Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / THE PANEL: Ben Fordham & Antoinette Lattouf

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THE PANEL: Ben Fordham & Antoinette Lattouf · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Yeah, great. Fabulous. Terrific. Welcome to the panel. Today, discussing the most important
• 0:10
  news of the week, we have colorful Sydney identity. Ben Fordham. I thought you were going
• 0:14
  to say intranetless food. Hey, hey, hey. Have you always started dating? I've not been
• 0:18
  Googling her recently. Ben said that he wanted to be introduced as a colorful Sydney identity.
• 0:23
  He has the highest rating morning radio show in Sydney, probably in Australia, at the
• 0:28
  moment. He says, humbly. You don't know, like, breakfast. We had Ben Fordham on 2GB. An
• 0:34
  intranet was two for independent journalist author and host of the Antoinette's fabulous
• 0:39
  podcast. How's the podcast going? You've only been doing it for a second. Yeah. Oh, it's
• 0:43
  been a couple of months. It's a lot of fun. Right. Yeah. You went another person called
• 0:47
  Antoinette. She's only because her name was Antoinette. Is that the reason why? That's
• 0:53
  why it's called this show wasn't initially going to be called the Antoinette, but every
• 0:56
  time we had a meeting with our production partner, I would just put, like, the Antoinettes
• 1:01
  and Dan and the past. And then they'd be like, you know, what? The Antoinettes has, you
• 1:06
  know, it's not a real. Yeah, it's just a stimulatory though, isn't it? Would anyone
• 1:10
  who's not called Antoinette? You can only be Antoinette. Well, that's what I was thinking
• 1:14
  if ever one of us is unwell or one of our, like, I have to find another co-host. It's
• 1:18
  called Antoinette. Another Antoinette. There are a lot of Antoinettes that hasn't been
• 1:22
  popular since about 1890. I reckon if you want to be successful, Ben, you need to find
• 1:26
  a Ben, another Ben. Yeah, the Ben. And do the Benz. The Ben, do you have to share the
• 1:30
  Benz? Do you have to share the money with them? Is that how it works? Yes. Well, we'll talk
• 1:34
  later. We'll talk later. I think on the money that 2GB pays, you're doing okay. You could
• 1:39
  probably split it. You could probably go halves isn't you still be all right? We could
• 1:42
  try and hire you at one point. Josh, yeah. And we'll add to spill those kind of suits.
• 1:48
  No, 2GB never made it for my life and I inquiries about securing your services to your
• 1:53
  files. No comment. I've never received an offer from 2GB. Let me repeat. 2GB made inquiries
• 1:59
  about securing Josh's services. In hindsight, how much? How many? No, no, this isn't recent.
• 2:07
  How many headaches could potentially have been avoided, not just for me,
• 2:12
  but for me. Oh, creed, it's 2GB. Yeah, that's the only thing you've had all the time
• 2:15
  to we miss out on. That's right, exactly. Look, one of the things in the news this week that I
• 2:19
  wanted to pick your brains on is this Aussie activist who's on TikTok. And what he does is in order
• 2:24
  to resolve the housing crisis, he goes around and identifies properties that are not inhabited,
• 2:30
  houses that when nobody lives. Yeah. He puts together a list so that homeless people and squatters
• 2:36
  can basically break into the houses and live there. And it's got a bit of controversy about whether
• 2:41
  or not that's it's a quasi legal, illegal, quasi, well, quasi is the relevant point there. I don't
• 2:47
  know whether the so in the United States, I believe you're not allowed to just move into a place
• 2:52
  if it's uninhabited. But in the UK and Australia, I think it's I think if a place has not been occupied
• 2:58
  for a certain length of time, right, you're not allowed to break and enter. But if you can make
• 3:03
  your way into it without breaking breaks, if you're made to exactly that's right. Then I think
• 3:08
  you're actually allowed to. But the publicizing of these houses, I mean, I think that is probably
• 3:14
  technically not illegal. Well, I don't know, but is it okay? Well, don't we hear about squatters
• 3:19
  rights as well? I mean, it's probably such a niche issue that we're not across what the rules are.
• 3:25
  I've not found myself in a situation where I've had a squatter or I've wanted to be a squatter.
• 3:30
  But you hear about squatters rights that the longer you live in there. Yeah, then the greater the
• 3:35
  climate, that's right. I want to new a bloke in the UK in London who had been squatting in his
• 3:39
  place for 20 years. He was a friend of my parents. Where were the owners? Exactly. But I don't
• 3:44
  know. But then by the time you've notched up enough years and you can prove that you've been
• 3:48
  paying your electricity and all that and you can prove a connection to the place, then it's yours.
• 3:52
  Then you own the place. You can actually on-sell it out from underneath the actual owner after a certain
• 3:57
  time. Who are the people who own the properties and can afford to be sitting in what I don't
• 4:03
  understand? Arguably, I don't have a huge amount of sympathy and I think this is why there's not
• 4:07
  a lot of pushback on what this activist is doing because not that many people in the current climate,
• 4:13
  cost of living crisis, housing insecurity are going to be like, I really feel for those people
• 4:18
  who have houses that are so empty that they don't even know who's in them. I'm going to go
• 4:21
  in vouch. I'm going to go fight for them. And someone who doesn't, someone who's sitting on an
• 4:26
  asset that's probably worth over a million dollars and doesn't feel any need to get any revenue
• 4:31
  out of that by renting it out. That's what's weird. We moved into a, the suburb we live in seven
• 4:37
  years ago. And you're squatting. And we are. Yeah. And no one told us to go anywhere. It's amazing.
• 4:43
  Your clue is how many, how many abandoned mansion there are. The closest house to the shops, as we
• 4:50
  call it, has been empty the whole seven years within this. Right. And do you know anything about
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  we just make up stories? Yeah. I love that. Because that's what everyone does. Is there some smell
• 4:58
  of dead bodies and things from the house? And then recently, if there's any movement, recently,
• 5:03
  there was movement there, real estate agent turned up. And we're like, oh, it's finally happening,
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  but who can afford to have that joint empty for seven years? I don't, I do feel some sympathy for
• 5:12
  whoever owns the home when they have the squatters moving. If it's a situation where, hey, listen,
• 5:17
  I'm overseas or I'm doing something and why have the squatters turned up? I mean, you do see those
• 5:21
  stories occasionally on a current affair where someone's gone on a 90 day cruise. Yeah. And they've
• 5:25
  returned home to the South Coast of New South Wales somewhere. Yeah. And they discover that there
• 5:30
  are six blocks who are living in the lounger and playing PlayStation. So I do have some sympathy
• 5:34
  for the cruise couple. Yeah. But I just don't understand how there are that many that are empty. I know
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  at the moment, there's a housing minister in the state where we're broadcasting from at the
• 5:44
  moment, Rose Jackson, who's on a mission at the moment to track down, you know, public housing
• 5:49
  that's empty. And there are a heap of them as well. And it's, it's hard for people when they're
• 5:53
  trying to get into a public housing unit or home. And they're reading all these stories about
• 6:00
  thousands of them. Well, you know what? Some jurisdiction. And by the way, I want to come around and
• 6:04
  look at that place that is empty near your place. And I love the idea that there's an old guy
• 6:12
  inside and that the kids outside are like, nobody ever goes in. Nobody ever comes out.
• 6:17
  And someone's just shoving food underneath the podcast. Hey, there you go.
• 6:22
  This is all too. There you go. Get rid of this one. If you listen to the podcast, you can see this
• 6:26
  on YouTube and you can look at Ben Fordham's beautiful face and you can look at Antoinette
• 6:29
  LaTouche's beautiful face and you can look at my passive, passable. Yeah. Like,
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  in offensive on YouTube. But the, I mean, the thing about about owning a place isn't a lot of it
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  that there's foreign ownership. I mean, part of what the state government here in the state where
• 6:46
  New South Wales wants to do that the premier has suggested that's like the governor of the state
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  has suggested that in the next budget, he's going to talk about imposing a tax on foreign ownership.
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  And a lot of the, a lot of the kind of, you know, rumor mill about why places would be empty is
• 7:02
  because wealthy Chinese investors support it out. And that's important that you raise rumor mill
• 7:07
  because we haven't seen the data on these empty houses or units and who owns them. And so it's
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  kind of easy to be like, oh, the Chinese are rich Chinese. Are you an apologist for Chinese
• 7:19
  billionaires? Absolutely. I would love to, I would love to, I would, I would love to find where
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  the houses are empty. I may have to squat in one. Let's see how my court cases go. But I just
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  think that there's policy that is built off the back of data that is not readily, readily and
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  publicly available. We've got some data. We've got some data. Do you want to share some data?
• 7:41
  Bessie Benford. We're in a half hour show every morning. He knows me just recently. We discovered
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  these are newly built homes, newly built homes. The last round of data, which is from the start of
• 7:55
  this year, 11% have bought by foreign buyers in the state of New South Wales at work. But does that
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  mean they're vacant? No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean about. Yeah, so I'm there's,
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  I get what you're saying, there's two different issues. And if you combine them, then it's even worse.
• 8:09
  But I mean, because they're indeed, they're not being used down there by someone overseas. But also,
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  when people are buying homes here and they don't live here, I think when we have so many people
• 8:19
  who live here and they want a home, like I know that Canada, for example, has gone down that path
• 8:25
  of saying, okay, we need to put some restrictions in place about people from outside of Canada who
• 8:29
  just want to own some of our real estate. We've done it with farms. We've done it with crucial assets.
• 8:34
  At the moment, housing in general is a crucial asset. What some jurisdictions do, which I thought
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  was rather clever, is they look at the water consumption. And so you can go to the utility and you
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  can look at properties that aren't using water. As a way to find out what's empty. And then instead of
• 8:53
  just walking along, walking down Benfordham Street and going, there's all Mr. Crazy dude who's hiding
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  inside an ostensibly empty house, you can go, they haven't used any water for the past nine months.
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  So what's going on there? Then you could overlay that data with the foreign ownership data,
• 9:07
  you could presumably make the conclusion. Look, and arguably, there's no one's willing to do that
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  because they're all afraid of it. Sorry to jump in, but I don't, I think that if you've got empty
• 9:15
  houses, I don't care who the owners are. I don't, I don't, I don't, I only want to target the
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  Chinese racism coming to the wall. That's what I was leading into. Look, I'm with Ben because
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  if I don't care whether it's boomers or Chinese billionaires, if there are houses that are not being
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  used, they either need to be taxed, we need to rethink what we're doing, given housing is such
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  in such short. Why should non-residents be allowed to buy property at all? Very good question.
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  Yeah, I'm not, why not not taxed? Well, that's one of the countries. Why shouldn't,
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  why shouldn't, well, I can't buy, I can't buy property in plenty of countries. I can't buy
• 9:55
  property in China. Right. Right. I can't buy property in China, but China is going to buy
• 10:02
  Chinese billionaires. We rely on banners and multibillionaires. I rely on banners. I would like to
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  increase my portfolio as you said, boomers and billionaires, which is my next book. There's
• 10:11
  a billionaires. How I bought the Shanghai skyline for nothing better. It's a fair question.
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  Open a dream. Look, here's the, the weird thing about it, when you're selling a property,
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  there's nothing. The seller wants more than a Chinese buyer turning up. Right. Because,
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  obviously, they've, they've got money. Well, that's the stereo talk that they have.
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  But you also hope for it. Right. You hope for it. There was certainly a period there.
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  In particular, where real estate agents would, people would be asking, have we got any Chinese
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  buyers? Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not racist to say that there are a billion Chinese people,
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  and there's a, that they have an economy, which is incredibly unequal, and that they have
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  the only capitalists who are flush with cash and that they regard Australia as being one of the
• 10:55
  greatest safe havens in the world to store some of that cash. And the children are coming here to
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  study, right? So you'd also be thinking, all right, well, yeah, we're currently, we're currently
• 11:05
  trying to sell our house at the moment. And we had our auction. It didn't sell. We had our,
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  I saw your full page ad saying Chinese buyers, we had a lot at the auction. A lot of people
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  of Asian appearance and the, I don't know if that they're Chinese, but my agent came up to me.
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  I was like, this is excellent. So many Chinese buyers are like, oh, do you know these people?
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  Are they Chinese? And he's like, oh, I'm just assuming. I was like, well, I was like, well, I
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  don't know who I am. She was the head of the media diversity council. It was like, yeah,
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  jeez. Interesting assumption. I hope this assumption works in our favour. It did not.
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  Have you ever seen that famous clip? And if you, if you put into YouTube, I'm pretty sure if you
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  put in agents and agents, it'll come up, right? Oh, God. And I don't know whether you can link it
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  in here, but I'll send it to you. It's from a current affairs show. It's an Australian TV
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  news show from 1970s, 1980s. And someone had put an ad in a newspaper while selling a home saying,
• 12:07
  no Asians. So the reporter quite rightly turned up and quizzed this guy in his front yard
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  about how could you possibly advertise a property and then put a condition on the ad saying,
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  no Asians? And he said, because I don't like him. And then it's like, oh, and the reporter's
• 12:24
  thinking, God, this guy, this is even worse. He said, admitting to being a racist. And then he
• 12:28
  said, I don't like them. This high gate isn't the one in London is a suburb of ad lead. But if the
• 12:34
  adverts last sentence that brought out a local TV reporter's crusading instincts. We're just
• 12:40
  like to ask you a few questions about the house you've got for sale. Well, I'd rather than
• 12:44
  answer it. Why not? Because I don't want it. I'm not going to spell my business to anybody over here.
• 12:50
  Well, I'm not interested in how much you want the house. I'm just interested in why you don't want
• 12:56
  any Asians to buy and move in. Well, because the super risen, the third agent. Why don't you want
• 13:02
  their Asians moving into your house? Because they're not the Asians. That's a lure. They don't want
• 13:07
  them. You don't want them to move your place. They're just a mob of crooks. That's all there.
• 13:11
  And if there's a law against what you're doing. Well, no one has told me that. And I'm going to
• 13:15
  save in the Asian. I think it's wrong. In the Asian themselves, you said, I can have my sign up.
• 13:20
  You thought we'd get a buyer off his seller? But you won't sell it to an Asian person.
• 13:26
  If that came up with a buyer, yes. Well, they're interested about us just to put the sign up.
• 13:31
  That's all I've had for Asian. So I haven't knocked them back. What would
• 13:35
  Oh, no, Agents. Did you hear me? Did you hear me?
• 13:45
  Agents, I'm sorry. Well, that's a bad explanation. That's, is that what you say no, Agents? No, no.
• 13:51
  You say no, Agents. Agents. Sorry. Because why do I need them? I can sell the property on my own.
• 13:58
  And then they realized when he'd called up to put the ad in, he said, put it at the bottom of the ad,
• 14:03
  no, Agents. Agents. The person thought he said, Agents. So then the scene ends with the reporter going,
• 14:13
  oh, I'm sorry, this terrible misunderstanding. Oh, wow. And if you're an Asian agent,
• 14:18
  forget it. They're the best agents out there. The Asian one. Look, so is there a solution to
• 14:26
  the housing crisis? I mean, this is something that not only Australia is grappling with, but
• 14:30
  so many different countries around the world. Yeah, I'd be interested to see what like Canada,
• 14:34
  US, the UK do in terms of foreign investment when it comes to property. I know you say that China
• 14:40
  doesn't allow us. I don't often look to China for policy leadership. Do you, are you aware of what
• 14:45
  other countries, similar countries? Well, I know that there are some restrictions. So like,
• 14:49
  yeah, I think New Zealand and I think Canada and other places. This is not as much as as you
• 14:55
  were just before you want to blame it on people in another country. Yeah, yeah. We've got people in
• 15:00
  another country. We've got Chinese people. Sorry. This is racial animus. Yeah. Okay. There's a shortage
• 15:07
  of houses. Yeah. There's a lot of people. Yeah. We have migration levels at record rates.
• 15:13
  It's a supply issue. It's like affordability issue. Surprise. When you and the other big issue too
• 15:19
  is that to get anything done, it takes so long to get anything done. I know, for example,
• 15:24
  I had a proposal before Strafffield Council, a local council here in Sydney that was before
• 15:31
  it for about 18 months and then the end we just went just forget about it. Because you reach the
• 15:36
  point of going all right, if you don't want to help us build something here, it's going to make
• 15:39
  this into a better place. Yeah. And also like the strata rules about dividing places. I mean,
• 15:45
  there are so many and the incentives for financial incentives towards having your own home.
• 15:52
  So what's happening is a lot of boomers. A lot of my friends' parents are now empty nest
• 15:58
  boomers who live in these massive places. But if they were to downsize it or sell it,
• 16:04
  then of course that suddenly has tax implications that they wouldn't have if they were just living
• 16:09
  in their home where they don't have to pay property tax on it. So like, should you have to pay
• 16:13
  a property tax on the home that you live in? Like a lot of jurisdictions do have that. I think in
• 16:19
  the States, you have to pay property tax on the basis of the value of your own home, which you
• 16:22
  don't really have to hear. I mean, we have council rates, but it's nowhere near as big.
• 16:26
  But in the size of the places where an elderly couple are now living, you could fit five families
• 16:32
  if you subpoly extended into or a hundred Asians, you know, how they love living cheek by a
• 16:37
  jowl. You know, if you had, you know, I'm helping, I'm platforming you, I'm amplifying you.
• 16:52
  Let's move along and not a moment too soon. There's a discrimination ruling in Australia,
• 17:03
  which is getting a lot of headlines because one of Australia's most respected art galleries,
• 17:08
  which is called Mona, which is in Tasmania, which is... I would say it's our most famous.
• 17:12
  It's probably the most famous and most, yeah. Well, there's the old galleries.
• 17:16
  Yeah. That's the old, beautiful. Let's not start a fight.
• 17:18
  Oh, okay, we don't know. I'm going to get a real...
• 17:21
  Because, oh, you know, once I get started on gallery wars, you'll never shut me up.
• 17:26
  Welcome back to Art Gallery talk with Antonette and Josh.
• 17:29
  Here we go over all of the art galleries in Australia and rank them up against one another.
• 17:34
  So there's the old classic galleries, the National Gallery in Canberra, but this is a new
• 17:39
  vibrant, exciting, provocative gallery that's only been around for 20 years or something.
• 17:45
  And they had an exhibit, which was a lady's only room. A lady's only...
• 17:52
  A loving assailer this.
• 17:54
  You've been... because you're nothing if not a feminist, a raging,
• 17:59
  feminazi. And I was there with the kids and...
• 18:03
  You've got boys, don't you?
• 18:05
  No, a boy and a girl.
• 18:05
  A boy and a girl, okay.
• 18:06
  But she was five, so she wasn't going to go into the room by herself.
• 18:10
  Right.
• 18:10
  You were playing with the room.
• 18:11
  Oh, okay.
• 18:12
  Well, I don't know what the room is. It's a lady's room. I'm going to lay out in.
• 18:14
  Okay, I can tell you. I can explain this.
• 18:15
  I said it was a lady's room where only ladies were around.
• 18:18
  You set up wasn't sufficient.
• 18:19
  All right, thank you, Ben.
• 18:20
  Can you set up?
• 18:21
  Yeah, we'll just have to spend the master room.
• 18:22
  You'll guess and produce use the same time.
• 18:24
  Cooling me.
• 18:25
  Yeah, that point.
• 18:25
  Okay, so it is behind some lush emerald green curtains.
• 18:29
  And when you open, there's male butlers who serve you champagne.
• 18:33
  And in it, it's all emerald green, very lush, very regal.
• 18:37
  And it's got some lovely little pieces, like not many pieces,
• 18:40
  but it's just a little space.
• 18:42
  Part of the experience is not the jaw-dropping art pieces that are there.
• 18:45
  It's more the experience of walking in.
• 18:48
  And someone be ushering, ushering you in.
• 18:50
  That is the...
• 18:51
  And the point of it is too.
• 18:54
  To just have a women's space.
• 18:56
  Yeah.
• 18:56
  Just to have a women's space.
• 18:58
  That's it.
• 18:59
  Yeah.
• 18:59
  Within an art gallery, which interestingly,
• 19:01
  I thought another place would perhaps be a woman's space,
• 19:03
  because there's a wall, a vulva wall of vaginas,
• 19:06
  which is not a woman's space.
• 19:07
  That's not a woman's space.
• 19:08
  That's true.
• 19:09
  You can all see that.
• 19:10
  Yeah.
• 19:10
  Ben's book and his ticket to Hobart tomorrow.
• 19:13
  Go and see the vulva wall.
• 19:15
  There's like a hundred vulvas on a wall of all shapes
• 19:18
  and with all different sorts of hairstyles.
• 19:20
  And I was like, oh, okay, that's not in the latest room.
• 19:22
  That's a hard one.
• 19:23
  No.
• 19:23
  So I have two daughters, primary school age.
• 19:26
  And we went in, my husband stayed outside.
• 19:27
  We went in for like a minute or two.
• 19:29
  They did not drink champagne.
• 19:31
  I am a responsible parent.
• 19:32
  It was nice.
• 19:33
  We walked out.
• 19:34
  They liked the gimmicky feel of, oh, this is just for the ladies.
• 19:38
  We moved on.
• 19:38
  I like it as well.
• 19:39
  So what's happened now?
• 19:41
  Can I go back to the news?
• 19:42
  Yes, sure.
• 19:42
  I feel enough of that sufficiently articulate.
• 19:45
  The description that I neglected to make.
• 19:48
  Then a man took the, the artillery to court.
• 19:51
  And says like, you South Wales, man, why can't I?
• 19:53
  Why am I not allowed to go into this part of the, you know, the gallery?
• 19:57
  Because it's for women.
• 19:58
  And everybody said, well, this is ridiculous.
• 20:00
  We have gay bars, only for gay people.
• 20:02
  We have women, we have men's clubs.
• 20:05
  We have women's space, safe spaces.
• 20:07
  We have women's shelters.
• 20:08
  You know, you're allowed to do to divide on the basis of sex.
• 20:11
  But the Tasmanian court has just ruled and said, no.
• 20:15
  What it said is, if the, if the, if the person had felt
• 20:19
  that they were offended on the basis of, of an exhibit,
• 20:23
  then they wouldn't have a case.
• 20:25
  But if the point of the exhibit is not like to offend
• 20:28
  or to provoke, if it's simply creating a space that is
• 20:31
  own, that is only available for women, and it should also
• 20:35
  be added that men have to pay the same entry fee, right?
• 20:38
  So it's not like the men get a discount or something.
• 20:41
  But it is, the moment there is, in context,
• 20:43
  Mona is huge.
• 20:44
  She could spend all day.
• 20:45
  It's not a large portion.
• 20:47
  It might only be 2% of the floor.
• 20:49
  So it's at the court back to the bloke, right?
• 20:50
  The bloke, the bloke, and said they can't do this.
• 20:53
  Based on the discriminatorial process.
• 20:54
  There is no artistic, there is no valid artistic, right?
• 20:57
  Now, what would be interesting to me is, since this is 2024
• 21:01
  and not 1970, and there actually aren't really any places
• 21:06
  where men hold power and sway where women are not allowed to enter.
• 21:10
  There is.
• 21:11
  There's a venue in Sydney where we're recording this, where
• 21:15
  women are applied to get access to some type of gentleman's
• 21:18
  club in 2021, and that was ridiculous.
• 21:19
  Yeah, I've been calling it a Australia club, I think.
• 21:20
  I think there's one remain.
• 21:22
  Yeah, there's one old place where a bunch of them.
• 21:24
  And then up the road from there, there's a women's club,
• 21:27
  the Queen's Club.
• 21:28
  Oh, is there?
• 21:29
  Same thing, yeah, yeah.
• 21:29
  So they're 200 metres apart.
• 21:31
  One is just for men.
• 21:32
  One is just for women.
• 21:33
  OK.
• 21:34
  Here's the thing.
• 21:34
  Who are the people who complain about this kind of stuff?
• 21:38
  Well, Jason is the new Karen.
• 21:39
  So it's a guy called Jason, and he came from New South Wales
• 21:43
  to Tasmania, who visited there on the weekend,
• 21:45
  and he was that annoyed that he couldn't enter that space.
• 21:47
  No, he wasn't a proven point.
• 21:48
  Yeah, exactly.
• 21:49
  And he's proven a legitimate about proving a point.
• 21:51
  That's what the law is all about.
• 21:52
  You're just trying to test the test law.
• 21:54
  Well, the law is law, I think the law is law.
• 21:56
  But if I'm in an art gallery, and then I get to a spot where they say,
• 22:01
  OK, it's women only behind this little curtain,
• 22:04
  and then my son Fredy and I sit outside,
• 22:06
  and my wife Jody endured as Pearl and Goldie,
• 22:09
  they go into the women's section, and we sit outside,
• 22:11
  and they come at five minutes.
• 22:12
  Yeah, of course.
• 22:13
  I mean, I went to the place, and I didn't sue the gallery.
• 22:15
  Yeah, I did not sue the art gallery.
• 22:18
  No, I wasn't personally annoyed.
• 22:20
  But now that I actually, now that someone was annoyed,
• 22:22
  and I actually have to think through, I do understand it.
• 22:25
  So I mean, what do you want to start?
• 22:27
  Well, it's lazy curation and lazy provocation.
• 22:34
  It just for me, it buys into this sort of fairly obvious narrative
• 22:39
  of like, we live in a sexist society, and women need special freedom.
• 22:42
  Isn't art supposed to make us think?
• 22:44
  Yeah, and it makes us a provocation.
• 22:45
  And it makes us a provocation.
• 22:46
  Sorry, that's a freaking vulva wall.
• 22:48
  No, it's totally provocation.
• 22:49
  What I'm thinking, and I haven't been there, right?
• 22:51
  But what I'm thinking, I'm imagining, I'm thinking, OK,
• 22:54
  I'm supposed to read into this and think about the messages here,
• 22:57
  and the messages, hey, there are many sections of society in the world,
• 23:02
  where men have an advantage.
• 23:05
  Yes, and this is one where you don't.
• 23:07
  Do you sit out in the waiting room?
• 23:08
  Is that a new message to you?
• 23:10
  But does it matter?
• 23:11
  Is that a provocative message and interesting message?
• 23:13
  I think it's interesting, yeah.
• 23:14
  Is it?
• 23:15
  I feel like that's in the elite consensus for decades.
• 23:18
  Yeah, but it might be the consensus, but not all things haven't shifted enough.
• 23:22
  I did the maths, I did the maths.
• 23:24
  Let me just, can I just say, what would be interesting or thought provoking
• 23:27
  would be if there was a room where only white people could go?
• 23:32
  What would be interesting would be if there was a room where only men could go,
• 23:36
  flipping it on its head, what would be interesting would be if there was a,
• 23:39
  you know, a place where only straight people could go.
• 23:43
  But you generally people like that would be playing around with the power
• 23:48
  broadcast, but they are the power brokers already.
• 23:50
  So that doesn't, that's not, that is the state of play.
• 23:53
  Who?
• 23:54
  In Australia, men have more power than women, so having a stable,
• 23:57
  so it's obvious, but I don't know how that is.
• 23:59
  So I mean, women's places, women's places.
• 24:02
  Yeah, just so that's just not very good.
• 24:03
  Obviously, because they lost the case.
• 24:07
  Like it's not, it's not an artistic expression of anything particularly.
• 24:10
  Like I don't like there.
• 24:12
  We've had examples before where there was one case where there was a meeting of some sort
• 24:17
  involving the Muslim community, and they had separate seating areas.
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:23
  A man and women, you know, separate, they still do.
• 24:25
  They still do, they still do.
• 24:26
  You know, and it was like hang on, but it was at a community event and
• 24:29
  and other people were turning up, going, hang on a moment.
• 24:31
  What's why are we segregating people based on male and female?
• 24:34
  There are some places that are men's sheds that are designed for men.
• 24:38
  Can a woman say, hang on a moment?
• 24:41
  I'm going to take this to some tribunal, because I want to be in the men's shed.
• 24:44
  Yeah, I'm sure you can.
• 24:45
  No, because there's a purpose for the men's shed, which is to provide solidarity.
• 24:49
  And there's a purpose for women's spaces, which provides solidarity.
• 24:51
  But I can see the purpose in this.
• 24:53
  Well, you know, okay, since you mentioned Muslims,
• 24:55
  I mean, imagine if the, imagine if what they had done was they said,
• 25:00
  here's an area where Muslim men can go, but Muslim women can't,
• 25:05
  or Muslim women can go, but Muslim men can't.
• 25:08
  And in so doing, we're going to satirize the one field in our culture
• 25:12
  where you actually do have legitimate severe sexism and discrimination.
• 25:16
  Or if it was Jews, for example, where you have some of those orthodox synagogues,
• 25:20
  where the women sit upstairs and the women downstairs,
• 25:22
  what if they had a little synagogue where the men have to sit upstairs
• 25:25
  and the women get to sit downstairs as a way of satirizing, you know, religious sexism.
• 25:31
  Then I think that would be interesting.
• 25:32
  That would be actually provoking.
• 25:33
  What I'm hearing is that you want to be a museum curator
• 25:36
  and you've got some good ideas for Mona.
• 25:38
  I've got some ideas for Mona Part 2, baby.
• 25:40
  I think what's interesting about Mona's, they've got 20,
• 25:42
  so the museum has 28 days to either allow men in or to,
• 25:45
  or for that part, they artist who's in charge of that particular exhibit,
• 25:49
  to pull the exhibit.
• 25:50
  And from what I've heard, she's leaning towards just pulling it.
• 25:53
  Because the whole idea was for it to be, she's like,
• 25:56
  the experience is men's exclusion.
• 25:58
  And so I'm with her.
• 25:59
  I'm pulling the exhibit.
• 26:01
  I'd rather it be gone than Cranky Jason.
• 26:06
  Because in the time that he was there, he was there last April.
• 26:09
  And now it's April.
• 26:10
  So in a year, and I think this is a thing that pisses a lot of women off.
• 26:14
  In a year, at least 52 women have been killed
• 26:16
  at the hands of their current or former partner.
• 26:18
  There are spaces where...
• 26:20
  You're aware that's illegal, right?
• 26:22
  Killing women's illegal.
• 26:23
  I thank you for telling me that.
• 26:25
  I appreciate that.
• 26:26
  Because people always say that.
• 26:26
  And I'm related to Mona.
• 26:27
  But people always say that as if it's a slam dunk
• 26:31
  about how women get discriminated against.
• 26:34
  No, but as we aren't at a place in Australia,
• 26:37
  despite how better off we are,
• 26:39
  and I want to put that caveat in,
• 26:41
  how more freely we live than women in other parts of the world.
• 26:44
  There are still basic fundamental rights that we do not have.
