#82 - Senator Alex Antic - Free Speech, Oversight and Australia’s Political Tension

[Music] Hi guys, welcome back to Tour with Sky Podcast. On today's episode we have Senator Alex Antig. Today we talk about free speech, government oversight and foreign lobbying. I hope you guys enjoy. That, uh, yeah, mate, I, um. You just hit go. That's it, yeah, yeah, and uh, I'll wear it away. What I need you to do is just get a little bit closer to the mic there for me. Perfect, better. It's match-fri. I need a start off. I've seen Tate the other day and I've been pretty disappointed with the Liberal Party and, um, and a lot of the stuff that's been happening, you know, since, uh, probably since the laws come through but made to, to see you sit there and, uh, and, uh, Adelaide and, uh, order a low-car beer man. I was pretty pissed off. Yeah. Well, I've heard it a lot actually. Now, I've heard it a lot in the last week, a few days, and look, uh, it's not my normal way to throw someone else under the bus, but, but Adelaide asked for low-car beer. He's fed, right? He doesn't like his carbs. I said, "Look, you know, I don't reckon this is the right environment. It's Rundle Street, you know, surrounded by heapssters." If I go in there and ask for a low-car beer, I'm done. Um, but I did it because he's a mate and, um, I, uh, I came back with a couple and I've never heard the end of it. But I look, I mean, I, you know, I did say the other day, I've, I've spoken about this, I've apologized as much as I can. That's why pencils have erasers. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, I won't do it again. I just, I won't do it again. It's nothing but full strength for me from now on. I've learnt my lesson. Well, I may, uh, you may, you probably look at me. I'm, I'm definitely a low-car beer man. Well, that's what I assumed. I don't think it's been rich coming from me, but anyway, whatever. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm apologising more to the people of Australia. I think it, it was an error. Uh, and, uh, you know, you got to learn your lessons. It's simple as that. And, uh, you know, wrong time, wrong place. And you're, uh, you're a match of Cori, aren't you? Yeah. I am. I am. I'm known for a long period of time. Cori's one, I mean, depends who you say this to. It might get, uh, more, you know, school and the nice, but it Cori's one of the reasons why I'm in politics. Because I, I, I, I, really, yeah. He really is. I really liked what he was doing. Um, a long time ago. A long time ago, he was, Cori sits and probably still does, sits well outside the over-din window, which some sure people know, but the concept of the over-din window is that's the, the sort of the brackets around what's acceptable in politics. And he was first off the bat with a whole heap of issues that, you know, included the rise of the CCP and, you know, climate change, all these sorts of things. And I thought, wow, it's these guys out there throwing punches, you know, and politics doesn't have to be one speed. So, um, that's kind of, yeah, and it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't a, you know, that, that's it. I'm doing it because of him. I mean, I had other friends involved, but certainly I thought that, that's good. I mean, it means there, there is room for dissenting views in politics, even internally. And, uh, and so, yeah, no, I've known him for years and, uh, he's been, um, a good source of advice on this occasion. That was chucked me right under the bus. So, um, I'm just, you know, I got a distance myself. No, there was literally, there was a shit storm on, uh, X and everyone was pushing it out and, but I was not, uh, to disgrace my best. The best one is that the photo of you with your eyes half like this. Yeah, the corner of your eye. I was drinking like, um, beers. I'm unlikely to be upset. Um, I should have got him. He's actually more of a, more of a glass of wine sort of guy. I reckon he was all crisp white. I should have done that. That would have been had more credibility already. I mean, yeah, I'm a red wine type of guy. That's all right. That's fine. As you're probably saying from my clutching coming in. What did? I was very impressed. And, uh, hey, um, look, before we start, uh, I told a few people that you're coming on this podcast. And the one question that they had and they wanted to know was, why do you disable your comments? Uh, well, it's, oh, look, I should really address. I should have addressed that earlier. Um, and I know it comes up, comes up a lot. The reason actually is I, I'm a lawyer from a previous era. I spent sort of 20 years practicing in the law for my sins. Um, it's made, one of the things it does to you, it makes you hyper, um, you know, kind of vigilant about risk. And I get scared when I come to get thousands a day. I know. And they're impossible to curate. I, I, a few years back, um, we were getting the same. We were getting thousands all supportive largely. And I come in at this was never a, I'm not here for the comments type scenario. But the problem was people were getting so passionate that they were saying things about other people. Um, which to me, you know, like there is, there has been law on this. There's been a few, um, federal court decisions about whether or not you're going to be able to do that. I don't think it was ever properly decided, but it does raise the specter of you being liable for things other people say. I just got to the point where I thought, look, I just, we can't monitor them. We had, um, moderation software. I had, you know, people in the office were looking at the comments to try and pluck them out. None of it worked properly. And so we get these well-meaning comments that would just keep me up at night. So I just thought, look, I'm just going to take the slings an arrow. So it's not about criticism. I know it dampens the reach and whatever, but you know, I just, I don't want to get sued. Yeah, that's it. I, um, with my stuff, I think I did a post last night. There's two and a half thousand comments on it when I just checked in. Has it ever been 24 hours yet? Yeah. I mean, I don't even have time to check the emails that I get every day of let alone the comments. That's right. So you're saying that I can be a whole liable? Well, I don't think it's ever been properly decided. I mean, I won't bore your listeners and your viewers with a bit of backlog on the case of Vola. You can look it up though. It was never quite decided, but it was held in that case that the publisher, I think, about Facebook site was, I think it was Fairfax or someone like that. And they, uh, the court ultimately decided and there will be lawyers that are listening. They'll say that's wrong. I've been out of it for too long, but, uh, that, that they were the publisher of other people's comments. So, uh, it's possible. It's just too close to home. I just think it just doesn't happen because people don't do it. You know, like people just don't physically go off and, you know, issue proceedings against someone for a comment that's on their page, but it's a risk. And, um, which is unfortunate. My view, by the way, is that Parliament should actually run over the top of that and just say, well, you know, this is the social media company's problem. You know, because I mean, you know, the idea is if you can, the concept is if you can edit the comment, then you're the publisher. You know, like if you can take it down, then that makes you responsible for it. So, you should just be taken down. If someone rolls out with something defamatory and, uh, you know, then theoretically you should be, uh, you should be able to take it down. But no one's got the time for that. And the software doesn't do it. You can't, you have to put in keywords. And sometimes things are not just word-based. They're like a sentence that doesn't have a, you know, swear word or something else in it. It's just the, the implication. So, it's very complicated. And, uh, yeah, I just, I mean, I just didn't want to take the risk. So, I thought, cool. Cool. That's what it is for anyone. I should have said that a long time ago, but well, now that we've cleared it up, there's going to be a whole bunch of people now that probably won't be, uh, So, I won't be re-sharing your stuff and saying why does it is a comment? Yeah, I know. I see him all the time. Sorry, everyone. Everyone was very supportive, actually. It's been, it's generally very good, but I just, you know, I'd like to stay in my house. Yeah. Well, uh, and probably as well, if you get in court up in comments, trust me, I've had to stop looking. Oh, I stopped looking in my comments months ago, because I like the abuse, actually. And I'm not joking. You know, when you're on over the target, when you're getting the right people, you know, they're also going to Blue Sky account. I should get a Blue Sky account myself. Yeah. I recently went on a, not a left-leaning podcast, I wouldn't jack some warrants podcast, which is Shane Warnsson. Yeah. And, um, you know, he's probably got a few left-leaning friends on there, and I went on there. And I went and checked the comments on one of his posts and he's like, it did a different, it's a different world. A different world, but, uh, you know, I like to sometimes think that, um, you know, if I'm there out doing my thing, there's a whole bunch of people pissed off at me. Sometimes you are over the target, a whole bunch of stuff. And, you know, um, I think, look, there's a big, and this is what I want to talk to you about mainly, right? There's this massive rise up in the politics right now, on the right side of politics. And Anthony Abanese seems to think that there's this dark force and he tries to damper it. And, uh, there seems to be a whole bunch of people right, trying to damper it and trying to push it down. And you're one of the only ones out there. I heard you the other day, maybe on ABC or, or SBS or Sky News, one of them say, the liberals need to adopt one nation's policy. Otherwise, they're going to become obsolete. And it's happening right now. Yeah. If they are becoming obsolete. So what's your thought on all this? Well, I, first of all, I, there is a, if you, I mean, I sort of surround myself by this on a daily basis. And so I'm probably, I mean, the reality is people don't have time for politics. They've got other stuff to do. More important stuff to do. They have always assumed that it's going to be all right. Just normal Aussies who. That's changing a bit now. It's changing. It is. I saw that with the hate groups bill. That was the thing that I think the surprise a lot of people that I know in Canberra, that were people that cost this stuff, which is another subplot to all of this as well. But the bottom line is I think there is an element of the left in politics in particular that are desperately trying to find a villain in people like you, people like me. And they're trying to brand them as white Christian nationalists. Like this is like it's a some sort of a subset of a hate group. Or something like that. You see it all the way through government documents. You see it all the way through the security services. The AZO annual report is just, you know, over the years has just been just replete with all of these references to that. Don't worry about the bondage shooters down there and their, uh, phonantic. Well, I mean, something like 15 of the last terror incidents in Australia. I mean, almost all of them are not that, by the way. You know, um, so it's, it's, look, I think it's happening worldwide in the West. I think we're seeing this all across the West. We see it in America. We see it in the UK. And we're seeing it in Australia now too. We saw it in New Zealand last week. Because the army were doing exercises. You probably saw that. Yeah, I reported on a podcast that I did. Yeah, they're doing exercises where they're getting their New Zealand army to hunt. Christian groups. That's right. Instead of like you know back in the day when we used to do it, we used to hunt the Taliban, Islamic State. And now they're hunting Christian groups. And it was like white Christian groups as well. Like what the fuck's going on? So this is it, right? This is this is what's happening. It's happening around us. And you know, I think honestly the establishment on both sides of politics left and right are worried about ordinary people taking an interest. And and so that's been my push for a long period of time is we've got to get those people back interested. Social media has done that. We now see you know you've got the platform to do this now because you built it. You could you couldn't do that 20 years ago. You can now. The internet was you know in the in the 90s if you're old enough to remember that which I am. I remember the internet as it you know first rolled out through dial up. It was touted as the information super highway and it was going to spread freedom across the the world. And then it started doing it in the West. And you could almost see the politicians going well, it's pretty freedom here. We want it off in you know Estonia and wherever. Talk about mass for us. We yeah. Yeah. Talk about mass. You know, yeah. First time you guys stick to that. That's the yeah. That's right. And so and you know you like if you if you wanted to get a message across back up 20 years ago, you just had to go to the various heads of the media organizations and convince them now you can do it in a room like this. And people listen to you and they go well that's really interesting. And I think that really scares people. So we've seen the rollout of various you know, e safety style officers, you know, I call it different things in different countries, but it's a similar pattern of you know this kind of we need to protect the children starts off with the children. And in fact, the office of the safety commissioner started off actually as the office of the children's e safety commissioner and then it ballooned. You can see that pattern all the way through Campbell with different laws. And I think that the establishment are very, very worried about regular people finding their voice because that's bad for them, which is happening right now, which is happening right now. Mm hmm. That's what's happening. So we're just going to keep it up. And we need more people inside the machine outside and inside the machine who who understand that I think there has been a certain complacency inside the the right of politics in this country that the Liberal Party has not and I have said it many times over the last 20 years has not evolved and adapted. The communications know good. The whole thing that they do now is you know, having MPs have I mean, I don't know because I don't do it. But in some areas they'll have quotas for you know, they'll impose their own quotas for social media. You've got to have social media hits all day, which inevitably involves in people putting up photos of themselves drinking coffee and taking the dog for a walk and try to look relatable. It's in bits and bits. Some of the sorry jump, jump in. I mean, the first week back in Parliament, there was a whole bunch of TikToks that were happening. Yeah. I'm just like, is this what we're paying our fucking tax pills to? Yeah. That's right. So that's exactly what's happening. Yeah. And that's I mean, like everyone likes a bit of relatability, but it can't be confected relatability. It's like, you know, and actually I don't really want to see what politicians do. I don't want to see a cook in the meal. I don't care. I don't want to see you doing chin ups, you know, whatever. I just refuse to do any of that. What's interesting to me is seeing, you know, people talking about things that are actually a bit out of the box. Like this sort of stuff, I find interesting. You know, stuff that you're talking about. I find interesting. And so I think people are like that. They don't want to see people doing martial arts. You know, like I'm doing, I mean, they want to see people fighting on the floor of parliament for what they believe in. And so that's the challenge is getting that one nation. I have said I'm not here to chill for one nation or Pauline. I know you spoke to I like Pauline a lot. If she was from the left, she would be the most popular. You know, the archerboard would have been one with her portrait. And she'd be, you know, she'd have more letters after a name than the alphabet, but she's from the right. So, you know, she's shoved off as a pariah. She's built an incredibly successful political platform party on the basis of just telling it like it is, you know, that's it. She hasn't changed her. She hasn't changed anything. And so that's the lesson for the rest of us from the right of politics is, you know, like it's got to stop being safe and convicted. Just we're just going to tell it like it is that's our one nation is liberal party politics from 30, 40 years ago. That's it. So, yeah, that is frustrating, but the right side of politics also have to know now there's coverage in social media personalities like myself. More coverage like that. Like there's more coverage than ever before now. Like what we are saying. And while I'm not, I always say I say some wild shit. I just speak truth that I think. But now that means that you guys can speak the same truth in Parliament House. You guys can have these discussions because we're having the battles on, well, I think we're winning the battle as well. And the thing out there is, you know, the like the shift is coming. And these discussions now can be had in Parliament. Like you have coverage now. I mean, like you're not going to lose votes. Well, people know there are other people out there with us now. You didn't know that if you're opening a newspaper, you can't tell. You know, how many people are opening this newspaper? Do they agree with me? You get the, you know, the letters to the editor, which I presume are just plucked out. You know, like that's what I'm going to do that one. Here, and it's all about the rich. You know, people are all like in political circles, they're just obsessed with morning radio. You know, like that's a marker. And more, I don't know what the, you know, the various morning radio, you know, listening listeners are, but I can't be more than of 10,000 or I don't know, like I don't know, I really don't know 50, maybe I don't know, fleetingly in and out. Like you do that in the first five seconds of this pod. Like, I mean, you know, like you're reaching millions. I've reached, so on my social media platform, one social media platform is Instagram. I have 25 million viewers average every single month. There you go. And then this podcast, anyway, gets from between 500,000 and a million and that's off anywhere from six to eight episodes a month. So, I mean, like it doesn't make any sense. Like the fact that we're still catching up to that. And ours is there and a half. Yeah. I don't know how long have we done. Yeah, maybe around 15 minutes. I feel like I'm out of stuff to talk about anyway. I'm not, I promise you. I can talk down. I've noticed. So, I mean, that's the thing. Like it's, it's just indicative of politics just not having progressed. It's like the right, the right and by the way, the left, you know, I'm not much better at this. The, the labor in the Greens. Like I don't want to see TikTok video set to music. Like that's not your job. Like you say. And also, I think the other thing politicians need to get over is the fact that they think people are obsessed with what they do. You know, well, we'll do it. This is the autumn tree. You know, this is a budget time. You know, that's like the tree turns. I think I'm right about that turns amber at budget time. I don't give you. Don't care. You don't care because you're normal. But politics gets very interested in that stuff. So that, you know, there's this sort of. It's a very strange environment. It's a, like it seems like it's the ideal, ideologically driven. Yeah, well, it's, but it's, it's even more than that. There's something that they say politics is a bubble and that parliament house is a bubble. But it's really actually like a reinforced bunker, you know, like it's, it's just, you, when you walk through that door, you have to physically stop yourself. Like, and I genuinely do this and I've set it for you, but I'd always look up at the flag on the way in and the way out. Because that's what it's all about. Like it's not, you know, like you can get trapped in that environment and it's all mainstream media in there. So they just feel to, and that's on the second floor, by the way. So I always think it's a bit like a, you know, like a, it's sort of just trickle down. It starts, they set the tone for the day and then it, and then everyone starts talking about it. And it's its own little world, which is not plugged into the real world. It's just, it's really hard to describe, but it's why we need people in there who are a bit immune from it or don't like it. And I think the less you like the building, the more normal you are. I don't like it. I can tell. And this is a conversation I've had a lot of people. It's very toxic. I've heard. Yeah, well, I think it is. I mean, I don't, I think it's just the mindset. Can I jump in? Can I ask you a question? Yeah. And you can, you know, you can try and dox it. I've heard you have a lunch way yourself. Is that true? Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. I would many times a day. Yeah, why is that? Why do I like it? Is that because you, let's say for that, say for the hate speech bill, you know, they're only one or maybe they're only one in the liberal party to vote with us people. Everyone else rolled over like, do they not like you because you go against and you stay truth to yourself rather than the party and you stay true to the Australian people and what you think you should do. I just like to have lunch with my best friend. And I took, while you were speaking, I was thinking about that. They came out. And I wasn't good. We'll do it again. No, I look at, honestly, most of it's because you're on the run, but also, I think you have to insulate yourself from the machine a bit. And I don't really do it on purpose and I don't do it every day. And of course, you know, people in the office as well. We've usually one or two of us in there and we will often do that. But we are a little bit, you know, you do tend to bunkerize yourself a little bit as well. It's really not conscious. I find sometimes I'm irritated in there and you just don't want to, you know, you find you don't really want to socialise as much as you, is people think that it's just all late night drinking and you know that because that's the way a lot of this stuff. I don't, maybe I'm not invited, but you know, I'm not invited. All right, I'm not invited, but I don't see a lot of that. Yeah, I don't see it. And I, but I just do think you just need to be, you have to sort of cut yourself off from the machine a bit all because it is a bit of a machine. There's just a way to do things, you know, like, well, we do this. And then on this day, we do this and then something else we do this. And I just think it's, you lose perspective on what people are actually thinking and doing and talking and you have to try and cut yourself off from it a bit. And so I try to do that. It's fair enough. I guess it's fair enough. And also a bit of a loser. Yeah. Well, I mean, if I, I would love to go in there and just have a lunch and see how people react to you. All right. Well, we'll do it. No, no, I'm not doing it. I don't hate camera. Yeah. I'm no, I don't hate camera because everyone. always comes at me when I say I hate camera, I hate