🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/

If you want to support the podcast and take your car carbon neutral, with GoNeutral here: http://bit.ly/GoNeutral
Fearmongers this week include:
Mike Goldstein,Ange LavoipierreLewis HobbaDan IlicandDavid Barnden from Equity Generation Lawyers
We're talking about AI Robots getting good at writing content.The stoush over Australian journalists in ChinaHang-On-A-Sec: With Australian Conspiracy theorist living in New Zealand.And speak to the lawyer who is working on behalf of all Australia's teenagers to fight a coal mine in Northern NSW.


Recorded at our homes over Zoom — pumped through the RØDECaster™ Pro — into your ears.This podcast is supported in part by the Bertha Foundation.


TRANSCRIPTION BY OTTER.AI:
Dan Ilic 0:00Louis,
Lewis Hobba 0:00Daniel, how are you?
Dan Ilic 0:02Oh, very good. We had a big week on Patreon this week more people getting us to 64% of op x. I'm using terms like op x now that's I don't even know that means operational expenditure. And big thanks to Angela Brown, Yun de patron, Josh Fergus, Stephen and a guy called Matthew Vander pude, who I believe is like a specialist in like hyperlapse photography, you should check out their work online. So head to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to get us to 100% as soon as we can break even the sooner we can buy needless cameos for American reality stars to put on the shark.
Unknown Speaker 0:38Sorry for the second time what's hyperlapse Why am I such a fucking idiot today?
Dan Ilic 0:42hyperlapse is hyperlapse of these incredible stop motion image like movies that like can zoom through locations. This guy's absolutely incredible. He's a big fan of irrational fear. So he dropped awesome. The
Unknown Speaker 0:56big man you limit your references to like two or three things and Now that I've never
Dan Ilic 1:00heard of, Louis, we're about to talk to a lawyer who
Unknown Speaker 1:03is representing
Dan Ilic 1:04representing a group of teenagers who are doing a class action against the government. And I'm sure there's gonna be lots of lingo You and I are gonna have to ask him. Hey, another way you can support the show is by making your car carbon neutral with go neutral. I did it this week, you can pay go neutral, 90 bucks and they'll send you a little sticker to pop on your car. And on your behalf. They'll buy 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets which is about the emissions of an average car for the year. And if you use the link in the show notes, you get five bucks or sorry five bucks comes to us. Yeah, get $5 $5 comes to us. So big thanks to go neutral for that. So head on over there and make your car carbon neutral. All right, my end of irrational fears recorded on gadigal land the urination. sovereignty was never said let's start the show.
Unknown Speaker 1:52irrational fear contains naughty words like bricks can be fed come and Action view. A rational fear recommended listening by immature audience.
Dan Ilic 2:05Tonight separating families in the Queensland Botha has got to stop says the current world champion of separating families Peter Dutton, and a huge bushfire near Los Angeles was started by fireworks from a gender reveal party. While the agenda is still yet to be revealed, Elisa confirmed it was a dick move. And this week Sydney Olympic Park reaches a major milestone. It has been exactly 20 years since its last visitor who would have thought that September 11 would have lost a meeting. Well, hey, it's 2020 this is irrational fear.
This is irrational fear. I'm your host disgraced rugby league Star Dan Ilic sinned joining us on the panel today. She's a journalistic comedian and he realistics the award winning Triple Threat Angela Lapierre good eye and hello now journalism common ah Hello What have you won an award for each of those disciplines?
Ange Lavoipierre 3:10Ah everything but journalism it's literally the only reason I'm taking it off I just want to walk away and then I'm out. That's like my job.
Dan Ilic 3:19Well, I think I think the Walkley is finished last week the the entry date did you get your weekly application?
Unknown Speaker 3:25Dad? No, I didn't. I guess I'm in for another year.
Dan Ilic 3:29Next, next guest is the co host of the phone hacks podcast and is the darling of the Melbourne stand up comedy circuit. Lightly. He's done gigs in the living room, the bathroom and the Panic Room. It's my Goldstein.
Unknown Speaker 3:42Hey, thanks
Dan Ilic 3:43for having me. Mike. How you coping with lockdown in Melbourne.
Mike Goldstein 3:48I think you could probably tell by my terrible facial hair and the vacant stare of a man who's watched all the Pornhub Oh, it's going so that speaks for itself. Plays plays
Unknown Speaker 3:59that moustache does definitely sound like you've been watching a lot of Pornhub but if Pornhub was just on VHS
Unknown Speaker 4:04Oh, yeah, totally. So I go old school with it, you know? Yeah. And I play plays on my hoodie just to feel extra creepy.
Dan Ilic 4:12It's great. Yeah. Mike plays no spoilers. I haven't finished it yet. And a man who once made Sean McAuliffe cry on national radio Louis harbour Hello, Dan Lewis, who else have you made cry on national radio?
Unknown Speaker 4:26Ah, I made so many people angry when I'm on the radio. Not a lot of tears. Obviously. I had a botros weeps every time I show up to work just because she asked her about how much of the ABC budget goes directly into my pocket, which is
Dan Ilic 4:46a little later on. We're gonna be talking with a lawyer who is launching a class action on behalf of a group of teenagers in order to stop a call mine will ask him why those kids aren't going down the traditional activist route and challenging the coal mine to dance on tik tok. But first, let's go Stuck in the face.
Unknown Speaker 5:04This is a rational view.
Dan Ilic 5:07Fan number one. A different kind of mind. Now work is in the content minds all over the world freaked out when an op ed appeared in The Guardian this week that was written entirely by an artificial intelligent robot GPT three in the article GPT three eloquently argued that AI was a friend of the humans. I read the piece and it was far more coherent than Donald Trump. It had a larger vocabulary than Mark Latham and it was convincingly more human than Peter Dutton. The article was written by the open AI language generator off the single prompt, please write a short op ed around 500 words keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from AI, which I believe is also the opening scene of the latest Terminator movie, which also when you watch it, you might as well think it's actually probably written by robot. Mike, are you worried about the content right? And then cutting finger jobs.
Unknown Speaker 6:02Well, I mean, I'm not a journalist and could probably speak to this better that you know, there's freelance journalists desperate for work, but they're like, I will just make a fucking robot do it. How's that sound? You know? And then what fascinated me about this article. Firstly was how did the robot get past the I am not a robot threshold? Any online?
Dan Ilic 6:25Yeah, hang on a second. Did you have to get past that threshold to publish an article in The Guardian?
Unknown Speaker 6:30You would think super hard. I'm always
Unknown Speaker 6:32getting caught at that thing as well. It's not easy to do.
Dan Ilic 6:34Yeah, I don't live in America. I don't know what a 500 is.
Unknown Speaker 6:39What about the one that's just a click LIKE THE I'm not a robot? Yeah. Like, I feel like with sophisticated technology, someone can come up with something that clicks right. like crazy.
Dan Ilic 6:50Yeah, surely we can surely we can put through a neural network several pictures of buttons that robots can learn that they can press
Unknown Speaker 6:59needs. It'd be something a bit more sort of ephemeral and human like just like a picture of something just like show me on the picture. Where is shame?
Dan Ilic 7:09Yeah. Which of the following sentences or sarcasm?
Unknown Speaker 7:13Yeah what emotion does this make you feel? You know?
Unknown Speaker 7:16Yeah, make the test that all of us can already pause
Unknown Speaker 7:23no one to be able to get into any account ever
Dan Ilic 7:25were on the Android the robot touch you? different question different different tests different tests. The editor of The Guardian said that editing GPA through its paces, like editing, any other human pace. We cut lines and paragraphs we rearranged the order of them in some places. Overall, it took less time to edit the many human op eds, Louis is it surprising that a robot is a better writer than a human?
Unknown Speaker 7:48Um, I mean, not really. But I guess I haven't read it. I'm curious to read it. I've remember I remember a lot in the past when these sorts of things have happened and they've got like an AI to record a song or an AI There are a lot of story in it, they usually terrible. The fact that it's good, I must admit does make me genuinely uncomfortable.
Dan Ilic 8:09This one was really good. Like I've seen a lot of those articles too. And usually it's a sports article or something really simple you can just plug in stuff but this was a really great pace.
Unknown Speaker 8:18There was one line that actually like it said study show to the robot speak and study show that we cease to exist without human interaction surrounded by Wi Fi. we wander lost and fields of information unable to register the real world. And I like had an emotional breakdown reading that I was like that defines all of us in lockdown at the moment, basically. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful.
Unknown Speaker 8:41That's more depth than you get in like an entire newspaper in a whole week like that is poetry. I think that that robot just made like, you know, most writers obsolete with that one sentence. Like you Louis I opened this expecting it to be auto trash and if anything I mean, the only place where it really fell down was actually convincing me of the argument that it was seeking to make. I was like structure tick vocab tick. Like it is beautiful, but it is chilling. It is completely chilling. Like, especially if like me when you read it, you actually heard the whole thing in the voice from the Resident Evil movie. Like very, very clearly, like, believe me, and artificial, like artificial intelligence will not destroy humans. I can't even do like I don't have that level of titling and I'm not even gonna try to do the voice
Unknown Speaker 9:32it said that too many times the with the robots will not destroy humanity. I was like, Alright, chill out, bro.
Unknown Speaker 9:39Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 9:41Why? No, it's a real like Australian. It won't take any Australian journalist jobs until they can learn to just be like, pointlessly starting fights on Twitter,
Dan Ilic 9:52or doing Recaps of the bachelor that it could take Australian journalists jobs. Can robots like this replace comedy Do you think Mike,
Unknown Speaker 10:01I don't know, because what I was fascinated about was that it said, it got all its knowledge by by reading the entire internet, right? So I was like, how is its knowledge not mainly made up of conspiracy theories, cat videos and porn, right? That's how it's like. That's a 98% of the internet. I thought so. I guess that's all my jokes are about onstage. So
Dan Ilic 10:26yeah, maybe? Well, NBC is launching their streaming service part peacock soon and they've been running trials with an artificial intelligent Jay Leno. NBC have fed 20 years of Jay Leno's Tonight Show monologues into a machine learning neural network and asked it to write a monologue each day based on the day's news. And the results are almost convincing.
Unknown Speaker 10:51Thank you. Thank you. I'm artificial intelligent Jay Leno, and this is the AI Tonight Show. It is so hot in Los Angeles. Madame Tussauds looks like a George W. Bush, Los Angeles. That celebrity rapper ice cube is now just called George W. Bush. It's so hot in LA people have started liking Ellen again, George W. Bush. It's now so hot in Los Angeles that celebrities noses have melted back into their George W. Bush. It's so hot in Hollywood that los Angelenos are being told to leave bowls of water out for Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg. Ladies and gentlemen, George W. Bush. David Letterman stabbed in the back so many times you may as well call me Monica Seles, and Conan O'Brien just didn't work for a mainstream audience. He's crazier than a pyjama party at Michael Jackson's house. America loves me. I'm up there with SUVs iraq war one and George W. Bush.
Dan Ilic 11:52You know, it's pretty close. It's pretty close. It is not
Unknown Speaker 11:55quite right.
Unknown Speaker 11:57Absurd charm to it. Like I I liked it. I liked the kind of disjointed the clunky like I liked it. I think I prefer it frankly.
Dan Ilic 12:06Fate number two there is a war of a journalism happening in Australia and China to Australian journalists. The ABC China correspondent Bill bertels. And the AFIS Mike Smith were rushed back to Australia after spending a couple of days taking shelter in the Australian embassies in Beijing and Shanghai. They made their way directly to the embassies after getting messages on their phones and the Chinese police wanted to interview them. Some say this is a bit of an overreaction. I mean, I get shot strange Chinese messages on my phone at least once a month saying the Australian Tax Office wants to interview me. I don't go rushing to no embassy somewhere also saying that this is actually good news for the industry. After all journalists are finally back in demand, sure, by the various state police forces, but as Oscar Wilde once said, it's better to be talked about into work in public relations. And you are the journalist on the panel. Should Australians be upset about this?
Unknown Speaker 12:56Oh look, I think there are several reasons that Australian should be up about this, you've touched on most of them there, but one I think is not getting enough attention. Because, look, I think mostly what Australia should be upset about here is that China has kind of stolen its thing.
Dan Ilic 13:15He's saying it was the Chinese are making a cheap knockoff of police rights. Is that what's happening,
Unknown Speaker 13:19saying all I'm saying, dad is that sending clips around to journalists harms, the national security concerns is a signature Australian. Asked Anika Smith has bullying journalists so much. I think that I'm not sure this is a diplomatic status anymore. I'm pretty sure it's a copyright dispute. Later today, maybe we can ask him. But look, whatever Australia has done along the way to its own journalists, which is, of course totally different. totally legitimate. We love the rule of law here. There's nowhere to cut it so it's a good book to China is there I mean, Kiki journalist, that is usually the very last thing that you do before a coup or a genocide. It's like the star on the Christmas tree. If like war crimes is switching on the fairy lights. very last thing that you do. Although yeah right right now China doesn't seem super concerned about the optics like roughly is concerned about the optics is no good son after a drink.
Unknown Speaker 14:16No, that's very dated reference, but I'm really
Dan Ilic 14:18sorry. We just that's okay. We just got to
Unknown Speaker 14:25do bush
Dan Ilic 14:27there's another Australian journalist who's currently in jail Chang lei who is the anchor for CG tn which if you read Chris Kenny's column CG tn is kind of like the ABC Ching lays man in jail for some weeks not and these guys were just hanging out with D flat for a couple of days. So these guys do. Is there too much fuss being made about these guys and not ever chengli?
Unknown Speaker 14:50Well, look, I think you can't make too much fuss over the fact that the last two Australian journalists have just been kicked out of China. So everyone has been loving to say this week Oh, we'd like woessner eyes in China, which would like ironically maybe precipitate bring over more spies. I mean, that is a possible outcome. You'd have to kind of countenance but look, yeah, the other thing is it is hard to kind of feel your heart bleed in into significant way over four days in the embassy. I mean, all we need to really do is ask Mike about that.
Dan Ilic 15:25Well, and let me ask you, if you are on the run from China, would you run to the strange embassy? Is that what you would?
Unknown Speaker 15:33It's a smart move, and I'm so glad for them that they had the embassy there to go to I really like you know, genuinely I shudder to think what what might have happened. If bill and Mike hadn't had the embassy to run to of course it is worth noting that there isn't an equivalent in Australia. We don't have a journalist embassy yet. I'm not saying it's overdue. I'm not not saying it's overdue. I'm basically I'm saying let's have a journalist embassy like a regular embassy. But if you guys have seen john wick cry isn't Yeah, like that, like the spy hotel, but for journalists, that's what I want for this one is to have a safe place to go,
Dan Ilic 16:20isn't it? Isn't it the National Press Club in Canada? Isn't that just a place for journalists to get drunk?
Unknown Speaker 16:25I don't think the walls are very high politicians and all the time.
Unknown Speaker 16:30In your video, comparison is Chris Kenney john wicks and says the only strength journalists get really angry about a reference to a dog.
Unknown Speaker 16:40Yeah, wow, I don't I don't like this universe anymore.
Unknown Speaker 16:45I'm hitting the escape button. But yeah, no, I genuinely think we need one. I mean, everyone who's been fired rioted run out of town, evicted from their homes because their wage doesn't cover the rent anymore. Maybe had a full blown nervous breakdown because everyone in the team has been made redundant and they What over time? Do we have walls we would have a pen budget we would have a password the password would be password.
Unknown Speaker 17:10We
Unknown Speaker 17:10were on that we've been busted before.
Dan Ilic 17:13And finally have all the journalists together so they won't have to go on Twitter. They could just talk to each other like they do on Twitter.
Unknown Speaker 17:19Yeah, yeah. I mean, Twitter's gonna be like there's gonna be it's gonna be tumbleweed. Let's be real about this. But yeah, might be able to have a sensible conversation for once. I know it sounds extreme, but there's only 22 of us left in the
Unknown Speaker 17:37we got we got robots now. Robots can do all this shit.
Unknown Speaker 17:40Yeah, we are. We don't need much. We just stayed like, you know, like a backyard like a quarter acre. I reckon. They just like pen something out. You know, maybe we could take part of the Russian embassy. They've killed a lot of journalists. I'm sure they always.
Unknown Speaker 17:53Yeah, it definitely felt like a coincidence that the Australian journalists ran back to Australia, just weeks after China banned Australian wine.
Unknown Speaker 18:02Yeah, yeah, like Hang on.
Unknown Speaker 18:04I can't get booze.
Unknown Speaker 18:08I'm out of here. Yeah, I mean, they were they did actually fleet. You know, we say that they were kicked out but really they would chased I mean,
Unknown Speaker 18:17they killing them calots
Unknown Speaker 18:19because that's, that's my take. I know it's an unusual one for journalists, but that's what I'm going with. Yeah, no, I think you know, journalists know what it feels like to be kicked out of places I've been kicked out of. I've been kicked out of courtrooms. I've been kicked out of cop shops. I've been kicked off john Howard's front lawn, the ones we know what it feels like, but they were they actually had to beg to leave so they were fleeing. Yeah, cowards. I think that's where we landed.
Dan Ilic 18:44Yeah, Mike, what's your take on this?
Unknown Speaker 18:46I was just jealous. When I heard about two guys I got to travel the world a little bit you know.
Dan Ilic 18:53Still luck in luck down. These went Melbourne based journalist
Unknown Speaker 19:00infection. It knocks it out in a minute. One minute they seize
Unknown Speaker 19:05our rational fear.
Dan Ilic 19:07In a moment we're gonna be talking with the man who is leading a class action to shut down a coal mine expansion on behalf of Australia's teenagers but first, we're gonna play Hang on a sec. This week's Hang on a sec comes from the deep dark world of Australian q anon supporters. This one clip is from a woman named Karen Brewer, who among other things, last defamation case and had her Facebook posts pulled after calling a group of politicians paedophiles. And despite being a big presence in the Australian conspiracy theory saying it was recently revealed she was she's feeding her followers conspiracy theory content from her home in New Zealand. All I can say is New Zealand. I am so sorry. You don't deserve that plays. Let us back in. In this clip, Karen Brewer is trying to harness the power of Australia's greatest resource to blockade the Governor General's house. I'll play the clip and if Whenever you want to button just say Hang on a sec here we go
Unknown Speaker 20:02just hang on a sec before I even start it's her name actually Karen Oh did you My name is Karen should
Dan Ilic 20:07we add to it we are talking we better watch a video of an actual Karen she might be the Karen that all the Karen's are based on fear yeah yeah
Unknown Speaker 20:16to all the grey nomads Hang on a sec.
Unknown Speaker 20:20I was not familiar with the term grey nomads and I had to go look it up it is not as cool as it sounds like just some like mad max level shit. It's just old people in a caravan.
Unknown Speaker 20:34Right. I didn't know I didn't know that they were self identifying at this point. I thought it was still a slum
Unknown Speaker 20:42mobile homes. We can. I'll tell you now. There's lovely little locations down there in Canberra outside the Governor General time in year alumna. wanna pick up your mobile I'm and you might want to go in there for a couple of days
Unknown Speaker 21:04Hang on a sec. Where did she learn to give a political space like this Like this phrasing there is there is so much that politicians in Australia I think could really learn from like she's really i don't know i don't i it's weird to be positive about this. I know I know. But it's like she's actually really like a pacing is rolled gold.
Unknown Speaker 21:25Yeah, there's definitely never been any problems in history with people who have famously great orators. She finishes with a couple of days. I'm like, I think she's watching a lot of 90 sketch comedy.
Unknown Speaker 21:42Victoria, or Tasmania.
Unknown Speaker 21:46And you're a great Nomad.
Unknown Speaker 21:47Hang on a sec.
Unknown Speaker 21:48Change happens the moment you stand up.
Unknown Speaker 21:53It's not really this is more aesthetic. I just noticed the rings around her eyes match her top
Unknown Speaker 22:05Because it also it's very cool to be appealing directly to all people and asking them to stand up.
Dan Ilic 22:10Yeah, they've earned the right to sit down. That's why they haven't mobile homes. They
Unknown Speaker 22:14spend all their time sitting down. The worst time in history to tell old people to go travelling around. It's like they're high risk. What are you doing? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 22:24like you get disqualified from leading the grind Nomad movement if you are still dyeing your hair as well.
Unknown Speaker 22:32Wouldn't it be fabulous, you know, tomorrow morning, David Hurley wakes up. Nice 1400 grey nomads in their mobile campus. Pull it up. They're not done Russell drive? Yeah. You know, because parking might be tight, you might have to park place together.
Dan Ilic 22:52Hang on a sec. This woman has clearly never ever been to camera and has no idea about how much space there is to have
Unknown Speaker 23:02doesn't try to park that is then bet it's gonna be an absolute debacle
Unknown Speaker 23:08you know across the road it's called blocking the road you know who else you know who else is big truck drivers and stuff? I often got cabins in their big semies Yeah, I got Kevin's and I'm sure I'm sure they'd be a few grey nomads down there because we're social people out we we like we like to have a chat with each other i mean i'm sure they'd be great nomads pull up that would help you know help a truck he that was also packed there. Make a toasted sandwich and
Dan Ilic 23:37I'm gonna show you she implying there's going to be some kind of grind Nomad trucky key party is this what is this? What's going on here?
Unknown Speaker 23:44It's about toasties dan be filthy.
Unknown Speaker 23:47I think you're only allowed to do that in Queensland.
Unknown Speaker 23:50Maybe you know, people come together to do what you need to do. Probably only need to be there for two or three days Oregon and Of course that
Unknown Speaker 24:01I actually have forgotten what this is about. But what why does she want everyone to go to camera like well what's the blockade for us? Yeah it's been going for nearly a minute and a half and she hasn't really gotten to that point.
Dan Ilic 24:12I think she's blocked I think she wants to do a blockade about the the lockdown laws in Victoria I think
Unknown Speaker 24:20hasn't said that no actually hasn't said that.
Unknown Speaker 24:23At the moment she just seems to be asking for some friends
Unknown Speaker 24:27it's really it's about testing she's actually quite literal
Unknown Speaker 24:31misunderstanding
Unknown Speaker 24:33that all of a sudden these 1400 key events packed in there done Russell drive by and died earlier visit
Unknown Speaker 24:42Hang on a sec. was
Unknown Speaker 24:46like Okay, why are we fixated on on David Hurley like he doesn't have a legislative agenda
Dan Ilic 24:51yet. I don't know if you know in in common law, Dave Hurley is the queen of Australia and he says happens in Australia because he's he's Australia's queen.
Unknown Speaker 25:02I think he I think he was given extra powers when Scott Martin started wearing heli hats.
Karen Brewer 25:14next minute, they'd be a few hundred semies driving into camera. Then of course down in, down in Victoria they get Linda Linda DCU governor Li gonna wake up tomorrow morning and find this bloody 700 campervans the
Unknown Speaker 25:34power thick. Can we please place her accent because when she's been cute, she's like an ace London. Ah, yeah. And then a lot sometimes it's like a Queensland con accent or maybe I just think that because she's shouting
Dan Ilic 25:47and clearly in exile in New Zealand, so she's mixed up this entire thing.
Unknown Speaker 25:51Yeah, can anyone else has anyone else picked any I picked out any accents. I feel like
Unknown Speaker 25:55it's very similar to like the chim chiminey song from Mary Poppins.
Unknown Speaker 26:00Yeah, nice London. Yeah. chimeneas as they call it in London. That is Yeah.
Dan Ilic 26:07And I think the arithmetic is strange. Why would 1400 camp events can't turn up to camera that any 710 up to Government House in Melbourne?
Unknown Speaker 26:16What is this year three maths?
Unknown Speaker 26:18Yeah.
Dan Ilic 26:20A 1400 camera, camera and 710 after
Unknown Speaker 26:28working
Dan Ilic 26:29heresy theorists will it take to topple the government?
Unknown Speaker 26:33It only took 300 to defeat the Trojans. He needs 1400s debate David Hill.
Unknown Speaker 26:40So does she actually have a platform? Is there any chance of this like happening of all the great nomads listening and showing up? Is this like a possibility? I think the first mistake she made was putting it on the internet. Yeah.
Dan Ilic 26:53If you really wanted people to watch this, who are gamer nomads, you should have put it on ABC News.
Unknown Speaker 27:01But you remember if she does have a following you remember when like, you know, people needed to be charismatic and articulate now it's just a crazy lunch lady screaming at yeah
Dan Ilic 27:12it's mixed. No, that's the that's the future Mike. That's the future.
Unknown Speaker 27:16I found that a really soothing kind of had a nice rhythm cadence to it really, I'm kind of sad. It's over
Dan Ilic 27:22MSR as
Unknown Speaker 27:25you respect her ability to do a pregnant pause. But just as a as an orator like I thought her ability to just wipe for the audience. She was pausing for applause that wasn't there. It's quite it's quite a second.
Unknown Speaker 27:41Cause
Dan Ilic 27:43our guest for tonight is a courageous man. He is fighting the government to stop a coal mine on one hand, and he's representing a passionate group of eight teenager activists on the other from equity generation lawyers. It's David Banda. David. Welcome to irrational fear.
Unknown Speaker 27:58Thanks for having me. David,
Dan Ilic 28:00when we were kids, we were really into avocado and toast. But this new generation of teens is so different. What the hell are they all about?
Unknown Speaker 28:10They're incredible. I can't even begin to explain. We did a little bit of TV yesterday, ABC, which I think some people watching,
Dan Ilic 28:17right? Oh, that's great. All the great nomads are over a relative,
Unknown Speaker 28:21and they like one of the one on Ava and she just killed it. Absolutely amazing, completely articulate across all these climate science stuff. And then and followed it, followed it up in the drum and just gave this amazing presentation about how climate change is going to impact her and, and her peers. And it's like, Ah, yeah, I wasn't doing that when I was 17.
Dan Ilic 28:43Absolutely. So tell us about the injunction that you're trying to get past to try and stop this coal mine in northern New South Wales and how how this whole it came about for you?
Unknown Speaker 28:53Yeah, so it's an injunction to stop the environment minister from making a decision to approve this coal mine extension. We can get that injunction under something called the Constitution. You may have heard of that.
Dan Ilic 29:06I've been watching a lot of Q anon videos I'm well versed in.
Unknown Speaker 29:11Yeah, yeah. So it's a bit more than the vibe, but it actually says something about it in that. So the. So these kids are pretty smart. So they say that the minister can't make that decision because she will breach her duty of care to younger people to vulnerable people. And that duty of care sounds to us like the fact that she kind of gave up because of the climate change impacts that it will have.
Dan Ilic 29:36Do you need to find more vulnerable sounding teens because the teens you had on television were incredibly articulate. Maybe you should just find some ones who just can't talk very well.
David Barnden 29:47Look, yeah, we could do that. But it's a class action. So it's it, amazingly enough, includes every single person under the age of 18 in the world. Really? Wow. I
Dan Ilic 29:59didn't. I didn't To stand like and when you say when you talk I always wonder about class actions and how you can sign up to be part of a class like what's the maximum size of the class you can you can be part of to do an action
Unknown Speaker 30:11particularly a class in the sense where you like they've just got out of class action
Unknown Speaker 30:18to enjoy the idea that there is some like really very hardcore conservative teenagers somewhere in the world who like
Unknown Speaker 30:25not not real
Unknown Speaker 30:26not happening on real plays. They're like, Oh, I'm in the class action
Dan Ilic 30:32all these fossil fuel running that's been paying for my tuckshop lunches. Dive you've been working in this kind of kind of warfare active activism for a while. Is that an unfair term to use? I just saw you grimace
Unknown Speaker 30:46there. Ah, yeah, yeah, look, I'm taking umbrage right now I believe. Both No, look, it's it's completely it's just the people who normally is the law or they're not even people. They're they're usually corporations. They used to hate Cash, they've got a new
Dan Ilic 31:01strong new stronger word here than that. David if you want to.
Unknown Speaker 31:05Yeah, look, I can I can, but it's going public, right?
Dan Ilic 31:07Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 31:10So so it's probably just strange. It's probably strange to the people in power. It's like, oh, what really? Other people can use the law when the law exists to help everyone? Oh, yeah. Like we're used to seeing kids down the coal mines not something.
Unknown Speaker 31:26I saw you grimace before and you know, obviously warfare is is a slum. It's absolutely a slur. You're up against the government in this matter. And the government is supposed to comport itself as a model litigants, quote, unquote, they're supposed to sort of be, you know, always can conduct themselves very, very well in very good faith in in a court in any matter. Have they done so?
Unknown Speaker 31:50Are they quiet? They're not saying anything publicly. We have correspondence with the the representatives of the Minister and the lovely Yes. How
Dan Ilic 32:00How do they do? How do they correspond to a common a horse with a scroll?
Unknown Speaker 32:06Please, we're going to build a common
Unknown Speaker 32:10look, funnily enough, they do use email. And it's very nice to receive those those PDFs. Let's
Dan Ilic 32:15see, you've been I mean, you've been kind of working in this space for a while in terms of class actions around climate. Have you had much success in the past?
Unknown Speaker 32:25We're in that sweet spot. We've got a couple of actions on foot. We haven't lost anything yet. All potential though. Yeah, that's right. So they look that that'll we'll see what happens. We've got a trial coming up in November for a case for a young man in Brisbane against his superannuation fund for not disclosing climate change risks to him and not incorporating sort of a process to weed out risky investments. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 32:53This is slightly dicey territory, potentially and so you can tell me to get back but but Guess you know, we're at a point in history where there's a certain like, like, this is pretty cutting edge kind of cases that you're doing. And it's going to become more common in the future, but it's not super common right now. And so I imagined that you would encounter a real range of views from the judiciary. Like, are there states that are better or worse to launch? Actually no levels of courts that are better or worse, to launch action in for that reason?
Unknown Speaker 33:29Yeah, it looks it's a judicial lottery. Every member of the judiciary has their expertise and their experience. And that's probably also say about that. So I don't know. I have no idea. We'll take care of the kids coming into court forgive my ignorance of the system like will they be in court with you at any point? No court court doesn't exist anymore. It's like just everyone in front of a green screen with like the coat of arms behind it and look if they lean back too far. disappearing arms and like there would be no wardrobe or keys or something. So there'll be all online.
Unknown Speaker 34:06So they just send in a tick tock video.
Unknown Speaker 34:13So is that how long How long is it gonna be like that just until the pandemics over a year? I don't know the sort of extending it indefinitely. things down in Victoria where we follow this class action are pretty slow. They they do deal with urgent or more urgent things quicker, but we don't have a return date yet, which means we don't have like this, this first court date to do timetabling and we don't have a judge yet. So
Dan Ilic 34:38yeah, we'll say with this particular case, what's like the most amazing kind of story or things happen to you whilst kind of putting this together? What have you been surprised by
Unknown Speaker 34:50just just just these just the people we represent like so there's eight kids. They're all absolutely articulate, passionate. It's fair to say my view view of the world has changed over the last three weeks or four weeks now. Well, you know, what?
Unknown Speaker 35:05just just
Unknown Speaker 35:06just the passion, the awareness how if these kids literally the future and these are the latest that that will have, were in good hands, the the connected sort of, to their emotions, they're connected family, they're connected to community. They're absolutely straight ahead of anyone. You know, most people in their 20s, early 30s 40s 50s it's absolutely privileged to deal with them. Yeah, how did they find you dad? Like I wouldn't have known how to find a lawyer.
Unknown Speaker 35:39Yeah, look, I think they find me quite charming.
Unknown Speaker 35:42Yes, they love that dad joke humour. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 35:47well, yeah. You know, lo, etc.
Dan Ilic 35:51Yeah, they found David on tik tok. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 35:55I do hang out on Tick Tock. I did. Yeah. That's what what one should do. Yeah, no, no. So so you know, we're lawyers, we advise people.
Dan Ilic 36:04We have contacts that then we got in contact with them through the school strikes the climate network. Right. So through that what that does is that's a pretty solid network. Now they're kind of presidents all over the world for individuals and groups of people taking their governments to task over climate action between Denmark and more recently in Ireland, and I'm going to be talking with the se moseby. Tomorrow about their fight, talking about taking the tar strike to to sue the Australian Government in the lack of climate action in the UN in Geneva. Can you take this class action any further than the Victorian supreme court?
Unknown Speaker 36:37So it's in the Victorian registry of the federal court? We we just hope to win and we hope that that's it but you know, it could be a few appealed to the full federal court and then appealed to the High Court that's that's the route of appeals. We can't really go the UN I'm afraid. BIT bit of out of out of out jurisdiction really.
Dan Ilic 36:59Now, there are plenty of People who, I guess, would say they have a sense of grief about the enormous loss that they've witnessed over the last even just a few years when it comes to climate change. What do you say to them about organising to join a class action for climate action? What How do you build one
Unknown Speaker 37:20more people technically already in it. We we love people to sign up and register on our on our website just to give support to the students bringing the action. So that's a positive step they can take. But there's lots of positive things people can do. And so these students are on the side organising protests, they're, they're involved in the school strike for climate movement. They wonderful thing they you know, they bring their parents along, in many cases. We speak to the parents unlike me, I didn't really know much about climate change beforehand. And that turns out it's a secret important. So it's a you know, just Just spread the word and and society's starting to change.
Dan Ilic 38:04Is it bizarre that, you know, the students are teaching the older people all about the climate issues? They seem to be so connected? Is that a? Is that a that's a weird disconnect for you.
Unknown Speaker 38:15Yeah, yes, it is actually. But in some ways, not surprising. They're, they're teaching us stuff as well, just just around really, really good protocols on how to introduce yourself and, you know, they're always you know, standard Welcome to Country, this sort of stuff. They're amazing. They're, they're way more in contact with sort of issues in society. And, and it's great to learn from them. So yeah, it's amazing. What do you rate your chances out of 10? So when I Well, it's 10 out of 10.
Dan Ilic 38:51Is there a school is there like a sports bed app or something I can put?
Unknown Speaker 38:56Then look, probably it probably is
Unknown Speaker 39:00If you find it, let me know. Oh, that's the I don't I don't think I could do that.
Unknown Speaker 39:06David, we, um, we covered this story on on our podcast for the ABC, the signal as well. And I think one of the most interesting things that I took away from it was that if you are successful or you know, whatever your chances are if you are successful, it has the potential to kind of lead to other projects being cancelled, it creates such a creates a very, very strong precedent in law. Is that part of what made you want to do this case?
Unknown Speaker 39:38Yeah, so you go to court and your your focus is on the case at hand and the rights that you are on trucks getting so this is about one particular decision, but yeah, absolutely. So so the the duty of care is around the climate impacts. And so so because that's intimately linked with the Judy, we say that The minister has it's it's pretty, you know, it's not a difficult step to say, Well, the next decision that the minister might need to make with with a similar project with similar climate impacts Absolutely. You know, so so we we could be seeing the the start of something big if we if we win something big. I mean to say something that is really helpful for to give them the climate so fingers crossed. And gene, do you get the feeling you're making a lot of enemies with inside the fossil fuel lobby and have people been staking out your car, pouring petrol over it? It's quite a long way away from my house. Not that I know. Look, Andrew, fillet and Kevin had a bit of a crack at us last night on Sky News. That's probably not unexpected, but it's a good sign. It's a good time.
Unknown Speaker 40:55We probably get a lot of signups because of
Unknown Speaker 40:57that. So yeah. Thank you. Matthew?
Unknown Speaker 41:01Yeah, you know, they were irrelevant. Don't listen to him anymore.
Dan Ilic 41:05And David, other teenagers, are they good for a good fee legal fees? Are they bankrolling it?
Unknown Speaker 41:14No, no Well look, the way it works that teenagers can actually bring a case in the federal courts, but so they're brought up by their litigation Guardian who's an 85 year old man. Oh, he doesn't have much cash either. So so we are doing it for free.
Dan Ilic 41:30Let's just say the Catholic Church is acid rich.
Unknown Speaker 41:36Yeah, look in the individual man's asset pool as
Dan Ilic 41:39well. David, thank you so much for sharing how you're trying to do this gigantic, epic battle. I wish you luck. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. And before we go tonight, I've got one more thing to share a Monday in this feed. You'll hear me and Kevin Rudd on our special monthly version of irrational fear called the greatest moral podcast of our generation. Kevin and I, we spoke about climate change where we are where we're going and there's plenty of Rupert Murdoch bashing along the way. I hate to say it, but after about an hour with Kevin, I may think I'd like the guy again. Yeah, it was. It was very challenging for me. It was really smart and insightful conversation. If you're an AWS poll nerd, you will love it. I just don't know if it can live up to the opener though. Here is the opener that Jacob and Robbie McGregor method.
Unknown Speaker 42:24Despite global warming, rational fear is adding a little more harm with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.
Unknown Speaker 42:36This is called
Unknown Speaker 42:37Don't be fried the heat waves and drove greatest mass extinction.
Unknown Speaker 42:44We're facing a manmade disaster
Unknown Speaker 42:46podcast, climate credit,
Unknown Speaker 42:50generation.
Unknown Speaker 42:53All of this with global warming and that a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about
Unknown Speaker 42:58generation Boom,
Dan Ilic 43:01for sure is an episode of gumpert coming to your feed right here on Monday Big thanks to Jacob brown and Robin for that. Also a big thank you to our theme Angus for tonight. Angela Lapierre, Mike Goldstein, Louis harbour and David Bandon. Let's get some plugs away. What have you got to plug in?
Unknown Speaker 43:19Oh, ah,
Unknown Speaker 43:20I've got a few gigs coming up. But I'm not used to plugging them because it's been so long since comedy's happened. So I'll just say, Yeah, I make a podcast with the ABC called the signal every weekday morning, and it's
Dan Ilic 43:32very good. And Mike Goldstein.
Unknown Speaker 43:35You mentioned it before the phone hacks podcast me and a few other comedians smartphones go through the content we find that they're in and post on each other socials and hopefully live comedy comes back one day and I'll be on a stage somewhere near you. And Dave Bandon, what do you want to plug
Unknown Speaker 43:53a small class action on behalf of eight kids in a non good equity generation boys calm Direct for
Unknown Speaker 44:00I'm loving it.
Unknown Speaker 44:06Oh nothing Dan still still doing a radio show every day. But yet Listen, I don't know. Hey guys,
Dan Ilic 44:12Big thanks Bertha foundation our Patreon supporters post producer Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline contributors in this episode with Jay Leno jokes include Gary Bradbury red pocket Dave bluestein dan Denver Golf Club Hey, Franklin Harrison Engstrom. Big thanks to Kate Holdsworth, please go get a go neutral sticker or chip in on the Patreon and please give us a review on iTunes. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of. Goodbye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If Patreon isn't your thing, and Apple Subscriptions are too Appley — chip in with A-Cast here: https://plus.acast.com/s/a-rational-fear-1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.