Daily Insight

There’s an English word that you can find in any dictionary. This word children can say freely around one another. They can even say it in the classroom in front of the teacher, and there will be no reprisals or punishment. It’s a word that friends and family call my young daughter, a word that she likes, because she’s such a great climber. She can now do around 15 pull-ups, completely of her own volition. But if you’re a professional rugby league player, and use this word directed at a fellow rugby league player, you’ll be suspended for eight weeks. The word of course, is monkey. Spencer Leniu, a Sydney Roosters player in the NRL who was born in New Zealand and has Samoan heritage. He called opposition player, Brisbane Broncos Ezra Mam, who is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, a monkey. “Spencer Leniu handed eight-week ban for calling Ezra Mam a 'monkey' in Vegas”. In his own words, he said he thought his slur against Mam was just “one brown man saying something to another brown man”. I’m not at all suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in an offensive way, but this is a rough sport. For example, in the very same hearing, Tayson Fakaosi was suspended for one game for performing a crusher tackle. According to the NRL, a crusher tackle is when a player “uses any part of his body forcefully to bend or apply unnecessary pressure to the head, neck or spinal column of the tackled player. In some crusher tackles, the full weight of the defender is applied in a dropping motion on the tackled player’s head and/or neck and/or spinal column.” So applying brutal force to a player’s head neck or spinal column results in a one-week suspension, but a word that kids say in the playground on the monkey bars, kids say in the classroom in front of their teachers, a word that my wife calls my daughter when she’s on her fifteenth pull-up, that word results in an eight week suspension on the rugby field. Look, I know, context counts. I’m not suggesting people should go around calling people monkeys in a hurtful way, but have we somewhat gone stupid with language now, where words are considered more hurtful than spear tackles? If he called him the n-word, okay, perhaps that makes sense. The dictionary very clearly states that’s considered offensive. But eight weeks for a single English word? Is that proportionate? If they just wanted to send a message, one week would have done the trick. Okay guys, don’t call each other monkeys. It doesn’t look good. Leniu spoke about growing up with a Samoan background in Western Sydney where it was common among his family and friends to call each other monkey in a lighthearted sort of way. He said, “All those types of words are used in our language and how we speak to each other. I had no idea what that word meant to Ezra, what it meant to all the Indigenous people in the game.” Leniu was even prepared to fly his partner and himself to Queensland at his own expense to give a face-to-face apology to Mam, but Mam wasn’t having a bar of it. Sydney Roosters officials will put their entire club through cultural training. Yes, this is real. Sledging, trash talk, whatever you want to call it. What if we changed the M of monkey to say a D? Would calling somebody a donkey be okay? According to the dictionary, a donkey is “a domesticated hoofed mammal of the horse family” of course, but also, “a stupid or inept person”. The very same dictionary, a donkey has a much more negative connotation than a monkey. Presumably though, if Leniu called Mam a donkey instead of a monkey, literally just change one letter, he wouldn’t have been suspended at all? That’s how stupid all this is getting. Sticks and stones may break my bones, nah… that doesn’t apply anymore. If you’re offended by a word, that’s enough for people to lose their livelihood for eight weeks. Perhaps the NRL need to publish a list of offensive words along with the corresponding punishment. Galah should be okay, shouldn’t it? It’s now coming out that Leniu actually was the first to receive a derogatory comment made by a Broncos player before his comment was made to Mam, but he let it go and told those close to him that he would not “snitch” on other players. As I said, I’m not suggesting people should go around throwing hurtful words at people, but what happened to trash talk on the field? Is it not allowed anymore? “Excuse me sir, your mother looks like… a lovely lady. I mean person. I shouldn’t have assumed her gender. Sorry, I shouldn’t have called you sir, because that’s assuming your gender. No problems sir, no offence taken. Now do you consent to me touching you so that I can tackle you? Sorry sir, I do not consent. Oh dear, well I guess you better go score, as I don’t want to cause any offence. Thank you sir for being so understanding.” MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Beloved Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr (well beloved to some, the media seem to love her. Social media? Not so much), has done something a little bit naughty. She uttered some not-so-nice words to a police officer in London early last year. First of all, no matter what side of politics you’re on, whether you’re woke or anti-woke, I don’t care, but I think nobody should be cancelled, or lose their careers over something they say. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We sometimes say stupid things. So I’m not here campaigning for Sam Kerr to lose her job. However, she did say something that other sports stars have lost their jobs over. What did she say? Well after a big night out, she reportedly threw up in a taxi and got into an altercation with the driver over the taxi fare, presumably over the cleaning fee, so the police were called and she allegedly called the police officer a “stupid white bastard”. However, it’s being reported that Kerr herself said she didn’t say that all, she said, “stupid white cop”. Either way, the intent is the same. She called the police officer “stupid”, as well as “white”, and consequently was charged with Racially Aggravated Harassment, which she could potentially go to jail for. This of course resulted in the Progressive Left, or the Woke Left, or whatever you want to call them, their minds collectively imploded. You see, the Progressive Left are all about criminalising language, when it suits them. They are obsessed with historical oppression and identity politics. The only things that matter to them now are race, gender, and sexuality. They no longer focus on the real problems facing poor people, but instead turn their gaze to imagined microaggressions against over-privileged university graduates. And because Sam Kerr is a person of colour (I hate that term by the way. It sounds rather racist, don’t you think?), she’s of Indian descent (noting, she’s also of Caucasian descent, but that doesn’t seem to count), she’s a lesbian (she has a Caucasian fiancée), and of course, she’s a woman, whatever that means. Nobody seems to be able to define it anymore. The point is, she ticks all the Woke Left’s boxes, so to speak. So when they heard she was charged with racism, as I said, their collective minds imploded. Instead of calling out the racism for what it is, they instead tried to defend her. But to be fair, it is a bit hard for them to rationally support her racist comments in this instance, so what else can they do? Well they can simply change the definition of racism. For example, the Conversation are reporting: “Sam Kerr’s alleged comments may have had a racial element, but they were not ‘racist’” in quotes. Obviously, laws should be colourblind, and should be applied equally. If Sam Kerr gets away with this, it sets and incredibly stupid and dangerous precedent. Of course, politicians like Senator Lidia Thorpe who profit (as in benefit) from the racism industry, tweeted: “Replace all statues of captain cook with statues of Sam Kerr, our one true captain”. Basically, calling her a hero for using racist language towards a police officer. Former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster has called on Football Australia to strip Sam Kerr of her captaincy if it is confirmed that she did indeed use racist language towards the police officer, to show how seriously the sport takes racism. Look, I think this is the natural result of criminalising language. We get stupid situations like this. It seems like the world can’t agree what racism is. Crimes like murder are obvious. You either kill someone or you don’t. Sure, we could argue over whether it’s manslaughter, or whatever, but somebody is dead. Burglary and theft are obvious. Something has been stolen. There’s no debate. But criminalising language, as we’ve seen with this racism debate, is a very dangerous path. It’s open to abuse. Somebody says something, and then somebody claims they feel offended. How can we disprove it? Maybe we should just do away with this whole racism thing. Even if the world decides that what Sam Kerr said wasn’t racist, it was still wrong. She is a role model. Many girls (and boys) look up to her. At the very least, she needs to apologise. She won’t, because that would be an admission of guilt. But in a perfect would, she might say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. We should be nice to one another no matter what our cultural backgrounds. Racism is racism, and I was wrong to say what I said. Please forgive me.” Call it double standards. Call it selective outrage. Call it hypocrisy. But one thing that is crystal clear, racism is only called out by the Progressive Left when they are the victim. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Throughout history, there have always been men dressing up in women’s clothing as a form of entertainment, so-called drag queens in the modern vernacular. I’m not here to criticise what people do for a living, or do in their free time, however, I would classify this type of performance, especially of the burlesque-style, highly sexualised variety, as a form of entertainment for consenting adults. It’s not my cup of tea, but if you want to go along and watch a drag queen dancing or whatever on stage, well that’s up to you. But, I would not classify drag queens as a form of children’s entertainment. When my kids were younger, my wife, or sometimes myself, would take my children along to the local library to their weekly, or bi-weekly, story time events, and they were quite good. There was usually a conservatively dressed female librarian, although sometimes there were men, who read a nice wholesome story to the children. The children enjoyed going because they could listen to a couple of nice stories, as well as play with the other children. The parents often enjoyed going because it was a chance for them to have a bit of a break and chat with the other parents or whatever. But over the last year or so, the conservatively dressed librarian is slowly being replaced with drag queens at so-called Drag Queen Story Time events. No matter what side of politics you’re on, we have to all admit that Drag Queen Story Time is highly controversial. And it makes sense why. People typically view drag queens as a form of adult entertainment. Now that’s not me dissing drag queens. They’re free to do what they like, as long as it’s done in an appropriate setting. Obviously, the debate isn’t around the existence of drag queens, but rather, should drag queens be in the public library reading to children. To me, an analogy would be a prostitute reading to the children. I’ve got nothing against prostitutes, each to their own, but it’s not appropriate for them to be reading to children in their prostitute’s attire. I wouldn’t accept a stripper reading to the children either, regardless of whether they’re female or male. Now if Craig the stripper happens to also be a librarian, but acts and dresses like a librarian at story time, well that’s fine. Just as if Susan the librarian happens to be a woman of the night, but comes to her library job dressed appropriately and doesn’t mention her prostitution to the children, well obviously, that’s fine as well. The issue isn’t with drag queens per se, it’s that they’re being put in an environment that many people would say is inappropriate. Of course, where did all this start? I think you can guess… America. In 2015, Michelle Tea created the first Drag Queen Story Hour in San Francisco with the stated goals of promoting reading and diversity. And as we all know, when America sneezes the world catches a cold. It’s taken a bit of time, but certain Australians are now trying to push Drag Queen Story Times around Australia. But, there’s been a lot of pushback. “Hills Shire Council votes to stop supporting drag story time events”, “'Fear-mongering': Sydney council bans drag queen storytime events at heated meeting”, “Victorian councils to hold emergency meeting on far-right targeting of drag queen storytime events”, “Pop-up drag queen story time held in Shepparton after official event cancelled”, “ABC’s Drag Queen Story Time Cancelled at Rockdale Library”. Labelling people as far-right for not supporting Drag Queen Story Time is not going to win them any supporters. Most people who are against this are just regular folk. Many civilisations before us have collapsed, and one thing that scholars have noted, is that towards the end stages of a civilisation, there is social and moral decay. Nations are founded on some form of religious or spiritual worldview almost exclusively. Religion, or spirituality, provides the set of standards that govern a nation. But when societies start abandoning this religion, or abandoning their moral standards, as many would argue is happening now in the Western world, when the traditional beliefs of a nation erode, the nation dies. With social decay comes cultural decay. With cultural decay comes moral decay. Look, I think most Aussies are pretty laid-back and accepting of many different things. I’d say that most Aussies have nothing against drag queens as a concept, when the performance is held behind closed doors in an appropriate venue such as a bar or nightclub, but when you try to force these forms of essentially adult entertainment on our children, expect pushback. We might be laid-back, but there’s limits to what we’re willing to accept. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

If you’ve been to the airport recently, you may have seen signs alternating between Australian city names and their Indigenous equivalent, while also alternating between different flight codes, confusing the s**t out of everybody. It’s the same plane, but with different flight codes and different place names displayed. Personally, I found it quite confusing. I’m not the only one: “‘Bloody confusing’: Indigenous names on departure signs at airport”. If Aussies are have trouble understanding this, well how can we expect international travellers to know what the hell is going on? Nobody has ever taught me these names, so to just suddenly thrust them on the population is just a recipe for disaster. Not only will people not understand, they’ll probably resent you for it. From years of language teaching and learning myself, forcing languages on people just doesn’t work, unless your goal is to piss off the entire population. According to their website, Tourism Australia have adopted Aboriginal dual naming. Our favourite tax-payer funded broadcaster, the ABC, has now started to slip in Indigenous place names in their articles. “Phoebe Paradise's art explores the relationship between the housing crisis and climate change in Meanjin/Brisbane.” “What does Meanjin look like?” “Two-time defending Women's World Cup champions USA have been knocked out in Melbourne/Naarm.” “I've lived in nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania, for large sections of my adult life.” “Inside Dunstan Playhouse by the River Torrens in Tarndanya/Adelaide” “It was an average Thursday night in Naarm/Melbourne” I’m sure that’s how people speak in Melbourne, right? “Maggie Zhou is a Naarm/Melbourne based writer who makes friends online.” Good for Maggie. Actually, the ABC inadvertently wrote what I was thinking: “ABC Everyday (DO NOT USE)”. “Chris lives in inner-city Naarm with one of his two partners” – Isn’t that illegal? Anyway, you get the idea. You never requested this, they just started doing it. But I know why the Government and others are forcing this on us, and I think you probably do too. If they put this up to a vote, we already know the result. Australians would vote No. Their only option is to force it upon us. So we either just accept it and let the government do whatever they want, or we speak up. I guess, that’s what I’m doing now. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

A few years ago, back during the dark days of the pestilence, I remember the university I worked for sending out an email with a link to a survey that all employees had to fill out. It asked whether we would be comfortable around coworkers and students who had not taken the prescribed medication. They were obviously probing for information to see whether they had the numbers to implement a mandate. This in itself means it wasn’t about health in their eyes, it was about popularity. Were there enough people on campus who would support them? If the prescribed medical procedure was vital to the survival of the university, then they needn’t have asked, they should have just dictated it. Thank God, sanity prevailed and they didn’t implement it. Enough of my colleagues responded in such a way that the university thought they would have gotten too much pushback. People power won the day. However, the state government implemented a rule, stating that only those that took their medicine were allowed to attend coffee shops and the like. So although I was allowed to enter the university proper, I was forbidden from entering the university coffee shop. I was deemed unclean by the powers that be, a risk to everyone’s health. Even though I sat next to people in the office, I was not allowed to sit next to those very same people in the presence of coffee. Yes, it’s laughable when you look back at it. Honestly, I didn’t care. “Good!” I thought. I can save some money by not buying overpriced coffee and sandwiches. By the way, that cafe has since closed. The Government with their stupid rules destroyed them, as they did with many other small businesses around Australia. As a university employee, I got off fairly lightly, but other workers didn’t fare so well. Many workers had to take the prescribed medicine or else lose their jobs. It was coercive, it was wrong, it was a breach of human rights, but at the time, if you dared say such a thing, you were shouted down and called any number of names. Dissent wasn’t allowed. But yesterday, a bit of vindication or redress, a Queensland Supreme Court judge ruled that a certain government-implemented mandate for frontline workers was unlawful. Not only was it unlawful, it breached human rights. All I’ve got to say is duh! At the time, in my opinion, it was obvious, and I made many videos saying as such. But unfortunately, people capitulated and let it happen. Not everyone of course, but the majority of people did. But as we saw at my university, enough people said no, and they were forced to not implement the mandate. Justice Glenn Martin ruled that the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Ambulance Service policies breached part of the Human Rights Act, specifically, section 58 which requires you to act and make decisions compatibly with human rights. Justice Glenn Martin found Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll failed to comply with this section of the act, and therefore ruled that her directions were unlawful. That doesn’t sound right. A police commissioner breaking the law? It should be noted that Commissioner Carroll announced last week that she is resigning as of Friday 1 March 2024. Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, you know, the one that defines the word woman as anybody who identifies as a woman, said she wanted to make it “very clear” that the ruling did not find the mandatory medical procedure contrary to the Human Rights Act, but that the directions were issued unlawfully. Hmm, sounds like a bit of political spin to me. “It was lawful, and it was compatible with human rights, but there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that it was a reasonable direction under the employment contract”. You know what would have been nicer: “Sorry, we made a mistake. Here’s some compensation.” But no, of course not. The Government will never apologise. Criminal lawyer and former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said, “The decision is a very live can of worms as to whether the workers involved can request compensation. It would be a matter for the courts whether the workers would be able to successfully receive compensation for loss of employment or lost and suffered damages.” Even the United Nations make it very clear: “Human rights require bodily autonomy for all – at all times.” There’s no excuses. There’s not emergencies that can take away this right. The only way this right is taken away from us, if if we capitulate and let them take it from us. Anyway, this Supreme Court ruling is good news, even if it’s only just a start. But I think the Government should start to question how it treats its citizens from now on. Of course, we can’t trust them to do this, so the only advice I can give is that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras have announced that police are not welcome to march in the parade this weekend. That doesn’t seem very inclusive, does it? For a group that’s entire existence is based on inclusivity, they seem to have missed the mark here: “The businesses with the highest rates of diversity and inclusion are the ones that win”. By not including anybody who identifies as a police officer, I guess they, and society, lose. In Australia, the inclusive acronym is LGBTQIA+. I guess they should add a P- to indicate that P is not allowed at the Mardi Gras, as in Police Officers, not urine, which of course is welcome, as it is every year. I’m joking people! Anyway, the Australian acronym is pretty inclusive, but it’s got nothing on Justin Trudeau’s Canada: 2SLGBTQIA+. Canada is by definition, and by the length of their acronym, the most inclusive country in the world, unless of course you believe that ‘female spaces’ should be reserved for ‘biological females’ as suggested by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, then you’re a dastardly transphobe who is not welcome in uber-inclusive Canada. Pretty much anybody who identifies as conservative is not welcome in the most inclusive country in the world. It should be noted that Poilievre’s Conservative Party is steaming ahead in the polls for next year’s federal election, with Trudeau’s Liberal Party an increasingly distant second. Perhaps Canadians are getting a bit sick of mandatory inclusion. Back to Australia. The reason the police are not welcome at the Mardi Gras this year is because a gay police officer, Senior Constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, murdered, allegedly, a gay couple, former television reporter Jesse Baird, and the man’s new boyfriend, Luke Davies, using his police-issued service pistol. Consequently, the board of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras issued a statement: “Our community needs space to grieve the loss of Jesse and Luke who, before this tragedy, would have been here celebrating with us at the festival. The board has taken the decision to request that the police do not march in the 2024 Parade.” So because the killer was a police officer, all police officers are bad now? That sounds rather, how would you say, prejudiced, does it not? Because of the person’s identity, now all police are bad? What about him being male? Should we forbid all males from attending the Mardi Gras, because you know, he was a violent male who mercilessly killed gay people? He is also gay himself. Should we forbid gay people from attending the Mardi Gras? Perhaps the Mardi Gras should be called off, because he was also human, and we can’t have any of those murderous humans attending the parade. This is the natural conclusion of identity politics, is it not? Everyone’s excluded. NSW Premier Chris Minns said he thought officers not being allowed to march would be a step backwards, not a step forward. He said, “NSW Police marching in the Mardi Gras is an important part of bringing the communities together. There are many LGBTQI+ members of the New South Wales Police Force themselves, and over the years, particular senior officers, would have battled prejudice within the workforce.” And now they’re battling more prejudice from the very people that call themselves inclusive. Any surprises there? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

One of my children was sent home a notice from primary school that riled me up a little bit. It read: “Hearing screening will be provided to Indigenous students in Prep to Year 3 at our school. There is a small fee of $25 for our non-Indigenous children.” I’m getting a bit tired of all this. Not only is this not fair, it’s essentially racist, is it not? Is it not providing advantage to one group of students at the expense of the other students? Quite literally an expense! All based off what? One’s bloodline? A simple test could be performed by switching the roles. “Hearing screening will be provided to non-Indigenous students. There is a small fee of $25 for our Indigenous children.” People would be outraged! And they should be. It’s morally wrong, is it not? Then the opposite is morally wrong. It doesn’t even make logical sense. It’s essentially grouping all Indigenous folk into one basket and declaring that they can’t afford the hearing check. Whereas non-Indigenous families are assumed they can afford it. I think we all rationally know that at least some Indigenous families are not poor, and at least some non-Indigenous families are struggling to make ends meet. But yet they still have to fork out the $25, whereas a well-off Indigenous family get it for free? It doesn’t make any logical sense. Of course, I understand why the Government are doing it. They want to show they’re helping Indigenous people. But the proof is in the pudding – They’re not helping! All the stats show that despite all this money that’s been pumped into Indigenous welfare, it simply hasn’t helped. Just look at any of the statistics: High levels of unemployment, extremely poor health outcomes, far shorter life expectancy, and high levels of incarceration. And I think we all rationally know why. When you give people stuff for free constantly, when you treat them like they can’t look after themselves, then a certain proportion of those people are simply not going to do anything in their life to better themselves. It’s a disincentive to work or contribute to society. As long as you fit into the prescribed ethnic category, you get free stuff! An analogy would be a spoilt teenager. If your teenager spends all day in their bedroom playing computer games, and you continue to buy them new computer equipment, new iPhones, you give them all their favourite foods whenever they want, we all instinctively know what the result would be – an entitled brat. Now I’m not trying to be mean to our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Obviously some Indigenous people go on to be very successful and don’t feel hard done by by society. I just want everybody in Australia to be able to live their fullest life. But by dividing us up into two groups based entirely on our ancestry, with one group receiving more benefits no matter what they do, well that group will become entitled: “believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment”. It will create, and has created, a sense of victimhood. We’re giving you all this stuff because you have been wronged in some way. Even if you haven’t been wronged, just because you are of a certain bloodline, we’ll treat you like you’ve been wronged. And all it’s doing is creating generations of perpetual victimhood. And when you think you’re a victim, what do you do? You constantly look for somebody to blame, and you don’t try to better yourself because you think that the system is rigged, and the world is against you. Look, I’m not saying we should never help people. Of course we should! If a person has a severe disability for example, well a moral society will help that person to the best of their ability. But that surely shouldn’t be dependent on one’s ethnicity, should it? Whether you’re Indigenous or non-Indigenous, it shouldn’t matter, it should be based on your need. If you’re able-bodied and don’t have a job, we’ll help you look for one. If you’re old and can no longer work like you used to, we’ll give you a pension. But just because you fit into one ethnic category should never be a reason to give you more than others who don’t fit into that category. So I think the solution is simple: Do away with all this Indigenous-only support. I think it’s a disservice to Indigenous people. It makes them feel like they can’t look after themselves, and constantly need the Government’s assistance. It’s quite disparaging really. What would be much better, would be to help people based off their need, not their ancestry. People who can contribute towards society should be encouraged to. Treating all Australians equally will go a long way to fixing Indigenous relations. This current system of constant handouts has failed. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Darth Vader has announced he will be quitting politics at the end of the year. Sorry, I seem to have got that a bit wrong. Yvette D’Ath, Queensland Attorney-General and former Health Minister during the pandemic has decided to quit politics. She tweeted, “Today I can announce that I have decided not to recontest the seat of Redcliffe in the upcoming election. I remain committed to representing the people of Redcliffe and fulfilling my duties until the election in October.” At a press conference yesterday, she said she was committed to helping Labor remain in government. “Whether I’m running or not is irrelevant. I’ll continue to do everything possible to work for the Miles government. We’ve got an election to win.” As Minister for Health and Ambulance Services during the dark days of the pestilence, she kept us up-to-date with the latest health information. So it seems like the main role of Ms D’Ath as Health Minister was to continually talk about something that started with the letter V. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m glad she’s on the way out. Hopefully the current Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has more than just one topic to talk about: “Anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman, and as the Minister for Women, all people who identify as a woman are a part of our policies and strategies to advance gender equality.” God help us! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

