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Have we reached the start of the Final Fall? . . The CLO QUIZ Show #27

So Trump lost the midterms, Russell Brand lost his liberty and Ai lost 3.6 trillion dollars, so, is this the end? Grok says no. Panania and South Korea say yes, and out here past Carnarvon, the hungry crows are like kites afloat on the winds of change. Don’t ask us, because we don’t know that’s why were hosting, The CLO QUIZ SHOW This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Monique - a true gentle, powerhouse for her community

Tonight we welcome Monique from York, WA, previously featured on Cafe Locked Out (including the 2022 Rumble interview). She has long focused on practical community support and connection through Song of the Heart. Recently, after becoming an elected member about 12 months ago, she became the target of commentary on the Civil Watch Facebook page, with criticism often directed at the community work and charity she is involved with. We’ll talk about cyberbullying and why people turn on one another — even when they share similar ideals — and how group dynamics and online hostility can affect real community efforts. Six years on, we’re still here — and reaching between five and six million people a month. That number isn’t just interviews. It includes the rants, the posts, the conversations, and everything else that happens in this space. https://cafelockedout.com/ In a purely commercial sense, the smart move would be to lock everything behind a paywall. Why do all this work and give it away for free? Because we’re not a normal podcast. We’re closer to an online community — and a lot of people in this community are doing it really hard. Some of us are living in tents. We simply can’t, in good conscience, cut those people off because they can’t afford a subscription. So instead of going fully paid, we want to say this: To everyone who already supports the work — thank you. You are the only reason we’re still able to keep going. A previous interview with Monique about her great work And if you regularly take something from what we put out, and you can comfortably afford to chip in, we’d be genuinely grateful if you did. Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on. It keeps this space open for the people who need it most. Thank you for being here. Kelli and Michael Cafe Locked Out This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

The Road to the Wooramel . . . A live streamed roadshow

We have live streamed our road trips before, but while on the road to Canarvon Kel suggested we try doing a multi channel live streamed show instead. So using our starlink mini, and a laptop, Kel, in the passenger seat hosted the first part, me the second. See what you think. Michael This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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In Praise of Our Most Sacred Word

My Fav ever shot of me and my mum. I’m wondering if when it comes to this agenda of devaluing women to protect the feeling of trans, whether instead of complaining, we should instead pick up the discarded banner of Motherhood. All of us formed inside a woman. It sounds bizarre saying that, yet despite most of us taking it for granted, it is true and astonishing. We are all the products of miracles. So, what if instead of always reacting, we fought back with the language of love, and one way to start is to publicly share memories of our Mothers and our Grandmothers. Michael Gray Griffith This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Interview with a de-transitioner: Meet Michael Kerr

Tonight Michael Kerr, a Scottish detransitioner, will be in the defiant cafe, Cafe Locked Out, to share his story. The Chat will be live and interactive so if you have any questions for Michael, why not join in. BIOMy name is Michael Kerr. I am a gay man from Glasgow, a detransitioner and the founder of Detransition Pathway UK (DPUK), a not-for-profit organisation established by a detransitioner to support detransitioners, desisters and their families. My experience of transition and detransition has given me a very different perspective on how children and young people are approached when they question their sex or struggle with their bodies. At 18, I experienced sexual assault, which had a profound impact on my life. I subsequently struggled with alcohol, drugs and risky behaviour. At 25, I became involved with an LGBT peer group where I initially found friendship and acceptance. However, my femininity, discomfort with my body and personal struggles gradually became interpreted through the lens of gender identity. Now, I spend my time helping other detransitioners navigate one of the hardest paths they will ever walk. ~ Michael Kerr This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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The History & Thoughts of a Roo Shooter.