parliament house because of what it represents and who's in there and who's running it. If it represents something different than maybe, you know, I like this is one of the biggest things David Poghalk and all these people always come out about we need a taxi sector and tax ad sector and let's get our fair share of tax for this country. What for the government just to spend it? Yeah. Like and this is you know, the more I started to get into this game, you know, I'm making a little bit of money here and there and now I'm making more and it's like well, I'm just getting tax for the government to fucking throw down as people in. Like why don't they need a tax big business if they just throw it all down the bin? I'm looking for taxing big big business but this country is just yeah. I mean, I there was this old clip which people are probably seeing of Kerry Packard going into one of the Senate estimates hearings and he was asked that question about, you know, something about you know, paying tax and he unashamedly said I want to pay as little as I can. I mean, and they were ready to jump on him for that and he said well, you don't spend it probably. So that's how all of us feel. I mean, I think we're overtaxed and overregulated and it's a complete incentive. I mean, talk to anyone in business at the moment. They'll tell you how difficult it is and how crushing it is to be paying as much taxes they're paying and governments just getting bigger. I mean, if you go anywhere in Canberra, all you see is apartment buildings going up and I keep saying to people who's like, who are these students? Are they coming in? Now the thing the answer is it's bureaucracy. It's bureaucrats coming in because I mean, the bureaucracy is grown in Canberra and so there's still a market for accommodation. So none of that's helpful. Like that's just us growing towards a more socialist, more communist-style government. I think I've read a step before that 54% of people in Australia are relying on the government for their main source to come. 54% something like that. What the hell's going on? I mean, like that. It's like that in South Australia where we are as well. I mean, that's what Labor Governments do. They brick it in. It's a shame. We used to have all sorts in this state. We had hold and we had manufacturing. We used to make pharmaceuticals here. Foldings were here. We had white goods and you can't do that anymore. Powers too expensive. The regulations are too expensive. And it's just too hard. So everything's offshore. That's what globalism's done. It's a real shame. That just makes me so angry. I'm doing a real today and it actually hit me right in the fields when I was watching it and thinking of what to talk about today. Seven news reported a couple days ago. One in three kids are going to school. One in three kids are going to school without their lunch. It's unreal. And then last year was one in four. I mean, like if you want to think what a what a number which I would accept to be for that would be one in a hundred thousand. That would be zero if we could do it. How are we living in a government where they are where Anthony have an easy you can spend $4.3 million in a mansion. Tell us that the economy is fine. Whilst they print massive amounts debt flood half the country into the planet every single fucking year and then tell us that they are a very strong economy when one in three kids are going to school without their lunch. Well, it's a ghost economy and that seems to say, in South Australia, I think it's exploded 50 billion here. I mean, it's the same everywhere. Everything's kind of written by underwritten by public money now which is the way these things roll out. I don't know if this is true but I also heard and this could be fact checked that something like you know one in six Australians now are going with one mill a day themselves. And yet we are still sending money overseas. We are still funding the UN and the World Health Organization and sending money all over for climate change projects in South Pacific. And it's just not right. I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's not the money we're wasting on green energy projects. I mean, you could just like I keep joking but we talk about the Doge in the US, you know, the Department of Government efficiency. I reckon I could slash a trillion dollars in about 30 minutes like just by no, no, no, no, no. You know, yeah and there is no basis for Australians. This I always say this country we should be rolling around 100 dollar notes everyone. Like it's we are the most wealthy country with all the stuff that's under our feet. And if we got our act together properly started utilizing that and then doing something with it because we're still a bit, you know, one speed in terms of digging up and sending off, you know, really we should be digging up, turning into something, making it and selling it and doing all the above because we've got all the expertise. But we're our own worst enemy. We keep collecting people that don't want to really do anything but fill their own mess. For example, South Australia we have some of the world's greatest uranium. The world's greatest uranium. I mean, and like I know for a fact as well that that some of that uranium goes out of the US to re on the nuclear arsenal. And like what we can't use it here to set up a nuclear plant to give us, you know, really cheap energy. But no, we have to rely on our wind and solar and black pt.m. out and ask us something. I'm sure pt.m. out and ask us when to the federal government said, hey, can we use our uranium to look at a nuclear reactor? And I reckon they went no way. Because it's not in line with us. Well, I look that might be the case. I don't know. But I mean, we're 10 years out from the scarce Royal Commission on nuclear, which was a very competent blueprint for how it should be done digging up uranium using it for fuel, sending, you know, selling it overseas and bringing the spent fuel back to store, the whole fuel cycle, the whole life span, which, you know, the numbers that were, you know, of course, models and numbers are always wrong. But the numbers that were being talked about in that document, which you can see online, were astronomical in terms of sovereign wealth funds, you know, like to cover things like kids going to school without meals, you know, so you get a fund, programs to make sure they did all of that stuff. That's all true. It's just there's no sense in this. It's one line, you know, in the Environment Protection by Diversity Act, one line, which is a strict prohibition on the use of that material for fuel. And I mean, it's sort of the entry point. The last election labor really did a number on that, you know, the the costings were to, you know, I mean, if people knew the amount of money we're spending on transmission lines and to get to net zero, they're talking sort of three trillion dollars to get there and then taking away farmers land and taking away farmers land in some cases, potentially poisoning it forever. You know, solar panels leak. I had a guy on, yes, to have already released the episode. His name's Ben and he's a part of a movement called farmers fight back in Victoria. And they are literally having the Victorian government try and see his farmer from that these guys are coming out with bulldozers and pushing it back and telling the police to get stuff. Yep. And to hear it firsthand, because you know, you've just read these things and this guy comes, he's like, yeah, no, we are like rallying the troops and getting everything and we are going to we're going to fight and die on our land. I mean, fuck yeah. But the farmers, I mean, I think are the ones who are like riding across here on this because the climate change brigade, they want to tell you that, you know, cows are killing the planet, you know, like the methane is killing. Yeah. You know, and extra tax will fix that, right? Yeah, taxing always fixes everything. And, you know, so I suck at them. But so, so I mean, the farmers really do need to understand what's ahead. Like it's you know, they, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, you will eat the bugs and you know, nothing you'll be happy. But, you know, I thought I was at a conference on the weekend. And there's some really interesting speakers there. One of them posed the theory that the Americans never really killed communism off. We thought we won the Cold War, but in truth, the Americans really just beat the Soviet model of communism. And the ethos itself, the Bolshevism percolated around for 10 or years or so. And it sort of re-emerged in a different way. It sort of exactly as Margaret Thatcher said, you know, she sort of talked about communism never goes away. It just changes its clothes. And you know, it was that effect of paraphrase that. But it really did. The Chinese model of communism now addressed a lot of the problems and the frailties in the Soviet model, which was the central control and adapted it because they could see the writing on the wall. So they had to adapt. And they changed that back to a market-driven authoritarian style, which I think private equity has taken on. And we can see that now living on through, you know, some of these, you know, some big businesses will now. They've sort of adopted a lot of that ethos. And it's come back to us. I mean, they've got their messengers in the media in Hollywood. Many of the sporting leagues around the world are sort of, you know, pushing that barrow. And that's why we do. The AFL is technically work. I mean, this is why we get DEI and everything. And I just, you know, yeah, it's sort of, you ask yourself, what's the point of music? What's the point of movies? What's the point of sport? Well, it's not to pitch a political message. And it never should have been. I talked about that in my maiden speech and got howled down for it, you know, about the number of rounds. You know, you've always got a round for everything rather than just a footy round. And, you know, so they said, well, which one would you remove? I just said all of them. Like we don't, it's not a political statement. So anyway, it's everywhere. And so we haven't beaten that ethos and it has come back. And like one school of thought is we just have to go through that process a bit like Eastern Europe did. You know, they really did. They went through the process. Eventually, people got sick of having nothing and kids going to school without meals like they had exit much worse. And they threw off the shackles and, you know, now you've got places like Poland and Hungary that are sort of effectively thriving, having, having lived through it. So my fear is that we're going to have to go through that same ringer, which all prediction with time, time frame and all this, having to go through the really dark, deep stages of communism to get our way back out. Well, I hope it's not, I hope it's not too long. I don't really know. I don't think you can predict, um, with any great certainty and you'd be full to try and do that. But I, one would think right now, I mean, I'm looking at the polls. You're looking at the same polls, right? There's something coming back. Yeah. Well, and look, and actually the rest of the world has gone through a lot of this. already, you know, we're always a few years behind. The United Kingdom is going through a similar push. I mean, you know, like there's this sort of theory inside the establishment of the right in Australia that populism's bad, you know, like it. And I wish there's something I've just never understood. So the concept of, you know, you'll hear it all the time, like, "Oh, that's a populist party." Or that's a populist position. And when you actually look, if you just go and simply, and if we like Rogan, if we had a guy here to do it, we could get him to bring up the definition. Yeah, I don't know how many sponsors do you think. But if you did, you'd see that populism really is just simply speaking on behalf of regular people against elites. Like that's almost literally the definition. And yet politics from the right has sort of turned, has turned its nose up at that for a long period of time. And really, that's what it should be. And I don't understand why it is. And I don't understand why that is given such a bad rap. You see it in the UK. Reform is now taking over the political reins from the conservative, the Tory party who are getting defecions every week, you know, people are leaving. And like our legal party, isn't it? Not quite, but we are a little bit behind the times. Like we are literally sort of, you know, two or three years behind. And so, you know, there are, I mean, it's a long way to go to the next UK election, but there's a very strong chance Nigel Fraud is going to be the prime minister. So, and the US, we've seen Marga, same principle. People just getting sick of globalism, being told that jobs are getting off-shored, tired of the climate change nonsense. So, we are getting our dose of that at the moment. I think, I reckon there's going to be a twist we've reform. I think Restore Britain is going to jump up reform. Cameras said they couldn't deport millions of people, then group of low cameras said we can. So, they're the more hardcore version of reform. It's another bit. And I think I actually think that Restore Britain is going to take power over there. My good luck. Because they're more hardcore on the deportations. And I don't know, you probably listened to a lot of my stuff. And you know how hardcore I am on immigration. And I think that we, I actually think one nation is not going anywhere near hard enough on immigration. And I think that would end to be reviewed or anything of that with what they do going forward. One of the problems with it is, and this is the thing people need to be a little bit conscious of. And I know there's no excuses on that. But the framework now around hate speech as a result of things that have happened in Parliament makes it very difficult to talk about it fearlessly without attracting attention from the, you know, the authorities. You're talking about the recent bill that they've put through. Well, there's two. So there's one in New South Wales which is a state-based law, but and so that talks about hate speech. And I think there are a couple of others as well. I don't know about the other jurisdictions, but there's certainly laws on the books in Australia which talk about hate speech, raising anxiety and fear in among ethnic groups. I mean, on the surface it all sounds, you know, okay, well, you know, fear enough we shouldn't be doing that. But the way in which it's weaponized is the thing politics misses all the time. And we've seen rumblings about Pauline being on the wrong side of that. Because if you make a public statement, you know, so on TV, on a podcast, anything like this, there is the potential for you to be in trouble, like literally in criminally trouble. So, I mean, look, it's not a huge threat, but it is a threat. So that does have a, that does what it's meant to do, which is put a dampening effect on discussing the very real issue of immigration and what the right level is. The hate groups bill, which was passed, was a little bit different. That's the one that Parliament passed a couple of weeks ago. And different, but similar in the sense that what that is trying to do is set up a framework for groups being designated as bad, you know. So like you're a hate group now because you did these things, which by the way can be retrospective. And I mean, people were telling me, you know, that voted for it, that, oh, well, it's improved now because it's not a hate speech thought, but it's actually worse, I think. I think it might be worse because you can now, you know, if you have a local community group talking about immigration, for example, and you set it up and you, you know, the opportunity there is for you to be listed, you know, literally listed and criminalised for talking about things that might be relevant. Why did your party vote for it and you're the only one to vote against it, or maybe the only one to vote against it? Maybe there might have been another couple to it. But why did you make a stand and say no? Well, I think the first, look, there are a couple of mistakes made. I think the first one was to demand the parliament do something. We already have enough laws on the books that should have dealt with that bondage. And I know. And I slipped up from Susan Lair was. Well, I think it was just a general mistake to sort of try and recall parliament. I wouldn't have done that personally. I wouldn't, I just don't, you know, if we did it, then it should have been for condolence motions, all of that stuff, to talk about the terrible events, all of that stuff. Got it. I'm all fine. The one thing we almost certainly don't need is as many laws that are being passed through that building as a general rule. I mean, I, you know, every week, I look at it and I think, okay, no, there are tweaks that need to be made because, you know, the financial sector moves and, you know, the tech space is different. And there's always laws that need to be tweaked and whatever. But we're passing a lot of laws. You know, there's a school of thought that suggests that we should be repealing laws because, you know, and particularly laws that relate to creating statutory bodies and putting more bureaucrats in and all of that, a lot of it's to do with that. So that's the first thing. I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have asked for parliament to be, and when it did, labour threw up the response, which was, here's a bill, which is just diabolical. It was a hand grenade. Total hand grenade. And I always say, it's a libel party catch. Yeah, catch. And it literally was like that. It was like, I say, we ended up voting on a bill that was diabolical and we voted on the revised version, which was only terrible, you know, like it was sort of like that, you know, and I just think I wouldn't, I wouldn't have gone near it. And I didn't, and I can't vote. I just, I have to vote with my conscience. I do sometimes, I cross the floor a bit too much. I'm hoping that that will not be the case as much anymore because the party line will improve under Angus, which I think it will. But, yeah, in the case of that, why did I do it? And no one else did. I can't answer that. I think my feeling was that, you know, even though we can see that there were some, there are groups out there that we don't like that you cannot throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to free speech, you know, it's as simple as that because it only takes a change in dynamic to go from, well, this is, you know, his butt alter, that's the one we're after. But now we're after the two World's Collide podcast because they're also, you know, like whatever, I just, and that always gets cast off as being ridiculous. But we saw during COVID how laws that were already on the book, some of them can be like the turnkey society can be used against us. When we have no idea of how they can even be tweaked or just used as they are. And I think we just, I don't know, I think Parliament has to get a bit smarter than that. People have got to see the writing for the, you know, the writing on the wall on the wood for the trees as they say, where could this go? You know, we, and we did it like a year earlier across the floor on a different version, which was the hate symbols bill, which was designed to make, to criminalize. Now a 12 month head sentence for displaying a swastika, okay? Now no love for the swastika. I'm not here to offend any of that. I want to be very clear about it. But we are only one step removed from us and people would laugh at this. They'll say, oh, it will never happen. Banging the cross. Banging the cross. There you go. So that's the problem with these laws. Is your only, your only, you know, you just, yeah, we have like criminal actions calling for death, calling for mayhem, no tolerance for it. Not interested. I want to hear about it. Obviously. But there's always another way that this can play out. And I, I just think, you know, we have to be smarter than that from the right of politics. And I don't think people, you know, if we had said no to both of those bills, labor would have come out and said, oh, there you go. The hard right, the far right. But, you know, there's a lot of people that are looking for that elsewhere. We can see in the sometimes 30% that are now voting for one nation that there are a lot of people that don't buy that malaki. And they also think then polls are inaccurate. I think my nation is polling higher. Well, it could be, I mean, they're all different. They polls just, they go this way. They go that way. And we never know until polling day. That's the old line. That's my politician line. Oh, God, I don't believe in polls. I'm not interested in the election, but which is just, you know, fair, they can leave and lean over and smash here for that. But, you know, so, yeah, you might be right. I mean, I just think ultimately, like the liberal party across the country is at a point where it needs to sort, like, I don't know how much more obvious it needs to be made when you're running third in some seats. That the playing field's changed. Like, it's not 2004 anymore. Can I be honest with you? Can I be completely honest? Please. I think the liberal party's done, mate. It's a sort of presuppose as you weren't being honest up to that point. Yeah. Look, I don't know. I don't think that. I really don't. And I, and I, it doesn't take much of a comeback from that. Yeah, I do. I do. I think that there's 80 years of history there. It is the most successful brand. People are angry at the moment and I get it. And, but, you know, here in essay, we've really tried to restump the house and we've done a great job and we're getting lots of good people involved. See, political parties are actually only, see, this is a bit back to the 40 analogies, right? Which I, because I'm a bit stupid, I always just have to. You've been in a foodie play? And, well, you're younger. That was a long time ago. And I was. You love foodie, though. I love foodie, but I was never any good. I can't know. That's the sort of hackney thing. You have to do this genuinely true. Typical politicians. Yeah. No, I could have played, see, I did. So, you know, I mean, Peter Malin, the ask is, is your average C grade class? Yeah, that's right. But it was a full back. I was a full back. And that's where you plant everyone that can't play. You got discipline there, right? Well, not really. But, so, you know, like But if you look at that, let's go back to that dirty folly. Follow the crows. Yeah. OK, so I'm a crows fan. When that went in. Well, that's for my-- I went to the first practice game. They played Essend, and a lot of people think it was Hawthorne in Round 1 in '91. It was actually two weeks earlier. I think or three weeks earlier, they played Essend, and then grant me Philke kick the first goal from 30 out right in front. I was there. So I'm a long-term, long-time tragic of the Adelaide Crows. The crows of-- I mean, I don't want to be too unkind. I won't pick an era for a few of upsetting people. But the crows of a particular era, like the 2000s, when they had a little bit of success, but not so much, is a very different beast to the '97, '98 Premiership Teams. The same organization filled with different people. And so I think politics is a bit like that as well. I mean, there's no reason why the Liberal Party can't get back to doing what it did under men's ears, which was speak for the forgotten people. That was the point of politics. There are people that