You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. What are we talking about? We're talking about cajeggs, free range eggs, organic eggs, regular or large? Are we talking about brain fed eggs, barnlaid vegetarian eggs, hormone free eggs? What about omega and rich This is a very hard question.
Are we talking about Cadbury cream eggs? Yes, because I know how much they cost. I can't believe how much that.
Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud.
It's what women are actually talking about. On Monday, the twenty eighth of April, I'm Holly Wainwright and we are revving up for a big week. We were just talking about Jesse Sweat Patches.
On the road again. We're getting on the road. We'll be in Perth in just a couple of days for the first night of our tour.
Our live tour proportion is maya between how much you have thought talked about contributed to cost student's outfits on stage and how much you've actually thought about the content.
I've been working on our outfits for weeks but it was only just a couple of days ago that I was like, I probably should look at the script. Yes, yes, and I had no idea what we were doing in the show.
She also had a major break through costume related breaks. Yeah, I liked moment, so perf You're in for a treat. So all the out louders who are coming to the show, I'm Holly Wayne right, I already.
Said that, I'm me a Friedman. And also thanks to Nivia Sellula for supporting us on this tour.
I am Jesse Stevens and on the show today.
Is there a right way to tell your partner that you're into someone else? What if you met that other person? In front of the world on reality TV? Welcome to JoJo's Ciua's Weekend. Also the Price of Eggs and Elaspink Culture War. Some highlights and low lights from the Leader's Debate you probably didn't watch. George Clooney says he's never found a reason to have an argument with his gorgeous, genius wife, and we would like to pick a fight with him about it and the tragic a virginiay free
and whether there are any lessons to be learned. But first, hey, everyone.
I'm Jared and one of the directors of Kangala Wildlife Rescue.
Hi, I'm Lisa.
I'm also one of the directors here at Kangala Wildlife Rescue.
Were so excited yesterday to be able to release the information that Valerie has been secured. She's safe and sound after what was a roller coaster ride. It was a long tough battle, it was, wasn't.
It, Guys.
I just want to actually take the show over and just talk about this topic today because Valerie the feral sausage dog has been captured alive on Kangaroo Island after running wild for five hundred and twenty nine days.
Should I'm missing in twenty twenty three.
Now, there's a lot of nouns in that headline, so I'm going to unpack it for you in case you haven't been following Valerie's story. The voices you just heard were the two people who run Kangala Rescue. They're a nonprofit animal rescue organization who have been involved with this rescue. What happened is that back in November twenty three, as you say, Jesse, Valerie, who weighs less than four kilos, she's a miniature ducks on, so there's like an inch
clearance between her little tummy and the ground. Such little legs couldn't go up steps, I would say. Anyway, she went to Kangaroo Island with her owners for a camping trip. Wouldn't think of taking my dog on a camping trip.
Yeah, we take our dog campaign for you.
Actually, Okay, she escaped her pen. She got a bit spooked and she ran into the bush and they searched for five days. She was very much a lapdog. Her owners are called Josh and Georgia. She'd never been away from Georgia. She was just teeny tiny and after five days they had to go home. They went back to the mainland and kind of grieved their little.
Really, they were like, maybe Valerie got bitten by a snake.
Yeah, things could have happened.
They were like, Valerie is not a rough and tumble dog who's going to survive. Well, she's not working dog. She's a little privileged dog. Nearly a year later, Valerie was sighted a little sausage dog with a pink collar, fourteen kilometers away from where she went missing. That's when Kangala Rescue got involved and the search for Valerie involved over one thousand volunteer hours and more than five thousand
kilometers traveled by volunteers in private vehicles. There was deployment and monitoring of cameras and traps and uses of all kinds of technology to successfully trap her. What they ended up doing it was amazing. They built this kind of large pen. They got valerie z owners to send them.
T shirts of George's that had her.
Smell, and Valerie's toys and her favorite foods, and they put it in and every few days she'd come and she'd hang out there, and they had all cameras, but they couldn't work out how to automatically close the door, and then she'd leave, and sometimes she wouldn't come back for a while, and they were watching her for months. They would watch this happen, and they knew that they didn't want to startle her. They had to be careful.
They had to also.