Benn looks like he’s being peeled from a Russel Drysdale painting, the ones with the long men blurred between two thin sandstone buildings made narrow by the heat. Joining us is Tess, his wife who he met in the Philippines. In this raw and honest interview both take us on a journey into their own humanity. Michael Gray Griffith This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Gavin's Story - The Ongoing Cost of Vaccine Injury (Part 3)

This is the third time Michael has sat down with Gavin.Gavin used to work in a bottle shop. After his vaccine injury and the complications that followed, he has lost his job, his home, and his financial stability. He is still living with the physical effects and the day-to-day hardship that comes with them. His experience is not unique. Gavin’s story stands in for many others who were injured, left without meaningful support, and largely forgotten once the emergency narrative moved on. COVID was presented as a war. Gavin did what was asked of him. The question this conversation keeps returning to is simple: when people are injured in the course of following official advice, who is responsible for looking after them? Governments regularly send large amounts of money overseas for other causes. The people who stayed, complied, and paid the price are still waiting for the same level of care.Where do you stand? Six years on, we’re still here — and reaching between five and six million people a month. That number isn’t just interviews. It includes the rants, the posts, the conversations, and everything else that happens in this space. https://cafelockedout.com/ In a purely commercial sense, the smart move would be to lock everything behind a paywall. Why do all this work and give it away for free?Because we’re not a normal podcast. We’re closer to an online community — and a lot of people in this community are doing it really hard. Some of us are living in tents.We simply can’t, in good conscience, cut those people off because they can’t afford a subscription.So instead of going fully paid, we want to say this:To everyone who already supports the work — thank you. You are the only reason we’re still able to keep going.And if you regularly take something from what we put out, and you can comfortably afford to chip in, we’d be genuinely grateful if you did.Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on. It keeps this space open for the people who need it most.Thank you for being here.Kelli and MichaelCafe Locked Outhttps://cafelockedout.com/donate/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Kelli and Michael – Road Update (and some of your amazing comments!)

We’re two weeks into our trip around the top toward North Queensland and have just reached Geraldton. We wanted to share a few of the things we’ve seen and experienced so far — and we’ll also be reading out some of the staggering comments you’ve left on our interviews and posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Are We Watching the Orchestrated Destruction of France?

And if so, could that destruction come here? Last night we recorded an interview with Thaïs d’Escufon, a young French political commentator and patriot. She gives us an on-the-street view of the current riots, shares her views on the reasons behind them, and discusses where France itself is heading. You can follow Thais here @ThaisEscufon on X This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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The COST OF THINKING DIFFERENTLY, Dr Mark and Sam Bailey. The Vaccine Sceptics

Dr Mark and Sam Bailey are a New Zealand husband-and-wife pair of former medical doctors who have become prominent critics of virology and germ theory. Both trained at the University of Otago. Mark (MB ChB, PGDipMSM, MHealSc) completed medical training in 1999 after an undergraduate scholarship to the University of Canterbury. He worked as a resident doctor across specialties and as a clinical trials research physician before leaving clinical practice in 2016, citing dissatisfaction with allopathic medicine. He was previously a competitive athlete, including multiple New Zealand duathlon championships. Sam (MB ChB) graduated in 2005. She worked in emergency medicine, cardiology, general practice, sexual health, and as a supervising clinical trials research physician on phase I–IV trials. She founded the online primary-care service SwiftMed (later closed) and co-presented the TVNZ health programme The Checkup. The couple, who met in 2007 and have three children, now work primarily as researchers and educators through their website and media. The COVID-19 period marked a decisive shift. In 2020 Mark began intensive research into the claimed pandemic and the broader virus model; he has described this as leading him to conclude that viruses do not exist as disease-causing entities. Sam, who had launched a YouTube channel questioning mainstream health claims, publicly stated she would not take a COVID vaccine, after which she was removed from The Checkup. She faced professional disciplinary proceedings by the Medical Council of New Zealand over her public statements on PCR testing, COVID vaccines, and related topics; her registration was later cancelled. Mark had already withdrawn from the medical register. Their work expanded into books and videos arguing that the entire virus concept is unsupported. Central to their position is the claim that no virus has ever been properly isolated from a diseased host and shown to cause disease under rigorous scientific standards. They argue that standard virological methods—cell-culture cytopathic effects, PCR detection of genetic fragments, electron micrographs of particles, and computer-assembled “genomes”—do not require or prove the existence of viruses, as the same results can be obtained from ordinary biological material under laboratory conditions. Mark’s 2022 treatise A Farewell to Virology presents a detailed critique of these methodologies and of the virus model itself. The couple co-authored The Final Pandemic: An Antidote to Medical Tyranny (with a foreword by Prof. Tim Noakes) and Sam co-authored a later edition of Virus Mania. They reject germ theory in favour of terrain theory, holding that illness arises primarily from internal and environmental factors rather than contagious microbial pathogens. In their view, entities such as SARS-CoV-2 and HIV have never been demonstrated to exist as pathogenic viruses, and diseases conventionally attributed to viruses have alternative explanations. Their publications and videos (hosted at drsambailey.com and related platforms) present these arguments as a challenge to mainstream medical science. Mainstream scientific and medical consensus continues to regard viruses as well-established causative agents of disease; the Baileys’ claims remain highly controversial and are rejected by the large majority of microbiologists and public-health authorities. Dr Sam Bailey’s Substack https://substack.com/@drsambailey They’re books https://www.amazon.com.au/Virus-Mania-COVID-19-Hepatitis-Billion-Dollar/dp/3752629789 Cafe Locked Out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

