Konrad's Recon Mission & Labor Insider Spills Secrets

Welcome back to the Punter's Politics Podcast, the show for Aussie punters who know something's not right, but can't quite put their finger on what. I'm punter Conrad. I'm punter James. And each week we dig into the stuff that politicians hope you don't notice. Head punter Conrad. Uh, just punters fine? Yeah. Is politician Jim Chalmers going to support a wealth tax? That's my question to you. Where did you see this? I've seen it on NBN news, a very reputable source I've heard. Okay. I think I've seen the exact title you're looking at there. Right. Um, quick breakdown for you. Uh, I saw something, I think you sent this to me on Instagram and it's Jim Chalmers' face with should we have a death tax? Yes. That's the one. Correct. Uh, punter James, what impression did that headline and photo give you? Well, first of all, they superimposed money behind him. So it's just like a hundred dollar notes all the way behind him. I don't know. It just seems like. Does it look like Jim Chalmers is going to propose and pass a wealth tax for regular punters? Obviously it looks like he's going to impose some sort of a death tax. It looks as if the government is about to pass a death tax. Punter James, I can assure you that is never going to happen. Right. I bet my left nut that, that this labor government within the next 10 years, I bet they never impose a death tax. That's how certain I am that this government will never touch a death tax. Okay. Just letting you know, I've just placed that down in the punter's notes tab of where we keep all our records. To follow up in five years. To follow up in five years. Let's see where we're at. Okay. Yes. So like this did outrage me a little bit because I see the hysteria around taxes as anyone uses the T word, everyone loses their mind, which if people lose their mind over a headline, which this is something that I've said would never happen. It's not a policy. It's not on the table. Someone at these talks might have mentioned it. So someone not related to the government, part of some organization, lots of things were mentioned that the government will never do in their wildest dreams. But the news picked this up because they want you and me to freak the F out about any changes to the tax system, which you know enough to go, the current tax system is stacked against who? The everyday punter. Yes. So changes can only benefit us, but the establishment don't want us to. We've got nothing to lose, really. So punter James, we can chalk this up to a jingle. Chief Punt, here I was scrolling on a Thursday morning on my phone, 4.30am, and I see so many different photos of you and lots of different fancily dressed politicians. Yes. Give me the backstory. I'm assuming it was on Wednesday night. Give me the backstory. How did all of this come into your world? I did have a big night on Wednesday night. Could you remember it the following morning? I could, actually. It wasn't that exciting. But I get a call. It all begins Wednesday morning. No, midday. I get a call. I get a text. Yeah. From a government insider. Another one. Yeah. So now that I'm a lobbyist, I've made a few connections. I get a text from my connection says, Oi, if you can be here by 7pm. Meaning Canberra. Meaning Canberra Parliament House. In Newcastle at the time. I'm in Newcastle five hours away. If you can get here by 7pm, I have a ticket for you for the Midwinter's Ball. Okay. Break that down for the everyday punter out there. Yeah. If you're a political nerd, you will know the Midwinter's Ball is this ball put on by journalists where they bring together corporations, journalists, and politicians all into the same room. It's like a fun night. There's people roasting each other. Albo gives a speech. Susan Lee gives a speech. There's comedians. They're making fun of journalists and everybody. It's quite a fun, frivolous night. I've seen the equivalent over in the US. Yes. And I'm pretty sure, but I know that one year, Barack Obama was doing his address at the same time as they were going after Bin Laden. That was like the weird thing that time. Ah, right. And I don't know whether it was that year or the different year, but Obama took the absolute piss out of Trump. Yes. Who was just there as a citizen. Yes. So, it must have been like, I don't know, 2014, 2015, something like that. Yeah. And from that moment, Donald Trump was like, I'm going to become the president. Maybe. Because this one. Well. That went down. This is a very similar event. Yeah. Okay. So, I have mere moments to decide, can I make it? Yep. I punch it into maps. Got to charge the EV too. That adds a bit of time. Yeah. So, I punch it in and go, I think I'll just make it. I jump in the car, throw the suit in the car. Forget my toothbrush. I've literally got nothing. I jump in the car, boost there. I get there. You boosted the speed limit all of the way there. Of course. I even took the tolls. Bloody $20. Yeah, that's not like you. To get through Sydney. Not like me at all. But I needed that extra 20 minutes that I saved per dollar for the toll. Because I got there at 6.40. So, then I grab my suit, run inside, get changed, get suited up. You got suited up there. I was. Yes. I got suited up there. My hair wasn't on point. I had no time for the hair. But suit was a pass and I get there. You go into Parliament House. It's the foyer where everyone, all the tourists enter and it's just full of journalists. Jim Chalmers is right there. Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Albo's right there. Patricia Carvel is from ABC. All the ABC nerds. Oh, yeah. ABC royalty. Everyone's there. And I'm just standing around like, all right, here we go. And so, I enter this room and this is the best recon for our lobbyist dinner. Because I walk in and, oh, my, we need to step up our game. The amount of, I'm assuming, ass kissing going on would have been heavy. Ponder James, you have no idea. Ass kissing to the level I couldn't compete with. Yeah. Like, I pride myself on being a good small talker. Okay. And a good schmoozer. But this was on a whole new level. Like people were kissing my ass. Like everyone's just so friendly to each other there. I don't know what's real and what's not. Like over the top friendly. Just, I mean, I don't know. I just, I couldn't tell the difference is how good they were. Over the top friendly or a couple of drinks in friendly. Well, surely not everyone is a fan of my work in Canberra. Yeah, probably not. Not what I heard. When I was there, great work. So, guess who was at my table? You won't guess because you don't know many politicians. I was sitting at the table with Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie. I have heard the name. Now, Bridget McKenzie, her and I would severely disagree on a lot of gas policy, on a lot of mining policy, on a lot of, a lot of things. Okay. What? You're saying best friends now? We are best friends now. Look at these photos. Look at these photos. We're just chumming out. You know what you look like? You are a selfie sloot. You've gone round and you've taken a selfie. So I've got, I've got Albo. Oh, I've got. There he is. I've got Bridget McKenzie. I've got a fair few of the independent politicians. I'm so- And if you look closely, Claire O'Neill's in there as well. Labor housing minister. Yeah, there you go. Quite a big wig. Everyone working together to support you. Guess, not my idea, by the way. Guess who turned me down for a selfie when I was slooting around for the selfie? Jim Chalmers. He didn't want a selfie with you? He didn't want, he didn't enjoy our last selfie together because I made a little Instagram reel about it. I thought it was a lovely homage. I put love hearts around me and- This could have been a nice one. I thought it could have been a nice one. He turned me down, but I got, I got top dog Albo, me and Albo in the, in the selfie. That's pretty good. So that was, so that was pretty good. But, but what I discovered was, so here's the insider info and this is what, here's my biggest takeaways from tonight, was this event was all for charity. Okay. Right. That's great. So, this event is licensed because it's for charity. So I was sitting at a table at a sponsor, I won't name, because I've reached out to them to sponsor the Puntas Politics Political Fundraiser, I was like, hey, you guys want to sponsor another dinner? So I was running around talking to everybody, oh, by the way, I would hand it out so many Puntas Politics Political Fundraiser invitations then, I had to go back in my memory and be like, do we have enough seats? Because I was, ran into Tony Armstrong, if you've seen him on the ABC, he's a presenter on the ABC. Ran into him, gave him an invite, anyone I ran into, I'm like, hey, you want to come? So like a lot of Labor ministers got him in person. Susan Leigh, as you can see, sorry, Susan Lee, as you can see in this picture with me and Susan there. Another photo, well done. She has no idea who I am. I could see it in her eyes. Fantastic. Whereas some politicians said, my kids send me your stuff. How good's that? On the other side of the aisle, that's what they've said. An educated young Punt sending mum and dad good stuff. The good stuff. How good. So, so yes. So, but Susan, no idea who I am. She was invited to the Punter's Politics political fundraiser. It might be good that she doesn't know who you are. Could be. Could be. Hard to imagine why. But so I was speaking to sponsors. I was handing out invitations. But my biggest takeaways was this is bad. This is not good. Because you realise everyone's just human. Everyone's just doing their job. Everyone's just, we're all doing our part. But in that room, it's for charity and corporations sponsor the table and they're raising money and all this money goes to charity, which is great. The politicians are selling out. They're literally saying like, there's a list of- Openly selling out for tonight because the money's going to a good cause. For charity. And so Albo gave away, I think six grand, seven grand or 10 grand. I don't know what it went for, but private tennis at the Lodge with Albo, Susan, private jet flight somewhere to a mystery location. Wow. Yeah, probably not the best prize to give given the Epstein scandals going around. Private jet to undisclosed location. I don't know. But so they're selling out, but it's all for charity and it's all good. So this builds like cultural licence and gets us used to this idea of corporations, journalists and politicians. You reckon this is like AstroTurfing 4? I don't think it's, I think there are so many legitimate explanations as to why this is okay. It's like, oh, it's just journalists and politicians connecting in a casual setting. But mate, I'm seeing PK, Patricia Carvelous. She is, I mean, from my virgin eyes, she is very close with Albo and his fiance. I just see them chatting like a house on fire. I mean, people probably looked at me and I was chatting to a bunch of people as well. But it's this sort of cosiness that you see at these events between the corporate sponsors. I was at the table with a corporate sponsor, Bridget McKenzie, myself, another politician, Ed Husic and a few others. With corporate sponsors, we're all just having a great time. We're all just, there's dancing, there's music, there's three course meals, food, not bad. Not the best, not bad. So what this does is it gets us used to the idea that fundraising dinners is a normal part of how this works. And as we'll discover later on in this episode, this is how the party machine works. So I saw on the inside, as much as, yes, these are great people, I got to know people that I do disagree with wholeheartedly on everything. But the humanising of them, the closeness you get with them, the camaraderie you get with them, now I know journalists, now I know these people. This is the thing that gets in the way of holding politicians to account, of holding journalists to account. And for just real, just for not waking up and going, the fact that these tables are sold to the highest corporate bidder and that government liaison people are sitting at my table with me, chatting to a politician, having a good old time. This is a problem. Yeah. But I had a good time. Yeah. Well, here's the thing, right? Because you have a lot of followers, I would say, that would be holding you to a different account as well, because you're meant to hold the politicians to account. You're meant to be the one standing up to lots of their silly policy that they've got coming through, right? And so, I want to know, and I'm sure you've had a lot of DMs about it, how do people feel about you essentially cosying up to these people as well? And how do you feel about it? Like, do you feel dirty? Do you feel like it was an okay thing to do? Well, I feel completely fine with it. Right. Because I'm doing it. It's totally fine. This is how it works. I'm in. No. I'm doing it because the whole platform of what I'm doing in Punter's Politics is showing Punter's, this is how it works. And how do I show that without going? Just so happens that I got a lovely three-course meal and I've now got more political connections. But that's how the system works. But Punter James, you were astute in pointing out, there was some backlash. Oh, I would believe it. Even running around all night getting selfies. I just go, you sickened me, Connor. That is some of the comments that were sent through. Maybe this sums up. Let's read some of the comments. Because I've waited a while for my content to enter this toxic algorithm bubble. Oh, is it like a group of people that just go ham on? It's a certain group of people that I call purity code politics. We can talk about it again later. So here's one comment, which I'm not even going to read out their handle because I've discovered... They're not worth it, right? They're not even worth it. But I'll read the comment. Here we go. I completely suck, Mr. White Man. To that specific punter, I would like to say, where's your Instagram platform? What are you doing? Well, this is what they're doing with it. Yeah, that's right. They're just hating comments. The way they are treating us is utterly barbaric. But there you are having a fun night out with those horrible people. Hope it was worth it for you. You've lost major credibility. And this post isn't the flex you think it is. It's pathetic. Now, that wasn't Conrad flexing. I've seen him flex and that's not it. So it's hit this bubble of people on the Internet, which obviously people jump to the comments before they know literally anything. So there was some backlash for people not understanding exactly the point of this podcast is to show how these systems work. And boy, it would have been fun to boycott it and not show everyone how it works. Yeah, that's right. What did you do Wednesday night? Did you boycott that event, Punter James? It wouldn't have been worse if you went, but you didn't tell anyone that you actually went. And then it came out. Punter's Politics was at this fundraiser, just smoozing. Yeah, that's right. That would have been worth comments like that. Yes. Me behind the scenes, like, what's going on? You're getting held up horizontally by six MPs. I think that's good enough to show that it's a little bit of a piss take, but you're showing people what it looks like to be at one of these events. If you're not going to these events and showing punters what happens, how are we, the everyday punter, actually going to see what goes on there? Or you just boycott it and you don't. We're not. We're not going to see what goes on. Yeah. So I would say, thank you. Oh, well, thank you for schmoozing everyone that I don't want to schmooze. Someone's going to do it. Punter James, a Punter's Politics podcast first. Oh, really? Yeah. So let me just set up some context real quick. You know, Australia's whistleblower laws. No. What's your general thought when I say Australian whistleblower laws? It's very much so. Don't be a whistleblower or you will spend a lot of time in jail. You'll have to flee to other countries to escape. That's essentially what it is. And even if you are from other countries, like, like, hopefully one day, friend of the pod, Jill and Asajj, they will find you. That's right. So obviously not- Have you got a whistleblower? We have a, well, I don't want to use the word whistleblower because as you outline, protections in Australia are very weak. They don't protect anyone and to date have not protected anyone up until this day. So no, Punter James, we don't have a whistleblower, but we do have a insider person from inside of government who is going to spill the tea, give us some goss. And let's just call it, let's call this segment. I'm not saying it happened, but if it did, here's what happened, allegedly. I think it's pretty cover, good cover. Fantastic. Okay. So I want you to meet, so we'll introduce him as Punter D. We'll keep a bit of mystery around his identity. But this bloke, we'll call him Punter D, has worked on the inside of party fundraising event, working directly for a politician in government right now. So this could actually be quite useful for us in planning the Punter's politics fundraising dinner, gala, soiree event. Yes. And really understanding how this works, because I want to spell out, I've had a bit of confusion over when I tell people about the Punter's politics political fundraiser, they go, Oh, what are you raising money for? I'm like, well, one, a lobbyist, right? Yes. But the whole point of this fundraising dinner is a piss take on how political parties get money from corporations in a dodgy AF way. It is, to the regular Punter, pay for access, which to the regular Punter, they might use the C word, ooh, corruption. Oh yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yes, correct. Yeah. The other one, we're allowed to say and not get sued. So I thought this would help shed some light on just how dodgy these fundraisers are, and just the kind of loophole jumping that goes on so that our politicians can continue to take money and make rules that work for the corporations and not we, the Punters. You've got me angry already. Let's get into it. Punter D, thanks for joining the Punters on the Punter's politics podcast. No worries. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you here. Now, I would like you to disclose for us as much detail as you want about how just on the inside have you been? Tell us where you, what role you've occupied within the government. Yep. So I worked for the federal member for Gilmore. I was her community engagement and parliamentary officer. So I was responsible for doing all of the community events, engaging and organizing all of the events within the electorate. Also anything that happened at parliament, I was assisting with. So any meetings with ministers, I also worked as the field organizer for the Gilmore campaign. So I did all of the fundraising, I did all of the volunteer events, and I did all of the organizing that was around the campaign. Okay. Now we do have to do our due due diligence here, Punter James. We don't just let anyone come in and fire, we'll say allegedly, things at people. So we've just got a little pop quiz for you, Punter D. We're just going to fire off some questions just to ascertain if you are who you say you are, you know, we're just going to do a bit of due diligence. To kick off, you've already said it. I said, what was your, what was the electorate of the member? So I'll flip that around. Who is the member for Gilmore, Punter D? Fiona Phillips. Tick. Tick. Where was she born? She was born right here in Nowra at Shellhaven Hospital. I have born in Nowra, we'll take it. And most importantly, what color is her hair? Oh, it's brown, but she gets it dyed every few months. So probably gray. That's the real secret! Boxer! Allegedly, whistleblowers. Okay. You know, these are not deep questions, but the speed at which he is answering them does fit in. And what degree does she hold? Economics, I believe. He's good. That's some highly specialised knowledge that only a political nerd would know. I'm glad you said that, Punter D, because Conrad's couple of questions I could have Googled in less than a minute for a guy who spruiks about citations all the time. Wow, what a thorough check we've done. That wasn't straight Wikipedia, Rick. So you've left. Now you've left, you're spilling the tea, allegedly, giving us details that if it happened, this is how it would have happened. Did you not have to sign an NDA or something like that? Well, the party officials actually did come down to Gilmore, to our office, to have us sign NDAs. Not everybody in the office, just the people who were working on the campaign, me and one of my colleagues. However, they asked me to sign an NDA, and I was actually going to do it, but I said I wanted to retain a copy of the NDA. But they said, oh no, we don't let people keep copies. We take the copies back to head office with us. And I said, well, I'll have to think about it. And then they didn't let me keep a copy of an unsigned copy or anything. They just took them back with them to head office. And it never came up again. They never asked me again. That's a good political maneuver, mate. That's called the can kick. Kick the can. Hope it never returns. Yeah. That seems like there wasn't any power imbalance there at all. Here, sign this bit of paper that you're never going to get to see again. We're just going to keep it ourselves. Yeah, we'll keep it for our legal records. In what contract are you ever not going to copy? That is a bit strange. I can go to Woolies and get a receipt. And we all know Woolies is the gold standard of transparency. So let's get down to business then. We're talking political funding. What can you tell us about what you saw with the inner workings of the machine that's going on, particularly related to the Labor Party, how this machine gets its money, and if there is still this pay for play, for access, this pay for access to our politicians going on, despite Albanese's song and dance all about we're getting money out of politics? Yeah, definitely. Well, one event does come to mind. We did organize a fundraiser in Canberra. It was going to be with Pat Conroy, and it was going to be at a Chinese restaurant called Chairman Yip's. At the last minute, the minister was not available. So we had to just reorganize it all at the last second, and we moved it to Sydney for a few weeks later. But we failed to get into contact with one of the defense contractors who had brought a ticket and the tickets were three thousand dollars a head. So they rocked up with their three thousand dollar ticket that they had purchased, knocking on the door. There's no one there. So we were in a mad scramble to figure out, well, what are we going to do about this? This person's paid free green. So in lieu of having a dinner with the minister, we organized a meeting with the minister in Parliament House, which actually does break the code of conduct, the ministerial code of conduct. However, because I work for a backbencher, the ministerial code of conduct did not apply to her or her staff. It only applies to the ministers and their staff. OK, I'm just going to jump in here for a second, because I need to break this down for the punters and myself as well. For yourself and me. What's the difference between a backbencher and a minister? So the ministers head up the departments. So they're responsible for the Department of Defense. Minister is responsible for the Department of Defense, and they're confirmed by the governor general on behalf of the queen. They hold a higher role within our government than the average MP or senator. That extra power that they have comes with extra responsibilities. And