full
Episode 405 - More Ridiculous and Embarrassing Ideas.
In this episode we discuss:
- 5 Days of Grief leave
- Comparisons to the Republic vote
- Frank Brennan
- Remember Liam
- Alasdair Macintyre
- Cam Bagged Me
- Quick counterpoints
- Pitiful
- Guy Rundle on The Voice
- Treaty
- Boarding School Options
- Essential Poll on Gaza
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We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au
You can email us. The address is trevor@ironfistvelvetglove.com.au
Transcript
Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,
Speaker:evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.
Speaker:But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that
Speaker:gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the
Speaker:current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.
Speaker:Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the
Speaker:Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Welcome back, dear listener.
Speaker:Episode 405, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.
Speaker:I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist, coming in loud and clear, hopefully, from
Speaker:the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, upper middle class electorate of Ryan.
Speaker:In the tropics, we have Scott in Mackay.
Speaker:How are you, Scott?
Speaker:Oops.
Speaker:Good thanks, Trevor.
Speaker:G'day, Joe.
Speaker:G'day, listeners.
Speaker:How are you all?
Speaker:Scott is sporting a suntan from a recent trip to Airlie Beach and
Speaker:scuba diving, living the dream.
Speaker:And freezing his ass off in Devon is Joe the Tech Guy.
Speaker:And morning all.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So we're here, all corners of the globe, for another episode of the
Speaker:Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:We will talk about news and politics and sex and religion
Speaker:and other things that come up.
Speaker:If you're in the chat room, say hello, there's already five people there
Speaker:watching, so, make your comments, we'll try and incorporate them if we
Speaker:can Watley's there, and Don is there.
Speaker:There's must be one other person there.
Speaker:Say hello, whoever you are.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:Right, what's on the agenda?
Speaker:You know, a lot had happened, I thought.
Speaker:Since the last episode, I was sort of scratching around for material, but
Speaker:we'll talk again, a bit of a debrief about The Voice and a bit more about
Speaker:Israel and Gaza, and that's kind of the topics we're going to be covering.
Speaker:We'll get to My friend Cam Riley bagged me on his podcast, The Bullshit Filter, so,
Speaker:he said my arguments were ridiculous and embarrassing and shame on me and everybody
Speaker:else who voted no, so we'll get to that, but ah, we'll work our way up to that.
Speaker:I actually think I actually, for the first time forever, I think
Speaker:I actually agree with Cam Riley.
Speaker:So anyway, we will come to that one and yeah, so.
Speaker:Gentlemen, things have happened.
Speaker:Queensland Government announced for people who are feeling the grief
Speaker:from the referendum result in the public service of Queensland, they
Speaker:can apply for five days grief leave.
Speaker:What do you think of that?
Speaker:That's just going to get abused.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:That was my immediate thought was, what checking are they doing?
Speaker:Cause that sounds like a good excuse for five days off.
Speaker:Five days off, exactly.
Speaker:You know, you just got to go and say, I'm feeling very grieved about this.
Speaker:You know, I cannot believe my brethren, Indigenous brothers and sisters have
Speaker:been denied this once in a lifetime opportunity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:I feel embarrassed that it, you know, because Queensland had a 63 percent
Speaker:of the vote, sorry, the where was it, Queensland was 62 percent of the
Speaker:vote was no and that type of thing.
Speaker:I'm very embarrassed.
Speaker:I'm, I'm ashamed to be a Queenslander and they'll be able to, you know,
Speaker:bung it on like that and get their, get their five days off.
Speaker:The hell?
Speaker:It's a joke.
Speaker:Actually, Queensland was higher than that.
Speaker:You're looking at the referendum result in my notes for the Republic.
Speaker:Scott, I think.
Speaker:Oh, okay, gotcha.
Speaker:Which we'll get to.
Speaker:Which is one of the sort of things that has come up as a topic is that
Speaker:the result from this referendum, to a large extent, copied the result
Speaker:from the referendum for the Republic.
Speaker:So, in the notes I've got here overall, the vote for the Republic was defeated.
Speaker:54 percent 54.
Speaker:87 said no.
Speaker:In terms of states, Queensland was the highest in that case in
Speaker:saying no to a republic at 62%.
Speaker:No states actually are past it.
Speaker:Victoria was the closest, again.
Speaker:The Australian Capital Territory actually was in favour of the
Speaker:republic quite strongly, which again matched our recent referendum.
Speaker:And interestingly, according to Wikipedia the highest yes votes for
Speaker:the Republic referendum came from inner metropolitan areas, again, similar to...
Speaker:That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So, votes in opposition to the proposed Republican vote...
Speaker:Came predominantly from rural and remote divisions, as well
Speaker:as many outer suburban areas.
Speaker:So, on those statistics, it kind of, the results matched up.
Speaker:And...
Speaker:And that's 30 years ago, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah, it's...
Speaker:When was that?
Speaker:25 years ago or something, or was it 1999, wasn't it?
Speaker:Not sure when that was.
Speaker:Ah, okay.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:Father Frank Brennan.
Speaker:Who we've talked about over the years on various things.
Speaker:He's the Jesuit priest who gets involved in a lot of stuff.
Speaker:And he was...
Speaker:Leading art socialist.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Also, just for context, he's the one who also said that if they
Speaker:brought in a rule that if you hear about child abuse in the Confession,
Speaker:you must alert the authorities.
Speaker:And he said that he wouldn't.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:Despite that, okay.
Speaker:He still gets a run on all sorts of government bodies.
Speaker:He's definitely been one in favor of the Yes vote.
Speaker:And he was on the Karma Langton panel that was behind the report that was done.
Speaker:And he's been an advocate for indigenous rights for many years, and definitely
Speaker:a man on the side of the Yes vote, and not only Jesuit priest, but.
Speaker:Lawyer as well.
Speaker:So, he, he was basically saying that any referendum that does not get
Speaker:bipartisan support is doomed to fail.
Speaker:And I'm just going to play, let me just find this clip now that
Speaker:I've said that I think he's right.
Speaker:Yeah bipartisan support.
Speaker:Let's Let's see what he had to say about needing bipartisan support.
Speaker:We can all understand that Aboriginal leaders, with the publication of this
Speaker:letter, are very angry and upset.
Speaker:But I think we have to accept that it's simply a given.
Speaker:Doesn't matter what the topic of the referendum.
Speaker:If you do not have bipartisanship, there's just no point.
Speaker:draw all sorts of other conclusions might not all be altogether warranted.
Speaker:We are, and I think that what's happened is they've played
Speaker:roulette with the country's soul.
Speaker:We're way back, look at that letter that's come out from
Speaker:the Aboriginal leaders today.
Speaker:The anger, the disappointment, the despair.
Speaker:These are the people we've got to be able to work with well and constructively and
Speaker:in trust in order to close those gaps.
Speaker:And so, so much of what Noel Pearson detected as love in the air during
Speaker:the last week or two of the campaign.
Speaker:I'm just pausing there.
Speaker:I noted a little bit of anti Noel Pearson in that sentiment there.
Speaker:But I'll just finish it off.
Speaker:Australians have voted as they've always voted in referendums.
Speaker:They've basically said that we need to be sure that either there is a crisis
Speaker:or that there is consensus among our politicians and the great tragedy of
Speaker:this Kieran is that in the end All you've got to do is listen to people
Speaker:at the family barbecue nowadays.
Speaker:I mean, those who blame Albanese are those who are the Tory voters.
Speaker:Those who blame Dutton are those who are the Labor voters.
Speaker:And that sort of partisanship should never come into a referendum.
Speaker:Once it does, the referendum is lost completely.
Speaker:So he's kind of making the argument that it doesn't matter what the topic,
Speaker:if there's not bipartisan support, then you kind of go and get the result.
Speaker:That you got on the Republican vote and on the voice vote.
Speaker:And so maybe people who are reading the voice vote as a racist response
Speaker:are wrong, maybe, because maybe this is just what happens when you
Speaker:don't get a bipartisan support.
Speaker:What do you think of that, guys?
Speaker:Why would you want a nuanced answer?
Speaker:Where you can just blame racism?
Speaker:What do you reckon of that, Scott?
Speaker:I think he's, I think he's right.
Speaker:You know, it's It's one of those things, I blame them both for the failure of
Speaker:the referendum because Albanese I think would have been quite at liberty to sit
Speaker:down with the Indigenous leadership and say to them, it's going to be defeated.
Speaker:There's no point us throwing good money after bad.
Speaker:It's going to be defeated.
Speaker:So I just think that they should walk away from it.
Speaker:Then on top of all that, then.
Speaker:God, what's his name, Dutton was, he was very quick off the marks to say no.
Speaker:And everything he was asking for was asking for design of the voice and
Speaker:all that sort of stuff that was going to be up to Parliament to decide.
Speaker:Now, if that was where, if that was where it was going, then he, then
Speaker:Albanese, he could have actually said to the Indigenous leadership, okay,
Speaker:you want it to go ahead, but I think we've got to hold off for six months.
Speaker:And we've got to, we've got to have this hashed out with the opposition
Speaker:and that sort of stuff so that we can get them on board for what
Speaker:the design's going to look like.
Speaker:And then you've got something that you could take to the public and say,
Speaker:if you vote yes, this is what, this is the legislation we're going to put
Speaker:before parliament to get it approved.
Speaker:Then you would have had something that would have been a little
Speaker:less wishy washy than what we had.
Speaker:Because it was very much opening up the air and that sort of stuff where
Speaker:you said, well, Parliament will design it, which I had no problem with.
Speaker:But, a lot of people out there did have a problem with it.
Speaker:They didn't trust the politicians to get it right.
Speaker:So, as a result, I think that the smartest thing for them to do would
Speaker:have been actually turn around and say, Okay, this is what we're going to put to
Speaker:Parliament, this is what we'll get voted on, and this is what we're going to do.
Speaker:But, you know, it's just one of those things, like the National Party was
Speaker:first off the ranks and that sort of stuff when they actually opposed it,
Speaker:before anything had been decided on it, before there'd been even, there'd
Speaker:even been some talk about the question.
Speaker:Well, let me play a little bit from Frank Brennan again about the process,
Speaker:because he makes the argument that the wording had been determined before
Speaker:the Parliamentary Committee and the Opposition had a chance to be involved.
Speaker:And he was also critical that there wasn't a constitutional
Speaker:commission looking at this.
Speaker:And so let me play him on the fluid process and let me play that now.
Speaker:So here we go about the process.
Speaker:Was that the foundational problem here that some of the recommendations, some of
Speaker:the leadership went too far to get that agreement across the political divide?
Speaker:It's been the problem all along, Kieran, because what we've had is the Liberal
Speaker:and National parties have been clear that they're on the table in relation
Speaker:to minimal symbolic change, as the Aboriginal leaders would call it.
Speaker:The Aboriginal leaders said they wanted something substantive.
Speaker:Where things started to go wrong in terms of process was in 2012 when
Speaker:Julia Gillard set up her expert panel where they recommended a
Speaker:racial non discrimination clause.
Speaker:Now that was something substantive, but it could never fly.
Speaker:It was never subjected to the open, transparent scrutiny where
Speaker:you get all the lawyers and all the politicians at the table.
Speaker:The same thing happened with this where it was said That yes, Aboriginal
Speaker:people gathered at Uluru and they called it a Constitutional Convention.
Speaker:But there'd never been anything like a Constitutional Convention which was open
Speaker:to the other 97 percent of Australians.
Speaker:There's been nothing in place since 2017.
Speaker:And so the process was defective from the beginning.
Speaker:And what we then had was after the Garma Festival, as you know, that
Speaker:there was no move made by the Prime Minister to set up a process And by
Speaker:the time there was a parliamentary committee where the coalition could
Speaker:come to the table, it was over.
Speaker:Game set and match.
Speaker:The words were set in concrete.
Speaker:So sadly, bipartisanship by means of process was never there,
Speaker:and so it was always doomed.
Speaker:That was an interesting explanation, I think, that there should have
Speaker:been a process that involved a constitutional commission involving
Speaker:everybody, not only the 3%, but the 97%.
Speaker:And that, yeah, I agreed with, I agreed with him because, you know, it's one
Speaker:of those things that every, you know, we had a constitutional convention over
Speaker:the republic, it failed, but we had it.
Speaker:You know, we've had constitutional conventions whenever there's been
Speaker:talk of changing the constitution.
Speaker:Now, only seven of them got up, didn't they?
Speaker:Something like that, of the referendums that we've had?
Speaker:Not sure.
Speaker:Seven of them, there's only seven or eight of them are passed or something like that.
Speaker:But the one thing they all had in common was there was a, there
Speaker:was a constitutional convention.
Speaker:There wasn't in this case.
Speaker:And you know, he was right there.
Speaker:He was saying that, you know, you've got 3 percent of the
Speaker:population got together at Uluru.
Speaker:The other 97 percent weren't involved.
Speaker:And Albanese did come to it and that sort of stuff and say, well,
Speaker:you know, this is, you know, how he said, well, this is, this is the
Speaker:proposed wording that I put forward.
Speaker:Bounced around the cabinet table and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:Then he said, well, this is the question, you know, and without but
Speaker:also sorry, go ahead the Uluru thing.
Speaker:So there was the freedom of information document that contains the statement
Speaker:from the heart and that's showing one side of the negotiation table, isn't it?
Speaker:It's showing the position of the indigenous people.
Speaker:This, this was a wish list.
Speaker:And, and I don't think that they honestly expected they were gonna
Speaker:get all of those concessions.
Speaker:But it's been held up as this is what is gonna happen if you
Speaker:get the Constitution through.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, I, I think that was, that was the scare tactic anyway.
Speaker:And we never had the, what's the other side want, you know, and as was
Speaker:said, the sitting around the table hashing it out and the yes, this is
Speaker:something that we can all get behind.
Speaker:So, Frank Brennan makes this, Frank Brennan's making the argument that
Speaker:it's crucial to get bipartisan support, you're doomed without it.
Speaker:And what they essentially did was take the Uluru Statement, where 3 percent
Speaker:of people considered it, and quickly wrapped up a question and, and put it
Speaker:forward to the opposition without any you know, the question was done and dusted
Speaker:without any negotiation at that point.
Speaker:And so really the chances of bipartisan support were cruelled
Speaker:by an inadequate process.
Speaker:And that then cruelled the whole thing, the way it was done.
Speaker:So it's sort of quite scathing in that sense of the inadequate
Speaker:process that was done.
Speaker:But the Uluru Statement also contained a treaty.
Speaker:So it was only part of that, so it wasn't...
Speaker:It would have satisfied nobody, I think.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Anyway, let's get on with his final comments about the way forward.
Speaker:I think there's goodwill and there's general agreement in the community, and
Speaker:on both sides of the political aisle in Canberra, that something more has to
Speaker:be done to close the gap, particularly on those ghastly health statistics.
Speaker:Well, guess what?
Speaker:We've got a coalition of Peaks, and there was an agreement which was
Speaker:negotiated with the Morrison government with that Coalition of Peaks, about
Speaker:which we've heard next to nothing while the referendum's been playing out.
Speaker:So let's get that Coalition of Peaks working properly.
Speaker:And in terms of health issues, you've got an enormous operation there with
Speaker:NACCHO, which represents all the community based Aboriginal health organisations.
Speaker:all 145 of them.
Speaker:They've got splendid officers there in Constitution Avenue in Canberra.
Speaker:They're headed up by a very competent Aboriginal civil
Speaker:servant there in Patricia Turner.
Speaker:And why isn't it that they're not being listened to more closely?
Speaker:I mean, during the referendum campaign, we had the Minister of Health out
Speaker:there even writing an article saying he needs to listen to a voice.
Speaker:But there was no mention of NACCHO or the Coalition of Peaks.
Speaker:So, now that the referendum is behind us, I think there's a need for the real
Speaker:work to be done so that NACCHO can be assured that they are right there at the
Speaker:table with the parliamentary processes and with the Minister and that the
Speaker:Coalition of Peaks is now taken seriously.
Speaker:Even though it was a creation at the time of the Morrison government, let's
Speaker:get past the party politics and let's start doing something constructive
Speaker:in order to close those gaps.
Speaker:Sounds very sensible to me.
Speaker:There was a question about the treaty and what it actually is.
Speaker:My understanding is it's a formal document between the government of
Speaker:Australia and the indigenous people recognizing that the land was stolen.
Speaker:And formalizing any form of reparation.
Speaker:So, it's basically, we understand that this land wasn't historically
Speaker:peopled by white people, and here is some form of compensation.
Speaker:for what was done in the past.
Speaker:And it sets a, it resets a a starting point, I think.
Speaker:It says that, yeah, we didn't come and buy this land properly in the first place.
Speaker:Here's our post hoc purchase of property.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Is that possible?
Speaker:Is it possible to find an appropriate Vendor 250 years later?
Speaker:Well, that's a question.
Speaker:And who are they going to negotiate with?
Speaker:Because they don't have a central tribal chief, do they?
Speaker:Well, that was the point of the voice.
Speaker:Yeah, I know, exactly.
Speaker:And you know, they don't have anyone that they can negotiate with.
Speaker:And...
Speaker:I think the voice would have given them something that they could have
Speaker:left behind that the government could have negotiated with.
Speaker:But as a result of not having that, you still can have a voice, you still
Speaker:can have a government appointed body, it's just not in the constitution.
Speaker:Yeah, you could do that.
Speaker:It's one of those things, like Albanese has already said that he's not going
Speaker:to, he's not going to legislate it.
Speaker:So, you know, Atsik for all its faults and all that sort of stuff, it was
Speaker:a representative body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Speaker:Now, you know, you can certainly have a look at the leadership
Speaker:of Atsik and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:You can throw a hell of a lot of stones at them, because Jesus, did they
Speaker:deserve to have stones thrown at them?
Speaker:But the actual body itself.
Speaker:Didn't work, didn't work too badly.
Speaker:Didn't do a bad job of looking after them.
Speaker:So, you know, at least it would have, at least that would be something that
Speaker:the government could negotiate with.
Speaker:Because the, the whole idea of a treaty is that you, you've got two warring, got
Speaker:two warring sides that are sit down at a table and they negotiate with each other.
Speaker:And you know, you, you, each of you gives up something so that you end up
Speaker:with some sort of negotiated settlement.
Speaker:But, you know, there's no one, there's no one left for us to negotiate with, so,
Speaker:you know, 3 percent of the population?
Speaker:Yeah, okay, so 3 percent of the population around the table talking to each of them?
Speaker:I don't think you're going to get anything sensible out of that.
Speaker:No, exactly, so we do need somebody who is elected by them
Speaker:to represent them in negotiations.
Speaker:For sure, which is something the voice would have given them.
Speaker:You know, it would have given them some, they would have been, they would
Speaker:have had someone that they would have elected and that sort of stuff, out
Speaker:of their own 3 percent that they could have put up and said, these are the
Speaker:lot we want you to negotiate with.
Speaker:But, you know, that's now dead and buried, so I don't know what
Speaker:the hell they're going to do now.
Speaker:But again, it doesn't have to be dead and buried, it's dead
Speaker:and buried in the Constitution.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure, so Albanese could go and legislate it, if he really wanted to,
Speaker:but he's already said he's not going to.
Speaker:Are both of you guys kind of in favour of a treaty?
Speaker:Is that what I'm getting at?
Speaker:Not really.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I just think to myself, I'm trying to, I'm trying
Speaker:to be a little more sympathetic towards them, because living up here in Mackay,
Speaker:I've actually seen a, okay, you know, Bronwyn if you're listening and that
Speaker:sort of stuff, you can throw rocks at me and call me a racist if you want
Speaker:to, but I've seen a nicer side to the Indigenous people up here in Mackay
Speaker:than what I saw down in Rockhampton and you know, they are a hell of a nicer
Speaker:than what I saw down in Rockhampton.
Speaker:You know, I don't know if it's because they're mostly Torres what
Speaker:the story is, but they are not as abrasive and that type of thing as
Speaker:what they are down in Rockhampton.
Speaker:Anyway, that is, that's What I will say.
Speaker:So as a result that has opened my eyes a hell of a lot, and I have seen a different
Speaker:side of the argument living up here.
Speaker:So I am trying to open my mind to it.
Speaker:I'm not really in 100 percent in favor of it, but it is something that I am prepared
Speaker:to entertain with my mind and that type of thing, and then I'll think about it later.
Speaker:But you know my mate down the road who's Torres Strait Islander and that sort
Speaker:of stuff, he reckons that he reckons a treaty will be an absolute disaster,
Speaker:because it would be so divisive and that sort of stuff that could end up,
Speaker:you know, that with 97 percent of the population having to bow down to 3
Speaker:percent of the population and that's just never going to sit well with anyone.
Speaker:In the chat room, John asks, would a treaty be as divisive as a voice?
Speaker:What he says, it would be just as divisive.
Speaker:I think it might be a little bit more.
Speaker:I think it would be even worse.
Speaker:I think certainly the negotiation of a treaty would be.
Speaker:Because you've got the vast majority of people going, the past is
Speaker:the past, nothing to do with me.
Speaker:And 3 percent of people feeling wronged, historically.
Speaker:But I think at the end of the day, Nothing substantive is going to happen.
Speaker:Not, not talking about, we can do things about The Gap, absolutely, without having
Speaker:a treaty, but I think politically we will never advance until we have some
Speaker:form of treaty that recognises the past.
Speaker:Yeah, but see, you know, New Zealand, New Zealand only had to
Speaker:negotiate with one tribal group.
Speaker:You know, there was just that one tribal group that was the Maoris.
Speaker:So that was a hell of a lot simpler for them to negotiate
Speaker:with and that type of thing.
Speaker:That's why they got the Treaty of Waitangi.
Speaker:You know, it's, I don't know who the hell they're going to negotiate with over here.
Speaker:You know, because you've got several hundred tribes in Australia, don't you?
Speaker:Ah, let's talk about treaty in depth another time.
Speaker:There's so much involved.
Speaker:No, there is a shitload of stuff that is negotiated.
Speaker:Let's not get too sidetracked on that one, because that
Speaker:deserves six episodes on its own.
Speaker:The pros and cons of that.
Speaker:And the difficulties.
Speaker:So let's just move on a little bit from Treaty and let's talk about how
Speaker:do we think about moral dilemmas?
Speaker:Because this is a lead up to Cam Riley's bagging of me on his podcast.
Speaker:You telling Cam that he's wrong.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:So do we remember our discussion with Liam who came on and we
Speaker:were talking about the voice.
Speaker:It was a very civilized.
Speaker:Well conducted debate, I thought, where everybody got to have their say.
Speaker:We all walked away friends.
Speaker:So, if you recall, his priority was to take urgent, helpful action, as he
Speaker:perceived it, for Indigenous people, and I explained that my priority
Speaker:was sort of non racist, equal human rights, so that we were approaching
Speaker:it With different priorities, or a different premise, if you like.
Speaker:A different emphasis of a particular right that we were more concerned
Speaker:with because we just happened to.
Speaker:And that was a result of our life experience and cultural
Speaker:experiences and whatnot.
Speaker:So, in the field of rights, it is often the case that rights conflict,
Speaker:and you have to weigh up and decide Which right is more important at
Speaker:this particular point in time?
Speaker:I, I think the point is that you're both coming at it from a place of well
Speaker:meaning and not trying to harm somebody.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:We both had a, a moral position that was defensible and it was just weighing it up.
Speaker:And, you know, what I was doing was saying, well, bearing in mind all of
Speaker:these different facts, perhaps this voice isn't as helpful as you think it is or
Speaker:isn't as necessary as you think it is.
Speaker:And he would argue other things.
Speaker:So, sort of, being able to understand the moral premise that the other person
Speaker:was operating under was important.
Speaker:So, so we did that with Liam, and he did that with me, and we could
Speaker:compartmentalise our arguments and have a debate, each recognising
Speaker:the premise of the other.
Speaker:So I've got a book in front of me, Alasdair MacIntyre, After
Speaker:Virtue, and I want to sort of just give some different scenarios to
Speaker:demonstrate how this plays out.
Speaker:So, on the topic of war, for example, one position might be...
Speaker:A just war is one in which the good to be achieved outweighs the evils
Speaker:involved in waging the war, and in which a clear distinction can be made
Speaker:between combatants, whose lives are at stake, and innocent non combatants.
Speaker:But in a modern war, calculation of future escalation is never reliable, and no
Speaker:practically applicable distinction between combatants and non combatants can be made.
Speaker:Think in Gaza here.
Speaker:Therefore no modern war can be a just war.
Speaker:And we all now ought to be pacifists.
Speaker:That's one view of war.
Speaker:Another one might be, wars between the great powers are purely destructive,
Speaker:but wars waged to liberate oppressed groups, especially in the third
Speaker:world, are a necessary and therefore justified means for destroying
Speaker:the exploitative Domination, which stands between mankind and happiness.
Speaker:So, what you've got there in the first case is the principle
Speaker:of protecting innocent lives.
Speaker:That's the premise that is being highlighted.
Speaker:And in the second one, it's the principle of self determination, is the
Speaker:principle that the person is relying on.
Speaker:So two different ways of looking at war.
Speaker:Another example would be abortion.
Speaker:One way of looking at it would be, everyone has certain rights
Speaker:over his or her own person, including his or her own body.
Speaker:It follows from the nature of these rights that at the embryo is essentially
Speaker:part of the mother's body, the mother has a right to make her own uncoerced
Speaker:decision, uncoerced decision on whether she will have an abortion or not.
Speaker:Therefore abortion is morally permissible and ought to be allowed by law.
Speaker:That's one view.
Speaker:An alternative would be...
Speaker:Murder is wrong.
Speaker:Murder is taking of an innocent life.
Speaker:An embryo is an identifiable individual differing from a newborn infant
Speaker:only in being at an earlier stage on the long road to adult capacities.
Speaker:And if any life is innocent, that of an embryo is.
Speaker:If infanticide is murder, as it is, then abortion is murder.
Speaker:So abortion is not only morally wrong, but ought to be legally prohibited.
Speaker:So again...
Speaker:You've got the right to a bodily autonomy, first premise, versus
Speaker:universal right to life, second premise.
Speaker:Final example Justice demands that every citizen should enjoy, so far
Speaker:as is possible, an equal opportunity to develop his or her talents
Speaker:and his or her other potentials.
Speaker:But prerequisites for the provision of such equal opportunity include
Speaker:the provision of equal access to healthcare and to education.
Speaker:Therefore, justice requires the governmental provision of
Speaker:health and educational services, financed out of taxation.
Speaker:It also requires that no citizen should be able to buy an
Speaker:unfair share of such services.
Speaker:This in turn requires the abolition of private schools
Speaker:and private medical practice.
Speaker:That's one view of health and education.
Speaker:Another one would be, everyone has a right to incur such and only such obligations.
Speaker:As he or she wishes.
Speaker:To be free to make such and only such contracts as he or she desires.
Speaker:And to determine his or her own free choices.
Speaker:Physicians must therefore be free to practice on such terms as they desire.
Speaker:And patients must be free to choose among physicians.
Speaker:Teachers must be free to teach on such terms as they choose.
Speaker:And pupils and parents to go where they wish for education.
Speaker:It goes on.
Speaker:So the first one is a premise of equality in terms of education, health.
Speaker:The second is the premise of liberty.
Speaker:So when we're looking at moral questions, as we did with Liam on the voice, it
Speaker:was, what's the moral premise that you're really holding onto close here?
Speaker:And let's recognise that.
Speaker:So, so let me just go on a little bit here.
Speaker:Anybody want to argue with any of that at this point, or just, I'll
Speaker:just keep going, it's all good, or, say if I, no, keep going, yep, okay.
Speaker:So, every one of the arguments is logically valid, or can be easily
Speaker:expanded so as to be made so.
Speaker:The conclusions do indeed follow from their premises.
Speaker:But the rival premises are such that we possess no rational way of weighing
Speaker:the claims of one against the other.
Speaker:So, so what's that saying is, When it boils down to it, your main
Speaker:premise is equality, my main premise is liberty, and it's very difficult
Speaker:or impossible for us to say, well, liberty always outweighs equality or
Speaker:equality always outweighs liberty.
Speaker:We don't have, in our society, an overarching anchor that
Speaker:determines which of those wins.
Speaker:So, it goes on.
Speaker:For each premise employs some quite different normative or evaluative concept
Speaker:from the others, so that the claims made upon us are quite different kinds.
Speaker:It is precisely because there is in our society no established way of deciding
Speaker:between these claims, that moral argument appears to be necessarily interminable.
Speaker:From our rival conclusions we can argue back to our rival premises.
Speaker:But when we do arrive at our premises, argument ceases and the invocation of
Speaker:one premise against another becomes a matter of pure assertion and counter
Speaker:assertion, hence perhaps the slightly shrill tone of so much moral debate.
Speaker:I think that's right in that on the voice, people had different
Speaker:premises that they were relying on, and when people couldn't agree...
Speaker:Because nobody was prepared to say their premise is less important
Speaker:than the other person's premise.
Speaker:We're just left with people shouting at each other, shrilly, about the matter.
Speaker:I think that's where we got to with the debate.
Speaker:Jonathan Haidt explores that in The Righteous Mind.
Speaker:Talking about the mindsets, the differences in thought process behind...
Speaker:Conservatives and progressives.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And saying it, it's very much which moral values we hold most closely.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And, and what we associate with disgust.
Speaker:And so conservatives tend to be more think, whereas progressives
Speaker:tend to be more individualistic.
Speaker:Libertarians tend, probably conservatives, libertarians are more in the conservative
Speaker:camp now, which are the big individuals.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it was more the, the left-leaning are much more about personal rights.
Speaker:So the, the right to bond the autonomy Yes.
Speaker:And the right to sexual freedom.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, whereas the conservatives are much more, society says that's a bad
Speaker:thing, therefore it's a bad thing.
Speaker:But I'm saying that yeah left wingers have moral disgust around food
Speaker:hygiene, so they're much more picky about what they eat, for want of a
Speaker:better term whereas the conservatives are much more around sexual hygiene.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So, so, it's, it's taking, effectively...
Speaker:, there was a series of questions which were not politically aligned.
Speaker:And depending on how people answered these questions, you could
Speaker:tell their political alignment.
Speaker:Yes, I'm sure you could.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Some questions that seemed divorced from politics, but were indicative Yes.
Speaker:Of a political viewpoint.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So it would help if we had an overarching premise back in the
Speaker:good old days of religious belief.
Speaker:We did, you know, God's Law.
Speaker:That was it.
Speaker:That was the overarching moral, you know, what did God, what does God want?
Speaker:Okay, that's moral.
Speaker:That's the winning moral premise.
Speaker:No, no, no, what does my priest say that God wants?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:But Alistair McIntyre
Speaker:says in After Virtue that the post enlightenment, we don't have the
Speaker:benefit of the religious sort of moral anchor to, to determine which
Speaker:of these moral premises wins out.
Speaker:And MacIntyre blames enlightenment for lack of morals.
Speaker:He says the enlightenment rejected the idea of a virtuous life through
Speaker:fulfilling your telos or purpose in life.
Speaker:Enlightenment imagined humans as agents of their own free will, guided only
Speaker:by their inner reasons or desires.
Speaker:So Aristotle could distinguish between what we are and what we ought to be,
Speaker:and this provided a moral anchor.
Speaker:But post Enlightenment philosophers have no moral anchor, no point
Speaker:of reference against which to adjudicate competing moral claims.
Speaker:And without such a reference point, moral arguments become interminable
Speaker:and pointless, as we've seen.
Speaker:And there's still the Golden Rule, I think.
Speaker:Do unto others is...
Speaker:Don't do to others?
Speaker:Well, the inverse of that.
Speaker:Don't do to others what you wouldn't have done to you.
Speaker:Yeah, how does that help in the voice debate?
Speaker:I, I think in the voice debate, you say, do these people have a voice?
Speaker:Do they have an equal voice to everybody else?
Speaker:Do they have the same right to be heard that I have?
Speaker:Oh, sorry, the same ability to be heard.
Speaker:And I would argue that corporations have a bigger ability to be heard
Speaker:than either I or the Aboriginals.
Speaker:I don't know that the Golden Rule helps in all situations, I don't
Speaker:know, but that's gonna get us there.
Speaker:But here's my anchor for you.
Speaker:I think we're social, cooperative creatures.
Speaker:We need a cooperative, communal society that works together to advance
Speaker:our little beehive here on Earth.
Speaker:Judge competing moral claims against this imperative.
Speaker:That's what I say.
Speaker:A little bit of Aristotelian, Aristotelian Telus type thing happening there.
Speaker:And I say that splintering off into identity groups is anathema
Speaker:to that project and constitutional approval of racial profiling will
Speaker:do serious damage to our beehive.
Speaker:So, that's a little lead in to...
Speaker:Cam Riley bagging me on his podcast.
Speaker:Let me find the the clip on that and I'll play it for you
Speaker:and we'll get into that one.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:This is Cam on his podcast, The Bullshit Filter.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:People just made a horrendous decision and, you know, as I said,
Speaker:I'm just extremely embarrassed and ashamed and appalled.
Speaker:By my fellow Countrymen and women this week.
Speaker:I'm disgusted and quite frankly, I can't wait for AI to take over.
Speaker:As I said, I think the human race is done it on.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Stick a fork in us.
Speaker:We're done.
Speaker:This is as good as we can do that.
Speaker:Australians listening who voted no.
Speaker:You probably don't if you listen to this show, although I know you know.
Speaker:My friend Trevor, who hosts the Iron Fist podcast, who's been a guest host
Speaker:on this many times, told me that he was voting no for reasons that made
Speaker:absolutely no sense, and he's usually very progressive, and I went out to lunch
Speaker:with him, listened to his arguments, they made completely no sense to me, and
Speaker:you know, I'm embarrassed for Trevor.
Speaker:I'm embarrassed for Trevor, I'm embarrassed for anyone who
Speaker:voted no so there you have it.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:He's embarrassed for me.
Speaker:Same.
Speaker:What do we take away from that?
Speaker:Well, maybe he's right.
Speaker:Maybe my arguments are ridiculous and make no sense whatsoever.
Speaker:But I've received enough unsolicited positive feedback to feel confident
Speaker:that my arguments have some merit.
Speaker:Scott, even though you started the episode by saying, I think I'm going to
Speaker:agree with Ken Reilly on this would you agree with him that they were ridiculous?
Speaker:No, I don't.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's...
Speaker:I don't agree with that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, I still don't agree with your arguments, but I was talking to Anne Reid
Speaker:about you when she was at one of my drink sessions and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:We were talking about China and Russia and that type of thing, and she said
Speaker:that listening to Trevor, you can't help but agree with his arguments, but
Speaker:at the end of the, at the end of the, at the end of the argument and that
Speaker:sort of stuff, you've still got to turn around and disagree with him polis polis.
Speaker:So anyway, it's just...
Speaker:And I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
Speaker:I really don't have a problem with that.
Speaker:Yeah, I understand that.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I don't agree that your arguments were ridiculous.
Speaker:I didn't, I didn't agree with any of them, but you had some very
Speaker:logical, valid reasons for them.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:And I think what happens is.
Speaker:Where's your humanity, Trevor?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So what I think this comes down to is a recognition of, of the premise.
Speaker:And Cam's inability to recognise that.
Speaker:I'll get on to that, but so, So yeah, look, I think Cam's
Speaker:one of the great thinkers.
Speaker:Like, he's been very influential, in my thinking, on various things.
Speaker:So, and often he will say, on a particular matter, you know, he's got no dog in
Speaker:the fight, you know, often he's talking about historical matters or whatever or
Speaker:the USA or whatever and he'll say, he just goes where the evidence leads him.
Speaker:And, that's how I feel in this debate, like, a yes vote would not have made
Speaker:the slightest difference to my life.
Speaker:Like, I don't look at it and go, this has any personal effect on me.
Speaker:It's really just, where does the evidence and the ideas and the morals lead me.
Speaker:And believe me, dear listener, it would have been much easier.
Speaker:A long time ago, to just agree with the left wing zeitgeist
Speaker:and go, Yeah, it's a good idea.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:That's just not how I, that's not the conclusion I came to.
Speaker:Although it would have been incredibly easier for me, because
Speaker:I knew that these sorts of conflicts with people would arise.
Speaker:Like, it's just inevitable.
Speaker:So, I think that Cam's adopted a premise of helping the downtrodden,
Speaker:and he didn't see or value my premise of colourblind equality.
Speaker:That was the purpose of all of that other stuff that we've just led up to.
Speaker:Also on this particular topic, I don't think Cam read deeply
Speaker:enough, and what he did was he trusted the prevailing left wing.
Speaker:You, and he said as much because he basically he said that his heuristic
Speaker:is that on many issues where you just don't have time to examine all of the
Speaker:detail and look at all of the issues in depth and read all of the papers,
Speaker:you have to find the people and the institutions that you trust and what do
Speaker:they say and then follow their advice.
Speaker:So for example, climate change.
Speaker:Who amongst us has the time to read all of the scientific papers and figure
Speaker:out the nuts and bolts of climate change, but when we've told repeatedly
Speaker:that 97 percent of scientists agree on climate change, then we go, okay.
Speaker:That'll do me.
Speaker:And I don't have to read all that stuff.
Speaker:Like, that's not a bad heuristic in that sort of situation.
Speaker:But they would argue that 90 percent of Aboriginals wanted the voice.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And whilst 90 percent of Aboriginals may be an expert in being Aboriginal,
Speaker:I don't know that they're an expert in what is best for the nation as a whole.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Or even for themselves.
Speaker:Because...
Speaker:Cam basically had you know, when I do meet with Cam, I am going to have one complete,
Speaker:you know, I don't, anyone can disagree with me, that's not a problem I will have
Speaker:an issue and say, you know, you call my arguments ridiculous, you could have at
Speaker:least said what they are, like, and then said they were ridiculous, like, anybody
Speaker:listening to that podcast just doesn't know what my argument was, it's just
Speaker:only that it's ridiculous, so it would be nice if he could have at least He just
Speaker:paraphrased what they were and then stated that he thought they were ridiculous.
Speaker:But in any event, he gave two reasons for voting yes.
Speaker:And they were that Indigenous people asked for it.
Speaker:That was his first reason.
Speaker:Now, the ironic part of this is, it his comments about my, my thoughts were at the
Speaker:close to the end of a two hour podcast.
Speaker:The first 90 minutes were talking about the creation of the state
Speaker:of Israel and the history of it.
Speaker:Which was basically Jews wanted a state of Israel and we gave it to them.
Speaker:And that was a mistake.
Speaker:Like, that was essentially what the first 90 minutes of the podcast was.
Speaker:That an oppressed people wanted something, and giving them what they
Speaker:wanted proved to be an enormous mistake.
Speaker:Yet in arguing for the yes vote, Cam says, an oppressed group of people want
Speaker:something and that's good enough for me.
Speaker:And I just like, can't you see a little bit of a problem here?
Speaker:I don't think giving the Jews a A nation was the mistake.
Speaker:The mistake was giving it to them on land that was already owned by somebody else.
Speaker:And that's what they wanted.
Speaker:They wanted the land in Palestine.
Speaker:So they wanted that block of land over there.
Speaker:That's what they wanted.
Speaker:And that ultimately wasn't a good idea for anybody.
Speaker:So, it just strikes me as ironic that that his first argument in favour of the yes
Speaker:vote was that Indigenous people want this.
Speaker:The end.
Speaker:Just because an oppressed people want something, isn't always a good idea.
Speaker:Primary example, Israel, and the state of Israel, which you've just been
Speaker:talking about for an hour and a half.
Speaker:The second thing he said was that Okay, if you don't have time to
Speaker:examine these topics, and he's a busy man, he's got other things to do,
Speaker:and he didn't get into the nuts and bolts of this argument like we have.
Speaker:Was, you know, trust people with longstanding that you've learnt over
Speaker:time to trust and what's their position.
Speaker:And he said, you know, this is a sort of a, a social issue, human rights issue.
Speaker:Who are the groups who know that shit?
Speaker:And he said, well, the Human Rights Commission and Amnesty.
Speaker:So in groups like that Come out in favour of a yes vote, then
Speaker:for somebody with limited time to examine all of the details, then
Speaker:that's what he's going to go with.
Speaker:And just for fun, I thought, I'll just look up what the Human
Speaker:Rights Commission actually said.
Speaker:You guys know that the Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay,
Speaker:said, quote, The draft wording.
Speaker:Inserts race into the Australian Constitution in a way that undermines
Speaker:the foundational human rights principles of equality and non discrimination.
Speaker:And creates constitutional uncertainty in terms of its interpretation and operation.
Speaker:That's what the head of the Human Rights Commission actually said.
Speaker:Now guess what?
Speaker:The Human Rights Commission itself came out with a completely different statement.
Speaker:So the Commissioner and the Commission are at odds.
Speaker:Loggerheads and Poles Apart.
Speaker:And guess what?
Speaker:Lorraine Finlay was a conservative government appointment and former
Speaker:Human Rights Commissioners have come out and said they disagree with
Speaker:her and the Commission itself does.
Speaker:But my point is the actual Commissioner came out with an argument that's
Speaker:pretty much my argument Okay, she was in a conservative government.
Speaker:Appointment that doesn't necessarily reflect the Human
Speaker:Rights Commission's position.
Speaker:But maybe that all demonstrates that maybe the Human Rights Commission isn't as solid
Speaker:on this issue as you might think they are.
Speaker:But no group is going to be the expert on the voice.
Speaker:Because the voice is not just about human rights.
Speaker:It's about, how do we organise a society?
Speaker:How do we, how do we deal with...
Speaker:The best way of creating a cooperative, harmonious community
Speaker:where, you know, is equality an important factor in that or not?
Speaker:And you know, I don't think there is a group that was an expert on the voice.
Speaker:You had to shop around a number of different areas.
Speaker:Anyway so, so yeah, that was, you know.
Speaker:A wrap up of, of that, and, you know, these are the sorts of discussions and
Speaker:conflicts and things that we knew was going to happen with this whole voice
Speaker:argument, and Joe, months ago you and I, at one point, I think Scott was around, we
Speaker:were like, okay, we're going to talk about the voice now, let's go ahead and do it.
Speaker:And, and somebody wrote in to say...
Speaker:Our hand wringing over potentially being called racist was pitiful, but
Speaker:it's precisely this sort of shit that you and I were worried about as just
Speaker:opening this sort of can of worms and, I
Speaker:have a dream where everyone is treated based on their...
Speaker:Content of their character, not the colour of their skin.
Speaker:Now, if you said that in the current age, that would be deemed racist.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And that, to me, just seems bizarre.
Speaker:You'd be told, if you were using that argument for a no vote,
Speaker:that you've somehow abused the memory of Martin Luther King.
Speaker:We're in some Orwellian doublespeak when it comes to these things.
Speaker:And there'll be a good piece by Guy Rundle on this.
Speaker:But you know, the other thing was I got an email from a listener who's listened to...
Speaker:Probably hundreds of hours of me talking on this podcast, who said, you know, I
Speaker:don't know you very well, I'm not sure if you're a racist, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And I'm like, man, after all this time, if you think I'm a
Speaker:racist, you know, thanks a lot.
Speaker:So these are the sorts of things that we knew were going to fly.
Speaker:I think, I think we need to recognise that we can.
Speaker:Agree on an outcome and disagree on how we're going to get to that outcome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we can agree to be, to be labelled as anti something just because we're
Speaker:agree, we disagree on the method.
Speaker:And we've got to recognise people have different premises
Speaker:that, with different levels of importance that they attach to it.
Speaker:And if you don't understand the other person's underlying premise, then don't
Speaker:engage in the debate until you do.
Speaker:Because he's just doing a disservice to everybody.
Speaker:But any comments on that before I move on to Guy Rundle?
Speaker:Scott?
Speaker:No?
Speaker:No?
Speaker:No?
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Guy Rundle.
Speaker:So Guy Rundle oh, what else?
Speaker:Let me just let me just play also just the final thing from
Speaker:Final word from Cam on this one.
Speaker:This was his final bit.
Speaker:So, really, to all Australians who voted no, you should be fucking
Speaker:ashamed of yourselves, and I am ashamed for you on your behalf.
Speaker:I think that's just a failure to recognise that some people might have
Speaker:a premise that they see as important, that is a legitimate premise, and
Speaker:they see it as outweighing the premise that CAM's operating under.
Speaker:You know, the sort of implication from that is, you, Ashamed, let's
Speaker:face it, if you're just wrong on some issue, you can be stupid, but Ashamed,
Speaker:eh, it's leaning towards, Ashamed's hinting at other stuff, isn't it?
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:Well, you know, you could flip that script and say Cam should be
Speaker:ashamed, he was voting to entrench racism in the Constitution.
Speaker:Yes, that's right.
Speaker:Now I think that's a bad faith, it's a bad faith argument and I wouldn't
Speaker:go there, but effectively that is the equivalent of what he's doing.
Speaker:I think that's a bad faith argument.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, but, okay.
Speaker:Now this is not uncommon with the reaction to the result of the referendum.
Speaker:And Guy Rundle, who is a lefty.
Speaker:Writing and Crikey had this to say.
Speaker:The refusal of this by the electorate has made the cultural producer elite,
Speaker:the core of the knowledge class, and its commentariat very, very angry.
Speaker:Their first move has been denial of the obvious truth.
Speaker:The yes campaign was a shambles.
Speaker:The second stage which began last week, was simple hatred and disdain directed
Speaker:at the mainstream of the country.
Speaker:I think we could include Cam as showing disdain at the mainstream
Speaker:of the country in his comment there.
Speaker:So Guy Rundle quotes Sean Kelly writing in The Age, and Sean Kelly said this, I've
Speaker:been struck by the widespread conclusion based on polling that Australians
Speaker:were persuaded by the argument that the voice would divide the country.
Speaker:Voters may well say this was what persuaded them, but it is likely that
Speaker:most were instinctively against the idea.
Speaker:Of the reasons they were able to choose between, to justify their choice,
Speaker:this one sounded most attractive.
Speaker:Guy Rundle goes on, Well, the voice would divide the country.
Speaker:That is its intent.
Speaker:This was the great blind spot of the Yes campaign.
Speaker:Run with to the end, the division between Indigenous peoples and non Indigenous
Speaker:Australians was essential to recognition.
Speaker:It was the enactment of recognition.
Speaker:We weren't creating a voice, a separate assembly for, say, the benefits
Speaker:dependent disabled, whose powerlessness, invisibility and suffering would
Speaker:match that of many Indigenous groups.
Speaker:We proposed to specifically recognise The separateness of Indigenous
Speaker:peoples by recognising no other social groups as requiring or deserving
Speaker:a voice assembly of their own.
Speaker:This was the essential mechanism of the voice.
Speaker:The yes case, that this was really a higher unity arising from the
Speaker:imposition of division was gobbledygook and sussed by the mainstream as such.
Speaker:I agree with that entirely.
Speaker:He goes on.
Speaker:That just goes to show that being educated doesn't make you smart.
Speaker:The voice wasn't a right wrong answer.
Speaker:It's not exams which progressives love and everyone else hates.
Speaker:It's not how the contents of thought differ.
Speaker:It's the form of thinking that differs, and the different moral
Speaker:systems that arise from that.
Speaker:I think that's kind of referring to what I was just talking
Speaker:about with moral premises.
Speaker:Will this utter debacle for progressives serve as some sort of wake up call
Speaker:to editors and proprietors of these publications that, for the good of
Speaker:the country in general and left and genuinely progressive and liberal
Speaker:thinking in particular, they must create centres of forthright and uncompromising
Speaker:debate so that ideas and strategies are genuinely tested against reality
Speaker:before being applied to the world?
Speaker:Well dear listener, this little podcast is your little centre of...
Speaker:Forthright and uncompromising debate I like to think.
Speaker:Yeah, it's dead right.
Speaker:This is the gobbledygook, doublespeak, Orwellian talk.
Speaker:That this was a, an inclusiveness, it was a divisiveness.
Speaker:I think Guy Rundle's put it quite accurately.
Speaker:But, you know, other people say that the shrill voice...
Speaker:of the yes vote is saying, if you voted no, it had to
Speaker:be because you were a racist.
Speaker:That's just not the case.
Speaker:Yeah, we've seen that elsewhere with the College Admissions in America, where
Speaker:Asians are now being limited to a certain percentage of the population, the campus.
Speaker:And the argument is to right historical wrongs, but historically the Asians
Speaker:were just as oppressed as the Blacks.
Speaker:But now they're succeeding, and so their numbers need to be limited.
Speaker:And it seems the exact opposite of trying to right past wrongs.
Speaker:Such dangerous territory.
Speaker:Treaty.
Speaker:Now, in Queensland it was policy of both the LNP and Labor to sort
Speaker:of negotiate forwards for a treaty.
Speaker:The Liberal LNP leader, Christopher Lee, came out and said, well, in light
Speaker:of the referendum, particularly in Queensland we're going to listen to
Speaker:the people and when it's no longer our policy to try to negotiate a treaty.
Speaker:And, Alice Shea was quite clever, I think, Scott, when she said,
Speaker:well, if we can't get bipartisan support, then we'll have to drop it.
Speaker:So sorry.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with you.
Speaker:It's one of those things.
Speaker:I just thought to myself that she had no choice, because the LNP
Speaker:would have wedged her with it.
Speaker:If it came down to an election issue, which it possibly could have,
Speaker:then she would have been out there on her own and that sort of stuff,
Speaker:arguing against what was basically the will of the people up here.
Speaker:I think it was a godsend for her when the LNP withdrew, you know,
Speaker:bipartisan support, gave her an excuse to withdraw it as well.
Speaker:Apparently a lot of the left are not happy about that.
Speaker:Sorry, Joe.
Speaker:I was about to say, I think the LNP have recognised that this is
Speaker:a fault line along political lines and that they can exploit that.
Speaker:And so yes, maybe she was right to disengage, but I don't see why the
Speaker:state couldn't do something that the federal government couldn't.
Speaker:Well...
Speaker:Assuming that both sides wanted to.
Speaker:Yeah, but when both sides don't want to...
Speaker:I think she's probably right.