Wolstencroft the Third.

So much of our world is propaganda now that we decided to call this show Truthganda, for balance. Does either Richard Wolstencroft or myself know the truth? Not really, but despite it all, we are still free to search for it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Anthony's story of Workplace Coercion

From Peak Fitness to Functional Neurological Disorder: My story of Workplace Coercion, Retraumatization, and Forced Resignation By the middle of 2021, I was in the best shape of my life. After changing my diet and joining a boxing gym, I had lost 17 kg and I was feeling on top of the world. But over the next few years, everything changed. I was coerced into having an experimental “vaccine” by my employer. After my requests for a risk assessment and material safety data sheet were repeatedly ignored, I was threatened with termination for non-compliance. I was also denied entry to work multiple times, due to mask mandates, even though I had a valid exemption. During my 11 week ban from Alcoa in 2022, I had to undergo medical and psychiatric evaluations, which forced me to relive the trauma of my childhood sexual abuse - the reason for the exemption, and a secret that I had kept to myself for over 40 years! When I was eventually allowed back, I was separated from the rest of the work group, ridiculed, and treated like a leper. Today, I am a shadow of my former self, and I struggle with the basic aspects of life on a daily basis. I was finally diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder and Complex PTSD in July 2024. After falling down stairs at work due to my leg collapsing (just one of many FND symptoms), I was placed on extended sick leave for over 12 months. Eventually, I was forced to resign in January 2026. My worker’s compensation claim was denied, after it was decided that these were pre-existing medical issues - despite the fact that I was in peak physical condition less than five years earlier. Throughout this whole ordeal, I reached out to the Human Rights Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Australian Workers Union. I also contacted staff on every level of Alcoa management, all the way up to their Vice President. But ultimately, nothing has ever been done about the way I was treated”. In a purely commercial sense, the smart move would be to lock everything behind a paywall. Why do all this work and give it away for free?Because we’re not a normal podcast. We’re closer to an online community — and a lot of people in this community are doing it really hard. Some of us are living in tents.We simply can’t, in good conscience, cut those people off because they can’t afford a subscription.So instead of going fully paid, we want to say this:To everyone who already supports the work — thank you. You are the only reason we’re still able to keep going.And if you regularly take something from what we put out, and you can comfortably afford to chip in, we’d be genuinely grateful if you did.Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on. It keeps this space open for the people who need it most.Thank you for being here.Kelli and MichaelCafe Locked Outhttps://cafelockedout.com/donate/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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We are Here? The CLO QUIZ SHOW #26

We are Here? The CLO QUIZ SHOW #26 Let’s have a quiz where the questions and answers are based on what we actually know. Qu 01 Which one of these do you believe? 1: We live on a planet spinning through the vacuum of space? 2: We live on a flat plane surrounded by an ice shelf? 3: We live in a simulation? 4: Or something else : Please explain. Qu 02 Which of these possible explanations for the foundation of your reality — planet, flat earth, simulation or other — offers you, the individual human, the most purpose and power, and why is that so? Qu 03 How do you think you ended up here? i.e. A miracle, you chose it, Qu 04 You are a goldfish born in a bowl. Your water is clean, your food is regularly delivered, you have a few other fish mates, and the old lady who owns you is very kind. Would you be happy here, or would you be yearning to escape and live in the ocean? Qu 05 If you believe we live in a simulation, where what you are now is no more real than an AI-generated video, what do you think will happen to you when you die? Qu 06 If you believe we live on a planet in which we have failed to find any form of life, intelligent or otherwise, on any other planet, why don’t we treat each other as the rare and precious beings that we apparently are? Qu 07 Watch this short video.These are snapshots from what we call existence, with so much natural beauty all around us, including our ever-altering sky. Why, as a race, do we suffer from so much depression, to the point that our country has a huge suicide rate? Another Bee Free Song submitted from Judy-V Qu 08 Nature is frugal. So why would she burden you with a hunger for a purpose if there was never any purpose to be found? Same question; if you believe in creation: why would God burden you with a hunger for meaning if there was no meaning to be found? Qu 09 On this planet you are a member of the most versatile and dangerous species that has ever existed. We built cities and invented gods. We learned to heal the body and perfected the art of slaughtering each other. We learned to fly. We write novels about people who die for freedom—while books about serial killers outsell them. We laugh at funerals and cry alone at 2 a.m. No other species comes close. And yet every single one of us, from the homeless to the trillionaire, will die. If death is the one great truth that binds us all, why are we so scared of it, that we will voluntarily give power to people who promise they can protect us from it—even when those same people have a long history of using that power against us? Qu 10 If you had to define fear in a single line for a T-shirt, what would you write? Qu 11 If you had to define Freedom in a single line for a T-shirt, what would you write? Qu 12 If you had to define love in a single line for a T-shirt, what would you write? Qu 13 Which of these two masters, Fear and Love, do you believe, serves you the best? And why? Qu 14 This world has so many things to collect and own, both natural and man made, but, if after you died, someone was to locate a tiny storage box you’d kept hidden for the world, what three things would be inside it? Qu 15 You are here, and no one knows for certain where or what “here” really is.When you leave, you may go somewhere — or nowhere — and no one really knows that either. Science says your DNA has never existed before. Despite being surrounded by an infinite number of miracles, you are utterly unique. The priests claim that you were created in the image of God. The Same God who apparently created all of this. And while many people refer to this place as hell, it’s clear that nature or God, used heaven to paint it. So, if you are feeling low and worthless, what could life say to you, right now, that would remind you, how rare, and precious and important, you actually are? Michael This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Oosterhuis is in the Cafe and we are both openly Pro Humanity

During the birthday party of the great freedom fighter Colin Holly, a young woman called Amy did something that changed my outlook. I believe we have been selling the wrong thing for years. We have been trying to sell unwanted truths—e.g., “You just bought a second-hand Lada, and now we’re saying it’s a s**t car, this will go wrong with it, that will go wrong…”—but they already own it. Whereas we have not been selling what we have in spades, and what, as they push the world into colder and darker places, is the nurturing light of community. This will be the basis of our chat tonight… I hope. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Fat Daddy: Three Broken Families, One Broken System

Fat Daddy arrives at a moment when Australia’s family law system remains one of the country’s most contested and least trusted institutions. Interweaving three harrowing personal narratives with analytical chapters on the structural realities of the court, the book confronts the crises facing many modern fathers: restricted access to children, weaponised allegations, financial extraction through child support, parental alienation, and elevated male suicide risk. At 394 pages, it is both case study and indictment. The three central stories are ordinary men pushed to extremes. Richard discovers his partner’s infidelity; three months later she has remarried and cut off his access to their daughter. Forced to self-represent, he eventually secures visitation, yet leaves the process appalled by what he has witnessed and determined to pursue reform. Morris returns home to an empty house and an abandoned teddy bear. Two weeks later he is told his daughter has undergone a sexual assault examination on the strength of allegations for which, the book stresses, there is zero evidence. Years of fighting to clear his name follow; he regains contact but loses faith in the institutions that processed the claim. Nick, restricted to weekend access and living in a tent while still paying the mortgage on the family home, is cut off entirely. Despair drives him to a suicide attempt. He survives, returns to court, and ultimately becomes the sole parent when his ex-partner abandons the children. These accounts are not presented as isolated tragedies. Between them sit chapters that examine the incentives and biases embedded in the system: the ease with which allegations can halt contact, the practical consequences of child-support formulas that continue even when access is denied, the documented patterns of parental alienation, and the disproportionate toll on fathers’ mental health. Collo’s framing is that the system too often treats the non-resident parent—statistically more often the father—as a financial resource and a risk to be managed rather than a continuing parent whose relationship with the child is presumed valuable. The book’s timing is pointed. Australian family-law commentary has long documented high rates of unsubstantiated abuse allegations in contested matters, the difficulty of restoring contact once it is interrupted, and the correlation between post-separation exclusion and male suicide. Fat Daddy does not claim these patterns are universal; it argues they are sufficiently common, and the procedural safeguards sufficiently weak, that ordinary men can be reduced to the status of “Fat Daddy”—present enough to pay, absent enough to be rewritten out of their children’s lives. The title itself functions as both description and rebuke. What distinguishes the work is the combination of close narrative and structural analysis. The reader is taken inside the specific humiliations and procedural traps each man encounters—self-representation, police involvement on the basis of untested claims, the sudden collapse of contact—then stepped back to the broader mechanics that make such outcomes possible. Accountability, the book suggests, is asymmetrically applied; the parent who controls the narrative and the household holds the practical advantage, while the excluded parent must repeatedly prove fitness under conditions that assume the opposite. Print copies become available this week. For readers already familiar with the long record of family-law inquiries, stalled reforms, and the lived experience of excluded parents, Fat Daddy supplies three further, carefully rendered illustrations of how the system currently operates and why so many fathers emerge from it broken, alienated, or worse. It is not a cheerful book. It is a necessary one. -- John Stapleton Commissioning Editor A Sense of Place Publishing ABN: 8589 215 7567 Emails: john.stapleton@gmail.com asenseofplacepublishing@gmail.com Skype: mr.john.stapleton Mobile: +61 411 686 871 Websites: http://asenseofplacemagazine.com/ https://johnstapletonjournalism.com/ www.asenseofplacepublishing.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

Cafe Locked Out The Beginnings

On the morning of 21 August 2021, the theatre world was celebrating because the government had said they could open again. There was only one cost: segregation. Only the vaccinated could go to the theatre. I recall one director, who had always banged on about inclusivity, celebrating by posting a comment that read: “Good, I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting next to a filthy anti-vaxxer.” This acclaimed artist of note hadn’t transitioned into a Nazi; the Nazi had always been there, hidden under a virtue-signalling coat that, that day, he was not required to wear. The tragedy was that I looked up to him. Going by his reputation and work, I took it for granted that he was a man of moral substance, of righteous defiance. Basically, I saw him for more than he was. It made me question everything. Since Rohana and I refused to segregate audiences, we were cancelled. On the same day, with all my dreams gone, I decided to start a podcast to defend free speech. That podcast was Cafe Locked Out. I wrote this poem at that time to establish, for me, what the duty of artists was. A CALL TO ARTS What is the point of art and artists?We are told they should rock the boat—but only while it sitsin a playground of sand,where anyone who fallsbruises nothingbut their pride? In a democracy,or even under a dictator,shouldn’t artists standin the frontline with the journalists,candles already litbefore the storm arrives,burning brighter than sunsso the lost can still seelong after the stormhas taken them? Shouldn’t they hold their mirrors highwhen the pressure comes,so we can seewhether our morality is holdingor is only the painted facewe wore when the days were easyand the nights were soft? If artists turn awayfrom the real fear of frightened people,who else will tend their sufferinguntil the harvest,whatever the weather,yields a crop called hope? If they join the choirthat sings for compliance and silence,what poetry will be left for us?What paintings will stainthe walls of our shared cave?Move on, history’s eye—there is nothing here to see.We were here.Everything was fine. Stand.I know it is frightening.The same storms move through me.Rain where there should be sun.Thorns where there should be blossom.Yet we are boundto gather what fruit we canand feed it to our childrenas we once drew lifefrom our Lucky Country’s breast. Stand on the perch of historylike the navigator still searchingfor the star we never thoughtwe could lose. Stand with every gift you have,soldiers of a force that has gone missing,and do what you were made to do:reflect what is before usso that, through you,we might find againwhat we have lost. Michael Gray Griffith This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

Paradise Found

The rain is constant and cold and the wind is its wingman, yet here in the bus, with the diesel heater on low, it’s like living in a snail shell with windows. There are two caravan parks in Lancelin, but now the school holidays are over, it’s quiet and this one is the cheapest. Steve has lived here for seven years. He lives in a caravan now, but next to his van is a bus, very much like ours, only it’s rusting its way back into the earth. “My wife and I travelled Australia for six years in that, until she got sick and died.” What did she die of? “Cancer.” He’s so matter of fact you could believe he’s well over it, but here is their bus, waiting for him every day, and the whole time he talked to us, he just studied our bus. There are other long-term residents here too. They live in old vans that would no longer survive on the road, or in these chalets that look like tiny one-room sheds. When thunder cracked, a young woman popped her head out of one and asked us if we heard that. It’s the army, Steve said. They’ve got a bombing range near here so they must be practising. A short time later we heard another explosion that brought other hermits out to timidly stare around and wonder. And considering the tenuous nature of their place in this country, they should be timid. The park has only one washing machine and no dryer, but there is no way they can complain. To live here permanently means you have to get on with the owner who, for some reason other than greed, has gifted them an affordable rent. Steve told us he pays $180 a week, plus he helps the owners out here and there. But outside of here, in the besieging world, everyone knows there is not a rent they could afford other than this. Deepening poverty is like an approaching war, an analogy the army solidifies with another distant, yet uncomfortably close, explosion. The van park borders a sand dune, over which Kel and I found a deserted beach with crystal clear water. Yesterday we went for a swim. Without bathers, Kel stripped down to her G-string and I watched her little pale bum walk into the gentle swell were, unafraid, she dove into and bathed in the sea. After she broke the surface, laughing and freezing, I understood that it is not a case anymore that we no longer know where we are going. It is just a realisation that after a lifetime of searching for our individual paths, perhaps we never knew where we were going, and the final acceptance of this might explain this deep sense of freedom we both own. Tomorrow we will hit the road again, and despite the staggering cost of fuel, and despite the fact we have no destination, and no timetable, we are heading north. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

Edna and John: The Australians who Saved Australia Day

Edna and John: The Australians who Saved Australia Day Edna was 88 when she placed a new frypan on the store’s counter and retrieved her purse. But when the assistant informed her that the store doesn’t take cash, Edna told them that was illegal and every business was obligated to take cash. The assistant recited the store’s policy, and a fuming Edna left with the frypan still resting on the counter. Later, in their local café, she met up with John Tate, her husband, and told him what had happened. John, who claims he used to be a loyal part of the “she’ll be right” brigade, was so incensed he stormed into the store and demanded to pay for the frypan with cash. The assistant called the manager, the manager called security, security called the police, and they threatened to arrest John — who was 85, still holding the cash in one hand and the frypan in the other, and refusing to leave without it. Finally, rather than leave Edna waiting in the café while he was put in a paddy wagon, John capitulated. Then, a short while later, the store once again began accepting cash. On the outside, Edna and John present as a mild-mannered conservative couple, living out the last of their days in the Adelaide Hills. In reality, COVID saw them become activists against a government they believe has overstepped — and keeps overstepping — the mark of liberty. Between them they have ten children, and at the time of writing this, thirty-five grandkids and thirty-four great-grandkids. Because the pair had refused to get jabbed, their family, like many families, experienced division, but as time passed, things were changing. Then the new fight arrived. Every year John would receive an invitation to an Australia Day celebration, but this year Edna noticed the invitation hadn’t arrived. After ringing the council to find out what was going on, they discovered that, without offering any community consultation, the Adelaide Hills Council had decided this: “Adelaide Hills Council last night resolved to not conduct citizenship ceremonies, confer awards or support events on the 26 January onward. This decision reaffirms our commitment to be an inclusive council that respects First Nations culture and values.” In person, John was told the reason there was no community consultation was because they didn’t want to foster hate and create division, so they decided to make the decision alone. From now on, Australian Citizenship Ceremonies would occur either three days before or after the 26th. Curious, John and Edna went to one of these ceremonies and discovered that Australia was never mentioned, and the national anthem was not sung. It was then that Edna decided someone had to do something about this, and since no one else was, the job would fall to them. John agreed, so they picked up the cudgel and ran with it. The fight back started with a letter they sent to Council by registered post. Neither expected a response, but instead Council acknowledged it, and they discovered they could make a formal deputation. With the help of a small but dedicated team, the couple formed a council working group. Over a dozen times John stood up and spoke at the council meetings. To prepare for the deputation they ran a survey and a petition. John and members of their team went door-knocking and asked people two questions: Do you support the council? Do you support the cancellation of Australia Day? What they discovered was that the vast majority of the public had no idea their council had cancelled Australia Day ceremonies, and 96% of everyone they talked to fully supported the recommencement of these celebrations on Australia Day. Another team, who supported the council’s original decision, also compiled a petition, but they could not achieve a fraction of the numbers that Edna and John could. In the face of such overwhelming numbers, ten out of eleven councillors changed their minds, which saw the council overturn its own decision to cancel Australia Day celebrations. Across the country councils are quietly doing this. On our own travels we’ve passed through towns that on Australia Day had no flags flying in the entire town. But now, thanks to Edna, John and their team, we know we can protest these decisions — and even win. Perhaps, though, the last word should go to the woman who drove the fight back. Originally from Yorkshire, in one council meeting where the arguments were about the ceremonies offending the Indigenous, she stood and said this: “You know, you all offend me. As you can hear by my accent, I’m an immigrant. And I’m not precious. They call me a Pom — and I am. But I love Australia. Let me tell you something now. If we hadn’t have come and done the work, you wouldn’t be sat here in this council chamber. You wouldn’t be driving your flash cars. You wouldn’t be living in your posh houses. You wouldn’t have the education. If we hadn’t have come and done all the hard work. And you offend me — along with all the other immigrants from the 194 nations that have come to this country and made it what it is today.” ~Edna (90 years old) Link to an article by Mark Neugebauer with far more info here Michael Gray Griffith Cafe Locked Out This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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THE CLO QUIZ SHOW #25 From the Plague to Andromeda

In this SLOW news week, all you’ve had to deal with is the return of the plague, the Realisation that our Gods are reptiles, or maybe insects , OH, and Paris is burning, again.Why?Well that sounds like a great question? The CLO QUIZ SHOW where the expert panel are the audience . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe

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Dr Melissa Costin Joins Us In The Cafe.sm

Going through old hard drives full of interviews we came across one we had overlooked. It was an interview with a Doctor in Brisbane who was a supporter of Dr William Bay. Dr Melissa Costin has struggled being a doctor, for she went to the art of medicine because her grades were there, and she wanted to save lives. But the reality of the health system challenged this. Since then she has taken various medical journeys from a cannabis doctor to working with the first openly Gay Doctor, and more. So prepare yourself for her unique journey as she shares her stories with Dr Oosterhuis and us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe