But what about the news media? Have they slash we turned a magnifying glass on ourselves and acknowledged the role that we have in the tone of this national discussion?

We are unlicensed, unregulated.

You don't need permission.

You don't need any training before you are unleashed on the public.

And that's just the mainstream media, let alone social media.

Have we turned a good lens on ourselves? Nah, not really.

Well, we all tell ourselves every day that's what we're doing.

You've been around a lot of big stories, but can you think of another domestic story that has raised so many questions for us as a society, a polity, and for us as individuals?

Raf, how about this misleading Palestine party business?

Okay.

Uh, where do I start? Firstly, Avi Yemini, um, avowedly pro-Israel, um, prominent right-wing YouTuber.

The electoral authorities don't say whether or not your party name is right.

The only thing they adjudicate on is whether or not you've got five, 500 signed-up members of your political party.

So Avi Yemini comes up with the tactic Free Palestine under the old voting system that has now been gotten rid of, because people used to essentially string together a whole lot of the minor parties.

It was called vote harvesting.

We sure are

Should Ben Carroll emerge as our next Labor leader and Labor premier, he will have my congratulations and unqualified support.

So everyone then assumes, or at least everyone outside of the Labor Party caucus goes, "Oh well, easy done.

There's no other contender.

Ben Carroll will be it." Soon, it comes out that, "Oh, hang on," the Jacinta, um, Allan loyalist, Sonya Kilkenny, who also happens to be the attorney general and the planning minister and the finance minister, "Oh, no, no.

Sonya Kilkenny's gonna contest the leadership." That immediately raised the prospect between about 10 and 11 o'clock, "Well, hang on.

That means at least 24 hours for the different leadership contenders to gather nominations," and who knows after that, days or even weeks of campaigning between Ben Carroll, who's now the premier, and Sonya Kilkenny in the few months we've got before the actual election campaign before the whole Victorian public.

There were some really nasty texts flying thick and fast.

We will also immediately establish a special prosecutor that will work in parallel with the royal commission.

Which actually kind of suggests to me that she, and that's, again, where people often talk about her authenticity, is that that is, I mean, she is really authentically herself, right?

She's real.

Yeah.

She's real.

She is authentic.

Can I add something to it as well? One thing we haven't addressed, I don't know if I'm jumping forward, but don't underestimate the number of Indian migrants who ring my radio station and have rung my radio station and they love it.

There is something deep and subterranean.

And she got a pretty fairly easy ride from the press gallery, which seems to increasingly, has it become a bit of an echo chamber of itself? Are they writing for each other, do you think?

What's going on?

I think that's a great place to start.

I was...

I thought, let's look up what they said at the election last year.

So in general terms, when the PM, Anthony Albanese, was asked about things like negative gearing capital gains, the... what I think a lot of people have thought of as the kryptonite of Australian politics, he said those proposals were off the table.

What are the words used by the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, in the election campaign last year? "That is not something that we are proposing." So I think it's very true to say they said they would not do this.

However, I wanna go back where I might quibble with you.

Yeah, I remember

Does this pass the pub test? Will it sway any votes one way or the other?

Here's what's interesting.

It's very clear the left-right thing doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to in politics.

That's really new.

The tectonic plates are shifting.

Whatever happened in Europe and America, especially on the right, but with populism in general, we are now a, and forgive this phrase because I know [laughs] it's got other connotations, but instead of it being a left-right battle, it's a top-bottom fight, right? If I'm on the bottom, I'm being downtrodden, I want someone who sticks up for me.

On the face of it, Gina Rinehart's Australia's richest person.

Taxes will always be lower under a government I lead.