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Speaker 2: Welcome to podcast two hundred and fifty four for September four,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. The last two podcasts have brought forth
Speaker 2: a substantial number of email comments that reflected various views
Speaker 2: on those interviews. Firstly it was Stephen Rainbow, the newly
Speaker 2: announced Chief Human Rights Commissioner, and then last week in
Speaker 2: two five three it was Jill Ovans from the Women's
Speaker 2: Rights Party.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: One of those emails suggested that my criticism of Justice Bromwich,
Speaker 2: who featured in the case Tickle and Giggle in the
Speaker 2: last week's podcast, was incorrect and out of line. It
Speaker 2: was a good letter. I just didn't agree, so I
Speaker 2: thought that it was worthy of investigating at a shall
Speaker 2: we say, a more elevated legal level. Enter Professor James
Speaker 2: Adam Canadian who taught for a number of years at
Speaker 2: the University of Otago now at the University of Queensland,
Speaker 2: and let me tell you. I think it was a
Speaker 2: very very very good discussion and it follows shortly. But
Speaker 2: first there's another matter I want to attend to. It
Speaker 2: seems of late that I'm getting an increasing number of
Speaker 2: letters asking for advice on books at associated matters, and
Speaker 2: I don't mind that at all, but I have to
Speaker 2: admit to have dropped behind a little in my correspondence.
Speaker 2: So for those of you who might be waiting for
Speaker 2: a response, it should still be coming. If it doesn't
Speaker 2: turn up soon, then let me know. But I'll give
Speaker 2: you all the advice that I possibly can. But referring
Speaker 2: to one book that I have reviewed and done an interview,
Speaker 2: or to actually two interviews with one of the authors,
Speaker 2: Climate Actually, ought to bring you up to date. Climate
Speaker 2: Actually is a New Zealand book. It represents more than
Speaker 2: four years of research. I'm quoting from the Amazon Australia commentary.
Speaker 2: Climate Actually represents more than four years of research respectively
Speaker 2: by three lay authors, where they considered the scientific concepts
Speaker 2: and evidence surrounding the current narrative of climate alarmists anthropogenetic
Speaker 2: global warming. Now, for those who have missed the debates,
Speaker 2: this is the claim that man made activities producing resultant
Speaker 2: excess emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide CO two,
Speaker 2: methane H four, and nitrous oxide N two, are principally
Speaker 2: responsible for catastrophic global warming. The authors have been assisted
Speaker 2: by some of the most qualified academics available worldwide, whom
Speaker 2: they prevailed upon to provide a truthful explanation of what
Speaker 2: the claim of global warming is actually about from a
Speaker 2: scientific point of view. They produced an easy to read
Speaker 2: publication for all interested people to read a more likely scenario,
Speaker 2: devoid of any biased media interference, and with the goal
Speaker 2: to show future generations that in the twenty first century
Speaker 2: we were not all gullible to climate alarmist doctrine. The
Speaker 2: truth is the actual science shows that the culprit is
Speaker 2: water vapor. This is the most significant greenhouse gas GHG
Speaker 2: by orders of magnitude, but it is never mentioned. Our
Speaker 2: authors deduce the only possible reason for the emission of
Speaker 2: water vapor as a greenhouse gas is because no one
Speaker 2: has yet devised a business plan to tax rain. There
Speaker 2: is a universe uall misunderstanding that weather is climate. What's more,
Speaker 2: global warming is not climate. CO two is not carbon emissions,
Speaker 2: and CO two is not toxic, but is the elixir
Speaker 2: of life. The planet is actually in a CO two drought.
Speaker 2: We need more CO two, not less, which will make
Speaker 2: the planet greener, plants more drought resistant, and food sources
Speaker 2: much more plentiful. Ever heard that before? Since the Industrial
Speaker 2: Revolution there is an estimated thirty percent increase in crop productivity,
Speaker 2: and yet the alarmists are trying to remove the very
Speaker 2: basis on which survival depends. Though, if you need a
Speaker 2: scary story, reducing CO two concentrations below one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty parts per million will bring on the sixth global extinction.
Speaker 2: Plants cannot photosynthesize at that level and will die if
Speaker 2: they do that. How is oxygen to be produced, which
Speaker 2: we do we all depend upon for survival. You've never
Speaker 2: heard that before. Either. Climates has changed for the last
Speaker 2: countless millennia and will continue to do so despite humans.
Speaker 2: This book is written in simple language to assist everyone
Speaker 2: to understand the complex true science, and it is a
Speaker 2: must to follow the money, including to the Greenhouse Fund
Speaker 2: administered by the UN's Paris Accord, into which all emissions
Speaker 2: trading systems taxes are payable. Why are our children in
Speaker 2: New Zealand And elsewhere school about climate change according to
Speaker 2: a curriculum that compulsorily requires them to be taught only
Speaker 2: the incorrect doctrine of the climate alarmist. For anyone who
Speaker 2: is curious about any or all of this, this book
Speaker 2: is a must read. At best, you'll get the picture.
Speaker 2: At worst, you'll do your own research and the results
Speaker 2: will astound you, as they did the authors. Now, the
Speaker 2: book is authored by Andrew Hollis, whom we interviewed on
Speaker 2: two occasions, Mike Sanke and Alan Trotter. And I think
Speaker 2: I'm right in saying that Alan Trotter was the driving force.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless they've all done a very good job. Now
Speaker 2: it's available from Amazon Australia. The price is very respectable
Speaker 2: and you'll get it in a very quick time for
Speaker 2: five six days. And that's volume one. Of course, volume
Speaker 2: two which at this point is available on kindle if
Speaker 2: you want the If you want the book form, you
Speaker 2: have to wait a little longer. Now coming up next,
Speaker 2: Professor James Allen. There are essential fat nutrients that we
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Speaker 2: to be taken in our addition to a healthy diet
Speaker 2: and is only available from pharmacies and health stores. Always
Speaker 2: read the label and users directed and if symptoms persist
Speaker 2: seeing your healthcare professional. Farmer Broker Auckland, Professor of Law
Speaker 2: the University of Queensland. James Allen is well known to
Speaker 2: this podcast audience and he is much appreciated and it's
Speaker 2: great to have you back on the podcast, particularly on
Speaker 2: this particular topic. Jim. I realized that after last week's
Speaker 2: podcast and the interview with Jill Evans, the national secretary
Speaker 2: of the Women's Rights Party, I realized that we needed
Speaker 2: to do some more on it, and there was only
Speaker 2: one person who I thought was appropriate for that, and
Speaker 2: that was some I say, with the best of intentions you.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me on Lighton, and thank
Speaker 3: you for mimicking what the sort of thing my mother
Speaker 3: would say.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate I think you said that last time,
Speaker 2: but that's all right. Your mother was Your mother was
Speaker 2: worthy of it.
Speaker 3: You know that old Eisenhower joke when he used to
Speaker 3: get introduced, he'd say, I was a fabulous introduction. My
Speaker 3: dad would love to have been here to hear it,
Speaker 3: and my mom would have believed it beautiful.
Speaker 2: From Jill Evan's press release, I want to quote we
Speaker 2: stand with CEL on this fight as it heads toward
Speaker 2: the High Court in Australia. We also encourage New Zealand
Speaker 2: women and meant to take a stand against adding a
Speaker 2: gender identity and expression into our human rights legislation, or
Speaker 2: we will find ourselves in the same boat. Online submissions
Speaker 2: to the Law Commission's review close five September, so this
Speaker 2: is going to This is going to air on the
Speaker 2: fourth of September, So we're pretty much out of time,
Speaker 2: but not too late if you were, if you want
Speaker 2: to involve now. When I ranged Jim and asked him
Speaker 2: to come on, he was certainly agreeable. What he didn't
Speaker 2: tell me was that he had penned the column for
Speaker 2: the Spectator on this. It didn't surprise me when I
Speaker 2: found out this morning that he'd done that, and I
Speaker 2: read it and I thought, that is exactly how I
Speaker 2: wanted to approach this with him, This particular case of
Speaker 2: tickle versus giggle, which is he says in the headline
Speaker 2: is no laughing matter. You also say that it is
Speaker 2: a woke judgment. How would you like to get from
Speaker 2: the beginning of this to the outcome of woke judgment?
Speaker 3: So you know, when you're writing an op ed column
Speaker 3: you have to generalize, So you know, obviously you have
Speaker 3: a limited number of words. But as I said, the
Speaker 3: gist of the criticism sort of goes in this ranked order.
Speaker 3: The first problem or the politicians on the right side
Speaker 3: of politics, so they never it seems like this is
Speaker 3: a generalization, but basically the left comes in and they
Speaker 3: make these amendments. Some of them are part of a
Speaker 3: sort of culture war amendments, and then when ours, the
Speaker 3: right of center, comes into power, they never repeal them.
Speaker 3: They never repeal them. So one of the things is
Speaker 3: that back in twenty thirteen, the Gillard Labor government here
Speaker 3: amended the Sexual Discrimination Act and added the gender identity
Speaker 3: as one of the protected sort of heads. So it
Speaker 3: had been sex and a bunch of other things race,
Speaker 3: but they added gender identity. And so we come forward
Speaker 3: eleven years and as listeners may know, you had this
Speaker 3: women's only app was called Giggle, and a gentleman who
Speaker 3: had or was in the process of transitioning his slash
Speaker 3: her I'm going to use the biological pronouns. His name
Speaker 3: was Tickle, so you get this fantastic British farce case
Speaker 3: name of Tickle and Giggle, And so he wanted onto
Speaker 3: the app. The women's only app, and to make it workable,
Speaker 3: the organizers of the app had sort of computer software
Speaker 3: based on I think was a photo I don't really know.
Speaker 3: They would make an initial take and if you didn't
Speaker 3: like the take, then the woman who organized it would
Speaker 3: herself look at your photo. And I think he got
Speaker 3: through the first thing, but then she had a look
Speaker 3: at the photo and he was excluded. And long story short,
Speaker 3: eventually goes to the Human Rights Commission for not being
Speaker 3: able to access this women's only app, and of course
Speaker 3: there's no conciliation, and so it goes to a federal
Speaker 3: court action basically claiming discrimination. And this was a first
Speaker 3: instance judgment by a federal court judge, of course, one
Speaker 3: appointed by the Liberal party, the right of center party
Speaker 3: former Attorney General George Brandis, whose other judicial appointments included
Speaker 3: choosing the wife of the retiring High Court judge to
Speaker 3: be replacement in a world first that's never happened anywhere
Speaker 3: else in the world. So it's firstly a political problem.
