Episode 212 - Australia Still Doesn't Exist, But is Organizing (Ft. Jordan van den Lamb)

Okay, do you have any medical stories to tell us we haven't had a medic story in a while? Oh, let me see let me see Do I have any I mean people tend to like the ones are very unpleasant all the disgusting ones do I have yeah? Well people just like that I get Discussed I love it. I love it. I have a series of Photos on my phone of meeting photos of the boys when recording Whenever I tell a story and then just both their face faces grinnest so beautifully for me I take a sick blood Yeah, you really do yeah absolutely. I see do I got anything? Not really Thanks No, there's there's there's one we're gonna have the bleepal you're gonna have the bleep all of it Also, you forget about it. We don't need the bleepable the Speaking of being sick we're over the RSV. Thank goodness. Oh, yeah, I got two kids a little vectors Jordan you don't have any kids do you No, definitely thought you've dodged the bullet so far. All right And where did you grow up? What's your? Yeah, what's your number? Your mother named naked doop were collecting them from all our guests. We've got a lovely storm in a bank account now Actually, yeah, go ahead the the flags on the shirt. I love it, but Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll just like see you down the jacket. What was what was the choice? What was the first one you put on there? Why did you decide to put it on and then after was why did you go like one two three or did you throw them on all at the same time? Definitely over a period of time I put this one on Because I'm South African Yeah, the post apartheid flag the rainbow nation one Um, and I think that's important For the eyes I had one of your one of your kind if I'm allowed to say that So the way but the thing is that It was a white South African lady But she was very elderly from like descended of Christian missionaries in South Africa And she had recently left Quoncoot escaped Quoncoot From South Africa because it's apparently reverse apartheid now and uh Everybody's just getting scrimmed a you can't be white in South Africa and so on so forth. She she had all these these interesting claims The only thing that she missed that was calling me a lovely colored colored boy I was honestly I would have found endearing hatch yet. She said You know if she said a slur I think I'd also find endearing because of that. Yeah, it's like going to a museum You don't find a rickshaw slur enthusiast Oh my god. It's seriously like it. It didn't help like so on trump was like you know Didn't want to recognize the fucking a apartheid On genocide in Palestine, but he was like oh you know what's you know who's really struggling fucking white South Africans Um, let's let them in like yeah, Jesus Christ grow up. I think yeah But then yeah, so this is the Aboriginal flag um, so the traditional owners of the country that I live um And then obviously Palestine so just uh a lot of genocide a apartheid Not really I'm one of the good whites Yes There's some there's somebody out there. I'm sorry to say there is a Like negative energy, you know upside down world Jordan van van van van van That has the same jacket, but there is the The what's it called The rodesian flag and they have the Israeli flag in the middle flag We put like a white power thing Yeah, the plus of the circle Oh my god, I mean it happens. They all moved here I guess um, so yeah, I mean also this is where it's like a apartheid In South Africa the system of government was um based on legislation Uh, that was first introduced in Queensland, which is a state um in in Australia um And uh, yeah, so I guess it kind of makes sense that they all moved to the The next most racist country. I mean, I you guys should cut yourself some slack a whole host of them went to Israel as well Uh, it seems very easy to just kind of step to the side and be like wow Let me call nice some other ethnic persons land Uh, here's a here's a semi racist question um is The best time I don't know if you listen to us often, but I like to bust out caliper when I can Is there as a as a white South African? I mean because you're encultured into being a white South African I don't know if you're born there or not um, but it was there ever at some point in your life Like that feeling that impulse of like oh no, but whites do deserve the land and yes We have we made the desert bloom and like these kind of ideas. Is this something that is like instilled from childhood even after apartheid? No, that was never uh That was never a question so I was raised. Oh, I mean, I was born in South Africa I moved here when I was like just about seven um, but I remember like from a very young age um Like going to school Or even like walking in the street and just seeing you know people kids my age uh like hungry um And it's like I I am like you know Five I didn't do anything. I'm just not hungry Um that has nothing to do with with any of my choices or anything Um like why the fuck up people you know living in um Shacks and shit and I'm not uh that wasn't through anything that I did so yeah that was like from a pretty young age Um, I recognize that I was just really lucky um and it was purely because of the color of my skin You'd think that would be something that more people recognized, but alas Yeah, fuck yeah But uh on a more I don't know wholesome topic this is an ongoing investigation we're doing here at the deprogram um Still not convinced Australia is real frankly uh My my experience with Australia. I've never traveled there um is cactus body slam uh youtube video that's probably I don't know 15 years old now uh And and the gentleman who was just after a succulent Chinese meal is this an accurate representation of of the country Uh, I want to say yes like we recently found him again and he was interviewed Like yeah, which is that's iconic like what what's going on in this video because no one yeah no There's a context or anything um But uh, yeah, no, it's a lot more I guess racist Great Than that there's a lot like we've got a real big uh like a few crises going on at the moment um and we've got uh Yeah, I don't know people struggling here um but like relatively um You know, it's been a little bit better um People have been doing uh like we you know we avoided uh most of the issues of the 2008 gfc uh Yep, and um I don't know it's but like wages have been relatively good compared to the rest of the world um, but it's really starting to decline um at the moment and it kind of yeah the state is responding in various New repressive ways and stuff like that so it's um it's going a bit downhill and people are starting to notice and it's largely due to Like we say cost of living But the biggest proportion of cost of living is is housing uh in this country and it's um yeah, it's really it's really fucked over here The thing I've always wondered about Australia because Australia is also kind of like a melting point Conquering melting point country all all these uh different drives or immigration um But they've also kind of Like it seems like established immigrants Which have come relatively recently compared to the states for example who are of white origin seem to really not like anybody who just came like 10 years ago or a couple years ago in comparison I mean that's not unique to the to Australia, but it's that that brand of racism of like no I I came or 25 years ago shut the borders now and it's just some like white guy from for example south africa or wherever else From Britain a lot of bridge people coming to to Australia and like this is our country It's just very very It's such an interesting um like Not falsified, but like it created identity Aside from the very you know narrow so there were people who were actually like quote unquote Australian like white Australians I mean