Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #44 - Big Honey, Big Issues | Simon Mulvany [SaveTheBeesAustralia]

Transcript

#44 - Big Honey, Big Issues | Simon Mulvany [SaveTheBeesAustralia] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Shed
0:03
Organics show. My name is Jordan, and today we
0:07
have another cracking episode with a very special guest.
0:11
Today we have Simon from Save the Bees Australia, and Simon is
0:15
a person that I've come across in the last year or two who is
0:20
really embodying what it is to be an advocate for the things
0:25
that we care about and the things that matter.
0:27
And Simon is not afraid to speak his mind.
0:31
Simon is not afraid to talk about these issues publicly, and
0:34
I really admire the way that he dives into all of these topics
0:38
and shares all sides of them to the people.
0:41
You don't necessarily have to agree with everything everybody
0:45
says out in the world who says this, that, and the other.
0:48
But having these conversations, opening up the discourse to be
0:52
able to chat backwards and forwards, honestly and openly is
0:55
so, so important in today's environment.
0:57
So please enjoy the conversation with Simon.
1:01
There are so many things that we touch on, including honey and
1:04
how to recognize good honey, the consistency of honey, where it
1:07
comes from. Also the discrepancies and
1:10
labeling that we need to look out for.
1:12
So stay tuned. If you love bees, if you love
1:14
honey and if you are very passionate about important
1:17
issues, this episode is for you. So without further ado, this is
1:21
Simon from Save the Bees Australia.
1:40
Too often these days we're seeing products on the shelves
1:43
that aren't exactly what they claim to be on the tin.
1:47
For example, in regards to honey, now it's fairly known
1:51
around the place or in the space of regenerative and organic and
1:55
all of this that we're aiming to go for a raw, basically
2:00
untreated honey as local as possible to you.
2:04
Is there anything that you can talk to me about about honey,
2:07
what to look out for, what consumers can be, can be going
2:11
to, and how we can tell which honey is the best one for us?
2:16
Yeah, it's getting more difficult over the years.
2:19
I've been. I've been into honey for a
2:21
decade, and particularly when I first started, I realized how
2:25
medicinal it was. I really helped a friend with an
2:28
infection from my own hive and it changed her life, the benefit
2:32
of that honey I've given her. And then for me at that
2:37
awakening type process of my beekeeping, realizing that the
2:40
stuff at the supermarket just didn't have the consistency of
2:45
the raw honeys that I was finding in my hives and, and
2:49
other hives. Like for instance, this
2:51
supermarket stuff doesn't crystallize at all.
2:54
So that's a good take on it. Like obviously over 10 years
3:00
I've evolved a bit too, you know, see how better systems
3:07
could come about. And over that time, I, I created
3:10
a honey map and you can go on and you put your post code in
3:14
and I'll give you 5 of your closest beekeepers and then you
3:18
can buy honey off them directly. I think a lot of people use
3:21
Facebook Marketplace and then how, how can you like?
3:28
It's very frustrating for Australians who are working
3:31
their guts out as beekeepers that they have to compete with
3:34
the stuff that might not be honey at all.
3:36
So for a consumer, one way now I'm deciphering between quality
3:42
product and not quality product is whether it's got antibiotics
3:47
in the honey. And for people out there that'd
3:50
be just shocked to know that Australian beekeepers, a lot of
3:53
the commercial ones, rather than check their hives for health,
3:57
they'll go and mass dose them with antibiotics and and then
4:02
the bees will stay alive. But it hides the symptoms.
4:07
So in the last month I've written to every single honey
4:10
Packer in Australia and there's only two that will give 100%
4:16
guarantee that they've got no antibiotics in their honey.
4:18
Wow. And so that's pretty important
4:21
for people to realise if they're watching this is that there's,
4:24
there's a honey Packer and beekeeper in Queensland called
4:29
Hampson Honey Karl. He, he gives me a guarantee that
4:34
there's no antibiotics. So that that's one way if you're
4:37
at the supermarket, unfortunately or fortunately, I
4:40
can only refer that one at the moment.
4:44
But I've just thought rather than there's so many people make
4:48
these claims like raw and unfiltered and local when when
4:54
they're none of those things. And like, so how do we weed it
4:57
out now we can weed out the quality from the inequality.
5:01
If you say it's, it's antibiotic free.
5:05
The other thing that Australia does that Europe and America
5:08
aren't doing at the moment, they're allowing honey in from
5:11
Argentina and China. And it's well known that in
5:14
Argentina and China, they use a lot of antibiotics as well.
5:18
And obviously, you know, if if your listeners would be
5:22
thinking, well, why are we even bringing honey in from China and
5:25
Argentina? And this is one of those
5:28
shocking things that has evolved as at the human race, you know,
5:32
you get people carrying on about climate change, but they're
5:36
they're still buying honey that's been imported and gone.
5:39
You know, the food miles on that honey.
5:41
So it's ridiculous. But one thing you said like it's
5:45
always better to get, you know, honey direct and local to you,
5:49
which kind of isn't always possible.
5:52
Some people live in broad acre farming areas.
5:54
Some people live in the city. And what I think is marvellous
5:58
is like being able to choose a honey that you really love.
6:02
Like at at the moment, I've been promoting leatherwood honey a
6:05
lot. And if you've never tasted
6:08
leatherwood honey, it is like people carry on about manuka,
6:12
but manuka isn't a nice tasting honey.
6:16
It's sort of a medicinal honey and best used topically.
6:18
Or if you've got an infection, that leadwood honey is a taste
6:22
you'll never forget. But at the same time, you
6:25
couldn't eat leatherwood every day.
6:26
It's sort of like eating lobster or, or, or scallops where it's
6:31
rich and yeah, you know, and then so you've got your
6:35
eucalyptus honey. It's like blue gum and yellow
6:37
box and they're, you know, just everyday honeys.
6:42
They're great, and they're probably better for you to
6:44
digest than a lot of the other honeys as well.
6:48
Yeah, that's brilliant. Thank you for sharing that
6:50
because it is important. It is hard for people to
6:53
distinguish or at least understand that what's written
6:56
on the label is not always what we're we're told it is.
7:00
I've found this with organic products as well.
7:02
A lot of people can use the word organics, you know, obviously
7:04
I've got that in part of the name of what I do, but it's,
7:08
it's very difficult to, to see because.
7:10
It's it's, it's scary for me. Like I've, I've, I've had a
7:14
constant battle with this company here and I'm not going
7:18
to say anything about them specifically.
7:20
I'll let the consumer make up their own mind.
7:23
But it says Australian certified organic on the front, Papilano
7:28
organic on the front and then on the back it says in times of
7:33
shortage we may use international honey until
7:35
Australian honey is available again.
7:38
So yeah, well, like this, this is this is the problem.
7:43
And so I, you know, I have got a certification and my
7:46
certification is Save the Bees Australia certified antibiotic
7:52
free. Because as we spoke about
7:54
before, I just see see that as being, you've got antibiotics in
7:58
your honey. Obviously it's it's not as pure
8:02
as you want it to be. Well, it's anti, it's anti to,
8:05
to bio, it's, it's anti life in a lot of ways.
8:08
It's killing off so many of these different things and
8:11
having that blanket approach that we see unfortunately so
8:14
often in so many areas of our food and our, you know,
8:18
environmental kind of use. Like these people.
8:22
Just, you know, I was talking to Jesse recently about the fire
8:25
ants and how that program is just a crazy blanket, you know,
8:30
just spraying of all of these things.
8:32
And it's just we're not thinking about the wholeness, the
8:35
completeness of the product or how that interacts and those
8:39
chemicals and things interact with our bodies once they come
8:43
into us as well. I wanted to touch on Manuka
8:47
because you just, you just spoke about it.
8:48
Manuka is, I've heard often utilized as a bit of a name to
8:54
sell things as well. How do we tell what pure Manuka
8:58
is and and some of these honeys where they can kind of claim the
9:02
health benefits and sell you this much more expensive jar
9:05
when it's not necessarily that true Manuka, can you speak to
9:09
that at all? Yeah.
9:11
It's one of the most pasta products in the world.
9:13
I think something like the UK sell more manuka honey in a
9:16
month and it's produced in the world.
9:18
Well, yeah, so it's, it's very easy to pass off honey as
9:23
another honey. And then if you go to the
9:26
supermarkets, it's, it's so confusing because you'll see
9:29
like a $6 jar of manuka and then you'll see $100 jar of manuka
9:34
and you're like, well, what do these numbers even mean?
9:37
Yeah. And so I, I even find the
9:39
numbers confusing because the system in New Zealand's
9:42
different to the system in Australia.
9:45
And then there was a massive court case, you know, it
9:49
probably finished about five years ago, where New Zealand
9:52
were trying to stop Australia from using the word manuka.
9:55
And Australia actually won the court case.
9:58
And, you know, obviously it's the plant, not the area that's
10:03
of importance. Correct.
10:04
Yeah. And so Australia has the highest
10:07
quality manuka honey in the world.
10:09
And I don't know if your listeners, I would go to Google
10:13
Medi Jelly. And there's a beekeeper called
10:16
Peter and he has owns that company.
10:20
And his whole idea when he set it up was knowing that these
10:23
scams were going on, that he could sell Manuka direct to the
10:27
consumer. And and so yeah, medi jelly.com
10:32
for your Manuka. But yeah, I'm, I'm saying that a
10:36
lot of beekeepers will just cordial up their Manuka.
10:40
New Zealand actually became strict recently on because
10:43
they're trying to protect the industry.
10:45
So I think it's happening a bit less there.
10:47
But now all the honey's been coming to Australia and being
10:51
sold as Manuka. So don't buy New New Zealand
10:55
Manuka honey either if you're in Australia, because it's the
10:57
stuff that they're rejecting that is getting flooding into
11:02
our market. Yeah, interesting.
11:04
Well, yeah, because I originally lived in New Zealand and it was
11:08
always spoken about that manuka was, you know, this New Zealand
11:11
Gulf vine of, of honey. So I, it's really interesting
11:15
for me to know that that's it's actually a lot better here and a
11:19
lot better. Quality well the problem like an
11:21
another weird thing that's happening in New Zealand is
11:23
they're finding a lot of glyphosate in the New Zealand
11:27
manuka honey and. In the honey.
11:30
In the honey, and so a lot of like you can Google this, but a
11:34
lot of New Zealand manuka is getting rejected from Japan.
11:38
So as the quality of testing's increasing and we can find
11:42
things like different pesticides within honey a lot easier, a lot
11:47
of those honeys are getting rejected.
11:49
And Australia's honey was all tested and got through, but New
11:53
Zealand's honey's been getting sent back.
11:56
And this is, you know, allegedly, allegedly in New
12:01
Zealand, they use helicopters to spray Roundup over a lot of
12:05
these tea tree or liposperm plants to knock them back
12:10
because if they knock them back the next year, they can produce
12:13
higher yields of flowers. That is what someone's told me.
12:17
And whether that's true or not, I don't know.
12:19
But for whatever reason, New Zealand has huge issues with
12:23
glyphosate. And then someone actually said,
12:26
well, it might be the Clover and other things that they're
12:30
blending the manuka with that caused that issue.
12:33
But you know, you're, you're running an organic program.
12:37
So you know, that is 1 chemical that we're all trying to avoid
12:40
it and be getting it in your honey.
12:43
It's particularly a really expensive manuka honey is really
12:47
disappointing. And so New Zealand have to have
12:50
to do something to to to stop that.
12:53
Yeah, you're right mate. The glyphosate is one of these
12:56
things that we're just all seeming to kind of run into at
12:59
the moment and it's becoming thankfully more widely known how
13:03
debilitating it is for life in general.
13:05
But let's talk about local honey again.
13:09
So say for example, the the honey that I get from my
13:13
wonderful local butcher who has this beautiful honey there and
13:18
it's regularly slightly different colour obviously
13:20
because it depends on what what the bees are pollinating, what
13:26
flowers they're going around to, what trees and different things.
13:28
They don't necessarily have anything that says this is a
13:31
specific tree, it's just this at the moment or it's just that
13:34
they sometimes have different kind of flavours where they'll
13:37
say this comes from a certain tree or or a certain plant or
13:40
whatever it is. But for the most part, I can see
13:43
a little bit of colour differences and things like
13:45
that. Couple of questions to go with
13:49
that local honey one, what should I be asking the honey
13:55
producer themselves about their process?
13:57
Obviously you mentioned antibiotics and then maybe
14:00
something to do with treatment in terms of how they get their
14:02
honey to, from A to B. But then also what are the
14:07
differences in the colouration and, and the style of honey
14:12
means? I've just come back from the UK
14:14
and I've seen a lot of Milky honeys over there that, that are
14:16
quite popular. So what's the differences in all
14:19
the colours that we're seeing? All right.
14:21
Yeah, I'll go into that. Some of those things.
14:24
In in the UK it's normal to eat crystallized honey and I should
14:29
bring a few jars over. I'm staring at a few jars and
14:32
show you how different they are. Do you mind if I just?
14:33
Yeah, please. Yeah, yeah, grab some.
14:35
Yeah, so sorry about that. No, it's all.
14:38
Good. So you know I'm back.
14:40
So this is honey I've got out of my hives 2 days ago.
14:45
It's really sort of a brown colour.
14:47
This is probably a more likely got manuka in it, a tight litmus
14:52
burnin and it's sort of Jelly like and consistency.
14:57
And then this is what I will get out of the hive later in the
15:02
season in February. It's a plant called Muna.
15:05
So, you know, that's a big contrast, isn't it?
15:08
Yeah, huge contrast. It's like yellow for those
15:11
listening. The second one is yellow, so
15:12
it's sort of more gold in the first one and brown and the
15:15
second one's more gold yellow. And, and yeah, obviously bees
15:22
are getting a variety of nutrition sometimes as well.
15:26
So, but most likely they're not there's some type of honey flow
15:31
that will give a distinction. But you said like Milky honey,
15:36
but what we call it cream honey, cream, cream honey that is just
15:42
whipping the honey basically. And and if you buy creamy, I
15:47
feel like you might leave it on for 24 hours stirring and then
15:51
it's fluffy forever. Whereas sometimes like this one
15:55
looks quite creamed as well, but I never creamed this.
15:57
But sometimes it's rock hard. So you, you obviously know honey
16:03
lasts forever. So it's sort of magical the way
16:08
the bees have this system where they can do that.
16:11
Like it's a mathematically, it's actually really hard to for us
16:16
to get honey to a point where we can get exactly the right amount
16:20
of moisture out and then let it last forever.
16:23
But bees do that automatically. So it is, it is incredible.
16:28
And then so in, in terms of what to ask your beekeepers or how
16:33
they could stuff up. And if, if it's a backyard
16:36
beekeeper, you might ask something like, what do you use
16:38
in the smoker? If people are using cardboard
16:42
and newspaper, obviously those chemicals will be going in.
16:46
So that's not good and it won't taste as well.
16:49
I, I, I tend to use pine needles or sometimes I'll use Rosemary
16:53
or, or even lavender that I've dried out.
16:56
Yeah. Does that then give the honey a
16:59
hint of that taste sometimes? Sometimes depending if you're
17:03
getting the honey from the frames, or it could be Burr comb
17:06
that that you get on and you know, spare comb that's grown on
17:09
top where the lid goes or something that might have a bit
17:12
more of a smoky taste in it. Yeah.
17:15
So you're not always going to detect the smoke, but it's it's
17:19
you can probably tell the style of beekeeper if they're thinking
17:22
about those things, they're more likely to to have a cleaner
17:25
product. The other thing you'd ask your
17:27
beekeeper if they've done pollination work, because if
17:31
they've gone to the blueberries or or the almonds that those
17:36
bees might have been subjected to pesticides.
17:40
And then if if you're in an area of NSW and Queensland where for
17:45
always coming through, you'd say has has your honey got miticides
17:50
in it? And then miticides as sort of
17:53
there's organic ones and there's non organic ones.
17:56
So if they said something like Oxalis acid, you know, you'd
18:01
probably go, oh, that's OK, that's organic.
18:03
You find it in honey anyway. Yeah.
18:05
But if it's one of those other Bayer style chemicals like
18:09
Amitraz or something, maybe you would avoid that honey.
18:12
So yeah, there there are a few of the questions you could ask.
18:16
The other thing is some sometimes beekeepers will
18:19
harvest before it's ripened or capped off, and that means that
18:23
honey will go off. Right.
18:26
So it's not been gone through that full process where they
18:28
can, it can last forever, so. They we'll see in China quite
18:31
often they'll harvest the unripened honey and like
18:34
technically it shouldn't be cold honey if it hasn't been ripened.
18:38
And they've worked out over there that not only do they get
18:42
more, but the bees will work harder to keep on bringing it
18:45
in. And then they have a different
18:49
process to stop it going off. But it also means it will stay
18:53
liquid in the jar for longer. OK, OK, Yeah, OK.
18:56
Well, wow, that's there's so many things there that I
18:59
wouldn't have even thought to to ask so.
19:02
Thank you. I'll tell you one thing like
19:04
this is how hard it is for people trying to do the right
19:07
thing. Like, you know, I obviously do.
19:09
And a lot of the people who would be on the honey map do.
19:12
But there is an organization called ARBIC that is meant to be
19:16
looking after beekeepers in Australia.
19:18
It's called the Australian Honey Board Industry Council.
19:21
Beekeepers who pay for them paid a fortune for them to go out and
19:26
test this supermarket, honeys and all honeys from Australia.
19:31
The adulteration they found was so extreme that ARBIC had
19:36
decided that they could tank the whole Australian market.
19:39
So they're not going to release that information to the public
19:42
at Channel 7 journalist rang me recently.
19:45
I asked that Channel 7 journalist to get that
19:47
information from ARBIC and they said no, we've passed it on to
19:52
the Governor General or something and he will decide
19:56
whether the publicly foresee it or not.
19:58
So I'm in this situation, where do I try to get Freedom of
20:01
Information and try to work out what was in that testing?
20:05
But for me it is like it's stopping.
20:08
It's an unfair playing field. They can sell adulterated stuff
20:13
at the supermarket but you know, I would never morally do that to
20:17
my consumers. But I'm also having to compete
20:20
in that market. That's such a shame.
20:23
It makes when you see something like that where there's it's so
20:28
bad that they just they think that look, we we've got to think
20:32
about the money first and foremost over the health of
20:36
everybody in the consumers. It's just, it's a shame.
20:40
It might be worth trying to figure out if we can use the
20:43
power of the people and independently start testing
20:45
these things like you're doing and you're showcasing all of the
20:48
things for people to look out for.
20:49
I'd highly encourage all the listeners to go and check out
20:52
your content and go back through it because.
20:53
You yeah, well, it's, it's interesting, you know, I spent a
20:56
lot of time doing that and like now I'm doing taste testing.
21:00
Yeah, a bit, you know, I'm nearly at a stage where my words
21:03
enough, I'm like buy this one, don't buy that one, you know,
21:06
and, and I think that's the stage I want to want to get it
21:10
to where, you know, with honeys, just see if it's certified or
21:15
ask those questions and just don't buy that supermarket
21:18
stuff. Yeah, and I think you really are
21:20
becoming a little bit of a figurehead for that because you
21:23
are so honest and open about these things and just sharing
21:27
exactly what consumers want to know, myself included, like I
21:31
would. I'm fascinated by honey.
21:33
I love honey. I have honey regularly, but I
21:35
don't necessarily have the time to go and check all of these
21:39
things in every aspect of my life.
21:41
So which we're having to do, unfortunately, with so many
21:45
products and so many different things, what's just sort of
21:50
moving personally, mate? What's what's it like for you as
21:54
somebody who you know, you've built this sort of organization
21:58
around saving the bees and you're really advocating for
22:02
doing things the right way. What's it like for you when you
22:06
coming up against the reality of the situation, let's call it?
22:11
How do you feel challenged in bringing the message out there
22:17
personally? Yeah, it's, I guess I've succumb
22:23
to the fact that the enemies are big, they've got a lot of money.
22:26
You know, I could think that's the, you know, one of the things
22:30
for me to make day-to-day decisions.
22:33
I just have to say, well, what's better for bees?
22:36
And so that's makes it like for something like the fire Ant
22:40
poisoning program, like I was really hoping that another
22:46
organization or other people would take that on.
22:49
And so I went to the Senate inquiry.
22:52
They at that point, I didn't even know what they were
22:55
planning. And then as I started to learn
22:57
what they were planning, I, I was gobsmacked.
22:59
Like, you never prophylactically poison things.
23:04
And that's basically what it is. It's like we, we don't know
23:07
whether there's fire ants here or not, but we'll just go poison
23:10
the whole lot and that's going to kill indigenous bees.
23:13
When I, I spoke to the invite, I tried to do things the right
23:16
way. First I had a meeting with
23:18
Invasive Species Council, who were really the lobby group to
23:21
get this poisoning done, and they didn't even know that we
23:24
had indigenous bees in Australia.
23:27
The first thing the guy said to me is like, we're actually happy
23:30
for always here because that means that we're going to have
23:33
the honey bees wiped out and we don't like honey bees because
23:35
they're introduced. And I said, what about the
23:38
native bees? I said, 90 bees.
23:40
I go. But they live where the ants
23:41
live. They live underground.
23:43
Yeah, they're underground living bees in Australia, like, yeah,
23:47
there's 2000 varieties. I said, have you even done an
23:49
environmental impact study to where these bees?
23:52
So the, the, the potential is they're wiping out bees that are
23:57
vulnerable or we, we may never even discover before we have the
24:02
chance to discover them. That's how hardcore it is.
24:07
So with that one, it's just a really rational debate.
24:11
And to see them and, and we have seen this before with the, you
24:16
know, I don't like bringing up the vaccine COVID stuff, but
24:20
they really hadn't done the research and bullied people into
24:23
accepting it. And now they're literally,
24:25
they're breaking into properties and, and, and forcing poison on
24:29
private properties with no fire ants.
24:31
So it actually feels surreal that we're in a time where what
24:36
I'm saying is considered outrageous.
24:39
But one thing that happened, and I don't even know if you're
24:42
Privy to the interview, but an ABC journalist rang me a while
24:47
ago and I, I videoed him interviewing me and he, it was
24:53
like he was trying to get me the whole time.
24:56
And it was just really great that I had, you know, my son's
25:00
phone at the time to video myself because even though I
25:05
released it just on Instagram, went for 41 minutes or
25:08
something, it actually went semi viral and the next and within
25:14
doing that interview another company.
25:16
Had. I could tell had got to ABC and
25:20
was working with them on the questions to try to make, to try
25:24
to make me say things that could get me into trouble under a gag
25:27
order. And so it was a fascinating
25:30
discussion because I was able to rationally talk it out with this
25:34
journalist And he looked like a fool, like he, he, he said
25:40
something like, well, they're not poisoned, Simon, that
25:43
they're using, they're the eradication program says they're
25:46
not poisoned. That guy.
25:47
Do you know what the chemicals are?
25:49
Do you want to just Google them while I'm here talking to you
25:52
and, and read what they said? They're literally poisons.
25:55
They've got cautions. One of the things is keep them
25:57
away from bees And, and one of the one of the things is never
26:03
used in rainwater. Another one of the when it's
26:06
raining. And then one of them is only
26:08
ever used on fire Ant nests when it's spotted the nests.
26:12
So it was like their own literature from science is
26:16
saying what they're doing is completely, you know,
26:19
irresponsible or wrong. And, and if a private company
26:23
did it, they'll be, you know, a fortune.
26:27
So, yeah, the, the, you know, so in terms of, in terms of when I
26:33
get sort of threats from corporations or in this case the
26:38
ABC have been attacking me recently, I think that it shows
26:43
I'm on the right track and, and I'm affecting the profits.
26:48
But yeah, I don't know, like, I guess that's been a real shock
26:50
for me that the, our, our government channel has been used
26:58
in a way to promote, you know, honey corporations, the big
27:02
ones. And also also this poisoning
27:06
program that's obviously making some people a fortune.
27:10
It is. I made I, I'm in total agreeance
27:13
with you in, in so many ways. I, you know, I saw first hand or
27:18
felt first hand the impact of the pressure, say from the
27:22
vaccines and things like this, Unfortunately lost all my work
27:25
at the time for choosing my own personal sovereignty.
27:27
But the, you know, it was, it's merely just watching the, the
27:34
government who is supposedly working for the people, which
27:38
we, we often forget, do things without that public
27:43
consultation. And then when we've got people
27:47
who are boots on the ground like yourself, who are able to give
27:51
real world examples, we've got real people sharing their
27:55
stories of the impacts that these things are making.
27:58
I don't feel like we're necessarily being listened to.
28:00
And I highly commend you for going down the routes of trying
28:04
to chat to the right channels, track chat to the right people.
28:07
It's very proactive. It's very admirable, something
28:11
that I personally struggle with even just to to fathom having to
28:16
go up and stand there and argue a case.
28:18
I try and you know, do my bit by having conversations like this.
28:22
But the hey guys, really quickly jumping in.
28:25
I just want to remind you, if you are not subscribed to this
28:28
show, that is the number one thing that you can do to show me
28:31
your support. So if you're finding value from
28:33
this conversation and you're deeply engaged, I would love you
28:36
to hit the follow or subscribe button.
28:38
All right, back to the show. You know, I see people like, I'm
28:41
not sure if you're aware of Clancy Leicester the The Bee Man
28:45
from doing talking about native bees.
28:47
Yeah. Can we talk about Clancy for a?
28:49
Second, yeah, of course. Like I've been writing to him
28:52
for months, like I've been very friendly to him and back and
28:55
forth, but he, he hasn't spoken out about the fire Ant poisoning
29:00
program. He hasn't spoken.
29:01
And, and you talk about they, they find these young people and
29:06
they sponsor them and then these people become gagged And Clancy,
29:12
if he's listening, has to get some balls because I'm, I'm
29:16
starting to get pissed off. I've got a petition I wrote to
29:19
him recently about neonucleotenoids, abandoned
29:22
Europe. They're the most used
29:24
insecticide in the world. They're absolutely decimating
29:26
Australian insects. It's got 50,000 signatures.
29:29
I said call Clancy. You, you take this one over this
29:32
one can go to you. I've done the work.
29:34
I'm running one on honey labeling.
29:36
It's got 300,000 signatures. I'm trying to help Jesse.
29:40
I try to empower people at the same time.
29:43
And Nancy was one of those guys. I want to win power.
29:45
Now someone's tapped him on the shoulder and said, all right,
29:48
Save the Bees is too hardcore for us.
29:51
Be careful. Don't, don't collaborate with
29:53
Save the Bees. And and so, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm
29:58
going to be pushing back Clancy. And I think he knows it.
30:01
And I think you would have seen earlier in this year, I had a
30:05
phone call from a friend saying that Kosta the gardener.
30:09
Was gags, yeah. Well, I was very impressed with
30:12
with the work we were doing and that he wasn't allowed to talk
30:15
out about the poisoning program he was disgraced with.
30:18
It was interesting because ABC did a complaint to Instagram and
30:23
Facebook about other articles I've written about Gardening
30:27
Australia, their show, who promoted it.
30:30
But I noticed that they've left that Costa one up there.
30:33
So, you know, I, I was pretty friendly about him and, and
30:36
it's, it's, he's a hard guy not to like, but I, I just think in
30:41
these crucial times when we're talking about preachers becoming
30:46
extinct or the quality of our life dropping, you've got to be
30:49
courageous and speak up on these issues If, if you're going to be
30:55
a custodian for bees, which, which both of them claim to be.
30:59
Yeah, Look, I, I share your sentiment.
31:01
I don't know personally about any sort of conversations and
31:05
I'm slightly reluctant to talk about certain people.
31:08
But I like, for example, with bringing up Clancy, the reason I
31:12
was talking about him is because we're seeing people like him.
31:16
Come on. And go into the government space
31:21
and the ABC space, which he's just from what I understand,
31:26
from what he told me, is going in and hopefully working like he
31:30
said for the ABC Creators program.
31:32
But that then means that you are bound by what the ABC wishes you
31:39
to speak about or doesn't wish you to speak about.
31:42
And I feel like that's the same with someone like Costaway.
31:44
Your whole livelihood and your whole life, paying your bills,
31:48
paying your rent and things like this is bound by a certain body
31:54
or corporation. This goes for anything, not just
31:56
necessarily the ABC. You're always going to be at,
32:02
sorry, you're, you're not, you're going to be reluctant to
32:04
be speaking out against the people that pay you.
32:07
And unfortunately, that's the trap that they've got a lot of
32:09
people in going through the main routes of actually taking things
32:14
into Parliament. I think there is certainly a way
32:17
of being able to bring the facts to these things in a way that's
32:21
not combative. And that is actually we're
32:24
allowed to talk about these things without having that
32:26
backlash. I I really hope that, you know,
32:31
if Clancy does listen to this, he has been a guest on the show
32:34
talking about the importance of native bees.
32:37
But if if he is somebody that is making huge waves in terms of
32:42
being able to get into government situations and say
32:45
things, I think that platform is crucial to be able to speak
32:49
about the things that you're sharing here, so.
32:51
Like, like it's not controversial to to just read
32:54
the the poisons. They're using the fire Ant
32:56
program. Yeah, these poisons do kill
32:59
native bees. Yes, I'm a native bee expert,
33:03
Yeah. Yeah, that's not controversial.
33:05
It shouldn't be controversial. And, and it's controversial that
33:08
you got a person with that standing that isn't talking
33:11
about the poisons. And like, I'm all for like
33:14
insect hotels and things. But you know, I was talking to a
33:17
friend about it the other day. It's sort of like green washing
33:20
for bees, really. Like if, if, if you really want
33:23
to help native bees, you actually have to, you know, the
33:27
one, one thing that damages them is when we pick up all the old,
33:33
you know, logs and dead logs for Bush fire clearing and stuff.
33:37
That, that's, that's one thing because, you know, they, they
33:40
live underground and they should be living naturally of, of messy
33:44
gardens in debris. You know, I'd say the insect
33:48
hotel thing, it's it's a bit of a novelty.
33:52
Great, great way of showing, you know, kids, you know, here's
33:55
where bees live and and you can have that instead of a
33:59
traditional beehive. But to think it's going to make
34:02
a difference when we've got massive poisoning programs, it's
34:07
just like very, very insignificant in, in relation to
34:12
to speaking out about neonicotinoids and the other
34:16
poisons like the pronol estimates of brain and
34:20
pyrioxifen that they're using in the fire Ant poisoning program.
34:23
Yeah, you're right. I think the as as you said,
34:25
there is a place for for these things like the hotels sharing
34:29
with the kids and inspiring them to get into finding out more
34:33
about this. But when it comes to using your
34:35
platform to do good, I think the talking about these issues is
34:40
just so important. That's why I really wanted to
34:43
get you on the show to really sort of highlight a few of
34:45
these. But but also just going back to
34:49
that personally, how, how does it weigh on like how do you find
34:54
every week? Because personally, when I'm out
34:58
there and I'm seeing all of these things happening, it does
35:00
get a bit overwhelming. It does seem to get like I'm
35:04
daily going into battle against these things.
35:08
How do you rationalize that back down to yourself in your
35:10
everyday life? And you know, for me, my motto
35:14
is one person at a time. So I'm sort of just trying to be
35:17
1 situation one day at a time, just spreading the word, trying
35:20
to talk, finding the truth, trying to open conversations.
35:24
And that sort of leaves me thinking that you know, I'm on
35:26
the right path, trying to, to say the right thing.
35:29
How do you rationalize that to keep yourself sane and happy and
35:32
enjoying your life whilst facing these big battles?
35:34
I guess I, I know if I don't speak up and I haven't tried,
35:40
then it's going to be a lot worse for me.
35:42
That's one way of explaining it. But sometimes people might think
35:46
like, why are you dipping your toes into that issue at a
35:49
certain time? Because sometimes I can't help
35:52
myself but to jump into a situation.
35:55
But when I used to volunteer for Clean Ocean organization, I
35:59
still do. And it's been an interesting
36:03
journey. I see other sort of
36:06
environmental ocean groups that are they're so blinded by this
36:12
broad term climate change that they're they're they're not
36:16
taking into account pesticides, fertilizers and ocean run off.
36:20
And then for my lifetime, it is what's happening in SA is worse
36:25
than any environmental disaster I've seen in Australia.
36:30
And it I can see this, you know, Albanese went there recently and
36:36
he said, well, we've got to expect more than this because of
36:39
climate change. When I first took on that topic
36:42
on a podcast, it sort of went semi viral and a lot of people
36:45
started writing to me about the Desalina tion plants and how
36:51
these harmful algae blooms, they call them Habs.
36:56
I've found quite often where desalina tion plants are around
37:01
the world, like in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Florida have all had
37:05
issues with mass fish, fish die offs when they've turned them
37:08
on. And so SA, it just recently
37:11
turned a lot of them on. Like initially I was blaming the
37:15
Murray River and pesticides coming in fertilizer.
37:17
It's like I can change my opinion.
37:20
But what's very scary is now I've gone deep down this rabbit
37:24
hole in researching where a desalina tion plants coming up
37:28
around Australia, the coastline, and it is just massively,
37:34
massively worrying because there's a huge one in Perth,
37:38
there's another one coming in Victoria.
37:40
And then you've got this other issue as well with data banks
37:44
also needing salt water to run and, and a desalina tion plant
37:50
there. So I, I don't want these red
37:53
tide events or these algae blooms to start happening
37:56
everywhere. But if they do, it's not because
37:58
of climate change, it's because of ocean pollution.
38:01
And so how, how can I let the narrative get taken over when I
38:07
know it's false? And I see the same thing with
38:09
bees. They're like, oh, bees are
38:10
collapsing to the climate change.
38:12
No, it's not. It's it's, it's it's pesticide
38:15
use, mainly in land clearing is not good.
38:19
But if we get distracted by this one term, we can't focus on the
38:23
real perpetrators or or problems.
38:25
So yeah, anyway, it's easy when you can't listen to the bullshit
38:30
you you're just like you've got to talk about what you know is,
38:34
is real. But I've copped some Flack like,
38:37
you know, I'm a volunteer so they can't take my wage away.
38:41
But there's a few posts that have gone viral when me me
38:43
talking about the Desalina tion issues and the algae bloom and
38:49
the clean ocean who I volunteered for told me to take
38:53
down the post. So they, they, they've taken it
38:55
down off their own page. And I know for a fact, one
38:59
person, like I had a fight with a senator in Tasmania, a Green
39:03
senator, he's Senator Serfry calls himself, and he signed off
39:08
on the fire ramp program. He said, well, no one's written
39:11
me any letters saying that they had any negative environmental
39:15
impacts. I'm sad, but I have myself.
39:17
I bought them to you. He goes, oh, they haven't been
39:20
sent to me. And then, like Jessie, she might
39:23
have told you she did the same thing.
39:24
She's had thousands of letters go.
39:27
And so do you know, you hear the politicians lie and then I'm on
39:31
the frontline. I'm catching them out lying for
39:33
myself. I'm fortunate I've got quite a
39:35
few followers. So I follow up and then people
39:38
ringing me going, you can't give the senator shit.
39:40
I'm going. I'll give whoever I want shit,
39:44
you know, and. And yeah, like, let's see how it
39:47
goes. I'm, I'm, you know, censorship's
39:50
probably been one of the biggest issues I've, I've suffered.
39:53
And I don't know if Jesse told you that we were collaborating a
39:56
lot, but now we're not allowed to.
39:59
Like then my collaboration feature got taken off about the
40:02
last month, but now, now it just returned.
40:05
So I'm sort of trying to get back on track again with that.
40:09
But I've just as, as I said earlier, I try to empower other
40:13
people. So then the burden's not wholly
40:15
on me. So Jesse's been amazing and.
40:18
There's another girl, Estelle's been really good and another
40:21
girl that does beekeeping with me at the moment, Emily.
40:23
She's spoken up about Capilano last week.
40:26
I can't really talk about them because I'm restricted.
40:30
So what? What we do need, we need and and
40:34
Look, I'm only guessing your your age, but are you in your
40:38
30s or? I'm 33 next week mate, Yeah.
40:42
So, yeah, like, you know, I'm 50 now, so we, we need younger
40:46
people. And that's why sort of, you
40:49
know, it's been a bit disappointing with Clancy
40:51
because he's on that younger age group and I don't know why he's
40:55
gagged himself in regards to mentioning all these specific
40:59
poisons. Yeah.
41:01
Look, part of my my thought process on on a lot of these
41:05
things is opening conversation means that it's not necessarily
41:10
like we don't have to go with whoever's voice and say this
41:15
person's right, this person's right.
41:16
It's the more discourse we have, the more opening up and saying,
41:19
hey, like you just said, what is actually this chemical?
41:22
What is it doing? Is it the Murray River?
41:25
Is it the Desalina tion plants? Then we look into it and we
41:29
figure out the best path forward.
41:30
It's exactly. And I like I'm this is what I've
41:33
said. I've said if there's people that
41:34
don't agree on the comments and there's experts, let's have a, a
41:38
podcast and discuss it. Like they when, when you see
41:42
that the people don't want to have have the long conversations
41:46
about it, then then it sort of shows that, that they might be
41:52
naive or that they're trying to hide something.
41:55
And I think in the case of the desal player, it's like if I've
41:59
I've looked into how much is invested and it's PHP and yeah,
42:06
it's other things, but. That seems to be, that seems to
42:10
be what's happening in terms of like, like you said with money.
42:14
It seems to be that there are people that have vested interest
42:18
in certain things continuing and they're not necessarily
42:20
concerned about the other things.
42:22
They'll lobby that against the government.
42:24
And then the government who supposedly has the power doesn't
42:27
seem to have any power because the money, the funding, all of
42:30
these things that come through them is dictated by the ones
42:33
that are set to gain from a lot of these things.
42:36
And you're right, authentically, it feels like I cannot sit by
42:42
without giving air time to this because we've just had our first
42:45
son, our little 1. And it really makes me think
42:49
about the world that he's growing up in and what I'm
42:52
hoping to teach him about critically.
42:56
Thinking about a lot of these things critically, looking into
42:59
situations, trying to find the truth and trying to speak
43:02
authentically allow a lot of conversations.
43:05
And the world that he's living in seems a bit, it seems scary.
43:10
And I'm hearing a lot of young people say they don't want to
43:12
bring kids into this world because it seems so, so scary
43:16
and things. But I, I.
43:17
Yeah, so that joy is such an important thing.
43:19
And that's the other thing. What why I fight for the bees
43:23
and and it, you know, the ocean because I get so much joy out of
43:27
them. I get my joy out of watching
43:29
nature, and then that makes you fight for it.
43:31
But I absolutely agree with you that you don't want to be
43:34
getting this fear into kids. Something I'm noticing and like
43:37
I've only got one child. I lost my partner when my child
43:42
was 6. Oscar.
43:44
So bit like now I'm, I've heard Elon Musk say it and other
43:48
things like the best revolution now is having children.
43:52
And, and for some reason there's, there's women I know my
43:57
own age that haven't had children yet.
43:58
I feel they chose careers. They're trying to have children
44:02
now and it's just like to, to, I don't think there's anything
44:09
more rewarding than you're ever going to have than having young
44:11
children around as a grandparent.
44:14
And I feel like whether it was a psyop or not, a lot of people
44:18
were told that wasn't the right way to go for the environment or
44:21
for whatever. I think that's a total psyop.
44:24
And our whole meaning of life is connected to like in the same
44:28
way you look at the bees, they're not working for
44:30
themselves. They're always working for the
44:32
next generation because they love the potential of that next
44:36
generation and what it has. And yeah, I, I do think that we
44:40
should have that or regain that and this guilt about having
44:45
children just, you know, has to go go.
44:47
And yeah, I know other, there was a bit of a fashion there
44:51
where IA lot of the girls that I've worked with on Save the
44:56
Bees all had children around, you know, 2223.
44:59
And I think they've made the right decisions in doing that.
45:03
Yeah, it's something really special for a woman to be able
45:05
to do. Bringing life into this world
45:07
and seeing the miracle, I guess, of having a child as well,
45:11
really helps you appreciate what life is and the special miracle
45:17
that it is. And also being able to then go
45:21
and look through their eyes as they learn the world as well and
45:24
see what they're finding fascinating because we're so
45:27
caught up in this busy world of fast moving things that we don't
45:32
intend to slow down and get that joy out of nature.
45:35
And just wonderment and curiosity is a big one as well.
45:39
That trying to foster in my son and in myself.
45:43
But if you had to, if you had to sort of think forward a little
45:49
bit, then Simon for for yourself and your project, what is what's
45:55
your main goals apart from obviously bringing awareness to
45:59
to this, these topics and things like this, what are some of the
46:03
things that are really top of mind for you at the moment
46:06
moving forward? I, I'm fortunate that I've had
46:09
victories before and the victories didn't necessarily
46:12
take money. They just took a great movement
46:14
like boycotting was a really good one.
46:18
So there have been several product recalls I've been
46:21
involved with. One was a product called
46:23
Confedor, A pesticide. Another one was a honey that was
46:27
called a Lowry got product recalled.
46:30
And then at the moment, you know, obviously the poisoning
46:35
programming in Queensland. I, I think that could be a
46:37
critical mass. I, I've got to talk to Jesse
46:41
Moore. We've both been sort of tackling
46:42
other things, but I the, the, the big difference between that
46:48
program and us, our success is we've had zero budget.
46:52
There was another group who sort of I handed it over to and
46:55
they've just been tied up in legal cases.
46:59
Whereas, you know, my vision for that project is to try to raise
47:04
money to have a decent, a decent amount to take them on.
47:09
They've got $10 million to invest in marketing.
47:12
If we even had 100,000 to invest in marketing, I would do an
47:17
influencer program to try to, you know, get that message out
47:21
there in saying that it's been amazingly successful what we've
47:25
been able to do already on social media numbers wise and,
47:29
and signatures wise. So you've got that, you know,
47:35
whether it's delusional or not, I'm still carrying on that
47:38
philosophy that like people will buy off off people directly,
47:43
like on the honey map. And yeah, there's a girl that
47:47
does work for me occasionally here.
47:49
I've noticed like on the weekend she made a leatherwood honey
47:54
blend of her product and she sold out in 2 days and.
47:58
Brilliant. That might be $7000 you made in
48:01
two days. And so we get sort of caught up
48:04
in this trap where we think there's no way of actually being
48:08
able to do our own things because we're trapped in this
48:11
matrix. But in some ways, we've got more
48:14
opportunities than ever because we can build our own audiences
48:17
and sell to them directly and bypass the supermarket.
48:21
So that was, yeah, that's one thing, you know.
48:27
I feel you on that one because I, I talk a lot about, I guess
48:33
trying to move away from conventional farming techniques
48:36
where it's a chemical extractive approach.
48:39
You know, they're throwing more and more pesticides and
48:43
insecticides on it. They're having to use more
48:45
fertilizer every single year and there's more pest pressure every
48:49
single year. And then the soils are being
48:51
depleted every single year. So I try and push for obviously
48:54
regenerative farming. The farmers themselves aren't
48:57
being helped out at all in terms of trying to help them have that
49:01
bit of financial backing to make the switch over to regenerative.
49:05
But something that, you know, I come up against a lot in terms
49:09
of the arguments, as they say, you know, it's all good
49:12
switching to this approach. It's all good having, you know,
49:14
growing your own food and things like this.
49:16
But that's not going to feed everyone.
49:18
And I'm in the in the camp of thinking if we sort of
49:23
decentralize everything, bring it back to a local scale where
49:27
we've got these smaller conglomerates of people that are
49:31
sharing skills, sharing resources and sharing produce.
49:37
It's got a smaller supply chain, it's more locally connected.
49:41
We've got that community feel. What are your views in terms of
49:46
that? Thinking about how we fix that
49:49
problem of food growing for the masses and trying to avoid these
49:55
widespread uses of chemicals and things like that.
49:58
Do you have any thoughts on that for me, mate?
50:01
Yeah, so. This is where a bit of no,
50:05
because I'm assuming you live where you've got a bit of land,
50:08
you can grow some food. You're not.
50:09
I've only got 600 square meters in suburbia.
50:12
I mean, it's better than a lot of people, but I'm I'm sort of,
50:15
I'd love to have some more land. I would, absolutely.
50:17
No, no, But that's enough. That's plenty.
50:18
And like I know with bees, it's like you, you don't need barely
50:23
any room at all. You could easily have, you know,
50:26
half a dozen hives in in that area that you're at.
50:29
So, so I have a bit of a biased perspective of knowing how easy
50:35
it is because you could literally survive off the
50:38
beehive. You could like eat the larvae,
50:40
eat the honey, eat the pollen and then you don't, you don't
50:44
need anything else. It's probably a complete food.
50:47
So I can see even in a suburban areas how that bartering system
50:52
can work. And then, I don't know, I guess,
50:56
I guess 1 battle is the laziness in general of people because the
51:00
convenience that now like, and, and like I've got a 15 year old
51:03
son, he's like getting Uber Eats the whole time.
51:07
And, and you know, so maybe there's a mechanism in utilizing
51:12
technologies to, to help us with that, where, you know, they can
51:16
deliver your organic honey or organic food for you into the
51:20
future rather than just your Uber Eats.
51:24
Yeah, well, Uber Eats should be able to go to local farm stores
51:28
and things like this as well, pick up orders.
51:30
I'm sure that that could be integrated.
51:31
Somewhere, you know, so there, there, there will be solutions
51:33
out there. And you know, I guess one way of
51:39
me affecting that is by telling people what to avoid and that
51:45
gives the open room up for the good stuff.
51:47
But yeah, I don't know if you caught it during this year.
51:50
I'd like explaining to everyone. There's barrel was recently hit.
51:53
So the last of Australia's pure honey is going to be, you know,
51:58
dwindling down. A lot of big commercial
52:00
beekeepers are getting out of it.
52:03
There's a lot of people who are misusing chemicals.
52:07
And so if you want antibiotic free honey, you should be buying
52:10
bulk honey direct. And, and it's honey, it's
52:14
probably an easy product for that because it never goes off.
52:17
But I know like people are doing it now.
52:19
I had a friend the other day and they had olive oil direct from
52:22
the farmer. And so I think, yeah, it's that
52:27
is definitely the antidote. But yeah, look at the, I
52:31
realised I can't, I can, I can't preach to the people who don't
52:36
want to receive that information.
52:38
And you know, I, I don't think Woolworths and Coles are going
52:43
to be that concerned about what we're chatting about now or the
52:46
effects that we're having. Although, yeah, they have
52:51
probably done a few legal things against me as well over the
52:55
years. So, yeah, no, we can, we can
52:59
make a difference. And and yeah, that that's,
53:03
that's a beautiful solution is a small scale localized farming.
53:08
Yeah, that's it. And as you just said, voting
53:11
with your feet basically. So, you know, if a restaurant is
53:15
not very good, people just don't go, right?
53:17
So in the same way that now we're seeing more of these
53:23
farmers opening up their delivery systems for, you know,
53:27
a lot of the meat and things like this, I try and really be
53:30
conscious about the food that I'm buying, where it's from and
53:33
trying to buy direct from the farmers.
53:36
And that means that I haven't been to Woolworths for or coals
53:38
or anything like this for I don't even know how long.
53:42
And I think that it's, yes, occasionally I have to pre think
53:46
about, OK, what am I going to have?
53:48
And I can't just order it straight off online.
53:51
But that way of living, once we get back to that, the old sort
53:55
of traditional style of living that we've all forgotten how to
53:58
do, where we're making our own food, preserving, where we're
54:01
cooking our own homegrown produce, making those decisions
54:04
and having that, I get to know my butcher, I get to know the
54:07
farmer. And then you've got this
54:08
community feel that gets built up.
54:11
You build these connections and then you're actually thriving in
54:14
in more ways than one. Yeah, so, yeah, that's that's a
54:19
definite and I'm lucky where I live.
54:21
I'm I'm sort of in a holiday town type area.
54:24
So we all know each other at the local shops and yeah, beautiful.
54:30
I've got my honey, you know, all on on their tables there.
54:33
So. Yeah.
54:34
That's that's the last thing I wanted to touch on mate with you
54:36
is if someone wants to get in touch with you or honey or some
54:41
of the bees that you have on offer and things like this, when
54:44
you catch a swarm or something like that.
54:46
Where's the best place for people to go for the some of
54:48
these resources? Like, Instagram's the best way
54:52
for people to, you know, ask me anything.
54:55
So I'll get quite a few direct messages that way.
54:59
And then, yeah, the bulk honey, I'd advise everyone to start
55:02
getting their honey in that way. And I can sell you a bucket with
55:06
a tap. So it's easy to you can't in
55:08
jars. You could then on sell it if you
55:10
wanted to everyone in your street.
55:12
And and yeah, that that's a great way to do things.
55:16
But yeah, that's that's how you contact me in terms of the
55:20
petitions, you know, there's there's obviously the fire out
55:24
one we're really pushing at the moment.
55:26
Yeah, I'll. Reshare that link in the.
55:28
Crowd yeah. And I will.
55:29
I like, I, I mean the process run out to do it, but I think we
55:32
have to do some type of crowdfunding for that one.
55:35
Like I've got 100,000 people following the page.
55:38
We all pay in 10 bucks each. Then we're, you know, then we
55:42
will be forced. One of the things that ABC keep
55:45
pushing is that we're a real minority and that most people
55:49
are really for the poisoning, which is it?
55:51
It's not small, it's massive that people are against the
55:54
mandated poisoning. So.
55:56
Yeah, I've gotten so many messages after just releasing
55:58
the episode with Jesse, even just people just saying, hey,
56:00
I'm really back this, but they not necessarily.
56:04
Yeah. Sharing, you know, but.
56:05
Like Jordan, we'll keep talking and someone else listening might
56:08
help, but I'm in Victoria. I'm obviously taking on a few
56:12
different things. I need people to help
56:14
orchestrate this one. And so even if we, I know when
56:19
I've seen people work for Greenpeace and stuff like you
56:22
keep 10% of the money you raise, I think a a system like that.
56:26
And the other thing I was saying to Jesse is putting money boxes
56:31
out on, you know, we'd stop the toxic fire Ant program around
56:36
different stores, all in the areas they're poisoning.
56:40
And and then even just having the box there would be getting
56:43
out that message and then raising the funds on the back of
56:47
that. But that's one of the things,
56:50
you know, you want to do a good job with the program and I
56:52
actually feel a little bit bad that I haven't pushed that side
56:55
of things, but I just haven't had the.
56:58
You're a busy man. And I don't, you know, there is
57:00
responsibility when you take when you start taking money.
57:04
We did, we like, what was interesting is we did raise a
57:08
help raise, you know, 8 grand or 9 grand when it first jumped
57:12
onto the project. And we did, we did testing of
57:15
Sanford River for poison. And it was so, yeah, it had so
57:20
much poison in it. It was just like devastating.
57:24
And we were just really lucky. We found a scientist that wasn't
57:28
government aligned and he actually got, I don't know if
57:30
you'd call in trouble, reprimanded.
57:32
Like, how did you get the test results without going through
57:35
US? Yeah.
57:36
And but anyway, there's the Sanford River, which has had got
57:40
lung fish in it. That is World Heritage, you
57:43
know, protected was full of this poison that kills fish.
57:47
So anyway that's that's going back over old ground.
57:52
But yeah, I'll I'll we can talk off air.
57:55
If you if you might have a little bit of a team that you
57:58
know you can get that happen. We don't it happening and I'm
58:02
going to yeah, obviously be talking to Jessie a bit to see
58:05
if she can push it as well. But yeah, let's say 1,000,000
58:09
bucks. That's it mate.
58:10
It's as I, as I said earlier, one person at a time.
58:13
I think like every conversation that I have, I'm trying to bring
58:16
awareness to these things. I've got in the local butcher
58:19
that I mentioned earlier, they've got all of these posters
58:22
up everywhere about the the poisoning and things like that.
58:25
They're sharing, there's local cinemas that are sharing about
58:28
the water pollution and a beautiful movie that's just been
58:30
made recently. And there are more and more
58:34
people seeing sort of starting to be aware of this.
58:37
And it's, it's very hopeful when I chat to people like yourself
58:42
and other people like Jesse, who are just as keen to, to make a
58:46
difference. And the more and more people we
58:49
wake up to this, the better it's going to be for all of us and
58:52
our future and for our children. So like, you know, just on, on
58:55
air to to wrap up, I want to thank you a lot for the hard
58:59
work that you do putting your neck on the line, not only for
59:02
the bees, but for so many other important issues in our
59:05
environment, in our country. So I'd love, I'd take a lot of
59:09
inspiration for you from you and I would love everyone else to do
59:12
the same. So appreciate you, Simon.
59:14
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for taking the time
59:16
out to chat for me. And yeah, we'll continue writing
59:19
to each other, I'm sure. And and yeah, I'll keep you up
59:22
to date if there's any major help I need.
59:25
Perfect, perfect. And there we have it, ladies and
59:44
gentlemen, an important, important conversation and more
59:48
conversations like this need to be happening.
59:51
Now. We spoke about some, well, as we
59:54
say, not controversial things in our mind, but seemingly
59:57
controversial out to the public. But having more and more of
1:00:01
these chats is going to make sure that actually we see
1:00:04
through some of the propaganda that's used to talk about
1:00:09
certain issues. And help us realize and
1:00:12
recognize, wake up to the fact that there are people with
1:00:15
vested interest behind some of these things.
1:00:17
And there's a lot of money behind some of these things that
1:00:19
dictates what may happen, more so than our voices, our
1:00:25
community, our environmental impact, things like this.
1:00:28
So what can we do? We can talk about it, we can
1:00:30
share this, we can share this episode.
1:00:32
If you resonated with this episode, please share it around.
1:00:35
There'll be some clips on social media that you can share.
1:00:38
Reach out to Simon, let him know of any stories.
1:00:40
Sign the petition in the comments below and let's get a
1:00:44
few more voices rolling on these issues.
1:00:48
So if this is all I can do by sharing and talking about it and
1:00:51
just having open conversations, you know, I'm not on anyone's
1:00:54
side no matter what. I'm just on the side of nature
1:00:57
and trying to, you know, bring us back to the beautiful world
1:01:02
that we want to see in our future.
1:01:05
So if you enjoy the episode, leave a review of comments and
1:01:08
thoughtful stars. And I'm very excited again to
1:01:11
see you next week. So we'll wrap up the rest of
1:01:13
this year very, very soon. We'll see you soon.
1:01:15
Thanks for listening and bye for now.