Dave Hughes: "You've lied to us all" Comedy Legend unloads on the budget & the capital gains tax & why he can't keep quiet

Dave Hughes is one of Australia's most recognisable comedians — but for the past six weeks, he has been one of the country's loudest voices on the budget changes to the Capital Gains Tax. 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

  Dave Hughes.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Mark Boris.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Yuzi.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Marco.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Well, just straight talk, mate.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Mate, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Wow, you have been like one human headline for six weeks.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Well, yes. Look, I have, I got triggered by the budget and I must say I've really got triggered.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  What do you mean by triggered? What, what, what I'm saying about?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Um, look, mate, uh, I voted for Albo and, uh, I voted on, I like the guy, but then he, cause he'd said he wasn't going to change CGT or, which was the main one for me. Um, the negative gearing, I wasn't, I don't negative gear property, so it didn't worry me. But the CGT one, I think is, was a real betrayal of the people and they're all, it all was because you just shouldn't lie to that degree. You can't come out after a budget and say this is the biggest change to the tax system in 50 years or whatever he said. And then knowing that you have blatantly lied before the election, which was only 13 months ago. So,

• 1:01Speaker 01

  yeah, that made way too much. And I just think, man, I might record a million times saying, I think it's just stupid. I really think it's stupid.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  You're, you're, you're obviously a Labour voter. You said you voted for him.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I grew up in a, you know, commission house like Albo did, country Victoria. My dad was a factory worker, my mum was a nurse and we just always voted Labour. You know, and there was a lot of good years. The Bob Hawke era was great, you know?

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Keating did great.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Keating. Now, I used to like Keating, but I'm right off him now. Now I look back and I think what a snake. Well, he knifed Bob Hawke.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  He certainly did.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  And, yeah, I think that was the part, I think that was the, the start of the problem, but I reckon, yeah, I reckon he really, anyway.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  But you, but, but if you voted for Labour, say in the last election, which is only, as you say, 13, now 14 months ago. But prior to that, did you vote for, um, Shorten when he was, when he lost the election?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I voted Labour all, mate, I had a Kevin O7 t-shirt on.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Kevin O7.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, so I've always voted Labour. In Victoria, as anyone from Victoria would know. Covid was an absolute crazy situation and I, and I'm on the record saying that I thought that Victorian government went way too far and that the premier of the day, Dan Andrews, was way too arrogant and they just wasted so much money and just put Victoria in a terrible situation, which is getting worse. Victoria's bad at the moment. Economically, it's really bad.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  You might, because I don't come from Victoria, I've got businesses down there, but every time I go, I just say to my people down there, the people I talk to all the time, how is it everybody says Victoria's up the shitter, but they keep voting these people in?

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, look mate, I was, again, I was being a Labour voter, I, I think I've had it, there might have been, I mean, I was, when, when, when the Victorian, the current Victorian government got in back in, like 12 years ago, the, the first thing that they did was rip up a, a contract to, to build a road and it cost them a billion dollars and that billion dollars was sent to an overseas company because it was an overseas company that the previous government had signed the, the contract with and, and I thought, that's crazy. How could you just give away a billion dollars? But no one seemed to care, honestly. And for me, it was like, wow, why am I the only one who thinks that's crazy? And so, I, in my opinion, the Victorian premier of the day, Dan Andrews, just right from that moment realised that

• 3:21Speaker 01

  he could do what he liked. No one really cared about money, like they should. And so, yeah, and then just, just kept spending. I spoke recently to a, a, a big builder down in Victoria. I was at, I was at a, mate, I was hosting, anyway, I was hosting a banker's dinner at the end of last year and I was, I was, Victoria's been gone so bad, I was like, I was on a, I was on a rant then about Victorians' situation and this big builder didn't seem to want to go along with it. Well, maybe I'm not going to keep raving to this guy. And then eventually he goes to me and he was a nice guy and he goes to me. Everyone knows I'm friends with Dan Andrews and I did not know that.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  He's friends with Dan Andrews.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, this builder was and I said, oh, I didn't know, I didn't know. Anyway, he said to me, this builder said to me that when Dan got elected, he was, he said to him. How do I keep, you know, how do I get reelected? And this big builder apparently said to him, just pour concrete, mate, pour concrete. And even this big builder said he went too far pouring concrete. So they poured so much concrete in Victoria that has bankrupted the state. And it's, yeah, a lot of the infrastructure is just not, not really usable. I don't believe, there's a tunnel that no one uses because it doesn't go anywhere. And it costs ten billion dollars. It was meant to cost five billion dollars and it took three years. No, it took three years more than it was meant to take. It was meant to take three years. It took six years or something. I don't know. It was, it was crazy.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  And just to keep that tunnel open for evermore will cost the state money because it's, I don't believe it's, anyway, it's, there's so much of that stuff going on down there.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Right, the crime down there, because I mean, I haven't really, I mean, I hear it on the news, but you know, Victoria, I heard, has more car theft. Than every other state in Australia put together.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  You know, I saw that stat. Look, I, my car's never been stolen and I, and so I'm lucky, possibly. Yeah, there's people, I mean, I don't, I don't, I'm not fearful and my children aren't fearful. So I'm not touch wood that we don't have to be. But yeah, I do hear, you hear a lot of stories and they were very much dismissed by Dan Andrews. I remember when Beck Judd, who's, you know, a lovely woman and who I know well, well, not that well, but well enough, I know her husband better. He's a, a footballer, ex-footballer, Chris Judd.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And she had a go, she said, look, what's going on here? And he was very dismissive. The, the premier was very dismissive of her concerns, like, oh, well, Gina, she's an influencer type situation. And it was just, the arrogance just, just kept coming at us. And I just, it was just, I just didn't like it. I didn't like the arrogance.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Did you think that's sort of bled through to the feds too? So that Victorian Labour Party arrogance, do you think that's fed through?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I, when the, the local, the last, um, you know, the GST carve up and then Elbow says that he's going to give, and he did, he gave lion's share to Victoria.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  And, and a lot to West Australia.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the Victorian stuff, I just read it was more than Victoria gave them.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  So, yeah, yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  And New South Wales gave more than they got back. And then when I heard the Victorian stuff was for the more big building, which is just rife with allegations of massive fraud, like billions and billions of dollars, I'm thinking, how can you give more money to this situation, which is clearly fraught with danger. It was just, and you've got the Victorian Premier Justin Ollin saying she's not going to investigate. And it's the police job, it's our money. Of course, it's your job to look after our money. It was just, it's just crazy situation down there. And an elbow jumped in, but like, who runs the joint? Does the unions run? Does one union run this country? It's just weird. So I didn't like any of it. And yeah, so it was, and then the budget hit and it was like, you've just lied to us all.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  All of us and people who've just bought a house just before the budget.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Especially on the five percent deposit.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Anyone, you buy a house in good faith, they're not going to change your system. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows if you cut off forty percent of potential buyers, which is they've done, maybe fifty percent, because no, no one's going to invest in property now. Like, it's just not worth it. And so you've cut half your market out. So of course, every property in Australia is worth less money. And you've lied about that repeatedly before the election. You've got, you're going to cost people so much money. And you've done it, and, and, and so many of, and you see that so many of the, the government members have sold houses before it happened, like, come on, guys, it's not right. It's so not, I can't believe more people aren't angry about it.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Well, for me, it's more confusing. I mean, I'm just, I'm confounded.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I'm confounded by people aren't as more, I can't, I'm, apparently I'm coming across as some sort of loon, but I don't know how anyone who's, like every single person who owns a house, which I imagine is like seven million people, I don't know. How many people own a house?

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Around that, around that.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Well, seven million people, I reckon, and. What's the Treasury doing saying that housing's gonna go up this year? That's insane. I've heard that Treasury now is double or triple what it used to be. Like, there's thousands of people working on massive wages and they're saying housing's gonna go up. No one in their right mind thinks housing's gonna go up this year. No one.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  And it hasn't, it's gone down.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Of course it's gone down. It's gone down because of what they did and it will keep going down, I believe. I know you've been in the game a long time, but I have bought houses before. I know, I know confidence.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  When you can't trust the government, you don't wanna put money somewhere where they can affect it. And that's what, that's what housing is now. We just can't trust them. You know, I think it'll go down quite, I think it'll go way lower than what they're saying. Way lower.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  But it's, you know, it's funny, my, watch the, the amount of intensity that you're talking with.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  It's shocking lying, shocking lying and corruption, terrible.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  That, that's sort of, it goes against the grain of what a Labour Party and the working class representative, which is the Labour Party, the way they should be. I- is that sort of your sense of it?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yes, that's awful. Cause they virtue signal like they're for the little guy, but you can tell, you can see they're not. Everything they're doing is not for the little guy. I believe if you wanna affect housing with the negative gearing, alright. I think it's, you've gotta be honest with the, with the electorate. You have to be before the election. You have to be. I just don't think it's legitimate, but leave that to one side. Cause I'm, I've got some property, but I, Victoria's been a terrible place to invest for a long time. So, no, I mean, I could, you know, the capital gains on investment in housing in Victoria doesn't matter because there's been no capital gains in Victoria for 10 years.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  So Victorians aren't, aren't as affected as everybody is.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Well, they, no, they're, they're poorer, but they're not as affected. But for, you know, other states, it's a big thing. But I mean, it's still a big thing in Victoria, don't get me wrong, but I just, it's just, it's been flat for a long time. There was so many boards up around my area before the budget, like, were not, they weren't getting sold. No one was getting a result at all. And then the budget comes in and you do that, they're never gonna get, they're not gonna get sold for anything like what people bought them for.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Which one of the three is it? Do you feel like Australians who buy houses have been hard done by? One or two? It's the principle of this. The principle or, or three is that someone, the Labour Party, has betrayed their principles.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's all of that. And, and, and yes, people have lost money and they will continue to lose money. But you know what? If you, if you go to an election with, with this tax plan, you go to election and say, this is what we're gonna do. And then you get voted back in. I'm not whinging, I'm not saying anything, I'm disappointed, I'm shocked, but I'm not, I'm not on this rant. It's that's a, that was a massive deception. And I can't believe they think that's okay, it's not okay. Cause it did, you lose trust in the whole system.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  You lose trust in democracy. So I can't say how you can't lose trust in it. Your vote's worth nothing. So that's one thing. But the capital gains tax increase is absolutely insane. It is going to affect, I make, you know, I'm not, I'm a comedian who started investing in the share market about, you know what, just before the GFC, actually. I took a loan out from a bank. I thought, what's going on, I should get in the share market. And this bank, the bank I was with said, oh, you take a margin loan out and I, yeah. And they said, you just, just pay the interest, you know, be fine. And the, and the share market goes up. So, you know, you'll just, you basically, I think, I think you could negative gear it, I think you could actually, the loan. And yeah, so I said, you're sure.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Mate, the GFC hit probably three months after I had spent a lot of money on shares, a lot of money. It hit big time. The bank was calling me wanting their money back. I'm like, what the hell's going on here?

• 11:43Speaker 00

  So you, maybe you should explain what a margin loan is to the listeners.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  A margin loan is, uh, when it's generally associated, is it, you would know, is it always associated with shares? Or is it with?

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Well, no, just shares. So you, you, you might want to buy a hundred thousand dollars worth of shares. The bank will lend you fifty thousand dollars, perhaps you put fifty you own and they'll give you fifty thousand dollars. But that's based on the shares being a certain price. Let's say the shares, a hundred thousand shares, like they're a dollar each for argument sake. But if they go down to fifty cents, the bank says, well, we only wanted to lend you fifty percent. So now you've got to pay us fifty percent back straight away.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Like twenty days or whatever, so margin loans aren't like a home loan. If the value of the property, the asset goes down, you've got to pay back.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  You've got to change, you've always got to keep the margin on that example, fifty percent.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And I've got a lot of, I've got a lot of calls from the bank to give them the money back.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  What happened?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Well, luckily for me, I was able to to do that because I was earning good money. So I was able to cover it, but I was I was shell shocked, shell shocked. And I decided never to leverage again, which, you know, I was never to borrow where I could get in trouble again. I just decided that was the moment. And you know what, some of those shares I bought actually just left the stock exchange. There was ABC Learning, remember them?

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  So they just dissolved.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Babcock and Brown?

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember them too. They were a superstar, Babcock and Brown.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  We thought they were Macquarie Bank. I thought they were like Macquarie Bank.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  They were run by ex-Macquarie guys and they were going to be the next Macquarie Bank.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so those are my two that just.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  How did you know about them?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Mate, I was just went and bought stock investor magazines.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  So I was literally just bought magazines, what I buy. And so I just bought, I just see what was tipped in there. So I just bought those two, along with a lot of other ones.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  You bought the story?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I did, but you know what? So I I just, I was able to pay off the margin loan, but I didn't even look at my portfolio. For I reckon four or five years, I was so like, that just hurts me.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  But then maybe, I don't know how many years later though, I just went and had a look. And it was above what it was. It had actually gone up.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  And it was like, I had bought some shares that were like, I didn't, I bought real estate dot com dot A U. And I didn't real, you know, when it was like hardly anything. And then, oh my God, they'd just gone up a hundred times or something. So some of them had gone up. That's when, when I got, went back and looked at those shares, that's when I fell in love with the share market. I said, all right, there is money to be made. There is a way to build wealth here. I'm not ever going to do it through loans, but I'm going to do it through money I earn. And I told my kids that. I said, guys, you go work at Woolly's. My son's got a job at Woolly's. I said, you work a shift, you might get a hundred dollars. Buy with what, fifty of that hundred, buy a B H P share. You know, and if you sit that down, sit it there, it'll, it'll grow in, in, in value.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  And you will get to a point in your life where you don't have to work because the money you've already earned will be working for you.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  So that's the lesson I wanted to teach my kids. And so when they change that CGT to double, to even my son, my son now buys it a fifty dollar or sixty dollar BHP share, if it doubles in value, you know, he's, he's, he might earn five thousand dollars a bullies for the year, but he has to pay thirty percent tax on the profits of that share. Yeah. That, that is just discouraging any kid from building wealth. Yeah. And I just find that insane that this government would do that. And I just think they're, it really offends me that they just think we all should be working on a, for a wage. And all the most we could dream about is having, you know, a unit in Marri, in Marrieville or

• 15:12Speaker 01

  something like that. I feel like the government now are full of people who have never worked in private sector and don't understand the risk or the reward or the work or, you know, that you need some, you need an incentive because you're putting your balls on the line. And the incentive is that if you, if it works for you, that you can get a gain out of it. To take half of it, to make it the, the, the biggest capital gain tax in the world and think that's not something that strivers and people with ambition are going to be offended about. People who can and have the ability to move to Singapore or move to even New Zealand

• 15:54Speaker 01

  now with no zero, zero CGT. So you can move to New Zealand easily because we, they can come here, we can move there. And you could then start a life there. I think we're going to miss out on so many innovators and, and people who can come up with ideas that can take this country beyond what it is. It's just really, I find it really small thinking. And I just, I think what they've done will really hurt the economy in the long run and it will mean that everyone's poorer. So I'm really offended about it. I'm offended on behalf of my children and the, and the kids of Australia and a lot of the. I don't think they understand. I hope one day they'll actually go, hang on, maybe he was on to something. You know, I don't. That's why I'm offended.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Well, what what what offends you the most though? Is it the fact that um they didn't go on election with this like?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yes, that offends me much. You've got to go on.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Or the narrative, the narrative is, oh, we're just trying to do this because all the billionaires are, you know, buying property through the self managed super fund or all the billionaires, which they don't. But all the billionaires, because billionaires don't even care about super funds. They're not, they're not even a million dollars.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  The billionaires couldn't care. Billionaires are gonna be fine.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  They'll, they'll keep.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Man, you know what? I'll be fine.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  But the people who, I'm not a billionaire, but I'm, you know, I'm fine. And so their grandfather did it anyway. So, you know, but whatever, but I, but the, the, then there's no way for the new generation to come through. There's no way for them to.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  So they can't do what you did.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  They can't do what I did.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's the narrative, that's the.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  It is, and I don't know why people don't understand that.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Well, but where do you, I've been trying my hardest to understand the narrative. So the narrative that we are doing this to help the intergenerational inequity, in other words, the inequity that you of course, I of course, for our kids and their cohort. Um, I don't understand how taking away from what made us more wealthy or gave us a level of wealth. Taking it away from a younger generation actually cures the inequity.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  It doesn't, it doesn't, it's ridiculous and.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  But how do you think they can get away with that narrative? I mean, they're getting away with it.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  No, because people don't pay attention. I never paid attention, mate. I never paid attention. But now, and I, you know, I've had money for twenty years, you know, again, well, after that incident with the this G F C. And the fact I was under financial pressure, I never borrowed money again, really. I didn't. I was always, I want to be positively geared. I don't, I don't want to have a situation where I am forced to sell or I'm, I'm gonna do it that way. And, you know, I've been, I've worked hard and I've been lucky and, and, you know, I've had a big income for a long time. And, but I was disciplined and I was, I don't, I've never bought, you know, a fancy boat or I've never bought. I, my family fly, we go, we're going to Singapore in a couple of weeks, but.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  You're gonna set up, you're not, not gonna become an resident.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  No, my wife wants to go there. I mean, I, I don't think it's that exciting, to be honest, but, you know, I've been there. I was there once with Scotty Cam. We're on a, did a corporate gig there. I remember meeting him on a, on a gondola and I thought, other people thought that we might be a couple.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  I know that gondola, it's in that river at the back there.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  So I, so I, um, so anyway, but what was the point there? So, um, we're fine economy. I was, my son is really tall. He's like six foot seven, which is.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  What?

• 18:59Speaker 01

  I know it's crazy. He's mine. We've had the test done. But anyway, he's, um, he, um, you know, should go business. No, mate, you work at Woolies. You want to go business, you, you work four thousand shifts and you might be able to afford a business class seat, mate. You're gonna, you're gonna be, you're gonna be uncomfortable for ten hours. I mean, I mean, it's a real first world problem. But so, yeah, I'm a big one on not wasting money. So, but the government, because it's not their money, they just throw it away obscenely. And that's, I believe that's why we're in the problem we are, because they've just thrown away so much money. And I believe really it's just mainly a cash grab, a tax grab for these people who want to throw away more money. You know, I, I hate it.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Does it bother you that the, the extra money that they say they're gonna raise from the, um, the, the changes to the capital gains tax? That it's not going to be at least given back to your son or at least, you know, they don't go and say, listen, we're gonna save all this money as a result of changing the capital gains tax. But all you young people who are, you know, earning, you know, five thousand bucks, we're gonna change your tax rate so that you can now earn net seven thousand dollars. In other words, you're gonna make, does it bother you that it just gets spent?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  It just gets spent. And I was, partly you'd go, if they were gonna pay off the debt, you'd almost be, okay, does this get rid of this debt? We're like a trillion dollars in debt. It's like, we got to get this down, guys. But that's like they've given up on ever paying off the debt, which is just gonna keep everyone poor forever. I, I mean, I, I, I'm thinking about it a lot. I've, I, I get obsessive, I'm not gonna lie. But I reckon the first fifty, I know that, he, hear me out on this one, because I'm going in a number of rabbit holes, but.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  Well, we love rabbit holes.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  All right. So the, the, the, the, the minimum wage has gone up recently. And obviously you want everyone to have a wage they can live on.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  That's great. But you know what? Who it doesn't affect? It doesn't affect the government, because everyone who works for government is already above minimum wage. The wages in government jobs are, I think, fifty to twenty percent higher than private sector.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Because there's no checks and balances. There's no profit loss to worry about. It's just whatever they like.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  It's not competitive either.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  It's not competitive.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  It's not, and also. Obviously, you've got so many essential services which probably don't get paid enough, but there's a bureaucracy that gets paid way too much for, in my opinion, for not producing anything. Anyway, that's so the government.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  There's no pressure on them to perform or be productive.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Because there's not, there's not a boss sitting above saying, listen, we've got to make profit in this unit. There's, there's no accountability.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  No, it's no accountability. As fast as I can tell. So, so anyway, so the, the minimum wage going up, whatever it went up, doesn't affect the government's, the government's, um, funds because they'd already, they're already, all those people are already above the minimum wage. It affects small businesses, probably mainly.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  And or who are already really struggling. But you know what, who it helps? It helps the government's, um, profit. It helps their taxes.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it made more tax.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they get thirty percent of, of the, the extra bit that the small businesses have to give their workers. And again, I'm, you know, I want workers to have living wages for, but of the money that the small businesses have to, will give the, the, the, uh, minimum wage workers, thirty percent of that money goes straight to the government.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  And increase taxes.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So the government looks like heroes. They look like heroes for organising this pay rise, which again, I, I think they should, people on minimum wage deserve a living wage, obviously. They look like heroes, the government, and they also get a boost to their coffers.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, to the revenue.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  It's a win-win for them.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  But for small businesses who are already on the, on the, on the, right on the edge of existence, it will send some of them to the wall. I reckon that there shouldn't be any tax at all for anyone under fifty-two thousand dollars a year. So if you can earn fifty-two thousand dollars a year.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  No tax.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  You know what? A lot of people get cash anyway. So it's like, and I, you know, I'm, that's, I'm not against cash, but yeah, so anyone up to fifty-two thousand dollars, no tax. So, and I think, and government, rein your spending in if that's a problem, because you are spending such ridiculous sums in other areas, that I think that is a way to boost the economy and to give people, you know, a chance to make their own way, rather than the government taking like twelve thousand of that fifty thousand off them, you know? So in the, if they make fifty thousand now. I think you might get forty, if you're lucky, or maybe thirty eight to you after the Medicare and stuff. So fifty thousand dollars, fifty two thousand dollars.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Net.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  No, yeah, just no tax, no tax.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  So in other words, you lift the um um the the amount of money that you, after which you pay tax to fifty two.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  To fifty fifty grand from, I think it's like twenty one or twenty two thousand at the moment. I've been advocating for a long time, something similar. I mean, I don't see why the government just doesn't do that. Like, all those people who are struggling, we don't even have to worry about wage rises, because all of a sudden they give them wage rises, because the net amount of money they get is is gone up just by thirty percent. That's a thirty percent increase.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  And guess what? The employers aren't paying more.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yes, the employees, the the employees who are, most of them are, I mean, according, I mean, I made, I, because I travel a lot doing stand up comedy, and since I've started these rants on Instagram, but it gets connected to Facebook, I don't really ever look on Facebook. So if you send me a message on Facebook, I'm not reading it. So just because I.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Just remember that.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  You can't do everything, guys. So I'm, I stick on Instagram. If you send me a message on Instagram, I will, and I'm spending way too much time with Instagram messages. My wife's gonna kill me. But um, yeah, so so many businesses are really struggling at the moment. And they, and I just, I've never had this in my life. Obviously, I've never been this political or this outspoken, but so many people every day are saying, thanks for speaking for us. So because they they're they're they're under a lot of pressure.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Who would have, who would have ever thought that Dave Hughes, the comedian and entertainer, would actually start to take a political position? I don't mean as a politician.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I agree. It's bizarre.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Did you ever think that?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  No, no, I probably dreamed of being PM when I was like twelve, maybe.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Really?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  My ego. Billy Hughes was a PM.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember that. Well, I don't remember, but I know.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  It was a famous player. I think it was in the first world.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Are your parents alive still?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  No, they're not. They're both passed.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  What do you think mum and dad would say?

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, look, they would, I'm done with Labour voters, but I just, I know they would be angry at what the government have done. So I'd I'd I'd say that, so, yeah, that it's time, that they can't do what they've done. So but I can't guarantee that. They might not say that, but I think they would.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  So but do you think Labour, old school Labour principles, because I grew up in a Labour family, I grew up in the West Sydney here, it was all Labour, um, do you think Labour principles have changed significantly from when we grew up?

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Well, I think I would say so. I just, I just, I can't remember this level of deception. So. I think so, and it's at a nuclear level, a level of deception. And I just, they just look, they just come across as con artists to me now. I really distrust them. Again, you've got to remember, I'm tempered by the Victorian experience, which has been really bad, really bad. So this is an example of stupidity in Victoria. My niece, I think Dan had just said, free, free, um, free uni for nurses. All right. So, and my niece took that offer up and did a uni studies as a nurse, only recently, and, and passed and loved it.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  And my mum was a nurse and they used to, before my mum passed, she would talk to my niece about nursing and it was lovely. And so she's got her degree and she loves nursing. There was a time where if you got your degree, you would be able to get into a grad, a grad position. All of them got grad positions, but, but now they're not. So now they've, they've cut most of the grad positions. So there's a cohort of nursing students who were lured, not lured, but who were attracted to partly to the degree by it being free. Did the degree like my niece, fell in love with it, and now they cannot get any work. So they can't get a grad position and also.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  But there's no jobs for nurses?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Well, they can't even get, and this is true, it's, I didn't realise, but they can't even get, like, you can get on a register to do like emergency nursing, but they all want experience and you got that experience from the grad year, but they don't get the grad year because they've just cut all the places. And, and there's, this is the same government who are spending just billions and billions on infrastructure work attached to unions. And the, and the, and the workers there are getting so much money that private sector can't get any workers. Cause they're all on this, all on, on these, these infrastructure projects, getting government money at such a crazy rate that no privates. I was, one bloke the other day said he's a builder, his son, he, he made, his son's a chip, he put him through his apprenticeship, his son through his apprenticeship, thought he was going to work with him.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  But his son just said, no, sorry, dad, big bill, the big bill's offered me three times what you're gonna offer me. And so now his son's driving the fancy new car and his dad's like, I don't blame him, the money's crazy. So but it's that's happening all.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Government projects.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're government projects. It's government money. It's our money. So it's taxpayer money, just going to all these. And I don't, again, I don't begrudge any worker getting as much money as they can. I'm not begrudging that.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Anyway, do it. But it's, but what you do begrudge is it's it's taxpayer money.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  It's taxpayer money. So it comes down to the Premier, who is just allowing this to happen. And then all these nursing students who are good nursing and good nurses don't get a grad place. And so some of them, quite a few of them are gonna fall out of the system because it's like, you know, the years will go past and we've got no experience. You've got no experience, so you don't get a job. And because you, you know, so but they, so it's a, it's a vicious cycle for those girls. And I hope my niece doesn't, I hope she gets a place somewhere. But it's just, she said, there's never been happened before where, you know, she was reckons that like sixty to seventy percent of the graduates didn't get a graduate place because there's just no places. Because of the, the government spending money in ridiculous ways.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Chris Minz always listens to this program?

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  At the Premier in New South Wales?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, me and Chris, I don't know him well, but I did radio on Sydney and he came in a few times and I'm like, I like the cut of his jib.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  And he said something actually last night on, I just saw it, his Instagram profile popped up and he said, he's giving back rebates and he said, it's, it's not my, it's not my money, it's yours and I'm giving it back. And I just haven't heard a politician say that for a long time. It's like, he, that's acknowledging that it's, it's not his money. That, and in Victoria, they go, oh, yeah, we're giving you free public transport. We are? No, well, we're giving it to ourselves. It's not your money. You're not doing anything apart from putting us further in debt. It's our money. It's our money that you're borrowing. Then we're gonna have to pay back, you know? So cut the bullshit, you know? But he did that yesterday and I thought, yeah, I, I think they, I actually did an Instagram reel and said, maybe there's a glimmer of hope for Labour, you know, maybe they'll get me back

• 29:30Speaker 01

  one day. But. Um. Yeah, I think, I don't know if he's gonna get back in or whatever, but I think there could be a chance for him federally at some point.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  I I hope so too. And by the way, Chris means we'll gladly welcome all those new Victorian nurses into New South Wales, let me tell you, because we have a nurse shortage. And you'll probably get more money if you come up here.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I will definitely, my, she was talking, my niece was talking about going to Darwin, so I'm not sure where she's at right now. I actually spoke to her the other day, but I'll. I'll ring her after this and just see, yeah, where she's at. I want her to bloody have a career, you know, and she loves nursing and, you know, I want. You know, I want Australians, you know, I don't care where you're from, but if you've got young women or men who have got degrees and have got a passion for nursing. For God's sake, I think some of our hostels would like some, you know, it's just, let's get them in there.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  Can I ask you a question? Like, this is funny. I had Albo sitting there before the last election and, you know, I was doing an interview with him. I had, I also had Dutton, et cetera, but, and I said, and Albo told my story about how we grew up in the housing commission, which is like a dreadful story and his mum had, you know, bad hands and stuff like that and you just have to feed his mum. And for a moment there, I was not feeling sorry for him, but I was empathising with him, let's call it that. And I thought, I thought, and I actually thought to myself. I hadn't really met him before and thought, he's actually a likable bloke.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, no doubt, mate. I've, I've met him a number of times and always gone along really well with him, so.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  But, but, but, but, and, and I, and I get all that stuff, right? I mean, he's likable, but. Do you think that they've taken this all too far? They've actually thought that everyone loves us and that we're all likeable and we can do whatever the hell we like?