This will probably be my first and only video on American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (unless of course, 30 years in the future she becomes President of the United States or something). I’m not going to be too critical here as she is worth 1.1 billion USD meaning whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it pretty well. Not to mention that almost everybody I know likes her, so I’ll tread a little bit carefully in this presentation. But the key is to put on lots of lipstick, keep your mouth slightly open, show your front teeth, and look seductively at the audience. Sorry, I promise, that’s the only wisecrack I’ll make. I’ve got it out of my system now. First, I’d just like to point out, I don’t like fame and celebrity if you weren’t already aware. I don’t gush over people. I think celebrities are just like you and me, only more well known and worth more. But Taylor Swift mania, in my opinion, has got a little bit out of control of late. Let me explain. I was at the dentist not too long ago, a guy I guess in his 30s. And guess who he likes? Taylor Swift! He couldn’t stop talking about her. Problem is, when I’m dosed up on lidocaine, or whatever, and he’s got his hands in my mouth, I can’t respond. I just have to shut up and listen. Him and his assistant were going on about the upcoming concert in Melbourne at the time, and how he missed out on buying the cheaper tickets, but ended up paying $800 for tickets for him and his wife. I don’t know if that’s $800 each, or $800 for two, but either way, it’s expensive. Not to mention the travel costs to get from Brisbane to Melbourne, plus hotel stays and the like. Cost of living crisis? What cost of living crisis? To be fair, he is a dentist, so I guess his salary is pretty good. My bill came close to $500, so I guess that contributed somewhat towards the tickets. He was going on about how it’s such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he many never have the chance to see her again (even though she’s been here twice in two years, hasn’t she?). And he was going on about how she’s the “seminal singer of our generation”. As I said, I was loaded up with lidocaine, so had very little to say on the matter. As I said, I don’t get how people gush over celebrities. It doesn’t make sense to me. I do not get that feeling. People are actually tracking Taylor Swift’s private jet, which her team doesn’t like very much issuing the perpetrator a cease and desist, even though he’s only using public information to track the jet. Fans, fanatics, whatever you want to call them, were waiting in the cold in Melbourne in the middle of the night trying to catch a glimpse of the star as she disembarked from her plane a hundred metres away or whatever. The best photo they got was a zoomed up photo of the airport ground crew who had a better vantage point and were also trying to catch a glimpse of Ms Swift. Of course, all the media outlets sent out their finest reporters to the airport filming her plane landing and so on. According to recent news, Taylor Swift went to an Italian restaurant. Taylor Swift went to the zoo. Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis arrived at the airport on his private jet. Yes, this is considered breaking news. Man, the carbon footprint between them must be staggering! Of course, the ABC haven’t stooped to such lowbrow reporting. It’s beneath them. Oh wait, “It feels like Swift is the biggest thing to ever land in Sydney” “How much will Taylor Swift make from merchandise at her Sydney shows?” “Taylor Swift dines in Surry Hills while fans queue for merchandise” “Superstar Taylor Swift touches down in Sydney” Plastic bead shortage after Taylor Swift bracelet craze”. You get the idea. But even stories that are only slightly related are making the headlines on the ABC, “Bedside vigil for girl who was critically injured in crash that killed sister on Taylor Swift trip.” I wonder if she was headed to Aldi instead of the Taylor Swift concert, would it have made such big headlines? Hmm. Look, I don’t really blame the media. Taylor Swift brings in the money wherever she goes. I’m not even really that upset by the mania around her. People obviously like her, and wherever she travels to, she literally boosts the economy. She gives people jobs. All those hundreds of people who help to set up her concerts, all the security staff, cleaners, ticket sellers, merchandise vendors, plastic bead factories. They’re all profiting because of Taylor Swift. And now she’s a billionaire because of it. Some might even argue that I’m profiting from her by making this video. (Although, I suspect most of my regular viewers won’t be watching this.) It’s just that, as I said, I just don’t give a hoot about celebrities. They don’t particularly interest me, and I don’t get any feelings of excitement when I see them. Anyway, that’s my take on Taylor Swift mania, and as I said, I won’t be talking about her again (unless of course she becomes the president). MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci has announced his retirement after a series of, how would you say, bad decisions I would suggest. First, his company openly supported the divisive Indigenous Voice Referendum. Regardless of the result of the referendum, he split his customer base right down the middle. Second, he made the awful decision to do away with Australia Day by refusing to sell Australia Day merchandise, but yet pushed heavily the traditionally Asian celebration of Lunar New Year. Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping must be having a great old laugh. And then without having seemed to learn anything from the Voice disaster, they started talking about flying Indigenous flags outside their stores, which they later denied, but it’s in their Reconciliation Action Plan p. 31. Take a look for yourself. “Display Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags outside stores, sites and support offices where practicable”. I mean, the only debate is what they mean by “where practicable”. Is it not practicable to hoist a flag outside a supermarket? I’d suggest they just changed their interpretation of their own policy after the massive Voice defeat, which they probably weren’t expecting when they drafted their Action Plan. And finally, the disastrous interview that Mr Banducci gave to Four Corners on Monday regarding Woolworths pricing practices where he walked out, before being pulled back by his minders. Here’s what happened: “It is an incredibly competitive market. The risk people have is that… I’m sorry, the former head of the Competition Commission said says… His words are… Retired, by the way. I don’t think you would impugn his integrity and his understanding of competition law. I’m just saying the world has got much more competitive… He retired 18 months ago. He’s not… OK, let’s… We’ll… Can we take that out? Is that OK? I should… I mean, he is retired, but I shouldn’t have said that, Angus. Are we going to leave it in there? If we are… Well, I mean, if we’re on the record. You said it, I mean… You know, let’s move on, but… Yeah, no, I think I’m done, guys. I do this with intent. You know, I do this with good intent. You know, I don’t do this with bad intent. What, you’re walking out, really? No, no, no. Can we just talk through with Brad for a sec? Can we just have a minute? Let’s keep going.” Even the ABC hosts were a bit shocked at the end there. But the final nail in the coffin as reported by the ABC today, Woolworths announced a $781 million loss. Remember when Woolworths said they weren’t going to stock Australia Day merchandise because: “There has been a gradual decline in demand for Australia Day merchandise from our stores over recent years.” So he suggested they were going to save some money by not stocking Australia Day goods, but did he take into account that by pissing everyone off he’d lose millions? Save a few bucks not selling merchandise – lose millions! Smart choice. Here’s this year’s Woolworths share market performance with a massive drop right at the end there. It’s not looking too good. This series of events surely has to be included in a business textbook at university under the chapter, “How to F**K up Your Business, by Brad Banducci”. To be fair to Mr Banducci, the $781 million loss was mainly driven by one-off accounting write-downs and, excluding those, the company posted a 2.5% rise in underlying profits. Amanda Bardwell is set to replace Brad Banducci as CEO in September with a reported base salary starting at $2.15 million. Hopefully she doesn’t f**k up the business anymore by pursuing divisive political and social issues and dictating which holidays people can and can’t celebrate. Anyway, Brad is on his bike, as I kind of expected. Attack Australia, attack Australia’s values. What do you think was going to happen? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Reports coming out today suggest Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll will not be renewing her $650,000-a-year contract set to expire in July 2024. It’s no surprise, really, she was already on the nose, with a growing number of police dissatisfied with her leadership with growing pressure on multiple issues including police staff shortages, escalating domestic violence issues, and the growing outcry on youth crime. Not to mention the recent revolt from within the QPS ranks after a senior Gold Coast police officer, Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway, was stood down following a claim he helped catch armed offenders by authorising officers ram a stolen car. Recent reports show that another two Gold Coast police officers are facing disciplinary action after helping catch armed juvenile offenders in a stolen car. Don’t they know? You’re not allowed to catch criminals in Queensland under Commissioner Carroll’s watch. Of course, the ABC are pointing out that in 2019 she became the first woman commissioner. That’s the only thing that matters now over at the ABC… identity! Other reports paint a fairly grim picture: “Katarina Carroll facing open revolt, 300 senior cops meet over leadership failure”; “Fix youth crime or look for a new job”; “Under-fire Commissioner to be given list of concerns by hundreds of fed up officers”. You get the idea. But the proof is in the pudding. Let’s take a look at some of the crime statistics under the Police Commissioner’s watch. This is the myPolice Queensland Police News Queensland Crime Statistics website (link below). I’ll be clicking on the Advanced tab, and setting the date range starting from July 2019, when Commissioner Carroll got the top job. This is all offences, noting that there was a significant drop when Queensland declared a public health emergency. You may remember that. Due to people going out less, less crime was obviously being committed, but it’s certainly headed back up since then. But more interestingly, you can filter by types of crime. Let’s look at All Offences Against the Person, so things like murder, assault, sexual offences, robbery, and so on. The results are much more telling. There has been a significant increase in violent crime. You’re not imagining it. But this is the raw numbers. It doesn’t take into account population increases, but you can show the rate instead of the raw numbers just above the graph. So let’s click on that. So yes, even when accounting for population increase, violent crime has been on the rise, significantly. Feel free to have a look for yourself for other types of crime. While making this video, I just saw breaking news that Commissioner Carroll has announced her resignation. Here’s some of what she had to say: “This morning, I have advised the minister that I will not seek an extension to my contract as commissioner. I made this decision, and was going to have the discussion about not renewing my contract with the minister in about two weeks time. But because of the heightened speculation and commentary, I’ve brought these discussions forward. I will finish in my role next Friday March 1.” So there you go, I didn’t even have a chance to publish this video. The commissioner is no more. I wonder who’s next? QUEENSLAND CRIME STATISTICS https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/queensland-crime-statistics/ MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Beautiful sunny Queensland. Hospitals in crisis. Ambulance ramping. Criminals running amok. Cars getting stolen like it’s just a normal thing. Home invasions. Innocent people being murdered in shopping centres. What do you think the Queensland Government focus on? Changing the name of Magnetic Island National Park to its traditional Indigenous name, of course! The Department of Environment, Science and Innovation are proposing to rename the National Park off the coast of Townsville to Yunbenun in recognition of the Wulgurukaba people, the so-called “canoe people”, who have apparently been living there and on the nearby mainland for thousands of years. Although reports say the Government are only planning to rename the National Park, not the island itself. I wonder how long it will be until they just say, “F*** it! Let’s rename the entire island!”, considering the National Park covers more than half the island, and the fact that the state government already renamed Fraser Island to its Indigenous name K’gari in 2023. Research has shown that by renaming the National Park, this will result in less crime in Townsville… Just joking. Crime reduction is obviously not part of the Queensland Government’s playbook. It seems as if the Government are starting with soft targets that people won’t kick up too much of a stink over. I guess once they rename all the islands and national parks, it won’t be too long until they build up the courage to start renaming towns and cities. And just like they did to Mount Warning where tourists aren’t allowed to venture anymore, they’ll probably claim that Magnetic Island is for certain ethnicities only. In a statement, the Department of Environment said they were working closely with the Wulgurukaba people to care for country: “Our proposed change to the name of the national park recognises the rich cultural history of the area and the ongoing, deep connection to the island for the Wulgurukaba people.” Is anybody else getting sick of all this? Instead of focusing on stuff that actually helps people, like, you know, hospitals, crime reduction, and cost of living, they instead choose to focus on divisive issues like Path to Treaty and changing the names of well-known holiday destinations to something people can’t remember nor pronounce. It seems kind of silly, don’t you think? Oh that’s right, silly is what the present, out of touch, Brisbane-run state government does. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I’ve faced a bit of criticism in my last video for denigrating Waugul, the Rainbow Serpent, important to some Aboriginal people. My intention wasn’t to denigrate the snake, but to criticise the human-created law that potentially allows people to be sent to jail for building bridges on their property that upset that snake. One such comment that kind of sums it up: “Why is it okay to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but you won’t do the same with God or Allah? Catholics build cemeteries to house their dead? You wouldn’t dare accept somebody bulldozing through that, would you? How is destroying sacred Aboriginal sites any different?” I’ll address these concerns in two parts. First, the yellow part: Why is it okay to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but not other deities? Okay, so first of all, my intention wasn’t to denigrate the Rainbow Serpent, but rather the stupid law that allows people to potentially send other people to jail because they apparently upset the Rainbow Serpent. Unless there is proof that the serpent is real, and that said serpent is upset, then I can’t believe that this case hasn’t been thrown out of court already. Not to mention that the ABC article that I quoted referred to the rainbow serpent as ‘mythology’. That said, the ABC aren’t the definitive source of religious expertise, so I am willing to accept that God, Allah, and the Rainbow Serpent are all essentially theologically equivalent. That is, they are all considered to be a higher power that created this world. However, if for example, Catholics, or whoever, managed to implement a law in Australia that allows them to say that somebody who builds a bridge on their private land has upset God and is taken to court over it potentially facing jail time, then I would equally denigrate that rule. I would call it out for being complete BS, which is exactly what is happening to this poor real estate agent, except substitute God for Waugul. I stick to my original assessment – It’s complete BS! The second part is to do with the destruction of graveyards. The comment states: “Catholics build cemeteries to house their dead. You wouldn’t dare accept somebody bulldozing through that, would you? How is destroying sacred Aboriginal sites any different?” Okay, so first of all, I’m not condoning the destruction of sacred Aboriginal sites – of course not. Secondly, obviously it’s not just Catholics who bury their dead. I mean, many different religions and cultures do the same. I would argue that even non-religious people participate in this practice. But I get the point of the comment, many people would be outraged if we started bulldozing a graveyard without consequence. Why aren’t we equally outraged when people build bridges over the home of the Rainbow Serpent? Well I would simply state that a graveyard is a defined location. We all know where the local graveyard is, or how to identify one. It’s obvious. There’s no debate about whether a particular location is considered a cemetery or not. But a random creek on somebody’s property, how can anybody know that it’s a resting place for a giant mythological snake? It would be akin to a Catholic saying, “You just dug a well in your property. That’s where God keeps his favourite souls”. But not only are you unaware of this alleged “fact”, you’re charged with an offence, forced to attend court, and potentially lose 9 months of your life in prison. It seems absurd, and it is absurd. You can’t just claim some place is sacred after the fact. If it’s sacred, you need to make it known that it’s scared. You need to put up signs to say as such, exactly like we do for cemeteries. You can’t just go around looking for people who have accidentally dug up earth, or built bridges, or damage certain natural objects, and then claim they’ve committed some grave sin and take them to court over it costing them a fortune and causing them untold mental anguish. It’s simply not fair to behave in such a way. This will only result in people becoming annoyed and frustrated with you. It certainly won’t result in people respecting your culture. Look, you can believe in what you want, freedom of religion and all that, but when your supernatural belief is being used to jail people, I am never going to be on your side. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

In August 2023, the Western Australian Government ditched sweeping new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws after just 39 days in operation following widespread community backlash. I’m glad they’re gone. However, in the small town of Toodyay in the Wheatbelt region, prominent local real estate agent Tony Maddox was charged for building a bridge over a brook, a somewhat evil bridge as it turns out, under the unamended Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972. Can you guess why he got charged? This is an article from the ABC at the time: “Toodyay real estate agent Tony Maddox pleads not guilty to Aboriginal Heritage Act breach”. In it they state: “The prosecution claimed the works, which included the removal of a large amount of silt from the Boyagerring Brook running through his property, disrupted the Waugul — a rainbow serpent central to Noongar mythology. The prosecution’s statement of facts states that any alteration to the Waugul’s home could scare it from the water, causing it to dry up and causing harm to the surrounding environment and people.” Statements of fact can now include information on mythology? I think rationally, mythology should stay the hell away from anything considered factual. This wouldn’t be so absurd except that Mr Maddox is facing up to nine months in jail, and a fine of up to $20,000. According to Mr Maddox, the creek crossing is the only point of entry to his property, with the work carried out to prevent erosion caused by recent heavy rain and flooding. He said he had discussed the concrete bridge with local Aboriginal elders, and they had made no complaints.But now his life is in turmoil and he’s facing imprisonment over what? A mythological rainbow serpent? Is this just not insane? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of religion, but when that freedom impinges on somebody else’s literal freedom, that’s where I draw the line. This is not sensible. This is ridiculous, and I don’t care who I offend. If this guy goes to jail over this, that’s the end of Australia in my opinion. In a television interview on Sky News, Mr Maddox said: “I literally haven’t worked all year, I’ve been fighting this for a year. This just destroys your heart. Destroys your head, destroys your soul. It’s knocked the hell out of me as a human being. And what is the outcome? The outcome is going to be an awful lot of money piling up. For what? Even if I am found guilty, there is nothing in the Act that tells them they have the power to ask me to remove the crossing. I don’t understand the heavy-handedness of the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage. Why wouldn’t they instead just say, ‘You've broken our Act, we’re aware you didn’t know anything about it, let’s educate you and tell you about it’. I’ve had more education from our local elders than I have from the department.” Mr Maddox is set to face a two-day trial in Perth starting next week, February 22. He has been running his real estate business for the last 33 years and could lose his real estate licence if he is convicted. All over what? A rainbow snake who is offended by a bridge? This is bordering on the absurd and will result in destroying Australia if this goes on much longer. The Indigenous Voice to Parliament already put a huge rift between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and now, if a real estate agent goes to jail because he offended a mythological snake, our country is done. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

The tiny Queensland town of Toobeah is slowly being given away by the Government to our “First Nations” people. Even though many of us were also born here in Australia, apparently, they were here first and are entitled to free land. Apparently this is “closing the gap”, but in my reckoning, it’s just “widening the gorge”. Divide Australians up by their ethnicity. That will play out well, won’t it! This is a photo of the Toobeah Hotel. Nice little country town of around 200 people. The Courier Mail are reporting: “Toobeah goes to war over land transfer to Aboriginal group”. And this is freehold land being transferred to the local Indigenous corporation. If you take a look at the National Native Title Tribunal website, click on Assistance, Geospatial, and then click on Maps. Scrolling down you’ll reach National Maps (you can also look at state and territory maps), select Claims and Determinations, and then if you scroll down, you can download the selected map. Here’s the map. Basically, everything in green is land currently under native title, while blue represents land that is currently going through the application process. As you can see, a lot of land is under Indigenous ownership (if that’s the right word). If you look down the lower left, there’s a table (I’ll zoom up on it for you), which shows the percentage land under native title. As you can see, 41.9% of Queensland is subject to a determination, South Australia 67.2%, Western Australia 87.1%! Overall, 52% of Australia is subject to a native title determination. Interestingly, the Australian Capital Territory, where a lot of our politicians hang out, only has 0%. That’s strange. They’re the only territory to have voted Yes in the recent Indigenous Voice referendum. This is the Queensland Government’s Department of Treaty Closing the Gap website. On there you’ll find their Closing the Gap Implementation Plan. If you search for Outcome 15, Target 15a: By 2030, a 15% increase in Australia’s landmass subject to Aboriginal peoples’ and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ legal rights or interests. And Target 15b is essentially the same things except it’s for their legal rights or interests in the sea. Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people make up approximately 3.8% of the population, and by the looks of it, the goal is to take it all, and the Government is essentially allowing it to happen. Back to our friends at Toobeah. The locals are rightfully upset. “Residents claim the Goondiwindi Regional Council – led by high-profile mayor Lawrence Springborg – has failed to consult the 300-strong community on the imminent State Government transfer of the 220ha Toobeah Reserve to the Bigambul Aboriginal Corporation. To be fair to Mr Springborg, he stated: “I am not the decision maker on Toobeah Reserve. The decision maker is the state, under the Aboriginal Land Act, and we (the council) are the current trustee responsible for managing stock watering and camping.” Michael Offerdahl, whose family runs the local hotel which backs onto the reserve, is furious. He said, “If we want to go for a swim in the creek, we’d have to ask them – and there’s nothing to stop them from locking up the reserve if they so choose. We’re the first bastion of defence for this – if we cop it now it sets an insane precedent. At first I was just worried about the growth of our town – we need 20 more houses to support the cotton and dry land farmers and they could be built on that land – but now my biggest fear is for other places across Queensland.” I guess the Queensland Government figure they may as well test the waters, so to speak, in these smaller towns, and then work their way up to bigger towns and cities. Perhaps they should reconsider the name of Queensland (seeing they’re so intent on giving it away). Perhaps “Aboriginaland”? At least tourists will know where they stand when they arrive in our state. Senator for Queensland, Pauline Hanson, is calling for a pause on the transfer until the residents have been given the opportunity to be consulted. Justin Saunders, executive director of the BAC, said that the corporation will not be closing the reserve to the public. I’m not sure what we can do about all this where the Government are dividing up land based on ethnicity, but the most obvious first step is to vote out the current Queensland Government at this year’s state election in October. They don’t listen to the people. They just do what they want. I’m not saying who to vote for, as long it’s not these guys. They just don’t have the interests of all Queenslanders at heart. When will these fools see that if we are not all equal, we are doomed as a society? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

You’d think catching criminals during a youth crime crisis would be rewarded. Nope, not for Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway. Sen Sgt Ottaway works as a district duty officer on the Gold Coast, a role which requires split-second decisions to be made regularly. Earlier this year, a group of thieves had stolen an Audi Q5 on January 29. On January 31, the Audi was driven to a house in the Gold Coast and people armed with weapons got out and threatened people at the home before stealing a Volkswagen Arteon. On February 1, police deployed tyre-deflating devices to try to catch the criminals. For 18 minutes, the Volkswagen was driving on its rims, so Sen Sgt Ottaway authorised the pursuing officers to ram the stolen car in order to stop the criminals. It worked and the criminals were arrested. However, Sen Sgt Ottaway was stood down for not following protocol. You know, catching criminals during a statewide crime crisis is a big no-no here in Queensland. This is the second time Sen Sgt Ottaway has been stood down, after he was last year placed on desk duties after allowing police to perform a precision immobilisation technique (PIT) manoeuvre in order to stop a stolen car driven by teens. After the sanction, an anonymous police officer stated, “Our boss has been benched because he was trying to catch crooks. We have never been taught or trained on how to box in or PIT a car. The offenders were never going to stop.” In response to the most recent stand down of Sen Sgt Ottaway, Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers stated, “This is an example of the disconnect between senior management in the South Eastern Police Region and frontline police. Senior Sergeant Ottaway should be receiving commendation for coordinating the apprehension of serious criminals and instead the police hierarchy are standing him down from operational duty. It is no surprise crime is out of control in the Gold Coast when the police hierarchy are so out of touch with frontline policing that they would rather stand down hard working police than let them apprehend criminals.” Actually, in the middle of 2023, some leaked police emails showed how frustrated Sen Sgt Ottaway was with the chronic shortage of police officers amid a crime crisis. The emails read, “The QPS is asking too much of me – I cannot continue to work by myself as a DDO on the Gold Coast at peak times, or I will make a mistake that will have a high consequence. We, as DDOs, are continually getting asked to overview more, make more decisions, run multiple high-risk jobs, consider high-risk domestic violence offenders, liaise with Queensland Ambulance over mental health, approve transports … you get it, the list goes on. “There are so many jobs and competing interests that I’m losing my mind. Tonight has been relentless, just like last night. Last night, I didn’t stand up for four-and-a-half hours due to the workload. I eat at the computer.” “Three stolen cars were rolling through the Gold Coast, one at high speed treating the highway like a racetrack. So bad was the driving that members of the public were calling Triple 0. So frustrated are the members of the public, that instead of calling police when the crooks were actually breaking into the house, the street got together, chased the baddies and smashed the front windscreen of the stolen car they were in.” “An off-duty senior commissioned officer rang for help because a UID (under the influence of drugs), violent, shirtless offender was in his yard and he was rolling around on the ground fighting with him. It gets worse. The off-duty officer and his wife had called a number of times. You guessed it – no cops, no on-road DDO, no regional duty officer to go.” “I have to decide on countless occasions whether to allow police crews to transport a mental health patient to hospital because an ambulance did not turn up or was unavailable. I’m asked to decide, with zero medical training and virtually no information, of whether I should allow our people to do these transports. I guess I’ll be the one in trouble for that as well when the patient dies in police custody.” As you can tell, Sen Sgt Ottaway and other Queensland Police are under extreme pressure with lack of resources and lack of support. But yet, when they catch criminals, they’re not supported by senior management, instead, they get punished. What does Commissioner Katarina Carroll have to say? What the hell is wrong with the QPS? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Reparations. It’s a word that’s being tossed about in Australia recently regarding Australia’s Indigenous community to pay for historical injustices. “Reparation: The action of making amends for a wrong one has done, by providing payment or other assistance to those who have been wronged.” So in this video, I’ll present a hypothetical. Let’s say the Australian Government make a deal with Indigenous leaders to pay each person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage $1,000,000. Let’s assume that the vast majority of Indigenous people agree with this, and in exchange, the whole colonisation debate is finished. There will be no more talk of past injustices. There will be no more special funding for Indigenous Australians. Everything will be settled. Okay, so what do you think would realistically happen? First of all, how many Indigenous people are there in Australia? According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, as of 2021, approximately 984,000 individuals identify as First Nations people, although I suspect this number would go up dramatically if a million dollars is on the line. But let’s just say in our hypothetical that a system is worked out, which everybody agrees on, that only people that are truly considered Indigenous receive the money. Okay, fine. So 984,000 people multiplied by a million dollars each equals $984 billion. To put that in perspective, the entire health system in Australia cost around $105 billion in 2023, representing 16.8% of the Australian Government’s total expenditure. So these one-off reparations to each and every Indigenous person will cost more than nine times that. Fine, it’s a one-off payment and it will never need to be paid again. To be clear, every Indigenous man, woman, and child will receive the $1 million, with children’s money obviously being placed into a trust, or whatever, and not accessible till they turn 18, or 21, or whatever number everyone agrees on. So what would happen? Well, most people who receive this $1 million will waste it. Now I’m not criticising Indigenous people here. I think most non-Indigenous people would waste it as well. Just look at Lotto winners and the like. They almost always spend their entire fortune in just a few short years. $1 million isn’t exactly a massive fortune anymore, so it could be spent relatively quickly by those who aren’t financially savvy, which is most people as I said. There would be a smaller number of Indigenous folk who might invest the $1 million, but I’d suggest they’re already fairly well-off and financially savvy if they’re knowledgeable of investments and the like. And the third class of people, the elite Indigenous activists. People like Marcia Langton. Noel Pearson, and Stan Grant who have done well for themselves. I’m not taking anything away from them. They’ve obviously worked hard at what they do, no matter what we think of their individual opinions. But what do you think they would do with this money? Well, just for fun, and for the sake of illustration, I’m going to pretend to be Stan Grant writing for the Guardian, or the ABC, or whoever else, with regards to the recent cash windfall. And I suspect that this would be similar to what the real Stan Grant would write. The title of the article would be: “A million dollars? Is that all my suffering is worth to you? By Stan Grant.” In other words, reparations will not result in this ending. Reparations will simply embolden the activists. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

This story just seems to get worse. The ‘child’, the 16-year-old who is accused of murdering 70-year-old Vyleen White in an underground carpark in front of her six-year-old granddaughter and stealing her car, was out on bail for armed robbery, although the ABC report never mentioned the armed robbery part. According to the Courier Mail, the boy was on bail for multiple armed robbery offences at the time of the murder. He had been charged with three counts of armed robbery last year, and a court in its infinite wisdom granted him bail despite police opposing it. We wonder why youth crime is on the rise in Queensland – the system is clearly broken. What sort of message is this sending to teenage offenders? I just used a knife to rob a person or a shop – multiple times – I was caught by the police and appeared in court, but yet here I am out on the street again! The criminals must be laughing at this. Obviously this teenager who was out on bail for armed robbery and got caught soon after killing an innocent lady, isn’t a very good criminal. He gets caught so often. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the police here. They’ve done an excellent job and have done everything they can. But yet, we keep letting him out – well, the courts keep letting him out. Let’s just keep letting criminals out until they murder someone. And who’s responsible for this? Well ultimately, the Government are responsible for creating laws. If the laws aren’t working, they need to fix them. The daughter of Ms White, Cindy Micallef, commented on the sentencing restrictions for children: “I’ve been doing this movement for mum and I am on a mission to not just change laws but create new ones. The maximum in the juvenile detention centre sentencing is 10 years, they can still get out, have kids, have a life. They’ve still got a life to live. We’ve lost the heart of our lives.” Of course, there’s been talk around the offenders being of African appearance, and as I said previously, we don’t want to tar the entire African community with the same brush. That would not be fair. Of course, academics will tell us that race is a human invention and not a biological fact. Okay, fine, but that’s ignoring real life. It might be a social construct, but it’s a social construct that has very real ramifications. Based on these recent events, there will be some proportion of Australians who may act differently when they see a group of youths of African appearance approach. I’m not saying that’s right, but we have to stay grounded in reality. Yes, if you’re an innocent person of African descent, and people start treating you differently because of your appearance, well yes, that sucks. I wouldn’t want to be in that situation either. But facts are facts. People still see people in terms of skin colour – not everyone – but many people do. Ms White’s daughter stated, “I do not want there to be a vigilante squad on the African people. These people have come here to start a new life. Like all immigrants … they didn’t come here to start trouble.” President of the Queensland African Communities Council, Beny Bol, stated, “We are a community under siege at the moment, because of that tragic incident. Over the last 24 hours I’ve received a large number of reports of people who are being physically attacked while going to work or shopping. I’ve had a story of a young African girl who went to the shop and saw someone throw something at her and say, ‘you’re monkeys, go back to where you came from’. The commentary on social media I can’t even talk about it. The level of stress that’s causing to the community, that’s unacceptable. Children are refusing to go to school because of the fear, too many people have been abused.” So obviously, that’s completely wrong to abuse innocent people. But when people say that race doesn’t exist. When people pretend that the world is colourblind, they are simply wrong. They’re living a fiction. The accused murderer is actually a Sudanese refugee according to media reports. Two of the other boys involved are actually private school students, with one having alleged links with a gang. The mother of the perpetrator who stabbed Ms White has spoken to the media and said, “I’m sorry to the community because I didn’t know that the kids do that. My son told me ‘I love you mum’ as police put him in handcuffs and led him away.” Look, it’s a horrible situation all round, but the community are justifiably angry. We shouldn’t have to fear going to the local shopping centre to buy some groceries. This spate of youth violence has come to a head where an innocent person has been murdered. We pay taxes to the Government. We pay their salaries. This is happening on their watch. Sort it out! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

70-year-old Vyleen White went grocery shopping with her six-year-old granddaughter before heading home to bible study when she was accosted by a group of males who stabbed her in the chest killing her, stole her 15-year-old Hyundai Getz, and presumably took the car for a joyride. It didn’t last very long because the car was found dumped just 20 minutes later. One-hour prior to the attack, it’s alleged the individuals stole alcohol from a bottle shop, drank it in an abandoned house, before walking down into the underground car park and attacking the grandmother. Thankfully, all the individuals involved have been arrested, and they’re all children. A 16-year-old boy has been charged with her murder, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, and stealing. Two other 16-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy have been charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle, while another 15-year-old boy has already faced court, charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle. He’s already out on bail and has to reappear again later this month. During his court appearance, the media were blocked from attending because it would be ‘confronting’ for the child. You know, hanging out with murderers, driving stolen vehicles, that’s not very confronting, but having some media in the courtroom might upset the poor lad. The media and police are reporting that this was not gang-related. Well, I think that’s an argument in semantics. Gang: A group of young people, especially young men, who spend time together, often fighting with other groups and behaving badly. Nah, these guys weren’t a gang. They were just a group of troubled youths wandering around shopping centres, stealing alcohol, carjacking people, and killing old ladies. Nothing gang-like about it! They have been described by the media and police as being of African appearance. Of course, this isn’t a reason to tar the entire African community with the same brush, but these youths didn’t do their community any favours. It’s not like they just yelled some profanities at the grandmother. They murdered her. And of course, people will react emotionally to that, especially in the state of Queensland where youth crime has been on everyone’s mind. President of the Queensland African Communities Council, Beny Bol, said he was “very shocked” by the tragedy, and that “no family should ever go through that pain”. He said, “When things like this happen, some people take advantage of the anger and the emotion to create more division based on race and religion. We understand the anger, but in the end, does that help? No. We need to work together to get to the bottom of why some of these kids are behaving in the way they behave, and what we can do to prevent it happening again in the future.” The fact that the perpetrators were children, I hope this doesn’t result in overly-lenient sentencing. I don’t think the people of Queensland would accept that. This wave of crime has been going on for far too long, and now the violence has come to a head with the death of Ms White. If the murderer gets off easily due to his troubled childhood, or his experiences with racism, or inter-generational trauma, or whatever, I don’t think the public will accept that, and the government better be prepared for an angry revolt. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

SBS are pretending that we live in some kind of post-racial world where it’s completely unnecessary and/or offensive to mention people’s skin colour or ethnicity. Despite a 70-year-old grandmother being stabbed to death in front of her six-year-old granddaughter in a Redbank Plains shopping centre car park near Brisbane, SBS refuse to give the complete description of the perpetrator. In their article about the event, “Manhunt continues after grandmother killed at shopping centre in ‘cowardly’ act”. They mention that “four men” as being the “people of interest”, so they’re happy to mention their gender. “A 70-year-old woman was stabbed in the chest by a man”. To be fair, they did provide a link to a video posted by Queensland Police showing the four males getting out of a 2009 Hyundai Getz in Springfield Lakes, not far from the crime scene, about half an hour after the lady was murdered. But they refuse to talk about the men’s ethnicity. Thank goodness, police live in the real world. In a media conference, they gave as much description about the perpetrator as possible. The goal of the police here is not to avoid causing offence. The goal is to catch the crook. Detective Acting Superintendent Heath McQueen said, “I describe those four persons of interest as African males in appearance.” Okay, so that was easy, and it makes it a lot easier for people to identify the bad guy. But here we are in a bizarre situation where SBS are confused which is more important: Avoid using racial language in order to not cause offence, or give as much detail to the community as possible in order to catch the bad guy. You’d think in a rational world, catching the murderer is more important, but SBS don’t seem to be living in the real world. SBS did quote the Acting Superintendent, but they seem to have purposely left out that line about the men being of African appearance. What’s even more funny (I don’t know if this is intentional), but other media outlets have been describing the 2009 Getz as being “light-blue”, but SBS didn’t even mention the colour of the car! They’re so post-racial, they can’t even mention car colours now. This reminds me of that Fawlty Towers episode, The Germans. Despite hotel owner Basil Fawly warning his staff about the upcoming quests, “They're Germans! Don't mention the war”, he keeps obliviously ignoring his own advice, which culminates in a goose-stepping impersonation of Adolf Hitler. Just as a note, an ABC article about the shopping centre death did quote the Acting Superintendent: “I describe those four persons of interest as African males in appearance”, but SBS, for whatever reason, are trying to avoid offending the murderer, or their viewers, or who the hell knows who they’re trying not to offend! However, a couple of years ago, they were happy to mention people’s skin colour: “black man George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer”. Go figure. SBS NEWS REPORT https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/manhunt-continues-after-grandmother-killed-at-shopping-centre-in-cowardly-act/k165gx9ns MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

Mount Warning (Wollumbin) is an 1,159-metre-tall mountain formed from a volcanic plug in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Up until recently, it’s been consistently rated one of the best walking trails in Australia. Note, I said until recently. This score has been influenced by some harsh one-star reviews of late: “It’s closed! There is no valid reason for it! The government are destroying everything!”, “Ridiculous that it’s closed!”, “We went there to hike Mount Warning, and was told it is closed. We should all enjoy this beautiful country, as Australians”, “Closed, NSW government is turning us into Wall-E movie humans.” Here’s a picture if you’re not familiar with Wall-E. Can you guess why hikers are forbidden from climbing Mount Warning? Well it was initially closed during the pandemic. You know, people might accidentally spread an airborne pathogen while hiking in a remote forest. According to AllTrails, “Indefinite Closure: As of July 2022 this track is closed due to safety concerns and continued consultation with the Aboriginal community about future management.” Ah yes, safety concerns. You know, you might get struck by lightning. But I think the latter half of that sentence is getting us closer to the real reason: “continued consultation with the Aboriginal community”. According to NSW National Parks and Wildlife, Wollumbin (Mount Warning) has been “affected by closures”. Affected: influenced or touched by an external factor. It’s as if the Government have no control over these closures. It’s just some external event. “Wollumbin summit track and the Aboriginal Place remains closed. Penalties apply for non-compliance.” Ah yes, penalties. Ich bin ein mountain climber. “The summit of Wollumbin is a sacred place to the Bundjalung People, and was declared an Aboriginal Place in 2014. Wollumbin, which means ‘cloud catcher’ to some Aboriginal People, is a traditional place of cultural law, initiation and spiritual education for the people of the Bundjalung Nation. Under Bundjalung law, only certain people can climb the summit.” And let me guess, most of you listening don’t fit the prescribed ethnicity or ancestry. Only certain Australians can climb this mountain, and you’re not one of them. This has got so ridiculous, that private security guards have been hired to keep you away from a mountain. Apparently, it’s costing the taxpayer around $7,000 a week. Somehow hikers evaded the sparsely-spaced security guards and scaled the summit anyway to view an Australia Day sunrise. Perhaps the security guards need to be provided with night-vision goggles, bloodhounds, and Tiger attack helicopters (all taxpayer-funded, of course) to prevent these criminals from committing the most heinous of crimes, that is, Australians climbing Australian mountains. NSW upper house MP John Ruddick said, “This is a sad and terrible joke. Mount Warning is part of a national park like any other. It is a taxpayer-funded asset of our state that should be enjoyed, appreciated, and respected by all Australians.” In 2007, the late Marlene Boyd and elder and custodian of Mount Warning stated, “I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning… How can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation?” The point is, not everyone agrees with the climbing ban, whether that be Indigenous or non-Indigenous people. So why are the state dictating this? I know this is a banal argument, but what if the opposite were true? What if there was a rule that said only non-Indigenous people could go up Sydney Tower? I think we could all agree that would be awful. It would make Indigenous people feel repressed. Then why is it okay to say that only Indigenous people can climb up this mountain? Isn’t that equally repressive? The only thing this ban has resulted in, is animosty and resentment. It hasn’t resulted in people coming together. It’s resulted in the opposite – more division. Perhaps that’s what the government want. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I work in a university, so I get all these higher education news emails, and this story stood out: “James Cook University professor allegedly threatens staff member to meet targets”. The professor in question is Professor Martin Nakata. If you look at his bio on JCU’s website, he is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Indigenous Education and Strategy, and he was the first Torres Strait Islander to graduate with a PhD. So obviously, he’s a very smart guy. According to the news story, a senior female worker alleges Professor Nakata would “spear her” if she failed to dramatically increase Indigenous enrolments, which he later claimed was just a “joke”. Apparently this was said in front of a staff meeting. Okay, so my first thought before delving deeper, was that it probably was a joke. I’m not saying it’s a good joke. Some would say it’s in poor taste. Due to the recent Indigenous Voice referendum, and so on, where everyone is a bit on edge regarding Indigenous relations, you could also argue it was poor timing to make such a joke. A similar joke might be if a German professor jokingly threatened his staff by saying, “If you don’t meet the targets, I’ll send you to Auschwitz!”, in reference to something that happened 80 years ago. I think that’s kind of along the same lines of dark humour. I can’t imagine Professor Nakata literally meaning he was going to grab a spear and spear the staffer if she didn’t meet her targets. That would be a rather stupid thing to insinuate in front of other people. But as I said, this is just my first thought. Now of course, the lady on the receiving end of this ‘joke’ certainly has a right to say something, if she felt that it was said in a harassing sort of way. The Australian newspaper also published a story about this yesterday indicating that it wasn’t exactly the threat in itself that the staffer was upset by, but rather that the university did very little about it. “James Cook University accused of ‘doing nothing’ in response to bully claim”. In the article, they state that Professor Nakata had told her she needed to increase Indigenous enrolment from 670 to 1000, a target she felt was unrealistic. She said, “He’s a Torres Strait Islander man and because of that and because we’re the Indigenous centre, we have things on our walls, and one of the things is the spear. He points to the spear and says if you don’t reach that target, I’m going to take that spear off the wall and I’m going to spear (the lady’s name). On the Friday he repeated the same comment, and later that day he repeated the same thing in front of a student.” Okay, so it wasn’t just a one-off comment, it appears he repeated it at least three times, which I understand could be taken as bullying. Although, the fact that he said it in front of a student makes me think that he honestly believed it was some sort of joke. If your intent was to literally spear the lady, why would you broadcast it to the world? I think he just thought it was funny. Maybe that’s a classic Torres Strait Islander one-liner. The lady continued, “It flabbergasted me. Everybody felt very uncomfortable … they sat there in silence, I think in shock. I felt totally humiliated, and I was also quite dumbfounded.” A JCU spokesman said: “The university is aware of the alleged incident. All such allegations are taken seriously and handled in accordance with the university’s policies and procedures.” The woman said she had worked with Professor Nakata for more than five years and they had previously had a good working relationship. She said she tried to resolve the matter unofficially, by emailing Professor Nakata and telling him she “respectfully requested him” to stop making the comments. He said he was sorry and it was just a joke. The woman said she had accepted his apology and was keen to work together as normal, but her relationship with him had deteriorated to the point where he did not speak to her. “I went to HR and they’ve basically done nothing. He’s a very respected Indigenous academic and he’s very high-profile and I think they don’t know what to do. If it was somebody at a lower level, they would have been suspended or sacked. They are trying to work out how to make me go away.” The woman has been on stress leave and annual leave. Okay, so obviously from the lady’s perspective, this turn of events has had a really profound impact on her life. If what the article says is true, then the university are essentially trying to protect the professor and/or their reputation, although, now that it’s out in the media, they have to address this. As far as I can tell, the police have not been called, so nobody’s treating it like an actual threat, but that said, what if the opposite happened? What if it was a staffer or a student who had threatened Professor Nakata with a spear? I somehow suspect things would have played out a little differently. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

When you think of prison, you probably think of a hardened, tattooed burly man, and sure males make up the majority of prisoners in Australia. But I was surprised to hear recently that female prisoners are actually on the rise in Australia. This is the latest Prisoners in Australia report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week for the reference period 2023. Although the number of prisoners has increased over the year by 3.3%, female prisoners have increased almost double that at 6.4%. Before you ask, there are no stats for non-binary, or any other gender. Keep in mind that females only make up less than 10% of the total prison population, but it’s still interesting nonetheless. In terms of what crimes are being committed, acts intended to cause injury, although males have increased by 6.3%, females have increased more than double that at 12.8%. For unlawful entry, females have increased at more than triple the rate of males at 19.5%. Although it should be noted that females have had a significant reduction (as have males) in illicit drug offences. What’s going on in society that explains this disproportionate increase in female crime? They didn’t put it on the chart, but robbery, extortion and related offences, committed by females are up 30%! In terms of country of birth, 83% of prisoners were born in Australia, with the highest overseas-born populations including New Zealand, Vietnam, and the UK. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners, there has been a significant increase in acts intended to cause injury. Although the number is a lot less, there has also been a significant percentage increase in the number of Aboriginal Australians being imprisoned for sexual assault. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 7%, which is more than double the 3.3% increase for all prisoners, and more than the 6.4% we saw with females. After accounting for population growth, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate increased by 5%, meaning that on average, more and more Aboriginal people are going to jail, even when accounting for population increases. 33% of all prisoners identify as Indigenous, noting that less than 4% of Australia’s population identify as Indigenous, meaning Indigenous people are almost ten times over-represented in the imprisoned population. 78% of imprisoned Aboriginal people had experienced prior adult imprisonment. Queensland has seen a rapid rise in violent offences, with acts intended to cause injury up a massive 20% in a single year. Although male prisoners increased by 9%, a significant increase, female prisoners increased by a whopping 15%! While Indigenous prisoners increased by 11%, which is significantly more than the 7% seen across Australia. But that’s nothing compared to Western Australia, which saw its female prisoners increase by 19%, and Aboriginal prisoners increase by 14%, double the Australian average. Tasmania bucked the trend a little bit with a 20% increase in male prison population, compared to 9% female, which is still above the national average, while they had an 18% increase in Indigenous Australians being sent to jail. After accounting for population growth, the imprisonment rate in Tasmania has increased by 19%! What the hell is going on down there? Criminality has significantly increased per 100,000 people across the board. And our darling Victoria. Overall, their imprisonment rate decreased by 5%, good to see, but despite this, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 17%! How does that work out? Anyway, that’s the data as provided by the ABS. This significant increase in female and Indigenous Australian prisoner populations has all happened under Albo’s watch. Now I’m not necessarily saying he’s to blame, but I’d suggest that the divisive Voice referendum campaign, as well as cost of living concerns have played a major role in creating an environment where normally innocent people would decide to participate in the most serious of crimes. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

I received an email recently from a university I work at saying that they’ve been reviewed by an “external auditor” over the last few months to check for “employee entitlement compliance”. Basically, to check that the university have been paying their workers correctly. Well, it turns out, they haven’t. I already knew that of course. There’s been a number of occasions that I’ve probably mentioned in other videos where the university either underpaid me, or garnished my salary. Of course, I don’t like to go down without a fight, but often the fight is over a very trivial amount, say $46 or whatever. The amount of time it takes me to file the complaint, plus fill in all the paperwork, plus potentially have to attend meetings, or even tribunals over the issue, it’s often not worth it. Not to mention the university have lawyers on the payroll who are happy to slow roll the proceedings. I know people who have gone through this process, not because of the money, but on principle, and it didn’t end up too well for them. Sure, they got their money that they were owed, their $94 or whatever, but because they were a contract worker, just like myself, suddenly their contract wasn’t renewed anymore. And that’s how these big companies and universities roll. Sure, it’s not legal to dismiss people over filing a complaint, but the majority of their workers now are casuals who are on three-month, or perhaps six-month contracts. You make a complaint, or piss the university off in some way, it’s very easy for them to not renew your contract in the future, and it’s very hard to prove, perhaps even impossible. They can just claim that your role is no longer required, or they’re having financial difficulties, or any other plethora of excuses. They’ve got no legal obligation to renew contracts. That’s why they have so many workers on these contracts. It makes it very easy for them to essentially dismiss a whole bunch of people without facing any legal consequence. Just a note, I’m kind of under a gag order here, so I can’t tell you too many details, but let’s just say that the external auditors found that the university owe me a significant amount of money that they will be paying me next month. Not only will they pay back the money they owe, they will also be paying interest on that amount (which they titled, “voluntary interest”, as if they’re doing it out of the kindness of their heart), and they’ll also be back paying my superannuation. I can’t tell you the exact amount (because of the confidentiality agreement), but let’s just say the payment will allow me to take a few weeks off comfortably. But one thing the university never did, which I guess won’t surprise you, they never apologised. They never said sorry. They never admitted they made a mistake. The sort of language they used in the official communication was along the lines of, “It’s come to our attention that…”, or, “In the process of analysing our payment records…”, or, “A discrepancy was found between our internal systems and the amount transferred to your bank account”. Basically, they’ve been caught out and don’t want to admit their mistake. I guess their legal team is behind all that. It’s funny, these universities call themselves ethical and the epicentre of social justice. For example, this university has recently implemented Cultural and Ceremonial Leave, not for all employees, just for those who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. They also recently implemented Gender Affirmation Leave, but again, only for employees who identify as transgender. Perhaps we all need to start identifying as Transgender Aboriginals to teach these universities a lesson. The university call their policies “inclusive” and “ethical”, but in reality, I think common sense would dictate that their policies are actually “exclusive” and “discriminatory”. I can only assume that future generations will look back at this era with contempt. Giving only people of certain ethnicities more privileges than those of other ethnicities, and then claiming that’s ethical? Obviously, it’s completely unethical, but these universities are blinded by their relentless and single-minded pursuit of achieving their fictional version of social justice. Anyway, as I said, they call themselves ethical, but yet are happy to underpay their staff. And even when they get caught out, they don’t say sorry, they just call it a “discrepancy”. The good thing is, karma has come back to bite them a little bit and I’m finally getting a bit of social justice myself in the form of a cash windfall. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn

At the ABC, they ostensibly hate racism and sexism, but yet, they mention people’s skin colour and gender at every opportunity. For example, in the triple j Hottest 100 countdown of 2023 this year (you know, the one that used to be held on Australia Day, but isn’t anymore because listening to music on Australia Day is evil), well, the number one song was Paint the Town Red by American rapper Doja Cat. But more importantly, according to the ABC, she’s the first woman of colour to claim the number one spot. Ah, that old chestnut, “woman of colour”, or “person of colour”. Let’s just lump a whole bunch of disparate ethnic groups into one indiscriminate category. That’s not racist, right? Aussie singer G Flip came in at number two with The Worst Person Alive, which, according to the ABC, is the highest placing for a non-binary artist. They also describe her, sorry “them”, as being a “footy loving, reality tv-starring, afterparty-throwing queer non-binary legend”. Of course, only identity matters nowadays at the ABC. They could have just said, Doja Cat made a great song, or, G Flip is a great songwriter, but no, instead you have to point out their skin colour, or their indeterminate gender. What else should we expect our taxpayer-dollars to be spent on? Perhaps the ABC need to take a page out of Morgan Freeman’s book. When the American actor was asked how we are going to get rid of racism, he simply replied, “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.” Apparently, the ABC didn’t get the memo. In the ABC’s eyes, Mr Freeman is, and always will be, a “person of colour”. Thanks ABC for helping us to fight racism by keeping racism alive. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn