Daily Insight

Ice hockey, maple syrup, gender, diversity and inclusion, Niagara Falls, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dancing at Pride parades. These are just a few of the things Canada is famous for. But increasingly, Canada is becoming famous for having an incredibly and increasingly low fertility rate. Here’s the latest data from Statistics Canada. At a current rate of 1.33 births per woman – What is a woman? Canada doesn’t know – but one thing that is clear, this is the lowest total fertility rate in more than a century. It’s the lowest on record. Some might call this a crisis, right? How do you think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is dealing with this? Well, in a recent tweet, he said, “Women should be free to choose the contraceptives they need without cost getting in the way. So, we’re making contraceptives free.” Look, I’m not here to debate whether contraceptives should be free or not, but when your birthrate is plummeting, is this the right course of action? Making it easier for people to prevent pregnancy? This can only have one result, right? Further declines in the fertility rate. There’s no way this would result in the opposite. It can only result in a fertility decline. I’m not suggesting that Justin Trudeau is intentionally trying to reduce the birth rate, but what else will this logically result in? Of course, when he says contraceptives will be free, he means the taxpayer will fund people’s contraception. Perhaps a more accurate tweet would have been: “all Canadians will now share the cost of birth control for those that can’t afford it.” Obviously, nothing in Canada is truly free, except perhaps the cold. Some cynical people might suggest that Trudeau’s announcement for free contraceptives could be translated as: “We want women to work and not have families”. Despite the dramatic fall in the fertility rate, the population of Canada has been rapidly increasing. For the first time in history, the population grew by more than a million in a single year surpassing 40 million. Why do you think this might be? Immigration, of course! This historic pace of population increase is being driven by immigration and the need for workers, but it’s also causing the already dire housing crisis to get even worse. The solution, according to Justin Trudeau, is not to reduce immigration, but to just build millions of more homes. Whether that’s feasible or not, I don’t know. Time will tell I suppose. But the message is clear. Fertility is going down, while immigration is ramping up. I don’t know if this what Canadians want, but that’s what’s happening in Trudeau’s Canada. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

“In so called ‘Australia’, the voices of First Nations LGBTIQ+ people are often ignored.” Yes, here we go. “Gender binary is a construct that was enforced on this land through colonisation.” Of course it was. Anybody surprised by that statement? Even though I was always led to believe there was something called men’s and women’s business where certain places and practices were strictly for men or women only as part of ancestral law, well before colonists arrived. Anyhoo, in Australia, I always thought this was the acronym, well, technically, an initialism, but let’s run with acronym. Either way, they’re both abbreviations to ostensibly make things easier in speech and writing. In a previous video, I somewhat jokingly said that Canada is more inclusive because it’s got a longer acronym: 2SLGBTQIA+, where 2S stands for Two-Spirit, which is used to indicate a person whose gender identity comprises both masculine and feminine spirits. Australians, not to be outdone by the Canadians, have seemingly added some more letters to our acronym. I was reading this article on the ABC about the Cass Review in England, which recommends the National Health Service significantly limit the prescribing of medications — colloquially known as puberty blockers — for people aged under 18. In the article, they quote the Australian Medical Association who use the acronym: LGBTQIASB+. They seem to have used the letter B twice. I thought it must be a mistake, but no, it’s not. Just to be clear, I’m not here to attack individual people – people are who they are – I’m just here to point out the madness that has become this acronym. So I went to the AMA’s website and found their position statement on LGBTQIASB+ Health. Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to find out what the S and the B stood for. Well, they stand for Sistergirl and Brotherboy. Excuse my ignorance, but what the hell does that mean? As I kind of hinted at at the start, it’s to do with Aboriginality. “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may use the terms Sistergirl: Gender diverse people who have a female spirit and take on female roles within the community.” Brotherboy is the opposite with people who have a “male spirit”. Yes, this is the Australian Medical Association who are the peak professional body for doctors in Australia. They are apparently at the peak of scientific and medical knowledge and research here in Australia, and they entertain the idea that there are female and male spirits inhabiting Aboriginal people’s bodies. Look, I’m not against a person’s religion or spirituality, but is a medical association the right place to entertain such ideas? Perhaps a temple or a shrine would be more appropriate. And if they recognise male and female spirits, why not animal spirits? It’s not so far-fetched. Some Native Americans believe that a spirit animal is assigned to a person from birth. Either way, this is supposed to be an abbreviation – a shortened form of a word or phrase. FBI is a great abbreviation… “FBI, open up!” It’s short and succinct. But what if the FBI kept adding letters to their acronym? CP – Crime Prevention; FC – Foreign Counterintelligence; NS – National Security; DITP – Domestic and International Terrorism Prevention. “FBICPFCNSDITP, open up!” It would be ludicrous, but yet here we are with this real-life acronym. And what’s its purpose? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously couldn’t pronounce the acronym himself and stumbled when trying to say it. He also tweeted out the longest version yet: “2SLGBTQQIA+”, being rightfully mocked, remembering that the acronym is not agreed to by everyone that it encompasses. For example, some argue that transgender and transsexual causes are not the same as that of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Historically, the acronym was two letters. Well, it wasn’t even an acronym. It was gay and lesbian, as evidenced by the naming of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Then in the mid-to-late 1980s, gender identity started to be included and the acronym became LGBT, and then more and more letters were added to representing varying gender identities, or people questioning their identity, and the asexuality was added, and now, one’s spirit identity is being included. What’s next? There’s certainly going to be a next, right? Anyway, in the name of inclusion, the Australian Medical Association, the peak body for doctors in Australia, are now including specific spirit identities for Aboriginal people, whether or not Aboriginal people agree with it or not. AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION LGBTQIASB+ HEALTH POSITION STATEMENT https://www.ama.com.au/articles/lgbtqiasb-health-position-statement THE CASS REVIEW INTO MEDICAL CARE PROVIDED TO CHILDREN WITH GENDER DYSPHORIA HAS BEEN RELEASED https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-12/gender-dysphoria-cass-review-medical-treatment-children/103700476 MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

We all know that the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, which cost around $450 million of your taxpayer money, was a complete flop with Australians collectively voting No, but it wasn’t from lack of trying! A number of major Australian companies donated millions of dollars towards the Yes campaign. What these businesses have to do with pushing for constitutional amendment, I don’t know. It seems rather absurd, if you ask me. In this video, we take a look at the Australian Electoral Commission’s Transparency Register. The AEC is obliged to publish financial information such as donations and expenditure before the end of 24 weeks after voting day. Noting this was updated 3 April 2024. It should also be noted that the disclosure threshold for this referendum was $15,200, This means many donations are not visible, because only those above the threshold need to be disclosed. It can be a little bit dodgy in that there is nothing to stop anyone making multiple small donations to avoid disclosure. Luckily, our big woke companies wanted people to know what they were donating. That was the whole point of their donations – Virtue signalling! It certainly wasn’t a very good business decision. Anyway, we’re interested in the Transparency Register. Specifically, Referendum Returns. The organisation Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, which ran the Yes23 campaign, received a massive $47.4 million or so, of which it spent around $43.8 million, by far the biggest beneficiary of donations during the referendum campaign. The University of New South Wales, which housed the Uluru Statement from the Heart group, received around $11.1 million in donations. Australians for Unity were the largest No campaigner receiving around $10.8 million in donations. With the Liberal Party of Australia, who backed the No campaign, coming in a distant fourth with $1.9 million. There’s dozens more entities listed, which we won’t go into here, but no matter how you look at it, the Yes campaign easily outspent the No campaign, and they still lost. Interestingly, if you sort by Referendum Expenditure, you’ll see that there were two major No campaigners, Australians for Unity, who we saw before, who spent $11.8 million, and Advance Australia, who worked with Australians for Unity, who spent $10.4 million. So together they spent around $22 million, but together they only received around $12 million. So where did the extra $10 million come from? Well, it didn’t. In its disclosure documents to the AEC, Australians for Unity said that many of its expenses were double counted, because it passed on donations to Advance Australia. I don’t know what the AEC are trying to pull, or if it’s just an accounting mistake, but either way, the Yes campaign way outspent the No campaign. According to the Guardian, “Yes campaign groups received more than five times as much in donations as no side in voice referendum”. When it comes to individual donors, we’ve got the Paul Ramsay Foundation who donated $7 million. According to their website, their purpose is to “help end cycles of disadvantage in Australia by enabling equitable opportunity for people and communities to thrive”. Coming in second at $4.4 million was Givia, the Yajilarra Trust. I can’t find much information about them. Australia’s fourth-largest bank I think, ANZ, donated $2.5 million of your deposits towards a socially divisive issue. Oil and gas production company Woodside Energy, $2.1 million. One of Australia’s largest listed companies and the largest bank, Commonwealth Bank happily spent $2 million of shareholder money trying to divide us up along ethnic lines. The third-largest bank Westpac, obviously didn’t want to be left out, and donated $2 mil, as did Wesfarmers, owners of Bunnings, Kmart, Target, Officeworks, just to name a few. My personal favourite, Woolworths, who donated over $1.5 million. Why would a supermarket involve itself in trying to promote constitutional change? Anyway, I think you get the idea. These companies spent millions of dollars trying to sway your opinion. It didn’t work, but they tried. What if these companies instead donated their millions directly to Indigenous causes? Wouldn’t that have been a more effective use of their money if they were truly interested in helping Indigenous people? I don’t know, maybe that would have been wasted too, but these donations, this money, was definitely wasted. It essentially went to advertising, right? Coalition’s Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price also made comment on the funding, telling those larger corporations to focus on providing for their customers, not telling them what to think. “Where did my money go?” I hear some Indigenous people ask. Bluntly speaking, it was flushed down the toilet. AUSTRALIAN ELECTORAL COMMISSION’S TRANSPARENCY REGISTER https://transparency.aec.gov.au/ MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

In Australia, autumn officially starts in March. So of course, what does the Bureau of Meteorology do? They make a prediction, of course! “A dry autumn forecast for most of Australia. Warmer than usual daytime temperatures…” Of course, the news agencies jumped on board: “Australia sweats through third-hottest summer on record with hot and dry autumn predicted”, “hot and dry autumn in store for most of Australia”. But of course, what do you think actually happened a few weeks later, as we’ve seen a lot of late? It rained! “Heavy rain creates rare waterfalls over massive rock in Australia. Even the park rangers marvelled over the rare waterfalls falling from Australia’s Uluru. All we can do is watch in awe…” Okay, so that was just a one-off event in a one-off location. That doesn’t mean the Bureau’s prediction was wrong, does it? “Australia's third wettest March on record”. If you look at the Bureau’s website, Australia in March 2024, “The national area-averaged March rainfall total was 86.1% above the 1961–1990 average, the third-wettest March on record since the national dataset began in 1900. It was the second-wettest March on record for the Northern Territory, and fourth-wettest March on record for Western Australia.” It should be noted that the “mean temperature was 1.11 °C above average, the equal-tenth-warmest March on record”. Here’s the rainfall map for Queensland with areas in green showing above average rainfall, and areas in blue showing 200% to 300% of average rainfall. Western Australia had massive inland rainfall with purple indicating 400% of average. The North Territory, home to Uluru, the heart of the Northern Territory’s arid Red Centre, also had massive rainfalls well above average with 300% and 400% across much of the region. No wonder there were waterfalls on Uluru. Even if you look at the actual rainfall amounts, hundreds of millimetres of rain were dumped across the desert! Australia was wet in March in many parts of the country. So some of you may find it amusing that the Bureau’s predictions were so wrong. But hang on, what about places like Sydney, I hear you ask, that experienced below average rainfall in March? Don’t worry, it may be April, but it’s still Autumn: “Extreme weather warnings issued after heavy overnight rain falls across Sydney. Heavy rain has fallen across Sydney and Wollongong and caused flash flooding overnight”, “Transport chaos as Sydney sees a month’s rain in 30 hours”, “East coast rain bomb triggers flood watch.” So never fear NSW, you may have had a dry March, but the Autumn rains have just begun! But despite this obvious flawed prediction by the Bureau, obviously, there were no apologies, there were no, “Sorry, we got it wrong”, of course not. Instead, what are the ABC reporting early in April? Can you guess from the picture? “Scientists warn Australians to prepare for megadroughts lasting more than 20 years”, “Australia on track for megadroughts lasting more than 20 years”. Yes, ignore your eyes. Ignore the floods around you. Megadroughts are coming! Yeah, I get it, weather prediction is not an exact science. I’m not saying it’s easy. But why make these hard-to-get-right predictions? If you can’t get the weather right in a few weeks time, how can you possibly make 20-year predictions? It’s obvious alarmism. It’s catastrophising. It’s all or nothing. It’s predicting the worst possible outcome that is impacting some people’s ability to enjoy life. It can be debilitating for some. It’s the endless catastrophe that is the weather. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Adelaide, the City of Churches, South Australia’s cosmopolitan coastal capital. The First Nations Voice votes are in, and women have the upper hand. As we saw in yesterday’s video, despite having more votes, some men missed out in the other regions because they didn’t identify as females, but in Adelaide, the opposite is true – Many women missed out because of their lack of a doodle. It’s both funny and ridiculous, which pretty much sums up this entire First Nations Voice election. Let’s take a look at the results. Because Central region has so many more people than the other regions, the number of elected positions were 11 – as compared to 7 in the other regions – 5 males, 5 females, and 1 any gender. Here are the results, which I’ll put into a spreadsheet. There were more than 40 candidates, so I’ll only show you the top 15. Moogy, Susan, April, Deb, Douglas, Tahlia, Rosalind, and Cheryl were all elected as expected with the highest number of votes. But as you can see, we’ve already reached the imposed limit of six women. Consequently, Marnie, Jennifer, Khatija, and Patricia, despite having more votes than the males below them, all missed out because they don’t have the prerequisite appendage. If you voted for any of these ladies, despite them winning on votes, your vote has been taken away from you. Your “voice” has been conveniently ignored due to your candidates lacking a Y chromosome. Thereupon, Robert and Scott were elected as they satisfy the government-dictated ethnicity and gender requirements. Despite having a beard, Harold missed out. I assume he didn’t get enough preferences? Although, who would know in this farcical election? Yvonne, Kim, Sonia, and Chris all missed out with all their votes being distributed to other candidates due to their lack of male genitalia. While Tony took it all with his right mix of reproductive organs and ancestral background. So according to the official results page, after the distribution of preferences, the following male candidates were elected. The following female candidates were elected, and, the candidate of any gender elected was: Cheryl Axleby. Yes, this is how voting works now in 2024 South Australia. But despite many of the candidates missing out, why were there so many votes for women? That’s easy! If you look at the election summary, there were a total of 41 candidates, only 12 of which were male. 29 were female. Females outnumbered males almost 2-and-a-half-to-1. Compare this with say Region 6 – Yorke and Mid-North, where there were 9 males and 4 females. It seems like there are more female Indigenous folk in the big smoke willing to take office. In the Adelaide region, there were a total of 1145 votes. According to the 2021 census, there were almost 24,000 Indigenous Australians in the Greater Adelaide region making up around 1.7% of the population. I would estimate that approximately 65% of Indigenous folk are of voting age. So of the 23 odd thousand that identify as Indigenous, around 15,000 are eligible to vote. This means that the 1145 votes that were cast in the Adelaide region represents approximately 7.4% of eligible voters. Only 7.4% of Indigenous adults showed up for this historic vote. For the five regions outside of Adelaide, here are the official voting numbers. That’s a total of 1474 votes outside of Adelaide. With South Australia having around 43,000 Indigenous people, less the 24,000 that live in Greater Adelaide, this leaves us with around 18,800 who live in the regions, 65% of which can vote, around 12,200. This means that the 1474 votes that were cast in these five regions represent approximately 12.1% of eligible voters. Only 12% of Indigenous adults outside of Adelaide cast a vote in this historic election. With Indigenous people being denied a position because of their gender despite having attained the prerequisite number of votes, with an incredibly low voter turnout, how is this “Voice” representative of all Indigenous people? Clearly, it isn’t. It’s a taxpayer-funded farce. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

A couple of weekends ago, South Australians (well, some South Australians) voted in the historic First Nations Voice Election, and now a couple of weeks later, the results are flowing in. (It’s a very sparsely populated state). On their homepage, you can view the results, and in this presentation, I’ll show you some of the results and how dodginess ensued. There were a total of six electoral regions with only Region 1 – Central not yet counted (It’s the most populated region as it encompasses the capital city of Adelaide). I’ll analyse those results in a future video. As an example of dodginess, I’ll show you the results of Region 2 – Far North. Here’s a map of Australia, and that greyed region is the Far North region of South Australia. In terms of land mass, the entire UK could quite easily fit into that region. It’s a massive area. How many people do you think voted? Well, here are the results: 305 total votes, four of which were informal. For this massive region, admittedly sparsely populated, only 300 or so people voted. How can this be? Well, first of all, only those who identified as First Nations people were allowed to vote, a very questionable practice in my opinion. And secondly, voting in this election was not compulsory, which is at odds with every other state and federal election where voting is mandatory. Also, not to mention that in this entire massive region, there were only two polling booths. Imagine voting in the UK general election with only two voting booths, say one in Birmingham, and one in Edinburgh. It would be preposterous! Obviously, I’m having a bit of fun here. To be fair to the Electoral Commission of South Australia, they did have a number of mobile polling booths, but I still feel that only 300 people voting was an incredibly low number. And now the results, the dodgiest of all! I’ll put these into a spreadsheet, so it’s easier to do some calculations. Noting that there were seven positions to elect. So Mark Campbell with 70 votes got elected, of course, with the highest number of votes. Melissa Thompson was next with 52. Johnathon Lyons was third with 49 votes. Christopher Dodd was elected with 26 votes. Dharma Ducasse-Singer was also elected with 26 votes. So far so good. But hang on, what’s going on here? Dean Robin Walker was not elected, even though he got the next highest number of votes with 24. It looks like he got less votes due to preferences at 29 compared to Donald Fraser’s 35, despite Donald only getting 18 first preference votes. But the real oddity is Jonathon Fatt-Clifton who had the next highest votes at 14, but after preferences, he only got zero votes. All his votes were taken away from him, and instead, Dawn Brown was elected with less votes at 11. Why do you think this is? Why was Jonathon bumped and replaced with Dawn? Well it becomes abundantly clear when you look at the election summary on the official website. “Number of positions to elect: 3 males, 3 females, and 1 any gender. Sorry Jonathon, you may have fit the prescribed ethnicity, but you are of the wrong gender! We can’t have five males representing the Far North. That would be unfair! Those 14 people who voted for Jonathon in the 400,000 square kilometre area that is the Far North, they’ve been robbed of their vote! This is unconscionable, is it not? According to the website: “After the distribution of preferences, the following male candidates were elected. The following female candidates were elected, and, the candidate of any gender elected was: Donald Fraser”. And just one more example, Region 6 – Yorke and Mid-North, which is the region north of Adelaide shown in grey. There were only 129 total formal votes in this region. So we can see that Raymond, Doug, Quentin, Joy, and Eddie were all elected somewhat fairly, noting that four of them are males, Joy being the only female. Sorry Rex, this has already turned into a sausage fest, so even though you got more votes than Kaylene, even after preferences, you don’t fit the prescribed gender. Your votes don’t count, and all those people who voted for you are completely disenfranchised. Same with you Ken, your big manly beard is not welcome here! Denise claims victory. Sorry, it looks like Denise actually beat Ken on preferences, so perhaps that was a fair one. I haven’t analysed the rest of the regions, but I presume they’re equally dodgy. But is this not the natural consequence of identity politics? It’s no longer about who gets the most votes, it’s about who fits the prescribed ethnicity and gender. How far can this go until Australians say enough is enough? Anyway, I can’t wait to analyse the results for the Adelaide, Central Region, which has a huge number of candidates all vying for top dog. This is only some of them shown onscreen, as I couldn’t fit them all on. Who wins? You decide! Well, not you, but a handful of people will decide for you. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I’ve finally caved. I’ve chosen my pronouns, and published them to the world. I was reminded by YouTube to update my pronouns – I didn’t even know I could. “Pronouns are a critical part of personal identity and expression.” “Critical: Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something.” Jeez, well if my very existence depends on it, I better update my pronouns. In my Channel Dashboard, I need to click on Customisation. Then I have to go to Basic Info. Scrolling down, you can Add Pronoun. “Type to find your pronouns”. That’s a bit presumptuous calling me “your”. Anyway, as you start typing, it shows you a list of approved pronouns. For example, for “B”, there are no approved pronouns: “We are periodically reviewing pronouns which may become available in the future.” I wait with bated breath. I quite like “aers”, it sounds like Ayers Rock, Uluru. The Bureau of Meteorology were predicting a hot and dry autumn earlier this month, so of course, a few weeks later, it’s been raining and cold. “Rare rain on Uluru creates stunning waterfall”. So “aers” is my first pronoun. It looks like you can select more. “Cos”, not just the cosine (I love maths, by the way), but also cos lettuce! With its crispy, green leaves, sharp in flavour, it’s a perfect addition to any salad or sandwich, so of course, I’ll add it to my list of pronouns. “Mer”, as in mermaid, or merman. I’ve always wanted to breathe underwater, so of course, I’ll add it to my growing list. I wonder how many of these I can add. “Thon”, it sounds like a Greek god. Not to mention marathon, a test of courage, character, and physical endurance. Oh, it looks like I’ve reached my limit for pronouns. Of course, I want my pronouns to be visible to everyone! I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ll just publish that. If you look at my channel now, you can see, Daily Insight: aers/cos/mer/thon! And you better use my correct pronouns, or else! Of course, some will accuse me of taking the mickey, and that’s right, that’s exactly what I’m doing. But don’t you think this is worthy of scorn? Or am I missing something? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party have long been opposed to high levels of immigration to Australia. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream often label this as “xenophobic” or even “racist”, which I think is just lazy journalism, but a typical reaction from the powers that be who support high immigration levels. However, in recent times, it seems to be that it’s not just people from the political right that are in favour of reducing immigration. For example, the ABC published an article indicating that record immigration is probably starting to hurt: “The uncomfortable truth about record high immigration levels, rents and inflation”, where they ask the question: “Wouldn't it make more sense to simply scale back the level of immigration, even temporarily, to take the pressure off rents and help lower inflation?” Yeah, it would make sense. Bob Carr, former Labor Premier of New South Wales, has also recently spoke out against Australia’s high immigration levels: “‘We don’t need it’: Bob Carr slams Australia’s record immigration intake”. Australia brought in a record 737,000 people in 2022-23 financial year, up 73%. Adjusting for migrant departures, that’s still a record net annual gain of 518,000 people, almost the population of Tasmania. The Barefoot Investor, Scott Pape, has recently been speaking out against Australia’s immigration policy as well. He said it’s time to ask some hard questions. “‘2000 a day’: Barefoot Investor Scott Pape hits out at ‘broken’ Australia”. In terms of the housing crisis, he said, “Yes, there’s more to solving the property crisis than immigration. There’s the tax breaks that favour investors, a genuine lack of supply, and more social housing that needs to be built. Yet the fact remains that, as it stands, overseas arrivals are outpacing the construction of new homes at a rate of almost four to one. Why are we currently bringing in 2000 new migrants a day – 659,800 in the last year – when the rental market is in crisis? Our politicians like to crow about how we’re the ‘lucky country’ that hasn’t had a recession for a record-breaking 34 years. Yet we’ve largely achieved it by bringing more people into our paddock. I’m not anti-immigration or xenophobic, I just don’t agree with the country’s current unrelenting, unconstrained goal of ‘economic growth’.” Daniel Wild, executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, said in an interview, “What is clear is that the government is not in control of its migration program and this is causing immense economic and humanitarian damage to our nation. We’ve had four consecutive quarters of negative per capita economic growth. Migration makes the economic pie bigger, but the slice of that everybody in this country is getting is now smaller. The government’s policy is fundamentally out of step with the expectations of the community.” President Jenny Goldie of the Ecological Advocacy group, Sustainable Population Australia, clearly on the left side of politics also commented on this mass migration program: “Growth of just under two-thirds of a million people in one year on this largely arid continent with a variable climate and poor soils is unconscionable. It is unsustainable in economic, social and environmental terms. Indeed, it is nothing short of criminal. It is the main cause of the all-time rental crisis and the cruel increase in homelessness, but Mr Albanese simply doesn’t care. He knows he has no voter consent for what he’s doing.” Economist Leith van Onselen, co-founder of MacroBusiness, stated in an interview, “Population numbers are out of control and it’s coming at the same time as housing construction is collapsing. We only added one home per 4.5 new residents. That there, ladies and gentlemen, is why we’ve got a rental crisis.” Our dear leader, Anthony Albanese, did admit that something needs to be done. He stated, “We do need to have our migration levels brought to a sustainable level. People are coming here, enrolling in courses that don’t really add substantially to either their skills base or to the national interest here.” Consequently, Minister for Home Affairs, The Honourable Clare O’Neil, recently declared that the “Albanese Government continues to deliver on Migration Strategy”. Do you trust them? They said they’ll be introducing a new Genuine Student Test to crack down on international students looking to come here primarily to work. They’ll be increasing the imposition of “no further stay” conditions on visitor visas. And they said they will be increasing the English language requirements for student visas. What? Demanding that students who come to Australia can understand English? Isn’t that, how would you say, “xenophobic” or “racist”? I don’t know, I’m just asking. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

It was Harmony Day yesterday, a time to celebrate Australia’s rich cultural diversity. As my wife is Chinese, my daughter wanted to wear a Chinese dress to school, which she did, but despite my son’s school trying to bribe the student population with ice blocks to wear orange or dress up in cultural garb, he wasn’t having a bar of it and went dressed in school uniform. Fair enough. Of course, I support both my children’s views. If people want to dress up, fine, but equally, if they don’t want to celebrate Harmony Day, they shouldn’t be forced to. On paper, Harmony Day or Harmony Week or whatever, is a feel-good exercise “to recognise diversity and inclusion in Australia”. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea — a bit too trite for my liking — but I appreciate that people want to celebrate it. However, there are certain segments of the Progressive Left, or the Woke Left, who don’t like the positive message that it sends, and want to take the Harmony out of Harmony Day. Case in point, the Australian Greens. The once environmentally-focused party has now firmly attached itself to to the Woke Left, its politics demanding, no, requiring authoritarianism to work. Here’s their page on Harmony Day, “Addressing the Harm Must Be Part of Celebrating Harmony”. They state, “Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Australia, this day has been rebranded to Harmony Day. Rebranding the day might make us feel positive and comfortable, but does not actively encourage conversations about racism.” You see, the Greens don’t want to focus on harmony, they want us to focus on racism. I sometimes think that if it wasn’t for their ideological obsession with racism, they would no longer exist. Here’s an article from taxpayer-funded SBS, “Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi says Harmony Week ignores the lived reality of racism.” Oh yes, “Feminist. Engineer. Migrant.”, Dr Mehreen Faruqi struggles everyday with racism on her senators salary. I believe it’s around $217,000 now. Australia is such a racist country that it only gives a poor migrant such a meagre salary. Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked there. The article is called, “Australia’s ‘superficial, white-washed’ Harmony Week must be dumped, Greens say. The Greens are calling for what it says are ‘hollow’ Harmony Week celebrations to be dumped in favour of Anti-racism Week.” Yes, we can’t be seen to be celebrating harmony. The focus must be on racism! Of course, our public broadcaster the ABC got on board, “Calls to ditch Harmony Day amid accusations it 'whitewashes historic and ongoing racism' in Australia”. Sorry, that was from last year, but you get the message, “Mehreen Faruqi wants Australia to no longer use the term Harmony Day.” Well guess what Dr Faruqi, you don’t have to. Just as my 12-year-old son doesn’t want to celebrate Harmony Day, nor do you. It’s a free country. Look, you can celebrate whatever holiday you like. I don’t mind. But what I take issue with, and I think many Australians would agree with me, is when you try to force us to celebrate, or not celebrate a particular day, that’s where I draw the line. As I said, the Extreme Left require authoritarianism. If they just asked us to change Harmony Day, or Australia Day, or Christmas, we would just ignore them. The only way they can get their wish, is if they force us. And I’m not having it. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard is of the opinion that we should do away with the ‘Long COVID’ terminology altogether, and he has evidence to back it up. He was the lead author of some new research that found that the long-term symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to that of other viral infections. He said, “I believe it is time to stop using the term Long COVID. Using this term Long COVID implies that this virus has some unique, exceptional, and sinister property that differentiates it from other viruses and makes it far worse. We know that long-term symptoms after viral infections do occur, no matter what that infection is. That is something that is well described. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery. Our evidence suggests that there isn't, that it is not dissimilar to other viruses. That does not mean that you can't get these persistent symptoms following COVID-19, but you're no more likely to get it after COVID than with other respiratory viruses.” However, he did stress that he was not questioning the validity of long COVID. He said, “I want to make it clear that the symptoms that some patients describe after having COVID-19 are real. We believe they are real. What we are saying is that the incidence of these symptoms is no greater in COVID-19 than it is in other respiratory viruses and that to use this term long COVID is misleading. Post-viral syndromes do occur. We're absolutely saying that it does exist. We see it with Ross River virus. Clearly, we see it with influenza as well. But in the vast majority of people, recovery is the norm.” Of course, many articles and commentators have come out in opposition of Dr Gerrard’s findings. The Conversation: “Why scrapping the term ‘long COVID’ would be harmful for people with the condition”. In there, they mention Dr Steven Faux who is the co-lead of a Long COVID clinic in Sydney, who stated the study is not without its flaws. He mentioned that the study excluded people who were hospitalised with COVID, potentially leaving out people who had the most severe symptoms, and only included people with smartphones, potentially missing out many older Queenslanders. He also noted differing levels of vaccination against COVID (90%), and influenza (40%), which may have influenced the findings. Prof Philip Britton, a paediatric infectious diseases physician and a member of the Long COVID Australia Collaboration said, “The conclusion that it is time to stop using terms such as Long COVID is overstated and potentially unhelpful. Long COVID has been a global phenomenon, recognised by the World Health Organisation.” Dr Bernard Shiu, who runs several long COVID clinics from his Victorian practices, also criticised Dr Gerrard’s findings. He said, “By properly diagnosing patients with long COVID, it acknowledges and validates their suffering. As doctors and scientists, we need to be faithful and truthful in what we are dealing with. Using the term “long COVID” appropriately and explaining to the patient forms part of our duty of care. By saying long COVID is not unique, we are almost saying COVID-19 itself is not unique. I think that’s an understatement. It is important to highlight the need to care for these patients and not to downplay their suffering.” I find it interesting that a number of these doctors criticising the research also run Long COVID clinics. Some would argue that means they have more experience with the condition, but couldn’t we also argue that they have a vested interest? I mean, if you run a clinic that specialises in Long COVID, and then some research comes along saying it’s no worse than other forms of post-viral syndromes, then surely that could potentially hurt your business, right? That said, who am I? I’m just a layperson. But clearly Dr Gerrard is not a nobody. He’s a Chief Health Officer. He is not denying the symptoms, just stating that the research found that the symptoms of Long COVID are not significantly different to other post-viral syndromes. What about those patients who can't access Long COVID clinics because they had the flu, or Ross River fever, or some other virus? Why not create post-viral syndrome clinics? Then perhaps everyone’s suffering can be validated. RESEARCH FINDINGS: LONG COVID ‘INDISTINGUISHABLE’ FROM OTHER POST-VIRAL SYNDROMES A YEAR AFTER INFECTION https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037611 WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION POST COVID-19 CONDITION (LONG COVID) https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/post-covid-19-condition BETTER HEALTH CHANNEL LONG COVID https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/covid-19/long-covid LONG COVID AND POST-COVID SYMPTOMS https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/covid-19/post-covid-symptoms-long-covid MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Escalating criminal activity and a youth crime crisis, homelessness and a cost of living crisis, tent cities springing up in public parks, a premier who doesn’t seem to be able to organise an Olympics: “If these are the Games Brisbane will deliver, perhaps it's not worth it”; “‘A joke’: Brisbane Olympics backflip slammed”. Here’s the 1928 Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam which could hold around 32,000 people. Here’s the next smallest stadium, Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, which will hold 40,000 people after renovating the dilapidated stands for $1.6 billion, but only hold 14,000 after the Games are complete. The stadiums kind of look the same, except there’s about a one-hundred-year difference. “Crowded out: $1.6bn stadium to be smallest Games athletics venue in 104 years”. Anyway, these are just some of the reasons the Queensland public are losing faith in the Labor Government. On the weekend there was an election. Well, everyone voted in the local government elections, but there were also two state by-elections in Inala and Ipswich West, and Labor didn’t do very well. Crikey: “By-election loss an ominous sign for QLD Labor”; The Guardian: “Shock losses to LNP and Greens in Queensland elections sound warning for Labor ahead of October poll”; ABC: “LNP takes heartland seat of Ipswich West with heavy swing away from Labor; “Gold Coast Bulletin: “‘Totally tanked’: Labor’s by-election disaster”. All sides of the political spectrum agree, the Labor vote crumbled. In Ipswich West, there were huge swings against Labor to the Liberal National Party with their “tough on crime” message. With a swing of almost 18%, LNP’s Darren Zanow has gained the Labor heartland seat. Looking at the results, One Nation suffered a 3.8% swing against, with some insiders hypothesising that the LNP leader David Crisafulli’s conservative approach to crime and treaty has swayed some One Nation voters to the LNP. Although, One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson wasn’t too worried by the results. She said, “I am very pleased to see the back of Labor in Ipswich West. Overall, it’s abundantly clear there is an appetite in Queensland to get rid of Labor at the October election. The cost of living, escalating crime and the housing crisis are hitting people hard and they think Labor has no solutions.” In 2020, former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk secured 67% of the primary vote in Inala. This weekend, Labor candidate Margie Nightingale only received about 37% of the primary vote, a massive 30% swing against Labor. Remembering, this is Labor heartland. The Premier himself had these words to say, “These results are clearly very bad. I was expecting a bad result, and they’re even worse than that. This is the voters of Inala and Ipswich West sending us a message…” The ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green said, “There has not been a swing of this magnitude against a sitting Queensland government in all the years I’ve covered elections. It’s bigger than the Redcliffe and Stafford by-election swing that then-premier Campbell Newman suffered in 2014.” If the this swing of nearly 18% that we saw in the Labor heartland seat of Ipswich West was replicated across Queensland, the government would only have about four seats left. I’m not suggesting that’s likely, but just showing you how significant this swing was. The Brisbane City Council elections also resulted in a significant swing against Labor of almost 6%, with a swing of 5% to the Greens. Labor are losing votes to both the Left and the Right. Labor are in trouble in Queensland, and both sides of the political media are sensing it. On the Left: “The path to re-election for Queensland Labor looks like a narrowing goat track after its ‘Super Saturday’ losses”, and on the Right: “Queenslanders with baseball bats are ready to pound Labor”. Unfortunately for Labor, who have been in power for almost 10 years, they’ve lost control of the state with regards to youth crime, the rising cost of living, lack of affordable housing, an overwhelmed hospital and health system, as well as their relentless pursuit of their divisive Path to Treaty, which is just not popular among the Queensland electorate. These recent by-election results have delivered a brutal reality check for the Queensland Labor Government – Time’s up! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Tomorrow 16 March is election day for the South Australian First Nations Voice, although you probably wouldn’t know it. On news.com.au, their top stories are, “‘WHEELS ARE COMING OFF’: Palace in crisis following Photoshop fail”, and, “I thought my vagina was broken”. Doing a search for “voice” reveals zero results on their front page. It clearly isn’t a top priority. The ABC is not much better. These are their South Australian Top Stories, and again, doing a search, there is not one mention of the South Australian Voice. Although, they did find time to talk about a ping pong ball-sized blueberry, and actor Olivia Munn’s double mastectomy. I’m not saying these aren’t important, but it’s just odd, for an election that’s being held tomorrow for Australia’s very first Indigenous Voice to Parliament, it’s getting very little coverage. I was only reminded about it because a viewer told me. No matter what happens tomorrow, this First Nations Voice is going ahead whether you like it or not. It differs from last year’s federal Indigenous Voice to Parliament in that it’s not constitutionally enshrined. It passed Parliament last year, which means it now exists in state laws. So as long as the current Labor government are in power, this state-based Voice will continue to exist. There is a state election in 2026, so this means there will be at least two years of this Voice to look forward to. The Liberal opposition have stated that they will have no qualms abolishing it, however, if it proves to be ineffective. Look, I don’t know, maybe the Voice will end up being really good. Dividing everybody up on their ethnicity might be the best thing Australia has ever seen. I doubt it. I think it will just add another layer of bureaucracy that will achieve very little for disadvantaged Indigenous folk. But I’m happy to be proven wrong. As I said in a previous video, only people who identify as First Nations can vote in tomorrow’s election. As there are less than 3% of South Australians who identify as Indigenous, and voting is not compulsory, there is a very real chance that very few people turn out to vote, except in the main centres like Adelaide. It makes you wonder whether this is really going to be representative of all Aboriginal people. Personally, if I was allowed to vote, I’d vote for the AC/DC guy. There will be six regions across South Australia, with an elected body for each. All elected members will be First Nations people and will be elected by First Nations people who live in their region. Each region will have seven elected members, except Central, which includes the capital city of Adelaide, which will have 11 elected members, because more activists live in Adelaide – no, that’s just my attempt at humour. The stated reason is that “Central Region has a higher population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”, and more activists who want more power. Sorry, there I go again. But seriously, here’s the ballot paper for the Far North Region, 13 candidates I believe, and here’s the one for Adelaide, Central Region. I can barely fit them all onscreen. Everyone wants a piece of the action. Officially, successful candidates will be able to speak in parliament and have regular meetings with politicians and head bureaucrats. This is not nothing. They will have more power than non-Indigenous people, hence why there are a huge number of candidates. As reported by the Australian, Robert Lawrie, a senior elder from the Mirning community whose traditional lands lay on the coastal region of the Great Australian Bight, this is not him pictured, this is Bunna Lawrie Senior Elder and Whale Songman, I don’t know if they’re related, but they both are Mirning elders, Robert had some concerns regarding the new Voice to Parliament. He said, “Once the vote goes ahead, the ramifications would be too terrible to imagine. Innocent Aboriginal people within South Australia will become victims of a controlled process that will further divide families and communities, whilst a small handful will make decisions affecting all Aboriginal people without majority support and without traditional integrity.” Anyway South Australians, you’ve got at least two more years of this. I hope it all goes well for you. But at the very least, it’s a great experiment to see if this actually benefits Indigenous people, or if it just grinds the South Australian Parliament to a halt. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

South Australians are due to have an election this weekend, no, not the state election, and no, not all South Australians will be allowed to vote, just some, based entirely on their ancestry. If you don’t fit the prescribed ethnicity, you can’t vote, well, maybe you can’t vote – I’ll get to that soon. Those people I just showed you were some of the candidates for the six regions in the upcoming 2024 South Australian First Nations Voice Election! You may remember in last year’s Indigenous Voice referendum, South Australia got the second lowest number of Yes votes in the nation at around 35%. But the Government don’t care about your opinions and are pushing ahead with this state-based version instead. Of course, the Guardian and others are reporting that there is dirty misinformation being spread online, like saying that South Australians don’t want this, which is a complete lie apparently. “Some social media users appeared to be confusing the South Australian voice and the upcoming election with last year’s federal voice,” the factcheckers said. The attorney general said it was a “very different proposition”. So never fear South Australians! What you voted for last year, has nothing to do with what a very small percentage of you will be allowed to vote for this weekend. According to the First Nations Voice Election website, “Get ready to vote!’, remembering it’s on 16 March 2024. I’m sure you’re excited about voting, but there’s a few rules to remember. To vote in the Voice elections, you must be a First Nations person. According to the statistics, 2.47% of South Australians identify as Indigenous Australians, meaning that the overwhelming majority of tax-paying South Australians will have no say in this. It should also be noted that “Voting in the First Nations Voice election is not compulsory and there are no fines or penalties for not voting”. That’s odd, because according to the Australian Electoral Commission, voting is compulsory. “It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election”. That’s weird, isn’t it? Not only will 97% of the South Australian population not be allowed to vote, the remaining 3% don’t even have to vote! Let’s just break the law! Look, I’m not a lawyer. What do I know? According to the Electoral Commission of South Australia, “Voting in South Australia is compulsory if you are an Australian citizen, and 18 years of age or older. Your vote is important and all votes are equal.” Unless of course you don’t fit the prescribed ethnicity, and then, not only is your vote not equal, you can’t even vote! Ah, Australia 2024. The Electoral Commission also have a list of rules, you can download them here. These are the official rules. It’s strange, when I search for “indigenous”, there’s not a single result. When I search for “aboriginal”, there’s not a single result. But if you search for “first nations”, 38 results! They’ve erased the terms Indigenous and Aboriginal in favour of first nations. This I found interesting, in Section 5, Rule 13 – Questions to be put to person claiming to vote at a polling place. Ask the person such questions as are necessary to establish their identity. Fair enough. They have to ask you “Have you voted before in this election?”; and, ask the person if they are a First Nations person. That’s it. There is no other verification to confirm whether or not you identify as First Nations. In my reckoning, anybody could vote as long as they’re on the State electoral roll, and as long as they’re willing to answer Yes to that final question. Oh, this isn’t dodgy at all, is it? Remembering of the 2.47% of people who identify as Indigenous (noting that children make up some proportion of that number and can’t legally vote), voting in this election is not compulsory and there will be no fines or penalties for not voting. I’m really interested, how many First Nations South Australians do you think will actually vote in this? Will this so-called advisory body be formed from less than 1% of the population in South Australia who bother to get up and vote? Doesn’t that sound a bit scary that such a small minority of people will wield such a disproportionate amount of power? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I saw this article today on news.com.au titled, “‘Disgrace’ is everything wrong with Australia. The Spencer Leniu NRL racism storm highlights how wrong Australia has got its priorities.” It’s written by a lady by the name of Maddi Brennan-Mills. This is her Instagram page where she states: “Living on Dharawal country” (modern day Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay and so on). I think that one statement pretty much sums up her position on the issue. Her Instagram “link” links to the very article that I showed you before. It should be noted that the article is labelled “Opinion”, so of course, we should keep that in mind. She states, “A young Torres Strait Islander man, Mam, who dedicates himself to his community, had to endure a racial slur”. He was called a monkey on the rugby field as I talked about in my previous video. She then states: “This situation is a stark reminder that racism remains deeply embedded in our society, a burden First Nations people carry every single day.” But what got me, was what she said regarding Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr. She said, “Sam Kerr called a London police officer a ‘stupid, white bastard’ which by definition is not racism at all.” I’d just like to call BS on that, and I hope many of you would agree with me. I know what she’s getting at. Many academics of late are stating that people of colour face systemic exclusion and marginalisation based on historically rooted power imbalances and racial hierarchies that put white people at the top, and therefore, white people cannot experience racism. It’s BS, but they keep repeating it. She continues, “While assumptions and stereotypes about white people do exist, this is considered racial prejudice, not racism – reverse racism is a myth.” Actually, I agree with her that reverse racism is a myth, because the whole idea of “reverse racism” is nonsensical in my opinion. Reverse racism is racism, and should be called as such. Saying that only white people can’t experience racism is in itself racist in my opinion. It’s saying that only certain people of certain colours can experience racism. If you look at the Oxford dictionary definition of racism, it states: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised.” Noting they use the word “typically”. Not exclusively or specifically to only a certain group. Racism is racism, and it either applies to all people, or it doesn’t apply at all. But of course, they’d probably claim that the Oxford dictionary is run by white people. The problem is, the definition for racism has now become debatable. Because the activists don’t want it to apply to white people, they’re trying to modify the definition. For any other fact, there is no debate. A cloud is a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets. That’s just what it is. There’s no debate. That’s scientific fact. But racism, it seems to be a bit wishy-washy. The fact that people can’t agree on it, means it’s not a clear thing. And this BS about white people being at the top of the hierarchy. You can just look around and see that it’s verifiably not true. I went to the doctor just recently, and every doctor in the local medical centre is of Indian, or Sir Lankan, or Bangladeshi descent – people from the Indian subcontinent – and that’s fine. They obviously worked hard at medical school or wherever, and became doctors in Australia. Most of their patients, because it’s a bulk-billed clinic, are poor white people. The doctors are obviously getting paid a lot more than their patients. In Australia, they’ve done very well for themselves. Do they face systemic exclusion and marginalisation because of their ethnicity? Obviously not. To say they they’re being systemically treated unfairly, is a lie. I saw this video from Spanian, he’s a YouTuber who travels to all these ‘hoods’ around the world. He recently went to Melton on the outskirts of Melbourne. Statistically, it is one of the most disadvantaged cities in Australia. Many of its residents are affected by drug addiction, criminality, violence and so on, and by and large, most of them were Caucasian. Is this an example of a country where white people are at the top of the hierarchy? Head over to Box Hill in Melbourne and you’ll find many middle class or wealthy Asian families. Are they suffering at the hands of the evil white people who sit at the top of the racial hierarchy? This whole thing is just BS to keep us divided. I’m not buying it anymore. I’m going to keep calling them out, and I hope that you do too. ‘DISGRACE’ IS EVERYTHING WRONG WITH AUSTRALIA https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/people-condemning-latrell-mitchell-are-whats-wrong-with-australia/news-story/3f09f91fee668ebd7822df12b42e8dcc MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

There’s an English word that you can find in any dictionary. This word children can say freely around one another. They can even say it in the classroom in front of the teacher, and there will be no reprisals or punishment. It’s a word that friends and family call my young daughter, a word that she likes, because she’s such a great climber. She can now do around 15 pull-ups, completely of her own volition. But if you’re a professional rugby league player, and use this word directed at a fellow rugby league player, you’ll be suspended for eight weeks. The word of course, is monkey. Spencer Leniu, a Sydney Roosters player in the NRL who was born in New Zealand and has Samoan heritage. He called opposition player, Brisbane Broncos Ezra Mam, who is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, a monkey. “Spencer Leniu handed eight-week ban for calling Ezra Mam a 'monkey' in Vegas”. In his own words, he said he thought his slur against Mam was just “one brown man saying something to another brown man”. I’m not at all suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in an offensive way, but this is a rough sport. For example, in the very same hearing, Tayson Fakaosi was suspended for one game for performing a crusher tackle. According to the NRL, a crusher tackle is when a player “uses any part of his body forcefully to bend or apply unnecessary pressure to the head, neck or spinal column of the tackled player. In some crusher tackles, the full weight of the defender is applied in a dropping motion on the tackled player’s head and/or neck and/or spinal column.” So applying brutal force to a player’s head neck or spinal column results in a one-week suspension, but a word that kids say in the playground on the monkey bars, kids say in the classroom in front of their teachers, a word that my wife calls my daughter when she’s on her fifteenth pull-up, that word results in an eight week suspension on the rugby field. Look, I know, context counts. I’m not suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in a hurtful way, but have we somewhat gone stupid with language now, where words are considered more hurtful than spear tackles? If he called him the n-word, okay, perhaps that makes sense. The dictionary very clearly states that’s considered offensive. But eight weeks for a single English word? Is that proportionate? If they just wanted to send a message, one week would have done the trick. Okay guys, don’t call each other monkeys. It doesn’t look good. Leniu spoke about growing up with a Samoan background in Western Sydney where it was common among his family and friends to call each other monkey in a lighthearted sort of way. He said, “All those types of words are used in our language and how we speak to each other. I had no idea what that word meant to Ezra, what it meant to all the Indigenous people in the game.” Leniu was even prepared to fly his partner and himself to Queensland at his own expense to give a face-to-face apology to Mam, but Mam wasn’t having a bar of it. Sydney Roosters officials will put their entire club through cultural training. Yes, this is real. Sledging, trash talk, whatever you want to call it. What if we changed the M of monkey to say a D? Would calling somebody a donkey be okay? According to the dictionary, a donkey is “a domesticated hoofed mammal of the horse family” of course, but also, “a stupid or inept person”. The very same dictionary, a donkey has a much more negative connotation than a monkey. Presumably though, if Leniu called Mam a donkey instead of a monkey, literally just change one letter, he wouldn’t have been suspended at all? That’s how stupid all this is getting. Sticks and stones may break my bones, nah… that doesn’t apply anymore. If you’re offended by a word, that’s enough for people to lose their livelihood for eight weeks. Perhaps the NRL need to publish a list of offensive words along with the corresponding punishment. Galah should be okay, shouldn’t it? It’s now coming out that Leniu actually was the first to receive a derogatory comment made by a Broncos player before his comment was made to Mam, but he let it go and told those close to him that he would not “snitch” on other players. As I said, I’m not suggesting people should go around throwing hurtful words at people, but what happened to trash talk on the field? Is it not allowed anymore? “Excuse me sir, your mother looks like… a lovely lady. I mean person. I shouldn’t have assumed her gender. Sorry, I shouldn’t have called you sir, because that’s assuming your gender. No problems sir, no offence taken. Now do you consent to me touching you so that I can tackle you? Sorry sir, I do not consent. Oh dear, well I guess you better go score, as I don’t want to cause any offence. Thank you sir for being so understanding.” MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Beloved Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr (well beloved to some, the media seem to love her. Social media? Not so much), has done something a little bit naughty. She uttered some not-so-nice words to a police officer in London early last year. First of all, no matter what side of politics you’re on, whether you’re woke or anti-woke, I don’t care, but I think nobody should be cancelled, or lose their careers over something they say. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We sometimes say stupid things. So I’m not here campaigning for Sam Kerr to lose her job. However, she did say something that other sports stars have lost their jobs over. What did she say? Well after a big night out, she reportedly threw up in a taxi and got into an altercation with the driver over the taxi fare, presumably over the cleaning fee, so the police were called and she allegedly called the police officer a “stupid white bastard”. However, it’s being reported that Kerr herself said she didn’t say that all, she said, “stupid white cop”. Either way, the intent is the same. She called the police officer “stupid”, as well as “white”, and consequently was charged with Racially Aggravated Harassment, which she could potentially go to jail for. This of course resulted in the Progressive Left, or the Woke Left, or whatever you want to call them, their minds collectively imploded. You see, the Progressive Left are all about criminalising language, when it suits them. They are obsessed with historical oppression and identity politics. The only things that matter to them now are race, gender, and sexuality. They no longer focus on the real problems facing poor people, but instead turn their gaze to imagined microaggressions against over-privileged university graduates. And because Sam Kerr is a person of colour (I hate that term by the way. It sounds rather racist, don’t you think?), she’s of Indian descent (noting, she’s also of Caucasian descent, but that doesn’t seem to count), she’s a lesbian (she has a Caucasian fiancée), and of course, she’s a woman, whatever that means. Nobody seems to be able to define it anymore. The point is, she ticks all the Woke Left’s boxes, so to speak. So when they heard she was charged with racism, as I said, their collective minds imploded. Instead of calling out the racism for what it is, they instead tried to defend her. But to be fair, it is a bit hard for them to rationally support her racist comments in this instance, so what else can they do? Well they can simply change the definition of racism. For example, the Conversation are reporting: “Sam Kerr’s alleged comments may have had a racial element, but they were not ‘racist’” in quotes. Obviously, laws should be colourblind, and should be applied equally. If Sam Kerr gets away with this, it sets and incredibly stupid and dangerous precedent. Of course, politicians like Senator Lidia Thorpe who profit (as in benefit) from the racism industry, tweeted: “Replace all statues of captain cook with statues of Sam Kerr, our one true captain”. Basically, calling her a hero for using racist language towards a police officer. Former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster has called on Football Australia to strip Sam Kerr of her captaincy if it is confirmed that she did indeed use racist language towards the police officer, to show how seriously the sport takes racism. Look, I think this is the natural result of criminalising language. We get stupid situations like this. It seems like the world can’t agree what racism is. Crimes like murder are obvious. You either kill someone or you don’t. Sure, we could argue over whether it’s manslaughter, or whatever, but somebody is dead. Burglary and theft are obvious. Something has been stolen. There’s no debate. But criminalising language, as we’ve seen with this racism debate, is a very dangerous path. It’s open to abuse. Somebody says something, and then somebody claims they feel offended. How can we disprove it? Maybe we should just do away with this whole racism thing. Even if the world decides that what Sam Kerr said wasn’t racist, it was still wrong. She is a role model. Many girls (and boys) look up to her. At the very least, she needs to apologise. She won’t, because that would be an admission of guilt. But in a perfect would, she might say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. We should be nice to one another no matter what our cultural backgrounds. Racism is racism, and I was wrong to say what I said. Please forgive me.” Call it double standards. Call it selective outrage. Call it hypocrisy. But one thing that is crystal clear, racism is only called out by the Progressive Left when they are the victim. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Throughout history, there have always been men dressing up in women’s clothing as a form of entertainment, so-called drag queens in the modern vernacular. I’m not here to criticise what people do for a living, or do in their free time, however, I would classify this type of performance, especially of the burlesque-style, highly sexualised variety, as a form of entertainment for consenting adults. It’s not my cup of tea, but if you want to go along and watch a drag queen dancing or whatever on stage, well that’s up to you. But, I would not classify drag queens as a form of children’s entertainment. When my kids were younger, my wife, or sometimes myself, would take my children along to the local library to their weekly, or bi-weekly, story time events, and they were quite good. There was usually a conservatively dressed female librarian, although sometimes there were men, who read a nice wholesome story to the children. The children enjoyed going because they could listen to a couple of nice stories, as well as play with the other children. The parents often enjoyed going because it was a chance for them to have a bit of a break and chat with the other parents or whatever. But over the last year or so, the conservatively dressed librarian is slowly being replaced with drag queens at so-called Drag Queen Story Time events. No matter what side of politics you’re on, we have to all admit that Drag Queen Story Time is highly controversial. And it makes sense why. People typically view drag queens as a form of adult entertainment. Now that’s not me dissing drag queens. They’re free to do what they like, as long as it’s done in an appropriate setting. Obviously, the debate isn’t around the existence of drag queens, but rather, should drag queens be in the public library reading to children. To me, an analogy would be a prostitute reading to the children. I’ve got nothing against prostitutes, each to their own, but it’s not appropriate for them to be reading to children in their prostitute’s attire. I wouldn’t accept a stripper reading to the children either, regardless of whether they’re female or male. Now if Craig the stripper happens to also be a librarian, but acts and dresses like a librarian at story time, well that’s fine. Just as if Susan the librarian happens to be a woman of the night, but comes to her library job dressed appropriately and doesn’t mention her prostitution to the children, well obviously, that’s fine as well. The issue isn’t with drag queens per se, it’s that they’re being put in an environment that many people would say is inappropriate. Of course, where did all this start? I think you can guess… America. In 2015, Michelle Tea created the first Drag Queen Story Hour in San Francisco with the stated goals of promoting reading and diversity. And as we all know, when America sneezes the world catches a cold. It’s taken a bit of time, but certain Australians are now trying to push Drag Queen Story Times around Australia. But, there’s been a lot of pushback. “Hills Shire Council votes to stop supporting drag story time events”, “'Fear-mongering': Sydney council bans drag queen storytime events at heated meeting”, “Victorian councils to hold emergency meeting on far-right targeting of drag queen storytime events”, “Pop-up drag queen story time held in Shepparton after official event cancelled”, “ABC’s Drag Queen Story Time Cancelled at Rockdale Library”. Labelling people as far-right for not supporting Drag Queen Story Time is not going to win them any supporters. Most people who are against this are just regular folk. Many civilisations before us have collapsed, and one thing that scholars have noted, is that towards the end stages of a civilisation, there is social and moral decay. Nations are founded on some form of religious or spiritual worldview almost exclusively. Religion, or spirituality, provides the set of standards that govern a nation. But when societies start abandoning this religion, or abandoning their moral standards, as many would argue is happening now in the Western world, when the traditional beliefs of a nation erode, the nation dies. With social decay comes cultural decay. With cultural decay comes moral decay. Look, I think most Aussies are pretty laid-back and accepting of many different things. I’d say that most Aussies have nothing against drag queens as a concept, when the performance is held behind closed doors in an appropriate venue such as a bar or nightclub, but when you try to force these forms of essentially adult entertainment on our children, expect pushback. We might be laid-back, but there’s limits to what we’re willing to accept. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

If you’ve been to the airport recently, you may have seen signs alternating between Australian city names and their Indigenous equivalent, while also alternating between different flight codes, confusing the s**t out of everybody. It’s the same plane, but with different flight codes and different place names displayed. Personally, I found it quite confusing. I’m not the only one: “‘Bloody confusing’: Indigenous names on departure signs at airport”. If Aussies are have trouble understanding this, well how can we expect international travellers to know what the hell is going on? Nobody has ever taught me these names, so to just suddenly thrust them on the population is just a recipe for disaster. Not only will people not understand, they’ll probably resent you for it. From years of language teaching and learning myself, forcing languages on people just doesn’t work, unless your goal is to piss off the entire population. According to their website, Tourism Australia have adopted Aboriginal dual naming. Our favourite tax-payer funded broadcaster, the ABC, has now started to slip in Indigenous place names in their articles. “Phoebe Paradise's art explores the relationship between the housing crisis and climate change in Meanjin/Brisbane.” “What does Meanjin look like?” “Two-time defending Women's World Cup champions USA have been knocked out in Melbourne/Naarm.” “I've lived in nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania, for large sections of my adult life.” “Inside Dunstan Playhouse by the River Torrens in Tarndanya/Adelaide” “It was an average Thursday night in Naarm/Melbourne” I’m sure that’s how people speak in Melbourne, right? “Maggie Zhou is a Naarm/Melbourne based writer who makes friends online.” Good for Maggie. Actually, the ABC inadvertently wrote what I was thinking: “ABC Everyday (DO NOT USE)”. “Chris lives in inner-city Naarm with one of his two partners” – Isn’t that illegal? Anyway, you get the idea. You never requested this, they just started doing it. But I know why the Government and others are forcing this on us, and I think you probably do too. If they put this up to a vote, we already know the result. Australians would vote No. Their only option is to force it upon us. So we either just accept it and let the government do whatever they want, or we speak up. I guess, that’s what I’m doing now. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

A few years ago, back during the dark days of the pestilence, I remember the university I worked for sending out an email with a link to a survey that all employees had to fill out. It asked whether we would be comfortable around coworkers and students who had not taken the prescribed medication. They were obviously probing for information to see whether they had the numbers to implement a mandate. This in itself means it wasn’t about health in their eyes, it was about popularity. Were there enough people on campus who would support them? If the prescribed medical procedure was vital to the survival of the university, then they needn’t have asked, they should have just dictated it. Thank God, sanity prevailed and they didn’t implement it. Enough of my colleagues responded in such a way that the university thought they would have gotten too much pushback. People power won the day. However, the state government implemented a rule, stating that only those that took their medicine were allowed to attend coffee shops and the like. So although I was allowed to enter the university proper, I was forbidden from entering the university coffee shop. I was deemed unclean by the powers that be, a risk to everyone’s health. Even though I sat next to people in the office, I was not allowed to sit next to those very same people in the presence of coffee. Yes, it’s laughable when you look back at it. Honestly, I didn’t care. “Good!” I thought. I can save some money by not buying overpriced coffee and sandwiches. By the way, that cafe has since closed. The Government with their stupid rules destroyed them, as they did with many other small businesses around Australia. As a university employee, I got off fairly lightly, but other workers didn’t fare so well. Many workers had to take the prescribed medicine or else lose their jobs. It was coercive, it was wrong, it was a breach of human rights, but at the time, if you dared say such a thing, you were shouted down and called any number of names. Dissent wasn’t allowed. But yesterday, a bit of vindication or redress, a Queensland Supreme Court judge ruled that a certain government-implemented mandate for frontline workers was unlawful. Not only was it unlawful, it breached human rights. All I’ve got to say is duh! At the time, in my opinion, it was obvious, and I made many videos saying as such. But unfortunately, people capitulated and let it happen. Not everyone of course, but the majority of people did. But as we saw at my university, enough people said no, and they were forced to not implement the mandate. Justice Glenn Martin ruled that the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Ambulance Service policies breached part of the Human Rights Act, specifically, section 58 which requires you to act and make decisions compatibly with human rights. Justice Glenn Martin found Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll failed to comply with this section of the act, and therefore ruled that her directions were unlawful. That doesn’t sound right. A police commissioner breaking the law? It should be noted that Commissioner Carroll announced last week that she is resigning as of Friday 1 March 2024. Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, you know, the one that defines the word woman as anybody who identifies as a woman, said she wanted to make it “very clear” that the ruling did not find the mandatory medical procedure contrary to the Human Rights Act, but that the directions were issued unlawfully. Hmm, sounds like a bit of political spin to me. “It was lawful, and it was compatible with human rights, but there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that it was a reasonable direction under the employment contract”. You know what would have been nicer: “Sorry, we made a mistake. Here’s some compensation.” But no, of course not. The Government will never apologise. Criminal lawyer and former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said, “The decision is a very live can of worms as to whether the workers involved can request compensation. It would be a matter for the courts whether the workers would be able to successfully receive compensation for loss of employment or lost and suffered damages.” Even the United Nations make it very clear: “Human rights require bodily autonomy for all – at all times.” There’s no excuses. There’s not emergencies that can take away this right. The only way this right is taken away from us, if if we capitulate and let them take it from us. Anyway, this Supreme Court ruling is good news, even if it’s only just a start. But I think the Government should start to question how it treats its citizens from now on. Of course, we can’t trust them to do this, so the only advice I can give is that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras have announced that police are not welcome to march in the parade this weekend. That doesn’t seem very inclusive, does it? For a group that’s entire existence is based on inclusivity, they seem to have missed the mark here: “The businesses with the highest rates of diversity and inclusion are the ones that win”. By not including anybody who identifies as a police officer, I guess they, and society, lose. In Australia, the inclusive acronym is LGBTQIA+. I guess they should add a P- to indicate that P is not allowed at the Mardi Gras, as in Police Officers, not urine, which of course is welcome, as it is every year. I’m joking people! Anyway, the Australian acronym is pretty inclusive, but it’s got nothing on Justin Trudeau’s Canada: 2SLGBTQIA+. Canada is by definition, and by the length of their acronym, the most inclusive country in the world, unless of course you believe that ‘female spaces’ should be reserved for ‘biological females’ as suggested by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, then you’re a dastardly transphobe who is not welcome in uber-inclusive Canada. Pretty much anybody who identifies as conservative is not welcome in the most inclusive country in the world. It should be noted that Poilievre’s Conservative Party is steaming ahead in the polls for next year’s federal election, with Trudeau’s Liberal Party an increasingly distant second. Perhaps Canadians are getting a bit sick of mandatory inclusion. Back to Australia. The reason the police are not welcome at the Mardi Gras this year is because a gay police officer, Senior Constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, murdered, allegedly, a gay couple, former television reporter Jesse Baird, and the man’s new boyfriend, Luke Davies, using his police-issued service pistol. Consequently, the board of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras issued a statement: “Our community needs space to grieve the loss of Jesse and Luke who, before this tragedy, would have been here celebrating with us at the festival. The board has taken the decision to request that the police do not march in the 2024 Parade.” So because the killer was a police officer, all police officers are bad now? That sounds rather, how would you say, prejudiced, does it not? Because of the person’s identity, now all police are bad? What about him being male? Should we forbid all males from attending the Mardi Gras, because you know, he was a violent male who mercilessly killed gay people? He is also gay himself. Should we forbid gay people from attending the Mardi Gras? Perhaps the Mardi Gras should be called off, because he was also human, and we can’t have any of those murderous humans attending the parade. This is the natural conclusion of identity politics, is it not? Everyone’s excluded. NSW Premier Chris Minns said he thought officers not being allowed to march would be a step backwards, not a step forward. He said, “NSW Police marching in the Mardi Gras is an important part of bringing the communities together. There are many LGBTQI+ members of the New South Wales Police Force themselves, and over the years, particular senior officers, would have battled prejudice within the workforce.” And now they’re battling more prejudice from the very people that call themselves inclusive. Any surprises there? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

One of my children was sent home a notice from primary school that riled me up a little bit. It read: “Hearing screening will be provided to Indigenous students in Prep to Year 3 at our school. There is a small fee of $25 for our non-Indigenous children.” I’m getting a bit tired of all this. Not only is this not fair, it’s essentially racist, is it not? Is it not providing advantage to one group of students at the expense of the other students? Quite literally an expense! All based off what? One’s bloodline? A simple test could be performed by switching the roles. “Hearing screening will be provided to non-Indigenous students. There is a small fee of $25 for our Indigenous children.” People would be outraged! And they should be. It’s morally wrong, is it not? Then the opposite is morally wrong. It doesn’t even make logical sense. It’s essentially grouping all Indigenous folk into one basket and declaring that they can’t afford the hearing check. Whereas non-Indigenous families are assumed they can afford it. I think we all rationally know that at least some Indigenous families are not poor, and at least some non-Indigenous families are struggling to make ends meet. But yet they still have to fork out the $25, whereas a well-off Indigenous family get it for free? It doesn’t make any logical sense. Of course, I understand why the Government are doing it. They want to show they’re helping Indigenous people. But the proof is in the pudding – They’re not helping! All the stats show that despite all this money that’s been pumped into Indigenous welfare, it simply hasn’t helped. Just look at any of the statistics: High levels of unemployment, extremely poor health outcomes, far shorter life expectancy, and high levels of incarceration. And I think we all rationally know why. When you give people stuff for free constantly, when you treat them like they can’t look after themselves, then a certain proportion of those people are simply not going to do anything in their life to better themselves. It’s a disincentive to work or contribute to society. As long as you fit into the prescribed ethnic category, you get free stuff! An analogy would be a spoilt teenager. If your teenager spends all day in their bedroom playing computer games, and you continue to buy them new computer equipment, new iPhones, you give them all their favourite foods whenever they want, we all instinctively know what the result would be – an entitled brat. Now I’m not trying to be mean to our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Obviously some Indigenous people go on to be very successful and don’t feel hard done by by society. I just want everybody in Australia to be able to live their fullest life. But by dividing us up into two groups based entirely on our ancestry, with one group receiving more benefits no matter what they do, well that group will become entitled: “believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment”. It will create, and has created, a sense of victimhood. We’re giving you all this stuff because you have been wronged in some way. Even if you haven’t been wronged, just because you are of a certain bloodline, we’ll treat you like you’ve been wronged. And all it’s doing is creating generations of perpetual victimhood. And when you think you’re a victim, what do you do? You constantly look for somebody to blame, and you don’t try to better yourself because you think that the system is rigged, and the world is against you. Look, I’m not saying we should never help people. Of course we should! If a person has a severe disability for example, well a moral society will help that person to the best of their ability. But that surely shouldn’t be dependent on one’s ethnicity, should it? Whether you’re Indigenous or non-Indigenous, it shouldn’t matter, it should be based on your need. If you’re able-bodied and don’t have a job, we’ll help you look for one. If you’re old and can no longer work like you used to, we’ll give you a pension. But just because you fit into one ethnic category should never be a reason to give you more than others who don’t fit into that category. So I think the solution is simple: Do away with all this Indigenous-only support. I think it’s a disservice to Indigenous people. It makes them feel like they can’t look after themselves, and constantly need the Government’s assistance. It’s quite disparaging really. What would be much better, would be to help people based off their need, not their ancestry. People who can contribute towards society should be encouraged to. Treating all Australians equally will go a long way to fixing Indigenous relations. This current system of constant handouts has failed. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Darth Vader has announced he will be quitting politics at the end of the year. Sorry, I seem to have got that a bit wrong. Yvette D’Ath, Queensland Attorney-General and former Health Minister during the pandemic has decided to quit politics. She tweeted, “Today I can announce that I have decided not to recontest the seat of Redcliffe in the upcoming election. I remain committed to representing the people of Redcliffe and fulfilling my duties until the election in October.” At a press conference yesterday, she said she was committed to helping Labor remain in government. “Whether I’m running or not is irrelevant. I’ll continue to do everything possible to work for the Miles government. We’ve got an election to win.” As Minister for Health and Ambulance Services during the dark days of the pestilence, she kept us up-to-date with the latest health information. So it seems like the main role of Ms D’Ath as Health Minister was to continually talk about something that started with the letter V. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m glad she’s on the way out. Hopefully the current Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has more than just one topic to talk about: “Anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman, and as the Minister for Women, all people who identify as a woman are a part of our policies and strategies to advance gender equality.” God help us! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

This will probably be my first and only video on American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (unless of course, 30 years in the future she becomes President of the United States or something). I’m not going to be too critical here as she is worth 1.1 billion USD meaning whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it pretty well. Not to mention that almost everybody I know likes her, so I’ll tread a little bit carefully in this presentation. But the key is to put on lots of lipstick, keep your mouth slightly open, show your front teeth, and look seductively at the audience. Sorry, I promise, that’s the only wisecrack I’ll make. I’ve got it out of my system now. First, I’d just like to point out, I don’t like fame and celebrity if you weren’t already aware. I don’t gush over people. I think celebrities are just like you and me, only more well known and worth more. But Taylor Swift mania, in my opinion, has got a little bit out of control of late. Let me explain. I was at the dentist not too long ago, a guy I guess in his 30s. And guess who he likes? Taylor Swift! He couldn’t stop talking about her. Problem is, when I’m dosed up on lidocaine, or whatever, and he’s got his hands in my mouth, I can’t respond. I just have to shut up and listen. Him and his assistant were going on about the upcoming concert in Melbourne at the time, and how he missed out on buying the cheaper tickets, but ended up paying $800 for tickets for him and his wife. I don’t know if that’s $800 each, or $800 for two, but either way, it’s expensive. Not to mention the travel costs to get from Brisbane to Melbourne, plus hotel stays and the like. Cost of living crisis? What cost of living crisis? To be fair, he is a dentist, so I guess his salary is pretty good. My bill came close to $500, so I guess that contributed somewhat towards the tickets. He was going on about how it’s such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he many never have the chance to see her again (even though she’s been here twice in two years, hasn’t she?). And he was going on about how she’s the “seminal singer of our generation”. As I said, I was loaded up with lidocaine, so had very little to say on the matter. As I said, I don’t get how people gush over celebrities. It doesn’t make sense to me. I do not get that feeling. People are actually tracking Taylor Swift’s private jet, which her team doesn’t like very much issuing the perpetrator a cease and desist, even though he’s only using public information to track the jet. Fans, fanatics, whatever you want to call them, were waiting in the cold in Melbourne in the middle of the night trying to catch a glimpse of the star as she disembarked from her plane a hundred metres away or whatever. The best photo they got was a zoomed up photo of the airport ground crew who had a better vantage point and were also trying to catch a glimpse of Ms Swift. Of course, all the media outlets sent out their finest reporters to the airport filming her plane landing and so on. According to recent news, Taylor Swift went to an Italian restaurant. Taylor Swift went to the zoo. Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis arrived at the airport on his private jet. Yes, this is considered breaking news. Man, the carbon footprint between them must be staggering! Of course, the ABC haven’t stooped to such lowbrow reporting. It’s beneath them. Oh wait, “It feels like Swift is the biggest thing to ever land in Sydney” “How much will Taylor Swift make from merchandise at her Sydney shows?” “Taylor Swift dines in Surry Hills while fans queue for merchandise” “Superstar Taylor Swift touches down in Sydney” Plastic bead shortage after Taylor Swift bracelet craze”. You get the idea. But even stories that are only slightly related are making the headlines on the ABC, “Bedside vigil for girl who was critically injured in crash that killed sister on Taylor Swift trip.” I wonder if she was headed to Aldi instead of the Taylor Swift concert, would it have made such big headlines? Hmm. Look, I don’t really blame the media. Taylor Swift brings in the money wherever she goes. I’m not even really that upset by the mania around her. People obviously like her, and wherever she travels to, she literally boosts the economy. She gives people jobs. All those hundreds of people who help to set up her concerts, all the security staff, cleaners, ticket sellers, merchandise vendors, plastic bead factories. They’re all profiting because of Taylor Swift. And now she’s a billionaire because of it. Some might even argue that I’m profiting from her by making this video. (Although, I suspect most of my regular viewers won’t be watching this.) It’s just that, as I said, I just don’t give a hoot about celebrities. They don’t particularly interest me, and I don’t get any feelings of excitement when I see them. Anyway, that’s my take on Taylor Swift mania, and as I said, I won’t be talking about her again (unless of course she becomes the president). MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci has announced his retirement after a series of, how would you say, bad decisions I would suggest. First, his company openly supported the divisive Indigenous Voice Referendum. Regardless of the result of the referendum, he split his customer base right down the middle. Second, he made the awful decision to do away with Australia Day by refusing to sell Australia Day merchandise, but yet pushed heavily the traditionally Asian celebration of Lunar New Year. Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping must be having a great old laugh. And then without having seemed to learn anything from the Voice disaster, they started talking about flying Indigenous flags outside their stores, which they later denied, but it’s in their Reconciliation Action Plan p. 31. Take a look for yourself. “Display Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags outside stores, sites and support offices where practicable”. I mean, the only debate is what they mean by “where practicable”. Is it not practicable to hoist a flag outside a supermarket? I’d suggest they just changed their interpretation of their own policy after the massive Voice defeat, which they probably weren’t expecting when they drafted their Action Plan. And finally, the disastrous interview that Mr Banducci gave to Four Corners on Monday regarding Woolworths pricing practices where he walked out, before being pulled back by his minders. Here’s what happened: “It is an incredibly competitive market. The risk people have is that… I’m sorry, the former head of the Competition Commission said says… His words are… Retired, by the way. I don’t think you would impugn his integrity and his understanding of competition law. I’m just saying the world has got much more competitive… He retired 18 months ago. He’s not… OK, let’s… We’ll… Can we take that out? Is that OK? I should… I mean, he is retired, but I shouldn’t have said that, Angus. Are we going to leave it in there? If we are… Well, I mean, if we’re on the record. You said it, I mean… You know, let’s move on, but… Yeah, no, I think I’m done, guys. I do this with intent. You know, I do this with good intent. You know, I don’t do this with bad intent. What, you’re walking out, really? No, no, no. Can we just talk through with Brad for a sec? Can we just have a minute? Let’s keep going.” Even the ABC hosts were a bit shocked at the end there. But the final nail in the coffin as reported by the ABC today, Woolworths announced a $781 million loss. Remember when Woolworths said they weren’t going to stock Australia Day merchandise because: “There has been a gradual decline in demand for Australia Day merchandise from our stores over recent years.” So he suggested they were going to save some money by not stocking Australia Day goods, but did he take into account that by pissing everyone off he’d lose millions? Save a few bucks not selling merchandise – lose millions! Smart choice. Here’s this year’s Woolworths share market performance with a massive drop right at the end there. It’s not looking too good. This series of events surely has to be included in a business textbook at university under the chapter, “How to F**K up Your Business, by Brad Banducci”. To be fair to Mr Banducci, the $781 million loss was mainly driven by one-off accounting write-downs and, excluding those, the company posted a 2.5% rise in underlying profits. Amanda Bardwell is set to replace Brad Banducci as CEO in September with a reported base salary starting at $2.15 million. Hopefully she doesn’t f**k up the business anymore by pursuing divisive political and social issues and dictating which holidays people can and can’t celebrate. Anyway, Brad is on his bike, as I kind of expected. Attack Australia, attack Australia’s values. What do you think was going to happen? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Reports coming out today suggest Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll will not be renewing her $650,000-a-year contract set to expire in July 2024. It’s no surprise, really, she was already on the nose, with a growing number of police dissatisfied with her leadership with growing pressure on multiple issues including police staff shortages, escalating domestic violence issues, and the growing outcry on youth crime. Not to mention the recent revolt from within the QPS ranks after a senior Gold Coast police officer, Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway, was stood down following a claim he helped catch armed offenders by authorising officers ram a stolen car. Recent reports show that another two Gold Coast police officers are facing disciplinary action after helping catch armed juvenile offenders in a stolen car. Don’t they know? You’re not allowed to catch criminals in Queensland under Commissioner Carroll’s watch. Of course, the ABC are pointing out that in 2019 she became the first woman commissioner. That’s the only thing that matters now over at the ABC… identity! Other reports paint a fairly grim picture: “Katarina Carroll facing open revolt, 300 senior cops meet over leadership failure”; “Fix youth crime or look for a new job”; “Under-fire Commissioner to be given list of concerns by hundreds of fed up officers”. You get the idea. But the proof is in the pudding. Let’s take a look at some of the crime statistics under the Police Commissioner’s watch. This is the myPolice Queensland Police News Queensland Crime Statistics website (link below). I’ll be clicking on the Advanced tab, and setting the date range starting from July 2019, when Commissioner Carroll got the top job. This is all offences, noting that there was a significant drop when Queensland declared a public health emergency. You may remember that. Due to people going out less, less crime was obviously being committed, but it’s certainly headed back up since then. But more interestingly, you can filter by types of crime. Let’s look at All Offences Against the Person, so things like murder, assault, sexual offences, robbery, and so on. The results are much more telling. There has been a significant increase in violent crime. You’re not imagining it. But this is the raw numbers. It doesn’t take into account population increases, but you can show the rate instead of the raw numbers just above the graph. So let’s click on that. So yes, even when accounting for population increase, violent crime has been on the rise, significantly. Feel free to have a look for yourself for other types of crime. While making this video, I just saw breaking news that Commissioner Carroll has announced her resignation. Here’s some of what she had to say: “This morning, I have advised the minister that I will not seek an extension to my contract as commissioner. I made this decision, and was going to have the discussion about not renewing my contract with the minister in about two weeks time. But because of the heightened speculation and commentary, I’ve brought these discussions forward. I will finish in my role next Friday March 1.” So there you go, I didn’t even have a chance to publish this video. The commissioner is no more. I wonder who’s next? QUEENSLAND CRIME STATISTICS https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/queensland-crime-statistics/ MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn