Political commentators Robert Godden and David Olney join Steve Davis to debate whether Peter Malinauskas’s own missteps are pushing disillusioned ALP supporters toward Jack Batty and Ashton Hurn, before turning the Spin Detector tool on a Health Minister’s response to an ambulance ramping crisis and weighing up whether Sunday’s Stop the Chop march can actually change anything — capped off with a new ska single, “For Pete’s Sake”.
Steve Davis surprised himself this week by liking not one but two posts from South Australian Liberal politicians, so he called in long-time political commentator Robert Godden and geopolitics expert David Olney to ask a pointed question: is Peter Malinauskas becoming the Liberal Party’s secret weapon, not by helping them, but by driving his own supporters into their arms? The verdict: Jack Batty and Ashton Hurn are operating like grown-ups in a party otherwise described as riddled with “decrepit fossils and weird cultists,” and the conversation turns to whether Malinauskas’s drift from consensus premier to contentious premier is manufacturing the very opening they need, while the Liberals themselves remain too fractured to properly capitalise on it.
From there the trio put South Australia’s Health Minister through the wringer, running his saccharine response to a horror day of ambulance ramping through The Adelaide Show’s free Spin Detector tool, which diagnoses the reply as “flooding the zone with warmth” while the union’s four specific claims quietly leave the room. This episode did not include an SA Drink of the Week segment.
The conversation closes on the value, or otherwise, of protest, with Robert and David comparing Sunday’s planned Stop the Chop march to the Vietnam moratorium marches and the Arab Spring, before Steve rounds out the episode with the Musical Pilgrimage: his own new ska track, For Pete’s Sake, a “streetwise, maybe slightly embittered” take on politicians who set sail from the people who elected them.
No SA Drink Of The Week this week.
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Running Sheet: Is Peter Malinauskas A Liberal Party Asset?
00:00:00 Intro
Introduction
00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:04:53 Robert Godden and David Olney
Is Peter Malinauskas, without meaning to, building the Liberal Party’s next asset? That’s the question Steve Davis put to Robert Godden and David Olney after finding himself, against every instinct, liking videos from Bragg MP Jack Batty and Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn. Godden’s answer arrived with a caveat wrapped in a compliment: “it would have to be said that Ashton Hirne and Jack Batty have only a vague resemblance to the entire rest of the Liberal Party.” He rates them as two capable, switched-on operators surrounded by what he bluntly called “decrepit fossils and weird cultists” — but he’s blunt about where any Liberal opportunity is actually coming from. Asked whether there’s now something for the Liberals to seize, Godden pushed back hard on the framing: “I don’t agree with that… They’re riven with division,” pointing to a 40,000-signature petition against the premier as evidence that discontent is building on Labor’s own side of the ledger, not because of anything the Liberals have done.
David Olney sharpened that point into a broader theory about how governing parties eventually lose the benefit of the doubt. “At a certain point, the ideology smells like five-day-old fish,” he said, and once a party in power starts breaking things badly enough, voters go looking for competent alternatives regardless of their politics. In this reading, Batty and Hurn aren’t succeeding because the Liberals have fixed themselves — they’re succeeding because Malinauskas’s own missteps are softening up his supporters and making them receptive to a Liberal alternative for the first time in years. Godden underlined how fragile even that is, noting a federal example where a promising, competent candidate “lasted six months before the rabble that has no chance of winning decided that they’d rather destroy it for themselves than destroy her.”
The pair also dismantled the comfortable idea that Labor’s 41 per cent polling represents genuine popularity. As Godden put it, “if a 39, 40% is a big win these days, you know, two-thirds of people don’t actually want you there,” while Olney pushed further into theory, arguing that Australia’s compulsory voting system means elections are increasingly decided by negativity bias rather than enthusiasm: “more people reach decisions in politics not based on who I like, but on based on who I don’t like.” The implication, left hanging over the rest of the segment, is that if Malinauskas keeps generating reasons for his own base to switch off, Batty and Hurn may not need to do very much at all to become the beneficiaries.
The discussion pivoted from parliamentary sparring to street-level action, with Steve Davis probing whether Sunday’s Stop the Chop march — protesting parkland clearing for a motorsport event — carries any real weight in 2026. Godden was characteristically unsentimental: “the only benefit you’ll get out of this march is, is publicity, and continuing to maybe foment more anger in the community, because 40,000 quite angry people won’t get it there.” Olney offered the historical counterpoint that protest’s real value in the 1960s wasn’t its immediate political impact but the fact that it taught a generation “relearning collective action, relearning organisation, relearning holding their political leaders to account” — skills he argues have atrophied in a population that has “shrunk into our little black screens.”
That theme of decline without a single dramatic collapse ran through the episode’s most striking tangent, when Olney cited historians’ work dating the fall of Rome not to the sacking of the city but to the point where the empire “stopped solving more than half of its problems every year” — a shift he places somewhere between 112 and 142 CE, and which he half-jokingly maps onto Australia’s own trajectory from around 1980. Godden couldn’t resist the follow-up: does that make Malinauskas South Australia’s Trajan? “Yeah, basically,” Olney replied, before noting the state is still waiting on its Marcus Aurelius.
00:45:30 Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage this week we listen to Pete’s Sake by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos.
For this episode’s musical pilgrimage, Steve Davis premieres his own composition rather than paying tribute to another artist: “For Pete’s Sake,” a comedic ska track from Steve Davis and The Virtuosos, built to fuse the genre’s “upbeat, zany” energy with pointed commentary on the state government’s parklands and MotoGP saga. The song was directly inspired by the premier’s choice of language toward protesters, whom he has variously labelled “ragtag extremists” and “cultural elites,” a framing Davis skewers by noting the real elite will likely be sipping champagne in the “exclusive money can’t buy VIP areas” at the racetrack itself. As Davis puts it, sometimes many a true word is spoken in jest — and occasionally it gets sung in ska.