• 26:47
  We do have the right not to be murdered, it's illegal.
• 26:49
  But it's not being upheld.
• 26:51
  You've been a fundamental right to safety.
• 26:53
  We have a fundamental right to safety that's not being upheld.
• 26:56
  That's because there are murderers who are mostly men.
• 26:58
  How many men get murdered by men?
• 27:00
  Right, so we don't have gender pay parity.
• 27:03
  We can't assume...
• 27:04
  We don't have a level of safety that we should go with.
• 27:07
  You do have gender pay parity,
• 27:08
  but that's a whole other thing.
• 27:09
  Jan Fran did a great thing about...
• 27:11
  We don't have gender pay equity.
• 27:12
  So it's against the law to pay a woman less
• 27:15
  for the same job than a man in Australia.
• 27:17
  But if you add up the total amount that women get paid
• 27:20
  and the total amount that men get paid
• 27:22
  and divide it by the number of people,
• 27:24
  women earn less.
• 27:26
  Because they choose lower paid professions
• 27:28
  and they take time off to have babies.
• 27:30
  I know that's not what the...
• 27:31
  But a one-to-one...
• 27:32
  A one-to-one, it's illegal to pay a woman
• 27:35
  that's less for the same job.
• 27:38
  Yeah, but that's not what the Georgia data shows, though.
• 27:41
  What's the Georgia data?
• 27:42
  The government women's gender equality age...
• 27:45
  I mean, yeah, there are ways of fudging data
• 27:47
  but it's the most...
• 27:48
  No, but it's the most...
• 27:48
  It's the most official
• 27:49
  and reputable data.
• 27:50
  Let's bring it back to Mona.
• 27:52
  So...
• 27:53
  What?
• 27:53
  So...
• 27:54
  I just thought that in that space,
• 27:56
  if the one thing you really wanted to advocate for Jason,
• 27:59
  was your hurt feelings about...
• 28:01
  This is what Riles people are.
• 28:02
  It's just justice or injustice.
• 28:04
  It's him feeling like there's a double standard.
• 28:06
  He's a sulk.
• 28:07
  He's a sulk who's pointing to a real thing,
• 28:09
  which is that if you flipped the genders
• 28:11
  and it was a male-only space,
• 28:12
  all hell would have broken loose.
• 28:14
  I don't think it would.
• 28:15
  You don't think the social justice activists on Twitter,
• 28:19
  you don't think that Mama Mayer
• 28:20
  and the project would have done stories
• 28:22
  about the space in Tasmania,
• 28:24
  where men are being...
• 28:26
  Yeah, you know, are being...
• 28:27
  I agree if it was a bar.
• 28:30
  Yes.
• 28:31
  In an art gallery, I want to be challenged.
• 28:34
  I want to see things that are going to make me think.
• 28:36
  Yeah.
• 28:37
  And I don't understand that if you're going into Mona,
• 28:40
  which is known for controversial
• 28:42
  and thought-provoking artists...
• 28:43
  Yeah, totally.
• 28:44
  I just think that you don't want to be provoking it.
• 28:46
  You're provoking it.
• 28:47
  Yes. No, I'm with you, obviously.
• 28:48
  I'm with you because I didn't sue Mona.
• 28:50
  But, you know, I also think it's pretty lazy.
• 28:52
  If your world view is that in 2024,
• 28:55
  we live in a scenario in which we're unaware
• 28:59
  of the challenges that women face.
• 29:02
  We're unaware of gender inequality.
• 29:04
  But it's just in that you're unaware.
• 29:05
  Like that we're not dealing...
• 29:07
  That the real core problem
• 29:09
  is that men walk through this world
• 29:11
  completely clueless about their own privilege.
• 29:14
  That is... Well, some do.
• 29:16
  I mean, some women think they're chickens.
• 29:17
  I mean, there's all kinds of strange people.
• 29:18
  But I think the mainstream opinion in Australia
• 29:22
  is at the moment perfectly consistent
• 29:26
  with a fairly lazy attempt at,
• 29:29
  here's a woman's space
• 29:30
  because women always have had it hard.
• 29:32
  We've got the memo that women had it hard.
• 29:36
  I don't think anybody is a provocative point in that.
• 29:38
  I don't think there's real harm or danger
• 29:40
  in reminding people that.
• 29:42
  I don't think there's a harm or danger.
• 29:44
  I don't think Paul was harmed.
• 29:45
  No, it just means that the $45 that he spent on Mona
• 29:48
  should have been $44.66.
• 29:50
  Yeah, I mean, I think I'll give him the $46.
• 29:52
  I think it also highlights the point that this artist
• 29:55
  is the only artist that we're talking about
• 29:57
  out of the Mona gallery.
• 29:59
  Yeah, and the vulva.
• 30:00
  And the vulva.
• 30:01
  And the vulva.
• 30:02
  She's hilarious. Have you seen some of her interviews?
• 30:04
  No. She gives interviews.
• 30:07
  She has a...
• 30:08
  In the background, even if it's live,
• 30:09
  I saw her on the project
• 30:10
  and a Butler comes and pulls her champagne.
• 30:12
  And she's like, this is hysterical.
• 30:14
  The men are hysterical.
• 30:16
  Like, she's just in character of some...
• 30:17
  I don't know. She's the best thing ever
• 30:19
  to come out of here.
• 30:20
  All right, fabulous.
• 30:21
  The other gender thing that's exploded this week
• 30:23
  is this court case and federal court
• 30:25
  between a trans woman who is suing the creator
• 30:29
  of a women's-only app, which is called Giggle.
• 30:31
  It's like a safe space for women
• 30:33
  to have a social media environment.
• 30:35
  It was sometimes reported as a...
• 30:37
  I'll give it. I'll give it.
• 30:38
  Giggle versus tickle.
• 30:40
  Giggle versus tickle, because the trans woman's name
• 30:41
  is Tickle.
• 30:42
  Roxanne Tickle.
• 30:43
  This is so...
• 30:44
  So Tickle v. Giggle.
• 30:45
  You'd say, had you never heard of this case?
• 30:48
  I don't know the case, and I saw your podcast app.
• 30:51
  And when I first saw Giggle versus tickle,
• 30:52
  I was like, is this...
• 30:54
  Is that like satire?
• 30:55
  Yeah, no, no, no.
• 30:56
  The real name is Roxanne Tickle.
• 31:00
  And the app is called Giggle.
• 31:02
  But you haven't heard of the app
• 31:03
  because it's never got off the ground
• 31:04
  because it's been embroiled in court.
• 31:05
  Right, okay.
• 31:06
  But again, this is similar to Moana
• 31:08
  in that Tickle wanted to go into a place
• 31:12
  that was not designed for Tickle.
• 31:13
  It would be a...
• 31:14
  Yeah, but trans activists say it was designed for Tickle
• 31:17
  because Tickle's a woman.
• 31:17
  There's an adversity that she's...
• 31:19
  This just had the gender reassignment surgery.
• 31:21
  Okay, but the way that the app worked
• 31:23
  is that in order to sign up and be a member,
• 31:26
  they wanted a space, a safe space,
• 31:28
  for women, women only, right?
• 31:31
  A little bit like that room in the gallery.
• 31:33
  So as part of the sign-up process,
• 31:35
  you had to, like, you've got to do a lot of the time.
• 31:37
  You've got to do the time.
• 31:38
  Her birth certificate says she's a woman.
• 31:40
  You take a photo of yourself
• 31:41
  and it's uploaded to the thing.
• 31:44
  And then essentially, AI determined, yes, you're a woman.
• 31:48
  And AI determined on Tickle.
• 31:51
  The Tickle wasn't a woman.
• 31:52
  Actually, that's not exactly what happened.
• 31:54
  Actually, what happened was that the AI passed her
• 31:57
  and then manually, she was booted off
• 32:00
  when they did a review and she didn't.
• 32:03
  But either way, the question is whether or not biological women
• 32:07
  have a right to have, yeah, much like the Mona thing,
• 32:10
  a space for themselves, from which they exclude trans women.
• 32:14
  And it's extraordinary to me that this story hasn't been covered by the AAB.
• 32:17
  That's the part that I'm more interested in.
• 32:19
  No one wants to talk about the potential conflict
• 32:22
  between trans rights and women.
• 32:23
  And I think that's the more interesting part.
• 32:25
  We can get into the granular detail of this app
• 32:27
  and was it AI and should she be there in safe spaces?
• 32:30
  I think the reticence amongst
• 32:31
  and what you pointed out, usually progressive spaces
• 32:35
  by the Guardian, because the Guardian has done
• 32:36
  off-eds and news articles that there has been a relentless...
• 32:39
  Probably always critical of the AAB.
• 32:42
  I'm not sure.
• 32:43
  I didn't...
• 32:45
  The news stories have been pretty strong.
• 32:46
  Yeah, the news stories have been straight.
• 32:47
  And I think, yes, probably the...
• 32:50
  It was a sympathetic op-ed.
• 32:51
  But at least they're having that.
• 32:52
  It would be amazing to me if there was an opinion piece in the Guardian
• 32:55
  that sided with the AAB.
• 32:56
  Sure, fair enough.
• 32:57
  And I can't say that I've read that.
• 32:59
  I could tell you that the 2GB breakfast show has covered this issue.
• 33:01
  Oh, there we are.
• 33:02
  And we've interviewed Sally Grover, who is the lady
• 33:05
  who's set up the GIL app.
• 33:07
  But, you know, again, I see Roxanne Tickle as a troublemaker.
• 33:11
  A bit like the bloke who wanted to go into the area at Mona.
• 33:15
  It's like there are some places that are not for you.
• 33:18
  There are a lot of places of open up for you.
• 33:20
  And they will continue to do so.
• 33:21
  But there are some places that someone's gone
• 33:23
  with the couple of designing something
• 33:25
  for a certain type of person.
• 33:27
  And these are women.
• 33:29
  And obviously the person who said this one
• 33:31
  are biological women.
• 33:33
  So if you don't fit into that category.
• 33:36
  Well, I think the interesting part is that this is going to,
• 33:38
  it's a really important test case for our discrimination law.
• 33:41
  And I think that's what we should be talking about.
• 33:43
  But there's such reticence even amongst progressive circles
• 33:46
  to have the discussion about the caveats
• 33:49
  and the gray areas around trends issues.
