Thomas Orr

Comedian. False 9. Tour dates coming soon

[yannispappas @yannispappas]

One of the Greatest things ever written, by C.S Lewis while his wife was dying. Not even close, this is top ten all time.

[Aaron Smith @aaronsmith]

Dave, you’ve become an advocate for a particularly corrosive idea: that ignorance isn’t something to overcome - it’s something to defend.

Instead of evidence-informed argument, you reach for "you people": shadowy tribes, convenient villains and simplistic stories that require almost no curiosity to sustain.

It's loud and lazy. And because it’s loud, some sadly mistake it for substance.

That matters, because it gives social licence to wilfully stupid. It tells people they don’t need to read, check or understand. They just need to be angry, certain and sufficiently indignant when challenged.

That’s not holding power to account. It’s degrading public debate and it’s infantile.

And now you’re telling Sue that "you people don’t ever critique" Labor, as though everyone who calls out your relentless bullshit belongs to some homogeneous political tribe.

They don’t.

You’d know that if you’d spent any time reading Sue’s work. She’s not reflexively pro-Labor, nor does she treat politics as a team sport. Her writing is thoughtful, evidence-based and often critical, but the criticism is grounded in good-faith engagement with difficult issues rather than partisan reflex.

That’s the difference. Sue does the work. She considers the evidence, wrestles with complexity and tries to advance the argument. Her writing is linked is in her profile.

And finally, while I'm still going, let me add that I’m also so just fucking sick of your style of politics.

Tired of people like you who add nothing, illuminate nothing and solve nothing, yet still feel endlessly entitled to dominate the conversation. Tired of the laziness. Tired of the certainty without effort. You confuse having a platform with having something worth saying.

Your large audience does not transform intellectual laziness into insight; it just gives the laziness a bigger distribution network.

And that's really the tragedy here.

[Aaron Smith @aaronsmith]

Dave, spare me the faux concern.

You confidently broadcast economic bullshit, refuse to correct it when exposed, and then invoke ordinary Australians as moral cover for your own irresponsibility.

This is how Trumpist politics takes hold: confident falsehoods are repeated until they become tribal truths, corrections are dismissed as bullshit, and the person checking the facts becomes the enemy.

Once we accept that style of public discourse here, we should not be surprised when we end up with the same degraded political culture.

You do not improve Australians’ living standards by misleading them. You do not serve the public by feeding them political fiction on sycophantic platforms where nobody interrupts the performance with facts.

You asked what you got wrong. I answered in detail. Four replies later, you have not rebutted a single point.

Your concern for Australians would be more convincing if it extended to whether the things you tell them are true.

[Aaron Smith @aaronsmith]

Thank you, Dave. I appreciate you reaching out to ask what you got wrong.

The clip we’re discussing is less than 90 seconds long. What I’m about to do demonstrates Brandolini's Law: where the amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce it. Or, in this case, it takes around 600 words to correct 90 seconds of your economic fan fiction.

1⃣ Between 0 and 30 seconds

You begin by confusing government debt with the Future Fund and appear to suggest that the Future Fund can't exist along side Govt debt.

They’re different things. One can exist without the other, and in Australia they do.

Australia's Future Fund was established in 2006 with an initial govt investment of about $60B. Its first annual report, in 2008, showed assets of around $64 billion - not the $100B you suggested.

Then, at around 27 seconds, you talk about the Future Fund as though it ceased to exist (you used the word 'had' as in past tense).

It still very much exists Dave. In fact, it's grown every single year since it was created. Today it's worth around $270 billion, or over $330 billion once the other funds under management are included (eg Medical Research / Housing Australia / Drought).

So before we're even 30 seconds into the clip you've managed to confuse government debt, the Future Fund, its size, and whether it still exists.

That’s a lot of economic history to get wrong in under 30 seconds.

2⃣ Around 32 seconds

You then claim Kevin Rudd used the Future Fund to "flush money through the economy".

Again, that’s simply false. The Future Fund wasn't used to fund the stimulus. It wasn't used to build school halls. It wasn’t used for any of the things you’re describing. In your defence, you do briefly flirt with the possibility that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. Sadly, it was a very short-lived relationship.

The GFC stimulus was funded through government borrowing.

For context, construction approvals were collapsing, more than a million Australians worked in construction, and the objective was to stop unemployment exploding during the worst global financial crisis in generations.

You're welcome to argue that was the wrong policy (but you didn't). You’re not entitled to rewrite where the money came from.

3⃣ At about 44 seconds

You say, "I might be wrong".

I concede you were correct during this part of the video.

4⃣ From 44 seconds onwards

You make a series of broad claims about the GFC response.

Yes, government debt increased. That's true.

What you omit is that Australia's stimulus largely went directly to households rather than primarily rescuing financial institutions, as happened in many other countries.

The aim was simple: keep people spending, businesses operating and Australians employed while global demand collapsed. It's known as counter-cyclical fiscal policy.

Whether you agree with it politically is your business.

The specific outcome for Australia isn't contested though - Australia was one of only two economies in the OECD to avoid recession during the Global Financial Crisis. There's no reality where that wasn’t a comparatively impressive outcome.

The money didn’t need to "trickle down". The entire point was that it started at the bottom.

5⃣ Government debt

Throughout the clip (and in life generally) you repeatedly return to the theme Labor is responsible for Australia’s debt (which btw is comparatively low).

Here are the actual numbers of net debt added by each Govt since 2007.

> Rudd/Gillard: about $190 billion over six years.
> Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison: about $366 billion over nine years, around two-thirds of which pre-dated COVID.
> Albanese: about $75 billion over four years.

Those figures don’t support the story you've been telling people. And that’s really the issue.

This isn't about getting one date wrong or misremembering one statistic. Nearly every claim in your 90-second clip turns out to be either wrong or misleading.

If you're going to publicly lecture Australians about economic history, the bare minimum expectation is that you’ve first acquainted yourself with it.

Because once the errors have been pointed out, as they have been to you multiple times, every repetition stops looking like an accident and starts looking like a strategy.

Given your very public coffee with Angus Taylor last week, perhaps people are entitled to ask what that strategy might be.

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@DrewPavlou You’ve obviously never been

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@VinceRugari Any update on Ange?

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@GeoffWilsonWAM @AlboMP @JEChalmers Looks and sounds like a meth head outside an IGA

[Stephen Knight 🎙️ @GSpellchecker]

This isn't a 'feud'. There is no 'feuding'. It's about a 'comedian' called Nish Kumar who is keen to repeatedly demonstrate he doesn't understand what 'comedy' is. And that's just his act.

I wrote about it a while ago:

🔗https://t.co/bYrDtZGcS2

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@PeterCronau It suggests the Left lost touch with reality and pushed people away

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@thereisabeth It’s not a celebration you moron

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@DrSuneelDhand Hahahahahah

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@graceyldn I already donate

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@gregisenberg We already have WhatsApp group chats

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@JamesDueck They are not LOL

[Wild content @Nocapmedia]

That betrayal is gonna be legendary 😭

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@GamewithDave Prince of Persia
Lemmings

[greg @greg16676935420]

This wins the internet for today

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@knoxtwts Who on earth is falling for this shit

[Thomas Orr @iamtomorr]

@DaveMilbo They don’t know what a woman is for starters

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

Lmaoooooo I’m crying