 Hey friends on the internet, Jordana here from the Juice Media. I hope you've enjoyed another year of Honest Government Ads. It's been a really productive year for us, mainly because our government's been so shit that they've given us heaps of stuff to talk about, and our audience has grown, which is awesome. Heck, even the Australian government's been tuning in to watch our Honest Government Ads. I know, because recently we received another email from them complaining about the use of their logo. Thanks for watching. First up, a huge tisn to all the patrons and supporters who've kept us going this year. I've heard from every mob that I've been able to work, there's my phone, that I've been able to work full time on researching, writing, directing and editing the Honest Government Ads. I know it's not easy to part with money each month to support any project, so I never take it for granted. Your financial support has also made it possible for me to pay our brilliant actors. Lucy, Zoe, Ellen, Matilda, they're a bunch of legends and I hope you'll join me in giving them props for their awesome work this year. A special shout out to Zoe who appeared in eight consecutive Honest Government Ads this year. She's doing some viral gems like visit the Northern Territory and visit Teemo Lester. It's like, hey, you're shipping it, it's for the can. Can. Uh, broad. Hang on, this is Zoe's warm-up. So, getting pumped up for the next hack. Interpretative dance, Zoe. Lol, take six. That's it, right? Good take. This is gold. I'm gonna use some of this. Lol. And last but not least, huge props to the broader Juice Media team who give me feedback on my scripts and help me to refine them. Thanks, you legends. Anywho, this year, since I'm seldom in front of the camera these days, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share with you some of the story behind the Honest Government Ads. It's been two years since we made the first Honest Government Ad. Visit Australia. There was no big announcement on Manifesto. Lucy and I just made it. You loved it. And for the next two years, we made more. But after two years, I think it's probably a good time to take stock and reflect on what it is that we're doing here and who we are. I don't know, maybe some of you think that we're some big sponsored project funded by George Soros or the Greens. When in fact we're a bona fide homemade family project, we literally film every episode in our living room and I write and edit them here under the same suburban Melbourne Ruth. But if we go back just a few years, things were quite different. I was working at the university after I'd completed a PhD in history. I published a history book about time explaining why the whole world is ruled by the clock. TLDR, European Colonialism. And then another book about the most epic yet little known chapter of Australian history. But something I started to find troubling is that all my work was being published in places not very accessible to most peeps, like books and academic journals. It's troubling when you realise that most academic research is already funded by taxpayers, meaning you and me, through the ARC. In a sense we are all patrons of academics. And yet when they publish their work in a journal, unless you're a staff or student in a university, you have to pay to read it, which is essentially paying for it twice. It's as if all your patrons who support us then have to pay again to watch our videos when they come out. And the turning point for me came in 2013 with the death of Aaron Swartz, activist, programmer and prodigy, co-creator of many awesome platforms. Aaron wanted to make a statement about the need for free and open access to knowledge, so he hacked into the MIT mainframe and downloaded the entire JSTOR database. For that he was hounded and prosecuted by the FBI until eventually he tragically took his own life. Aaron made us all realise how heavily police, knowledge and academic work is. And thanks to his legacy things are slowly changing. But I didn't want to wait decades for my life work to be available freely to everyone. So I left and started publishing content in the obvious place. The big question of course was would people value my work enough to support me in doing it? There was only one way to find out. So I gave myself one year to create a new series. And if by the end of that year I wasn't at least covering my expenses, then my goal was to somehow help people better understand what is going on in our world. There's a real hunger for honesty and truth right now. Basic elements required for democracy and good governments to flourish. Rupert Murdoch and others like him know this very well, which is why they work so hard to keep muddying the waters on crucial issues like climate change, the economy and the growing gap between rich and poor, which is fueling a growing tide of misinformation that keeps getting fuckwits like this elected. So I thought gee, wouldn't it be helpful if I could help counter this by translating and decoding our government's policies, making them say what they really meant. And that was the birth of the honest government ad series. Thanks to you, by the time that one year deadline was up, we managed to become self-sufficient and cover our basic production costs. So I gave myself another challenge. By the end of the second year, we had to be earning enough to make a decent wage so that we could support a family and make ends meet. Lucy and I had a baby last year, Luca, a freaking cutie. So if we're going to keep going with this, we had to make it work financially, which is why I've given this project everything I have. In fact, I've never worked as hard. And yet it's the most enjoyable work I've ever done. I figured if we do good work, remain independent and play a useful role in providing information and analysis that is of public interest. And if we can mix it with some decent comedy so that it can cut through the bullshit, people might support it. And people did. You rewarded us for embarking on this crazy family adventure by doubling the number of patrons who support us each month, which has given us the confidence to keep making honest government ads. And I hope that going forward, more people will continue to support us because although we're on the right track, we still operate on a tiny budget and we have so much more to do. So if you like what we do, if you feel that we provide a public service by helping people to understand what's going on, if you value how we consistently avoid going for the low-hanging fruit, and instead focus on topics ignored by other media, such as the anti-encryption bill that just passed, nice one Bill, then please consider supporting the juice media at the link below. We've introduced some cool rewards on Patreon. For the price of a cup of coffee each month, you'll receive audio previews of all our new videos before we publish them. Five bucks will get you into the advisory board, which helps us decide topics for future videos. Ten bucks will get you a hug, which is honestly our favorite here because it comes from people who just want to help us get the work done. Twenty a month gets you all the above plus a sticker pack. Fifty, a department of genuine satire t-shirt, and the top reward is for patrons who pledge $100 a month, a producer credit at the end of each of our honest government ads. Patreon is the best way to support us because it gives us a predictable monthly income. But if you're not a patron kind of person, you can always send us a one-off tip on PayPal whenever you're stoked with one of our videos. And if you don't dig PayPal either, on our website, you'll find other options to support us with cryptocurrencies. And lastly, if you're not in a financial position to support, no stress. As I said, my aim was always to be able to publish content freely for everyone. So even if you can't afford to be a patron, our content will always be available to you for free. Thanks for listening to my long-ass video. I want to wish all of you and your families a happy, healthy, and above all meaningful new year. Giordano signing off, and we'll catch you soon for more genuine satire. Authorised by the pub. I don't know what you're gonna do to me. Authorised, okay, wait, wait. Authorised by the pub. All right, okay, wait. Authorised by the Department of Genuine Satire.