What Does the Doherty Report Actually Say?

Adam: [00:00:25] Hello and welcome to comedian versus economist, we demystify the world of money and help you get a handle on the bigger picture. My name is Adam and we're joined, as always, by my little older brother and real life economist, Thomas Thomas. [00:00:38][13.3]

Thomas: [00:00:39] Adam, how are you? [00:00:40][0.6]

Adam: [00:00:40] I'm very well, thank you. How's yourself? [00:00:41][1.2]

Thomas: [00:00:42] Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. [00:00:43][0.9]

Adam: [00:00:44] Keeping it real, keeping it locked down, [00:00:45][1.5]

Thomas: [00:00:46] keeping it down and locked down. [00:00:47][0.9]

Adam: [00:00:48] And hopefully that ends for you soon as we hope for everyone else around the country going through lockdown. Thomas, big show coming up today on the show. We are going to be asking you a lot of talk about the Dougherty report. Everyone from the PM down is quoting it. What is it? And besides a hell of a lot of paper aeroplanes, what can we make of it? What does it do for a company to make it into into a big index? We'll take a look at one such company that has just cracked the Nasdaq 100. And what was the real reason behind the truckies going on strike last week? But first timers reporting season is winding up. Any final thoughts? [00:01:24][36.6]

Thomas: [00:01:26] Yes, a good, good round this year. Profits are up pretty healthy corporate sector by the sound of things, not only to the end of the last financial year. So we'll see how they figure into the lockdown's be a good result. Overall, Wesfarmers had a cracker court this week. I really liked was silk laser clinics. They do Botox injections and skin skincare treatments. They listed on the ASX last year, [00:01:50][24.1]

Adam: [00:01:50] but they're in your portfolio with no vetoes. [00:01:52][1.5]

Adam: [00:01:52] You're all over the skin kid. Botox product. That's a core core of my portfolio. [00:01:57][4.5]

Thomas: [00:01:59] Graduated from satellites. [00:02:00][0.8]

Adam: [00:02:00] Now about 80 percent graduated. Really your mascara. Right. And what have they? Well, revenue [00:02:11][10.9]

Thomas: [00:02:12] is up eighty two cent something. Eighty two per cent. Eighty, eighty two per cent revenue in one year. Yeah. And average spend per customer was up 28 percent. [00:02:21][9.5]

Adam: [00:02:23] All right. Yes. Hang on. Not everyone's a homeowner. Yeah. [00:02:27][4.0]

Thomas: [00:02:27] Well they're saying they're saying the I think most of the they were doing okay with the lockdown's. Um yeah. They're saying their sales are down 13 percent in the first seven weeks so far on the back of the lockdown, 20 percent of their stores are in lockdown right now. But I said demand booming for their services because the chief executive, Martin Perelman, said people were much more conscious of their appearance as they watch themselves close up on a computer screen constantly and wanted to spend more time on personal grooming to look their best. The Zoome face effect was already occurring. It's been accelerating and it ramped up growth. [00:03:02][34.4]

Adam: [00:03:03] The zoom zoom faith. Yeah. Really? Yeah. [00:03:07][3.7]

Adam: [00:03:08] See, I've I've got Zoom body. [00:03:09][1.4]

Adam: [00:03:09] It's fair to say that all this time I looked at what I just thought there was a dead board filter you had on your. [00:03:17][7.3]

Adam: [00:03:17] Oh no, no. I've, I've graduated way past that board. I want [00:03:20][3.1]

Adam: [00:03:20] to zoom [00:03:20][0.2]

Adam: [00:03:22] zoom face. So that's a thing now that was taken. Good to say that vanity's made the transition online are going digital. [00:03:29][7.3]

Adam: [00:03:31] I worried that I would be stuck in the physical world, but we've found a way. [00:03:34][3.1]

Adam: [00:03:36] I didn't know that was the thing. I did know that some people I know went out and bought like a four K camera. I like a fake webcam, which is just baffling to me. Like if it was really worth seeing you more clearly, other people would be buying you for K cameras. You shouldn't. [00:03:54][17.5]

Adam: [00:03:54] If you're having to buy your own, then I think you might have an inflated sense of of maybe how important it is that people can see you up close. Like, I don't know. I don't want anyone [00:04:07][12.7]