that arrived with the first ships um to be to consider yourself indigenous after having been there for like 30 years Hmm. No, it's very interesting kind of Set the colonialism that uh or project that that you that's going on still. I mean to be fair As a white guy Look we do this way faster than on like after 25 years All right, if I'm if I'm a tourist somewhere after five days I'm looking at people coming off the plane like he's fucking tourists man Well, how do y'all welcome back to the deprogram today we are joined by Jordan vanden lamb lawyer housing rights activist and The force behind the viral purple pingers platform as well as a member of the that that Curcid not real race of people the Australians From exposing dodgy rentals to driving national conversations on vacant homes and affordability Jordan has become one of one of Australia's most influential voices for renters. He's here with us today to try to prove once and for all that Australia is indeed a real place. Jordan, thanks for coming. - I don't believe him. - Frankly, frankly, I don't think it's real. Please tell our audience a little bit more about who you are and what you do. - Thank you, thanks for having me. I promise it's real. Yeah, no, I'm, you know, Jordan, I don't know, you introduced me really nicely. I don't really have too much to add. I'm a member of Victorian Socialists and yeah, talk about housing a lot, but also, you know, other issues that are important to me and also, you know, the rest of us. Like the rise of the far right, yeah, the housing crisis, like jobs, job insecurity, things like that and also just like how, like we have a particularly like funny and disgusting, like ruling class in this country that are really like glass-jored and really sensitive to like being made fun of. So that's just, that's a good time. Also, yeah, do a couple of podcasts and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm just around. I'm a public servant. So like I also have a job, which makes everything really difficult because I can't say certain things. Yeah, you just need to quit your day job, become a full-time professional podcast and then you can say whatever you want. Definitely. Yeah. Within, within terms of service, this is all parody. We don't advocate for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, let's jump into the meat of this episode because this is a really interesting one, especially for me because I don't know a ton about, especially the housing stuff in Australia. We have, we have some problems with it here as well to say the least. But let me toss it to Hakim to give you the first question here. With what you mentioned about how far-right rising, of course, as it is in most of the corner-coded developed world, how was the, I mean, social spontings have existed in Australia for a long time. And it was kind of the mix of both. You had the social demographic, which are not socials, of course, but they like to cosplay. They, they, they, prior, they used to have the red banner and these two kind of dressed them up, that dressed themselves up as, you know, worker led movements and whatnot. And they're like, oh, let's create a more laboristic radical, you know, privileged society, but don't talk about degenerate issues. Let's not discuss Australian imperialist policies. Let's not discuss our connection to intelligence that works all around the world, supporting dictators all around the world, all that kind of stuff. There's that, and there was also the radical left that actually existed and was repressed to various extents. But could you walk us through how, how did the socialspotals seen look like in Australia prior to the founding of Victorian socials or the, the socialist group that now is going nationwide that we'll discuss also in a bit? How did that, how did left-wing politics prior to the past like 15 years look like? Yeah, it's a, it's actually a really good question. Because like, particularly, like, so we've actually had a Victorian socialist in this country before our Victorian socialists. So like, like during the Russian Revolution, for example, there was a Victorian socialist party. But in our country, it's a little bit different to how that kind of stuff developed around the rest of the world, like, particularly in the UK and things like that. Because in our country, the centre-left party is the party that introduced neoliberalism. So the Labour Party-- and that was with the support of the communist party. They introduced the price and incomes accord, which was like, well, the workers will agree not to strike if you consistently raise our wages and also control the prices of things. Like, you know, there's a bureaucratic agreement with the bosses and the union bosses, I guess, the two bosses to collaborate, like a classical liberation agreement. But it was introduced by the centre-left. So there was no opposition-- or there was opposition to that, but it wasn't-- it was broadly supported by the left, I guess you could call it. And then so that kind of destroyed the left in this country. And it was good for a bit, like wages increased and whatever. But then naturally it was a disaster. We don't strike very often in this country. There's one union that does strike, and the Labour government just put it into administration. So they can't do that anymore and fight all of those bureaucrats that are in there, even though they were relatively fine compared to the rest of the union movement. And yeah, so we've had quite a disparate left because during that time period, the Communist Party was quite powerful and there was dual-carding and stuff like that. So see, Communist Party members are also members of the Labour Party, which is the party of government at the moment. And they were doing their shenanigans and all that kind of stuff, but all along the way kind of selling the workers out, which is really disappointing. So yeah, but it's also fortunate because it's allowed a left that kind of recognises that classical liberation, for example, is bad in a more obvious way, but also kind of recognises that the bureaucracy is bad, no matter if you're on the left or this end to left or that kind of thing. If it's not the mass collective power of the working class that is fighting back, then we're going to get a dud deal eventually. That's not widespread, like that knowledge, but for people on the left, like an anti-capitalist, it's pretty like widely known. There's a healthy, distrust of union bureaucrats and things like that. But obviously, union membership still and whatever it's growing for the first time in a very long time. And yeah, so I know there's something happening at the moment. It's hard to quantify, but it feels like something's happening. I don't want them even make a distance joke, because you guys are really in the middle of nowhere. So far away from the rest of the world. But the political context, because it's so far out, it makes it so hard to keep track of everything going on, especially because even like your internet ecosystem is separate. From the rest of the world, generally. But generally a fantastic, fantastic answer. But I want to ask you a follow-up, and it's this. You recently, or not recently, and it's not just you who's doing it, of course. Maybe you're the all-seeing guy, like we said, maybe possibly doesn't exist. So of course, the South Africa is trying to convince us that there's still exists. You couldn't even bring an Australian on it. You guys have been expanding nationwide, as mentioned, also as beautifully written out on your website. Or on the website that all these bulletins are providing information that's provided. But what doesn't mean to expand nationwide in the Australian context? Because Australia is not like the US. It's not like states under a federal-- the setup is entirely different. So much so that there's like region-specific parties. And then there's parties that are on the national scale. Could you just tell us about what does that entail in the Australian context? And also, how does that work? The starting of party in one area, then expanding to other ones, is it-- is there paperwork involved? Do you have to get permission from the local government to expand? Just let us know. Yeah. Yeah, so it is quite different over here. Like we are a federation of states. That is something that is similar. But that's kind of it. Really, like the state's rights kind of stuff isn't really a thing here. Federal legislation just overalls state legislation if there's an inconsistency. And states can also delegate powers to the federal government and whatever. It's all just kind of a stupid constitutional law stuff that really isn't that important. But for a very long time, we've only existed in Victoria and Melbourne, specifically, which is just one of the main, like the capital cities in Australia. And that's-- we don't know particularly why. We've only really been in Melbourne, apart from perhaps some historic reasons. There's been the world's longest running trades hall, for example, as base in Melbourne. We have quite a strong socialist history in Melbourne. And there's a strong left history in Melbourne. But yeah, so we were like-- we recognized at this last federal election that like, "Oh, we massively increased our vote." There's probably something going on here. There are a bunch of strikes at the time that we were supporting and we were getting kind of attention from all over the country from that and people were like, "I like what's going on here" and then you know, realizing that capitalism and its various crises don't just localize itself to Melbourne specifically and also exists around the rest of the country. It's made us realize that it's probably time to see if we can do this, like see if we can just expand more broadly. And yeah, so that's what we did. And to answer your question, there is a shit ton of paperwork involved, like people. So some of the states, because each state has its own, each state in territory has its own electoral commission and they have a different rule about what you have to, like what the requirements are to register a political party. So like, for example, I think in New South Wales, which is the largest state, I guess, you need like 950 people to sign a document and whatever and send it to the electoral commission and then they'll send out emails to a select number of those people just to check that what you've said is true in Tasmania, which is a relatively small state. That's often dropped off maps of Australia for some reason, like New Zealand. It's quite funny, but you only need 100 people, for example. However, all of their names and addresses need to be published in the local paper. So, at a time when there's a rising far right that is targeting left, having all of the founding members of a party, publish a name in a paper, is a bit stressful, but also in South Australia, for example, that Labour government has just introduced a whole bunch of new legislation, which makes it a lot harder for smaller parties to register. So, even though we've registered, it was the first state that we got registered in other than Victoria, we can't contest the next election, just because there's some arbitrary time limit between when you can, how long you have to have been registered for to contest an election, which is incredibly undemocratic, but these are the things that we're fighting for. And then, yeah, so, and then in a lot of these instances, these are paper statutory declarations that people have to sign and send into the Electoral Commission and receive something back from the Electoral Commission to then sign again to confirm that, yes, that was me signing the fucking paper thing. So, yeah, it's a bureaucratic kind of nightmare, but we're getting there, and it's kind of exciting. That's really cool. And now, with the Victorian Socialists now, just the Socialists, is it all like one unified group? Do you have a Slack channel or is this like kind of separate, but nominally associated groups, like with the same banner? Yeah, so they're technically branches at the moment. So, we have Victoria, South Australia's the only ones that are actually registered and confirmed by the Electoral Commission. And then federally, we have a federal party as well. And then, you know, the rest will come through like very soon. But because we've only, like it's literally only been a few months, like we had our Victorian conference in June, I think. That was when we endorsed as a conference of decision to go, like expand across the country. So, at the moment, we have an interim, like, national executive, which is comprised of the secretary of each of the state branches. And then the Victorian Socialists kind of executive that already existed. And then, so we need to have a national conference effectively to decide how that works. So, we'll have a delegated conference from all the states and territories. There'll be delegates who come together and decide, like, do we want, you know, autonomous branches? Or do we want a federated kind of structure, or like all of these, like, really important socialist questions that we have, you know, largely fortunately been answered by Lenin, which is helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Always good to have a template to draw on. But that's, yeah, that's fascinating. And that sounds really exciting to-- I'm glad that's happening for you guys. Yeah, it is really exciting. I have another question. You can't touch it on it, but you float into the question very well. And also, you pick my curiosity. The administrative side of it does sound very cumbersome. And also, basically, oh, doc yourself, so that we can, you know, it's very, very silly. But what are the major hurdles there are for this expansion, or when you first started the party, and then you were trying to grow it, and then go and try to take it nationwide? Well, what kind of-- because as a socialist part, like the far right has no issues, right? Usually they have very well-connected, cushy business, or other well-moneyed interests that will gladly, you know, fund them or give them puff pieces in the media or whatever the fuck, right? Of course, because they serve out of a certain class of interest. But the other side, our side, we don't have anything of the sort. And usually there are more administrative hurdles, or otherwise, like, not entirely legal hurdles that are thrown in the way of a political expansion. What have you guys experienced? Yeah. Well, we have no money, so that doesn't help. But that's also largely not been the issue. The issue has been predominantly, you know, these arbitrary and democratic rules and laws by the various states and territories. But also, like, ironically, there is another already registered socialist party in this country. They've been around for, like, 20 years. And in Australia, they recently changed the law about, like, political party registration and names. And that, if a name is too similar, the electoral commission says no. Like, that's confusing. So this party that's existed for 20 years and has consistently declined in membership and kind of exists out of a, based on, like, a hostility to one of the groups inside the Victorian Socialists has been, even though they haven't done anything. Like, they've said, yeah, we're happy for them to use the name socialist in their party. They've been the biggest hurdle, which is very ironic. So, yeah, we've been working on them to join and stuff like that. And it's like, you know, recognize that there's a movement happening, like, we're building the fastest growing, most united socialist party that we've seen in recent history in this country. Some