Speaker 3: Our side just never does anything, and never they just
Speaker 3: don't fight back. And then what I also said was
Speaker 3: if you read the judgment often not often, but sometimes
Speaker 3: you read a judgment where you look at the law
Speaker 3: and you say, look, you could write a plausible judgment
Speaker 3: either way, so you can't really excoriate this judge. It's plausible,
Speaker 3: but it's also plausible that he could have gone the
Speaker 3: other way. Predictably, he didn't. He sided it with Tickel,
Speaker 3: and he ended up awarding ten thousand dollars in damages
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars in costs. So that's what Grover,
Speaker 3: that's what Miss Grover has to pay. The legal materials
Speaker 3: would have allowed the judge to decide for Giggle in
Speaker 3: an equally plausible way. But if you were a predicting
Speaker 3: going in, he would say he's going to decide with
Speaker 3: the transgender person. So I can run you through the
Speaker 3: basics if you want. I'm not sure what you're looking for, Laton.
Speaker 2: I am. I am looking for it. I want to
Speaker 2: want you to tell us, explain to us how this
Speaker 2: process worked. Why the judge. You say that he had
Speaker 2: a choice, and that and and that was my gut
Speaker 2: reaction right at the very beginning, that he did not
Speaker 2: have to as somebody suggested it to me in a letter,
Speaker 2: he wasn't confined to ruling the way that he actually
Speaker 2: did correct.
Speaker 3: Well, I agree with you. So it's just it's a
Speaker 3: it's an anti discrimination type piece of legislation, the Sexual
Speaker 3: Discrimination Act, And basically the goal of this legislation, most
Speaker 3: of it comes out in what the eighties and nineties
Speaker 3: around the englishphere, and it's it's sort of to take
Speaker 3: groups that you are perceived to have been historically disadvantaged,
Speaker 3: women and to pass a statute that you know, blocks discrimination.
Speaker 3: And so you have the normal sort of category, so
Speaker 3: you can't discriminate against women, so you think of, you know,
Speaker 3: equal pay for jobs, that sort of thing. And this
Speaker 3: piece of legislation also has a what they call the
Speaker 3: Special Measures provision. But basically you in effect you can
Speaker 3: discriminate if your purpose is to achieve substantive equality between
Speaker 3: and one of the groups is men and women. And
Speaker 3: then when they made this, they made this amendment to
Speaker 3: Labor Government twenty thirteen, they also included gender identity as
Speaker 3: a protected head and so you could also discriminate for
Speaker 3: the purpose of the substantive equality between different gender identities,
Speaker 3: and so it doesn't count as discrimination if that's your goal.
Speaker 3: And so that's the sort of basic setup of the
Speaker 3: of the case. The basic argument for the applicant was
Speaker 3: I was discriminated against based on my gender identity. They
Speaker 3: responded effectively as saying something along the lines of, well,
Speaker 3: you were discriminated against, but you were discriminated against because
Speaker 3: of your sex, not your gender identity, and that's protected.
Speaker 3: That's protected by I think I can't remember section sevent
Speaker 3: d or something like that same statute. So that's those
Speaker 3: are the arguments. The judge says, well, look on its
Speaker 3: ordinary meaning sex is changeable. Well that's laughable, right, But
Speaker 3: he points to case law, and in a way, the
Speaker 3: judge is sort of signaling that, you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: deciding this based on what I think sex is. I'm
Speaker 3: deciding it based on case law. What he doesn't say
Speaker 3: is the cases he cites are to do with pensions
Speaker 3: and marriage, not the Sex Discrimination Act. I'm not really
Speaker 3: this isn't really my area. But quick flip and it
Speaker 3: looks like, to some extent context matters. The judge also says,
Speaker 3: look this a skillered amendment in twenty thirteen that added
Speaker 3: gender identity clearly points to a win for the applicant Techo.
Speaker 3: The judge rejects the special measures defense. The section seventy
Speaker 3: special measures. Defense to the argument by the respondent is
Speaker 3: this is to achieve some sort of male female equality
Speaker 3: so we can have our own spaces. And then you
Speaker 3: get some constitutional arguments that relate to Australia's written constitution
Speaker 3: about whether the federal government could do what it did
Speaker 3: with the twenty thirteen Amendment. And one of the issues
Speaker 3: that comes up tangentially is whether the International Convention on
Speaker 3: Civil Emploical Rights Article twenty six. In Australia, the High
Speaker 3: Court has basically gone crazy on federalism matters and basically
Speaker 3: it lets the center legislate on anything. So we have
Speaker 3: the most centralizing top court in the federalist world. Things
Speaker 3: happen in Australia. It would never happen in Canada, Germany,
Speaker 3: the US, any Switzerland, any country with real federalism. And
Speaker 3: it's not because of the original design of our constitution
Speaker 3: we just copied the Americans. It's because we have one
Speaker 3: hundred years of High Court decision making that gives power
Speaker 3: to the center at the expense of the states. And
Speaker 3: two of the most egregious cases one was called Tasmanian
Speaker 3: dam And so normally with a federal system you look
Speaker 3: at the heads of powers, and you say, is there
Speaker 3: any sort of head of power that allows the central
Speaker 3: government to do this, or in Canada's case, allows the
Speaker 3: provinces to do this, And in the American and Australian constitutions,
Speaker 3: if it's not in the head of power list for
Speaker 3: the Center, that stays with the states. Anyway, this Tasmanian
Speaker 3: Damn case gave power to the Center because of the
Speaker 3: external affairs power. So basically, if the federal government enters
Speaker 3: into a treaty with another country on some topic, the
Speaker 3: topic in the treaty allows the federal government to legis
Speaker 3: this is ridiculous. It just destroys any sane notion of federalism.
Speaker 3: And secondly, in the work choice, this case a bad,
Speaker 3: bad sort of foray into destroying federalism by John Howard,
Speaker 3: who was a centralist at heart. The High Court decided
Speaker 3: that you could use the corporation power to give the
Speaker 3: Center power over labor relations, even though labor relations had
Speaker 3: not explicitly not been given to the Center, and even
Speaker 3: though two constitutional referenda had said the Center doesn't get
Speaker 3: this power. So long story short, the judge, and I
Speaker 3: don't blame him for this part says, well, look, yes,
Speaker 3: the Center did have the power to pass this law.
Speaker 3: I'm skeptical about the claim that the International Convention on
Speaker 3: Civil and Political Rights gave the power to the Center
Speaker 3: on the gender identity because that article twenty six of
Speaker 3: that treaty that doesn't actually mention gender identity. So the
Speaker 3: judge says, well, it falls under other status. You know,
Speaker 3: it lists all the things it doesn't list gender identity.
Speaker 3: So what is going on is how how do you
Speaker 3: approach the reading of a written text. And I'm originalist,
Speaker 3: I think as with ordinary language, and you know most
Speaker 3: legal linguistic philosophers agree with this, meaning is static, it
Speaker 3: doesn't change. So if you say I'm going to meet
Speaker 3: you at the cinema to your friend and you lose
Speaker 3: yourself on you mean, her job is to try to
Speaker 3: figure out my meaning, and she's her job is not
Speaker 3: to sort of put the words in their most favorable
Speaker 3: light and pick the cinema that has the reclining seat
Speaker 3: and the nice glass of wine. My meaning was the
Speaker 3: cinema I meant. And if she can't get a hold
Speaker 3: of me, her job is to try to figure out
Speaker 3: what I meant. And fifty years from now, it was
Speaker 3: still the cinema that I meant. And that's bog standard
Speaker 3: outside of law, you know, that's but it's it's lawyers
Speaker 3: don't like that. They prefer to adopt a sort of
Speaker 3: what sometimes called a living tree, or you know, the
Speaker 3: text can change over time, the meaning.
Speaker 2: And it always changes in their favor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so the judge said, on its ordinary meaning,
Speaker 3: sex is changeable, well, on its ordinary meeting, almost no
Speaker 3: one believes that, except for ten percent of activists. But
Speaker 3: as I said, he pointed to the case law and
Speaker 3: he said, you know, there's a thirty years of case law,
Speaker 3: but it's it's more complicated than that. These were sort
Speaker 3: of pensions cases and marriage cases.
Speaker 2: All right, so what you what you what you're telling
Speaker 2: us is that there is a history of case law,
Speaker 2: but it has nothing to do with gender issues.
Speaker 3: Well, it does have to do with gender issues, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to do with the Sexual Discrimination Act.
Speaker 3: You know, it's more pensions and stuff like that. And
Speaker 3: on the on the twenty thirteen amendments, if you you know,
Speaker 3: he said, you know, the he sort of suggests there
Speaker 3: was an overt intention to redefine sex. But I don't
Speaker 3: think that's true. If you look at answered to that amendment,
Speaker 3: there's no mention of overtly redefining sex, and they explicitly
Speaker 3: didn't do that as regards the special measures exclusion, and
Speaker 3: in fact, the explanatory memorandum to that amendment said that
Speaker 3: these new grounds were to be subject to the existing
Speaker 3: provisions for special measures. In other words, you can discriminate
Speaker 3: in order to achieve this sort of substantive equality between
Speaker 3: men and women. So one of the underlying issues is
Speaker 3: do these amendments apply So where you bring in gender identity,
Speaker 3: do they apply to discrimination matters but not to special
Speaker 3: measures or do they apply to both? And the judges
Speaker 3: sort of assumes the answer to that question. I think
Speaker 3: it's just as plausible. And in fact, if you look
Speaker 3: at the intention of the Act back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: almost I think they almost zero of the submissions took
Speaker 3: this amendment to have the meaning the judge gave it.