Adam: [00:04:07] being able to see my face that clearly. We've already got phrases like you're on mute and can you see my screen there already clichéd. [00:04:13][6.0]

Adam: [00:04:14] We don't need you've got boogers as well. [00:04:16][2.8]

Thomas: [00:04:17] Like we were just pinning your links for blackhead removal. [00:04:20][3.1]

Adam: [00:04:22] Yeah, no. Right. Well, there you go. Well, good luck to [00:04:28][6.0]

Adam: [00:04:28] symbolise the [00:04:29][0.5]

Thomas: [00:04:29] classic laser clinics. [00:04:30][0.8]

Adam: [00:04:30] All right. We're moving right along. And I want to ask you about the Daoudi report. So apparently this thing is the blueprint for getting us all out of Lockdown's. Here's New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian last week. [00:04:42][12.1]

Adam: [00:04:43] As the Dougherty report says, once you get to 80 per cent double doses and you have to open up, everybody's going to have to learn to live with. [00:04:50][6.5]

Adam: [00:04:50] So everyone's talking about it, Thomas says. That was a New South Wales premier. The prime minister's been talking about it. People obviously quoting it as the way out. First of all, before we get into the report, what is the Doherty Institute? [00:05:02][11.7]

Thomas: [00:05:02] Yeah, I didn't know this one had to look it up. It's actually the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. It's a collaboration between the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Pete Doherty is named after Peter, though. Do you know him there? [00:05:16][13.7]

Adam: [00:05:16] Yeah. Yeah, he's the front man [00:05:17][0.8]

Adam: [00:05:18] of The Libertines. It's not surprising that he would be familiar with [00:05:21][3.8]

Adam: [00:05:21] infectious diseases, I would say, and. And actually has done a fair bit of work with models, from what I understand. So who are you? That's good to see. And finally, you know, giving up the rock and roll lifestyle in favour of a more dignified pursuit. So I'm not sure I'd trust him to get us out of a locked case. It's been a fair bit of time in jail, as far as I know, but he's not in there anymore, so he got out. So I'm all on board. Pete Doherty. Yeah, well, [00:05:51][30.0]

Thomas: [00:05:52] Wikipedia said that Peter Doherty was an Aussie champion who won a Nobel prise in 1996 for discovering how the immune system recognises virus infected cells. But it's probably fake news [00:06:02][10.1]

Adam: [00:06:02] so that it could be. It's possible, but I think my mind is still on page there. [00:06:08][6.2]

Adam: [00:06:09] All right. So the Doherty Institute, so so there there are where they immune. [00:06:13][3.7]

Thomas: [00:06:14] Yeah. Infection and immunity specialist. This like 700 people working for them. That's a pretty substantial institute. Yeah. [00:06:20][6.3]

Adam: [00:06:21] Share that to everyone tuning [00:06:22][0.8]

Adam: [00:06:22] in from the Downings. So I'm going to be listening. [00:06:25][2.7]

Thomas: [00:06:25] So so they're behind the report. So this is the report. They wrote a report that's getting quoted in all the all the papers. [00:06:30][5.1]

Adam: [00:06:31] Right. So they wrote a report. And what was in it [00:06:34][2.9]

Thomas: [00:06:34] you did you read it. And if you read it. [00:06:35][1.3]

Adam: [00:06:36] Well, no, I didn't I didn't read the report. And in fairness, like, nobody could read all of [00:06:42][6.0]

Adam: [00:06:42] it at 66 pages. Like, I couldn't even I couldn't even make it through the article that you shared with me that talked about there. [00:06:49][7.6]

Adam: [00:06:51] But I did I did analyse the report. You'll be glad to today. It almost end to end of analysing it, sixteen thousand seven hundred fifty one words and 67 images. So if you want to know what's in the report, that's what's in there that's so big that I actually plugged it into a PDF word count, too, and it said it was too large so it couldn't even handle it. That's that's the kind of report we're dealing with. So to say that I haven't I haven't looked into it, Thomas, would be a mistake. I'm all over [00:07:17][25.8]

Adam: [00:07:17] it. [00:07:17][0.0]

Thomas: [00:07:18] Yeah, I haven't read it either. My wife had a thing on [00:07:21][2.8]

Adam: [00:07:21] it and there were a lot of pictures in it though, which was which was heartening or as you call it, charts the pictures in my be. [00:07:29][7.4]

Thomas: [00:07:29] Yeah, but you know who did read it is Matt Barrie, who's the CEO of Freelancer dot com. You know, darling, all the tech start up, he read it and he's got a great report. I'll share this on the Instagram, but great report unpacking what's in the in the in the modelling. Right. But it's really interesting the way the way it's presented. And you see this a bit with economic models. So the way it's presented, it sounds like the government went to the Dhody Institute and said, what should we do? Just tell us what we should do. And the Dougherty Institute came back and said, get to 70 or 80 percent vaccination rates and then open up. And the police are like, okay, great, thanks stoate. That's what we're going to do. But that's not what they did. That's not what happened. What happened was that the government went to the Dody Institute and said, we want you to model four different scenarios with a 50, 60, 70 and 80 percent vaccination rate and show us what happens, given a set of assumptions. And that's it. And to the doneness as you literally just crank the numbers right and gave it back to the government. So it's it's really disingenuous to present it as this medical institute saying, yep, go for 80 per cent, then open up, then you'll be right. That's that's not what the report's about at all. [00:08:43][73.7]

Adam: [00:08:43] So they haven't mapped out the way out. They've just kind of said, based on what you told us, this is what we think. [00:08:50][6.7]

Thomas: [00:08:50] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [00:08:51][0.7]

Adam: [00:08:52] Exactly. Not not this is how you get out of this, you know, which seems to be a lot of I mean, we heard from Gladys Berejiklian there. She said she she said once we hit eighty per cent and [00:09:02][10.6]

Thomas: [00:09:03] can open it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's not that's not necessarily the he doesn't not say that, but it just doesn't say like it was literally just taking the instructions. There's four phases in the opening up plan, but they came from the government and the institute just modelled the numbers on it. The other thing the other thing that's really interesting, the member pools and it's a great idea, was worth reading. It's very long. Unfortunately, you probably won't get through it, but is looking at the the assumptions that go into the model and they're kind of borderline ridiculous. [00:09:35][32.3]

Adam: [00:09:36] So what are we talking about? What were the assumptions that they were asked to model? [00:09:39][2.9]

Thomas: [00:09:40] Well, first, it's not an assumption, but they just said just model 180 days to 180 days and then stop. And so you have these charts and I'll share this on Instagram, too. But these charts with like caseload starting to tick up towards the end of 180 days and then the chart just stopping. And and he's saying, like all the totals there of the total number of deaths and in the rich scenario, total number of cases are just garbage because you're just you're clipping the the sample period at one hundred and eighty days for no particular reason, what, six months, [00:10:11][31.6]

Adam: [00:10:12] six months that we like. If I've learnt anything on our recent podcast, Thomas's economists like round numbers. [00:10:17][5.3]

Thomas: [00:10:18] Yeah, but in this case, as you know, whatever. But there's a couple of other assumptions. So the other assumption is that they assume that Australia. Unlimited ICU capacity, [00:10:26][8.0]

Adam: [00:10:26] right, intensive care unit, [00:10:27][0.9]

Thomas: [00:10:28] intensive care units, yep, so whatever demand there is for ICU, that demand will be met somehow. But that's not nice. That doesn't seem doesn't seem realistic here. You can't just roll out ICU beds like you need. Like there's a lot of staffing that's required for each bed. Yeah. So insane. Like Gretton has had a number saying that at 12000 cases a day we hit ICU capacity like we're maxed out at 12000 in the Dhody modelling. In the best case scenario, we're looking at a peaking at 55000 cases a day and it could even get up to one hundred and twenty thousand cases a day. So so like we're we're blowing ICU capacity right out of the water. But the modelling assumes that we have unlimited capacity because that's what the government asked the DOD Institute to model. [00:11:16][48.1]

Adam: [00:11:16] So did the government say, look, don't worry, we'll find the capacity if we need it? [00:11:21][4.7]

