Speaker 1: Today we're recording on Gadigul country and.
Speaker 2: We'd like to pay our respects to the traditional custodians
Speaker 2: of the Gaticol people. I know, you've got to dig this.
Speaker 2: It's like I've been given like an extra sprinkle of something.
Speaker 2: You've got layers, Yeah, I've got layers.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, I'm like, we're just such beautiful storytellers.
Speaker 2: You're making a lot of sense to that girl. No,
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 1: I've been too honest to go.
Speaker 2: So, now that the federal election is over and the
Speaker 2: Liberals are left licking their wounds, we thought it would
Speaker 2: be a good idea to start talking about politics because
Speaker 2: as mob, we know we are inherently political. Unfortunately, what
Speaker 2: does that mean?
Speaker 1: Tell me what that means?
Speaker 2: Well, to me, that means that a lot of politics
Speaker 2: are thrust upon our lives. Yeah, automatically. Okay, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. As a group of people, so unfortunate.
Speaker 2: That's why I say unfortunately, because we didn't choose this path.
Speaker 2: We didn't choose this life. But as you know, Brook,
Speaker 2: a lot of our mob don't understand politics, haven't had
Speaker 2: the education around politics. And also it inherently also, isn't
Speaker 2: that important to us because it's not a part of
Speaker 2: our community in terms of how we our community govern Yes,
Speaker 2: of course, so we thought we would get an expert in.
Speaker 3: Where is he?
Speaker 1: No, today we have Joe Hildebrand.
Speaker 3: Feel so cool all of a sudden, you guys, no,
Speaker 3: thanks so much for coming. It's absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: And taking the time out because you're a busy, busy man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we are busy, but it's good to be busy.
Speaker 3: It's better to be busy than to be dead in
Speaker 3: this game. They're the only two alternatives.
Speaker 2: Well, if you did something exciting just before the election,
Speaker 2: you had the PM on your pody, so you're one
Speaker 2: of the only pods that he jumped on. You know.
Speaker 2: It was Abby Chatfield and tell me how that come about?
Speaker 2: And I was the chat Yeah I've heard. I heard
Speaker 2: you have a long existing relationship with the panda.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I look I like Albow. We go back
Speaker 3: a very long way. I was pretty close to Kevin Rudd.
Speaker 3: You were probably weren't born when he was.
Speaker 2: Prime Minister, but I do remember the apology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he gave the apology and that was a huge
Speaker 3: moment obviously for first Australians, and it was hopefully going
Speaker 3: to be the kind of first step in this sort
Speaker 3: of ongoing journey. I hate using the word journey but
Speaker 3: to reconcilia. But it just keeps coming out resistion, closing
Speaker 3: the gap, and that mark was sort of closing the
Speaker 3: gap thing, and sadly that gap hasn't closed. But and
Speaker 3: then the Labor Party just destroyed itself and I basically
Speaker 3: got PTSD and it's like, what are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And Albow was one of those people who was always
Speaker 3: throughout that period where people were chopping and changing and
Speaker 3: loyalties were being tested and people were swapping sides and
Speaker 3: all the factions were all messed up, and I could
Speaker 3: go into all that stuff and bore everyone to death,
Speaker 3: but Albo stayed pretty true. And I just remember thinking,
Speaker 3: this is someone who has actually behaved with integrity and
Speaker 3: decency as much as anyone does in politics, like no
Speaker 3: one is, no one has purre. But he's a decent blow.
Speaker 3: It's down to earth, and I sort of just always
Speaker 3: backed him, and I backed him as a as a leadership,
Speaker 3: as a leader for the Labor Party when no one
Speaker 3: else was like everyone else, there was no way that
Speaker 3: that's ever going to happen. Bill Shorten's going to come
Speaker 3: and he's going to win in twenty nineteen, and he
Speaker 3: almost won in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He did Yeah, I do right, and.
Speaker 3: Then sort of miracle happened and Albo became leader and
Speaker 3: then he became PM, and then he was going to
Speaker 3: lose the last election. Everyone said.
Speaker 2: And so maybe as a part of your job title,
Speaker 2: it's psychic.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe it's psychic, that's right. Maybe maybe I'm manifested.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm the albow whisper. That's why I just manifest
Speaker 3: although that's my superpower. It's like, what can you do
Speaker 3: a superman? I can fly and I'm in vulnerable. What
Speaker 3: can you do? Joe? I can manifest elbow?
Speaker 2: So who's the next per?
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I got in on the ground floor
Speaker 3: with that guy. So we are pretty close and I
Speaker 3: think we have a you know, we're mates. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I said, do you want to come on the podcast?
Speaker 1: He said yep, And then we wanted him actually on
Speaker 1: our podcast.
Speaker 3: You should have let me know, grease the wheels for
Speaker 3: it totally.
Speaker 2: Look, I think that you know, he was trying to
Speaker 2: keep a low profile, I think, and he only got
Speaker 2: on you know, he went to places where he trusted people,
Speaker 2: So he doesn't know us.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he would know you and trust you and
Speaker 3: love you very very much. I thought I was from
Speaker 3: while I thought it was the only podcast he hadn't
Speaker 3: been on because he was popping up all over the place.
Speaker 2: But they're back in. What do you think of the
Speaker 2: Labor victory?
Speaker 3: I look, obviously I'm pretty biased, but I think it
Speaker 3: was a great figure. I was one of those people
Speaker 3: who said it's going to be a Labor majority. All
Speaker 3: these people were saying, oh, you know, it's fifty three
Speaker 3: forty seven and it's going to be a hung parliament.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, fifty to fifty is a hung PA,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Like, all these polls were
Speaker 3: showing really big swings to the Labor Party. Normally the
Speaker 3: government gets swings against it the second time it goes up,
Speaker 3: and it was getting swings in the other direction. And
Speaker 3: I think people just weren't believing what they were seeing because,
Speaker 3: you know, because of what had happened, for example, in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, when everyone thought Labor was going to win
Speaker 3: even though the situation was completely different, and so I
Speaker 3: was very confident Elbow I think it's fair to say
Speaker 3: it was pretty confident. Yeah, and again I was looking
Speaker 3: at the numbers and it's like, well, this matches up
Speaker 3: exactly with what I'm hearing. But everyone's sort of talking
Speaker 3: about something, So I thought it was But having said that,
Speaker 3: the result exceeded everyone's expectation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Joe manifested.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just told them by the way way Yeah,
Speaker 3: don't even buy the campaign's kick back at Kirabilli House.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: I want to know, like, what is that world? Like?
Speaker 1: Like I guess, like I, you know, our experience with
Speaker 1: politics is in I don't know what's your experience experience
Speaker 1: with politics.
Speaker 2: I honestly would say that for many years I put
Speaker 2: politics to the side. I say that our community is
Speaker 2: inherently political, but that was something that actually made me
Speaker 2: feel like I didn't want to know much because it
Speaker 2: all seemed like our community was used as a football
Speaker 2: a lot of the time, and especially even in this
Speaker 2: current political landscape, I feel like, you know, the welcome
Speaker 2: to country not sitting in front of the flags. These
Speaker 2: divisive views were really put against our community. So for me,
Speaker 2: for many many years, I felt like I the more
Speaker 2: I knew, the more I was concerned, and so I
Speaker 2: actually stayed away from understanding and I felt like I
Speaker 2: actually didn't want to dive into, you know, the nitty
Speaker 2: gritty of politics.
Speaker 1: Do you think a lot of people do that because
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a bit too like I guess
Speaker 1: like information overload, over stimulated by all the campaigns, Like
Speaker 1: you don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think, do you think? I think maybe
Speaker 2: in our community there there's not that it might happen
Speaker 2: in other households and other parts of the Australian community
Speaker 2: and family groups, but for us, there's not to sit
Speaker 2: down and let's talk about politics conversation a lot of
Speaker 2: the time. I don't know if that ever happened in
Speaker 2: your life, but for me, there was never a moment
Speaker 2: where my parents or my family seemed invested. And even
Speaker 2: around the Voice referendum, I felt like, yeah, there was
Speaker 2: a spotlight on our community, but there were so many
Speaker 2: corners of our community that didn't want a part of it.
Speaker 2: So I think that, like there's also a distrust with
Speaker 2: the government, there is a disconnection there. Look at the
Speaker 2: you know, systems that are in place that have negatively
Speaker 2: affected our community. It's about the institution yeah, there's there's
Speaker 2: not a lot of trust I think, so there's definitely
Speaker 2: been a disconnection from our community. But I want our
Speaker 2: community to know more. And I'm actually really couraged by
Speaker 2: the stats that I saw with this election and how
Speaker 2: many people came out to vote. I think that it
Speaker 2: shows even though I had this view that, oh, our
Speaker 2: country is quite chill around politics, people still and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the voice referendum made me a little concerned about
Speaker 2: what this political outcome would be. But I think the
Speaker 2: stats of people getting out there and actually having a
Speaker 2: say and using their vote has been encouraging for me
Speaker 2: to know more. And that's one of the reasons I
Speaker 2: suggested doing an episode like this, because I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if the masses are interested, like, I need to now
Speaker 2: figure out where I stand in politics. So you're the man,
Speaker 2: You're the man.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what you were saying before and at
Speaker 3: the top of the show, I think was really interesting
Speaker 3: with this idea that in black communities, people feel like
Speaker 3: politics isn't something they're involved with, it's something that happens
Speaker 3: to them. It's something that comes down from them on them,
Speaker 3: from above and often has a kind of crushing effect
Speaker 3: and I think that has been obviously, I mean, that's
Speaker 3: obviously been a huge problem throughout our history, but it's
Speaker 3: also I think still kind of a problem now. And
Speaker 3: I think it's why we saw things like you know,
Speaker 3: the Voice result that we did, where there's not that
Speaker 3: I suppose full engagement with how politics and politicking works
Speaker 3: and how the machinery of politics were and politics isn't
Speaker 3: kind of like it's not like a sort of matrix
Speaker 3: that you get into. It's something, it's all around, it's everything, right,
Speaker 3: Like everything is politics. So in terms of you know,
Speaker 3: when you're talking about trying to win a referendum, I
Speaker 3: was obviously supported the the Yes campaign, but so quickly
Speaker 3: I just saw the whole thing falling apart. I thought
Speaker 3: I saw it just and it was and I was
Speaker 3: going nuts. I mean, we talk about kind of I'll
Speaker 3: be a bit camp, but we talk about you know,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm like texting people technic pms and we've
Speaker 3: got to do something about this is going off the rails.
Speaker 3: It's terrible, and they were trying everything, and of course,
Speaker 3: because it's politics, right, one of the the things that
Speaker 3: the government didn't want to do is kind of look
Speaker 3: like it was owning it too much. Labor didn't Elbow
Speaker 3: didn't want it to say, this is want it to
Speaker 3: be my voice, the BlimE minister's voice or Labour's voice.
Speaker 3: That was how the coalition, that was how the opposition
Speaker 3: was trying to cast it. This is the politicians, this
Speaker 3: is Labour's voice. You're saying, no, no, no, this is this
Speaker 3: is what you know, the Ularu gathering at Uluru wanted,
Speaker 3: and you know this is this is for Indigenous people,
Speaker 3: this is for you know, First Nations people. But then
Speaker 3: there was kind of a lack of clarity among First
Speaker 3: Nations people. So you know, black leaders, Indigenous leaders are
Speaker 3: sort of fighting amongst themselves or contradicting each other about
Speaker 3: what it should look like, that's not and that just
Speaker 3: keeps going on.
Speaker 1: That's right, and so that's what people are seeing.
Speaker 3: So people, so people are seeing. So you've got sixty
Speaker 3: percent of Australians who think, oh yeah, that sounds like
Speaker 3: a pretty good idea, and then they sort of see
Speaker 3: this whole thing which I think is born of you know,
Speaker 3: I was speaking to someone in the campaign about you know,
Speaker 3: I said, you know, you can't have sort of people
Speaker 3: I really really love and back, like you know, Noel
Speaker 3: Pearson is just hero of mine. Even had people like
Speaker 3: Marshall Langton, who's a bit more sort of fiery and yeah,
Speaker 3: but again someone I respect enormously, but coming out and
Speaker 3: saying things like oh well, if you don't vote for it,
Speaker 3: you're not going to get any more welcomes to country,
Speaker 3: or you know, this is being driven by racism. Any
Speaker 3: people who oppose it are racist. Up, I'm seeing all
Speaker 3: this stuff. This is this is poison. This is toxic
Speaker 3: because you've just told anyone who's got misgivings about it
Speaker 3: that they're either racist or that they're so stupid or gullible.
Speaker 1: That's right, And so people feel.
Speaker 3: Like that's right. And again this might be And I
Speaker 3: was speaking to people of campaigns and what are these
Speaker 3: guys doing and they said, well, they're not campaigners of course,
Speaker 3: you know, then they're not politicians. So they're going off script.
Speaker 3: And again, so this is what happens when you don't
Speaker 3: know politics, or you don't know sort of how politics work,
Speaker 3: all the way messages are received by the community. Then
Speaker 3: you're going to sort of sleep walk off a cliff
Speaker 3: on an issue that you know, something that could have
Speaker 3: been a real game changer. So I guess that's so
Speaker 3: people say I don't know much about politics or whatever
Speaker 3: you do, you just don't kind of know, you know,
Speaker 3: like everything you do is political, everything that affects you.
Speaker 3: You know, why didn't the voice get up? You can
Speaker 3: call it politics, you could just call it real real
Speaker 3: life Australians who just weren't connecting with it. There wasn't
Speaker 3: a people didn't feel a connection or a relationship with
Speaker 3: what they were being offered. So if you call that politics,
Speaker 3: so I guess I would just say, don't feel like
Speaker 3: politics is just something that happens to Politics is something
Speaker 3: you're doing all the time. It's not some weird esoteric
Speaker 3: thing that all these smart people are doing in kind of.
Speaker 1: It's a big boardroom and they're all, this is something
Speaker 1: that we saw your tiktoket. Yet, No, it's not that chart.
Speaker 1: It's deeper and it's a bit more.
Speaker 3: That's right down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's levels and layers to it.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming, Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so you know,
Speaker 3: like even when the PM comes on on podcast, we
Speaker 3: just sort of we're not talking about you know, how
Speaker 3: do you get a piece of legislation through the Senate. So,
Speaker 3: so you know, what's it like, you know, how do
Speaker 3: you deal with all the shit that you cop on
Speaker 3: social media? Or how do you that's right? Or what
Speaker 3: is you know, someone says, oh, the Russians are going
Speaker 3: to use Indonesia as an air base, right on Australia's
Speaker 3: dorscept how do you respond, Like, how do you respond
Speaker 3: to information like that? Yeah, and a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of the way you do that is as a
Speaker 3: human being and what your instincts are and what you
Speaker 3: kind of feel is right and what you feel like
Speaker 3: the first thing to do is so again, politics is personal,
Speaker 3: The personal is political. Everything it's all around us.
Speaker 2: Were you surprised by any of the results, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the community were quite surprised about
Speaker 2: the Greens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, there's been such a massive social campaign around
Speaker 2: Adam and the Greens and there was a lot of
Speaker 2: I suppose new voices, new media encouraging the Greens and
Speaker 2: what they were standing for.
Speaker 4: But then me and Abby Chatfield, yeah, podcast so it's
Speaker 4: it's interesting to see the responses to the Greens losing
Speaker 4: their seat.
Speaker 2: Did you see that happening?
Speaker 3: I knew they were going to lose some of their seats,
Speaker 3: or at least one Brisbane was always in trouble. And
Speaker 3: then that's obviously in Brisbane, and then another Brisbane seat
Speaker 3: Griffith where Max Chandler Maytha the Housing very high profile
Speaker 3: Housing spokesman. Is Labor really wanted to go after that?
Speaker 3: That was any talk about politics being personal. That was
Speaker 3: Kevin Rudd's old seat, and that wasn't a seat that
Speaker 3: both Labor and the Greens were going for and the
Speaker 3: Greens weren't. That was a Labor seat that the Greens
Speaker 3: took off them, which Labor was not expecting to lose
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. So it's like that sort of
Speaker 3: the seq to the Hollywood action blockbuster. You know, they're
Speaker 3: back at this time. So so you know, people in
Speaker 3: Labor really, you know, instinctively personally. You know, they could
Speaker 3: have got seats from anywhere else, and they did, but
Speaker 3: they really wanted to get that one back because it
Speaker 3: felt like a kind of personal blow to to Labor's
Speaker 3: you know, kind of heartland, a former prime minister's seat.
Speaker 3: So again they were very they were targeting that very
Speaker 3: heavily and happy to get it. I don't think anyone
Speaker 3: thought that Adam bat would lose his seat in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: and again Labor didn't put much money into that seat,
Speaker 3: but it ended up he ended up losing really badly,
Speaker 3: like the actual overall vote in the country didn't do
Speaker 3: too badly. It's about the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're trying to explain that as well.
Speaker 3: That's right, so and they're getting like the you we
Speaker 3: were talking before about. You know, young people overwhelmingly vote
Speaker 3: for the Greens, right, But the problem is that young
Speaker 3: people are not all living. There's not one seat which
Speaker 3: is just like like one young people. They're spread out everywhere.
Speaker 3: So you can get twelve thirteen percent of the vote,
Speaker 3: but unless you can get enough to knock out. So
Speaker 3: all you have to do if you're a Greens trying
Speaker 3: to win a seat, you just have to knock out
Speaker 3: You just have to knock out Labbor. What you really
Speaker 3: want to do is knock out Labor because you're going
Speaker 3: to get more of their preferences preference, So don't you
Speaker 3: don't want to run first or you can't, but you
Speaker 3: just want to run second. You can just get second
Speaker 3: and knock out Labor and not LIB. So if you
Speaker 3: knock out the LIB they're probably going to go to
Speaker 3: Labor before they go to Europe. If you can knock
Speaker 3: out Labor, you get all their preference. And so this
Speaker 3: is why I've always said the Greens are not really
Speaker 3: Labour's friend. They actually the Greens do best by eating
Speaker 3: away at Labour's votes and in seats in Lower House
Speaker 3: seats by trying to relegate Labor to third so they
Speaker 3: can steal all their preferences.
Speaker 1: That's a great explanation. It makes so much more sense
Speaker 1: to in my head. I'm like, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: I actually tried to explain to my partner who has
Speaker 2: just become an Australian citizen. Yeah, hasn't done the test,
Speaker 2: has done the test, but has done the ceremony and
Speaker 2: then we'll vote next to you. But I was trying
Speaker 2: to explain this and I've done such a terrible job
Speaker 2: your life because he looked so confused. He was like
Speaker 2: mm hm okay, we're going to move on from this.
Speaker 3: Ye, it is.
Speaker 2: Well the preference is like, what do you mean. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: you know the one to six, so think.
Speaker 3: About think about it. Yeah, because a lot of people
Speaker 3: from especially like Australia is really really rare and it's
Speaker 3: got compulsory voting. That's right, and that's a really really
Speaker 3: good thing. Right, So people say, oh, we shouldn't have it,
Speaker 3: you know, should you should have the right not to
Speaker 3: vote whatever. I don't care. You don't like you say
Speaker 3: you don't. You don't have the right not to be governed.
Speaker 3: You don't have the right not for politics to not
Speaker 3: happen to you. Sorry, no, I don't want to pay
Speaker 3: my taxes because I'm not into politics, or I don't vote.
Speaker 3: You don't have that right, so you might as well
Speaker 3: expect it.
Speaker 1: And it means that if you don't vote, you get fined.
Speaker 3: If they find it. Only just went up to fifty Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I think when I was in my early twenties, we
Speaker 1: had an election and I didn't vote because I just
Speaker 1: un something and I was like.
Speaker 3: I don't know, remember all those local government elections you
Speaker 3: voted in? No, Well, you know what, did they ever
Speaker 3: find it? They never find it?
Speaker 2: My family. This is the first year that I encouraged
Speaker 2: my family to vote. Like yeah, So that's how I
Speaker 2: sort of that triggered for me was, oh, I'm actually
Speaker 2: being a little bit more.
Speaker 3: You know, you're a pretical animal.
Speaker 2: So I messaged my brothers on the day, my dad
Speaker 2: and everyone, and they all went and voted, and I
Speaker 2: think that's maybe possibly the first time.
Speaker 3: That's why Labour one, you know what, it is his
Speaker 3: victory to you and.
Speaker 2: I did my part.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the good but the good thing about Campaulcity
Speaker 3: is it means that you don't have to rely on
Speaker 3: what's called getting out the vote. So it means it's
Speaker 3: something like Donald Trump can't happen in Australia because if
Speaker 3: you don't really care much one way or not that
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump, yeah, you just sit at home. You
Speaker 3: just don't come out to vote. And in an American election,
Speaker 3: maybe only fifty to sixty seventy percent of people might
Speaker 3: actually vote, so about a third might just stay home,
Speaker 3: whereas in Australia, all those people have to come out
Speaker 3: and vote. So if they're not into so being extreme
Speaker 3: and making people excited or angry or scared about an
Speaker 3: issue like in Americas, always abortion and it's always gun, right,
Speaker 3: it's right. No one cares about that here, No one's
Speaker 3: voting on that stuff. Yeah, because it's all really boring
Speaker 3: bread and butter. It's like it's whether you get a
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty dollars rebate on your power bill. Know,
Speaker 3: but in America they do that because those are the
Speaker 3: issues that people really really care about. There are people
Speaker 3: who come out and vote for their right to carry
Speaker 3: a gun, or to have an abortion, or to stop
Speaker 3: other people having and that's the number one most important
Speaker 3: thing to them, because they're a Christian, or they're a feminist,
Speaker 3: or they're a gun own or whatever whatever it is,
Speaker 3: but it's what you're most excited about. And that means
Speaker 3: that American elections are about issues that are really passionate
Speaker 3: but also often polarizing.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, very.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and we're really lucky that we don't have that here.
Speaker 3: And so so in first past the post, which is
Speaker 3: what they call it in the UK or in America,
Speaker 3: where you got to get out the vote, you might
Speaker 3: get the best candidate. Australia, what you want is to
Speaker 3: get the least worst candidate. So the preferential voting system
Speaker 3: means that you might not get even you know, a
Speaker 3: Green MP in a seat who actually ran behind you know,
Speaker 3: the labor of liberal candidate, or you know, in the
Speaker 3: teal seats, the liberals get more votes. First preference votes
Speaker 3: than the Teals do independence.
Speaker 1: The independence right, why they called tis is just the color.
Speaker 3: Of it, because that's the color. So they're all they're
Speaker 3: all meant to be independence. But someone noticed that they
Speaker 3: all had the same color and the same branding, and
Speaker 3: we're all getting funding from the same source. Everyone goes
Speaker 3: hang on independence, and so they if that was a
Speaker 3: silly question. But like.
Speaker 2: Owt to say, this is nicely, But aren't they like
Speaker 2: a lot of white women? Yeah, because when I'm driving
Speaker 2: through these suburbs, I'm like, wow, these people have massive
Speaker 2: budgets for promo.
Speaker 3: They're basically like really rich greens.
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, so that's right.
Speaker 1: How do I get that money?
Speaker 3: You just call sign at homes of courts and were
Speaker 3: given to But so the Teals, you know, they don't
Speaker 3: win on the first preferences, but they collect all the
Speaker 3: preferences from Greens and labor and everything, and so they're
Speaker 3: not the best candidate. The person who wins the most
Speaker 3: number one on their ballot is that they might be
Speaker 3: the LIB. But the Teals are like the least worst,
Speaker 3: so they're what everyone else would rather not have a
Speaker 3: LIB and have anyone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically that's right.
Speaker 3: And that's how the Teals get elected. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Before we go, I wanted to just quickly ask, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think one of the main things when it comes
Speaker 2: to politics is not understanding the structure. So is it
Speaker 2: possible from the top down to give us a quick
Speaker 2: run through of what holds our country together in terms
Speaker 2: of the systems.
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely. The best thing about what holds our country
Speaker 3: together is it's the vibe. Right. So we've got a constitution,
Speaker 3: very Brook, We've got I'm all about the If you
Speaker 3: can read the vibe in politics, you are going all
Speaker 3: the way if you can think I think this is
Speaker 3: what I've got a gut feeling that this is.
Speaker 2: There could be a campaign.
Speaker 3: How I feel about this thing? And I think pretty
Speaker 3: much most Australians are with me. You're done at me.
Speaker 1: But I think I have a very strong gut feeling.
Speaker 1: I think I very have I have intuition.
Speaker 3: I have a gut feeling that you have a gut feeling.
Speaker 3: I actually feeling. I have a feeling that feeling. It's
Speaker 3: not just my Yeah, so we've got just to be
Speaker 3: incredibly boring and get my geek on. But we've got
Speaker 3: a constitution right, and The constitution just basically says this
Speaker 3: is how you make decisions. It doesn't make the decisions,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't it doesn't even tell you about the
Speaker 3: prime You have to have the prime minister there, or
Speaker 3: you have here's what ministers do when they run departments.
Speaker 3: Everything that the government actually does every day isn't really
Speaker 3: in the constitution. All the constitution just set does. It says,
Speaker 3: this is how you figure these things out. This is
Speaker 3: how you decided, this is how you put together a parliament. Yeah,
Speaker 3: basically this is you know, if the states and the
Speaker 3: state and federal parliaments have a disagreement, this is who wins.
Speaker 3: This is the areas that the federal government has control over,
Speaker 3: and this is what that sort of stuff. So, and
Speaker 3: then everything else is kind of what is called convention.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, we do this because this is how
Speaker 3: it's done, and there are lots of you know, in
Speaker 3: ancient Rome there was no constitution written down. They just
Speaker 3: called it the moss manoram the old ways, this is
Speaker 3: how we do it. In England there's actually no written constitution.
Speaker 3: There's this is huge history and people have to go
Speaker 3: back and say, oh, what did we do the last
Speaker 3: time we had, oh, the Normans invaded whatever, you know.
Speaker 3: And so in Australia we do have a written down constitution,
Speaker 3: but it basically says, this is how you put the
Speaker 3: parliament together. Yeah, and then and then you sort of
Speaker 3: figure it out yourself. And so things like you know,
Speaker 3: forming government in the lower House with the prime minister,
Speaker 3: the head of a cabinet, with ministers in charge of
Speaker 3: their departments. All of these things are conventions that have
Speaker 3: just sort of evolved over time. And the good thing
Speaker 3: about that is that as times change we can kind
Speaker 3: of adapt them. We're not sort of stuck with a
Speaker 3: bit of paper that says, no matter what's happening. One
Speaker 3: hundred years ago, a bunch of people decided that you
Speaker 3: had to do this, and now that's what you have
Speaker 3: to do because this is your document. And this is
Speaker 3: where the US can sometimes run into trouble when it's
Speaker 3: got the right to bear arms. That was when you know,
Speaker 3: you know, militiam and were using muskets to fight off
Speaker 3: the English and now it's being used for oozies to
Speaker 3: do drive by shootings.
Speaker 2: This constitution is it a book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very small book. You can get it online.
Speaker 3: You can just gurgle it. You can just gurgle it.
Speaker 3: And it's actually a really slim, kind of elegant, flexible document.
Speaker 3: So it just says, you know, if you can't get
Speaker 3: your legislation through Parliament, here's how you have a double
Speaker 3: dissolution and you have another election and then you just
Speaker 3: figure it. And then it basically just says figure it
Speaker 3: out amongst yourselves, and then it's very easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's laid back like you'd be right.
Speaker 3: It's like new age management workshops. We're not actually going
Speaker 3: to solve your problem. We're going to teach you how
Speaker 3: to solve your own problem.
Speaker 2: Hr of the country.
Speaker 3: And then the controversial one, of course is the reserve
Speaker 3: powers of the Governor General. So the one really controversial
Speaker 3: bit of the constitution is that the Governor General technically
Speaker 3: can sack the Prime Minister. Now to catch twenty two,
Speaker 3: the Governor General can dismiss the Prime Minister and say right,
Speaker 3: dismissed the government, say no, go to the poll, so
Speaker 3: dissolve the government basically, but the Governor General also has
Speaker 3: to act on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: So this only happened once in a country.
Speaker 3: It only happened once, and it happened nine to seventy five,
Speaker 3: and guess what, it's never ever going to happen again,
Speaker 3: even though it's right there in the Constitution to say
Speaker 3: the Governor General can do this any time he or
Speaker 3: she wants, but it will never happen again because the
Speaker 3: vibe people just didn't like it. It was just so
Speaker 3: toxic and so bad that even though the Libs a
Speaker 3: coalition won in a landslide after that decision, everyone just thought, no,
Speaker 3: you can't do that again.
Speaker 2: Who selects the governor General? Is it the king?
Speaker 3: No, it is no, it is the PM.
Speaker 2: So who has the power to correct great.
Speaker 3: The governor General. That's right, So technically the boyl fats.
Speaker 3: So technically the Governor General is the Vice region so
Speaker 3: vice regal, so the deputy so that the King or
Speaker 3: Queen's representatives in Australia. So usually the Governor General goes
Speaker 3: around cutting ribbons, the sort of thing the Queen does
Speaker 3: back in the UK, cutting ribbons opening, you know, telling
Speaker 3: everyone what a good job they're supporting charities. So the
Speaker 3: Governor General is the the patron of certain charities. But
Speaker 3: all the executive stuff has done by the PM. But technically,
Speaker 3: so technically, according to the Constitution, the Governor General is
Speaker 3: actually the person who is fully in charge of everything.
Speaker 3: But the Governor General is meant to act on the
Speaker 3: advice of the and the Executive Council. So there's a
Speaker 3: is there vice some weird thing Viceregal councilor so there's
Speaker 3: meant to be. This is the closest thing that the
Speaker 3: Constitution has to the cabinet, right, but it's the and
Speaker 3: you can there are still sort of official roles that
Speaker 3: people have and you know, and the most senior would
Speaker 3: be like the vice president the council, because the governor
Speaker 3: General is meant to be the president or whatever, and
Speaker 3: so so cabinet technically, according to the Constitution, is this
Speaker 3: advisory body to the Governor General, and the Governor General
Speaker 3: is the one making all the decisions. And the Governor
Speaker 3: General is appointed by his Majesty King Charles is but
Speaker 3: no relation what's going on. But the way that the
Speaker 3: entire country actually functions is entirely based on convention. It's
Speaker 3: entirely based on the vibe. That's what makes it awesome.
Speaker 2: This has been such a great episode.
Speaker 3: We so appreciate you, but.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you one last question, maybe when
Speaker 2: are you asking? Well, I was going to ask maybe
Speaker 2: you have a question of your sleep, but I was
Speaker 2: going to ask, will you ever go into politics?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? No way.
Speaker 2: Why need you?
Speaker 3: God? No, God love you.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: It's just it's it's just when Peter Garrett went into it,
Speaker 3: and I just thought, why would you do this? You
Speaker 3: go from a position where Peter Carrett, you're the leading
Speaker 3: to Midnight or everybody loves you, and you go from
Speaker 3: that to a job where you know, almost like almost
Speaker 3: half the country is going to hate you. And that's
Speaker 3: if you're winning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you're not, it's
Speaker 3: the other way around. And so that's right, and you know,
Speaker 3: and again it just choos. It's just such a rough
Speaker 3: game and it's just and you have to be so tough.
Speaker 3: I'm probably too much of a sensitive in your age guy.
Speaker 3: You know, the stuff that people hurl at you, like
Speaker 3: even just when you're in the public eye, it can
Speaker 3: be a bit full on. But in politics, like and
Speaker 3: you know, I talked to politician about this or you know,
Speaker 3: like like they do actually get a bit kind of brutalized.
Speaker 3: But like I you know, the politicians, I know, none
Speaker 3: of them, like like like Elbow for example, Chris Mins
Speaker 3: will not even look at Alba would just not even
Speaker 3: look at that. Will have people who do their social
Speaker 3: media for them because if you looked at this stuff
Speaker 3: and I see some of it, you know, because it
Speaker 3: pops up on that, you know, Instagram. Instagram's meant to
Speaker 3: be friendly.
Speaker 2: Man, you're telling me that they don't look at their
Speaker 2: social media. Chris Mins follows me and likes my stories
Speaker 2: and it's not.
Speaker 3: Even that's legit, that's true true.
Speaker 2: I'm like, he likes my stuff. I'm like, wait, are
Speaker 2: you in the current way to an event?
Speaker 3: Like exactly again? Yeah, well yeah time it was just
Speaker 3: brutal and yeah. And I think there's also a rule
Speaker 3: of thumb that whoever anyone who wants to be in
Speaker 3: politics should be immediately disqualified because it should be the people,
Speaker 3: the reluctant leaders that you that you want because they're
Speaker 3: the best ones because they don't want the power or
Speaker 3: the Yeah. So by just saying I'd never be a politician, wow,
Speaker 3: I'm actually the perfect.
Speaker 2: You're actually you go, you know what your campaign is about.
Speaker 3: Its about the vibe.
Speaker 2: For the vibe you would get in for that. But
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: For the first time I did.
Speaker 3: I suddenly feel young and cool again.
Speaker 1: There's no age here. Thank you so much, Joe, Thanks Legends,