrot they give. And the other perverse incentive that they have is the revolving door. So staffers and politicians, I don't think anyone really wants to be a politician. If you're a career politician, what you really want to be is a lobbyist.

And how you become a really good lobbyist is become a politician. Make all your friends, make all these mates in Parliament House, like Mark McGowan, Chris Pine, Scotty Morrison, now a weapons lobbyist, right? he set up the Orcas submarine deal, became a weapons lobbyist. So you become a politician to make 500K a year or whatever lobbying. Can you explain just for those playing along at home, including myself, what's a lobbyist? So a lobbyist is someone who is going to the government saying, Hey, I think you should do this. Hey, you know, it'd be really great. You should give us half your gas for free. Kind of like a consultant within the family.

Yeah. So you can work for a company and your full-time job will be to wander around parliament house and just talk to politicians and say, you know, it would really help us if you changed this law, rigged this rule, put in this loophole. There's a, I was just trying to Google. I couldn't remember. There's a brilliant movie based on a lobbyist, a female lobbyist that is like the most prime example of what they do. And it's such a great movie.

It's based on a real story. It's called Miss Sloan, you know, with Jessica Chastain. I think you've vibed this before. It's so good. Have you not seen it? Oh, you need to watch it. She's, it's a, it's a real story. She's a gun lobbyist in America, but it's a brilliant, anyway, for anyone that is interested

in it, it's amazing. Yeah. So that's Mates, the lobbyist. I will put that on my to watch list. And then the last one is a massive stick. And this is the thing that actually controls everything. This is what they'll whack you with, the corporations, if the politician doesn't do what they ask you to do.

And that's media. They own the media, the corporate media. They both own the media, billionaires. Kerry Stokes, one billionaire, owns Channel 7. Rupert Murdoch, we all know him, owns the rest of the media. The world's media. So they own it. Another TV show.

Yeah, Succession, the documentary. And then also corporate media gets its money from corporate sponsorship. So there's certain incentives to not report on something. So the thing that, maybe this is a segue to gas, the thing that blew up my platform was talking about how Australia gives half of its gas away for free to foreign corporations, that don't even show that most of them don't pay tax. That outraged me. I was like, how do people not know? This is, this is insane. Like we own the gas. It's my gas. It's your gas. If it's in the ground in Australia, it's all of our thing. And the government needs to go get money for it

for us if they want to sell it. And I was like, how do people not know this? And that's when I made my first Instagram reel, which was about how Qatar made 70 billion from their gas. And we made two billion. So I think let's like, now that we're at the gas, cause that we're going to get into that later, but we're here. Can you just set that up? Just pretend that people listening now have zero idea what you're talking about. They know nothing about gas. They know nothing about who buys it, where it goes, what we're selling it for. You can check this by me. If I look lost, that's an indication. Yeah. Well, I mean, good on you guys for wanting to talk about gas, but I do think that this whole thing built my platform. Aussies actually care about this

because we know ingrained deep in our soul that we are loaded as citizens because we have every mineral under the sun. We know that we should be rich, but I don't feel rich. I'm not getting a dividend from the government. I don't get free university education. I don't have a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund like Norway does. We don't have that because all our resources, we either sell them at a really piss-weak royalty.

Now, a royalty is just them paying us for our coal, gas, or whatever it is. So corporations say, geez, Australia, that's a lot of gas you've got there. I sure would like to sell it and make a butt ton of cash. And we, as Australian, with our government, as our negotiator, say, all right, give us X amount. That's called a royalty. We get in Newcastle, we get a 9% royalty on the coal. They're paying us to get the coal, then they sell the coal.

I think that's a joke. I think 9% is too low, but I'll even let that slide because we have a butt ton of gas and we're giving half of it away for free. We don't get any royalty on it. So anyone can buy our coal. And generally in order to buy our coal, you have to dig it, get it, pull it out. And pay for it. And pay for it. And the royalty is kind of low because we want to be like, okay, we want to like make it easy for people to get. There is a number where people would stop digging it and for some people that's a good thing maybe we should move away from coal but there's also a

number where it's probably too low and they're just making it we're just suckers giving this stuff away for free so with gas it's you know we use it a lot for energy mainly and they have to like drill into the ground frack it do a lot of environmental damage get it then they process it and then they sell that so it's a foreign company most of these cartels are foreign companies so So INPEX is one, but they're Japanese owned. Some of the Japanese government even owns INPEX. They actually get a lot of their gas for free. So they drill it, do the environmental damage, take it, process it, sell it to other countries

in Asia, making money on our gas, but they didn't pay us for the gas. But how is that possible? What agreement has our government set up or what do they have over us? Because the first thing you think of is, well, they've obviously got something for us. Otherwise, why would we give away our precious minerals for free? So here's how it happened in Australia. It comes back to media and mates. Those are the two pillars of how did this happen?

