Afternoons with Michael McLaren - Monday, June 23rd

You can text if you like zero six zero eight seven three eight seventh three, but you know, talk radio is meant to be a communication, a conversation between me and you, so it's always the open line that takes precedent. Well, you can email as well, obviously there is just go to TGB dot com click on the feedback icon. I'll have a few words to say in just a moment about the very significant events, and they are very significant

events over the weekend. The Americans haven't militarily involved themselves in Iranian territory since nineteen seventy nine, so the fact that that has been happening over the weekend is significant in and of itself. But other things are happening I'll speak later this hour. As I was saying to Mark to Tom Ducevich is the policy editor at the Australian Rights Well and he had a very interesting article to do with the decline in birth rates in Australia. But

this is now becoming a global issue. There are some areas, parts of Africa, subcontinent, whatever, where having babies are certainly still very much the thing. But in many other places, certainly in the more productive parts of the world economy, people are having fewer and fewer children. Now. The South Koreans have forgotten how to have babies. I think they need a bit of a sort of birds and bees lesson.

They're in soul because they're just not having any. But in other places, even Italy, Germany, other places in Europe, the Russians, the population is in decline. If it weren't for migration, Japan's a mess in that respect, and if it weren't for migration going backwards as well. The truth is, with no productivity growth, it is only immigration which is growing the national GDP per capita, there's no growth. In fact, there's been a recession for I think nine of the

last twelve quarters or something. But for a national GDP figure. The growth, unbroken growth is only coming because we are importing more than we're exporting as far as human capital is concerned. Now, that won't go on forever either, and even if it does, the quality that comes in might decline. And so we've got to look at this. The whole world has to look at this. And I said to Mark, and we've raised this a few times on this show,

because it's a big issue that needs thinking. Let's just assume that some of the boffins, the bright people are now right, and by twenty one hundred the global population reaches its zenith, after which it starts to decline. Even Africa and India or aren't going to prop us up. They're having fewer and fewer by that point. So the modeling suggests, what does that mean for your superbalance? What does that mean for how we understand trade? Yeah, I

mean these are things we've got to consider. The entire global stock market system is predicated on more and more consumers turning up every five minutes. If they don't, and we can't do anything about productivity, and by that point, of course, AI will be running a muck. What does that mean for the value of your assets or that which you will hand down to your children and your grandchildren. What does this mean for government tax? What does this

mean for all sorts of different things. These are big issues. I'm not sure we've yet got the answers. I'll talk to Tom Ducevich about that. Michael Pembroke after one o'clock a fascinating manner historian and author. You might have known his work because years ago, I'm sure I spoke to him about his book to do with Arthur Phillipp, credible book. When he's got another one out now, it's called Silk, Silver, Opium,

The trade with China that change history. And if you want to understand what's going on in the West China relationship at the moment, you've got to understand the Chinese perspective as much as the Western perspective. Now, as you know, I am not sympathetic in any way to the Chinese Communist Party or any of their ideology. They are dangerous that I've made my points about that very clear a

million times. But equally, if we want to ride this out as best as possible, if we want to avoid war with China, and that should be the goal, to avoid war with China, because that would be bloody and messy. They're not Iran, They're a different kettle offici altogether, you don't want to be messing with them. So if we want to avoid it, we've got to understand their point of view as well. I'm not sure enough people do.

And part of the Chinese mental position is informed by the events from the late eighteen hundreds through to nineteen twelve, and by nineteen twelve they lost control of their own sovereignty effectively at the hands of Western traders, Western governments, western imperialists. They call it the Great Humiliation. They're not going to let that happen again, not without a fight.

And so that's what's informing their positioning. And you look at a lot of the pinch points at the moment South China see Tai one whatever I mean, these were all critical areas in that decline of the Chinese imperial system at the hands of Western traders and Western governments. Now that's all outlined in this book, Silk Silver Opiu. It's a rather beautiful book to look at as well. I'll speak to the author after one o'clock. Sam Purcell will be in for Trent today for drive. Sam does

wonderful job. So if you've got some questions about your motor vehicle one point thirty give us a call. Sam Purcell will be here. A Legras spender will join me after two o'clock. The Independent for Wentworth the teal. I want to talk to Allegra about tax now. To give her some credit, she was basically the only one talking about the need for significant taxation reform leading into the

last election. It did her campaign no end of good to talk about that because a lot of people in that part of town understand that we need to have

reform and just on tax, just on tax. By chance, I suppose, as you know, my uncle passed away mid last week and so as a family we've been looking at the funeral and you know, you get the funeral parlor in they discuss what has to happen and this and that, and you get the summary of costs x thousand for a coffin x thousand for the services of the undertakers, and you go through and then as one of the bylines, one of the items itemized figures popped

up sixty three dollars. They said, what's that? That is the New South Wales government clipping the ticket sixty three dollars. Now why do they do that? Did you know they taxed you when you died? They do, And I looked it up and this is all justified because they say cemeteries and crematory at New South Wales CCNSW, they regulate cemeteries and crematoria in the state. They say, our work is funded by the Internment Services levee. And this is a levee. That's a four letter word for tax on

cemetery and crematoria operators. Now, these people will be paying tax anyway, probably payroll tax and company tax and this tax, and they'll be paying tax right. But on top there's a levee which you give posthumously or your descendants do. And for a cremation it's forty one dollars. For an ash internment, it's sixty three. For a burial, it's one hundred and fifty six dollars. You can't avoid it tax and you're dead. I mean, this is the we are

taxed left, right and center. We have discussed not that long ago, these parking levees, you know, they call it the parking space levee. And there's taxes applied to the CBD, North Sydney, Saint Leonard's, Crow's Nest, Paramatta and I think somewhere else again and Dijunction. Why because they can they can, and so they bung these taxes on the people that operate parking facilities. They then have to pass that cost

on to you the user. And in part that's why when you go into the city and you want to park, it's eighty three dollars for an hour and a half because the operators they've got to make a profit. They're not charity, but equally they've got to pay the tax per spot per annon to the state government. Now, what does the state government do to improve the quality of the car park or secure the cars in there? They

do nothing nothing. They just take the money. Right, And these are the same polukahs that's straight face down the line of the barel of the camera. We're doing everything we can to help with your costal living pressures. Look, the more you look into it, the more you realize they're lying out the side of their mouth and they clip it left, right and center. There's a report today

in the Australian. This is coming out of the Australian Industry group that if you're in business in this country, you're being hit with more than one hundred federal and state government imposed taxes and levies. Who'd run a business who could be bothered when you're being belted by up to one hundred different federal and state government taxes and levies, And they say here it makes the effective tax rate now the second highest among the OECD, only behind Columbia.

