Daily Insight

Beautiful sunny Queensland. Hospitals in crisis. Ambulance ramping. Criminals running amok. Cars getting stolen like it’s just a normal thing. Home invasions. Innocent people being murdered in shopping centres. What do you think the Queensland Government focus on? Changing the name of Magnetic Island National Park to its traditional Indigenous name, of course! The Department of Environment, Science and Innovation are proposing to rename the National Park off the coast of Townsville to Yunbenun in recognition of the Wulgurukaba people, the so-called “canoe people”, who have apparently been living there and on the nearby mainland for thousands of years. Although reports say the Government are only planning to rename the National Park, not the island itself. I wonder how long it will be until they just say, “F*** it! Let’s rename the entire island!”, considering the National Park covers more than half the island, and the fact that the state government already renamed Fraser Island to its Indigenous name K’gari in 2023. Research has shown that by renaming the National Park, this will result in less crime in Townsville… Just joking. Crime reduction is obviously not part of the Queensland Government’s playbook. It seems as if the Government are starting with soft targets that people won’t kick up too much of a stink over. I guess once they rename all the islands and national parks, it won’t be too long until they build up the courage to start renaming towns and cities. And just like they did to Mount Warning where tourists aren’t allowed to venture anymore, they’ll probably claim that Magnetic Island is for certain ethnicities only. In a statement, the Department of Environment said they were working closely with the Wulgurukaba people to care for country: “Our proposed change to the name of the national park recognises the rich cultural history of the area and the ongoing, deep connection to the island for the Wulgurukaba people.” Is anybody else getting sick of all this? Instead of focusing on stuff that actually helps people, like, you know, hospitals, crime reduction, and cost of living, they instead choose to focus on divisive issues like Path to Treaty and changing the names of well-known holiday destinations to something people can’t remember nor pronounce. It seems kind of silly, don’t you think? Oh that’s right, silly is what the present, out of touch, Brisbane-run state government does. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I’ve faced a bit of criticism in my last video for denigrating Waugul, the Rainbow Serpent, important to some Aboriginal people. My intention wasn’t to denigrate the snake, but to criticise the human-created law that potentially allows people to be sent to jail for building bridges on their property that upset that snake. One such comment that kind of sums it up: “Why is it okay to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but you won’t do the same with God or Allah? Catholics build cemeteries to house their dead? You wouldn’t dare accept somebody bulldozing through that, would you? How is destroying sacred Aboriginal sites any different?” I’ll address these concerns in two parts. First, the yellow part: Why is it okay to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but not other deities? Okay, so first of all, my intention wasn’t to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but rather the stupid law that allows people to potentially send other people to jail because they apparently upset the Rainbow Serpent. Unless there is proof that the serpent is real, and that said serpent is upset, then I can’t believe that this case hasn’t been thrown out of court already. Not to mention that the ABC article that I quoted referred to the rainbow serpent as ‘mythology’. That said, the ABC aren’t the definitive source of religious expertise, so I am willing to accept that God, Allah, and the Rainbow Serpent are all essentially theologically equivalent. That is, they are all considered to be a higher power that created this world. However, if for example, Catholics, or whoever, managed to implement a law in Australia that allows them to say that somebody who builds a bridge on their private land has upset God and is taken to court over it potentially facing jail time, then I would equally denigrate that rule. I would call it out for being complete BS, which is exactly what is happening to this poor real estate agent, except substitute God for Waugul. I stick to my original assessment – It’s complete BS! The second part is to do with the destruction of graveyards. The comment states: “Catholics build cemeteries to house their dead. You wouldn’t dare accept somebody bulldozing through that, would you? How is destroying sacred Aboriginal sites any different?” Okay, so first of all, I’m not condoning the destruction of sacred Aboriginal sites – of course not. Secondly, obviously it’s not just Catholics who bury their dead. I mean, many different religions and cultures do the same. I would argue that even non-religious people participate in this practice. But I get the point of the comment, many people would be outraged if we started bulldozing a graveyard without consequence. Why aren’t we equally outraged when people build bridges over the home of the Rainbow Serpent? Well I would simply state that a graveyard is a defined location. We all know where the local graveyard is, or how to identify one. It’s obvious. There’s no debate about whether a particular location is considered a cemetery or not. But a random creek on somebody’s property, how can anybody know that it’s a resting place for a giant mythological snake? It would be akin to a Catholic saying, “You just dug a well in your property. That’s where God keeps his favourite souls”. But not only are you unaware of this alleged “fact”, you’re charged with an offence, forced to attend court, and potentially lose 9 months of your life in prison. It seems absurd, and it is absurd. You can’t just claim some place is sacred after the fact. If it’s sacred, you need to make it known that it’s scared. You need to put up signs to say as such, exactly like we do for cemeteries. You can’t just go around looking for people who have accidentally dug up earth, or built bridges, or damage certain natural objects, and then claim they’ve committed some grave sin and take them to court over it costing them a fortune and causing them untold mental anguish. It’s simply not fair to behave in such a way. This will only result in people becoming annoyed and frustrated with you. It certainly won’t result in people respecting your culture. Look, you can believe in what you want, freedom of religion and all that, but when your supernatural belief is being used to jail people, I am never going to be on your side. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

In August 2023, the Western Australian Government ditched sweeping new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws after just 39 days in operation following widespread community backlash. I’m glad they’re gone. However, in the small town of Toodyay in the Wheatbelt region, prominent local real estate agent Tony Maddox was charged for building a bridge over a brook, a somewhat evil bridge as it turns out, under the unamended Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972. Can you guess why he got charged? This is an article from the ABC at the time: “Toodyay real estate agent Tony Maddox pleads not guilty to Aboriginal Heritage Act breach”. In it they state: “The prosecution claimed the works, which included the removal of a large amount of silt from the Boyagerring Brook running through his property, disrupted the Waugul — a rainbow serpent central to Noongar mythology. The prosecution’s statement of facts states that any alteration to the Waugul’s home could scare it from the water, causing it to dry up and causing harm to the surrounding environment and people.” Statements of fact can now include information on mythology? I think rationally, mythology should stay the hell away from anything considered factual. This wouldn’t be so absurd except that Mr Maddox is facing up to nine months in jail, and a fine of up to $20,000. According to Mr Maddox, the creek crossing is the only point of entry to his property, with the work carried out to prevent erosion caused by recent heavy rain and flooding. He said he had discussed the concrete bridge with local Aboriginal elders, and they had made no complaints.But now his life is in turmoil and he’s facing imprisonment over what? A mythological rainbow serpent? Is this just not insane? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of religion, but when that freedom impinges on somebody else’s literal freedom, that’s where I draw the line. This is not sensible. This is ridiculous, and I don’t care who I offend. If this guy goes to jail over this, that’s the end of Australia in my opinion. In a television interview on Sky News, Mr Maddox said: “I literally haven’t worked all year, I’ve been fighting this for a year. This just destroys your heart. Destroys your head, destroys your soul. It’s knocked the hell out of me as a human being. And what is the outcome? The outcome is going to be an awful lot of money piling up. For what? Even if I am found guilty, there is nothing in the Act that tells them they have the power to ask me to remove the crossing. I don’t understand the heavy-handedness of the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage. Why wouldn’t they instead just say, ‘You've broken our Act, we’re aware you didn’t know anything about it, let’s educate you and tell you about it’. I’ve had more education from our local elders than I have from the department.” Mr Maddox is set to face a two-day trial in Perth starting next week, February 22. He has been running his real estate business for the last 33 years and could lose his real estate licence if he is convicted. All over what? A rainbow snake who is offended by a bridge? This is bordering on the absurd and will result in destroying Australia if this goes on much longer. The Indigenous Voice to Parliament already put a huge rift between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and now, if a real estate agent goes to jail because he offended a mythological snake, our country is done. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The tiny Queensland town of Toobeah is slowly being given away by the Government to our “First Nations” people. Even though many of us were also born here in Australia, apparently, they were here first and are entitled to free land. Apparently this is “closing the gap”, but in my reckoning, it’s just “widening the gorge”. Divide Australians up by their ethnicity. That will play out well, won’t it! This is a photo of the Toobeah Hotel. Nice little country town of around 200 people. The Courier Mail are reporting: “Toobeah goes to war over land transfer to Aboriginal group”. And this is freehold land being transferred to the local Indigenous corporation. If you take a look at the National Native Title Tribunal website, click on Assistance, Geospatial, and then click on Maps. Scrolling down you’ll reach National Maps (you can also look at state and territory maps), select Claims and Determinations, and then if you scroll down, you can download the selected map. Here’s the map. Basically, everything in green is land currently under native title, while blue represents land that is currently going through the application process. As you can see, a lot of land is under Indigenous ownership (if that’s the right word). If you look down the lower left, there’s a table (I’ll zoom up on it for you), which shows the percentage land under native title. As you can see, 41.9% of Queensland is subject to a determination, South Australia 67.2%, Western Australia 87.1%! Overall, 52% of Australia is subject to a native title determination. Interestingly, the Australian Capital Territory, where a lot of our politicians hang out, only has 0%. That’s strange. They’re the only territory to have voted Yes in the recent Indigenous Voice referendum. This is the Queensland Government’s Department of Treaty Closing the Gap website. On there you’ll find their Closing the Gap Implementation Plan. If you search for Outcome 15, Target 15a: By 2030, a 15% increase in Australia’s landmass subject to Aboriginal peoples’ and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ legal rights or interests. And Target 15b is essentially the same things except it’s for their legal rights or interests in the sea. Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people make up approximately 3.8% of the population, and by the looks of it, the goal is to take it all, and the Government is essentially allowing it to happen. Back to our friends at Toobeah. The locals are rightfully upset. “Residents claim the Goondiwindi Regional Council – led by high-profile mayor Lawrence Springborg – has failed to consult the 300-strong community on the imminent State Government transfer of the 220ha Toobeah Reserve to the Bigambul Aboriginal Corporation. To be fair to Mr Springborg, he stated: “I am not the decision maker on Toobeah Reserve. The decision maker is the state, under the Aboriginal Land Act, and we (the council) are the current trustee responsible for managing stock watering and camping.” Michael Offerdahl, whose family runs the local hotel which backs onto the reserve, is furious. He said, “If we want to go for a swim in the creek, we’d have to ask them – and there’s nothing to stop them from locking up the reserve if they so choose. We’re the first bastion of defence for this – if we cop it now it sets an insane precedent. At first I was just worried about the growth of our town – we need 20 more houses to support the cotton and dry land farmers and they could be built on that land – but now my biggest fear is for other places across Queensland.” I guess the Queensland Government figure they may as well test the waters, so to speak, in these smaller towns, and then work their way up to bigger towns and cities. Perhaps they should reconsider the name of Queensland (seeing they’re so intent on giving it away). Perhaps “Aboriginaland”? At least tourists will know where they stand when they arrive in our state. Senator for Queensland, Pauline Hanson, is calling for a pause on the transfer until the residents have been given the opportunity to be consulted. Justin Saunders, executive director of the BAC, said that the corporation will not be closing the reserve to the public. I’m not sure what we can do about all this where the Government are dividing up land based on ethnicity, but the most obvious first step is to vote out the current Queensland Government at this year’s state election in October. They don’t listen to the people. They just do what they want. I’m not saying who to vote for, as long it’s not these guys. They just don’t have the interests of all Queenslanders at heart. When will these fools see that if we are not all equal, we are doomed as a society? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

You’d think catching criminals during a youth crime crisis would be rewarded. Nope, not for Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway. Sen Sgt Ottaway works as a district duty officer on the Gold Coast, a role which requires split-second decisions to be made regularly. Earlier this year, a group of thieves had stolen an Audi Q5 on January 29. On January 31, the Audi was driven to a house in the Gold Coast and people armed with weapons got out and threatened people at the home before stealing a Volkswagen Arteon. On February 1, police deployed tyre-deflating devices to try to catch the criminals. For 18 minutes, the Volkswagen was driving on its rims, so Sen Sgt Ottaway authorised the pursuing officers to ram the stolen car in order to stop the criminals. It worked and the criminals were arrested. However, Sen Sgt Ottaway was stood down for not following protocol. You know, catching criminals during a statewide crime crisis is a big no-no here in Queensland. This is the second time Sen Sgt Ottaway has been stood down, after he was last year placed on desk duties after allowing police to perform a precision immobilisation technique (PIT) manoeuvre in order to stop a stolen car driven by teens. After the sanction, an anonymous police officer stated, “Our boss has been benched because he was trying to catch crooks. We have never been taught or trained on how to box in or PIT a car. The offenders were never going to stop.” In response to the most recent stand down of Sen Sgt Ottaway, Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers stated, “This is an example of the disconnect between senior management in the South Eastern Police Region and frontline police. Senior Sergeant Ottaway should be receiving commendation for coordinating the apprehension of serious criminals and instead the police hierarchy are standing him down from operational duty. It is no surprise crime is out of control in the Gold Coast when the police hierarchy are so out of touch with frontline policing that they would rather stand down hard working police than let them apprehend criminals.” Actually, in the middle of 2023, some leaked police emails showed how frustrated Sen Sgt Ottaway was with the chronic shortage of police officers amid a crime crisis. The emails read, “The QPS is asking too much of me – I cannot continue to work by myself as a DDO on the Gold Coast at peak times, or I will make a mistake that will have a high consequence. We, as DDOs, are continually getting asked to overview more, make more decisions, run multiple high-risk jobs, consider high-risk domestic violence offenders, liaise with Queensland Ambulance over mental health, approve transports … you get it, the list goes on. “There are so many jobs and competing interests that I’m losing my mind. Tonight has been relentless, just like last night. Last night, I didn’t stand up for four-and-a-half hours due to the workload. I eat at the computer.” “Three stolen cars were rolling through the Gold Coast, one at high speed treating the highway like a racetrack. So bad was the driving that members of the public were calling Triple 0. So frustrated are the members of the public, that instead of calling police when the crooks were actually breaking into the house, the street got together, chased the baddies and smashed the front windscreen of the stolen car they were in.” “An off-duty senior commissioned officer rang for help because a UID (under the influence of drugs), violent, shirtless offender was in his yard and he was rolling around on the ground fighting with him. It gets worse. The off-duty officer and his wife had called a number of times. You guessed it – no cops, no on-road DDO, no regional duty officer to go.” “I have to decide on countless occasions whether to allow police crews to transport a mental health patient to hospital because an ambulance did not turn up or was unavailable. I’m asked to decide, with zero medical training and virtually no information, of whether I should allow our people to do these transports. I guess I’ll be the one in trouble for that as well when the patient dies in police custody.” As you can tell, Sen Sgt Ottaway and other Queensland Police are under extreme pressure with lack of resources and lack of support. But yet, when they catch criminals, they’re not supported by senior management, instead, they get punished. What does Commissioner Katarina Carroll have to say? What the hell is wrong with the QPS? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Reparations. It’s a word that’s being tossed about in Australia recently regarding Australia’s Indigenous community to pay for historical injustices. “Reparation: The action of making amends for a wrong one has done, by providing payment or other assistance to those who have been wronged.” So in this video, I’ll present a hypothetical. Let’s say the Australian Government make a deal with Indigenous leaders to pay each person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage $1,000,000. Let’s assume that the vast majority of Indigenous people agree with this, and in exchange, the whole colonisation debate is finished. There will be no more talk of past injustices. There will be no more special funding for Indigenous Australians. Everything will be settled. Okay, so what do you think would realistically happen? First of all, how many Indigenous people are there in Australia? According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, as of 2021, approximately 984,000 individuals identify as First Nations people, although I suspect this number would go up dramatically if a million dollars is on the line. But let’s just say in our hypothetical that a system is worked out, which everybody agrees on, that only people that are truly considered Indigenous receive the money. Okay, fine. So 984,000 people multiplied by a million dollars each equals $984 billion. To put that in perspective, the entire health system in Australia cost around $105 billion in 2023, representing 16.8% of the Australian Government’s total expenditure. So these one-off reparations to each and every Indigenous person will cost more than nine times that. Fine, it’s a one-off payment and it will never need to be paid again. To be clear, every Indigenous man, woman, and child will receive the $1 million, with children’s money obviously being placed into a trust, or whatever, and not accessible till they turn 18, or 21, or whatever number everyone agrees on. So what would happen? Well, most people who receive this $1 million will waste it. Now I’m not criticising Indigenous people here. I think most non-Indigenous people would waste it as well. Just look at Lotto winners and the like. They almost always spend their entire fortune in just a few short years. $1 million isn’t exactly a massive fortune anymore, so it could be spent relatively quickly by those who aren’t financially savvy, which is most people as I said. There would be a smaller number of Indigenous folk who might invest the $1 million, but I’d suggest they’re already fairly well-off and financially savvy if they’re knowledgeable of investments and the like. And the third class of people, the elite Indigenous activists. People like Marcia Langton. Noel Pearson, and Stan Grant who have done well for themselves. I’m not taking anything away from them. They’ve obviously worked hard at what they do, no matter what we think of their individual opinions. But what do you think they would do with this money? Well, just for fun, and for the sake of illustration, I’m going to pretend to be Stan Grant writing for the Guardian, or the ABC, or whoever else, with regards to the recent cash windfall. And I suspect that this would be similar to what the real Stan Grant would write. The title of the article would be: “A million dollars? Is that all my suffering is worth to you? By Stan Grant.” In other words, reparations will not result in this ending. Reparations will simply embolden the activists. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

This story just seems to get worse. The ‘child’, the 16-year-old who is accused of murdering 70-year-old Vyleen White in an underground carpark in front of her six-year-old granddaughter and stealing her car, was out on bail for armed robbery, although the ABC report never mentioned the armed robbery part. According to the Courier Mail, the boy was on bail for multiple armed robbery offences at the time of the murder. He had been charged with three counts of armed robbery last year, and a court in its infinite wisdom granted him bail despite police opposing it. We wonder why youth crime is on the rise in Queensland – the system is clearly broken. What sort of message is this sending to teenage offenders? I just used a knife to rob a person or a shop – multiple times – I was caught by the police and appeared in court, but yet here I am out on the street again! The criminals must be laughing at this. Obviously this teenager who was out on bail for armed robbery and got caught soon after killing an innocent lady, isn’t a very good criminal. He gets caught so often. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the police here. They’ve done an excellent job and have done everything they can. But yet, we keep letting him out – well, the courts keep letting him out. Let’s just keep letting criminals out until they murder someone. And who’s responsible for this? Well ultimately, the Government are responsible for creating laws. If the laws aren’t working, they need to fix them. The daughter of Ms White, Cindy Micallef, commented on the sentencing restrictions for children: “I’ve been doing this movement for mum and I am on a mission to not just change laws but create new ones. The maximum in the juvenile detention centre sentencing is 10 years, they can still get out, have kids, have a life. They’ve still got a life to live. We’ve lost the heart of our lives.” Of course, there’s been talk around the offenders being of African appearance, and as I said previously, we don’t want to tar the entire African community with the same brush. That would not be fair. Of course, academics will tell us that race is a human invention and not a biological fact. Okay, fine, but that’s ignoring real life. It might be a social construct, but it’s a social construct that has very real ramifications. Based on these recent events, there will be some proportion of Australians who may act differently when they see a group of youths of African appearance approach. I’m not saying that’s right, but we have to stay grounded in reality. Yes, if you’re an innocent person of African descent, and people start treating you differently because of your appearance, well yes, that sucks. I wouldn’t want to be in that situation either. But facts are facts. People still see people in terms of skin colour – not everyone – but many people do. Ms White’s daughter stated, “I do not want there to be a vigilante squad on the African people. These people have come here to start a new life. Like all immigrants … they didn’t come here to start trouble.” President of the Queensland African Communities Council, Beny Bol, stated, “We are a community under siege at the moment, because of that tragic incident. Over the last 24 hours I’ve received a large number of reports of people who are being physically attacked while going to work or shopping. I’ve had a story of a young African girl who went to the shop and saw someone throw something at her and say, ‘you’re monkeys, go back to where you came from’. The commentary on social media I can’t even talk about it. The level of stress that’s causing to the community, that’s unacceptable. Children are refusing to go to school because of the fear, too many people have been abused.” So obviously, that’s completely wrong to abuse innocent people. But when people say that race doesn’t exist. When people pretend that the world is colourblind, they are simply wrong. They’re living a fiction. The accused murderer is actually a Sudanese refugee according to media reports. Two of the other boys involved are actually private school students, with one having alleged links with a gang. The mother of the perpetrator who stabbed Ms White has spoken to the media and said, “I’m sorry to the community because I didn’t know that the kids do that. My son told me ‘I love you mum’ as police put him in handcuffs and led him away.” Look, it’s a horrible situation all round, but the community are justifiably angry. We shouldn’t have to fear going to the local shopping centre to buy some groceries. This spate of youth violence has come to a head where an innocent person has been murdered. We pay taxes to the Government. We pay their salaries. This is happening on their watch. Sort it out! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

70-year-old Vyleen White went grocery shopping with her six-year-old granddaughter before heading home to bible study when she was accosted by a group of males who stabbed her in the chest killing her, stole her 15-year-old Hyundai Getz, and presumably took the car for a joyride. It didn’t last very long because the car was found dumped just 20 minutes later. One-hour prior to the attack, it’s alleged the individuals stole alcohol from a bottle shop, drank it in an abandoned house, before walking down into the underground car park and attacking the grandmother. Thankfully, all the individuals involved have been arrested, and they’re all children. A 16-year-old boy has been charged with her murder, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, and stealing. Two other 16-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy have been charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle, while another 15-year-old boy has already faced court, charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle. He’s already out on bail and has to reappear again later this month. During his court appearance, the media were blocked from attending because it would be ‘confronting’ for the child. You know, hanging out with murderers, driving stolen vehicles, that’s not very confronting, but having some media in the courtroom might upset the poor lad. The media and police are reporting that this was not gang-related. Well, I think that’s an argument in semantics. Gang: A group of young people, especially young men, who spend time together, often fighting with other groups and behaving badly. Nah, these guys weren’t a gang. They were just a group of troubled youths wandering around shopping centres, stealing alcohol, carjacking people, and killing old ladies. Nothing gang-like about it! They have been described by the media and police as being of African appearance. Of course, this isn’t a reason to tar the entire African community with the same brush, but these youths didn’t do their community any favours. It’s not like they just yelled some profanities at the grandmother. They murdered her. And of course, people will react emotionally to that, especially in the state of Queensland where youth crime has been on everyone’s mind. President of the Queensland African Communities Council, Beny Bol, said he was “very shocked” by the tragedy, and that “no family should ever go through that pain”. He said, “When things like this happen, some people take advantage of the anger and the emotion to create more division based on race and religion. We understand the anger, but in the end, does that help? No. We need to work together to get to the bottom of why some of these kids are behaving in the way they behave, and what we can do to prevent it happening again in the future.” The fact that the perpetrators were children, I hope this doesn’t result in overly-lenient sentencing. I don’t think the people of Queensland would accept that. This wave of crime has been going on for far too long, and now the violence has come to a head with the death of Ms White. If the murderer gets off easily due to his troubled childhood, or his experiences with racism, or inter-generational trauma, or whatever, I don’t think the public will accept that, and the government better be prepared for an angry revolt. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

SBS are pretending that we live in some kind of post-racial world where it’s completely unnecessary and/or offensive to mention people’s skin colour or ethnicity. Despite a 70-year-old grandmother being stabbed to death in front of her six-year-old granddaughter in a Redbank Plains shopping centre car park near Brisbane, SBS refuse to give the complete description of the perpetrator. In their article about the event, “Manhunt continues after grandmother killed at shopping centre in ‘cowardly’ act”. They mention that “four men” as being the “people of interest”, so they’re happy to mention their gender. “A 70-year-old woman was stabbed in the chest by a man”. To be fair, they did provide a link to a video posted by Queensland Police showing the four males getting out of a 2009 Hyundai Getz in Springfield Lakes, not far from the crime scene, about half an hour after the lady was murdered. But they refuse to talk about the men’s ethnicity. Thank goodness, police live in the real world. In a media conference, they gave as much description about the perpetrator as possible. The goal of the police here is not to avoid causing offence. The goal is to catch the crook. Detective Acting Superintendent Heath McQueen said, “I describe those four persons of interest as African males in appearance.” Okay, so that was easy, and it makes it a lot easier for people to identify the bad guy. But here we are in a bizarre situation where SBS are confused which is more important: Avoid using racial language in order to not cause offence, or give as much detail to the community as possible in order to catch the bad guy. You’d think in a rational world, catching the murderer is more important, but SBS don’t seem to be living in the real world. SBS did quote the Acting Superintendent, but they seem to have purposely left out that line about the men being of African appearance. What’s even more funny (I don’t know if this is intentional), but other media outlets have been describing the 2009 Getz as being “light-blue”, but SBS didn’t even mention the colour of the car! They’re so post-racial, they can’t even mention car colours now. This reminds me of that Fawlty Towers episode, The Germans. Despite hotel owner Basil Fawly warning his staff about the upcoming quests, “They're Germans! Don't mention the war”, he keeps obliviously ignoring his own advice, which culminates in a goose-stepping impersonation of Adolf Hitler. Just as a note, an ABC article about the shopping centre death did quote the Acting Superintendent: “I describe those four persons of interest as African males in appearance”, but SBS, for whatever reason, are trying to avoid offending the murderer, or their viewers, or who the hell knows who they’re trying not to offend! However, a couple of years ago, they were happy to mention people’s skin colour: “black man George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer”. Go figure. SBS NEWS REPORT https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/manhunt-continues-after-grandmother-killed-at-shopping-centre-in-cowardly-act/k165gx9ns MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Mount Warning (Wollumbin) is an 1,159-metre-tall mountain formed from a volcanic plug in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Up until recently, it’s been consistently rated one of the best walking trails in Australia. Note, I said until recently. This score has been influenced by some harsh one-star reviews of late: “It’s closed! There is no valid reason for it! The government are destroying everything!”, “Ridiculous that it’s closed!”, “We went there to hike Mount Warning, and was told it is closed. We should all enjoy this beautiful country, as Australians”, “Closed, NSW government is turning us into Wall-E movie humans.” Here’s a picture if you’re not familiar with Wall-E. Can you guess why hikers are forbidden from climbing Mount Warning? Well it was initially closed during the pandemic. You know, people might accidentally spread an airborne pathogen while hiking in a remote forest. According to AllTrails, “Indefinite Closure: As of July 2022 this track is closed due to safety concerns and continued consultation with the Aboriginal community about future management.” Ah yes, safety concerns. You know, you might get struck by lightning. But I think the latter half of that sentence is getting us closer to the real reason: “continued consultation with the Aboriginal community”. According to NSW National Parks and Wildlife, Wollumbin (Mount Warning) has been “affected by closures”. Affected: influenced or touched by an external factor. It’s as if the Government have no control over these closures. It’s just some external event. “Wollumbin summit track and the Aboriginal Place remains closed. Penalties apply for non-compliance.” Ah yes, penalties. Ich bin ein mountain climber. “The summit of Wollumbin is a sacred place to the Bundjalung People, and was declared an Aboriginal Place in 2014. Wollumbin, which means ‘cloud catcher’ to some Aboriginal People, is a traditional place of cultural law, initiation and spiritual education for the people of the Bundjalung Nation. Under Bundjalung law, only certain people can climb the summit.” And let me guess, most of you listening don’t fit the prescribed ethnicity or ancestry. Only certain Australians can climb this mountain, and you’re not one of them. This has got so ridiculous, that private security guards have been hired to keep you away from a mountain. Apparently, it’s costing the taxpayer around $7,000 a week. Somehow hikers evaded the sparsely-spaced security guards and scaled the summit anyway to view an Australia Day sunrise. Perhaps the security guards need to be provided with night-vision goggles, bloodhounds, and Tiger attack helicopters (all taxpayer-funded, of course) to prevent these criminals from committing the most heinous of crimes, that is, Australians climbing Australian mountains. NSW upper house MP John Ruddick said, “This is a sad and terrible joke. Mount Warning is part of a national park like any other. It is a taxpayer-funded asset of our state that should be enjoyed, appreciated, and respected by all Australians.” In 2007, the late Marlene Boyd and elder and custodian of Mount Warning stated, “I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning… How can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation?” The point is, not everyone agrees with the climbing ban, whether that be Indigenous or non-Indigenous people. So why are the state dictating this? I know this is a banal argument, but what if the opposite were true? What if there was a rule that said only non-Indigenous people could go up Sydney Tower? I think we could all agree that would be awful. It would make Indigenous people feel repressed. Then why is it okay to say that only Indigenous people can climb up this mountain? Isn’t that equally repressive? The only thing this ban has resulted in, is animosty and resentment. It hasn’t resulted in people coming together. It’s resulted in the opposite – more division. Perhaps that’s what the government want. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I work in a university, so I get all these higher education news emails, and this story stood out: “James Cook University professor allegedly threatens staff member to meet targets”. The professor in question is Professor Martin Nakata. If you look at his bio on JCU’s website, he is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Indigenous Education and Strategy, and he was the first Torres Strait Islander to graduate with a PhD. So obviously, he’s a very smart guy. According to the news story, a senior female worker alleges Professor Nakata would “spear her” if she failed to dramatically increase Indigenous enrolments, which he later claimed was just a “joke”. Apparently this was said in front of a staff meeting. Okay, so my first thought before delving deeper, was that it probably was a joke. I’m not saying it’s a good joke. Some would say it’s in poor taste. Due to the recent Indigenous Voice referendum, and so on, where everyone is a bit on edge regarding Indigenous relations, you could also argue it was poor timing to make such a joke. A similar joke might be if a German professor jokingly threatened his staff by saying, “If you don’t meet the targets, I’ll send you to Auschwitz!”, in reference to something that happened 80 years ago. I think that’s kind of along the same lines of dark humour. I can’t imagine Professor Nakata literally meaning he was going to grab a spear and spear the staffer if she didn’t meet her targets. That would be a rather stupid thing to insinuate in front of other people. But as I said, this is just my first thought. Now of course, the lady on the receiving end of this ‘joke’ certainly has a right to say something, if she felt that it was said in a harassing sort of way. The Australian newspaper also published a story about this yesterday indicating that it wasn’t exactly the threat in itself that the staffer was upset by, but rather that the university did very little about it. “James Cook University accused of ‘doing nothing’ in response to bully claim”. In the article, they state that Professor Nakata had told her she needed to increase Indigenous enrolment from 670 to 1000, a target she felt was unrealistic. She said, “He’s a Torres Strait Islander man and because of that and because we’re the Indigenous centre, we have things on our walls, and one of the things is the spear. He points to the spear and says if you don’t reach that target, I’m going to take that spear off the wall and I’m going to spear (the lady’s name). On the Friday he repeated the same comment, and later that day he repeated the same thing in front of a student.” Okay, so it wasn’t just a one-off comment, it appears he repeated it at least three times, which I understand could be taken as bullying. Although, the fact that he said it in front of a student makes me think that he honestly believed it was some sort of joke. If your intent was to literally spear the lady, why would you broadcast it to the world? I think he just thought it was funny. Maybe that’s a classic Torres Strait Islander one-liner. The lady continued, “It flabbergasted me. Everybody felt very uncomfortable … they sat there in silence, I think in shock. I felt totally humiliated, and I was also quite dumbfounded.” A JCU spokesman said: “The university is aware of the alleged incident. All such allegations are taken seriously and handled in accordance with the university’s policies and procedures.” The woman said she had worked with Professor Nakata for more than five years and they had previously had a good working relationship. She said she tried to resolve the matter unofficially, by emailing Professor Nakata and telling him she “respectfully requested him” to stop making the comments. He said he was sorry and it was just a joke. The woman said she had accepted his apology and was keen to work together as normal, but her relationship with him had deteriorated to the point where he did not speak to her. “I went to HR and they’ve basically done nothing. He’s a very respected Indigenous academic and he’s very high-profile and I think they don’t know what to do. If it was somebody at a lower level, they would have been suspended or sacked. They are trying to work out how to make me go away.” The woman has been on stress leave and annual leave. Okay, so obviously from the lady’s perspective, this turn of events has had a really profound impact on her life. If what the article says is true, then the university are essentially trying to protect the professor and/or their reputation, although, now that it’s out in the media, they have to address this. As far as I can tell, the police have not been called, so nobody’s treating it like an actual threat, but that said, what if the opposite happened? What if it was a staffer or a student who had threatened Professor Nakata with a spear? I somehow suspect things would have played out a little differently. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

When you think of prison, you probably think of a hardened, tattooed burly man, and sure males make up the majority of prisoners in Australia. But I was surprised to hear recently that female prisoners are actually on the rise in Australia. This is the latest Prisoners in Australia report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week for the reference period 2023. Although the number of prisoners has increased over the year by 3.3%, female prisoners have increased almost double that at 6.4%. Before you ask, there are no stats for non-binary, or any other gender. Keep in mind that females only make up less than 10% of the total prison population, but it’s still interesting nonetheless. In terms of what crimes are being committed, acts intended to cause injury, although males have increased by 6.3%, females have increased more than double that at 12.8%. For unlawful entry, females have increased at more than triple the rate of males at 19.5%. Although it should be noted that females have had a significant reduction (as have males) in illicit drug offences. What’s going on in society that explains this disproportionate increase in female crime? They didn’t put it on the chart, but robbery, extortion and related offences, committed by females are up 30%! In terms of country of birth, 83% of prisoners were born in Australia, with the highest overseas-born populations including New Zealand, Vietnam, and the UK. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners, there has been a significant increase in acts intended to cause injury. Although the number is a lot less, there has also been a significant percentage increase in the number of Aboriginal Australians being imprisoned for sexual assault. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 7%, which is more than double the 3.3% increase for all prisoners, and more than the 6.4% we saw with females. After accounting for population growth, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate increased by 5%, meaning that on average, more and more Aboriginal people are going to jail, even when accounting for population increases. 33% of all prisoners identify as Indigenous, noting that less than 4% of Australia’s population identify as Indigenous, meaning Indigenous people are almost ten times over-represented in the imprisoned population. 78% of imprisoned Aboriginal people had experienced prior adult imprisonment. Queensland has seen a rapid rise in violent offences, with acts intended to cause injury up a massive 20% in a single year. Although male prisoners increased by 9%, a significant increase, female prisoners increased by a whopping 15%! While Indigenous prisoners increased by 11%, which is significantly more than the 7% seen across Australia. But that’s nothing compared to Western Australia, which saw its female prisoners increase by 19%, and Aboriginal prisoners increase by 14%, double the Australian average. Tasmania bucked the trend a little bit with a 20% increase in male prison population, compared to 9% female, which is still above the national average, while they had an 18% increase in Indigenous Australians being sent to jail. After accounting for population growth, the imprisonment rate in Tasmania has increased by 19%! What the hell is going on down there? Criminality has significantly increased per 100,000 people across the board. And our darling Victoria. Overall, their imprisonment rate decreased by 5%, good to see, but despite this, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 17%! How does that work out? Anyway, that’s the data as provided by the ABS. This significant increase in female and Indigenous Australian prisoner populations has all happened under Albo’s watch. Now I’m not necessarily saying he’s to blame, but I’d suggest that the divisive Voice referendum campaign, as well as cost of living concerns have played a major role in creating an environment where normally innocent people would decide to participate in the most serious of crimes. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I received an email recently from a university I work at saying that they’ve been reviewed by an “external auditor” over the last few months to check for “employee entitlement compliance”. Basically, to check that the university have been paying their workers correctly. Well, it turns out, they haven’t. I already knew that of course. There’s been a number of occasions that I’ve probably mentioned in other videos where the university either underpaid me, or garnished my salary. Of course, I don’t like to go down without a fight, but often the fight is over a very trivial amount, say $46 or whatever. The amount of time it takes me to file the complaint, plus fill in all the paperwork, plus potentially have to attend meetings, or even tribunals over the issue, it’s often not worth it. Not to mention the university have lawyers on the payroll who are happy to slow roll the proceedings. I know people who have gone through this process, not because of the money, but on principle, and it didn’t end up too well for them. Sure, they got their money that they were owed, their $94 or whatever, but because they were a contract worker, just like myself, suddenly their contract wasn’t renewed anymore. And that’s how these big companies and universities roll. Sure, it’s not legal to dismiss people over filing a complaint, but the majority of their workers now are casuals who are on three-month, or perhaps six-month contracts. You make a complaint, or piss the university off in some way, it’s very easy for them to not renew your contract in the future, and it’s very hard to prove, perhaps even impossible. They can just claim that your role is no longer required, or they’re having financial difficulties, or any other plethora of excuses. They’ve got no legal obligation to renew contracts. That’s why they have so many workers on these contracts. It makes it very easy for them to essentially dismiss a whole bunch of people without facing any legal consequence. Just a note, I’m kind of under a gag order here, so I can’t tell you too many details, but let’s just say that the external auditors found that the university owe me a significant amount of money that they will be paying me next month. Not only will they pay back the money they owe, they will also be paying interest on that amount (which they titled, “voluntary interest”, as if they’re doing it out of the kindness of their heart), and they’ll also be back paying my superannuation. I can’t tell you the exact amount (because of the confidentiality agreement), but let’s just say the payment will allow me to take a few weeks off comfortably. But one thing the university never did, which I guess won’t surprise you, they never apologised. They never said sorry. They never admitted they made a mistake. The sort of language they used in the official communication was along the lines of, “It’s come to our attention that…”, or, “In the process of analysing our payment records…”, or, “A discrepancy was found between our internal systems and the amount transferred to your bank account”. Basically, they’ve been caught out and don’t want to admit their mistake. I guess their legal team is behind all that. It’s funny, these universities call themselves ethical and the epicentre of social justice. For example, this university has recently implemented Cultural and Ceremonial Leave, not for all employees, just for those who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. They also recently implemented Gender Affirmation Leave, but again, only for employees who identify as transgender. Perhaps we all need to start identifying as Transgender Aboriginals to teach these universities a lesson. The university call their policies “inclusive” and “ethical”, but in reality, I think common sense would dictate that their policies are actually “exclusive” and “discriminatory”. I can only assume that future generations will look back at this era with contempt. Giving only people of certain ethnicities more privileges than those of other ethnicities, and then claiming that’s ethical? Obviously, it’s completely unethical, but these universities are blinded by their relentless and single-minded pursuit of achieving their fictional version of social justice. Anyway, as I said, they call themselves ethical, but yet are happy to underpay their staff. And even when they get caught out, they don’t say sorry, they just call it a “discrepancy”. The good thing is, karma has come back to bite them a little bit and I’m finally getting a bit of social justice myself in the form of a cash windfall. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

At the ABC, they ostensibly hate racism and sexism, but yet, they mention people’s skin colour and gender at every opportunity. For example, in the triple j Hottest 100 countdown of 2023 this year (you know, the one that used to be held on Australia Day, but isn’t anymore because listening to music on Australia Day is evil), well, the number one song was Paint the Town Red by American rapper Doja Cat. But more importantly, according to the ABC, she’s the first woman of colour to claim the number one spot. Ah, that old chestnut, “woman of colour”, or “person of colour”. Let’s just lump a whole bunch of disparate ethnic groups into one indiscriminate category. That’s not racist, right? Aussie singer G Flip came in at number two with The Worst Person Alive, which, according to the ABC, is the highest placing for a non-binary artist. They also describe her, sorry “them”, as being a “footy loving, reality tv-starring, afterparty-throwing queer non-binary legend”. Of course, only identity matters nowadays at the ABC. They could have just said, Doja Cat made a great song, or, G Flip is a great songwriter, but no, instead you have to point out their skin colour, or their indeterminate gender. What else should we expect our taxpayer-dollars to be spent on? Perhaps the ABC need to take a page out of Morgan Freeman’s book. When the American actor was asked how we are going to get rid of racism, he simply replied, “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.” Apparently, the ABC didn’t get the memo. In the ABC’s eyes, Mr Freeman is, and always will be, a “person of colour”. Thanks ABC for helping us to fight racism by keeping racism alive. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The Government thought they were doing a good thing when they tried to implement the constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which would have given people of one ancestry more political advantage than people who were not of that ancestry. I emphasise the word “tried” in that Aussies overwhelmingly voted against it. Common sense prevailed. Although the anti-racist ABC felt the need to use terms such as “black politics”, which is obviously very divisive. Unsurprisingly, companies like Woolworths jumped on the bandwagon to support the Voice as well. My question, why the hell is a supermarket championing constitutional change? It’s utterly absurd. The Government probably also thought they were doing a good thing when they scrapped a rule that forced local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. As of two days ago, 81 councils across the country have since scrapped Australia Day citizenship ceremonies. And now, on Australia Day 2024 held yesterday, Aboriginal and pro-Palestinian groups joined forces for massive Invasion Day protests in the big cities. It used to be about changing the date of Australia Day, but that’s not enough anymore. I think we all know that changing the date isn’t going to do diddly-squat. It’s not going to help Aboriginal people, and it’s certainly not going to appease these activists. Now the protests are all about genocide. Even though we areone of the most egalitarian societies in all of history, genocide is the new proclamation. Land back! Changing the date is nothing now. They want all the land back. And of course, “Always was, Always will be, Aboriginal land!” Here’s a group of protesters in Melbourne yesterday shouting just that. “Always was, Always will be, Aboriginal land! Always was, Always will be, Aboriginal land!” But that’s not even enough anymore. Forget about changing the date, they want to change the system. The same protesters don’t want to just abolish the date, they want to abolish the state! “All right, we’re going to try a new one today. I’m going to say ‘Abolish the Date’, and you’re going to say, “Abolish the State’, OK? Abolish the Date! Abolish the State! Abolish the Date! Abolish the State!” Oh yes, dear listener, they don’t want to just abolish Australia Day, they want to abolish Australia! I suppose there’s been rumblings of this been going on for a while now, but now they have the fearlessness to actually say it. Let’s not mince our words. The Government and these companies have created a monster. They have emboldened the activists by pushing for the divisive Voice and allowing councils and corporations to attack Australia Day. And now the monster has escaped and is coming back with a vengeance. Abolish the Date? No. Abolish the State! The Government created this monster, and now it’s coming back to bite them. The PM published a nice Australia Day video message online yesterday saying, “Working together, we can make this and even better, stronger, and fairer country. Happy Australia Day.” How nice. But how do you think the activists reacted? They didn’t like those last three words. For example, author and former political journalist Lauren Dubois said, “When you’re wishing ‘Happy Australia Day’ on a day you know causes great pain and anguish to so many people, you are being deliberately cruel. You’re smiling and celebrating their grief? You stand for nothing. You’ve changed nothing. You’re doing nothing. What a disappointment!” I presume Albo thought he was their saviour, but now they’ve turned on him. As I said before, there’s no pleasing these activists. Let’s follow this to its logical conclusion. The activists are not going to stop until one of three things happen. Either we give all the land back and relinquish control of Australia leaving Indigenous people in charge. Or we “pay the rent” and provide reparations. Hey, those roads are built on Aboriginal land. Pay a tax for how many kilometres you drive. Hey, that public school is on Aboriginal land. Pay the rent, or we’ll demolish the school. That hospital, that’s Aboriginal land too. For every patient that goes through the hospital, give a certain percentage. Hey Woolworths, those supermarkets of yours are built on Aboriginal land. 10% of your profits should be enough. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Indigenous people will never have to work again. The only thing they’ll have to do is go around and collect the rent. Or, the third option, which I think is the most realistic. If the state don’t want to lose control to these activists, well the state will have to stand up and say, “No! Enough is enough! There will be no more handouts. There will be no more blocking our streets. Australia is owned by all Australians. Like it or lump it!” MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

It was only a couple of weeks ago when Woolworths announced they would no longer be stocking Australia Day merchandise due to a “gradual decline in demand”, and a “broader discussion about January 26 and what it means to different parts of the community”. The backlash was swift. The media pounced and accused the retail giant of trying to cancel the national holiday. “Woolworths CEO denies serving up ‘wokeness in aisle three’”. Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton called for a boycott. A couple of stores were vandalised with pro-Australia Day graffiti. They should have just sprayed them with orange paint and claimed they were saving the planet. I don’t think Woolworths expected quite the backlash. Despite the failed Indigenous Voice referendum (which Woolworths controversially supported), ironically, everyday Australians are now starting to find their voice and push back against these corporations telling us how to live our lives. Woolworths is learning the hard way that you can’t just decide which holidays people should and shouldn’t be able to celebrate. Yesterday, Woolworths felt the need to start conducting some damage control in aisle three. South-African born CEO Brad Banducci did the rounds on breakfast television to try to explain his actions, spouting the typical lines, “Australia Day means different things to different people”. Yeah, just shut the f*** up mate! You could say that about any holiday, or about anything really. But you’re not cancelling Halloween, or Chinese New Year. It was funny, a lifelong Woolworths customer called in saying, “It doesn’t matter how well or not you’ve communicated the decision, it was a poor decision. You have stewardship, sir, of over 175,000 employees. You put their jobs at risk now by meddling in Australian politics. Stay out of politics, and stick to selling groceries!” When asked if he had regrets about what he’d done, he just said, “I think we could clearly have done a better job of explaining our decision, that’s why I’m here.” Woolworths even spent hundreds of thousands of dollars taking out full-page ads in newspapers trying to explain their position. Basically he just said that Woolworths are not trying to cancel Australia Day. Actually, news just coming out today reports that Woolworths consulted its Indigenous advisory board before scrapping Australia Day, noting that this advisory board, headed by Adam Goodes, was created in 2021 in response to a public relations disaster where the supermarket tried to open a giant liquor megastore close to three alcohol-free Aboriginal communities in Darwin, which resulted in a furious backlash. In a leaked letter earlier today, Mr Banducci addressed some of his staff’s concerns with one question addressing why stores have decided to display banners for Lunar New Year or Diwali but not our own national day. He replies, “Celebrations like Diwali and Lunar New Year are often centred around connection over food…” Is he insinuating that Australia Day has nothing to do with food? What a joke! Obviously many Aussies celebrate the day with barbecues, family picnics and parties. But what was most funny, after all this backlash, I received an email from Woolworths yesterday afternoon saying, “Hi Daily, enjoy great value for the Australia Day long weekend.” Suddenly Australia Day is back on the agenda? If you take a look at last week’s catalogue (dated 17th January), there’s not one mention of Australia Day (Australia Day being tomorrow). But yet they felt the need to wish you Happy Lunar New Year, not once, but twice! Noting that Lunar New Year isn’t till February 10th, more than two weeks away. But if you look at their latest catalogue (dated 24th January), on the front page, it says, “Great value for the Australia Day long weekend!” in green and gold Aussie colouring, with a couple of young tykes munching down on their Australia Day barbeque. It should be noted that Woolworths didn’t even mention the Lunar New Year once, and instead relegated the Asian food to the Pantry and Seafood section. That was a quick turnaround by Woolworths, wasn’t it? It seems like when Aussie’s push back, Woolworths are forced to listen. A small win, but a win nonetheless. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

A couple of weeks ago, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton called for a boycott of Woolworths supermarkets after they made the call to not stock Australia Day merchandise. Soon after, YouGov conducted a survey to see how Aussies felt about this (I’ll talk about these results soon). But the headlines were pretty much all the same, “Only 20% of Australians back Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths”. On the YouGov website, they wrote, “YouGov’s public data poll has found that only 20% of Australian voters back opposition leader, Peter Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths and Big W.” At best, this is a very misleading statement. YouGov should know better. They’re a professional market research and data analytics company after all, which leads me to believe they’re intentionally misleading people here. Looking at the survey results, they asked recipients to “Please select the statement that most applies to you.” So let’s be clear, they didn’t ask, “Do you support Peter Dutton’s call for a boycott?” The options were, “I support the decision of Woolworths and Big W management (14%)”, “I support Mr Dutton’s call and will be boycotting Woolworths and Big W (20%)”, and, “My main concern with supermarkets now is excessive price rises rather than this issue (66%)”. Logically, is it not possible that both this statement and this statement could be true? That is, one could both think that supermarkets are overpriced, but also intend on boycotting Woolworths. It’s just that price rises are more important, and the survey doesn’t allow you to select both. To conclude that “Only 20% of Australians back Dutton’s call to boycott Woolworths” is misleading. They’ve just constructed the survey in such a way to sway the result. It would be like if I asked people, “Please select the statement that most applies to you”, and the options were, “Australia must transition to net zero as soon as possible (14%)”, “Nuclear power should be considered for Australia’s base load capacity (20%)”, and, “My main concern is high electricity prices (66%)”. And then concluding that, “Only 20% of Australians Support Nuclear Power”. No, the survey was worded in such a way that people were more likely to select the third option during a cost-of-living crisis. The first rule of surveys is that the response options must be mutually exclusive. If you have overlaps like this, then the results will be skewed and should be considered invalid. Anyway, who am I to tell YouGov how to run their polls? Also, it should be noted that not all the people who stated they will boycott Woolworths actually will. How you answer a poll question, and what you do in real life are two completely different things. Personally, I don’t care if people boycott Woolworths or not. I don’t particularly like what Woolworths have been doing regarding their divisive support for these political and social issues such as the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, or their snub of Australia Day. Personally, I think they should stay the hell out of politics and stick to groceries. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll boycott them, but I certainly will only go to Woolworths as a last resort if I can’t find what I need elsewhere. YOUGOV POLL RESULTS – WOOLWORTHS BOYCOTT https://au.yougov.com/politics/articles/48416-only-1-in-5-australians-back-duttons-call-to-boycott-woolworths MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