that's why the ministerial code of conduct only applies to them. Well, that's the argument. What's exactly the rule that that the ministerial code of conduct outlines? Well, specifically in regards to what happened in this case, you can't fundraise on parliament grounds and you cannot take money for a meeting as a minister. You. Oh, OK. So another person would say you can't take bribes. So, OK, you can't have you can't have cash for access. Quick question. What happens if a minister breaks this ministerial code of conduct? That's a good question. I believe it gets referred on to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, or if it's a serious violation, it might go straight to the Standards Committee, which is a committee of parliamentarians who get to decide whether or not the the action broke the code. And if it breaks the code, if all those boffins get together and say, oh, there was cash given and access received, the penalties are quite light. I believe that the maximum financial penalty is five percent of their salary, which I think the average salary is about two hundred and sixty thousand. So it's not it's it's a couple grand. It's not a lot of money. Twelve to fifteen grand, something like that. Oh, dear. And that's all that's it. Just a bit of a financial penalty to the minister. That is my understanding of that's the biggest financial penalty. There might be I'm not a legal expert, so I'm not sure about what other penalties might be available. But if they were to be found to have broken the code of conduct, that that would be that could be grants for the prime minister to do a reshuffle. But it sounds like it's it's like internal. It's like it's up to the prime minister to then police it himself if his ministers took cash for access. And then we have to rely on this internal review process to maybe come back with, hey, you shouldn't have done that. That's what it's and even the Standards Committee, it's their peers. It's the other parliamentarians who get to decide. So it's so you go in front of a group of friends and they say, what'd you do? I did a bit of this. Yeah, you'll be right. But yeah, you got three grand for us. Well done. To be fair, I do think. Yeah, I think they've got a bit of a cross section. So I think there's a couple independents and a couple opposition members on the committee. But yeah, it's it's policing themselves. I think we've got that now. Politicians policing themselves, holding themselves to a loose standard that once again, only the top dogs are beholden to. But the lower dogs, the mid tier dogs, the MPs, the backbenchers, the backbenchers is the technical term. They can take meetings for cash for access. Is that right? Not on parliament grounds. That is a that is a blanket rule. And you're not technically meant to do it inside the electorate office, like inside their electorates. Each member has an electorate office. Technically speaking, those electorate offices are meant to be for the benefit of the constituency, not for the private parliamentarian's own benefit. But in practice, whenever we needed to do something like that, we would just go to the cafe up the street. What? So so rather than making this rule that says, hey, you represent the people, don't take funding donations and then receive meetings, don't do it. Instead, they say, how about we don't do it in parliament? Literally. And probs not in our electorate office. You know what it is? Don't shit where you eat. That's literally the rule. And it's I think it's a big rule. Don't do it. Now, Punter James. We want you to eat, though. We know you're hungry. We really need you to eat. So, OK, so let's let's go back to this. This example being given is we're loophole hunting here. We're discovering these little loopholes that when politicians say we're getting money out of politics and we're serving the punters and not our corporate donors. We're coming across direct evidence that this is how they don't do it. Pat Conroy, does that ring a bell, Punter James? Yeah. Shortland electorate. That's local. You're not in my electorate. No, you're just over the border. Yeah, he's my he's my guy. There you go. This is personal for me. He's the minister for defence, is he? Is that what you're saying? So really, that's where all of the money is. Defence minister is more responsible for, like, overseeing the military itself, whereas defence industry, that's where the private companies can make big money. How do we make punters, like, really understand how outrageous it is? Because if they just cloak it in, like, oh, it's just a meeting. It's just this that no one understands. So anyway, thanks for thanks for your patience as we're trying to get ahead around these roles and departments and ministers and sub ministers. Oh, yeah. No, and it's that way on purpose. They make it sort of difficult to understand so that nobody questions it. That's why it's good that you guys are doing stories like this, because it is important for people to sort of to understand because, like, I don't necessarily have any evidence that anybody got a contract through any of those fundraising things, but they wouldn't be spending three thousand dollars a head if it didn't get them something, you know? Yeah. There's ROI on that, right? Like, they're not they're not idiots. You can't have this argument that businesses, that businesses are like so good with money and so efficient. And then all of a sudden, all these corporations are pissing their money away to politicians. So you tell me businesses are so dumb that they're like this. Clearly, our system is so not corrupt that we just love wasting money to these politicians who are clearly not influenced in the slightest by these meetings. This is what I want pundits to really understand is like this bloke, Pat Comeroy. He is a maker or breaker of profits and contracts for corporations related to the defense industry. He makes or breaks them. And then you're