to get on board. But, no, I guess, they're the biggest hurdle, like, quite frankly. Very interesting. I know in a lot of-- I mean, I can talk about how it is in my part of the world-- the biggest hurdle, number one is registration of any sort of official political activity, because the vast majority of time trying to register any sort of, like, you want to create a particular-- either found a political party or created a branch, or have some sort of, like, neutral network that you develop that's connected to a particular political cause. You kind of have to get-- first of all, there's like a local council that you have to go to, you get approval from. And then, subsequently, there is, like, the local governor or governor council, or if it depends on if you're a city or want to, like, the clinical territories, is very confusing. But the end point is, you need to go to the office of a guy. And this is a guy who just needs to put his signature down. But it is-- Yeah. There's entirely opaque the process. There's no-- like, oh, yeah, you know, you just fulfill the requirements, and then you'll get what you want to do. Most of the time, it comes down to how much you willing to pay to bribe the official behind the table. And you find you think it's as funny. But unless you're ideologically, what's it called, aligned with the person who's coming with a proposal to get the relevant approval, to use certain channels that are provided for our quote unquote "vibrate democracy," which is neither vibrant nor democracy. Unless you're ideologically aligned, you don't-- there's no-- there's no in, basically. And there's no even talk of expation. That's why a lot of the times, a lot of political movements are in and of themselves unofficial. Like, if you look at a lot of the Iranian aligned movements, political movements in Iraq, when they first started, like after 2003, for many years, there was like this legal side that opened up and enjoyed the government. And then there was this like underground network that was existing for decades in Iraq, excuse me. And those people had-- we're underground. During the invasion and post, we're continued to be underground. And it still have underground facilities underground, meaning not literally underground, but I mean, unofficial. Right. And they tend to be the largest parts of these organizations, honorically. from building finances to whatever else. And likewise, historically, with far left movements, every single far left movement that has ever existed in Iraq, began and lived most of its life as a huge unofficial, not inside the government, not allowed enter the government until they overthrew the government organization. That's not a blueprint that I wanna provide for you guys, I'm just letting you know the relative. So it's just very interesting to realize, you know, there's another group with the same name, a similar name, and these motherfuckers will not give us the title. - Yeah, I don't even know. - No, that's definitely a thing, like the Bolsheviks, like that was an illegal group. And in Australia, they tried to ban the Communist Party in the 19th, 20th century. But I think, for us, because there was a mass movement of people that counted that, it was unsuccessful, so you know, we've had some benefits from them losing that particular battle. But like, we're not in a revolutionary period. I feel like if we were in a revolutionary period, - Oh yeah. - We'd be experiencing a lot more repression. So like at our last, we had like a Marxism conference last year. And there was a revolutionary from Egypt, he spoke, he spoke in our conference, and he was like, I just cannot believe, like how little, and like there's a lot of repression here, but he was like, how little repression there is, and how much you can organize and just, - Oh yeah, you know, - In our adjust, - And just make the most of it while we fucking can. So that's what we're doing. - Yeah, absolutely, I know, I completely sympathize also with both sides, because we're having to be equal with official, there are very different hurdles that you meet or things that are thrown away. But you mentioned another point, and sorry, I'm just kind of hijacking, 'cause it's JT's turn, but I'm so weird. Because you guys are the fastest, or as you mentioned, like a fastest growing left wing movement at least, relatively united and whatnot. What does that look like? How, like comparative for Australia, 'cause it's fairly populist, but also very large country with a relatively low population density outside of just the coast. So when you say that this is the largest movement, how does that look like? What is your representation? Do you have numbers? Is it based on votes in local councils? How does it look like? - Yeah, so a good question. We haven't had like a left wing, like, so okay, so we've got three kind of main political parties in this country. We've got the Liberals, which are the our version of, like they're a little bit less conservative than your Republicans, I guess, in America, but they're still quite conservative, and they're becoming a lot more conservative now. Then there's the Labor Party, which is the Central Left one, and there's the Greens, which is the like, nominally left party, not anti-capitalists or anything, but like, you know, records that the people should have health care and stuff like that, like nice things. - And more like a really brave, totally. - Yeah, yeah. - Absolutely. We need to pick up the campus, please, please, please, please. Oh yeah. (laughing) - I'm a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot. Oh, she suits her name, Mashallah. - Beautiful. - She's 18, she just turned 18. - Wow, her identity. (laughing) - For her. - For her? - Yeah, so the, like, you know, the Green Capital kind of stuff, like nice, nice of capitalism. And then, so they're a minor party, but they're like a major minor party, and then now, very recently, is like the far right kind of minor party that's growing really quickly. But, so we've existed for probably a couple of months, like a few months, and we're a third of the size of the Greens in membership. - Not both, definitely not both. - Not both, but, yeah, so, and they've existed since, you know, for a very long time, like since the '80s or the '70s, something like that. - That is, yeah. So, yeah, we're at about 5,500 members now, which doesn't sound like a lot, but in Australia, that's a fair bit for a socialist party, particularly. - A lot of them have been made less, with less members, man. - Yeah, yeah, all, all say we want, but we want a lot more than that. (laughing) - I'm not advocating. - Yeah, yeah, I'm a revolutionary. That's all right. I don't know, ribbless, I'd be more appreciated. - I didn't mean, I do mean overthrow of anything, I just mean that, like, the ratio of sympathizer, eventual potential sympathizers, - Right. - to actual core membership. But sorry, go on, there's faster. - Totally, yeah. No, that's a good point to make, like that, you know, like we don't engage in elections, because we think we can, you know, achieve an anti-capitalism because, like, sort of voting or anything like that, it's to gauge the amount of sympathizers and things like that. So, yeah, it is a good point to make. But, yeah, so, I don't know, we've been expanding pretty quickly, and now that we've kind of hitting registration in the various states and territories that can increase in, like, how quickly we grow and stuff like that. But, yeah, I guess it's just all happening. I don't have, like, too many, like, numbers or anything like that, just the overall number. I'm not across all the, like, the particular numbers of each state and territory, just that one. But I reckon, yeah, it's really exciting, and people can recognize it. And so, people are getting involved. - Absolutely. - Yeah. All right, so let's talk about housing now for a bit. Because, honestly, I just really want to hate on landlords and real estate brokers for a sec. So, let's start with the real estate brokers, because I'm sure you'll be well equipped to answer this for us. Why does this profession exist? And why are they motivated to inflate housing costs the way they are and make everything so shit? - Hmm, good question. Why, I don't know. (laughing) It doesn't mean to. Like, this is a job that can be entirely replaced by, like, literally just Facebook marketplace. - Yeah. - Or gumtree or something. But, yeah, I guess rent-seeking is one way to describe and the economic function that they perform. But also, like, in, I don't know what it's like in other countries, but in Australia, a property manager is the type of real estate agent that does rentals, and those are largely, it renters themselves, and their job is to increase the rent as much as possible every year. So, you can do your rent increase and suggest a price. It's the highest you can probably legally get away with, or even illegally get away with. So, like, they function as traitors to their class. Like, you're a renter, predominantly, you're a worker, and your job is to take money from, like, housing and renting, like, you don't have to be working class to rent. So, it is a tricky one. But, like, predominantly, it's the working class at rents. There are obviously exceptions. There are, you know, incredibly wealthy people that rent because it's a bit more flexible. If you've got a lot of money, and you're not forced into doing it, and you can, like, move all over the world, move your capital wherever you want, and whatever, and not lock yourself into something. But, yeah, they are just evil people. And also, they're, like, I don't know what they're like in other countries either, but, like, in this country, they are the sleazyest motherfuckers in the world. Like, they are, like, just the most greasy, hair, tightest blue suits. And the, like, widest smiles kind of thing. The car salesman, like, we use car salesman phenotype. Yeah, definitely. It's just, like, they're just evil. And, like, they, like, universally hated, not only by renters, but also by landlords, which is really interesting. I will not stand for this criticism and insult of Italians from the tri-state area. (laughing) - I used to live in the tri-state area. (laughing) I don't even know what the tri-state area is. - That was nice people. (laughing) - One more, though. - One more, though. - Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Sorry, please go on. - Incredible. Yeah, not that, like, did you ask me to expand on the universally hated bit? - Yeah, the relationship between the landlords and these brokers. - Yeah, well, because they're, like, they're just liars, like, they lie all the time, and they're just really sleazy. Like, there's literally not a single person in the country. I would, I would put a bet on who hasn't had a bad experience with a real estate agent, and that is regardless of whether or not you're a landlord or a rent agent. Because they do things like, you know, if you're buying a property, for example, if that might be an investment property, they'll do things like lie about how many offers they've received. So, like, you can put an offer in, and they'll be like, I've already had a higher offer. There's no way you can get them to prove that or anything. They will literally just lie to you as a stand-in practice. - No, well, I like it, yes. But good luck, you're actually prosecuting. - Wow. - Like, a lot of what they do is actually illegal. But it's like, this thing goes, these go completely un-prosycuted unless like there's more recently been an effort to prosecute on behalf of land buyers. So various states and territories have introduced like underquoting task forces. Underquoting is like a thing that they try and do to increase the price, the sale price. But like say there's a house, it's worth on average in Australia or million bucks, for like a sheethole. They'll say you have to do an estimated price, that is the law. So they'll say we reckon this one will sell for $800,000, come to the auction or whatever. They know it's going to sell for at least a million dollars. So what it does is increase the amount of interest in the property because they've underquoted it. And then that will usually sell for a lot more than the price that they are expecting, just because there's so many more people there and so much more interest. And people will be like, "Oh heaps of people are interested." So they've introduced kind of crackdowns on that, but that's really it. Like we have federally misleading and deceptive conduct in trade and commerce bands. So like advertising a rental property with a photo that's 20 years old. That's federally illegal, no matter where you are in Australia, never been prosecuted ever. So yeah, it's just like, already what they do is illegal, but they just get away with it. So that's like, and anyone can recognize that as well. Anyone can just like walk down the street so you'll really say, "Light is a real estate agent light is someone I'm feeling." Yeah, classy. So they universally hated. Wow. Okay. And yet, so they don't end up with like broken legs or anything. They just kind of just get to do that. They're just like this privileged class of people. Everyone knows they're screwing people over, but that's just the way it is. Wow. That's just how it works. Yeah. And people like, yeah, it's starting to be recognized a lot more. Like we do like surveys on like profession trust and stuff like that. Usually, you know, doctors are quite high. Politicians are quite low. Like real estate agents in Australia, consistently like bottom of the barrel. I love it. As it is, there have to be the thing is that the my intro into this world, again, Australia so far, my intro into this world was this explosion on YouTube like a year ago. And probably I'll take talk a little bit while before that of these inspector people who would go to various properties who are like supposedly newly built and the quality is so incredibly shoddy. Like it looks worse than new developments here. And that is that is very what's it called? A deep criticism. The things that they seem or tried to get away with at least. And I thought that this doesn't happen in a quote unquote developed country like Australia or it shouldn't at least. At the States, they build houses out of cardboard. I'm surprised that they're talking about Australia. They know what concrete is. So did this help the political project, the political side of things somewhat has this sped up some laws coming to because there's so many homes. And they're so expensive. The ones that we're not that I care that somebody has a couple of million dollars to throw at a home is disappointing the quality. But this also expands into like more a kind of affordable renting properties in cities. So yeah. Yeah, no, it's a massive issue. It's huge. And it's all because they privatized the in building inspection part of really. Yeah, so that's done by private contractors. And like it used to be the VBA, for example, the Victorian building authority. Sorry, I can't just exploring. No, you're not apologize for the cat. So they used to have public servants that went out and inspected buildings to check that they were up to code because we actually have really like quite strong building standards in Australia. But because they privatized it so that the builders have relationships with these inspectors. And you know, that you just get your inspector, your guy, and you come around and inspect the thing. But it's also interesting because in Australia, like the most unionized sector is actually commercial construction. That's the CFME, which is the construction union. That's the one that was recently