Punters Politics' Konrad Benjamin: "Politicians Fear Lobbyists More Than They Fear Us"

Konrad Benjamin is the creator of Punters Politics, one of Australia's fastest-growing independent political commentary channels, and a former economics and PE teacher who taught across Victoria, New South Wales and China. In this episode, he sits down with me to dissect the incentive structures that shape Australian politics, corporate power and the housing crisis. The conversation moves from classroom economics to gas royalties, corporate lobbying, the staffer-to-lobbyist pipeline, and what a genuine fix might actually look like. For more content like this: Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5 Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Konrad, Benjamin, well, straight to it, mate.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Good to be here. Doing great things, fantastic, you're killing it.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Thank you, I'm trying.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  You know, seriously, you are, I mean, obviously you come on to our radar all the time. What most people don't realise is your origins, you were a teacher.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  You look too young to be a teacher for a start, you look like you're about 18.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  It's my skincare routine, you know, you just use that sunscreen and moisturise.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  You're not gonna drop in as a sponsor, eh?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  I'm open, I'm looking.

• 0:28Speaker 00

  Here he is. Now, tell me about your teaching, like, where were you teaching, what were you teaching?

• 0:33Speaker 01

  So I've taught sort of all over the place, I was taught in Victoria for a couple of years, taught here in New South Wales, in Newcastle for a couple of years. Taught for a year in China.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Teaching like Chinese kids, Canadian curriculum. So obviously like international education's big and Chinese kids wanna get into the Canadian market, the Australian market. And so this was a Canadian school set up, and so I taught economics there for a year. So like year 11, 12 students, so I've sort of done a lot of teaching all over the place. But most of it, like, I started teaching PE, but then moved into economics and sort of enjoyed that a hell of a lot more.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  What do you learn, I mean, what did that, what are those teaching years inform you relative to what you do today? In relation to your own podcast, your own politics, what is it, what does it inform you about kids?

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I think it teaches you a few things. How to communicate complex stuff as simply as possible whilst trying to hold attention. Cause you can see it drift, you've got to, you've got to hold the attention of 30 prepubescent or pubescent year 10 students who don't give a Can I swear?

• 1:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Who don't give a shit about what you're talking about. And so you've got this dry content that they don't care about. And your job, at least my job, what I was just trying to do is go, okay, what's, what's the most important thing that they need to get from this? Cause there's so much in the curriculum, you're like boring, boring, boring, doesn't really matter. There's obviously principles and stuff that they need to understand how the world works and different things like that. So you're going, what's the most important things, what's the most relevant things? And how can I connect that into, how can I make it relevant for them? Cause the teenager's world is so small, I suppose. They only care about their social life and what's going on like immediately to them. So you've kind of got to like open their world and expand their world piece by piece.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Did you think to yourself at any stage, these young guys and girls might one day be my audience?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  No, I never thought that. I never, I never thought I'd be doing what I'm doing now. I, I thought I was just destined, my dad was a principal and a teacher.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yes. And I swore I'd never go into it, but the holidays are too good. I got used to, you know, eight weeks off, 10 weeks off a year, Christmas time. And, you know, and I ended up enjoying, when you're teaching the right subject, like, like teaching can be a grind, like, let's face it. Sometimes teaching kids, they can be little assholes, like, especially teenagers can, they will psychologically break you day in, day out. And the only way you can kind of bring them on side is to care about them and kind of care about their world and really like build that relationship. Cause relationships is the only way, like, every teaching pedagogy will tell you is building rapport. They have to, they have to care about you, you have to care about them. And kids can tell if you care and you don't care. And so you have to sort of build those relationships, but that's, that's hard work.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  It sounds like you're like a footy coach to some extent, I mean, like, cause once upon a time, footy coaches would stand over you in the old days and they, they were sort of a dominant force. They would tell you what to do and you've got to do it, otherwise you're out.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  Teachers were the same, when I grew up, that's how teachers were. Today, teachers would never get away with that.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  So you're sort of learning how to be a bit of a psychologist, what you tell them is you're reading the room too.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  You have to, like, you, I don't know, I don't know what it was like back in the day when they had the cane and

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Well, that's what it was, it was a cane.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Do what I said and you get like the hard discipline.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Whereas now it's, it's sort of, like, I think teaching practice has gotten a lot better, you know, like if kids are acting out, there's a reason for it. And so I think there's a lot to learn, like, I learnt a lot of empathy through teaching kids, cause I think adults are no different to kids. Like if people are acting out, being assholes or whatever it is, when you're teaching teenagers, and the younger the kids go, cause I taught primary kids as well. Like teachers aren't gonna sit there and go, oh, you know, little Sally's been like acting out today, what an idiot, just put her in the corner. No, they go, something's going on, like what's going at home, what's going at school?

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, are they struggling to, cause often what you'll find is the kids playing up, you know, it might be too easy for them or they're, you know, undiagnosed with something. Or they're just in the wrong space, or there, there's something like physiological going on that they have to sort of work out. There's always, nine times out of 10, there's always like an explainable reason that teachers can, this is why teaching jobs are pretty bloody hard. Cause you're like, I've got five kids that need to be up the front of the class and that kid can't concentrate if they're over there, so I've got to place them over there. So you're always adjusting everything and good teachers kind of can manage that and then get some learning to happen as well.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  And when you taught economics, was it year 11 or 12, older kids?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Did anything sort of jump out at you in relation to economics that is relevant to today, the way you look at economics in, or way, the way you look at, at an economy?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  I think it's just the simplicity and the macro nature of it. When I started getting into economics, it really

• 5:07Speaker 00

  As a teacher or just generally?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Generally, like I started to, you know, just listen to like Freakonomics, some pseudo economics podcasts where I just discovered economics is often just explaining stuff and looking at solutions that other countries have tried. And I realised that politics is really just a conversation about economic theory. Do we think it's gonna trickle down? Do we think this solution of a, I don't know, universal healthcare system? Do we think it works? Well, economists go, well, look at this country, they tried it, here's the pros and cons. This country tried it, here's the pros and cons. Do we think a universal basic income will work? We can argue about it politically, but economics, at least on the way level I engage with it on is just reading the findings and the research.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Where they just go, well, we tried a UBI, they tried one in Canada and one in Europe somewhere. And we saw what happened, did people all quit their jobs and just stop working? Well, no. So I just find it an interesting take on, people are trying solutions all the time and we can learn from other countries. And we have good research, obviously you can't necessarily port one country's solutions over to another. But I think it can inform our political debate immensely.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  It's interesting the way governments, I probably should say politicians, fiscal policy, you know, the policy of taxes and things that governments are responsible for. And then, and also the way Reserve Bank, for example, uses monetary policy, that's interest rates. How they basically, and I have this conversation with lots of people, it's basically just trying to change your behaviour. In a way that they want to, the economy to behave. So they say, well, I want Konrad to stop spending money because the more he spends, the more likely he, the people he buys things from are likely to put prices up. Which means the more likely his spending habits are gonna create inflation. Therefore, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna change his behaviour by charging him a great amount of interest.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  Or I'll maybe put the taxes up or something like that. But most people look at economics like it's sort of like a black and white, like it's very one or the other, binary. But in actual fact, it's really a psychological game, it's all about psychology. How do I change your behaviour in order to make the economy look the way I want it to look if I'm a politician? And did, did, were you ever able to explain that to students? I mean, do you think students ever got that stuff?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  I think, yeah, I think that's the base level of it, like what I was teaching was just basic macroeconomics, you know, you start with the supply, demand.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Where they meet and you get price.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And you, but those basic principles are, exactly as you said, it's incentives. And I think what we've been taught politically, cause it benefits certain groups of people, is that the economy and economics is this one formula.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  And there's this group of people that are smarter than everyone that are telling us, no, no, we can't tax this group of people because that'd be bad for the economy. But what you realise is that we set the rules, we set the shape.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  We being?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  A democratic country, governments making rules.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Consumers.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Consumer, well, consumers do through behaviour, but even they're pushed by incentives and prices, like you said, and taxes. And, you know, this, this sport, the free market, so to, so call it, is operating in a, on a playing field. And in different countries, the rules are different. And I think what you sort of teach in, cause I remember just distinctly teaching the concept of externalities, right? Like business operates, but then there are things that happen outside of the business operations that impact everybody else. And is the business that makes a profit paying for those externalities? Like the pollution in the river or the, you know, the high prices for certain things? Or is the community paying those? And I remember teaching a subject on that and I was like, holy hell.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Like, this is basic year 10 economics right here, that our government on some level just struggles to understand and internalise. Like if we've got, you know, mining corporations doing X amount of damage in these ways, making this much money. And we're just saying, oi, pay for your bloody damage, cause our community is paying for it. I think which rural town, like, I mean, I'm from Newcastle, 80% of the soil is contaminated by lead. Who's paying that externality? Well, I bloody am, right? And, and I think, was it Mount Isa or somewhere, where it's like 50% of children are contaminated with lead poisoning or something? So it's like, these are serious externalities and, you know, that's a, we need to shape the incentives

• 9:38Speaker 01

  so that we're not the ones always paying the price while some foreign corporation gets to make all the money.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  And gets to pay dividends to all the shareholders.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, who often live overseas.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Or often, you know, Norwegian sovereign wealth fund or something like that.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  So did, did any of those things, or those findings, or those realisations encourage you to sort of set up punish politics?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  I think it was this realisation that politics is more simple than we realise it is. That the solutions are more simple than we're told they are.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Should be.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  I think they are.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  But for some reason, they're not. And, you know, I was teaching a class, year 10 economics class, and we were just doing an assignment on, I'd opened the textbook, I'd just finished externalities. And we're looking at the different rankings of where Australia sits on different goals, you know, women in the workforce, free press, pollution in the environment, clean air, clean water. And I was like, all right, kids, this, this textbook's 2017, why don't we rank Australia's progress? Are we getting better or worse according to these rankings that somewhere external independent person is ranked? And the kids' assignments come back. And this has been like, what, eight years into the Morrison Turnbull, whatever

• 10:53Speaker 01

  government day we've had. And I kid you not, on every single assignment that came in, we went backwards on everything. Kids were like doing the report cards for the government, being like, it's a D, it's an F, we've gone backwards. In that moment, I just, it was sort of, I just realised, the student put their hand up and they were like, sir, does the government know this? Like, do they know we're going backwards? And it's that simplicity. Like, the data's there. We know we're getting worse on all these metrics that matter to us, that matter to our wellbeing and their future. And the government, you wanna look at, go, are we getting better? Are we going forward? Do I have a future to look forward to? And I just went home and I had to write a letter to my MP, the first one I ever wrote. And I was like, what are you? I showed him the findings, my students' assignments. I was like,

• 11:37Speaker 01

  what do you want me to say?

• 11:39Speaker 00

  To the kids?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, to the kids. I even put a post on Facebook. I found it the other day. I just put it on Facebook. I was like, this Scott Morrison, like, what do you want me to tell them?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Like, here's the data showing we're going backwards. Do you know this is happening? And what do you want me to say to them? Because if you want me to answer their question, I'm gonna tell them that there are a certain group of people that donate to you that love this system, that love externalising the costs of their business onto me, onto them, onto their future. And we're bloody paying for it while they make record profits. Is that what you want me to tell them? That you're actually on the foreign corporate side and not my student's side? Please, give me something to reply to.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  And?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Just your generic, just your generic copy paste. You know, oh, we are, you know how they send that email? It's like, we are improving on something. They don't really answer it, the classic political manoeuvre of just telling, just waffling on an email and not.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Connor, do you think that's, from a government's point of view, whether it's from the,

• 12:42Speaker 00

  I was either treasurer or prime minister at the time, I don't know. But do you think it's, one, they don't care? Two, they're oblivious? Or, two, they're oblivious? Or, three, they know about it and they're sponsoring it?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  I think different levels, different politicians, it's a combination of all of them. Like, you can't tell me that they don't know. You know, we're looking at corporate profits in certain sectors always up and up. CEO pay is up, billionaire wealth is up, like, house prices up until recently, just kept on ticking up, greatest run ever. It's almost as if the system is perfectly designed for the people when I line up the best, like, bank profits through the roof, even now, like, posting 10 billion, whatever. So, this system actually, for certain sectors of our economy, these oligopolies that kind of operate in Australia, they're doing very well. This economy's

• 13:41Speaker 01

  working very, very well. So I think for certain parts.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  For certain parts.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  And they would know that. They would know that it's performing very well. And then they would also like, but they're too good at paying lip service of like, oh, we know the cost of living. We know housing affordability. Like, they know how to signal to our problems. But then when I'm just looking at hard data, teaching kids, I'm like, are we getting better on any of this stuff? Are we improving? And the answer just keeps on being no. So, I think it's a combination of all of it. But if you, if you ask me, I think you're pointing out, you know, how economics, you know, is a set of incentives. I think there's a set of incentives for politicians. And those incentives are very well controlled by the people who donate to our politicians, the industries that

• 14:31Speaker 01

  they go and work for afterwards. And, you know, the outcomes for those sectors, the biggest donors to our politicians, well, they're great. Woodside's profits, not profits, Woodside's revenue is up 30% because of a war overseas, but apparently they can't pay us for their gas, right? Like, this is, you know, politicians, like, they know that. But for some reason, it's always too hard to change.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  But what would be the solution in terms of changing a politician's response? You know, is it, do we need to find more ideological politicians? Because there's a whole layer, by the way, bureaucrats underneath them, who we never get to vote for. And by the way, they're there through this politician, the next politician, the next politician. And to some extent, it's a bit like that TV show, Yes Minister. Like, to some extent, I think, I always feel as though the politician doesn't, just looks and says, this is too hard, because I can't get everybody below me. They'll say, yes, mister so and so. But, you know, maybe you need to consider, we've done a study on this

• 15:37Speaker 00

  before, and it didn't work. I mean, and therefore we should just stay the way we're going, keep the system the way it is. Do you think, is the solution getting better quality politicians? How do we pick the right person? And how do we deal with the other bit, the bureaucratic bit? In the middle? Because I think, you know, if people are getting, being got at by big influence groups, I reckon it's just as much at the bureaucratic level as it is at the political level.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  How much it filters down, because I know a lot of these bureaucrats are selected by the politician. Like, the politician will appoint ahead of whatever sector, right? And they'll get a million dollars a year. What a great salary, right?

• 16:23Speaker 00

  More than the politician.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, way more than politician. And I mean, from my limited experience, going to Canberra, probably like, less than 10 times, right? I never wanna be there ever. I've run into some of these bureaucrats. And what's crazy is they have the answers. Like, whatever you're talking about, they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like, I've been in those hearings with, like, Ken Henry, the bloke who was the head of the Treasury.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Former head of Treasury, yeah. Former Secretary of the Treasury.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, big dog. And he's up there telling the politicians, you know, bloody tax gas. Like, we've been over this. He's been doing, you can play a reel from him for, from 10 years ago, saying the same thing, but it doesn't sort of change. So at least, from my understanding, I start at the politician level.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  You think the blockage is there?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  This is where I'm starting, because this is where we have power. And I start at the blockage of the politician, but then it's like, oh, do we, how do we find the right politician? I'm kind of less concerned about that. And I'm more, how do we make the incentives of whoever is in there not be pulled towards foreign corporate vested interest and towards us? And the biggest thing I see is there's limited corruption accountability. The National Anti-Corruption Commission has proven to be like some mad joke. Like, it either, after two years running, found no corruption. And so, wow, like, we either believe that there was completely no corruption in the last

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Or the ruin effect.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  20 years, or it's not working.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  It's funny, in New South Wales, though, that's not the case. ICAC seems to be very effective. Victoria, hopelessly effective.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Like, totally agree. Like, I'm loving watching just what's coming out in New South Wales. And I'm heartened by seeing that process play out in public. Then I hear Victoria's, like, ICAC is like, their standard of corruption is like criminal. But as you know, running a business, there's many reasons you'd fire someone for, like, corrupt conduct that wouldn't be criminal. So it's, you know, they've put this, like, obviously politicians make the rules for themselves. So they're not gonna make a rule that holds themselves to a too high standard, they're gonna keep it low. But the biggest thing I always keep coming back to is, we forget the life cycle of our current politicians that we've got now. We've got these career politicians that start as staffers, if they're lucky.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, when they're 20.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  When they're 20. And we've got the best example playing out right now in the by-election in Secret Harbour, in, over on the West Coast, of One Nation v Labour. We've got, Labour have put up a new candidate, and we've got this ex-former staffer for Madeleine King, our resource minister, maybe a future gas lobbyist. And then she went from being a staffer for Madeleine King to a Woodside lobbyist. And now Labour, in their infinite wisdom, have decided, go, you know what? That's our candidate. So, Georgia Tree, ex-Woodside lobbyist, is now running in Secret Harbour against One Nation.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  And just remind us where Secret Harbour is relative to Woodside.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Secret Harbour's the electorate.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Have they got a gas for?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Don't even know. Another, another politician in the Labour Cabinet, in the, obviously Roger Cook bloody loves the gas industry, like, he's.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  Well, he gets more GST because of it.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  He's in their pocket, right? But imagine if we could get, if they paid us for the gas. Like, wow, that'd be amazing, right? Because all the stuff offshore is, you know, most of it's just given away for free. So we've witnessed this. So this is the incentive that I think is toxic. I think politicians think it's okay. Seven out of 10 punters call it corrupt. To have politicians, like, almost every resource minister has gone to work in the mining and oil and gas or resources sector, they make the rules for this sector as politicians. Like, I think Martin Ferguson in McFarlane, like, one of them is still, like, the head of the AEP or one of the gas, the big

• 20:09Speaker 01

  gas lobbies, right? And he made the rules. So when punters ask me, like, hey, why are we getting stiffed on our resources, which Aussies deeply understand? And then I go, well, I mean, coincidence or corruption? I don't know what goes on. But he made the rules. Now he's a gas lobbyist. Now we're seeing that same virtuous cycle play out again. Staffer, lobbyist, potential, potential future MP for the Labour Party. That's what I see as, like, it's an incentives thing.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  You're not saying it's the talent of the individual? Because I often wonder about the talent of the individuals who are in our political system.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  I mean, I look at our treasurer, he has no experience as a treasurer, or in economics. It's not his territory.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  But, you know, he's obviously a senior person within the Labour Party, and of course.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Have you had him on?

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and he's a senior person in the Labour Party. And of course, the way the system works is that, you know, the most senior person gets the second top job, which is treasurer.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  You know, I guess it's all about sort of semi-grooming him to one day to become the prime minister. And we've seen many treasurers become either premiers, or many treasurers end up becoming prime ministers. And it's a thing, it's a system. I often wonder if it was, if the drama we have here, is it the quality dash talent of the individual? But what you're saying is, a lot deeper than that. What you're saying is that, actually, it's a system that's been built to protect interests. Do you think it's conscious or not?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Like, the system's been deliberately built that way. I think by the foreign corporate interests.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  You would know, you're a business bloke.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  You got one job, make money.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Make as much money for those shareholders as possible. That's your job.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  That's your job.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  You don't do it, you're gone.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Well, under the corp- corpse law, law, if you don't do it, you're getting in trouble. You've got to act in the best interest of shareholders.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  You got to do, that's the incentive.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So if you're looking at the best kind of investment that you can make, the best allocation of resources, you could invent something new, you could start a new business, could invent a new product, could employ more people, could invest in technology. It's hard but expensive, right? It might not succeed, you might waste money on it. You know what's a guaranteed bet? Invest in the rules. It's no coincidence, I don't think it's any coincidence, that the industries that extract the most amount of profits out of our country, talking banks, mining, property, they are wholly reliant on the rules set up for them by the government, right? If, if, for property, if, if the government just like waves his magic wand and re-zones, they print, they've minted millionaires, millionaires. Uh, mining sector,

• 22:47Speaker 01

  we own the resources, that's our shit in the ground.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  And the, the resource minister is supposed to be negotiating for me, because that's mine. I want them to go in and, you know, slap them on the back and get in, get me a good deal, right? We're on the separate sides of a Facebook Marketplace negotiation. Foreign corporate wants our stuff, right? We, we have the stuff. Let's get a good deal. So we get rich and you get rich. Right? And, and so, you know, Gina Reinhardt's wealth is directly proportionate to how little she can pay us for the iron ore she takes. That's just business 101.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Cost of the, it's cost of the asset.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Cost of the asset, right? And so when it comes out that the cost of our gas asset turns out to be like half of it's being given away for free, what the hell went wrong here? So if you're, if you're these corporates trying to make money, you go, well, listen, if we just put all this money into donating to politicians and schmoozing them at dinners and really connecting with them and putting staffers in there and then taking their staffers and then taking, you know, I mean, you've had a few politicians on the pod. Like if, if you're employing a, a, a future person to like liaise with the government, are you like, like looking for the most talented person or are you?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Connected. I'm looking for the most connected.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  There you go. I mean, it's no coincidence. If, if you're the, if you're Minrez, of course you're going to look at Mark McGowan. Is he, I don't know, is he really talented? I don't know.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Oh, is Mark McGowan worth Minrez now, is he?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, one of, of three or four.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  He's one of the lobbyists.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  He's consulting for a few different, I couldn't even keep up with the amount of jobs he took after. Um, so I would call that selling access to our politicians and a, and a business goes, what a great investment.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  So what would you do there? Would, would, Connor, would you say if you're a politician, you are not allowed to do this post, post your termination? Or you're, or you're post your term?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. I'd say if you made the rules for an industry or a sector.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  You cannot go and work in that sector. Uh, you, you can't work in any government liaising facing role. I'd even be very cautious about, you know, like Josh Freinberg, where'd he go? Goldman Sachs, right? Like the list is endless. Like I could, you know, Julie Bishop also did some stuff with Minrez, like, they just, they just, all these big monopolies, just look at our politicians and go, and so we have to ask, you can answer this question better than I can. Are they the most talented people for the job?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  They're probably the most connected.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  And I think if, if that's the answer, to me, that reeks of corruption. To me, that reeks of buying access and I'm.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  So you would say lobbyist is a, is a term that gets used to sort of, uh, smooth over what they're actually doing?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, well, it's worse than that because there's lobbyists which are registered and like Christopher Pyton, where's he getting a lot of his clientele from? Weapons. What deal did Scomo make? AUKUS, you know, uh, who, who's, who's Scomo working for now? Some weapons affiliated something that gets some stuff from AUKUS, like the connections are there. So it's, it's one of those things where, yeah, um, I would ban it outright. And, and, oh, sorry, they've got, they've got lobbyists which are registered and then they've got in-house. So if you're Woodside and you employ Georgia Tree, she's not technically a lobbyist. She's like a government liaison. She won't be on the register. She'll be walking around Parliament House with all her Labour colleagues that she used to work in Madeleine King's office.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  You're telling me that Woodside, after taking Madeleine King staffer as a lobbyist, that Georgia Tree can't wander back in? Oh, hey, Madeleine, how are you? Good to see you. Oh, just over at Woodside here. They'd really love that, you know, like that's access I don't have. So I'm just pointing the question, like, is that fair that Woodside can just poach these people?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Do you think you should, not only should politicians not be allowed to take those jobs post their term, but do you think also, um, just no lobbying? Like, it, like, why do you have to lobby government?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  What's the point? I mean, like, if you're running good business, lobbying is basically influencing outcomes.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  At government, policy outcomes.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Maybe, I mean, I don't know if there's any other countries where there's proxies for this, but, um, who could be a proxy for this, but by definition, we allow lobbying all the time. Um, do you think perhaps lobbying should be just banned altogether?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  I mean, it's pretty hard. Like, I don't want to defend lobbying here, but I, I understand what people will hide behind. Like when, when I'm talking lobbying, I'm talking like purchasing unfair access. Because I, I, I made a YouTube video where I quite literally got nine or 10 politicians from across the political spectrum, put them into a room.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  For real?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  For real.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And had a fancy dinner and sold, I made money, Mark. I made money from selling access to politicians. And I said, you want to sit next to David Pocock or Bridget McKenzie? Buy a ticket for 50 or a hundred dollars and you can do that. This is exactly how political parties make money.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  So you run, you ran an experiment on it?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. And it's totally legal. It's totally fine. And I think that's a problem. So.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying. Do you think the laws around this should be amended?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Changed?

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Like, I don't think that should ever be allowed. And I think most Aussie punters think it shouldn't be allowed. I think when you broaden the conversation into should lobbying be allowed? That's when you give them legitimate cover because they'll hide behind, what they look for is a legitimate straw man to hide behind. I'm lobbying the government right now. I've got my audience. I've spoken to a few politicians and I'm saying, hey, you should tax gas. That's lobbying, right? And any small not-for-profit, like, you know, if you're in the business sector, you're going, hey, these laws would impact me in this way.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  And there's, there is a.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  But I'm not asking them to change laws. So, I mean, I, I mean, I, I'm just, I'm just trying to unpick this as we go along, but,

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Um, I wonder whether or not the lobby could be allowed where it's part of a forum where I get, you know, I get, I get Konrad in the room and I get 10 others and I'm the politician. I say, okay, let's just understand the problems and what do you think? And what do you think? Maybe the, the, the process should be in a group and all done. And, and you should be able to argue against that person, argue against that person. You shouldn't, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to come into my office in the mothership in Canberra and sit in front of me and try and convince me that something should hap- happen or something should not happen. Maybe it should be done on a forum basis. Cause I've been asked down to Canberra a couple of times and, uh, in relation to, you know, my industry, the, the mortgage industry I'm talking about, property industry. And, uh, but I've always been there in a forum where there's a whole lot of people got a point of view.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Um, unfortunately though, what tended to happen during that period, this is quoted a few years ago, the government only invited those people down there who were like-minded to them. Nobody was invited from the other side of the argument.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Which is, which we saw last year in the, uh, government, when the current federal government held the, uh, event, whatever it was, um, in July, August last year to talk about, um, inflation and productivity and all that sort of stuff. I know who they invited and I know who they didn't invite. So maybe the, I mean, I don't want you and I have to try and solve this problem now because I really want to hear about punters' politics and the way you got involved in the business, but.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  But, uh, but I find it fascinating. Maybe governments should be forced to have, there's someone, there should be some ombudsman type person who says, listen, that event, that forum you held was not properly represented by all, all sides.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Lobbyists don't get banned, but if you want to go down there and see, you know, the treasurer or the prime minister, or whoever happens to be minister for mineral resources, um, you have to be prepared that you're going to be taken on by somebody else over the corner. So, you know, Konrad might be there. And, you know, you're, uh, uh, BHP, whoever it is, um, you're sitting there talking about gas.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Your lobby's going to be there, but you're going to have Konrad on the other side.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Are you prepared to do it?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  What about that?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  I think there are easier low hanging fruit to go for.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  And that's, what would you go for?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  And that's what I go for. I go for, let's start with the fact that if you pay a hundred thousand dollars to the Federal Labour Business Forum, you get special access to buy tickets to dinner with Anthony Albanese.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  This is off the books conversations at a dinner table.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  At someone's home?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so they have those forums.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Point Piper?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Recently, I don't know, that won't go.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Someone's home whose father was apparently a tax bludger.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Weird, right? This to me is the biggest problem.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Wrong with Dan Andrews and someone else, I don't know.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was Anthony Pratt, Big Dog, Money. Like, once again, if you're using your money, I don't have that kind of money. So instantly, it's not fair.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Because I don't have a mention in Point Piper that I can invite the Prime Minister to, to chat with, schmooze, build relationships. Because corruption isn't as easy as here's a paper bag, do what I say.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that is corruption, but that is at one, that's at one end of the spectrum. You're saying it's more subtle.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  It's more subtle, it's manipulation, it's who I'm exposed to, it's who I'm talking to the most. And if the people with the more money get more access, which is definitely happening, that's the easiest thing to wipe out. Because the stuff you're talking about, in some ways, does happen. And it can be improved, the process by which the government consults. But the government does consult. The thing, I've been to these consultancy things.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think they're rubbish.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Bloody, the most annoying thing is you're in the room. And what you'll find is like, everyone in the room can really, like I was at this gas thing, the one I was talking about with Ken Henry. And all the politicians are asking questions and all the people who were sort of asked, even the gas lobby was there, he didn't really want to talk to me. But, but he was there, they all gave their representations. And all the experts, all the nerds, all the boffins, all the people, they kind of came to the conclusion, we're getting stiffed on our gas. Like 100%, we've been getting scammed for 10, 20 years.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  But for some reason, that beautiful consultancy package just never makes it into the room where people make the rules. And if you ask me what the problem is, is that there are meetings happening that are off books. We don't get to see ministers' diaries, right? Every time a FOI thing is requested, they'll do anything they can. Like Rex Patrick is always going to court himself to pull files out that we are entitled to as citizens. And they will do everything that, like, I think, how was more secretive than Scott Morrison? He had bloody seven secret ministries.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  So this is a problem. So these are the things I would fix. I would fix transparency. But the number one I'll keep banging on about is if you make the rules, you can't go work for the sector that is getting rich off those rules that you made. Blanket, let's start there.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  What about journalists who, and at some extent, you and I are journalists. I mean, we're not a typical journalist, but to some extent in our, in our shows, we are.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  I talk about things, I don't use the term journalist.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  Well, but to some extent, I wouldn't describe myself as a journalist, that's for sure. But, but we sort of are, we're talking to an audience and we're sort of, you know, curating what we wanted to say, et cetera. But what about journalists? So there is a, do you think that journalists should never be allowed to go and work for the PR side of the government?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Oh, good question. I think I'm okay with PR. Weird, I have to think about that question a bit more, like, I mean, yeah, there could be that closeness, right? That's a fair, that's a fair point.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Like, if I'm a journalist and I'm writing for a paper.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  And then I know that all my mates have gone to work for the, I don't know, the Prime Minister for I can mistake.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  And therefore I'm going to be nice to him or her on a topic. Could be, could be gas, taxing gas, additional taxes on gas. Then I'm going to go soft on that because I know that the Prime Minister has a view. And therefore I want to make sure I'm always in the consideration set.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  They're not, they sort of are lobbyists because they're lobbyists before they leave the job.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  There's connections behind the scenes.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  They're lobbying.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  They're sort of lobbying.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Themselves into a job.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I think you've hit on a really important element. That's another part that I need to think more about is you have the, if media is the thing that keeps our democracy functioning, right?

• 34:45Speaker 00

  It should be.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  It should be.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  They're the ones that are supposed to expose all the dodgy stuff so that we can hold government to account. This is what we believe in democracy. We believe that in our democracy, that power can't be trusted. That's why we separate it. That's why we have transparency. That's why I want to see your diaries to see who you're meeting with over other people. And journalists are the ones that we want doing the digging for that. So I think it's a good thing to be questioning. Where my mind goes with the journalist relationship is how can the same corporations that fund our politicians, that they often go work in those sectors, are often, often own most of our media ecosystem? Rupert bloody Murdoch, who hasn't paid tax in this bloody country for over 10 years.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  News Corp doesn't, go figure, doesn't pay tax. He lives overseas, has more influence on our politics. My mind goes to that where we need this institution to be strong and not biased and holding our, holding power to account. But if that system is propped up by corporate money, corporate donations and offshore billionaires, are they really going to hammer the stuff? Like, I think this is.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Well, naturally, they're not.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  You would think, the incentives don't line up, do they?

• 36:01Speaker 00

  No, but why would they?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And this is, this is the indictment on why punters' politics exist. This shouldn't exist. It's not a success story that some surfer bloke from Newcastle can make Instagram reels explaining stuff like I would year 10 economics sort of concepts, can get millions of views each month. This is, this has, it's kind of the symptom of to how this corporate media system has left alone the real issues people care about, the real things impacting our daily lives, the real reasons why our economy is stacked against us and rigged in favour of a handful of corporate monopolies that run this country.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  I'm sitting in the gap that corporate media have left. That's where my mind goes to.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Do you think there's any coincidence that most of the major industries in this country are controlled by two or three?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Like, you know, banking, insurance.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Airlines.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Telcos, airlines. Do you think there's any, you know, is that a coincidence? Or, because, you know, if we just go back to economics. Is it because if you're small and you're trying to take on the big guys, you won't have enough, you won't be able to compete on price because you don't have enough economies of scale. But you still have, in a regulatory sense, so many costs to run this business. You're going to have to have the same regulatory costs as your opposition, the person you're trying to take market share from. Therefore, and the big guys, they wait there and to see if you get big enough, they just say, we won't do anything about us losing market share when that entity gets big enough, which you can't buy them.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yes, we'll, we'll kill them in the grave.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Or buy them.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Do that, we'll buy them, right? Yeah, 100%.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  So, but that's sort of typical economics. I mean, that's, that's just how it works. Or do you think that, do you think that there's not a conspiracy, but there's a, I don't know, a cabal of people sitting around, trying to make sure that that remains the way it is, including mining?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I mean, think of like the incentives. You're CEO, you want to make as much money as possible. Guess what sucks for you making money? Competition. You'd have to compete, you'd have to run ads, you'd have to improve your product, you have to do all of these things. So the incentive, once again, is if you're allowed to do it, you will kill it in the grave. You will lobby for onerous regulation for them because you can afford it.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  I've seen it happen.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  There you go. Like, you will purchase, you'll just buy it up if you can. And yes, we have the ACCC.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  So there's no loss, there's no downside for them.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  So if I've already got a big market share, I don't care if someone new comes through the process. Unless they come with some sort of weird technology to completely change the way things are. For example, Uber killed off taxis, for example. I mean, unless it's something like that. But if it's just normal day-to-day transactional stuff, which is, you know, we know which, we know where all the big, the big dogs are sitting now. At the end of the day, you've got no, you can't lose.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  The, the best definition of the free market that I was given was it's not whether there's no government regulation, right? Like, the free market is a full-body contact sport. But if you don't have a referee, that game of soccer turns into a blood sport. And it turns out with the dude with the, who can afford the biggest weapons, owning the field, and it's not a good sport to watch. No one benefits from it. You know, if, you know, you watch Premier League, right? If, if you just uncapped everything, have one team buy all the good players.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  It's not rugby league salary caps, that's the whole idea behind salary cap.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  I liken it to sport. We put in all these things so that, because competition is what we care about.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  I don't want to watch.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  As consumers.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  As much as I'm pissed that Queensland lost, I'm stoked New South Wales.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  I'm stoked New South Wales, they're looking good.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  You know, that's great.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  Of course, you don't want New South Wales to lose every time because you're going to lose interest.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  I mean, seven years in a row or whatever it was, it felt good, but I got bored, I felt bad for my brother. Like, because he goes to New South Wales. And so I think the free market isn't no regulation, like some libertarians might want you to think. It's, are the barriers to entering the market to compete, are they low enough so that anyone can do it? Can we truly have this free market? And when I look at Australia's economy, I don't see a free market, kind of like you pointed out. I see a handful of foreign-owned corporate monopolies ensuring that they dominate everything. And I think we're at the end, I think we're at the place in Australia where we are now feeling the consequences of that. So like when Amazon come in and, you know, these insurance telcos kind of buy up all the competition,

• 40:31Speaker 01

  they just drop the prices and kill competition. They're like, oh, we can compete, great, we'll burn cash. This is what big tech does, it just burnt a bunch of cash, smothered the competition, you know? And then, once it's all gone and they've salted the ground, you know, Coles and Woolies famously buying up places where other competitors could go in the community. So I was talking to a friend, he's like, no, there's a free market, you can start a grocery store. I'm like, where are you going to put it? Like, no, you can shop at Aldi. I'm like, many, where I was, you know, 30 minutes from an Aldi. Yeah, I could go to Aldi, but let's face it, I'm not. So it's like, is there a free market there? I'm really like, there's a Coles there and a Woolies there. And that's, that's my choices. Like, you know, I was just recently in, in America.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Bloody hell, the, the, the food selection in their supermarket.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. And it's, and there's so many different versions of it. Whereas I go to Coles and Woolies, they're literally stocking the same stuff.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  And it's the same layout, it's the same everything.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  And then there's that H C came out where they literally alternate their price for sale. This is, this is collusion. Yes, obviously it's legal and they're not talking to each other on the phone saying, you do it Tuesday, I'll do it Wednesday. But they just look over the fence. Oh, we'll just do this. Oh, we didn't collude, right? So, you know, I think this is where we ending is they've salted the earth. Our economy is stale, it's a desert. It's really hard for the upstart punt to really get something going. And if they do, they'll just get killed. Uh, not literally, but the business. And now we're at the stage where they go, well, now we want profits, it's profits time. Guess what? We need to buy food. We need to buy certain fundamental goods. Just ratchet that up. And now we're feeling the price.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Why, why is food like, why does this stuff keep getting, prices get higher and higher and higher? It's not a competition.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  The more the prices go up, particularly on food, the greater effect it has on inflation. And all of a sudden the banks can put up interest rates. Because uh, the government puts up interest rates, the reserve bank puts in interest rates and then, and then the lenders put up interest rates. And as a result, lenders put up interest rates, push a whole lot of people out of the marketplace that can't afford to buy a property. You know, we keep hearing about the, you know, the last budget as being something to cure. Intergenerational inequity. In other words, younger people not being able to buy a property.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Compared to what, how their parents would have been, for example. And uh, and that the first home buyers are going to start buying more, be able to, because the property market's going down. But it hasn't helped the first home buyers. It's been crazy. There's, because I know in my business, our first home buyers have actually dropped off.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Relative to, and the investors have dropped off as well. But first time buyers have just dropped off and they're sort of, because the interest rates are too high.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I, I've resigned myself, I'm just a renter. I believe we are the lost generation.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Like, like if housing is fixed, at the end of the day, from where I sit, house prices couldn't continue doing what they were doing. Just they couldn't keep ticking up like amazing returns. And yes, I have seen investors piling out of the market at a slightly higher rate than first home buyers. Sure, if this keeps up for 20 more years, maybe wages, if, if all goes to plan.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Wage's got to keep.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Wage's got to keep rising and let's not have a crash, but let's like really level it up. So we can bring the regular punt in line with the aspiration of owning a house. I'm 70. I'm like, I'm done. It's not me.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  It's too late.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  If, if, and this is sadly the reality I've come to. If housing is to be fixed, it's for my kids or their kids. It's not for me, I'm screwed. If you're a first home buyer, yeah, you got shunted into the market with a 5% home deposit scheme, right?

• 44:06Speaker 00

  And those prices have all, those prices all went up and now they're all going down.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if I got in at 5% and then it goes in, I'm holding negative equity.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Right? I got screwed. I got absolutely screwed because governments didn't have the balls for over 15 years to start. Well, they, and they still, they still haven't done the one thing, I don't know, it's, it's your sector. But the one thing that everyone sort of said, the real problem in the property market is at the bottom end. And we have never, since World War, since the coming back of World War Two, we've never just built bloody houses.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  We've got to build more houses and, and really, I mean, I, I don't know, but the, one of the only ways to do this, somehow you've got to get the developers. Cause the government's done built houses, developers.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Well, we used to build houses.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Governments used to.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  We used to build.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Our governments won't build a house now.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  They'll, they'll tell you that they are, but.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  But they're using private property developers.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  Of course they are.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And what does Singapore do? Singapore builds houses.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Right? And, and I liken it too, and maybe it's a crude, oversimplified analogy. But I'm a public healthcare kid. I don't have private healthcare because I look at what they're charging and I look at what I get. And for me, I've done the maths.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Apart from the effects are very confusing.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, apart from that, I look at it and go, you know what? If I get sick and I, and I have to go to hospital, I've been a few times, it's good enough. And there's a floor in the market and the government is providing that basic human need service. There's a floor in the market, so if private healthcare want me to buy their product, other than trying to force the government to make me buy the product, which is what they do. They, government taxes me more because I won't buy their stupid product. Um, good for some people, not for me. Um, I look at housing the same way. We need a floor in the market for housing where the government can provide, provide good enough housing to provide competition for the other sector of the market so that.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  You would have government start building houses.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  When I, when I just look at countries around the world that don't have our problem, they have a strong government sector that provides basic houses. If you want to, you know, have fancy, and it's not just for poor people.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  We're not talking about social housing, we're talking about, we're not talking about like when I grew up, houses around, like, you know, like.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, like, I'm talking social housing, but not just for houses, not just for.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  So if you want to buy one, you can buy one.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I want to buy, if anyone wants to buy one, you can buy one.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  And government shouldn't be trying to get a profit margin out of it.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Exactly, they're just building houses and they're, you know, like helping build it, bring, bring in skilled labour.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  That makes sense.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  To kind of have the floor in the market. Because right now there's no floor. So people are paying stupid amounts for mould infested, you know, you've seen the videos.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  The best I can get.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  There's nothing else.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  That, that makes sort of make sense, like, um, maybe, um, take, the government can take a, like, if the, especially for the lower segment, you know, the cheaper segment. For those people who want to get their first, first property, it makes sense if the government could say, because they can go out and they can say, we're gonna buy all that greenfields, wherever it is. Hmm. Out there past Penrith somewhere or wherever they've got to go. We'll influence the local council and everybody else, we'll tell them this is what you've got to do.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  And we'll do the development.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  We'll actually have a, a team that goes out there with the bulldozer, the whole thing, and then, and we'll sell it for the right price.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  We, we own the land, like, I, I saw this story out and it just broke the, it, it's all, I just, I'm just looking at incentives. I think it was like 10 years ago or something, there's this news story, somewhere in Sydney, there was apartments being sold on quite a good deal to some developer. And the minister at the time, don't remember who it was, was like, we're gonna get like 400 affordable houses in here, it's gonna be great. News story literally out this year. This apartment's been restored, it, they saw, I don't know the numbers, you'll have to fact check the numbers, but it went from like 5 million to 20 million. Great return on investment for those guys. And it turned into like 20 luxury apartments. Cause if you're a developer, you could work your ass off, build all affordable houses, have poor people in there who are struggling with the cost of living.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Or you can build for the most biggest profit margin and you can build 20 luxury apartments, sell it to the richest punts you can find and you clean up. Like, that's the incentive, I'm just pointing out incentives. And the government was the one that had the asset, undersold it, when the government could have just gone, yes. Cause, cause I think there's that tension in housing, just like healthcare, that is. I don't want healthcare to be like America for the only people who can afford it.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Like, you shouldn't die because you're poor, because you can't get cancer treatment. And that's the thing I love that Aussies understand. This isn't communism, this isn't socialism, this is just the best way a healthcare system can work, because their system's absolutely F'd.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  And I look at housing the same way.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  I look at education the same.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Education's the same. There are some things that a profit motive actually produces worse outcomes. And the US, just look at it, look at that country. They've got some problems that we don't have thankfully, but in housing, if you're poor, and I'm not talking like bludger. I'm talking working two jobs, but just not high paying, high skilled, whatever, went to university jobs. You're struggling to afford rent and you're never gonna buy a house. I think that should.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  And by the way, that's both. So you will struggle to afford rent as well as not be able to buy a joint.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I just fundamentally think as an Australian, in my society, just like our healthcare, I'm proud of our healthcare. I can't believe that our housing system looks more like America. And we, we have the solution, we've, we've tried it, we know what it looks like for a strong government sector to provide essential competition to the private sector. Cause the private sector will improve when they have competition. I mean.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  And if the government starts building houses, like you just said, um, the private sector, if they want to sell the same houses, they're going to have to meet the market. So if the government says, we will sell them a cost.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  And I know I can go buy one of those for 250,000, but the private sector's selling them up the road for 350,000, I'm gonna go buy the 250,000. So the private sector's got no choice but to drop it to 350 or be more efficient.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Right now, they've got no competition.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  And you don't have to be more efficient. If you've got no competition, like if you're building shit boxes, there's no place colder in the world than a bloody house in Sydney in winter.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Right?

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I live in one. It break, boggles the mind and yeah. In some ways, I do believe the private sector can innovate really things and but only when there's full contact competition. And if the government comes in and you truly think the private sector can out compete in that market segment, we'll go for it. But until there's any competition.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  They're not gonna try, they're not gonna try.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  No, they'll build it cheaper, jack up the price. Ah, great. Like, as much as the private sector, they think it's more efficient, it's only it's only more efficient with competition. Otherwise, there's no incentive for them to make it. They just want profit. And if they're getting profit, oh, they don't have to do anything. We're making lots of money. That's amazing. Uh, but if there's strong competition in the sector, that's when we get businesses go bust, the best ones come through, best innovations kind of come out of nowhere. But in Australia, I feel like our economy is so built on these lazy, fat, like corporate monopolies suckling on the government teat. Just like, we're funding them, we're bailing them out when they, you know, Qantas, when they stuff up. It's our money they come for, right? This is socialism for them, right?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Government doesn't bail me out, you bail out Qantas and then Qantas will break the law and they'll pay him easily fine. Like, that's the stuff.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  And does that, does that sort of get you when you see, say, you know, in very, there are always very segments in the Australian market, I mean, the dominant ones, they get found out doing something wrong and they get asked to buy, get pay a, you know, a hundred million dollar fine or a billion dollar fine in some cases where we've had various inquiries. Do you think it's in those situations, they're not, the fines shouldn't be bigger, but the point is the fines are pointless too, because the CEO, it's not his money, it's no one who works there's money. The lot of these companies make enough money to pay the fines anyway.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And the next year, they're just gonna recover it, they're gonna pick it up next year or the year after.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  And they just take their punishment and they get on with it.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Cause we've seen that over and over and over again.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  When I was hearing this morning, I think it was this morning, somebody got, just got to hit up with a $10 million fine.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  But I thought to myself, it's not gonna make any difference. They couldn't give a shit.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Well, think about it, you're in the business.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  If I'm gonna make, hey, let's just be Qantas for a second. Okay, if we illegally fire all these workers after taking mad sweet government cash, I don't know if we're allowed to do that. What's the biggest fine in history for something like this? Oh, how much are we set to make? Heaps. We'll just do it. We probably won't get caught. And if we do, guess what? We're still up. It's just basic maths.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  So if our judges, cause I was talking to someone about this recently, the A-triple C does what it can, puts together the case, says, oh, you broke the bloody law, check that out. They go to the judge, the judge hands down the sentence. And this goes above my pay grade, but if the judge can't do the maths properly to go, if this punishment doesn't look like a great investment, like if Qantas come away from this and secretly in the board meetings, and if their share price goes up, you failed. Cause they've looked at the maths and said, these laws mean nothing to us. And this is the scale of our monopolies now, these corporate oligopolies that run Australia. They're so large, we can't keep them in check. They do whatever they want, they exploit whoever they want, and the punishments don't fit the crime.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Like, I don't know, controversial take, but if you lock up one CEO, you know, for breaking the law, they either didn't know, so they're negligent, or they did know, and then they're really in trouble, right? And obviously you gotta prove this in a court and all those sorts of things. But if there was a risk, if you're getting $10 million a year to be a CEO, sounds like danger pay to me. And if your company is proven to egregiously, I'm talking like some of the egregious stuff out there, lock up a CEO for a couple of years, and I'm willing to bet, we'd never see corporate misbehaviour ever again. Cause all of a sudden, that corporate CEO, he's not looking at the balance sheet going, cause he's just going, how do I get as much profit as possible? And there are no consequences if you stuff up, right?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  He might lose his job, but I don't know, Alan Joyce got a sweet golden parachute, didn't he? Like, like when he left Qantas. So I'm like, it seems like no matter how poorly CEOs perform, and this is your world, not mine, they keep getting bonuses, right? They keep getting like some sweet golden parachute out the other end.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Or they might lose a bonus, but they, they, they get an increase in their base salary.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Which is sort of very similar. And by the way, the increase of base salary is better because you keep that going, getting that for the rest of your term, whereas the bonuses are once only.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  So you, you suffer the bonus. Well, what, what do you think is the solution? I mean, apart from locking a CEO up.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Just one, just pick one.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  But I mean, and, and apart from the lobbyist, I mean, it, it, it sounds like a mess.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Hmm. I, I'm a believer in, I think we have the bones of one of the best democracies in the world. So I sound real cynical, I sound like Australia doom and gloom, but we have preferential voting, we have a good, strong parliamentary system, we have separation of powers, New South Wales ICACs, I'm a big fan, let's just copy that across the country.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Is that one of the ones?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Uh, that's a good question. I don't know, maybe, I'm not sure.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Okay, well, we'll look that up.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  But the Victorian one's sort of lame and the federal one's lame too.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Exactly. So we have, we know the solutions, we have them built in, we have the A-triple C, you know, we have, um, ASIC, we have like a bunch of regulators, but everything I'm hearing, I'm just a part, I'm just working this out, everything I'm hearing is that they're a bit weak, they're a bit understaffed.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  I think ASIC's become very effective.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  So it's in the last period, the last, let's say, let's say, the last 12 months, cause government's given me a lot more money.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  And they've employed a whole lot more people. So ASIC, I think, in the last 12 months have become much more effective, particularly in banking and those sort of sectors. Um, the, the regulator for banking is APRA, APRA is very effective, um, A-triple C agrees, um, but I think A-triple C needs more powers.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yes, I, I agree.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  It needs more powers.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  But, but I, I also think though, um, for me anyway, I still wanna solve this issue around the talent of people in politics.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Hmm. I just think.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  That's an existential problem for me.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  I'm an incentives person and I think the talent will rise to the top when you have the right incentives.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  But what do you mean, pay them more?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Um.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  I think politicians should pay, get paid more.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  You could, I'm open to that argument.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I really do. I think they should be getting like.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  It's just a tough argument, argument to make. When I'm, like, I'm a teacher earning top end, 120, 130, right? Top end, and in Sydney, you know, that's okay, it's not the best. And, you know, a base minister politician, 230, 240. So even though I, I kind of agree and I see the business argument for like, if we want talented people, we want to incentivize the best people to come there. This is why I actually don't complain about how much corporate, uh, bureaucrats are paid, because we're trying to compete with the corporate sector to, to get them on our team.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  You wanna keep me in the government?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're like, come work for us and we don't want it too much of a sacrifice.