Speaker 3: And so if you think that what the measure meant
Speaker 3: was locked in in two thousand and thirty teen, and
Speaker 3: again that is bog standard linguistic philosophy. But you know,
Speaker 3: many judges, when it comes to constitutional matters, think that
Speaker 3: in the course of updating constitutions, think the actual meaning
Speaker 3: can change over time, which I think is almost incoherent.
Speaker 3: You're not bound by what the understanding was in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: but the understanding overwhelmingly was these amendments aren't going to
Speaker 3: apply to the special measures, which is between men and women.
Speaker 3: And back in twenty thirteen, it's pretty clear what the
Speaker 3: meaning of sex was. And again when they put in
Speaker 3: gender identity, they didn't explicitly deal with the special measures,
Speaker 3: which is indicative of something. Anyway, I think a judge
Speaker 3: had plenty of material to decide for a giggle. Now,
Speaker 3: are there other ways you that prover could have dealt
Speaker 3: with this? Yes, she could have taken the app offshore
Speaker 3: and you know, based it in the US, and then
Speaker 3: dared dared the sort of government here to deal with
Speaker 3: an offshore app. There's some scope to think you might
Speaker 3: have played around with how the sort of winnowing was done.
Speaker 3: Maybe have an app that anybody can sign up to
Speaker 3: and then invite applications based on I don't know your
Speaker 3: chromosomes for sort of a club like status. Because if
Speaker 3: the app is for the public, and that's what the
Speaker 3: judge held and that's plausible, then you're bound by the
Speaker 3: Sex Discrimination Act, no exemption. But if it's like a
Speaker 3: private club, there's an exception for private clubs. So that's
Speaker 3: why you can have men's only private clubs and women's
Speaker 3: only private clubs. I mean, there might have been ways
Speaker 3: to set this up that would have made it harder
Speaker 3: for Tickle, but even the way they did set it up.
Speaker 3: And to some extent, this is a political battle because
Speaker 3: the reaction over here has been vociferously against what they're doing,
Speaker 3: or sorry, vociferously against this judgment. And you know, you
Speaker 3: wonder to what extent are they are they running a
Speaker 3: political battle here to simply embarrass people who want to
Speaker 3: say that women can't even have an app where they
Speaker 3: can just talk to themselves. Some man who is transitioning
Speaker 3: so that he can be deemed whatever you call a
Speaker 3: transgender woman, you can't keep them out. And I think
Speaker 3: if you pulled the public on this, it would run
Speaker 3: eighty five to ninety fever of giggle.
Speaker 2: I think, I think, I think you're right. I want
Speaker 2: to I want to just take a sidebar here, Holly
Speaker 2: law and Smith. Do you know the name? Yep, Holly
Speaker 2: Lawfin Smith. I didn't know anything about her until until today,
Speaker 2: to be honest, But she she was a she's a
Speaker 2: Kiwi and she's been what she's been studying and graduating
Speaker 2: from Australia after the University of Otago, and she is
Speaker 2: a where it an associate professor in political philosophy at
Speaker 2: the University of Melbourne and she deals in areas and
Speaker 2: a number of areas political philosophy, feminism, climate ethics. Love
Speaker 2: to have a battle with her on that and sex
Speaker 2: and gender. Now that fairly well tells me what her
Speaker 2: richests are and what her views views are, except she
Speaker 2: is This is a case of strange bedfellows that I
Speaker 2: run into sometimes and I'm always amused by it, where
Speaker 2: she has pender piece along the same lines that you have,
Speaker 2: maybe using slightly different arguments, but is definitely against the decision.
Speaker 2: Now she is a feminist and an active feminist, so
Speaker 2: one presumes that it's like coming almost a full circle
Speaker 2: with promoting women and there and their progress in life
Speaker 2: and their security and the financial arrangements and all of
Speaker 2: the stuff that we're familiar with and finding that that's
Speaker 2: already is now under assault and has toy group.
Speaker 3: So you do get strange bedfellows I mean when people,
Speaker 3: when people's views are based on principle, sometimes you'll get
Speaker 3: to an agreement where you wouldn't normally expect it. And
Speaker 3: I have heard her speak, and I have also been
Speaker 3: in a room where what you might describe as a
Speaker 3: radical lesbian said, the only allies we have are conservatives,
Speaker 3: And she said, I find out you hard to believe,
Speaker 3: but it's true. So if you think that sex isn't well,
Speaker 3: let's put it this way. If you go back to
Speaker 3: the famous Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, he wanted to
Speaker 3: distinguish between things that are imposed on you by the
Speaker 3: external cause of world right, it's not mine dependent. You
Speaker 3: can't wish it into existence like gravity. You know, you
Speaker 3: might be in a class with a French deconstruction as
Speaker 3: he says gravity is socially constructive, but you got to
Speaker 3: the eighth and they never jump. So we all believe
Speaker 3: that some things are imposed on us. And if you
Speaker 3: think that sex is imposed on us by the external
Speaker 3: world right, and it's a function of millions of years
Speaker 3: of billions of years of evolution. Really now, of course
Speaker 3: I want to leave aside the very very very small
Speaker 3: number of cases where you're talking about intersex and xx
Speaker 3: Y chromosomes or x y where the y chromosome doesn't
Speaker 3: fire properly and so the person has the other reproductive organs.
Speaker 3: Those are all Leave those aside. They're complicated. Although I
Speaker 3: wouldn't let them participate in the Olympics just as on
Speaker 3: a really utilitarian basis. So those are all very sad.
Speaker 3: Leave those aside for people transitioning. You know, here's the question,
Speaker 3: do you become a woman because you take lots of
Speaker 3: drugs that only have been invented in the last thirty years,
Speaker 3: and then you have you know, invasive surgery that takes
Speaker 3: the you know, that cuts off your reproductive works and
Speaker 3: sort of mimics what you know the other sex has.
Speaker 3: And you know, the basic answer on the left of
Speaker 3: politics these days, and with lots of people on the
Speaker 3: right is yes. Now for most of us who think
Speaker 3: that how you want to be seen doesn't matter, it's
Speaker 3: a function of a fact about the external cause of world.
Speaker 3: You know, here's the thing. If you were a seventeen
Speaker 3: year old and you wanted to play twelve and under
Speaker 3: rugby because you identified as a twelve year old, no
Speaker 3: one would let you do that we would say, Look,
Speaker 3: you might want to be a twelve year old, you
Speaker 3: might see yourself as a twelve year old, but you're seventeen,
Speaker 3: and that's a fact about the world. Or if you
Speaker 3: were a Caucasian and you wanted to be a Black
Speaker 3: American or let's say Elizabeth Floor and a Cherokee Indian,
Speaker 3: what you want and how you see yourself as neither
Speaker 3: here nor there. There's a fact about the world. And
Speaker 3: for some reason, when it comes to sex, the transgender lobby,
Speaker 3: which is effectively saying and it uses these sort of
Speaker 3: I won't call them a you, but these sort of opaque,
Speaker 3: amorphous masking sort of slogans, I'm trapped in the wrong body.
Speaker 3: What does that even mean? And what does it mean
Speaker 3: to say that how you see yourself in your soul
Speaker 3: is sometimes trumping external reality. Well, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: believe it, and there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: believe it. I don't care personally how someone lives their
Speaker 3: life once you're eighteen, do what you want. I just
Speaker 3: don't care. I'm a mom to live and let live
Speaker 3: sort of guy. But when you start wanting to force
Speaker 3: your way onto women's sports teams, or you want to
Speaker 3: start forcing your way onto women's only apps, then the
Speaker 3: facts of the world matter. It's like the ridiculousness around
Speaker 3: the anguish er these things. We're letting male rapists identify
Speaker 3: as female and sending them to female prisons, and that
Speaker 3: is happening. It's ridiculous, right, So that's the core question.
Speaker 3: And so at some point the truth the imposed on
Speaker 3: all of us humans. Truth about the world trump's, however sad,
Speaker 3: it might be how someone sees him or herself. So
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a living, live god. I don't really
Speaker 3: care how people live. But if someone tells me what
Speaker 3: pronoun I have to use, I won't do it. I
Speaker 3: won't do it because they're asking me to lie about
Speaker 3: the world, and I'm not prepared to lie about the world.
Speaker 3: I'm prepared to be nice. I'd higher though I don't
Speaker 3: really care. I don't care how they dress. I don't
Speaker 3: care about any of that stuff. But if they start
Speaker 3: forcing themselves onto groups, then you know, you have to
Speaker 3: make a call about how you see the world. So
Speaker 3: I agree with the Lawford Smith's and the sort of
Speaker 3: In some cases, you know, hardline lesbian feminists, they are correct.
Speaker 3: These are you know, for the purposes in which we're
Speaker 3: talking about, these are men. And if you want a
Speaker 3: sports example, the American women's soccer team, which one you know,
Speaker 3: historically was winning most of the world championships, well, if
Speaker 3: you go back five or six years, they were just
Speaker 3: basically undefeated. Well they played a Dallas boys high school team,
Speaker 3: I think it was fifteen and under and they go,
Speaker 3: they got crushed. You know, so biologically speaking, it's a
Speaker 3: fact about the world. Statistically, men are bigger, faster, stronger,
Speaker 3: and that's just true. Now. You know, if you take
Speaker 3: the outlawers at each end of the distribution, you can
Speaker 3: find women who are stronger than men. But the best
Speaker 3: man crushes the best woman at any sort of physical activity.
Speaker 3: And so it's completely unfair to let men who've had
Speaker 3: the advantage of testosterone and you know, faster muscle twitch,
Speaker 3: who transition and have a lifetime advantage anyway, you can't
Speaker 3: let them play women's sports. You get these ridiculous results
Speaker 3: where where you know, women have spent their whole life
Speaker 3: training and some guy who's he's not even a good
Speaker 3: male athlete, you know, moves over to the women's petition
Speaker 3: and cleans up. It's laughable, and no one would have
Speaker 3: believed it twenty years ago. And so it's in that
Speaker 3: vein of thinking. I think that the claim that on
Speaker 3: its ordinary meaning, sex is changeable, which the judge said,
Speaker 3: is just false. Now you know, he underlines it by saying, well,
Speaker 3: I'm sort of controlled by this case, love. But I
Speaker 3: think that's debatable, and I think it's debatable whether the
Speaker 3: special measures exemptions back him up. I think the way
Speaker 3: he approached the Article twenty six of the ic CPR,
Speaker 3: which linked to the constitutional question, I think, you know,
Speaker 3: that looks wrong to me. So again, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that there was no legal materials for this judge to
Speaker 3: come to the view he did, and again I would
Speaker 3: have bet he would, because you know, the lawyerly cast
Speaker 3: is very left wing these days.
Speaker 2: Let's let's just say that you would you were appearing
Speaker 2: for the defendant in this case, would you have handled
Speaker 2: it any differently? Would you have would you have would
Speaker 2: prod the judge? I?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, it depends what the brief is.
Speaker 3: If the brief is too you never criticize. I don't
Speaker 3: want to criticize the way any anybody runs the case.
Speaker 3: I think they had a case that that you know,
Speaker 3: the judge as they ran it could have decided for them.
Speaker 3: Could you have run the case in a different way
Speaker 3: that might have upped your odds probably, but maybe they
Speaker 3: didn't want to do that. Maybe they partly this is
Speaker 3: a political battle, and you know, they have illuminated for
Speaker 3: all of us the craziness of what's going on right now.
Speaker 3: And it is crazy. And well, here's the question. Here's
Speaker 3: the question when when you know, if Peter Dutton wins
Speaker 3: an next election, when he comes into power, he going
Speaker 3: to amend the Sex Discrimination Act and get rid of
Speaker 3: gender identity.
Speaker 2: Which would won't Well, you got a bloody sight more
Speaker 2: chance of that happening under Dutton than you did under
Speaker 2: underto in the Morelson.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true, and maybe that's right because I think
Speaker 3: after the Voice referendum over here the Federal Liberal Party
Speaker 3: has got just the you know, the traces of a backbone.
Speaker 3: But there is a political battle going on as well
Speaker 3: as as the sort of case law. What people need
Speaker 3: to remember is that fifty years ago lawyers as a cast,
Speaker 3: the sort of median lawyer was significantly to the political
Speaker 3: right of the median voter, and today it's way worse
Speaker 3: the other way. So you know there's data in the
Speaker 3: US because donations to the political parties is a public matter,
Speaker 3: and they just know that the lawyerly cast, so lawyers
Speaker 3: as a group are significantly to the left of the
Speaker 3: median voter. We saw it in Australia with the Voice proposal.
Speaker 3: Almost all of the retired top judges came out in
Speaker 3: favor of it. The Law Society is the Bar Council.
Speaker 3: This was a proposal that was it's sixty one thirty
Speaker 3: nine no. There were one or two ex judges, including
Speaker 3: a former High Court judge, who came out for no.
Speaker 3: But then there were other High Court judges that came
Speaker 3: out for yes, and most judges came out for us,
Speaker 3: and all of the lawyerly bodies and so lawyers who
Speaker 3: have been subjected to twenty years of legal education that
Speaker 3: is incredibly politically correct and basques and identity politics. Not surprisingly,
Speaker 3: the lawyers that they are producing, on average are pretty
Speaker 3: left wing, and not left wing in the old fashioned
Speaker 3: Dennis Healey sort of redistribution of wealth sense. You know,
Speaker 3: that's the old fashioned labor. I have a bit of
Speaker 3: sympathy for that. I think they get comparative advantage wrong
Speaker 3: and things like that, But I have sympathy for that.
Speaker 3: This is the sort of human rights brigade, social justice
Speaker 3: iteration of the Labor Party, where they don't really care
Speaker 3: about the working class. What they care about are basking
Speaker 3: in social justice self righteousness, and lawyers lap that up.
Speaker 3: And one of the things it also does is it
Speaker 3: tends to give unelected judges a lot of power, and
Speaker 3: so you know, I it's pretty predictable what way most
Speaker 3: judges are going to go. It's a little different in
Speaker 3: the US because there's still it's such a big country.
Speaker 3: There's you're still able to pick some some conservative judges
Speaker 3: and lawyers. They're pretty they're pretty minority, but there's enough
Speaker 3: of them to staff the federal circuit courts, and in
Speaker 3: some states in the South there's lots of them. It's
Speaker 3: a lot harder in Australia to find those people who
Speaker 3: are there, but they're harder to find, and I imagine
Speaker 3: in New Zealand it's desperately hard to find those people.
Speaker 3: When I look at your top court, it's just it's
Speaker 3: just I just be in despair over there.
Speaker 2: What you would be in despair. I've shopped around a
Speaker 2: little and found some found some fellow travelers. But there's
Speaker 2: plenty of people from people. There are plenty of the
Speaker 2: individuals from from the side that you're discussing. You mentioned
Speaker 2: pronouns a moment ago. Two things. One is I understand
Speaker 2: that there was a discussion of the sporting on the radio.
Speaker 2: I didn't hear it. With regard to kids, kids, little
Speaker 2: kids going into not sure where there were school libraries,
Speaker 2: probably it was, but into the libraries, the public libraries anyway,
Speaker 2: and being asked what pronouns they wanted to be referred
Speaker 2: to or by these are little kids, it's just nuts.
Speaker 2: The other did you want to comment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I went to State schools in
Speaker 3: Toronto and we spent about three years from about grades
Speaker 3: four to seven learning real grammar. It was incredibly boring,
Speaker 3: but you had to underline every word in every sentence
Speaker 3: and say what it was. And Jeron's participles, you know,
Speaker 3: I knew more at grammar when I was eleven than
Speaker 3: I know now. Probably I may know a lot. So
Speaker 3: when we learn pronouns, we learned them as an item
Speaker 3: of grammar. Today, the kids you'd come to, you know,
Speaker 3: the best law school on Queensland. The overwhelming preponderance of
Speaker 3: them don't know any grammar, so it seems weird that
Speaker 3: the only way they get exposed to this idea of
Speaker 3: pronouns is in a sort of social justice activist sense.
Speaker 3: I mean, so they go to the library, they don't
Speaker 3: they probably don't even know what a pronoun is in
Speaker 3: terms of grammar, but they can trot out the sort
Speaker 3: of him whatever. I mean, everyone knows what you are
Speaker 3: when they look at you pretty much right away. And
Speaker 3: so you're again you're asking people to deny a fact
Speaker 3: about the external cause of world to further a political
Speaker 3: agenda or not to hurt someone's feelings. But at some point,
Speaker 3: hurt feelings lose to truth about the world. And as
Speaker 3: long as people are just you know, going on and
Speaker 3: leading the lives they want, leaving me alone, I don't
Speaker 3: really care about their They can lead the life however
Speaker 3: they want. I'm a pretty lazy for a guy, not
Speaker 3: going to lie about the world for them, and I'm
Speaker 3: not going to let them do things that are unfair
Speaker 3: in terms of sports or you know, I think women
Speaker 3: should be able to have a women's only space. I mean,
Speaker 3: I watch sports with mostly guys, that's a sort of
Speaker 3: a men's only space. So I don't really think it's
Speaker 3: too much to ask, and so I tend to agree
Speaker 3: with it, as you said, bizarrely with the sort of
Speaker 3: hard line some of us, I think, would.
Speaker 2: You when would you say the current pronoun game came into.
Speaker 3: Play, I don't know. I mean you go back ten years,
Speaker 3: I don't really remember. I remember people used to joke
Speaker 3: about the next thing. You know, they're going to want
Speaker 3: men to be able to use women's toilet, Like twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: I was on sabbatically the US lastcome. Everyone political left,
Speaker 3: political right. Everyone joked, you know, but they meant it
Speaker 3: as a this is satire to show you know that
Speaker 3: this couldn't possibly happen. But this this is a sort
Speaker 3: of a joke, And now it's true. It's true because
Speaker 3: people won't say, look, women don't want you to come
Speaker 3: into the washroom toilet with them, And the fact that
Speaker 3: you know this is going to hurt yourself image is
Speaker 3: neither here nor there. So we live in a culture
Speaker 3: where hurt feelings are taking of offense.
Speaker 2: Well, while you.
Speaker 3: Were your own subjective sense in yourself, Trump's truth, and
Speaker 3: I just think we have to fight back against that.
Speaker 2: While you were talking, I made my way two steps too.
Speaker 2: I got a long lead on the headphones to the
Speaker 2: bookcase and pulled off a book that I bought a
Speaker 2: few years ago, The Secret Life of Pronouns. What Our
Speaker 2: Words Say About Us, published in twenty eleven, so I
Speaker 2: would have bought it in about twenty twelve in Sydney.
Speaker 2: It wasn't around them this, I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: straight up book on pronouns, real profound, you know, and
Speaker 2: since then that book is virtually relevant anyway.
Speaker 3: Leaving it, I mean, I agree with you. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'd be happy if if we actually had an education
Speaker 3: system in Australia that, you know, the the latest results
Speaker 3: are appalling. We used to, oh my god, here we
Speaker 3: were sort of below Kazakhstan, and now we aspired being
Speaker 3: below Kazakhstan. And I off the cuff, I would bet
Speaker 3: that Australia does better than New Zealand. One of the
Speaker 3: things that I hate it when I lived in New
Speaker 3: Zealand was that I can't even remember what you call it,
Speaker 3: n C whatever. Then yeah, they just the continuous assessment
Speaker 3: and it's just all fluff. And so you know, I
Speaker 3: doute New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Does well under the under the current administration, they're making
Speaker 2: positive moves in that in the direction of fixing fixing
Speaker 2: that that's goods. Maths is the first is the first
Speaker 2: subject to get a hiding. There's one thing that you
Speaker 2: didn't mention when we were talking about the case, and
Speaker 2: that was Justice Bromwich gave leave to the current Sex
Speaker 2: Discrimination Commissioner to appear as a friend of the Court
Speaker 2: and then basically and then basically did all of her
Speaker 2: submissions on the interpretive questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know that that that happens in cases.
Speaker 3: People can apply to to be amicus curia friends of
Speaker 3: the court and h But as soon as the judge
Speaker 3: did that, I suspect that everyone knew which way the
Speaker 3: decision was going to.
