A Rational Fear / LIVE: NEWCASTLE & BEGA: Kirsten Drysdale, Scott Ludlum, Gabbi Bolt, Mick Neven, James Pender, Georgina Woods, Dylan Behan, Lewis Hobba and Dan Ilic

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G'day Fearmongers —

Here is the live recording of this month's two regional shows in climate vulnerable cities — Newcastle and Bega!

This is an edited super cut of both shows, if you'd like to see/hear the full unedited shows you can watch the video on our Patreon. Where you can support us for as little as the price of a coffee a month.

June 5th — Newcastle

Kirsten Drysdale (Reputation Rehab)
James Pender (Sammy J)
Lewis Hobba (Triple J)
Dan Ilic (Can Of Worms)
Georgina Woods (Lock The Gate)
+ DJ Dylabolical (The Chaser / Newsfighters Podcast)

June 13th — Bega

Mick Neven (Melb. Comedy Festival)
Gabbi Bolt (Tik Tok / The Chaser)
Lewis Hobba (Triple J)
Dan Ilic (Hungry Beast)
Scott Ludlam (Former Senator)
+DJ Dylabolical (The Chaser / Newsfighters Podcast)

Our next live show is on June 24th in Sydney — it is SOLD OUT!

So the next show after that is at Comedy Republic in Melbourne August 14th!



Bertha Announcement  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.

Dan Ilic  0:04  
Today Daniel is here the host of irrational fear the podcast you're listening to right now. This is just to let you know that we you're about to hear a mishmash of two of the best live shows we've done this month, we went to Newcastle, and we went to bigger to do shows roughly about climate change in very climate vulnerable areas. And the first show you're gonna hear is our Newcastle show. And let's face it when you're doing a show about climate change in coal country, the audience may require some warming up. You decide.

Unknown Speaker  0:32  
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra COMM And section audio, or rational view recommends listening by immature audio. Tonight hitting

Unknown Speaker  0:45  
$1.1 million, the average price of a Newcastle home has hit parity with the average cocaine habit over Newcastle nice.

Unknown Speaker  0:54  
And Scott Morrison has gotten in trouble for saying our vaccine goal isn't a race, of course a leader of a country that's coming 100 and fifth in the

Unknown Speaker  1:01  
world would say that. And Newcastle is the seventh biggest city in Australia. And just like camera you have trained now.

Dan Ilic  1:12  
It's June 5, called Environment Day and live from New causes between nobodies head and the sun to the old genus tower.

You're absolutely right, Louis, these people have never heard our show before. All right, welcome. This is the rational V, I'm your host, former gas turbine Daniel ej. And this is the podcast that kind of rips in the news and drills down on climate change. It's a bit like q&a, but people are actually watching, which is right. And tonight we're in Newcastle, which is terrific. On tonight's show. We'll look at lessons learned from the upper hunter byelection. We'll learn how we can carbon offset our partners that work in mining. And we'll ask just how many drinks Do you need to have to pass a bulk up? Let's meet our female guests for tonight. He's the number one comedy video editor as in he's the first and the oldest comedy video editor in Australia from the chaser to nightly and the news fighters podcast. It's still in vain. And he's a part time human rights lawyer and full time clown. He's one of the writers and performers of semi Jays playground politics. It's James panda. And she's recently was the star and executive producer of her own TV show and gave birth halfway through production. She is doing it all for the writings its reputation rehabs, ghosts and draws dial wasn't all true. And she's a self described hypocrite who is on the frontlines of climate action unlock the gate but lock it back up again real quick because it's locked the gates Gina woods and as soon as he started surfing this year, our final guests became the number one radio DJ in Newcastle. I assume you're from Nova Kasserine FM

Lewis Hobba  3:15  
that's Yeah, no, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here in New Orleans. It's great. Yeah, we found out that the other bit of microphone talking I do the radio show is now the number one drive show in Newcastle. And it was a huge surprise to me, because I have very soft hands. And I just didn't expect to be taken into via violin over Catherine's but I'm fucking thrilled to be here. Yeah. All right. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Unknown Speaker  3:38  
We understand there's been some confusion about who is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and who votes labour. That's why the federal government is clearing up the confusion with job seeker. Job Seeker tells you when the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be made available to groups most in need of protection first, and Liberal Party donors. These vulnerable communities have been identified by medical experts and focus groups. group one includes people who are at increased risk of being silenced by kancil culture, like journalists who haven't asked any questions, cab drivers and divorce dads with an axe to grind on Facebook group to priority access will also be given to people working in critical services such as residents of marginal electorates, sharks fans, coal industry professionals, and men with law degrees who went to university with current or former Liberal Party cabinet members. If you're not listed in groups one or two, keep checking job seeker to see when other groups of people will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine like women's scientists, union members, and Tom Ballard, who will definitely be last on the list job seeker helping those who are more on Team Australia than others get a COVID-19 vaccine first whenever they fucking Arrive authorised by someone anonymously to give us plausible deniability. Should

Unknown Speaker  5:03  
it all go to hell camera?

Dan Ilic  5:05  
All right.

Sometimes I like to think we're winning the hearts and minds for climate justice in this country. Then I realised Oh, no, no, that's not that feeling. That's not the feeling of hope that's barely um, and the reason why we're here in this room in Newcastle is because it's important because ironically, when it comes to climate justice in Newcastle, you're at the coalface. Yeah. I was waiting for that one. Yep. Now we're gonna be talking a little bit more about the upper hunter election by by election a little later on. Now, the media was saying how labour was distraught to lose the upper hunter seat seat they haven't held in about 100 years. That's like saying, I'm distraught. I'm not an NBA player who can fly. Like labour, we're never going to win because labour forgot to stand for something. Now, the rest of the hunter, of course, is about to be turned into a fracking mess with more pipes coming out of it than Ben cousins. And much like, much like a liberal minister at a camera bar that guest live recovery is going to come upon us whether we want to or not. So I can't.

Lewis Hobba  6:19  
Honestly, it's quite shocking to me how few of you have heard this podcast. I really like yeah, it's not gonna get better. I really need you to prepare yourself for an hour that

Dan Ilic  6:35  
did say on the poster, an hour of jokes about the C word. Anyway,

Kirsten Drysdale  6:40  
I've got to say when I was coming in a lady walk past and she like, pushed her restaurant booking back because she said, I've just walked past the Playhouse and there's a nice play on. I think I'm gonna go and see it. Sorry, lady.

Dan Ilic  6:54  
Anyway, I think we're losing the battle when it comes to communicating about climate change. And I think we, I think because we're communicating badly. We're up against the carbon lobby when it comes to climate denialism. They have developed one of the most sophisticated weapons ever made boomers on Facebook that print names and put them in local shops. Now, this is the number one threat to climate change everywhere in this country. The environment doesn't stand a chance. On our side, we've had NASA the CSI arrived, David Attenborough and Avatar. And quite frankly, we can't compete with Microsoft Word Art. Look at that. These photos I'm showing you from a recent trip through country New South Wales, for the people on the podcast. This is a Henry Lawson poem about a bushfire and in curly Microsoft Word out above it says someone forgot to tell Henry Lawson in 1911. It was all caused by climate change. And you know what? They're absolutely right, because the first mention of climate change in an Australian newspaper wasn't until 1912 a whole 12 months after in the Sydney Evening News. Now Can anyone guess the number one font for climate deniers in New South Wales? Can anyone guess? Comic Sans Comic Sans very good. Excellent. Very good now Yeah, she's head of the group. Have a look at this one here. This one is a petition to stop a solar farm in both red and blue text, you know, trying to get some labour and liberal voters getting some bipartisanship here. Notice no green text on this one. I thought that was good. All right. Here's another one. This is from an A new farm a gift shop. It says that in 1939 there was a big bushfire that they called Black Friday, which is enough for this person to be convinced that the government was lying to us all about climate change because of bushfire happened once about 100 years ago. Now, the majority of it is in climate change. But as you can see here, they've mixed it up with some Tahoma and some full time use rotten Times New Roman as well, but they have reserved some Comic Sans for some particular words including ignorance and climate counts. Now the author did get a bit biblical towards the end ditching the Comic Sans and instead going for all caps. James is someone who's had some religion in the in their life. Could you please read out the the all caps as the author intended,

James Pender  9:19  
and yet today we are being told by our leaders that this is the new normal.

Unknown Speaker  9:26  
This time is right now we have been brainwashed into believing that the gospel of the new religion is cluttered.

Georgina Woods  9:36  
I have had the opposite experience though Dan of handing out flyers about climate change and saying to people, this is where the water is coming to the water is coming. The water is coming and feeling very much.

Dan Ilic  9:46  
It's a very biblical down there to build a boat. I love this man. In the bottom it says only this time it has a new and new and dangerous name and a global religion but behind it, the altar has been built, and our gullibility is about to be offered upon it. And then they've gone and undercut their entire argument by putting a Bible quote underneath. We says, none of the wicked shall understand, but the wives shall understand. And I don't understand why finally this The other thing you're gonna see around regional New South Wales here is Alan Jones articles. I call them articles but they actually are pids because you're not allowed to call them journalism because they don't have any facts. And so you're gonna see plenty of this around regional New South Wales. Also, here's another old favourite for people who can squint they put up Dorothea Mackellar has sunburned country as if they will, because there was a flood or a fire once and it was indicted. makellos palm. That's argument enough as to the climate change has always been around.

Unknown Speaker  10:51  
How come they don't do that thing we all used to do in primary school where you like put a tea bag over the paper and make it look lighter up to the edges.

Dan Ilic  10:59  
This one looks like the irony is I think this one's been up there. Like through 10 bushfires. It's, it's very faded. So what do we do about it? Well, friends, I've got a couple of things tonight to share with you. I've rewritten Dorothy makellos sunburnt country and and I've printed it out in Comic Sans. And I'm going to read it out to you now. And some of you will be able to take a copy of this home. I love a sunburn country. Not one of constantly ablaze with weather anomalies increasing to our scientists amaze. I love a sunburn country. Oh shit. It's on fire again. We put it out last answer send back the water cry. I love a sunburn country with once in 100 year floods now occurring monthly, we're neck deep in that they're getting bigger and more often these climate change events Sky News can go fuck itself. They're larger and more frequent. Are we corrupt? Like she fuckery County limp leaders need to accelerate just transition rather than holding on to power to boost their superannuation attenuation. So go out and tell your friends that life as we know it is fact unless we ditch our fossil fuels this lucky country's adult.

Unknown Speaker  12:14  
And there is one more thing I've made for you. And that is, this is like you've moved the end of Oprah to the start.

Dan Ilic  12:22  
Well, Yo, I gotta get my shit out of the way. I've made a fake op ed, here it is. Look at this. This is a fake Alan Jones op ed. He's basically repenting.