Here’s this week’s preview video
There is no video this week.
SFX: Throughout the podcast we use free SFX from freesfx.co.uk for the harp, the visa stamp, the silent movie music, the stylus, the radio signal SFX, the wine pouring and cork pulling SFX, and the swooshes around Siri.
An AI generated transcript – there will be errors. Check quotes against the actual audio (if you would like to volunteer as an editor, let Steve know)
438 TAS
===
Steve Davis: [00:00:00] Hello, Steve Davis here. Welcome to episode 438 of The Adelaide Show podcast. We’re just taking a few steps back or to the side to regroup politically on where the current state of play is within our wonderful South Australia. And I have, uh, got the, um, gang back together again. Our long-term political commentator, Robert Gottem, is here, along with David Olney, who is our commentator of all things geopolitic.
I called them together because I surprised myself through the week because I found myself liking and commenting on the posts of two Liberal politicians in South Australia. This is not something I normally do because, you know, big sections of that party are, are quite fragmented into the aspects of [00:01:00] life and ideologies that just don’t mesh with me.
But these two voices were strong, clear, pragmatic, and actually reminding me that in that hallowed hall on North Terrace, some people remember that their job as elected representatives is to represent the people who elected them. So I needed to think out loud through this. I thought I’d also, uh, run through the claims of the Ambulance Association about that horrid day we had during the week of recording with, uh, ramping just off the charts, and we juxtapose that against the polite, lovely little response that the minister gave, and we run that through the spin detector tool.
If you haven’t used it yet, it’s a free tool on The Adelaide Show website. You’ll find it there. It says Spin Detector at the top. If you see [00:02:00] any posts that make you curious or even angry, you copy and paste the text, copy and paste some of the comments, uh, copy and paste or, or write in some context, and then get a very level-headed understanding of the lay of the land.
What’s going on here? What buttons are trying to be pushed? And how do we sort the wheat from the chaff? It’s a wonderful tool, and it’s there for you to use a-as an extension of being part of The Adelaide Show community. And we also talk about the value of protest marches, because, uh, my daughters and I are going to be there on Sunday, the time of recording, which would be Sunday, the 23rd of August, for the Stop the Chop march.
And we ask, or I ask, our gathered colleagues to give their, uh, no-holds-barred rundown on the success or otherwise that such things can manufacture. And, uh, I think you’ll be quite [00:03:00] surprised by the, their reading of the situation. And I also correct them on some of the ways that they caricatured or described the, um, the motivations and the rationale for people like me taking part in that action.
And we finish off with a new song for Steve Davis and The Virtuosos. It is… What would you call it? It’s a, a comedic ska song. It’s called For Pete’s Sake. It’s political commentary wrapped up in ska. I hope it, uh, leaves you with a kick in your step as you finish the episode. Let’s, uh, hop into it now.
TAS Theme: Wave on wave, she’s got a bad rep
Yadel-ay-dee-doo. Brings it down on his [00:04:00] knees. Yadel-ay-dee, yadel-ay-dee-hoo. Oh, oh, lay, la lay
Caitlin Davis: In the spirit of reconciliation, the Adelaide Show podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout South Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
TAS Theme: Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide
Steve Davis: I’ve just hit another inflection point that I, made me want to bring together the wise counsel [00:05:00] of our longtime political commentator, Robert Gordon. Robert, welcome back.
Robert Godden: Oh, it’s good to be here, and it’s good to be wise.
Steve Davis: Yes. And also my learned colleague and previous… What do we call you, David? Lecturer in geopolitics and pr- complex problem-solving.
David Olney, welcome back.
David Olney: Thank you. Thank you, and that sounds like an appropriate title, I think.
Steve Davis: It’s-
David Olney: I think I’d rather be wise. Wise sounds better.
Steve Davis: Okay, you’re both wise, all right? Here’s what triggered me to call you both. In the last two days, two consecutive days, I note, I found myself liking, publicly, uh, videos made by Liberal politicians in South Australia.
Uh, they were, uh, Jack Batty, member for Bragg, who apparently had the temerity of asking some awkward questions of the premier in question time, and Ashton Hirne, their leader, yesterday, [00:06:00] neither of which came across in the normal whiny way that we associate with oppositions, but actually like grown-up talk around the table.
I was shocked, um, because apart from Michelle Lensink, uh, I haven’t really found myself engaging all that constructively or positively at all with anyone from the Liberal side of politics. My question to start the conversation, I might send this to you first, Robert, given that we had our episode last year in which, uh, Peter Malinauskas was in- ensconced in, uh, a leadership role until 2099, um, is he becoming the Liberal Party’s secret weapon?
Robert Godden: Ah, well, first it depends on what you mean by the Liberal Party, because it would have to be said that Ashton Hirne and Jack Batty, uh, have only a vague resemblance to the entire rest of the Liberal Party. Ah. Like, they are two grown-ups. They are two, uh, good operators. They’re young and keen, [00:07:00] um, which isn’t, wasn’t
neither is it … It’s not their fault, and it’s not a bad thing. Um, but, um, so many of the decrepit fossils and weird cultists that inhabit that, uh, party have, have just no relation. It, it just somehow they’ve got the right two people in charge. Um, but you’re right. Once you add Michelle Lentsch into the, into the mix, you start to run very thin on the ground.
You know? Um, the Liberal Party would do okay in doubles, but, uh, when … if it’s a team sport, they’re sadly lacking. Um, so if they were to be his secret weapon, um, then it would only be returning the favor. Because if you look at the last election results, I mean, 34 out of 47 seats. Um, the reason Labor have those is because of the fragmentation of the opposition.
TAS Theme: Yeah.
Robert Godden: Um, the, the fragmentation within the Liberal Party, um, the, uh, extraordinary showing of One Nation. Um, there’s four [00:08:00] independents. Um, so if, if they are giving him a hand, it, it’s only r- or if he’s giving them a hand, it’s only returning the favor.
Steve Davis: And so before I turn to you, David Onee, I, I … if I take what you’re saying, if I understand it correctly, really, we could say on paper there’s a point in history now where there’s something for the Liberals to seize if they wish, but their house still needs to be in order to be able to capitalize on it and not just have a few sugar hits of some stuff that lands well.
Robert Godden: No. I don’t agree with that.
Steve Davis: Okay.
Robert Godden: I think there’s an opportunity for them to talk about grabbing and to fail to do. But the, they don’t have the mechanism to actually grab any opportunity.
Steve Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: They’re, they’re, they’re riven with, um, division. A- and I mean, we … I, I think there was a petition. Was it 40,000 signatures?
Steve Davis: Yeah, something like
Robert Godden: that. And Steve, no doubt you’re at least one of those.
Steve Davis: Four. Not me
Robert Godden: personally. Four. Our
Steve Davis: household. Our
Robert Godden: household. Yeah. So, so [00:09:00] that’s fantastic. So, so we know that, uh, uh, at the last election, um, or even running on current figures, Labor have got 41%, right, of the, of the voting intention. So that is Um, over half a million people, um, that will vote Labor and, you know, roughly the same amount, in fact, slightly more, that won’t.
Now, if you’ve got 600,000 people that don’t like you and a petition of, of 40,000 people, isn’t that surprising? There could be six people who voted Labor and 39,994 that didn’t.
Steve Davis: Now, we’re gonna come- But at
Robert Godden: this point, he
Steve Davis: doesn’t care … we’re gonna come to that in a moment. We’re gonna come to that in a moment.
I will say, from reading between the lines, it’s not cut and dried like that because I’m seeing comments from lots of people who voted [00:10:00] Labor who are on this petition, but we’ll come back to that in a sec. David Onyey, how do you make sense of this? ‘Cause I remember your counsel in all of this is, at the end of the day, neoliberalism is the flavor that compels our parties, no matter what stripes they’re wearing.
Don’t play the person, look at the policy. But there are some personalities involved here, and there’s different ways of communicating with the public and the way that we’re hearing what they’re saying.
David Olney: I- inevitably, at a certain point, the ideology smells like five-day-old fish. And at the point where your ideology smells like five-day-old fish, and your party becomes utterly incompetent, and things break, there’s an opportunity to move to something else.
And the first thing you move to is people who are more competent and communicate more effectively, who will try and distance themselves from the worst of the ideology that had them absolutely, you know, [00:11:00] smashed in the last two elections. So really, we’re seeing two people at the moment, you know, in Jack Batty and Ashton Hirne, focus much more on being capable people than ideological hacks because the ideological hack routine stopped working
Caitlin Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: It’s nice of you to notice, ’cause the Liberals haven’t, and I refer you to the federal arena. I didn’t. Citizen named exactly that, uh, candidate, and, uh, she lasted six months before the, uh, the rabble that has no chance of winning decided that they’d rather destroy it for themselves than destroy her. Um-
David Olney: Well,
Robert Godden: a-
David Olney: again, this is this thing.
You, you have to have people who get the idea that they can move past the ideology because- Yeah … the ideology is so s- simple. But when you are as smashed as the Liberals were in South Australia, it’s about the level of destruction you need n- to make the ideology a backseat driver for a little while.
TAS Theme: Yes.
David Olney: It’s a question of when it reasserts itself. And the other thing I would say about this [00:12:00] too, is we keep talking about people who win elections. I think it’s fair to say that seeing humans run on negativity bias, that more people reach decisions in politics not based on who I like, but on based on who I don’t like.
So at the last two state elections, more people didn’t like the Liberal Party, so they voted Labor ’cause you had to vote. If it was the UK or US and there was no one they liked, they simply wouldn’t have voted. So if you have mandatory voting- You have to turn up. No one’s very impressive. You go, “Who do I dislike most?”
Or, “If I dislike them most, who do I have to vote for?”
Robert Godden: Hmm. And that’s often the, the candidates themselves doing that. I mean, the, um, uh, one, one of the most popular, uh, election slogan at the moment is, “The guy that’s in is terrible.”
David Olney: Yeah.
Robert Godden: You know? That- that’s, that’s- Yep … that’s the, the number one thing they go for.
“Oh, well, look, you know, I, I might be an idiot, but I’m [00:13:00] not as big an idiot as that guy.”
David Olney: Yep. And, and let’s be blunt, when they realize that humans run on negativity bias, and they realize that they don’t win elections, the other party loses them- Mm-hmm … then we’re in a very strange place where everyone pretty much now knows that’s true, other than the media, who keep pretending someone is actually winning, rather than someone is losing profoundly.
Robert Godden: Yeah, I mean, if you, even if you look at the numbers, you know, if a, a 39, 40% is a big win these days, you know, two-thirds of people don’t actually want you there.
David Olney: Yeah. Yeah. And if, if we take this from sort of an older, more abstract perspective, democracy is meant to be majority rule with minority consent, and that means you should be listening to sensible views from all over the place, and even the party that historically you would say can’t say anything sensible.
By the sheer, you know, law of averages of majority rule with minority consent, there should be people on the current minority side who can say clever [00:14:00] things that should be listened to. If that’s not happening, then democracy has become utterly dysfunctional. So the fact that Jack Batty and Ashton Hirne are managing to be functional m- from, you know, my perspective as someone who’s willing to look at this practically and, you know, abstractly from a, you know, the underlying premises of democracy, this is exactly what we wanna see.
These people are on the outer, but they’re doing a better job than the people in power.