Speaker 2: Go, of course, And that's the that's the part. It
Speaker 2: was only two weeks ago that we had on this
Speaker 2: podcast the newly appointed brand newly appointed. He hasn't yet
Speaker 2: taken up the position Stephen Rainbow, who was the new
Speaker 2: Human Rights Commissioner, and there's a new there's two other
Speaker 2: two other new commissioners on the on the board and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of feedback from that that particular discussion.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think we set a record with incoming
Speaker 2: emails on it and people people can see the same
Speaker 2: thing happening.
Speaker 3: And so is this newly appointed person going to take
Speaker 3: a sort of moderately interpretively conservative approach? I doubt it,
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I don't know the person, I
Speaker 3: don't know the appointment.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you that here, sorry on.
Speaker 3: Well here in Australia, the Human Rights Commission is appointed
Speaker 3: by the federal government, and during COVID, every single commissioner
Speaker 3: had been appointed by the Liberal government. So these are
Speaker 3: all supposedly seen conservatives appointed. Of course they weren't. They
Speaker 3: couldn't find a single thing to complain about during the lockdown,
Speaker 3: thuggery and authoritarianism, what Jonathan Sumption, the UK retired Supreme
Speaker 3: Court judge, said were the worst infringeing infringements on our
Speaker 3: civil liberties and three hundred years they couldn't find a
Speaker 3: single thing to complain about. But get a case like
Speaker 3: tickle and giggle, Oh my lord, they they you know,
Speaker 3: they can't wait. Now. The new Sex Discrimination Commissioner, I
Speaker 3: have to say, was appointed by labor, but you know,
Speaker 3: the bulk of the commission is still liberal appointed. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the weird things about the world when
Speaker 3: when conservative governments come into office, they just seem to
Speaker 3: be unable to appoint actual conservatives any top positions that
Speaker 3: are appointed positions. Douglas Murray writes about this in the UK,
Speaker 3: Labor appoints hard left and we appoint soft left, and
Speaker 3: they just they're just too embarrassed. I mean here in Australia,
Speaker 3: I would appoint Andrew Bold, who's a real sort of
Speaker 3: feisty political comment I would appoint him to run the ABC.
Speaker 3: That would teach them a lesson. But you know that
Speaker 3: will never happen. They don't want they don't want to
Speaker 3: take on anybody, so they just point, if you're lucky though,
Speaker 3: appoint a centrist. That's the best you can hope for, yes.
Speaker 2: And that just makes it easier for the for the
Speaker 2: left when they yeah, yeah exactly, So discalidice that exists.
Speaker 2: How do we have a comment?
Speaker 3: Well, I think part of what you what's happening around Europe,
Speaker 3: not here, not in New Zealand, and not in Britain,
Speaker 3: but if you look around Europe and the US, you're
Speaker 3: seeing that the old fashioned coalition of interest that went
Speaker 3: into making up a right of center party is completely
Speaker 3: broken down. You're seeing a lot the left wing media,
Speaker 3: which is like ninety percent of it, they call it populism,
Speaker 3: But as far as I can tell, nobody really knows
Speaker 3: what the labeled populism means other than people who win
Speaker 3: elections with policies we don't like. So they're winning elections,
Speaker 3: and they're winning elections based on taking positions that the
Speaker 3: two established parties won't talk about, like unrestrained immigration or
Speaker 3: massive government spending or not fighting the culture wars. And
Speaker 3: these parties are winning all over Europe and lots of places.
Speaker 3: And in a way, this is what Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: done in the US. He's basically destroyed the old Rockefeller
Speaker 3: Republican Party, the party of George W. Bush and Romney
Speaker 3: and McCain. And whether Truck wins or not, the old
Speaker 3: Republican Party is never coming back because Trump has remade
Speaker 3: it into what critics on the left would call a
Speaker 3: populist party. But it's a party that wants to significantly
Speaker 3: cut back on immigration, and it's a party that wants
Speaker 3: to deal with the you know, the power of the
Speaker 3: bureaucrats in Washington to see all sorts of things that
Speaker 3: the old Republican Party support it. You know, Trump doesn't
Speaker 3: want to go to war. He didn't have a single
Speaker 3: war when he was president. You have to go back
Speaker 3: to vote Herbert Hoover to get that. So he has
Speaker 3: an unusual combination of interest and it's much more palatable
Speaker 3: for working class people. And one of the things you're
Speaker 3: seeing around the anglosphere is that conservative parties are now
Speaker 3: the party of the working person, and rich people vote left. Again,
Speaker 3: this is a generalization, but I think in twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton took the hundred wealthiest counties and in Britain,
Speaker 3: you know Boris in twenty nineteen, he didn't any of
Speaker 3: the rich London constituencies. Rich people who have the money
Speaker 3: on social issues identify with this sort of social justice
Speaker 3: human rights brigade version of the left wing party, and
Speaker 3: they vote left. In Australia, you know, half the people
Speaker 3: who vote Green are incredibly wealthy because they don't pay
Speaker 3: the costs, whereas working class or poorer or lower middle
Speaker 3: class people do. So the new alignment of right of
Speaker 3: center parties includes sort of rural areas and suburbs, and
Speaker 3: you know that's the majority of the population it's the
Speaker 3: kind of people who voted no on the Voice. It's
Speaker 3: hopeless to try to win in Toronto or London these days,
Speaker 3: and it's helpless for conservative parties to win the rich,
Speaker 3: inner city constituencies. Those people don't vote for the sort
Speaker 3: of conservative package of views. And again i'm generalizing, of course,
Speaker 3: there's many wealthy people who are conservative, but by and large,
Speaker 3: if you go to a uh, you know, a top
Speaker 3: lawyers event on an issue after issue, the majority of
Speaker 3: the room is pretty left wing.
Speaker 2: It's it's frustrating, is my simple way, simple way of
Speaker 2: putting it. A couple just a couple of things before
Speaker 2: we wind before we wind up. What you've what you've
Speaker 2: basically told us is that there was no you tell
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, no binding legal authority that made
Speaker 2: made Rummich rule the way that he did right or wrong.
Speaker 3: Well, almost never in a case, is it. If you
Speaker 3: go to a lawyer and they say, look lighton, there's
Speaker 3: the statute is dead clear, and there's one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty presidents right on this one point, there's no way
Speaker 3: you can lose. Those cases never get litigated. I mean,
Speaker 3: so there's always some there's almost the kind of cases
Speaker 3: that make it to a court that don't settle are
Speaker 3: ones where there's usually an argument on both sides. You know,
Speaker 3: Herbert Hart wrote this magisterial book called The Concept the Law.
Speaker 3: He calls these open texture or penumbero cases. Most cases aren't.
Speaker 3: That's why most people never go to court, and you
Speaker 3: can have a legal system the majesty of the law,
Speaker 3: he calls it, where most people can have different interests
Speaker 3: in life, they can pursue those interests and they never
Speaker 3: have to litigate. You know, if I drive into the
Speaker 3: car in front of me, I know I'm at fault,
Speaker 3: even though it's an Octageneian who stopped for no reason,
Speaker 3: and so the rules are usually pretty clear. In this case,
Speaker 3: the idea that there was no scope for the judge
Speaker 3: to decide the other way, I think is wrong. And
Speaker 3: I think, you know, if you go back and look
Speaker 3: at the explanatory memorandum or answered to the twenty thirteen amendment,
Speaker 3: no one, virtually no one at the time thought that
Speaker 3: they were legislating to achieve the sort of outcome we
Speaker 3: saw in this case. Now you can take a view
Speaker 3: that when you interpret legal texts, the text can stay
Speaker 3: the same, but the meaning of the text can change.
Speaker 3: That is a highly controversial view. I know that it's
Speaker 3: the majority view and constitutional interpretation in the anglosphere, but
Speaker 3: there's awful there's an awful lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: agree with that view. And outside of law, almost no
Speaker 3: one believes that, you know, the meaning of the meaning
Speaker 3: of a speech or a text can change over time.
Speaker 3: And it actually judges when they want you to read
Speaker 3: their judgment. You know, they don't think my judgment is
Speaker 3: a living tree and what I said yesterday has changed
Speaker 3: its meaning. That they implicitly take the same view that
Speaker 3: you know meaning is locked in and what they meant
Speaker 3: is what they meant, the same sort of thing that
Speaker 3: applies in everyday life or if your wife gives you
Speaker 3: a shopping list. And so there's that sort of debate
Speaker 3: going on in the background to this case as well.
Speaker 3: So again I as I said in my Spectator article,
Speaker 3: you know, there were legal materials that gave the judge
Speaker 3: ample room to come to the conclusion he did. And
Speaker 3: if you were a betting person, you would have bet
Speaker 3: for the case that any judge appointed by the Liberal
Speaker 3: party our Conservative party would be sort of sufficiently touchy
Speaker 3: feely to deliver that result.
Speaker 2: Thinkger without Conservative Party.
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I say that, I mean it to be
Speaker 3: in quotation marks. But there's also plenty of scope for
Speaker 3: someone to write a very plausible judgment that would have
Speaker 3: given Giggle a win. And the problem is that we're
Speaker 3: not appointing enough judges. You take that of I mean,
Speaker 3: people tend to think that the law interprets itself, and
Speaker 3: in many cases it does. It's so straightforward that the
Speaker 3: rule applies. Again, those cases don't end up at the
Speaker 3: High Court of Australia or a top court. Very seldom
Speaker 3: is it the case outside of you know, some prisoner
Speaker 3: appealing because he prefers to do that and stay in
Speaker 3: his cell. So leave those sort of criminal cases, the
Speaker 3: kinds of cases where both sides are prepared to spend
Speaker 3: an awful lot of money. Here cases where the rule
Speaker 3: it tends to be in the number of the rule
Speaker 3: or rules where there's a plausible argument ways, and in
Speaker 3: those cases, as Heart famously said back in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 3: when it comes to the judges, they have a discretion.
Speaker 3: I think he said something like all that succeeds is
Speaker 3: success at the end of chapter seven. And if you say,
Speaker 3: does it matter who you're appointing to the bench in
Speaker 3: those cases, you bet it does. That's why Americans fight
Speaker 3: over Supreme Court appointment because they know they know it matters.