Not accidentally capture other wildlife. So eventually, on the weekend they closed the door, they got Valerie, and I swear I followed every step of this. I want a live stream of the reunion when Valerie is integrated back with her owners. What they said, which is interesting, is that when a dog is lost. After about half an hour. An hour when it works out that it's lost and that it's not temporary, it flicks from domestic animal to survival mode and it's like a whole other level that
it goes to. She's been in survival mode for all of this time, and they think that she survived on damn water and a diet of roadkill and native animals, lots of resources apparently, but she evaded eagles and snakes and all the elements. It's a great Australian story.
I can't underestimate a dash und. I had a friend who has managed a dashund and one day that dashund took out all that pat chickens, all of them.
Are you kidding?
I am not kicking such a little man. You imagine the scene they walked into when they came back, and just a very guilty and feathery dash und. They can be really tough little buggers. And I wonder think about all the stories Valerie has from her Oh, if she could speak nearly two years on the lamb, she is probably she's gonna go home. She's turning her nose up at the fancy of my dog food. She really is.
See how rescue chili we think is part sausage. She barely survives the park, she.
Has no instincts. She gets spooked by a pigeon.
But you don't know that that's only because of the lifestyle that she's grown accustomed to. You you don't know how long she was on the street.
For If I was taken bet so, I would not think that she was gonna it's for me as well. This story is about the fact.
Her name is Valerie.
I think that's something we need to acknowledge because it's and it's not val It's Valerie.
Doesn't sound like she's gonna make it.
And yet Valerie for the win.
As someone who's lost a dog, this is one of those stories of hope that will be pasted around those lost dog Facebook groups. Four years.
All I've thought about this weekend other than Valerie is Jojo sewa her former partner kath Ebbs, and the moral quandary of what to do when you fall for someone else.
Allow me to explain, this is a huge story.
It's a huge story Jojo Siwah.
But some people will know nothing about it, not even Jojo sewats.
I'm so sorry for them. And that's why we're here. Jojo Sewah of Dance Mum's fame. She appeared on the reality TV show for the first time at the age of twelve, announced about eighteen months ago that she identified as a lesbian. Right.
And then in November last.
Year, Jojo was in Australia for the TikTok Awards and she met our very own Kath Ebbs.
I hadn't heard of kaf but just back on Jojo for a second. I didn't watch Dance Mums, but I seem to know her from her bows or something.
Yeah, and there'll be a certain cohort of parents who remember being nagged for JoJo's bows. I am one of them. So she became this huge icon of having these big hair bows and you could buy them online and they spawned many imitators. If you didn't couldn't get hands on JoJo's bows, you could get a fake Jojo. She would have made a pretty penny from those boats.
She did.
And then she's also had this like rising music career. Recently, she had a song named Karma That's gone. She's big on TikTok right anyway, goes to the TikTok Awards, meets Kath. Kath is an actor, presenter, podcast content creator, and the pair quickly fell in love. Fast forward to Celebrity Big Brother UK, where Jojo enters as a contestant, and there she meets Chris Hughes. He is a former contestant of Love Ireland. I don't know Chris. You don't know Chris.
No one kesna.
The coverage I'd read about Jojo and Celebrity Big Brother is that Mickey Rourke was in the house. Mickey the famous eighties celebrity nine and a half weeks with Kimbassenger jen X's will remember is now very strange, and he ended up getting kicked out because he said some awfully homophobic things to her, and Big Brother made him be okay.
So Jojo and Chris start spending a lot of time together. He tickles her back, They do some whispering, they do some holding of the hands, They sleep in bed together.
They cuddle.
Was there any dancing doner I.
Don't think so from what I've seen from the clips I've seen, but if that was my partner, it would be. At one point, she says to him, give me forty eight hours, and a few people thought that meant when we get out, let's have a conversation.
I'll chat to my partner, Da da da.
Now commentary blows up because viewers are thinking, hang on, how must Kath feel about all of this?
Now?
Last week was a finale and Kath flew from Australia to London to be there for Jojo. And here's what Kath said in a recently uploaded and then deleted video to TikTok.
I flew here and I went to the live show to show up for my partner and support them in their experience and and then obviously later on address my feelings of like hurt and they like work through them, like core relationships too. But before I could even get back to the hotel, I it's actually crazy, went to the after party with with my I guess now ex crazy thing to say and was dumped in the party.
I was told that there are confused feelings there. Do with that what you will, and that they had realized in the house that I wasn't the person that they wanted.
Brutial.
What a mess.
So Cath has said that Jojo actually proposed before she went into the house that they were very, very serious and they're totally blind sided by what's happened, and two camps have since emerged. One group says JoJo's behavior totally unacceptable. She has this history of short relationships. She has humiliated Cath. It's impulsive and it's mean and a total disregard for someone who actually loves her. The other camp says she is still only twenty one years old. She's figuring out
her sexual orientation. She has worked tirelessly since she was a child. She barely knows who she is, and technically shouldn't she. There was no kissing, there was no fun blank that we know of. She waited until she had the opportunity to break up with her partner. She did the right thing and now she's free to do what she likes. May I help me work out what I think about JoJo's Big Brother UK scandal because I can't. The ethics, the dilemma of it all is keeping me up at night.
I actually don't think anything about it. It's just an interesting story because there's nothing really to think. What we think doesn't matter, and I know that you can probably say that about anything we talk about.
The show.
We just talk about Valorie.
Actually three hours that was important. What I thought was interesting that aspect of this that I found most interesting was what Cas said about I thought that it was just a fake reality TV show and it wasn't everything that people saw with all of the flirting that went on between Jojo and Chris was real. And the other thing that I thought was interesting was that in the house Jojo announced I'm actually not a lesbian. I've realized that I'm queer and I'm not the ln LGTVQI anymore.
I'm the Q And isn't that great? And that's what's a great thing about sexuality is that it's fluid. So I found that was an interesting point because obviously, when she initially came out as being gay, that was a big deal because Dance Mum's the audience for Dance Mums and the whole cast in Dance Moms, that's a pretty
conservative world. And being a child star in that world and also being a child and then growing up with all the bows and stuff, and she did perform a very sort of stereotypical femininity, you know, when she was on the show and afterwards, and so that was a huge deal. And now she's like, oh, well, maybe that's not what I am. Maybe I'm actually queer, and the implication being is that she had feelings for a man, and I like that. You know, sexuality can be fluid.
You don't know.
You don't have to label yourself and put that in a box and lock that box away.
Holly, do you think that what Jojo did was wrong? Or did she do the right thing?
She didn't do anything.
It wasn't wrong. But I do have a lot of empathy for cath because watching your partner flirt with someone else is heart right. And I'm sure many of us can think of times where we might have over a course of our lives. We might have been at a party, we might have been at a work thing and we're like, you looked very cozy with so and so, and our partner would say, oh no, we're just there's nothing. And this isn't the first time that someone has fallen in
love and inverted comments. We don't know that that's what's happened here, but had head turned on big brother. It's a very intense situation. You're all living together twenty four to seven. I can imagine how tempting it would be to want to find someone who would tickle your back, if you know what I mean. But she obviously had as sured caf and I'm sure that she absolutely believed it. This is all fakery, it will all be silliness. Don't worry.
Our love is strong. I love is fine. She didn't know that she was going to fall for what's his face in there. But I think my empathy does really go to Kath because I can just imagine watching that and You're there going like, you go, girl, I hope you're having a great time, and they were like, oh, now they're rubbing each other's hands, and now they're putting their head on his shoulder, and now they're It would be very hard to watch.
It's one thing to watch someone you love flirt with someone else, and it is another to watch someone you love fall for someone else.
And I have watched that. I have been.
I remember being and this is school time or early twenties or something about this period where you watch people that you're in a relationship with, and I would see them meet someone and I'd go, oh my god, oh my god, they're actually falling for each other, like right in front of me.
But we're not right for each other.
You too a right for you to a right for each other.
But I think I'm right for you, but I think you've just found someone better. Like it's the most terrific, confronting experience. But I did think Jojo is me when I went to UNI. And that's why I find this story interesting is because it's about celebrity big brother. And it's not about celebrity big brother. It's about the intensity
of some environments. So whether it's work, or whether it's a holiday, or whether it's a conference or whatever, where you get adults in a closed environment, whether or not they're in relationships. I went to UNI and I was in a long term relationship and I was thrust into this new world and I just went, I have outgrown my old self. That's how it felt, and I ended that relationship because that's what you're to do. But some of this commentary, which I agree with, is that emotional
cheating is more painful than physical cheating. Would it have been less painful if Jojo just went kissed whatever and they weren't feelings. But what would be so sickening to watch is like this connection developed.
Cath kept saying how humiliated they felt. So there's that whole extra element to it.
And that's not nothing, right because when this has happened before on reality TV, when you're the one who's going in there and you want your back tickled, you're thinking about your you know, your feelings, obviously, but you should also remember that your partner is watching this like.
That is a lot and that's the thing.
The rest of us got to do this privately and clumsily at twenty one in a club or at a campus or whatever, and Jojo, by the nature of her bizarre life, just did this on international television and it's a completely different thing, and it would compound the pain that Cath feels.
But what happens next, I think CAF is going to be very popular. I think there are going to be a lot of people sliding into their dms, I think to help mend their broken heart. I think Jojo might have over yes cooked this a little because Chris, who's eleven years older than her, he's thirty two. He's given quite a few interviews while he's like, yeah, I love her as a friend and I just it was an
amazing time in the house. He's also done more reality TV than her, so I think he's more understanding of the transient nature.
There could be legs in them as a couple for a while, though, in terms of publicity wise, now that Kath has told everyone what happened, or at least their understanding of what happened, Jojo in a way has been given permission that if she and Chris wanted to tell their side of the story, they could also do that.
Right, I reckon that Jojo did the right thing, regardless of whether Chris wants her or not. I think I've had that where I've liked someone else who definitely didn't like me back, but that was enough to indicate to me that what I was in wasn't right. However, I would not be surprised if in the next six months Jojo regrets it and she goes, oh, actually, I got totally distracted over here and I really missed this, and she kind of goes back on it.
Imagine if every dumb relationship you had in your early twenties became an Internet story and part of the news cycle or part of the TikTok cycle for weeks.
It would be very Sending so much love to Cath, I just hope that you get so many hotties love to cutting into those dms.
I think they're great.
Yeah.
On Friday, forty one year old Virginia Jeffrey died by suicide. Geffrey was publicly known as accusing Jeffrey Epstein, and Prince Andrew of sexual abuse. She pursued criminal and civil actions against Epstein and Galaine Maxwell. After suing Maxwell for defamation, she received a settlement in twenty seventeen. Then she sued Prince Andrew in civil court, which was settled in twenty twenty two. Prince Andrew paid her an undisclosed amount, a
significant portion of which went her charity. Just weeks ago, Jeffrey posted from a hospital bed in Perth describing how she'd been involved in a bus crash and had four days to live. A representative later said that post was a mistake, intended to be shared to a private page, and six days later Jeffrey was discharged from hospital. Then came the news on Friday. This is such a tragic ending to a tragic story. Can anything be learned from it?
There are advocates in the sexual abuse space who say one of the things that we learned from it is what a lifelong struggle it is to live with the after effects of sexual abuse and the trauma associated with it. I think one of the dangerous things about discussing this story in that way, though, is that we never want to be simplistic or make assumptions about why anyone would end their life, right all the statistics and data that
we know, so that it's not a simple line. And it was uncomfortable when we saw a lot of Virginia's face, that image of her in the hospital bed all over the media a few weeks ago. When you read those stories, it was clear that she was very unwell and that something very sad was happening, and it kind of felt
voyeuristic to be looking at that. One of the things that is interesting about this particular case, though, because it is so high profile, is some people are talking about what it means for how we view her allegations and how we view Prince Andrew's position denials of that right because you know, there's sort of a little bit of ghoulish commentary that has suggested that she was clearly so unwell,
bringing up issues of trust. And then there are others also quite gaulish commentary in a way that's saying, well, this maybe draws a line and allows Prince Andrew a way back to respectability somehow. Both of those things I think are probably overstated. I think that Prince Andrew's reputation is beyond repair. I would suggest he was at the Royal Family's Easter Sunday service, and he is, I mean,
he still exists. He's still out in the world, of course, and some people are suggesting that this could be an opportunity for him to make a statement and express his sorrow and sadness. But I'm sure that that's actually the last thing that Virginia Giffra's family would want is for him to insert himself into this in any way. Certainly what they feel from the statements that they've made, their words were in the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle
its weight. And just the sorrow and sadness that they must feel unimaginable.
It's so tragic. She had three kids, she was forty one and lived in Australia for a lot of the
last decades of her life. What was notable in the last few weeks, when I think everybody felt unsettled seeing those photos and the coverage of it, and then the speculation about the accident that didn't really happen clearly, as you say, oh, she was unwell, but there was a sense, and there were some horrible things said on social media by some of Andrew's supporters that he was going to be vindicated, and that him saying that he I mean, he can't deny that he knew and was friendly with
Jeffrey Epstein and troubled with him and stayed in his house, but he denied the specificity of the case against him with Virginia Jeffrey's accusations. Now that was settled out of court, and as part of that settlement, in which she's rumored to have received a financial payout that was significant, she wasn't allowed to speak about it anymore, which is both good and bad in terms of she was gagged essentially in exchange for that money. It's a pretty common thing
and you've got to make some really tough decisions. But now it's interesting the idea of it being a line under this case for him, in that you can now say all kinds of things about her because you can't defame that dead. But I think it bars any redemption arc for him because there was a sense that and everyone said this was very naive, that he could go away and just maybe do charity work and quietly reappear.
But he's been.
Involved in other scandals. There was another Chinese by scandal. He hasn't showered himself in glory since this happened. He will never be able to acquit himself of these charges and of this speculation because she's not around.
I was thinking about that when we were researching this today, and the fact that his disappearance, as it were, is right. But then there's another bit of me that's like he's sort of being paid by his brother really to just live a nice life and shut up. You know, it's not actually a very admirable way to live if he did really feel Because the thing is what we have to remember, he's always absolutely denied his involvement, and that's his absolute prerogative. But for Virginia Giffrey, she did not
only allege that she was abused by him. She says she was passed around by EPs in circle. The fact that she suffered abuse at the hands of rich and powerful men is not under question. Actually, what was never proven is whether or not Prince Andrew it was one of those people, and so there's a bit of me that's like, it's right that he should be disappeared, as it were, by the royal family, but it's also like it's just a very ignoble weak end to a.
Justice.
Yeah, I think it teaches us something to about their compassion. We owed her a few weeks ago, and there wasn't a lot of compassion in the commentary because how we see mental health is still something I don't think a lot of us know how to talk about properly, and I think that we're still developing a language and framework by which to understand trauma and the brain and what
it does to a life. And as you say, Holly, that's not to say that one cannot flourish, and there is in hope, There absolutely is, But it's also worth acknowledging that child sex abuse comes with a mortality rate. If you were to be diagnosed with something and they said, you know this is going to impact your life expectancy,
then we understand that are something more straightforward. But for this and then the complication of the life lived in between is just something that we're still getting our head around. And I think of those images of her and how the media didn't know what to do with it. We now see it through the prism of that was a woman in an enormous amount of pain, regardless of how she was talking about it. It just makes it even more.
Tragic in a moment, the new gotcha question for our political leaders that's almost impossible to answer. There are five sleeps now until this mercifully dull federal election campaign comes to a close. People are roundly saying it's been one of the most boring elections ever, And to that I say, thank god. Yeah, We've all seen what happens in exciting elections in other parts of the world. I've already voted, so a lot of Australians have already voted, and many
many more will have already voted before election day. No one hangs around for the democracy sausage anymore. But if you voted before last night's fourth leader's debate, you missed two enormous things. One, no one knows the price of eggs. It used to be that to prove how out of touch a politician was, you asked them about milk. How much is a pine of milk? We used to say,
Now it's eggs. But It's a very hard question to answer, even for the keen bean assistants who have to like prep the ministers with this, because what are we talking about? Are we talking about cage eggs, free range eggs, organic eggs, regular or large? Are we talking about grain fed eggs, barn laid vegetarian eggs, hormone free eggs? What about omega enrichment? This is a very hard question.
Are we talking about aldi or house farm exactly?
Are we talking about Cadbury cream eggs? I know how much they cost. I can't believe how much. Tell me how much actual eggs cost.
So they average out given all the things we just talked about, they're somewhere around six to seven to eight dollars. It depends right.
How much do you think it Cantree cream egg costs?
You tell me, maya between two dollars.
Fifty and three dollars thirty. But if you want the ice cream, you can get a four pack for twelve dollars.
Somebody put this woman on the leader's to beate. She'd nail it. Don't guess four, which isn't true for any of these levels of eggs. And Albo had a couple of goes, which reveal he's probably a free range kind of guy.
Can I just offer a defense for not knowing the prices of most things? I think that since we no longer use cash and we are tapping willy nilly, I think we have lost a bit of a sense of how much things cost, and because of like click and collect. And also I go into my local usually Audi chuck fifteen things in and it's five hundred dollars, and I go, that's a lot. I don't know if my eggs were eighty five dollars or if that was just the milk.
And so I know that there are some families, in fact, a significant portion of families who are budgeting every week and who might know more.
But I do think it's difficult.
Hi, and I accept your defense accepted. However, given the price of eggs is currently like a global story, like Trump's always being asked about the price of eggs too, I feel like you might have a few numbers in your pocket, which I think the chaps did. And as like Mia and her cream eggs, they were heading their beds anyway, onto more important matters. One of the big criticisms of this election is that there's not actually a
lot of difference between the major parties. They keep agreeing to match each other's promises, match each other spends, But this last week a culture gap is being wedged open when it comes to acknowledgment of country addresses a public events. At the debate, both leaders condemned the people who heckled and booed Uncle Mark Brown when he delivered the Welcome to Country at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday morning.
Those people were arrested. They were believed to be part of far right neo Nazi groups, and both Stutton and Albanesi said that level of disrespect absolutely no place, especially on Amazac Day, but no place in our culture in general.
But the sentiment itself that there is a growing group of Australians who would like to see the back of welcome to Country and acknowledgment of country addresses at public gatherings is one that has been seized on by Clive Palmer's campaign and to a lesser extent by the Liberals. This is what both leaders had to say about it at last night's debate.
I think there is and people have said this to me as we've moved across the country. There is a sense across the community that it's overdone. For the opening of Parliament fair enough, it's respectful to do. But for the start of every meeting at work or the start of a football game. I think a lot of Australians think it's overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do. It divides the country. Not this similar to Prime Minister, Yes.
Of the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister, you always have at your official events, have been a lot of them, smoking ceremonies, welcome to country, acknowledgement of traditional honors.
Well, from my perspective, it's a matter of respect. But it's also of course up to the organizations that are hosting an event of whether they have a welcome to country or not. It's up to them, and people will have different views and people are in toitle their views. But we have a great privilege from my perspective, of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth, and when I welcome international visitors to Parliament House, you know what they want to see that culture.
What do we think about this debate in inverted commas being brought up at this late stage of the election campaign.
I think that Dutton has some data about what Australians think. News dot com and say what you like about that particular audience. But they did a poll just over the weekend and they polled fifty thousand Australians and sixty five percent said they think welcome to country ceremonies should stop completely right, And I know it's not a very official poll and it's people on the internet who are anonymous.
Doesn't necessarily stand up, but I have sat at dinner tables, especially across from people who work in the corporate sector, who have said that they think that the acknowledgment of country, which we should say, is very different to a welcome to country. So a welcome to country is done by an indigenous person, it is an official ceremony, there's official wording. An acknowledgment of country is done by a white person or someone who is not Indigenous, who's acknowledging the land
that they are currently on. And they've said that they've sat in meetings and an acknowledgment of country has started the meeting and then there might be twenty people on the call from all over Australia and they go round and all of them have to acknowledge, and they've said that they think that's overkill the time and the performance
of it all. They think it's necessary at a football game, at a conference, but when it's in the individualized, even one on one meetings, they think there's something a little bit performative about it.
Right. But on the other hand, I've.
Been watching this debate on fell over the weekend and I keep thinking of Thomas Mayo and Megan Davis and the dozens of Indigenous activists who worked tirelessly on the Voice to Parliament, and when that came back as a no, I think it emboldened those who want absolutely no recognition and who want to pretend that this country wasn't colonized. And remember the Liberal Party basically said at the time, we don't support the Voice, but we're open to some
other form of recognition to that. I keep wondering, where is it?
Where is it?
This is where we are, This is where we are, a week out from an election where there are massive issues to discuss, and we are talking about whether a one minute acknowledgment of our history is worth it or not. And remember too, the reason that acknowledgment of country and welcome to Country exists is because there is no official Indigenous recognition in our constitution and because for most of
our history we have literally erased indigenous existence. That's why it happens at Anzac Day, because there were Indigenous diggers who were written out of history until five minutes ago.
I thought it was really interesting and kind of surprising, but also not that Dutton brought this up, or that this came up in the debate, because it's been refreshingly free of what's referred to often as culture wars issues in this election, which is perhaps why we haven't heard so much about it, because, as you say, it hasn't been about the stuff that gets people riled up online and so it hasn't really made the news cycle the
various policies. But as it gets down to the home straight, I think that Dutton, who has really been challenged in terms of being able to say, well either of them what they stand for. Dutton has not had the cut through that perhaps he hoped he would, and I think he's trying to grasp on to any issue that's in the new cycle, and it was in the new cycle because of what happened with Anzac Day. It's such a good point also that Elbow made about it's not mandatory.
There's no law that says you have to. Therefore we don't need a law that says you don't have to. Everybody gets to choose. And if it's taking up too long in your meeting and the people don't feel that it's something that they want to do, then talk about that. But I don't object to it at any of the events i'm at. I think it can be a really beautiful theme.
I think it's worth acknowledging that across the country. On Friday, when those people were shouting at Uncle Mark Brown, hundreds and thousands of Australians were standing and respectfully, silently listening to a welcome to country before paying their respects at a dawn service. I don't think that this sort of shouty line about I don't need to be welcome to my country, which is what's in the Clive Palmarads, actually has that much traction. It is a willful misunderstanding misrepresentation
of what a welcome to country is. You're actually being included, not excluded, by a welcome to country, So it's a willful misunderstanding and I would like to imagine that certainly for kids like mine who have grown up with acknowledgments and welcomes to country and you know, singing the national anthem in language and all these things, it doesn't feel strange or extreme or scary or any of the things that I think we're sort of being whipped up to consider. Maybe it does.
I just want to talk about the impact for a minute, because what happened over the weekend too is that there was some sort of alleged misunderstanding. There was an NRL game, Melbourne Storm playing, and there was a welcome to country organized. Then the organizer said, oh, wait, we don't want to do one, and the Indigenous people who were there ready to do it kind of were shocked by that, and
then they said, oh, there's an understanding. Actually we do want you to and they ended up talking to each other and going, no, we're not going to do it because we feel really uncomfortable. The ABAC went and spoke to some people who were at those ceremonies who are Indigenous, and one man said, I will never attend an Anzac Day service at the shrine again. And I think that that's the loss here is that it has taken so many years for a particular community to feel dignified, to
feel included. The person who suffered in that was a person trying to give the welcome to country, and they were humiliated, and they are within their rights to go. I don't want to do that again. I don't want to be put in that position.
After the break, shifting gears because we have some feedback for the famous couple who claim that they haven't had an argument in eleven years.
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
George and Mark Clooney claim to have never argued in their eleven years of marriage, and some people are mad about it. He did an interview on CBS this morning with astronaut Gale King, and here's what he said.
Anamal and I, you know, I remember we were here with you once before, and remember he said we'd never had an argument.
We still have it.
You still have it. No, we're trying to find something to fight about.
But we're I think because I started so late with them all.
I remember when you said you never get married, you'd never have kids. Yes, now you're married and you have What happened?
Yeah, what happened to me?
Yeah?
Maybe because she's one of the most successful human rights lawyers in the world, he just doesn't try. But there has been some predictable snark about this because it's the Internet, with Guardian columnist Rachel Connolly writing, these are some of the most beautiful people in the world. On top of this, they are extremely rich. They can have houses and holidays wherever they want, They can buy whatever clothes and dinners they choose. What would you have to argue about if
you lived such a gilded existence? And she goes on to say that arguments are part of life and that of course they don't argue because they've got nothing to argue about. She says, most of us, with our lump and faces and bodies, our fragile bank balances, our bobbled polyester clothing and our strained sleep schedules, argue with our partners with some degree of regularity. Jesse, do you and look I argue with each other about being unattractive and wearing cheap clothes.
Then I resent that because I saw that headline and I just went, we're not fight about being ugly. Ugly people don't look at each other and be like your face like we don't.
I'm sorry, Brent and I argue about being ugly. Literally, we had a fight on the weekend when I was like, I refuse to go to this thing with you if you don't look better than this, like I literally did.
We had a fight.
I was like, put some shoes on, yeah, took your shirt in, but wouldn't killing you to have a shave?
I do not.
I both think IMML and George are having this shots fired.
To the idea that rich people don't have problems. Now, I think they absolutely have a couple.
Of things about them at the moment. They're not living in the same city because he's on Broadway. That's why he's dyed his hair. He also did say that Amal hates it he's got black hair, a mother doesn't like the hair. Sounds a bit like a fight to me, But I think there is truth to the fact that a lot of the friction that can lead to fights, and they say that every couple has the same argument for the duration of their relationship. They just have it
in different ways. You can certainly smooth out some of that friction with cleaners, with nannies, with drivers, with not having to you know, money is a big thing that couples fight about.
Yes, this is logistics. It removes the logistic conversation.
But what I would like to unpack a little bit is the definition of a fight. Because Lucra and I have always said Lucra and I don't fight. We have never raised our voices. We have never sorry, We've never raised each other. We don't raise voices.
We don't.
It's looking startled.
We don't.
Actually doesn't surprise me. I've heard neither of you raise your voices to anyone.
No, and then even like you like whisper the.
Stupid wearing that God, I hate you.
We don't do the not talking to each other thing like I know that some couples like.
It doesn't mean that we don't argue.
We've just started that after all, where it is just weaponar silence. But the thing is that I just forget. I can't concentrate. I'm like, are we still not talking?
I can't be What is a fight?
What is a fight?
What's a fight.
It's a disagreement, right.
Disagreements like you have disagreements about what you want for dinner, but like.
Whether we should summer in the lake coast hard if there are other people that live in your house, it's harder. It's harder to have sex, and it's harder to have fights. They have there's always someone around.
We have your twins.
I'm sure their twins can be like rich people have annoying kids. Rich people have a leak in their roof, right.
Well, yes, but they don't have to deal with it. Gurus would tell you that it's not something to aspire to. So the idea, like you know, it used to be. I remember when I was growing up, it was like there were some famous couples who've never spent a night apart, and that was seen as the absolute pinnacle of like you know, of togetherness is that they hate being a partner, never apart. And this is similar the headlines around the cloonies don't fight has been held up like if only
we could all be like them. But I think gurus say you should fight, like you shouldn't fight. You shouldn't insult each other, criticize each other, relentlessly. You shouldn't go low and all those things, but you shouldn't tiptoe around pretending everything's hunky dory all the time, because ultimately one of your heads will fall.
Yes, which is maybe of conflict.
Maybe I consider that a discussion a discussion or an argument. And we will have all the time, We'll have things where we sit down and I go, especially since having a baby, where you go, I feel like I'm.
Doing a little bit more.
Neither of us escalated. And I've been in relationships before where I've been with an escalator or someone who isn't listening or whatever, and I have felt either I raise my voice or they raise their voice, and then I felt to get really messy. And maybe that's what I consider a files.
And I also think that there's something so the Cloonies. Famously, George Clooney got married in his early fifties, I think right, and for many years there was like a marriage watch on Clooney. And he once made a bet, didn't He said, I'm never gonna get married, oh kid, never gonna have kids with Nicole Kidman. And obviously that was pre a mile universe. But also there's something to be said for the fact he probably knows himself pretty well by that point.
She's a very smart woman. If they've had relationships before with as you described them, escalators, Jesse, and they don't like it. Because some couples love fighting, they like, I mean, not horrible fights, but they love the energy of it, the excitement of it. And if you like that, that's great. But if you hate that and you recoil from it, then that's one of the things you're not looking for.
And when you're fifty four year old Clooney and you're picking your glorious human rights lawyer, you're probably going as she's going to be yelling at me about the fact my toenails are ugly enough have to put shoes.
On, you know. I think that if there's good communication, that is what you're talking about. If you've got someone who is a bad communicator or who won't communicate with you, that's really hard. That's where conflict lives. But if you can talk and resolve things, you know.
I do think too that George Clooney is a smart man and he knows that. I mean, I'm not starting any fight with a human rights I just think that she's going to win. Every time, So he's like, I back down side.
I've heard whispers that people think he's going to run. Is he going to run Clooney for president? I've heard whispers.
I think it would make a lot of sense because the Democrats are in all sorts of trouble.
Remember when it was going to be so I got left to do.
Yeah, she doesn't want to do it, but I can imagine that he'd like to kick that off.
Gay or King could give it a go.
Yes, as girl, King would be great A loud us thank you all for listening to our wide ranging show today and to our fabulous team who've helped us put it all together.
We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow. Takes a village to make a show.
Let us tell you out loud as it does.
We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow. And if you're in Perth, in your eyes on Thursday night byey.
Shout out to any Muma Maya subscribers listening. If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to Mom and Maya is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode description