224: Live in Brisbane ft. Max Chandler-Mather & Tully from Tight Knit

This podcast is recorded on stolen and unseated Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the First Nations and elders of this country and join their calls for justice. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. All right, you beautiful hippies. It's starting afternoon. Let's have some fun. We ends together. Make a shitload of noise. The focus day is Tom Miller! Hello, you motherfuckers. Welcome to "Serious Danger" a podcast about green politics in Australia. This is not an official greens fighting podcast that we alive in Miyajan Brisbane! Queensland, the state where you might get arrested at a protest, but it'll only take you 50 cents together! Thanks, Ellen Pee! No tough crowd, all right. It is me, Tom Ballard, the funny one, in town for the Brisbane Company Festival. Give us a cheer if you see my show. Brutal. Fuck you, Zool. Thank you very much, Kelly. I appreciate it. Who's booked in to come tonight or tomorrow night? Is that the same people? Well, anyway, I'll be here, I'll be funny. Unfortunately, we have no Emerald Moot. She is currently in Thailand on holiday for a bit. Thank you, Emerald Moon. We miss you, Emerald. And everybody's going to be, we got one of them will produce a Michael the Griff Griffin in the room. Get up for the Griff! Thank you, Michael. Thank you very much to everyone who contacted the show about tech issues on last week's episode, in which you heard Ellen Sandell twice, I believe. If you can play, you just don't like the greens enough. But thank you, Griff, very much for fixing that and for the fantastic work that you do. We've got an amazing show for you. We've got some great guests. We're going to talk about everything that's going on at the moment. Very quickly, some show. Admin, big thanks to our patrons and our danger dogs. We've got danger dogs in the room. Yeah. Rihanna, Chris, Christopher, Rose, Rachel and Daniel. Thank you for joining the series Danger Family. Support us on Patreon to get bonus content every fortnight. The next Patreon episode will be exclusive content from this live show that will only record for you if you're on the Patreon and the beautiful people in the room. So get involved if you want to slice of that. Quick plug if you're listening to this and you're around at Narm. Next Saturday, May the 16th is comedy in the West. A big fundraiser for the Futscray Green campaign to turn Futscray. That's my hope to stay seated in the upcoming election. Green, Saturday, May 16th at Kindred Borum. Hilarious comedy night. I'm hosting Dave Callan, Jordan Bar, Bronwyn Cast, David Quirk, and Bar Hard to Bark. A former Syrian refugee, now Australian citizen and full-time comedian. These fucking immigrants, man. Come over here and take their jobs. The link for that gig is in the show notes if you want to come along. Plus, should acknowledge massive week in UK politics. I know, because I've been following the results of the local council elections and in Scotland and Wales, the Green Party are fucking surging. Oh! [APPLAUSE] So I reform, but we won't talk about that. Green's picked up two seats in Wales. Scottish Greens have picked up five seats in Holyrood for a total of 13. I think that means if I match his right, the SNP are going to need another coalition government with the Greens, which could be good news. 370 council seats for the Green Party of England and Wales in England, including two fresh new Green Mairs in London. [APPLAUSE] Green Maren Council on Hague, you never believe it, guys, that when the Greens won in Hackney, suddenly Hackney stopped being a working class suburb. Ah, according. It happened overnight, which is pretty incredible. Zach Plandse has declared the two party politics in the UK to be dead. The real contest is now between reform and the Greens. That's a little bit exciting, a little bit scary. I'm interested to see how that goes. A note out will be talking about the example of the Greens in the UK with our wonderful guests. Also, of course, as we speak, the Farrah by-election is happening to replace. Susan Lee in the seat of Farrah, RIP, Susan Lee, we hardly knew you. [LAUGHTER] Obviously, the election is happening now. We won't get the results this episode will come out tomorrow. So I thought I'd just run through some different results and we can test the reactions from the room. And we use the one that works. Hey, you guys. Looks like Rysa Bukowski has prevailed and Fraser has been held by the Liberal Party. Really good. Holy shit, it's finally happened. 69-year-old local agribusiness consultant David Farley has gone over the line. The seat has fallen to one nation. [APPLAUSE] [LAUGHTER] Okay, incorrect. You are going to have a terrible 75 minutes. It's one of the least worst options. The local independent Michelle Milford, a 47-year-old teacher who is not a teal, but does accept funding from climate to 20 to 100 for some reason. She's been victorious. It's gone independent. [APPLAUSE] You know, last one. In an incredible upset, the people of Farrah have finally said as enough as enough to the stinking political status quo. They've seen through the false promises of the racist far-right and female-mangering mainstream media. They've decided to vote for hope for an eco-populous candidate promising to fight for a better country. One that rejects the injustices of neoliberal capitalism that prioritises the many, not the few. They've had this say. And the next member for Farrah will be Richard August Henry of the Australian Greens. [APPLAUSE] Oh, which one are we going to use? We're very excited to see. All right, let's crack on. Let's bring up like special guest co-hosts. Fuller Show to talk about everything that is going on right now, including his very exciting new job. He's the former member for Griffith, recently announced as the new executive director of the Green Institute, recently described by friend of the show Rachel Weathers as a democratic socialist wind-up toy. Please give it up for Max Shandlamena! [APPLAUSE] Max, everyone, it's Max! Hello. Hello, mate. Thanks for being here. Absolutely pleasure. What are your memories of serious danger live shows? You seem to get into trouble for things you say. Well, yeah, I think the last one I ended up in the news somehow. So thanks. But it was because of what you said. What? You said something and I was called out for not admonishing you and attacking you. And so at the start, I'd just like to condemn everything Tom says. In advance, anything he says I condemn, disgraceful. So that's the disclaimer at the start. I think racism is bad and you condemn that. Fuck you got you. I mean, anything bad you say I can do. Oh, okay. Well, you need to clarify that, see? Body politicians. What do you think that label? "Democratic Socialist Wind-up Toy"? Will you take that? I think, um, you know, it's better than other things I've been called in the media. The Democratic Socialist part's pretty fun. That's good. I think she's referring to my limitless energy. Although I would say that since having a kid, that's. I don't know anyone here who's had a kid, you're a man of sleep you get to climb significantly. Yeah, you look like shit. Yeah, I'm like, one of those wind-up toys that ran out of juice for a little bit. I think you're ready to deposit it. That's a good thing. We just crossed the one year anniversary, right? A year since the 2225 election, that's recently happened. What has your life been like? It looked like it over the past 12 months. Well, a lot less time in camera. Yeah. This is a huge positive. That's a good thing. A lot more time with family. I play soccer every week. That's great. And then just I suppose a lot of time thinking about what's next. Yeah. And obviously doing the Green Institute thing. And I suppose thinking carefully about what was missing in those last three years in terms of the capacity of our movement to take on the political and corporate establishment, what of a sort of key pillars or infrastructure that we need to build over the next few years. And it feels like having thought about it a bit, this makes sense to focus on, at least for this year. Yeah. I want to get into that in graphic detail. Have you had much to do with the new member for Griffith? No. Okay. Are the free school breakfasts still going? That all seems sort of been shut down. The free breakfast, the free dinners, and the free school supplies staff has all been shut down, although expected. Yeah. I mean, I do think that in particular from the Labour and the Royal Party there was this cynical view of all of that work. They assumed that it was just a few staffers and I don't know, like some fake social media post. I presumeably because that's what they would do in that situation. And they can't consider like their capacity for empathy. It's like they haven't got object permanence yet. Like they can't get beyond their reality. But I always assumed that that was going to happen because they don't comprehend just how many volunteers were involved and members of the community were involved in doing that work. And just how much we relied on this enormous network of people that gave us a capacity far and beyond what a standard electoral office would have. And some of them are in the room. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I should hope so. They should all be buying tickets for fuck's sake. That's great. So tell me about some of that thinking. Look, we've spent a lot of time on this show talking about 2025. What does it mean? The soul searching has happened. You've written extensively a deep cut which is all being fantastic. But I guess, as you at this point, you've got to a point where you can so simply summarise all you think about what are the main takeaways about what happened in 2025 and what it means for us now. And so if I could press play on that, thanks for that I should all be. I love talking about this. Well, look, there's the first obvious one that's been talked about a lot, which was we obviously over the last three years kicked a massive hornet's nest in that probably for the first time since my time involved in the Greens the level of sophistication and coordination between the Labor Party, Advanced, the Liberal Party, this huge network of corporate think tanks and and lobby groups, all were brought to bear and attacking the Greens, and in particular in Griffith, and not just them, but also Labor Line Unions. And for instance, Union spending from a few big Labor Line Unions, most of their money went into Griffith in Queensland, really, attacking us. And that was with advance as well. And so it was, and I say coordination, we've been told since that there was a degree, either of conscious or unconscious messaging or coordination between the far-right group advance, and the way the Labor Party talked about us in that last 12 months. And what became abundantly clear to anyone paying attention was just how few, how still small our movement was, frankly, and the sort of capacity that we built up into that point was really impressive, but it was clearly not enough in the face of this huge establishment onslaught. The way I think about it though is that it was an excellent, useful preview of what happens when you get to that stage in a movement, when you do start to trigger that sort of establishment fight back, I suppose. The second thing is our own, a series of our own mistakes. And I think it's really worthwhile reflecting on how we campaigned in 2022 in those first few years, and that shift in Pivot that the party made in the last 12 months. And I think it's a very understandable pivot in a way, because you're this small parliamentary party, and all of a sudden in the last 12 months, all the guns proverbially, not literally yet, have been turned on us. And there was a degree to which the party blinked. And we went from this very forthright message where we were like, well, look, whether it's the labor or liberal party, they're both part of this corporate political establishment. The reason that a single mum has to choose between feeding her kids and paying the rent is precisely because this corporate political establishment will only ever serve the interests of corporate Australia. And the only things they'll ever give out are just enough to ensure that they hold onto power. Towards a message that said, well, look, you know what? Our goal is to keep that now and to push Labor to act whatever it was. And that encompassed an entire political strategy as with drawing, I suppose, from that forthright message. And the upshot was that essentially we communicated to the electorate that we were in a pending of the Labor Party. And in the context of a very anti-political electorate and electorate that is largely disconnected from the political establishment, when the one party that they thought were articulating that message shifted away from that that obviously creates a level of disillusionment and further disengagement. And people were like, well, you know what? If I have to choose between a sort of external group that wants to make Labor better or the Labor Party itself, in the end, a lot of people went one way. And I think that's a useful lesson. Again, because it gives you all this series of previews and institutional knowledge and historical knowledge now, the next time we get into that moment, is recognizing that no matter how many times David Spears or Sarah Ferguson or some other hack from the Australian media class tells you that they know what you need to do and what you need to do is say what they want you to say. Forget about that and actually go and talk to ordinary people out in the community and take your lead from them. And I think had we done that in that last 12 months, things may have gone a bit differently. How does that plan to-- or do you think that analysis is prevalent within the party now in the wake of the election? You know, immediate election, when the risk takes over, we get the idea of a more constructive approach. Getting shit done, these are the things that will put forward and prioritise. Is that consistent with the lessons you've taken away from the 2025 defeat? I think it's fair to say that there is a variety of views in the party. Still a politician. [LAUGHTER] Let's cut that out of the feed. For people listening, I just felt out for those who built my beer. I tried to make part of that. Fuck it, L. That was scary. Because you have got some-- I'm OK, by the way. I felt no concern of the room. Anyway, moving on. No, I'd like to pull the stream. The range of views. Yeah, thank you. I think what's pretty clear is there's a variety of views. And I do think that that comes from very understandable experience of that last three years, where we did stand up at various points to the Labour Party and advanced friends, very widespread ranging campaign. Although I don't think it was that effective. But certainly when you combine it with this enormous network of everyone from the ABC to the Curie Mouth, the Australian to the Labour Party, to the Liberal Party, to Labour-Line unions, all saying almost frankly singing from the same song sheet and saying the Greens are too radical. It's reasonable that some people come out of the election and think, well, the lesson is that we were too radical. And I think there's that-- I think the other structural thing that's going on at the moment is a misunderstanding-- and maybe we'll talk about this more later-- about who constitutes the potential Greens, social coalition or potential majority in the future of people. And I think there's this assumption that a huge cohort of the Greens vote, or potential vote, is this relatively comfortable middle class, or in their home's arms outright. They have a university education. And actually, they stand to lose a little bit from big material redistribution of wealth and power on the way that we were articulating. And I just think that's a huge misreading of what I vote is. We know that over 20% of renters vote for the Greens. We know that there was this big increasing class shift towards not just younger renters or mortgage stressed holders and things like that, but a increasingly broad cross-section of a fraction of broadly defined working class people from cleaners, teacher-ades, laborers, landscapeers, construction workers, very diverse in their occupations, but undergoing a similar material experience have been locked out of the way our economic system works and wanting something different. And if you understand that-- I almost fell off-- if you understand that, then you understand that actually, we need to figure out how to build out that coalition and appeal broadly to people on that basis. And I think if you understand that, then you understand that actually, the lesson out of this is not to become, I suppose, a smaller target or tire sales closer to the Labor Party. Because for most working people, every year their lives get worse, regardless of whether or not the Laboral Liberal Party are in power. That is their true material experience. And when you talk to them, they say, yes, that's what happening. All they're waiting for is a political force that's capable of articulating that on the national stage. Well, the alternative, if we're not just telling ourselves the closer establishment, as you said, to Rachel Withers in the Krike, is turning voting for the Greens into just voting for Labor effectively. That's what we did. I think aspiration should be to replace the Labor Party. [APPLAUSE] I think that's pretty strong support in this room. What does that mean? What do you mean by that? Well, I think-- I mean, obviously, what a little way of that. I think because there's different conceptions of how you think about change. And one way traditionally has-- and certainly, to be on-- to be perfectly frank, I had assumed that-- and one of the lessons I learned after the last three years, what I assumed that going into parliament, that this was at least partly the way to make change, which was in negotiation with the Labor Party. And I remember that period during the Housing Australia Future Fund, where we attempted debate around-- where we had the balance of power. They needed our support to pass these housing bills. And it just became abundantly clear that the Labor Party would no longer a party that even could be reasoned with on social democratic terms, like pretty basic. Stuff like building more public housing. Like it took a national campaign of over 12 months to eat even a tiny bit of money out of that party for a small amount of-- in the end, not even public housing, social housing. And certainly, one of the lessons I learned over the last three years was that the job of the Labor Party is not-- it's not this institution, is certainly at a national level or a parliamentary level that can be-- that is somehow-- has just simply lost its way. That it-- we can be disappointed in it. But if only we just set them back on the right track, there would be this social-- democratic socialist paradise off in the future. But actually, how they function and who they are tied to, the way they function is essentially to contain and limit change and give just enough to release public pressure. But actually, in the end, serve the interests of the banks and false or fuel corporations. And effectively, what it felt like when we were negotiating with them is like we were negotiating with the property industry. If that's the case, then working out how to change things in another way is critical. I don't think that just means in the future, getting enough Greens MPs into Parliament to form a Greens government because you can actually get into government, but not be in power, in the sense that we also need a mass movement. And historically, change has only ever come when you combine an allied set of MPs and party with huge social movements on the ground. And those are very weak at the moment, if we're frank. And that means huge community movements. It means revive labor movement that is independent of the Labor Party. It means ordinary people and their capacity to leverage and push power out in civil society onto Parliament. And to be honest, without that, the Greens may just end up drifting in the same direction that the Labor Party has. And I think that's worth while being honest about, because I think being honest about it is critical if we're all here actually to get changed. I don't know about everyone else, but for me, the Greens isn't a social club. It's not like a career or anything like that. It's a vehicle to try and change things and recognize that we're in a really bad state right now. And that while this might not necessarily work, it feels like our best chance. And I think in that context, being seriously honest and intellectually honest about our limitations, what has failed in the past and what we might need to change things in the future is critical. The Greens are mainly a podcasting opportunity for me. Well, yeah, that as well. We need like a million podcasters to build a million publics. No, we have one. Speaking of, let's go to the Green Institute, of course. People, wait, no. The Green Institute, your predecessor Tim Hollow was extremely supportive, very helpful to help us set up this podcast. I think we are, we're assisted with the existence of the Green Institute. So, are you now my boss? I've seen you in our bank account. Tom Ballet. So, yes, technically, I think we are. Fuck! All right, I'm going to unionise the podcast. Yeah, great. Take you down. A better month to go. We go this. Greens Fiber and Max Jan LeMeta is promising to reach ours, left-wing politics in Australia, taking the reins of the party's think tank with the mission of building a populist movement that can replace labour and rival assurging one nation. Jan LeMeta said the Australian Greens should learn from strategies that are swept, left-wing New York City, meows, Zoron Mum, Darni, to power and propelled the UK Greens above the Labour Government in pinion polls so they can start capitalising on the major political parties decline in national polling. The Greens job is to build a big enough mass movement similar to the UK Greens that can present a genuine progressive break with a status quo and offer a form of progressive, economic populism that can describe in clear terms a positive transformation in people's lives. If people don't know, what is the Green Institute, why did you take this kick? So it's technically the official research institute of the Australian Greens, which sounds a little bit boring, I think partly because it is. But in basic terms, it's potentially a vehicle that can help do some without longer term movement building work outside of the vagaries of particular election cycles. And certainly from our perspective that is sort of three big things for us. One is capacity building and training and political education. And that doesn't just mean training people in persuasive conversations or how to organise or anything like that. One of the things we're going to really focus on in the second half of this year is providing capacity for people to learn more about radical economic theory or political theory and run courses on understanding those things and giving people the capacity to, I suppose, build up their own ability to articulate sort of a radical economic platform for lack of a better term or even get into arguments with people or be future candidates or future leaders. And there's one component, the other component is around policy. And it seems pretty clear right now that we're in this massive economic malaise. And it's not a crisis yet, although for a lot of people on the ground it feels and it is a crisis. But at that macroeconomic level, we're in this, again, stagflation repair, where inflation is going up, the economy slowing down, it looks like unemployment is going to go up. And there are, unlike say in the 1980s when you went through this period and neoliberalism was sitting there waiting in the wings to essentially replace sort of pretty mainstream, Keynesian, social democratic politics. Sort of like the ones with the plan win, right? And they had developed that through decades of think tank work and research work and warming their way into actually both conservative and parties like the Labour Party. And it sort of feels like we don't have all of those elements for progressive politics at the moment just yet. We have some of it, but I don't think we have necessarily sketched out as a movement what an alternative Greens government would look like in terms of the way we would transform the economy in favour of ordinary people and how it would work. And so there's a bit of that. And I think those two things for us are really important. The final one is research and obviously we're talking about organising these masks. The Ornogs at the moment where we go and ask people very specific questions around their working lives and reach out into working class communities rather than just saying, hey, do you like dental and to Medicare? No, okay, bye. But like, not that that's how we do or not necessarily. I love doorking for the Greens, but actually asking very specific questions about levels of financial stress. Social isolation and alienation, how often do you see friends every week? Do you feel like you have a meaningful say over the work you do? Are you worried that you might not afford a comfortable retirement and get try and get a really rich picture of the broad cross section of working in middle class people in Australia? As a way of understanding how we can relate to people and start to build out a platform that speaks to a broad across section of society. And so that's our series of goals this year. We see it as a period of, as far as experimentation. Because the Greens haven't really tried to build something like that before. But we feel like it's a good, honest, critical response to 2025. And hopefully over the next few years we have, in the end, this institution that means the next time we're in that moment like we were in the last federal election, we have a much bigger movement infrastructure in the background, relatively to defend us. It sounds like, I mean, you've re-launched the institute. It sounds like you're taking a very different approach to what a think tank does. Think tank might be normally associated with the PMC, perhaps of people sitting around thinking you're never doing anything releasing reports at nobody reads and being, and not really talking to the public at all ordinary people. It sounds like you want to do not that? Not that. We have a lot of those. And it's not clear how much they've affected the world. If anyone here has worked, one of those, no offense at all. Some of my best friends are think tanks. But, yeah, I mean, to the extent that I think if we understand that one of the problems with politics is that it's completely disconnected from ordinary people's lives. Obviously, if you're going to build an institution that you claim and wants to somehow help build the movement, then obviously one of the things it needs to do is reform that connection with civil society and reach outside people, reach outside the supposed out bubble in that sense. And, you know, it's already been amazing. Like, I was in a Nala a few weeks ago. We were testing the social survey, Donark. And knocked on the sky's door. He, four kids, landscaper, and $92,000 a year, works over 50 hours a week. And, you know, his biggest issue was that at the end of Christmas time, he just didn't have enough money to buy all the Christmas presents he wanted to buy for his kids. And, he couldn't afford to go on a holiday, he was exhausted. And, we were going through all these questions. And, I kept asking, because we're testing, is this going on for too long? We've gone into 50 minutes. He's like, no, mate, this is great. Thank you. And, we got to the section about voting intention. And, I was like, well, how did you vote? And, he said, well, he's a renter. And, he said, well, the last election I was donkey-voted. And, I was like, oh, why? And, I was like, oh, it's just nothing there. And, I was like, well, how about now? And, he was like, well, look. You know, Pauline Hansen, she's a bit how you do. And, she is a racist. And, I don't really like one nation, but I'm thinking about one nation. And, you know, he even said, it was sort of amazing. Like, he stopped me. And, he was like, we are in one of the most multicultural suburbs in Brisbane. Everyone around me is from another country. And, it's great. I don't know what she's talking about. And, he's still thinking about voting for one nation. And, that's the right response. And, I do think that that is a such a great response. I think that that is a such a clear demonstration. A lot of people out there like that of our failure. And, I think it's worth being honest about that. And, not because we want to be self, like, just critical for self-critical sake, but because we fundamentally believe that people like that could form the basis of the transformative politics. And, at the end of it, like, I sort of broke an independent Green Institute character and we ended up trying to shift him towards the Greens. And, he does love rent-freeze. You know, like, but, and actually, at the end of it, I asked him one of the things we asked him, "Would you come along to a community focus group at the end where you can just come together with your neighbours and talk about what a platform that you would vote for?" Look like this. Absolutely. Like, this is a guy who has no time. Like, while we were there, I was helping him pull a kid out of the tree. Like, he was just clear, you know, like a parent with a lot of kids just like a certain level of stress in the background of his eyes, where he was like looking around, making sure one of his kids wasn't just going to run onto the road. Like, just a stressed out, but he was going to give up hours in his weekend to come into this. So, out of that, for me, it actually, finally, I've gave him an enormous amount of hope. And we've had quite a few conversations like that. And, it's sort of cool to think about building an institution that can maintain that connection with tens of thousands of people like that guy across the country. Tell me about this economic populism. Like, progressive populism. That was sort of the big takeaway from the coverage when you announced this position. You had an interview with ABC with Pusier-Var Carvellis, who seemed to fundamentally define populism as doing whatever is popular. Yeah. Which is like, "God, this is a leading political journalist in the ABC. You hasn't done any research on the history of that term or what it actually means." One critique she says is like, "Well, populism just offers easy solutions." That's what some people would say. Now, I don't think that's true, and I think there is a progressive form of populism. But I suppose when you look at the right-wing populism of pulling Hanson's one nation, I think that that is what they're doing. They are either offering no solutions whatsoever. They are just seeing into people's grievance and capitalizing off that, with seeming to spend very little time on any kind of serious plan or an actual explanation of what they want to do about these things that are affecting people's lives. Yeah, they're not doing that at all or offering simple solutions. So, I guess, how do you think about that in terms of the kind of progressive populism that you're talking about, and you think the Greens should organize around? Well, yeah, and I think you can call it other things as well. I suppose you could call it a form of democratic socialism or whatever term you'd like. I feel like actually one of our problems at the moment is we don't. Unlike in the early 20th century, where there were clear terms, the defined our ideological position, but one of the troubles we have at the moment is we're sort of in a post-ideological era, in the fact it's quite hard to cohere a full group of people around a particular ideology because they've got so much baggage around it, because all the things people did in the 20th century. not a good century in some ways, in other ways a good one. But-- - Very centrist approach. - Yeah. - The 20th century. - Exactly, I'm taking a politician's answer on the 20th century. But what I would say-- - Hey, man, I was born in the 20th century. - Say, I'm actually-- - Plot of what