Speaker 3: And so if your letter writer was saying, you know,
Speaker 3: brom which his hands were tied and there was nothing
Speaker 3: he could do but decide for Ticko, he's wrong. In
Speaker 3: my view, he doesn't know. The letter writer doesn't know
Speaker 3: what he's talking about. If he had said, you know,
Speaker 3: there were an ample scope to decide either way, and
Speaker 3: this particular judge decided that way, you know, I sort
Speaker 3: of buy that, But again that's just a problem with
Speaker 3: who were who we as conservative governments, are appointing to
Speaker 3: the bench.
Speaker 2: Well the letter writer, well, his letter will be in
Speaker 2: the mail room. Which follows onto on the back of
Speaker 2: this interview with Jim. But you mentioned the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: strangely enough, the US Supreme Court. Strangely enough. That was
Speaker 2: my last question line that I wanted to discuss with you,
Speaker 2: as briefly as the UK two. How influential do you
Speaker 2: think the US Supreme Court is outside of the US,
Speaker 2: but specifically in our two countries.
Speaker 3: So the Australian Constitution is basically the world's closest copy
Speaker 3: of the US Constitution. They you know, whenever they had
Speaker 3: a choice back in the late eighteen hundreds. But so
Speaker 3: between the Canadian version of federalism where the American they
Speaker 3: picked the American we have bicameralism. New Zealand doesn't. Canada
Speaker 3: effectively doesn't because the upper house is appointed. Britain effectively doesn't.
Speaker 3: There's only really three democracies in the world with a
Speaker 3: strong upper house, like really strong, and that's the Americans,
Speaker 3: Australia and Italy, and the Italians are trying to get
Speaker 3: rid of theirs. And so it's a very American constitution
Speaker 3: Australia has that was stuffed into the mold of a
Speaker 3: Westminster British system. It's got elements of both. And so
Speaker 3: in the early days the High Court of Australia certainly
Speaker 3: paid attention to American cases. Of late, around the common
Speaker 3: law world there's less and less interest in what the
Speaker 3: Americans are saying because the Americans still have top judges
Speaker 3: who are you know. Originalism is really a proxy battle
Speaker 3: in some ways. So in Australia we fight over whether
Speaker 3: to adopt a bill of rights. Once you've got one,
Speaker 3: there's no hope that any conservative government would ever repeal
Speaker 3: it or you know, un entrenched it from the Constitution
Speaker 3: or try to. And so the battle then is how
Speaker 3: to interpret this document. With a Bill of rights, you
Speaker 3: just have a list of moral entitlements that are really
Speaker 3: vague and wooly. And the question is always to what
Speaker 3: extent will unelected judges overrule the elected legislature. And the
Speaker 3: more you are bound by the intent of the people,
Speaker 3: the intentions and what people at the time understood the
Speaker 3: document to mean, the less you're taking off the democratic table,
Speaker 3: and the more you treat words of sort of alive,
Speaker 3: whatever that means, or as always expanding their scope, the
Speaker 3: more willing you are to see unelected judges second guests
Speaker 3: and overrule the elected branches. You know, Roe v. Wade
Speaker 3: was the most implausible decision ever, whatever you think about abortion,
Speaker 3: they just made it up right. And so in Dawbs
Speaker 3: what they effectively did the recent Supreme Court cases they said, look,
Speaker 3: this is a matter for the elected legislatures at the
Speaker 3: state level, because it's a federal system. And so this
Speaker 3: is one of the big issues in the current American election.
Speaker 3: But what most Americans don't seem to realize is since DAUBS,
Speaker 3: which just leaves it to the elected legislature, which is
Speaker 3: how abortion was handled in New Zealand and not Canada,
Speaker 3: New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, just about everywhere France. Since they've
Speaker 3: done that, the number of abortions in the US I
Speaker 3: think has gone up. What it just means is that
Speaker 3: in some US states it's harder to get an abortion Mississippi, Alabama,
Speaker 3: and in some US states has actually become easier because
Speaker 3: you know, the legislature in the state of New York
Speaker 3: and the state of California. You know, in California they
Speaker 3: don't even want to have limits on you know, having
Speaker 3: an abortion for a kid that's a day away from
Speaker 3: being born, which you know, I don't really care about abortion.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's because I'm a man, but I certainly not
Speaker 3: allow an abortion in the last few weeks before, you know,
Speaker 3: if you haven't pulled the trigger by then, it's too late,
Speaker 3: you know, really you my view.
Speaker 2: Have you read the what I presume is the editorial
Speaker 2: in the Same Spectacle this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I you know I'm going to say this.
Speaker 3: My editor, Rowan Dean of The Spectator Australia is in
Speaker 3: a very brave editor. He writes the editorials. And you
Speaker 3: know how many people in the journalistic world took the
Speaker 3: anti lockdown line from day one. That row indeed that
Speaker 3: he you know, he should be winning an award, so
Speaker 3: he did that, and he's taken a brave line on
Speaker 3: net zero and just about everything. And he wrote, you know,
Speaker 3: very good editorial, but that I tend to agree with
Speaker 3: Rowan on on just about everything. And I admire his
Speaker 3: courage because I can tell you he's come under immense
Speaker 3: amounts of attack and pressure, especially during lockdowns. Can you
Speaker 3: imagine in New Zealand a weekly publication that said that
Speaker 3: to Sinda our durn's getting everything wrong and that she's
Speaker 3: making mistake after mistake, and that the long term costs
Speaker 3: of the lockdowns are going to dwarf the benefits not
Speaker 3: and he means in terms of lives, long term lives,
Speaker 3: not just you know, blunted, you know, impoverish children's results
Speaker 3: because they closed the school as well.
Speaker 2: It answered to you a question about New Zealand. You
Speaker 2: remember the guillotine. Yes, well that's where you would have
Speaker 2: ended up if you tried, if you tried what he
Speaker 2: done here, and.
Speaker 3: She would have been Madame Lafarge knitting as you as
Speaker 3: you went to the guillotine, would have just sent there
Speaker 3: a durn.
Speaker 2: So you're right, yes, oh dear, I'm I'm debating whether
Speaker 2: I'll read that that editorial or not. But it's called
Speaker 2: for those who want to find it for themselves. It's
Speaker 2: called dead Babies, and it's a shocker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, Jim.
Speaker 2: As always, we are most appreciative of your time and
Speaker 2: your import and your intellect, and I can only I
Speaker 2: can only say thank you in as most most meaningful
Speaker 2: way as I can.
Speaker 3: Well, let's you know again, very kind and uh you know,
Speaker 3: let's keep pushing the new government in New Zealand on
Speaker 3: to sort of start standing up to the judiciary and
Speaker 3: tackling them a bit, because we need to do that.
Speaker 3: I think I think there's some people in New Zealand
Speaker 3: who are trying to fight that fight, some really top
Speaker 3: quality lawyers. So let's hope they have a bit of success. Indeed,
Speaker 3: appreciate it, right, thank you very much, late light and Smith.
Speaker 2: I went to the mail room for number two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty four, missus producer. How are you Layton?
Speaker 4: I am fantastic, Thank you, just walked eight k's along
Speaker 4: the beaches, happy, happy me.
Speaker 2: Eight k's, and you didn't get rained on No may
Speaker 2: I go first? Look do I've recently had the pleasure
Speaker 2: of catching up on your episodes in one big burst
Speaker 2: as a small business owner, I took a break from
Speaker 2: how the labour greens think think that I spend my time,
Speaker 2: for example, diving into my swimming pool full of gold
Speaker 2: coins a Scrooge McDuck, or skiing in Switzerland while profiting
Speaker 2: off the backs of my staff, and instead worked all
Speaker 2: night all weekend trying to catch up on the workload
Speaker 2: and keep the business afloat. This, however, gave me plenty
Speaker 2: of time to get through the backlog, though I admit
Speaker 2: that I did at one point have to take off
Speaker 2: my monocle top hat and three piece suit. At one
Speaker 2: point it was mentioned that dear Leader Jacinda was attending
Speaker 2: the DNC, the Democratic National Convention in the US, to
Speaker 2: support Scarmala. My first thought was I wonder who paid
Speaker 2: the air fare, But then I had a good juggle
Speaker 2: when it occurred to me that in the US, her
Speaker 2: vast collection of red based dresses, blouses and pantsuits that
Speaker 2: she'd amassed at the taxpayer's expense would now be worthless
Speaker 2: up there, and she'd have to go for a nice
Speaker 2: shade of gasp national blue. Oh the humanity, I think
Speaker 2: you mean the humility, Oh the humility. Thank Heavens for
Speaker 2: life's little moments. Now, on a second note, many years ago,
Speaker 2: I was in the performance business and was always known
Speaker 2: as having a head for script and being good at
Speaker 2: remembering lines. On my first reading, I'm sorry, Caroline, but
Speaker 2: the lets you read from the person sitting on in
Speaker 2: a rooftub at thirty degrees then flying home at thirty
Speaker 2: thousand feet didn't ring any bells at all. So, despite
Speaker 2: your voice being one of the highlights of each podcast,
Speaker 2: I'm unfortunately going to have to throw you under the
Speaker 2: bus on this one and agree with Leyton. The good
Speaker 2: news for you, though, Carolyn, however, is that the bus
Speaker 2: that I threw you in front of is run by
Speaker 2: Auckland Transport, So not only will it definitely not be
Speaker 2: there on time to run over you, there's a good
Speaker 2: chance that it's a complete no show. That's funny. Thanks
Speaker 2: again for all you both do, Adrian, Great Letter.
Speaker 4: Great Letter. Chris says the choice to bring a child
Speaker 4: into the world is the greatest vote of confidence in
Speaker 4: the future, Yet at times the future seems to be
Speaker 4: at odds with hope. One of my greatest delights is
Speaker 4: in home educating my children. It is very inefficient and
Speaker 4: I get almost nothing else done. There are countless other
Speaker 4: calls on my time that simply go to voicemail. But
Speaker 4: by avoiding the inefficiencies of working and letting someone else
Speaker 4: educate my kids, I get to pass on the hope
Speaker 4: that I have. Although there are more efficient ways of
Speaker 4: educating my kids, I am privileged to have the time
Speaker 4: with them and hopefully leave a lasting legacy of both
Speaker 4: hope and a personalized education program that plays to their strengths.
