AVI YEMINI ｜ Making your vote COUNT with Topher Field
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Summary
With just 5 weeks until the nation decides its future, we re diving into what s ahead. Joining me today is a guest who knows our system inside and out far better than I do, and will guide us through what we can expect.
Transcript
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Australia's elections have been called and with just five weeks until the nation decides its future,
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Joining me today is a guest who knows our system inside and out far better than I do
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But you're tuned into the free audio version of this episode, which is great,
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but trust me, it's just a taste of the full experience over at yeminireport.com.
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But I personally think that this election is so important and it is tight.
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I think it is the outcome is going to be between the very best option and very worst option.
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Here today to help me unpack it all is Topher Field.
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I wish there was an election in Australia where I could get excited about a good result
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rather than terrified of a really, really bad one and just campaigning for a slightly less
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But unfortunately, that's not what we have this time.
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We have, as you said, between bad and less bad.
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But unfortunately, there is substantial difference between those two options and I think a fairly
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Look, I think that the most, and that's what we'll unpack in a few minutes, I think the outcomes
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are going to be between one that is, and probably most likely, the worst potential outcome compared
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to when I say the very best outcome with what we have.
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I think there is a potentially decent, which is probably the next option.
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But like I said, I'll break it down with you because I think you're someone that has a
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lot more understanding of the Australian system than I personally do.
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So, in fact, as soon as the election was called and I was thinking, who am I going to have
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I was thinking, who's been in trouble for trying to explain the system before?
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For people who don't know, what happened to you when it came to a previous election and
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I've been a political commentator for 16 years.
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I obviously was, like yourself, very active during all the COVID era, all that stuff.
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And you'd think that that would be what I'd be known for.
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But no, I'm actually mostly known as the marbles guy because I did a video using marbles in
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tubs just explaining how preferential voting works.
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Now, our system is a little bit different to most other systems around the world.
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So, I can understand certainly immigrants and people moving here from other countries wouldn't
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understand it, but it's really disappointing that our education system is so poor that
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actually people that grew up here went all the way through school and have even voted
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in multiple elections often don't really understand how our electoral system works.
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I think our system's a really good one, but it does require some understanding.
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So, I made a video to help people understand how it works and how they could really use
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their preferential vote to support the really ideal good candidates who maybe don't have
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a lot of chance of winning, but they're the really good ones, but then not have thrown
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away their vote with regards to which of the bad options we get.
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So, for example, you know, voting number one for the freedom-friendly minor parties,
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one, two, three, four, five, but then still putting that in the head of Albo would
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be, for example, what I'll be planning to do in this particular election.
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So, I released a video doing that, and that went viral, tens of thousands of views.
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And then I threw my hat in the ring to run for the Senate for the then Libertarian,
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sorry, the then Liberal Democratic Party, now the Libertarian Party.
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They actually had to convince me, I don't want to be in politics.
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I don't want to be a senator, but they chased me and chased me, and I eventually said yes.
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So, then the Australian Electoral Commission turned around and took issue with that marbles
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video because it did not have an authorization statement on it, which was created before
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According to the legislation, you actually have to have it authorized because you were running.
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Well, because I'm running, but also there are organizations that may not be running themselves,
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but if they seem to be campaigning, then they still need to have an authorization statement.
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I don't object to that in principle, but the thing with something like that is I was the
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The video had my name on a TV behind me and my face all over it.
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I'm not sure that anyone was confused about who had authorized it.
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I'm not sure that there was a lack of clarity or a lack of transparency there, which is what
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So, I had to take that video down and re-release a new version with an authorization statement
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But there's a funny addendum to this, Avi, that you may not be across.
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You probably are, but you may not be, and certainly some of your viewers won't be.
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You'd be familiar, of course, with the fact that the AEC went on to sue the United Australia
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Party because they felt that some of the lettering at the bottom of one of their call
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The AEC lost that court case that was thrown out and it was found to be compliant.
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Well, now we have a really interesting situation that just came up yesterday or the day before.
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Tanya Plibersek, who is a current federal government minister, she's a minister in the
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government because she's a member of the Labor Party.
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She has just been photographed campaigning not under the red color of Labor.
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She's campaigning with volunteers wearing her branding and her name dressed in purple.
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Now, that raises two really interesting questions, Avi.
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One is, why is she afraid of her own party's branding?
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What is it about her polling that is telling her that the Labor Party colors and brand are
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So you believe it was a conscious decision, 100%?
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This was all of her volunteers with her name written on the front in purple colored shirts.
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This was very much a strategic decision on her part.
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That's a marketing, they've paid somebody to come up with that, correct?
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And the thing is, in Australian politics, the AEC as a sort of a neutral, unbiased
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administrator of the election, they had to pick a color to represent their own volunteers
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And they picked purple because at the time there were no political parties using anything
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And since then, every other party has stayed away from that color.
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And if you do use a color that's too close to the AECs, the AEC will force you to change
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color because it could be confused and you don't want people walking up to someone thinking
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they're neutral, but actually they're campaigning on behalf.
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And if the AEC don't take action against Tanya Plibersek after taking action against me
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for my marbles video and taking action against the UAP and Rav Babette, Senator Rav Babette,
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Babette, by the way, is aware of this and he said that his office will be raising this
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I don't know the outcome yet, but this is definitely going to go to the highest levels.
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Just, you know, I think it's a good way to gauge because a lot of people have in the
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past pointed at the AEC and kind of like I did, I laughed when you said that they're
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I think they certainly favour the two major parties.
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And I dare say like many of our institutions, they lean closer to the left.