And as the article went on to say, when state government and other micro taxes imposed on small, medium, and large scale businesses are factored in, it's now estimated that the total tax revenue collected by state and federal jurisdictions is actually close to three hundred billion dollars a year. Now, that's considerably higher than the headline figure for company tax of one hundred and forty four billion a year stealth taxes. And they wonder why a lot of businesses are going broke.

Not rocket science. So we'll look at all of that with a legal spender after two o'clock, almost twenty past twelve. Well, for a few months now, the trader's on Wall Street of I've been throwing around that term taco taco, as it turns out as an acronym, and it's short for Trump always chickens out, the theory being that the president talks a big game lob's idle threats, but then gets

cold feet and backs down when the going gets tough. Well, some have been positioning their trades accordingly, hedging that under Trump the status quo will eventually prevail. However, after a set of American B two bombers drop six thirty thousand pound bunker busters on Iran's fourd hour nuclear enrichment facility, I think the boys on Wall Street might need to

look for a different theory. As we said on the show last week, it was very unlikely that Israel and the United States would settle on diplomacy this time around. Certainly Israel America entering the conflict in spectacular fashion. Well that's short to grab the headlines. But it's been the IDF and Mossad that have softened up Tehran and put the Mullers on the back foot. The Americans have then come in like a heavyweight fighter and delivered an enormous

right hook to the regime. It's now on the canvas and I think the referees counting to ten now Israel's determination to crush Hamas and Hezbolla removed Iran's front line.

Their opportunistic strikes on Syrian military installations with the fall of a Sad further weakened Iran's proxy military machine waves of targeted assassinations, exploding pages who could forget them, and then strategic aerial bombardment of Iranian missile and nuclear facilities, not to mention arms of government like the State TV channel have just bludgeoned the Islamic Republic into a corner.

All of a sudden. The Iotola looks very mortal, indeed, and his regime is virtually without leverage, and it's in survival mode. As Trump said in his address to the Nation yesterday, quote, Iran must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. The Iotola himself is a potential target. Despite

the reputation, Trump isn't an isolationist. What the Mullers and I think much of the commentary misunderstand is that his America First ideology is open to precision and lethal strikes on enemies abroad. He authorized such in his first term. What they don't countenance, though, in America First, is the United States being dragged into lengthy foreign wars in far away locations. So look, don't expect to see American boots

on the ground in Tehran anytime soon. But equally, don't think that he won't approve that is Trump additional rounds of military intervention in the weeks ahead. If Iran doesn't come to the table with a plan that involves the complete dismantling of their domestic nuclear capacity and regime change, then Israel and America will pound them until they do. And interestingly, for all the talk in the Middle East of Israel being the great Satan, just watch how few

Arab states actually protest any of this. Of course, Australia's view on what's happening is vers virtually irrelevant, governed as we are by people that just don't seem to grasp

the bigger picture. But it was telling that whilst the official reactions from Britain and even the EU tacitly endorsed the American intervention by reiterating without qualification that Iran must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon, we offered a dripping, wet rhetorical fur ball of diplomatic nothingness that read and I quote the security situation in the region is highly volatile, and we continue to call for de escalation, dialogue,

and diplomacy. As I said, irrelevant. Whilst the Israelis and the Americans drop ordinance, we drop some alliteration. But with all of that said, I guess the question turns to what next, what next? And this is where the Americans have let themselves down in the past, especially in the Middle East. Getting Sadam was the easy part, likewise scuttling the Taliban from Kabul. But winning the peace, well, that's

a whole other ball game. And if the Americans learnt anything from both Iraq and Afghanistan, it should have been that you can't just impose democracy on a country. Rather, it has to flourish from within. It's got to be fertilized and incubated from within. And the Iranian people are wary of Western intervention in their domestic political affairs. After all, they had a sort of democracy back in the nineteen fifties and it paved the way for a fellow called

Muhammad Mosaday to become the prime minister. Now, the only problem for the British in the United States was that Mossiday didn't get the memo that under no circumstances was he to interfere with their tidy little earner, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company today we call it BP. So when he nationalized Iran's vast oil assets in nineteen fifty one, MI six and the CIA launched Operation Ajax with the support of the army, they stirred up street mobs, and

by nineteen fifty three the kup Datar was complete. Mossiday was sent to prison, the Shah took control, but the seeds of the Islamic Revolution were simultaneously sown. Fast forward some seventy two years, and now it's the revolutionary's turn to perhaps face revolution. Waiting in the wings somewhere in the United States is Reziplavi, the son of the exiled Shah. Other candidates to await the tap on the shoulder to replace the Iotola and the Revolutionary Guard should the military

abandon them. Some reports suggest as few as fifteen percent of the Iranian populace actually support the current leadership fifteen percent. The average Iranian enjoys an equivalent standard of living as a person on Vanuatu, with a per capita GDP of just seven thousand dollars sanctions have hurt the economy, Oppressive theocratic dogmas have held back innovation and freedom. In other words,

all the ingredients are there to spark an uprising. However, a proud people with great history will be very aware that although the Israelian American militaries have smashed the Iyatola's ability to project power externally, they haven't completely crippled his henchman's capa to project power internally. And in two thousand and nine and again in twenty twenty one, huge protests swept Iran people calling for change. On both occasions, the

regime deployed force and they held on. And although there is absolutely no doubt this time they are at their weakest within Iran itself, the regime still holds the whip hand, albeit tenuously. Shaye Grivara knew a thing or two about regime change, and he once famously said, a revolution is not an apple that falls when it's ripe, rather that you have to make it fall. In the case of Iran, the apple is certainly ripe. Trump's even just hit it

with a squirt of glyphosate. But it's the Iranians themselves. He'll have to shake it from the tree. So that's all going on. It's a rather busy and heavy news cycle. We'll cover it all as best as we can for you, thinking for the feedback coming through. But of course some people are sort of they're living on the same planet as us, but they're just in another realm, you know,

and maybe it's nice where they are. Casein point, the story that was presented to me this morning by Brianna concerning the artistic community in Tasmania, which I think is rather populated, and it says here a Tasmanian museum owner has created the world's first animal pooh painting competition because she's passionate about destigmatizing feces, but she also likes to have fun, right, So this is what I mean. You know, like there are certain you know, the bulk of the

news cycle. The average person who's half tuned in, you know, they're seeing bombs drop on Iran and bunker busters and beaters and all these names like four Doah and is Fahan and mean nothing to us all of a sudden, irrelevant. Yeah, down on the Apple aisle, they're down to the Apple They've got artists painting with animal pooh. As Joel says, a real life artist. Yes, well, that's probably quite right anyway. Her name is Karen Kosh and she's the c beator

and owner of Poosium, a primarily science museum. I think that's near Richmond from memory, Richmond, which is a nice town in Tasmania. Anyway. Last year she invited artists to submit works made with animal pooh in her inaugural competition called poo Tastic Tasmanian paid off with a two thousand dollar prize on offer for the winner. You know, yeah, it's not quite the archibals, but you know it will

get there eventually. After a successful first year, the contest has returned this year, asking artists to paint expressive portraits made with animal pooh. Oh. Here's a photo of Karen Oh. Yes, okay anyway. A commissioned portrait of a former politician and environmentalist, Bob Brown, painted with pandomelon droppings, provided inspiration for aspiring pooh artists. What Bob thought of that? I mean, it's terribly you'd say upcycling, which would be a big thing

in his ideology. Anyway, So that's going on down in Tasmania. You can escape the horrors of the world you've just got to go to Richmond in Tasmania and a channel

You're inner artist one three one eight seven three. Okay, Now, just while we was speaking about dogs, this is a more serious issue because just as autism diagnoses of skyrocketed among people young people, particularly in the NDIS, and the way it's funded is obviously behind that, but it appears behavioral diagnoses have bloomed among dogs and pets in general

almost simultaneously. Now I don't have a dog, so you know, I understand some dogs have mental health disorders, so they're depressed or something, and there is medication for that, but it's the quantity of diagnoses which seems to all of a sudden be a little concerning. Now, what I want to know is what's going on? What's going on? Have dogs in general always had a lot of these issues and they're just not being diagnosed the medications new and innovative.

I mean they give them prozac that's hardly new. Or is there something else going on here? Are we over subscribing because the humans, Yeah, the owners, let's be honest, aren't effectively and properly conditioning and training their dogs, or they're getting dogs, but they work you know, seven days a week or six days a week out of home, and so the dogs alone and it gets skittish. And what's the real story here? Right? Are we creating the problem? Are we over diagnosing a problem? Or is there a

genuine issue among a lot of dogs. So I've got no idea, but plenty of you have pet dogs, any of them on these antidepressants. Tell me the story one three, one, eight seven three. So the ABC report that this all comes about the story of a dog called Mabel, and Mabel's one of these tiny little fluffings, and it says he one of many dogs on medication called Fluoxeity. It's a type of antidepressant. It's sold under the brand name Prozac, which I think everyone knows about. As it says, some

vets only get a fifteen minute appointment. However, to make the decision to prescribe. Now, in the human realm, I don't think too many doctors will be that keen to put people onto zolaf or something with a fifteen minute consultation. You tend to have a little bit we should, I think, have a bit more of a backstory to work out whether someone needs medicating or they need something else. But it seems that some vets in and out. You know, the old six minute medicine which is afflicting the PBS,

seems to be an issue with vets. Some yeah, okay, dog's got a depression here. Given this, as they say in the story, it's creating concerns from some in the industry about just how many dogs are going onto anti anxiety medication as a first line treatment, not as a last resort. A study, and this came out of America.

It looks at Melily in fact, looked at millions of canine medical records from twenty ten to twenty twenty, so a ten year period found over that decade a tenfold increase in behavioral problems and an increase in antidepressant medication to boot. Now, you know, I don't know who makes it as a BAY or I don't know someone makes these sort of medications. They'll be doing very nicely out of it. But it's a justified in these sort of

quantities and scales. Now, some Australian vets now say they've seen an increase in dogs at their clinics with behavioral issues. So we're talking abot aggression, separation, anxiety, as well as problematic behaviors. But in Australia we don't seem to collect too much data. There's a shock and so we don't really know via the Australian Vetery Association whether there is a significant rise in the use of these antidepressants in

dogs or not. But there is an Australian pet pharmacy group called your Pet PA and they listed fluoxetine on the website the Prozac as the third best selling prescription medication for the dogs. It gives you a bit of a sense. Now, I think antidepressants are the top sellers for humans. It doesn't look like it's going to be too long before they're the top seller for dogs, now, is it? Ok? Maybe it's justified cats. I know some cats have been on these things for years to do.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be prescribed, but do you think somewhere, somehow alarm bells should be going off a little bit. If you've seen in a decade over an American and we followed the trends here a ten time increase, tenfold increase, you know, I mean cause and effect. What's going on here? You know, if it were happening with humans. You'd think we'd have an inquiry, but there again, it is happening with humans, but I'm not sure we have

had those inquiries. One three, one eight seven three. Okay, it's nineteen to one. Lot of feedback coming through, particularly about the poop painting. So my next guest has no idea what we're talking about. I'll explain to Tommy just a moment. But Mitch says, do any of the paint Winnie the Pooh?

in the past. We could talk about the staggering population growth that we've seen through mass migration recently, or we could look at the fact that fundamentally people are aging more older people than younger ones had has an impact on tax and redistribution and whatnot. But going hand in hand with all of that is the declining rate of fertility. Now. I think Australia is now down to about one point seven or something like that, when the replacement rate is

two point one. In fact, we might even be lower. And if it weren't for migration, GDP not per capita that's already in the toilet, but GDP for the nation would be in reverse. We would be in without a doubt, we would be in a recession. So what's going on globally because clearly our economic model at the moment is one where we're not having enough babies to replace ourselves,

but we're importing the surplus babies of somewhere else. People that say Australia is a better place where I'm living better opportunities, I'm going to bring my family, We're going to start a new life and wait. So the migrant waves come, they tend to have more children initially, but as they build into the Australian way of life, they don't only just start supporting Australian football teams and get a taste for cricket, they also, over time, it seems,

get a taste having fewer children themselves. And internationally this is now a phenomena. By twenty one hundred, it is expected that the global population global population will have peaked and will start to go into decline reverse. So I said to Mark leave earlier. Just think about that from a selfish point of view, what does that mean for

your superbalance? A macroeconomic point of view, what on earth does that mean for the way we understand modern economics, the stock market and every pillar that we have built our wealth on. Fewer consumers. It's not something that anyone alive today or indeed for many generations, has ever had to countenance. So what's the story at home? Well? Tom Duseovich has written brilliantly about all of this in The Australian. Is the policy editor there, and he's on the line, Tom,

good to speak with you. Thank you for your time.

And then for a whole range of reasons, probably to do with women's increased participation in the labor market, the really high cost of having children, the high cost of housing that started to plummet, and it's plummeted all over the world. I mean, we haven't experienced the sort of declines that they have in Japan. Korea. Careerslevy rate is zero point seven, so that's a third of the replacement rate.

Our population isn't falling because essentially you need two point one to keep the population growing, and pretty much eighty percent of our population growth is due to migration. Typically there's younger people, not whole families that are coming here. Bically are people converting from student or work visus temporary work visus, and so they tend to be in their twenties or thereabouts. It sort of stops your population aging

for a while. But then you know, our migrants get older as well, so you know, we're in this sort of delicate position now where our population is aging and our fertility rate is falling.

that well either. I mean, I don't want to broad brushes too much, but in some respects, many of the wrong people were having the additional children, and the ones that were productive, paying high taxes and whatever weren't taking the bait. So what does the nation? What can the nation do about it?

at home. We need more housing, so the cost of housing isn't so prohibitive, and you know, we need to try and help people with the costs of raising kids.

But like you, if you look at what's happening in society, there are a lot of you know, really smart people who are now starting to assess what the effect of the Internet and smartphones has been not only on the mental health of young people, as is increasingly being documented through social psychologists and the like, but this is growing

concern that young people have forgotten how to socialize. It's too easy to sit at home, you know, get food delivered in, watch Netflix or beyond sort of social chats or whatnot, and rather than going out and meeting people, you know, partnering up being an attractive proposition. Men and women are sort of letting that split by the number of childless women, I saw one study that said it used to be around about eight to ten percent of

women were childless over the course of their lifetime. Now that's crept up to about thirty to thirty five percent.

We will simply out resource ourselves. But if it were to stop at say twenty one hundred, as a lot of the models suggest, and start to tape it down, what does that mean?

where the share price is factored in. So if all of a sudden there's fewer consumers and then fewer again and fewer again, and Western nations which have been this sort of honey pot, aren't going to be able to attract people from Africa from the subcontinent because they're not there to attract, or if they are, will be depleting their own populations. The whole economic model is going to be blown up, isn't it.

like inheritances. You know, as a baby boom generation dies off all over the world, someone is going to be inheriting that wealth. We're relying on all sorts of technologies to raise our ability to produce things to give ourselves more leisure time, higher incomes. What we're also seeing is, you know, in a lot of countries that you know that haven't been doing well, we have very very high populations,

but they're not big consumers just yet. Whether we're we're looking at you know, there's been this tremendous rise in China, for instance. We're going to have a tremendous rise in Indonesia, in India, Sub Saharan Africa. So you know, on a long on a long curve of history, things just might kind of recalibrate, but it'll be a huge test for the capitalist system, which is geared towards more and more and more.

It's fascinating to speak. We haven't exhausted it, but we'll return to it down the track.

I'll be joined straight after the news by Michael Pembroke, author in his story in new book out Silk, Silver, Opium, The Trade with China That Changed History. It's a book about history, but it's very relevant to the present.

matter of if but when. Now, of course that may not happen, but history does have a pattern, a way of repeating itself. And if you refer to this book that I've got in front of me, it's titled Silk, Silver and Opium, The Trade with China, the change history. You do get a little bit of a sense of history. Repeating Michael Pembroke is the author. It's an incredible read, but I think it very much informs the situation of the present by anchoring it in the stories of the past.

And Michael Pembroke with me in the studio. Good to speak with you, Michael, and thank you for coming.

the world, and they are. But this isn't a story that's or a label as such that's just bubbled up in the last hundred years. I mean, as you point out in the book, go back to the ninth century AD, China was the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.

Sir Isaac Newton, in one of his many roles, was Warden of the Royal Mint in London, and he complained that China was carrying away the silver from all Europe. And one of the remarks that I really like is by Carl Linnaeus, a botanist but also something of a public intellectual, and he expressed the view that there is nothing more important than to close that gate to China through which all the silver of Europe disappears. It sounds like a modern trumpion, and I laughed when I came across it.

the poppy. And it was all completely cynical because the opium was sold at auctions in Calcutta to private traders. The British government and the India Company knew the private traders would then smuggle it to China, and they used that mechanism as a means for reversing the trade in silver. So the Chinese paid silver for opium and the British government profited hugely from the profits made on the sale of opium.

This very principal man went down to Canton, which was the heart of the British trade, and decided to imprison anyone smuggling opium and told all the foreign traders in Canton that they would have to give up their supplies of opium and if they didn't, he would punish them. Well, they couldn't believe it. They resisted. The Chinese locked them all up in their warehouses and homes in Canton and kept them there for about two months whilst the opium

was collected and destroyed. This was such an affront to the British government because so much money was involved, that they started the First Opium War in late eighteen thirty nine in order to teach the Chinese a lesson, and it had no other purpose other than to punish the Chinese and make them understand that the British would not be interrupted in their trade.

story that covers many centuries. In many ways, there's a conflict between what the traders want and what the governments that they are loyal to want, or I shouldn't say loyal. In many cases they weren't loyal to their governments at all. They were just loyal to money. But they happened to be British or they happened to be French. And the diplomatic arrivals from Europe often stymied the trade of the traders.

They got upset that there was a parallel discussion going on with the Chinese, wasn't there One was about money from the traders, and one was political and geopolitical from the governments.

intervening until right at the end. It took sixty or seventy years before people recognized that they could not allow this trade to continue.

But if we were to sit in their chair and look out to the Western world with this history that you've written about, we would have a different perspective about the situation at the moment, wouldn't we. Oh?

to run his own business life. They made so much money peddling opium in Canton and throughout China that they became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams forgotten which one, either Jardine or Matheson became the second largest landowner in the United Kingdom. Jardine became a member of the House of Commons.

in London whenever he could. Whenever he was in London, went to Whitehall, and he certainly had the air of the government, and was there three days before the vital Cabinet meeting on which the Government decided to embark on the first Opium War. In fact, the plan presented by Lord Palmerston at that cabinet meeting at Windsor Castle, strangely enough, was a mirror image of what Palmerston had proposed.

Mitch has just thrown this bit of trivia at me. Look, I'm not chaving that time to verify it, but I'll take him at his word. He says, Now you speak about silver, But he says, here's a trivia question about gold. If you were able to take all the gold that has been mined found by man since they started using it, and made a solid cube out of that, what would

the dimensions of that cube be? He said? The answer is around twenty five meters by twenty five meters, twenty five by twenty five by twenty five, So that's a cube. He said. No, what I've asked has come close to getting that right. That's from Mitch. I wouldn't have had a clue to be honest, and I'm not. I assume

that's right, Mitch. I'll take each word. I mean, some people out there might say yes, no. But if you imagine a cube twenty five meters in length, twenty five meters in width, and twenty five meters in height, and you packed all of the gold that's been mined and used by man since you know, I don't know, the Romans and the Egyptians were knocking out gold out of all the minds in the ancient world or whatever that's it. That doesn't seem like a lot in the scheme of things,

doesn't now? Wonder they stop using any coins? One three, one eight seven three. You've got any more fun facts or trivia? We love all of that on the show one three one eight seven three. Now I want you to ever listen to a bit of audio in a second. This has come from the BBC, so you know, the British parent of the ABC out here Artie as they call it, and it's without a doubt in ow left of center in its general persuasion. But Britain is going through a bit of a seismic rumble about how it

defines women. You know, the High Court over there have decided that actually, you know, there is a biological basis to a lot of this shock horror, and so the ruptures and the rumbles are now playing out in a range of different ways. So bring in a BBC News presenter by the name of Martin Croxel. I think I've seen her on BBC World Service Occasion. Does good job anyway.

So she's reading the teleprompt as anyone who's ever done television as you just you sit there and you look down the lens of this thing and you push your pedal underneath and the word scroll. You're just reading. Generally, if you're news reader, someone else has written the script for you. You're just the face and the voice. Now, she may not have read this in advance. This might

have been an updated script. I don't know. But she's reading a report about advice for vulnerable people during heat waves. You know, that's twenty nine degrees or something outrageous in England at the moment, so you know, people are fainting at her. So she's reading this news report about advice advice for vulnerable people in a heat wave, and then she's going blah blah blah, blah blah blah, bah, and then on the script she just reads it pregnant people.

Bah bah bah bah bah. And you can see when you watch her, you might have seen this already on YouTube or on the internet, something clicks in the back of the brain. I mean, she is a biological woman, after all. And then she goes no, no, no, no, and she says women and then carries on and there's a slight roll of the eyes and well, you know, keen observers have noted this and it's now gone, as they say, viral. Now I assume she's still got a job at the BBC.

She should, She should, because she's just standing up for biological and scientific fact, right and surely if there's no place for that in the news, there's no place for it anywhere. Anyway. Here's the audio you're not going to you can't see the eye roll, but you'll get the you'll get the the tone. Have a listen.

a champion of biology. And the more people that just speak sense in this matter sensitively, you know, we're hurt people. But there's no say men cannot get pregnant. I mean, this is just I know this will be a newsflash to some particularly young people who have been brought up believing that anything's possible because you think it is. But men don't have wombs, So men won't carry babies. They don't they don't have the requisite kit to carry babies.

And even if people are born male but identify as female and undergo surgery, they can't deliver babies. Only women can do that, biological women. And so when you talk about pregnant people, you are only talking about women, right, And it shouldn't be controversial to say that. Although in twenty twenty five, in many places around the Western world.

Elsewhere they've got other problems, they've got real problems. But in the Western world it is controversial to say that shouldn't be truth to defense one three, one eight seven three. Let's go to the news aeron Margaret.

as neonatal intensive care staff walk off the job. And there's a minor flood warning for the Cooks River for tonight and tomorrow at the Tempee Bridge at high Tide in Sport. The Oklahoma City Thunder our NBA champions after winning the series deciding Game seven over the Indiana Paces one hundred and three to ninety one. It's the Thunders first NBA title and there'll be more news at two o'clock on afternoons.

just seventeen. Get your coats ready. Camberra today fifteen, shower or two developing. Tugerong's the same. Up to thirty mil of rain tomorrow in the capitol, although we'll ease later in the day at the top of just fourteen. But mind you that'll fill Balmie because come Wednesday Canberra is going to be wet and a top of just eight degrees.

Lithgo today fifteen and partly cloudy thirteen with a drop or two of rain for Orange eighteen for Mudgie bit wet baths should be dry fifteen fifteen, as I said for Lithgo Katoomba fifteen and just to be different spring Wood twenty one showers tomorrow, though for Lithgo maybe twenty mil of rain thirteen the top and then just seven on Wednesday. Now the six mil of rain potentially before a morning frost, followed by a sunny Thursday, just to dry things out, although again cool top of just nine

degrees one three one eight seven three. Okay. Now a few different people are suggesting it wouldn't have been twenty five meters by twenty five meters, but twenty five kilometers by twenty five kilometers. I think that's too much. I don't think that'd be right. That'd been enormous volume. We are googling as we speak. We've got this Gemini thing here now, so that'll tell us the answer. I've never used it, but apparently it does wonderful things. Sam says,

are you sure it's not two one hundred and fifty? No? Hang on, Sam, say twenty five kilometers cubed? He said, I think there would be more than twenty five meters cubed in Fort Knox alone. Just seems like well, that's interesting. You mentioned Fort Knox. The President, Donald Trump wants to get into Fort Knox to check the gold still there. That could be interesting. Twenty six minutes to do. We'll do motoring after this, okay, So see how much gold in the world and what sort of box would it

fit into. Debate continues on the text line. Gary says the old mates about right. All the gold in the world, says Gary wouldn't fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. Hard to believe, but gold is very rare. That's from Gary. Good on you. Gary appreciate that. So I think we're getting a bit of a consensus that maybe twenty five by twenty five by twenty five is if you had to condense it, that'd be about it. All the gold

that's ever been mined. And when you think about all the gold jewelry that's out there, the gold that's still in old coins, the gold that's in the form of leaf, the gold when you think gold is in all sorts of thing, medical equipments, some people's denches. My grandmother had little gold fillings. I when you add it all up and go twenty five x twenty five x twenty five meters, it doesn't seem a lot. Puts it into a perspective, I guess, Gary and others thank you. The debate continues.

It's twenty one to two now one afternoons drive. All right, Well let's leave Gold and get into our motor vehicles from moment.

coming into Australia from Japan. Now there is a five door model that comes in from India, but that original three door one, which is kind of is the quintessential Chimney. I suppose they're not producing it for the Aussie market at the moment, so supply supply is whistling right down. But we can expect that to come back on board as soon as Suzuki can get around to it.

first came out, but they absolutely went gangbusters. It's a car that is pretty slow, not very refined, you know, isn't very efficient for the size of it, and not very good in terms of bootspace, but just a really fun car to look at, fun car driving away, good off road, just has that sort of fun character about it, and it just it sold really well.

quite dramatically, so that could be a good mix. We're going to get the Forester, which is the smaller version of the APT Back that's going to be on the roads pretty soon in Australia and that's going to be the first example with that hybrid power train. That'll be interesting to spend a bit more time with it. We've had a brief driver one initially. Initially impressions do look good. You can see that review on drive dot com toderu.

But yeah, looking forward to spending more time with that car soon.

a little bit different as well. But I can say coming from driving pretty much all of them that they're catching up really really quickly, and they're they're right up there at the moment, they're sort of breathing down the neck, I would say.

It's a very competitive segment, so we'll see if they can do it. But there's a lot of negative commentary around the looks as well, and in that segment, people do really buy on looks, I think, so.

Home and Aways filmed and whatnot. So a rest of your crew is out, I think, trying to free the whale's tail from the net. So that's all happening as we speak on the far northern tip of Sydney. Let's hope that can all resolve itself. Well one three, one eight seven three. Let's go back to calls Dino. What's your question for Sam?

worked up about it. But I'll stick to Ute for now.

They'll put the loyalists out there a bit like Chowchescu did put them out in the square to try to show the sort of everyone else in the nation that isn't really backing their own government and would be kind of keen for regime change that actually know the majority are with us. They still want death to America or Israel still the Great Satan, all this sort of stuff. So it'll be fascinating, as I said at the top

of the show, to see where this goes. The Americans and the Israelis have softened up the regime to the point they've never been this week before. It's probably the weakest there've been since they took power over the show of nineteen seventy nine. So there is an opportunity here for internal regime change if the Iranian people rise up. But it has to be insular. It has to be organic. This can't be some sort of CIAM six orchestrated coup that's not going to work. It has to be real

and natural. And if that happens, the world will be a better place. And you know, militarily, this is the thing.

A lot of this is why I don't understand why it took our government forever to come out like they finally did today and say, you know what, actually, now Iran can't have nuclear weapons and the bombings Aka, because if you eradicate the leverage that Iran has, if you can somehow create a change of government over there, you can, from a Western point of view, certainly an American point of view, start to withdraw some of your strike capacity from that part of the world and move it to Asia,

and that would be in Australia's best interests. Iran is an Australia's threat China potentially, as we were discussing earlier with Michael Pembroke, understanding the history why it is the way it is. But if the Americans can start to withdraw some fight and strike capability out of the Middle East, out of the Persian Gulf and move it around to Asia, well then that's in our best interests. Right, So it's in Australia's best interest to try to bring about change

in Iran. You're not going to do that. If the Mullers and the Eye are Toller and the Henchmen and the Revolutionary Guard Corps and all of these pollukas, if they have strong missile capability and uranium at the point of being enriched that it could be put in a warhead. That's got to stop. And so that seems to have been stopped and let's just see what plays out in

the coming days. Of course, there are going to be impacts on a lot of people, and as you know, I'm about to take a bunch of listeners over to Europe and many people will be flying via the Middle East, so there will be people in that tour group, no doubt, keeping an eye on flights and all the rest of it. Airlines carrying Australians to Europe have started switching their roots, according to The Herald, to avoid the whole Middle East region.

Hitar Airways, which flies daily from Australia cities to Doha in Qatar, says that the ongoing situation will require some schedule changes to strengthen the connectivity. Others have already started changing their routes. I think I read yesterday that for Sunday and Monday, British Airways have decided not to fly into even Dubai Singapore Airlines I believe the same and KLM Royal Dutch. I'd think they're avoiding the area for the time being. Look that might change by Wednesday they

but Tuesday they might be going back in. I don't know. But when you think that Abu Dhabi and Dubai, two of the main hubs for the Australian population, and Katar, and they're all within spinning distance of each other, right up there near the Straits of Hamutz, which the Auranians might want to close, which will mean the Americans will probably try to pound the Iranian ships with missiles from submarines that are based further away. Then you know, it's

a risky proposition flying commercial airlines into that hub. So Australian travelers, and we are great travelers, Our passports are some of the most stamped passports in the world. We are going to have to just keep a watching brief on what's happening in the Middle East because at any moment your flight might be diverted change council, who knows. So stay across all of that, obviously with your airlines.

lucky fingers hands and over there he'll spin the wheel. Look, I can't guarantee it, but I reckon you get at least one thousand. So when you hear that, I want you to call later on the prize line and good luck one three, one eight. We'll take a break and more. Yes, I stay listening. Later this hour we will spend that winter wheel and good luck. I hope we can give you a great prize. This just threw from the people behind IgA. Well that's met cash, of course, and it's

to do with tobacco revenue. I mean, look, the evidence just keeps stacking up here. Government, I'll do nothing about it. But tobacco revenue fell a fifth in the year to April, at IGA's pair and company met cash. The slump in legal tobacco sales accelerating, according to the Guardian, as the illicit cigarette trade takes over the market. Tobacco was still a major pillar of the grocery sales. So they counted for one point eight billion of the company's ten point

eight billion in food segment revenue. So it's a very good chunk, but it's down. They're down four hundred and fifty million dollars from last year, and I think the better part of a billion from the year before. Anyway, the company said that the decline was due to a continued sharp rise in illicit tobacco sales at a quote largely ineffective end quote. Police response. Well, all that's true, but the police can only do so much. This isn't

really a policing matter. This is a government matter. The government have created the market, the federal government with excise, and they will do nothing about it. Now. Jim Charmers will speak to a legal spender later this hour. Jim Charmers wants to have a productivity in a tax roundtable. Good, we need it desperately, We needed it ten years ago. But I bet the tobacco excise won't be on the agenda because it's just an easy earner, right, It's just

a syntax. Oh well, there's an easy way to avoid it. Don't smoke, say the non smokers, which are the vast majority. But what that attitude has done is incubate and fertilize the ground for the criminal networks to make a motza. So people are still smoking, they're just smoking illegal product, and so the health system is not getting the tax benefit, which was the quid pro quo with keeping cigarettes legal. But people are still getting lung cancers and mphysema, everything

and dying. It's just they're not paying via taxes because they're not buying legal cigarettes for their care in hospital. When they do. I mean, that's just the crude nub of it and look to be blood. I don't blame the smokers for going and buying the illicit product when the legal product has been raised to extortionary levels because of government tax I'm not saying that breaking the law is good or is in any way to be encouraged.

