This podcast is brought to you by Australia's LGBTQIA plus community media organisation, Joy. Keep Joy on air by becoming a member, a subscriber or donate. Head to joy.org.au. Joy, a diverse sound for a diverse community. You are on Saturday magazine, Joy 94.9. Now, very, very shortly, the editor of the conversation, Micha Ketchle, is going to join us.
We've had a lot of messages. We've already had a really good chat with Karen Bryant from Midsomer and Adrian from Victoria Police on the Pride March decision. I want to say to people, please understand that, you know, we can express an opinion. And sometimes I do and sometimes Paul does. Some people say I do it all the time, but
in this. I would say more often than not Michael. Yeah, we need to actually, you know, facilitate the discussion and let the people
that we're talking about, particularly on an issue like this, put their position. Now, whether I agree with their position or not, isn't really the point because they're putting that position to you, the listener, and judging by a lot of the calls, so a lot of the messages we've had, there's a lot of very differing views.
We cover this issue because it's important to our community and you know, we all have a particular view anyway I also just want to say thank you both to Karen and to Adrian for coming in I'm fronting up those conversations this morning We thought it was important to to kick off with that and also thank you for everyone who sent messages through I'm looking here reading them. Yeah, and yeah Thank you very much. We do appreciate it. Anyway, so I'm gonna crack on so misha catch all editor of the conversation Good morning, misha Good morning
We'd like to talk about post-Trump's inauguration. Yes, there's a lot to unpack. Apparently, MAGA Republicans are particularly Trump who wrapped themselves in the flag, and if they could, they would hold the Constitution to their heart. Apparently, a couple of the amendments to the Constitution
One that says if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen. And the other, that if you've served two terms as president, you can't serve a third. Yet the first one, Trump wants to dump.
So, no respect for the Constitution. He's going to do a bit of judge shopping to see if he can get a decision. And the other is the proposal for a third term by Trump. This is absolute total hypocrisy by the kidnap champ, isn't it? Yes. Well, you were just talking about expressing their opinion in their makeup.
There might have been little opinions. Just a bit. I refer the gentleman to my previous comments. Yes. Look, I mean, I think the really interesting thing in the American chaos is the concern about the rule of law and just how crazy it's all getting. And to sort of illustrate that, I'd actually like to go back one step to what happened in the very last days of the Biden presidency when he actually preemptively pardoned
a number of people, including members of his family, retired General Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, who led the COVID response, people like Liz Cheney, who was a famous Trump critic, and these sort of preemptive pardons of people who haven't actually been accused of anything or done anything.
There was a little bit of a precedent there because Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974 after Watergate before any sort of allegations or charges had been laid against him formally. But basically this sort of preemptive pardon
shows you how crazy things are in the US. I mean, Biden's basically saying, this guy who is helping to move in, he's going to go after my spamming and then he's going to go after his critics and he's going to use the law of law to try and cast out those people. And that's when you end up in a state, you know, my view is sort of near lawlessness. And now on the other side, you've got Trump coming in and one of these
of initial executive orders is, of course, the pardons of the January 6 protesters, including people who were convicted of serious violent crime and who were serving long-term and prison. So it's pretty crazy. And I think it is crazy, and yes, I did express an opinion. Now, real it is, the constitution is very clear.
about being born in the US and being a citizen, and about how many terms you can serve as president. This is not an opinion. This is what the Constitution says. And it's what the courts will ultimately have to decide on. So I wonder, Mischa, there's a view out there that Donald Trump says, oh, well, the judge, perhaps we'll get another judge. Ultimately, this will end up in the Supreme Court.
I suspect, well, I hope that the Supreme Court justices say, no, this is the Constitution, and they're originalists. They like to interpret the Constitution as it was written and to interpret it on the basis of the time it was written. So I'd be really surprised if they said, oh, all that amendment no longer applies.
How do you work this stuff out? I mean, how can he actually think that this is OK to just ignore the Constitution?
He's never cared about the constitution. He's consistently openly proposing that he's a constitution. He's talked about overriding the constitution before. I mean, this is not somebody who has any allegiance to the institutions and processes of government. This is somebody who just wants to do what he wants to do and wants to do it quickly.
I noticed that earth-ripe citizenship executive order has already been opposed by a number of states, and I think, you know, now he might appeal to the Supreme Court. It's stacked with a public appointees, but I can see very little chance of it being upheld because it is so flagrantly in contravention of the Constitution. In a way, politically, for Trump, it doesn't matter so much. It's about signaling the broader intent
you know, the anger, the frustration, unless you, we've got these problems with all these immigrants. It's about sort of following through on the narrative, rather than necessarily achieving the concrete outcome. Misha, the interesting thing I think you said at the beginning of this interview is that the rule of law is really coming into some gray areas. And I think that's the biggest threat to democracy in America in terms of, you know, there seems to be an opinion you can railroad over existing laws.
and hand policies to try and pull together an agenda that you want. How is that playing out, do you think, in some of the different states and legislative conversations about how they're going to tackle these issues as and when they come up from Trump? Well, I think as it is, I can not go to states that oppose that birthright citizenship already and they've had success. So I think that sort of executive order is at the moment no longer operational.
You know, and then that could go through it as a Supreme Court. I mean, in the US, they've got this very weird system where judges have these sort of confirmation processes, but judges are sort of seen as Republican appointees or Democratic appointees, and there is a sort of a politicization of judiciary, which is a bit different to the right things work here.
But there still is a level of independence to some extent that some judges will follow the rule of law or follow precedence and principles of constitutional interpretation. And I don't think that Trump's approach on this particular issue on birthright citizenship, because it is so expressly clear in the constitution, it's actually going to be upheld. I think it's not a winning argument for Trump. But again, I just don't think it matters because
It's about signaling intent to a base, to an audience that is unhappy and angry. It's about taking a number of positions and appearing to be dynamic. I think one of the broader issues that's important for us to think about is to what extent comes for one of the better phrase war and work is going to mean in Australia and all over the world.
the executive orders, you know, coin back to the equity inclusion principles, the declaration and the two genders. These things, Jennifer Heward and the Australian Financial Review wrote a really interesting article this week, basically saying that there is
a backlation or resistance to some of these policies within Didn't Australia as well. Mr. Hold that thought for a second because we want to go into a bit more of a deeper dive. We've got to pay some bills. We'll be right back. And also, I just wanted, we've had a lot of listeners, so stay with us, Mr. Who've asked for a bit of a take on what the messages that we've been getting.
We'll do that at the top of the hour. I've got enough fingers and hands. I can do a count. Stay with us. Saturday Magazine. Every Saturday from 10 until noon. Enjoy 94.9.
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There's always joy. Polymakka here on your Saturday morning. It's about all 12 minutes to 11 o'clock. We'll be on the conversation with Mr. Ketcha talking all things America. Now, before the break there, we were talking about what is happening with the gender conversation in the US with Trump saying there shouldn't be males and females and a lot of the diverse and inclusion policies are being scrapped by organizations. And you were talking about what effect this is having in Australia.
Yeah, and I was interested in, I was talking to our political correspondent, Michelle Gratton, just a couple of days ago about the extent to which, for example, Peter Dublin might try to mobilize similar sentiments and similar sets of ideas in the upcoming Australian election. And I was just mentioning that in the future, in the financial review, you had this piece about Australian business in this sense that
there is an opportunity to get some sort of traction off the idea of some sort of backlash against these types. That pying out. Well I think first you need to look at what the situation is in Australia currently and I think most sort of informed analysts are saying we're going to have an election in
either April, like maybe early April, and there's a couple of types that we can't have, or sort of just a few types in May. So it's coming up pretty quickly. The sense is that Labor's primary, Labor's pretty low at the last election. To some extent, the Albanese government hasn't been hugely popular. I think there's a bit of confusion about what they've achieved, what they stand for, and what they want to do next. All of those things
So, I think that there is an expectation it's going to be a very close election. If Labor were to, you know, people are predicting it's likely to be some sort of minority government. And there is, generally speaking, independent of Trump and everything else that you can think internationally. That's a section that doesn't really ride in this. You know, I have a chance of being quite successful. So, I think that's the local scene.
And then you've got the backdrop of this sort of sentiment-based politics, which is about, I mean, one of the things that Trump was very clear about when he came in, you know, doing all his orders was about revenge and sort of partisanship and kicking back, which, to some extent, can be an expression of frustration with the spirit we did in the consent that some of the written votes might have about things like cost of living, what are they, their lives are going, but also it becomes sort of a combative tribalism.
And I think there is little doubt that a number put it back as in Australia, not just the opposition. I think you're actually right to point to, you know, quite partner in others, again, try to mobilize those sorts of politics, all sorts of resentment, anger, tribalism.
Do you know that this is reminding me of a conversation we've had a quite a few times here on sat mag is just about trying to fact check what people are saying and the importance of having independent media so
someone like yourself, the conversation, whereas backed by academics, actually giving a reasoned explanation about some of the policies and the implications of those, because you can't always rely on the politicians. You would love to. You can't always rely on the politicians to tell you the truth. And I think having some element of professional journalism to help navigate those crazy policies that are very important. People need to vote on policy. And I think that's what I'm really looking forward to.
trying to edge out over the next couple of weeks as we go into election cycles, getting to the bottom of the truth of each of these stories. Yeah. I was totally agree. I think the thing to focus on is not the posture that people strike or how they look on TV or any of that stuff. So much political coverage focusing more on the theater and the side show. What people are actually going to do? What are they going to do for our community to help us?
And I think, really, you know, that's certainly as we're planning our election coverage of the conversation, we've just hired a new journalist, Alison Karabaran, to join our team in the House in Canberra. And Alison's a former producer for both Neil Mitchell and Radio National. And her role is going to be
looking at public policy, just analyzing the policies. What are people actually saying they're going to do? And how are these going to affect our lives? Because we think that's the most important thing that people need to know. That's great. We'd love to organize for Alison to come on her chapter. So that's a name that I recognize and a journalist that I admire. She knows where the bodies are buried. Alison will be kicking me straight up a job. Yeah. Yeah. Time, Michelle. Yeah.
Look, we're out of time. I want to thank you, Mischa, you know, as always, and, you know, not just for coming on air, but for the really important work that the conversation does. It is important that people
Can feel comfortable they can go somewhere and read something in the conversation. That's actually factual. I know that's a novel concept in a lot of media these days, but it is factual and you know that's hugely hugely important. So thank you. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Take care of yourself a nice weekend. You are on Saturday magazine, Joy 94. Now Paul, should we give
We've had a lot of messages. A number of listeners have asked us to characterize those messages. I'm not going to go into figures, but there's an overwhelming theme, and that is it is about inclusion.
It is about equality. It is about participation. There's some really strongly held views there. And this is just a reflection of our listeners. Just as any survey is a reflection. There are dozens and dozens of messages here. That's a lot.
And also thank you, I don't know, there's a couple in there who sent multiple messages. So thank you for being so persistent. Yeah, but I think that's right. That's a good reflection. You know, there's some very strongly held views. I think everyone that's missing us wants a better outcome. They want
They want people to feel safe. They want people to be able to participate at Pride March. Yes, they have issues with the decision or they support the decision around uniforms. But we've got to have this engagement because if we don't have this engagement,
You know, we are just going to end up in a place, you know, of opposing camps that never ever talk to each other and nothing ever gets resolved. Those discussions are difficult, but you know, if you don't have them, it just gets more difficult. Stay with us. Thanks for listening to another Joy podcast brought to you by Australia's LGBTQIA Plus Community Media Organization. Joy, help us keep joy on air. Head to joy.org.au. Joy, a diverse sound for a diverse community.