Peter Blenkinsop

[Anthony Klan @Anthony_Klan]

🚨The Exclusive Brethren was highly active at remote, NT Indigenous polling booths at the last federal election, an inquiry has heard.

Inquiry told Gina Rinehart's private jet ferried Brethren members.

Rinehart rejects the claims as "fake news" ...
https://t.co/cn70RPpafU

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

The criminal Israeli National security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted this AI video of Palestinian prisoners being conveyed to a slaughterhouse. Remind you of anything ?

[Voice of Rabbis @voiceofrabbis]

🚨 Must Watch

English Journalist Robert Fisk views on someone who criticize Israel.

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

Some of the final words of five-year-old Hind Rajab, before she was murdered by Israeli soldiers:

"Why have you gone quiet Hind?"

"Because when I speak blood comes out of my mouth. If it goes on my dress, it will make mummy sad."

[Peter FitzSimons @Peter_Fitz]

Genius.

[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.

[David Milner @DaveMilbo]

A tonne of work went into this. Not just me but the organisers, the protesters and our First Nations. Please give it a look. Donate to The Shot so we can keep doing this (we only take funding from supporters) and help get the word out. I'm tired. Thank you
https://t.co/pDH2afujFZ

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

@Leafmalone @JonesHowDareYou Perhaps it would help if Jillian Segal could let us know what would be an acceptable number of dead Palestinians, particularly children.

[Quentin Dempster @QuentinDempster]

The ABC’s independence is now at stake with Segal’s recommendation for a government-appointed censor with coercive take down/penalty powers. This will institutionalise what’s known as the “pre-emptive buckle”. >> ABC Royal Commission Submission https://t.co/BfGV4f1sb6

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

Senator ⁦@DavidPocock⁩, who is one of the best things to happen to federal Parliament in a long, long time.

https://t.co/q02o2L0gmX

[Scott Burchill @IRanalyst]

It’s gone peak stupid

[Max Uechtritz @plesbilongmi]

Just a thought : maybe follow up questioners back up their colleague.

After all, there’s a lot of constant (valid) criticism of White House journalists not backing their own and the craft after Trump’s Hanson-like attacks.

[Wazza from Melbourne @Melbourne_says]

Nestory Irankunda, a refugee from Tanzania, Africa.

Current status: Deadset hero in the whole of Australia right now. 👏🏼

Awkward day to be a racist, ain’t it.

Go #socceroos

[stranger @strangerous10]

Angus Taylor caught clueless in WA, unable to name the very electorate he’s holding a press conference in.
“Do you not know the seat you’re standing in right now?”
“Seriously do you not know…?”💥🔥
No he doesn’t 🤣 Staggering. #auspol

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Israel is the world’s greatest killer and I can’t find a single Western headline about it.

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

Working-class white people are burning down the homes of black working-class people, at the instigation of the world's only trillionaire. How has it come to this?

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

The brutal sadism, sexual assault and torture of the IDF, ‘the most moral army in the world.’ @crikey_news https://t.co/MErGZjOqR4

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

Israeli lawyer Ben Marmarelli says Palestinian prisoners he represents beg him not to visit because they're raped each time he is due to meet them.

This is a scene from Al Jazeera's shocking new documentary on Israel's systematic use of rape.

[Michael Pascoe @MichaelPascoe01]

The Australian and associated tabloids have long ceased being newspapers. They are political organs operating with a news facade.