Transcript of AE 1140 - The Goss: The 2022 Federal Election. Who Will We Vote For?

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right. If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss. So, these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English.

So, it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au, where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time.

Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit, I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

G'day, Pete.

How's it going, Dad?

All right.

So, we have a little request here from one of my academy members, Simon, who has asked- Well, he said, can you please create a podcast for voting for this year? So, I assume he was talking about pros and cons of Labour and Liberal parties, I guess, in this election that's coming. So, when's the election, Dad?

It's the 21st of May.

And why does it matter?

Well, there's the existential answer to that in that democracy matters. So, giving that we do live in a democracy, we get the opportunity to vote for our local state and federal government representatives every three or four years, depending on which area we're talking about. In the case of the federal government, it's every three years. In the case of state and local, it's every four years.

Why do you think it's so important to be able to do that? So, like, you know, there are different ways of running a country, obviously. You know, you could be- And again, I'm not the best at sort of breaking this down, but like you could have an autocracy, kleptocracy like Russia, you could have what's going on in China where it's effectively a- What would you say? It's...

It's a monopolistic democracy.

Yeah.

You get to vote for one person.

Yeah. There's no options. Right. And the- I don't think individuals get to really choose. From what I understand about Chinese politics it's not the individuals that ever get to vote on who ends up being the leader, it's the party. And that's sort of what we have in Australia...

Well, it's similar to it. Yes.

...You vote for your local representative, right? And then the votes go towards that seat. If they win that seat, then that person's in parliament, right?

Yes.

That- Whoever that is, whatever party they are, whether they're Labour, Liberal, Greens, independent, whatever. And then for a party to be the winning party that wins the election...

...Government you have to have the majority of seats...

Out of how many?

...In the Lower House.

Yeah.

Oh jeez. Now, that's a good question. I can't even remember the number of seats in the Lower House in Australia.

It's something like, I think- We should have looked this up ahead of time. But it's around the 60-something mark, isn't it?

No, it's 140-something. So, you've got to win 70-something...

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So, you need at least 50% of that if you want majority without having to deal with other parties. Right. So, you can win, but you can- If you don't have a clear majority you don't get to- What's the difference there? So, if you end up saying...

You can form a minority government, if you can satisfy the Governor-General, who is the Queen's representative in Australia. If the leader of the party that wins the most seats can satisfy the Governor-General that they have an agreement with either independents or minority parties to vote on the legislation because there's annual legislation in order to approve the budget and particularly approve the Government spend part of the budget.

Yeah.

So, in order for the government to operate, they need to have the agreement of a majority of people that they can do that.

Otherwise nothing...

Otherwise nothing would ever get done.

Yeah.

Yeah, so. In fact, nobody would ever get paid, so.

Because you need a majority when voting on these different aspects of policy going through for it to go through, right? So, if you're a minority government where you don't have more than 50% of the seats and everyone in your party votes for something, but everyone else can constantly just vote against it, nothing will ever happen.

And the challenge with that is that typically, you know, we in the general public only ever think of the government voting on legislation that is new laws that are being brought into the country and which case it counts then as to whether you have a political majority. But there are still the procedural votes about, you know. It's called- Basically it's called supply.

And supply is the bill that gets presented to the parliament in order to pay for the government to run. So, you're paying all the public servants in order to run and you're paying the military and schools and health and all of those sort of things. So, if you don't get a majority of votes on supply, then the government can't operate and the house dissolves.

What happens, though? You just go back to another election.

Well, that then forces what's called a double dissolution, because we have two houses of parliament. The Lower House actually forms the operative government.

They're the ones you always see talking and arguing in Parliament House.

The Senate is sort of the Oversight House.

Yeah.

And in order to pass legislation, you have to get a majority of votes in both houses.

Yeah.

But if you- And the Senate is in the case of Federal Parliament, the Senate is typically a half election every three years. And so, a senator is elected for six years, but you only vote for half the Senate every time.

Jesus Christ.

And that's done deliberately to make the, effectively, the Oversight House more conservative in change.

Yeah. So, they're... (both talking)

...Every three years. And so- But if you can't run the Government then the Governor-General would dissolve the Parliament and call a double dissolution. In other words, the whole of the Senate and the whole of the Lower House would be up for election.

Has that ever happened?

Yeah, it has. And it happened- The last time that the Governor-General called, it was when- 1975, when he sacked the Labour Government run by Gough Whitlam, and that was effectively because there was a vote of no confidence and the Liberal Opposition who held the majority in the Senate, not in the Lower House, but they blocked supply.

Yeah.

Because they knew that they could then force a double dissolution which they subsequently won.

Yeah. And what was that line again? May the Queen forgive...

God save the Queen because nothing will save the Governor-General...

Yeah, that's right.

...Line from Gough Whitlam.

All right, so yeah, things have changed, right, since that sort of time, since the seventies, eighties, nineties. For sort of a recap, how do you feel like politics in Australia has changed since that period, since the era of what Bob Hawke...?

Yeah. Well, Bob Hawke...