you say. - I think most people here were. What I would say is, I suppose for me, what a form of economic populism is. In the first instance, it's like a rhetorical device. Look, the way you talk about politics. And that is attempting to build a majority of people. And in the US, that was the 1% and the 99%. I think here it can be ordinary and everyday people and place them on one side. And I think crucially, behind that is a form of universalism. And by universalism, I mean a universalist ideology that recognizes that regardless of the color of your skin, your gender, sexuality, the countries that you come from, the languages you speak, we actually all share a set of common material and social interests in building a better world. And can oppose to articulating in short-- in a sort of a few sentences or a sentence-- who is standing against that? And that is not just a system, a political and corporate system that concentrates wealth and power on the hands of a small few, but crucially also large multinational corporations. And the money that they donate to, to the political parties and the way political parties act in their interests. And kind of posing those two things, I think, is really critical if we want to be serious about building a majority. And so that's, I think, the rhetorical or the way we talk about it in terms of organization. Well, it means putting your money where your mouth is around building that majority. It means, well, if you believe that, if you believe that there is potentially this massive majority of people that can share this common set of material interests, then we need to figure out a way to organize it. And we need to figure out the policies that help cohere that. And how we talk about people's lives and how we reach people in their communities and their neighborhoods and their workplaces or wherever they may be. And for me, that is sort of the fundamental elements of building a better politics. And certainly the only way changes ever happened in the 20th century is sort of having those two things. And we're a long way off that at the moment, to be perfectly frank. But crucially, I think we also have an enormous potential and opportunity to do that. Well, some people aren't happy about your new gig. I hate to tell you. Nick, you're in third executive director of the John Curtin Research Center. Any John Curtin Research Center fans in? Wow. The hollow progressive populism of Max Janemeyther. The Greens have not broken through, but consolidated a niche. And a niche is not a mass movement. This is a piece that he wrote in the Australian. I wouldn't spend too much time with it, because it's all fucking bullshit. But basically, he says, he says, the Green Institute haven't produced much at all. Now what is this insane line? The Green Institute's intellectual output has been to put it mildly modest. A handful of so-called publications sit online. One must rummage through annual reports to find any actual thinking or writing, which is apt because, like Kim Jong-un's, Hermit Kingdom, the Greens have long treated transparency as optional, with party conferences closed to the media. OK, first of all, the Green Agenda is online, which is a publication by the Green Institute, which is like an open online publication where lots of people across the movement write about thoughts and ideas, right? But apparently, the John Reed Curtain Research Center could not research on Google enough to find out one website, which is something the Greedy Stewart does. I think he wrote that, like, literally four days after we'd relaunched the Institute. And I sort of felt a bit embarrassed for him, because I think he, like, technically, he is the executive director of the Labor version of the Green Institute. And he spent, presumably, hours writing an article to put in the newspaper to tell him how much he hated the rival think tank. Yes. Which I just think is a slightly embarrassing thing to do, but whatever go off of it. I think the funny thing out of that article was admonishing us and attacking us for wanting to go and dawn on and ask people what they wanted, which I thought was actually a perfect summation of where the modern Labor Party is at now, that the very idea that you would go into working class communities and let them help and work with those communities as self-direct and build out a policy platform that represents their material interest is somehow a terrible thing to do. Because I suppose the alternative is to go to a more, like, cash for access dinners that they're having at the budget this week, where they go and ask the CEO the common bank what they should do, which is what they currently do. So I thought it was actually revealing in and of itself and sort of amusing in that sense. Into this low-barst rise channel, "M either promising renewable." Well, what does that renewal actually consist of? Door knocking. Yes, really. The flagship initiative of a taxpayer-funded think tank will be a vast face-to-face survey of Australians essentially scaled up canvassing. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with door knocking. It's good politics. But that's not what think tanks are for. They exist to do intellectual heavy lifting, get generating new ideas and policies, challenging orthodoxies, especially of their own side. Yes, you couldn't possibly get new ideas by talking to ordinary people. No, that's right. I think embedded in a lot of the way to media and the broader political establishment thinks about the public right now is they clearly hold the public in contempt. From their perspective, anything wrong in politics right now is the people's fault. That's how they think can conceive of. Oh, one nation on the rise. That's the people's fault. They're not enough people voted for us in a certain election. That was the people's fault. And it's fascinating as well, because-- That's the Greens fault. Well, yeah, that's right. But what I find fascinating about that is it's always such a demonstration of just how disconnected they are and how much of a born-to-rule attitude they have about the way politics works. From their perspective, they are perfect. They come up with the best ideas. And if they can't implement them or if the people don't support them, then we just need to dissolve those people and get a new people. That is literally their position. And you can see it break through occasionally like with Patricia Covellis, blowing a mind that you would do things that a majority of people might support. Because sometimes they support bad things. Anyway, you certainly saw that a lot in parliament. That felt like everyone thought they were on Mountain Limpas, which is tell me let me tell you, it's not out felt. I felt like Hades. Well, I would say I've met a lot smarter, clever, more interesting people on a random dawn I'll set it out in the afternoon. And I ever have in parliament house. All right, now we're just in the Patreon section. Name names. Who are the dumbest cuts in there? Everyone's tried to get me to do that. All right, we got to crack on. But for now, please give it up. Max Shalemaid here, everybody. Thank you, Max. Thanks for being here, Max. All right, we've got another great guest. We're in May engine. We thought we'd have a chat to some cool lefties who are causing a ruckus and fighting the good fight of the local front. This is from Titanit's Instagram bio. Titanit is a community development project spotlighting local issues, artists and events on unceded, the agra and terrible country. Come watch Brisbane City Council meetings with us. These are some real sickos, people. To tell us more, would you please give a very welcome to one of the members of Titanit, it's Tully Cotta. What up, Tully? Hello. Hello. Tully, thank you very much for being here. Sorry, we got distracted by the wonders of Max there. But thanks very much, you're coming along. Lots to talk about. So much to talk about. Yes. Tell us about Titanit. What is it? How did you get involved? What's going on? Well, Tanya's epic and cool and everybody should go follow it on Instagram. Yes. But basically, we're a bunch of young people. I'm the youngest, but you know. Who's counting, guys? It's not me. And we go to the local city council meetings every single week and we kind of take what they say, which is a lot and a lot of kind of Google that only politicians can kind of understand. And then we put it into reals. Instagram reals, anybody? It's great. And then we also, I mean, at its core, what Titanit is a manifestation of this. Love for Brisbane. Like, I, me personally, I would do anything for this goddamn city. It is beautiful and I love it so much and I can never stop talking about how much I love Brisbane. People don't understand how good they've kind of got it here. And everybody else on the team, like, yeah, where Brisbane die hard. So we're like, you know, we're not the ones that are going to move to know. And I think there's this huge exodus of, like, I guess, our kind of people that do. And everything we do at Titanit is kind of just to show how beautiful Brisbane is because it is the best city in the world. It is beautiful. The people are beautiful. Don't pander to these motherfuckers. No, I am like Will. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. Can I move? Am I allowed? I'll be like you in. That's great. So you sort of, yeah, it's about bringing the, you know, Byzantine, very confusing processes of city council, which are pretty much designed to make sure that people don't engage with it or don't engage with it or check in with it at all and make that popular and explain that to people in the outside. Yeah, exactly. It's a kind of active transparency. I mean, our city council is incredibly unique and it's incredibly glorious in a way and And very nerdy kind of like in my- I play political brain. I'm like, wow. Very powerful, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause it's very like unknown that Brisbane City Council is the only one in Australia that operates the way it does, which is having party politics instead of, you know, politicians with preferences, but technically independent. That's basically every other City Council in Australia. We're also the biggest. Like, we're huge. We have an insane amount of money because there's no, usually you kind of see this splitting, like, you know, in Sydney and Melbourne, we have big splitings of the Council. So, I'm getting into the nitty gritty too much, but basically what we see in Brisbane City Council is a whole lot of unchecked kind of career politicians. God forbid. With more money than any other Council in Australia and no kind of rulebook and no eyes on them, so they can kind of do whatever they want and get away with it. 'Cause who cares about Council? Like, no, but-- It's you, I think, yeah. It's me and like, nobody, no, that's untrue, tight now. (laughing) Could I just hold the mic a little closer to you, Matthew? If you don't like it, tell me if that's okay. So we've got, yes, LNP Council. 18 LNP members, five AOP, one independent and two Greens. (cheering) Is an action that tight-knit were involved in in March. A colorful array of clown costume protesters filled the typically vacant Brisbane Council gallery on Tuesday to patiently mock the city's elected figures. Community group tight-knit organised the showings, saying I wanted to highlight to poor behaviour by local government representatives. The clowns were well-behaved during a boisterous question time, quietly watching on as Council's spard over everything from development to wooden possum boxes. Significant motions were scheduled to be discussed later in the afternoon, including the plan to increase building heights in the heart of Wynnum. Tell us about this action where you dressed up like that. It was incredible, and I can't take any credit for it. It was all the beautiful Ruby and Jai mainly came up with it. I love everybody in tight-knit. I want that very clear. I cannot take credit for it, because some of the articles put me, and I was like, no. But we always kind of, at the end of almost every video, we found ourselves coming back to saying, oh my gosh, it's like a circus. Come watch the circus. I'm going to get really nerdy again, but it is kind of very, thank you. (laughter) - God, I hate our audience. - You sit there, kind of. I'm sitting there for three hours sometimes, and they pull magic tricks. It is magic, in a way. I wish I could be that deceptive and deceiving, and they twist things, and they make it just so perfectly fit their narrative. And you're like, how did we get here from talking about, like, footpaths? Like, I remember one of my favorite memories, earliest memories I was watching, Council in my SOR class, earliest memories of Council, 'cause I couldn't be bothered doing SOR, obviously, and that's sitting in religion. If nobody went, if, any Catholic girls, school girls here, anyway. (laughter) And I remember one of the LNP counselors got in this really long rant. I think it was Trina Macy, one of the Greens counselors, Massey, wanted a footpath fixed. And the LNP goes on this really long rant about how the Greens are actually like a broken footpath. And you know, they're like, people are tripping over them, and they're breaking their arms, and then Massey's like, "Wist and Needs, "I just asked if he could fix the footpath." (laughter) And like, it is magic. And so our kind of action, the idea was, if we can get a bunch of people, mainly young people, 'cause that's a really kind of untapped demographic for local politics, to show up and pay attention and draw attention to the fact that, like, very kindly, because I'm in contact with a lot of the counselors, you guys are really huge clowns. Like, you like, are insane, and we love this city, and you should love this city too, and it's really foolish to kind of just go on about party politics, when you could be advocating for the beautiful regions in which you love. And actually fixing problems. Okay, but the idea that you were clowns, but you weren't disrupting the proceedings. You were sitting very quietly and well-behaved, showing that you as clowns were better behaved than the clowns in the city council. Yeah, that was the idea. (laughter) And it worked. I get it. Nobody was kicked out. In fact, there was a winem group protesting there with a little old ladies and dressing yellow, and they kept getting in trouble, and then, like, bed put it on the clowns, and it was like, no, like, oh, sorry. But. That's not the premise. Yeah, that's not the premise. So we were incredibly well-behaved. We, incredibly, had the most people show up to watch council in the history of council. (laughter) Just as well, it's great. Yeah, 67 clowns. Not one of us got in trouble, which was the best thing in the world to me. Max, you're obviously key in getting a John O'Elector in the Gabel ward a while ago. You've had a bit to do with his council, and they are massively powerful. Did you have much to do with them when you were in Griffith? Like, what's your take on the Brisbane City Council and the way the LNP is running it? Well, you can tell that the LNP are running the Brisbane City Council. And, like, I think that it's a fantastic initiative because the built urban form, I think, has a really big impact on the way people conceive and think about change and politics. And, like, Brisbane is such a car-dominated city. And, like, look, I love it. And, grew up here, would never move anywhere else. But, in terms of the way, people are pushed into vehicular transport and pushed away from public transport. For parts are often not built, not very well done, or just don't exist in some suburbs. That a lot of beautiful, our big, beautiful suburbs are just divided by massive arterial roads. And, that there aren't many village centres or, like, high streets where you can have this sort of collective social experience. It's a huge problem in Brisbane. And, in large part, down to the fact that we have had success, you, well, in the past labor, and now liberal administrations, who have just addicted to this form of urban sprawl and car travel that has really hurt Brisbane. And, it does change the way people engage with the world because if you're stuck behind a car and commuting an hour a day or two hours a day, it does make you change and think about the way you think about other people in your community, or even if you think you like, you do live in a community. And, the Brisbane City Council could be transformative. Like, we could build cities where it is not necessary to drive everywhere all the time. Not that it is, but it is for a lot of people, where you can get on really accessible electric public transport, where there's a light rail system through the city, where we bring back the trams and have them the way we used to, where they are involved in building public housing the way so Paris does, we're building a huge amount of beautiful public housing. It could do all these incredible things, and yet actually what they're doing is just making the city progressively worse. And, giving it over to property developers, and giving it over to the car, not committing or investing in working out how you built urban forms or cities, that make people's lives better, but in a social way, where you feel like you're a part of a community, is it supposed to, what have we got now? - I do Google at the Paris one, because Paris is brought up every week, basically, like, and by the opposition labor as well, 'cause they all kind of have to work together, there's only eight of them. And, the Lord Mayor, if he's there, he's never there, but like, you know, whoever is kind of like representing him, I'm there so much more than he is, but it's fine. I don't need the fancy title, guys, it's okay. - Is it on like 400 grand a year or something? - Oh, 460 grand a year. And free trips to LA, guys, and like everywhere else. But what he kind of says is like, you know, actually, I've been to Paris so many times, and it's successful, and actually, like, that's what would happen if like, we gave. - We become more like Paris. - Yes, yes. (audience laughing) - The Greens are out there, they want us to be like a continental European city. (laughing) - Yeah, or London, and then he often brings up, he calls it the socialist Republic of New York City, or NYC, because he'll be like, you know, they're going that way, the rats are taking over, like. That's where the Greens want us to go, and like, labor, they just like, they want people to have housing, and you know what that does, it tanks the economy. And then, and then he like, he like leaves, and it's like, (laughing) where are you going? - Shoot her out, boom! - Put Paris, woo! - Yeah, that's like every single week. - All he contributes is like, screw Paris, screw London, London had a labor mayor once, and you see where they are now? Yeah, Brisbane will be like that. - So just to be, you really need to get the LMP to put their money with them out, isn't get billboards, and be like, the Greens want to be like New York and Paris. (laughing) It's like, no! I do remember, actually, early on in John O's term, he, John O did this thing, where every week, he would go into council, and be like, for a while, I think for about the first six months of the term, and come up with a new idea to make Brisbane a better place. And it was so funny, the first coordinated attack from the LMP and Labor on John O was coming up with ideas, and it's my favourite headline of all time, which is like, what happened is clearly, the way the media works, is like, the LMP got onto the phone to the John O and Labor did it at the same time. And literally the headline said something like, Labor and Liberals accused John O of floating ideas. (audience laughing) Which was like, that's how in you, we were winning at that point actually. But it does speak to this just like, like what do you mean he's coming in here and doing work? (audience laughing) - Yeah, and I think, you know, tight knit kind of takes, 'cause we do have, we're privileged enough to have the time to kind of sit through this, we're privileged enough to be educated to kind of like cut through this nonsense that they're spouting and be like, they literally just sent 50 minutes like fighting over, like yeah, like whether the greens were like a broken footpath and then one of the greens got up and was like, "No, that's the LMP!" And then like it just like, it just like, - Sorry. (audience laughing) - It just like spiraled until labor's like, actually, everybody's in a broken footpath. And it's like, like what do we, yes. - You want me to come and watch this? - No, it's so good. Like, no, just let's tight knit instead, it's fine. - Yeah, yeah, just your shaming people. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's great, well give it up and tight knit, everybody. Thank you, Tally, for being here. (audience applauding) I am conscious of time and thank you very much. I appreciate it, but I just really want to get to this last point, of course, which is big here. We cannot talk about, not talk about the LMP's war on peaceful protest. We haven't talked about it much on the show, 'cause I knew we were gonna be here and do the live show and I'd be really interested in your thoughts on it instead of living through it. I don't need to tell people in the room, for the sake of people at home, in March, the Queensland government passed the fighting anti-Semitism and keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals, Amendment Bill, which is fucking sick. Great title. The law makes it a criminal offense to publicly recite distributed display or public or display two prohibited expressions from the river to the sea and globalise the interfered up. If that use might reasonably be expected to make a member of the public feel menace, harassed or offended. - Yeah, you're not allowed to say that, that's the point. I just, I can read it out like that, can I? - No, unless you have a press pass. - Just bloody southerners, they don't even know our laws. You come here, does anyone here feel menace, harassed or offended? Good! The maximum penalty is two years in jail or fine of up to 25k. The law says there are reasonable excuses for things like art, education, I'm educating you, cunts. I'm from Melbourne, I'm educating you on what a free society is to look slow. Law enforcement and public interest debate, there you go, written that one. But the burden sits on the defendant to raise that excuse, oh shit, I gotta go to kill it. Okay. You know what's been happening, they've been mass protested. I think the total number of rest is around 25. Everyone's a correct me on that, but I think it's about it. We had Lee and Perry arrested while trying to explain what that expression means in the context of Palestinian liberation, the cops arrested, an 18-year-old who had that phrase written on her singlet, a mural by the artist Scott Marsh of John Farnham featuring lyrics from his song "Two Strong Hearts", which includes a line about love reaching out like a river to the sea, that mural was painted over by authorities and police are making further inquiries. In late March, Queensland Police contacted Brisbane artist James Hylia, over three works listed on his online store that feature variations on the phrase. Carter talked a word sound from his website, but on his social media and escaped with a caution. There has been resistance to this, including being led by Conrad Nemanagy from Remanagy from Justice for Palestine, Megan Jin, the John Simon Flash mob, a fun run from a river to the sea. Fuck this shit, man. (audience laughs) There is supposed to be a high court challenge, which most people think will be successful, but it always feels like that's not really the point. I guess, yeah, living through this, what has it been like? What Tali Foso, what's been your response to these kind of crackdowns on unpeaceful protests in Brisbane? - I think, okay. So I'm coming, I think that this is kind of this perfect opportunity to kind of highlight the ridiculousness of the state, LNP government, which is continuously passing laws that are just so dystopian, you're kind of like, whoa, that's insane. And I think, yeah, I mean, this is the, I guess, pinnacle of it. And I do want to kind of put it out there that we sit up here as three very privileged people, where we're in metropolitan cities, we are educated. And I think in Queensland, we are so big and beautiful. And what the LNP is doing is attacking these small communities first kind of thing. So regional communities, trans people, like healthcare in remote and rural places have been completely destroyed. And this comes after all that, right? And I think we have kind of this responsibility to be like, yes, this law is insane. And so is all these other kind of things. And I think in our world of activism and advocacy, we kind of see one domino kind of thing, that makes it so that we start seeing all this other stuff. I think right now, what we have the chance to do, the opportunity to do is go. To turn the pages over. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, I could not resist. No, it's a good one though. And like I think, yeah, we're seeing this slow kind of sludge towards a Joe government again. And that is so scary if you know the history, but it's also at the same time very much like for people who haven't already been affected by these laws in the past year, that aren't this one specifically. It's like, yeah, no shit. Like it's like that one poem where it's like, you know, they come for everybody and then they come for you and it's like, ah, because you do not like speak up. And I don't want to say that, like, you know, that's the case here, but I do think this is an incredibly valuable opportunity for people who have been on the front lines a really long time and kind of are in this almost a little bit like isolated from the rest of Queensland bubble to be like, oh, these laws are impacting us. And they're impacting us bad and they're impacting our everyday lives. And we need to stop all of them actually. And I think the way to do that is by starting with free speech, which is obviously dead at the minute, which is okay, we'll get it back, everything's fine. I love this state. But yeah, I think we need to look at it and say, okay, this sucks so hard. And it's obviously an attack on marginalized people and then we say, wait a second, you've been doing this all year. Like what? - That's what makes us do. - Yeah, yeah, it's now affecting us, but we've really got it kind of, I don't know, set it in our privilege, I think, and be like, okay, I can use this. We can use this and we can continue to bring this movement to maybe people that feel like it doesn't affect them 'cause you know, they're farmers or they're kind of really like down-treated in the regions and all these different things. I'm from Glardstone, by the way, everybody's so. Yeah, someone from Glardstone? Yeah, probably. But-- - Are your parents here? - Yeah, that is. (laughing) But yeah-- - That's the port of parent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - What have you read about this political situation? What is the strategy here for NLMP where these laws are gonna go? What's next? - Well, and I think it's worthwhile seeing this in the context of the strategy of both the Labour and Liberal Party across the country. Like we saw Chris Minnes, the Labour New South Wales premier direct the police to really violent crackdown on pro-Protestinian protested in Sydney. They saw that shocking footage of police attacking people praying, not on a road like next to a public building who's seen the Prime Minister invite Herzog, the Israeli president. You know, this is a country who is currently up in the ICJ on charges of genocide. Whose Prime Minister has wanted for international war crimes and is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. And it's pretty clearly this coordinate-- from across both major parties, this coordinated political response and Queensland is part of that, which is to go on the offensive. And I think the strategy is to distract from some very basic facts. Like the more it becomes about them, cracking down and creating this deeply offensive connection between people going out into the street and saying not in our name. We don't want our country supporting a country carrying out a genocide and trying to make some sort of disgraceful link between that and terrorist attacks, which is what-- it actually is wild, but they would suggest that somehow-- and everyone I'm saying here has probably been to these protests. Some of the most peaceful, like moving, diverse groups of people from-- and I remember being in some recently-- where you'd see people who I recognize as complete-- I thought completely apolitical, but were there because it offended the very nature of who they were as a human. And to defame those people and make that link is precisely what this law is about. And I think the way the response has been really heartening in Brisbane, but it is in some ways disheartening in the way that the media report on this and talk about this, because there were moments over the last few years where, in particular, the Federal Labor Party was under a lot of pressure to actually stop providing arms or parts that go into the F-35 jets that are currently carpet bombing Lebanon and were carpet bombing Gaza. Parts manufactured a couple of hundred kilometers down the road from where we are right now. And I think that's it. I think that that's the way to see these laws as part of a concerted political strategy that doesn't just exist in Australia, but it exists in all those countries that provide military support to Israel at the moment. And I think the crucial link in the end is beyond Israel is that this political establishments heartfelt allegiance to the US Empire and to the American Empire and the American Alliance. And that's I think the way to see these laws in this context. And I do think they'll be struck down by the high court, but I think you're exactly right. That is, Chris Mins anti-protest laws were just struck down in the high court as well. That's the point. I'm sure they probably know that that's what's going to happen. But for them, this is just another, you know, I mean, political terms, it's often called the dead cat strategy. Where you throw something so horrific out there that that's what everyone focuses on. Well, you forget about the fact that our country is still complicit in what's going on in Gaza and Lebanon at the moment. Well, yes, rightly said. And we're going to have to leave it there. Could you give a huge round of applause to Tully Conner and Max Chan, the mayor of everybody? Very quickly, if people can get involved, can other way that Pund is going to involve with a good lifestyle, they have the green and student of work you're doing. We are having a big, everyone in Brisbane, we're having a big in person forum on May 27th at the loft in West End and Wednesday night from 6 p.m. You can come and hear about how you can get involved in the work we're doing at the green and student, how we're going to roll out the social survey. But also the other ways we're going to be providing, getting involved, the bit of forward sizzle. From late August and September, we are bringing together from across the country a bunch of really radical political economists from Sydney Uni and a bunch of other places and we're going to run a six week long course on understanding radical economics. Once a weekend we'll provide free childcare for parents who want to come along. There's only going to be select few places about that. So coming along to events like this and signing up means you'll be the first ones to hear about it when we do advertise it. So yeah, come along. Great sizzle. And people should follow tight knit on social media? Yes, the one with the underscores in it, because tight knit was taken. But whether most famous one, so it's okay. Yeah, follow us, watch our videos because there's so many cool hot people. And I think it's worth it because they're really fun. And some fuckers as well. No, thank you for coming along today. Big thank to Good Chat for having us. Give it up for the Go On, we're going to Jack Comedy Club. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Come along with us. Share with the Brisbane Comedy Festival. Get a chance to see you next time. Bye-bye. [Applause]