Speaker 4: Your podcast continually reminds me that the choice to homeschool
Speaker 4: is a worthwhile investment. And then Chris says, just a
Speaker 4: little background. I self studied my way through university and
Speaker 4: past first time. With the democratizing of education through the Internet,
Speaker 4: I can see university education going the way of horse
Speaker 4: drawn carriages, i e. For novelty value only.
Speaker 2: Chris, Chris, thank you. Here is the letter that featured
Speaker 2: today without being aired, but featured today in the interview
Speaker 2: from VIC, he says, as a longtime listener and very
Speaker 2: rare commenter. It is not often that I disagree with
Speaker 2: your podcast content, However, there is always an However, I
Speaker 2: strongly dispute your characterization of Justice Robert Bromich as an
Speaker 2: idiot and a moron. His reference to sex being changeable
Speaker 2: in his summary related to case Lawn, not his belief.
Speaker 2: He was very careful to rule according to the law
Speaker 2: as it stands in Australia, and I suspect also in
Speaker 2: New Zealand, Charlatan Tickle is legally a woman. Justice Bromwich
Speaker 2: had no choice and had he ruled against Tickle, he
Speaker 2: would have been guilty of interpreting the law, just like
Speaker 2: those that rule here with respect to the foreshore and seabed.
Speaker 2: I don't hold out any hope of a successful appeal,
Speaker 2: but keep up the good work. Regards VIC. Don't take
Speaker 2: this personally, but because I said before you wrote this
Speaker 2: was it last week? I said, I don't mind having
Speaker 2: some critical comment. In fact, I enjoy it and I
Speaker 2: took it on board, and I wonder if you've changed
Speaker 2: your mind at all after what you heard from Jim Allen.
Speaker 2: But thank you, and I do it, I seriously, I
Speaker 2: appreciate it. But if you've got any other thoughts on
Speaker 2: it after what you heard, then fire arf mate.
Speaker 4: Leighton Chris says, with AI in full swing and it
Speaker 4: can be a handy tool. The reason the real question
Speaker 4: is is it unbiased? The answer is a resounding no.
Speaker 4: You can see this with the now well known Trump
Speaker 4: question chat GPT paraphrase. Write an article showing all the
Speaker 4: good things about Trump. It couldn't or wouldn't, but would
Speaker 4: and could talk about anyone on the left. So AI
Speaker 4: is in fact not an artificial intelligence, it's artificial information.
Speaker 4: In the near future, I think everyone will be forced
Speaker 4: to accept all information from these bots, and computer hubs
Speaker 4: like Google are the only source of truth. Your guest,
Speaker 4: Stephen Rainbow almost endorsed Noah Harari, and that's a worry.
Speaker 4: Harari is one sick puppy in my personal opinion. I
Speaker 4: also found the fact doctor Rainbow was constantly preceding his
Speaker 4: statements with as a gay man a bit contradictory when
Speaker 4: stating the majority should take precedents in society while leaning
Speaker 4: on this is emphasis being a minority. I do agree
Speaker 4: with that statement absolutely, but hope he's not doing a
Speaker 4: Kamala Harrison. Joe Biden and saying one thing while intending
Speaker 4: to do the complete opposite. I may be completely wrong,
Speaker 4: and I do hope so, but history tells me a
Speaker 4: lot of people feeling important positions like this get there
Speaker 4: for a particular reason. Enough said, keep it coming. All
Speaker 4: the interviews are great, and that's again.
Speaker 2: Another good one. Still during your podcast, I smile during
Speaker 2: your in of view with Jill Ovans when she commented
Speaker 2: that God could be a woman. My comments would be
Speaker 2: that God has given as his preferred pronoun so she
Speaker 2: should respect it. And if God is a woman is
Speaker 2: she would first have to define what is a woman,
Speaker 2: given her association with the politics of the Labor Party.
Speaker 2: As always, I look forward to your next podcast.
Speaker 4: Ladon Peter says, thanks for highlighting, perhaps indirectly, but certainly
Speaker 4: for me, the ease with which some people such as
Speaker 4: Stephen Rainbow can slide into yet another public service job
Speaker 4: after a long life of doing nothing other than apparently
Speaker 4: sucking on the public teat. I guess his appointment to
Speaker 4: the Human Rights Commission is his reward for excelling in
Speaker 4: the art of wokeness and for avoiding a real job
Speaker 4: for most of his life. I didn't know much about
Speaker 4: him till I heard your podcast. This prompted me to
Speaker 4: google the man, which gave me just enough MFO to
Speaker 4: draw the conclusions expressed above. He is a man who
Speaker 4: has spent a lifetime cultivating the art of avoiding expressing
Speaker 4: an opinion. He does that extremely well. That's from Peter.
Speaker 4: He does give his opinion very well.
Speaker 2: He does, he does. I think that we covered that
Speaker 2: toward the end of the interview. Actually, I was thinking
Speaker 2: that's what Jim Allen was referring to, If not specifically,
Speaker 2: then generally he was referring to that sort of approach. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: well said Jill Evans. Women's Rights Party website states three
Speaker 2: key principles the party runs on. First, sex is binary. Secondly,
Speaker 2: human beings cannot change sex. Thirdly, women are adult humans
Speaker 2: of the female sex. And just like that, they've answered
Speaker 2: three existential questions the leftists just refused to answer today,
Speaker 2: being what is gender? What is human? What is a woman?
Speaker 2: Who would have thought that idiot Australian judge Robert Bromwich
Speaker 2: would attempt to wipe out the meaning of gender, humanity
Speaker 2: and women all in one go in the tickle versus
Speaker 2: giggle case when he ruled it sex is interchangeable. Declan
Speaker 2: Mansfield from the Spectator Australia explained the flawed cisgender logic
Speaker 2: in Tickle the Big Tickle and Giggle. But the way
Speaker 2: it's going to pick that up with Jim, the time
Speaker 2: that I spent in law school will be it restricted.
Speaker 2: But it was a couple of years we were taught
Speaker 2: that it's not and I know this varies around the world,
Speaker 2: but we were taught that it's not versus that it's
Speaker 2: not tickle verse. In spite of the b not tickle
Speaker 2: versus giggle, it's tickle and giggle. Now I don't know
Speaker 2: too many other people that refer to it that way,
Speaker 2: but it's stuck with me all the way through. I'm
Speaker 2: just explaining myself this producer.
Speaker 4: Thank you for being so exact.
Speaker 2: Now I haven't finished yet. Decland Mansfield from The Spectator
Speaker 2: Australia explained the flawed cisgender logic in Tickle and Giggle
Speaker 2: perfectly when he said, what will ensue from the acceptance
Speaker 2: of cis gender as a rational category and the judgment
Speaker 2: in tickl and Giggle is an ever shifting horizon of
Speaker 2: infantilized irrationalism. Masquerading as reasonable thought Australia. What the hell
Speaker 2: is going on with you? First Raygun and now Tickle
Speaker 2: and Giggle, all in a space of weeks. More importantly,
Speaker 2: our very own idiot Law Commission now wants to introduce
Speaker 2: hate speech laws around the entire spectrum of gender theory,
Speaker 2: and we need to stop them. Any idea what else
Speaker 2: we can do besides signing the Free Speech Union's petition
Speaker 2: against hate speech laws? How do we get these sons
Speaker 2: of the devil of our planets? Well, it's find something
Speaker 2: to ponder.
Speaker 4: Laden Mike says. I'm a long time listener, both via
Speaker 4: the airwaves and the podcast. It goes without saying that
Speaker 4: the insight that you bring in a crumbling media landscape
Speaker 4: is highly valued and must be continued for the foreseeable future. Please,
Speaker 4: After all, it is apparent that the volume of topics
Speaker 4: needing your objective analysis grows by the day. I was
Speaker 4: hoping for a recommendation from you with respect to news sources.
Speaker 4: I have been forced to stop reading The Herald due
Speaker 4: to their consistent failure to report without bias. They are
Speaker 4: the best of a bad bunch, and I'm sure they
Speaker 4: think they do a good job but they, like most media,
Speaker 4: live in an echo chamber of ideology, which either justifies
Speaker 4: the slant or makes them completely blind to it. Either way,
Speaker 4: the Herald is not for me. The problem is that
Speaker 4: this leaves me an avoid Can you advise if you
Speaker 4: had to pick a couple of sources for local and
Speaker 4: international news, what would there be?
Speaker 2: Keep up the great work from mid Mike. I will
Speaker 2: give that some consideration. And I've got your address obviously,
Speaker 2: so I'll do my best to get back to you.
Speaker 2: You will notice, of course, that The Spectator Australia gets
Speaker 2: a lot of mention on this podcast. Why because it's
Speaker 2: damned good? Why because it presents when you heard what
Speaker 2: Jim Allen said about the editor and singing his praises,
Speaker 2: and he's quite right, Layton.
Speaker 4: I in defense of the Herald, I just want to
Speaker 4: sort of say that I always pick the journalists that
Speaker 4: I read because there are some mighty fine ones, you know,
Speaker 4: just check the byline and make decisions that way.
Speaker 2: Thank you, missus.
Speaker 4: Producer Laighton excellent interview with Jill Ovans from the Woman's
Speaker 4: Rights Party. She certainly appears to speak from a place
Speaker 4: of truth and common sense. Also good to hear a
Speaker 4: non confrontational interview with mutual respect for the view of
Speaker 4: what the other had to say.
Speaker 2: Where a nurse. Did you hear that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, not on this poe.
Speaker 2: I was pondering the the echo chambers and the bias
Speaker 2: of some sources, et cetera. And most of it's true,
Speaker 2: most of it. We all have our biases, every single
Speaker 2: one of us.
Speaker 4: Gosh, I'm going to put that on a loop.
Speaker 2: It's it's just the case with human nature. Can't you
Speaker 2: can't help it.
Speaker 4: That's it from me later.
Speaker 2: So we shall possibly see you next week.
Speaker 4: Are you will definitely see me next week?
Speaker 2: Or you know what number it is?
Speaker 4: Two five four two five five two five five unbelievable.
Speaker 2: You help the time pass.
Speaker 4: I'm pleased to hear it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The morning of September four was one of those times
Speaker 2: that I mentioned where there is so much useful and
Speaker 2: interesting material available that it is nothing short of frustrating,
Speaker 2: even very frustrating. Those days seem to be increasing rapidly.
Speaker 2: Some matters a new Some are developments in those areas
Speaker 2: that we already devote a lot of attention. Freedom is
Speaker 2: at the forefront of matters, and free speech is arguably
Speaker 2: the most assaulted. David Sachs, a politically active venture capitalist,
Speaker 2: has penned an excellent read on the global struggle against authoritarianism,
Speaker 2: in which he points out hypocrisy displayed by Western nations
Speaker 2: during key moments in recent history, as well as the
Speaker 2: new Iron Curtain. The new Iron curtain targeting anyone in
Speaker 2: support of secure borders or freedom of speech in the
Speaker 2: global struggle against authoritarianism. The West's real enemy is itself,
Speaker 2: he writes. American politicians speak constantly about the indispensable role
Speaker 2: of the United States in leeading the free world against authoritarianism.
Speaker 2: If that is true, why is the White House so
Speaker 2: silent in the face of new global threats to free speech.
Speaker 2: In January, American citizen Gonzalo Lira died in a Ukrainian
Speaker 2: prison for posting YouTube videos. The state departments did not
Speaker 2: lift a finger to help. Last week, Telegram founder Pavel
Speaker 2: Durov was arrested in France for the crime of insufficient
Speaker 2: content moderation. Now Brazil has banned x for resisting the
Speaker 2: dictates of a tyrannical judge who salibates over the possibility
Speaker 2: of jailing Elon Musk. The EU is one step behind
Speaker 2: with bureaucrat Tiri Breton pursuing a criminal investigation against the
Speaker 2: Elon for platforming disinformation, which Breton defines to include a
Speaker 2: conversation with Donald Trump. Imagine if in this country leading
Speaker 2: politicians of the government tried doing something like that. Is
Speaker 2: it impossible to believe? In the UK, the government of
Speaker 2: Kiostama imprisons critics of open borders with more zeal than
Speaker 2: it prosecutes violent crime. In Canada, Justin Trudeau crushed a
Speaker 2: trucker protest against vaccine maddates by asserting sweeping new powers
Speaker 2: to freeze bank accounts. Hello, at no point has the
Speaker 2: White House expressed concern about this new iron curtain that
Speaker 2: seems to be descending across the West. Quite the contrary,
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the Biden Harris administration repeatedly pressured
Speaker 2: Meta to censor during COVID. Worse, the FBI primed Facebook
Speaker 2: to censor true stories about the Biden family corruption by
Speaker 2: suggesting that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation, even though
Speaker 2: the FBI knew it was authentic. Barring court intervention, TikTok
Speaker 2: will shut down in the US on January nineteen, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, thanks to a new power authorized by Congress
Speaker 2: to ban websites and applications that the president determines are
Speaker 2: subject to the influence of a foreign adversary. X may
Speaker 2: not be far behind if liberal elites and deep state
Speaker 2: apparatics like Robert Reich and Alexander Vindmann get their wish.
Speaker 2: They have called for the US to adopt Brazil's and
Speaker 2: the EU's approach and reign in elon musk. Remember Alexander Vindmann,
Speaker 2: he was the Ukrainian who dumped on Trump when he
Speaker 2: was president. I think was over the phone call, was
Speaker 2: it not? And it was a load of bs. He
Speaker 2: is a miserable little fill in the space. Hypocritically, the
Speaker 2: same voices demanding this crackdown are also the loudest in
Speaker 2: proclaiming the West to be engaged in a war on
Speaker 2: authoritarianism against countries like Russia and China. But whatever their sins,
Speaker 2: Russia and China are in no position to deprive American
Speaker 2: citizens of their free speech rights. Only our own government
Speaker 2: can do that. Similarly, if Western leaders truly wanted to
Speaker 2: prevent authoritarianism, the easiest place to start would be at home,
Speaker 2: protecting the civil liberties of its own citizens. Instead, they
Speaker 2: seem obsessed with deflecting the public's attention onto foreign enemies,
Speaker 2: as all well depicted in the Two Minutes Hate in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. As this battle over free speech heats
Speaker 2: up in an election year, where do the candidates stand.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has declared his support for free speech, whereas
Speaker 2: Carmela Harris has said nothing and can be expected to
Speaker 2: continue her administration's policy of tacit approval of creeping censorship.
Speaker 2: The word creeping has variations on it. In just two months,
Speaker 2: America will decide do we actually lead the free world
Speaker 2: in standing up for free speech or do we accept
Speaker 2: the authoritarianism we claim to detest? So much pretty good
Speaker 2: peace from David Sachs. And it was only a couple
Speaker 2: of days ago that I was talking to someone and
Speaker 2: made mention of the fact that the Free Speech Union
Speaker 2: is bringing yet another free speech speaker to the country
Speaker 2: later in the year, and I thought, well, I didn't
Speaker 2: just think I commented to this. I commented to the
Speaker 2: person I was discussing this with has suggested maybe they
Speaker 2: were over cooking it a bit, just bringing too many
Speaker 2: people to the country. You read things like that and
Speaker 2: others that I've got here, and you think maybe they're
Speaker 2: under cooking it. Maybe there's room for more. The only
Speaker 2: question I have is how much of it is impacting
Speaker 2: on those who know nothing about it or very little.
Speaker 2: It's a very good question to contemplate, so to another
Speaker 2: part of the world, and I'll do it this way.
Speaker 2: I'm quoting. When I grew up, Great Britain was exotic.
Speaker 2: There were red telephone booths, Buckingham Palace, black cabs, and
Speaker 2: of course the Bobbies and the beef eaters. England was
Speaker 2: the land of Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth the First and Henry
Speaker 2: the Fourth. For me, says the author. Britain was history incarlate. Obviously,
Speaker 2: says the author, whose name is Vince Coiner. And I'll
Speaker 2: give it to you now, Vince Coiner Coyne R. Because
Speaker 2: some some of you will to look this up. So
Speaker 2: if you google Vince Coyner you'll most likely get it. Obviously,
Speaker 2: part referring to Britain was history incarnate. He goes on. Obviously,
Speaker 2: part of that comes from the fact that as Americans,
Speaker 2: we share a great deal of history with the British.
Speaker 2: Not only did we split from Britain in seventeen seventy six,
Speaker 2: but our history continued to stay close until modern times,
Speaker 2: from the US joining Britain and the fight to end slavery,
Speaker 2: to fighting two World Wars together, to the British invasion
Speaker 2: earned in the nineteen sixties that brought us the Beatles
Speaker 2: and the Rolling Stones and the Kinks and put pay
Speaker 2: to Elvis Presley and Bobby Ridell. I added that modern
Speaker 2: England largely dates back to ten sixty six, when William
Speaker 2: the Conqueror across the English Channel and put the finishing
Speaker 2: touches on a unification that had been evolving since the
Speaker 2: Romans abandoned the island in four to ten AD. The
Speaker 2: thousand year span since has seen Britain, like the rest
Speaker 2: of the world, evolved, always however haltingly in the direction
Speaker 2: of freedom. This journey began with the Magna Carta, agreed
Speaker 2: to by King John in twelve fifteen, a watershed event
Speaker 2: in Western culture. It limited the king's powers and declared
Speaker 2: that he was subject to the law, guaranteed church rights,
Speaker 2: access to an impartial system of justice, and limited taxes.
Speaker 2: And so it goes on. This, by the way, is
Speaker 2: a four page is a four page article. But I
Speaker 2: believe I didn't tell you the title. Britain, which burst
Speaker 2: American ideas about liberty, has embraced despotism, and therein and
Speaker 2: therein lies a very interesting discussion. I move forward a
Speaker 2: little and give you a couple more quotes. The genesis
Speaker 2: of today's dystopia began almost three decades ago, when immigration
Speaker 2: took off in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 2: The number of non EU immigrants averaged over two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand a year for a decade, then skyrocketed after twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: A nation of fifty five million in two thousand is
Speaker 2: today over sixty five million, with almost all of that
Speaker 2: growth coming from immigration, a majority from non EU nations,
Speaker 2: particularly from the Middle Eastern Africa countries that do not
Speaker 2: share British culture or importantly, religion. It's also likely that
Speaker 2: many of the ostensibly EU immigrants originated in those non
Speaker 2: EU countries. As a consequence, London, home to twenty percent
Speaker 2: of Britain's As a consequence, London, home to twenty percent
Speaker 2: of England's population, has gone from approximately eighty percent native
Speaker 2: white British in nineteen ninety one to approximately thirty six
Speaker 2: percent in twenty twenty one. The native population has surely
Speaker 2: shrunk more since then. The results of this transformation of
Speaker 2: Britain from a largely British nation to something else has
Speaker 2: been monstrous. And then the author runs through a list
Speaker 2: of events that have happened over a period of time. Specifically,
Speaker 2: more recently, Britain, which birthed American ideas about liberty, has
Speaker 2: embraced despotism. It's worthy of your attention, I think also
Speaker 2: by Vince Coiner c y n Eer via Americanthinker dot com.
Speaker 2: And at the top, you know how they put quotes
Speaker 2: from famous people. Freedom is never more than one generation
Speaker 2: away from extinction from the greatest president of well for
Speaker 2: a long time, Ronald Reagan. And that will take us
Speaker 2: out for podcasts two hundred and fifty four. If you
Speaker 2: would like to correspond with us, and do I repeat
Speaker 2: it again, we love getting a correspondence Layton at Newstalks
Speaker 2: AB dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalksb dot
Speaker 2: co dot nz. And again I'll say, if you being critical,
Speaker 2: don't hesitate, go for your life. If that's what you think,
Speaker 2: what you think is honest, then I'm very happy to
Speaker 2: accept it and consider it so latent at newstalks AB
Speaker 2: dot co dot nz. As always, we shall return very
Speaker 2: shortly and as always, thank you for listening and we
Speaker 2: will talk soon.
Speaker 3: M M.
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