We hope that a few people will listen into this. Rachel, a little bit of an introduction. It is that you got in contact with a column. First of all, what about two years ago? Is that right? It was August 2000. Yeah. Well, to August 2024, so. Oh, OK. Right. Yeah, yeah. And we have done an interview before which I'll link him with this. This is really just a chat. It's, it's Sunday morning, early Sunday morning for me. I've lost track of where it is for you now. Where is it for you?
Where? Are we? It's 8:10 in the evening. Yeah, because because you're in Australia and it's very warm and hot there and it's cold and rainy here. So we've set the scene. But you'd had some amazing experiences through COVID and lockdown and that's really where we got chatting and we have been in touch. But you were keen to to have a chat again and so here we are. So I'd like to say to you how, if I may, how is life in Australia? And yeah, is it? Yeah, life, yeah, life in
Australia is good. Always loved Australia. And as you know, when I visited the column, I was living in New Zealand and then we decided as a family to relocate back to Australia because it it's a different way of life in Australia and to New Zealand and it's more laid back. The weather's better, however, it's very humid. It's been 33 today. And yeah, we've lived in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and decided to give Brisbane a go this time. So it's all new again.
We moved here in April last year, so we've been here around what, 8 months? Right, OK, brilliant. Well, look, we're not going to directly go over old ground, but I am going to say that you know what, what you had to say about lockdown in New Zealand was pretty amazing and it was obviously a tough time for you and made, made a big impact on you. I've never been in my Navy time.
I, I did get to a lot of places around the world, but I never got to New Zealand or Australia. And your comment there that Australia is a lot more laid back than New Zealand. Just talk about those differences a bit. Then what? What, what makes New Zealand a bit more up, uptight or straight is that is that the British is, is that still the British? No, it's, it's amazing the differences really. The cost of living in New Zealand is off the scale, literally.
There's a lot of I can, I could see, you know, we lived there for eight years. We moved from Auckland to Hawksbury. And yeah, it was just so. So I can't even tell you how expensive, like $20.00 for a block of cheese in New Zealand, which is around 1415 lbs. And the property is so expensive. That was one of the reasons actually, we moved from Auckland to Hawkes Bay because of the house prices in Auckland were just, you know, we both had great careers, but yeah, just
out of reach. Yeah, just the bills, you know, the utilities and taxes and everything was just, yeah, it was just phenomenal. And having resided in Australia prior to moving to New Zealand, it was a big shock from going from Australia to New Zealand. I remember our standard of living dropped drastically. You know where where in Australia? You can do so much here, Brian. Like you'll go to the beach and there's phone chargers there, there's showers, there's facilities for families, there's
dog bags for for the dogs. And it's just a real different way of life in every way. When I say laid back, people are happier here and I think people are happier because, well, at the minute, you know, people are still in certain areas of society thriving. But I do see decline in other other areas as well. In my sector of work, I've seen a lot of AI takeover and my sector of work is recruitment. Yeah, it's scary. You can just see the decline.
You know, we've not been in Australia for eight years, but you know, there's been a lot of changes. I've had my first interaction with Thought Thought Crime. Brian, I got a fine through the post for having a laptop on my, sorry my phone on my lap. It was taken by a a surveillance camera. What? What, you were driving or something? Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to dispute it because I don't use my phone when I'm driving. I've actually got Bluetooth in the car and there's a photo of,
of the phone on on my lap. But there's, you know, my, my fingers are nowhere near it or anything. I don't know why it was on my lap. I can't recall why it was on my lap. All I do know is I weren't using it because I used Bluetooth in the car. So it was a bit of a shock and the fine is absolutely phenomenal. I've got it here. There's there's the photo of the car and me. Well, I see it and and there's the the phone. Yeah, I see it.
Yeah. Yeah, infringement noise, but it says on here alleged offence driver use mobile phone. Well, I'm not using my mobile phone. Apparently in Brisbane it's illegal to have an A mobile phone anywhere on your body in the car. I rang, I rang the sorry. Go on. Well, from my brief glimpse of the photograph, it looks as though the phone is on the seat by your leg. Yeah, well, it's hard to tell. It does look like it's on my lap, but as you can see, my hand is on the steering wheel.
I'm not using the phone and the fine is $1251 and the demerit points are 4, which is really high, so I'm going to dispute that. Going to look into that a bit more. But I did have an interesting conversation with the lady at the transport office. I mean, if I had a glass, if I had a bottle of wine on my lap, does it mean I'm going to drink it? So. But it but it is it is thought crime, isn't it? You know it. Is that's exactly what it is. Yeah. That's the first thing that came to my mind.
And I've never received anything like that. And I was like, wow, so you take photos of people in the car when they're driving? Yeah, Oh well. Well, this has been going on with UK for a very in a very long time with all the cameras on the bridges, particularly over the motorway. Personally I always drive with the sun visor down because although OK, it's not always
fully down. You might have it part part of the way down but it it does significantly obstruct the view into the windscreen from those high level cameras. Yeah, I mean, you know, fair enough if I'd been pulled over by the police, if I was using my phone, but they're actually photographing you while you're driving. It's just like, wow, that that's blown my mind to be honest, because I've experienced it myself now.
Yeah. And and you mentioned to me earlier that that just as here in UK, you experiencing people who were fractious. Yeah, yeah, People are on edge, but they may not know why. I think it's all an internal thing, Brian, and dare I say it, a spiritual thing, that the world is so fragmented and divided on so many issues, whether it be politics, exopolitics, what's going on in different countries. It's just unbelievable. And the, the way for me to get through it is to look at things
logically and research. I don't, I don't believe anything that that's told to me. I question things, you know, because you have to, you have to delve back into history to see why these things are going on. Yeah, this is absolutely true. The other thing which has been in the press in UK, and I'd like to know what you think about it, is the is stopping children
getting onto social media. And actually there's just been a headline, I think it's today or might have been yesterday in UK press saying, well, Keir Starmer is now considering doing the same. And to me this is so significant. It is. It's already happened here in Australia under sixteens are not allowed access to social media. Now that was brought in, I believe in December. Now like I say, I like to look at things logically and research.
Now for me having, I'm, I'm a mum and I as a mother should be left to watch my child, what they're doing on social media at a certain age. I, I, I actually had those discussions with my daughter when she was around 13. When you upload a photo, your friends aren't just going to see it, It's going to be their friends, you know, and so on and so forth. And then when you look for a job, you know, they're going to look at your social media
profile and things like that. So, you know, I had a really good in depth conversation with my daughter about social media. Now for me, it's not up to the state to decide what a child does or doesn't do. I mean, for me, if the government is going to intervene, why can't they intervene with pornography and all the dark things you know, that they should be looking at, not the parental role. Yeah, I think, I think that's a really good point.
And of course, they never go into those those areas they always talk about child protection, but areas where they could make a difference, they don't, they don't get near. Yeah. And that and that has divided a lot of families here as well. Another thing to divide people you know, Does the state do it or parents? Yeah. So presumably some parents agree with you that it should be a decision for the parents. And others say, Oh well, it's a good thing because the state is.
Yeah, It was good to see. There has been a lot of pushback, you know, on that issue. Don't know where that's going to lead. But, you know, it is heartening to see, you know, that people are like, well, I'm a parent. I'm not going to be told what my child. Yeah. What What about Australian politicians or any of them challenging it? Or are they all united with
government policy? That's a really good question and there is, I'm not sure if he's an MP or senator, so please don't quote me on his position within government, but I know there is one. I think he's called Senator Babbitt and he is a voice of reason. He, he is very vocal on social media about where he thinks this government is leading Australia. And yeah, it's a good voice of reason. Is is a is a good one to follow? Yeah, yeah. Well, well, that's good.
I, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see how it pans out here if they attempt to push this through.
But of course for for me, rather than protecting children from the bad stuff online, what the government is doing I think is making absolutely sure that youngsters, particularly teenagers who are learning are not going to get access to any other material than the formal news channels like the BBC or whatever it is. So they don't want children using social media because children might learn that what they're being told and taught through the official system at
school and college is not necessarily the truth. So you want to block them from that. That's what I think they're doing. Yeah, we, we can speculate on agendas, etcetera, but you have to, because you could also look at it Brian, that they're wanting the young people to get used to using a digital ID to get on the Internet. Yes.
You know, if you take the things away that they enjoy doing and then when they're 16, they have to sign up for a digital ID or when they're 18. Yeah, that's a very, that is a very good point, a very good point. And somebody a few days ago sent me an e-mail pointing out that there's an app which has now been created in UK where youngsters are going to have to use that app or will use that app in order to get their exam results.
And that would, that would seem to fit that model, wouldn't it, that that you're training youngsters to use this stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, the young ones are have been brought up digitally. There's no two ways, you know, locally, my daughter was in the middle of that, but the younger ones now they're just they've they've got an iPad at age 3 and exposed to so much.
And this is where we go as well. You know, I do see that, Brian, you know, that some parents appease children with, with, you know, digital products, you know, to keep them entertained. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a big debate for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Another question for you. You're you're there in Australia, you've still got a bit of an accent. It's never going to go. No, well it shouldn't because I've I've always no accents around around UKI think they're fun your. Identity.
Yeah, the reason I said that is because obviously if you talk to somebody in Australia, they know pretty quickly you're a, you're a POM, so. Oh, absolutely. You've got, you know, you're looking at the world as as you are and you've got huge concerns about what's going on. You've experienced some horrible stuff during the lockdown thing.
When, when you get into discussion with Australians, are you the, are you the wacky Brits or are, or are Australians starting to also starting to sort of sense that something's wrong? How, how easy is it for you to connect with people who are also waking up to use that expression in in Australia? That's a brilliant question because we've had such a transient lifestyle living in Australia, New Zealand, back in the UK, back to New Zealand.
But you know, I've had to adapt. I've had to learn to adapt to, you know, certain ways of life and different cultures and everything. I have noticed that where we are here in Brisbane, we're in suburbia again and it's very insular. It's I couldn't tell you the names of my neighbors. However I tried to correct that at Christmas. In fact, I did correct that.
I took, I baked some brownies and I went next door on a mission and I think it was Christmas Eve and I went next door and I banged on the door and introduced myself. And the lady next door is actually Scottish. And she's lived. And she's lived here for, I think she said about 20 years. And then so I left the brownies. And then 10 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. And she brought a box of chocolates. And I said, I'm really, I don't want to offend you, but I don't
give to receive. You know, I wanted to bite brownies and everything I said, but, you know, you're welcome to come in and have a glass of wine. And she came in and it was really surreal. She just burst into tears, right? And I sat her down and I got her a drink. And, you know, Christmas can be a tough time, you know, for. Everybody what what did, what did sort of what had triggered her? The fact that you'd take in the trouble. To the kindness. Right. The kindness, yeah, she she
said. It's gone and it made her cry. Well. So that was quite a poignant conversation. And then I meet people at the beach, I've met people at work, I've met people, I've been on groups on various social media and met people and talked to people about what is going on. And the the the weird thing is when you start doing that and opening new channels for yourself and being. Authentic.
You know, I've met some wonderful people and I have got a story which is quite sad that here in Australia there seems to be a tiny house movement going on, you know, whereby people are renting land in rural or remote locations and putting a caravan on there or tiny home on there or a motor home.
And I met a gentleman who was actually from South Africa and we had a lot of conversations and I went to visit him and he was located at Glasshouse Mountains, which is a spectacular place, about an hour's drive out of Brisbane. And I met, I went to meet him and he had some land and he had various, the land was gorgeous. Brian, it was so gorgeous. He'd got a little lick in the middle and he was doing a veggie
patch and getting chickens. And he had, I think when I went first, I visited him a few times. He had a, a lovely family. We're actually originally from the UK, living in a modular home and a caravan on the on there. And there was other caravans on there and they all have their own allocated segment of the land. And we kept in touch for a few months and I went to visit him a few times because I wanted to, I suppose, test the water on maybe getting a tiny hole. When was it?
I think it was about October time and I was due to visit him and I received a text and they said please don't come tomorrow And I was like why are you OK? Is everything OK? And he said, oh, the council have been and I've been and the police and they've shut the land down and they've given him a massive fine. And it was it was destructs that was his livelihood and he wanted to help people.
And I've heard a lot of those stories, but that then I experienced just seem to experience these things, Brian, because I put myself out there, you know, and get to meet people and and see what's going on in society. You know it's important. Yeah. And it and it is true that people who are trying to live you could say an alternative life or a life outside the mainstream system, they are absolutely being targeted and penalized. Yeah, all the zoning laws have
changed and things. Yeah, you know, that's happening in UK. So that that's, that is, you know, sad that that's happened to him. So you, you're painting a picture really of, of a similar situation with people in Australia to UK, just to come back to the lady saying to you, the kindness has gone. I I thought, wow, because my big thing, and I've felt this really strongly over probably the last three Christmases, is that the atmosphere of Christmas. Is gone.
Has gone now I am as old as I am. So part of it, I think to myself, you've got to be a bit careful here because when you think back to, if you think back to when you were a child even. It was so different. So different to my mind, as Christmas got close, there was a sort of peace came that that didn't mean that everybody was happy because Christmas has always been, you know, difficult time for people, particularly people living rough or on the
streets. But there was Carol singing and people did come around either organized or sometimes it was children singing carols. And I just remember there was this piece. And OK, I've lived most of my life in the South of of England, so Christmas is not automatically with snow, but if there was snow at Christmas, it just added to it. And there was this peace descended. And in recent years I've just thought it's all changed. Christmas is not like Christmas,
but also this, this peaceful. The atmosphere is gone. When when your lady said the kindness, I'm thinking, yes, she's right, because the atmosphere is gone and the kindness has gone as well. It's all been replaced by increasingly horrible LED flashing lights. So. So you might have had a house festooned with them. I've. Opened up a whole new conversation there because I'm going back to basics, Brian. I've bought a record player, ACD player. I've changed my car.
I don't want an electronic mess. I want a manual old. Car. Yeah, well, yeah, this is really good. Just finished the lights. I, I absolutely. Now you see more and more houses festooned with lights and more and more blue lights, which I've never liked because I don't think they ever look right. You know what, a Garland or something. So as the technology is increased in the light department, so the atmosphere of Christmas is lessened.
And it's, it's quite clear now that the idea of, of Christmas being some form of Christian celebration, that's just complete nonsense. It's gone, yeah. I mean, yeah, I remember being at primary school and we'd make snowflakes. We'd have a little Christmas party. It was watch Christmas movies, you know, it was all my. Well, I don't like to use the word magical because of the connotations with.
It now but. But it was, it was special, you know, Christmas time when I was a young girl and I remember it with from memories definitely. Yeah, I know it's, it's very interesting. And I think in my mind it's it's being very cleverly wiped out by an agenda which is. Yeah, absolutely. It's so insidious. You don't notice it until you look back.
You know, just a little things like I went to a non denomination school, but we still sang the Lord's Prayer at assemblies and still celebrated harvest festival and visited church and things like that. That's all gone, you know, and I didn't notice it so much until I was like, oh, don't they do that in Australia? You know, don't they do, you know, harvest festival and things like that?
But as you know, as an immigrant, you don't question things because it's you assimilate to a new culture and way of life, you know? So you you've mentioned interesting word there, immigrant immigration and you are one. I am. You are obviously. Well, not now. I'm actually a New Zealand citizen. Or an Australian citizen. No, I'm a New Zealand, I'm a Kiwi. Well, I'm a dual citizen. Living in Australia. Yeah, so Australia and New Zealand are very closely aligned with their.
So if you're a Kiwi, you can work and live in Australia and vice versa. They have reciprocal immigration and healthcare and things like that. OK, well what what I was going to ask is other migration in into Australia has been pretty high over a large number of years. So Australia is a society from I think the way a lot of older Brits might remember it, you know, which is predominantly white society, Crocodile Dundee and all the rest of it. It's it's it's changed huge
amount. What about people who are are also immigrants to Australia from other countries, maybe Asian countries? Are you finding that any of those are awake to to what's going on with the policy? Wow. Maybe I can make it easier for you because here in, in if for us locally, for the UK column team locally, if you want to get an easy opinion from somebody who's come in from another country, you just hop in a taxi and they might be, you know, Romanian or Bangladeshi.
And you can invariably start a good conversation with them. And, and I've got to say that if you talk to one who's established as many of them are, so they will say, well, actually it's my parents who came here and I, I, I, I was born in UK. They are also getting very concerned about the way they're seeing the country go. Yeah, it's funny you say that because you just made me recall a conversation I had at the
beach. I was walking our dogs and there was 3 elderly gentlemen actually having a discussion about immigration that I overheard while I was walking. And I actually joined in the conversation. All I can say is, Brian, from my own experience of being an immigrant, it's a very, the process that we went through just to be transparent, you know, we had to have a full medical, all the family, we had to, to have certain criteria and
points for our roles as well. Any family history of disease, illness, they checked your bank accounts, your funds, you know, everything is your, your police checks go back. I think it's 10 years. So it's a highly involved process going, you know, from initially from the UK to Australia, it took months and months.