Alan Jones  12:34  
I'm about to do something that I've only ever done once before. I'm about to admit that I'm wrong. The only other time I've done this is when I declared the chest was the best musical to come out of the brain of Tim Rice. And we all know that's wrong. It's jesus christ superstar incontrovertibly so. The I was wrong about chess as either they have this. Here we go. For a very long time. I used to think that climate change wasn't real. I used to think that like an ethnically 2021 Christmas album, it just wasn't happening. I used to think that the fossil fuel companies and funded my show were on struggle straight and doing it tough. And those on the land were begging for handouts, and so called compensation because their farm is now open pit mine were a bunch of winners who took two sucking off the teat of the working man if I can use that expression. But much like the 2001 Wallabies back end as evolved. And I know this is not to be true. It's wrong. If I could put all of my previous climate change denialism in a chat bag and throw that to say I would, but that's wrong, too. And we get stuck around a dolphin's neck and they die for watch, trying to unravel a bag of bad opinions to shape discourse and policy in an attire for an entire country. One metaphor

Dan Ilic  13:44  
the revelation came to me when an parlane bow valine chose to go to new direction for marketing and no longer sponsor my TV show. It was in renewable energy giant national solar energy group stepped in with the help of their money, it became clearer than ever that humans were causing climate change. It's clear that we need to stop all additions of alien life and electrify everything with national solar energy grids renewable energy, it's clear we need to draw down emissions as fast as we can. It's also clear that this government needs to prevent me from being such a powerful position to influence policymakers in this country. Instead of paying billions for fossil fuel subsidies that are killing the planet. The Defence department should build a time machine that will allow a cold blooded assassin like that will build been Robert Smith on lightning huge to go back in time and strangle me to death with a big strong athletic hands before I endorse Tony Abbott as prime minister. If we can do that, then we just bought save the planet. And if we can't do that, take an insurance italiaanse in order to protect your home and contents insurance. For the worst his mother died she can throw your wife Allianz peace of mind when Mother Nature is on a period. Mother Nature The only other woman worse than Julia Gilad on Ellen Jones

Thanks very much everyone, and you can take a copy of that home with you. If there's any left outside as you leave, but if you register on the website, you'll get a free one as well in next week's email. All right, alright. Ladies and gentlemen dealing rational fear. Fear is rational. Alright.

Dylan Behan  15:33  
Alright, DJ diabolical se with some wacky clips. Let's get the show on the road. It's great to be here in Newcastle. Now I don't know if any of you heard but there was a thing called a byelection on here recently. Has anyone anyone heard about this? Anyone know about this? Anyone? like hearing about the by election? But actually, I didn't think it was a by election because according to john barilaro, it was actually a horse race when we weren't just in the race. We've led over why like a good bloody racehorse.

Unknown Speaker  16:04  
Now's not the time to change, change the jockey mid rise. You can't just replace the jockey The horse is broken.

Unknown Speaker  16:11  
What the hell does that mean? What the hell jumbo? is john barrel IRA just wishing he was at the rice track, instead of on the campaign trail? Or is his brain only capable of holding like a single metaphor and he literally compares everything to a horse race? Like what does he do when he goes to his kids swimming Carnival? Well, Billy may the best horse win. But Dad, I mean, you're human son, not to me. You are. Yes, but if you haven't heard nationals candidate, David lizelle was out on the on the upper Hunter was right. And being the electorate talked on my research. I read that it's the electorate with the highest proportion employed in mining in all of New South Wales, which meant that john barilaro steady state nationals leader made sure to remind us during the campaign, just how much he and his party support call.

Unknown Speaker  17:10  
The results minister I've actually had more mines approved in the two years since taking on the portfolio. Our track record is supporting coal, a berejiklian barrel era government and liberal National Coalition I'll use the word calling that one thing to say behind

Unknown Speaker  17:31  
powering your economy. Yes, that is literally a glue a grown man yelling at a coal train like is a four year old total opportunity he just saw Thomas the Tank Engine.

Unknown Speaker  17:47  
black suit makes me cough ups not that yes, the Nationals love coal. This is the message they wanted us all to take away the Nationals love cold. I love cold so much that being a video editor I put together a little montage of how much the Nationals love and support coal and coal miners into the future let's let's see how much they love.

Unknown Speaker  18:11  
New South Wales deputy premier john barilaro has called for national referendum or plebiscite on nuclear energy john barrel Laura has long championed the benefits of nuclear power, mining and nuclear energy is should be part of Australia's economic future that low energy future

Unknown Speaker  18:27  
The only political part of the sickens head up on this issue is the National Party. National senators earlier this year in Canberra drafted legislation allowing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in nuclear power. And the man who chairs today's nuclear parliamentarian roundtable was the Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, if you seriously

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
want zero emissions, if that's what knocks you out. If that's what blows your hair back. Well, then nuclear path is where you're gonna have to go and we should start looking at nuclear. Do you think within 20 years they'll be modular nuclear reactors in Australia? I think it's a very good chance that

Unknown Speaker  19:02  
it is a cheap, reliable source of energy national parties 100% behind this and we hope our coalition partners will follow us.

Unknown Speaker  19:10  
Yeah, that coal miners the National Party is 100% behind nuclear. Bobby a good time to go down to the TAFE and learn how to mine uranium if you can find a type that hasn't been sold off at a loss. Yes, that's our deputy federal nationals later Bridget McKenzie there at the end saying how much she loves nuclear. And one of the reasons she said she loves to clutter is it's so much so much better than all those pesky windmills, have a look.

Unknown Speaker  19:35  
If you put some nuclear power into this mix, we'd be losing a tiny percentage of the landmass that's currently on the wind farms. And we'd be able to use that for farming and a whole lot of other industries as well.

Unknown Speaker  19:48  
You hear that the deputy leader of the roll party the Nationals, I don't think she's ever seen a shape paddock full of wind turbines before in her entire life. Also, Bridget I don't think you'll I think you'll find sheep crazy is wanting to put nuclear actors out in a backpack or on a rooftop. And also, Matt Canavan, who is in that story is in the montage before he reckons nuclear is really safe to those dangerous renewables.

Unknown Speaker  20:13  
Overall, nuclear has been an incredibly safe technology. People die installing solar panels on roofs. The greatest energy accidents in the world have always involved petrochemicals which are inherently volatile, and we're talking about getting hydrogen root which is a very flammable and dangerous chemical.

Unknown Speaker  20:31  
Yeah, last I checked, there's no HBO miniseries about people installing solar panels on roofs. And speaking of hydrogen, which he mentioned there at the end, hydrogen has also been in the news a lot lately, Scott Morrison has made it his new favourite technological buzzword for when he gets cornered by the rest of the world into talking about how we're going to have to get to net zero as you know, eventually, eventually, eventually don't I won't say windows please, please stop asking. In fact, Stormer loves hydrogen so much. He was he was name dropping out repeatedly back in April, in the days around joe biden's virtual climate day summit Have a look. Our ambition is to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world,

Unknown Speaker  21:14  
that one of the most important targets that Australia has, is to be able to produce hydrogen at $2 a kilo. Mr. President in the United States, you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia, we are creating our own hydrogen ballots. And when it comes to the hydrogen valleys we can be developing all across the country.

Unknown Speaker  21:36  
Yes, hydrogen Valley's also the name of the worst timing polar album. So it's comparison is having a bromance with hydrogen. Why? Well, you'll be surprised to learn that it's because our government is arguing that hydrogen made using coal and gas can still be cold clay in hydrogen, aka blue hydrogen, because you know, we'll just use carbon capture to turn it clean, I guess. It's totally a real thing. Carbon Capture works. Change the subject, speaking, speaking in which he is his Angus Taylor, on trying to argue blue hydrogen is clean hydrogen to a friend Kelly on ahran breakfast in April and Well, it sounds like he was going a bit blue in the

Unknown Speaker  22:17  
face. And you've announced this week. $540 million for new hydrogen hubs and carbon capture and storage at the hydrogen hubs. A lot of people have been asking hear me here on this programme is a green hydrogen or hydrogen made with fossil fuels?

Unknown Speaker  22:31  
It's clean hydrogen, what's that? That's the point. It's clean hydrogen.

Unknown Speaker  22:35  
So it's not made by the fossil fuel industry. So I'm not declaring why I'm asking it wasn't made with fossil fuels are made with renewable energy.

Unknown Speaker  22:42  
The point that may make when they're asking that question is we can't possibly make anything from fossil fuels. Well, you know what, if it's zero emissions, it's fine. That's the point. It's got to be clean. fuels and how do we make it zero emissions? It will be made with anything that allows us to reduce emissions is blue. Hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions is green hydrogen, it can be done with zero emissions. You know, we made a lot of horses in this race.

Unknown Speaker  23:10  
Horses again, get some new metaphors. Oh my God. That interview was such a cluster shambles. Angus Taylor went on Facebook and commented bad job Angus. Of course, one of the reasons in fact, probably the real reason that Scott Morrison loves hydrogen so much is well it can keep his millionaire mining mate magnate mates rich and we can keep digging up coal for another 50 years. But also it can make trucks got burned.

Unknown Speaker  23:38  
I mean, hydrogen can be used to drive vehicles. I mean, up there in the Pilbara at the moment. They're putting him in the mining trucks. Yeah, let's

Unknown Speaker  23:45  
put let's put hydrogen flammable hydrogen in vehicles because it works. So well. Last time, Dan, play the clip. go well. In conclusion, if you're saying well, who cares? We're doing the best we can we can't do any more than to get to zero emissions and help stop climate change in this country. But let's just let's just let's just look over the ditch to New Zealand and see what just didn't return promised at the Earth Day summit back

Unknown Speaker  24:16  
in April. No fossil fuel subsidies part of New Zealand's four action points one price carbon to make climate related financial disclosures, mandatory three in fossil fuel subsidies and for finance adaptation.

Dan Ilic  24:36  
And that's how you win a bloody horse race. Yeah. rational. Your fear is rational. It's kind of a theme throughout irrational fear and the greatest moral podcast of our generation where you have all this technical technobabble and it comes down to something so simple, how good is to send data so good, man? Well, yeah.

Lewis Hobba  24:58  
I want some New Zealand has all those people falling off their solar panelled roofs. Well who'll be laughing then actually eating her words? Yeah.

Dan Ilic  25:07  
Now, George, you out Newcastle local here. What was the most interesting thing to come out of the upper hunter byelection for you?