telling me that there are meetings going on. Recap essentially what happened there and then point out the loophole. So the whole fundraiser was going to be a dinner. It was three thousand dollars a head. We had people from Lockheed Martin, Allocaf, all of the big defense industry groups you can think of. We ended up having to postpone and move the date of the event and the location to Sydney. But we failed to get into contact with one of the people who brought a ticket to make sure he was happy and wasn't going to kick up a stink about losing free grand. We organized we organized for him to have a 15 minute meeting face to face with the minister in his parliamentary office during a sitting week. Oh, and so that that definitely would have broken the code of conduct. Oh, but the loophole they used was that. So you guys organized the meeting as the and not. Yeah. So as the backbencher, we organized the meeting for the defense company person and for the defense industry minister. So as a. And was he just like walking past at the time? And you were like, oh, funny that could you walk past this office at 10 a.m. Please come on in. Fancy seeing you. Have we met before? Fiona, have you met Pat Conroy before? Yeah. So, yeah, we and to be honest, having a 15 minute face to face meeting is so much more valuable than being at a dinner, because at the dinner, you're competing with 10 other like people who are wanting to get face time to the minister, where if you can get 15 minutes to sit in front of the minister to plead your case for whatever it is you're trying to get. Like that's so much more valuable than being at it at the same dinner. Allegedly, by the way, this is all allegedly if it is not necessarily it happened. But if it did happen, this is how it happened. This is how the Labor Party raises its money by having these fundraisers. And it just goes to show that when all these when you can look up on donationwatch.com, you can see all the donations from certain industries that they've donated. That's probably only half the money. Half of it slips through these other loopholes that we're looking looking for at the moment. But they always say, oh, like a donation doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean we get any special anything in return, because I guess corruption would be we take money. You get something. So the corporation's always like, no, no, no. Hey, we don't we don't want anything in return. We just like what you're doing. But then when it comes down to it, some dingus doesn't check his email. Right. Spend $3,000 on a ticket. Clearly, this is this is it's not I wouldn't say it's proof because who said it happened. Allegedly, it shows that if you're giving money, the politician knows what you're giving the money for. The bloke knows what you're giving money for. And he leaves satisfied with a bit of a meeting. Most of those fundraisers that are done with a backbencher and a minister. Generally, they are cut 50 50. So the backbencher will get half and the minister will get half. However, in this case, Gilmore was such a target seat. The minister was happy to just let us have he basically gave us his time and we got to keep 100 percent of the fundraising. Each electorate will have its own bank account that it would fundraise through. And then you would have head office who have their own pool of money. But in our electorate, we had about I'm just looking at it now. We had a total of about ninety six thousand dollars like for the entire campaign. And I think about forty six thousand was fundraised by us and the rest was dropped in by head office. Topping up the kitty. It's not much money. No. Like I look at it and I go in one electorate. What do you got there? 140 grand. Yeah. Is that it? Well, you look at- Is that all it takes to buy someone? Well, that's actually what's kind of scary when you look at like how much money Allegra Spender used in her campaign. I think the prime minister was on the record saying that she spent more in one election than he did in the previous 10. So if you have the- Lots of money in that seat. If you have the support of a couple of millionaires, you could buy a seat. Like 200 grand could buy you a seat. You could buy a seat for 200 grand in regional New South Wales. Which I guess goes to this whole, which is the fair critique of what we're talking about, because pundits will think it's so obvious. It's like you give them money and they're yours. It's way more subtle than that. And this is kind of what it shows. And this is what the low numbers show. It's sustained relationships over time. It's- Obviously, Albert doesn't have to spend that much money. He's the bloody most recognisable bloke ever. He puts his name on the paper. The whole Labour Party machine, his face is the head of it. Right? Like, obviously, that's the case. And so as Clive Palmer proved, money doesn't buy you a seat if you're shit. So then these laws that we were spoken about on the podcast in previous episodes, where they're getting money out of politics. Do you see these new regulations coming in? Which I believe by the next election, they'll be in. What you're talking about now, how the Labour Party raises money, is that going to be impacted by these laws coming in? Or will they find loopholes, do you think? Once again, I'm not a legal expert, but I would think that what I've seen of what they're bringing in, it won't affect the big problem, which is even if you restrict where these meetings can occur, you're still going to have people who will pay three thousand dollars a ticket to have a dinner with the defence minister so that they can talk about the contract they want to get. I just don't see any future or any regulation that can prevent that unless you just ban corporate donations altogether. But then you'll just have people, you'll have executives who will personally donate the money and they'll just find a loophole that way. There's been some moves by the independents to have not just donation caps, but campaign funding caps. So you can only spend like a hundred grand or whatever the limit will be. But that is kind of unworkable, because what if you have 20 candidates in one electorate who sign up just to get the government funding? I just don't see any future in our democratic system where you can completely eradicate the problem of dark money. It just it's invasive. I've got in my notes here something about Christopher Pyne. Oh, that actually yes, I'd forgotten about that. That actually is a bit of an interesting one. So when we move the event to Sydney, generally these fundraisers, almost always you will have a sponsor so you don't have to use your campaign funds up front to get more campaign funds. You would have a... Sorry, so hang on. A sponsor being a corporation sponsoring? Corporate sponsor, well, sometimes lobby groups, too. So we were in talks with the Distillery Association, which is a lobby group for distilleries like vodka and stuff. But that kind of fell through at the last second. So we were looking through our defence industry contact lists. And Tony, who's one of the executives over at Pyne and Partners, which is Christopher Pyne's lobby group and consultancy firm, offered to... Ex-Defence Minister Christopher Pyne for the Liberal Party. That's who we're talking about. They offered to sponsor this Pat Conroy. When we moved it to Sydney, they offered to sponsor. So pay for the dinner up front. Yeah, they sponsored the fundraiser, which was about maybe five grand because it was a it was a very fancy restaurant and there was about 15 people there. They covered all of the meals. They covered all of the drinks, like straight up. Well, I'm thinking these fundraisers are like large, large rooms with lots of people. This is a large table. This is a large family dinner, Christmas dinner, room size. And it's a fairly intimate affair. Like it's a VIP type thing. There's no staff there, really. So, yeah, what's just crazy in my mind is Christopher Pyne, the Liberal Party fixer, is funding a... The most... Keep in mind, Gilmore was the most marginal electorate in the country at the time. Is sponsoring a Labour Party fundraiser with the Defence Industry Minister and the most marginal Labour Party candidate. That blew my mind. As far as like... Access, is that is that because if you're now Christopher Pyne, you are now a lobbyist. So your job is to get your clients in front of ministers, chat with ministers to spruik whatever your customers, clients, whatever your clients are doing, your job is to spruik it. So from Christopher Pyne's perspective, he's like, oh, yeah, I'll sponsor this dinner. And that obviously potentially gets him better access to the current government. Is that is that how it is? Oh, 100 percent. So at these type of things, we would usually have a VIP ticket, which would be slightly more expensive. And that would be like the seat that's right next to the member or the minister. But in this case, I thought that was pretend. It's not. It's real. But because we had a sponsor, they said, well, can we have those two seats like the one next to the member and the one next to the minister? But they gave it to a company called CIVMEC, which is a defence industry contractor. So, yeah, they sponsored the whole dinner. Oh, because Christopher Pyne had those seats? No, no, he didn't use it himself. He gave it to his clients from CIVMEC. Um, so, yeah. Oh, of course. Sorry. The clients he represents, he sponsors the dinner, gets a couple of seats. He then goes, oy, you want to get in with this government right now? I got a couple of VIP seats next to the minister. Along you go. And then they get to sit right next to him and talk about whatever they want, which would most likely be some type of contract. And we and we have to remember that once again, rather than an open, transparent bidding process that says government needs to spend this much, who's the best player? Open and transparent. We have closed door meetings facilitated by ex-government ministers turned lobbyist to then meet and greet. And then all we the punter see is government hands contract to so-and-so. Was that because of a beautiful, succulent Chinese lunch? Or was that because they were the best person for the contract? It's because the guy sitting next to Pat Conroy had his hand on his leg the whole dinner and he was... This is wild to actually hear an example of something allegedly. Allegedly that if we're not saying happened, but if it did happen, this is how it happened. I've been flawed enough, Punter D. This has been a fun journey into the foray of how party politics works, how you get shit done, how you meet the right people and how to loophole jump if you're a corporation. Punter D, thanks so much for coming on and sharing the insider info. Thanks for your bravery. No worries. Thanks for having me, guys. Punter James, email us thickandfast at wepunter at punterspolitics.com for political manoeuvres this week. Here we go. Politician lines it up and well, hang on. There's a question from left field and oh my gosh, I don't believe it. What a manoeuvre. That has got to be political play of the day. Obviously, we know what it is this week. It did not go unmissed. He is a staple. He is an icon. Politician Bob Carter. Let's take a look at some novel political manoeuvres. Bob, you've got Lebanese heritage yourself. What would you say to the Lebanese heritage? Don't say that because that irritates me. And I punch blokes in the mouth for saying that. Don't you dare say that. My family have been in this country for 140 years. Right. So you and you say anything like that. I have on many occasions punched blokes in the mouth. Right. So I'm restraining myself today. First off, there's no other way to say it. But it's I guess it's just a disincentive. A stiff don't argue. I will punch you in the face. With the shaking fist right in the journalist's face. I