So, and as an immigrant, I think I've got a voice to say, you know, we've been in New Zealand and on Australia and you do have to assimilate into society and involve yourself with their culture and values and everything. And it's sad to see that they call it diversity. I think is the is the word that you know, for example, in, in my job in recruitment, I have come across people who are unable to talk and communicate. They've had translators with them at interviews and things like that.
So there are issues. I thought to myself, well, if you can't communicate, how, how do you how do you expect you're going to get a job where you have to communicate? How does that happen? I don't, I don't understand because it's like setting someone up to fail. How are they going to support themselves and their families, you know, if they can't basically meet the criteria of
communication skills? So I for me, you know, if I, if I look at UK or I look, you know, across other European countries or even America, we see the same sorts of policies coming in making the, having the say.
Those policies have the same effects in a country, whether it's Germany or France or Italy. There's a creeping unification of the policies that come in through the government, which they're not shaping not only work and professional society but also communities and how people relate to each other. And yeah, I'll go back to our previous conversation with that. It seems to me just like, you know, when in 2020 everybody was in lockstep, so they're in lockstep with policy such as
digital ID, the CBDC's. Everybody's becoming more aware of that now. Yeah, they all the Five Eyes nations, Canada, Australia, UK that that they're all following the same policies and implementing the same things. And, and, and we should question that because again, it comes back to culture and ethics. And you know, as AI consider myself well researched now and aware and the things we should be questioning is what is the purpose of governments?
Because there's so much overreach now that it's never ending. Where does this end? You know, we have to question that. Yeah. Is government the servant of the people? Or is it? Or is it the ruler of the people? This is the key thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's the same with gun laws and things like that. And we all know an unarmed populace is not a threat, you know, and that that's a fact, not a nice one to digest. But common sense says, you know that.
Why are they bringing all these gun laws in and why are all these shootings happening? What is going on? Yes. It's true. You know, it's, yeah, for me, I mean, as my experience of government as a young woman growing up and travelling the world, I used to be a flight attendant in my young years. I don't know if I've told you that for Virgin Atlantic, Yeah. There was no overreach that never interfered in my life. Now it's never ending. And it's like, wow, how, how how
was all this happened? And it's, it's something we should all be discussing and talking about and debating about because history says the governments were there for the infrastructure, you know, to take care of the roads and, you know, and then taxes were implemented in the First World War, which was a temporary measure. Which has. Never gone. We all know what happens to temporary measures. It's never. It's never where we are now. Yeah. Yeah, a creeping.
It's mission creep, isn't it? Mission creep by whatever hands the control of the state has crept, ever become ever greater. But it's a very slow process. Well, it's speeding up now, I think. Accelerating is the word the World Economic Forum. Yes, absolutely. And and the good news about that is the fact it's accelerating means it's easier for people to pick up that these changes are happening. Yeah. Yeah, but I do. I don't think people are grasping what these changes are going to do.
No, they don't Unders. Yeah, they don't understand the real dangers. Yeah. So we've still got a job to do, Rachel. Especially with the youngsters. This is. Yeah, yeah. This is where we need to educate youngsters on, you know, how you know it. Technology is, it's like anything, Brian, isn't it?
It can be used for good or nefarious, you know, if you look at the Internet, you know, you can do your research and whatnot, but we all know that there's bad things on the Internet If you if you wanted to go down that road, such as pornography. And I'll just reiterate my point there again is educating our children on that and the dangers of, you know, social media and things like that. That's what us as mums and dads should be doing and we should be, we should be going back to basics.
You know, not everything should be digital. You know, family should be sat around having dinner, talking about the days, you know, back to basics for me, as I said, my life's changed, Brian. I've, I've got a record player now I've got ACD player. I've changed my car. I've changed my life because it's it's an intentional thing because I've realized that, you know, I don't want my music on Spotify where I subscribe and get music. It's a never ending cycle of renting a subscription.
I want to own my music. I want to own, you know, the things that have like ACD player and a record player and it and it comes down to privacy as well. I've learned. But just the other day when I was talking to the transport lady for Queen for Queensland government, she sent me a link and I had to agree. I can't remember the wording, but it was something about my privacy was if I clicked agree, my privacy was not going to happen. You know, it was going to go to
all these third parties. And I was like, and I rang her back and I said I'm not going to click on agree. My privacy is everything to me. So I'd rather do it analogue. I said, can you send me something through the post what I can, where I can fill in the form And that's what they've done. So it's just I'm making myself more aware and I'm not trying to be awkward. It's my privacy. It's my life. It's my integrity. You know, that you're compromising if you're saying that I've no privacy.
