Speaker 1: Nine Podcasts. Hello, this is Neil Mitchell. Welcome to My
Speaker 1: View of the world, my weekly view of the world today.
Speaker 1: How the devil would destroy the world. Perhaps why it's
Speaker 1: time to seriously reform the health system and we've been
Speaker 1: trying for years. Elbow, he's woken up. The hangover's easing,
Speaker 1: but it's not not all good news. And football sports
Speaker 1: reporting has become a blunt sport. We're in the era
Speaker 1: of the football shock jock, and I say that as
Speaker 1: one who was often accused wrongly of being a shock shop. Anyway,
Speaker 1: take it as you wish. Why can't we just celebrate
Speaker 1: the game a bit more rather than sniping at some
Speaker 1: of the idiots who play it and run it and
Speaker 1: your comments Neil dot Mitchell at nine dot com dot
Speaker 1: are you actually Let's start with sports. Sport was once
Speaker 1: called the toy shop of life, a diversion, a place
Speaker 1: to release passion, to relax, a place of unquestioned loyalty.
Speaker 1: Even when your team was read thrashed, you supported them.
Speaker 1: There's a sense of tribalism about following a team, and
Speaker 1: we probably need that more than ever. The world is
Speaker 1: too divided and cynical and bitter. Thank you social media.
Speaker 1: Sport theoretically at least addresses that. With Australian football, rugby league,
Speaker 1: cricket in particular, you go along with the mate who
Speaker 1: supports the other side. You watch the game, you stir
Speaker 1: each other up. You don't come to blows, you gon't
Speaker 1: have a drink later and analyze what happened. Soccer not
Speaker 1: so much. At times we build walls between opposing supporters.
Speaker 1: But then soccer, in my view, has got a cultural problem,
Speaker 1: which is proven by some people who should know better,
Speaker 1: supporting people lifting, letting off flares in the crowd. Generally, though,
Speaker 1: Australian sport's a healthy thing, so it saddens me to
Speaker 1: see sports reporting, particularly on Australian football, focusing so much
Speaker 1: on aggression. I was sports of the ASI newspaper for
Speaker 1: four years a lifetime ago, and although we reported them
Speaker 1: politics and the power plays, our main role, we remembered
Speaker 1: was always to highlight the sport, to celebrate the sport,
Speaker 1: the great tennis matches, the Cliffhanger test cricket, brave football
Speaker 1: of any code, world records. Now, particularly around AFL football,
Speaker 1: there are so many different panel chat programs, postgame, pre game,
Speaker 1: midweek they're scrambling for attention, and some have decided the
Speaker 1: way to get attention is to turn into a footballing shock.
Speaker 1: Jock Cane Corn's in particular, the former South Australian champion,
Speaker 1: great player. He's trying so hard. Well, he's trying too hard.
Speaker 1: He's been lured to Channel seven from Channel nine because
Speaker 1: of his hard line commentary. That's fair enough. He needs
Speaker 1: to balance it with more praise and more direct enjoyment
Speaker 1: and love of the game. Sometimes seeing his mates will
Speaker 1: jump on the smallest issue and try to develop it
Speaker 1: into outrage when there's no outrage below the boy crying wolf.
Speaker 1: When there is outrage, go for it. But if you
Speaker 1: see everything as outrage, nobody's going to believe you when
Speaker 1: you say it. Korns has not lost the plot at
Speaker 1: this stage, but he's in danger heading that way. He's
Speaker 1: even been banned by a number of clubs and han
Speaker 1: a run in with Luke Beveridge, the foots Graate coach
Speaker 1: football commentator. Sports commentary should point out the problems that
Speaker 1: should of course expose and discuss the dramas, but let's
Speaker 1: talk more about the game and the people who are
Speaker 1: not in trouble. I think this shock jock approach and
Speaker 1: sport will wear thin. There's nothing wrong with robust debate,
Speaker 1: but there is a danger when you continue to go
Speaker 1: looking for debates that don't exist. Mostly people are doing
Speaker 1: that to match their image. Too often, some seem to
Speaker 1: try to live up to the hype around the commentator,
Speaker 1: not the beauty of the game. There's a massive problem
Speaker 1: in Australia's health system. It's a problem which is hurting people,
Speaker 1: delaying treatment, aggravating pain and suffering. Now I'd like to
Speaker 1: say this is a new and developing problem. The sad
Speaker 1: thing is it's not new personally. I've been screaming about
Speaker 1: it on radio for thirty years. Various politicians have tried
Speaker 1: and failed to fix it. And but Kevin Rudd said
Speaker 1: the buck stops with me, or was this two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, the buck stops with me on health? He
Speaker 1: had to give up. He failed on that. The latest
Speaker 1: reports out of Victoria should shock her, but they don't. Hospitals,
Speaker 1: it's reported, have been falsifying records to meet targets set
Speaker 1: by governments. Northern hospitals been named, but my sources say
Speaker 1: it is not unusual at other hospitals. You simply chop
Speaker 1: a few minutes off the time it takes to get
Speaker 1: a patient from ambulance to emergency department. Bureaucrats are happy,
Speaker 1: the government's happy, everybody's happy, except the patient and the doctor.
Speaker 1: It is a fraud on good medicine. This was first
Speaker 1: exposed in Sydney, believe it on sixteen years ago. Sixteen
Speaker 1: years ago, and it's still going on now. Of course
Speaker 1: the politicians are in are now outraged, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be outraged until everybody forgets about it and we
Speaker 1: go back to the fraud. This is Victoria's Health Minister
Speaker 1: Mary Ann Thomas being shocked and amazed. Have her listen
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: I want to get to the bottom of it. I've
Speaker 2: also asked the question why who's benefiting funding is not
Speaker 2: tied to any of these performance indicators.
Speaker 1: Nonsense. If she didn't know, she's the only one in
Speaker 1: the system who didn't know. Now, maybe they're doing this
Speaker 1: for the right reason, but it's still a dodgy way
Speaker 1: to go around business, or it's only a symptom of
Speaker 1: the disease as well. There are huge problems in emergency
Speaker 1: departments and hospitals. It's not unusual for patients to wait
Speaker 1: twenty four hours in emergency before getting a bed. It's
Speaker 1: not unusual for them to wait hours before being seen
Speaker 1: once they've been triached. It's not unusual for people to
Speaker 1: be treated by overwork staff in the corridors. It's not
Speaker 1: unusual for ambulances to wait hours with patients because the
Speaker 1: department is too busy, which of course means an ambulance
Speaker 1: off the road. What else is going on in health?
Speaker 1: Kids with serious problems I'm told of waiting months to
Speaker 1: see psychiatrists, by which stage the damage is pretty much done.
Speaker 1: In Queensland, in Cans, a distraught woman lost her brother
Speaker 1: and partner to sudden death within weeks of each other.
Speaker 1: She's been told to wait four months for any counseling.
Speaker 1: Four months it will be too late. Hospitals are full
Speaker 1: bed block. They call it largely because elderly patients has
Speaker 1: got nowhere else to go. Staff struggle to get patients
Speaker 1: into beds, perhaps even in the wrong wards to treat.
Speaker 1: Whatever the illness or the problem is, there's a new
Speaker 1: focus now. The focus is not on fixing it, but
Speaker 1: on making the figures look better. Doctors tell me they've
Speaker 1: been told to be aware of the targets and data
Speaker 1: is being fiddled to match the times. It's bureaucratic garbage.
Speaker 1: Doesn't fix the problems, it fudges them while patients suffer.
Speaker 1: I've heard of elderly patients at the end of life,
Speaker 1: unable to get to bed and having to die in
Speaker 1: the corner of a busy emergency department with their families
Speaker 1: around them. I've heard of mental health patients waiting days
Speaker 1: in emergency, some walking out. On top of that, you've
Speaker 1: got to wait weeks to see a GP and even further,
Speaker 1: none of it's knew. The crisis has been there for years.
Speaker 1: It is nationwide. The federal election did nothing to address it.
Speaker 1: I'm an elbow showed us his Medicare card every five minutes,
Speaker 1: which is not much good if there are no doctors
Speaker 1: to see. We need several things here. We've got to
Speaker 1: fix it, and we need several things. We need a
Speaker 1: full summit. Talk to the doctors, talk to the nurses.
Speaker 1: Listen to them. They have ideas to improve the system.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to listen to them. Talk to the patients,
Speaker 1: find out what's really going on on the ground. Talk
Speaker 1: to the bureaucrats who are trying to make the dollars squeeze.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're probably not doing the wrong thing. They're
Speaker 1: just trying to do the best thing by everybody. The
Speaker 1: state federal duplication in health is absurd. It's wasteful, bureaucratic mess.
Speaker 1: Sort that out sought, the training sought, the resources. In Victoria,
Speaker 1: hospitals are literally falling down. The Royal Melbourne, one of
Speaker 1: our major hospitals, is held together with chicken wire, has
Speaker 1: been for years. In New South Wales, private hospitals are closing,
Speaker 1: which puts more pressure on the public system. There is
Speaker 1: an urgent need for action, but it's been urgent for years,
Speaker 1: is not it? Starting point? With all this fudging of
Speaker 1: data going on, the health ministers, federal and state should
Speaker 1: get together and conduct an information raid. An information raid
Speaker 1: arrive unannounced at a hospital one day, no media, just
Speaker 1: a team to look at the figures that haven't been massaged,
Speaker 1: the real figures. Talk to people, get a genuine grassroots
Speaker 1: idea of what's going on. That'll be a start, but
Speaker 1: they won't like it. But they want to take TV
Speaker 1: cameras with them for a start, for a photo opportunity.
Speaker 1: And second, the politicians are part of the con in government.
Speaker 1: They prefer to see fudge figures. They want to pretend
Speaker 1: everything is terrific, even when blind Freddie can see it
Speaker 1: is not. What it is is a long running, life changing,
Speaker 1: life threatening, massively expensive, inefficient disaster. That's your health system.
Speaker 1: Never think about this for a moment. You want to
Speaker 1: use the internet. That might be for fun, might be
Speaker 1: for work, might be just some information to settle a debate.
Speaker 1: You sit down at your computer. Before you log on,
Speaker 1: You've got to do three things. One put in a
Speaker 1: password that's okay. Two your face must be recognized by
Speaker 1: the computer. Three you provide your finger. Now you meet
Speaker 1: all three criteria, you're online. File one, go away, no access.
Speaker 1: Is that an assault on freedom? I wonder the scambuster
Speaker 1: I interviewed on my podcast Neil Mitchell asks why reckons
Speaker 1: we need to do it. That interview is available now
Speaker 1: in the usual places, and his argument is this, the
Speaker 1: Internet can be evil, can also be good, but it
Speaker 1: can be evil. It's littered with scams that hurt good people,
Speaker 1: scams at fun, terrorism, amongst other things. It is basically unpoliced,
Speaker 1: and he says this is the way to begin policing it.
Speaker 1: This is what he told me. His name is Ken Gamble,
Speaker 1: his company is IFW Global, which is a cyber security
Speaker 1: company that operates internationally. This is what Ken Gamble said.
Speaker 2: There needs to be better policing on the Internet. There
Speaker 2: needs to be more regulation around people using services online. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: there should be some sort of national identity. I think
Speaker 2: we all should be identified by our face and our fingerprint.
Speaker 1: Oh you should national identity card.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that and that identity then accesses your use of
Speaker 2: the Internet and everyone that uses the Internet. Because the
Speaker 2: Internet was set up to create freedom, freedom of speech,
Speaker 2: freedom of everything, you know, and that was the whole purpose.
Speaker 2: And of course criminals have now used it for nefarious purposes.
Speaker 2: So I think there needs to be a lot more
Speaker 2: regulation around the Internet moving forward into the future where
Speaker 2: it has to be policed a lot more because no
Speaker 2: one's policing the Internet as a whole. Nobody. There's no
Speaker 2: national or international global law enforcement agency that it's policing
Speaker 2: the Internet as a whole. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Just just flush out that idea on the card. How
Speaker 1: would that work? You'd need an authority to use the Internet.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's not a bad idea. But of
Speaker 2: course people will argue, well, that's that's an invasion of
Speaker 2: privacy where you people want to be free to do
Speaker 2: aver they like. But when you're dealing with the amount
Speaker 2: of crime that's online, and there's always going to be
Speaker 2: people that will never agree. That's the problem. We live
Speaker 2: in society where people enjoy their freedom, they don't want
Speaker 2: to be having to put their fingerprint into access to
Speaker 2: the Internet. But I think that there should be I
Speaker 2: would love to see most self personally, based on everything
Speaker 2: that I've seen, I'd love to see when you log
Speaker 2: into the Internet to use the Internet, that you're identified,
Speaker 2: that your face and your fingerprint. Just like when you
Speaker 2: go to a crypto company and you buy cryptocurrency, they
Speaker 2: have to identify your face and your fingerprint and they
Speaker 2: have to identify you and in order to use cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2: So why should it be a different to the Internet.
Speaker 2: You should be identified in order to use the Internet
Speaker 2: and get access to all of those services. It's a
Speaker 2: simple identification of who you are when you log in,
Speaker 2: your identity is logged in. Of course it can be exploited,
Speaker 2: but it would be a good start. Probably never could
Speaker 2: be implemented, but I think that's one way of starting
Speaker 2: to enforce the law when it comes to Internet and
Speaker 2: actually regulating the use of the Internet. That's the only
Speaker 2: real way.
Speaker 1: Now my dubt it will happen, but something needs to
Speaker 1: be done. Billions are scam from innocent people each year.
Speaker 1: The internet's a huge part of that. Australia is the
Speaker 1: number one target because we are decent, trusting people. That's
Speaker 1: nice that we're decent and trusting, but it makes us
Speaker 1: a target. Artificial intelligence is growing and making it more difficult.
Speaker 1: There was a version of Anthony Alberanezi recently supporting some
Speaker 1: investment plan total fake and now this is a little
Speaker 1: bit frightening. The reports circulating that if you ask chat
Speaker 1: GPT AI, if I was a devil then I wanted
Speaker 1: to destroy a generation? What would I do? If I
Speaker 1: was the devil and I wanted to destroyer generation? What
Speaker 1: would I do? The AI answer effectively, it says, well,
Speaker 1: do what's happening? Do things like undermine critical thinking, promote
Speaker 1: instant gratification, break down family relationships, flood media with bad messages,
Speaker 1: think influences, and exploit the dependence on technology. That's scary
Speaker 1: stuff that AI has identified these things and second that
Speaker 1: they're really describing life and the addiction to devices through
Speaker 1: clever algorithms. Chat GPT is really describing most online use
Speaker 1: and effects as the work of the devil destroying a generation. Now.
Speaker 1: I know people said the same thing about television in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties when it started. We learned to
Speaker 1: live with it, we managed it, but it wasn't as
Speaker 1: insidious or as evil as what's going on here. Potentially
Speaker 1: evil anyway. I asked Australia's best known adolescent psychologist, doctor
Speaker 1: Michael Kargrigg about this. He said, with the kids that
Speaker 1: he deals with, some use AI as a very constructive,
Speaker 1: superb tool for innovation and self expression, but he said
Speaker 1: it can also deepen social isolation, expose them to harmful content,
Speaker 1: and even expose them to cyber bullying through deep fakes.
Speaker 1: He said, there needs to be much more understanding of
Speaker 1: our eyes, capabilities and risks. Now. I don't know that
Speaker 1: restricting online access at work the nets here to stay,
Speaker 1: but I agree with Michael kat Greg we need to
Speaker 1: be taught better skepticism, restraint, caution. We need to be
Speaker 1: less trusting of everything we read and see online. Even
Speaker 1: the videos can be totally deep, fake, dangerous and destructive.
Speaker 1: If a generation is not going to be destroyed, they
Speaker 1: have to learn to be skeptical. That's sad. It's very sad,
Speaker 1: but it's essential. Well the quick things swrap up and
Speaker 1: remember to keep in touch. Neil dot Mitchell at nine
Speaker 1: dot com dot you Neil dot Mitchell at nine dot
Speaker 1: com dot you. I've thought for a while Free to
Speaker 1: Wear TV had to change and change dramatically. The threat
Speaker 1: from streaming services is huge. Now. The signs are there
Speaker 1: this week that the change a level change is stepping up. First,
Speaker 1: reports that some of the huge salaries have been cut
Speaker 1: back for presenters on Free to TV. I've got no
Speaker 1: idea if those figures or the reports are right, but
Speaker 1: it makes a bit of sense. Second, two long running
Speaker 1: programs of going been acted, The Project on Channel ten
Speaker 1: and Q and A at the ABC. Now I've appeared
Speaker 1: on both of these. I think they have something to
Speaker 1: add to the world. They did have, but neither was
Speaker 1: rating well. The being counter set up not worth it.
Speaker 1: Both programs started with fresh ideas, good ideas, a different idea.
Speaker 1: The Project then became self righteous and a bit woke.
Speaker 1: Q and A became unrepresentative, predictable, a bit boring, run
Speaker 1: out of legs. That's a pity. But what matters now
Speaker 1: is what comes next with those shows. They used a
Speaker 1: lot of staff. They're expensive to put to air. If
Speaker 1: the stations now go really cheap and give us reruns
Speaker 1: of Mash or Forek Corners or whatever, it's a step back.
Speaker 1: If they find a new, fresh, stimulating idea for news
Speaker 1: driven Australian content that actually relates to people, well, Hall Lulia,
Speaker 1: we need it also. Elbow Anthony Albaneza. Your Prime minis
Speaker 1: he's awake, he's waken up from his post election hangover
Speaker 1: and he wants a summit on productivity. That's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Productivity has been a problem in this country for years.
Speaker 1: The Prime Minister says lower paid workers should be paid more,
Speaker 1: and we'd all agree with that, but investors must get
Speaker 1: their fair whack too, because if there's no investment, there
Speaker 1: are no jobs. It's a delicate balance. You need increased
Speaker 1: productivity mixed with a fair share to all. That's the
Speaker 1: answer to it. Let's see our seriously years and whether
Speaker 1: union aggression and corporate greed can be sufficiently controlled to
Speaker 1: allow genuine gains in productivity. The other thing he's done
Speaker 1: since waking up is imposed sanctions on two right wing
Speaker 1: Israeli ministers. Israel's angry, but the two the security ministers
Speaker 1: from the Finance minister, now face travel bands and having
Speaker 1: their assets frozen. Countries involved in this Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
Speaker 1: Norway and the United Kingdom. It's a hardline approach to
Speaker 1: a very complex problem. And the claim, the allegation is
Speaker 1: they've incited violences to against Palestinians. Well, the sanctions may
Speaker 1: be right or wrong. Australia has got a right to
Speaker 1: do it. But it is reported we did not inform
Speaker 1: our major ally, Israel's major ally that it was happening.
Speaker 1: We didn't alert the United States. Now, if that's true,
Speaker 1: just clumsy, it's clumsy diplomacy. The US Secretary of State
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio says the sanctions do not help the attempts
Speaker 1: to get a cease fire. He's reminded Australia not to
Speaker 1: forget the Hamas atrocities. Very good point, and he said,
Speaker 1: do not lose sight of who is the real enemy here,
Speaker 1: And that's a very fair point. If we didn't inform
Speaker 1: the US, it was just stupid. Oh and speaking of stupid,
Speaker 1: Greta Tunberg and her boat her crews to Gaza with
Speaker 1: some medical supplies. It was a stunt, a simple but
Speaker 1: clever stunt. I not to summon. The media described this
Speaker 1: as an aid ship. Well, it did carry a tiny
Speaker 1: amount of aid, but it wasn't about that. It was
Speaker 1: a stunt to draw attention to the Israeli strategy in Gaza,
Speaker 1: and it worked. The Israelis were right to call it
Speaker 1: a selfie ship. It was all about promoting something, promoting
Speaker 1: a cause, but many fell for it. If only the
Speaker 1: world was as simple as Greta sees it, we'd all
Speaker 1: stop fighting. Nobody be starving, nobody be dying, nobody be suffocating.
Speaker 1: Wonder when she grows up, will she be embarrassed by
Speaker 1: her naivety or proud of her international fame. We need
Speaker 1: young people with the fire and her belly. But I
Speaker 1: think maybe Greet's fire has become a little bit too
Speaker 1: all consuming. There's not much logic in there. That's it.
Speaker 1: Quick email. I won't read all from Craig. His son's
Speaker 1: been the victim of a tax office scam. As we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, there a lot of is around.
Speaker 1: I got a scam warning to be aware of scams,
Speaker 1: then asking for details. Craig's son paid a lot of
Speaker 1: money he thought was going to the taxman. Well, the
Speaker 1: banks managed to get a little bit of it back,
Speaker 1: but not most of it. Craig has written of the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and the Treasurer telling him how difficult it
Speaker 1: was to deal with the real tax office over this,
Speaker 1: and nobody is willing to help. He says the system
Speaker 1: is flawed, and I agree with him. Many times you
Speaker 1: get scammed by anybody, you're on your own, you get
Speaker 1: very little help, and with the tax office, you'd hope
Speaker 1: they'd be different and help work for us. Neil dot
Speaker 1: mitch Uel at nine dot com dot are you talking
Speaker 1: about scams? My Tuesday podcast is available now. Neil Mitchell
Speaker 1: asks why. As I mentioned a moment ago, one of
Speaker 1: the world's leading scambusters explains how bad the scams are,
Speaker 1: how they work, and what you need to do to
Speaker 1: protect yourself. Neil Mitchell asks why available now?