Beloved Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr (well beloved to some, the media seem to love her. Social media? Not so much), has done something a little bit naughty. She uttered some not-so-nice words to a police officer in London early last year. First of all, no matter what side of politics you’re on, whether you’re woke or anti-woke, I don’t care, but I think nobody should be cancelled, or lose their careers over something they say. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We sometimes say stupid things. So I’m not here campaigning for Sam Kerr to lose her job. However, she did say something that other sports stars have lost their jobs over. What did she say? Well after a big night out, she reportedly threw up in a taxi and got into an altercation with the driver over the taxi fare, presumably over the cleaning fee, so the police were called and she allegedly called the police officer a “stupid white bastard”. However, it’s being reported that Kerr herself said she didn’t say that all, she said, “stupid white cop”. Either way, the intent is the same. She called the police officer “stupid”, as well as “white”, and consequently was charged with Racially Aggravated Harassment, which she could potentially go to jail for. This of course resulted in the Progressive Left, or the Woke Left, or whatever you want to call them, their minds collectively imploded. You see, the Progressive Left are all about criminalising language, when it suits them. They are obsessed with historical oppression and identity politics. The only things that matter to them now are race, gender, and sexuality. They no longer focus on the real problems facing poor people, but instead turn their gaze to imagined microaggressions against over-privileged university graduates. And because Sam Kerr is a person of colour (I hate that term by the way. It sounds rather racist, don’t you think?), she’s of Indian descent (noting, she’s also of Caucasian descent, but that doesn’t seem to count), she’s a lesbian (she has a Caucasian fiancée), and of course, she’s a woman, whatever that means. Nobody seems to be able to define it anymore. The point is, she ticks all the Woke Left’s boxes, so to speak. So when they heard she was charged with racism, as I said, their collective minds imploded. Instead of calling out the racism for what it is, they instead tried to defend her. But to be fair, it is a bit hard for them to rationally support her racist comments in this instance, so what else can they do? Well they can simply change the definition of racism. For example, the Conversation are reporting: “Sam Kerr’s alleged comments may have had a racial element, but they were not ‘racist’” in quotes. Obviously, laws should be colourblind, and should be applied equally. If Sam Kerr gets away with this, it sets and incredibly stupid and dangerous precedent. Of course, politicians like Senator Lidia Thorpe who profit (as in benefit) from the racism industry, tweeted: “Replace all statues of captain cook with statues of Sam Kerr, our one true captain”. Basically, calling her a hero for using racist language towards a police officer. Former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster has called on Football Australia to strip Sam Kerr of her captaincy if it is confirmed that she did indeed use racist language towards the police officer, to show how seriously the sport takes racism. Look, I think this is the natural result of criminalising language. We get stupid situations like this. It seems like the world can’t agree what racism is. Crimes like murder are obvious. You either kill someone or you don’t. Sure, we could argue over whether it’s manslaughter, or whatever, but somebody is dead. Burglary and theft are obvious. Something has been stolen. There’s no debate. But criminalising language, as we’ve seen with this racism debate, is a very dangerous path. It’s open to abuse. Somebody says something, and then somebody claims they feel offended. How can we disprove it? Maybe we should just do away with this whole racism thing. Even if the world decides that what Sam Kerr said wasn’t racist, it was still wrong. She is a role model. Many girls (and boys) look up to her. At the very least, she needs to apologise. She won’t, because that would be an admission of guilt. But in a perfect would, she might say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. We should be nice to one another no matter what our cultural backgrounds. Racism is racism, and I was wrong to say what I said. Please forgive me.” Call it double standards. Call it selective outrage. Call it hypocrisy. But one thing that is crystal clear, racism is only called out by the Progressive Left when they are the victim. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8YotBAU9E

