Boonta Vista - EPISODE 91: No Joke Title This Week

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

Andrew, Ben & Theo discuss Christchurch, reactions in the Australian media, attempts by the conservative media to distance themselves and Scott Morrison's interview with Waleed Aly. We get hopeful for potential stirrings of a change in the Australian media and offer suggestions for things you can do in a time like this. *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Merchandise available at: boontavista.com/merchandise *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista iTunes: tinyurl.com/y8d5aenm Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/s?fid=144888&refid=stpr Pocket Casts: pca.st/SPZB RSS: tinyurl.com/kq84ddb

Welcome to Bonta Vista episode 91. I am Andrew, I will be a host for the evening. I'm standing up on a stage, there's a big bright spotlight on me, wearing a long, like tuxedo with the long tails. Like I'm about to do this, some concert peony. But there is no piano up here, so prepare to be disappointed. Motioning I me frantically from stage left, telling me to get off, get off the stage.

Is Ben. Hi Ben. Hey. You come out here and join me in the spotlight. Can I ask you a question? Mm-hmm. What was that word that you said? It had a lot of the same syllables as the word piano. I said, Piane.

Is that like the noun form of the act of playing piano? Like archery is the act of doing archery. I probably could have thought of a better definition for that. Arching. Arching. The act of arching. Is Peony the art of playing the piano? It's actually a reference to an episode of The Simpsons.

Oh, God damn it. When somebody says, in like a saloon, play piano. And then somebody starts playing and he said that's pi-a-nie or play piano something like that something like that we're also joined he's he's just behind the big red velvet curtain that's behind me you can see him shuffling around struggling to get out it's theo hello I'm so sweaty with the anticipation I'm I think you're not sweating with the weather I'm not coping well with this stage.

Even as a hypothetical, Your mind makes it real. He was currently stressed out in his own mind palace. All those faceless, dark silhouettes down there all looking up at you, Theo. They're wondering, what's he going to say? You've been in your mind palace. All those faceless dark silhouettes down there all looking up at you Theo. They're wondering what's he gonna say? You have been in your mind palace and all the walls start closing in on you? That'd be great if you would try to be Sherlock Holmes and you were like I'm just gonna enter my mind palates. You collised your eyes for half a second he just went up. No thanks. It's not, it's not working. Not for me. Just like like, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th th th th th th th th th th th th th th you just went, nope. No, thanks. It's not working.

It's just like a dog barking in the distance. It's not going well in your mine palace and it's really not helping. Yeah, your mind palace is just like a classic haunted house. It's just like, you know, the abandoned Michael Myers house from Halloween that he returns to. Cobwebs everywhere, holes through the dry wall, just a bad vibe, creaking floorboards. You keep hearing someone walking around upstairs, even though you are sure that there's no one else in the mind palace with you.

Oh, this is like in the movie Dreamcatcher. Oh. A lot of mind palaces in that movie. And alien shooting out of arsoles. I thought there was like one, one mind palace in that movie. Yeah pretty much. But also there's an alien in the mind palace. Hmm. I think Mr. Gray, he goes in the mine palace. Am I wrong? He does. No, he goes into the mind palace with him, talks to him. Well, that's, yeah, he, because he, Mr. Mr Mr Mr Mr Mr Mr Mr Mr Mr. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. the. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. He, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. t. toge. the. the. the. th. th. the. th. ths to him. Well, that's, yeah, he, because he, Mr. Gray keeps, uh, Jonesy, is that his name? I'm pretty sure the characters name is Jonesy.

I'm pretty sure that he, he takes over his body and is keeping him trapped in his own mind palace. He does that big rictus grin on the snowmobile. That's it. Um, another big time time time time time time time time time thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thime thiiiii hei he- he-a he-he-hea hea hea, hea, hea, hea, hea, hea, hea, hea, he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he keeps, thi, thi, thi, he keeps, thi, to to to to thi, to thi, thi, thi thi thi. thi. does that big Rictus grin on the snowmobile. That's it. Another another big-time mind palace movie, The Cell. You know what? I was just thinking about The Cell yesterday. Never seen it. But I do love The Fall, also directed by Tarsen Singh. Oh, imagine the Fall but with a plot, you know. Did you see, um, what was the other one that he made? Oh, no. Immortals? Oh, was that also him? I was thinking of that horrible one that he did about becoming young again with Ryan Reynolds in it. Oh my goodness. Um, no, so, so the cell, the cell was like his big breakout. And it's where, um, Vincent Donofrio plays a notorious serial killer who has been captured, but in the course of being captured he has rendered comatose and they use some fancy technology

to project Jennifer Lopez into his mind palace to try and figure out where his remaining still alive captive victims are. And his mind palace is all just, it's all basically like if Tarsam Singh was doing like nine-inch nails videos, you know? Mm-hmm. I mean, that sounds good. Yeah, great visuals, great stuff.

If you can think of any other great mind palace related movies please drop an email to hey you guys at Punta Vista.com I'm sure we could rattle off several more if we wanted to. So I tell you what folks it's easy in this day and age to just want to retreat in your own mind palace unless you are Theo. Because there's a lot of bad news out there. I'm sure that's... Everybody's very aware at this point of the horrifying shooting that took place in Christchurch in New Zealand. Just incredibly bleak, horrible shit. And like a lot of things that have happened in America over the last couple of years

was seemingly perpetrated by a super online right-wing shit poster, who, while obviously having, you know, significant mental illness type issues, has also managed to accelerate that hugely by just radicalizing themselves with 4chan and YouTube and shit like that. Really horrible stuff. This person went into mosques in Christchurch and killed 50 Muslim people who were all worshipping. And injured another 50, just 50 just the most horrible shit. I don't know if either of you can say anything more eloquent about it than that, but that's

kind of as much detail as I would like to go into of the actual act itself. Yeah. Yeah, horrible stuff. There were live streams and things that happened because that's the fucking Black Mirror Hellscape that we live in. My, I, so my first acquaintance was there, with this was I had opened up Twitter and before I even saw news reports of what was going on, the first thing that I saw was someone tweeting

the 8chan thread of what was going on. So that, before I had seen any other reports, before I saw anything, I had clicked on this link. And I saw the guy's first post, you know, where he was like, this is the link to the manifesto, this is link to the Facebook live stream, I'm going in. And then all I saw was just an endless sea of comments of people sort of cheering this guy on. And that, that was what was the first thing that I saw. And then I perversely got news links from that thread from people being like, holy shit, this guy's serious,

not in a way in which they thought it was bad. So that was, I think, maybe outside of seeing the video by mistake or whatever, maybe one of the worst ways to come across this. It was a very bleak day. I had a very, as I'm sure a lot of people did, a very, very, very horrible time. Yeah, very disheart horrible time. Yeah, very disheartening to see something like that happen and to immediately have the first responses from other people to be enthusiasm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's fucking galling.

And that's, that's what I suppose is like, this thing that we keep coming back around on with all of this, which is that people who frequent all these sites, like 4chan and 8chan, and like, even things like, um, like live leak, and... Like, I know that all sorts of shit gets posted on those sites but literally all sorts of shit as in this kind of stuff too you know the worst parts of Reddit and Twitter and all that sort of stuff is

that all of it people always want to try and act like it's all shit posting and irony and all that sort of stuff, but it's always just so easy to find people like you're saying, just seemingly, clearly giving full-throated endorsements of this kind of shit, cheering it on, egging each other on to be involved with it, you know? I mean, one of the things that I guess, you know, I really found myself thinking about a lot in the wake of all of this is exactly the kind of internet culture that has gotten us to this point.

And so much of it is, is the thing that we've spoken about before, which is the tenancy of the far right when crafting and attempting to mainstream these ideas to always build in some part of it which they feel gives them plausible deniability. You know, I think back to like the times that we've spoken about like in Australian media and Australian like Ryewing Twitter and stuff, people who are obsessed with like Halal certification. And it's very clear to everyone that it's just founded in Islamophobia. And it's founded in just not wanting anything associated with this different kind of person

to be a visible part of your life. But everybody always winds up, you know, like, like, anything, like, you know, like, you know, the the th-and, like, and in, and it, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and it, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the to, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the kind of person to be a visible part of your life. But everybody always winds up, you know, like retreating back to the same thing of, oh it's not about racism and it's not about Islam, it's about, it's about like taxes or this kind of certification. It's about paying for a certification. I mean, you know, you don't see any of these people Circulating shit for years on end about the heart smart tick. It's not racist. I just believe that any time a brown person buys meat It buys a rocket launcher for ISIS. Yeah, that's it and you also barely need to scrape the idea of why they object to this type of certification being paid for by somebody because they thin thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. toooi. toeeei. toei. toei. tooooooooooooooooooooooo-s. toea. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to this type of certification being paid for by somebody because they think that this money is all getting fucking funneled to all this sort of stuff and and that's just yeah that that to me is just what so

much of this shit is it's just this plausible deniability it's just wanting to wanting to say all this shit and mainstream all these views and... Yeah I mean you don't have to go any further than the you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you know you know, you know, you know, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you know, you know, you know, you know, you th th th th tho, you tho, you tho, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th. th th thi, th th thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi all this shit and mainstream all these views and... Yeah I mean you don't have to go any further than the you know white power okay signed right which is exactly from where where you were saying where the whole thing has been built with plausible deniability like let's just give a totally innocent sign meaning and you know obviously if if anyone calls us on it we just say that it's an okay thing and it's always been about white supremacy from the very start but the point is that it has gone totally uncritically judged by the media like so much of this stuff right so the media has just

blasted past it, you know blasted past all of the fucking cast of this stuff, right? So the media has just blasted past it, you know, blasted past all of the fucking cast of thousands that have journeyed to Australia for their racism tours, you know, like Milo and all the rest. And now we end up in a courtroom with a guy after a massacre, giving the fucking okay sign, right? Because that's what it is. Well, I mean, you can look at the photos of, there's the photo of him doing that to the camera

as he's being arraigned in a court for doing this massacre. And then you can look at the photos of Lauren Southern and her entourage, which is, and her entourage itself is pulled from like an Australian fucking racist lad society thing and they're her and all of them are all ostentatiously doing the symbol and then you look at like the the young liberal and young national party photos were all of them again they're all holding their hand up and doing this thing of the camera no like nobody's even doing it the way you would fucking do the this thing's okay.