put into administration by the Labor government. But the in residential construction, incredibly ununionized. Like these are builders, like Dodgy kind of like dudes that set up their company that then subcontract to another laborer. And then like, you know, there's various layers of things that can go wrong. But in commercial construction, the standards and the working conditions and stuff like that are some of the best in the world. And then we've got like, you know, people building houses that will fall over in a couple of years at the same time, which is just insane. But yeah, the standards are on paper very good. That's what I've seen because in these videos where they're breaking down like what's exactly wrong, they specify, like oh, in chapter this section, this it says that it needs to be at least four millimeters away from the, you know, like very specific. I'm like, oh, damn, this is, and as a reminder, of something, I'm not so sure if it existed. I think it existed inefficiently, like on a governorship, the governorship level in the Soviet Union. But I do know it existed in Czechoslovakia, in Socialist Czechoslovakia at the time, which was public inspectors, which were of course all the public, but inspectors for all apartment blocks would get bonuses for finding issues. So if you find something structurally wrong or something that's damaged, you'd get extra, like something extra out of it. So they were incentivized to look for shit, to work extra hard to, you know, like this is such like a stroke of a pen solution, like all the how to public, all the how to license, all the how to be registered, and also their pay should be directly tied to how good they do their job through this thing. And then with a few other legal barriers, this issue would disappear, but I'm assuming there's a lot of well-connected politicians, I'm assuming, who are getting kickbacks and avoiding more thorough legislation going through. I don't know how it works in Australia, if it's really like this one to one as well, but that's what is in my country, for example, it's always like this, though, the local guy who is a part of the like building ministries specific responsibilities here is the same guy who is like has direct investments, gets direct kickback, gets, I show what it bribes from these contractors, and as a result, they just got to overlook everything, right? Yeah. So that's why you have some people who have gas and water pipes switched, so you turn on the tap. Yeah. You just say you blow up your palms. Yeah. Exactly right. Oops. Yeah. Honest mistake. Happens to the best of us. Yeah. No, that's definitely like a politician, for example, is the most likely profession in Australia to to own an investment property. In Victoria, like it was just a couple of years ago, that the regulator, the minister responsible for regulating landlords owns like seven properties, which is quite funny. Yeah. It's a little on the nose. And they've just appointed like the shadow minister for housing, so the liberal guy owns like 13 or 16 properties and stuff like that. If you were to expropriate them in a positive and sunny future for Australia, where you expropriate all these properties and give them to be washed and need them or use them for something far more politically and socially useful, all these people then go to wherever else they decide to run off with and go, "Oh, they took away my slaves." It's the same fucking playboast. Yeah. Yeah. It is crazy. But it's also interesting that you mentioned that like the bonus is tied to the the like finding faults because like they don't do that. I don't even know if that's a good idea because it might you know artificially inflate the amount of faults and whatever. But there was also criticism from when you read the late 80s, you know, prior to the nonsense that happened. That was one of the big criticisms of the building industry, the public bully industries that the amount of faults are directly proportional to the kind of kickback. Yeah. Totally. But that so they don't do that here. However, in Victoria, the Labor government is demolishing all 44 public housing towers that exist in Melbourne. So we have like, you know, massive public housing towers all throughout Melbourne. And you know, they're the last kind of things left that we have public housing-wise because they've tried to nearly realize it by selling it to the church, for example, so that they can provide community housing, which is more expensive than public housing, like they can charge more rent and stuff like that and then also own property and whatever. And then also these various community housing like NGOs and stuff like that. But they've so they've announced that they're demolishing all 44 of the remaining public housing towers like all of them. And it's just come out that the security guards that are patrolling these sites have been incentivized to increase the amount of faults that they're finding in the building and continually report them so that the government can, you know, in their report that they do that's like we need to demolish these houses actually. After we've made the decision already to do it, we need some proof that it was a good decision. We have incentivized security guards to go and make up, you know, faults with these buildings. This was a Hamas housing block. I might wait a minute. We're different. Yeah. We found tunnels underneath. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, just truly incredible. Well done. 44. Like are they doing it all at once? Is it demolition day or something where they just push a button and blow up all 44 of them? Or is it staggered at least? Or what is a. How are they selling that? Not well. That's for sure. They just had a parliamentary inquiry into it which found that, you know, they shouldn't do it. They should immediately cease. That we suspect they're going to start with four and they have tried to start with like a couple at the moment. But there's been like community opposition to this demolition. We've had it, you know, a few arrests and stuff like that. A few people charge, a few people appear before the courts at the moment. For locking themselves on to various things and stuff like that. But you know, there's a primarily, like in Australia public housing, isn't something that, you know, the working class can access. This is something that like only, you know, people doing the worst in our society, that people who need a safety now the most can get access to. So these are people that would otherwise be sleeping rough. They're refugees. They're migrants. These are the people that the government wants to rip their houses from. Typical. Yeah. Yeah. We similar kind of vitriol towards the lowest and society here in the states with like tent camps and stuff like that. Just getting like bulldoast, you know, sometimes with people still in them. You like, you got to, this is just deeply inhuman. After these are all torn down, the, it's just going to cause more consolidation in the hands of landlords. It's kind of like what we're seeing here in the states. So what do you see? Like what is the direction? Landlordism is, is, is going in Australia, especially if nothing is done. If all these demolitions go ahead, if things can continue to consolidate. Is it like the states where you have corporations that own all the housing or, or is it a bunch of smaller landlords? How's it work there? We love, you know, a small landlord in this country. So I reckon it'll be something like that. Honestly, a large, I'm not opposed to like large landlords because they're easier to organize against. Like if you live in a part of a block and there's one fucking owner, it's very easy to, you know, find out who that owner is. And talk to the other tenants and organize against it. But if you live in a apartment block and like every single apartment is owned by a different person, it makes it a bit more challenging. But yeah, I just suspect, you know, it's objectively going to get worse. The government's made their position clear they have no intention to do anything that structurally shifts where this is going, because they think it'll make them lose an election. Meanwhile, it's overwhelmingly popular to be like, actually, this is, to say it, this, and acknowledge that this is a bit fucked. But all of their policies are to, like, they're doing stuff like, you know, incentivizing people, getting mortgages with a smaller deposit, and things like that, which are pushing up the price of housing, and also, you know, putting people into massive debt. It's, yeah, it's really, it's quite incredible, actually. One thing that I would, I want to pick your brain about here because I unfortunately don't know much about it. We have a problem here in the States that we share with you guys, which is we have this glut of vacant homes. And also an enormous amount of people who need homes. So squatting, I know is considered like a problem or it's its vandalism or whatever. How do you see that working, like, what role does it play in organizing, you know, supporting squatters rights versus that negative perception of squatters as, you know, like, dirty hobos or whatever, like as a militant tactic for seizing property, pre-revolution, et cetera, hypothetically, like, how does that fit into the strategy? Yeah, I mean, like, so I don't know what it's like in America. I know that there are a lot of vacant homes and stuff like that. But I also know that you guys have guns. Yeah, I wouldn't really go well. Yeah, and really hate poor people as well. Like, at least, like, here we hate poor people, but like, we don't want to just go out and shoot them. So I feel like that's different. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that, like, the role it plays, like in the 70s and 80s, we actually had a very widespread squatting movement. Like, it was quite common to squat if you're a student. And this kind of thing was funded by the unions, for example. So it's not like, it's not that crazy. Now it is. Like, now it is fairly like, it's not, it's not like meeting the class where they're at to be like, let's everyone just squat. This is a quiet and outrageous suggestion, which is really unfortunate because there are so many fucking homes. That we could, we could take. But so yeah, it's seen as a bit of an ultra left kind of thing to do. And it is like it absolutely is. But also it's very easy like in Victor, in Melbourne alone, which is just one city. You know, there's about 20,000 people experiencing homelessness. There are 100,000 empty homes. So like it's just, you know, in the average house houses 2.7 people. So like, you know, you've got five times as many fucking homes times 2.7. So like, yeah, it just makes sense. But I don't know, it's a tricky one. It's a really, really tricky one. But like, you know, we can do it. Yeah, because I imagine that would kind of, I could get you into hot water if you have this, you know, surge of squatting. And maybe it ends up some of the houses get vandalized or something like that. And you are on the record having supported that. Like that could work out of the truth of the matter. Yeah. It could make you look bad, right? Yeah, exactly. And that has happened. Like, there's been like not vandalized, for example. But, you know, people have moved into a house that was vacant for like 17 years. And it had this person's, um, uh, dads like deceased fathers belongings in them that were very sentimental to them and whatever. And like, you know, on the one hand, you had 17 years to remove the property, the staff, um, on the other hand, like, it sucks that your dad's, sure, shit was, was taken and you don't know who, who took it. Um, but I feel like, you know, the needs of someone who, who, who doesn't have a house for 17 years, versus you having a spare house for 17 years. Like those, your needs are outweigh. Sorry. Right. That's, that's the end of the day. That's what it comes to. Um, but also like in Australia, it doesn't matter the condition of the house. Like, it's the, the value of the land that matters. So like, people, these people leave these houses for decades because they know, like, like in, like in decrepit situations, like just literally falling apart. And their houses will continue to double and value every five years. Um, so like really, it doesn't fucking matter to these people. Like these people are purely just evil, um, hoarding homes, um, for years. Uh, so if, if a couple of properties get vandalized, then like maybe just don't, don't leave them empty. Hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it totally makes sense. I just see it. Are you seeing like a weaponization of that in like the mainstream press, for example, because I know that would do absolutely so like hotcakes here in the States. Totally. And yeah, happens all the time. They're love to do it. But I also love, you know, getting on radio shows and TV shows and arguing with right wing hosts. Like it's, it's fun. So like, like, because our whole media empire is owned by Rippet, Murdoch. Um, and we know him well. Yeah, exactly. I want to yore what sent him over there. Thanks a lot. But so one of his only profit making, um, subsidiaries in this country is real estate.com, um, which is the, you know, the listing site for all the houses and stuff like that. So, um, it makes a loss. I'm pretty much every outlet, um, except the one that sells the properties. Um, so like there's a, there's a conflict of interest, uh, there like it's, it's in, in the interest for the, you know, the housing market to do well. That's the Rippet Murdoch who controls the narrative in the whole country. Um, uh, can do well. Uh, so yeah, naturally, you know, the culture war, anything culture war, worry, uh, is going to be on, you know, the, the country's minds. And then so, particularly when it affects his bottom dollar, um, he's going to be talking about. You can be sure that he's going to be one of the best. to talk about, you know, those pesky squatters trying to do something about those housing prices. This is kind of a toofre. The first bit of the question is, from what I have seen, the largest kind of reactionary drive, as always, in these clinical developed, Western or Western oriented countries, the primary reactionary drive is against immigrants, and there's also like an anti-Chinese tinged to it, in particularly in Australia because of the economic proximity, less the geographic, but that is a huge kind of wave going on. And I'm wondering how do you guys deal with that as a, like what is your party policy? How do you try to combat this? Because it is a, like, it is the bread and butter of the far right movement. You take away at the immigrant stuff, they have nothing left, right? They have like, "Oh, whoa, you know, this nonsense that the vast majority of people don't either don't care about, or are, you know, have more or less more correct opinions about." That's my first part of the question, and to expand it infinitely, what is the current engagement that you guys have with the indigenous population of Australia? Because from what I've read historically, they've been, even from like, particularly the social organizations, they've been excluded, maybe because sometimes there was like malicious exclusion because they're like, "Oh, we want socialism, but for white people," horror was out of ignorance or lack of interest, either lack of interest for the party workers to go and engage with indigenous people or like interest from the indigenous side for a variety of reasons. And how do you guys handle it? So the indigenous question and the anti-immigration question. Yeah, I think, like on the second part of your question, I think that perspective just completely erases like decades and decades of militant indigenous, like trade unionists. We have an incredible history of like indigenous trade unionism in this country that were, you know, socialist trade unionists. So I would push back on that. I think there's a, you know, there's a perspective from a particularly kind of Stalinist leading, you know, protracted people's war, kind of vibe of person that likes to say that, you know, socialism from below kind of movement is show, show vanistic and tries to exclude people. But that's just not the case here. Yeah, it's just objectively untrue, like we have so many indigenous members in all of our states and territories. We're not an identity politics kind of organization, however, like we believe in our power as a class, not as, you know, a various identity. So that, and because of that specifically, there is a lot of kind of pushback. It's like, well, you're erasing, you know, certain identities and stuff like that. It's like, no, like obviously we believe that certain perspectives, you know, we need to listen to and all that kind of stuff. But it's our power as a class that will get us to where we want. And, you know, if we've, if we prioritize someone's identity, like we have done in the past and like we have occasionally we do like with the Palestine rallies and stuff like that, there might be a capitalist person who is a Palestinian, like a small business owner or someone who owns many businesses, you know, amplifying their voice purely because of their identity is against our class interests. Like this is unfortunately this person doesn't have the same interests in mind as you and I, because they are a boss. Like they're there, they're our enemy really. Like obviously it's not the same in this instance, because, you know, that person's family is being bombed and stuff in another country. But yeah, it's our power as a class that will get us to where we are not our power based on our skin, your whole or our gender identity or whatever, though these things are incredibly important and these experiences are incredibly important and they should be reflected in our movement because that's what our class looks like. So yeah, I do, I do want to push back against that. But also, yeah, for the like the anti-immigrant sentiment and stuff, it's really interesting here because yeah, it is a core plank of right wing politics. That's just kind of how it how it works. But it's also kind of like we saw it kind of play out in the Zach Polanski comments recently. I don't know if you saw that. Sorry, fellas stretch. We love it. Like we've got, you know, we've got the pro big business kind of thing, which is like, you know, we need migrants to come in to be hyper exploited so that they can do the jobs that the locals don't want to do, which is a pro capitalist, pro big business kind of position. And then there's the pro national interest, small local business perspective, which is like, no, we need to protect the interests of workers, particularly only in this country. But really what they mean is protect the interests of the bosses of this country against the even bigger bosses kind of thing. So it's like having a not a class position on migration, which is like actually it's in all of our interests if anyone can migrate to anywhere they want and have the same conditions as us so that they're not hyper exploited so that the bosses can't lower our wages because we have a more exploited section of the working class to do exploit and lower everyone's wages throughout the world. That's the only correct position. And then yeah, once again, like that really doesn't it doesn't matter, which race or ethnicity you are, you know, we support migrants. But yeah, in Australia particularly, I think you're asking about like anti-Chinese sentiment. It seems to be like predominantly anti-Indian sentiment here from the far right. Obviously there is anti-Chinese sentiment, but there's also anti- you know, anyone not white sentiment. And there's, you know, and it doesn't have to be like, like as long as, yeah, as long as they're not white, like this fucking heaps of South Africans here that are perceived as migrants. We just deported one which I think is horrific. Like I think it is actually like this was a, we deported this Nazi for attending a rally that was sanctioned by the New South Wales police. Like they approved it, they knew exactly what the chance were going to be and how anti-Semitic they were. And the New South Wales police approved it and then the federal government deported him for attending a sanctioned rally. This is, you know, how Australian government repression works is they'll introduce something on the basis of this is to fight the far right and then they will never do it again and they'll only use it to repress the left. So they introduced a bunch of weapons that the police can use on protesters and stuff like that. Under the guise of, you know, there was these anti-lockdown protests that were happening. And then yeah, they've only ever used it against us. They've just deported this Nazi. We can definitely expect to see the left being deported shortly. Yeah, state repression is not the answer to the far right. It's, you know, a mass movement of the working class that forces these people out of this strings where they feel too comfortable. Well, it sounds like the way your party's growing that you guys are on the right track and that's so incredibly exciting to see from our various parts of the world. And it's something that I really hope can be, you know, your party can act as a role model or a template for for other socialist parties that are trying to follow similar similar path and other parts of the world. I would love to see it happen in the States. We'll see what happens. We are also following a particular trajectory that's that's not exactly the brightest looking, but we'll see what happens. But we want to thank you so much for coming on the show and telling us giving us a peek behind the scenes because it is so fascinating, it's so exciting. And you guys are doing excellent, excellent work. So once again, can you tell our audience where they can find your work, how they can engage with you? And if you got any other little sneak peeks to give us on stuff that's coming up, let us know. Okay, and thank you so much for having me. You really appreciate it. It's been awesome. But yeah, so I'm purple ping is on the internet. That's my like handle. And we've also just started like a party kind of podcast, which is called the party line podcast, which is a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke about like, you know, there's Stalinist bureaucracy writing at the party line kind of thing. So definitely give it a listen if you want. And yeah, there's a lot of stuff happening where like, you know, thinking about planning an action on like occupying, there's like a lot of, you know, regional areas that are holiday destinations where there are a lot of Airbnb's. And like, you know, there's one place where this one guy owns 44 Airbnb's in this time town. So like, you know, occupying those 44 Airbnb's and not leaving. [BLANK_AUDIO] So yeah, stuff like that. There's lots of stuff coming up. So definitely stay tuned. Also if you're listening from Australia, join the, you know, Socialists Departy wherever you are. I'm also join the Renters in Housing Union. Excellent. Well, thank you again for coming on. All our dear listeners. You can find Jordan's links in the description in the show notes wherever you are watching. Alright, with all that being said, this has been the D-program. I'm JT. I'm Hygiene. I'm Jordan. Join your union and also fuck realist that agent. Hey, there we go. We love to hear it. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]