What does that mean? Who? Who's the third parties in this agreement that you've got? And what, what are you going to do with the data that I send? Are you going to send my age? What crime I'm supposed to have done? And, you know, it's quite scary, Yeah. But challenging in that relatively simple way is very powerful.
And of course, if a lot more people did it, it would cause huge problems across the system because all the agencies, tax or local authorities or social services or education, they're all trying to use these systems to to log data. And if you challenge in that way.
Yeah, I was thankful that I actually got to speak to somebody, you know, because we all know what it's like when you, you know, you normally ring a government department and you, you've got all these options and you put on hold forever and it's difficult. But I was thankful that the lady understand, understood. And, you know, she, she was really sympathetic. You know, she understood. Not only where I was coming from.
And it's. Yeah. And another lady knocked on the door and they were doing a survey. I can't remember what the survey was. And she was stood at the door and she said, oh, can I come in? I'm just doing a survey. And I said, excuse me, no, this is my home. I said I don't want people knocking on my door. I'm working and also my privacy is everything and I really don't want to do a survey. Thank you.
And and her face was like what she was, she was just incredulous that I'd questioned her knocking on my door because it's a normal thing for her to do. I don't want that to be normal. I don't, you know, for people to invade your privacy in that way, you know, if you. Absolutely understand that. Definitely understand that. Yeah. Rachel, it's coming up to the top of the hour, which is what we're allowed to say. So I, I, I'm going to oh so. Much more to talk about.
I got my book out for you. Oh, did you? What? What else have you got there? OK, so I'll run through this quickly. So I on my pre previous interview we discussed when I went to Wellington and I yeah, did a book I've also got just going to show you quickly. Can you guess whose book this is? So it must be Bob Moran's book. Yeah, I got that last Christmas for a present, so that's nice. So here it is. Yeah. The truth, and I'm just going to show you a few.
This this is your book you've switched to Now for the audience. Yeah, this is. The These are all the quotes that you took from the people at the big protest. Yeah, yeah. So, so sorry, Rachel. You're telling us that that book's finished now? Yes. Right. Some quotes from the book. The first signature is mine. Good. And it was on the 17th of February 2022. And I wrote when law becomes injustice, resistance becomes a
duty. And yeah, I mean, it's some some of the comments is let's go so poignon and and raw Brian, you know, just to read this book again and and look at it and there's so much love in it. And Rachel, bless you. Keep going with you all the way Nakuna Hirani liberty and justice, freedom through Christ. We've got never fault. This is for our children, for their future. We will go on. Hold the line. Love the atmosphere, love the people. Bless the warriors of freedom for standing for all of
humanity. Love always winds. Stay strong for our babies. Freedom is a choice. Choose freedom. Love our tamaricki. I've got the long pages from the Maori gentleman that I told you about, that wrote about his ancestry and history and, oh, there's so much in here. Yeah, it's it. Yeah, it's. And one of them says let me be a mum. And the demonstration itself or the protest itself was in, where was it? Wellington, In Wellington. Wellington. Yeah. Well, maybe you need to, you
need to start another book now. You've started your life in Australia, which is, you know, would be something like thoughts of the present day. Yeah, I mean, I've got lots of photos as well. You know, I met a cello player there who played the We had a music tent. There was a woman's 10A baby 10, an admin 10 food tent. It was like a village, Brian, that was functioning with tents and everybody got to know each other and every. It was. Yeah. I can't even. Yeah, begin to tell you about
that experience. But I don't think all of that passion and enthusiasm, I, I don't think it's sort of evaporated. I think it might have dissipated, but all the people who were there are now their own little islands talking to other people out in society. Yeah. You know, I, I think a lot of people think, Oh yeah, but it's all over. I don't see it like that because more people I talk to, the more people I sense who are, who are awake or have woken up more.
And we just, we just need to keep pushing. Absolutely. And as we, we said, it's the youngsters we need to be focusing on, I think, you know, educating them on, you know, their sovereignty and their, you know, individuality as well, you know, whereby you're not labeled as something, you know, there's so many labels now with children, you know, ADHD and autism and I, there's so many acronyms. I can't even recall them.
But I think it's sad, you know, they never had that in at school, you know, when I was young labelling children with, with, with these things, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, nothing is A1 size fits all. You know, school's not A1 size fits all. Everybody has their own individuality, whether it be a talent, you know, they could be creative or musical and we should be nurturing that because that's what makes us human.