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I've had personal experiences with the VEC in which they prosecuted me under legislation
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Little old me and my Facebook Live in 2018 where I was chasing green.
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You know, they targeted me and we're going totally off, but they targeted me for allegedly
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By going to polling booths that we were both candidates at.
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That was the big thing and chasing this Greens candidate.
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But they got me, they tried to prosecute me under stalking and then other some other weird
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But to the point, I think that they are very biased and they do certainly favour the two
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major parties and then when you break it down further, like in my case, they certainly favour
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I don't know if it's a systemic problem or whether it's just that the volunteers and the
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neutral volunteers, people that work, not volunteers, neutral people that make up the institution,
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the government body, all kind of like most government bodies lean to the left.
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And it's actually, I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm thinking about dedicating my
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third, my next book actually to exactly this issue, the issue of system, because I would
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argue that the minute you put something inside a system, you doom it, you condemn it.
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I think the word system is actually a parasite.
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And so if we think about some common systems that we interact with all the time, the education
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system, is it really about education or is it about compliance with the system?
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So the word system, as soon as it gets attached to education, it ends up eating the education.
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Is it really about justice or is it about who can play the system better?
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Every time you put the health care system, is it really about good health outcomes or is
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it actually about the people in the system making sure they comply with the system so that
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their ass is covered even if the health outcomes are bad?
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As soon as you put an election into a system, you are going to end up with the system, a
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And so is there a leftist bias amongst AEC staff members?
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Probably because that's the side of politics that is most likely to increase their funding
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But there's actually a funny little addendum onto the end of that particular issue that
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You were prosecuted for daring to try and doorstop and try and interview a fellow candidate.
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Now we're watching calls for increased security for politicians and the evidence for this
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requirement, this need, we desperately need more security, is because members of the public
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Now, this is taking this idea that words are violence to the extreme.
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And yet now we have politicians running scared from unvetted questions and making it a personal
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security issue, saying we need to be protected from the voting public, from the very people
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whose votes we are supposedly trying to win over, lest they have the opportunity to ask
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Look, I've known they've been running scared from unvetted questions for a long time.
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In fact, I went to fight in the Supreme Court for my right to pose these unvetted questions
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and I lost because they, you know, that's the thing when their government has the deep
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pockets that they have and the laws that they created, they can find some very, you know,
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That's what they'll, they'll put the, they'll use the entire system again, um, to protect
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what they've built and to protect their little cozy and, and it's both parties do it.
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Um, but, uh, firstly, I just want to note that was a clever way to insert the fact that
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you have written two books and this is going to be a third book.
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Is that just showing off or what, what are the name of the books?
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What a, what a coincidence, what a, what a wonderful twist of fate.
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So my first book was Good People Break Bad Laws.
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This is about the, um, the philosophy of civil disobedience in the modern age.
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Then my second book, which came out, uh, very early this year is Good Christians Break Bad
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This is the Christian theology of civil disobedience.
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There's a lot of people who incorrectly say, well, the Bible says we have to do as we're
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It's sort of 270 pages of pretty solid theology.
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Um, my third book, I haven't, again, I haven't settled on this yet, but I'm playing with the
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title Psychocrats, which is obviously an amalgam, a conjugation of psychopath and bureaucrat, because
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my argument essentially is that by putting people into a system, into a bureaucracy, you
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make otherwise decent people willing to behave like psychopaths and to participate in
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Um, but yes, ultimately I am just trying to flex on you because as best as I'm aware, you
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Uh, and you don't barely a book, if you put it next to one of yours, it's probably half
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The things that I said, uh, at the book launch in London, which you kindly allowed me to speak
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So going back to now the first video, um, for people who, I know we don't have the props
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here to marbles and, and let's say this is authorised by Topher Field from, uh, what do
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Um, so what, what, what, can you explain to us how the system actually works quickly?
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Yeah, it's, it's actually relatively straightforward.
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You just have to approach it with a certain logic of what the problem was that they were
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So let me explain the system by first explaining the problem.
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See, our constitution was written in about 1899.
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And so they had the opportunity to learn from the French constitution following their, their
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revolutions, et cetera, from the American Republic following their revolutions from the
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Westminster system expressed in different forms around the world.
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And there was a problem that kept coming up and it's this problem where, let's say, let's,
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I'll illustrate, let's say there's an election between me and Adam Bant.
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And so, and let's say I'm in the lead, I'm going to win with 55% of the vote and he's
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The, the, the person who gets the majority of the votes wins and that's how it should
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But let's say that you decide that you're also going to run.
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Now it so happens that if you compare my policies and Adam Bant's policies with yours, you're
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pretty similar to me in comparison to Adam Bant, right?
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There'd be some differences, but broadly speaking, you and I have a lot of overlap.
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What that means is that most of the people that are going to vote for you are going to
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And let's say now, and cause I'm going to put you behind me, not in front, just for the
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I was going to get 55% when it was just me versus Adam, but now you get 25%.
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And in a lot of systems, that means he wins because you and I split the vote between us.
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Now, what the founders of our constitution, the framers of our constitution recognized
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Elections shouldn't be decided just because there were too many candidates too similar to
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each other in terms of their policies that then split the vote between themselves.
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That leaves you with a result that doesn't really represent the overall will of the people.
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So they came up with this thing called a preferential system.
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And what you're doing, you have only the one vote and the constitution of Australia says,
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There are people who say, oh, preferential voting is unconstitutional.
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You've still only got one vote, but you use it differently.
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You write down in order of your preference, number one, next to your most preferred candidate,
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number two, next to your, the best backup, right?