• 33:51
  Because you may fundamentally believe that trends people
• 33:53
  do exist, other trends woman is a woman.
• 33:56
  But there are still issues within the law.
• 33:58
  And there are still concerns about gender reassignment.
• 34:01
  What do you think?
• 34:03
  I mean, I don't know this case too closely.
• 34:06
  But I understand and I'm part of that reticence
• 34:08
  to talk about trends.
• 34:09
  Because I believe that trends women or trends men exist.
• 34:14
  How they...
• 34:15
  Everyone knows they exist.
• 34:16
  And have a right to be protected.
• 34:18
  How within the scope of discrimination laws?
• 34:20
  I don't know.
• 34:21
  I'm also wary of the, there's a lot of attention
• 34:24
  and a lot of kind of moral panic
• 34:26
  about what trends women are going to do in private spaces
• 34:31
  that I go into, like a bathroom.
• 34:33
  That's not backed by...
• 34:34
  You know, it's potentially going to be violent
• 34:36
  and sexual assaults.
• 34:36
  That's not backed by evidence.
• 34:37
  So sometimes...
• 34:38
  When you say it's not backed by evidence, what does that mean?
• 34:40
  As in, where are the criminal cases
• 34:42
  that suggest that this has been happening?
• 34:44
  Yeah, they are there.
• 34:46
  In Australia?
• 34:47
  I don't know.
• 34:48
  But I mean, according to Sally,
• 34:51
  about 10% of the Queensland prison population
• 34:53
  in women's prisons are now trans women.
• 34:55
  And you've, you know, some cohort of those people
• 34:58
  will be guilty of sex crimes
• 35:00
  in some cohort of the women who they're sharing
• 35:03
  those prisons with will be victim,
• 35:04
  will have been victims of sex crimes.
• 35:06
  And they're now having to share a space
• 35:08
  with a woman who may have a penis.
• 35:10
  Yeah.
• 35:11
  And, you know, there are cases
• 35:12
  absolutely in the UK that there have been
• 35:14
  a number of cases of women being assaulted
• 35:18
  in rape shelters and in prisons
• 35:20
  by trans women,
• 35:21
  which I agree completely.
• 35:23
  Concernable, you went to internet that there's a...
• 35:24
  There's a conservative moral panic about that.
• 35:26
  Yes, but I think because of that moral panic,
• 35:28
  it makes reason that we think we're in the project.
• 35:30
  Exactly.
• 35:31
  It makes a car talk about that.
• 35:32
  But that's our job.
• 35:33
  We have to do it.
• 35:34
  I agree with you.
• 35:35
  Use the sport example.
• 35:36
  I remember five or six years ago,
• 35:38
  I started talking about
• 35:40
  transgender athletes in sport
• 35:42
  and saying, this is a big issue.
• 35:44
  It's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 35:46
  I was told very early on,
• 35:47
  or maybe I'd be careful about talking about that.
• 35:49
  And I said, but it's just so.
• 35:50
  It's such an obvious one.
• 35:51
  I mean, if someone is born male
• 35:54
  and they're then competing against females,
• 35:56
  it's so obvious that in most cases,
• 35:59
  they're going to have a physical advantage over the girls, right?
• 36:02
  Now, I remember a friend of mine at one stage,
• 36:05
  then over the five or six years since,
• 36:07
  it's become bigger and bigger and bigger
• 36:09
  because of the Leah Thomas case,
• 36:10
  the swimmer in the United States
• 36:12
  who started winning all of the awards and all of the medals.
• 36:16
  I had a friend say to me,
• 36:17
  why are you so obsessed with this case?
• 36:18
  And I said, because it's not fair,
• 36:20
  she goes, why is it not fair?
• 36:21
  And I said, well, look,
• 36:22
  do you want me to show you some footage?
• 36:24
  And when you have a look at footage of, for example,
• 36:27
  we have a case in Australia, Hannah Muncie,
• 36:30
  born male, transition to female,
• 36:33
  played handball as a male
• 36:37
  and then became a female and then played with the women.
• 36:41
  And if an AFL as well, Australian football,
• 36:44
  when you see Hannah on court
• 36:47
  and the size of Hannah against the other competitors,
• 36:51
  you don't have to be an expert in equality
• 36:54
  or gender science or anything else to say,
• 36:56
  that's not fair.
• 36:58
  There's something about that.
• 36:59
  Now, I want to protect that
• 37:00
  because I just don't think that I want to see an erase.
• 37:03
  I don't want people having an advantage
• 37:06
  because they've got something pumped into their veins in a race.
• 37:09
  And I don't want to see someone have an advantage in a race
• 37:12
  because they've got bigger bones or bigger muscles.
• 37:14
  And I agree with all of that sentiment.
• 37:15
  What's been interesting as an observer,
• 37:17
  and I don't have strongly held
• 37:18
  or very invested views in this space.
• 37:21
  Is that because you're afraid of having those views?
• 37:25
  I'm not afraid because I'm concerned about the harm
• 37:30
  that the moral panic is having
• 37:33
  that I'm reluctant unless I understand more and do more work.
• 37:36
  And this is laziness on my part,
• 37:38
  do more work to understand the legislation,
• 37:40
  understand that data.
• 37:41
  But that sounds like equivocation.
• 37:42
  Isn't the solution to the moral panic to not get panicked
• 37:45
  and to just say things as plainly as Ben just did?
• 37:48
  Yeah, but I don't actually,
• 37:50
  I mean, I have similar views
• 37:52
  in that there are biological differences.
• 37:55
  In most cases, where men will have an advantage
• 37:57
  over women in sport.
• 37:58
  Well, I guess what I've found interesting as an observer
• 38:01
  is people who generally have no interest in women's sport
• 38:05
  or generally have no track record in women's rights,
• 38:08
  come and kind of punching in and being like,
• 38:10
  no, we've got to protect women.
• 38:11
  And you know what that is?
• 38:12
  And I'm like, ah, you never cared about women
• 38:14
  in any other arena.
• 38:15
  That's because the usual,
• 38:17
  the usual suspects who should have been taking up this fight
• 38:22
  on behalf of women had been silent and absent.
• 38:25
  Sure.
• 38:26
  So in the absence of them getting involved,
• 38:27
  other people go, well, I'm now going to get involved.
• 38:30
  I highlighted a case when I started talking about this six years ago
• 38:33
  of a runner in the United States
• 38:36
  who was ranked always ranked out of the top 400, right?
• 38:39
  As a male, became female.
• 38:42
  Number one, that was one example.
• 38:44
  I'm like, that, sorry, that doesn't seem to me like fair.
• 38:48
  When you, when you appreciate that with swimmers,
• 38:50
  they wake up at three o'clock in the morning
• 38:52
  and they get in a pool in the middle of winter
• 38:54
  and they stare at that black line for hours on end,
• 38:56
  all because they want that one chance
• 38:58
  of winning that gold medal.
• 38:59
  That, that chance should not be taken away
• 39:01
  by someone who's got an unfair advantage over them.
• 39:03
  And it's the silence that's, that's forced other people
• 39:06
  to step up and speak about it.
• 39:08
  And the Lea Thomas case is a classic example of,
• 39:12
  I think there's a, there's a woman who really highlighted
• 39:16
  that case. I think her name is Riley Gaines.
• 39:17
  I might be wrong, but she's kind of become a big figure
• 39:19
  in the States over this.
• 39:21
  She tells the story that the first time she was beaten by Lea,
• 39:25
  they actually tied.
• 39:26
  They touched the wall at the same time.
• 39:28
  So they were like, okay, you guys are both first.
• 39:30
  They had one trophy and they explained
• 39:33
  to Riley that Lea will be holding the trophy
• 39:35
  and she was like, and they said, look, decisions
• 39:38
  been made, Lea is going to be holding the trophy
• 39:40
  and she kind of felt straight away like,
• 39:41
  has this been predetermined here
• 39:43
  that we want to be seen to be so accepting and so welcoming
• 39:46
  that we're going to make it unfair
• 39:48
  for someone like me to win the right.
• 39:49
  And I understand how that's unfair.
• 39:51
  I just do wonder in all of these discussions,
• 39:53
  like how many people are going to be Olympians?
• 39:55
  Like the idea that people become trans,
• 39:59
  you know, to be, to win a gold medal
• 40:01
  is still a gold medal.
• 40:02
  It's not about becoming an Olympian.
• 40:04
  If you have a good cycling,
• 40:05
  like cycling at the moment is a honey pot
• 40:09
  for athletes who are once male, who are now female,
• 40:13
  to win prizes, win sponsorship, win awards, win opportunities,
• 40:18
  a ridiculous number of male-born cyclists
• 40:23
  are dominating female cycling.
• 40:25
  That's unfair to women.
• 40:26
  I'm going to go into that room.
• 40:28
  You just have to look at it.
• 40:29
  It doesn't, you don't have to talk about the Olympics.
• 40:31
  You can just talk about your local community.
• 40:33
  Correct.
• 40:34
  Socker field where the people who are picked for the Socker,
• 40:37
  I mean, if you've got a bunch of 15-year-olds
• 40:39
  and, you know, there are only so many people on the side.
• 40:42
  You know, so one girl, if there is a person
• 40:46
  who went through puberty,
• 40:47
  a girl who went through puberty as a male
• 40:49
  and has male bone structure and male muscle tone
• 40:52
  and is now on, you know, on hormone, on hormones,
• 40:56
  then she is taking a position away
• 40:59
  from a biological female.
• 41:01
  Well, yeah.
• 41:02
  I completely agree with you, Antoinette,
• 41:03
  that, and I asked Sal Grover,
• 41:05
  and that's all I was going to ask.
• 41:06
  If you don't hear the portion of the podcast
• 41:10
  with Sal Grover in which I asked this question,
• 41:12
  then you're not a premium subscriber on Substack
• 41:14
  because we had a great 40-minute conversation
• 41:16
  after the three-feet ended,
• 41:19
  where I was saying to her,
• 41:20
  don't you feel a bit weird about having such weird bedfellows
• 41:24
  that basically you've got these far-right kind of reactionaries
• 41:28
  on, you know, Sky News after Dark,
• 41:31
  or you've got right-wing bags writing for some tabloid.
• 41:34
  And all of a sudden,
• 41:35
  it's the most important thing in the world for them
• 41:37
  to celebrate women's rights.
• 41:39
  When actually a half century ago,
• 41:41
  they would have been the ones opposing feminism
• 41:43
  and they would have been the ones
• 41:44
  fighting against women's rights.
• 41:46
  And she made the point,
• 41:48
  look, you're trying to get your word out,
• 41:49
  however you can get your word out.
• 41:50
  And I think it's the job of people like us,
• 41:53
  and including people like you, Antoinette,
• 41:55
  to have the balls pardon the pun,
• 41:57
  to, pardon the expression, to stand up and go,
• 42:00
  you know what, this is something
• 42:01
  that reasonable people should be talking about
• 42:03
  so that we don't see the territory to the right
• 42:06
  and make it own.
• 42:07
  No, I know there's a guy,
• 42:08
  I interviewed a guy about a year ago.
• 42:10
  He wrote to me and he said,
• 42:11
  look, I've heard you on air talking about the whole issue
• 42:14
  to do with trans athletes and whatever.
• 42:16
  And I always put in the comment that I say,
• 42:20
  I want trans people to be able to play sport.
• 42:23
  I want them to be able to compete.
• 42:25
  I want them to be able to be on the field and do whatever.
• 42:27
  But when it comes to competition, professional competition,
• 42:31
  I don't think that this is fair.
• 42:32
  I also support the idea of having open categories.
• 42:35
  At some point, we should be having
• 42:37
  at Olympic Games at Commonwealth Games,
• 42:39
  open categories where it's male, female, open.
• 42:42
  And this, and funnily enough,
• 42:45
  there would be a very lucrative market
• 42:46
  for someone to create some of those competitions
• 42:49
  outside of say, Olympics of open,
• 42:51
  attract a lot of sponsorship.
• 42:52
  There'd be a lot of,
• 42:53
  there'd be a lot of corporates who would see that
• 42:55
  as somewhere they'd like to put their money.
• 42:57
  But I just feel like,
• 43:00
  if we were all standing there on the sideline watching a game
• 43:04
  and we saw there was an unfair physical advantage
• 43:07
  going on on the football field,
• 43:08
  I feel like we would all speak up.
• 43:10
  Yeah, but the trans activists would say
• 43:12
  there's always an unfair advantage of some kind
• 43:14
  because that's what aptitude is.
• 43:15
  Like people are,
• 43:16
  some people are born and thought
• 43:18
  to fall on the size 16 shoes,
• 43:19
  so better in the pool.
• 43:20
  Off the sporting field and into that app,
• 43:23
  have you got a strong opinion as to whether tickle
• 43:26
  should be on Giggle?
• 43:27
  Well, I've got a strong opinion
• 43:29
  about what the law currently states
• 43:30
  and without wanting to interfere
• 43:32
  with the proceeding for current case,
• 43:34
  it certainly strikes me that the 2013 version
• 43:38
  of the Sex Discrimination Act,
• 43:41
  which the Gillard government rewrote,
• 43:43
  is pretty clear that a person who says
• 43:46
  that they are a woman is a woman.
• 43:48
  And the Australian Human Rights Commission
• 43:50
  has made a submission to, in this case,
• 43:53
  against Sal, against the app,
• 43:56
  saying that sex is not binary and not biological.
• 44:00
  That's a lie.
• 44:01
  It is definitely biological.
• 44:03
  Gender might not be,
• 44:04
  or your gender expression might not be,
• 44:05
  but sex in the whole animal kingdom
• 44:08
  and the whole,
• 44:09
  the idea of there being one half of the population
• 44:12
  that has sex genes of,
• 44:16
  double X or an X Y,
• 44:18
  the idea that you might have,
• 44:20
  have, I don't think I need to explain
• 44:23
  what a man is and what a woman is.
• 44:25
  Then the Human Rights Commission goes on to say
• 44:28
  that you can change your sex by medical procedure,
• 44:32
  you can change it by changing your birth certificate,
• 44:35
  or you can change it by any other means,
• 44:37
  not listed here.
• 44:38
  And therefore,
• 44:40
  you're really opening the door to the erasure
• 44:44
  of the ability of biological women
• 44:46
  to conceive of themselves as a group.
• 44:48
  I'm not a woman, so I don't have a dog in that fight.
• 44:50
  I find it curious that so many feminists.
• 44:54
  With tickle,
• 44:55
  because she does,
• 44:57
  it has identified as a woman
• 44:59
  and been a woman for several years.
• 45:00
  It's on her birth certificate.
• 45:01
  She's done the gender reassignment surgery.
• 45:03
  I see her as a woman,
• 45:05
  and I don't mind sharing an app space with her.
• 45:07
  Would I want to tackle her in a rugby game?
• 45:09
  I don't know.
• 45:10
  I'm not a very athletic person.
• 45:11
  I don't play sports.
• 45:12
  So I haven't given that huge amount of thought,
• 45:13
  probably not.
• 45:14
  Yeah, I personally,
• 45:16
  if I was using an app,
• 45:17
  I would not give I would not give I would not give.
• 45:19
  I would not give.
• 45:19
  I would not give.
• 45:20
  But the question here is,
• 45:22
  the question here is,
• 45:23
  not should there be apps that include
• 45:25
  trans women, women as women?
• 45:28
  The question is,
• 45:28
  should there be allowed to be one app
• 45:31
  that is only for biological women,
• 45:33
  created by a woman
• 45:34
  who only wants it to be for biological life?
• 45:36
  I think that's what's testing normal.
• 45:38
  That's what's being tested.
• 45:38
  Sure.
• 45:39
  I think the guy who's trying to get into Mona
• 45:42
  is a shitsdura.
• 45:44
  I think the person trying to get into the app
• 45:47
  is a shitsdura.
• 45:48
  But only one has been historically marginalized
• 45:50
  and not the other,
• 45:51
  the trans person,
• 45:52
  and I think people who are born male
• 45:56
  and insist on competing
• 45:58
  in females at the elite level are shitsdurers as well.
• 46:00
  I mean, he's an interesting thought experiment.
• 46:02
  If the shoe was on the other foot
• 46:04
  and there was something that men did
• 46:07
  that was being persistently undermined by trans men,
• 46:13
  do you think men would have put up with it for a second?
• 46:16
  We wouldn't have a bar of it.
• 46:17
  There's a reason why the posters
• 46:20
  and the placards at the pro-trans rallies
• 46:22
  all say trans women are women.
• 46:24
  They never say trans men are men
• 46:25
  because men are go fuck off.
• 46:28
  Now that may be bigotry
• 46:29
  or it may be that men have more of a backbone
• 46:32
  and women and feminists are currently confused.
• 46:34
  Or that when we talk about the physicality,
• 46:37
  I mean, that's a disadvantage.
• 46:39
  If I go to and transition into a male,
• 46:43
  I'm going to be,
• 46:44
  I'm not going to have an advantage in my thought experiment.
• 46:48
  In my thought experiment,
• 46:48
  what I'm saying is...
• 46:49
  That's what I'm saying.
• 46:51
  In my thought experiment,
• 46:52
  flip the power and suppose that there was some pursuit
• 46:55
  in which you actually did have an advantage as a trans man.
• 46:58
  Right?
• 46:59
  We wouldn't tolerate it.
• 47:00
  We're like, no, fuck off.
• 47:02
  Yeah, maybe.
• 47:03
  So I kind of started saying something
• 47:05
  and then lost my thought
• 47:06
  because I'm slightly confused.
• 47:07
  I think I'm very...
• 47:08
  No, that would be okay.
• 47:10
  I had a guy contact me and say,
• 47:12
  look, I've got to add a son called Max,
• 47:14
  who's now my daughter, Maxi.
• 47:16
  And I said, really?
• 47:17
  Like, really young.
• 47:18
  I think 12 years old.
• 47:20
  And this was a process that happened over a number of years
• 47:22
  and whatever.
• 47:23
  And so he came into the studio and interviewed him.
• 47:25
  But what was interesting is he said,
• 47:28
  but I agree with you on the sports stuff.
• 47:30
  Like he said.
• 47:31
  And then he said,
• 47:32
  and he said,
• 47:33
  I really want you to, he goes,
• 47:35
  I want you to understand what I'm going through as a father.
• 47:39
  And what would you do in this situation?
• 47:40
  I'm like, I think I'd probably be doing what you're doing,
• 47:43
  which is listening to your child.
• 47:44
  Absolutely.
• 47:45
  And you know, some real big heart,
• 47:47
  the hearts with Max, who's now Maxi,
• 47:49
  and beautiful family.
• 47:50
  I've got to know them reasonably well.
• 47:52
  But he just said,
• 47:53
  oh, but yeah, on the sports thing,
• 47:55
  if Maxi one day said,
• 47:56
  okay, I want to be on the Olympic swimming team,
• 47:59
  he reckons as a father,
• 48:00
  he would be doing his best to say,
• 48:01
  listen, I'm not sure about that, you know?
• 48:03
  I mean, it's interesting.
• 48:04
  I think the fact that you're raising the case of somebody
• 48:07
  who's known from a very early age is important as well.
• 48:09
  Because one thing that we've sort of muddled in all this,
• 48:12
  because it's so hard to talk about
• 48:14
  because people are afraid of being called bigots or whatever,
• 48:16
  is that we haven't done a very good job
• 48:18
  of differentiating this tiny cohort of people
• 48:21
  who've existed across time and across space
• 48:23
  and so many different cultures
• 48:25
  who from the moment they're the youngest age
• 48:28
  just feel like they're born into the wrong body.
• 48:30
  And these people need our love and compassion.
• 48:32
  The only thing we can do is to help them to transition
• 48:35
  and to, you know, to not discriminate against them in any way.
• 48:38
  But then I think people feel like there's also an ideology
• 48:42
  that has grown up in the past five years, especially,
• 48:44
  which says, there's no such thing as men and women,
• 48:48
  sex is binary, sex and gender are the same thing.
• 48:51
  There are no biological differences.
• 48:53
  You can basically choose whatever your sex is
• 48:56
  and you'll have, you know, friends of mine
• 48:57
  who have kids in, who are 15 years old
• 49:00
  in a city kind of woke social justice type schools.
• 49:04
  We're half the class is trans, you know?
• 49:06
  Also the trans and you can't criticize that
• 49:08
  without being seen as a bigger about the other.
• 49:11
  I wonder what it's like is for the gay and lesbian community,
• 49:14
  right, where you, like the trans activists
• 49:19
  have been so strong.
• 49:22
  There must be some gay and lesbian activists
• 49:24
  who kind of think, okay, we really took our time with our fight.
• 49:27
  Like, you know, the gay and lesbian community took a long time
• 49:29
  to get their point across.
• 49:30
  The trans activists have come out with fireworks
• 49:34
  and they come out.
• 49:35
  But there are also, there's also a lot of unease growing
• 49:37
  among the gay community, yeah, about whether or not,
• 49:40
  like there's a growing opposition to gay marriage,
• 49:42
  especially in the States.
• 49:44
  There's worry about wind back to gay rights
• 49:47
  about whether gay marriage could conceivably be overturned
• 49:49
  by a future Supreme Court in the States.
• 49:52
  And a lot of the backlash against gay rights
• 49:54
  is being fueled by middle American,
• 49:58
  small sea conservative people who are just a bit confused
• 50:01
  by this whole gender stuff that's being shoved down
• 50:03
  there.
• 50:04
  So do you think as a result of the trans and gender stuff
• 50:06
  that there's being pushed back on?
• 50:07
  Yes, I think people, people regarded as being the same,
• 50:10
  the same thing.
• 50:11
  And so if they don't,
• 50:13
  their kids growing up in a world in which they're just told
• 50:15
  that there's no difference between men and women,
• 50:17
  then they also regarded as being,
• 50:19
  they don't want to grow up in a world
• 50:20
  in which blocks can marry each other.
• 50:22
  And to your point, Josh, I think I agree.
• 50:24
  You'll write that more people need to have, here we go,
• 50:27
  uncomfortable conversations and navigate these complexities.
• 50:31
  Otherwise, the result is a growing pushback.
• 50:34
  Like, you know, I see within my culturally conservative
• 50:36
  and religiously conservative community,
• 50:38
  a lot of concern about sort of gender ideology more broadly.
• 50:43
  And that's probably them to be more homophobic
• 50:46
  than they used to be.
• 50:47
  And I think it's actually,
• 50:48
  it causes far more damage to a broader section of people
• 50:52
  than it does bringing people along.
• 50:53
  Do you have the pronouns on your,
• 50:55
  like at the bottom of your email?
• 50:56
  Do you have the...
• 50:57
  I don't.
• 50:58
  She, her.
• 50:59
  But I have no cons,
• 51:00
  like, it doesn't bother me if somebody does.
• 51:02
  No, no.
• 51:03
  I don't, I don't.
• 51:04
  You don't judge them a little bit,
• 51:05
  just deep inside.
• 51:06
  You know, you're a bit of a coward.
• 51:08
  Bit of a what?
• 51:09
  Coward.
• 51:10
  No.
• 51:11
  Why are you a coward today?
• 51:12
  Because I don't think they really believe it.
• 51:13
  I don't think they believe that there's...
• 51:14
  I don't think they believe that there's any ambiguity.
• 51:15
  But I don't think they think that anyone would be confused.
• 51:17
  Yeah.
• 51:18
  I think they're just doing it to signal to other people
• 51:20
  that they're part of the team.
• 51:21
  Yeah, I don't, I don't do it.
• 51:22
  But it doesn't...
• 51:23
  I can't say I really take note of anybody else's either.
• 51:26
  No, but...
• 51:27
  No, but...
• 51:28
  I've got a mate who works in a company with 800 employees
• 51:31
  and at one stage, he was told,
• 51:33
  listen, we're going to have this at the bottom
• 51:35
  of all of our emails from now on.
• 51:36
  So, you know, you've got the email address,
• 51:38
  the mobile number, the whatever,
• 51:40
  and then it's going to be the...
• 51:41
  The he, him or the...
• 51:42
  Yeah, that seems like a PWC deloving.
• 51:44
  Yeah, he...
• 51:45
  Deloving.
• 51:46
  Why?
• 51:47
  Because it was his job that he had to go
• 51:49
  and approach these 800 people.
• 51:51
  And so you need to feel...
• 51:52
  He was like, why?
• 51:53
  Has someone raised this?
• 51:55
  Has it been brought to...
• 51:56
  And they went, no, we just thought we should.
• 51:58
  I always think of...
• 51:59
  I'm always thinking of a choice.
• 52:00
  I'm not saying that the people who don't have a choice are cowards.
• 52:02
  I'm saying that the HR people
• 52:03
  who make the rule are cowards.
• 52:05
  I always think an opt-in system like that is far better.
• 52:07
  But don't you see that...
• 52:08
  Like, if you want to add it, if not...
• 52:10
  Yeah.
• 52:11
  I saw a TikTok video from a recruitment person,
• 52:15
  this woman and she was saying,
• 52:17
  just saying, I'm a job recruiter.
• 52:19
  And when I see the he, him, she, her, they, them, whatever,
• 52:23
  I think you're going to be a pain in the ass to deal with.
• 52:25
  And I was like, you know what?
• 52:28
  Preach.
• 52:29
  No.
• 52:30
  Or something like that.
• 52:31
  I'm probably too afraid to say that I...
• 52:32
  That would be true.
• 52:33
  That would be true.
• 52:34
  That would be true.
• 52:35
  Because the recruiter is going to go to this HR department
• 52:38
  who is rolling out all of these inclusive, inverted commas,
• 52:40
  not inclusive policies.
• 52:41
  Like, it's just, there's so much corporate bullshit
• 52:44
  that it's confusing.
• 52:45
  So that person may or may not actually have much affinity
• 52:48
  to the pronouns, probably thinks they have a better chance
• 52:50
  of getting a job if they include it
• 52:51
  because that's what all their friends at Westpac tell them.
• 52:53
  That's the coward part.
• 52:54
  Yeah, that's what all their friends at Westpac tell them they do
• 52:57
  and, you know, Deloitte has it at the bottom of their,
• 52:58
  all these, you know, all these large companies.
• 53:02
  Yeah.
• 53:03
  I don't know.
• 53:04
  But so just to wrap that up, Antoinette,
• 53:05
  I mean, since you say that it's important
• 53:06
  that we should have these conversations,
• 53:08
  I'll give you the opportunity to have the actual conversation.
• 53:10
  Do you think that it's legitimate for biological women
• 53:12
  to have spaces of their own?
• 53:15
  On an app?
• 53:16
  No.
• 53:17
  That doesn't bother me.
• 53:18
  It doesn't bother you or nobody should be allowed to do it.
• 53:21
  I don't really have strongly held views on it.
• 53:24
  Like, I'm not going to...
• 53:25
  But that's just because you know that...
• 53:26
  No, no, I don't.
• 53:27
  No, I don't, because I would say in sport,
• 53:29
  I see the issues in sport,
• 53:31
  because there are disadvantages to women.
• 53:35
  I see that in an app.
• 53:37
  And the fact that you might be called a turf
• 53:39
  and have to put up with...
• 53:40
  I'll be called part of it.
• 53:41
  ...with weeks of hate on Twitter.
• 53:43
  Have I ever shied away from things I really believe in
• 53:46
  if I think I'm going to be criticized?
• 53:47
  No, no.
• 53:48
  But Josh, here's the thing, right?
• 53:49
  If you wanted to create a club,
• 53:52
  and let's forget whether it's an app or a club
• 53:54
  or a space or whatever it is,
• 53:56
  and it was just for
• 53:58
  gay, Jewish,
• 54:00
  ex-employees of the ABC.
• 54:02
  And I didn't fit into that category.
• 54:05
  That's fine by me.
• 54:07
  I don't care if there's a club just for...
• 54:09
  But there are like dating apps.
• 54:10
  ...if there's a club just for...
• 54:11
  But there are dating apps like that, dating apps for...
• 54:13
  But why is it that on the one category
• 54:16
  of the way you were born,
• 54:18
  that all of a sudden we go,
• 54:19
  oh no, you can have exclusive clubs for everyone else.
• 54:22
  But on that one thing you're not allowed to, why?
• 54:24
  That's because we have all come to agree,
• 54:27
  somehow without having the conversation really,
• 54:29
  but somehow through stealth activist groups have got
• 54:32
  the law to agree that the category of female
• 54:36
  includes biological males who have transitioned.
• 54:39
  And transition could mean
• 54:41
  simply declaring it to be so
• 54:43
  over a sufficiently long period of time
• 54:46
  with enough a sufficiently emphatic emotion.
• 54:50
  We might need to go back at some stage
• 54:52
  that changed the Julia Gillard change, right?
• 54:55
  Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's probably the only solution
• 54:58
  or the solution is feminists
• 55:01
  have to be cool with women with penises
• 55:04
  being in whatever environment is for women.
• 55:07
  Why do you want to be on an app
• 55:09
  with these nasty people who you despise anyway?
• 55:11
  I don't get it.
• 55:12
  If these people have got these strongly held views
• 55:15
  that they only want to hang out with biological women,
• 55:17
  then why would you want to be on their friggin' app
• 55:19
  in the first place?
• 55:20
  Go and find another app.
• 55:21
  Create your own app.
• 55:22
  Stop trying to barge your way into places
• 55:24
  where you have not been invited.
• 55:27
  Yeah, but that to the trans activist sounds like someone
• 55:30
  in the 1960s saying,
• 55:31
  why do the black people want to sit at our lunch counters?
• 55:33
  They've got their lunch counters.
• 55:34
  Why do they have to come into our pubs?
• 55:36
  We've got, there's the Aboriginal pub next door.
• 55:38
  Why do they have to come to our pubs?
• 55:39
  They have to come to our trans activist
• 55:40
  and put that to the trans activist.
• 55:42
  Like, why would you want to be in that space
• 55:44
  if you're not feeling welcome?
• 55:45
  They would say that's not the point.
• 55:46
  It's a test case,
• 55:47
  much like the Mona thing.
• 55:48
  It's not about me wanting to be.
• 55:50
  It's about, do I have a human right to be regarded
• 55:53
  as the sex that it says on my birth certificate
• 55:55
  as the sex that I feel that I am?
• 55:58
  It's a matter of principle.
• 56:00
  Okay.
• 56:01
  I think it's over.
• 56:02
  I'll be what, yeah.
• 56:03
  I mean, I'm still fuzzy
• 56:04
  about Antoinette's position.
• 56:06
  Oh, I think you are.
• 56:07
  You are.
• 56:08
  As a feminist, you're okay with women
• 56:10
  who have conventionally male teachers.
• 56:12
  I told you I am on an app, yes.
• 56:14
  On an app, yes.
• 56:16
  I have a trans friend who shares,
• 56:18
  who I've been in bar.
• 56:19
  I've never felt unsafe with the one or two.
• 56:21
  No, no, no.
• 56:22
  You're okay with that.
• 56:23
  You're okay with them having the right
• 56:24
  to prevent the existence of a space that excludes them.
• 56:28
  Say that question again?
• 56:30
  It's not a question of whether or not
• 56:31
  you'd be okay on the app.
• 56:32
  You're okay with that woman,
• 56:35
  that trans woman,
• 56:36
  being able to force everybody else
• 56:39
  to include them.
• 56:40
  Yes.
• 56:41
  Yeah.
• 56:42
  On the app?
• 56:43
  Yes.
• 56:44
  In all spaces.
• 56:45
  I mean, in all spaces,
• 56:46
  I don't want not so much,
• 56:47
  as I said, not sports on apps.
• 56:49
  But I mean, in a subtle environment,
• 56:50
  it would be a...
• 56:51
  I've had no issues.
• 56:52
  Having said that,
• 56:53
  I've probably had interactions
• 56:54
  with two or three trans people in my life.
• 56:56
  I've got like, I have one trans friend
• 56:58
  who I used to work with.
• 56:59
  There's so much discussion about trans
• 57:01
  and coming into our spaces
• 57:03
  and I'm like,
• 57:04
  how many people...
• 57:05
  Is your trans friend,
• 57:06
  he, him or she, her,
• 57:07
  or that...
• 57:08
  Transition from male to female?
• 57:09
  Okay.
• 57:10
  Works in the...
• 57:11
  One thing Sal said that I thought...
• 57:12
  Where are all these trans people taking over?
• 57:14
  Because I operate in media circles,
• 57:16
  art circles, creative circles,
• 57:17
  aggressive circles.
• 57:18
  One thing...
• 57:19
  Yeah.
• 57:20
  Well, that's because we're surrounded by that.
• 57:21
  So one thing...
• 57:22
  They're cycling.
• 57:23
  They're cycling.
• 57:24
  They're on the bike.
• 57:25
  They're on the bike.
• 57:26
  They're coming and take over.
• 57:27
  One thing that...
• 57:28
  Well, you have the good fortune
• 57:29
  of not having, you know,
• 57:30
  had a bad encounter with any of them.
• 57:32
  A lot of people...
• 57:33
  One thing that Sal says is,
• 57:35
  you know,
• 57:36
  that feminists who are pro trans,
• 57:38
  they'll think of themselves as pro trans,
• 57:39
  Sal would say she's pro trans as well.
• 57:41
  But the feminists who think of themselves
• 57:43
  as being on the right side of this argument,
• 57:45
  will often think about the nicest man
• 57:48
  and the nicest trans woman
• 57:51
  that they could imagine.
• 57:53
  They don't think about the worst.
• 57:55
  She says,
• 57:56
  the reason why trans women
• 57:58
  shouldn't be allowed in women's safe spaces
• 58:00
  is the same reason that my father shouldn't,
• 58:02
  even though he's the best man ever.
• 58:04
  Yeah.
• 58:05
  Because you have to draw a boundary
• 58:06
  around the whole cohort
• 58:08
  in order to exclude the bad apples.
• 58:10
  It's not good enough to be like,
• 58:11
  I've been into lots of bathrooms
• 58:12
  with lots of trans women
• 58:13
  and never had a problem.
• 58:14
  And look, if I go...
• 58:15
  Of course, I've been...
• 58:16
  You just mentioned 56 women were killed last year.
• 58:19
  That means that 13 million weren't.
• 58:21
  If I could just say,
• 58:22
  I walk through my life
• 58:23
  and I never meet male murderers.
• 58:25
  If I was the spin doctor
• 58:26
  or the PR guy for the trans community,
• 58:28
  I'd be saying,
• 58:29
  hey, listen, can we just...
• 58:30
  Can we pull back on a couple of these areas here
• 58:32
  where we're the sport thing
• 58:33
  and some of these other things?
• 58:34
  Let's not get involved in these fights.
• 58:37
  And every single opportunity...
• 58:38
  I mean, this is not...
• 58:39
  I don't think it helps the community.
• 58:42
  I'm part of this community.
• 58:43
  I mean, I'm not trans,
• 58:44
  but I'm part of the LGBTQIA plus community.
• 58:47
  I know lots of trans people
• 58:48
  and I know lots of trans people
• 58:50
  who are really uncomfortable
• 58:52
  with the heat that is being generated
• 58:54
  by all these controversies.
• 58:55
  That's Maxi's dad.
• 58:56
  He's saying...
• 58:57
  And it just be like,
• 58:58
  just let us live our lives,
• 58:59
  which want to live our lives.
• 59:00
  And we'd rather this not become
• 59:01
  a national firestorm every time...
• 59:03
  You know, just take the win.
• 59:05
  That's what I say with that.
• 59:06
  That's what I say with that.
• 59:07
  If you think of Maxi, right?
• 59:09
  And that's what this father was saying.
• 59:12
  It's hard.
• 59:13
  He goes because every five minutes now,
• 59:15
  there's another story
• 59:16
  and another, you know,
• 59:17
  a lot of them involving sport,
• 59:18
  which I cover.
• 59:19
  But it's, you know,
• 59:20
  I don't think it's helping a young person like Maxi.
• 59:23
  Right.
• 59:24
  And that's not to put all the blame
• 59:26
  on the extreme trans activists
• 59:28
  because they're conservative.
• 59:29
  The moral panic...
• 59:30
  Oh, my God!
• 59:31
  It's so much.
• 59:32
  But the two sides involved in each other.
• 59:34
  And if it was just us having the conversation,
• 59:37
  everything would be fine.
• 59:38
  A trans people would have all of the rights
• 59:40
  that are meaningful to them.
• 59:41
  Yeah.
• 59:42
  And...
• 59:43
  I mean, I'm also conscious of where,
• 59:44
  like, there's no trans person here.
• 59:45
  And I can't...
• 59:46
  I can't...
• 59:47
  You put that bullshit answer in it.
• 59:48
  I won't have a bar of it.
• 59:49
  No!
• 59:50
  I don't buy into any of the kind of like,
• 59:52
  oh, you know,
• 59:53
  we don't have to stand here to talk about it.
• 59:55
  We don't have a trans...
• 59:56
  But I can't...
• 59:57
  We can't report to say that we would be able to...
• 59:59
  We would have this conversation
• 1:00:00
  and be able to give trans people what they want.
• 1:00:02
  I don't know what or trans people want.
• 1:00:03
  I don't know what trans people want.
• 1:00:04
  I don't know what I'm talking about all trans people.
• 1:00:05
  Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  You might be trans people.
• 1:00:07
  This is true.
• 1:00:08
  This is true.
• 1:00:09
  I guess you've got a conclusion.
• 1:00:10
  Are you jumping too?
• 1:00:11
  Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  No, we do enter into it.
• 1:00:13
  And if we were talking about what it's like to be
• 1:00:14
  to have the lived experience of being trans,
• 1:00:16
  then we'd be out of line.
• 1:00:17
  But talking about the way that...
• 1:00:18
  I'm sick and tired of this idea
• 1:00:20
  that nobody is allowed to talk about.
• 1:00:22
  No, absolutely.
• 1:00:23
  About how we structure our society.
• 1:00:24
  Like, we all have buy in here.
• 1:00:26
  We're all part of a demos.
• 1:00:27
  We're all trying to figure out how to muddle through
• 1:00:29
  and get buy in this crazy democracy we call Australia.
• 1:00:32
  So we're all allowed to talk about how we want to relate
• 1:00:34
  to race and gender.
• 1:00:35
  Absolutely.
• 1:00:36
  We are.
• 1:00:37
  But as I said, I probably benefit from interacting
• 1:00:39
  with more trans people because I've had...
• 1:00:41
  I know three.
• 1:00:42
  You know?
• 1:00:43
  And so...
• 1:00:44
  That's the other point I'm making.
• 1:00:46
  Exactly.
• 1:00:47
  That's the other point I make in the amount of time
• 1:00:49
  and effort spent talking about trans people
• 1:00:51
  or pushing back against trans people
• 1:00:53
  is really disproportionate to the population
• 1:00:55
  and I think the threat that they supposedly pose.
• 1:00:58
  Absolutely.
• 1:00:59
  They don't pose a threat.
• 1:01:00
  I don't pose a threat.
• 1:01:01
  You know, we're just talking about whether or not
• 1:01:03
  there's an interesting contradiction between women's rights
• 1:01:06
  and the rights of that minority.
• 1:01:08
  Meanwhile, moving to international news,
• 1:01:11
  Joe Biden says that the United States
• 1:01:14
  is considering dropping its legal pursuit of Julian Assange.
• 1:01:17
  He was asked this just briefly by a reporter.
• 1:01:20
  Well, I don't know how much credence
• 1:01:21
  Ben, you give these kinds of remarks.
• 1:01:23
  When a reporter thrusts a microphone
• 1:01:25
  in front of the leader of the free world
• 1:01:27
  as he's walking along.
• 1:01:28
  And he's like, oh, I'll consider him a minister
• 1:01:30
  and he says, we're looking at it.
• 1:01:31
  Yeah.
• 1:01:32
  Should we be reading T-Leaks?
• 1:01:33
  No, I'm not reading too much into it.
• 1:01:34
  But if it is true, it makes you wonder
• 1:01:37
  what's the fuss been about for all of these years.
• 1:01:40
  I mean, we know that...
• 1:01:41
  It's 14 years.
• 1:01:42
  I know.
• 1:01:43
  And, you know, it reaches a point
• 1:01:44
  where you've got to say, okay, enough's enough.
• 1:01:46
  The bloke was a journalist,
• 1:01:49
  if you can call him a journalist too.
• 1:01:51
  That's a big deal.
• 1:01:52
  That is a big question.
• 1:01:53
  Yeah.
• 1:01:54
  I'm using that loosely.
• 1:01:55
  It makes a thing with WikiLeaks.
• 1:01:56
  I think when they first came along, I can remember they...
• 1:01:58
  They released a video of...
• 1:02:00
  Oh, they're really horrific.
• 1:02:02
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• 1:02:03
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• 1:02:07
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• 1:02:15
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• 1:02:19
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• 1:02:24
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• 1:02:27
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• 1:02:29
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