mean, some would call it a threat to physical violence. But since it's politics, that's a political manoeuvre. Yeah, that's if you can discourage your person from talking to you by waving a fist in their face. On many occasions, I have punched blokes in the mouth. Citing the example. But the thing I love the most that went a bit unmissed is we're really drilling into these political manoeuvres. Yeah. At the end there. He's at the back. He just he just hides, goes into a little mirror, turns to a 45 degree angle. So he's not actually facing the guy. Faces away. And what does he say? I'm not listening. I'm not listening. I'm not listening. I believe I believe he called. He used the the very popular tactic in grade four. Yeah. Go to the corner. I'm not playing with you anymore. Yeah, that's right. I'm not listening. But you're clearly listening. But you're letting them know you're not listening. You know what? I've got to give points to Bob Carter on that one. I'll give him two. All right. Next political manoeuvre. Here we go. The government's own rapid review on how to prevent violence against women and children actually recommended a ban on gambling ads and restrictions on late night alcohol delivery. Yes or no. Will you ban gambling ads? Well, we don't make policy on on the run. Respectfully, what we do is ask on the run. There's been multiple inquiries into this. We have done more to reduce gambling harm than any government in history. What we have done is things like the BetStop register, which has been very successful in in stopping problem gambling. What we know is that people having a punt on the horses on Saturday isn't the problem. The problem is a small number of people who are attracted to problem gambling. So I'm going to give points to the reporter on that one. Yeah. Journalist did a fantastic job. Yes or no. Really? She's she's boxing. She's herding cats. It's a close ended question. She's herding cats. Yes or no. Yes or no. And oh, he slips under the arm. Straight through, you know what that whole take reminded me of was last week having Dr. Richard Dennis on and he said the way to identify BS in a politician is if they start talking about other governments and what they've done and politician Anthony Albanese right there goes we have done more than any other government and it's like good again like Dr. Richard Dennis said you've done something good, do more good So I feel like Albo, it wasn't his strongest suit, it was a good reporter herding cats in the corner, he's feeling back into the corner and he starts, he brings out the laundry list, oh but look at all these things I've done and oh and then he starts the filibuster, this is the fact, you just keep talking because he knows the reporter has a shot clock, she's herded into the corner, there's only 3 seconds in the key, you've got to wind the clock, he's like oh I'm going to wind down this shot clock Yeah there goes the whistle And on he goes, game over, he's out of there, interview done, so I'm actually, I thought that was a weak performance by Albo, you could see him stumble a little bit, think the question really set him up, I'm going to give points to the reporter Yeah points to the reporter but he's still a master of the game He's pretty good, not his best game though Punter James, it's time to pep up the punts, I've got some good news to end the episode on because politics doesn't have to be all depressing Good Good, good, you want to be pepped, you ready to be pepped I'm on the edge of my seat Okay, speaking of whistleblowers this episode, could have been a bit depressing when we gave the impression that if you're a whistleblower in Australia you're screwed Yeah you are definitely screwed Not if your name is David Boyle What's happened with David Boyle, I've never heard of him before He is the, thank you for asking for the recap, he is the whistleblower that blew the whistle on the ATO being overly aggressive in debt collection strategies for regular punts He went through the channels, he blew the whistle, he went to like multiple lawyers, he thought he was protected under whistleblower protections but guess what Well he wasn't He wasn't So they've come down hard on him as well He was facing 66 offences, I mean numbers vary, I went with the low ones and facing 46 years in prison, I saw one article say 150 Far out So 46 years in prison for essentially saying hey the government agency might not be acting in the best interest of we Australians Right But this is PepUpThePunt so you'd think it'd be depressing, nah he is not going to go to jail Oh fantastic news So that is, once again yes whistleblower laws they're screwed but if your name is David Boyle you are stoked because you're not going to jail and we have to give credit where credit's due to the judges and whoever was involved in that decision Not sending a public interest whistleblower to jail is always a good day in Australia Right so as an everyday punt how does this benefit or impact me, is it just that more whistleblowers are going to feel like they can come out Woah woah woah woah woah I said PepUpThePunt not make them hysterical ok There's maybe I guess in the court case a little bit of precedence going ok this is a good ruling in favour of more transparency but the laws are still draconian He still wasn't protected under the whistleblower protections act he just I guess didn't throw the book at him as hard so long ways to go but I just gave you enough to pep your step I still feel good You still feel good The gods of the algorithm the corporate driven algorithm each week by sharing our stuff honestly punters you sharing it is the only reason regular punters see anything so a huge thanks and obviously all that sharing has resulted in politicians children sending my reels to the politicians themselves so massive thanks to you Any messages send them through to oypunter at punterspolitics.com see you next week power to the punters Power to the punts