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So they might put one number one on you and they put number two on me and number three
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And that means that if you get eliminated because you had the least of 25%, your 25% flow
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And the result for the electorate is still the closest representation of their actual will.
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So that was the problem they were trying to solve.
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They've made a few decisions that I think put people's noses out of joint because they
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know they, a lot of people, again, our education system doesn't do a good job with this and
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So in the lower house, you're required to number every single box, which means you're
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required to put a number next to the major parties.
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You're required to put a number next to the Greens.
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You're required to put a number next to the people that you really don't want your vote
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And some people get their noses out of joint and say, this is rigged.
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It's forcing you to vote for the major parties.
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Well, let's think this through a little bit, because what happens is once all of the votes
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have been counted, the number one votes have been counted.
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Whichever candidate has the fewest gets eliminated and their votes, we go back to the actual
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votes, the actual pieces of paper that were filled out by the voters and find, well, where's
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And so people think that parties or candidates direct their preferences.
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Your vote will go exactly where you say it should go on your ballot.
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And so we still have the above the line, below the line thing in the Senate.
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But what it used to actually be was you could just put a number one above the line and walk
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You didn't have to put a number two next to anyone.
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And what that told the system was you were voting number one for that party.
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And then you wanted your preferences to go wherever the party had decided your preferences
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And now your vote will only ever go where you send it.
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Don't you think there would have been a better balance where you could just put number one
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and let them decide or go, nah, like I personally go and I feel them all out.
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I want the satisfaction of standing there in the booth and deciding whether the socialists
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The way I think about it is I put the Greens last because they got more of a chance of
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getting in than I just want the least chance of it ever.
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So what you're talking about there is what's known as optional preferential, where you can
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And yes, that I would support that as a reformer.
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But let's actually stop and think this through because numbering every box is not as bad as
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Let's say you follow my advice, which I've got in multiple videos around the place where
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you need to put at one, two, three, four, as many decent candidates as you've got.
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And by that, I define that for me as the freedom friendly minor parties that stood up
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So I'm going to include libertarians in my number one, full disclosure, I'm a former
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I love those guys and they're very much my team.
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But also One Nation, even Trumpet of Patriots, there's this new kind of Clive Palmer thing.
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I don't love that it's all fallen out the way that it has.
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Ralph Babette for UAP has been a fantastic senator.
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And there's a bunch of other parties that don't have elected members right now, but they've
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And so if they're on my ballot, I'm going to include them all.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, as many as there are, then I'm going to put both of
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Now, this means that even the, so I'll put the liberals above Labor, myself, that's my
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I will go all of the decent minor parties and then the liberal party.
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Now, the reality is because candidates get eliminated from smallest number of votes to
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largest number of votes, the major parties are going to be among the very last parties
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They're going to usually be in the last two because most lower house seats get won by one
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of the major parties, by the coalition or by Labor, with a few exceptions here and there.
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But if you live in a seat that is one of those exceptions, you probably already know
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So the reality is my vote is never likely to move on from the liberal party because the
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liberal party are likely to be there all the way to the very end of the count.
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So the fact that I put a number next to the Labor party, next to the socialists, next
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to the Greens, all the way down the ballot is irrelevant because my vote will only move
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on from the liberal party if the liberal party get eliminated from the count.
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And we know from history that that almost certainly won't be the case in the seats, kind
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of seats where I've lived during most of my life.
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So people get their knickers in a knot over having to number every single box.
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And I agree that making it optional preferential would be a better reform.
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But the fact is your vote, if you use the two major parties in the middle as a blocker,
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the good small parties above them, the bad small parties below them, and then both of the
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majors in the middle as a blocker, your vote will never reach any of those bad parties that
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It will help the minor parties and give them an outside chance of maybe stealing a seat
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And then it will stop on your preferred major party and probably never go anywhere from
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And look, I think the reason why, because I know when people look at it, they go, all
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right, I'll put the Liberal party at the bottom of the good independence, preferred
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independence, then Liberal, and then they'll argue, then they'll put all the other minor
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I would argue against that because I actually prefer Labour.
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And this is my view as to what the outcomes are.
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And correct me if you think I'm wrong, as you always do.
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I believe what we're facing now is most likely a Labour minority, which is the most dangerous
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It means it's going to be like now, just worse because it's going to be Greens and maybe
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Teals and some other fringe lunatics with far leftist woke ideology driving them.
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And so that is going to essentially drive the agenda because if the Labour party want to
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get anything through, they're going to have to bend over even more than they do now to
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That seems like the most likely at the moment, only by a margin.
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The second most likely seems like it can be the Liberal party with the same sort of structure,
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a minority government, but they're forced to make government with right wing parties and
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some of those independents that we're talking about, some of the good independents.
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So to me, that's the best outcome because it forces the Liberal party to actually uphold
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their so-called liberal values in whether it's libertarian, so freedom and, you know, some
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So essentially forcing Dutton to, in most cases, be more like probably what many of his
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politics are, minus the anti-free speech, but generally he's probably a conservative.
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So that'll force him a bit more to the right and the entire Liberal party.
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Forcing the Liberal party to behave a bit more like the Liberal party that Robert Menzies
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Now, can I make a slightly technical distinction?
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It's not one that necessarily matters in substance, but it's going to help people's understanding
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You made the comment about some people wanting to put Labor all the way at the bottom and
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therefore the Greens and Socialists and other bad independents teals are going to be in between
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the Liberal party, which is kind of their blocker in the middle, and the Labor party at the
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I agree with you that I will actually go Liberal party, then Labor party, then all the bad ones
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But it will almost certainly make no difference in the real world.
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Once your vote reaches the Liberal party, it stays with them until they get eliminated.
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And we've already established in almost every single seat.
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They will be among the last few to get eliminated.
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Then your vote will go to the next party that hasn't already been eliminated.
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Now, all the little, the Transport Matters parties, the Animal Justice parties, all those
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So in most cases, your vote would actually jump from the Liberals to Labor anyway, or
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What if it ends up being between the Greens and the Labor party?
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And that's the one time they make a difference.
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And your vote ends up going to the Greens, and then you're helping create the most dangerous
00:25:00.080
It's wild because it seems like it's really, it's tightening up between those two options.
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It still seems like at the moment, if you can believe the polls, I don't know.
00:25:12.380
Like, I called the Trump election easily just from being on the ground.
00:25:15.740
I feel like people are voting against the Greens, especially, and if you look at the
00:25:22.140
last couple of by-elections, it seems like people are rebelling against the Greens party.
00:25:29.880
I'm not confident enough to call it, and I'm shit scared of that outcome.
00:25:33.780
I am super excited about the second most likely possibility.
00:25:38.760
And then I would say the next possibility is probably a Labor majority, and then lastly,
00:25:49.060
Now, I understand that the, or I guess the argument for a Liberal majority would be that
00:25:56.360
at least you want them to be able to govern if you believe in most of the things.
00:26:00.080
I just, I think that they, I think with a Liberal minority, they'll be able to govern on the
00:26:09.080
So the things that matter, the conservative libertarian values, they'll be able to govern
00:26:14.060
if they actually push those with a Liberal minority.
00:26:18.300
I cannot get excited about a Liberal government.
00:26:20.920
I cannot get excited about a Dutton government.
00:26:24.600
He's going to keep racking up debt, putting it on the credit card.
00:26:30.520
I cannot bring myself to get excited about Dutton as a Prime Minister.
00:26:34.080
I don't think that's a step in the right direction.
00:26:36.240
I will say that I would rather see him as Prime Minister than another term of Albanese,
00:26:42.220
because it says really bad things about us if after how bad Albanese has been, we re-elect
00:26:49.020
Doesn't it feel like Dan Andrews, like all over again?
00:26:53.280
So I want to see Albo lose, but I can't get excited about Dutton winning, if that makes
00:26:57.940
And regarding the probabilities, it's quite interesting at the moment, and this happens
00:27:03.620
There is a divergence right now between the polls, which are moving towards an Albo election,
00:27:10.280
although there has been some swing back and forth.
00:27:13.380
But the betting markets are actually have pretty clearly broken in favor of the Liberal Party,
00:27:24.900
So as of Saturday, the betting markets were still, I believe, in favor.
00:27:30.140
About $1.83 for Dutton and $2 and a low $2 for Albo is where it was the other day, which
00:27:38.720
That would be something that would be like 55% chance, something like that, which by
00:27:45.000
the way is something which is pretty similar to how, I just want to point out, because
00:27:49.160
I did it a lot and I did it from Las Vegas on the ground at the time.
00:27:54.060
And that's kind of where it was with, it might've been 59, actually, with Trump to Kamala.
00:28:02.680
Like the betting markets were saying that and the polls, the polls were probably very
00:28:08.960
They were saying it's pretty tight, but it's leaning towards Kamala.
00:28:13.080
I bloody hope, but I just don't want to sit here.
00:28:15.740
I don't want to sit here and feel like we're in for a chance to, like you say, just get
00:28:27.500
So all we've talked about so far though, is the lower house and there is a second house
00:28:33.040
So government is formed by whoever can get a majority of support in the lower house.
00:28:44.260
It doesn't form government, but you cannot get legislation through without them agreeing.
00:28:49.120
And the Senate is deliberately elected under a different system for the purpose of
00:28:52.540
getting a somewhat different result so that one will hold the other accountable.
00:28:57.180
So the backup plan has to be, regardless of what happens in the lower house, the backup
00:29:01.060
plan has to be to install at least one good freedom-friendly senator in every single state
00:29:07.120
in Australia, which means that we'll get six senators that are decent up.
00:29:11.460
And in an ideal world, in a perfect world, they will hold the balance of power between the
00:29:16.780
Liberal National Coalition and the Greens-Labour Alliance.
00:29:20.400
If we can hold the balance of power in the Senate with good, freedom-loving people, one
00:29:26.940
Either they will be able to block bad legislation because the major voting blocs, the majors won't
00:29:32.140
support each other, and they will become the deciding factor, which means they have to
00:29:35.500
be negotiated with, which means they've got leverage.
00:29:44.960
The ugly version, but potentially necessary version, is that because whoever holds government
00:29:50.560
can't get their legislation through, they forego negotiating with the crossbench with these
00:29:55.100
good minor party senators, and they go straight to the other major party.
00:29:59.500
They actually admit to the public, for the first time, that they have a lot more in common
00:30:04.280
with each other than what they have with the good, decent, freedom-loving politicians and
00:30:10.840
Now, that's a trickier thing because they'll hold a lot of power by doing that, and they'll
00:30:16.280
But people like you and I will be able to use that to really amplify our message and say,
00:30:22.680
These are different cheeks of the same ass, different wings of the same bird.
00:30:25.400
So, I don't care whether you're being stomped on by a left boot or a right boot, I just don't
00:30:30.640
And they will kind of be letting the mask slip if they have to resort to that.
00:30:34.980
But whichever of those options they go for, it starts by us installing really good senators.
00:30:39.720
And that means getting behind these good minor parties that have a track record of being
00:30:44.120
freedom-friendly and supporting human rights and the rights of Australians, and making sure
00:30:48.680
that they can get some electoral success in the Senate.
00:30:51.800
Yep, and that's what, I think that's always been the aim.
00:30:56.540
Why is it so much easier for these minor parties to successfully put people up in the Senate
00:31:07.620
So, this comes down to the way it was designed.
00:31:10.440
Think of the lower house as you are electing the politician that is going to represent your
00:31:17.220
This isn't quite, this isn't the language that they use, but I think it's a useful shorthand.
00:31:20.940
Think of the Senate as selecting the politician that best represents your ideas and ideals.
00:31:27.420
So, one is geographic, the other is ideological.
00:31:30.920
And so, being geographic in the lower house, you need a majority.
00:31:34.940
Well, that means that someone with 45% support in the local community isn't the local representative.
00:31:40.520
45% of the local population is stuck with a local representative that they feel doesn't
00:31:45.680
represent them or their worldview or their ideas or their ideology.
00:31:55.980
And again, it was deliberately designed that way.
00:31:57.880
That's a bit of a dampener on the rate of change.
00:32:01.520
So, that manias and fads can't take over politics in a single election.
00:32:06.740
And with six seats per state up for election in any given election, what they do is they
00:32:12.900
take the vote of the entire state and they divide it by six.
00:32:16.020
And that's all you need to become a senator is instead of a majority, you only need one
00:32:22.020
That means that any ideology that is represented by, let's say, 10, 15% or representative of,
00:32:27.960
sorry, 10, 15% of the population, they can't get a lower house representative elected,
00:32:31.980
but they can get a senator and that allows their ideas and their voice to have a role
00:32:37.680
in parliament, even though they may not be a majority anywhere in the country.
00:32:42.720
Now, I think we need to get to the juicy stuff.
00:33:02.000
I think the level of fatigue and frustration that people have with wokeness, with cost of
00:33:09.100
energy, ultimately, the single biggest factor in every single election, you can forget whatever
00:33:14.540
the pundits and media tell you, the biggest single factor in every single election is the
00:33:20.540
Cost of living, do I feel like life is better or life is worse?
00:33:24.560
And the vast majority of Australians right now feel like life is worse.
00:33:27.800
And that really does hang as an albatross around Albanese's neck.
00:33:31.080
He did that to himself, making grand promises about making electricity cheaper.
00:33:34.560
And then we've just watched electricity get more and more expensive.
00:33:41.240
The other thing to keep in mind is the same reason why.
00:33:44.080
So like you with the recent Trump election, I was in the US actually with my wife in 2016
00:33:51.460
And it was really interesting because it's the first time I got to watch a thing called
00:33:59.020
So what would happen is we'd be out there traveling.
00:34:00.820
We'd travel to a bunch of different states in literally every corner of that continent.
00:34:03.960
And we'd go to a diner and we would be eating in.
00:34:07.520
And within two minutes of our arrival, the waitress would have found a way to tell us that
00:34:12.920
she's voting for Hillary or that she's a Hillary Clinton supporter.
00:34:15.820
Or you would interact with people down the street, various just random things.
00:34:19.200
And they would find a way to squeeze it in there.
00:34:22.160
No one ever did that to tell us that they were supporting Trump.
00:34:25.380
But we noticed that lots of people didn't do anything, one way or the other.
00:34:29.080
But no one was doing it saying, hey, I'm voting for Trump.
00:34:32.500
And we would begin to, if someone hadn't said anything, after a little while we'd be like,
00:34:38.320
This whole Trump-Hillary thing seems pretty crazy from our perspective.
00:34:43.980
And I kid you not, they would lean in and do a head check to make sure that they didn't
00:34:49.220
have to talk very loud and that no one else could hear them.
00:34:51.980
And they would say, actually, I'm thinking I'm going to vote for Donald Trump.
00:34:54.640
Now, what that told us very clearly was self-selection bias.
00:35:00.680
The people who wanted to vote for Hillary wanted you to know that they were going to
00:35:05.220
The people that were going to walk into the privacy of that polling booth and vote for
00:35:08.120
Donald Trump were not going to advertise the fact.
00:35:10.920
Now, what that means is that every single opinion poll, every single poll that's being
00:35:14.740
done by phone, every single circle of friendship, the way you're just having casual conversation
00:35:20.800
is going to give you a really unrepresentative sample, because only the people of one persuasion
00:35:27.640
You get a phone call from a pollster who says, hey, I want to talk to you about your political
00:35:31.740
The person who was planning on voting for Donald Trump is going, oh, too busy.
00:35:39.600
I didn't know what the true answer was, what the true polling was, but I knew that the
00:35:44.240
I knew that it wasn't representative of what was really going on.
00:35:46.960
And so by the time I got back from the US, I predicted online very boldly and very loudly
00:35:56.060
And in the end, actually, I thought he was going to win it by more than he did.
00:36:00.220
And I suspect without some fraud, he probably would have won it by more than he did.
00:36:06.360
So I think the same thing's happening here, where there is still a hangover from wokeness.
00:36:15.520
But they're not yet ready to speak out and sort of nail their flag to the mast of the
00:36:21.100
And that means that the polls are still not representative.
00:36:23.420
We're still being berated by the media that Labor is better.
00:36:29.100
All this sort of stuff is still coming out of the mainstream media.
00:36:31.720
And so that means that people aren't being honest yet.
00:36:34.860
And I don't think the polls are honest, but I think the betting markets are more accurate.
00:36:39.540
That's why I think we are going to see a Dutton win.
00:36:41.660
A Dutton minority government, I actually think, is exceptionally unlikely.
00:36:47.780
Because you think that it's more likely a Dutton majority.
00:37:05.840
Those were a lot of them were liberal seats, weren't they?
00:37:11.820
And they were looking for the liberal voters with an environmental conscience.
00:37:17.420
I think, actually, the honest thing is that they are Labor voters in between Labor and the Greens.
00:37:25.440
They should be wearing brown shirts, not heel ones, if you understand the historical reference there.
00:37:33.940
And Mike Cannon-Brooks and the people that have funded them are on the nose for various legitimate reasons.
00:37:39.200
Their own hypocrisy has really come to the fore.
00:37:41.780
People are sick and tired of the moral preening from a lot of these people.
00:37:44.940
People are sick and tired of friendly, not friendly Geordie's, of what's his name?
00:38:01.400
It's not wrong to have an opinion and be in the public eye.
00:38:06.380
Just actually acknowledge that it's real and that it's there because we can all see it.
00:38:12.660
So I think actually a number of the teal seats are going to return to the Liberal Party.
00:38:17.080
I think that if you look at some of the swings in some by-elections and if you look at the level of frustration amongst working class Australians, let's not forget, Labour represents the working class.
00:38:30.360
And it is becoming increasingly unmistakably obvious that they don't do that in reality.
00:38:36.240
And their followers are becoming really rapidly disenfranchised.
00:38:39.660
Now, the interesting thing about them is that they're not likely to go Liberal because the dyed-in-the-wool working class blue-collar Australians aren't.
00:38:47.460
Although the self-employed tradies can because they start to view themselves these days more as business people.
00:38:52.420
But actually, a lot of the dyed-in-the-wool production line working Labour voters, when they leave the Labour Party, are actually going to break in favour of One Nation.
00:39:01.420
Because actually, if you look at One Nation policies, that is kind of old school Labour.
00:39:05.620
A little bit of protectionism for the worker, stick-it-to-the-man kind of attitude that One Nation has.
00:39:10.720
So I actually think they're going to do quite well in this election amongst that particular demographic.
00:39:17.100
And look, these things are always fraught with danger.
00:39:19.180
I could look like an absolute goose come election night.
00:39:22.840
And doing it on this show means you're really willing to test it.
00:39:26.420
Because you know afterwards we're going to publish it and republish it and tag you and cross-post it.
00:39:34.160
It's going to become a new merch line for you, isn't it?
00:39:37.240
And you know what, I say good on you for doing it.
00:39:43.640
During the last election, when I was doing my tour in America, I sat on...
00:39:48.280
And maybe it's easier as an Aussie because you don't feel like you have to...
00:39:52.020
Like putting your name to it is not putting your entire career on the line.
00:39:55.800
But I like went on Tim Pool and I was literally...
00:39:59.940
I went on a few show, but I think Tim Pool was like the biggest one that, you know, asked anyone what anyone says.
00:40:05.720
And I'm sitting on a table with all conservatives.
00:40:15.980
I admit, I don't understand how your system fully functions.
00:40:21.360
However, based on the vibe of the streets in which people do not know where I stand.
00:40:29.200
In fact, if people had to guess, because no one knows me there, on the street, it was like if they had to guess, based on identity politics, they assumed I would be a Kamala kind of supporter.
00:40:45.140
And there was a little bit of what you described, but I think it got to a point in this last election, at least one-on-one, many people were happier to say, whether they were happy to say Trump or at least happy to condemn Kamala and Biden.
00:41:01.960
And so for me, it was really easy to sit there and go, nah, this is 100% Trump.
00:41:09.820
In fact, I think I may have even said that I think that he's going to win the popular vote.
00:41:13.400
And I know I did interviews here on Tom Elliott and that was...
00:41:16.900
I go, anyone in Australia, any of these commentators that are giving you their expert opinion that Kamala is going to win this are delusional or just lying.
00:41:28.880
Because if you're here on the street, it's not...
00:41:32.980
And on one hand, I'm a little bit conflicted because I do want the chance to mock you and mock you hard, especially because I am unwilling to take a bet.
00:41:45.120
In fact, if I had to make a bet today, I'm scaredly going to say Labor minority and that it is my biggest fear in the world.
00:42:00.120
And maybe I'm just looking at the last six months or whatever it's been of election and I've gone, we've had too many wins.
00:42:17.440
But let me throw a few more little data points at you just to get you inside my line of thinking a little bit more.
00:42:22.860
Notice how in the budget, there was very little that was unexpected.
00:42:26.500
They threw a very small tax decrease in the lowest tax bracket at us.
00:42:31.480
One percentage point for next year and another percentage point for the year after.
00:42:35.400
That'll save a small amount of money for Australians.
00:42:37.040
But besides that, we already knew everything that was inside that budget.
00:42:42.260
Now, what that is indicative of, in my opinion, is that they have been pre-leaking basically everything because they're desperate for some good news.
00:42:54.600
In American politics, I talk about the October surprise because their elections are in November.
00:42:58.420
I talk about there's going to be some big story is going to just drop some bombshell that's going to change everything.
00:43:02.640
I don't think Labor have an October surprise up their sleeve for this election.
00:43:09.140
We already know where they stand on basically everything.
00:43:11.700
All they can do now is throw more money at ever, ever decreasing problems.
00:43:18.340
And I don't see that working enough with the Australian, when Australians are suffering under the cost of government already, when that's already increasingly people are recognising that that's the problem.
00:43:27.300
Throwing more money at problems doesn't win votes the way that it has in the past.
00:43:31.100
So I think that where Labor are at right now is as good as it gets for them.