According to the Australian ABC’s Vote Compass — a national survey that assesses Australian’s political views — negative gearing is an issue that is dividing Australians. For the uninformed, gearing is simply when you borrow money to invest, and it’s most often talked about with regard to investment properties. A property is negatively geared when the rental return is less than your interest repayments and other expenses. Why is it such a hot political issue? Because Australian law allows investors to deduct any losses they make on an investment property from their taxable income. A lot of investors who buy properties don’t expect to make money on the rent. Instead, they buy properties with the hope that the property will increase in value to a point where they can cash in on its long-term capital growth and make a healthy profit from its sale. According to data from the Australian treasury, in the 2012-13 financial year, over 1.9 million people earned rental income. 1.3 million of these reported a net rental loss. That means almost 70% of property investors don’t make money from their investment — well at least, not on an ongoing basis. They are speculating that property prices will rise so they can cash in on the capital growth. But we all know, property prices in Australia don’t always rise. They are currently falling. So is negative gearing tax incentives just encouraging people to make poor investment choices? From ASIC’s MoneySmart website, it’s almost always better to positively gear a property, that is, you borrow money to buy an investment property and the income from rent is higher than the interest repayments and other expenses. Of course this is the smarter choice. So why do the government incentivise negative gearing? The official line is that it increases housing supply, but I reckon its main purpose is to keep property investors happy. It allows them to speculate on the value of existing property. If the real reason is truly to increase housing stock, then surely negative gearing tax incentives should only apply to new construction. Remember, Australian tax payers pay for all this property speculation. The Government currently spends well over $11 billion a year on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. What if they used that instead to fund dental care, or better schools? I think we’ve got our priorities a bit messed up in Australia. The Australian Labor Party plan on doing something about if they are elected in the upcoming election, 18 May 2019. They are proposing to limit negative gearing to new housing from 1 January 2020. They will also halve the capital gains tax discount (from 50% to 25%) for all assets held longer than 12 months purchased after 1 January 2020. All investments made pri ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnipiQXcIHo

In this video, I show you some leaked bodycam footage from the two arresting police officers of George Floyd. Well, it’s not the actual bodycam footage – it’s a recording of the bodycam footage shown on a computer screen. I don’t own the rights to these videos. They were originally published by the British Newspaper Daily Mail. To be fair, Daily Mail don’t own the rights to these videos either (even though they’ve plastered their logo all over them). So that’s why I’m showing them here. I’d just like to comment on how the media are portraying them. News.com.au are reporting, “Leaked bodycam video shows George Floyd brutally beaten before fatal arrest”. Well that’s just a lie. I’ve watched the video. George Floyd was not brutally beaten. He was asked to get into a police vehicle and refused to. Eventually the police officers tried to force him in, but he continued to resist. Business Inside Australia reports, “New bodycam footage of George Floyd's arrest shows police pointing a gun at his face as he begs them not to shoot”. Although this headline is a bit more accurate than the previous one, it’s still manipulative. It’s trying to convince the reader that the officer was unjustified in pointing the gun at Mr Floyd. When you watch the video for yourself, the officer asks Mr Floyd four times to show his hands before actually pointing his gun at him. Obviously, if you’re a police officer in America where there’s a potential for the general public to be armed, if somebody is not showing their hands, there’s a real risk they have a gun. So I see no problem in him drawing his gun in this case. Secondly, as the officers are trying to get Mr Floyd into the back of the police vehicle, Mr Floyd claims that he his claustrophobic. But yet, just moments before, he was sitting perfectly fine in a confined space in the other vehicle. Clearly, he just didn’t want to get into the police car. One of the police officers even offered to roll down the window for him. Thirdly, Mr Floyd started complaining that he couldn’t breathe while he was in the back of the police vehicle, well before his neck was ever touched. He claimed he had anxiety and claustrophobia and even requested to lay on the ground as he was struggling with the police in the back of the police vehicle. Autopsy reports show that Mr Floyd tested positive to Covid-19 and had heart disease. He had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death, as well as cannabis compounds and morphine, although these drugs were not listed as the cause of death. Just as a note, Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. In this video, I have spliced together footage from both bodycams to show both offi ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jowBacmZPpw

There is a rental crisis in Australia. Struggling families are finding it harder and harder to put a roof over their head. A new report commissioned by QCOSS (the Queensland Council of Social Services) revealed there are about 300,000 Queenslanders experiencing housing insecurity, as soaring rental prices disproportionately affect lower-income families and inadequate supply of ­social housing leaves many languishing. REPORT: A blueprint to tackle Queensland’s housing crisis https://www.qcoss.org.au/publication/report-a-blueprint-to-tackle-queenslands-housing-crisis/ The report shows that median house prices have significantly increased in recent years, with Brisbane houses, almost tripling in price over a decade. Advertised rents have gone up dramatically in the last five years, at much higher rates than the CPI (the consumer price index, a measure of inflation). Rental vacancy rates have plummeted across the state with many areas running close to or substantially below 1%. A couple of days ago, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk responded revealing the state government is “very seriously” considering introducing a price cap on private rentals. This created an immediate backlash, with several economists saying a rent cap would be a disaster. The Premier stated, “This is a big issue for families. They are constantly being faced with huge increases in rent and this is putting a lot of pressure on families. We’re looking very seriously at how a rental cap can be put in place.” Obviously, if you force owners to reduce their rents, this could easily result in them selling up creating more rental shortages. Deputy Premier Steven Miles fronted the media 24 hours after Premier Palaszczuk’s rental cap announcement and stated that the state government is unlikely to implement a “rent freeze”, but said there needs to be a “conversation” on whether a limit should be placed on the size and frequency of rent increases. He also accepted that for the free market to work, investors need to see a return on their investment. He said, “In an environment where inflation is very high, where property prices have increased and where interest rates are increasing, investors will need to see an increased return. But whether there should be limits placed on that increase, or whether there should be limits on how often and how they can be increased, they are all the sorts of things we want to discuss.” Brendan Coates, an economist from the Grattan Institute, said interfering in the market by putting a cap on rents was bad policy and would discourage investment in rental housing and reduce supply. He said, “You could potentially make things better in the short term for existing renters, but the very act of making it easy for existing renters will make it worse for those that need housing. A better policy in our view would be boosting the incomes of those struggling to keep a roof over their heads, by raising rent assistance by at least 40%. That should be the No. 1 priority right now.” Avi Khan, principal at Ray White Marsden, warns that rental caps will result in at least some landlords selling up. He said, “And then when those properties are sold, where do the renters go? If we go down this road, it will be a bloodbath.” QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh welcomed the proposal to bring in rent caps, but insisted the top priority to alleviate housing pressures was to build more social and affordable housing. Independent economist Saul Eslake, who has previously advocated against tax privileges for property investors, said a rental cap “is sort of giving up on the most effective solutions”. He said, “Arbitrary limits on whether rents can be increased at all and if so, by how much, are a bad thing. They will discourage investment in rental housing. In other words, they will adversely impact the supply of housing. Conceptually the right way to approach it is to increase the supply of rental housing.” Mr Eslake also noted the risk of triggering a slippery slope for other areas of the economy, as people could legitimately ask why they aren’t capping power prices or grocery costs, or anything else. Opposition Treasury spokesman David Janetzki said the “absolute focus” of any government was to boost housing supply in the short, medium and long term, and slammed the rental cap proposal as a “shortsighted political announcement” and a “thought-bubble”. Greens MP Amy MacMahon, unsurprisingly welcomed the government’s indication on rent caps, but said that rent controls that genuinely help fix the housing crisis need to be in place. The Greens’ have previously proposed to cap rent increases at 2% every two years. So the Greens and Labor, or at least the Labor Premier, believe that rental controls and caps are the way to go to fix the rental crisis, but what do you think? I think there’s only two options: We either need less people, or we need more houses. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ESssAB_NOc