In Australia, we’ve all experienced a Welcome to Country, or Acknowledgement of Country, possibly multiple times per week. They’re two different things, but essentially two sides of the same coin. They have their place in certain situations when welcoming foreigners to our land. But I think what Australians are starting to take issue with, especially after the long, drawn-out Voice referendum campaign, is being welcomed to their own country. When people welcome us to their land, it makes it sound like it’s not our land. It’s very divisive, is it not? Look, I’m not against individual dancers. For many of them, this is probably a job. Good on them! They’ve found their place in the world. But it’s the political messaging that starts to grate on people. Katrina Power, an Aboriginal Elder from the Adelaide region in South Australia. A couple of weeks ago, she gave a Welcome to Country at the Adelaide Convention Centre, which went somewhat off the rails. According to witnesses, she said things such as, “This event is being held on stolen land!”, “Seven in ten of you didn’t want me to have a Voice!”, referring to the Voice referendum defeat, and “King Charles should be dethroned!”. That was a nice Welcome to Country, wasn’t it? I feel rather welcome now, don’t you? In 2018, she called the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, “Malcolm Cows**t” at an International Women’s Day address. Perhaps Malcolm Turncoat would have been more fitting. In 2017, during her Welcome to Country at an Anzac Day Dawn Service, she made reference to “slavery” and “invasion”. Just as a quick note, the modern Welcome to Country is accredited to actor Ernie Dingo and musician Richard Walley. In 1976, they were members of an Aboriginal Theatre Troupe and were asked by a group of Polynesian performers to give them a Welcome to Country, as their spiritual beliefs dictated, so they did. Since then, Dingo has stated, “Before that occasion, we couldn’t do it to white people because they wouldn’t understand, and there was too much negativity.” Never fear! The ceremony has since become a very positive experience, hasn’t it? Another thing that perhaps some Australians are also getting a bit tired of are Acknowledgement of Country’s. Just so that we’re all on the same page, a Welcome to Country can only be performed by a Traditional Indigenous Owner of the land, while an Acknowledgement of Country can be delivered by anybody else, and is, very frequently. This is probably what is driving so many Australians crazy of late. For example, every Australian website now has an Acknowledgement of Country. This is Coles supermarket for example, “Coles Group acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia.” Blah, blah, blah. Universities are handing out Acknowledgement of Country palm cards. Sorry, I don’t mean to be so dismissive, but I’ve seen or heard these things at least a thousand times before. That’s the issue with these Acknowledgements, they’ve been overused, and now almost have no meaning with most people ignoring them. Whenever I attend a Zoom meeting for work, they inevitably start the meeting by saying, “Our meeting is being held on the lands of the [so and so people], and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners.” Because we’re online, we’re not even in the same state half the time. We’re using a satellite connection going to outer space. American comedian Bill Maher had something to say about all of this, from a North American perspective: “To all the people who start every public event now with one of those land acknowledgements where they say, ‘I’m standing on land that was stolen from the proud Indigenous people of the Chumash tribe’, I say, either give it back, or shut the f*** up!” I was at a tree-planting ceremony recently commemorating a person who had died in a local community group. It was on council land, and the council lady who was running the show of course began by saying, “I begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we gather today… blah blah blah”, and then I thought, if you truly acknowledge that this is not your land, why the hell do you think you can just plant a tree in it? How do you justify council owning it? Did you seek permission from anybody? Did you ask the local elder if you could use this land? No, of course not. So why do you keep acknowledging that it’s not your land? It’s like you’re rubbing it in their faces. These people need to do one of two things (in the words of Bill Maher), either give the land back, or shut the f*** up! WELCOME TO COUNTRY OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY https://www.indigenous.gov.au/contact-us/welcome_acknowledgement-country ERNIE DINGO AND RICHARD WALLEY ON THE 40TH YEAR OF THEIR WELCOME TO COUNTRY https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/23/ernie-dingo-and-richard-walley-on-the-40th-year-of-their-welcome-to-country MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The Labor Party in Australia are in trouble. Unfortunately for Australia, Labor have decided to start playing a dangerous game called identity politics. Instead of focusing on things that matter to all Australians like cost of living, they’ve been busy dividing us up based on people’s ancestry with their woeful Voice campaign. “PLEASE vote Yes!”, he cried. But Australians voted against division and voted No. But the identity politics game continues. Shannon Fentiman, Queensland Minister for Health and Minister for Women. Obviously as a Labor politician, she pushed for people to vote Yes. She’s a trained lawyer, having attained a Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne. The Courier Mail recently published a piece titled, “Will Shannon Fentiman save the Labor Party? The charismatic Health Minister is Labor’s last line of defence against the humiliating loss it faces in next year’s state election.” I would suggest that if she is the last line of defence, the Labor Party are in trouble. Sure, I’m mixing state politics with federal politics, but I think either way, the Labor Party are on the nose. Earlier this year, Ms Fentiman made comments regarding the definition of a woman. She would know, she’s the Minister for Women after all. Not to mention that she’s the Minister for Health as well, so she should know all about human biology one would expect. She said, “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.” So according to the Minister of Women, anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman. I’ll get to that soon. She gave this announcement in response to a terrible, terrible sticker that was stuck outside her office. It read, “Woman. Noun. Adult human female”. On Facebook, Ms Fentiman replied, “Someone did this to my office recently. I want to be very clear – I don’t stand for these sort of views, our community doesn’t stand for these views, and Queenslanders don’t stand for these views.” Oh really, Queenslanders don’t stand for these views? I would suggest that the vast majority of Queenslanders and Australians do agree with that tiny little sticker stuck on the side of your office. Actually, even Google definitions, the Oxford Dictionary, agrees with that definition, and I quote, “Woman. Noun. An adult female human being”. Actually, even the leader of the Labor Party, the Prime Minister himself, seems to disagree with the Minister for Women both before and after he was elected. He said, “How do you define a woman? Mr Albanese. An adult female. An adult female? Yeah. What is a woman, Prime Minister? An adult female.” Yep, he seems to agree with the sticker. Isn’t it funny? We live in such a country free of war and terror where a sticker is treated like some kind of terrible atrocity. To be fair, some commentators have sided with the Minister for Women on this. Political reporter Amy Remeikis accused the Prime Minister of “legitimising” a “hateful question”. Let’s go back to the Minister’s definition, “Anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman.” Let’s run with that. So who does this entail? Well, 1. Actual women, as in, biological women. Of course. Tick! 2. People with Gender Dysphoria as per the American Psychiatric Association’s latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5-TR, which was released in March 2022. And the third category of people that would meet this definition are liars, tricksters, and conmen. How can you prove that somebody who says they identify as a woman, is not a woman? You can’t. That’s why this definition is so stupid and why the Labor party are playing a dangerous game. The point is, Labor in Australia have been playing this dangerous game of identity politics, and it hasn’t been sitting well with many Australians. It’s divisive, it’s foolhardy, and it hasn’t even been paying off in the polls. If Labor keep playing this stupid game, if they keeping playing with fire, they’re eventually going to get burnt. The Australian people will simply vote for somebody else, and rightfully so. ALBANESE AND LABOR SLUMP TO WORST POSITION IN NEWSPOLL SINCE 2022 ELECTION https://theconversation.com/albanese-and-labor-slump-to-worst-position-in-newspoll-since-2022-election-216819 HON SHANNON FENTIMAN QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENT https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Members/Current-Members/Member-List/Member-Details?id=21646119 SHANNON FENTIMAN FACEBOOK ARTICLE https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=773702430793396&set=a.326116422218668 GENDER DYSPHORIA DIAGNOSIS https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis DSM-5-TR GENDER DYSPHORIA https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787.x14_Gender_Dysophoria MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Australian pet products supplier, Petstock, has become the next in a growing line of companies to boycott Australia Day. Perhaps there was a time when you could purchase an Australian Flag dog coat for your spaniel, or a bandanna for your terrier, but those days are numbered. It should be noted that supermarket giant Woolworths has recently acquired a 55% stake in Petstock Group, obviously using their power to push their anti-Australia Day agenda. Interestingly, I went to their website, and discovered something a bit strange. If you search for “collar”, of course you get a wide range of cat and dog collars as expected. But, if you search for “Australia”, this is no joke, you get an error message – “Something went wrong”. I don’t know if this is intentional, or just some kind of bug, but it’s amusing nonetheless. In a statement from Petstock, the head parakeet said, “At the Petstock Group, we remain committed to being an inclusive organisation. It is at the heart of our mantra of People, Pets, Planet, that we show respect and make sure everyone who comes through our physical or digital doors feel like they belong.” Except if you celebrate Australia Day, then you can bugger off! When asked about these controversies, head parakeet, I mean Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese simply said, “I think we need to stop looking for areas in which we can be outraged – we need to come together.” That’s funny coming from him. In the first year-and-a-half of his term as PM, he lead the charge in dividing Australians with the massive, cash-wasting, Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. That ended up being very unifying, didn’t it? Cricket Australia Chief Executive Nick Hockley also is banning all references to Australia Day in the upcoming test match that will be played over Australia Day. He said, “We’re not in any way boycotting Australia Day… We’re just mindful that in our communication materials, it means different things to different people, and we’re respectful, and we just want everyone to feel welcome.” Australian Cricket Captain Pat Cummins has weighed in on the issue and stated, “I think we should have an Australia Day, but I think we can probably find a more appropriate day to celebrate it.” Ah yes. Just change the date! That will fix everything, won’t it? Do they think we’re stupid? No matter what date Australia Day is ever held, these activists will never come together to celebrate Australia. They hate what Australia stands for. They want Australia Day, and perhaps Australia, abolished. Although not all Labor politicians agree. Chris Minns, Premier of New South Wales, stated, “This is a day for us all to celebrate with your family and friends, and recognise that we live in the greatest country on Earth. I definitely will be doing that. Cricket Australia should revisit the decision. The idea that you would take a national day away from any country, particularly Australia, is a strange one. We should right now be trying to pull each other together, and this is the day that we’ve set aside to celebrate what it means to live in the greatest country on Earth.” Queensland Premier Steven Miles was a bit less enthusiastic. When asked about the Australia Day cricket controversy, he said, “I haven’t given that much thought… I suppose the Boxing Day Test starts on Boxing Day, whereas this Test will start the day before Australia Day. That might be their explanation, but you’d really have to talk to Cricket Australia.” He’s right. He hasn’t given it much thought. He’s trying to insinuate the reason for not mentioning Australia Day during the Australia Day Test match is that the five-day match doesn’t actually start on Australia Day. What a whole lot of rubbish! Some people are using the analogy that insisting on celebrating Australia Day against the wishes of a minority, is akin to not installing enough disability ramps and lifts for the relatively small proportion of people who are wheelchair-bound. I think that’s a really poor analogy. Cancelling Australia Day because a few people are upset by it, is more akin to removing all steps and stairwells because wheelchair-bound people are upset by watching able-bodied people use them. Furthermore, wheel-chair bound people are not going around rubbishing or attacking their own country, as per the anti-Australia Day fanatics. An online poll by the Courier Mail asked the question, “Should Cricket Australia be snubbing Australia Day?” An overwhelming number of respondents, 97%, said No. Cricket Australia, of course, should continue to recognise Australia Day, and stop playing this stupid, woke game. It just goes on. These people are just not listening to the majority of Australians and are set on their crusade to tear down Australian traditions. I don’t know what we can do about it except to keep calling them out. Hopefully, common sense will prevail. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

A couple of years ago, back when we were all “encouraged” to work from home, I was working at a university as an “assistant” academic. Perhaps academic “dogsbody” would be a more fitting name. Basically, it was my job to help the new teacher anyway I could for a particular course. His name was Cam and was from Vietnam, with a PhD in computing or whatever. I had only spoken to him via email, but he seemed nice enough. Boy, was I wrong (in more ways than one!). This is the ongoing nightmare that is my horrible boss and continues to this day. “Hi, I’m Cam. I’ll be your new supervisor this semester. You’ll be helping me with marking and forum posts. Glad to have you on board!” Sounds innocuous enough, right? Wrong! The First Meeting. I first met Cam online during a meeting. Nobody was allowed to meet anybody in person anymore. I connected to the meeting, and there was an IT lady there who was fixing something up. “Sorry, I’m just fixing up the connection.” “No worries.” I waited around a few minutes, but finally it looked like the lady had finished. “OK, the computer’s fixed.” “Uh, OK… Where’s Cam?” “I’m Cam!” For the more cluey of you out there, “Cam” is not a masculine name in Vietnamese, it is a girl’s name. It means orange fruit. Just in the name of openness, I’m not using her real name here, but the concept is exactly the same. Her real name is actually a Vietnamese feminine name, which I initially mistook as a masculine name, so it turns out he was a lady. I’m not trying to be offensive here. This is entirely due to my ignorance of Vietnamese names. Anyway, Cam is and always has been a lady. She speaks very softly. She’s very petite. She’s very pretty. Not that any of this matters, but I’m just giving my initial impression of her. Although first appearances were of that of an angel, the reality was much closer to the devil. Assignment 1. My first duty was to mark Assignment 1. I got an email from HR telling me that my pay had been reduced. I logged in and saw that they had taken $96 from my pay. I was like, what the F? This has never happened before. I have often applied for extra hours, knowing that many universities around Australia have been sued in recent years for underpaying their casual staff. The HR lady told me that my supervisor (Cam) had contacted them and told them that I had applied for too many hours. I couldn’t believe this. I did her a favour and finished the marking as quickly as possible. She had only assigned 12 minutes to each assignment, which was clearly not enough. I’m not new to this. I’ve been doing this for like 10 years now. If I can’t mark it in the required time frame, then nobody can. And then she had the nerve to go and contact HR and tell them that I applied for too many hours. And then they garnished my salary! It’s not like I was stealing from the university. This had all been budgeted for. I had a meeting with HR about it telling them 12 minutes is simply not enough per assignment, and they just said that I had to take it up with the faculty, with the Computing School. But I knew it had nothing to do with them. It was all on Cam. A couple of weeks went past, and I noticed that students were starting to complain that their assignments hadn’t been handed back yet, the ones that I had finished marking two weeks prior. It had been three-and-a-half weeks since they had handed their assignments in. I couldn’t believe this. Cam had asked me to finish these assignments early, garnished my salary in the process, and then delayed handing them back to the students. She actually didn’t hand them back until a few days later, the same day Assignment 2 was due. Understandably, the students were pissed off. Sick Leave. Due to sickness and other reasons, out of the 10 online lectures Cam was meant to run, she only ran four. With assignment feedback often being returned late, lectures being cancelled, rudeness by the examiner in the forums, understandably, the students didn’t rate her very well at the end of the semester and left her a few choice comments in the forum. “This was the worst course I’ve ever studied!”, said one student. The students hate her. She treats other workers like slaves. She treats me like a slave. She holds off paying people for some reason, when it’s not even her money and none of her business. I don’t know what’s she’s trying to achieve, but she’s surely going to lose her job again. She’s got a PhD, so she seems to be able to find these good jobs, but she’s hopeless. She’s by far the most horrible supervisor I’ve ever had to deal with. She’s a hopeless teacher and a hopeless colleague. Yes, it’s my fault, I admit that. I let her do this to me. But unfortunately, I don’t have many other opportunities for earning an income. Perhaps I’m just destined to work with this nightmare of a lady. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

When it comes to the economy, there are four ‘I’ words. Inflation, where prices become more expensive over time, which isn’t necessarily bad if wages keep up, but they’re not, as we’re seeing in Australia. The purchasing power of consumers is inevitably reduced, eroding people’s real income. Our second ‘I’, Interest rates. Obviously, with higher inflation comes higher interest rates. Although over time, interest rates have come down significantly, that’s not the issue. The issue is that rates have rapidly increased over the last year-and-a-half or so to the current rate of 4.35%, consequently, people’s mortgage repayments have increased dramatically. RBA Governor Michele Bullock has basically stated that interest rates are a blunt weapon that disproportionately affects different segments of society, particularly younger Australians who bought real estate in the past three years. She said, “I acknowledge the pain borrowers are feeling, but the bank’s statutory objectives are economy-wide outcomes, and our key tool — the interest rate — is a blunt one. The board must therefore set its policy to serve the welfare of Australians collectively.” So basically she’s saying, “If you’re struggling to pay back your mortgage, tough luck! This is not about individuals… This is about the collective!” Our third ‘I’ is Infrastructure. Obviously, without infrastructure, our economy falters. As our population increases, again, obviously, we need more infrastructure. Do you think Dancing Albanese is investing in infrastructure? F*** no! According to the Guardian, “50 projects to lose funding under Australian government’s infrastructure spending review. The Albanese government’s review of infrastructure spending was released on Thursday, with 50 projects worth $11.6bn to lose funding across the country.” And, “‘We deserve our fair share’: state Labor leaders clash with federal government over infrastructure plan” Yay! Another f*** up brought to you by the Albanese Government. And our final ‘I’, the one that the Government don’t want to talk about, Immigration. Immigration has become such an issue in Australia, that even the ABC are critiquing the Government’s actions. “The uncomfortable truth about record high immigration levels, rents and inflation”. Basically, they state that: We are in the midst of a full-blown rental crisis; Our immigration intake is running at record levels with up to 600,000 arrivals expected this calendar year; and, Excess immigration has put upwards pressure on rents, given the housing shortages. Obviously, when there’s not enough houses, but we continue to increase our population, there’s going to be a housing crisis. They conclude that, “Trying to pretend there is only a loose relationship between the huge lift in immigration and the sudden increase in rents — which is fuelling inflation — is likely to create more serious social problems in the future.” “Australia’s population to reach up to 46 million by 2071, ABS projects”. Depending on how future governments deal with immigration, Australia’s population is set to balloon. Almost 46 million according to their high series, 39 million for the medium series, and 34 million for the low series. It should be noted that if immigration was completely stopped, Australia's population would begin decreasing in 2037 before dropping to less than 24 million by 2071 due to Australia’s low fertility rate. Anyway, Immigration is fuelling inflation. Inflation is fuelling higher interest rates. And the Government are cutting infrastructure spending just when we need it the most. Is the Albanese government actively trying to destroy Australian prosperity? ANTHONY ALBANESE INSISTS INFLATION IS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON, RBA BOSS SAYING IT'S HOMEGROWN https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-23/inflation-anthony-albanese-at-odds-reserve-bank-michele-bullock/103142978 'HIGH-RISK' INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT FUNDING AXED AS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTAINS SPENDING https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-16/high-risk-infrastructure-project-funding-axed/103111144 THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT RECORD HIGH IMMIGRATION LEVELS, RENTS AND INFLATION https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-21/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-immigration-rents-inflation/103128424 MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Last week, I made a video about former High Commissioner to West Africa Gregory Andrews. He was a keen supporter of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and recently went on a hunger strike in front of parliament house in order to convince the Australian Government to end coal and gas exports. Obviously, that didn’t work, and would never have worked as I explained in the previous video. He was on Day 15 of his hunger strike and feeling pretty miserable, but he insisted he was going to continue until at least Day 42. He stated that he was willing to die for the climate, which I thought was a bit fanatical as he has a wife and two children. The next day, Day 16, he had lost a total of 10 kg, or about 12.5% of his body weight. He wasn’t looking or feeling so good. Later that day, he started to suffer from chest pains and shortness of breath, and was rushed to Canberra Hospital by a taxpayer-funded, fossil-fuel powered ambulance. He should probably have requested a human-powered rickshaw to cut down on his carbon footprint. He spent a couple of days in a taxpayer-funded hospital using fossil-fuel derived medical equipment. He said, “My body gave up but my determination hasn’t. Yesterday I had to listen to my body when it started to give out. I was losing control of my limbs and speech, and my brain got pretty foggy. Here in Canberra Hospital, the staff are amazing. They’ve hooked me up to all different drips and they’re doing six-hourly ECGs on me to check my heart.” I’m glad they had the free resources to treat him. Even though Mr Andrews quit the hunger strike, the hunger continues! On Day 17, Deputy Mayor of Shoalhaven Council, Evan Christen, took up the reins and continued the hunger strike while Mr Andrews was in hospital. On Day 19, he handed over to retired English-language teacher and member of Extinction Rebellion, Pam. It’s believed that not only did she miss lunch, she also had to miss afternoon tea with the girls at the Queanbeyan Bowls Club. And yesterday on Day 20, Xanthe took over to skip a couple of meals in the name of climate action. Although it may have started as a full-blown climate hunger strike, it has since evolved into more of a mild peckishness picket. As long as you’re willing to skip a meal in the name of the climate, all are welcome! In response to the Government’s inaction on ceasing the fossil fuel industry, Mr Andrews said, “I don't really understand the psychology of it, but the fact that our Prime Minister ignored me has made me more resolute than ever. I'm glad I saved my body for what's next.” And his next move appears to be to go and help out a group called Rising Tide. Remember back in 2006 Al Gore made a movie called An Inconvenient Truth saying that sea levels could rise by 20 feet in the near future flooding many parts of Manhattan due to melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica. But, it was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Even NASA are only predicting a 3 foot rise relative to 1995 by the end of the century, which is not nothing, but it certainly isn’t anyway near Mr Gore’s alarmist prediction of 20 feet. Although to be fair to him, he only ever stated, “in the near future”, which is open to interpretation, and he did say “could”. So he’s kind of covered himself there. It should be noted that over the last 22,000 years or so, since the last glacial maximum, the sea level has risen by more than 125 metres, or 410 feet! But over the last few thousand years, the sea level has remained relatively stable. Anyway, Mr Andrews has finished his hunger strike and is now going to help out Rising Tide. They plan to blockade the Newcastle Coal Port this Saturday and Sunday 25 and 26 November by jumping in kayaks and canoes and getting in the way of the big ships. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what he had to say, “Hey Australia. Gregory here again. You know we’re the biggest coal exported in the world? That’s a massive shame job, and I know so many of us are against that. I am. And that’s why this weekend I’m going to be at the Rising Tide blockade of Newcastle Coal Port. Newcastle Port is the biggest coal exported in the world. So come down on Saturday and Sunday and help tell the world that we’re sick of our government allowing Australia to be the biggest coal exporter in the world. Enough is enough. Come down to Newcastle and let’s block that coal port.” And news just in. Fiona is now a little bit peckish for climate action on Day 21 of the climate hunger strike. It’s believed that although she had a big breakfast, she skipped morning tea, and is starting to feel a bit peckish. Anyway, Gregory is not dead, despite it being a bit touch and go for a while, and he’s off to save the planet by getting on a Boogie Board and getting in the path of a giant coal ship. Wish him luck! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Merit is required to go to or work at a university, right? Well, not anymore at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. “Queensland University of Technology defends removing ‘merit’ from hiring policy”. Via an internal email, Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil told staff that they would be moving away from “the merit principle” towards a “more inclusive suitability assessment”. I don’t know if she’s lost her mind, or perhaps I’m not understanding this fully, but this sounds completely insane in my opinion. She told ABC Radio, “The suitability assessment will consider factors such as gender and ethnic backgrounds. Women, for example, are under-represented in science and engineering at QUT, whereas men are under-represented in teaching and nursing. It will also consider the current demographic breakdown of their various schools and disciplines.” So basically she’s saying that instead of hiring people based on their merit, based on their ability to teach a subject, they’re instead going to focus on whether you fit the prescribed gender or ethnicity or any other arbitrary factor that the university decides. She actually dismissed suggestions that the hiring process should be colourblind, saying that was impossible in practice. “When people say things like ‘We do this on merit’, they're actually reflecting the bias of their own experience. There’s so much data on this around selection, whether it’s recruitment into orchestras or into universities.” I’m not sure if she fully understands how orchestras recruit, but they use blind auditions where musicians perform behind a screen to take away any bias from the hiring process. The only thing the musician is judged on is how well they play – their merit. It’s only merit they’re being recruited on! What is she trying to say here? Is she saying that we shouldn’t have blind auditions, and recruit solely on gender and ethnicity? What an absurd notion! It’s funny, these people call themselves progressives, but they’re doing the very opposite. They’re regressive. They’re returning to a former or less developed state. This is insanity. Professor Sheil continued, “We need to access the entire talent pool, and we don’t want everybody to look the same.” What does that mean? Is she implying that people of a certain ethnicity and gender all look the same? What an incredibly racist and sexist thing to say! Actually, on the radio, she did mention that she was the first female professor of chemistry in Australia and has subsequently spent her entire life trying to get more women into science. Well I would suggest that she believes that she earned her place as the first female chemistry professor, not because of her gender, but because of her merit. But now she wants to turn all that on its head and just choose people not based on their merit, but on arbitrary university-decreed factors. If we take this to its natural conclusion, will surgeons now not be chosen based on their merit? Is that what society wants? When you go in for heart surgery, you’re not quite sure whether this person earned their place, or just happened to be the right combination of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality? Surely surgeons would agree with me on this and be fully against such an absurd notion. Luckily, some academics at QUT have been speaking out against this. One academic, who did not wish to be named, stated, “The policy to get rid of merit is bordering on embarrassing. It’s completely disrespectful to tell students who will be charged thousands of dollars for a program that they will be taught by people chosen not on merit, but suitability.’’ Another academic said, “Every academic colleague I have spoken to about the proposed changes has been left appalled and flabbergasted. They think it is a terrible signal to students and university donors. To students, it is saying you will not necessarily get the best professors when you pay tens of thousands of dollars for this course, you will get who the university believes is the most suitable.” There’s only one good thing about this change that I can think of. At least they’re being honest. Perhaps previously they were trying to conceal their depraved plans, but now, it’s all out in the open. They want to openly discriminate against people, and I hope the students and the academics see through this and either go on strike and demand that the vice-chancellor is replaced, or quit the university and let the university fail. As it should. QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY DEFENDS REMOVING 'MERIT' FROM HIRING POLICY https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562 MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

If you look at the figures of the Overseas Search Report for October 2023, they state that interest from overseas property seekers is skyrocketing due to recent record migration. Their chart shows the annual change in buy and rent search volumes from overseas property seekers. I guess it’s no surprise that the biggest increase in buying interest was from China at 36.9%. Unsurprisingly, as the number of migrants increase, so does the number of people searching for a place to rent. The chart shows the number of permanent visa holders and student arrivals, which directly correlates with the number of rent searches. If you want to know why there’s a rental crisis, well, here’s one of the reasons. But for whatever reason, the Government refuse to reduce immigration. They obviously get some sort of economic benefit from it. If struggling Australians can’t afford a house or find a place to rent, “So what!”, they say, “Consequences be damned!”. “Australian homes are no longer for Australians”, “Chinese outrun other foreign buyers in dash for housing”, “‘Nuts’: Why millionaires are flooding into Oz”. It’s a good question. Here’s a map from Visual Capitalist. According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023, more than 13,000 millionaires are expected to have left China by the end of this year, the most of any country, and guess where they’re going? You guessed it, Australia! Australia has reclaimed the top position for net millionaire arrivals. Wealthy Chinese love Australia. According to realestate.com, “Australia now top destination for cashed-up Chinese homebuyers”. But why Australia? And where’s all this cash coming from? Well it all started over a decade ago. In 2009, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, made the somewhat shortsighted decision to allow temporary migrants to purchase established housing resulting in a subsequent boom in temporary migration boosting demand for Australian homes. Secondly, apparently Australia has one of the weakest anti-money laundering laws in the world, which has made Australian property a great way for laundering dirty money, no questions asked. There are talks of reforming this, and Australia did agree in 2003 to introduce global ‘Tranche 2’ anti-money laundering regulation, but federal governments from both sides repeatedly delayed its implementation. A report from Paris-based Financial Action Taskforce from 2015 warned that Australian residential property is a haven for international money laundering, particularly from China with billions of dollars laundered in Australian property. Of course, many real estate agents do not want these regulations, because that would end their lucrative gravy train. Peter Li, principal at Plus Agency, is a self-described property guru who mainly deals with Chinese buyers, said, “Foreign buyer inquires have quadrupled from last year, and sales have doubled. International buying will definitely increase during the next year. There is more activity in terms of flights, so it’s increasingly easier to get in and out of Australia.” No, this is not a Giorgio Armani fashion catalogue, this is luxury property developer PB&Co in the affluent suburb of Toorak in Melbourne. Buyer’s agent, Alex Bragilevsky, recently said, “I have facilitated $135 million of real estate deals in Toorak in the past six months with 90% of my clientele from China. They come to Melbourne on a private jet, and I’ll meet them at the airport with a nice car. Then we go out and look at real estate.” David Morrell, director of Morrell and Koren, a top-end real estate firm, described the foreign buyer situation as “nuts”. He said, “We are seeing jumps of $2-3 million dollars on properties. We have a market place that is disproportionately being sold to Chinese buyers, relative to the rest of the population. What’s happening in Toorak is only a look at what is happening under the blankets, across the country.” And lastly, there’s also a special type of visa that essentially facilitates money laundering in Australia, the so-called ‘golden ticket’ visa, the Significant Investor Visa, which was introduced by former Labor Treasurer Chris Bowen in 2012, and requires the applicant to invest $5 million in Australia. It has operated for more than 10 years with almost zero rejections with Chinese citizens making up around 90% of successful applicants. Noting that at the time of recording, “Direct investment in residential real estate is prohibited. Indirect investment in residential property through managed funds is strictly limited.” This visa is not permanent, lasting five years, but you can bring your family with you, and you can apply for a permanent visa at the end. Basically, if you’re rich, even if the source of your money is questionable, you can come to Australia and buy a house, pumping up the property market, pricing locals out of housing, with Australia remaining a global magnet and shelter for dirty laundered money. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn