Secretive Australia — Festival Of Dangerous Ideas — Kate McClymont, Damien Cave, Amber Schultz, David McBride, Dan Ilic & Lewis Hobba

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Australia is the most secretive liberal democracy in the world.  We’d love to tell you more about it, but need our lawyer present. In this special edition of A Rational Fear where we’ll rip into Australia’s most closely-guarded secrets. How did ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓ drown? And why can’t you say a ▓▓▓▓ has arrived from ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓?

On this very special edition of A Rational Fear live on stage at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, we bring together some big names in journalism, comedy and whistleblowing to examine what went wrong with Australian Secrecy.

05:21 Dan Ilic sets the context for the ultra secretive world we live in now.
16:10 Damien Cave points out that Australia is secretive for no good reason.
26:29 Amber Schultz highlights that the press also have secrets when they shouldn't.
37:18 Kate McClymont gives you tips on how to remain secret.
43:35 David McBride talks about the personal toll for doing the right thing.
50:15 Lewis Hobba says we're all being told things we shouldn't, and none of the things we should.

Big thanks to everyone who came to the live show.

Please support the podcast on Patreon and Subscribe to the email list. We can't keep doing this kind of stuff without your help.

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Dan Ilic  0:00  

Oh, hello everyone. Yay round of applause We haven't even done anything. It's it's fantastic.

Joy. We're recording a live podcast of our show. So you are an integral part of the show. So it's important to clap and cheer and laugh at all the jokes no matter the quality of the jokes. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Like,

move that person to the front. Yeah. Well, we've got a seat down here for you. Particularly at the top. At the very start of the show. Dan likes to start the show with three big jokes. terrible jokes very, very in quality.

And they are wafting. Terrible, yeah, really.

Lewis Hobba  0:42  

For his sake. I beg if you clap, and she just pretend they're really good.

Dan Ilic  0:49  

It's a format point of the show. We want to we want to be as close to the weekly as possible.

Lewis Hobba  0:56  

It's gonna be a really fun show. This is an incredible house. And let's firstly just give it a huge round of applause. Yeah. Carriageworks festival dangerous idea.

Dan Ilic  1:03  

Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm Dan. And I'm Louis. Yeah. And we'll introduce these folks in a second. All right, great. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on Gadigal land in the urination sovereignty was never seated when at a treaty. Let's start the show.

Simon Chilvers  1:17  

A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum, and section 40 of a rational fear recommended listening by immature audience.

Dan Ilic  1:31  

leaked documents show that top defense officials were kept in the dark about submarine contracts. When asked about it, Scott Morrison said he wouldn't talk about ongoing underwater matters.

And in order to increase transparency Anthony Albanese auditor or government ministers to leave their dream journals unlocked. And Governor General David Hurley becomes a Patreon supporter of irrational fear. No jokes. He is the best Governor General ever. Viva la Governor General. It's the 17th of September 2022. And you'll if you're listening to this it means I'm in a secret prison in Tuggeranong. This is a rational

irrational fear on your hosts former sovereign Daniel itch and this is the show live at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. This is the podcast where we make fun of the toughest topics because you know if we don't we try. Let's meet our fear mongers for tonight. She's been uncovering lies in Sydney for over 25 years. Tonight we'll ask her for her tips about how to lie to her face. It's the host of Leia Leia, Kate McClymont.

Now Kate is not what we're talking about tonight. But everyone in this room wants to know did the husband do it?

Kate McClymont  2:55  

Oh, you haven't left me with a foot to stand on.

Dan Ilic  3:00  

Don't be fooled by this man's accent. He's so Australian. He makes the rest of us look like immigrants from the New York Times it's Damien caves. Damien when it comes to learning about Australia, is this something you haven't quite mastered yet?

Damien Cave  3:15  

You know, I just discovered what it means to have a smoker still there.

Dan Ilic  3:22  

And she's covered everything this year from Canberra to Kyiv tonight will be her toughest assignment yet, please give it up for Amber shocks.

And as a cranky journalist who is more transparent Russia or Australia

Amber Schultz  3:39  

spends the metrics transparent about body composition that's transparent about ability to succumb to peer pressure. That's elbow.

Dan Ilic  3:49  

And he's the former Australian Defense Lawyer turn whistleblower now professional panel guest is David McBride. David, is there anything funny about the being the enemy of the state?

David McBride  4:04  

Well, it certainly makes your dating life a lot better. Say, Oh, I'm a lawyer. They're like, Oh, sickness, my boyfriend. You say I'm facing unlimited time in jail. You must be

Dan Ilic  4:22  

really up for a one night stand.

Very day. And he's a government employee who's seen too much. And he's come here tonight to say enough is enough. It's Louis harbor. Lewis some. What secrets will you be revealing tonight?

What secrets? Yeah. Gosh, I'm gonna tell you. I can't What can I tell you who's gonna win the 100 100 next? The audience here would probably really care about that. All these

people are aging into the demographic. And he's on the paths and paths tonight is still in vain for the news fighters podcast.

Oh, this is great. Well, what a stellar lineup, we have got more influence and power on this panel than inside Scott Morrison's head. It's very exciting. And I don't blame him for signing up for more than one job. There's, there's, of course a labor crisis going on. It's very hard to find good help. We'll have more on the Morrison ministries a little later on. In fact, we'll hear from all of our fear mongers in just a second. But first, I'm going to do a bit of a deep dive to set the context for tonight's performances. I'm here to tell a story. There's an island in the Pacific that is on the verge of autocracy, its leaders have acquired a huge amount of power over its citizens. They raid journalists are reporting on crimes the state has committed, they lock up whistleblowers, for calling out corruption. If doctors and teachers talk about the jobs on social media, they could go to jail. And they banned reporting on certain modes of transport. So where the bloody hell are you? Well, if you answer that question out loud, you could go to jail, but I say because I'm brave. I'm not a coward. It's New Zealand and we need to keep an eye on. No, it's us. It's Australia. Prior to the National Security Information Act of 2004. The top three Australian secrets were the Vegemite recipe, the Australia two winged keel and Harold Holtz post Prime Ministerial career as a taxi driver in Bundaberg. No one ever talks about it. That's it. That's all the secrets we had in Australia, pre 2004. There was, of course, our Pine Gap. But that's more of an American CSR secret. Yeah. And the only person that can lose their job if they talk about is the prime minister. Everything else? Yes. Oh, because everything else is on the table until 911, which was or in Australia's case, our 911 was the tamper crisis. And that's when the National Information Security Act came in. And then the She'll be right. No walk and fairies version of Australia was locked away in John Howard's basement never to be seen again. Instead, we have a bunch of legislation that makes transparency harder than ever. The National Information Security Act is one thing up is the big one. Okay. Anything deemed by the government that is of a national security risk can't be reported on or it can't even go to court. And if it does go to court, you'll never hear about it. Like the case of witness J discovered in 2019, a person who was secretly jailed in the ICT, we don't know their name. We don't know their crime, their sentence or what they were sentence for. The only thing we do know is what they might look like thanks to a court sketch from the secret trial. Yeah. Look around you. It could be could be any one of us and how we know they exist in the first place was that they actually writing a memoir in jail. And the AFP went and raided their cell and they were so pissed off that the AFP raided their cell to take their memoir away. They took the ICT government to court to complain about it, and then we only find out about it because a Judge Burns read it out in court. And everyone's like, what the fuck with this secret guy got from? There was witness Kay a secret trial against a whistleblower who r