00:43:38.360
That'll be easy to see over the next two, three weeks, whether they start falling back.
00:43:46.580
I think Aussies look at it and, you know, I see the reactions, whether online or even listening, you know, to talk back radio, whatever you hear people saying, well, hold on.
00:43:58.360
So now you're throwing this money, but where were you the last three years?
00:44:02.540
A great example was just today I was listening to 3AW and I heard the transport minister or whatever talking about, you know, the funding now that they're going to give to all these different Victorian infrastructure projects.
00:44:20.640
And we're like, and, and I was listening to her interview at first and she's basically blaming 10 years of Liberal Party management from before Labor as to why it's not all done.
00:44:33.640
And the callbacks following that was just like, wait, hold on a second.
00:44:38.080
You guys have had, you've literally been in charge of the entire country, state and federally for at least three years now, forget about Victoria's, how long Victoria's been a Labor Party, but state and federal, you've been in charge for three good years.
00:44:58.880
In fact, you've had three years to make the pledges and carry out your, your promises, but you haven't.
00:45:05.320
And now suddenly a month before the election, which it looks like you may lose, suddenly you're giving us these promises.
00:45:17.260
Let me, let me make a sideways remark here and then I'll bring it back on topic.
00:45:22.480
Have you ever had a movie that you've got all this nostalgia about how amazing the special effects were or how scary it was?
00:45:30.320
And then 20 years later, you go back and watch it again and you're like, really?
00:45:38.900
Now, what you're observing there in real time is the training of your eye and the training of your understanding of plot devices, of special effects, of twists in stories.
00:45:53.800
And the special effects that worked 20 years ago don't work anymore.
00:45:56.980
Because the audience is more sophisticated now.
00:45:59.380
Now, one of the interesting things that's happening, thanks to people like yourself, and I'll give myself some partial credit as well and others, as we are working tirelessly bringing things like this to the Australian voting public, the voting public are becoming more sophisticated.
00:46:13.500
It is much more difficult for the politicians to make these cheap throwaway promises and get the sugar hit in the polls that they used to be able to get because audiences are thinking more critically now.
00:46:24.140
They're no longer making the decisions based off 15-second soundbites in the nightly news.
00:46:28.240
They're sitting down and listening to podcasts and more in-depth discussions.
00:46:31.180
And it's not that they have to hear us talk about it in order to change their mind.
00:46:39.820
The special effects that worked 20 years ago don't work on them anymore.
00:46:44.260
And for me, it's a really exciting time because this phenomenon is only going to accelerate.
00:46:48.240
And I can foresee a future where the Australian public becomes sophisticated enough to support a Javier Millet-type figure, someone who, if you look at what he was promising in Argentina, these are all the things that would have led to political failure 20 years ago in Argentina.
00:47:06.180
He's saying people are going to lose their jobs.
00:47:07.940
He's saying welfare programs are going to get slashed.
00:47:10.180
He's making those promises, and he gets a massive popular vote and popular support.
00:47:19.820
The voting public in Argentina became sophisticated.
00:47:22.300
And so as people like you and I keep doing what we're doing, I think we're going to see more and more.
00:47:26.100
These promises and these old tricks just don't work.
00:47:29.560
On that note, Topher, thanks so much for joining us today.
00:47:45.640
And look, I look forward to the day when I hear the good news that you finally winds up and moved out of Victoria.
00:47:53.280
I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did that podcast.
00:48:02.260
I think he's a fantastic resource about a lot of issues, but specifically around elections.
00:48:08.420
And I think he's intellectually honest, which gives me hope because if he's reading the room and he's seeing that a Dutton minority, or he thinks more likely a Dutton majority, which either of them are just so much better than what we have right now.
00:48:29.980
I don't think it's going to be a Dutton majority.
00:48:41.060
Anyways, let's look at some of your comments from the week.
00:48:45.920
We go through some of the stories that I posted in the previous week and read some of your comments because as a Rebel News Plus subscriber, you can get involved in the conversations and that's exactly what I want.
00:48:56.940
Please get involved in the conversations and I'll answer you here.
00:49:01.260
I might actually start getting involved in some of the comments.
00:49:05.620
I remember to look at some of the comments and get involved in the conversation every time I do this at the end of the Yemeni report each week.
00:49:16.440
But I do really mean to get involved in the conversations via the comments.
00:49:19.880
Look, I don't even get involved in the conversations in most of my posts online.
00:49:25.580
But I really want to invest in our community, in our little space of like-minded people that care about the country.
00:49:33.160
And also those of you that invest in what we're doing in Rebel News and specifically Rebel News Australia in my work by subscribing, but also getting involved.
00:49:47.680
So one of the stories we were talking about was council pulls funding after River to the Sea composer goes on an anti-Israel rant, which was a surprising welcome little bit of news that finally somebody's standing up.
00:50:00.300
And Bruce, Bruce, who gets involved in most of our conversations, Bruce, I love you.
00:50:07.340
How revolting this woman is clearly a useful idiot bigot.
00:50:12.300
Jews have the right to live without harassment.
00:50:14.320
Anti-Semitism has no place in any civilized country.
00:50:18.680
And she is so clearly like every leftist, greeny leftist, that for some reason, those that are protesting against Israel suddenly have gone radio silent when people within the Palestinian territories, both in Gaza and in the West Bank, are rallying against Hamas.
00:50:40.840
These guys are not doing it because they don't care about Palestinians.
00:50:45.960
The other story that we broke last week, police do nothing as anti-Israel protesters threaten, harass and attack.
00:50:56.060
The headline's not quite right, but it's very hard sometimes to get the headline to fully capture the full story because police actually did do something.
00:51:04.700
They moved on the victims of the death threats, the harassment, the attacks, the robbery.
00:51:14.660
But there was a pretty shocking video there where there was a threat to kill, which now, thankfully, thanks to our viral reporting, even though it was done right in front of police, police have finally, a week after, well, a few days after our story went viral, they have finally opened an investigation.
00:51:33.180
Again, like it happened in front of police, and we're working with that victim to ensure that justice is served.
00:51:40.140
And that's why we're telling people to sign that petition at protectthejews.com.au, is it?
00:51:45.700
I think, because it shouldn't be a viral video that makes the police do the job.
00:51:52.660
You know, if somebody breaks the law in front of police, police should automatically enforce the law.
00:51:58.840
Some of the comments we had here, again, Bruce, as usual, thank you, Bruce, for getting involved.
00:52:06.560
Typical 2-2 policing again, and it happens all over the Western world, which is true.
00:52:14.600
These pissy Palestinians can shout all sorts of death threats, and those charged with protecting citizens, just stand and watch, which is exactly what we saw in that video.
00:52:25.480
But if some citizen dares to object, they get pepper sprayed, which is what we saw in that video.
00:52:34.380
Sooner or later, somebody will murder a Jewish counter-protester.
00:52:38.120
And I'd like to point out that that protester, he was an Australian patriot.
00:52:41.620
So you can see our follow-up report with him from yesterday.
00:52:47.360
Will the police act, or will they drag their flat feet?
00:52:51.340
We're ensuring that they don't drag their flat feet.
00:52:54.720
But that's thanks to you guys for helping us do what we do here at Rebel News.
00:53:02.880
Sorry, so the comments come up bigger on the screen.
00:53:07.020
Daniel, Vic Polly is not only a toothless tiger.
00:53:10.440
It's a shit, it's shit-scare to take action against the vermin living within us
00:53:14.680
and brazenly breaking many anti-hate and excitement of violence laws
00:53:26.400
Worse, the Allen government has done nothing to instruct, empower, or support the Vic poll
00:53:31.920
to remove the trash from our streets, enjoying the last two years in office to sin to Allen.
00:53:40.120
If they take you, you are as wanted by most Victorians as dictator Dan.
00:53:49.260
Victoria stands with Bundelong residents and will treat you as they have demonstrated
00:53:54.780
is appropriate for the worst of the leaders in our country.
00:53:58.780
Look, I think that there are a lot of Victorians that are super angry about the last couple
00:54:04.460
And remember, these same leaders, Jacinta Allen, who was the deputy at the time, and Dan Andrews,
00:54:12.820
they had no problem in dealing with protesters when it was protesters against, people protesting
00:54:21.280
against the overreach and now proven abuse of power during the COVID era, when police had
00:54:31.740
no problem taking on hundreds of, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of protesters.
00:54:37.740
But in the last two years, they've gone soft and suddenly they can't handle a few hundred
00:54:43.020
extremists or even thousands of extremists who have taken our city hostage.
00:54:47.880
Frank says, Australia, Canada's sister country.
00:54:54.100
We are in so many ways and this story is just one of them.
00:55:02.380
Billboard Chris fined $806 after being threatened with arrest in Brisbane.
00:55:07.020
Again, I think he was technically actually arrested because I looked into the legality of
00:55:11.320
I've looked at it for my own personal dramas previously.
00:55:15.560
If police detain you, you are technically under arrest.
00:55:20.320
If you can't, if they're forcing you away, which they did, they forced him to move on.
00:55:33.040
Comes to Australia and is literally showing, well, he's fighting out at the moment in court
00:55:37.420
this week for our freedom of speech against the E-Karen, the E-Safety Commissioner.
00:55:44.500
He's taken on that fight and then also taking on local governments, local council that was
00:55:50.940
in Brisbane who think that they can just move him on because they don't like his sign, essentially.
00:56:06.800
People should know the danger there if they go there.
00:56:14.700
I do seem to agree with some of what you're saying, the sentiment there.
00:56:20.060
Don't, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say.
00:56:39.080
He's not one of those people that do things for clout.
00:56:41.360
He doesn't change his opinions based on his audience.
00:56:44.400
I've seen people criticize his views on, let's say, the Israel-Hamas war.
00:56:52.700
It's not the issue he goes around fighting for.
00:56:56.620
But he makes, nobody will, he won't change his opinion to suit his audience,
00:57:05.480
So when you say Chris Elton is a man of integrity, 1,000%.
00:57:10.300
Ruth says the evidence is so blatantly obvious.
00:57:14.280
Those police are parroting the completely illogical laws
00:57:17.880
should crawl into a hole and hide themselves in shame
00:57:23.960
It beggars belief that this is the world we live in now.
00:57:35.700
The last thing in law enforcement like Orwell wrote in Animal Farm,
00:57:40.520
we find that some people are more equal than others.
00:57:45.060
And finally, the last story that I want to cover, Jacinta Ardern,
00:57:54.620
when she had me banned from New Zealand when she was the tyrant-in-chief.
00:58:05.580
It is insane how these people, you know, you've got to give credit to the WEF.
00:58:16.080
Mr. Ed, this is definitely the most talented horse on earth.
00:58:22.920
Bernard, Bruce, you beat me to a failing upward
00:58:38.340
This grifter is part of the left's propaganda team
00:58:40.720
to brainwash unsuspecting students in the religion of Marxism.
00:58:46.360
I call it a religion because it puts one's trust
00:58:50.840
in the continuous struggle to make reality conform to it.