 RCR with Paul Brennan, reality check radio. Boy, that Friday morning rolls around pretty quick, doesn't it? I always look forward to Friday morning because it's the morning we do our political panel. And here we go again with Olivia Pearson. Hi, Olivia. Oh, good morning, Paul. Marty Gibson is back again in his... He's got an old microphone. You look like you have someone from the 30s about to make some sort of speech into an old microphone. Marty, people could see that. It's risked doing a glass of ours, so... A glass of ours, did you say? A glass of ours. Oh, so it is. Yeah, a glass of ours. Cutting-edge technology. How are you doing, Paul? Yeah, good. And Cam Slater, of course. Hi, Cam. Hi, Paul. How are you? Good morning. Okay. I think there's so many things around. They all have their own sort of gravitas. Let's start with a few comments that David Seymour has been making about. The man he described on this program as the strange little man. I thought he was talking about himself, but he wasn't. No, I think David Seymour is in a blind panic. I mean, I heard him on Sean Plunkett yesterday. And just losing the plot, even contemplating thinking, even thinking about having to deal with Winston Peters. Because, of course, we saw the News Hub poll released on Wednesday night, which showed that New Zealand First is just hovering under that 5% mark. And at this stage of the election campaign, you'd be a crazy person to bet against Winston Peters getting the 5%. And you're seeing National and ACT together only being able to get a bare majority, just 61 seats. And so it makes sense that you're looking at a three-way government. And, of course, that was matched by the Roy Morgan poll earlier in the week, and then again by the Taxpayers Union Curia poll the week before. And so I think you're seeing David Seymour in a blind panic that he's not gonna have this march towards a two-party government where he gets to control Christopher Luxon rather than sharing that control over Christopher Luxon with Winston Peters, who's far too clever and far too cunning to allow Seymour to play his little hissy fit types of politics. When you described how he sounded with Shawnee, give us an example of that, because I didn't hear that. Well, he's clearly got some talking points because it didn't matter what Sean Plunkett asked him. He comes back to, oh, Winston betrayed us in 2017. And all these sorts of nonsensical arguments that you hear mainly from national party people who have never voted for Winston Peters. So God knows how he's supposed to have betrayed them when they never voted for him. But he was just saying, oh, you can't trust him. You can't do this, you can't do that. He's never delivered anything. But Shawnee never hit him back and said, well, David, what have you ever delivered? Because what has he delivered? He's delivered nothing. He was a lone voice in parliament for two terms. So is he really going to be able to deliver all of these things that he's got there? Or some of them are just so fanciful that not even the national party will entertain them. So I just think he's, it's all he's got. He can't attack the Labour Party because he's not going to get any votes from them. He can only attack national or attack New Zealand first to get votes. Could he lose votes to New Zealand first between now and the day? I think he could because he's now painted himself into a corner by saying he's refusing to do any sort of coalition deal with New Zealand first. So what he's done is actually hand all the cards to Winston Peters that if Seymour is going to stick to that, he's not going to do a deal. But he's telling his voters, he's telling his supporters, I've got no guarantee that I can deliver anything when we are after the election because I won't do a deal with Winston Peters. I won't go into government. I can tell you that Christopher Luxon will do a deal with the devil to be the Prime Minister, including Winston Peters. And Winston and Christopher Luxon will sit there and go, well, okay, where can, where can act and Seymour go if they say they're not going to do that? They're not going to vote against supply for a national New Zealand first government, are they? They're not going to support Labour. They're not going to support the Greens. So what Seymour has taken all his cards off the table, I think it's just bizarre. Olivia, Marty, any thoughts? Well, my main thought is how much unpalatable stuff was national hoping to outsource to act? You know, how many things that they wouldn't have campaigned on would they have, Christopher Luxon have twisted his metaphorical hair into pigtails and said, well, you know, coalition agreement, you know, and is that what we're seeing Seymour freak out about that maybe they'd had a chat about that and it's just upsetting as plans? In that interview, Sean started off by saying he used the term likelihood that New Zealand first, maybe in Parliament and David went back and forth with him on that because Sean denied saying that it was likely and Seymour kept saying, look, you making me have to comment on a hypothetical. And Seymour was saying that he feels that Winston has no no real path into even being a kingmaker. And so they went back and forth over whether it was likely or not. It was actually a little bit silly. But yeah, I mean, Seymour seemed to be saying that a vote for Winston was a vote for Labour. Well, that's bollocks because Winston Peters has come out just this week and on News Talks ZB and in Radio New Zealand, saying is no way he's going to support supply or do any deal or do anything with Labour. They are racists and he won't do deals with them. You know, and I think what we're seeing from David Seymour is a bit of a reaction to a fundraising meeting he had this week, of which I know a couple of people who were at it. And this, you know, David Seymour has talked a big game on co-governance and talked a big game on free speech and all of that. And these donors were at this meeting with David Seymour and they put it to him about one bill in particular, the Coastal Areas Bill, where national is seen to be very squishy on that and would happily sign up handing over our beaches and fishing areas to Maori elites. And ACT was seen, you know, seen by these people as perhaps a party that would oppose that. And they got the distinct impression from David Seymour that whilst he talks a big game in public about this in private to them, he was shown to be very, very squishy. And they've told me there's no way they're going to give any money to ACT now after that meeting. And I think David Seymour's got that message and he's realised how, you know what, that's the boat that Winston's driving. That's the thing that Winston is big on. He is hostile, incredibly hostile to co-governance. He's very hostile to foreign influence in New Zealand, which the National Party, of course, announced this week that they're going to happily to take big swadges of Chinese cash, you know, back the dump truck up. So Winston Peters is now taking that thunder that David Seymour has had to himself for three years and cannibalising ACT's vote. And what we're seeing is this blind panic from David Seymour. He wouldn't describe it. He wouldn't have made that comment about Labour vote for Winston, his vote for Labour after what Winston said if he wasn't feeling like he was in a corner. Yeah. Well, it's all over Twitter, I've noticed. Just the average New Zealander is that's weighing up whether to vote for ACT or whether to vote for New Zealand first. That's a very common three coming through is that if they vote for Winston, they'll end up getting Labour again. I'm not sure how they make that equation other than they think that Vincent Winston might lie and change his mind. But I think that Winston's been, as Ken was saying, super clear that he will not go with Labour. And I actually do believe him on that. That's a legacy of Winston derangement syndrome from the media for about the last 10 years, I would say. I think you're right. All right. Well, that's that's interesting. Let's see how that one goes. We'll get back maybe to talking about Chinese funding roads shortly, but there's a huge, probably the biggest political story on the planet right now. And that is Devon Arch's testimony. And he's just been on, I see, with with Tucker Carlson, too. And there's more to come on that. He's a he's a suave looking guy. And but what he's been saying so far is, I would say, sensational, Olivia, sensational. Well, look, I mean, the House Oversight Committee member, Daniel Goldman, you know, the guy from New York, who's been pushing this, said on Monday to CNN, to Anderson Cooper, that the House Republicans investigation into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden needed to end now because it was bad during a private citizen. I mean, I just found that after what we've seen them do to Trump for all this time, if you've ever seen bad during of a private citizen, it's been what they've done to Trump. But Goldman, you know, he said, it's true. It's truly stunning to me. This is a taxpayer funded defense and political arm of Donald Trump. Devin Archer's testimony confirms that Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his multiple times. So many times we've all lost count when he said his son's business dealings that he was not involved in them. And Joe Biden was the brand that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family, the Biden crime family, the crime family. After also Archer's testimony about Shokin, remember the baris, the prosecutor, yep. Yes, the the the prosecutor looking into the barisma dealings confirms that the Republican version of events explaining Joe Biden's big boast in 2018 that, you know, remember that son of a bitch. Yeah, son of a bitch and that he had Shokin fired. Democrats have always tried to argue, especially during the 2019 impeachment investigation of Trump, that Shokin was some self corrupt and that his firing was the position of the US government and basically the whole entire global community as well. But no, after the testimony, it shows you that Trump's version of events that because of Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution. That turns out to have been correct all the time. So, yeah, it was an amazing testimony by threatening to withhold a billion dollars of aid of aid. But but but worse than that, Olivia. He confirmed that they were paid paid to do that. Yeah, that was a they were paid to play to get Joe Biden. They were paid by barisma to get Joe Biden to sec Shokin. Yeah, absolutely, they were. But I mean, the whole it's been bribery all the way along. And that was always clear to me because they because of what they leveled at Trump, you know, we know this that, you know, whatever the Dems accuse the Trump of doing, they've done themselves going all the way back to Hillary, giving them the Iranian one deal with Russia. I mean, if anybody's colluded with Russia, it's been the Democrats very deeply incredible. Yeah, but yeah, good that Devon Archer has made this testimony necessary. And of course, they tried so hard to stop him, didn't they? By starting his prison sentence last Saturday, the Democrats didn't want him to make that testimony. So you knew it would be bad. So, yeah, it is the biggest story in the world because it confirms the that confirms the corruption. I don't think anyone's surprised. I'm certainly not surprised as is anyone on this panel surprised at Devon Archer's testimony. Well, not at all. And with the Ukraine war going on, you have to wonder if by if there's something that is in the machinations of the biting crime family is is propelling that war because it could have ended, right? It could have ended. And remember, we're supporting that war. We're supporting it. We've put money into it. So, I mean, there's all these questions up in the air. And just remember, three hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand Ukrainian men. And that's not the civilians apparently dead so fast. So this is this is horrible, potentially horrible. I mean, God knows what's going on in the Ukraine. There are some very, very tokeling stories that I've seen and heard. It's just had to get verification of what's true and what's propaganda. But, you know, there are Russian soldiers coming out, saying that they've found, you know, warehouses full of children. Yeah, child trafficking and organ harvesting. So is is the leader of the free world involved in this? We've got to ask that question. Well, I don't think you can call him a leader. OK, well, you know, the metaphorical. Demeter and chief diaper wearer. Yeah. Yeah. Let's call pants. Well, look, I mean, from, you know, if sound of freedom is anything to go by, this is happening all over the world. It's happening in America and the politicians and very high up. People have everything to do with it. Ukraine has the highest surrogacy level, the largest surrogacy business in the world. Wow, just saying. Surrogacy as in rent a room, rent a room, right? Sorry, Marty, you're going to say something. Oh, just the thing that bothers me most about it is the coverage of the whole thing in New Zealand really disturbs me that we kind of meant to believe that. Biden is a as a functional US president and we don't hear anything about Hunter. We don't hear anything about Merrick Garland and the DOJ's very, very quiet treatment of this because of the extent of the cover up. And, you know, then you've got the Republicans who, you know, are holding off on talking impeachment because they're worried it's going to cost them the house. You know, even even as the DOJ is being weaponized against the most likely candidate for president from the Republicans. So yeah, it's an extraordinary lack of courage and honesty, isn't it? I mean, Biden's dementia was very clear during the 2020 election and all those debates leading up to it. It was so obvious. And remember how Chris Wallace had to play nursemaid in that debate? That was embarrassing. And he ended up debating Trump himself from the mediator chair. It was absolutely. It could be that the Republicans are trying to pace this out to to nullify the effects of of Trump and sort of time out an impeachment with what rolls out with Trump. So we don't know. But are they are they mental? I mean, honestly, you know, they've got all of these things that they're persecuting Trump with. And Trump must be sitting there rubbing his hands with Glee because next year is election year. And he's going to be front and centre and leading every single news item for months on end with these multiple cases that are out there. Yeah, they started so they start the trial start in March and they staggered all the way through the year, aren't they? All the way through the year. Trump's going to be news and it's going to be Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. The name recognition is going to be through the roof. And the longer it goes on and the lack of evidence that shine, it's going to only help Trump. And the Democrats think somehow, like, honestly, I think Trump right now would have to be caught hanging out the back of a goat for him to take any hit in his polls because this sort of stuff just just reinforces you know, the belief that the Democrats are unhinged and that this is nothing but political persecution. And then people generally like a fair go. And then what they're seeing is that's not a fair go. This isn't a fair go that that Trump's getting on this. And they'll vote for him on that basis. And that's if they can vote for him because timings are everything. If he is found by a jury to be guilty on any of those indictments, he can't run. The Supreme Court might decide to overturn them later on. But in the meantime, they've snook at him from running. I just think it's so obvious that this is a hit job on Trump and always has been so many Democrats have woken up to that. Who said who came out? The Oliver Stone came out the other day and said that he regretted voting for Biden in 2020. He saw that. Yeah. I mean, biggest lefty in the world. And didn't we have Blinken and the husband of Kamala Harris in the country this week? Speaking to your point, Marty, no one asked them about this at all. Well, we're still talking about the Democrats. You know, we've got to be talking about the military industrial complex. Yeah. And, you know, the Republicans are the most military industrial. But he had a news conference. They were journalists there. They could have thrown in a question to Blinken. Oh, I didn't see that. But but, you know, if you're still thinking Democrat versus Republican, you're still, you know, you've got those partisan blinkers on still. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's military industrial complex controls the media as well. So, you know, the danger is what's it going to do as people, as it stops working and people start, you know, rather like, I guess, they're doing with New Zealand first, you could argue. And they're they're going against the program. And, you know, are we going to see the next thing unleashed? I mean, you know, in this in this latest iteration of a Trump indictment, Democrats are trying so hard to crucify Trump for the egregious sin in their minds of trying to hold a line on investigating and calling out their own ubiquitous and obvious and in your face wrongdoing in the 2020 election. It's exactly the same modus operandi as the original Trump impeachment, where Trump was decried in the most hateful manner on every single media orifice in the world for trying to investigate and bring to light Biden's wrongdoing in the Ukraine. It's become such a clear pattern and to use that good phrase, it's squid ink squirted out as a camouflage so Democrats can hide, hide, deny and obfuscate. And of course, Democrats have a nice big fat euphemism for that. And it's called plausible deniability. Yes. So what are they hiding? Well, I mean, because he's all about draining the swamp and stuff. So there's obviously a fear that if Trump gets in the games up. Trump's attorney's been going around on all the different channels. He was on CNN the other day and he was saying the one thing I will say in 2020, Mr. Trump's campaign had a very difficult time presenting evidence. I mean, no kidding, we watched that and he went on and said, but we now have the ability to issue our own subpoenas. We will relegate every single issue of the 2020 election in the context of this litigation because it gives President Trump an opportunity that he's never had before, which is to have subpoena power. And of course, that's because they now have the Congress, the House. Of course. I mean, you just seeing your total idiocy, you know, the prosecutor who's filed these charges against Trump for January 6th is saying this is an appalling attack on the nation's capital. It's unprecedented. It's never happened before. Well, that's bollocks because in 18 in 1814, British forces invaded and occupied Washington, D.C. after defeating an American force at Bledensburg. They bombed the capital in the Treasury building. So it's not unprecedented. It was known as the burning of Washington. Buildings was this is what the British did. And then because of the firestorm that they created, they actually had to abandon the city after 24 hours. Now, that is it was a war. That was the British. Remember, they declared independence in 1776. Yes, that's quite a while afterwards. So this is 40 years later, right? That the British invaded, you know, in the War of 1812, occupied Washington, D.C. and burnt it to the ground. And now these clowns and the Democrats and this Democrat prosecutor are coming out, you know, saying that that the insurrection of January 6th was the worst thing we've ever seen. It's bollocks and it's bollocks then and it's bollocks now. Well, the L.A. riots were worse than that. Yeah, weren't they? I mean, much worse, January the 6th. And we've been that wasn't an insurrection. No way that can ever be said to angry people saying down with this sort of thing. Yeah, and with the FBI leading the way. Yeah, it was jinged up. Yeah, totally jimmed up. It was actually the insurrection was from FBI plants. Yeah, yeah, right. But if American Democrats seriously seriously do try President Trump, you know, former President Trump, but, you know, on a First Amendment issue, as this last indictment actually is, they will lose. So bring it on. I say, bring it on. Yeah, but they might lose, but they might stop them from. As you know, they're going to try, you know, they will definitely try. But I, you know, again, you know, God bless the man for having the heart to do the do this again. And I don't think they'll get away with it this time. And the whole Western world needs to see America brandish this profound principle, the First Amendment, into the current culture so that it can be underscored once more with the importance it deserves, because that principle came from America. Well, it was originally a British principle, but it was really got set in stone in America in federal law and went into every democracy, including our own, from there. And we all need to see the First Amendment become inviolate again. Anyone have anything more to say on this? Well, it didn't stop the feds colluding with Facebook and Twitter and, you know, getting around the First Amendment. The Facebook files is really interesting, isn't it? No, it all needs strengthening up. And it's just whether that many billion dollars of vested interest is going to allow it to happen. You must have seen in the last, even the month, last month, I've noticed how hard it is to research anything, you know, to find a contrary view on an orthodoxy. You know, newsguards just, I think, really kicked in in New Zealand because if you if you search up anything, you just get a whole lot of government agencies. Well, it's really hard to find contrarian views. So you've noticed a difference, a change? I have just, I don't know whether you guys have, but in the last few months, I've noticed it's just pages of official UN government department stuff. Is that on regular search engines or on climate change? If I'm looking up anything on climate change, it's really difficult to get something that is against the orthodoxy. Well, you know, that's the next one, right? That's how you know. That's I mean, they're all linked. What's the solution to climate change? We print billions of dollars and give it countries like Ukraine. Yeah. OK, all right. Yeah, fascinating. And I'm sure we'll be talking about that some more. OK, what do we talk about next on my list? I've got and we just touched on it before. National would absolutely take money from China to pay for roads. Is this the Belt and Road course thing? I can't believe that Christopher Luxon said that quite the doubt. Loud. I just can't believe like he was asked a question and he didn't just say, oh, yeah, sure. We'll look at, you know, taking money from anywhere. He was specifically asked about Chinese money. And we all know that Chinese money is CCP money, which means that it comes with hooks and, you know, clauses and all sorts of fish hooks in it everywhere. And he didn't just say, oh, no, well, you know, we'll have to be careful. He said absolutely, absolutely will accept Chinese money. And of course, the National Party has been accepting Chinese money for a long time. They've still got all the money from the Chinese donors. They never paid it back and never gave it back. They've still got it in their accounts, despite a court case finding those people guilty. All right, so National is a lock for the CCP. And it goes back to John Key's time when he was crawling crawling up with Z, you know, trying to be there the whole time. You know, and since he's left Parliament, he's been always shilling Chinese interests in the Herald and various other places. It's all because he wants a board position on a big Chinese bank. And he's the guy that's behind Christopher Luxon. And so this is a John Key push to continue the CCP influence of the National Party and the inroads that that money brings the Chinese into our government. And I think it should be opposed. Well, the glib way that Christina Luxon, as Lindsay calls him, smiled and talked about letting Communist China loan us this money and manpower because that's what that means to to fix our roads because we can either afford it and we couldn't get the workers to do it anyway. No one wants to get out of bed anymore. That's not a good place for a country like ours to be. And all this after Wuhan, all this after everything this happened coming out of China with absolutely no comeback. The only the only thing global hegemonists like China love more than debt are small countries rich in resources and agriculture without strong standing armies, navies and air forces. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Sounds like us. I mean, you know, Luxon's just I think he's he's either stupid or naive. If he had if he came, if he had any brains, he'd be a halfwit. You know, if brains would if brains were dynamite, he wouldn't have enough to blow his nose on this issue. You know, the thing is, he says that says, you know, glib things like, oh, whether you're on an EV or whether you're on a hydrogen truck. I mean, who talks about being on on a vehicle on it's bizarre. Hop on the car. You're going to need very good and resilient roads. Well, if that's the case, Chris Christopher, mate, Christina, it ain't Chinese roads. Just ask everywhere else around the world that's had Chinese build their roads and and find out just how appalling they are. You don't have to go very far. A short flight to Fiji. Go have a look at the roads the Chinese built that that just crap. And and he's got this naive, you know, polyannish view that if we just trade with these tyrants, that they'll become better tyrants. Surely someone should have like helped him read the room. Well, he actually agreed when they said through the Belt and Road initiative. Yeah. I mean, I spoke to a Chinese businessman when I was in Australia and he was talking about going from I think Shanghai to Beijing on the train at 300 kilometers now. You know, so what the Chinese are doing and what the Russians are doing is getting into that gap that's left by this. I mean, the Chinese word is by Joe, which is, you know, all the all the ladies with purple hair are begging for Muslim refugees to come into their countries. You know, they just can't understand it. But, you know, I mean, if you look at there was a World World Bank assessment of the Belt and Road initiative, which said it's going to reduce travel times by 12 percent, increase trade by, you know, around nine percent, increase income three percent and lift seven million people from extreme poverty. So they're stepping into that madness of reducing carbon that the West's been infected by. And, you know, for all that the Chinese and Russians are evil on some level, they're not, you know, they're not totally evil in the same way as the Americans aren't totally good. You know, the climate change stuff, you can't tell me that China and Russia aren't actually funding these green lunatics to do this, to novel Western economies so that they can come along and say, ah, here you go, have a nice bit of our little helping hand spirit in the spirit of cooperation. You have some money. You know, I've got horrible visions of Chinese LAVs touring the country, you know, with a carrier group off the coast. I think it'll happen. Well, yeah, if the Chinese can't project power yet, yet they don't have a carrier with us far off. Well, if you see if NATO keep pushing like they did with Putin, because they are pushing China all the time and trying to vilify them at the moment, I mean, it's not that they're good. I know that they're communists and stuff, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if NATO are capable of goading China into a war. Well, NATO don't have any ammo, though. So what the hell are they doing? Unless they've got the extra terrestrial technology that everyone's been talking about, and we just don't realize it. That's been interesting. Laser beams. Well, anti-gravity. Though Italy has left the Belt and Road. They did that last week. Well, I mean, Scott Morrison did on them. Yeah, the federal level, Scott Morrison didn't approve of anything being signed for the Belt and Road Initiative. But what's his name, old dictator Dan? He's into it. And Victoria, yeah, I mean, he made all these deals left, right and center with China and the Belt and Road Initiative, just like he's done behind the scenes. We should. Aborigines. We shouldn't be surprised. The Italians quickly marched backwards out of the Belt and Road. They are the silver medal winners of marching backwards with the French. French of the gold, the Argentinians of bronze is a question. And apart from potholes, are our roads really that bad? Yes, they are. They rubbish. Like, OK, in what way? Truck around with a hot mix in the back, fixing them. And yeah, I mean, the geology of New Zealand doesn't help the new the new bitumen's crap, you know, the important bitumen. The 55 ton limit for trucks. We used to make it at the at the refinery, right? We used to. Yeah. So what they've done is imported this new green bitumen. And it's it's just not working, you know, for lightweights. Green bitumen. Yeah, yeah, supposedly a lower carbon footprint. It was all ordered by by Meaghan Woods, the seller Dodger. By Asia. Now, was it national that was talking about a twenty nine billion dollar transport spend? Or am I imagining that? Is that what they were talking about? Yeah. Yeah. I thought New Zealand was broke. How can we afford that? That they're going to borrow it off the Chinese. It's China, right? By swapping dairy products from China, Chinese we did butter for ladders back in the eighties. Butter for ladders and scoters. Remember that there's scoters. I used to have to drive past the ladder where they put all the ladders when they came into the country. There were hundreds and hundreds of ladders. Yeah, they're not attractive vehicles. I don't think many have stayed on the road long. Put it that way. It was a poor facsimile for a fiat and even those were bad. Yeah, they bought the tooling, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah, OK. All right, so so that's that and let's stay local and I'll just bring up my little thing again because I've just bailed out of it for some reason. OK, what's this about Clarey Swarbrick saying the labor playing politics with ram raid crackdown not based on evidence? Well, we see it in the news all the time. That's evidence. Well, that's right. And it's just the hip hop. This is the thing with Green Party people. They cover themselves with a shield of sanctumini and have a cloak of hypocrisy that allows them to say bizarre and crazy things that any sensible person can drive a truck through their argument. So Chloe Swarbrick comes out and she says the Labor Party's cracking down on ram raids. There's no evidence that this is going to work. You know, she says it's gutting that she will see that that that they're doing this. And she says just there's, you know, she looks forward to seeing evidence based policies and that these are non evidence based policies and they don't work. And of course, she's a grand proponent of emptying the prison. She actually wants prisons abolished. And we're seeing this rise in in street crime because the Labor Party with the appels and the Greens have emptied the prisons, reduced the prison population by 37 percent. It should be no surprise, but it just astonishes me that these fools talk about evidence based policy. When what is the proposal to deal with it? Well, the proposal to deal with it from Labor is ambulance at the bottom of the at the cliff sort of stuff, right? Well, we're going to increase penalties. Penalties mean nothing to these people. The criminal piece, right? They're talking about emptying the prisons and at the same time, we're talking about increasingly. It just doesn't work. So what gets me is that the Green Party talks about evidence based policies. Well, if they're going to talk about evidence based policies, well, when are they going to admit that their opposition to genetic engineering and genetic modification after 35 years is more than enough evidence to see that it's OK? When are they going to admit that we should have nuclear power stations in New Zealand? Because that's the most efficient power, the lowest greenhouse gases of any power generation, but they're opposed to that. I'm for that. So if they're going to, this is where the other media just frustrate me. They say, oh, that's great. You're wanting to have evidence based solutions. Yeah, why didn't they say to a, well, actually, we've got strong evidence from your own electorate, Chloe, that soft sentencing instead of prison for an assault perpetrator who strangled his partner, right, let out given five months. No, not even in prison, five months on home detention. There's evidence right there that soft sentencing doesn't work because he went out and shot two people in his in her electorate. Did she ever rise in the years closed when you just said that, you know, harsher sentences are not going to make much difference. So she might have a point in a way. Well, no, that she's saying that there's no evidence that harsher sentences stop criminals committing crime when they get out, and it's probably true. But here's the thing, if they're in prison, they're not on the streets committing crime while they're in prison. Yeah, and that's the point of prison, isn't it? It's that these people can't live without harming people. Therefore, we put them away. Yeah, yeah, the risk of getting caught is a major deterrent. Yeah, well, they've got to catch and release policy anyway. But, you know, that guy who strangled his partner and got five months home, D, if he had been put in prison, two people would still be going to work today. Yeah, and two, two sets of families would have their fathers, you know. And on the flip side of that, we've got the judiciary that are jailing people for speaking freely in the streets or putting up a target at a rifle range. Yeah, jailing them. But people who actually commit harm, physical harm on people are getting home detention. If you look at the evidence they talk about, I remember back in early June, there was a drive on that, you know, prisons don't work thing. And I did a bit of a dive into one of the guys who was quoted. It was Dr. John Buttle, who was a senior lecturer at AOT, A-U-T School of Social Sciences and Policy. And you read his stuff. And I don't know if you've read much Neo Marxist academic stuff, but it's just so fluffy, you know, you get assertions and you look for a reference and there's none. You look for numbers and there's none. And I remember one of the sentences. That's why you don't read it, Marty. Well, you've got to because, you know, what they're doing is based on it. He basically said, oh, they don't work. They'll never work. They do not deter. They do not rehabilitate. Given this prison abolition is the only sane policy response because it's the only thing that has not been tried. And so that's the sort of level of logic you're dealing with as evidence. Until someone comes to his door, smashes it down and and Rob's beats him up and robs everything in the house. Well, as theodore Dalrymple said, it's a common misconception among liberals that if there were more justice in the world, there'd be fewer people in jail. Yeah, exactly. All right, do we have anything more to say about that? Let's get on to the she's another one. Chloe, she's another one. If she if she had any brains, she'd be a halfwit. Yeah, OK. All right. New data shows that the percentage of school leavers attending or attaining NCEA level two has consistently fallen under labor. Just 59 percent of Maori students attained level two 2022 and 10 percent drop since 2017. Yeah. Going backwards, it's damning. And I guess the reason I'm so keen to talk to these kind of stats at any opportunity is because I get so sick of talking about gangs and crime. It all comes from this and you've got to really start start asking the question, well, where are the Maori leaders on this? You know, you've got this graph showing Maori school leavers. You know, they've gone from about maybe 69 percent of them getting NCEA level two, which is ginned up anyway, so it looks much better than it is. Going from 69 percent around 2017. And now it's kind of around 58 percent. And the flow on effects that that has in people's lives is is appalling. You know, if you get some kid who spends 10 years in these union approved schooling systems and can't read. They just got 14 and a half percent pay rise, too, by the way. But yeah, this is the sort of stuff this is the sort of stuff that Alan Duff was talking about when he brought out Once for Warriors. It's the sort of stuff that that yesterday on my show, Brian Tamaki was talking about, that we we know one is actually prepared to say we have a Maori problem in crime statistics and all of those, which also stems from what Alan Duff was saying in that we've got a Maori problem in education as well. And no one's actually saying we've got a boy problem in education and a man problem in crime as a result of the lack of education, the lack of opportunities that then derive from being stupid and having no qualifications. And because the vast majority of violent criminals are stupid. I don't know if you've ever spoken to any reasonable sized groups of of hardened criminals. You know, I've spoken to a couple of guys at the church, you know, with the Grace Foundation, one guy had, you know, killed a couple of people. His tattoo showed the story of his of his time in jail. And he said to me, you're not afraid of me. And I said, well, you're just a bloke. I'm having a chat because I've killed people. I went, well, that was stupid. And we carried on talking and nobody when you actually talk to these guys, they really are dumb. And that's a fault of their parenting. It's a fault of their upbringing. It's a fault of the education system. And it's a failure in the justice system as well. Interesting how school at the only school that seems to be really have that those issues nailed down as some St. Paul's. When Charles before they were abolished on the first day that Labour took power. Yeah. But St. Paul's and just up the road in Ponsonby. He they they've got, I think, a 90 percent U.E. race, it's all some on Samaris. They they have they got a new headmaster a few years ago, and he really turned that school around, which shows you that it's it can be done. And discipline is a huge factor there, but also a real real focus on academia. They're doing the rainbow stuff. No, they don't do the rainbow stuff. I mean, they're a Catholic school that just seem to guess what? They just want to educate their kids. Yeah, the child. How weird is that? It's all centered in the true way rather than allowing children to to be trans. But, you know, Thomas Sowell, you know, the American like American academic from Harlem wrote that book in, I think, two thousand and twenty charter schools and their enemies. And, you know, it's the examples he had in that we had one, you know, they put them in the same building often. And in one, you've got the public school students where seven percent of them passed the math test, while down the hall in the charter school, 100 percent passed the test. Yeah, you know, these are the same kids. And the unions don't want the unions because they they don't want it because it shows them up and the money leaders actually benefit from the two to are being done, you know, as the proverb goes, the converse the food of chiefs is conversation, the food of commoners is inattention that it suits them just fine to have these kids crashing out of the academic system and thinking that all their problems come from Parkhouse. And that drives, you know, why not ram rate to shop? Yeah. Well, you can also trade off that, can't you? That's what the endless programs that. Yeah. You can take a ticket on millions and millions of dollars of programs that we've you look at the last six years alone, how many millions of dollars in that have been set aside for for Maori programs to help them with this and help them with health and help them. If you look at it over decades, over 30 years, it's billions and billions of dollars that have been poured into these what they call vulnerable areas, right? I saw a statistic yesterday, something like 90 percent of funerals in on, you know, around Gisborne in that area are paid for by the state through winds grants, 90 percent. The average in the whole country is 10 percent. So we've got vast areas of New Zealand, Northland in particular, the East Coast of the North Island, as well, that are impoverished. And we've poured billions of dollars into these programs. Who gets the money? Well, that's a selected group of in crowds. And I was looking at Manaki Tairawhiti, which is, you know, a program that was held up by the Productivity Commission as being an exemplary. It's the same old faces. You know, the same old people who keep it bumping along in last place and and, you know, always hold themselves up as being the spigot through which all public funding must flow and they just don't deliver. Well, also, there's there is an absolutely massive cultural component to all this ram raiding and negativity amongst youth and crime. And I mean, they, you know, they they idolise gang members and they idolise gangster culture from the States and films filled with filled with violence and computer games and playstations and all that sort of stuff. And I mean, if they think it's cool and badass, you know, to to commit crimes, that's what they're going to do. They they need better heroes. Well, it's not their parents. That's the problem. That's what Brian Tamaki was saying to me just yesterday on my show that we are not creating parental role models. And these kids aren't going to school. The statistics show that and their role models are gang members. And why are we surprised that we've got a problem with youth crime in New Zealand? Because the only role models they've got are criminals. And the victimology that, you know, dished out colonialism's fault. You know, well, and that other incentive pressure that governments love anything that makes people demand less freedom and more government gangs fit that bill. Fatherless kids fit that bill, prisons that don't reform fit that bill. But you see that seeping in because it was a news item on Wednesday night about how at one of the, you know, World Cup soccer games at Eden Park that the fire alarm had got off. And then there's some woke sort of wet, liberal, hand-ringing bloke standing there going, but there was nobody to tell us what to do. Yeah. Yeah. He literally was saying that. There was no one to make. Did you see any smoke? Right. That's where the fire is. Right. When the fire alarm goes off, you look around. Where am I not going to head? I'm not going to head towards the smoke. I'm going to I'm going to go on the field. I'm going to exit. This is how many people do, but they're told by the government. He wanted to be told what to do by someone presumably wearing a day a dayglow vest of some for the road cone board wearing, you know, jobs worth just telling what to do because there's a fire alarm when you knew those people existed prior to did we? We were we always assumed, you know, there are some people who like people telling them what to do, you know, who like telling people what to do. And there are some people who hate people telling them what to do. We didn't realize there was a huge group, big group of people who like being told what to do. I know who would have loved it. It reminds me of Mark Stein's comment around that time where he said, you know, we're we've dumbed ourselves down beyond our capacity to survive. Yeah, that's all good. You know, and and I think that that's you see that everywhere from being having the need to be told what to do. I mean, use your own brain for goodness sakes, why God gave you one? Make your own calls. But the trouble is that it's like it's like losing your own humanity. The trouble is, Olivia, that when God was giving out the brains, most of these people thought he said trains and they all asked for a slow one. On the ram raids, surely, and I can see why they did it, but putting tobacco up ridiculously high price has been driving a lot of this. It's more expensive than dope. So what? What? How dumb was that? It's incredibly done. I mean, who cares if a few extra people smoke, but it's predictable. It has happened everywhere in the world. Bhutan is a classic case. They ramped up taxes on tobacco in Bhutan and the black market surged, crime surged, all sorts of things. And they went, why did that happen? Well, because you made it so obvious to me, you know. So lower the price of tobacco. Yeah, it's good and give it free to the homeless because all I see them doing is going through rubbish bins. It's very demeaning. Go and hand it out to them. Well, I've always said to Winston privately, you know, that you got it wrong with the gold card. Winston, instead of giving it to pensioners, you should have given a gold card to smokers because they've paid billions and billions of dollars and extra tax in their lifetime. And then they pig out before they get to get any benefits from it. So they should actually have the gold card now. From 30 onwards. Yeah. And the other thing, getting back to NCEA, Marty, you know, and I mentioned that the teachers have had quite a whopping pay increase. I wonder what the panel thinks. Is that a payoff to teachers to vote for labor this election? Of course, the most numerous union occupation in parliament is ex-teacher, followed by ex-union organisers. So if you ever wondered what a country run by teachers and unionists was like, here we are. Well, you know, they say a king heads up a kingdom and prince heads up a principality in New Zealand's a country. I think I get that. OK, last subject. Secret Aboriginal land rights deal set to give indigenous groups sweeping powers over 10 Victorian of Victoria. Again, here we go. Council spanning half the size of Tasmania. The continent of Tasmania, as Les Patterson used to say. The triangle shaped continent. I haven't come from Australia. I did have a chat with some of my Aussie mates about this. And I was saying, mate, you're getting played. You know, it's that old thing, you know, that the Aboriginal people or indigenous people generally are just a lever for people who want to disenfranchise citizens from their own countries. You're not legitimately here, right? You're a colonizer. You don't belong here. So it just takes the fight out of them. And I was sort of saying that to them and that wouldn't result in better outcomes for Aborigines. And they just had that too tired to fight thing. You know, just like, oh, you know, they probably should get something. I used to work at Waringa Council when I lived in Sydney for a bit. Just when I first got there and the council had been sacked and I had to go around offices. And, you know, I think the mayor's office was vacant. I had a huge liquor cabinet and so I used to have a couple of Bloody Marys in the morning. I used to go out and raise the flag. And I'd have a bit of a glow on and there'd be a passing. I was, you know, I'd say, excuse me, a bit short staffed. It's regulations that you have to salute while I'm raising the flag. So I'd raise the flag. And they'd do it. Citizens, they're saluting me. And then I'd have to raise the Aboriginal flag. And I'd say, and while I'm raising this one, if you can just bow down and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But yeah, I mean, this is, it's similar to what's happening in New Zealand. I mean, you look at ABC did a fact check on it because some conservative think tank said that, you know, they could look at New Zealand and see, you know, what was going to happen. And, you know, then it said the ABC fact check and said, but that's not how the experts see it. With Richard Boest, a law professor at Wellington's Victoria University labelling the statement as absurd and completely unfounded. Now, he's a treaty lawyer. It comes from the, well, he would say that. Of course, yeah. And then he quoted some other lady, Clare Charters, a law professor with Auckland University who's told checkmate it was incorrect and it doesn't make sense. She's a treaty lawyer. She's worked under it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's exactly the same thing as what's happened here. It's giving the Indigenous people the rights over our water, their water in Australia, their rates, what they can do on their land. You know, if they want to move a little patch of soil from there to there or dig your 20 kilos. I mean, it's nothing, is it? Yeah, it's a post hole. The person who's been vociferously outraged is, again, Gina Reinhart over the mine. Is he splendid? I think she's wonderful. She's just splendid, you know. Yeah, but it's not for the Indigenous people, is it? It's for the last people on the list. Yeah. Women thought the Rockefellers and the CIA were doing them a big favour, sponsoring feminism. But what they were sponsoring was division and demoralisation of their most likely opponents. And it's the same with all this Indigenous stuff, division and demoralisation. They did. All part of the plan, eh? It is all exactly part of the anti-colonialist push, which is so ridiculous, because we don't really have colonialism anymore. What have the British ever done for us? Yeah. Well, and I mean, I'm sick of it. They can criticise all they like, but will they ever provide anything as good as what we have hitherto known so far? They won't. It's just decline. They're just manufacturing decline. Well, we all live on the planet, and that's where it ends. Well, we're seeing that now, though, like, you know, we used to have child youth and family, and then it got renamed to Oranga Tamariki, because, you know, if we give something a Maori name, it's going to be better. That's what this government has told us. It's also $150,000 for rebranding for someone. And, well, I'm sure it was more than $150,000. Well, that's just the one person, yeah. Yeah. So they do this, right? And then we get everything renamed. We've seen the health system renamed to two fat whores or something, whatever it is, you know? I don't know what it is, but it hasn't made things better. You know, these Oranga Tamariki is so bad that even the Maori Party says that even though it's been marrified and that they're looking at this, it's actually a construct of colonialism and we need to, you know, have permission from whanau, iwi, hapu, et cetera. They've just got no recognition that actually they're the problem, not the organizations. People who are educated show up for appointments and that makes all the difference. I'm always anxious, you know, when we're talking about this, you know, not to come across as being anti-Maori because it just backs them into a corner. I feel like, you know, at the end of dances with wolves, you know, I feel like that Indian on the ridge who's shouting at John Dunbar saying, Winden is here. Yeah, Winden is here. You know, dancers with wolves, do you see that I'm your friend? Do you see that I will always be your friend? You know, I feel like that to them. It's like, bros, you're getting played. You know, I'm not your enemy here. I think they know that though, Marti. Ah, I don't know, man. It's it, I feel like there's just too many cheap shots toward Pakihar, you know. They can do it because there's no one's even gonna say, are you racist? No, that's right. It's, I mean, the racist card is always effective to use as an argument, although it's becoming more and more mean. No, that's wearing off now, I would suggest. Well, as I said in that column, you know, it's not racism that is driving objections of white folks in New Zealand to all the stuff. It's that we're a people with a proud history of abolishing slavery and deposing tyrants and multi-leaders like to talk to Pakihar taxpayers like they're slaves. Yeah. Well, is there any hope of getting as big on trick? Oh, don't say it. Too late. Y'all find first. We've got a long way to go. Who's got the best, who's got the best slogan so far? Oh, it has to be Winston. What's his one again? Take back the country or something. We're gonna take back our country, taking back our country. What's Labour's one in it for us or something? Yeah, in it for them. In it for them. Just in it. You can rearrange that and make it finito. Surely they must have realized that that was gonna be meamed, reamed, meamed. Like crazy. Yeah, they don't care anymore. They didn't even come up with it. It was a party in Canada at two elections ago that had that as their slogan. It didn't work for them. So it's not gonna work for the idiots in charge now. Speaking of Canada, True Dose have broken up. Well, he'll be transgender within a month. Yeah. He's going now. He probably wanted to have an operation and his wife wasn't to take him with the idea. She's clearly got more class than him. All right. Okay, well, I think we're there at the end of our political panel for this Friday. Anything to look out for the next week? Cam, you always seem to know what's coming up. Yeah, I think we're gonna see a report that comes out about the Maori Health Authority written by an instant young guy. I'm hearing talk that it is damning, basically saying that the people that have been put in charge of running the Maori Health Authority really shouldn't even be in charge of a fried breadstand at the local A&P show. And they're certainly not fit for office. And so it'll be interesting to see how the media are gonna handle that. Okay. Any final comments before we press the stop button? No, sir. No, that covers it off. Love your show, Cam. We've been enjoying that. Yeah, it was. I'm enjoying doing it. It's fantastic. And hopefully we can get the National Party and the ACT Party to break their embargo. But I'll just keep asking. And if they don't come on, we'll... Why would they have a problem with that, Cam? Well, I don't know because, you know, I've had all sorts on the show from different parties. You know, I'm not combative. I actually have embraced the reality check radio mantra of letting the guests talk. And it is revealing, you know? And politicians are inoculated with gramophone needles and they can't help to talk. And so if the host, like yourself, Paul, and I've taken a lead from you, and Peter Williams are the same, if we actually let these guys talk, we get to find out just who they are. That's not, you know, just sound bites or, you know, wargamed and manufactured to hell by public relations consultants. Once they start talking, you give them an hour of time to talk, they generally cut their own throats. Yeah, that is not in their interest. We're at the first they ignore you part of the cycle, eh? And then they'll laugh at you, mock you. And then we win. Then they realize that the numbers are there. You win, yeah. Well, that's the thing, you know? And like, this is David Seymour's problem. He showed us that his willingness to talk to people by refusing to talk to the protesters at Wellington. He goes on that he just because he met Glenn in wood, you know, a lobbyist for the whaling interests in the back bench of pub that he met leaders of the project. We know, we all know that that's not the case. It would never happen. And, you know, he's, you know, deriding people at meetings. I've got an email today that came in where somebody said, I'm an ex-supporter, but why wouldn't you talk to the protesters? He says, why don't you just sit down and you're boring, shut up and told an ex-supporter at a public meeting to go away? And now we've seen more. And now we've seen with his Winston Peters thing coming out. He's saying, I'm not interested in talking to the 150,000 or so people that are supporting New Zealand first. So he's just showing again, his unwillingness to debate, to discuss, to talk across the lines. And that's what voters want. That's why we brought in MMP, because they want to see people working together. They don't want to see people like David Seymour saying, no, I'm ruling that person out. You know, it's arrogant. It's out of touch. And it shows David, shows us as listeners, as observers of the political animal that's there, that David Seymour is not interested in listening to our people. Oh, and do you think undercurrent went anywhere? Undercurrent, unhinged undercurrent. No, I think I think the undertow took it out. You think people have forgotten about forgotten? It just didn't make a splash, did it? No, well, they had high hopes. Oh, well, you know, it's Radio New Zealand, red radio. You should know. You should know. Why do I do I think for every family out there within the family and the wider family of relatives and family, friends and things, every single person has been touched by what happened in the last three years. They know that people were in their families, were treated appallingly, or they've had vaccine injuries or somebody's died. And I think that, you know, all that stuff is just going to be shown. And one of the things that worries must be a worry for people like Seymour is Winston Peters wanting to do a full COVID inquiry if he gets into government. That's an interesting thing you raised, Olivia. I had drinks here in my apartment last Friday and as an older lady came up from downstairs and she sat there and somehow the talk got round to COVID and the whole thing. She said, you know what, she says, I'm just I'm ashamed that I bought into all of that and I'm ashamed that I was terribly rude to my friends and my family. Well, and I'm ashamed that that I didn't stand up and say, no, this is wrong. We shouldn't be doing this. And I thought, you know, here's somebody who is of an age for those people who do what they're told, right? And she's now come to the realization. Here we are three years later. She's come to the realization that what was done to New Zealand society by the Arden regime, by the tyrant herself has left an appalling scar on society. I had an email to the show, which I didn't read out. The person said they left their name and email address. So it wasn't anonymous that have five members of their family are dead. Well, New Zealand's excess think about that. Twenty five percent, you know, people are dying. Yeah, five members of the family data. Yeah, that's that's horrific, Paul. But I think that this is the thing is that knowing what happened, Seymour was in parliament throughout that entire thing. And we know how absolutely authoritarian he was. It has made him even more arrogant. He's always been arrogant, but it's made him arrogant and cruel. And and so long as they keep speaking in that tone to the Kiwi. So like like what Cam was saying, when he's that rude to people who actually support him when they come into one of his meetings, it's very unattractive. And the average Kiwi finds that repulsive. So and he hasn't learned anything. Well, when he's talking about the productivity report, he's he's saying, you know, if we don't have a good economy, we can't have pharmaceutical drugs. You know, it's the first thing on his list. And you think, well, is that linked to your refusal to talk to people about these terrible injuries and deaths? Yeah, look, I mean, he his campaign has always been funded by Epsom doctors. You know, all that stuff. OK, so I want to thank I want to thank Olivia Pearson. Thank you, Olivia. Good to see you again. Marty Gibson and Cam Slater. And you're a great job with the show. Thank you. And let's do it all again next Friday. Let's have a great week. See you. RCR with Paul Brennan, reality check radio.