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they, they won in a landslide, but they won off a lie. Like, if they had have said what they were gonna do, they prob, they might not have won, they might have. But if they, if they had have taken the risk and gone, guys, I think we're going well, let's tell them what we're gonna do. And then you still win. I'll go, I think it's stupid, but I, I'm not gonna have the level of anger I've got. The level of anger I've got is just. It's next. And, and for the grains to come over the top and add more to it. It's not legitimate. So now the Greens are adding that you can't do this.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Self managed super funds.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, shut up, mate. This is not legitimate. You're not legitimate here. None of this is legitimate. None of this was voted on. This is, it's like an illegal new tax laws because it's just, it has no mandate. Anyway, that was pathetic. So I was trying to get to the Greens. I was going, you guys have the power to restore integrity into our system. So I was putting that out publicly, hoping that one of them might cotton on to it. I got told Nick McKim is the whip. So get to Nick McKim. And I didn't get, I couldn't get hold of him, but I was hitting his page. I was direct messaging, going, mate.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  You're doing me and was he responding?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  No, I don't think he responded. But um, I was like, he probably already decided, obviously. But um, I was late to the party. But it was like. Yeah, I've got businessmen who are ringing me and, you know, who are so, as you would know, is concerned about what's going on. And one guy, he was a lovely guy, said, I'll bankroll you. And I said, mate, I don't need to be bankrolled. Unlike the government, I was disciplined with my money and I invested it wisely. I don't need any money. I'm not doing this for money. So, so I'm not, then people go, you're being paid. I'm not being paid at all.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Would you consider politics?

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Ah, my wife doesn't want me to. No, I don't know. I, I, I love comedy more. Mate, it's actually helped my comedy, to be honest. I've got an edge now, which is. And so my shows are going really well.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Like energy, you got a new energy.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  I've got new energy. It's really fired me up. But you don't have to stop talking. I've stopped thinking about sport, which is unusual for me.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Who's your team?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Well, the weirdly things Carlton Football Club and the AFL, who have been, they had the worst year. The first half of every game, we'd be winning and then we'd lose every game. It was weird. And our coach resigned slash sacked on, I think it was the ninth of May. I was talking, I was driving my son to his basketball training the other night. I said, Google when Michael Voss resigned. And he Googled and said, I think it was ninth of May. I said, Google when the budget was. And he Googled tenth of May. I I went from spending most of my time thinking about a football club that I have no, you know, there's no money in that for me either. Every moment thinking about them to thinking politics the next day and Carlton have not lost a game since. We've won like five in a row and I haven't thought about it at all. But it used to be everything to me. Now I'm just completely thinking about.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Maybe maybe that's the best thing that can happen for Carlton is you stop thinking about.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  I know. I was gonna message the players and say, well done. But I thought, no, stay away. You're I'm no good there. So, yeah, so I'm happy with them to win. But, um, yeah, so and then I've just, oh, yeah, I have just been obsessed since that moment. Since the budget, I've been obsessed.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  You know what this has revealed to me, though? I mean, I I mean, I I know who you are. I I see some skits and stuff from you from time to time. I don't necessarily listen to the TV or the radio that much. What has taught me about Dave Hughes is that you're really well informed and you're really quite thoughtful. Beyond being a comedian, and often we just think of comedians as just being funny, you know, their lines and stuff like that and doing their gigs. But you're quite thoughtful about all this and apart from being obsessed by, which I love, I love obsession. I love being being obsessed obsessed about any topic. But where do you find all your stuff out? Like, you just gave ten stories about ten things you must be following, ten things you must be reading. What are you doing?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I have ideas and I was like, here's another idea I have is that. In the last few years, I've just been walking past tobacconists and thinking, why is there so many tobacconists in Australia now? There never used to be.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  Well.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  And then I, and you know what got me thinking about that was, it was, what's was Tommy Lee, the drummer from Motley Crue, who? He put on Instagram, I think it was Instagram or something, he put on social media, he's been in Melbourne, they've done like, you know, Marvel Stadium or something, so he'd done massive gigs. And he was buying cigarettes in in Melbourne. And he put it, there was like two packets cigarettes or three packets, and it was like a hundred and fifty dollars. And he put it on his, he's like, oh, my God, I can't believe how much people pay for cigarettes in Australia. And we were on radio in Sydney at the time and we weren't getting that, this was early morning and we were not getting a lot of calls early morning. So I just went on radio in Sydney and said, how much you pay for your cigarettes? With no way, I don't smoke. I used to smoke. I get the nicotine addiction. Apparently nicotine is very good for you, but not in the delivery system involving smoke.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  So that it causes cancer. But um, I get the love of.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  But even that, that, I just, I don't want to interrupt, but just that little description.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, yeah.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Is very good.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  A nicotine, but the delivery system of the, the smoke, the way, cause nicotine has got to be carried into your system.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  And it's been carried through smoke, which is not good for you. The, the way you sort of dismiss yourself at the same time, that, that turn of phrase is really, there's very, I'm, I'm actually very. I'm surprised and delighted and uh, but the, the fluency of the way you speak. It's quite amazing, the way you think about things.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Well, being a comedian, you've got to get to the punchline quick, do you think? Like, so you need to. You need, it's an economy of words to get to where you want to go. So you don't, you don't lose the interest of the crowd. So, and I've been doing it for thirty years.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  But the word delivery, that's, that's just a very good, a scientific word, but it's a very good word to use. But sorry, I interrupted you.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Well, I started vaping as well, which about four or five years ago, and that was a terrible idea, cause I got addicted again. So I was hiding my vaping from my wife and it was, I was doing radio on Sydney, but living, my family are in Melbourne, so I was up here a few days a week and it was like. It was, it was a bad situation just cause I was just, it's so Moorish. So I ended up quitting that and told her about, anyway, whatever. So. I, I know the, I know the love of nicotine and I know if you're into it, you've got to find it.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  And if you're addicted, you're gonna, you're gonna find it. So, but we're on radio and I said, how much you pay for your cigarettes? We, the board lit up straight away. No one paid more than fifteen dollars. I'm like, what's going on? And then that's when I realised, oh, hang on, there's an illegal cigarette market I didn't know about. And then I thought, oh, hang on, that's why there's all these tobacconists, which are still all open.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  And I'm like, all right, so there's billions of dollars being. Being, being shipped out of this country.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Not taxed.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Not taxed.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Cause they'll be paying cash.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. So not taxed. So there's billions of dollars probably leaving the country in shipping containers, which has gone to, gone forever. And, and it's coming from all these tobacconists, which are in plain sight. They're all in the main streets. They're the only two businesses that I can see in Australia, which have increased their visibility on main streets in the last 20 years is tobacconists who obviously sell illegal tobacco and massage centres, which we know what they sell. So, and they are everywhere, both of those businesses. They're the only two businesses I've seen rise and none of them, very little tax are being paid.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Two poisons.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  But yeah, and I get both. Don't get me wrong, I get both, but there's no tax being paid. So criminals basically are operating both businesses. I mean, not everyone, obviously, and I want to get sued, but you know, I think we all know what I mean. So there is money, cash money, leaving this country through those two ways. And I'm talking, it must be billions and billions of dollars. Why aren't our governments going, no, no, I see you, I'm shutting you down.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I just, I, I walked, I was in Bondi recently and I walked past, no, it wasn't Bondi, I was in the city, I was in Oxford Street. And I walked past a tobacconist, it had a sign on it. This business has closed for three months because of selling illegal tobacco. And I thought, all right, Chris Means has actually got onto it. This, I've never seen that sign in Victoria. And so it's closed for three months. I thought, are they all closed in the area? Surely you can't get illegal cigarettes anywhere near this joint, because this place has been raided. The next joint was like a hundred metres up the road, walked in, fifteen dollar cigarettes, just blatant. Like, so this one's been shut, this one up the road. And then I heard, then I found out that, that, that the one that's just shut will just open when it's allowed to

• 39:12Speaker 01

  and just start selling illegal cigarettes again. So it's just so much money leaving this country. Why don't the governments go, all right, the, the tax is way too high, people are still gonna smoke and have that. I saw Pauline Hanson talk about it.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Which I, I don't know if she's following my Instagram, but I put this on quite a while ago. So it's like, that's common sense to go, what are we gonna do here? There's a problem, let's fix it. Why isn't anyone in the government fixing it? When so much money is spent on wages in our government, so, so much money.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  As long as they haven't got enough resources to chase it out.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  They've got so many resources, mate. They're, they're in so much money.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  What are they doing all day? I don't know.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  And maybe if they collect the tax on that stuff and the tax on the income that they're earning, not, not just the, the um GST, but

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yes, you're right, yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  The actual income from the profits of these people making, they probably do need to make changes to, to the capital gains tax. They could have left it the way it was.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  It's just crazy why they're, they could, there's so much money to be earned lawfully. If anyone in the government would do some work and think, not just, oh, there's so many crazy situations. I was doing a gig on a, on a, at a coal mine recently and um, I, I just said, how much coal? I said, how much, what's that pile of coal worth? It was a big dust pile. I said, that's probably a couple of billion dollars. I said, where, where's it going? I said, a lot of this stuff goes to Europe. So what's going on? We're not allowed to burn it here, but we can sell it and they can burn it. I don't, that's weird. Like, that's just virtue signaling. It's one planet. So if you believe that coal kills the planet, why are you letting other countries burn it?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Why don't we just burn it? You know what I mean? As if you're

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause they wanna, cause they're gonna be able to say, we don't do it.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  It's virtue signaling.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  They do it.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  They do it and then we buy the products back.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  We buy the steel back.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yes. It's like, what, what's going on here, guys? This is not, you're not helping the planet. You might, maybe someone in the UN gave you, gave you a pat in the back, but it's ridiculous and we are so broke that we need to have these conversations.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Do you think it's stupidity or deception?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  I think it's a bit of both. I don't, I think stupidity plays a massive part.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Or laziness.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Like, yes, yes, laziness is a big part of it, is what I believe. It's laziness. Well, you look at this budget that just, every second day, they're going, oh, there's a new, like today, that was like, we found out that Jim Chalmers on radio this morning saying, yes, if, if a couple own an investment property in both their names, if one of them dies, well, then it goes back in and you've got to pay the whole.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Starts all over again. In other words, you don't get the, you don't get grandfathered under the old capital gains tax provisions.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  So a, a, a wife or a husband could be grieving their, their, their suddenly departed partner and then gets slapped with a massive tax from the government.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that's like a death tax.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  It's a tax as a result of death.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  So, so Jim Chalmers confirmed that this morning on radio. I did a reel about it at about 10 o'clock because people were saying, do a reel about this. And I'm like, all right, sure. And it's, there's so much comedy in it. It's just ridiculous. And then in the afternoon, apparently Elbow said, no, we're not going to do it anymore.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Changed your mind.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they haven't thought about it.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  It's not been thought about. They've done these massive changes which affect every single person and they haven't thought about it. They've done their homework.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  So Hughesy, what do you think then about the so-called consultation, the Senate inquiry, the two days?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  It was ridiculous. It was involved all their mates, uni students. It not really annoyed me and I've, I've been public about this. The, the only business founder they could find to support the changes after, a few days after the budget was on the front of the City Morning Herald and probably the front of the Age and other papers as well. And I thought, who's this bloke? Because I have not seen a business person happy with this. His name was Tom Hurt and he's like, and I, I'm going to Google this bloke, see what he does. He was a, a political consultant who used to work in government till recently and then started his own political consultancy business or so, or economic, whatever. And I looked at all these clients, government agencies. So the only person they could find to say the tax changes were good

• 43:09Speaker 01

  was someone who's always made money from the government and is continuing to do that.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  And, and.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  And that was on the front of the City Morning Herald. It was ridiculous and it was embarrassing for that, for that publication to have that person on the front. Of course. I mean, if if I'm making money off the government and that's my main source of income, you know, you think I'm gonna go, I don't know, I mean, I.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  But what do you think?

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Can we get sued? I don't know.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  No.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  But anyway, so.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  No, you're not bagging him, you're not.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  No, I'm just saying, I just wasn't, if you can't find someone who's actually properly in the private sector, don't put them on the front of the paper.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Mate, cause it's ridiculous.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  But what, why do you think, it's nearly like you're a lone voice. I mean, I've been trying my best to be like, there's not a lot of voices.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  People are too worried, people are just watching the World Cup now, and that was me till recently. You guys watch sport. See, we watch so much sport in this country that everything else just happens.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  But do you think, do you think it's because people don't give a shit or um we don't understand it or?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Mate, I possibly with the CGT and the share market thing, cause I lived it. And I was able to acquire wealth from share investing and basically just sitting on shares forever, which I still do. I'm not a trader at all. Sit on a share, think that's a good company. I mean, years ago, I saw everyone holding their Apple phones and I thought, so sick of they're taking all our money. But hang on, you can't beat them, join them. So I bought Apple shares.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  Ha.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean? So now every time I see someone holding an Apple phone, well, thank you, you're helping my business. But they, Albo doesn't understand that's the way to make money. He's never done it. He's made all his money off the government, just his income. He's clearly never invested in shares, clearly. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done what he did so flippantly. And Chalmers is just a, he's got a political science degree. He loves Paul Keating. It is PhD on Paul Keating. Paul Keating is the only person I've seen who's said, yeah, keep going, Jim. They've obviously got some sort of love relationship. It's ridiculous. And he's, he's got no idea, no idea.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  One of the things I would, I would make a comment about Paul Keating is, as I understand it, is that Keating was one of the original proponents of proponents of capital gains tax being, you take your cost base and you add inflation to it. But then when Costello came in, Costello got rivet. Costello said, that's too complicated. People have to try and work out what the CPI is every year and add it on. So what Costello did in ninety eight or ninety seven, whatever it was, when they got voted in, he just said, you know what, from now on, whatever your gain is, you'll pay tax on half of it. Yeah. It was simple. So.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  And can I say on Costello, which I'd, I'd not give him enough credit. The day, and I just read this recently, Australia became debt free just before Kevin O Seven.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, two thousand and six.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  So the guy who halved, the basically halved the capital gains tax when he first came in.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  By the end of his, by the end of his time, we had no debt.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  He was the first person ever to talk about intergenerational inequity.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  And he said in two thousand and six, and he said in two thousand and six, or five or six, he said, the way to fix intergenerational inequity, in other words, it's not a, it's not a Jim Chalmers invention. It's been talked about twenty years ago.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  He said, the way to fix it is to make sure that we do not pass on national debt to our children. So.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Thank you. That's what, every time they spend money, I think about my kids having to pay it off. So the what, because the kids have to pay, because the country has to pay interest. The only way they can afford to pay interest is they're going to get it from tax. Anyway, and as the interest bill goes up and up and up, I've got to charge more tax. So he said, I'm going to do two things. One, I'm going to get rid of the deficits and get rid of our debt. So in two thousand and six, or whatever it was, we had no national debt.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  And we're running surpluses and the first surplus he took out was three or four hundred billion dollars. He put it into the.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  No, no, the future fund.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Future fund.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  We have never had since him, one dollar contributed to that future fund from any treasurer ever since.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Mate, I had a Kevin O Seven T-shirt on the ninety one and Johnny Howl got kicked out of his seat. I was celebrating, if I had a time machine, I'd go back, because our debt started from that moment.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  He did, I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to Google how much it costs to have that summit that Kevin O Seven had. Kevin had the summit.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Where he got all his celebrities in for a gab fest. I wonder how much that costs, because I don't think anything was achieved, but, you know, I mean, Kevin said sorry to the stolen generation and that was great, but I don't know anything else he did that was positive. And I, we just started spending money like drunken sailors. And, you know, then the GFC happened, Kevin just said, have all this money. So he just, he basically just, I think he got rid of the future fund real quick.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Real quick.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  Well, it, it's a bit of a shame that we talk about um, intergenerational inequity when we're going to pass on to them this massive debt. I mean, my grandkids are going to have to pay off that debt.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think we need to start now. I honestly do. And there's just, look, another bug there of mine, which is, came across me slowly, but I was like. Just the everyone I talk to and look, I've I've got family members who are using the NDIS and you know, and it is in in many ways, it's great and it definitely. It's an important thing, yeah. But the rorting on it is just so off the charts that it has that has really helped send us broke. And I know the Greens want to keep it the way it is, but mate, I'm just you're just hearing stories of Lamborghinis turning up at an NDIS provider parties and it's like, what is going on here?

• 48:26Speaker 01

  And I was I was in I was in a park the other day and a woman came up to me and she had a she had a woman with dementia with her. And you know, and she was looking after a one on one, which was lovely. The woman with dementia was in her early sixties and she's and but she got talking and she said, I am making double what I used to make in daycare doing this. And I saw that's good. And then she goes, but I could I could make four times if I it it it's a to the cap. So I'm charged to the cap. If you're charged to the cap, so there's every that. Provider. Charged to the cap. And she said, I I felt feel too guilty charging that much money. I'm like, what's going on here? And she's also said that a the woman's husband was rich, but it's not means tested.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  And that he's retired, but he just didn't tell them. So there there's no oversight to the NDIS and I'm pretty sure it's at least double, if not more than what it was projected to be, because no one is looking after that money. It's insane. It's so much money being, of course, people need good care, but there's so much being stolen, basically, because the governments don't do their job. They just don't do their job. They think their only job is to get more tax off people and basically disincentivize work, where they should actually use the money we pay them every day to do work. To save money for the country, they just don't do it.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  And to make us more, more wealthy or increase our standard of living.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Mate, the more money we give the government, the poorer we are because their use of our money is disgusting.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Well, that was Kerry Packer's famous line in that Senate inquiry.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I keep thinking of that. Someone told me that yesterday and I, and I remember I actually, someone mentioned to me, I said, yeah, I do think of it. Why would I give the money to you?

• 50:13Speaker 00

  You don't spend it very well.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yes. And I'd never, I thought you fat, rich asshole. That's what I thought at the time, but now I think, oh God, he was right.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Because, because Kerry might have been overweight and he might have been rich, but he was always right.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  He was smart.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  He was to the point and he didn't care who he offended.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  And, and, and that's why I want to talk to you about, do you get worried? I mean, look, look what's happening in Dakar at the moment. I mean.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Oh mate, I just look, I.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Do you get worried about being outspoken? That's my point.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  No, I, I've been like, I've had many a pile on. So, and early on, yeah, during COVID, I had massive pile on.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Now, what about now though?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Now, not as much. No, because I know a lot, look, I, I believe that a lot of the criticism online is paid. I believe, and I'm, I'm pretty sure during COVID it was paid.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Definitely organised.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  It's organised and I think it's paid.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I think it's paid. A lot of the, most of the sites have no followers. It's paid. So I'm being, so I, I believe my taxpayer money, my money is being paid to try to humiliate me.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  So I, I get that. And, um.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  But that's part of the game.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, yeah, but when you know.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  But not, not cool.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Not cool, but yeah, but when you know, when you know you're right, you're, you know, what I say, I, when, when I say something or when I put a reel up, I'll have people insult me. You're, you're fat, you're old, you're not funny, or you're ugly, or you know, blah, blah, blah. You're rich and I've done jokes. That's not really an insult, but you know, so. But, um, um, I, I always say to them, yeah, that's all very well, but can you just rebut what I've said? And they never can. They're never rebutting what I've said. They're just attacking the person. And that's not, talk about my argument. You make me think that I'm wrong. You're not gonna do that by calling me ugly. You're gonna do that by giving me a point that I hadn't thought of. But very, very rarely does it happen. So it's like, and I, I, I know I'm doing it for the right reasons.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I know I'm doing it for the future of the country. So I'm very confident that I'm doing the right thing. And but also partly getting flack online is good for my children to see it because they say I don't worry about it.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  Do they watch, they read your stuff?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, yeah, they do. And they say all the pylons and that, but and that's, you know what? But you know, this under sixteen, like, you know, off the social media, which didn't work, by the way. We have no, no one's addressed the fact that it has not worked.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, and no one said a word about it.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  They're still all on the, they're still on the internet. So there's another waste of how many hundreds of millions. It didn't work. Sounded good, didn't work. Anyway, so, but I didn't ever want them to get off the internet. I want my children to know that you are always in control of your own head. And no one can get to you if you don't let them. You make every decision. I make every decision about my life. I'm in a good mood because I decided to be in a good mood. If I'm in a bad mood, I've decided that. So I'm controlling my complete reality. No one else is.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  So accountable for yourself.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  I'm accountable for myself, but also, yeah, so I want my children to be accountable for themselves and not to play the victim, not to. And I want them to stay present as well. If you stay present, you don't have any problems. You stay right now, there's no issues. I mean, obviously I'm on a rant, but, but in the end of the day, if I'm present and in the, breathing is winning. If you're breathing, you're winning. So.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  That's the lowest common denominator, for sure.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Everything else is not. So you breathe, you win. And so, and you're complete control of your reality. You actually do create your own reality. So I, I'm seeing you now, but that's my perception of you. You don't even know what my perception of you is.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  I don't know how you see me now.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  You look very handsome man, don't get me wrong.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  You too.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Thank you, appreciate that. So, but yeah, so I'm all for personal accountability. So whatever is said on the internet, I used to be like, block them, arrest them, you know? Now, I realize that was my ego.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  How old are your kids?

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Seventeen, fifteen and thirteen.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the fifteen and thirteen year are affected by the social media rules.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, yeah, but they're not because they're still on it.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  They're all on it.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  All their friends would be on it.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yeah. They said, I said to them the other day, they all on it. So some of them go up, they get blocked, but then they just get back on it. So it just hasn't worked.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  But again, I don't care about that because I, although I mean, I would like them to be less on, I'm not worried about what they, I'm just wish, I wish I didn't stare at the phone as much, you know. Well, I think we all wish we didn't stare at the phone as much.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do too.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Yes, but that, but that didn't work.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  But that's part of our life now.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  So we shouldn't wish what, what is part of our life. I mean, we're not going to change this. It's become systemized. I mean, do you do doom scrolling and all that sort of stuff?

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Oh god, yeah. It's when you're like, when you're, you're tired, you're getting bad, especially when I'm away. And I'm on my own, so I get in bed and I'll just have a look for five seconds. Then you're like, I've just lost two hours where I should be asleep.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, that five seconds goes really fast.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  I've got to get more sleep.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And so can I ask you one quick question? I may not want to comment about it, but what do you think of Pauline at the moment?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Look, I, I, look, I'm, I'm not a One Nation supporter, but you know, some of, some of the stuff she says is simple and it, it needs to be acted on. I don't know if she's got enough people to do it properly. I don't. I wish the Liberals would get themselves together. I'm a big fan of the Liberal leader in Victoria, Jess Wilson.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  She's, she seems great, but it looks like she hasn't got enough behind her.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  I think she'll get across the line down there.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Do you?

• 55:16Speaker 01

  I do.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  That's a November election, isn't it?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just don't, even though, even though the, you know, there's so many people paid by the Victorian government to, you know, and I get that. They've, they've spent so much money to stay elected. I just think people are so sick of it down there. Oh, look, if the Victorian government get back in, I, there'll be, there's already mass exodus from Melbourne or from, if they, they get back in. People are going to leave in droves. Seriously, and Melbourne will start to empty out. People are so sick of it. So I don't know how she could get back in, but there is a concern about where the preference is going to go. They don't have any candidates One Nation in, in Victoria, so I don't know what they're going to do.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Because it's not that far away, it's ended like four months ago.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  I don't know. So I don't know, I'm not sure how that's going to work. I just hope that somehow the Liberals and One Nation can just work it out that the Labor don't get back in. There's just too much money being stolen. The, the, the population is too demoralized. Seriously, they cannot get back in.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  Do you, do you, do you think that Pauline's messaging is sort of a, a really good indicator of how? Peeved off Australians are and that they're just willing, even though Poland hasn't got really got it all put together yet, like in terms of policies and the membership and everything. But they're so peeved off, they'll just go anywhere as an alternative.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, look, to be honest, I think sometimes when you're like, you have money, you get disconnected from reality a bit. Like, you know, me and you now, as in, the problems of the people who don't have money aren't our problems. And the people who don't have money are so annoyed. And I've, I've discovered that. They're like, mate, thank you for opening your eyes to all the, I think if you don't have money or much money and you're getting, you know, taxed forty percent of the money you've got. And you're still struggling to pay all your bills and you see the governments just waste so much money, I think it's infuriating.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  So it's not just the taxes, it's wastage.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  It's, it's the combination. It's, it's the, it's knowing you're, I don't, I don't mind. If, if all my money went to pay off the, the debt, I'd be happy.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  But it doesn't. They just create more bullshit. And the more bullshit they create, they're terrible money managers, terrible ideas people. It just makes everyone poorer. So, yeah, so I don't know what's gonna go on there, but I, you can understand why the two major parties have been basically sidelined.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  And do you think, do you think there's something in her simplicity of her messaging though?

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  And consistency.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  I mean, because the other parties have become too complicated.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I just wanna say one thing about, cause a lot of people I know say, oh my God, if you vote One Nation, you're completely racist, right? No, that's, that's the big thing. But I tell you what, there's, there's a lot of migrants coming up to me going, are you gonna vote One Nation? I am. You know, like, so it's like, I imagine they've got a lot of migrants who are gonna vote for them, basically. So, and that's, it's gonna be hard for a lot of bill to compute. That, you know, that supposedly really racist party has all these migrants voting for them.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Well, because all migrants aren't, don't all fit the same category.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I know, but migrants who, migrants who want, my, business owners who are migrants are so angry.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  They're angry like everyone is. Everyone's angry. And, and hardworking people are angry. At, at no matter ethnicity or, you know, religion or anything else, all demos. They're angry because their life is really expensive for them now and they feel like the government aren't taking it serious.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  And there's no clear pathway for them to get ahead.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Be different if there was a, like, I could see, I know how I'm gonna get there.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  I'm gonna buy property, I'm gonna save someone on the capital gain or whatever it is. All the pathways, pathways have been closed.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  And it's difficult to get, get further ahead. Finally, bad news for you today mate is that the Senate approved the legislation today. So it's got passed. Well, Dave, you stop.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  My wife wants me to, but um depends, there's just material keeps coming my way. Oh God, I don't know. It's, it's, I'm in a weird zone because honestly, I've, I've been well known for a long time, but last month I've had so many people congratulate me like I'd, like I'd kick the winning.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  Well, I'm gonna congratulate you myself. Like, I mean, I know, seriously, because, because someone like you come out of left field unexpectedly.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  But it's not just that, it's the, the way you've articulated, it's the way you talk about it and the consistency of it and also the passion and, and like the full passion and you're not some, you know, rich guy who went to a fancy school, you know, you come from the right environment. I mean, you can actually talk with credibility, so to speak, on the topic, not to say everyone else is not credible, but you come with real credibility. And you're doing it so well, you're doing a great job, but it'd be just a shame for it to stop all of a sudden. And I wonder about these things.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  I, I think, I think this budget is gonna make it a really tough 12 months or longer, but I think, I think it's, the property market dropping as much as it's gonna drop, I think will rock the economy. And there'll be less, there'll be, the, the, the state government's gonna have so much less money because the stamp duty's just gonna disappear.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  In Melbourne, there's no one buying houses. It is dead. I was speaking to a real estate guy today, he said, the young people don't wanna buy houses. They don't wanna do it. They said it's, they, they've gotta, they'll be tied to debt. They've just been put off the whole thing.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  And house prices are going down.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  It's not helping. They don't, they don't want them.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  But the house next to us is for sale and a woman next door said, are you gonna buy it? I said, no, I'm not buying it. I don't wanna buy anybody. Even though, no, you're tied to something that they can tax you extra on at the whim and you're, you're still stuck. It's just, no. So I just think it's gonna be a really tricky time economically for this country for quite a while. I hope it, I hope I'm wrong. And I was chicken little, just saying the sky's gonna fall in and it hasn't. I hope that's right. I really do. And everyone can go, look at you, you're just an attention seeking wanker. Nothing happened. We're all as happy as we've ever been. I hope that's true. I want my children to have a, a great life in a great country, which is this country.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Dave Hughes for treasure, mate. I'm serious.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Thank you, mate.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  You talk too much sense.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Oh mate, just stop spending, stop wasting our money.

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Totally.