Sometime this year, Australians vote on the following question: “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?” In this video, I’ll explain why I cannot support it. Noting that I don’t care either way how you vote. If you support it, great. If Australians vote it in, so be it. I’m not going to be upset with anybody over it. Now we don’t know much else about this change apart from the proposed constitutional amendment: “There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice who may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. Which to be fair, could be anything, right? Who are we to say what matters or doesn’t matter to Indigenous people? It’s funny, if you search for “The Voice Australia” in Google, unsurprisingly, you get the singing contest rather than the upcoming Indigenous referendum. You’d think they would have chosen a name that didn’t clash with the name of a reality TV show. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. So why can’t I support this proposed amendment? Well, the overarching goal, at least on paper, is equality. Ultimately, this is about everyone having equal access to the same rights and opportunities. Well, how is creating a body that is only open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people bringing us closer to equality? How is a body that excludes membership based entirely on one’s ancestry or ethnicity bringing us closer together? Isn’t it doing the opposite? A simple argument would be, do Chinese Australians get their own Voice to parliament? Actually, Chinese-Australian history predates the first fleet. They’ve been in Australia for many generations. Do Ukrainian Australians get a Voice to parliament? What about Russian Australians? Do they get a Voice? If not, why not? What about convict Australians? Almost 20% of modern Australians are descendants of convicts that were forcibly transported from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia, often for very petty crimes such as stealing food to feed their hungry families. These people were essentially used a source of slave labour. Do they get a Voice to parliament? Many of you might rightly be thinking, but hang on, all these people already have a Voice to parliament! It’s called our local MPs and senators. All eligible Australians get to vote who they want to represent them in parliament. I’m not saying that it’s a perfect system. I’m not saying it hasn’t got its flaws. But on paper at least, we all already have representation in parliament. I mean, that’s the whole point of Parliament – to represent Australians! The current government pride themselves on equality. Current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese proudly proclaims that two-thirds of all new jobs went to women in the last year. If equality is your goal, surely 50% females should be the goal, not two-thirds. But isn’t that what always happens? Here in Queensland after the recent cabinet reshuffle last month, you can clearly see that we’ve become more equal than ever before! Only a couple of weeks ago, the same government renamed the world’s largest sand island from Fraser Island to K’Gari. Personally, I don’t care either way, but I don’t remember being consulted? We’re supposedly a democracy here in Australia, but the government can just rename entire islands whenever they feel like it? Australia’s biggest companies are also getting behind the Voice. The local university had a sign up saying, “We support an Indigenous Voice to Parliament”. Did they survey all of us workers? Did they survey all the students? No! They’re just claiming that the university support the Voice without any actual evidence. And that’s the problem with this Voice vote. We’re being told by certain groups that if you don’t vote yes, you’re a racist. The same on social media. It’s a tactic that you’d see in the school playground. “If you don’t agree with me, I’ll resort to calling you names”. It’s not even worth responding to these sorts of people. They should be politely ignored. No matter which side of the debate you fall into, I think we can all agree that this upcoming vote is divisive. It’s causing disagreement and hostility between people for no other reason than the Government are trying to set up a special Voice to parliament for only a single ethnic group, essentially, which only make up a relatively tiny fraction of the Australian population. In a time when many Australians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are struggling with cost of living pressures and housing woes, shouldn’t that be what we focus on? Legislation that helps ALL Australians, not just a select few? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGW0nzBezA

Over the last few months, my employer has been negotiating with staff to create a new work agreement that outlines our new working conditions and entitlements. As you can probably guess, being a modern university and all, it’s more of a “woke” agreement than a work agreement. Anyway, here’s some highlights from my new woke agreement. And yes, this is real (although, I will blur out any private information). Exhibit A. “Gender Affirmation Leave. If you are a transgender person, you will be able to take up to 20 days off from work, per year, to seek gender affirming care (including surgery and medical appointments), without loss of pay.” First of all, I’d just like to point out that I am not here to speak badly of people’s identity, or personal preferences, or way of life, or whatever else. People are who they are. As I’ve always said, as long as people aren’t hurting others, then they can live their lives how they see fit. However, this work condition I see as inherently not fair. If equality is the goal, why is this not open to all employees? I mean, it’s not just transgender people who sometimes seek out surgical intervention to change their appearance. There are lots of different reasons. For example, what about obese people who for health reasons, or otherwise, wish to remove excess fat through liposuction, or gastric bypass surgery, or other bariatric surgery. Why are they not entitled to 20 days off from work? What about people with body dysmorphia, or anybody else who isn’t satisfied with the size of their nose, or ears, or breasts? Are they not entitled to 20 days off to undergo cosmetic surgery to help them achieve their desired physical identity? Here’s a bit of a stranger one, but it’s a real condition. Xenomelia, literally meaning “foreign limb”, is a neuropsychiatric condition in which an individual has an intense, persistent belief that one or more of their limbs does not belong to their body. They regard it as an unnatural appendage that should be discarded. Do they get 20 days off per year to undergo corrective surgery? If not, why not? Exhibit B. “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. If you are required to use an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander language at the request of the University, you will be eligible to receive an annual allowance of $3,000.00.” Just to be clear, I’m not against Aboriginal people. I wish everybody the best in their life. But the university have decided that only one category of people are deserving of an extra $3,000 per year to speak a language other than English? What about Chinese speakers, or Latin speakers, or anybody else? Again, this is not against Aboriginal people, but why are the university only going to give them extra cash? It just doesn’t seem very fair, and it certainly isn’t bringing us closer to equality. Presumably, Aboriginal staff members are already on a pretty decent salary as they are university employees, so why do they need the extra $3,000 at the expense of everybody else who are not entitled to it? It’s just wrong in my opinion. Another one: “If you are an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Person, you will be entitled to 10 days’ paid and 15 days’ unpaid leave for the purpose of attending to Cultural and Ceremonial Responsibilities.” Again, the same argument applies. Why is it only that one group of people are entitled to cultural leave? Does nobody else in the world have their own culture? Obviously, everybody has their own culture. To say that only one group of people are entitled to cultural leave is just plain wrong. It means while one group of people are off on paid cultural duties, the rest of us are stuck back at work. Fairness has gone out the window! What else has gone out the window? Australia Day! “Employees who wish to substitute Australia Day for another day in the year, will be eligible to do so, subject to genuine operational requirements. Work done on the Australia Day public holiday will not attract public holiday overtime rates.” Look, if you don’t want to celebrate Australia Day, fine, but why would you want to go to work? Everyone loves a day off, don’t they? Anyway, my family love Australia Day. We go every year, and so do a lot of other people of all different nationalities including Aboriginal people. My wife is Chinese, she loves Australia Day, too. It’s a day to celebrate our diversity and our oneness as Australians. You’d think it would be right up the university’s alley, but it isn’t. They want us to be divided, but don’t expect to get public holiday rates! Unfortunately, if you want to work, you have to agree, or at least, pretend you agree with these conditions. Look, I’m all for equality, but is this the right approach? Grouping people by ethnicity and gender, and then giving certain groups more benefits than the rest of us? That’s not equality. That’s stupidity. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWW0FsXKSlo

Apparently, we’ve reached a point in human history where expensive lollies parading as vitamins is a thing. My wife bought some just the other day to give to our children. To be fair to her, they were on special at less than half-price, and English isn’t her first language, so I can understand the confusion. “Vita Gummies, Multi-Vitamin + Vegies”. They look like a small pile of sugar. Of course, my children love them, which I personally think is a huge problem. If they ever got hold of them when I’m not around, they would almost certainly feast upon them consuming an uncontrolled amount of supplemental nutrients in the process. The only hint that they contain ANY sugar is this little two-word phrase hidden on the back — “Contains sugars”. There’s no other evidence apart from the pile of sugar coated on the outside of each gummy. Every other product in Australia has to show their sugar content. Apparently vitamins are exempt from this. These so-called vitamins claim to contain veggies. Looking on the back, we can see that there are 5mg each of spinach, carrot, beetroot, and artichoke. Remembering what 5mg is — 1/200th of a gram. I mean, what is that? According to Google, the average pea weighs between 100 and 360 milligrams. That means that a single solitary pea has about 10 times as many vegetables in it than does one of these vita gummies! Even vegetable-flavoured stock cubes that I picked up from Aldi have more vegetables in them. Maybe you should be feeding your children stock cubes instead? I’m sure they would be a lot healthier. If my sarcasm wasn’t glaringly obvious, whatever you do, please don’t feed your children stock cubes, and certainly while you’re at it, you probably shouldn’t be feeding them Vita Gummies either. Now I guess it’s time for me to go and prepare for the incoming lawsuit. MY GEAR Rode NT-USB Microphone: https://amzn.to/2OjhgB4 #kidshealth #vitamins #toomuchsugar ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FstOP0Vsj6E

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called a federal election for May 21st, 2022. Remember, “this election is about you”. Not Joe down the street, not Mary down at the hair salon. This election is about you. Shop Certified Refurbished Electronics. Like-new items, for less ▶ https://ebay.us/Qkx3gt “It is a choice between a strong economy and a Labor Opposition that would weaken it”, or so it’s said. The opinion polls are pretty telling. On a two-party-preferred basis, the Australian Labor Party are going to win easily, right? Right?! 55% to 45%. A commanding lead! I mean the polls can’t be wrong, can they? More recent polling suggests this blowing out to 57% to 43%. The ALP can’t possible stuff this up, can they? Can they?! Despite what the media and pollsters might have you believe, there are of course more than two parties in this race. It’s not such a blow out when you look at this chart showing voters intended primary vote. ALP are still leading, at least according to the polls. But as we all know about opinion polling, it’s not an exact science. If it was, then we wouldn’t need elections, would we? We could just do an opinion poll and save the taxpayer a lot of money. No, opinion rolls sometimes get it wrong. Case in point, the 2019 federal election. Here’s the two-party preferred opinion polling in the lead-up to the 2019 election, giving the ALP a slight lead 51-49. Sure, it wasn’t as commanding at the current polls are showing, but the media were still declaring a victory for the Labor Party. “The Guardian. Essential poll: majority of voters think Bill Shorten will be the winner on Saturday”. But only a few short days later, “Herald Sun. Shorten stands down after loss. After suffering a loss that no-one predicted, Bill Shorten has stood down as Labor leader”. It’s hard to say exactly why the polls got it wrong, but some are saying that it’s to do with non-response bias, which is thought to be the reason the US polls got it wrong in the lead-up to the November 2016 election. They consistently understated Donald Trump. Trump supporters distrusted the established media, including polls, so much that they did not respond to polls. Just a couple of weeks before the elections, “ABC News. Clinton Vaults to a Double-Digit Lead, Boosted by Broad Disapproval of Trump”. But after the November 8th election, “The Guardian. Why were the election polls so wrong? How Donald Trump defied predictions”. So what do you think? Are Labor in for a sure victory, or can Labor somehow stuff it up again? MUSIC Melancholia by Godmode #2022FederalElection #ScottMorrison #AnthonyAlbanese #ScoMo #Albo #AustralianLabor #LiberalAus ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA91B9PQLXI