...Keating...?

...And Keating were in the eighties, early nineties and then we had...

...Even John Howard, right? Was a different...

John Howard.

...Animal.

Yeah. And look I just think now we're- And it's not just Australia, there's many places, I mean you look at the United States, where Donald Trump became president based on popularity. It had nothing to do with his political acumen or what he intended to do.

Even with the French election that just happened. Le Pen was- She got like 40-something percent of the vote, and she had accepted something like $12 million in funds from Russia, from Putin...

I know.

...And still got 40-something percent of the vote. And you're just like, she seems like a total nutjob.

Yeah. Yeah. And look, I think it's that- Well- Leaders have always had popularity going for them, so political leaders and as you said at the beginning that we as an electorate do not vote for the prime minister. The prime minister is elected by the parliament. Well, effectively, they're elected by their own party as the leader of that party.

Now, we know who that's going to be, because we know who the current prime minister is, we know who the Leader of the Opposition is. And so, we know that when we go to that election, we're effectively voting for a prime minister, but there is no actual prime ministerial vote.

Yeah.

We are voting purely for our local member of Parliament. And then as you said, the majority of those form a government and the leader of that party will then become the Prime Minister. That the Prime Minister then chooses who all the ministers are. So, he creates a government, you know, he or she will create the government based on, you know, who they think is going to do the best job. Mostly it's who's going to...

Toe the line.

...Toe the line and agree with them. Because obviously within large political parties you have different factions. And so, there's always, you know, jobs for the people who are in your own faction rather than necessarily the person who is going to be the best minister of whatever it happens to be.

Well, and I think that's one of the biggest issues that we have here in Australia, right, with just why people hate politicians and our political system so much internally. Our biggest criticisms seem to be that you don't end up with the best person for the job a lot of the time, you know, and you often end up with someone who's a career politician on either side of it, on whatever party, in fact, all parties probably.

And they end up doing favours for all the people they like and blocking the people they don't like in their own party. And, you know...

Well, it's unfortunate that that's one of the consequences of the- That democratic form of government, where you need a majority of votes in parliament to change or create any legislation. And therefore, deals will always be being done within your own party and across parties, particularly in the case of where you have either a minority government or where you have a hostile Senate.

And that is that the Senate is controlled by the party that is not actually in government.

Yeah.

So, it's very difficult to get legislation through because the opposition can simply keep blocking things in the Senate just to make life difficult for the government. So, just because you've got a good idea doesn't mean you'll get it through because that party politics play such a big thing in how to get policies, you know, policy changed into legislation through in the country.

And that's the case in almost every democracy.

Yeah.

And it's one of the unfortunate consequences of having, you know, a ideally good system where we each vote for our local representative and then they get to choose what they are going to vote for in terms of policy change. But typically, they- Very rarely will they vote against their own party.

And every now and then you get, you know, the- Either the government or the opposition will allow what they would typically call a conscience vote, which I think is just a disgrace, because you would ideally like to think that every vote was a conscience vote, that the you know, the person we elect to represent our electorate, we know what that person stands for.

We are either trusting them to make their own personal decision or vote in the best interest of their electorate, and that rarely happens.

This is one of those things that really piss me off with a lot of politicians, even for the parties that I like, like Penny Wong, who for all intents and purposes seems like a very reasonable person. She's a, you know, an Australian of Chinese descent. I think she's a lesbian, right?

She is. Yeah.

And so, you would think that she would be pretty progressive. But whilst Labour was- Labour and Liberal were, what would you say, fighting against the gay marriage law...

Well, Labour wasn't actively fighting against it, but they were choosing not to come out in favour of it because they didn't want to have that as a split with the Liberal and National Parties who were in government at the time.

And so, yeah, you're right, you had those...

We had Penny Wong who was a lesbian actively, or at least not actively voicing her support for this thing. And she was effectively being forced to toe the line. And whilst you...

...Wasn't the only one, there are plenty of other people who were either they were gay or they clearly believed that gay marriage was a reasonable and legitimate thing to have in our society, were having to toe the party line and either choose to make no comment or to say- And often you heard them. To say, you know, they- You know, Penny was asked, you know, what do you think about this? And she would say the Labour Party's position is.

Yeah.

And...

That was one of those things where I was just always like, oh, this is the most excruciating thing because you're like, I clearly know what she believes. And yet the system that we have doesn't allow for her to actually have the freedom to support and openly talk about what her actual position is.

And look that's just that inevitable consequence of what is effectively a two party system. And yes, there are minor parties, but they are never going to be in a position of forming a government. They may end up occasionally be in a position of supporting a minority government. So, they've got a fair amount of power then.

Yeah.

But that just comes down to the individuals involved and what they're going to choose to do.

Yeah.

But the alternative to that is you say, well, if we're not going to have democratically elected representatives in our government, well, what's the- What are the options? And it's- I think there's an old gag and I can't remember the exact words about, you know, democracy is the least bad form of government, you know.