• 57:02Speaker 00

  But I say the same about politicians, but like, if I'm trying to attract.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Like, if, if the prime minister's getting paid 600 grand a year, but the CEO of Telstra's getting paid 6.5 million a year, um, that doesn't sort of make sense to me, cause running the country should be more difficult than Telstra.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 57:16Speaker 00

  I would have thought.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  You, you would have thought, but then half of the job of a politician is just to represent me, just represent me. And you know what? The most, the, the people you would least expect to be some of the best representatives, you wouldn't have thought would have made that. I think David Pocock's a perfect example, bloody rugby player, right? Garn rugby player.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  He's pretty smart though.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  And he's quite smart.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  But you wouldn't have on a piece of paper, oh, like this is, this is this typical politician. And I think you can agree with some of your stuff, you can disagree, but I think what I've seen is he's representing Canberra, that's his job.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  I disagree with a lot of politicians in different electorates, uh, some of these independents in Sydney, they're in the richest suburbs of Australia. Of course I'm gonna disagree with Allegra Spender. I'm bloody Newcastle, like, we're very different. But I just wanna see that that politician is representing us. And I think you want the incentives that, that brings people, yes, with integrity, but has people coming in it for the right things, like I'm here, like people go, oh, why don't you go into politics? I don't think I'd be good at representing other people, I have opinions, I have my opinions, I have, I have my own thoughts. Like, you want people who are gonna listen to the community and then go and fight for you.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  What about this thing?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  I got an idea.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 00

  So I was thinking as we're talking. So I wonder if, um, democracy works like this, you know, on a certain day, every three years, we all sit down and look at all the policies, hopefully, and we make a decision we're gonna vote for, okay? And then that, uh, that, and you was for the benefit of the country and the politicians for the next three years, or close to that, and then we do it again, all over again. That's not really democracy. What about if, um, uh, Punters Politics sets up a, um, a website? And it's, uh, and, uh, well, maybe not if Punters Politics, but someone mysterious sets up a website, a bit like, bit like crypto, uh, Bitcoin. And, um, on this website, it divides Australia up into all the various, um, electorates.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  And let's say you're in Newcastle electorate and, uh, and, uh, that's, you know, whatever the number is, and it, it says, and this all gets publicized, publicized, and it says that Konrad can come and register willingly, voluntarily. And then on every single issue that comes up, and then all of us around Australia get the same invitation, someone mysteriously comes out on our email or comes out on a mobile phone text or something to us, a bit like what the government did to us the other day. And, uh, and we get urged to, uh, register. And then every time there's an important issue comes, like gas tax, this tax, things are just getting debated, we all get a chance to vote on it.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Like more direct democracy, like Switzerland style.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I think that in some respect, it's a good idea. But I've also been learning recently how the counter argument to that would be. I just wanna surf. I just wanna work, surf, chill out.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  I don't wanna have to be doing my politician's job for me. So the counter argument is.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, but someone says, come back, they'll say, come on, Konrad. You're, you're, you're strong on this topic.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Have a crack.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  But don't be a politician.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  But, but tell us what you think.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  But the most efficient thing is for me to put in someone that I think represents me.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  But that's not gonna happen.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  That I can trust represents me.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  You won't find that person, mate.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  I think there are certain politicians in government right now. Actually, most politicians I've met, very lovely people.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  No, they're good people, but.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  They believe they're doing the right thing.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  But they have an ideology and that overrides what Konrad wants.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  I think there's a party machine pulling the strings.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, totally. That's the ideology, that's what I meant.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but some of these people getting pulled by the party machine don't necessarily believe that.

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  And I think my, I'm still.

• 1:01:05Speaker 00

  But they're too scared to break the machine, mate, because if you're in Labour Party, you do not cross the system, otherwise you're out.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  And the only upside we have is we can send a message to these politicians. I think the biggest problem with politicians at the moment is that they simply don't fear us enough. They fear the, like, you listen to Labour Party, oh, we can't do the, can't tax gas, it's too hard. Oh, we'll just lose, we tried it once before and we lost and, or they're gonna run millions of dollars. Like, I think in the Senate hearings that I was in, it came out that, like, Shell and Exxon and all those big dogs dropped in a million dollars each to the gas lobby to run ads against me personally. You, my budget is a damn short shy of five million dollars or whatever, right? Oily rag sort of stuff and, and, and I've got them afraid. But the problem is politicians still fear that.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  And until we make them afraid of us, until someone like Albanese loses his seat because he chose the gambling lobby over us. He chose the, he, and you can tell. They will use talking points from the lobby group that they're defending. Listen to Albo on gambling. We got the balance right. What balance, mate? We just wanna ban gambling ads, but he's pretending like we're trying to take, ban gambling altogether? Like, taking a punt, like, ban that? No one's talking about that. But the gambling lobby talking point is, oh, we're just getting the balance, right? That he's choosing a gambling lobby over us. He used gas lobby talking points, he's using, he's choosing gas lobby over us.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  And I think we, the punters, need to make him personally pay a price for that in his own electorate.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  Do you think he knows that? Do you think he knows that we know what he's doing?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  No. I think he thinks that we will do what we've always done. And I think his play, he's gonna stand up next election and say, look how bad One Nation is, I'm better than them. And I'm gonna keep the status quo and I'm gonna say, how did that work out for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden? Not so well. So I think.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Do you think we're wood ducks, do you reckon?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Hey?

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  Do you think he thinks we're wood ducks?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the system has worked this way for so long. He's entrenched in that system. And what I'm seeing is I'm seeing things change a little bit. I'm seeing, I'm seeing the pressures build and build and build for regular punters. Well, we don't have a choice but to be involved in politics. I don't have a choice, but I've realised my dreams of, like, easily affording a house are gone, right? I've, I'm, I'm reckoning with that reality right now. And at the moment,

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  when I look at the current political establishment, they're choosing to say it's all fine. It's all good. And eventually, given our electoral system, preferential voting.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  And mandatory voting.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  It doesn't work.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  It, it leads to, and there's this graph on one ABC article. There's this triangle that has, like, how entrenched people are as voters. And like 40 years ago, everyone was really tribal. Now in this, everyone's shifted to the middle of the triangle. Example there, meaning we will vote for anyone. There are no safe seats. The, the, the.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Two-party duopoly is over, like, you saw the.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Has One Nation sort of created that, do you think?

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Uh, no, sort of took well ahead, One Nation are writing.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  It's been happening for a while.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  One Nation, I think, are riding the wave of the failure of the Liberal Party, who, when Angus stood up and said, we're gonna change or die. I choose change. No, you mate, you chose death. You chose to keep doing exactly what you've been doing for the last 10 years.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  No matter what his words are.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  No matter what his words are, so the Liberal Party has died. And I think the Labour Party is now facing that reckoning. You can continue to choose lobbyists over us. You can continue to choose that a few pennies and improvements are gonna satiate us as things we feel are getting worse. And we'll see what happens. And I think the Labour Party are now precarious and on the edge because we're sick of an establishment that tell us everything's fine and things continue to get worse. And I think

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  we're gonna, we'll see what happens.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  Well, Konrad Benjamin from Punters Politics, you just gave us the promo, mate. That was beautiful. Really good to meet you.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Really good to meet you. Thanks for having me. It's been great.