That's. What makes us this is where the regimentation of schools is, you know, it creates a lot of the problems. I, I agree with this, but we've also got the situation where there are an increasing number of children who've got difficulties that we've never seen in the past. And, and one of the things going on at the moment is of course, nobody wants to talk about this.
I, I know that I've got to guess now, but I'm going to say about four years ago there was a teacher told us that in, in the South Wales primary schools, close to 50% of the children that got some form of issue, whether it was autism or ADHD or whatever it was. And that that wasn't a label, that was just sort of a label put on that these children had problems. And so school teacher was telling us about this and she also said, and we, the staff have been told we mustn't talk about it.
So all the questions about where are all these children with problems or, you know, issues or they've been damaged in some way, where they're coming from, we're not allowed to talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I do remember there was a group of young boys that this was when I was at secondary school. It's just made me recall something. When I was at secondary school, there were a group of young men, sorry, not boys, young men who
weren't very academic. And I remember, I remember them being segregated in A room and I remember being very uneasy about it because they weren't particularly disruptive. They were just not academic. But they got segregated from certain classes in A room and I used to sneak in and talk to them. Well done. I don't know why, it's just it just didn't sit well with me.
My my feeling on things like that is that I suspect that those boys would have been young men, would have been the sort who would have adapted to apprenticeships or starting to do physical things and then still ultimately heading towards skills, but they would have been hands on skills instead of sitting in a classroom having lessons. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't an academic at all.
I really struggled, you know, to get some results because I just, I felt as a young girl and as a young woman, I just didn't resonate, you know, with certain classes and things, you know, I just, it just didn't do it, do anything for me. And I really, really struggled to see those boys segregated. For whatever reason. That was the only thing I came across at school that sat uneasy with me.
I mean, I remember the teachers being, you know, really loving the work, and it showed, you know, I love drama, believe it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My classes. Yeah. Yeah, I've got to say I need to go because I not only have I got UK column news for tomorrow to get going on, but I've also got a video which I'm desperately trying to finish editing so I have enough on my plate today. No switching off for you BJ.
Well, I, I, I'm trying to do that more, but there's still, there's still a lot of stuff for me to do And I, I actually enjoy working from home because it gives you the rest of both worlds. But yeah, there's quite a bit that I, I need to get done before tomorrow morning. So I need to say gently I probably. Should Yeah, we've been on for a good hour or so and I've just wanted to show you that I've still got my badges and my lovely water. Bottle.
That you kindly gave me. And yeah, I mean, there's so much more I could talk about. Well, you know, Rachel, I'd, I'd love to talk to you more and, and also, you know, if, if you were encouraged enough to do a regular slot talking about, you know, what's going on in Australia, that that would be
fantastic. So why don't we, why don't we say I, I will send you an e-mail or whatever and maybe get together again and have a little bit more of a, just have a private focus discussion on what, you know, what you might like to do. But I, I would love to be getting more because during lockdown we got lots of news from Australia and, and New Zealand and there were lots of people talking to us and, and a lot of that's gone quiet now. And you know, so I'm. Keep that dialogue going.
Yeah, I think so, yeah. And, you know, there are things that I want to do. You know, I'm going to continue with the tiny homes and also start a book group and things like that. Yeah, there's just so much to talk about, Brian. I've got, I've got so much paperwork here that I haven't even showed you and we haven't. Yeah, you have a think about what you've got and we we have another conversation and and we'll let's have a talk about
that. Instead of doing it for an audience, we'll do it with a view to how we could present it or, you know, how we could cover the issue. Yeah, absolutely. As I say, I think we're both aware that it's all happening in the Five Eyes nations. And so you know, we're very closely aligned with what what is going on with policies and things like that.
And they're just doing it in different words and ways and giving it different terminologies at the minute and finding different ways to do it so. OK, that's fine. Rachel. It's been really great talking to you. I have some other work to do today, not least because I've got Auk column news coming up tomorrow, but it's been really great to catch up, love to have another conversation with you, deeper, deeper conversation about what's happening in Australia. So if you're up for that, that
would be really good. But I've really enjoyed our chat today. It's been been great. Yeah, likewise, Brian. It's great to catch up again and there's so much going on. I don't think we've really scratched the surface. But yeah, I'll keep in touch with UK column and keep up the fantastic work that you do and hopefully we'll speak again in the near future and wish you all well in these trying times. In a trying 2026.