Well, no, I think it's something like, yeah, democracy is a horrible way to run a government, but it's the best way we've got. Yeah...

...Exactly.

So, what's happened, though? Like to bring people up to speed, you know, we have this kind of- The way that we look back on Australian politics, it seems like the heyday was the seventies, eighties and nineties where you had these politicians who were not career politicians.

They seemed to be statesmen, as we've talked about in the past, where they actively had a plan for the country and they were doing their best for it, whether whatever side of politics they were on.

Whether you actually agreed with their political point of view or not, you- There was always an assumption that their heart was in the right place.

But then it seemed like there was a switch. I don't know if it was around Kevin 07 or potentially after Kevin Rudd was axed and Julia Gillard was brought in, where all of a sudden, each party now suddenly had no qualms in just backstabbing its own person in power. It's- The own Prime Minister, so it would do these- What would you say? Behind the scene deals.

You'd have these kingmakers, the guys behind the scene in the party who would effectively be rallying support for, say, Kevin Rudd, who won the election in 2007 for Labour, and then Julia Gillard, who was his second in command, effectively was working with these guys behind the scenes to Axe Kevin because there was a sentiment that he wasn't going to win the next election.

So, Julia was then- I guess what they did, a vote of no confidence and brought her in as the leader, ditched him. That was that first stage of that ever happening. And then it seems like that's happened half a dozen times, if not more...

Yeah, there's been a bit of that sort of the internal...

Shuffling.

...Party politics that is effectively just ditching leaders all over the place. I think the- That- For me and this is only speaking in my political lifetime, and we've spoken about Gough Whitlam being sacked in '75 and that was the first election that I actually voted in. I just turned 18.

Oh really.

And so...

And you voted for him?

I voted for him. Well, I didn't vote for him. I voted for the Labour...

Yes, yes...

...Representative who lost. And, but yeah, so I voted a losing vote in that election. But since that I actually think that Australian politics changed with John Howard. Now I don't blame John Howard for it.

You mean in that period?

It was in that period and it's partly because of him. But I think he was allowed to behave the way he behaved because of the way politics was changing.

Yeah.

In that he just blatantly lied and won elections with those lies. And so, it then- That was the switch for me where it became more important to win an election than to be honest and to run the country the way you think you have to run the country. Now, he would say, and I'm sure his supporters would say, that he was the best person, so it doesn't matter how he got in.

Means justifies the ends.

Exactly. But you know, with the- And for those who want to do a little bit of Australian political history, yeah, go and look up the children overboard saga in Australian politics where- And ever since then and even before that, but ever since then the so-called illegal immigration of refugees coming to Australia and trying to get refugee status has become a political nightmare. No party wants to support it.

No party really wants to disagree with it. And it was when John Howard made the claim that a set of one boatload of people were actually throwing their children overboard. Which...

I laugh because it's ludicrous, right?

Yeah, of course it was. And the problem that we had was that at the time, and the last truly honest politician that in my memory who was the Leader of the Opposition at the time, Kim Beazley, and I say truly honest in a sense of while he was the Leader of the Opposition you- And even when he was just a member of Parliament, you knew that what came out of his mouth was what he actually believed.

I've heard a few people say that about him, that he's a very, very honest...

He was clearly gagged by the Labour Party at the time to not call out John Howard for this lie.

Yeah.

And just to shut up about it. And so...

Is that because they thought there would be fallout?

They didn't want to be on the wrong side of that discussion. They didn't- Because the wrong side of that discussion was, if you call John Howard a liar, then you're actually supporting refugees coming to this country. And it effectively would break down, and that would break down that differentiation and it would actually give them a differentiation. He would have won the election if he'd done it.

...Couldn't prove that John Howard was lying, too. He could be like, well, effectively Labour is encouraging people to throw their children into the ocean.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And but I just don't think they wanted to bite the bullet of saying; we actually want to support refugees coming to this country.

Yeah.

And of course, ever since then, it's been a political hot potato that both sides point at the others about how bad they are at managing refugees in this country. And I think it's because it is one of those ones where nobody wants to be in disagreement with it, which is just stupid.

So, I think ever since then we've had this situation where the job of a politician and it's not just Australia, it's in many Western democracies now is not running the country, the state, the province or their little...

Representing their electorate.

...Representing their electorate. Their job is to get re-elected. And so, their employer is no longer the people of the country or the state or their local area. Their employer is their party.

I think that's one of the reasons that I'm so disillusioned with all of it and just don't trust any of them and feel like- I'm sure there are quite a few of them that, you know, go in there for the right reasons. And there are leaders on both sides, right, like people like Anthony Albanese. And I see that he is a good guy, I think he's a good guy.

And the same with Malcolm Turnbull, I thought he was a good guy, but they end up just having to toe the party line and never actually end up getting anything decent done...

Exactly.

...And your kind of like, this is just pointless, and these guys are just, you know, lying the whole time in order to make sure that their party effectively gets power. And that's the end...

Not necessarily just lying, but they're- They are just stating the politically easy things to state that are either not controversial or we get this ridiculous case at the moment where the lead up to this election and ever since the election was called a few weeks ago, we've had Anthony Albanese, who's the Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Labour Party, and Scott Morrison, who's the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Liberal Party.

The majority of what you hear them say is the other guys are hopeless, don't trust them, vote for us. So, it's no longer about policy or anything else, it's purely personality politics. And that's the problem, as we started this conversation.

Scomo seems to be a king of that, right? Scott Morrison never talks about why he's doing a good job or...

Well, the thing is he hasn't, and everybody knows that.

Yeah.

And his popularity went down the toilet over a period of three years, so.

All right. All right. So, I mean, Simon, probably ultimately, like it's taken us 20 minutes to get here, wants to know- I think effectively he's asking the pros and the cons of voting for each party. And so, I guess, to be fair, both you and I are undoubtedly going to be voting for Labour.

...Sit on the left side of politics.

Yeah.

So, that's you know, declare that straight up.

If we were to do a good job of steel-manning both sides, what would you say, I guess starting with, say, Labour, what are the pros of voting for Labour? If you were someone listening to this podcast who's currently undecided, which something like 27% of Australians are currently, why would voting for Labour be a better decision than voting for the Liberal Party?

Well, typically the Labour Party's policies are about, and I'm aware of the more post post-modern politicisation of this description, they're more about social justice. And that is that tax the people who can afford it to make sure that the country is available, the country's infrastructure and support systems are available so that everybody can live a reasonable life.

Flip that to the other side. The more conservative parties, liberal and national in particular, who- And we have this peculiar situation where they had two parties, but except for the state of Queensland, where they are officially one party. Everywhere else in the country they are two parties, but they have a coalition so that they get to count each other's votes to form government.

They work together as a single unit.

...Government even though they're separate parties. But their version of that is it's all about capitalism and allowing businesses to make a profit. And if you're allowing businesses to make a profit, then money will regenerate back into the country and...

It's top down versus bottom up, right? Labour's mantra is effectively take care of the little guy and everyone will flourish, whereas the liberal side of things is take care of the guys at the top and they'll be able to hire and the money will go down into the little guys at the bottom. So, they're the sort of the broad scale, I guess, economic view of it, right?

Yeah. And then take economics out of it. The left side of politics- And this is worldwide, not just in Australia, but the left side of politics seems to be more again around social justice, social awareness of things like human rights, whether it be gay marriage, whether it be women's rights, whether it be refugees, all of those sorts of things.

They're probably even better on migration, too, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And whereas the way that the conservative side of politics seems to have gone in this country and in the United States and many other countries, is that they are much more conservative in the generic sense of the word, and they seem to be more religious. And I have no particular problem with religion in general. But when...

Unless it starts impacting the policies.

Yeah, exactly. But when a government starts to say, oh, we can't allow gay marriage in this country because the, you know, the Catholic Church is against it, which they actually weren't, but. Or the Australian Council of Churches, which is a big policy group, they were against it and so on. Then they're starting to make decisions based on their sort of conservative- The individual's conservative religious views...

And why is that a problem?

Well, I believe that's a problem because what we're then doing is saying we're really making decisions based on a proportion of the country, not the whole country.

You mean a minority of the country, too, right?

Well, yeah. And whether it's a minority or a majority, it doesn't matter. We shouldn't be making decisions about how to run the country and what to spend our money on and what to allow and not allow based on the views of only a proportion of the country. It should be, we do this for the whole country, and sometimes doing things for the whole country means that you actually have to do things against the majority view.

Yeah.

Because the minority are the ones who are going to be screwed if the majority are voting in a particular way, so.

So, do we have any specifics with the policies that both parties have brought to the table this time?

No, because I don't know what the policy- What policies the Liberal Party are bringing to the table. Basically, their policy is, we're going to spend money on a bunch of things. And you've got to look at it and go, oh, is this actually policy or is this just pork barrelling?

You want to explain what "pork barrelling" is?

Pork barrelling...

...Covered that in the past.

I think we have. "Pork barrelling" is the idea of spending money in parts of the electorate that are more likely to vote for you and that are going to count. And that is that often big spending projects and things will go to the electorates, parts of the country where there is a very small difference between numbers, between the left and the right.

Yeah.

So, that if you can swing the vote your way, you're going to win that seat.

So, for instance...

It's not going to go to a safe Labour seat or a safe Liberal seat, it'll go to...

All the ones that are very marginal.

The marginal seats.

But it would be like say, a small town where you've got, you know, 49% are voting for Labour, 49% for Liberals and a Liberal will come in and say we're going to spend a billion dollars on a hospital here if you vote for us and then hope that that swings them into the majority and gets that seat for them.

So, there's a lot of that that seems to be coming out which you know, that's not policy for me, that's just choosing where you spend your money.

And to be fair, though, all sides would behave that way. Right. But the liberals have been caught doing that quite a lot.

...The last five or six years, it's just been outrageous.

Yeah.

But I think the Labour Party have certainly come up with a bunch of policies that are really saying we don't like the way things are being managed and we want to get them back on track. The other thing that I find- And this is again is, you know, we're having already declared that we both sit on the left side of politics.

But you'll hear all the time from the conservative press and people who vote conservative, and that is the Liberal Party are always the better economic managers in the country.

Yeah.

It's a myth that just seems to have taken on this truism. But when you look at the data, it is simply untrue.

Why do they get- Why do you think the- Is it just that our media is mostly run by Rupert Murdoch and he, for whatever reason, ends up supporting the liberal because of monetary reasons. And so, he just keeps perpetuating that lie...

Yeah, he does... ...Well, and the media says it, but also your average person who...

Seems to think that.

Not only thinks it, but they swear that it's true. And you just say, the data is actually the other way. The data is the complete reverse. It's not even neutral. If you look back over the last 30 years, at the end of every Labour government, the country is in a better financial economic position than at the end of every Liberal government. And that's a fact. But people don't want to hear that. Don't want to listen to it.

Yeah.

And that's unfortunately the problem that we have is that people tend to vote on what their gut feels.

Yeah.

And...

And this is why you see so many of them.

...Logic and data.

Using just rhetoric and bullshit in the media, right? And you're just constantly like, you are not actually using any kind of logical arguments here, you're just...

...Make America Great Again. You never actually demonstrated that it was not great in the first place.

Well, and I think Scomo's being called out, hasn't he, a few times saying, you don't have to tell the truth. You just keep saying the lie and eventually everyone believes it, you know, you just say it enough times. And I'm sure that's a mantra that a lot of politicians will use for as a weapon. But okay, so I've got a Sydney Morning Herald article open here and they're owned by Murdoch, aren't they?

No.

No, they're okay. Alright, so they've got some of the key differences here or not. So, economy. Both sides go into the election without any clear plans on how to repair the federal budget carrying almost a trillion dollars in debt.

That's post-covid.

Yeah, now we've got foreign affairs and defence. There is no substantive policy difference between Coalition and Labour on any national security issue heading into this election. Health. Neither major party has proposed substantive reform to the health care system, as doctors push for Medicare rebates to be raised and state and territory governments ask for the Commonwealth's share of hospital funding to be lifted.

So, no big difference is there. Education. Labour's education policy centres on $1.1 billion pledge to make 465,000 TAFE places free and fund an extra 20,000 university places. The Coalition's announced a $2.4 billion plan to overhaul the Apprenticeship Training Scheme and the budget. Childcare...

Overhaul, though, doesn't mean you actually do anything. It just means that...

Oh we'll, look at it and redo it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Childcare. The government scrapped the annual $10,000 recap- Sorry. Cap on subsidies that previously applied to families earning more than $190,000.

The richer actually- And people will look at that and go $190,000 a year is not rich, but there are many families who are earning less than half of that...

Well, that's- Yeah.

...And that have got the same cap.

Yeah.

And so, you know, somebody who's earning $80,000 a year has a cap of $10,000 on childcare...

Yeah.

...You know, and then that's fine but then, you know, or they actually don't. But then the people who are earning double that or more are being told now, well, it doesn't matter you can, you know, we'll give you a government subsidy on childcare and you can- Despite the fact that you can afford to pay for it.

Yeah.

So, that's again, one of the differences is that...

I guess their argument, though, would be, well, we want people who are making lots of money even more to continue making money because it'll trickle down. Right. I imagine that would be...

That's the argument. But again, there's no evidence that trickle-down economics has ever worked anywhere, so.

...But that. Yeah. Labour's proposal is to lift the subsidy level for everyone using care and increase the means test so more families are eligible. Climate Change. Both parties head to the polls with a commitment to net zero by 2050, while the government remains committed to its interim target to reduce emissions by at least 26% by 2030...

Yeah, that's in- That's a statement of policy...

Whether or not they're actually going to do it.

...At the same time their budget came out and half the money that was going to next generation, as they called it -- they no longer call it renewable energy, they call it next generation energy -- was going to the gas industry.

Yeah.

So, what are they actually doing here?

Labour has a more ambitious 2030 goal to cut emissions 43% within the decade. And yeah, I guess there's a few other issues with industrial relations and aged care. Aged care has become a really big one, right, because of COVID effectively.

Yeah. And aged care is one of those peculiar things in this country that is actually funded and managed by the federal government...

Yeah.

...So.

So, hopefully, yeah, that's giving you guys a bit of an insight into the lack of really differences between the two at the moment. Right. But I had a friend who was saying, oh, I'm not really sold on Labour, so I don't know who I'm going to vote for. And I was pretty much just like, it doesn't matter how bad Labour are, just vote for them. Jesus Christ, we need to get Scomo out of power.

Like we need to get the Liberal government out because they just seem rotten to the core. Do you think that's a fair summary?

Oh, it is.

...Now to show you the bias part of the episode, guys, where we will effectively just shit on Scomo and give him our 2 cents.

I mean, you don't even have to. It simply comes down to he's got an extremely low popularity at the moment...

Yeah.

...And it doesn't matter what Albanese's is because the leader, you know, the Leader of the Opposition is never going to be particularly popular because nothing they do says or counts. He's got- So, he's got an extremely low popularity. He's been caught out either lying or misrepresenting or ignoring so many things that have gone wrong over the last three years. You look at it and go, the government has to be punished by dumping them.

You can't re-elect these people to continue to run the country. Give the other guys a go is almost the default position of saying; they can't be any worse.

Yeah.

Yeah, so.

Well, and we've had- So, we've had- So many people have come out calling him a liar from his own party. Right. So, Gladys Berejiklian...

...Party...

Yeah.

...Because of it.

The premier of New South Wales, the ex-Premier, Gladys Berejiklian came out I think twice she's had text messages leaked saying that he is a lying piece of shit, and she doesn't trust him as far as she can throw him. Who was the leader of the Nationals as well? He came out and had text messages...

Barnaby Joyce.

Barnaby Joyce came out and said, yeah, he's a liar. I don't trust him at all. You've had two other liberal politicians who've been ousted or, you know, sort of pushed aside by Scomo coming up to this election that have both come out and said he you know, is an absolute scumbag. And so, Malcolm Turnbull as well, ex-prime minister said that as well.

And your kind of like, these are all people in your own party who not only believe that because I'm sure every single party has people who believe their leaders a liar...

Exactly.

...But have come out publicly and said so or at least had messages leaked publicly. And you would think that normally this doesn't happen, right?

No.

Especially in the lead up to an election.

No, exactly.

You would never have this kind of information coming out from your own party. So, what do you think Australia looks like going forward then under a Labour versus a Liberal government? If Scomo wins at the next election on May 21st, what does that mean for Australia? And if he loses, what does it mean for Australia?

If he wins, I think there's- It's effectively rewarding him and his party and his government for all of the things that have gone wrong over the last three years, which gives him motivation to do absolutely nothing...

Go to Hawaii.

...For the next three years. Because he will look at it, even subconsciously, I mean- I honestly believe that even a lying scumbag like I actually think he is, I honestly believe that his heart is actually in the right place. People would not go into federal politics for the money, they go into it for their ego, but they're not going into it for the money.

They're not going into it to say, look, oh, you know, I'm going to earn a lot of money and I'm going to set myself up for life, which they will actually do in comparison with most people. But there are plenty of jobs, where anybody who can become the prime minister of Australia could earn ten times that amount of money in private enterprise.

Assuming that they actually do have, you know, skills to manage and lead, which I don't think some of them do, but I think the majority of them do. But that aside, he and his cronies have just been- They've just overseen so many disasters over the last three years that if we re-elect them, what's their motivation to do anything different?

What are some of the examples?

Oh, well, there's the pork barrelling as the start, you know, the great example of that of the sports rorts where there was -- and I can't remember the numbers now -- but there was, you know, there were hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to go to sporting clubs around Australia, to particularly in rural and regional areas to develop infrastructure for local sports.

And a huge proportion of those went to areas that were either pork barrelling in the sense of, you know, stacking up votes for the next election or into friends of the Liberal Party to build clubhouses and things for clubs that had ten people and, you know. Or people were applying for money for clubs, and they were told, no, no, you can't get it because we've run out.

And then you find out that half the money went to city sporting clubs when it was supposed to be rural and regional development. And so, there's a bunch of those things that were going on.

Yeah. The bushfires.

Yeah, the bushfires where, you know, look, he made a mistake of being on holidays at the time, but he didn't come home the next day.

You know, this is, oh, our country is on fire. I'm getting on the next plane. Would have been what any sensible person would have done.

And he lied about it.

Yeah, exactly. Then he tries to cover it up. And then there's been a bunch of stuff around, you know...

France and the submarines.

...France and the submarines. We got COVID where- You know, the country was basically being run by the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland premiers for two years.

He just tapped out.

Because he had no idea what to do. And they kept coming in and saying, well, this is what we need to do. And these- That was two Labour and one Liberal Premier, leaders of states and they got their heads together and said this is how we need to manage these crises, both from a health management point of view and an economic point of view. And he just had no idea.

We had them doing- And you know, it was- He- Not during the last three years, but it came out during the last three years of the, you know, people being fined and having their money taken back from where they had...

It's just the robodebt stuff.

...Robodebt...

Yeah.

Yeah. So, people who are on social services where computers came back and said, oh...

You owe this amount of money.

...You owe us this money, and just taking money out of their bank accounts.

I think there was something crazy, like a huge number of suicides happened as a result of that. And it was a mistake.

It was found to be A) incorrect. And B) illegal.

Yeah.

And Morrison was the Treasurer at the time in the previous government that brought this in. Now he didn't make the individual decision but ultimately the Treasurer is responsible for that happening.

Yeah.

And as Prime Minister he just bluffed, he just sort of went, oh well, we didn't do anything wrong. And it just went away. I've called him Mr. Squeaky Clean because nothing sticks. You can throw as much mud at him as you like, and he just keeps that smirky smile on his face and just saying, I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, no, nothing wrong here. You know, just look away.

I loved in that interview where he got asked, have you ever lied? And he was like, no.

Well, you just did.

It's like no one can say that. That's like, have you ever sinned? No, no, nup.

Exactly.

I get to throw the first rock.

Yeah.

All right, we've crapped on him a bit. So, yeah, everyone vote Labour if you can. But what would a Labour government look like going forward? Why do you- What do you think-? I mean, to be fair, what would be the downside if there are any, and what would be the upside?

Well, I can't see a downside. And that's not just a political bias, because I look at this and go, you couldn't stuff this up any more than the previous government did, so it can't get any worse. I think the upside is that there will be, and as you've said with that article in the Sydney Morning Herald, that there are very few big policy differences. So, there's not going to be a huge change of direction in the country.

But I think there will be things like employment opportunities. There's a lot of movement amongst the Labour- Labour movement to get part time casual work sorted out, to have people getting the right treatment when things go wrong. And we saw that in COVID, that people were being supported if they had full time jobs, if you had a part time job, you got less support.

You're already in trouble because you only had a part time job, and then the government used that as a way of differentiating to say, oh, well, we'll give you- Your only part time, we'll give you half the amount of money to support yourself when you don't- You can't work. And then people who are on casual work, a lot of their rights just disappeared.

And so, I think there'll be a bunch of changes made for that and about time, too. I think the other thing that we'll look at is, we will- And if the history would suggest that Labour governments do this, that they spend their way out of debt. Now it sounds stupid, but you can create wealth and you can create jobs by government spending money on infrastructure.

So, spending money on schools, on roads, on hospitals, those sorts of things creates jobs. And putting more money into TAFE, that's our Technical and Further Education, and extra university places means that we are going to- And I presume those extra university places will be targeted towards things that we need, like...

Nurses...

...Teachers, you know, police, aged care workers, the people who, you know, need to be qualified to do their job. But we- And there's always a lag. And that's the problem that we have with a three-year term in government if- You know, we can put- Any government can now go and say, well, I'm going to put 20,000 more places into universities for teachers.

Teaching's a four-year degree, you're going to come out in four years' time. It'll be a new government by the time that happens. So, you actually have to invest in a future that you're no longer going to be, you know, either rewarded or punished by. And so, I think that's a difference as well, is that this government will start to look beyond the three-year term.

And I think that's a climate change issue too, is that the Greens and the Labour Party seem to have policies that are around trying to make decisions around the 20-to-50-year time frame, whereas the Liberal and National Parties agree to those...

Dragging their feet...

...Saying, oh yes, well, we want, you know, we want zero emission by 2050. What are you doing? Oh, we want to... (both talking)

Yeah, hopefully technology will get us out. We don't know of any yet, but we'll just invest in that hoping that that works.

So, you know, I think that's going to be a difference as well, is that we'll actually get some action on climate change. Now that'll be painful for some areas. But at the same time, if you've got a- And I'm not saying that I believe this, you know, the current Labour Party would do it.

But if we have a government that comes out and says, you know, we're actually going to close down coal mines, you know, if we say we want zero emissions, neutral at least by 2050, that gives us 28 years. So, over the next 28 years, we're going to close coal and the coal industry will go nuts. The people who are currently employed by the coal industry, most of whom will be retired well before that 28-year period is around...

Yeah.

...Will go nuts and there'll be huge political backlashes against that.

But if they came out and said, in order to do that, what we're going to do is that we're going to create jobs up front, create research and development jobs for people in that industry that are about looking at carbon neutral energy sources, you know, wind power, solar power, other ways of doing things, looking at better battery storage, you know, better ways of managing electric vehicles.

I mean, electric vehicles are a farce at the moment in this country.

Yeah, no, they haven't been subsidised yet.

Because they're not subsidised. But the other problem is that, yeah, I'm perfectly happy and I agree with the idea of having an electric vehicle, but if I take an electric vehicle now and I go and plug it into a Tesla bank or I plug it into my power at home, it's being charged mostly by coal being dug out of the Latrobe Valley in Victoria.

Yeah.

So, it's actually making no difference. So, what we need to be doing is saying every person who buys an electric car, we're going to subsidise solar power and solar battery so they can recharge for free at home with solar energy. So, those sort of things have to happen.

And I think they're the sort of things that will make a difference if we put effort into change rather than just the rhetoric of, you know, we agree with this idea, but we're not going to do anything to get there.

Because the hard part is whether or not Labour will actually do that if they get into power. Because that's my biggest fear is they just end up tepid as, you know.

Well, they end up tepid because they don't want the backlash. They don't want the backlash from the oil industry and the gas industry and the coal industry.

It's hard, isn't it, because you want a political party to effectively get in power and be shielded from that kind of influence so that they can do the right thing for the country. Obviously, still be accountable for their decisions, but it's pretty annoying that people with vested interests like the coal industry have such influence over the Liberal Party and cause them to drag their feet on something that's going to affect us...

Exactly. And you could argue that the last federal election was won by Scott Morrison and the Labour National Parties in Queensland because of the backlash where Labour said they were going to block the Adani mine.

Yeah.

Can you tell me how many jobs have been created by the Adani mine in that three-year period? I can tell you.

What? Like a 1,000?

Exactly. None.

Bugger all, huh.

None.

Yeah.

The Adani mine isn't functional.

Yeah, still.

It was never going to be.

Yeah.

And yet we had the coal industry running around like chooks with- Headless chooks all screaming blue murder because the Labour Party were opposed to this mine that was never going to happen anyway.

Yeah.

Because all these jobs that were going to be created by it, it was never going to create any jobs and it hasn't. And so, it's- But nobody's going to bring that out and say, you know, look what happened because they don't want to fire up the backlash from the coal industry again.

And that's the problem, is that- And again, it's not just Australia, it's the same worldwide that there are extremely- You know, there are trillion-dollar industries who have so much political power and not just direct power, but indirect power because of the people who work in them and so on, that they're-

Nothing is black and white, if you excuse the pun, with coal, but nothing is black and white because there are always alternatives that- You know, it's like the forestry industry, you know, we're going to stop old growth forest, you know, culling and cutting trees out of old growth forest. Oh, all our jobs will go. Well, I'm sorry, but 90% of your, the forestry industry in Australia is from, you know, managed growth forests.

We're not saying we're going to stop you cutting down trees, we just don't want you taking it out of that other 10% and we'll find other ways of doing it. But you never hear that, you never hear the balance. As soon as the, oh, those greenies don't want us cutting down trees. No, the greenies... (both talking)

Yeah, exactly. I know. So...

I guess that's why I lose so much faith with the political just world in general is because so much of this kind of crap happens where you're not actually ever getting at the actual issues or arguments at the base of things.

People choose to be uninformed.

Yeah. All right. Any way of finishing up on a positive note? Do you think that voting for the Liberal or Labour Party would make the biggest difference for the average migrant? Is it going to make any difference for the average migrant listening to this? Is there a preferred party that would do more for migrants coming to Australia or...

I don't know. I can't really- If whatever statement I made by that would be so biased by my own political opinion and my lack of information on the situat- And look, there is no such thing as your average migrant...

Yes, but you know what I mean.

I know. But every individual is in a different circumstance. I think that people just need to look at, you know, whatever situation you are. And I think classifying somebody as a migrant is a convenient classification.

Yeah. But within that, they're all going to have their own...

...They all have their own- Yeah. There'll be migrants who come to Australia as billionaires and there will be migrants who come to Australia as refugees with no money. And so, putting those two together is very different.

But I just think if people think about what the issues are for their local area, so who's going to represent them the best and which party is the most likely one to not just for you, but for our society, make it a better place.

Well, I guess that's where you have to work out at what level are you voting. Right. Are you voting at a local level where you're worried about what's going on locally? Because perhaps you'll have a liberal senator or a person running there that will be a better option than the Labour.

And maybe if that's the most important thing to you is the local stuff going on, then it makes more sense to vote Liberal than Labour in that sense.

But hold them accountable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But if you're worried about the sort of where the country is going and the broader scheme of things and climate change and migration or and, you know, tax or all these other bigger issues, then you probably want to think about voting for the local member who's going to be in the party that you ultimately want running the country.

Yeah, exactly.

So, I think, yeah, it comes down to Simon, do the work and look at both those things. Where do you think, you know, Labour's taking the country versus the Liberals and which direction do you, I guess, prefer. And then also look at your local level and work out, you know, who resonates with your interests, your needs locally and who would you rather vote for, and then make an educated decision based on that.

But remember to vote because voting is compulsory in Australia.

Yeah. Unless you get a- Oh, yeah, you don't you'll probably get a $30 fine or something like that.

I don't know what the fine is, I've been fined. I always managed to vote. Well, voting isn't compulsory, turning up to vote is.

Yeah.

You can write on the piece of paper. My father did. My father was a Brit and he just objected to voting because he didn't think compulsory voting should be the case, but. And he claimed, I never obviously saw it, but he claimed to, at every election, taken his ballot paper and written "none of these people is suitable".

I've done that once and another time when I was just tapped out and just didn't care and wasn't informed enough and didn't think my vote should count. I just walked in and gave them- Got them to tick me off. They gave me the paper and I just said, I won't need that. Thanks. And walked out.

Yeah.

So, if you don't want to vote there's that, you still have to do that. You still have to show up.

...Take your blank and put it in.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for joining us, guys. Hopefully that helps. Feel free to disagree with this. You can always do that.

Everybody does.

I try and be honest and open with you guys and share my biases though. You don't have to...

At least you know where it's coming from.

Yeah.

You can take it for what it's worth.

You don't have to agree with me, but I try and be as open and honest with you guys as possible. So, take it for what it's worth. Anyway, thanks, Dad.

See ya, Pete.

See ya, guys.