Speaker:I think you've hit the nail right on the head, Trevor.
Speaker:If you don't have, if you don't have the support on both sides of the aisle,
Speaker:then you've got to walk away from it.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's a fair...
Speaker:You know, I mean, she, she can, she can still have it as a Labor Party policy and
Speaker:all that sort of stuff, but she should actually just say what she said, that
Speaker:is, that we're not going to pursue it.
Speaker:Because Frank Brennan, I don't know if it came out in one of those
Speaker:clips, but he accused the, the organizers of, of this, of playing...
Speaker:Roulette with people's emotions, in that they, they worked them up to an
Speaker:expectation of a victory in a situation that was doomed because it was no longer
Speaker:bipartisan, and I think Alice Shea would be doing the same if she pig headedly
Speaker:proceeded with it and ran with it when it's doomed to failure, that's, that's
Speaker:not, that would be doing a disservice to people, to get their hopes up and
Speaker:then have them sort of told that if people reject this, it's because they're
Speaker:racist, and then people reject it and they go, oh shit, everyone's a racist.
Speaker:So, yeah, so.
Speaker:I mean in theory you could start negotiations.
Speaker:You could get part of the way there.
Speaker:But yes, until the LNP are on side, then you're not going to get anywhere.
Speaker:You could have the beginnings of negotiations, but you couldn't reach
Speaker:a conclusion where you could say, we're taking this to Parliament.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Because, you know, the Tories, before it was a win government,
Speaker:now they've just rolled out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, anyway, thinking of things moving forward, there was a a joint media
Speaker:release on the 17th of October.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:Linda Burney, Jason Clare, Marion Skimgore, and Australian and Northern
Speaker:Territory Governments have directed officials to conduct an assessment
Speaker:of boarding school options and capacity in Central Australia.
Speaker:This will be conducted by the National Indigenous Australians
Speaker:Agency, the Commonwealth Department of Education and the Northern
Speaker:Territory Department of Education.
Speaker:All relevant stakeholders, including the Central Australian Aboriginal Leadership
Speaker:Group, the Central Australian Regional Controller, and local schools, which
Speaker:may be seeking to establish or expand accommodation options, will be consulted.
Speaker:So, it's looking at boarding school options in Central Australia.
Speaker:Minister Burney said, listening to the views of people in Central
Speaker:Australia is an important step and is consistent with the approach we're
Speaker:taking in our plan for a better, safer future for Central Australia.
Speaker:Minister Clare said this is about working with local schools and
Speaker:local Indigenous leaders to make sure students have the support
Speaker:they need to reach their potential.
Speaker:Similar wording from Southern Mississauga.
Speaker:That's how the system has been working and will continue to work.
Speaker:When there's a project like this that they're considering, consult
Speaker:with the stakeholders, get their opinions, formulate a policy.
Speaker:Like that's what's been going on and will go on.
Speaker:So this argument that Indigenous people have not been listened
Speaker:to, this is the sort of thing that's been going on all the time.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:Guys, that's over an hour already.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Sorry?
Speaker:All the time.
Speaker:Historically, I don't know if that was true, but certainly recently it's true.
Speaker:Yeah, OK.
Speaker:Not 50 years ago.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:We could talk about Gaza, but, eh, might save it for next week.
Speaker:Because I've got a feeling not a lot's going to happen between now and then.
Speaker:And, no, it appears that the Israelis are balking at their land invasion of Gaza.
Speaker:Does it, the Yanks are telling the Yeah.
Speaker:The, the Yanks are telling them to hold off and that sort of thing.
Speaker:They're doing what they're told.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Apparently the Yanks are gonna put some more equipment on the ground and that
Speaker:sort of stuff, so they're actually telling them to wait until that's all set up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But
Speaker:hang on, you're still there.
Speaker:It's things, I think the, I think it could actually blow up into a full
Speaker:scale war in the region actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I, and the question is whether that was the intent.
Speaker:was to provoke Israel into overreacting to lead to a fracturing of the understandings
Speaker:that Israel has come to with other Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker:I mean, you know, it's one of those things, because apparently
Speaker:Saudi Arabia's pulled the pin on negotiating a normalization of
Speaker:relations with Israel, you know?
Speaker:I've got actually I will do a little bit, because in case it gets a bit
Speaker:old, I've got the Essential Report.
Speaker:I was polling people about the polling Australians about Australia's involvement
Speaker:with the Israel Palestine conflict.
Speaker:So, so I've got on the screen the question was, in terms of the current
Speaker:conflict in Israel and Palestine, what do you think Australia should do?
Speaker:And the answers were...
Speaker:Provide active assistance to Israel, or stay out of the conflict entirely, or
Speaker:provide active assistance to Palestine.
Speaker:And what did Australians say?
Speaker:Well, 23 percent said give assistance to Israel, 13 percent said give assistance to
Speaker:Palestine, and 64 percent stay out of it.
Speaker:So that was the overall response.
Speaker:What do you reckon gender would be?
Speaker:I'd say mostly women would say stay out of it.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:In, yes, men slightly more positive about assistance to Israel.
Speaker:So 26 percent of men wanted to assist Israel, 21 percent of
Speaker:females wanted to assist Israel.
Speaker:And they were both sort of 13 and 14 percent when it came to
Speaker:assisting Palestine, so men a bit more inclined to assist Israel.
Speaker:Guys, what do you reckon the age Would young people be more likely to assist
Speaker:Israel or Palestine and would old people.
Speaker:Palestine.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And old people, Israel.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Old, old people.
Speaker:Israel.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:'cause it, it's down to politics.
Speaker:Here we go, Joe.
Speaker:Well done.
Speaker:So in terms of assisting Israel, if you're 55 plus 30% of Australians wanted
Speaker:to do that and only 2 percent of over 55s wanted to support Palestine, OK?
Speaker:But in the younger age group, the 18 to 34s, more people
Speaker:wanted to assist Palestine.
Speaker:So 25 percent wanted to assist Palestine.
Speaker:Only 20 percent Israel.
Speaker:So there we go.
Speaker:Our community divided by age, yet again.
Speaker:Guys?
Speaker:Voting intention?
Speaker:Which party?
Speaker:Follow age.
Speaker:Okay, so Greens voters, Palestine?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Liberal Nationals?
Speaker:Let's see what the answer is.
Speaker:And let's go, yeah.
Speaker:Coalition voters, 34 percent want to support Israel and
Speaker:only 9 percent Palestine.
Speaker:Whereas in the Greens, 24 percent for Palestine.
Speaker:And 18 percent for Israel.
Speaker:Now, interesting isn't it, Joe, you were talking earlier about indicators
Speaker:that are seemingly divorced from politics, but are just a guideline
Speaker:as to political affiliation.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And, and this is a classic sort of example, isn't it, that that
Speaker:we were able to pick allegiances.
Speaker:on those groups based on those figures, on those things, so, yeah there we go.
Speaker:So, interesting.
Speaker:We'll see how, see how community opinion changes over time with that one.
Speaker:So, right, well, Joe of Devon and Scott of the Tropics that's
Speaker:enough for one episode, I reckon.
Speaker:All the people in the chat room, thanks for your participation.
Speaker:That was good.
Speaker:We'll be back with something next week.
Speaker:Talk to you then.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:And it's a good night from me.
Speaker:And it's a good night from him.
Speaker:Good night.