Thomas: [00:11:21] Kind of, yeah. Did they? Because so their immunity and experts. Right. So they model the way diseases spread, but they need assumptions to work into that about the way society's working at the time. And they can't come up with that because that's not that's not their role. That's not policy. So they've got to take that from the government saying, well, what's going to happen with ICU beds? And the government says, well, let's assume this. And that's what you get to the other. The other thing, there's a list here, so they assume perfect THQ. So was it tracing isolate and quarantine and the same that they do it perfectly. And they're saying this was based on the Victorian public health response at the height of the second wave in 2020, but that in that instance cases were peaking at 700 a day, nowhere near the 55000 we're looking at and Dhody and saying like, yeah, right. [00:12:14][52.8]

Adam: [00:12:15] So that can't yeah, that won't scale. [00:12:16][1.4]

Thomas: [00:12:17] I want to get this right. And so in New South Wales, the tracing seems to tap out at two hundred cases. Once you get beyond 200 cases, then the New South Wales system just kind of can't track it anymore. They just become. Yeah, just get out of the out of the box and get in quarantine as well. So so far, quarantine has been a bit of a mess. So so that's that's assumed to be perfect as well. So all this is still going on, but that's a that's a pretty questionable assumption. Yeah, but the big one is it assumes that vaccines are incredibly effective, that they reduce transmissibility by 90 per cent with double doses of the vaccine. But the international evidence we've got for that says that's a very high effectiveness rate. That's that's just doesn't seem realistic. And so I don't think this is on Dody. Like, I don't like they just they just taking the assumptions that they're giving, they're given. And this is kind of the way modelling works, economic modelling and health modelling. And you take it from the government, the government sort of there's a couple of interpretations. One is it's a bit incompetent. The other is it's a bit sinister. And that they want or they want to report they want to report that they can point to and say, is this is this is how we open up and we've got the this medical agencies imprimatur on it that they've signed off on it. And it's all good. It's not on us. We're just following the best health advice. [00:13:28][71.3]

Adam: [00:13:29] But I mean, they need something like they need you know, the government has gone to seek the the advice. You know, they've gone to the Doherty Institute with presumably what you would hope, obviously, the best information they have around the assumptions of what what what we can, what we know. So, yeah, I don't know. [00:13:50][20.3]

Thomas: [00:13:50] But they're not realistic assumptions. So it seems this is what Matt Barrie saying. The assumptions seem gamed in order to give you the conclusion that at 80 per cent vaccination rates, it's safe to open up. [00:14:01][11.5]

Adam: [00:14:02] Is Matt Barrie suggesting that? So they've just made them up. They already had. They already had an outcome in mind and they work back from there. [00:14:09][7.5]

Thomas: [00:14:10] That's where that's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. [00:14:12][2.3]

Adam: [00:14:13] It's certainly not going along. I know, but this is the I mean, I'm not I'm far from a conspiracy theorist or anything about that, but this sounds like a conspiracy. Yeah. [00:14:25][12.5]

Thomas: [00:14:26] Yeah. Well, I think I think it is he calls it the great quote. He abdication of leadership to reliance on a modelled scenario is simply a way to blame someone else if it all goes pear shaped. The Doherty Institute appearing all too happy to play along with either because it's captured, it's a captured entity or it doesn't see what's what's coming. And so it's like, yeah, they're set up to take the fall. So I mean, like in 180 days when it's the health systems in total collapse, the politicians and say, oh, well, we were following the advice, you know, we're doing. Doherty Institute said we could do it. And it's like, well, now the Dog Institute didn't say that. That wasn't the question you didn't ask. What should we do? You asked, what does it look like if we do this, assuming all of this crazy stuff and then you got that result. So, yeah, I don't know. [00:15:11][45.0]

Adam: [00:15:12] All the Doherty Institute might then pull out the charts that they made the end of the 180 days and just say, we told you this is the end [00:15:19][7.5]

Adam: [00:15:21] where it all falls off a cliff. You didn't notice this little mark that we put right over here at the very bottom of the bottom of the chart. Again, this is where we are now in this total mess. Yeah, we just model it. 180 days is the end of civilisation. Go away. I mean, whoa, whoa. We're drumming up conspiracy theories of predicting the end of the world. [00:15:44][23.3]

Adam: [00:15:45] Then maybe maybe the Delta Institute is one step ahead. That could be how some people interpret the report as saying. Some people might say the Delta Institute has predicted the end of the world. [00:15:55][10.4]

Adam: [00:15:57] Yes. Well, there is a hashtag. Yes, I know. That's a long hashtag hashtag into the world of 180 days. [00:16:08][11.0]

Adam: [00:16:09] All right. Let's pause there. Grab a breath and we'll be back with more comedian versus economist right after this. Welcome back here on comedian versus economist, and you can you can find all of those charts and pictures and reports and things that Thomas was talking about before on our Instagram at KVI podcast or on Facebook at CVT podcast, or send us an email, S.V. podcast at Equity Mates, dot com or on the website, Equity Mates. Dot com forward slash c.v. Thomas. I wanted to ask you about Crowd Strike, which is a cyber security company. Their stock price jumped eight per cent in one day last week when they were added to the Nasdaq 100, which is the technology stocks index in the state's. Why would then being added to the Nasdaq 100 increase their share price, so sure, [00:17:02][53.1]

Thomas: [00:17:03] it was a big pop, eight percent on the day, 17 percent by the end of the week. So big jump getting added to the Nasdaq. I can't I can talk about something called the membership of I don't know so much about crowd strike. It's probably more your wheelhouse. [00:17:15][11.9]

Adam: [00:17:16] Also, Nasdaq is there are there are cyber security company, as I mentioned. So a lot of people will be familiar with antivirus. So we always had to run antivirus on your computer, crowd strike, kind of take that next level. They offer endpoint protection primarily as long as well as some other stuff. So antivirus is kind of grown now from it used to be what we call like signature based. So it'll be like, you know, here's a picture of a of a rat. If you see that rat, then then jump on it. And now it's all kind of, you know, detecting anomalous user behaviour, you know, using AI machine learning and all those those buzzwords that you hear around. So crowd strike are very much a leader in that space, so very much a leader in that in that endpoint protection. Also a sponsor of the Mercedes-Benz Benz F1 team. Wow. Which is interesting. And actually this is a partnership that I love. They're also the sponsor of the Formula One safety [00:18:14][57.6]

Adam: [00:18:14] car, which if you're a company that's claiming that you keep people safe, then what better affiliation than with the Formula One safety car, [00:18:21][7.1]

Adam: [00:18:22] little tag line crowd strike the safe [00:18:24][1.5]

Adam: [00:18:25] of the Internet. [00:18:25][0.3]

Adam: [00:18:26] So, yeah. So that's what Krautrock does. So they're pretty, pretty big. But I was yeah. I mean, I was just fascinated by the fact that seemingly nothing changed about the company. Right. So in that on that day they didn't release earnings, they didn't release any new products. They didn't kind of there was not there was no big launch that they announced no acquisitions or anything going on. And seemingly all that happened was they moved into the Nasdaq 100 index and their share price jumped eight percent. And then, as you said, by the end of the week, it went up another six point five percent on top of that. And so, you know, you're looking nearly 15 percent increase in one week for seemingly doing nothing. [00:19:08][42.3]

Thomas: [00:19:09] Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's called the membership effect. So they got added to the Nasdaq 100. And there's a lot of ETFs now that track different indices and Nasdaq 100 being one of them. So what happens is when it gets added to the to the index, all those funds that the ETF funds now have to buy crowd so I can put it in their portfolio to keep tracking the index. Right. So suddenly this is the big, big, big demand for and I don't think this one. So normally the Nasdaq 100 gets rebalanced every year on the 3rd of December. No, sorry, third Friday in December gets gets rebalanced. Right. But you can get rebalanced on the floor if someone comes out of it. Either way, this is continued eligibility criteria. So going to be a particular size and they've got to have positive revenue and things. So if they fail that, then they can get struck out of the index or if they can get acquired, if a company in the index gets acquired and effectively stops being an independent company disappears years in that opens up a hole in the a gap in the 100 that someone else can fill. And that's and that's what happened this time around. So. Yeah, right. Yeah. Maksym Integrated Products was acquired by the semiconductor giant analogue devices. [00:20:23][74.3]

Adam: [00:20:24] It seems to go against their philosophy analogue devices. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't say if that makes sense. [00:20:30][5.9]

Thomas: [00:20:30] It doesn't say future does it. [00:20:32][1.5]

Adam: [00:20:32] Kind of sounds like they're acquired by museums specialising in Mufti's. [00:20:35][3.0]

Adam: [00:20:38] Yeah. Right. So, so they acquired Maksym and then that freed up a spot and strike struck me, I jumped into the top 100. So here's a here's a play. Why don't we just buy into the stocks that I like. One hundred and one to one hundred five. [00:20:57][18.9]

Thomas: [00:20:57] Yeah, I thought that was a good idea to looked into that. So Nasdaq itself has done some analysis of this and said the average market adjusted return was just over one per cent for for people being at four companies being added to the Nasdaq. So, no, not a huge jump. [00:21:16][18.9]

Adam: [00:21:17] So it's not enough to get in my portfolio [00:21:18][1.7]

Adam: [00:21:19] of oh, I'm not aiming for one four point zero one Bega's. I should I would be happy with one percent historically. In hindsight, Neverwhere Amiry is a correct crowd strikes [00:21:32][12.9]

Thomas: [00:21:32] results are unusual in that in the scheme of things. The other thing Nasdaq says is that only sixty four percent of new additions increase on the first day after announcement. So thirty six for. Yeah, so even though the average is over, one percent is positive. Thirty six per cent fall after being added. [00:21:52][19.4]

Adam: [00:21:52] Well do we know why they, if there's a membership effect, can it work by. Both ways, [00:21:57][4.5]

Thomas: [00:21:57] not in theory, no, [00:21:58][0.8]

Adam: [00:21:59] no. Really a phase in the Nasdaq 100 or grounds to maintain, you know, pay that some of the smaller ones, a lot of these shareholders won't be happy. No. Yeah, no, I don't know. [00:22:17][18.2]

Thomas: [00:22:17] Who knows? Know markets do funny things. There's no theoretical reason for that. Yeah. That I'm aware of. Yeah. But it doesn't seem that the membership effect is consistent or consistently large. Crowd struck lucky. [00:22:28][10.9]

Adam: [00:22:28] Yeah. Right now they go. Well speaking of strikes, that's what a Segway. Speaking of strikes, the truckies were on strike last week. Thomas, what was all that about? [00:22:39][11.1]

Thomas: [00:22:40] Yeah, this was an interesting one. So 7000 truckies and distribution workers at Toll went on strike on Friday is interesting because I saw a lot of things on my feed saying that the truckies were striking against the injustice of lockdown. But that's not the case. That wasn't why they were striking. They were striking for job security, which seems seems to be the key sticking point. Yes. I mean, the toll is trying to sort of push them onto sort of more insecure contracts, use more contract workers. Yeah. And they wanted to push back on that. [00:23:15][34.7]

Adam: [00:23:15] I think they were also saying the contract workers weren't getting paid at the same rate or they're getting paid less or something that I read that somewhere [00:23:22][6.5]

Thomas: [00:23:22] that they wanted a condition that any contract workers were getting paid the same as a full time worker, and that that seemed to be a bit of a sticking point. Yeah. So, yeah, they're finding what they're calling the the Amazon effect, the Amazon. [00:23:35][13.2]

Adam: [00:23:36] They get blamed for everything. [00:23:37][0.7]

Thomas: [00:23:39] They they do a [00:23:40][1.1]

Adam: [00:23:41] lot of stuff to be fair, and I pretty much pretty [00:23:45][4.2]

Thomas: [00:23:45] much as a monster, any industry, they go [00:23:47][1.7]

Adam: [00:23:47] into the Amazon. [00:23:48][1.6]

Thomas: [00:23:49] Amazon opened up with a massive Fleck's last year with Amazon. Fleck's, um, yeah. Quietly launched in twenty twenty. But basically it's just UBA for parcel deliveries. Right. So yeah, you can go with your own car, join the app and then go to the distribution centre, pick up a bunch of parcels, follow the designated route that Amazon gives you on the app and deliver all the parcels in your car in your sedan that they don't accept then for some reason why. Yeah, you can't can't bring a van. It's got to be a sedan. [00:24:20][31.3]

Adam: [00:24:22] The peace that they know they have. And that's too easy. Yeah, I, I [00:24:30][7.2]

Thomas: [00:24:30] feel like there must be like dancing around some legal line in the sand about employing someone with a [00:24:36][6.2]

Adam: [00:24:36] van, maybe a trailer. No. No trailers. No that's cheating. No dudes that only dudes that rules out half of Australia. No. You see it's not SUVs really. Yeah. It's it's weird. They go to these pictures of like [00:24:52][15.5]

Thomas: [00:24:52] people driving around, like with their backseat just stuffed full of parcels they can't even see out the back window. [00:24:58][5.6]

Adam: [00:24:59] Are you laughing at my small size car without saying something? [00:25:03][4.8]

Thomas: [00:25:06] Yeah. So so they're saying that this is. Yeah, there's a there's a move in the industry towards contracting and insecure work. And the Transport Workers Union is taking a stand with toll to sort of push back against this sort of contracting. And interestingly, tolls not really contesting the claim to the head of the global Australian operations, Alan Alan Beachum says the industrial action needs to stop in the T. W needs to support the large transport operators like Toll to compete with the middle and third tier companies who have lower rates and lower conditions. So by third tier, I think he means Amazon probably. And you describe Amazon as a third tier company, [00:25:46][40.1]

Adam: [00:25:47] third tier Amazon. [00:25:48][0.7]

Thomas: [00:25:49] And that means that, [00:25:50][0.8]

Adam: [00:25:50] yeah, now I don't [00:25:52][1.2]

Adam: [00:25:52] know the third tier. Wouldn't that be isn't he talking about third tier transportation companies like Orianthi who like some of the smaller possible ones, like, uh, probably, you know, I don't know what they call like parcels express or something might [00:26:06][14.0]

Thomas: [00:26:06] be those [00:26:07][0.9]

Adam: [00:26:07] parcels, Jimmys parcels, those kind of [00:26:10][3.2]

Adam: [00:26:11] lower tier second division playing sort of parcel delivery services, like presumably maybe they're they're more nimble, more agile. They can pay. I don't know, maybe they pay a little bit less. [00:26:21][10.4]

Thomas: [00:26:22] Yeah, I don't know. But that's what he's saying. So he's not disputing that there's a rise and a push to sort of more contract and insecure work. He's saying instead of attacking toll at the top of the sector, why aren't the T. W going after the bottom of the sector to raise standards there? That is where the real change needs to take place. So he's not disputing the change needs to take place. He's just saying it's not at toll. Right. And you say and some of the arguments that he's making is that they're picking on the T. W's targeting toll because they're the big fish in the pond in terms of the distribution and trucking, and that if they if they get a win there, then that sets a precedent for the whole industry. I was talking to dad about this, actually, and that's what he was saying. Yeah. So that's what that's what this is about. So finding the Uber ization of trucking, [00:27:07][44.9]

Adam: [00:27:07] I just have Amazon come out of it. All right, because, you know, look, if we don't look at other options for delivering Amazon parcels like, you know, ripping off delivery drivers and paying warehouse workers less than the minimum wage, then how can we afford Jeff Bezos to fly to outer space briefly? Yeah, that's I think that's what's at stake here. Dollars, we got visas, can't fly into space for ten minutes and fly back again if people don't just pony up a little bit of support for him. So I think that's we need to keep our eye on the big picture here. [00:27:36][28.8]

Thomas: [00:27:36] They're getting one hundred and seven dollars for a four hour block. Use it using their own car. [00:27:41][4.7]

Adam: [00:27:43] It's kind of that, right? [00:27:44][0.8]

Adam: [00:27:46] That's that's that's still longer than Bezos was in space for. [00:27:48][2.9]

Adam: [00:27:50] Yeah. At a cost of forty eight billion or whatever it was. [00:27:55][5.2]

Adam: [00:27:56] Fort Worth. More support goes to the unions on this one. I'm not known for supporting the turnout in this instance. I think they're on the money. They're all right. All right. Good luck out there. Look, that does us for this week. We do really appreciate you tuning in. Don't forget, you can send us an email CVT at Equity Mates dot com or head over to the website, Equity Mates dot com forward slash CVT. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at a podcast. Don't forget also to check out all the other great shows happening across Equity Mates media. Get Started Investing feed. You're in good company Equity Mates Investing podcast. Lots to get get into. Thank you very much for tuning in. We do appreciate it. And we'll talk to you again next time. See you then. [00:27:56]