We should be the wealthiest country in the world. Qatari citizens don't pay tax. I pay tax. You pay tax. We pay a lot of tax. Guess who doesn't pay tax? INPEX, the Japanese-owned cartel that got the gas for free. Santos, another gas cartel, doesn't pay tax.

We pay tax. They don't. but it comes to how did this happen? How did we allow this? Because who pays for the environmental damage when it's finished? And we go, hey, this turns out there's lakes poisoning people. We better try and fix that. We're the ones left on the line for that, ultimately, if the cleanup doesn't happen as well. But how this one happened was every resource minister, the politician in charge of our resources and making the rules. So governments make the rules to say, yes, you can get it. No, you can't. Every resource minister, bar one, I think since like the 1990s

has gone to work for the mining and gas cartels. So what that you say that it's, I guess, allegedly a bribe or it's saying, Hey, like do this deal with us now. And then we're going to look after you personally in a couple of years. Well, coincidence or corruption. I'm meant to legally say it's a coincidence. It's a coincidence that the person who made the rule called the PRRT petroleum resource rent tax. We don't need to go into that. That's where they're trying to make it confusing. The person who made that rule is now a gas lobbyist.

Well, coincidences are less coincidences when there's a pattern. And boy, oh boy, is there a pattern. So like the premier of WA, he just went to go work for three mining cartels. Mining is huge in WA. And when you're the premier or you're the resource minister, you're the person that made the rules for these companies. And if the government made the rules to benefit us, their profits would be a 10th of what they're making, but we would be all be rich.

Australian citizens would be rich. But since they made the rule that benefited them, I guess, oh, turns out we just got a sweet, cushy job. Pays probably half a million a year. I don't know what they're getting paid, but they're getting paid a lot. Well, most other countries, and I saw you speaking about Alaska in particular, just earlier, Alaska gives their citizens back dividends from every sale of their minerals. Oh, I don't know if it's particularly just gas, but it's oil.

but we as Australians, correct me if I'm wrong, receive nothing from any mineral that we sell. No, we do get royalties for different minerals. So different minerals have a different royalty. So the critical rare earth minerals that Albo just did a deal with for Trump, I think that royalty, the payment for the staff is like two to 3%. Yeah. Coal in Newcastle is 9%. Coal in Queensland, they've just done a better deal. Their government did a good thing and they upped the royalty. So they get more money than New South Wales does for their coal. gas is a whole other thing turns out it's something different so they have another rule which is results in half the gas being given away free gas drilled offshore in the ocean

pays the prrt which turns out hasn't collected a cent of royalty to date and we've given billions i mean billions out so how does this happen media and mates resource staffers ministers they all go to work for these companies. And then the media, Kerry Stokes owns a gas mine. He's an investor in a gas mine. Now will Kerry Stokes put me on channel seven to say, Oi, he got an exemption for some reason, got some special rule written for him so that he can sell his onshore gas at a lesser rate overseas or whatever it is. You want me to believe that it's just a coincidence that you're own a media company with a massive stick to say to the government, If you don't do what we say, we're going to run millions of dollars of ads.

And that's what happened to like Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd back in the day. They floated a mining tax. I think they passed a mining tax and the mining cartels through millions, hundreds of millions of dollars just propagating to destroy the government. So this government, Albo, he's too afraid. He's afraid of Rupert Murdoch. He's like, oh no, like, and every prime minister is. Kind of a good reason, you know.

Because he wants to win. Totally. but he also wants to keep the people who are underneath him in a job. And, like, I think sometimes when we talk about these things and we talk about the way that the media can actually skew your perception of something, we often assume that the people doing it, you know, you think that they're just evil. But really they're just trying to protect their own,

and I'm not saying this as a, like – Yeah, but their own should be the citizens. But my point is not, oh, they're actually trying to do the right thing. I'm saying that as humans we want to protect our first circle, you know, our closest circle first, and then the people that extend from that. They're no different. But it's just, it's such a problem when the levers they're able to pull are able to impact

so many different people and they're still protecting that inner circle first. I think what you're pulling out is, and what I'm always trying to point out, I'm never wanting to say what some people say. And I see in the comments, they're evil. They're a joke. They just want to hurt us. And that's what they think we're done. Politicians think we're stupid.

And they say, you know, you listen to them propagandize and say, the Labor Party just wants to destroy the working family. No, they don't. yeah, I'm going to get up in the morning and say, how can I destroy the working family? No, but there are a set of incentives that are in front of them where the easy choice for our prime minister, no matter who it is, is if I piss off this massive industry, I might not win the next election. And I just want power. That's my game. All politicians want is power. And if I don't piss them off, they'll give me a hundred grand. I'll take the hundred grand and maybe a

job and I won't do the hard thing that risks my job. So it's a set of incentives that I'm just trying to say, I don't, I don't hate any politician, but I don't trust the politician because of the incentives. And when the politician goes to work in the industry, they made the rules for, I call it corruption. They call it business as usual. They call it politics. Regular punters want it to stop. So that's kind of why I do what I do is to essentially say to punters, focus on this and everything else will fix itself. And this is what I hate. You've actually just completely outlined it for me. It's not the individual. It's the fact that the incentives are able to be there. We should have rules where they are not able to be incentivized to pull a lever that could impact so many people. Because the human condition, it's natural to protect yourself and protect your own first and worry about, oh, I could lose my job or the people underneath me could lose my job if I do this certain thing, which is actually correct. It's better for the country if I do this thing. I hate the fact that we have allowed ourselves to get to a place,

and I mean we're seeing this just to the utmost extent right now in America where there are able to be so many incentives to corrupt people in power. But an incentive and a rule are different things. There are rules against having incentives. There are rules against payments and bribery. They're there. They clearly don't work.

Because an incentive doesn't rely on a rule. An incentive is just something personally that's like I know if I do it, it'll allow me to get there. But we have rules against it. doesn't mean that they're ever going to stop. You still know that they're there. There's still going to be a carrot that's dangling in front of you. And I think that that's the issue is how do you get around having the incentive? And I don't know if that is possible until somebody grows a set of balls. You'll always be playing whack-a-mole against the loopholes. They're

loophole hunting. That's the game. But when we see these obvious corruption of interest, the obvious incentives where we go, wow, if I was a politician, I could do the hard thing, a thankless, hard task, maybe lose, or do the easy thing that everyone's done before me and just get the sweetest weapons lobbyist job, Scott Morrison, ever. Allegedly. Allegedly. No, no, he does. He does, yeah.

He does. I'm not even here. That's what he does. It's not allegedly. He does work for like Dine Maritime is the company that, anyway, I won't go into that. And I can do what everyone else has done and I can earn double what I was earning as a prime minister. we can look at that and go we can clearly stop that we can make a rule to stop it and politicians

will come to me in the back and they'll treat us like idiots and they'll treat me like i get the what i get when i meet some politicians or the political nerds out there they're like oh it's complicated like it's really hard like it's not as simple as you're saying and i think my whole platform pushes against that it is bloody simple there are obvious things that we can see are broken. And it's not hard to say, if you're a politician, how about you don't go work in a job, go be a teacher, go be a brickie, go bloody work at a coffee shop, do something else if you finish, because they'll say, oh, what will our politicians do? If you're that useless and you can't get a job after politics, then I question why you're in it. We can easily say, stop it, don't do it.

We can pass rules that at least get rid of some of the big incentives and then deal with the next challenge that you're talking about yeah they'll find another loophole and when we do we'll pass another rule another thing that affects so many of us around our age and even younger than us as well that they seem to have a personal incentive has to do with housing and i know that you speak about this all the time and again it seems so obvious to all of us that the people who are in power are able to make rules that directly benefit them but housing is a particular way that they do do it yeah well they own like some some politicians own seven houses so like there is peter dutton well his stuff was in a blind trust his stuff was in a trust so i always on my podcast when

a politician comes on and i can look up what they own what assets they have and i'm always like oh three houses good for you must be nice excellent and when peter dutton obviously he wouldn't come on the pod but i looked him up he's like i'm screwed but he's not because it was in a trust And the crazy thing about this register of interests is that I've asked many politicians, what happens if you breach the code? Like you don't declare something, like you've got shares in. I'm telling you, there's one thing I came across. One politician, Barnaby Joyce's son, who was five years old, bought shares in a mining

company before it got a contract, coincidentally, from the Pentagon and the Australian government. But that's inside of trading. Apparently it's totally fine and legal. That five-year-old should be in prison. i mean it's inside trading so i don't know how you can i mean i'm telling you around it yeah all this stuff is perfectly fine and legal like that's the this these are the rules and i'm saying obviously change the rules and yeah politicians like housing is the big one like what what's the incentive what's the personal incentive when you've got three investment properties to pass

rules that will curb your house price growth. How have you gone about, I guess, putting yourself in the room? How have you gone about having conversations with people who are actually able to make some sort of change in this area? Like politicians? Yeah. It's interesting. Some politicians will engage with me. Others will be championing what I'm for, the policies I'm wanting. The problem with politicians is they're so good at pretending to care like when you talk to them the problem with politicians is they're really nice people and they're really personable and you get chatting i was at the midwinter's ball with all the politicians just swindled myself a

ticket i was at a table with bridget mckenzie who's like pretty on the right side of politics very conservative nationals she would disagree with everything i'm saying she's totally for giving away gas for free she has no peep about that we're getting along like a house on fire No, we're just having a good old chat. Because you have to be extremely charismatic and have the gift of the gab to be a successful politician. Yeah, and they are. And so they're so good at being like, oh, like I hear you.

Oh, I hear you. Like, it's so true. It's something we're looking at. I'd won Chris Bowen, like top dog poly for energy on the pod, and I'm like, I'm going to hit him with the gas. Hey, Chris Bowen, why are we giving our gas away for free? You end up going for a beer. You're like, see you, mate.

Love you. Love you. You end up going and working for him. Are we? Yeah. Yeah. and he just gives this like fandangled excuse

oh we're doing more than the previous government they give their talking points part of their job if you're a major party politician is to just political maneuver their way out of

tricky situations where they can maintain the status quo I'm here with noisy punters like hey stop giving gas away for free they're like yeah no we hear you

like we get it totally like we're trying yeah if you're a politician playbook one deny pretend it doesn't exist oh it's not a problem

it's totally fine next playbook is say you're going to do something about it do nothing and that's what they're really good at and that's why all the stuff i talk about comes back to policy over party don't vote for one person just religiously vote for policy and change the incentives make them and this is benefit of having such a large platform i'm showing how popular these policies are so politicians if they do want to step out on a limb and go oh is it popular to go against my big donors well maybe it is and they can maybe do the hard thing knowing there's more there's more incentive

over here knowing that it's a popular policy oh that's something that we mentioned at the start it's a reason that i really liked your content and something that keisha and i do personally we've discussed it but why you say that everybody should be a swing voter so just talk to it a little bit more explain what you mean when you say we should be a swing voter because i feel like that's what we have always done that's what i will always do well i actually put my hand up and say I've only ever voted in one direction. I've been very open about what direction that is and it wouldn't take anyone long to figure it out.

She's pro-Trump. I knew it. It was the MAGA hat. Got to get rid of that red hat. But like a really big part of me actually is starting to understand that I think I was a little bit skewed by certain media in the, you know, particularly in my younger years where I thought one party was evil

and they were corrupt and I'm actually starting to realize that in some ways they're equally as bad as each other and you know it might only be the rise of particular independents that are able to shift the needle i'm not sure but why is it so important that we don't focus on well i've always voted this way and therefore that's or maybe my parents vote this way and that's why i vote for this particular party why is it more important to actually focus on what they're doing well i don't think you should cheer for a political party like you cheer for a sporting team. It doesn't matter which players come and go.

You're just like, well, up the Lions. Like, let's go. I'm always focused on we agree more than we disagree. And that's my starting point. It doesn't matter which side of politics you are on. Nine out of 10 Aussie punters don't want to be giving their gas away for free. The only ones that are anti that are the ones on LinkedIn who work and they're like, oh, punters politics sucks.

I'm like, cheers, Mr. Exxon, because he works for Exxon. Anyway, they're the people. And so I've always said policy over party. Look at the policy and you can find, man, someone should probably put that on a t-shirt maybe. Oh, you've got to. This would have been a really good Superman moment where you just pull.

I should have busted my $5 op shop shirt. Open it up. There you go. Policy over party. There we go. Policy over party. Sorry about bumping the microphone there. Because I think, and I think our generation

and coming generations, we're so bred consumerists that we're just like, if that shop doesn't have what you want go somewhere else don't be loyal i'll say this until i meet these iphone people out there me he's looking at me when you text me this morning and it came up green you didn't cancel me i do judge people get back on the train and go home so at the risk of being excommunicated from this lovely chat i would say don't be that yeah so when I'm actually, to take a wild little tangent here, I'm actually an iPhone guy in my heart. I have a MacBook Pro.

They're the best laptop you can get, especially for video editing. The power is unprecedented. And I used to have an iPhone until they just never updated anything and nothing was new and you got the new phone, but it was the same. And I was like, I'm sick of this. I want a bigger display or I want, God forbid, I don't want to nerd out here, but I'm like, I want my phone to fold in half. Do you work for big Google or big Samsung?

Big Samsung. You watch where it goes and gets a job now. And this is my use of Samsung Galaxy Z Folds. His whole podcast is sponsored by Samsung. The metaphor does make sense. So what I'm trying to do in this iPhone analogy is say, I love Apple. I just think they can do better. I think they should have a phone that folds in half because I want one

and I think it's awesome. So I'll just go buy that. And, yes, I have less friends because of it. Everyone thinks I'm uncool. I'm lucky to get on podcasts like this because iPhone is cooler, it's nicer and better in some ways. Yes, but you're going to be happy to swing back to the iPhone once they release it. I will be the first in line when they release a better phone than the one I've got now.

Yes. Like I guarantee it. And that's what I think we're more attuned to in politics. I will vote for anybody, no matter who the party is, no matter what they do. If the party that stands up and says this revolving door of jobs for mates going in and out of politics to industry, I'm going to block that. I'll bloody vote for you because there's lots to care about in politics. I'm here to try and make it as simple as we bloody can

because I don't think you should have to pay attention to politics we employ what's called a politician that's their job they should be doing all the politicking and I can go surf that's what it should be but they've sold me out so now I've got to come in from the surf

and go pay attention check their homework make sure they are working for me and my pitch is if you can fix those loopholes then I can go back to not paying attention to politics because they're back to working for me and the best way to do that is to not vote,

not vote religiously without looking at how your politician votes and whether the thing you care about, they don't just say something about it, they do something about it. I feel like that's really powerful. I'm not really sure where to go from there. Well, that's the grab. I don't know if it's powerful or you've zoned out. No, I was trying to Google a stat to add in.

Because when I'm talking politics, it's this dance of like, no, no, no, too political. like just bring it back bring it back there all my friends their eyes just glazed i'm like no no you've gone too far no i was actually trying to google some of our australian tax statistics in relation to the rest of the world but i didn't get the answer i wanted so i'm not going to go there what impact do you think punters politics is having because you have grown pretty astronomically i'd say it's been i mean i remember when i started following you i think i had more followers than you. And now I'd love a shout out on your podcast because I'm joking, but it's been really great to

see because obviously the cut through that you've had with somebody like me, who is just the average punter you've had through with everybody. Have you seen an actual impact yet? And I guess what is the impact that you were hoping to have? I'm hoping to just take the Aussie punter that we're told Aussies aren't political, but the rise of my platform shows we are. Politics is just having a whinge with your mates about something that you want to change i think we say aussies aren't political i think because it's never been put onto a level that makes us want to consume it or makes us want to understand and it goes back to what you said earlier where it's always been made to be extremely boring and very multi-layered like an onion you need to peel it back very

complicated oh you'd never understand it we were brought up in a generation hands up where it was like you voted for who your parents voted for i remember the number of years in a row from the moment i turned 18 where on the day of the election i would go to my parents i'd say dad who am i voting for yeah what what boxes am i ticking yeah that's what i would say for years because i didn't have any comprehension or understand and understanding at all and i don't blame teachers but the crew no not teachers but the curriculum right just winging it these teachers don't even prepare material but we weren't taught it at school we also used to have the social etiquette that it was rude to ask people it was rude to ask yeah like you know their values and

that kind of thing i didn't feel that well our grandparents generation even to our parents generation it was genuinely considered to be a rude thing to ask someone just like how much you earn whereas now i'm like oh how much you're making yeah i feel as though there is a lot like there is a lot changing in our generation i think that we're probably the first generation to really start having these conversations and not make it awkward because i feel as though they only benefited from that they benefited from people not having conversations about where corruption might be or where media might be overstepping and and i guess it's alongside the rise of social media where people like yourself are able to have an opinion whereas previously

with legacy media with traditional media sources they weren't able to because you couldn't you know they've got all these deals they've got all these extra companies like it's all intertwined yeah that's it we just weren't educated because we didn't have accessibility we exactly what keisha you just said it was legacy media so you got the information that they wanted you to have and then that was it and now we have a bigger understanding of what is in our own backyard yeah and the way they frame it is deliberately boring oh look susan lee said this and so and so said who cares like it's so it's sport but it's boring and they i think it's a deliberate framing of the legacy media doing that because that checks us out so they'll kind of shame us for not being engaged

in politics. They'll kind of be like, oh, well, you should be an informed citizen and know who to vote for. We don't pay attention to the politics that we're told is politics because it's pointless. These infights that we're seeing, that's manufactured. They're pretending to disagree on something. And I'll put a thousand dollars of my own punter money that no, neither Labor nor Liberal, the two majors, will ever stop giving our gas away for free. I'll put money on that. How long is that contract? Do we know, like how long have we said for this current contract that we're going to be giving this gas away? Is it like up for renewal? So the excuses are always really complicated. So they will tell you, oh, sovereign risk. Oh, we've got contracts. You can't

change the rules in retrospect. Bullshit. We can do whatever the hell we want. If we're getting ripped off, it's called a government. It's called a democracy. If we all decide to stop it, we can pass a law, change the rule, they can stop it. And that's honestly as simple as politics is. And when we can engage on the politics that matters, I do think Aussies are actually political. I do think that when you're sitting at the barbecue and someone brings up house prices, that's politics. When someone brings up grocery prices, that's politics. Inflation. Inflation, politics. All of that is politics and it doesn't have to be this way. When I have an $80,000 a hex debt. Idiot. I have to pay off. My dad got two university degrees like I have, but for free.

Right? It doesn't have to be this way. And when we realize we can change the rules, politics is as simple as that. So what I'm trying to do on my platform is help people realize politics doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to put in too much effort. Once every three years, pop your head up, pick an issue you care about, make sure the politicians votes for that. and here are some tools to help you not fall for their BS because they're a BS factory. Their job currently when they're getting paid by corporations is to put up a smoke screen to confuse you

so that they can keep doing what they're doing for their corporate donors. And I'm trying to, what my goal is, is to cut through that BS so regular punters can see it for what it is, can see who to blame and what to do about it. I guess we know what you want to do for the average punter. It's just an education and an interest and get people to try and voice their opinion more to get change.

But what is the actual outcome? What do you want to see change with policies and with the government? And I guess having said that, do you think the answers are sometimes oversimplified? Do you think sometimes it's easy on Instagram to say, this is our gas problem, we're giving it away, let's just stop doing that. That seems like a very simplified answer. What do you think can actually be a tangible, feasible change? The short answer is anything we want.

And this is where we will be dismissed because I am offering simplistic solutions to simple problems and they will tell me it's more complicated than that. And that's just not my job. And that's not your job. That's not like, you've got actual jobs you have to do. You are not like people might say, oh, well, you know, what policy, how, how would you modify the PRRT to collect resources while still incentivizing incentive in long-term contracts from foreign investors. It's not my bloody job. There's a bunch of whole political

nerds out there that can take the premise of what we're essentially saying as a democratic population saying, Norway's got $2 trillion now, $3 trillion of wealth that they turned their oil into, that they are now the richest citizens in the world. Give me that. And that is a simple solution. Yes, getting there is complex, but we have people far smarter than me to work out exactly how it's done. I think my role is to tell everyone that this is possible. And when they try and talk down to you and try and disengage you from the political conversation and dismiss you, I'm here to say, no, piss off. I'm here to remind people what is possible in a democracy. And that's why I point to other countries. That's why I point to historical examples.

My dad went to uni for free. I'm sort of reminding people of this. And I think if enough people can just believe that we will engage with politics a tiny bit more intentionally and then the politicians won't get away with the stuff they're getting away with do you know what i think is a really good example of this though is the whole 16 year olds being banned from social media the government came in and said we're going to do this as of this day i think it's this month actually and then they said tech companies you need to work out how to do it yeah so it makes me question like if we were to bring in a rule that impacted these things they don't even have to figure out all of the solutions.

The companies that are currently benefiting from it may have to figure out solutions. And it just makes me put my hands in the air and say, well, if you're able to do it for social media, like why aren't you able to do it in other ways? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the best example. The government somehow managed, and who knows if it'll work or not, but they're totally fine with passing a law that probably won't work, but we're going to signal, hey, social media cooks people's brains.

How about we don't let it happen to kids? Yes, it may not work or not, but they did that. because the big corporate media Murdoch machine, they hate social media because that's the competition. These billionaires over here. So Murdoch's like, yeah, yeah, ban social media. Government's like, oh, we can do that. Done.

Yet gambling ads on TV. I was teaching at school. Kids come up to me, state of origin, oi, I put 50 on the Maroons. And I was like, cool, man. Good on you. Why not the Blues? Well, I'm Queenslanders. Yeah, but also we've seen the government over and over

be able to change the rules when it suits them. And even like the UK, this is an example that comes to my mind right now. The UK has seen a mass exodus of millionaires, not even millionaires, but I guess just the average punter as well, leave the UK to move to the likes of the UAE so that they don't have to pay tax. Yeah. This has been happening for the last couple of years. And so the UK is like, fuck, we're losing huge amounts of tax now because all of these

high earners are like, screw you. I'm going to go make my money work for me elsewhere. So now they're going to change the law and have an exit tax. Yeah, you're right. They can change the rule. But yeah, I guess my point is the government can pull that rule out of their butthole when they need to change it to suit them. Well, this is not even that historical for HECS debts.

It used to be that if you left the country, I think, sorry if the timeframe is not right. I'm pretty sure it was nine years. I'm a dual citizen. My HECS debt was like, I think at the top, it was like 65 grand or something like that. And I remember thinking, I could go live in the UK. I'm a citizen. I could go there for nine years and I don't have to pay back the $65,000 debt. They changed the rules because so many people were doing it.

So now the people who go over, who are either dual citizens or they're able to work in a different country, they still have to pay the heck set off. So having people kind of realize what you've said, this can happen. Yeah, sure. Some rules will pass and they might not work. They might, whatever, but they can pass a rule instantly. And having people realize that and remember it, politicians will always say it's too complicated or it's too hard or it's too difficult when they don't want to do it and they want to

keep status quo. There's nothing simpler than banning gambling ads. Really bloody simple. Not allowed on TV, anymore, the end, end of story. Not allowed on sport, anymore, end of story, the end. No loopholes there. You just can't do it. Do you see cigarette packets on the Wallabies jersey?

No. But you see gas giant Santos on the Wallabies jersey. You can stop this stuff anytime. You just have to remember. And when they tell you we can't, they're lying to you. Conrad, we could talk to you forever, but we have to go. Thank you so much. If anybody wants to go and find out more,

Conrad has like hundreds of videos, shorts, reels, YouTubes, so many videos that break down what might seem overly complicated elsewhere. And I think I still will say, and I say to everyone, use media literacy. You don't have to believe everything Conrad says. If you want to go and figure out if what he says has truth to it or not, still do that. We say that to everybody. Stitch us, tag us. But we do like, and I think that that's really important.

We do that with every guest that we have. And I think that that's important more so than ever when you're talking about news, politics, any information. I never want people to think that, oh, we heard it here. It must be true. It's always so important to go and do your own research and then decide which way you're going to swing. But I do find your information, for me, pretty invaluable

in breaking down some of the complicated things. So I do want people to get – we're going to link it, Instagram, you've got a YouTube, you've got podcasts. You know the platform. I'm on LinkedIn. You got a shirt. You got a billboard. The billboard was great.

It's all there. Well, I really appreciate being able to come on because I think politics is more simple and definitely don't. I'm with you. You shouldn't be listening to some idiot on social media. I'm pointing at myself right now to get. Yeah, I was like, thanks for not pointing at us. Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this because I don't, I'm not an expert in these sorts of things. I'm just a regular punter, literally reading articles and trying to understand it as best I can and talking to people. and I'll always cite where my info is coming from so that you can at least go, oh, really? Half the gas for free?

Where's that coming from? You can see the link there. Follow the link. Definitely don't take my word as gospel, but... But you've done your research. But someone's got to do it, so here I am. Yeah. Thank you so much, men and people.

Cheers, punts. Well, thank you. Cheers, punts. We'll be right back.