Unknown Speaker  25:19  
Well, I have a slightly different take from Dylan I suppose because there was a lot of you know, headlining about coal. But in actual fact, what the National Party did during that election campaign was cancelled. The coal mine that was proposed and proved on the Liverpool Plains promised they'd never be any open cut coal mining at dark rock near Aberdeen, promised to set up an expert panel that would manage the structural adjustment of the region. You know, in the event of coals, coal exports declined and invite unions and community advocates to take part in deciding how that rolls out. And we won the by election, and then the Labour Party subsequently just tear itself completely to pieces because they didn't think that they were protocol enough during the election campaign.

Dan Ilic  26:00  
Wow. Did people have the upper hand to think that we're voting for the greens?

Unknown Speaker  26:05  
Well, I think it's fair to say that if the Labour Party had done the series of things that the National Party did, you know, to curtail the mining industry and plan for structural adjustment. The reaction I think in this sort of tabloid press probably would have been slightly different that they they get a different sort of treatment on it.

Lewis Hobba  26:21  
So were you a member of lock the gate who would vote national

Unknown Speaker  26:26  
there are many people in the lock the gate movement who vote nationally in fact, I've spoken to farmers who have you know, locked on against a resource extraction projects who also hand out how to vote cards for the National Party and find it harder find it harder to you know, to change that than they do to go and get arrested fighting mining projects.

Lewis Hobba  26:47  
Yeah, right. Right. I mean, I guess based on that election Yeah, they're absolutely spot on in situ on the stock mining boat national. That makes complete sense.

Dan Ilic  26:57  
Ladies and gentlemen, James panda. Hello. Diane

Unknown Speaker  27:04  
says as Dylan just said, the National hunter byelection and as john Boyle our I said the nationals are back baby, and he's rider guests. But when you've been in power in the upper hand for the last 90 years, it's fair to say you're not only back if you've never gone away, have you to be clean labour last were empowering the upper hunter in 1931. And in 1931, the Labour Party still referred to itself as a Communist Party. Hitler was an unknown artist from Austria. Andrew Boldt hadn't been invented yet so while the loss for labour in the recent byelection as we've already said was a bit unexpected. I've got some ideas to help out labour in the hunter. So I'm going to go through 10 things that can help labour when in the hunter number one way more vests. Nothing says vote for me for 90 consecutive he is like a smart vest. I reckon. JOHN barrel already knows it and that fighter, so I just tie flies. Look at them. This is one PC getting shit done in your electorate. Where is this open neck shirt so you can buy from labour candidate Jeff Drayton says I'm busy appearing before I care. The electorate says no. Number two more jobs brothers are rockin nothing screams success like the John's brothers together they oversaw the most successful era in rugby league Andruw Jones famous for taking so many pictures that became a rugby league and multiple was Matthew Jones is famous for his rich Reagan character who continually called for the game to bring back the beef. I think now labour needs to harness their talents. Imagine Joey Jones on the dealings handing out how to vote cards. going door to door imagine rage Reagan advocating for return to call labour values. Like labour legend Ben chifley in his evocatively titled stump speech, bring back the chief. Perhaps short or long bow there but let's just say John's brothers and labour ladies and gentlemen unstoppable. Number three branch sacking labour needs to get serious about the brand stalking. They can't just keep hoping people will vote for them. They need to start breeding labour voters. Luckily, one thing we do know is that jobs fact the way through Newcastle in the 1990s, which means there's a whole lot of elite illegitimate children out there and given most of the routes probably happened post a 97 Premiership those kids are at voting age. So let's sign them up for Labour baby. Idea number four build a beat something every week Cody in Australia has a big something What does the hunter have other than big unemployment and a big problem with institutional child abuse? to sin if library to when they need to promise to build something big, not that. No, not a gas fired power station. We're in Newcastle. What about a big nuke? Just point the nuclear bomb mccampbell and Mikey demands or using to get rid of Gosford idea number five, get rid of Gosford let's be honest go city's a shithole odroid for anyone to get rid of gossip. I don't care how All I know is do we really need Gosford? The Central Coast Mariners and the bluetongue beanfactory are not reasons to keep a town are the number six sign over kastri and more labour candidates need to be seen saying the word Nova kastri and I don't know how the fuck that means Newcastle person, but it's a cool word. Number seven embrace the ban on a serious note ladies and gentlemen labour needs to embrace the ban on everyone's lips. Okay, and now I don't mean the ban on coal fired power station. I mean the ban on any further albums that involve Daniel Jones and Luke Steele in their co lab drains drains more like nightmares. Am I right? I am right okay.

Unknown Speaker  31:00  
Adi number nine is a little bit easy. I'm running out of ideas at this point. If Should we get a minister for Semyon if Joe Fitzgibbons can lead the Labour Party to a new generation of glory? We need some less divisive portfolio making them in a surface me on swap the call for a cask of wine, then at least the inner city sir Chardonnay drinkers might actually listen to what he has to say. ID number 10. Ladies and gentlemen, keep doing the same thing later persist with a pro renewable pro climate change platform while failing to sell the benefits of a renewable economy to the workers in the fossil fuel sector. Sure, this strategy is probably not going to work. But the genius of this plan is if they commit to losing long enough sea levels will rise and wipe out the entire hunter region. So that labour can start with the remaining voting population that will probably believe in climate change because they will have seen it wipe out their whole family. And if we're lucky, there'll be some survivors from the descendants of Jeremy jobs and they'll lead the Knights to a Premiership again. Newcastle wins the hunter wins and most importantly, labour winds stickier

Dan Ilic  32:14  
than other Katherine's on our panel, do any of those inspire you to vote labour Minister for simians great idea? Absolutely. put myself forward.

Lewis Hobba  32:25  
Yeah, as a as a visitor. What's wrong with Gosford? Yeah, what

Dan Ilic  32:30  
is wrong with gospel? Really? You've never been?

Unknown Speaker  32:35  
He has been to coffee if you drive through Gosford that's

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
it there's a central coast Newcastle thing it's it's you know it's it's a little cousin.

Lewis Hobba  32:45  
Yeah, I fucking hate him. I'm desperate for calls. I'll say anything.

Dan Ilic  32:55  
Now Melvin's recent COVID outbreak has meant that a whole bunch of music festivals have been cancelled, including the replacement for the group in the move, fresh produce, which is real shame because music festivals are where some of our biggest and brightest ideas come to light at these festivals. A few years ago, we did a show at splendour in the grass and we asked some punters there just how they would solve the rift between Israel and Palestine. In the results, were pretty interesting. So I'm asking people for solutions to big problems. How do we fix Israel and Palestine

Unknown Speaker  33:28  
with ketamine? Lots of ketamine. As a matter of fact, I had this discussion. I'm not even fucking joking.

Unknown Speaker  33:36  
On the motherfucking, with the whole world peace to get the United Nations in a room, a lot of the finest ecstasy in the world will be so all the leftover food that isn't even explained to those people

Unknown Speaker  33:52  
just get on MDMA and forget to live a democracy. Or what if I told you that Israel had a terrific democratic government?

Unknown Speaker  33:59  
Well, we all know that's not true because the Ibis group in Washington, what do they call the Ibis group?

Dan Ilic  34:07  
What's your message to Benjamin Netanyahu? I don't know who he is my friend. What's your message of Benjamin Netanyahu? I'll say get brown chicken. Either one way, I'm sorry. But one of them has to be asking people to solve big problems. So I got a question for you. I've got a really big problem. What is it? Red Bull hurts my heart. told me the softball and a brother of how to be broken but there was also some sort of soul drawn on my lips. Now. How do we fix this? He said that they go for several months. Sorry, he wants Israel and Palestine. The two countries they should have splendid. Rufus just pumping 50k system on the fucking gaza strip out It'd be peace lamanites What's your message to Benjamin Netanyahu? Who's to state they use a two state solution for Israel and Palestine and the five state solution. Benjamin, Prime Minister of Israel, you need to dance under the grace and rule 10 and we will just we will look off the old days when is fully the wrong place us?

Lewis Hobba  35:39  
Why do you think that is? pretty fucked?

Dan Ilic  35:51  
I knew we should have opened with Israel gear on Twitter. I'm gonna put that on Twitter, because I'll get cancelled. That's why Yeah, it was on national broadcast that was on SBS at some point and we get so you know, it's on SBS. So no one watch no one you get mobile watching it on Twitter this everyone Kirsten dries down.

Unknown Speaker  36:25  
Hey, guys, so look, I just want to start by checking in with everyone you know, how's your climate anxiety guys? pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. I get it. But try being may try being married to a coal miner. Well, technically, he's a diesel mechanic. But when I'm not letting my cognitive dissonance get the better of me. I call it what it is. He's a diesel mechanic who works on a coal mine, fixing the machines that dig up the call or maintaining the washing plant that sorts the coal or repairing the pump that stops the tailings dam from spilling over and polluting the surrounding waterways with toxic effluent that's a byproduct of digging up coal. My husband's the latest in a long line of miners that stretches back in his family a dozen generations all the way to Cornwall, which is where coal was invented by Captain Cook. That sounds like a lie. And it partly is. But this here is literally a book tracking my husband's quote, ancient mining family name and heritage as far back as the 1500s. It's a great grade. Although if I had known before we got married just how many murders were in the bloodline. I may have reconsidered this union. Anyway, until not so long ago, this was a perfectly honourable way to make a living, fucking kancil culture. The thing is, we're not idiots. We care about the future. We've got two kids who we love very much. Actually, if I'm being totally honest, we've got one kid we like. The other ones a bit like, take it away. My point is, my husband's job causes our family an increasingly intolerable amount of moral anxiety and makes my efforts to live a carbon neutral lifestyle really quite challenging. Put it this way. A return flight from Sydney to Melbourne puts out about 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon. My husband brings about that much carbon home and coal dust each week. Our sheets look like we've had a threesome with a chimney sweep. When you want to carbon offset a flight you literally just tick a box and pay like $2 for me to carbon offset my husband, I'd have to plant a rainforest, build a wind farm and braid predator and birds here every single day for the rest of my life. Like I sign up to 100% green energy, I ride my bike, I marching rallies, I do Earth Hour, but then my husband goes to work and repairs the overheating torque converter on a D 11. Caterpillar bulldozer and I'm back to square one. What can I do? I love the guy. He's understandably hesitant about quitting his job when we've got a mortgage and two small children to look after. And I'm understandably hesitant about encouraging him to when I'm about to go back to uni because working in the media has hardly made me a reliable breadwinner. Most of my work these days is doing most of my work these days is doing unpaid guest spots on my friend's port. You're getting paid

Lewis Hobba  39:22  
for this. The applause some of them haven't heard of.

Dan Ilic  39:30  
I mean, up until yesterday, I thought there's only going to be 40 of you were born. I'm so relieved. Now you're definitely getting paid a profit.

Unknown Speaker  39:37  
Look, as soon as something comes up that he can jump to he will. In the meantime, I just have to do whatever I can to offset the damage. I've had some success. When we first started dating my husband drove a VA Commodore ute. I was like, dude, I work at the ABC. You can't drop me off in that thing. They'll think it's a terrorist attack. So we traded it in for Much less thirsty VW Golf. Sure it was emasculating to go from driving a high octane petrol Australian musclecar to a diesel German hatchback, but it was worth it knowing the pollution wasn't anywhere near as bad.

Unknown Speaker  40:17  
Then the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal broke. And we realised he'd cocked himself for nothing. Well, not for nothing by cover story that I was dating a dental technician from the Central Coast held up a lot longer than it would have otherwise. And look, I've had other ideas. You know, I thought we could set up a GoFundMe page to support him while he re skills. But then I realised it's only socially acceptable to ask your friends for money to fund your overseas holidays, and not to help you leave an industry that's destroying the planet. Okay, then I thought, okay, like pivot pivot. What about sex work? Like for him? Not me. Know, there must be people out there who are into sort smeared. 42 year old men operating heavy machinery, you know, like, no king gets shamed these days. But then his only fans account got shut down because it just looked like he was doing horny blackface. And then I thought, and look, I know this might sound a bit crazy, but just stick with me for a moment. What if the government took some of the money from the massive profits mining companies of my digging up the nation's natural resources, and used it to help retrain the workers in those industries so that ordinary people stuck in these jobs could move on to something new, ideally, something that didn't require them to have chest x rays every two years to screen for black lung, which is not just a joke in Zoo lambda. It's a real thing. But then I remembered we are currently ruled by mouth breathing troglodytes, who would rather return to harvesting whale blubber than admit that maybe just maybe in the year 2021, one of the wealthiest and most highly educated countries in the world could find something a little bit smarter to do than digging up rocks, especially when the mining companies are going to cut and run the moment called becomes economically unviable. Which should be any second now. So anyway, having run out of options, I'm left with no choice, Chris, honey, I love you. But the only way I can truly offset you is to offset you probably shouldn't have ended. But that was the

Lewis Hobba  42:39  
that was the saddest ending to a comedy bit.

Dan Ilic  42:41  
I want you to know 23 cents of each ticket is going to go to carbon offsetting. Chris tonight, so thank you for that. Do you have general club? I know that's a facetious pace for this show. But is there a Is there a serious anxiety about about this?

Unknown Speaker  42:58  
Yeah, absolutely. Like it like everybody gets that kind of moment. Probably every day where you go. Who's gonna end and like for us? It's very, very, very close to home. Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Hobba  43:09  
I mean, I remember when you started dating your now husband, and you and I were working together in Maharashtra, the IBC. And I remember when you told you like, I was a coal miner. We were all like, oil. Well, well, you were you were a heroin junkie. Yeah, it was fun. Everyone was like, get him to her to a needle room. I'm like, absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  43:36  
I mean, I've also been to your house and you've got a lot of nice stuff. So there's like, why am I doing working at ABC?

Unknown Speaker  43:44  
It's also like yeah, they call it the golden handcuffs because it's you know, it's not like it's a poorly paid job and it but it is hard to jump away from something when you don't have something to jump to like, you know, we're having to take a pay cut, but there's got to be something to go to.

Dan Ilic  43:59  
Is that what you think about working with ABC? Do you have golden handcuffs are

Lewis Hobba  44:03  
those plastic handcuffs from a toy shop? They're very cheap. And they're they're actually quite easy to break, zip ties and you all love where you're also like, No, do me. All right, Lee.

Dan Ilic  44:17  
I won't yuck. Your next guest has been trying to get people to move to a just transition to a Fossil Free future for the last 15 years. So it's safe to say she's a little tired. So please welcome Gina woods.

Gina, thank you so much for risking it and coming in sit on a panel of comedians and smart asses to talk about climate justice. It's really wonderful. First of all, you you describe yourself as a hypocrite and a failure. But isn't it in your interest that no one moves from fossil fuels so you can keep your job

Unknown Speaker  44:58  
It's very true. I have I do think about that. And I, it's, it's a hit, I'm willing to take, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make go on to the doll queue become unemployed. If we could actually do this,

Dan Ilic  45:11  
what do you call yourself a hypocrite and a failure? Like, why is that hard to identify every day getting up and look yourself in the mirror?

Unknown Speaker  45:19  
Well, I guess it's kind of hard, but failure because I have have literally been in, you know, strategy meetings, and you know, this sort of talking to other environmentalists and kind of going, like I've been working on, you know, calling the hunter and climate change for 20 years. Like, that's still a really, really big problem, you know, it hasn't really gotten that far in all that time. So that's, that's why failure and hypocrite is really something that the that kind of ends, you know, of the world like to talk around and environmentalists because we use computers and we, you know, might drive cars and because we are all, you know, entangled in this, it's, it's, you know, we're not on the other side, we're not not part of this society. Kirsten knows it really well, like, and I think this these are so brilliant, really to illustrate that. It's not like an s&m thing, coal miners aren't aliens. People use stuff that uses fossil fuels. And I am one of them. Yeah.

Dan Ilic  46:15  
Are you going out with a coal miner as well? No, but you know, I'm not ruling it out. Well, tonight, we have a lonely coal miner in the audio come on down. activist once a husband, it's a new TV show. Coming to SBS to you can have full custody of the Doug kit that you guys didn't have that. I'm just an activist standing in front of a coal miner. When we spoke earlier this week, you said I get it. You want me to explain the weirdness in the hunter. When you say that, like what is the weirdness in the hunter?

Unknown Speaker  46:53  
Well, I mean, I suppose the weirdness really is this sort of exaggerated idea that people have about what it's all about. And it's sort of people from the outside the raging? Go, it's a moonscape, you know, which is kind of puts the nose out of joint to the vignerons and you know, people who kind of, you know, a farmers and tourist industry, because actually, it's very, very beautiful place. It's not a moonscape at all, and it's much

Lewis Hobba  47:14  
better the Gosford stay down, Gosford,

Unknown Speaker  47:19  
and you know, there's others who say the mining industry is not important at all, you know, it only employs 2% of people around the country. But in actual fact, that's a really, really large amount of people here who rely on it for their livelihoods. And that's, that's real. And so that's the weirdness is just sort of competing kind of sweeping statements about what it's all about,

Dan Ilic  47:37  
do you have faith that there's going to be what we all hope for, which is a just transition and a fast transition in the next few years.

Unknown Speaker  47:47  
I wouldn't describe it as faith. I mean, I'm very excited by some of the stuff going on now part of the 100 jobs Alliance, which is a sort of collaboration of environmentalists and unions to try and just sort of break this taboo of talking about what the region is going to do once the coal export industry declines. And that has really changed things a lot. So I'm excited, rather than kind of hopeful or faithful, I

Unknown Speaker  48:09  

Dan Ilic  48:10  
When you're going by toe to toe on your, on your battles on the ground? How do you kind of keep an eye on the big picture? Like you're in this podcast, rational fear, we talk to a lot of climate leaders who are all focused on the macro, but you're very much someone who is now in the trenches in the pits for one for a better word, like, how do you kind of keep that eye that vision of the of the major goal whilst you're whilst you're going toe to toe with people here?

Unknown Speaker  48:39  
I mean, that's pretty tricky. I guess. Like don't, because the big picture is really awful. And you can't really, you know, this is a comedy show. So apologies for bring down the tone. But

Lewis Hobba  48:51  
Kirsten already talked about a divorce. So we're at rock bottom.

Unknown Speaker  48:56  
Yeah, I mean, you just have to do what's in front of you. And, you know, I actually try not to read stuff about climate change much anymore, or watch the films and all that stuff. I don't, I don't engage. I just,

Dan Ilic  49:05  
I just do what's in front of me. There's something to be said for the language that's wrapped around climate change, like, a lot of it is of the station and full of jargon. And but is the reality? Is there a simpler reality behind all of these huge words? Like we've got so many layers of bureaucracy, all talking about climate change, but we're talking about it in this crazy language that you never heard of before?

Unknown Speaker  49:34  
Yeah, I mean, there is the reality. And I think one of the things that really fucks us up on this is that we've got this sort of really quite primary straightforward problems of rivers drying up and, you know, huge storms and big holes in the ground with no plans to fill them and you know, a huge workforce, very well paid jobs, not quite sure where they're gonna go in 20 years time, but it's all kind of obfuscated and clouded into this sort of language. have, you know the voluntary land mitigation access policy and approved methods for assessing air pollution and an American submission on this new period of public hearing? Yeah, so it's like, my job is like explaining the government to people and trying to sort of bridge that gap to say, well, when they say, you know, strategic release framework, what they mean is, they're going to be putting out new areas for coal exploration, you know, out west,

Dan Ilic  50:23  
I like it was James said, He's switching off because he negotiated the TPP and has worked in The Hague. Like, now, I've got PTSD. So and how do you cut through that bureaucratic jargon to kind of make a simpler case like there's a simpler, there's a simpler world out there that many of us want to understand want to be part of. So how do you make that case?

Unknown Speaker  50:47  
Yeah, I mean, I think you always have to bring and this is what I'm saying about the big picture, you have to bring it back to things that people understand and they see right in front of them. And that's why, you know, what matters to people in the hunter is the the pollution in the air and the effect that the industry has on the river and the dislocation of rural villages. And that's really immediately what people are seeing. And that's and that's where their hearts lie.

Unknown Speaker  51:09  
in researching for this gig actually saw that the sea wall fell over in Newcastle. Is that to do with mining, or is it

Dan Ilic  51:18  
the same old same? Oh, the Stockton Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's really well, there was a coal mine right on the beach at Stockton. unrelated to the, to the erosion that's happening.

Lewis Hobba  51:31  
Wow. Breaking News, irrational fear Saturday night.

Dan Ilic  51:36  
George fuses? Do you have a sense of hope to keep you going? Like, what what drives you to keep working in this space?

Unknown Speaker  51:45  
Uh, well, I mean, I, there's a lot of people who live with the impacts of mining who I have worked with, you know, for all the time I've been would love the gate, which is eight years or so. And they, you know, they have no choice. They kind of stuck there. And I owe it to them to continue being being there for them, essentially. And, you know, it's, it's, it's really, it's wonderful work. It doesn't. It's very, very rewarding.

Lewis Hobba  52:10  
That's all I could say, tragically, you probably have a longer career than coal miners. Oh, God. Yeah. Sorry, Kirsten. Sorry. Yeah, that's good. It's actually good news. And we just want to be forced to become unemployed. You know, we don't want to volunteer and come unemployed together. And we'll just solve the whole problem by everybody

Unknown Speaker  52:30  
becoming unemployed, universal, basic income. Now, I actually wanted to ask George, because I have done a few events with George in Newcastle, and I find you don't want to embarrass you, but I find it incredibly inspiring, but also incredibly intimidating and terrifying. And I would never, ever fuck with you. And like, bit like you would have been involved in some really like heated confrontations at some of the like actions that you've been had? And are you ever scared when people are really in your face? Or do you just like really get off on that?

Unknown Speaker  53:04  
At protest actions, I don't tend to get scared. No, I kind of get scared before. And then after. And then when you're there. It's just it just all flows like you're just in the moment? And have you ever been in a situation where you've actually felt like you're actually physically in danger? like someone's going to hit you or anything like that? No, I'm now have, I have been in situations where that's happening to somebody very close by. And actually, that was a forest protest. And a very dear friend of mine put his body in the way of the axe that was chopping down the tripod that my friend was sitting at the top of, which was, you know, see what i'm saying, man? It wasn't me. I was just a witness. But um, yeah, I mean, it is, I guess, it's protesting is a way to bring to the surface a lot of these contradictions and challenges and so it doesn't really provide any answers. It's just about questioning. It's just about bringing things right up close with people and going well, is this actually a good idea?

Unknown Speaker  54:00  
And what about when you're in the room with people, you know, politicians or people from mining companies, you know, really high powered high profile people? Do you ever find yourself intimidated? Do you intimidate them?

Unknown Speaker  54:13  
I don't know. I might. What am I good. If you want to hear this story, one of my best stories from last year, which was a difficult year for many people was having a stand up argument with Stephen galley, the head of the minerals Council in New South Wales in New South Wales parliament. And it was because he sort of walked casually past man sort of said hello, Georgina, and I just sort of, you know, I don't want to talk to you Is that a thing and and he had to go at me for not being nice to him and and I just lost it. I was gonna say this on tape. This is just for all of you. I was just sort of like, Is this just a job for you like this isn't just a job for me. I'm not just going to clock in and clock off and say, get a Steve you know, great to see you. This is actually life, you know, life affecting stuff for people that I work with, and I can't just put it all aside and, and pretend like I'm just a professional, so not a politician.

Dan Ilic  55:12  
Well, George, if you ever get stuck, you could probably always just become Chair of Newcastle University. Chancellor, Chancellor. I'm hoping that posts will reopen again quite soon. Everyone Georgina woods.

Lewis Hobba  55:41  
Try standing up is this it's something that I was just saying to Dan, when we got in here. I've never done comedy up before.

Dan Ilic  55:48  
really unusual. It's an unusual situation. James James also said that and I maintain it's because you're the two tallest people

Lewis Hobba  55:55  
look up at anyone. I feel like a small town lawyer out of there. It's always fun to try to pivot out of climate action back into comedy. So stick with me. I want to talk not about the climate, but about the vaccines. Another big topic. All right. Yeah. One more applause Hello. All right. All right. I don't know if you've heard but the COVID vaccine rollout is going very badly. Right now Scott Morrison couldn't organise a syringe on the set of Trainspotting. By the end of March, he planned to have 4 million people vaccinated and they just missed that target by 3.4 million. This week, the government revealed that hadn't vaccinated aged care workers and they didn't even know how many aged care residents had started getting shots as anyone who had been vaccinated just by asking that question, I know more than the government about vaccine rollout. But in times of crisis, I think it's very important to take the government's lead and instead of looking at what we can do, start looking at who we can blame. Let's start with the labour leaders. We all know Dan Andrews is crawling out of his hospital bed at night, throwing away his fake back brace and creeping out to sprinkle COVID under the beds of Melbourne's children. The media are obviously also to blame. Health Minister Greg hunt got very angry at the media for saying that all the people who were nervous about getting the AstraZeneca vaccine could wait until the Pfizer arrived. He said the media were promoting vaccine hesitancy the media were directly quoting Greg hunt. And that really Paul's pissed off Greg hunt, who is a Greg hunt.

The government is also very angry at boomers who have developed this vaccine hesitancy for those following at home. Yes, this is the same vaccine hesitancy the government refused to stop Craig Kelly doing. Craig Kelly fans, what the fuck? Are we in silence?

Dan Ilic  58:32  
Big queuing on Viber?

Lewis Hobba  58:35  
Oh, interesting. Okay, let's explore that as we go on. Wow, fuck, I didn't say I've never met somebody like Greg Kelly. It's so crazy. But actually, I think that the vaccine hesitancy problem is actually quite easy to fix because boomers stopped trusting vaccines because they believe anything they read on Facebook. So what I have done is I've prepared some Boomer friendly messaging that you can write on your own Facebook wall at any time to make boomers get their second job quicker than their second home. Yeah, that's right. I know what you own. Well, you know what else you gonna take away from me? Come on. Alright, here we go. Here's the things you can write on your Facebook wall to get famous to take the vaccine. Tell them the vaccine doesn't insert a microchip. It inserts an audio book about Graham Kennedy written by Peter fit Simon. A vaccine is just an extra hot coffee. Tell him it's an iPad. Tell him it's a painting by an indigenous artist. Tell him it's a funny tea towel. Tell him the vaccine is a mountain by tell him the vaccine is a low risk family photo. Tell him it's a podcast with Annabel Crabb. Tell them that vaccine would like to hear a story about an old neighbour who recently died. Tell him the vaccine agrees that the two years of high interest rates in the early 90s was the greatest hardship generated ever five. Tell him it's a BBC drama. Tell him it'll make Netflix easy to use. Tell him it's a carport. Tell him it's a second fridge. Tell them it doesn't use American words like diaper and store. It uses Australian words like nappy and shop.

Now, we all know that would 100% get the vaccine roll out back on track. Weirdly, that is not the approach our Prime Minister is taking. though. You might have heard this news yesterday. He's calling in the army. Yeah. Yesterday he announced in one of his trademark announcements that the new head of the National Vaccine task force would be Lieutenant General john frewin. If caught I don't know who he is either, but he's a Lieutenant General. Head of the army. If calling in the army to fix his problems, sounds extreme. Keep in mind, Scott Morrison loves to play with his army men. When he was the Minister for border protection. He called in the army to stop the boats. Then once the boat once the army had done that, he made himself a little boat shaped trophy, saying I stopped the boats. I don't know if anyone in the army got a trophy. They may have got a small participation boat. Personally, may I love the idea of getting the military to run a vaccination campaign. It's intimidating but fun. Can never quite get a read on what's going on. defence. Craig Kelly not okay with military on the fence. burners. He came around. Applause we all love. I stick with me try to stick with you if I wasn't begging but thank you.

Dan Ilic  1:02:17  
Will you be closing with Gosford

Lewis Hobba  1:02:21  
backless wood carving? So here we go. Now stick with me on this army thing. Okay, because I actually think it's a really good idea, right? I would love to see people's faces. When they look up to see Ben Robert Smith walking through the streets, threatening to kick anyone who won't get the vaccine out the us with a prosthetic leg is caring for some reason. All right. I knew when I asked you to stick with me that I would be losing you and I don't care. Why I stopped with the army. The Air Force involved. I want to say fighter jets dropping syringes into aged care facilities. I want to say retired veterans pull their old rifles out of the closet, toss away their bayonets, a fixer Pfizer and go back on the road john judge will fight the anti vaxxers on the beaches of Byron Bay. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, and then we'll blame the cost on Kevin Rudd awesome. Look, I get why Scotty calls up to fans anytime he's on the defensive. People trust the army and they're already on the payroll. But I really think there's another group on the payroll who are being criminally overlooked when it comes to helping the vaccine roll out. These people live in camera in a building paid for by taxpayers. They're getting taxpayer funded training every day. I'm talking about the Australian Institute of Sport. Now. The prime minister said that the vaccine rollout wasn't a race. Well, right now we have hundreds of perfectly trained athletes for an Olympics that probably won't happen. So let's put them to work and make it a race. First of all, no one knows more about experimental drug treatments that test the vaccines on them. They put things in their bodies that would stop our doctors have a locally produced vaccine that prevents COVID and is also untraceable by the anti doping authority. We store them in the call room used to a climatized l winter Olympian. Then we're on to the AI SS gold medal standard vaccine logistics. This is quite a plan. So come on the journey. All right. An Australian weightlifter lifts boxes of vaccines off the shelves then carries them to a javelin thrower, who hurls individual vaccines across the warehouse. 100 metre medley relay team will swim vaccines across the state of Tasmania, while the rest will travel in short shorts of marathon runners as they jump off to remote corners of regional Australia. The syringes passed like a relay baton from the marathon runners to the power walkers if they encounter any anti vaxxers of high jumper will frosty flop over them gracefully. Ah, Rachel Victorian centre will contain PPA from the fencing team, and one Greco Roman wrestler. Their job is to pin down vaccine hesitant burgers while our welterweight boxes strap on latex gloves. And instead of giving a left jab to the face, give an Australian a right jab and using the power of the AI si predicts we can have the nation fully vaccinated by the end of the week. Then all we need is to get Nicky Webster to sing a closing ceremony and get all the athletes back to camera for an athlete village level fuckathon. If Scott Marcy needs any more convincing, I promise when that's all over, and everyone agrees that athletes have done their job perfectly. He can get get a little gold medal that says he did it all himself

Dan Ilic  1:06:18  
but didn't rush up. big thank you to DJ de la koliko Jay senda gusta Drysdale Georgina was

Unknown Speaker  1:06:27  
also a big thank you to Isaac ash and then everyone here at the Civic Theatre in New Castle. Big thanks to Ryan mock the Bertha foundation go YouTube token Jacob brown to the tiffin Yaki, Tom Landry Diogenes, Virginia guy by name.

Dan Ilic  1:06:41  
Until next time, there's always something to be scared of. Good. Hi, Dan Ilic here back again. That was Newcastle. And as you can tell by the end of the show, they were very much on board with what we have to say. And I should let you know if you want any of the things that I was talking about. In my section of the podcast where I do Alan Jones and Dorothy Michela sunburned country. Well, you can download them from the irrational fear newsletter. So go to WWW dot irrational fear.com. Give us your email address, and then we'll send it out, we'll send out the Dorothy Michela in Comic Sans, and the Alan's the fake Alan Jones article you can print off yourself, to put up in your regional shopfront window, we'd love to say that and please, please put it on Twitter or Facebook or email me back a picture of your Alan Jones or Dorothy McKellar, paste it up in the front window of your local shop, we'd love to see that. Before I play the biggest show. I just wanna let you know that we will be coming to Melbourne on August 14. So make sure you put that in your diary. Right now though, here are the best bits of the bigger show.

Now regional Australia How is what is the best way to beat climate denialism or to communicate the real climate facts in regional Australia?

Mick Neven  1:08:07  
I think one of the ways you gotta you got to understand the way people communicate in regional Australia here I think one of those ways is a bumper stickers. And so instead of a lot of bumper stickers, you know, I replaced the fuck off we have full and with fuck off way full of too much carbon. I also

Lewis Hobba  1:08:28  
like put one a tiny little bombas so you could shrink them and put them on each one of the mice that are plaguing us on the back end of every little mouse millions of spreading the message.

Gabbi Bolt  1:08:40  
I think if you're going off like what my regional town where I grew up, how information spread there the most efficient way. town gossip. Like I feel like if you say something like Oh, so and so so and so so and so slept with a solar panel.

Lewis Hobba  1:08:55  
You should tell the hairdresser he fucked us all the time. Don't tell anyone

Gabbi Bolt  1:09:03  
Ciara solar panel. Every single person in the region.

Dan Ilic  1:09:08  
It was the best sex I've ever had. Well, Gabby, you know the people here in the southeast of the continent have suffered pretty horrendous things over the last 18 months. bushfires the promise of the notion recovery fund that hasn't turned up in a city lifting podcasts coming in to do a podcast where you guys have suffered. I'm really sorry. Gabby, is there a bright side to anything that these people have been through?

Gabbi Bolt  1:09:38  
Ah, well, I've brought this Sesame Street Style song. I found one that I think you might like.

Lewis Hobba  1:09:46  
Can you guys hear that out the back? Yeah. Cool. Can

Gabbi Bolt  1:09:50  
I have a little more in the phonebook? We can cut this out of the podcast. Cheers, john. Thanks. Anyway, you might not have Have a million bucks might not have the cats and dogs might even have your shoes and socks squad. At least Scott shook your head might not have a good next step. might not have time to take a breath. might not have any fuckin house left, but at least Scotty. He says Don't you know that I don't hold a hose? Um, no, that's not for me. Unless we're referring to a wall, but it might have promised us some relief. might have said, Hey, whatever you need, and he might pop on over to Hawaii, but he can cuz he shook your hand. Spin solo. I never said that.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:00  
I resent that.

Gabbi Bolt  1:11:02  
But I disagree with the premise of the question. Yeah, it's gone. Well, actually, Jen told me that bushfires are in fact bad. And until she said that to me. And she also said that How would you feel about girls died in a British fire. I really hadn't heard of that in perspective. So I decided to deal with the bushfire crisis by praying we never got another one and I feel way better. Thank you so much, Jen. He gaslights enough to start another fucking fire. I can't believe he's still in after such a failure. I can't believe he even got enough to tourism Australia might not have a fucking clue. My thought for me or you any might spend all this time protecting. But at least Scotty shook he might not possess any empathy might not uphold governing policy and he might not know how to run the fucking country but at least Scottish. The Scottish Well, he tried to that he stole your hand and then lied to you, but he will say he shook your hand.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:26  
Thank you, everyone. Hello, hello. Hello. Yes, I'm the DJ normally. officially known as hobo Paul Shaffer, Dan Ilic. I do run a little podcast called news fighters, where I play funny clips and talk about them and I look we've hung a lot of shit on Scott Morrison tonight. So I just thought I'd keep it going. It's great to be back here in Vegas. I actually grew up on the south coast. Here I am there I am having my fifth birthday at the bega cheese factory. Here right here I am. Here Kubina public school there I am from 1986 What happened?

Lewis Hobba  1:13:08  
Okay, the slideshow going I'm loving

Dan Ilic  1:13:11  
the jugs more about Dylan's childhood. This is a this is actually this is your therapy session.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:19  
And of course look, you know growing up in and around cobargo as I did have to say nothing brought me more pride than watching the news last year. And I saw this happen

Unknown Speaker  1:13:30  
during the fire ravaged town of cobargo. a firefighter refuse to shake the PMS hand. Scott Morrison heckled in cobargo now you know, welcome your Parkway.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:45  
Yeah, Scott Morrison. They're inventing the social distancing lack of afterwards, believe it or not, Scott Morrison refused to believe that this angle was actually directed at him.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:56  
Scott Morrison today says he doesn't take it personally. I don't take it personally. I just see it as a sense of frustration.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:04  
Maybe you should take it personally. Everyone hates you turned up for a photo op in the middle of a catastrophic tragedy. What about the words? You're not welcome here? You fuckwit fuck off my Do you not understand? Anyways, we are we are here to applause there Hang on a second.

Lewis Hobba  1:14:29  
As a religious guy who is also obsessed with shaking hands. I wonder how he feels about the fact that like God immediately after they sent down a plague that prevented him from touching it might have been assigned. Don't touch me. Stop doing it, Scott. Alright, fine. I'll send you a fucking bad plague stop doing

Unknown Speaker  1:14:46  
but we are here to talk about climate change. That's the theme of the theme of tonight. And within an election around the corner Scott Morrison has been out on the world stage in his his heart, his heart to finally answer some annoying questions like when the hell is Australia. gonna commit to net zero emissions? And isn't he nailing it? Our goal

Unknown Speaker  1:15:04  
is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible. And preferably by 2050. Australia is on the pathway to net zero. Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can for Australia, it is not a question of if, or even by when for net zero, but importantly, how

Unknown Speaker  1:15:21  
what a lack of Imagine if you're you have this kind of lack of commitment in your relationship. Honey, we been engaged for 12 years, when are we going to get married? Well, dear, it's not a question of if or when we get married. How about when soon as we possibly can, preferably by 2050. And when it comes to the house, Scott Morrison says, technology is the ticket. The key to meeting our climate change ambitions is commercialization of low emissions technology. My point about this, though, comes back to technology again, as why we're investing in Priority new technology solutions to our technology investment roadmap initiative, the answer is technology, not taxes. Yes, sir. is saying technology, not taxes, great technology, what kind of technology? There's lots of great technology out there. Is he talking about electric vehicles, solar batteries, pumped hydro technology is the coalition talking about let's have a look,

Unknown Speaker  1:16:18  
nuclear energy should be on the table as part of Australia's energy future. It's the finding of a parliamentary committee. The Federal Energy minister Angus Taylor, meanwhile, says the government's more than willing to consider nuclear power. You

Unknown Speaker  1:16:29  
know, I'm being told that Scott Morrison actually supports nuclear power. It's just he knows it's too difficult to sell politically, if you seriously want zero emissions, if that's what knocks you out. If that's what blows your hair back, well, then nuclear power is where you're going to have to go and if

Unknown Speaker  1:16:45  
we are serious and progressing towards net zero emissions, I think it's almost certainly that we'll need to have some form of nuclear power here to try to achieve that.

Unknown Speaker  1:16:54  
Yes, Senator Matt cannon national senator, Matt Canavan there, and he reckons nuclear is really safe. actually have a look.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:01  
I have a role. Nuclear has been an incredibly safe technology. People die installing solar panels on roofs.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:07  
Yes, but I can't remember there being an HBO miniseries about rooftop solar panels. But it's not just nuclear. Don't worry. There's some other technology scammers keen on

Unknown Speaker  1:17:19  
our ambition is to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world that one of the most important targets that Australia has, is to be able to produce hydrogen at $2. a kilo is the President in the United States, you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia, we are creating our own hydrogen ballots. And when it comes to the hydrogen valleys we can be developing all across the country.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:45  
Yes, hydrogen Valley is coincidentally also the name of the second worst King gizzard and the lizard wizard side project. The reason our government if you're wondering where this sudden obsession with hydrogen comes from, did a bit of research and it turns out that they realised they can they can get away with calling. They can call it clean hydrogen or blue hydrogen, even when it's made by burning coal or gas, thanks to this thing called carbon capture and storage is not new technology. Isn't that going well? Which the best I can figure out this kind of thing where Scott maybe has more insight into this kind of works out like I think if you fought and then plan to ceiling, the ceiling cancels out the fog, is that Yeah, is that basically Howard's showing me that if he just didn't fire to begin

Dan Ilic  1:18:30  
with coming upstairs or if he fought in a jar? Oh, I put it in the ground. That's carbon capture storage. perfectly. Well, the technically, if I did it, it'd be me. Thank catches. Yes. But the extending analogy to coal plants. Is that right, Scott Ludlam?

Unknown Speaker  1:18:47  
Suddenly This is on me. Yes, Scott. This is your this is your analogy. You have to land this.

Unknown Speaker  1:18:54  
Anyway. Energy minister Angus Taylor loves hydrogen. Here he is on radio national talking about blue hydrogen until he's literally blue in the face.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:04  
Is it green hydrogen or hydrogen made with fossil fuels?

Unknown Speaker  1:19:07  
It's clean hydrogen. What's that? That's That's the point. It's clean hydrogen. industries.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:15  
It wasn't made with fossil fuels are made with renewable energy.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:18  
The point that many make when they're asking that question is we can't possibly make anything from fossil fuels. Well, you know what, if it's zero emissions, it's fine. That's the point. It's got to be clean. fuels. How do we make it zero emissions he will be made with anything that allows us to reduce emissions is blue. Hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions is green hydrogen that can be done with zero emissions. You know, we made a lot of horses in this race.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:46  
That interview went so badly that Angus Taylor was later caught on Facebook saying bad, bad job, Angus.

Dan Ilic  1:19:53  
But the other thing that was a very nice joke for this audience.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:58  
The other the other reason Morrison loves hydrogen aside from the fact that will keep his billionaire coal mining magnate mates happy is that it can make trucks car perma.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:08  
I mean hydrogen can be used to drive vehicles. I mean up there in the Pilbara at the moment they're putting him in the mining trucks.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:15  
Yes, let's power some vehicles of flammable hydrogen. Let's see. How did that go last time we tried that. Let's have a look here. Oh, there we go. There's some there's some nice flammable hydrogen there in the Hindenburg. Nice and blue. I think if it wasn't black and white, sorry, a bit too soon for Hindenburg jokes. Anyways, in conclusion, the Australian Government is kicking the can down the road on climate change, not setting targets and trying to sell us dirty and dangerous unproven technologies. But if you think we can't do any better than this one, maybe we should just have a little look across the ditch to see what's

Unknown Speaker  1:20:46  
happened knows fossil fuel subsidies part of New Zealand's for action points, one price carbon to make climate related financial disclosures, mandatory three ind fossil fuel subsidies and for finance adaptation.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:06  
Now that's a prime minister who can probably get a handshake.

Dan Ilic  1:21:15  
fame is New Zealand appear to be doing a lot better than us in many circumstances. Why is that?

Unknown Speaker  1:21:25  
Scott crazy thing to be famous for. She's got a green climate change minister. Like there's a there's an interesting example. Sorry to be the Ernest one sheet,

Dan Ilic  1:21:39  
this is why you're here.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:40  
I'll be really quick. All right, and then these guys can carry on. You've got I think, a very different political culture. It's not saturated with rupert murdoch publications. And you've got a green labour Alliance where people are actually decent to each other. They show up at each other's press conferences, they support each other. It's not perfect. There's plenty of problems there. But I just think that political culture is very different to hear

Lewis Hobba  1:22:01  
that actually sounds like more of a fantasy than Lord of the Rings. From a New Zealand perspective, as well, yeah. And they get along, and they all live in holes. In the coalition there they have hobbits I've seen Oh, thank God. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:19  
I think one of the big problems. And I'm not totally familiar with the New Zealand political climate at all, but I just think you can't steal from the Treasury and govern the country at the same time. It's like, one or the other. Right?

Dan Ilic  1:22:36  
Make it's your turn. Give it a crack. Yeah, everyone McNab is rational. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:45  
Hello, everybody. What we're doing, of course, is we're talking about climate change. And if you look at a lot of what we're saying is pretty negative. And you think, well, how can we have hope for the future? And so I'm just trying to lighten the mood a little bit by letting us understand how we can have hope for the future. And if you do need to, you need to be optimistic and you need to be positive. And if you want to learn lessons on optimism and positivity, look no further then the quality over leadership because they have turned optimism and positivity into an art form. Okay, because they don't they don't call it being bribed by the fossil fuel industry, do they? They call it a political donation. And they call it a natural transition from politics to the Board of Rio Tinto and Anglo American. I say that that's positivity, isn't it? They don't call it they don't call it they don't call it a colossal waste of taxpayers money on soon to be useless infrastructure that we don't actually need. See, now they call it a gasoline recovery. Right, that's positivity. That's optimism. And we need to take that onto ourselves as we move forward into the future because yeah, like climate change is happening and the planet's heating up, which is bad, but if you've ever watched your done your laundry on a 45 degree day it drives like that. That's positivity. That's like yes, the polar ice caps are melting. But that also creates more room to play footy and cricket. Okay, yes, the sea levels are rising, which is bad, but the more the seas rise, the less room there is for bushfires. So that's positivity, maybe too soon, as well as positivity Scott, this is what we're trying by. No, I think maybe we should lose the term bushfire because there is a lot of negative connotations attached to the word bushfire. I think maybe we should progress in future and we should just call it like free range barbecue. like seven houses will last in today's free range barbecue. Oh, They just got a little bit overexcited they didn't. That's nice. And and you know, like, they do say that. We were you know, though one in 100 year fire events are going to become more common and we're going to see them like one one in 184 events are going to happen every five or six years, which is not great. But on the positive side, it is an opportunity to get more volunteers and people contributing to their community. You know, we're looking at the positives I was evacuated on Ash Wednesday, on Black Saturday, I spent six hours patrolling my house doing our amber patrol. And you know, the 2019 20 fires, I inhaled a lot of smoke. And like, How lucky am I that I'm only 46 years old, but I've already been through three one in 100 fire year. And I'm only 46 I can feed hates Boring. Boring, you know, like if you saying that, you know insurance premiums for fire insurance are going up. It's too expensive to get fire insurance which you which is bad, but on the positive side that just encourages self sufficiency, doesn't it? Well, you know, pennies for insurance when you can have a fight and go might stick with me.

Dan Ilic  1:26:28  
Make a promise should have warned you. Many of this crowd have recently been through an extremely traumatic event. I'm moving on from Yeah, moving on. I don't know if you I should

Unknown Speaker  1:26:40  
have told you. I'm moving on from the fires. I've watched the news. I think I was evacuated last Wednesday. Climate change. Worst case scenario we need to be positive right. And we don't want to I don't think we should call it the total collapse of civilization as we know it. We should call it a digital detox. Like it's not going to be a brutal fight for survival in the toxic wasteland of a planet that we destroyed through greed and stupidity. Right It's an opportunity to learn new skills. Exactly like your spirit. Like if you just pick you out or you're sitting around the front that have you ever thought about killing someone

Unknown Speaker  1:27:34  
while you get on board because like and just so everyone's aware, right? I am now going to talk about killing someone but I'm doing it in a sense of positivity. I don't want you to think it is murder. Right don't think of it as murder Think of it as resource management. Being positive because you never know there could be some climate change disaster could happen before we know that no one predicted like the the permafrost is melting, releasing methane into the air which could suddenly react with all the carbon dioxide and create a thick band of smoke around the entire planet blocking out all the light from the sun every living thing on earth smothering to death, humanity starving no Lauren order anymore, and it's just me and another dude. And a can of peaches. Don't say well, if I want to eat those peaches, I'm gonna have to kill this guy. When he comes at me with with a ninth or ninth century Viking battle axe that he's looted from the home of a mediaeval weapons enthusiast. But luckily, I've got my replica US Marine K bar combat knife. Okay, so he comes in swinging the axe, I duck under it, grab his arm and just jam that knife up under his ribs like real close. You look into his eyes. You just see that shock. He's like, Oh, he's got me. Give that knife a twist. You feel that hot spurt of blood run down your arm. This thing that's in his heart. He's dead. He goes limp, drops the axe and you're up close looking into his eyes just watching his soul start to leave his body. And then with his last dying breath, you guys,

Unknown Speaker  1:29:10  
I just I just

Unknown Speaker  1:29:14  
I just wanted to feed my daughter. Enjoy heaven decade. When you drop into the ground and your sheep that knife you grab that canopies you tear the top off and you're stuck with your bare hands. You're shovelling peaches in your starving mouth. You've got blood and peach juice just dribbling off your chin and you have never felt so alive.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:55  
Obviously I haven't given that a lot of thought. It's a well, it's just something that popped into my head when I was trying to be optimistic about the future.

Dan Ilic  1:30:16  
How do you folks stay optimistic about the future? How do you keep your optimism going? where we are right now? I mean, Gabby, maybe I'll start with you, your, your 25 year young person when I wants to be optimistic? Oh, you know, I'm alive. We're here. Well, we're not when I was 25, I started my journey in terms of kind of climate action and trying to try to make the world a better place. How do you feel about it? Like, how do young people keep up?

Gabbi Bolt  1:30:38  
I feel like, well, if we're talking about my very sheltered bubble of social awareness, we laugh at anything, that's crap. And that tends to just work. It doesn't. So we just laugh at terrible, terrible things.

Lewis Hobba  1:30:54  
I think it's always good to keep in mind when I'm in a low point about the future of the world. And even though the current of the world is to remember that eventually, all people will die. And they are the ones who are really responsible. And that's what that's what helps me sleep at night is knowing that my grandparents are already gone, and thank God. They will never they'll never have to experience what you might have to experience. Yeah, no, my sweet grandparents who I loved but who are gone will never have to say the horrible things that I'll say my future. Yeah, yeah, I stay optimistic. Yeah, I think we've fulfilled the assignment

Unknown Speaker  1:31:31  
that, you know, I think one cause for optimism, from my point of view is that as a 46 year old, I've really had the best years that I could possibly have. And whatever happens now is just done a bit. You know, I've lived a good life up

Dan Ilic  1:31:47  
to now it's all peaches from Hey, mate. Can I get the vaccine then if you don't want it? I actually know I want to go back to Bali, at least one. So I'll be taking.

Gabby, the budget was about four weeks ago. And in that time, you've had time to process who the winners and the losers are?

Gabbi Bolt  1:32:14  
Yeah. That's the preamble. We wrote because I wrote some a month ago. Yeah, I mean, look, there are real. No, there are no, there are some winners in the budget. I don't know if any of them are in this room. Or in this state, except for Parliament House. But I've written a song about our views in the budget. I wrote it for a little gang called the chaser who now pay me to be stupid. This This song is about the budget. everyone's favourite subject to sing about. I don't care what's in the budget. Because Murdoch says it's fine. The sky said battlers loved it. And so did Channel Nine. It's my fault that I'm unemployed. So now all my time is free. Everyone's a winner. I'll accept the AVC sorry, Louis. Murdoch back the budget. That's all I need to hear. I can relax and turn my brain off watch the footy with a beat. The country's bouncing back today. There's no way we could fail. Unless you've come from India, then you can go to jail. There's money for our billionaires because they're so oppressed. But if you're on job seeker, then they'll send you Robo debt and forget funding inquiries into indigenous dance. But I do hear that there's cash involved towards some come proof desks.

Dan Ilic  1:33:48  
That one was wrong. We're lucky I guess I just remembered we're in a council chambers.

Gabbi Bolt  1:33:53  
Clean your surfaces everyone clean your surfaces. Were lucky in this country. We survived the COVID plague and our budget will reflect the sensible changes that were made. So you do not get to whinge and whine about what is being paid. Unless you're over 35 or prefer your grandparents alive or if you're in public education or a victim of house rental inflation or if you want churches to pay tax little one day get a Pfizer vaccine in the healthcare sector award effector or in the centre link online. Don't worry, because Murdoch says it's fine. Yeah. Thanks. I apologise for the come desktop.

Dan Ilic  1:34:40  
Our next guest has worked at the highest levels at the Australian Parliament striving for climate justice. Now he's just one of you, you know, living and working in eurobodalla Shire. Despite his name being Scott, he's here for the long haul. It's Scott.

Scott, do you um, do you It shouldn't be a name. Have you considered calling yourself scout lard? Really? We just said that okay, no. What's your next question? I know you moved here in 2018. Has anything major happened since that time? pretty quiet? No. Was it like you know packing you packed up your life in person you move to this place. Why did you choose this area to move to? I,

Unknown Speaker  1:35:26  
it reminds me that Southwest TWA. And actually, it reminds me a little bit of Taranaki and New Zealand, dairy country and misty and gorgeous. But I came here more or less at random to write a book, little writer's retreat a couple of years ago, and just had all my stuff moved over. And so now you're stuck with me? Oh, that's okay.

Dan Ilic  1:35:43  
And so were you here during 2019 2020?

Unknown Speaker  1:35:46  
Not here, here. But out the back of tobacco that 20 Kay's from tobacco. Wow, the little town that we are so very proud of where that footage was mostly taken.

Dan Ilic  1:35:55  
Do you know a few of those people in those clips? A little bit? Yes. But the whole country knows them now. What are those folks like what you know, the people in those clips? Like I think

Unknown Speaker  1:36:05  
it's a it's a very down to earth place. It's surprisingly it. I mean, it's this beautiful kind of crossover of Palmer and prayer prayer flags. This whole district is just really interesting, culturally crossover country.