take a very different view of the party. And they've said it's a broad church. I don't think it's that broad, personally. But anyway, men's ears was-- his whole pitch was to the forgotten people. His idea was we don't speak for organized capital, and we don't speak for big capital, that is big business. We don't speak for organized labor. We speak for mums and dads that want to run a business. People, families, dogcat home. And that's everyone, basically. That's almost everyone. And if you read the We Believe statement, it's still very true. You've just got to-- what you're putting out has got to reflect that. And actually, Trump, I think I'm right in saying pinched a lot of men's ears stuff in his very first inauguration speech. He said the forgotten people will be forgotten no longer. That's what the party is about. It's got to get away from this kind of-- we've got to appeal to people in a city Sydney. That's not going to win. Out of Metro is going to win. Yeah, that's a problem with the Liberal Party. There are too many monarchs. And look like they might balance out the party and stuff like that. But when Jane Choon comes out and still tells the Australian people that immigration is still going to be-- I think she said something like, are we still going to be porting from the world? And we're not going to choose and be selected where we're importing from in one of our speeches. And then Angus Taylor was like, you know, we don't have a hard line of immigration. I'm just like, guys, I mean, if you think that I'm going to come back and be a Liberal supporter, after you guys saying that, no way. Well, the message has got to be right. And the difficulty is that I think if you're trying to pitch a message to everyone, you're trying to, you know, to the sort of wealthy people that live in, you know, wherever North Shore and Sydney and also people that are living in out of Metro seats who are just literally trying to get through, like that's most people. I mean, you can't pitch a mixed message like that. It's got to be aimed at the party's ethos. And that is, I think, aimed more at the out of Metro seats and rural seats as well. And so, yeah, look, the messaging's got to be right. And, you know, well, that's the challenge now. The challenge is getting that right. And my challenge, I think, is to try and continue to pitch that inside the tent, pull the strings back to that kind of messaging because, you know, I think it is too easy to get caught up in the, well, I heard this on the ABC. We've got to talk about it, you know, like, I mean, the ABC. I mean, but this is where you've got coverage now, right? Because it's just social media, there are like hundreds of me, you know, like, like this time last year, there was me and Big Chockey. And we started off at 10,000 followers each and we just ramped it and went as high as we could. Now, there's like a hundred of us just everywhere, just right wing social commentators that are pushing back. - On sick males everywhere. - Oh, mate, that's a straight white male. - Yeah. - Most dangerous creature on the planet. - Yeah, that's right. But there's a lot of space. And I just, I think to myself when Jane Hume says something about that and then Angus Taylor isn't going out and off from immigration, I'm like, guys, like there's no way you're going to get any of your vote of base back here. I sometimes think maybe they left there, maybe Susan Laded too much damage and it's too far gone. That's what I think to myself. - Yeah. - That's what I feel. - Well, I think I mean, there is a long way back at the moment. The polls suggest that, right? I mean, you know, the polling in SA is 14% on some, like there's a primary vote. - Oh, yeah, that's like not going to win a seat. - Well, I mean, I don't know that that's, I don't know that it's bad as that, but I mean, there's a long way back. There's a long way back to restore a lot of trust. That's the fact. - I mean, that's not trying to-- - You could get a bum in a street and throw an orange top on him and he would win a seat. - Well, I don't look, we'll see how it plays out. I don't know that it's quite as bad as that, but I mean, certainly that-- - Maybe I'm just a doomsday talking it down a lot. - Yeah, there are a lot of challenges between now and then a lot. And I think, you know, politics is like marketing in a sense. You can't ignore that. Like that's not us just waxing lyrical about it. That's just the fact. Like it's, you know, and we always trust the science, right? You gotta trust the science. Trust the stats. I mean, you know, that's joking, by the way. But, you know, those polls are, they're not, you know, isolation, there's not one that says, you know, 18% and then another that says 50, you know, like they're all kind of hovering around that margin. And all across the country, one nation's numbers are growing. - In that's your message right there. - In socialist Melbourne. - Yeah. - Like Victoria, it's just, you know, Dan Andrews destroyed that. - Well, that's always the argument, right? The argument is always from the left of the party is always, you know, you need to swing further to the left to appease the inner city. You know, we need to go, we need to be more climate changey and more of this than the other. And the reality is people even in left leaning areas are crying out for the same message, which is small government, you know, focusing on families, the forgotten people. It's the same thing. So we also just want cheaper living, you know. - Cheaper living, like that's the number one concern. And it's not enough to just say it. We're addressing that, well, what are you doing? You know, like the, and it's like Trump said, like they asked him before the election in 24, what's the one thing you could do in order to make things cheaper? And he said, drill baby, drill. And that's, I mean, you know, it's true everywhere. Like if we just got power cheaper, everything follows from there because everything needs to be transported. - Everything we go down. - That's right. That's your simple answer there. And so we've got to be brave enough to say it. - What's your, what's your thoughts with Anthony Avenue's attack and the right so much? Is he fearing something? - Yeah, I think they're very scared of it. I think we're getting to the point where, I think he's shitting himself. - Well, I think that, I mean, look, one thing about Labor is they're very good at the politics and very bad at the government. You know, like that's the Labor movement. - Like they're very, very good at, I was talking to Renny about this. He said the Labor Party are very, very good at identity politics and arguing with you. - Yeah, that's shitting governing. - That's right. So that's, and so they can see the writing on the wall. - Do you like Renny? - Yeah, he's a good friend of mine. He has been for a lot. We fought in the trenches on COVID. - I like him. - I like Renny. - He's got a, I want to have him back on the podcast. - Yeah, and he's a really interesting guy, but he's too smart for his own good. Like he is so smart, keeping up with him is hard work. I mean, I remember I rang him once and I said, oh, what can you just explain to me this, and I can't remember what was something about climate change. - He's a genius. - He's a genius. - He's a genius. And he just, he started, you know, - I was, you know, I knew it. - And before I knew it, I just couldn't keep up. And I was just punched drunk after 40 minutes. He also could be running our country economically. - He is, he is so across. - And he needs to be the treasure. - The detail, yeah. He's the sort of, he'd be the RFK guy you'd put in, he's a hand grenade to blow it all up. He would be magnificent. He's also the leader of another party. There you go. I'm just praising other party. He's, on a personal level, he's just a very, very good blog. - I like it. - I also, one story I gotta tell you, he came over a couple of years ago for me, a mutual friend of ours, down in the South East, Jackie Bateman, who's a great person invited him down, and she is a legend. And she put on a show for us and we spoke, and he sort of went into COVID. Everyone was interested in COVID then, 'cause it was only three or four years past, and it is still fresh in everyone's minds, and we're not forgetting about it. And he sort of immediately, in front of a fairly big crowd down in the South East, just started getting into the weeds, all the lipid nanoparticles, and ribosomes and all this sort of stuff. And you could see people kind of, the eyes were kind of, it was good for 20 minutes, but he's talking for an hour and a half about quantum physics. And he goes, how the end of it he goes, mate, how was that? That's his voice, by the way. Like, and I said, it was excellent. But look, when we get to town, 'cause he was coming down to the Adelaide the following day, and we had a big crowd, like about 500, 600 people coming to see him, I said, look, just, and I don't know, 'cause I'm not, I don't know anything about anything, but certainly not about lipid nanoparticles. But I would stay out of the weeds, 'cause I think people want a higher level, look at it. And he goes, yeah, mate, no worries, yeah, no, you're right, I just gotta be carrying away, I get a bit, you know, I said, okay, all right. So anyway, so we sat off and, first day, and he started the same speech, and he started talking about, you know, broad stuff. And then I could see it coming, and he went straight in it. But the problem here is lipid nanoparticles, and he went straight, and quantum physics, and the gold reserve, and the whole thing. And he's just, he's just two across it. Like, he's just so smart. And, but yeah, real shame, I miss him around there. I used to, you know, I would spend a lot of time talking to him. - Yeah, it's cool, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Back to anything you have, and easy really panicking about the rise up of the right. - Yep, yep, so what's your thoughts on that? Are they actually panicking like, like, like, like, like, - No, but I keep saying that he went to a school, the other way, he considered the thing I like about coming and I'm paraphrasing here, right? But I think about coming to schools, you know, that they haven't seen the influence of the far right or something like that. I mean, that's a strange thing to say in front of school kids, you know, like, I think we are, so they always say conservatism or the right is like a counterculture. I think we're seeing more of it out of kids now because really, what has the right given young men that just attacked them? They just attacked them for 25 years, and then they wonder, and then they wonder where a whole bunch of them now are turning towards neo-nazism. I mean, this is it. This is what Kenovan said about Andrew Tate. He said, what do you expect people are gonna do? Like, they're gonna be people that are just gonna fly off the handle and follow the wrong rabbit down the wrong hole. - That's gonna know my target audience. - Yep. - 18 to 35-year-old mouse. - Yep. - Yep. - Go figure. - Go figure. - They're looking for a stronger mouse figure. - Of course. - Obviously. - But, you know, but they're looking for someone that talks up a bit of common sense, and they naturally drawn to me. That's my highest target audience. - About two years ago, I've got this barbershop that I go to you that does an excellent job as you can tell. And they're great blocks in there. They've got places all around Adelaide. And it's just, you need, no, not you need to that sort of environment. And I was just talking to them and sitting there and chatting and talking about stuff. And it just reminded me that those barbershops are now like little microcosms when men, it's like a little men's club where they've got TV on the wall, some of them have got pool tables on a PlayStation and occasionally, someone even made a comment about a nice looking woman that walked past, which is enough to get you listed these days. And I thought, you know, this is the problem. Like everyone's shrunk away from it. And no one's talking on behalf of men. And it's not, you know, like, if they're speaking about men in Canberra, it's all about domestic violence and toxicity and, you know, all sorts of things like that. And the reality is, we should be finding ways to form into make their life easier, marry, you know, reduce the tax burden on them so they can have more children and we can have more kids here. And, you know, also, you know, not create this kind of, you know, environment where people feel like they're doing the wrong thing just by being normal. You know, we've completely lost all the good stuff out of this country that men used to have, you know, like the 80s and the 90s when I grew up were just a different era. And, you know, you have people say, well, there's a lot of bad stuff that doesn't happen maybe, but we've thrown a lot of good stuff out. And we've given them, more importantly, we've given young men nothing to feel aspirational about. Like, you know, we've property prices are now through the roof. Everything's too expensive. Men, young men tell me that they are now so concerned about money that they're frightened to ask women out because they won't, you know, they won't, they can't afford to go and take someone out for dinner or drinks. In my case, it wasn't a problem because no one would say yes. But, you know, but, you know, if for other more useful humans, you know, that's just, so what does that mean? Well, I don't know, but we've created a world where we make a boarding baby, I'm not getting to this if you don't want to, but a boarding baby is easy, euthanasia, easy, and the fertility rates dropped through the floor. What do you mean? We're boarded 220,000 babies last year. And our birth rate is at 1.42 per female. That's right. And 20 years ago, it used to be at 2.1. That's what we needed to sustain in population. That's right. And that's the effect. And we are paying a lot of money to these women, to abort these babies. Yep. And we've, I mean, one of the things that started-- I think Joanna Howe. Yeah. She's on the podcast next week. Is she? Yes. You say hi from me. Yeah, you were fine. I like Jo. Yeah, I like Joa a lot. Yeah, I know each other from-- I'm a affordessie down there. She's a real fighter. She doesn't always-- people don't always like the way she does that she's effective. And I'm not saying that's me. I think she's been very, very effective in that space. She's brought to light some really important issues that I think there's a sort of a feeling out there on these pro-life issues that people should shy away from them. The old classic is no uterus, no opinion. I mean, my body, my choice-- Right, body, my choice. Now, COVID changed all of that. It was your body, my choice, government said. So-- And I think that's also important as well. People just need to understand the hypocrisy that exists in politics. Just, we know what's real. We know what's true. It is not right to be aborting babies at 39 weeks or right up to the day of birth. That is not OK. And they'll tell you it's all it doesn't happen. Well, I mean, I think it was a year and a half ago, Jo proved and showed statistics that showed that since the bill was introduced, something like 47, I think babies had been aborted in the last-- And they just take me out and leave them there to die of until-- Yeah, that doesn't happen in essay because there were some-- the amendments that were put through to that bill protected that, but that's not the case in to state. So we actually had a-- Matt Kahnovan and I had a bill up to make sure that babies got medical care if they were the product of the failed abortion. They'll tell you that doesn't happen, but it does. I like Matt, he's a good guy. He's a great guy. He's a-- yeah, I like him. I've had him real log cast. Yeah, I think he's a good guy. I think he's one of-- look, I don't think there's many, many people that are good guys or good females in Parliament House, but there are a couple. He is outstanding. He is a genuinely principled guy that speaks with his conscience. He is. Do you think he's worried about losing his seat next federal election because there's the one national rise, obviously, in places like where he's from, you know, this sort of rural area? Well, I mean, I hope people see what he does and what an asset he is. And they appreciate that and return him, I hope. But look, it's no doubt about it. I mean, one nation's an existential threat to the nets. It's an existential threat to the liberal party. And we got to deal with it. Someone sent me one of the guys in my lobbying group, actually sent me a graph. And it was the Yes vote campaign and the rise of one nation. And there was like a pivotal point where they said, if one nation went past his barriana dropped off, they would die. But it's went the other way. It went up and they're almost saying what these graphs are saying that this is a beast that cannot be stopped. To him, like, I mean, one Pauline Hansardin could come out and do whatever she wants almost. And she would not lose votes. People were just that fed up. Like, the rule I'm going to do this afternoon, one in three kids are sending or going to school without their lunch, the rule that I did yesterday. I mean, it got like 40,000 likes of me just bagging out anything, you have an easy and having a crack at him. And this is the big thing with the Carl Steffanovic podcast as well. He went at him, he went hard at him early with the gas royalties. And then he really softened off and Anthony Avanese ran rings around him and sort of dominated that podcast. And the issue with Carl Steffanovic and his team, they underestimated the hate out there for Anthony Avanese. And he started his podcast with having Pauline Hansen, who started to be Joyce just since a price. A lot of these like right wing figures. And then he went on and he had me in Chockey on the week before. And then he had Anthony Avanese on and he built up this hardcore right audience. And the fallout has been huge because people were underestimating the hatred for Anthony Avanese. Now what I'm saying and what I'm bringing in all this back together is, I mean, it could be anyone with that is in that orange team. But people just don't care. I mean, I had a mate come over from Sydney the other day and he had dinner with him on Monday night in a city bondo guy, right? Norma, a labor voter. He sat down and he goes, Sam, I can hate Anthony Avanese. I don't care who comes in. I'm voting as far as I can because I hate Anthony Avanese and I hate labor. Two years ago, he was preaching to me why I should be a labor voter the whole my whole life. And he is just flip flop. He's just like Sam, I don't care. I don't care who's in. I don't care. It's changed. And it has. And I think we see, we saw a bit of this in the 2016 election in the US where the establishment would try to throw shade at Trump. You know, there was, you remember there was all that stuff about every single time that throw shade though, they get more powerful. This is the problem, right? So, and they can't read it. It's like fix the country if you want to do that. Yeah, exactly right. So the attacks and I'm sure they will come on Pauline and I'm misguided once again, I'm not a press secretary and I'm not trying to, I'm just trying to speak honestly about this. You will not win that fight. It is, it is, people are fed up. It was the same with Trump. Like the sorts of things that he did said and were said about him would have finished a political opponent years before. But people were so ready for a hero that they were prepared to forgive him for everything and anything and still are. And you know, that is the same dynamic happening 10 years later, probably a little bit less. And I think you're right. I think people are just ready to, you know, they, the conditions have got to be right. I mean, I think to a certain extent, it's delayed in Australia because we did have 10 years of coalition government, which did, you know, not enough. I mean, we never go, we never move forward. Well, they swung very, they even, they swung quite left. In some instances, that's right. I mean, I'm actually part of that. I feel you were the green energy sector. All of that. We should never have done that. I've got the receipts, I spoke against it even when we were doing it in 2001 at the end of the, 'cause a lot of people remind me in my comments they're like the right side of government start of the green energy sector. Yeah. That's true. I mean, look, I think I'm right in saying the coalition signed up to Kyoto, the original version, you know, the pre-Paris version. So that's, I mean, look, the message for the right of politics is you're not gonna acquiesce your way to victory. You know, the old expression is feeding the alligator, hoping to get eaten last. That's not working. That's just clearly not working. So an attacking people, we saw a lot of that in SA. There was a lot of attacking of one nation when, I think Sierra Game was the one nation member of the legislative council here in SA. It doesn't work. You've got to be better. You've just got to be better. It's like you're not going to go out and buy a Samsung phone just because they're yelling at Apple. I'm always interested by politics not understanding these sorts of things. Maybe it's, I don't know, it's too easy. Every single time someone attacks me, my profile grows masterised. There are pages now dedicated out there that clip up my stuff daily and just go out me daily. I swear ever since they have started, my following is increased by about 25%. That's the surprise, Anifton. People want to know what this is all about. Because they're also talking to an audience which maybe think they're a freaking retard. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, it's just, you know what it's like. You hear something, I mean, music did this for years, didn't it? It was like, you know, whatever their genre is, it was dangerous. If it was in the 90s, it was gangster rap and if it was death metal before that and rock and roll was, you know, subversive in its day and people would then get interested. It's just human nature. So then what are you, what they're doing that's getting people's attention. So it's a very bad strategy and I'm just sad that I don't get more abuse because I would like it. So if you're out there and you'd like to abuse me, I shouldn't say that should I. That's a joke. You know, what a sense of humor. But this is a thing people just don't learn. I would have thought the Labor government was smarter than this. I would have thought that they would have, you know, seen what's happened overseas and it just, I mean to me, it's like, hey, how about you just fix the country? How about you come out and say, okay, so what we've been doing for the past few years doesn't work. You know, this green energy sector doesn't work. This printing of mass debt doesn't work. We're going to go back to our school and the system and say, hey guys, there's two genders. You know, we're going to protect our females in our female spaces and not let, you know, dudes run around and then this is a sort of stuff that there's a massive portion of politics on the right side that are just screaming out for someone to represent. And the more you push against it, the bigger it gets. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, they talk about, you know, the far right. If you listen to Labor in Canberra, they're always talking about the far right taking over the Liberal Party. I mean, it's just nonsense. It's just absolute nonsense. And of course, far right today is what about normal was 20 years ago, by the way. Five years ago. Five years ago. But the real story actually is that the left have taken over the Labor Party. That's actually the real story. You know, they're there. You know, I mean, I couldn't, what was the one the other day? I couldn't get. I'm just trying to think I try and introduce, you know, bills so that we can at least talk about them. So I introduced my childhood gender transition prohibition bill it was. And actually, we managed to introduce it into the last parliament, the 47th. And then we talked about, I couldn't get it to the Florida vote because of various procedural rules, which I'm going to bore you with now. But we managed to talk about it and, you know, do some petition work on it and get a bit of that. I tried to introduce it into the 48th parliament, which is a rubber stamp job normally. I normally, particularly if it's been introduced in a previous parliament, the government of the day will allow that. And they voted against it, you know, like to, that doesn't even feature on the list now. That, which is unheard of, they didn't even get to second reading as they call it. So, I mean, I just, you know, I don't, we're talking about putting a moratorium on children, you know, having surgery or puberty blocking drugs, you know, that's it. That's all we're talking about. It's like it's radioactive in that building. Parliament House sadly is not a rep, is it, I have said in one of, and people could see it, I spoke about it years ago, you know, it is not, it is the least representative building in the country. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I reckon, I reckon you would. It is the, it is the least representative building. If you walk around in that building, you, it is not Australia, as I know it. I, yeah, actually, Barnaby told me an interesting stat when I had him on last week, that's 70% of the bureaucrats in there at Green voters. It would be at least that. I, you know, I'm, that is so far from what Australia is. Okay. Well, it's, I mean, you're just demonstrably that's true. The numbers don't support that. The Greens are at about, you know, 14% or something. So I occasionally, what's really interesting is occasionally you get someone from a department come up and go, you know, good on you. Well done. Like that. And you sort of, oh, I didn't know you were one of us. So this is a plant. It's a plant. I'm not saying anything. You were in a war. Or, you know, occasionally a bureaucrat in there will get you. Mostly, I know I went, because I'll, well, you know, I won't name anyone, but mostly, you know, you're just pretty, pretty sure you're not on the same level. But occasionally you'll get someone, you know, who works in the building who, who, you know, will just tell you on the quiet that, you know, good on you. But other than that, it's pretty, it's pretty lonely place. I've got to tell you. It's, it's a, it's a funny, funny building. It's, I often say it's like opening the doors to Narnia, you know, like you walk in and it's just like what is this looks kind of like a place you might go, but it's not any place that I've seen, you know, it's, it's very hard to describe. I've been invited there three times and I've never, I've just sought myself every time. Now I'm not, I mean one, I'd like, I'm at the point, mate. And I think a lot of Australians here, I am, I am past the point of debate. Like, like, I am past the point of debate with the Labour Party and who is running this country. And if I see any of these people, I am more likely to run up and just abuse them, not physically, but abuse them rather than, you know, sit there and debate them. Like if, if you're Anthony Abanese, if I had Anthony Abanese in here for an hour and a half, I mean, I would, I would, I would systematically test shreds off him in a very, in a way where he wouldn't walk up and get out. Like, and it's just, whether a year ago, I would have, I would have been like, yeah, come in, Abbo, let's talk about what you like to do. You know, I want to know what you are. Now I'm like, I'm in here and yet, tell me why you're sending, you know, the 33 or 63% of children to school without food. Tell me why you're doing that. Yeah. And then I'll tell him up on that. Obviously, obviously, I mean, verbally and figuratively rather than physically, or just being clear about that because of course we don't endorse that. Just to be clear, there's my one little nod to the way we do things. But I mean, I know there is a lot of, yeah, I mean, I know everyone's angry. I know there's a lot of anger about what's happening. I know that. And look, the way to fix that is to, you know, to provide an alternative path. That's what we have to do. That's our job is to provide something which allows people in two years to say, right, that's the solution. And that's the challenge, you know. One of the questions out there is, do you think we can hold off another two years? I mean, look, you have to say yes, right? But like, well, I mean, I'm worried about it. I mean, I remember watching what happened in the US with four years under the Biden administration and thinking, you know, how bad can it get for your, you know, 300 metres down in a 100 metre relay race, you know, like I mean, I think the US is struggling from that as well. We are too. I mean, you know, we're sort of getting into the world now where if we don't have something very different, you know, when the right of politics gets the reins back, you know, see you, like, not just talking about, you know, everyone always talks about cutting red tape, and green tape, but actually doing it, you know, and like throwing the shackles off, one of the interesting things I noticed is when I was about 10 years ago, when I went on a trip back to where Dad was born in Belgrade, and there was a bit of a difference. Sure, and that's Serbian. Yeah. Yeah. So Dad's side were from Belgrade in the 50s. They came out. They came out. They asked the war. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. After the war. So I was kind of hybrid version of market socialism, it became an basically, and it took a long time for, in my view, for people in that country to sort of get used to the market again. So you'd go into a shop in the days of, you know, in the 2000s, and people just wouldn't serve you, you know, because they never had to because they were operating in a market socialist, sort of style where you just turn up and whatever's available you get. And the customer service element was really missing compared to markets like the United States where you get that. So I worry that a lot of the country is going to get used to being on the government drip feed, and we're training a generation of kids that it's, you know, just a huge problem. It's a huge problem. Like, you know, you know, your pathway here is to go and work for a department, you know, where, so we're going to get into this world where if we don't change course, you're either going to go and work for a government department and be told what to do, you know, literally told how to behave, what you can and can't say, and what you can do, all you're going to go and work for a big corporate that's going to do the same thing. That's basically the same thing with a different, a different pay slip. And that's going to take some unpicking. Hey, there's two things I don't want to ask you before we're finishing up. And, I don't know, this seems to be, there's this like, there's this weird, not weird. There's this version of the right that is rising up at the moment that pushes massive of the back against Israel. And I don't know if you want to talk about it, if I want to ask you about it, is you had a trip funded by Ajak back in the day, which is because of the 19. What happens on those trips? Yeah, look, I think, honestly, I think too much is made of it. So yeah, the trips are, they're study tours, right? They're meant to be. And what happens is quite honestly is you are taken and around to visit sites, important sites to speak to people, journalists, expoliticians, and you to see the country, basically. Now, from my point of view, I mean, I, you know, I sort of I'm very conscious of interference, foreign interference, very conscious of it. When I was on the Adelaide City Council, the Chinese used to come over once a year and try and take delegations back and I refused every single time because I didn't think it was the right way to do it. But in this case, this is an Australian group and I didn't feel uncomfortable going. I have to say, I didn't feel like the message was pressed. I thought it was actually a very useful trip. I mean, you know, part of anything else seeing the Holy Land was a pretty important thing for me to see. They took us to Ramala and the West Bank to speak to the Palestinians as well, like legitimately speaking. I always joke that we had 45 minutes of a lecture from the two I see of the PLA, you know, and it was unfiltered. So it was pretty, you know, I gotta say, it was pretty measured. It was very measured. So I don't, I mean, a lot of people do it. I think too much is made of it, honestly. That hasn't left me with any particular bias towards Israel at all. I don't feel any of that. And, you know, or any other country for that matter, I don't, you know, if I'd been taken on a trip to Taiwan or the United States. - Yeah, 'cause I know Taiwan and do a lot. - They do a lot. - They do a lot of them. And they have, I don't know if they still are. I've never gone on one of those times. - I'm still doing it. - I'm still trying to do it. - I think probably, honestly, if I had my time again, I might not do it this time, not because I have any difficulty with what was done. It was very important, very instructive. But, you know, I just, I think it should be in the business of taking, you know, like as little as you can. And generally, you know, from, from in politics. Like, I don't, well, I just think your job's here and not Israel. - Yeah, and look, that's, and I am, I'm ashamed of the Australia first. Like that is the fact. And I see a lot of this debate in the United States about, you know, the manner in which these things roll out. And, you know, I see Tucker Carlson talking about a lot and getting a lot of heat for that. But, as far as I can tell, - I can't tell you what a heat talking up against M. Lobby's. - Yeah, I, I mean, I don't see the problem in being Australia first. I think that's our job. And that doesn't mean you can't have allies and friends around the world. But, I mean, we're not, we're not Poland first, you know. We're not gonna, you know, - I've got no issues with having allies. What I have issues with and if you wanna push back on this head, but what I have issues with is, people like yourself, which would just go up and go do a tour over there. It seems to be more like a potential propaganda tour for like a pro-Israel. - Well, I think, yeah. - And then I think to myself, well, hang on, like, how about we just get politicians at a touring, their electorate, or, you know, touring Australia, like. - Yeah, well, you do do a lot of that as well. - I understand that. But I just think like, - Yeah. - Why are we letting a foreign interest lobby to our politicians just, and not, so I'm not saying you're random, but just getting random politicians taking over. If they wanna have allies or any, like, strategic, you could choose, you could trade with us. It needs to be through, foreign minister to foreign minister, defense minister to defense minister and organize trips through the government and not through lobbying. That's fine. - So I agree. - And I am with that, we've chined it 'cause I always get killed on this. So sorry, I'm with that, we've chined a Taiwan guitar, Israel, all of them. - Yeah, of course. - That's right. - And look, so I think, there's a couple of things I'd say about that. First one is, this is an Australian group, like so it's an Australian Jewish group. So that's the first thing that I know. - The Israel one. - I know, I know. But that is the first thing. This is not the Israeli government. - That's issuer? - Yeah, because you're funded by them, huh? - Well, I actually don't know, but I think funded by a lot of Jewish people in Australia as well. - Damn. - But I wanna make this point. - I wanna make this point. No, I don't know, I genuinely don't know. But there's a couple of things. I think most cases, people, they go on that trip with the best of intentions. I don't think anyone comes away with the intention of serving anything but the Australian parliament. I mean, where is heavily regulated? Is anyone section 44? You can't be a foreign citizen, you can't be. By the way, that should be the case for bureaucrats as well. But anyway, just as a general rule, it should be the same for everyone. The second thing is lobbyists generally. And I know, you know, the Australian lobby group are doing their own work and I haven't done much about the work that you're doing there yet, but I think. - We'll come to you next time. - Yeah. But as a general rule, lobby in, I think it should be dealt with, I think it should be outlawed generally. So for what it's worth. - Fine lobbying. - All of it. Like, I don't see why. I actually don't mind that because one of the things that I've always said is that lobbying needs to be destroyed. Now, I know I'm like, potentially cut my own. - Well, could be the groups are different, I think. - Yeah, they are. But like, I just think to myself as well, if I can, if I create this big lobbying group and then they ended the day, if the government came out and said, actually we're gonna ban all lobbying. - No, I'll be like, okay. - I think it should be. - I'll be like, I don't see you. - I don't see you that. If that means that the Australian lobby group has to fold because you're gonna ban all of it, okay? - Yeah. Well, that would be, I don't see why you should get front center in front of politicians just because you've, you know. - It's like legalized corruption. - Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I don't like it. It doesn't swing true to me. I don't see why some old lady from down the road who can't do that should get put to the back of the queue because big business can do it. - Correct. - So that's my view on it. And as for that particular one, I mean, the other guy don't know. I mean, I don't feel like it had anything, and I don't feel, honestly, and I'm really mean this. I feel like they tried to give the best possible view. They could have the situation. But, you know, I mean, you're gonna get more of one side than the other. It's just as simple as that. But what we need, this is the bottom line, is what we need in parliament is politicians that can see through the mist. You know, and I mean that when terms of the hate groups laws, like it would be too easy to be lobbied on that to see that as being, you know, a virtue because we don't like mean people, we don't like mean groups. - Because we know the lobby groups, the two major lobbying groups behind those hate crime laws were the Ajac and Ajac. - And yet, and the Ajac and the. - They pushed back out here, many has as well. So I just don't think, I don't think it's helpful to sort of lumber everyone in the same group. I think we have to speak for Jewish Australians. I totally take the point on foreign interference. I don't have any time for any of that. But not all Jewish groups are for the hate speech laws. The Ajac Australian Jewish Association have been very, very strongly pushing against it. - Yeah, they're more member-based. So I think they're run, and they more speak than they more speak for Jewish Australians than anyone because they're member-driven. I think the other ones are more very like high-powerful-driven. - Yeah, I don't know. - But yeah, those ones spoke back because most Jewish Australians were like, "Hey, hang on, like no, no, we don't want these laws." - Well no one should, because they, you know, it only takes a swing, the opposite direction to be on the, in the crosshairs yourself. Like I mean, they can be, you know, it's a sword and a shield. They can be weaponized against somebody. - Oh yeah. - And that's what people need to be like. You know, just 'cause you've got the whip hand on when you give in day, doesn't mean you're gonna have it in 10 years, 20 years. - And one last, firstly, thank you for answering for that truthfully, 'cause I know there's a lot of people out there that if you ask me again about that sort of stuff, you're very antsy, but I don't know. I just think it's an antsy thing. - I wanted to just throw it on your teahab. - You can ask me anything. I don't have any problem about it all, but I just think we need to be careful not to, I'm pretty cynical, right? I really am, you know, people say to me, someone said to me the other day, "How far down the rabbit hole are you?" And I said, "I don't know." Like I'm cynical, like that doesn't make you a, they'll always say about a conspiracy theory is only the difference between conspiracy theory and reality is about six months. - Well, I mean, every conspiracy theory, I mean, Alex Jones has been right about all of his shit, right? - He has, he actually has. - But so I'm pretty cynical and I just think, like what's true in the United States is not always true here, but you know, people, like long as it's, you know, long as everyone behaves themselves, I think it's okay to ask the questions, obviously. I really do. - Well, that's what people like me do. I forget they're gonna ask questions. - Yeah. - I think, as we're, and look, I just wanna say, because whenever I talk about this stuff, I always get called antisemitic because I'm only highlighting Israel lobbying. I wanna like me personally, any foreign lobbying. That's Israel and that's Taiwan do it. CCP do it. There's an Islamic group that do it as well. They are massive on foreign lobbying, and I want it to all stop because all I want is lobbyists that are in there pushing for the Australian people. Or if our politicians are getting distracted by foreign lobbying, that means they're not, that means they're not for the Australian people. And it just like takes time away and resources away from them doing their job. And I'm all for having relations with whatever country we need to, but I don't think it should be through lobbying. - I don't have, I really have a very dim view on lobbying generally as a general principle. I think, and it doesn't matter whether it's big business or foreign interest or whatever it is. Because, I mean, I think there are good interests that are, I mean, the Australian Christian lobby do it, they're not making a profit, so okay. So I think there are groups that are doing a good job. But as a general rule, I think if we remove them all, we'd be better for it. - We're about to, we're about to hit 20,000 members. - Yeah. - On the list. - Yeah. - And we had our lobbyists in there last week, no, last parliament, and it was awesome, you know, but it sucks, mate, because I've always said to my, I hate lobbying. But one of the things that I've worked out is that, or the only way that we can get our issues talked about in parliament, how is if we start a lobbying group? - Yeah. - And it's like, I need to create the one thing that I despise the most, to be able to get in there to talk to politicians about some of the issues that we want to represent our clients on, and that's 20,000 Australians, which, mate, hopefully in a couple of years, that'll be a million strengths. And it'll be one of the most powerful things to walk through parliament house, but I mean, we can all dream right now. Look, one last thing I want to talk to you about. - Yep. and let's see how you answer it. Matt, have you had any phone calls from one nation? - No, try to pull your phone. - Well, I speak to Corey, but it's not about-- - That's a friendship. - Yeah, it's a friendship, which they have it in. - No, no, I joke like I call in. - No, so I haven't, I mean, I talked to all of them all the time about a whole range of things, but there has never been a concerted push to get me to join one nation. I spoke to Pauline, she was sitting next to me hearing, send her estimates hearing a few weeks ago, and she sort of made some throwaway comment about, how good was one nation, why not, it was ingest. And I said to her, well, there we go, I've just blown my cover now, now I can never say I haven't spoken to you about it. Totally ingest. And so, no, that's, no, look, I don't, I mean, look, you never say never in politics because, you just shouldn't, but I don't, there's no, there's no grand conspiracy to jump ship at this stage. How we say that? (laughing) Just first of all. No, but, so no, the answer is no, no, there's no plan. It's not, I mean, there's been sort of, I've seen people commenting that I predicted it will definitely be after that, that'll be used to me if that happens. So, no, I'm, I'm much to the chagrin of some of my colleagues. I'll probably, I shouldn't say that either, I just did, but anyway, whatever. Well, mate, if you actually move that, if you move the elbow poster and move, see that now? Yep. Yeah, yeah, that's my famous rule where I nailed that nail right into there and then I threw the hammer down and I said, that's the final nail in the lip of it. Is that, is that it? I wonder what that was. Right after that. I thought you were taping this conversation with Matt all the while. I'll show you the rule after it. And it's where I just blast the Liberal Party and say, they're down after voting. After voting. What if I can get it out? Yeah, it's in there forever mate. But mate, I like to say, Antik, thank you very much. Come on, the podcast. I, yeah, threw some, some curable questions that are laid there. But thanks for being honest. Thanks for coming around and mate, good luck. And I always say, I get this question a lot. I say, you know, because a lot of people know that I do speak to certain politicians here and there and there. So, you know, there are only good ones in there. I say, yeah, there's Alex Antik. So, it's nice to see you to say that. Yeah. Thanks, I'm sitting right here. But that's truth and honesty. That's what we try. And there's also a massive liberal base that is just hardcore, an Antik followers and these people, some of these people would follow you to Walmart. I'm fucking serious. I talked to them about it. Yeah, like, where do the Alex go? Where do the Alex go? We go, we go. We start the revolution. We need a revolution. Oh, yeah. We never thought I'd be a shaggy of error. But anyway, revolutionary. But no, I look, it's very nice to say. Look, I'd be the only thing I, I honestly, I know this is like the most hackney thing in the world is having someone in politics. I try not to call myself a politician because it's just, I heard, you know, it's just awful. But anyway, let's call it that for a minute. Like, if you can be as honest and true to your conscience as you can, I think that whatever else happens, you know, like, it may be that you're not writing the rollercoaster of ministries and, you know, but I mean, who cares? Like I shouldn't say that. But I think you can do more outside that tent sometimes than you can. And so I'm just going to continue to watch carefully be cynical and continue to vote my conscience. And wherever that takes me, it takes me and I just don't, don't care. So good stuff. I like that. Yeah. Well, Alex, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks, yeah. Good on you. Thanks for tuning in to Two World's Glide podcast. If you want to support what I'm doing, you can grab some merch or jump on my Patreon program. Both links are in the description. Until next week, take care guys.