Right, that's right. It's sort of, it's a halfway between an okay sign and the circle below your waist to get someone to look at so you can punch them, right? But it's so, yeah, every one of them, they're all holding it up at they're all all all all all all all all they're all all all all all they're all all all all they're all. they're all all. they're all. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. their. It's. their. their. their. their. their. their. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. tooo. th. th. th. It's th. It's, their. It's their. It's their. It's their. It's their. from their body. It's all so, so clearly designed to be seen and interpreted as what it is. And yeah, so we just have this whole thing. And like, what this got me to thinking about was, I think that what's really gone super pear-shaped and what has fucked everyone up so badly is how successful the right and the far right in this country and in other countries has been in mainstreaming the idea that there are certain topics about which you cannot say to people I refuse to entertain this with you. Yeah. And you know and it's all under the guise of free speech and open debate and that that the teat that that that that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that that. that. that that. that. that, that, that, that, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. the. the. theauu. the. the. the. thea. the. the. the. the the the the the the. to entertain this with you. Yeah. And you know, and it's all under the guise of free speech and open debate and civilized debate and all that sort of shit.

But you know, what I find myself thinking about is much like the reaction that we've had to the phrase arounding stuff in the wake of this, where, you know, there's people who act like saying as, as he did as a fucking elected senator in Australia said, he basically blamed the victims of this shooting and said, oh, well, no. He tweeted, yeah, does anyone doubt now the dangers of multiculturalism, is that right? Oh, he was tweeting out all kinds of shit. He was talking about the link between Islam and violence.

He was talking about how it's normally those people who are the perpetrators of this stuff. And... Which is not true, by the way, that's, as we've covered, that is 100% not true. The perpetrators of terrorism in the world today, as we know it, are the far right. That is, you know, statistically, it's not, you can't go past that, right? And now we, we are where we are, right, for that reason, where we look upon people that are just everyday normal people going about their lives, praying, doing this, doing this stuff. And because we're so obsessed with having the conversation, right?

We've got to have a conversation about Islam, right? We've got to have a conversation about how violent these people are, no. No, that's that's not, that's not, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's for that, for that, for that's that's that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for that, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, that's that's not, that's not, that's not, that's not, that's that's that's not, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's not,? We've got to have a conversation about Islam, right? We've got to have a conversation about how violent these people are. I'm like, no, no, that's not true. You can just say, that's not true, fuck off. We don't have to have this conversation every morning on like channel seven. This is the thing, this is where I wound up getting with this, was this idea that, yeah, there are, there are these particular topics now where, like in the case of Fraser Anning, there are people out there, honest to God, making the case, that telling this guy to shut the fuck up and calling him a racist. And they're getting him.

Is morally equivalent to him saying all these people who got massacred had it coming and they probably shouldn't have been in one of our countries. Which is a point that Peter Dutton, you know, a front bench minister made directly after. The hard left and the hard right are just as bad as each other. And and like, yeah, it just got me to thinking about how, yeah, there is this obsession with the conversation and hearing both sides and all the sort of stuff. And that, and the th th th th. And, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, tho, tho, th, tho, th, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th th tho, tho, tho, th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th, th, th, th, th, thi thi thi thi, the the the the the the the the the the the the the thi, tho, tho, tho, the tho, thooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, the tho, the tho, tho just got me to thinking about how, yeah, there is this obsession with the conversation and hearing both sides and all the sort of stuff. And you can't just say to people anymore, this thing you're saying is fucked up and a boron, shut the fuck up and take that somewhere else. Absolutely. And I was thinking like, like, we do have things in our society which everybody shares this attitude about. Yeah, if you went online, right, if you popped on to Twitter or popped on Facebook or whatever,

and we'll be like, you know, I find kids attractive, right? Like you would be just hounded off, right? Like, as you should be. Yeah, that was my first thought as well was like, you know, if you were, if you were walking around on the street in Sydney with a, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, if, if you to, if you to, if you to, if you the, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, th, like, th, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, that was my first thought as well, was like, you know, if you were walking around on the street in Sydney with a diehard with a vengeance style sandwich board, it says like, that said, I love fucking eight-year-olds. Yep. You would be accosted about this very quickly. Yes. People would very quickly make clear to you that this is not acceptable dialogue behavior discourse, whatever you would like in the society that we live in it.

The conclusion that I wound up coming to with this is that basically what the right has been extremely successful in doing is basically just short-circuiting our society's ability to moderate itself when it comes to this topic. Because that is what, like, like, like, this whole society, this whole society, like, this, like, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, th, th, this, th, this, this, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, the, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, in thi, in the, in thi, in the, in the, in thi, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, their, their, their, their, their, their, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the, the, the, the, the, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, itself when it comes to this topic. Because that is what like, like this whole thing of like, oh well you know if you if you call someone a racist that's just oh you're being really horrible to them and you're labeling them and you that's basically a slur all the who's the real racist now? Who's the real racist? You have to have the conversation with him you have to hash all the to h to h to h the to h to h the to h the to h the the to h h h h h h h h h h h h h as the the the the the the to hash all the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. to th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to to the. to to the the to the to the to the the thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. the. the. the. And who's the real racist now? Who's the real racist? You have to have the conversation with him. You have to hash all this shit out. And, and like, when, like the idea is that if somebody is exhibiting like fucking awful behavior in a public place,

and everybody around them says no, collectively, as a community, as a people, we don't accept this behavior and we want it driven out of the place that we're in..... th, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you have, th, th, you have, to, to, to, to, to, to, to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to h have to h have the, you have to ha, you have to have to have to have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have thi, you have the, you have the, you have the, you have the, you have the, you have the, you have the, you have thi, you have thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thrashi, thrashi, to ha, to ha, thi. to ha' have to ha' have thi. thi. thi. thi, we don't accept this behavior and we want it driven out of the place that we're in. That is literally a society. That is your society coming together and establishing cultural norms, establishing acceptable behavior, acceptable ways of speaking to and treating each other. We have all this other fucking dialogue around like as hollow as it is often coming from politicians and members of the government and everything you know like think of the thing they kept trotting out all the time about domestic violence when I can't remember who was prime minister at the time it might have been Gillard or or Abbott but the thing they kept trotting out all

the time was the standard you walk past is the standard you accept, you know? Saying if you just let a thing go without calling it out, you're effectively accepting that thing. If you let a thing go without saying this is unacceptable and I'm not going to let you do this, that you are accepting that thing. But apparently we just have this entire category of discourse and language about members of our community and our society that we can't do that with. Yeah, and I think you're right. And like I don't want to distract too much from the main issue, right, but something that previous to this week, um, I have been thinking about a lot is dealing with for example climate change denialism right because I believe that's another

thing that we shouldn't accept into in society and I think until now right much like much like this same issue much like racism we have dealt with it in a way in a way that we would consider to be rationalization, right? Where we are having the conversation, we're going, well, no, you know, numbers show and do, blah, and they said, well, here's our numbers, right? Like if you look at our graph, right, which is definitely not cherry picked and-up, and our graph, which has no axes, uh, and they've got a line of best fit that doesn't go anywhere near any of the points in there. That's right, that shows it's clearly going down, right?

Then you're just getting this big quagmire where people are like, oh well, you know, those facts on both sides. When, what we should be doing, I believe, and feel free to go online and yell at me, feel free to email me and say that I'm wrong. I am not, I, I, I th. th. think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I th. think, I that, I that, I that, I that, I to that, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to to to, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th. th. th. that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that. I am not, I think with all of these things that we talk about, it's important to signal when we don't have any skin in the game, right? So if you've got skin in the game and you, about certain issues that we're talking about and you disagree, please, you know, feel free to let us know. But if you take the example for climate change, denialism, right, and that, and that, and that, that, that, that, that, that that that that that that we, that that that we that we that we that that we that we that we that that that that that that that that that that that that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're that we're th, th, th, th, th. th. th. that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that that that that that that that that that that that that th of... Hey you guys, I went to Vista.co. That's right, but take the example for climate change, denialism, right, for example, in the last month or so, or two months or so, I have stopped talking to these people, and I have started going, hey, shut the fuck up.

Shut your fucking mouth, right? Because that is the reaction now that we should be providing. That is where we are in society, I believe, that the perpetrators of this kind of misinformation, the kind of misinformation that gets people killed, right? The anti-vax stuff, your garden variety racism, should not be engaged with, I don't believe. It should be just hounded out, right? And if you go to a thread on Twitter where that has effectively happened, there's no conversation happening because it's not a conversation that we need to have. It is a conversation that we have had time and time and time again,time again going off in like decades and decades and decades we can still

You know you can have this conversation until you're blue in the face It's not a conversation that we should be having because it shouldn't be a conversation that you have to have in a polite society You should just tell Chris Kenny to go fuck himself because he's an idiot Yeah, and and like I said I truly think that that is that is like the the the the the c the c the c the c.. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the c. the the the the c. the the th. throwning. throwning. throwning. thi. the. the. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. truly think that that is, that is like the crowning achievement of the right wing over the last decade or two is just clawing back this ground on issues where, you know, like, where we all thought we were doing better, you know. And instead, we've created this environment of, like we said, everything must be debated,

every conversation must be entertained. And you can see, like, it's so transparent, you can see it in even the material that the right wing produces. Like, what is every fucking Ben Shapiro video about? It's about debating someone. It's about destroying them with your facts and logic. These hysterical leftists that are just, you know,

just screaming the whole time about this and this and that and how easily they can be torn apart with facts and logic where, you know, it's quite clear that they can be calm and whatever because, you know, it's not something that they, that affects their life. life.............. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, their, it's, their, it's, it's, their, their, it's, it's, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their. their, their, their... their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, it's quite clear that they can be calm and whatever because, you know, it's not something that they, that affects their life. It's not something that even, that they have to deal with. But he literally has a book named How to Debate Leftists and Destroy them, where, again, the entire premise, it's not about, yeah, none of it's about like actually being right or how the thing that you th........ th. th. th. the th. th. thiiiii. the thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi's not, thi's not, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi, thi, thi, thi, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, th. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, th. It's, th. It's, th. It's, th. And, th. It's, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th th th thi. th th th th thi. th the thi. thi. thi. the thi. thi. thi. thi. thi actually being right or how the thing that you believe in or doing will improve society or make anybody's life better or anything like that. It's about, here are rhetorical traps that you can set for people.

Here are semantic ways to force somebody to accidentally agree with the thing that you've said or whatever the fuck. And it's all just the most bad faith shit and that's why it doesn't need to be engaged to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged to be engaged in a to be engaged in a to to be engaged in a to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thia.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a. thiii. thi. thi. thi. the thing that you've said or whatever the fuck. And it's all just the most bad faith shit and that's why it doesn't need to be engaged with in any kind of honest way. Because at the end of the day, I think that people who read a fucking book like that and get online and start banging away at people. To them, having you engage in a fucking 11 hour long back and forth as you come back to your phone every 20 minutes and go oh this fucking idiot and reply to them and your blood's just boiling. That is the point for them. Yeah. The point isn't that they think that you're going to like you know see this and go, you know what? This guy's got me. It's really got me over a big barrel of logic.

He's got me a, the barrel, it's just chock full of logic. It's got logic painted on the side and big red letters and I am over it. And boy, let me tell you, I'm here to renounce all of thiolawn. to renounce all of this because. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm here. th. th. I'm here. th. th. the. the. theananananoe. the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their. their their their their their their. their their the. the. the. the. theanananananananoeanananneneneigheananed. theanananananneigheanneigheole. theanananneigheaned. th attempts to make the world a better place. I'm going to renounce all of this because, you know, I feel like this guy painted me into a corner with its logic. And like I said, I think that that is the point. The point is to fucking waste people's time to engage them in this bad faith bullshit. And ideally, in a best case scenario, to make them in this bad faith bullshit, and ideally, in a best case scenario,

to make this person seem foolish to other people who agree with you. And also to- And yes, we all do that. We all do this kind of thing online. But yeah, for like, I try so hard, like, to just not actually get into any kind of genuine attempt to change anybody's mind when it's so transparent that none of it is in good faith. Yeah, and like, but I think the other half of that is that the things that they're saying

over and over again are slowly normalized, right? Every time that you're having these debates, every time that someone's like, you know, well, I think that all Muslims are actually responsible for the moon exploding. And you go, well, I think you'll find. Well, yeah, we can point to facts and do that. And someone here's, right. Oh, all Muslims are, they're actually responsible for the moon exploding. I heard about that. I heard about how they're responsible for the moon exploding, right? And it's something that slowly sinks in like a poison to our society, to our discourse, and slowly filters down to the people that aren't able to filter, that aren't able to sift what's real and what's not because they don't have the time or they're also in bad faith or it plays to their prejudices.

And it slowly becomes normalized and I think that like nowhere have we seen that more evidently is how you know a year ago we were all having the discussion around Richard Spencer getting fucking knocked, right? Getting his block knocked off and seeing Nazis get punched in the streets. It was an absolute bumper crop of Nazis getting punched. And we had the debate. Sorry, you go. Well, I was going to say, we had the debate and we also had the complete like recession

of Richard Spencer from public life. We saw the leaked things where he was like, well, I just don't think that I can make a movement when I can't go out of the house without being founded in the street and punched in the face by people. That's right. And people like, you know, black people and Muslims and have come out and said, no, look, this is like the free marketplace of ideas is bullshit, right? This is honestly uplifting. But the press are not interested in having that debate, right?

Not even the ones on the right that are, again, like the worst kind of debate lord shitheads. But the centrist press being like, well, you know, if you're punching a Nazi, who's to say who's right? What's wrong? But then what has happened in the wake of this horrible event in Crosschurch, is that the Australian press have taken the question of,

is it okay to assault a Nazi? And then we've seen, with Fraser Annan getting egged, just take the assault part out, right? And just be like, oh, is it OK to a Nazi? And it turns out for a lot of them, no, it's not okay to, slightly, a Nazi, right? That is, it's not okay to an inconvenience a Nazi at a fucking room full of Nazis, which broke up a Nazi meeting, right, because of, um, uh, Ben, help me out. What's the, what's it, what's it because of, I'm not...

What's the reason? Why are we not doing this? Not doing what? Hmm. Egging and, mmm. There's a, there's a reason. I'm, I'm, I, uh, it's hard to remove from your thinning Nazi hair. Is that, I think, I mean, obviously people that are aware of to, to, their to, to, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, what thi, what, what, what, what, what, what, what's, what's, what's, what's, what, what's, what, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. the. Nazi hair? Is that... I think, I mean, obviously people that are aware of what happened, are probably aware of this, but it is so important to stress that just before the egging happened, one of his fucking huge steroid-addicted Nazi henchmen described the shooter as one of the younger generation taking up the fight. Which Anning agreed to, with the sole caveat that he was that it that he that he that he that he that he that he that he that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was that he was a that that that that that that that that that that that that that's that that that that that that that is to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th.... th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi w. thi. thi w. thi. thi. thi. that. thi. thi. thi. thi w. thi. thi. that's that's thi w. It was that's thi w. It's taking up the fight,

which Anning agreed to with the sole caveat that he was a bit on the crazier side, but yeah. But yeah. But yeah. Taking up the fight. And there are people that are like, just blinded by flop sweat, umming and aring about whether getting a bit of egg on him from a fucking 17-year-old is morally acceptable. He got his fucking shit kicked in, by the way.

There's like, and this is, you know, I think there have been some relatively valid criticisms that we have been very quick to really hold young Will Connolly, aka Egg Boy up over some of the truly amazing stories of the people that were at the mosque. And that's fair, but at the same time... Yeah, I think that's very much worth repeating as well. That this is, this should and always should be about the tragedy that occurred there. And this is a distraction, but it is a... He still did good.

I think it's... Yeah, it's a good distraction. Yeah. You know, in the face of... I would have been fucking terrified. I've seen these fucking dips shit before, and they are huge, they are terrifying, they are training every single god damn day to kill you. And this guy got fucking nearly choked out by five of them and his face barely moved. Like he just, I can't, it's truly amazing.

And again, like, you know, obviously this is nothing compared to, you know, there's, um, I was listening to, uh, the New you know, there's, I was listening to the New York Times podcast interviewed one of the survivors of the shooting who was a man who was in a, he was in a wheelchair because he got hit by a drunk driver and his wife was at the mosque and his wife led a bunch of the women out of the mosque safely while the shooting was happening and came back in to get him and ended up, you know, she ended up dying, she was shot and killed. There was another guy who basically ran at the shooter with an FPOS machine because it was the only weapon around him he could find. there was another guy that I think, that the the the the the the. I thinneed that that that that that that that that that that that that that that the the the thin thin thin thin the thin thin the thin thin thin thin thin thin thin the to thin thin thin thin to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to thin thin thin thin thin thin thin thin thin thin thin the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thePOS machine because it was the only weapon

around him he could find. There was another guy that I think threw an empty rifle that the man had discarded at his car when at the shooter's car when he went to drive away. Yeah and they got him to fuck off yeah. Yeah, well he went to get more guns from his car and that got the shooter to drive away. There was, you know obviously the there was the the story the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thea thea thea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea.ea. the the the the the guns from his car and that got the shooter to drive away. There was, you know, obviously the, there was the story about the greeter at the mosque who was the first, who was shot and killed, who saw the man standing there with the weapons and just said, welcome brother. So this man, you know, there were these, all these amazing stories here and it's from

these incredible people. So it's a silly thing to focus on a 17-year-old dropping an egg on an aging fuckwits head, but it's not to say what he did wasn't good and it wasn't brave, but yeah, it's, it's, you know. I guess contextually though, like from the specific Australian perspective, what, I'm completely agreeing with everything you're saying that by the way, from the specific Australian perspective, I think that this whole series of events has seemingly made a lot of people suddenly just kind of wake up and start asking some pretty pertinent questions. And these extend... Questions which we should point out as plenty of people have pointed out, that the Muslim

community have been loudly asking on every format, every public outlet possible for many, many, many years. Yeah. And it just seems like this is a thing that there is that large kind of center of the country, I suppose, like the large portion of the country that we can assume is reasonably disengaged with the media in politics. But I think that there are a bunch of people who are normally not super interested who are suddenly kind of saying, yeah, have maybe a bunch of things gone way too far? Has our country spent the last two decades like just consistently ramping up like anti-Muslim anti-immigrant rhetoric for votes? Of course

the answer is very obviously yes, but I think the people have finally been like starting to turn around and ask some more pointed questions of politicians and I guess a lot of the media coverage in this country and so obviously we have our more much more right wing commentators like Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt who we've talked about on this show a bunch of times. But it's worth noting even though the things, so like if you're not an Australian listener, even the things that we talk about with these people are Well fucked up right the things that they write on a regular basis

It's also worth noting that these people are published like daily in all of the all of the like most widely read papers in all of the major cities in this country Yeah, Andrew Bolt is I believe the single most prolific columnist in the country and every single one of his columns is published, you know, through one of Australia's biggest news websites. Well, I mean it's syndicated across all of the news world websites. It's syndicated through like all of the, all of the tabloid type dailies, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, all of those news called papers.

In Queensland, we barely have an alternative. It's very difficult to name any sort of paper that is Queensland based that does not syndicate these kinds of viewpoints. It's the Courier Mail or nothing. Yeah, what have we got? The Buyline, we've got the Currier Mail, Sunshine Coast Daily, whichever the Gold Coast Bulletin, and they're all news code, news court papers that all largely recycle the Cans Post, yeah, Gold Coast Bulletin, and they're all newscoat papers that all largely recycle the same content between them. We don't have an alternative to those at all.

This is what people are reading. And to give you, I guess to give you the context for this thing that I am about to read out, Andrew Bolt, all of Andrew Bolt's columns, and whenever they have like a, what do you call it, whenever he has like a little cut out on the front page of the newspaper, they always put as his byline, Australia's most widely read columnist. That is what they're constantly referring to him as, the most red colonist in the country. Australia's most convicted racist colonist.

Correct. So, you know, Andrew Bolt has spent the last few days writing, much like many of these columnists, have spent the last few days being extremely defensive and doing a lot of work to try and distance the writings of themselves and the stuff that gets published in the outlets that they are in. So Andrew, Andrew Bolt has an editorial from his show up on his blog today that says I have a message for the tribalists

trying to force us to pick sides after the Christ Church massacre. No, I reject both sides. I reject violence. I reject the enemies of civility and debate. And I stand, we all stand with the victims of Christchurch and the victims of all preachers of hatred. Now, here's something that somebody stug up of his from a year or two ago. Here's the the prece of his article here. This is from July 20th 2016 on the very same blog. If our politicians will not speak frankly and protect us from Islam, watch out for a civil war. A frightened public will not put up for this for much longer and

will defend themselves. Here, yes, that ugly day has not dawned and let us pray it never does, but in France, God knows how soon non-Muslim vigilantes will take up arms. Who could blame them? Who could blame people for taking arms against Muslims? Like, this is just normalized mainstream content in Australia. The idea that immigrants and Muslims are a threat to our way of life, that they are not to be trusted, that their every goal is just to normalize their religion and their culture, which we shouldn't trust, and of course that their eventual goal is to replace us, as is laid out in this other article of his from August 2nd

2018, headlined the foreign invasion. Australia is being swamped by non-English-speaking immigrants who refuse to assimilate and accept our values. In the face of this influx we are losing our identity. Now it's my understanding that the shooter from Christ Church had a manifesto. It is also my understanding that it's riddled with things where he's basically just trolling the media about stuff. But the broad cut and thrust of it is this very narrative. It's this idea of white culture is superior and we are slowly being replaced through immigration.

There's even the term for it now that they've taken up which is the great replacement. And it's like I think it's a great example of things that the right online kind of 8-chan poisoned people have very much taken up and memeified, right? So the great replacement as a concept just like so many of these other concepts, but it's not something that's rooted in that and not something that's come out of that. It's something that's very much rooted in mainstream media, mainstream kind of reporting. And the problem is that you don't have to walk very far away from that at all to arrive at that destination of far-right extremism.

Is the gap is extremely small. Well, like I said, I don't think there is a gap in this particular case, in the case of... No, where you'd say, well, look, you know, if you were to, you know, who could blame me? And it's like, oh, that's one of the fucking most ghoulish things that I have heard in a very long time, and it's just something that you write, th a, th a, thape thape th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, th, thi, that that that's thi, that's thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thin, thin, thin, the the the thin, the the the thin, the the the thin, the thin, thin, thin, the thi, thi, thin, th have heard in a very long time and it's just something that you write apparently as a as a columnist. It's something that an editor reads and says okay here is your paycheck like the but again in the specific language of of you know the great replacement the foreign invasion our identity being replaced.

Like from Andrew Bolt to Miranda Devine to Lauren Southern, to the proper nutters like this shooter. Like let's all think of the fucking Charlottesville, unite the right rally. What were all those guys with the teaky torches channing? You will not replace us. Or was it the Jews will not replace us? They chanted both. But yes. I'm sure they switched it up. But again, it's all just the same narrative and the fact that the same type of shit that these like open neo-Nazis write about on 4chan and chant at their neo-Nazi rallies is the same kind of stuff that is being written by as the paper itself will tell you. Australia's most widely read columnist is a serious fucking problem in this country.

And I feel like people are finally starting to ask some questions and and possibly even suggest that maybe these organizations should be accountable for some of the views that they are pressing. And like I said, it's been a lot of extreme defensiveness about this and attempts to, by people to distance themselves from it. A lot of expressions, a lot of like immediate expressions of solidarity and support and sorrow for the victims and injured and everything, which lasted about 12 hours before immediately swinging back at whiplash-inducing speeds to, you know whose fault this really is, the left. It's the left who drive these people to do this stuff. It's the left who drive these people to do

this stuff. It's the left who are being political opportunists by pointing out that the people who commit these acts saturate themselves in these particular media sources, so on and so forth. And something that has popped up in the media, something that has continued to resurface is a report from 2011 about current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who at the time was the shadow immigration minister, I believe just before the assent of Tony Abbott to the prime minister ship, if that's correct.

And the substance of the report is that a bunch of shadow cabinet ministers basically leaked that at this meeting, Scott Morrison had suggested that there was anti-Muslim sentiment in the community, and that that should be leveraged for votes basically. That sounds right guys? That sounds about an apt description to me? Sounds about accurate. So I believe the way it was put was that like a handful of people who were there confirmed to Lenore Taylor from the Guardian who wrote the original piece when she was at the City Morning Herald at the time. They confirmed to her the veracity of the report and a couple of people denied it. Since then she says that all of her original sources have stuck by that reporting and a bunch of them went on to give

the same account to other journalists. So this has basically been resurfacing in the wake of all of this stuff and has been getting tied into the question of how far has our government, our current government, be going in deliberately demonizing and othering Muslims and immigrants and Muslim immigrants for the cause of, you know, just whipping up votes, dog whistling, all that sort of thing. Clearly this is causing some panic with the Prime Minister. There is a show on Channel 10 called The Project, which is just like a panel news current

events kind of show. I don't really watch it, although I have watched a few snippets from the previous week. Host Walid Ali, who is Muslim, gave an editorial, a piece to camera, whatever you like, in the wake of the shooting, in which he basically just laid out, you know, the country's recent history with this kind of stuff, and how that makes the Muslim population of this country feel. And, you know, it very much came across to me as him just being pretty open and honest about his own feelings and again just asking for some of these questions to be asked. In the course of this he referred to this report from 2011

and said you know apparently a shadow cabinet minister said this and is now the most powerful politician in the country. That thing I think went went pretty viral on like Australian social media. now the most powerful politician in the country. That thing, I think, went pretty viral on like Australian social media. Got a lot of support. Apparently, according to a producer from the project, immediately after this segment started doing the rounds, he was phoned by a furious, furious media advisor or like media chief

of staff or whatever to the Prime Minister who suggested to him that the comments were potentially defamatory, that they should take it down and apologize publicly to the Prime Minister. The project declined to do so. Now I found myself saying about this online that like we can all agree right that that mentioning that something is is defamatory or potentially defamatory unless you are being incredibly generous there is no way to interpret this other than attempted intimidation, right? Yeah, you never call someone up and say, hey, that thing you said was super defamatory.

Well, cool. Have a good one. It's always with an implication. Well, I found myself to remarking to somebody that like, you know, I think, I was having a, I was having an extremely mild debate with somebody who I think is a lawyer who was saying, oh, you know, well, maybe this has been reported third hand, maybe the person said defamation and maybe they didn't, maybe they said it but they don't actually understand what it means, that sort of thing. And I said, look, I'll agree that I think that people all over the country on a very regular basis would tell somebody that they are unhappy with, that something is libelous or slander or defamatory without necessarily

knowing like the legal definition of that term or having any real intention to follow through on the claim in court. But I think that the one thing that all those things have in common is that people only mention that shit when they want to scare somebody off of saying something. And also those people are not the Prime Minister of Australia. Yeah yeah that too. Well I'm just saying I think that that that that that that that that th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th I th I th I th I th I thi I thi I thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi theeeeeeeeeat thi. theeeeeeat thi. thi. thi Yeah, yeah that too. Well I'm just saying I think that at all levels that this kind of thing is mentioned. You know it's the same reason that like it's the same reason that like people send people send bills and notices and contracts and shit to people and they like they frame them as though they're a last notice and you're gonna have to go to court th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to th. to th. th. th. to th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. I'm just th. I'm just thi. I thi. I'm th. I'm th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the thi. the thi. the the the thi the thi the thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th like they frame them as though they're a last notice and you're gonna have to go to court and all that sort of shit.

Like 95% of the time none of that stuff has any legal standing they do it with the intention of scaring the shit out of people and making them go like I think a lot of the time it's intended to make people just second guess themselves and say, ooh, if I go to court, I don't know how this is going to work out for me. But that's not... So to me, to me that's the only purpose of saying that is in the hopes that the project would have gone, holy fuck, we can't get sued for defamation by the Prime Minister of Australia, we'd better pull this thing. Absolutely, but that is not what has happened th has th has th has th has th has th has th has th has th th th th th th th th th what has what has th th th what has that that that that that that that that that that that that tho that that that that that tho thoo thoooo thoo tho- tho tho- tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho th. tho th. I th. I th. I th. tho th. tho tho tho tho tho thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. tho. tho. thooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. th this thing. Better pull a plug on this. Absolutely, but that is not what has happened. That is not what has happened instead.

Yeah. Well, they add that other piece by Hamish McDonald. That's right. Where he did another piece to camera in which he said, you know, Wally gave this piece, the Prime Minister's office called and said that it was defamatory, and we that, that, that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we that we should, and we should, and we should, and we should, and we should, that we should that we should that that that that is that is not that is that is that is not that is not that is not that is not that is not that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that is that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that gave this piece, the Prime Minister's office called and said that it was defamatory and we should apologize, we are not doing that. So they've then just dropped the threat of defamation and agreed to come on the show for an interview. Can we talk about the thing they raised, what that Hamas raised in the piece of camera

about Greg Hunt because that is a small delightful thing to happen in a sea of bullshit. Oh yeah, yeah, how was this the thing about how, uh, so, like, one of the, one of the notable things about this to me is that, again, as you, as you, as, as you, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as, as, as, as the, the, the, as, as, as, the, the thing about how so like what one of the one of the notable things about this to me is that again as as you as you said earlier on Theo a lot of things in Australian political media are allowed to just go by unchallenged a lot of things. In so many instances, politicians are allowed to basically set the terms of their own conversations, make claims, just make claims as statements, have them go by completely unchallenged, and it's all just like free press for them, you know, it's like free distribution of their

fucking pamphlets. It's not even like an interview. However, I feel like a lot of political journalists have really been sticking with this story about the report of wanting to pursue like an anti-Muslim political strategy. And there's been like, you know know maybe three different press conferences before this interview with Wally Dalit where Scott Morrison has been asked point-blank did you or did you not propose this thing in a in a shadow cabinet meeting in 2011 and it's it's worth noting that the original author of the report? Is it Lanoa Taylor? Yeah who is now that? the? that, yeah, this this interview thi? this this this interview this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? th? this interview? th? thi? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? this interview? This this interview? This this interview? thi? This interview? This interview? This interview? This interview? This interview? This this interview? This this interview? This this interview? This this? This? This? This? This? This? This? This? This? This? Is this? Is th. this? Is th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the th. th. the the thi. the the thi. thi. thi. this? this? this? this? this? this? the the this? the the noting that the original author of the report, is it Lenore Taylor? Who is now editor of The Guardian at the time was writing for the Sydney Morning Herald.

She's still standing by it? She's stuck by the story. The multiple sources that gave her the story in the first place are all still sticking by it. So it's not like this was just some sort of random hearsay. And so it's been repeatedly taken to the Prime Minister and then... He's repeatedly given flat denials as well, right? Like in a way in which there is no, there's no wiggle room or anything. And like for some reason it keeps making me like really nervous. Every time a new person says to him, so the report was this and did you say that? And he goes, I absolutely? I? I, I? I, I? I, I? I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I th th th thi th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, I thi, I thi, he thi, he thi, he thi, he thi, he thi, he thi, he thi, he thi thi, I thi thi thi thi thi th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th a new person says to him, so the report was this and did you say that? And he goes, I absolutely didn't. I keep expecting someone to just say, okay, well

we've got the tape from this thing because like this shit has happened before. But it's just, it's the extent to which people are just asking him point blank, and he is point blank giving a black and white response. And I think it's maybe the fact that they don't habitually record shadow cabinet meetings is maybe why he's so confident that he can flat out deny it. But we were lucky enough to have Samantha Maiden from the New Daly, who, as a few people did, spotted a very pertinent report to all this from at the time, so one of the people that Morrison rolled out in his defense was Fuckwit MP Greg Hunt who categorically stated. He gets his official title, yeah, yes, sorry, his folio is.. Yes, he said I was there, I categorically

deny that he said this, and then in a press conference yesterday, the day before yesterday, Samantha Maiden from the New Daily said, uh, Greg Hunt has said that you did not say this. Scott Morrison, very percolily, says yes, that's on the record. He's settled on the record. On the record. And then Samantha Madden from the New Daily says that's interesting because Greg Hunt went on the radio on ABC Radio in 2011 and said I was not in that meeting. And then Scott Morrison, mature, grown adult, packs up all these shit in a little fucking bag and storms out of the press conference.

Just said, well, I'm answered the question, goodbye. Go fuck yourself. Fuck me dead. I'm now going to- That's all from me and that's also from you, so shut up. I'm going to move sideways like a tap dancing crab, staring at the ground, bawling my fists. Goodbye. So since then, I believe that like several more of the people that he said backed him up like Philip Roderick was there.

Who is 150 years old? He's 150 years old and has only said, I don't recall, whether he said it. So yeah, again, all of this is, all of this just feels kind of unusual to me. It feels a bit out of the ordinary for people to be like repeatedly hammering such a senior politician about this thing where they've just they've just kind of given a non-answer and said they didn't say it. Normally I feel like a lot of Australian journalists would just leave it alone. They go, oh well he said no what else we meant to do? But like yeah the people have kind of, they've

kept on it and I think he's really feeling the pressure about it because not only did they make you know the veiled defamation the the the the the def the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the than an answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer answer the the their answer their answer their they're they're they're they're they're their their their their their their their their their their the their the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thn.n.n.n.n.n't thn't thn't themeded. I I In't themed. the. thel. thel. thel. the.auu.a.a.a.a.a.ea.ea.ea.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e. they're, they're, they're. they of, they've kept on it and I think he's really feeling the pressure about it because not only did they make, you know, the veiled defamation threat to the project, but they then pulled out of that and said, okay, we're going to do a one-on-one interview with a Wailitae and that aired tonight. And I don't know what he thought was going to happen. But it's not what actually happened. Well, like, but again, the only thing that I can assume is that he is so panicked about how this is being perceived by people, because I feel like it's pretty clear that fucking nobody's buying

that the guy who ran you know operation sovereign borders whose big mantra was stop the boats who who's like entire rise to political prominence was fueled by being the guy who was most efficient at setting up our fucking offshore torture gulags to destroy the lives and minds of Muslim refugees could never have said anything like that. I feel like nobody's buying it, right? And it seems like he knows that and wanted to make some kind of attempts to get out there and control the narrative. And that's not really how it went. No.

Yeah, I mean, just taking like a cursory glance across like the hashtags for it on Twitter and like the, just, you know, like, like we were saying before we got on the show, Theo, that even trying to get outside of our own sort of social media circles and look around it does not seem as though his performance was well received by anybody. No I mean I think at best apart from a few outliers which who have said you know well he's being bullied which is you know the shittiest thing to say about a politician that goes on a and gets interviewed about shitty things that they've done, is that charitably it wasn't a disaster.

It was just, it just went to show that he's an extremely weak-willed politician. He is not showing the kind of characteristics that we would expect from a prime minister. Any kind of leader at all. I will say up front, if you if you haven't seen the interview, you don't have to because it sucks. It doesn't suck because of Wilead. Wilead has done a tremendous job. I think, as Andrew kind of alluded to, it's not really a show that we watch often because mostly it's boring. But Wilead Ali, I think, has done a sensational job in this interview and staying incredibly

focused. And Scott Morrison has looked bizarrely unkempt slouched in his sheet in his seat the entire time. Trying to look non-plussed. Also trying to look serious at the same time while not answering any question directed to him was not a great look. No, absolutely. It just, it was an extremely petulant performance is what I would say about the kind of feel of the interview. But there are plenty of things, I think, in the interview materially that are very instructive in, I think, understanding how the election is going to play out, and just how we will see

Scott Morrison in the public eye moving forward. That, you know, initially, where after we've finished the softball, you know, this is a tragedy sort of thing, where Wally does it ask. It should be it should be noted that that's Wally's first question to him or his first statement or whatever would say, I don't normally do this but I'm going to let you set the, that's right, set the terms of this, set the direction that you want this to go in. And Scott Morrison, like, after saying, yes, this is all the tragedy, immediately launched into a several minute long story about how he's such a great guy because he went to a mosque

afterwards and hugged some people. Yeah, and there's a lot of that in the interview. He up with that he injects that all the way through and I think it's very important to contrast that which is anecdotes versus any time where he's actually asked to take action as a prime minister which Wiley'd did repeatedly. It's a real theme of the interview where Wilead has stayed absolutely laser focused and Scott Morrison has not. So initially the first question that he really asks him is you know that do we have a problem with Islamophobia? And Scott Morrison immediately deflects to say, well, it's bad when we

judge anybody too quickly. Right, he couldn't, even off the bat, he immediately just both sides the entire thing. You know, it's bad when we've got any kind of phobia. And he sort of pushes that through the whole thing. And at no point could we really get a bead on what the actual action is that the government is going to take to reduce Islamophobia. And in fact, while it asks multiple times, you know, what are you guys going to do as a government to reduce the Islamophobia? And, and Scott Morrison says, you know, well, I will lead by example, right? Like an absolutely shitty boss that just like will not reprimand his employees.

No, no, no, no, no. Like, you know, if your people in the coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition coalition, if people, if people, if people, if people, if people, if people, if people, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, the, if, the, if, the, the, if, the, the, if, the, the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Well, like, you know, you're, so, you know, if your people in the coalition come forward with things that are considered as the thelemophobic, you know, what action are you going to take? It's like, well, I'm going to continue, you know, on my track record to lead as a leader. So really what he is saying is that he's going to do fucking nothing. There is a thiiiiiiiiiiiii. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. put in place to combat. No commitment to anything other than to say, oh, I've already done all this stuff. I've already done it. Look at my, look at my record, not last week, but look at the other record. And that was the part of it that was so inc-like, just even lacking in any sense of internal logic was this idea of, when I came to Parliament, I can't, because, because I come from, to, to, th, to, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, to, to to to to to to to to to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, to say, oh, oh, oh, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, to say, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, to say, to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to say, to say, to say, oh, to say, this idea of. When I came to Parliament, I can't because because I come from, because I'm a representative

for Cranullo, which had the fucking race riots 10 years ago, yeah, because because that's where I'm from, I came in concerned about this stuff and already looking to, you know, initiate measures to deal with all this sort of thing. And I've done that, and I've done that. that. And I, and I, because, and I, because, and I, because, because, and I, because, because, because, and I, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, and I, and I, and I, and I've that, and I've that, and I've that, and I've that, and I've th, and I've th, because, th, th, th, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, th, that's, I'm from, I came in concerned about this stuff and already looking to initiate measures to deal with all this sort of thing. And I've done that and I've got a great relationship with the Muslim community and all this stuff and I've done all this work. I've done a lot of photo opportunities. And then there's, you know, Walid says, okay, here are a bunch of very specific examples

of members of the party that you lead. So he goes through, he's ticking them all off, he's like, you've got George Christensen going on like, dingo, Twitter podcasts, you know, you've got members of your party going to reclaim Australia rallies, you've got Tony Abbott saying Islamophobia never killed anybody, you've got, like, and he just goes through and ticks off all of these extremely specific concrete examples of evidence, of members of his own party saying things which very clearly demonstrate either Islamophobia

or an attempt to stoke Islamophobia in the community and says, does your party have a problem with Islamophobia? And he says, oh I don't. Lots of people have different opinions in the liberal party. He says, it's a broad church. And I love church. I don't, I don't, I don't think the party has a problem with it, he says. And like, he's not even able to say no to that. But he can't address any of those things by saying, like he can't, obviously can't bring himself to say, yeah, I agree that that sounds pretty bad when you read it all out like that. He goes on to say, I'm going to lead by example.. So. So. So, to, the, to, the, to, to, to, the, to, to, the, the, to, to, to, the, the, the, I, I' the, I' the, I' the, I' the, I' the, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, I' their, th. th. th. thin, I' th. th. thin, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I agree that that sounds pretty bad when you read it all out like that. He goes on to say, I'm going to lead by example. So he started off with, as soon as I came into government, I was here pursuing, improving

this as a thing. His explanation for the reports of him raising anti-Muslim attitudes in the community in a shadow cabinet meeting was to say, yeah, I was concerned about it and wanted to do something about it. That's why I raised it. So he's saying that, you know, he's been super concerned about this and acting on it the whole time. Also, here's all of these concrete examples of this fucking abhorrent behavior displayed by her own party. And then to cap it off, he will fix it by leading by example, which he's already been doing and will continue to do,

which as we can see is having a tremendous effect. So it just doesn't even come remotely close to stacking up. And then he basically just spends the whole interview just getting slowly, like getting more and more shrill, his voice gets higher and higher and he basically just abandons the pretext of like the pretense of answering any questions because he's far too busy trying to reframe and rephrase all of Waili's questions into something unrelated which he can then also not answer. Yeah and I think the perfect example of that and to lead on from you know hey what are you going to do about the the the the th th the th to do to to to to to to to to to to the to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their-I their-I their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their. their. their. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. tho. tho. tho. thoes. thooooooooooooooo. thooooooooo. the. thea. thea. thea. the. their their Yeah, and I think the perfect example of that and to lead on from, you know, hey, what are you going to do about it?

Well, I'm going to lead by example is that, you know, Wiley, point blank, said, well, look, we've got the one nation party, right, who has said that Islam is a disease and it should be vaccinated against, sort of ironic considering Pauline Hansen's views on vaccinations, but you know this in the wake of what has occurred, will you be preferencing one nation over other parties? And he's like, so initially he says, well, you know, what if Fraser Rannings were running? Like obviously trying to, you know, eke out some sort of semantic argument. So no, no, no, no, look, you know, just be serious about this. Will you, will you preference one nation? So, well, we will, we have never and we will never do preference deals with one nation? Again, that's not the question. So. So. So. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, th. So, the, th. So, the, the, the, the, the, the, th. So, th. So, th. So, well, well, well, well, well, th. So, th. So, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, th. So, the. So, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. the. the. th. the, the, th. th. th. th. the, th. thi. the, thi. thi. the. the. and we will never do preference deals with one nation. Again, that's not the question. If we can narrow it, will you preference one nation over

labor or the greens? And he's, well, you know, I can't, well this is a party decision, we're going to do it. And there is no point at which, even if it is a party decision, which as people have pointed out, it is very much a captain's pick much of the time. If you're going to take a stand on something, take a stand on something, but he couldn't even extend it to saying, I don't think we should. Like I don't think we should be preferencing one nation above the Greens. Well yeah, when Wallet's asked him this several times, several times he said, will you preference them last?

And he said, oh, that's a party decision, that's a party decision. That's completely ignoring the several instances within the last, say, two months, where Scott Morrison has personally intervened to stop one their th..... th th th his th. th his th his th his th. th last, say, two months, where Scott Morrison has personally intervened to stop one of his mates from getting knocked out of pre-selection in one of the seats. He's like personally intervened to make sure that like, fucking, who's that fat-necked mothed, motherfucker? His name is not coming to mind. But yeah, so and there was also the, the, oh, who's the guy that they put in in that seat? The... Welcome to Bontavista, the podcast where we try and remember names.

Anyway, I will drop that because... Greg. Greg. Good old, Greg. Yeah, multiple instances in the last couple of months where he and his own office have personally intervened to overturn the results of local branches of the Liberal Party pre-selecting their own representatives in order to keep people in who are factional loyal to him. Except when it comes to preferencing One Nation, that's a party decision that he can't make any kind of declaration about. Yeah, but it doesn't even seem like if you're talking about, you know, spend all this time

about leading by example. Well, he'd says, do you have a view on it? Yes. Do you even have an opinion on it? And he says, oh, well, you know, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a they. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. I. the. t. I. t. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te, that's a thing that I'll discuss with them when that all comes up. I won't be working at all out on your show. And again, it's like, so he's going to be leading by example. He's going to be leading by doing the right thing and with his actions and his words, but he's also not willing to actually have an opinion publicly about this thing. That's right,, because I mean, I think he's afraid of what that opinion is, to be perfectly honest. That I don't think that he is, he is ready to accept how his views on his priorities, his political priorities are being stacked up in the public eye because it's not going well. Well, and this is the area in which I think that they have well and truly just painted themselves into this corner, where you could see, like, I thought the thing that was most apparent through this whole interview was that what he was really trying to do was get out in front of this thing and control

the narrative somehow. I think that you could really see that in the way that he was constantly trying to rephrase questions that he was being asked. He was trying to reframe things into a context that suited him better. I think the Wally and Ali did a very good job of not letting him do that in a lot of think the Wally-Dhali did a very, very good job of not letting him do that in a lot of cases by repeatedly saying as he tried to, you know, as he tried to reframe a question and then answer that one, saying that's not the question I asked. That's not what I asked. And, like, the problem is, though, when you've spent the last 10 to 20 years, um, dog th and dog th and dog th and th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thiol' thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thus, that's, that's, that's, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's, that's, that's, that's, thi, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that's, th, that's, that's thi, that's that that that that that that that that that that, that, that, that,'ve spent the last 10 to 20 years,

dog whistling and in some cases just straight up, you know, dog fog-horning racism to your base, like, who was this intended to please? Was he meant to get out there and, and like, was he meant to get out there and rile up the conservative right-wing base by saying, actually I love Muslims and lots of them and my mates and I went to mosques and I hugged them and we should all respect each other. But we should also leave room for other people's opinions which may include up to all sorts of things. So who's to say, you know, include up to all sorts of things. So who's to say, you know?

Yeah, I just don't, I don't understand all who it was for or any of that shit. I think it's gone very badly for him and it genuinely seems like he's very, very, very conscious of that at this point. And the whole thing's, I guess, very interesting to me, it just genuinely makes me wonder if, if we could suddenly just be hitting a point with political journalists in this country where a lot of people are starting to say, is this worth? Is it worth having easy access to someone if I have to help mainstream this kind of shit? And honestly, like I think if we can take one thing away from this interview, for example, is that we should be doing more things like this, right?

Like the things that we should, we've seen, like you're kind of alluding to, where the coalition has tried to walk this very fine line of pleasing, not not pissing off their right base, you know, but not being, you know, necessarily exactingly xenophobic, but, you know, somewhere right in the middle and it's given them enough room to work with just about basically anything, right? You can make enough room with that to make any kind of argument as long as it's politically expedient. And what we need is to eliminate that room.

I think we need to be having these kinds of long-form interviews and conversations where they are not allowed to kind of just move on from the question. Until those things are clear, right, or until it's clear that they don't actually have a plan or a view for this, right? And I would highly, you know, I wouldn't want to see Bill Shorten get away with this either. I would love to see him sat down and grilled in the same fashion, as I would love to see it continue into the future because I think the Australian media should be waking up in a number of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of the the thi thi. th... th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. th. th. th. th. they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they thi, thi, thi, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, thi, thi, thi. theeeeeeean. thean. theeeeeeeeeeeee. theee. they're they're they're they're the future because I think the Australian media should be waking up in a number of ways and one of those ways should be that we have

been effectively letting them get away with you know carving out their own conversation for like you said, journalistic access to be able to be in the room so that we can't ask a question. And I think that the best example of that to me from that interview of that kind of thing was that I think, you know, Wally had asked several times, like repeatedly asked, whether it was about the one nation thing or the does your party have a problem with Islamophobia because he tried to reframe that question several times and say, look, when you hear, when I aggregate all these things for you and you hear all these statements, does that, you know, do you think that there is something within your own party,

that there is Islamophobia within your own party that needs to be confronted? And he was unable to get a straight answer from him. He was unable to get him to directly address the fact that these were comments and actions that had been taken by people in his own party and had not been condemned or acted on in any way. And after just, you know, getting kind of nothing from him for however long, you know, he said, like Morrison has said something along the lines of, well, you know, I've answered you question or whatever, and well, he's like, well, no, you haven't, really. He said, well, I have, you know, and that's the answer. And well, he said, well, yeah, I'm happy to let people to let people to let people to let people to let people to let people to let people to let people the people the people the people the people th. I th. I'll let people th. I'll let people th. I'll let people th. I'll let people, I'll let's th. I'll let's th. I'll th. I'll th. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'll th. I'm, I'm, I'm, I've, I'm, I've, I've, I've, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, th. I, th. I, th. I, th. I, th. I, th. I, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. I'm, th. th's the answer and well he said well yeah I'm happy to let people, I think people will come to their own

conclusions. You know, people will come to their own conclusions about this and I think that was the most effective way of making the point of like you haven't really said anything about this, I've given you a bunch of opportunities and what you have chosen to say, it also makes a statement. So, you know, I'll be really interested to see how this specific stuff plays out. I know that, like you were saying earlier, Ben, obviously this is the main thing that should be people's concern is the victims of this thing and the survivors as well. But we also kind of, I think one of the worst things for Australia to do at this point would be to turn away from the fact that we have obviously been creating this pressure cooker

environment in our society for a long time that has created this kind of person and is going to continue to create this kind of person. And I'm just desperately hoping that this kind of stuff continues. A lot of these people get the pressure put on them. I would just love to see media organizations start to maybe make some different choices about whether or not this kind of shit that they're running is worth the money, really. But with regards to the whole human part of this, Ben, I understand you went to a memorial in Brisbane?

Yeah. So, on last Sunday, which will be, I guess, two Sundays ago when you're listening to this, or whenever you listen, let's not have that conversation with that every single time. This was the Sunday that after the shooting, the Islamic College of Brisbane held a sort of, like an open prayer service thing that ended up turning into like a huge sort of a thing with the Premier giving an address and the bloody chief of police or whatever. But then outside of that, there were a few imams gave a few speeches.

They did a few different things there and George and I sort of went to this, you know, partly out of, sort of born of two desires really, is that I had been a fucking mess that entire weekend, and you know, obviously it kind of goes without saying that I am completely detached from this, right? This, this didn't happen in Australia. I don't really know anything about Christchurch. I don't really know that many New Zealanders. I don't know many Muslims. I am not Muslim. This is nothing that it's personal to me in any way. And even with that, I just, after following the coverage all day on Friday and then reading the updates,

I think, and a lot of people did, just felt a very sort of listless and useless grief that you can't really do anything with. You know, there's not like there are people around me that needed to be comforted or things that I could do, you know, outside of donating to charity. It didn't really, it felt like a useless emotion, but it was very pervasive and, you know, so I, George and I saw that the service was being held and it was really, yeah, two things is that we wanted, I guess, some sort of closure. Not closure, but I guess, just a way to experience the grief in a way that meant something, I guess, in this like, communal sort of way. And also because Muslims in Australia are largely

super alienated from the rest of the community largely because the atmosphere that we live in and we thought this is something tangible that we can do is we can just be there and the turnout end up being huge. This is this massive, so the Islamic College of Brisbane is huge. The hall they held it in was unbelievable. And like, we got there pretty early. The traffic was backed up in like every direction, even then. We got there and there were still some seats of the hundreds of seats in there that were empty and we're like, I don't know, we might stand up the back until, you know, people that are maybe more connected, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, and, and, and, and, and, their, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.... the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the.traffic. the.traffic. the traffic.traffic. the traffic, the traffic maybe more connected to this or elderly people or whatever you kind of sit down the front and then it gets close to the starting time and it keeps filling up and it keeps filling up and it keeps filling up until they have to open another room and then just play the

audio in there and then that room fills up and then there are just people standing outside because there now to go th. Thousands and thousands of people went to this and it was, it was just, you know, it's, I don't think often in my life I experience good moments of humanity. You know, we're all quite isolated. We're all pretty cynical people. Good things don't tend to happen in like big ways where you kind of get a feel for how good human nature can be. And just having this big, very, you know, there's so many different kinds of people there. I cried my fucking eyes out. It's so many different points that there was a point in the ceremony where one by one they called up all these different faith leaders from a bunch of different religions to hold a short prayer. You know they had different

sex of Islam, Jewish leaders, Catholic leaders, Protestant leaders, Hindu leaders, everything. It just kept going until they were just, you know, like two or three dozen people up on the stage and seeing something like that fucking brought me to tears and I'm not someone that's super enthusiastic or about religion normally. and they had a Maori group perform a harker which that fucking destroyed me. I had this really weird moment standing right at the back of the hall where you know just before they start they sort of invite anyone familiar with the hacker to join in

and I am standing, it was just a weird moment. I'm standing up the back, there is a guy to my left who is clearly an Orthodox Jew. There is these two young girls in front of me. It's a gay couple, one of them is Maori. I'm watching a woman in hijab, a couple of roads ahead of me, completely by herself, middle-aged Muslim woman who is just putting everything into this harker as well, completely alone. Everyone around her

standing completely still. I can hear my friend Ash, who is a New Zealander who was there with us, is a couple of people over from me. She's joining in as well, and it's just this really beautiful emotional moment. And I think there is something like, you know, I'm not going to fucking say wishy-washy shit about how we're focusing on the negatives and not the positives, but there is something positive that can be done here and I think there are so many opportunities now if you're in Australia or New Zealand or I guess anywhere where you are to genuinely

connect with the Muslim community around you because they are so open to that. You know, a weird thing I found trying to compile a list of mosques and Islamic centers around Australia that were doing sort of open days coming up and that sort of thing is that even the ones that didn't have ones planned for the near future because of Christchurch, this is something sort of baked into being a Muslim in Australia, is that so many of like the Islamic Society, Brisbane or New South Wales or Victoria, they have these things just always on the website saying, hey, if you would just like to meet a Muslim, let us know,

come in and talk to us. And so many of them specifically have things that are about not confronting questions about terrorism and that sort of thing. There's a thing that Muslims down under does that they call the question Islam events where it's basically about, they frame it as in answering the question Islam events, where it's basically about, they frame it as in answering the tough questions, or the Islam under the spotlight, where they will basically do community events

where a bunch of people will just grill a representative of the community about these fears and misapprehensions that they have, you know, this is something that they have to do all the time. And it's fucking, it's fucking, the, for the, for the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, it's, they's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their they's like, they's like, they's like, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, apprehensions that they have. You know, this is something that they have to do all the time. And it's fucking... And for that context, that's not a thing, like, to my knowledge, that's not a thing that any other religion in Australia is doing or is seemingly forced to do. No, no, not at all. And this is the sort of pressure that they're under always. And you know, it's so easy to feel fucking useless right now because I guess in a lot of ways

we are because this isn't about us and you can donate to charity, which I think you should, if you can, but there is something really profoundly beautiful you can do is just be a fucking human being and form connections with people in your local community. You know, there's, depending on where you live in Australia, there is probably a mosque, if not, in your suburb, around. It's worth checking if they're doing anything after Christ Church. If they're not, a lot of them will be holding open days in October, which is there's a day, I'm not sure which day, but you can Google it, which is they have a national mosque

open day in Australia, I think it might be global even. Muslims down under provide a, they do a thing called coffee in Islam where you can just go to the website and you make a meeting to have a cup of coffee, their shout, with someone from the Muslim community near you. And you know, they say it's about learning more about Muslim or it's about just meeting someone new. The phrasing that they use is if you simply want to meet other awesome Dinky Dye, Ozys and make new friends, right? This is something that is so tangible that is a benefit to everyone involved in this process.

That is something really, really good that can come from this. Yeah, I just, it's just been such a quagmire of shit. And I, yeah, this is something permanent that can happen, which is, you know, something that maybe we should have been doing all along. But yeah, I just, I think this is something, something good that can be done. Well, yeah, I, you know, me and Ellen went to a rally here in Canberra. We just went to like a, I think the refugee action committee just put together a rally, just like an anti-racism solidarity rally, and we went down to that and it looked like I don't know not great by the old crowd numbers but hundreds or a couple of thousand people turned out

for this thing and they you know very very similar they had a whole bunch of speakers from different faiths and representatives from the Muslim community and you know the speakers were good. I mean while we were just sort of waiting for it to start, a couple of girls who I think were from the university just came over and asked if they could ask us a couple of questions. They were just like taking photos for like some assignment and doing interviews and stuff and they asked like, so you know, why did you come here today and we were like at the, like the big obvious, the the the, I the, I the, I the, I, I the, I, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the, like, the, the, their, their, their their their their, I their, I their, I their their their their their their their their their their their their their, I their, I their, I their, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, their, their, like, like, like, th, like, th, thi, thi, thi, their, their, their, their, their, the and they asked like, so you know, why did you come here today and we were like, it's a big obvious reason? And we said, you know, it really is just a situation where you kind of, you just don't know

what to do. And I said, yeah, for us, it's just, it's just important to be, you know, to just, you know, to just, you know, to just, to just, you the to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just, to just just, to just, to just just just just just just, it's just important to be, to just come down and be visible in that sense. Because when something like that is organized with the express purpose of showing, you know, showing the Muslim community in your town that they have support, to just be seen, to just go and show people that you're there. And like, you know, and I also said, I wanted my kids to be there as well. I wanted my kids to see, you know, the community coming together for something like that. I wanted, I want to model that behavior for my kids. I want to supporting the tho' to go and, and the the their, and, and, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and their, and just, and just, their, and just, their their their to just, to just, to just, their, their, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just, to just just just just just just, to just, to just, to just just, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their their their their their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, just go just go just go just go just go just go just go, go, to just go just go just go, to just go just go just go, to just, their, their, to see, you know, the community coming together for something like that. I want to model that behavior for my kids of supporting, you know, people in their

community who need it as well. And you know, the speakers are really good and something that I really appreciated, I mean, was that several of the speakers said, you know, as part of their, part of their addresses, a lot of them focused on this idea of the question they get asked all the time, which is, what can I do? You know, what can you actually do to help? And one lady whose name I cannot recall, because I'm doing great with the names in this episode You know she she said like

This this is at a point now where like People can't keep not doing anything You know she said it's just kind of It's at that point of Not doing anything is is picking a side you know? You know? She said. She said it's the, she said it's like kind of, it's at that point of not doing anything is picking a side. You know, we're at that point now where not, like, you know, seeing racism in public and not doing anything about it, you're picking a side. And the side you're picking is that that's good enough for you, apparently.

And so, you know, her advice was, write to your local politicians and say, I can't support this kind of dog whistling anymore, this fear-mongering, write to your TV stations and say, why are you giving platforms to these people? I can't watch this shit anymore until you do this. You know, say something to your racist uncle at the dinner table. Just that idea of stop stop thinking about a thing being fucked up and actually talked to someone about it. Actually, you got to call the shit out when you see that. And even if you're doing it in the form that we were discussing right back at the start of the show which is telling someone to

shut the fuck up and we don't have a place for that here, then do that. But that's kind of where we're at. We've gone a bit long on this one and it's not exactly the funniest subject in the world. No. No. No. Yeah. I know that we are kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind that we are kind the the the they, they, they, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the their their their their the their their their their their their the th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the the the the the the the th. their their the subject in the world. No. I know that we are kind of the last podcast in the world that should be maybe the ones discussing this and the last people in the world. But I mean it's it's kind of impossible not to talk about this. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, the lens through which we usually look at things is, you know, the Australian political landscape and media commentators, and I think that there are a lot of very real questions being asked about what part people who stoke these attitudes and the fear and xenophobia have in this kind of event. And yeah, personally I think that the reaction of how severe the reaction from right-wing

commentators has been of very, very loudly protesting that they are personally being blamed for this thing. I think it's really telling. I think the extent to which these commentators are freaking out about being associated with this is telling. So, it'll be interesting to see where it goes from here. I hope that this is, I mean, you know, maybe I'm being naive, but I genuinely hope that this is I mean you know maybe I'm being naive but I genuinely hope that this is just the start of a genuine ground swell of feeling in this country that people have had enough of this shit that they're just they're just ready for something else so you know fingers crossed um yeah I think that's about it for us this week. If you've filmed this episode too heavy, pop on over to the bonus episode where you'll find about an hour of talking about Andrew putting his feet in a toilet. And then that's getting posted on Instagram and people are jacking

off to it. So, yeah. If that sounds like something you want to be a part of. If that sounds a little more light-hearted, we're also taking questions from our listeners about Big Foots and which alien movie is the worst, a lot of really important topics over there too It's alien resurrection by the way It sucks with weak and all the great. Not a good movie So that is Patreon dot com forward slash Buntavista Hop on over there even if you would just like to support the show. We appreciate it or if you don't want to do it. Yeah even worry about it. Yeah, that's, that is absolutely

fine. Yeah, that's fine too. Thanks for sticking around everybody and we'll see you next week. Maybe, maybe it's something nice or to talk about. I plan to do one joke next week, so... I can't wait for it. I quite enjoy your jokes. So I will be on tender hooks waiting for that. Hey get off those hooks that sounds like that could hurt what is this? Hell? I haven't watched that I'd love to come around and watch it. Yeah come over and watch it we've only been talking about it for about 12 months so. Fair enough. Yep when's uni break? I'll look that up. All right. See you next week. See you next week. We'll sort this out. Bye.