Dan Ilic  1:36:17  
Yeah, yeah. When you were going through the bushfires, like how did you What was your story at that time, like how what happened here

Unknown Speaker  1:36:25  
are supposed to be so many buddy stories in just in this room. So as probably not super special. But we were awoken about 4:35am, New Year's Eve 2019. And just evacuated as quick as we could get out of our place and sheltered in the Roma for a couple of days and spent the next six weeks I suspect, like many people down here, just dodging fires. So we evacuated four times as and ended up with the thing around us on three sides as terrifying.

Dan Ilic  1:36:55  
As someone who's being part of the most powerful force in Australia. Well, not necessarily in government, but someone who's been in power. And I didn't know, you know, I missed that whole chapter of my life. Did you expect when when you're going through that thing to do that moment Did you expect are in a moment, the federal government is going to do something and we'll be looked after,

Unknown Speaker  1:37:20  
we were all hoping that Morrison would helicopter in and try and shake people's hands. That's what everybody in this district was really hoping would happen. A

Dan Ilic  1:37:31  
couple of people were laughing I see him

Unknown Speaker  1:37:34  
harshly judging Morrison because we've since found out that he wasn't actually shaking hands. He was laying on hands and healing people with prayer. And I think if we'd known that at the time, it would have made all the difference. Not at all creepy or weird. For you.

Dan Ilic  1:37:48  
What was the biggest disconnect of that moment? For a few who's you know, you've been part of Parliament, really? And you're in this moment? Did you? What What were you going through in your head

Unknown Speaker  1:38:00  
disconnect is that people have been predicting this for at least 20 years, Ross Garner wrote a thing, 20 years or 15 years ago saying by the 2020s will be observing this, this is going to be a reality. So the disconnect is that we have seen this thing coming. And it's hard to pretend to be surprised. It's like being surprised by a snail creeping up on you. You know, we've seen this thing coming for an awfully long time. And now it's here.

Dan Ilic  1:38:25  
Yeah. When you saw you were living through the experience of this government's inaction. What surprised you most about that moment?

Unknown Speaker  1:38:38  
I was surprised they were so utterly flat footed, like before, he remember that rancid little TV ad that they put out with him kind of striding back in with the army and they've ripped a bunch of money out of disability funding, and suddenly there's going to be cash everywhere. I felt like for a unit that is basically completely in hock to the coal and gas industry, and that people have been predicting this is going to happen for decades that they would have been a little bit more prepared and at least had their lines straight. But they had absolutely no idea what to do at the guys in Hawaii. Do you have something funny to say?

Dan Ilic  1:39:09  
No, no, no. I asked you Scott. You shouldn't feel like you need to be terrifying.

Lewis Hobba  1:39:15  
I promise I'm not here to hurt you. Scott. was really hoping you could lighten the mood. Yeah, no. And I was wondering is yeah that's how the people came to say a fight. No, I was wondering if you knew Scott Morrison personally because you don't know him personally. Because it's so strange to me because I felt like we the previous Prime Ministers even though I have disagreed with them. I have been out ago I can see why you wanted this job. I cannot understand why the fuck he wants this job. Like, do you have any insight as to why he actually wants to be prime minister doesn't seem to have any joy from it means any sort of direction for it that he's

Unknown Speaker  1:39:54  
doing God's work. He was called to it by God. Sounds Mantega. It sounds man. But that's why why

Lewis Hobba  1:40:02  
do you think that's that's legitimately? Because now that he's been cold? Is he waiting for like the next coal to tell him what to do? Like? What's going on?

Dan Ilic  1:40:11  
to manage your timezone? I think that would be a more appropriate job for flashing lights.

Unknown Speaker  1:40:20  
No, nothing, you would ask the same question, why does this bag of custard want to be the Prime Minister? Even the religious thing doesn't quite land, like is that really his caper? Because he's doing a shit job even at that. Get him.

Dan Ilic  1:40:38  
So when when the when the feds didn't turn up, and then people were left to their own devices. What did you say that

Unknown Speaker  1:40:44  
was people helped each other people. People lend each other generators, people were hooning, around in Utah, putting spot fires out people just bought us food. They were folk coming out of bermagui, who were just doing enormous stuff in this big kitchen, and then just shuttling it out to where people needed it. Water got delivered. So it's all the mutual aid stuff, all the beautiful bottom up stuff was what actually happened.

Dan Ilic  1:41:10  
Does it surprise you that there's no kind of support for those kind of groups, even if the government's gonna outsource this sort of support to these grassroots groups? How have you been to support these groups?

Unknown Speaker  1:41:22  
There's a little bit landing now. And I think some of some of that stuff is getting a small amount institutional backing, but it's, you know, came too late, obviously, for last year. The main thing if we can learn anything from last year is that the kind of groups doing that incredible stuff do get backed up and supported.

Dan Ilic  1:41:39  
We've seen stories over the last six months about this notional $2 billion and half of it being delivered war where is the winner? No Show of hands who got some of the $2 billion buddy for the podcast listener. There is a person with their hand up how much should you get? Red Cross for a really really good Red Cross for good people. And Salvation

Unknown Speaker  1:42:10  
Army and they've put money the Red Cross in put me into the actual pods and the government is supposed to hire for we had signed over $10,000 Red Cross money the government

Dan Ilic  1:42:28  
Wow. Wow. So that was that that's a charity plugging the get with a government fell down.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:33  
There was a lot of that. Yeah, institutional charities but also just these networks of people who just had to do what needed to be done.

Dan Ilic  1:42:41  
God, it's um, anyone else got stories of this? They want to share this moment of kind of?

Lewis Hobba  1:42:50  
That's what you're here for. Scott tell a joke.

Dan Ilic  1:42:53  
Well, Scott, plugging the incongruity of the Australian voter, after seeing whatever everything we've gone through, and seeing how labour doesn't really have a Climate Action Plan themselves, how does the Australian voter heading into election season how should they vote to see meaningful climate action?

Unknown Speaker  1:43:18  
I'd say don't wait till elections roll around. I reckon that's the first mistake that we're going to make. If we hang around until an election at the time of Scott Morrison's choosing, like we just we lose another. I don't know what six to 12 months of waiting around tapping our toes, it's time to riot, like it's actually time to take a bit of power back.

Lewis Hobba  1:43:41  
This is the opinion of former senator Scott Ludlam. Yeah. As a as an employee of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, distanced myself from the riot against the government comments. But I support Scott's ability to say that

Dan Ilic  1:43:58  
that's real courage. Yeah, that's what they've been

Lewis Hobba  1:44:03  
fucking suing us every week. Give me a break.

Dan Ilic  1:44:08  
So with with when we say don't wait another six months, what what do you mean by that?

Scott Ludlam  1:44:14  
There was some really courageous crew up on the roof of Andrew constancies office earlier in this week. There are school strikers in his town who've been rebelling for at least two years that I'm aware of like a really courageous crew. There's extinction rebellion chapter just flared up here and that has got a long way to run. I'm not saying like when the election comes around, check and see who's paying their bills don't vote for people who are cashing checks from Santos and the resources sector. That part's really simple, but we simply cannot wait for long enough for elections to come around. And there's so much beautiful stuff going on like in this district. Big Cheese not even as a joke or as a punchline are talking about circular economy right across the whole valley, like in a serious way. Just spend a couple hours reading this stuff. They're not fooling around. Yeah, like, if government is way, way back and the community's ready and businesses ready, then let's just get on with it and not wait for these clowns.

Dan Ilic  1:45:10  
We are the leaders. Right.

Well, Scott, thank you so much for joining us on irrational fear welcome. Sorry, I was so earnest the thinking you know, that's, that's the, that's the job of this section. Just to top off your earnestness where we have a lot of Patreon supporters. So to fund the show, we've got a few in our front row here tonight, which is great. We're gonna be giving half of our Patreon tonight to the Women's Resource Centre, Baga. And the and the other half. We're gonna be giving the other half to the extinction rebellion legal fund. So that's about that, you know, that's, that's some good money going their way. So hopefully, hopefully, it's not exactly

Lewis Hobba  1:46:00  
they can commit some more crime

Dan Ilic  1:46:02  
is to pay their legal bills and their legal bills. Well, thank you very much. God loves

Unknown Speaker  1:46:09  
a rational fear.

Dan Ilic  1:46:15  
Now, Gabby, it's become evident that Scott is finding it difficult to show any kind of leadership and when he does, there's always someone behind the scenes who is incredibly powerful in his ear.

Gabbi Bolt  1:46:25  
Yeah, I'm actually I was a bit of a fly on the wall recently at a parliamentary karaoke party. And he actually he got up to sing quite a bit of an elton john banger, actually, but it wasn't quite the lyricism that I was like, everyone kind of does things that like he actually sing the lyrics quite well. So I thought I'd just reenact what I heard that fateful evening at the parliament Terry

Lewis Hobba  1:46:59  
Great, well, he Gabby, I'm really gonna have to actually host the party now. Any open phones? Good.

Gabbi Bolt  1:47:17  
Hey, kids, learn from my empathy consultant. Turns out all that I have to say is I find these guys repulsive. I won't say a thing about how I will propose real change. But if I tried to cry, maybe no one will notice anything strange. Cuz I stand up for women when they need me, but are only the ones I like to January and the girls on the road, so my relatives could really even do I haven't name names. I mean, I'm not to blame. I couldn't have suffered testers right. But I didn't want to know why. Just Jenny and the girls. We can sing in this venue. Good. Well, then we'll write little karaoke over are ready. You know what to do?

Dan Ilic  1:48:40  
expressional Thank you very much. irrational. guest tonight, Dylan, Bain and Gabby Bo Lewis, Tama MC Devin, Scotland them. I'm Daniel, it's me. Thanks to ride Mike's the Bertha foundation Patreon supporters Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodnight. That's it. How good was that to live shows all in one podcast. Don't say we don't give you anything for nothing, because we give you lots for nothing. Speaking of that, if you want to pay for some of the stuff you're getting for free, please jump to our Patreon patreon.com forward slash irrational fear. We need all the help we can get. We're almost off the end of our Bertha fellowship money, which means we're going to be desperate for more Patreon supporters to support the podcast. So if you want us to keep making podcasts and meet keep making funny memes to keep making sketches online, please go to patreon.com forward slash irrational fears getting more important because we've got the election coming up. You know someone's going to do it. Please hit us up patreon.com forward slash a rational fear. Also, I want to say a big shout out to Jacob brown on the tepanyaki timeline, who smashed this best bits of these two shows together. Despite Having COVID-19 Yep, absolutely champion if it very sick boy but managed to pull it off. So thank you, Jacob round. Really appreciate it. He's a bigger boy and he couldn't even come to our show in Baga which was an absolute shame. We would have loved to laugh with him there but his mom came. And that was good enough. It was like it was like having it was like I was gonna say I was like having close relative of Jacob brown there, but that's exactly what it was like. Anyway, thanks very much. Until next week, doesn't we suddenly be scared off goodbye.


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