Steve Davis: N- now, that’s touching on the thing that leads us to the second of our three stops in this chat, and that is the sense of being listened to when the ruling party is not doing your bidding, which I think is the motivation behind many of us who have signed this petition, and who, at the time of recording, are going to be attending a Stop the Chop march on, uh, Sunday from Victoria Square at noon.
And I want to reflect, I want you two to reflect with us, ’cause I listened to some [00:15:00] protest songs last night and found a playlist to try and get into that spirit to understand what was that zeitgeist, particularly in the ’60s, that gave rise to movements that would have people march. Does the action of marching and showing up in number have any worth at all in this environment?
I’ll start with you, Robert, again.
Robert Godden: Um, I’ll just sidetrack and saying the best protest song is Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival. And the reason I love it is because it doesn’t say what you’re doing is wrong, it’s saying what you’re doing is not what you say you should be doing. And it’s quite an interesting thing.
They’re not protesting about the so-called evils. They’re pointing out the fact that you don’t even believe in them yourself.
Caitlin Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: You know? Um, so you believe in sending people off to war, but not your children. Mm. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a great song. Um, I think that, um- I think that [00:16:00] Malinauskas moving from consensus premier to contentious premier seems to have, it, it looks to all of us like he just sort of fell through a trapdoor one day.
Um, but at the end of the day, I think the style that we see in South Australia at the moment has always been autocratic. I mean, nobody wanted, uh, the merger of the unis except Malinauskas, and it happened. He wanted Gather Round, it happened. He wanted Live Golf, it happened. He wanted this and that, and it happened.
But it broadly fell into line with either, A, the group of people who cared about it and wanted those things, and B, a larger group of people who didn’t necessarily care about it but didn’t object to those things. Um, and he’s really used the same, uh, structure in what he’s doing now. Um, it’s only that he is, he has now come across things that, you know, a, a, a, [00:17:00] a group of people don’t like, and a, and a fairly substantial group at that.
So I think, I think there’s a, there’s a sense in the electorate that he’s changed, but I don’t think, I don’t think he has changed. I think he has continued to, to do what he’s always done. I mean, he’s still got the backing of his party. He’s still got the backing of the people that put him there. He’s still got the backing of 41% of the public, uh, according to the latest poll.
Um, so I, I don’t think anything’s happened except he’s done something that a bunch of people have gone, “You know what? This doesn’t pass the mythical pub test. Um, I think we’re going to, we’re gonna do something about it.” And those people get together and, um, and march in the street. And, uh, yesterday at, uh, the Brickworks, I went past a shop that was selling Stop The Chop shirts, which surprised me.
Um, and people will make a, a visible, [00:18:00] a visible, uh, imprint in the political consciousness by marching. Uh, they, they will, they will be there. Um, so people will turn up, um, you know, 5,000 people will turn up, which the police will describe as 3,000, the organizers will describe as 15,000. And the political classes will say, “Oh, that was very nice,” and, and get on with their day.
I think m- the successful protests over the years have been the ones that turn up every week forever, um, and, and wear them down. Um, or, or the ones that are- Sort of have a spontaneity to them, um, where, you know, the people going past aren’t, “Look at that bunch of weirdos,” uh, in the street. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, uh, maybe I should just throw my shopping over my shoulder and, and jump on the end of it.”
So the real question is, if they h- or the real thing they need to do is capture the imagination. If they can capture the imagination and sweep people along with them, yes. If, if they think just turning up, or if you, ’cause you’re doing it- Hmm … if you [00:19:00] think just turning up and being there, you know, stand up and be counted is gonna work, yeah, not so much, especially as you haven’t got a lot of, um, alternative.
I mean, it’s, it’s not like the other major force is a conservation party like the Greens. Um, they’re clearly against it, but they’re a very small part of the electorate. So I think, do these things ever work? Was your exact question.
Steve Davis: Hmm.
Robert Godden: Yes, these things can work. Will this one work? I, I don’t think so, um, because I don’t think it has those, those extra elements, um, that, that are needed.
Steve Davis: David Olney, when you share your reflection, I’d also love you to cast your mind, uh, geographically, because you talk about, well, lectured on politics all around the world, and I’m thinking of the Arab Spring, which seemed to come up and fizz and whatnot. Can you give it some sort of context there as well as what you were planning to say?
David Olney: Absolutely. So I think two things [00:20:00] there, and, and we’ll do the thing about whether protests can work first and whether the politics has changed, ’cause they’re both interesting questions. What’s the purpose of protest? Well, why did protests work in the 1960s? Let’s go back to the example in Australia against the Vietnam War.
It didn’t work because it had an immediate impact on parties. It had an impact when they did the calculation that these people protesting are very soon going to be the majority of the population, and they are the ones directly affected by our decisions, and they can vote So if you are a mass movement of people of voting age and you are inclined to vote differently, then you’re a danger.
So there will be a calculation done, is this group of people who turn up in front of Parliament House or wherever the, the, you know, the event is gonna be a danger? If you’re not a danger, shrug. The political parties won’t do anything about it in the short term. But the [00:21:00] real importance of protest and turning up is people relearning collective action, relearning organization, relearning doing the difficult thing, relearning holding their political leaders to account.
And if we compare that to the Arab Spring, the Arab Spring caused immense amounts of pain for an awful lot of people. People ended up dead, people ended up beaten. Same thing happened in Burma. Same thing has happened in a lot of places. But what it does is it sows the seed of not only is this government not listening to us now, but they’re making it clear that they won’t listen to us until we become more effective.
And even if there’s a risk in becoming more effective, what we see throughout history is once people learn that they’re being ignored, they either decide if they can tolerate things as they are, or they to- decide if they have to get much better at political action [00:22:00] And throughout the 20th century, and even the 19th century, what people decided was to get much better at political action.
Now, in a period where people are as asleep and self-absorbed as they are now, this is a bigger ask, but the historical precedent says people will wake up, become more capable, and will apply pressure to political, uh, establishment that has to be responded to.
Steve Davis: So two things there. Would you- Oh, go on. Go on.
Let me… You finish. Well,
David Olney: do you want me to, do you want me to talk about the other bit too, about has politics changed? Or wait until you say what you’d like to say now?
Steve Davis: Let me just interject. I think this is probably timely. Uh, one thing is you talked about collect- learning how to do collective action again.
David Olney: Mm.
Steve Davis: We have shrunk into our little black screens. We are living- Mm … in phones. It has severed a lot of ability to relax. In fact, Nigel Dobson, I was at dinner at his place last night at the time of recording, former, uh, stalwart of the Adelaide Show, laughed and chatted, and it was [00:23:00] fantastic. It was real face-to-face time.
It was awesome. Made me realize how little I do of that. So that’s real. Although, before I go jack booting all over the small screen, the small screen, on the flip side, is helping us connect to make this march actually happen. So there’s some potentiality there.
David Olney: Yep. Uh,
Steve Davis: that was a particular point that I wanted to inject while you were going there.
I can see Robert has some things to say, but do you wanna just finish off with that broader question?
David Olney: Yeah, the broader question of has politics changed? No, I agree with Robert here. Politics hasn’t changed. Malinauskas, by the nature of neoliberalism, is always economics first, people second. But in as many situations as possible, he’ll put a people first Band-Aid on top of what he was gonna do economically anyway.
As I said last time we talked about this, Ashton Hirne is no different. The difference is this time is the wound that people are feeling about the state [00:24:00] of the world, the state of their life, the state of society, the state of economy, is now too big for the people Band-Aid to cover the wound effectively, which suggests that more people are gonna start questioning, why does economics keep coming first at the cost of people again?
And how do we remember how to do collective action and actually hold these people to account? So I think people getting as angry as they’re getting about politics being the same is really critical to the beginning of meaningful change, back to a more informed, more motivated, more collective action response.
Steve Davis: Robert, any comments on that before I bring us on our final-
Robert Godden: Look, I don’t disagree with any of it. I think one of the points that David made that’s really interesting, and I think this is why your situation’s different, is that a lot of the actions, um, were of the nature of life and death in the ’60s. You know, if I didn’t stop the Vietnam War, I might have to go, or my son might have to go.
So you had that life death. But also, [00:25:00] when you have police officers grabbing people and shoving them in the back of vans, um, it’s resistance training. You know, we train in resistance. Yep. You, you want your sports team- Yeah … to do well, you, you put them up against hard teams. If, if the police and the authorities and the premier are, are saying, “That’s nice, dear,” every time someone says, “I’m not happy about that”, it…
Y- you’re not building that resilience and that strength into the movement. Um, you know, the, the best thing that the government could do, honestly, to, uh, to, to help your cause-
David Olney: Mm …
Robert Godden: is to send in the, um, the
David Olney: stuff- Or bring a water cannon.
Robert Godden: Yeah. Bring a water cannon. Bring a water cannon. Go with a water cannon.
That’s not even a nice place. Nope. I don’t think that’d be popular. No. But, um, yeah, if, if they chose to crack down heavily… Uh, the Arab Spring was mentioned. Now, that was day after day after day of people- Mm … protesting despite the injuries, despite the- Despite the
David Olney: violence, yeah …
Robert Godden: the violence. And, um, and that just really showed that these people were not gonna be stopped.
And, um- Mm Uh, without in any way [00:26:00] dismissing what you’re doing, Steve, it, it’s not effective enough by itself, because there’s a, is a group- No … of well-mannered people turning up, and well-mannered politicians smiling indulgently, and everyone goes about their, their business. Now, I’m not suggesting you should storm Parliament House and start an insurrection.
That is also not the right, uh, cause. Um, but yeah, I, I, I… The, the only benefit you’ll get out of this march is, is publicity, and continuing to maybe foment more anger in the community, because 40,000 quite angry people won’t get it there. Couple of hundred thousand quite angry people
might. Um, or 40,000 absolutely livid, willing to die, willing to chain themselves to bulldozers might do it. Um, but you’re kind of in that, uh- Mm … in that group where m- most of those people just don’t want trees cut down so that people can play golf or zoom around on cars. Mm. Perfectly reasonable, I would say.
Mm. But not something people would [00:27:00] say, “And I’m willing to give my life for.”
David Olney: No. Like, if out of the weekend comes the 20 people who basically chain themselves 30 feet up a tree, that’s, we move to the next level.
Robert Godden: Mm.
David Olney: But it has to motivate that kind of next level response.
Steve Davis: Yeah. I mean, then me, who’s there, uh, that’s not something that I wanna see.
So maybe we are too genteel. Um, but t- you’ve put the band-aid of, um, humanness, you mentioned that before, David. Mm. The people band-aid. So let’s br- I wanna bring you home with a human band-aid in action, because at the time of recording, the Ambulance Association put out a big note, uh, saying, “Horrible day in South Australia yesterday.
We were full, ramping everywhere. It was so bad we had to stop doing call-outs for ambulances. There were 80 people needing help, 40 of whom were critical. We could not send ambulances. [00:28:00] Did not happen.” And- Blair Boyer, MP, put out this human band-aid. I saw this this morning. It was done up as a lovely little graphic that looked like a handwritten note, and it said, “Yesterday was a very busy day for our hospitals, for our emergency departments, and our ambulance service.
This is exactly why we are investing in our public health system so that when we see a surge in demand, we are better prepared. On behalf of every South Australian, thank you to our healthcare workers for their hard work and dedication. They are the best of us.”
David Olney: Aw.
Steve Davis: Isn’t that lovely? Don’t we
David Olney: love the people band-aid?
So-
Robert Godden: That is, that
Steve Davis: is lovely … before I ask you two to reflect on this, I ran this through the Spin Detector, a free tool available at theadelaideshow.com.au. I pasted in what the Ambulance Association said to give background, and I pasted that in and I said, “Can you explain what’s going on here?” And it said this.
Here we go. Uh, looking [00:29:00] for it here. Right. It defined this as Blair Boyer flooding the zone with warmth. That’s one of the classifications of the approach, w- along with don’t mention the war. So it said, “Boyer’s response wraps a non-answer in gratitude so thick it becomes structural. The emotional tribute to healthcare workers does the political work of displacing the union’s specific enumerated claims.
By the time you’ve nodded along to ‘they are the best of us,’ the 40 priority patients waiting for an ambulance that couldn’t have come quietly left the room. What’s missing? The union made four distinct factual claims. An incident management team was activated. Eighty-plus patients were waiting, including 40 priorities.
A no-send policy was implemented, and August 2026 is tracking as the worst ramping month on record. Boyer’s response addresses exactly none of them. ‘This is exactly why we are [00:30:00] investing’ is doing enormous lifting without carrying any weight. No investment figure, no timeline, no metric, no policy name. The phrase ‘surge in demand’ also quietly reframes a systemic staffing and capacity failure as an unpredictable weather event, which is precisely what the union was pushing back against when they wrote, ‘Ramping is a policy choice.’
And finally, the legitimate grievance. The union is right. There’s a real tension between managing a crisis week to week and actually funding a structural fix, and right that those two things have been conflated by successive governments. More ambulances don’t help if they’re chained to hospital ramps.
More hospital beds don’t help without the ward staff to run them. The band-aid critique is accurate. Short-term surge capacity has been the playbook for years, and it keeps not working. That’s the story worth holding onto underneath all the noise.”
Robert Godden: Well, that’s ter- [00:31:00] that’s terrific. Mm. Um, so if I- Brilliantly done
go f- go first on this so that then I can, and bask in David’s answers. Um, there’s two things that occurred to me. Um, a- and, and, uh, o- one is that I, I don’t think anyone’s done anything more embarrassing in, uh, politics, apart from possibly Barnaby Joyce, um, than the ambulance union.
Steve Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: The, the way they absolutely ruthlessly went after the Liberal government and, uh, and, and absolutely promised that, um, we would be living in a m- land of milk and honey if Labor got in, and you’d all be dead if they didn’t.
Uh, they were absolutely rabid. It wa- it was quite astonishing. Um, so I think the ambulance, no matter how many legitimate grievances they’ve got, they’re very reluctant to push up against Labor because they’ve, th- they run the risk of someone pointing out what a complete bunch of hypocrites they may have been in the past.
Steve Davis: Which someone did on their post, by the way.
Robert Godden: Yeah. I think I have a few times too, but never mind. Um, I, I probably shouldn’t given that I’ve used the odd ambulance in my time. [00:32:00] Um, but in 2018, Malinauskas became, uh, opposition leader, I think it was 2018, and he talked about listening. “I’m gonna be the guy that listens.”
Um, incidentally, that’s what Jay Weatherill said when he took over. “Oh, we’re… No more of this announce and defend. We’re gonna, we’re gonna listen. We’re going to explain. We’re gonna…” Yeah, so, so Malinauskas said that from the start, “I’m gonna be the guy who listens.” Um, and, and look, I think he still is the guy who listens.
He’s just added a second half to the sentence. “I’m gonna be the guy who listens to some people.”
Steve Davis: Yes.
Robert Godden: Um, just, “Steve, it’s not you.”
Steve Davis: No.
Robert Godden: Um, but, uh, you know, politicians can go from decisive to arrogant- In the blink of an eye. It’s just they’re decisive when we like the idea, and they’re arrogant when we don’t.
And, uh, he, he is piling up the, uh, the runs on the, the arrogant side of the, the ledger, if I can mix a few metaphors.
Steve Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: Um, but I think, I think this is… Th- look, this is an example of it. Boy is playing by the, um, [00:33:00] uh, the Steve Bannon playbook, except it wasn’t flooding the zone with warmth, it was something else.
Steve Davis: Yes.
Robert Godden: Um, but I think that, uh, I, I think that is, that, that is par for the course. I, I don’t think this one of reaction is any different to what we see all the time. Um, but I see what… The, the only change is our attitude to what the premier’s doing, and h- and, and that o- and that change so far, we know, is in at least 40,000 people.
Um, make it 200,000 people, can talk. Or as David said, make it those 30 people that are so upset they chain themselves to bulldozers and trees, um, then you get some traction. But, um- Mm … but things like this, I mean, there was ramping yesterday, there’s gonna be ramping tomorrow. There’s ramping in Perth, there’s ramping in Sydney.
You know? So no- nobody realistically… If anybody realistically voted for them on the, on the belief that the people who gave us transforming health were suddenly good at health- … um, then, you know, the electorate’s only got itself to blame. I, I, [00:34:00] I believe I’ve used this quote before in this forum, but I, I think the final word for me is, uh, Homer Simpson, “It takes two people to lie.
One to lie, and one to be lied to.” And, and we as the electorate I think have accepted that role for a very long time, and if, if you have decided not to be that person, S- Steven, to get angry, then my hearty congratulations to you.
Steve Davis: Thank you, Robert. David, your final thoughts?
David Olney: I think that’s a, a fabulous thing that Robert just stated, that it takes two people to lie, because what we’re seeing here is potentially 5,000 people turn up on the weekend so we don’t chop trees down.
But where is the civil society group calling out? And where are those 80 people today? And where are those 40 people who were critical today? And how many people in the community have been in that situation in the last 10 years? And how many family members now have to act as carers because they don’t trust that the medical service will [00:35:00] turn up when it needs to?
So we’re in an interesting time in human history that we are both being lied to by flooding the zone with warmth, but we’re also lying to ourselves.
Caitlin Davis: Mm.
David Olney: We’re picking and choosing our political motivations and battles on the basis of does it look safe? Does it look like we can get a positive impact?
When we first spoke, I made the point about Ted Robert Gurr’s, you know, two sets of expectations. We expect it should get better. When that gets broken, we then move to the expectation it shouldn’t get worse. So the fact that, you know, the ambulance union puts out something like it did, the minister puts out something like he did, and then there isn’t a ding-dong battle of civil society organizations ripping both of them new orifices is proof to me that we’re lying to ourselves.
We would rather yell and scream about a tree than yell and scream about whether people live and die, because yelling and screaming about whether [00:36:00] people live and die is genuinely frightening and makes us genuinely uncomfortable, and we can’t just have a bit of righteous outrage. And unfortunately, when you decollectivize a population like we’ve been decollectivized to not be able to imagine or do collective action, we rant about peripheral things because the real things are too scary.
Robert Godden: Hmm. I, I think a wise ticker for Mr. Olney as well. I think that is a, that is a incredibly good point. Can I ask a question? I know I’m not supposed to, but I’m gonna ask it. Sorry, Steve. Um, I would argue that all the civilizations that have fallen over, um, h- fell over while
90% of the population didn’t see it coming.
David Olney: Uh, I can- Is it possible- I can answer that for you, Robert. Yeah … are
Robert Godden: we in that s- Finish your
David Olney: question then …
Robert Godden: are we in that situation right now?
David Olney: Okay. Turns out the critical thing, and this has been worked out by some ancient historians, and I, I take their conclusion pretty seriously, ’cause the people have always tried to [00:37:00] work out when did Rome fall?
The day the city was sacked? And really good historians go, “No. Rome fell the year that it stopped solving more than half of its problems every year So there are estimates that somewhere between the year one hundred and twelve Common Era and one hundred and forty two Common Era, Rome stopped solving more than half its problems every year.
And once you stop solving more than half your problems every year, there’s only one way it ends And I’d say we are well past the stopping solving half our problems every year, and I put the date somewhere between 1980, 1985 that we flicked to the wrong side of the line.
Robert Godden: That is a, uh, remarkable idea. So, uh-
David Olney: Yeah, it, it blows your mind, and then you start seeing it everywhere.
And then you go, “Oh, wow, [00:38:00] that’s a big idea.”
Robert Godden: So does that mean Trajan, uh, uh, Melanascus is our Trajan?
David Olney: Yeah, basically.
Robert Godden: Yeah. Wow. He was considered a good emperor.
David Olney: So we know that we’ll get a Marcus Aurelius some point in the next 20 years, but we’ll get a Marcus Aurelius who despite being amazing in and of himself and trying to stop the system from being corrupt, that we won’t have been solving problems for too long, that it will…
Again, it will be a Band-Aid on a wound too big to cover with a Band-Aid.
Steve Davis: Mm. And symptomatic of that, um, I was doing a little bit of back and forth with, I forget who it was, I think it was, um, Claude last night. I was reflecting on Animal Farm and this situation of not being listened to and wanting concrete racetracks everywhere and ripping up our civic inheritance of our important parklands, and said, “Look, you can’t draw a bow because the premier still said he wants to listen to people.
You got courts to [00:39:00] intervene. You got media.” And I said, “Hang on, sunshine. Hang on. There’s, don’t fall for the lip service.” The media, sadly, is nothing you can rely on these days. That fourth estate has lost its ability to stand up because it just needs clicks and money to survive and/or largesse from the government to survive.
And that perhaps is symptomatic of being on the wrong side of the ledger that David Olney was referring to. To me, that’s the symptoms. So to answer your question, Robert, we’re not necessarily seeing it coming. We’re like the proverbial frogs in the water that’s being boiled. Uh, even though that’s poo-pooed as a scientific experiment, um, it works at a, as a social explainer that that’s where we’re at.
And maybe the people on Sunday are climbing out of that saucepan ’cause they’ve had [00:40:00] enough, but that’s just a small group of us on a particular issue, and our hope will be more people crawling out of that saucepan on other issues like, uh, health, et cetera. Is that the takeaway from this message? We need more of us to jump out of that saucepan?
David, and then Robert to finish.
David Olney: I would say absolutely yes, and I’ll use a historical example. Rome went under. Constantinople didn’t You know, the Eastern Empire kept going for another thousand years because it kept solving problems. It kept standing armies, it kept defending the border, it kept protecting rule of law in the way it was understood.
So part of the horrible thing of watching something crumble is there’s also people who go, “Not on my watch.”
Steve Davis: Hmm. And they
David Olney: change the name. And here… Well, you had [00:41:00] the Kevin, you know, when you had a new city. But the, the point is, you know, there’s… decline is not inevitable. It will happen until it doesn’t. It will happen till a group of people decide, “I wanna live in a better world, and I will take personal responsibility for doing something.”
Yeah. So really, a- again, once people decide that I’ll go to a rally for a tree, but I’ll go for 15 rallies to fix healthcare, and I’ll go to 20 rallies to fix schools, and I’ll go to 30 rallies to reduce the level of youth unemployment, and I’ll join a community and I’ll stand for local council. Really, it’s about the scalability.
One, you know, one protest on a weekend does not change much.
TAS Theme: Hmm.
David Olney: But it could be the beginning of a lifetime of, you know, activism and advocacy, or one person, then 10, then 100, then 1,000, then 10,000. And that’s what made the 20th century both horrific and amazing. Horrific when people couldn’t beat the odds, and amazing when people did.[00:42:00]
Steve Davis: Thank you, David. I will just for the record say we should stop saying we’re doing it to protect a tree or trees. It’s actually much deeper issue than that. That is falling into Mali’s reframing of it, just for the record. Um, Robert, your final thoughts?
Robert Godden: Um, so I’m concerned with David’s parallel with, uh, uh, that period of history because I point out we’ve also got a guy building a wall.
So, you know, there’s, there is, there is quite a bit of, uh, quite a bit of, uh, uh, commonality there. Look, um- Go to your protest and do your best, because that’s all anyone can do. But if 40,000 people walk away thinking they’ve done enough, then it will achieve nothing. Um, I s- I can sincerely hope that going to that and being in that environment may be the catalyst for change for some people a- and if there’s enough of them.
Um, but, um, [00:43:00] but David’s right in that there are big problems every day that we just accept. And, um-
Steve Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: Mm … uh, you know, we, we just accept them and, and then we, we… Yeah, it’s, it’s good to fight on small ones, um, because we feel we can do that. We feel we’ve got the ability to do that. But- When we look at some…
Like I, I, I, I virtually ignore Israel and Palestine because it’s too big for me.
Caitlin Davis: Mm.
Robert Godden: I, I can’t cope with it. I can’t cope with the fact that I cannot see a single redeeming feature in the actions of almost every person involved. Uh, and to try to decide between one act of unbelievable inhumanity and another act of unbelievable inhumanity is just not something I have the capability of, so I just stay quiet about it, and I’ve never said a thing about it anywhere.
Um- Mm. But, you know, I, I c- I’m happy to have an opinion about possums because that’s, that’s within my scope. You know, it’s, it’s within my level. Um, so I, I hope that of the people that march in the street, I hope someone, or more than someone, m- m- more than one person, takes on the [00:44:00] spirit of the, um, the female em- empowerment wonderful people that we had early on in South Australia, takes on that spirit and says, “I’m gonna fight and I’m gonna keep fighting this until it’s done, a- and I’m gonna broaden it and I’m gonna make it about the whole of society.”
Mm. And, uh, you know, if that happens, we might re- we might reach back into our history books in 10 years’ time and say, “You know that protest, uh, that happened in 2026? Well, that was the day we forced the politicians to start solving more than half the problems.”
Steve Davis: That’s a great point, and I have one correction for you, too.
It’s the, the cynical f- flapping away of your hands at doing this and not doing bigger issues, I’m gonna cite Jane Goodall from the Adelaide Show many, many years ago saying, “You can be overwhelmed and do nothing. But if you start with the square meter you’re standing on, that’s where you get traction.”
And so I would actually put it [00:45:00] with a, a more constructive framing, Robert. Same point, but I think I’ve got Jane Goodall on my side. Uh,
Robert Godden: fair.
David Olney: I’ll go with counterinsurgency theory- … and say ink- ink spot strategy. Hold your meter and then get a second one.
Steve Davis: Yeah.
David Olney: Mm.
Steve Davis: On that note, um, Robert Gordon and David Olney, truly on behalf of myself and the people who gather around the Adelaide Show, thank you for sharing some of your thoughts this afternoon.
It’s
Robert Godden: a pleasure, Steve.
David Olney: Now it’s time for The Musical Pilgrimage.
Steve Davis: For our musical pilgrimage, we’re trying to blend that upbeat, zany aspect of ska music with, um, let’s say a streetwise, maybe slightly embittered and jaundiced, uh, commentary [00:46:00] on politics and the frustrations when you feel that your elected representatives have really cut themselves adrift from you, and they’re setting sail towards their goals and their interests.
And interestingly, um, I, I love the, uh, the, the feedback. When, when, um, our premier labeled people who were against the wanton destruction of trees in the parklands for this, uh, elitist, um, event, uh, he called them ragtag extremists, and the latest label that he’s bandied about is cultural elites are the ones who are actually saying, “You know what?
Let’s not rip down these beautiful old trees in our internationally renowned parklands and slap concrete around, uh, for a motorcycle race.” Someone pointed out that the real elite will be the people clinking champagne glasses in the [00:47:00] exclusive money can’t buy VIP areas at the MotoGP, et cetera. I wonder who will do that.
You know, obviously doing the hard yards to represent us. Anyway, uh, sometimes they say many a true word is spoken in jest. Let’s see if it can be sung in song. Here is For Pete’s Sake, St. Davis and The Virtual
Steve Davis & The Virtualosos: X-Rays. Oh, when you have a leader who thinks they’ve become St. Peter. Get ready for some time in hell.
‘Cause angels do not hear you and don’t like getting near you. When they can smell your human smell. For Pete’s sake, don’t disturb their speech. For Pete’s sake, don’t march in the streets. For Pete’s sake, you can have your say.
It happens now and then and it’s called election day.
A party that prefers verbal karate than doing things considered hard. They will not pay attention to anything you mention. They’ll only show you [00:48:00] disregard for pizza
Grow stronger by the hour like the pigs in Animal Farm. They start to slash and burn, give their mates an extra turn, announced with manufactured charm. For Pete’s sake, don’t disturb their speech. For Pete’s sake, don’t march in the street. For Pete’s sake, you- [00:49:00] Now and then and it’s called election
In the streets For pizza You[00:50:00]
Steve Davis: Pete’s Sake, Steve Davis and The Virtuosos. And that brings us to the end of this episode. So until next time, it’s goodnight from me, Steve Davis, and goodnight Don.
AJ Davis: Adelaide Show podcast is produced by my dad, Steve Davis. If you want to start a podcast or get some help producing creative content, talk to him. Visit stevedavis.com.au. Thanks, AJ. [00:51:00] I’m Caitlin Davis, and I agree with everything my sister said, but there’s one more thing to say. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating or a review, ’cause that will make my dad really happy.
Oh, and one more thing, if you really, really liked it, please help a friend put The Adelaide Show on their phone. Thanks for listening.
Buzz, buzz, I
TAS Theme: wanna be Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide