How Albo Dodges Questions, The Toll Roads Scam That Shook Me & The Toll Hostage Plan
Punters PoliticsShow Notes
Go to https://surfshark.com/punters or use code punters at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!This week, we break down Albo's defensive masterclass on Sunrise where he pulls off the classic "I'm not the finance minister" dodge, name-drops Sussan Ley, and attempts the slowest political pivot in history — all while journalists actually hold his feet to the fire about ministerial spending.Beauty Pageant Politics: The Million Dollar DistractionWhile the Murdoch media machine goes into overdrive about Annika Wells' travel expenses, we expose the cherry-picked outrage for what it really is: beauty pageant politics designed to distract you from the real scams. Sure, politicians waste a million bucks on flights — but while you're focused on that, Labor's taking $600,000 from gambling companies and refusing to ban gambling ads that cost Aussies $31 billion a year.We do the bad maths: if banning gambling ads reduced losses by just 3%, that's a billion dollars back in punters' pockets — or a thousand times more than all the ministerial travel rorts combined.Transurban's Toll Scam: The Junk Fee Heist Nobody's Talking AboutKonrad gets absolutely fleeced by Transurban's toll fee scam — $40 in tolls, $50 in junk fees — and breaks down every single predatory charge this legal monopoly hits you with: $10 admin fees, $0.75 "video matching" fees, $15 non-return tag fees, and a dozen other made-up charges that would make a Nigerian prince blush.Plus, we float the idea of a digital toll protest: what if 100,000 punters just stopped paying until Transurban pays their fair share of tax? It's a toll hostage situation — you want your money? Start acting like a legitimate business.Also: Konrad rates his own political redirect performance, we answer Spotify comments about whether One Nation is taking over the Libs, and we're officially on a government-mandated break until February (probably).Bypass the Algorithm, Sign up to the Punter Times Newsletter https://www.punterspolitics.com/pages/email-sign-upBuy Punters T-shirtsSupport We the Punters on PATREON What Punter are you? Take the Quiz!Buy Punters Stickers & T-shirts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from Punters Politics
This week, we’re joined by Alison Reeve from the Grattan Institute to ask who actually owns Australia’s gas and why we’re told taxing it is too complicated. We get into the petroleum resource rent tax, the export contracts Albo keeps pointing to, and the options on the table, from royalties to a super profits tax. And is now the right time to change it?
This week, we’re joined by Chris Kohler, to break down the legal-ish scams companies use to take more of your money, from surveillance pricing to loyalty programs. We also get into housing: the CGT and negative gearing changes, and what a generation of millennials have been left with.
I sat down with Ads Morris from the Redriven YouTube channel to talk about the cars we drive, and the political decisions behind them. From why our cars keep getting bigger, to the cars we can't buy here, to why so many new cars seem built not to last. I called it a car-spiracy. You decide if I'm wrong.
This week, we dig into the Gold Coast mayor still running the council that approves his own property developments, a taxpayer-funded Mar-a-Lago trip that lined up suspiciously well with a $1.5 billion Trump Tower deal, and expense rorting that cost him a $2,000 fine. We score Albo's poker face against a journalist's "gotcha" question at a UN event, and launch a new segment, Married at First Bill, putting the government's new gas reservation policy through a red flag test to see if it's the real deal or a total catfish.
This week, we bring in two experts to actually break down the Duty of Care bill. "Angertainment" author Ed Coper explains how algorithms exploit human psychology to manipulate us, and lawyer James Glissan, who's actually read the bill, walks through what it really says, what's overblown, and where the genuine problems are.