I can't say that, and I don't, but I can understand why people do it otherwise law abiding people, I can understand why they do it. But of course in so doing, you are also part of the problem. You're helping your own bottom line. You've got to feed the kids, you've got to pay the mortgage. I get it. But equally, you are funneling a huge amount of money into biking gangs and all sorts of foreign cartels and criminals. That's bad because they do other things with that money which

are really, really bad. So the whole story, the whole nexus, has to be broken. But you know, only government can do it, and there just doesn't seem to be the coordinated appetite to do it. Are they more addicted to the revenue than the smokers are to the nicotina? One three one eight seven three now one afternoons the Track of the Day. Okay, let's get this out of the way because we often miss out on this and we love doing Track of the Day. I've got one hundred

and fifty dollars. BE Store voucher on the line. They do good things. BE Store your shoes. You're gonna love comfort, you'll live in. B Store brings your Birkenstock, Blundstone, fit Flop, MBT, Franky four and more. You can visit them at Macquarie Center, of course, Westfield Miranda as well. Style starts there. B Store. If you want one hundred dollars, one hundred and fifty dollars rather voucher to all of that. One three one eight seven three. So who am I questioned today? Who

am I? Known as the voice of rugby. I've been broadcasting Rugby International since nineteen seventy six. I've led commentary teams with the BBC Network, ten Fox Sports. I even worked with two GB on the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics coverage. By the way, I'm a really decent human being. Who am I? I'll give you some thinking music, some great voices here, Shirley Bassie and Brent terfal All right, let's find a winner and he rugby nuts out there? How good's out the world in union? I will have

a bit more of that in a second. Sean, you were first? Three? Where's the answer? Who were after?

she did. And when you watch the replay it does though every now and then she has been out of sink, so I think, I don't you know if he's from Monica wherever she is, good afternoon to you. Surely you're a superstar. But I've got a feeling that she didn't do that one live in Wales one three one eight seven three. Speaking of sporting matters, by the way, I've

got a press release today. I'm not sure this is going to happen, but it says a competitive card game built on collectible monsters might not seem like a traditional Olympic sport, but a growing number of Australians are calling for it to be taken seriously. This is Pokemon, Pokemon. Do you think that's going to get a run at

the Olympics, even in Brisbane? I don't think, Sam, but it says here ahead of collect Fest, which is Australia's largest festival of collections, and organizers are preparing to host a full format Pokemon trading card game tournament that rivals Olympic competition. Screaming hyperbole to me, the event is already

making waves. I'm told there's a changeot org petition, of course, there is launched recently calling on Australian Olympic Committee CEO Mark Abibb to consider the game for inclusion in future Olympic programming, starting with Brisbane twenty thirty two. Now, Mark's a pretty decent bloke. He'll get that and reply politely in the negative. I'd imagine, mind you, We've had breakdancing, we've had parkour, We've had all sorts of weird and

wonderful things. So you know what's not to like about a bunch of sort of adolescents trading Pikachu cards at the highest levels. Maybe the end. Here's an idea, Clinton, I'll bring you in here before we hear your official music. Of course, why don't we give this to the enhanced games first and see how the steroidal types go.

have a look at what's happening at Westmead Hospital. So there's been a protest with nurses and midwives railing outside the hospital about resources in the maternity area, the suggestions today that babies are being treated in storerooms and corridors. Now the government, I've spoken to people within government today. They insist they're not being treated in corridors, but they do concede yes, there's a big problem with resources and

the health. Mister Ryan Park will actually be at Westmead this week to meet with the staff and the management.

as well. Plus we will be spinning the winter wheel because on the Sydney Now program we have wonderful success in giving away large amounts of money.

started thrashing its tail. The Prime Minister won't say if Australia provided any support for the US bombing of Iran retailer The Good Guys will pay thirteen and a half million dollars for running miss leading store credit promotions and researchers have found a link between exposure to a stress hormone in the womb and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

of barrel. That saw obviously inflationary impacts right across the world and obviously through Australia as well. So we've got to watch this oil price because it could have a real impact on the inflationary settings. I spoke to a Comwealth Bank analyst a couple of weeks ago. He said that if we get to eighty dollars a barrel, it should be around two dollars a liter at the petrol

pump as a national average. So people, if they are looking at the oil price, I'm worried about what they're going to be paying at the petrol pump, expect around two dollars a leader in the foreseeable future.

at them for tonight, they're starting weaker. Of course, they haven't been open since we saw the attacks on Iran during the week. So watch what the US does overnight and how their markets react and tonight on Money News, I.

chat after this. All right, good to be with you. Twenty two to three one three, one eight seven three. All right, we're going to talk tax Let's not have the eyes glaze over. I know it can be a bit much, but if we don't get this right, we're all poorer. So something's got to be done. And there's some staggering numbers out today when it comes to tax

in this country. So it turns out business is here, or so it's reported, are being hit with more than one hundred federal and state government imposed taxes and levies. Now that's on top of the rising cost of operating a business, and it's it's crazy, right, it's so uncompetitive. Who the hell would want to start a business when you've got one hundred different lead weights around your ankles. And this is the situation now according to the AI Group,

we're only behind Columbia in this metric. Now, I don't think you'd want to be compared to Columbia too often. But as we've been pointing out on this show for quite a long time, the tax system is becoming ineffective as a nation. We're leveraging two heavy off income tax. We're punishing businesses with things like payroll tax for doing what businesses we would want them to do, and that is take people off the unemployment queue and put them

in private enterprise. And then of course there's old boondoggles like stamp duty, which in the original iteration of the gst were meant to go, but they stayed and we need a solution to that and more. Of course, on top of all of that, what do we do about

stagnant productivity? And as I keep saying, there seems to be zero discussion in this space, although I think it dovetails in very nicely about one of the big problems, and that is not so much how we raise money, but how we spend it and the duplication between state and Commonwealth agencies which is costing us a fortune. It is time for a round table. It is time for the talking heads. The Treasurer has said we will have

a productivity and tax round table. Good, but the importance of the veracity that's only going to come from the individuals that contribute. Now, someone who's been calling for this for a very very long time, Credit is a legal spender. She is the MP for Wentworth in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney and she's on the line. Good to speak Allega again.

That should be completely the opposite. But it's always got to be a viewer's like, well, if you know, try and reduce payroll tax, if you try and drive and help make Australia an attractive place for businesses to invest, well, how are you going to pay for it? And I don't think you can just shift that burden onto you know, working people either. So I think this is where we

need to do it. Well, I know that is what we're doing, and so I think we have to look at in the business environment like how do we make taxes simpler, how do we make it more give it greater incentive to invest and make it more attractive for overseas companies to invest. But then how do we raise in areas where we can raise more money from business?

And I keep on coming back to resources, particularly things like the gas taxes, because that's an area where in the past we used to raise a lot more money than we do now. And I think this is an area where potentially we could shift to biz a bit of that tax burden.

what we're doing? And the reason it seems that we have so many of these inefficient taxes like stamp duty and payroll tax, a lot of them state taxes, is because over the years, the federation has gobbled itself up and so canber has taken more and more revenue raising capacity away from the states, but burden will left the states with the burden of delivery of service, and so they are tapping harder and harder these very inefficient ways

of raising capital because they've got nothing left. This is why I'm saying we need the constitutional experts at this meeting as well to say, right, this is what the federal government should be doing, This's what the state should be doing. Stop the overlap, stop the waist.

have an overall better tax system. And where there is duplication in services, you know, where you know the health Department at the federal level is doing a bit of this, the state Department's doing a bit of this. It does make it complicated. It makes it really hard for people to track, you know, who's responsible for this. So I think you're right, definitely you need the states at the table at this.

is a federal matter, this is a state matter. For too long the federal government in Washington have been funding it, propping it up, skewing the curriculum with their funding, and so right, no, we're getting out of that and the states can run it.

think is really right. So you know, we should watch and learn from what the states do, but we don't have to go, you know, to the sort of those extremes that they do in Trump world. But we can make an Australian version of saying, well, where's the sensible in this? Where is the sensible in terms of you know, giving states really clear responsibility and avoiding duplication at the federal level. Yep, I'm all for that.

mind is tax reform. Most people simply call it theft. I know you're not in favor of it, but it doesn't bode well for where this whole process might end up, right, Well, I think this.

on income. You know, people who are working hard, who's struggling to get ahead. You know, they're getting you know, their tax bill goes up every year because of bracket creep. You know, we actually need to really address that and therefore, how are you going to pay for it? And I think that's the that's the balance that we need to do. And I think that's what was missing last term. It was sort of a bit of a bit here, a bit there, but it wasn't that trying to say, okay,

let's get that balance better. And so that's the piece I think we need to hold the government to account on this term. And you know, I am encouraged. I'll be honest that you know, the Treasurer has said, okay, you know, we're open to a broader agenda, but we've got to get that agenda right. And I think that means people speaking up, writing to their MPs, saying, look, this is important to me, but I don't want to

use this just as an opportunity to increase taxes. I want you to make sure that we're getting this sort of tax relief in the areas that makes sense to.

don't have the appetite to have this conversation. Why. I mean, when John Howard was Prime Minister, we're all over it like a rash on the GST and tax reform and economic reform, saying with keeping same with Hawk. And then we got complacent. And now we are starting to see the deleterious effects of being complacent. So why isn't the public alert to this?

is going to cost a lot of money. And we're doing this in the best way that we can, and I think we need to The job I think of my job is and others, is to remind people that all those three worries are actually really partly driven by the tax system. So I think we've got to move away from economists saying we need tax reform because it's good for efficiency and effectiveness and everything else, to you know, you know, public policies about making a real difference to

people's lives. And that's what really motivates me. And that's why I care about tax because you know, we're not going to give young people a better chance of doing well, no matter who their parents are, unless we get that tex system right. And you know, I want more businesses to be the big businesses of tomorrow, to be able to invest and grow, but we actually need to make sure the tax system is right so that they can

do that. And I think We've got to come back to that why and link it back, and that's our best chance I think of getting people who are a bit overwhelmed with just getting through the day back to really caring about this stuff.

guardrails on ron it goes. They are being pressured because of the reality is geopolitics to increase defense expended dure although they don't really have a plan. There's a lot of additional money going to be coming out somewhere here. I mean, we've got to look at spending in this as well. And I guess this is where it comes back to the vote. Maybe some of our expectations of what the state can do for us need to be curtailed.

It's about trying to get that revenue raise right so that it is it actually encourages you know, businesses and people to invest in themselves and keep on trying and aspiring. But the spending challenges are real. You know, people are

getting older. It's you know, there are real challenges, as you say, from a defense point of view, So I think the government is going to have to work harder, and I'm certainly going to be pushing them to work harder so that the spending doesn't grow like it has been, because if it keeps on growing like that, you know, all we're doing is frankly passing the buck to our kids.

two eight seven three. All right, let's see if we can give away a great prize here. Well, we going to it. We'll just find out which one it is. Call A nine is Jess? Hello, Jess?

two GB. Well that's it for us, Thank you. We'll keep the conversation going tomorrow, keep the emails flowing through throughout the night to Clinton coming up of course next with Sydney. Now, he'll keep you up to date with what's happening with this whale up off the coast there of Baron Joey Lighthouse with the net around its tail. Let's hope they can sort that out this afternoon before we go. Congratulations to the Sydney University Rocket Tree team.

They beat over one hundred and fifty teams to win the world's largest university rocket engineering competition. Their rocket was called Paralote, and in addition to winning the overall New Horizon Award, the team also secured first place in the Student Research and Developed Hybrid Liquid category. When I win a Chicken dinner World, until you said, I'll be with you again tomorrow, have a good afternoon,