Ask Us Anything: Should fuel price surges mean people work from home? + What does it mean to be Australian?

0:00I'm Adam Schwab. I'm Adir Shifflin. And this is The Contrarians with Adam and Adir.

0:08And we're back. Episode 190, Ask Us Anything, where you ask us the questions and we do our best to answer them. Mike, over to you, question number one. All right. I am really looking forward to Adam's answer in particular to this question that came in from Mark. Mark asks this week, if fuel prices are surging is forcing employees back into the office effectively a pay cut well obviously there's been a bit of talk uh from from the federal government down that people should be able to work from home with fuel prices heading towards$2.50 a litre or more than that in some places and and in some places you actually can't get fuel at all that's a very very small percentage of petrol stations idea i think you suspect you know my view on this my view is most people not everyone and there's some people who have to travel a great distance and it's hard but I think most people can get public transport or ride a bike or walk to work.

1:04Now granted that's not 100 % of people and if it's someone who simply has no access to public transport then it's a different story but I think we've since COVID become very accustomed to driving places and I think look at Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday traffic in most major cities it's pandemonium. Monday, Friday when no people are working from home inverted commas it's the roads are very quiet so I think we've seen just this sort of luxury lifestyle where people think they should be able to drive into work whenever they go to work, when ultimately we have a great public transport system in pretty much every Australian city.

1:36We should be using it. And it's extremely cheap. There's no fuel surcharge on the train. And in Victoria, you can travel an hour on the train or 50 minutes on the train and pay like five bucks. So it's a very economical way to get around. And I think for most, not all, but for most people, there's plenty of ways to get in the office that doesn't involve driving. Yeah, I totally agree with that. You know, I'll say a couple of things on this. Number one, everybody talks about going into work when the fuel prices are high. Qantas puts surcharges on, presumably all the airlines do. Australia Post doubled their fuel surcharge.

2:11What about the poor guy that drives me to the airport? He doesn't get to put a fuel surcharge. I mean, it's so selective who people worry about. I actually make sure that I tip drivers now at the moment because that's their main input cost, that and maintenance of their vehicle. And so no one cares about them. Uber has put their prices up. Taxis are already very high priced. Fair enough. Yeah, no, I think it is fair enough. I don't disagree. Because the thing is this. As a consumer, fuel is not really much of a direct cost to you at all. It's an indirect cost in everything you buy. But it's not much of a direct cost.

2:47And so if we start saying it's a pay cut when the fuel price goes up, and obviously it's spiked now, something is always spiking. And so what's next? Like what next is you don't have to do or it's a pay cut or whatever it might be. And so I am extremely sympathetic to people that have to drive around places because you are more complimentary about Melbourne's public transport network than perhaps I would be. And Sydney and Brisbane. I think we've got pretty lucky generally and the Sydney signals breaks a bit. Well, I think Melbourne's bad. I think lots of places are not serviced in Melbourne and lots of places are not serviced in Sydney.

3:24That's the honest truth. I can't comment more than that. I don't know the cities that well. But if there are places in Sydney, if you live, it's going to be very hard to catch public transport. And so those people I'm sympathetic towards. And maybe if you're driving an hour each way and there really is no way to catch public transport, I do know people like that. I think I would be lenient on them and say, let's try and see if you can do more work from home for the time being. Well, let's look at the numbers for a second. So let's say you're driving an hour, which would be a pretty long way to drive.

3:52Let's say you're driving an hour. But I know people that do. Yeah, so do I. But there's not – it's the minority. So you're driving an hour. You're probably using – It's 50Ks, let's say. So it's around$4 to$5 worth of fuel, depending on how efficient your car is, obviously. Call it$4 or$5 worth of fuel. Petrol prices have gone up, say, 50%, 60%. So you're paying an extra$6,$7 a day. The average wage is like$50 an hour, roughly. So we're talking about 2 % of your – it's a tiny fraction. So the actual question is a little bit ridiculous, given the pay rise you need is about 1 % or something like that.

4:30So compared to how much people get paid, the increase in actual cost is tiny. Leaving aside the public transport and all that kind of stuff, it's a pretty small increase in cost. And also, I've had pretty low – also, as we talked about in the episode, I think, the last week, petrol prices, oil prices, specific petrol prices compared to 30 years ago are incredibly cheap. Look at how much house prices have gone up, how much lots of things have gone up. But petrol prices have barely moved in the last 20 years. That's true. No one's getting paid cuts because petrol prices are so cheap, nor should they get.

5:00But I think as soon as you go sort of a couple of dollars more expensive, I'm not sure we can be giving people payroll. it's somewhat obviously not a realistic question, but the whole notion of working, maybe you work from home one day a week would be the sort of maybe the compromise position there. I think there's some bank that's paying people$20 a week as a bonus for not working from home at the moment. And that probably covers the incremental cost. That's not a terrible suggestion, to be honest. Yeah. So I think, you know, you're right. Like your numbers are right. That would be the magnitude of the extra cost.

5:34But again, if I would say to people, If you're catching a car that doesn't have a built-in surcharge like Uber, you should be maybe thinking about tipping them an extra 10 % or something because they are absolutely suffering at the moment. Totally agree. Can I just go quick while we're talking about Ubers? I got a taxi back from the airport about a month ago just because the Uber line was really long and there was no one in the taxi line. So Uber was going to cost me$70 because obviously you get the quote. How much do you think a taxi costs for the same distance? I've got no idea. From the airport?

6:04Yeah, to Middle Park. a taxi,$90. $120, almost double the cost of a regular Uber. So usually Uber's cost me about$63. This taxi cost me$121, actually it was. So it's just outrageous how much. And that could have been before the credit card surcharge, potentially, so it could have been more than that. Don't tip that person. Well, I don't think I did, but Ubers are now the legit. Remember when Uber was the disruptor and they were the criminals? Now Uber's the legitimate, like completely legit, and taxis are the dodgy operators. There's going to complete 180 there. Mike. Question number two. I've got nothing to say to that.

6:43I've never heard that opinion from you before, Adam. It's a brand new concept. Question two this week comes from Ward Williams who messaged me on LinkedIn. This is in relation to a discussion we had a few episodes ago on the main pod around the Australian of the Year. Ward asks, I liked the Australian of the Year discussion tabled by Adam. It seems they did not identify the problem. We give out an award without looking at the person's whole character. Does their entire character represent Australian? Question to Adam and Adir, what does it mean to be Australian? And do they think every Australian could coherently answer that?

7:24Your thoughts, lots to unpack. Well, it's interesting the comment that could all Australians coherently answer what it means to be Australian. I actually think there would be answers that cover the entire spectrum of possible answers from different people that answer that question. So I'll say something that is very politically incorrect. I think some of them are going to be completely wrong answers and totally misconstrue what it means to be Australian. And, you know, it's easy for me to say because there will be people that disagree with me. It's a two-part question. I can answer the two parts super quickly.

7:57I don't think we should over-specify what it means to be Australian. I just think predominantly the starting point needs to be. You believe in the primacy of fundamental Western liberal democratic values, enlightenment values, plus we would call it maybe a fair go. That's the term Australians would use. That's fundamentally what it is. And then when you hear people say, oh, Australians really love sport. That's a characteristic of Australians, apparently. So it is true, but also Brazilians also really love sport and so do Germans and others. So I think, you know, fundamentally there are some unique things about being Australian and I don't think we exactly need to define those to pick someone who's Australian of the year, assuming we do pick someone, which I think we should.

8:43You might have a different view, Adam. But I think what's more important is to say, can we pick someone whose actions and behaviour over and above what they get paid for as a day job have made this country a better place for Australians. That to me is what Australian of the Year is all about. Do they represent what is best about what this country could be? And in that vein, I'm possibly more hesitant in trying to tick every box about the individual. So probably a mass murderer, no matter how good the thing is that they did, I'd have some problems making them Australian of the Year because the downside is too bad.

9:19But unfortunately, in my experience, there are no angels that walk among us on planet earth. And so no one is going to be able to tick all of the boxes. And to me, I think if we try for perfection, we're just going to have this endless cancellation wars, which is what has been happening with all the tearing down of statues, et cetera. I think I love Australian of the Year as a concept. I think pick someone that is as ordinary a person as you could possibly pick that has done with a significant chunk of their life activities that represent everything that we wish this country stood for and was about.

9:58I would keep it as broad as that in my view of this. And by the way, because it was a Grace Tame question, I think Grace Tame, when she got that award, really did tick that box. Like what she stood up and did is something that we, I think we could all agree, these types of values, standing up for what is wrong, taking some personal risk and some bravery and pushing it and so forth. That is refusing to position yourself as a victim when you've been victimized. I think this is everything that I wish Australia was all about. And unfortunately, you know, her slide down into, I don't know, disaster, let's call it, to me, was not at all obvious at the time.

10:37And again, I kept coming back to the fact that I don't think it was the wrong call to make her Australian of the Year. There's a lot in that. I'm much less confident there is inverted commas. If you look how much it's changed, Australia in the 1800s, very Anglo, very sort of Northern European based. Then obviously we had a lot of immigration throughout our history given sort of the nature of what we've built. But if you look at the more recent, in the 70s we had immigration from Asia. Before that we had immigration from what's called Southern Europe, then Asia. And more recently we've had Middle Eastern immigration.

11:10So I'm not sure you can define Australian like maybe you used to be able to. So I'll be a bit more skeptical. You've got the whole mateship thing. I think a lot of it's manufactured. I don't think it's real. I don't think – and if you look at – we'll use an extreme example. Look at Iran. If you look at the sort of Persian people, that's very different to the Iranian government, which is an Islamist dictatorship. So do you dub Iran by their government or by their people? So I'm just not sure you can do that for any country. So I think it's a bit of a misnomer that you can define a type of person or type of person that inhabits a country.

11:47Look at the differences between the people who march for Hamas versus the people who save people in the Bondi massacre. There's such differences between Australians. How can you pigeonhole? Don't you think you would say the ones – I totally agree with you. You're basically saying let's not try and define people by who and what they are to be Australian. Maybe it's more about what they stand for and what they believe. And I would say that people that march in support of terrible things like the Iranian regime, they might be Australian citizens and they might live in Australia, but I don't think they represent Australian values.

12:20I think you can talk about people representing Australian values. But I'm not sure it's that straight cut and dry. But that's a longer debate. I think if you look at my point on Australian in the Year, I think my point on Australian in the Year still really holds. And just to clarify, obviously, Grace Tame was the low watermark for Australians of the Year. We've had some incredible Australians of the year. Neil Danaher is probably the high watermark or one of the absolute high watermarks. Georgina Long and Richard Scalia, who ran 2024, outstanding. Taryn Brumfit, that I found was a bit more of a stretch.

12:50I think Dylan Alcott was a pretty good Australian of the year. And then you had Michelle Simmons. Then you had Professor Alan McKay. You had a lot of people, David Morrison, a lot of people who got it doing their job. Rosie Batty, I thought, was a good choice. You know who was one of my friends was Australian of the year? jeffrey rush uh simon mckeon oh simon was yeah so i think and you know what he got it for he didn't get it for being an investment bank god forbid yeah you know what he got it for was his work on disabilities or cancer treatment no he got it for a sporting achievement oh the yachting thing yes he he broke some kind of water speed record globally it was like this crazy crazy achievement and um and that got him australian of the year i think lee kernahan got it like Like there's too many of these that I think are controversial or strange.

13:36I'm not saying any of these are bad people. I'm saying they're just strange. And too many people got it for doing their job. Like probably 60 % to 70 % in the last 20 years got it for simply doing what they're paid to do, to your point. So I don't know why we need it. Obviously, not everybody's as bad a choice as Grace Tamer's turned out to be. As you said at the time she got it, it was defensible. I think it's clearly not defensible now. I think there's too many people who simply got it for what they do. So I think it's a problematic award and I just don't see the benefit of it. So I think it should be cancelled.

14:08What if you gave it to people? Like Grace Tame when she got it was the perfect person to get it, I think. And this is what, you know, it's very important to me. I hate revisionist history. It's very important to me you don't change the past based on stuff in the present. And when she got it, she was young, but she was brave. She was unknown. Like no one knew really who she was. She's not a famous person, not a rich person. I think that's ideal. I would love to see those kind of people receiving those awards. I think the criticism of Thames Award wasn't for what she did at the time. It was for the lack of body of work.

14:42It was a couple of years of advocacy. Yeah, that's a good point. If you look at a lot of other worthy winners, they had 20, 30, 40, 50 years of – Neil Danaher, who's 15 years tired of working with M &D in difficult circumstances. no one's going to criticize that honor for sure and neil down here is exactly what and dylan there's a lot of great worthy winners uh some great worthy winners there's probably three categories there's extremely worthy winners and they'll down to hers there's excellent outstanding people who did it as part of their job and then there's grace time essentially uh so unfortunately the the problem giving to her for two or three years of outstanding work is it's shown that she's now non-deserving of that award.

15:22So that's the problem. So she's 30. I think she's 32. I'm just looking it up. She was born in 1994. So 31. She's 31. And she got it in 2021. What's that? Four years ago, effectively. Yeah. So in her late 20s, mid to late 20s. And the work that – I'm not sure if she'd only did a couple of years of work, but I think that – I think it was maybe three. You're right. Because the whole thing became public. Your point is right. Yeah. Like later. Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to deal too much on her, but ultimately, I think you know my views on this. I know your views. I don't think we'll necessarily agree, but we'll go to a super quick break.

15:58Back with our third question in just a moment.

16:09Michael, question number three. Okay, guys. Question number three this week comes in from Dennis Friedman. In a world currently obsessed with disrupting every legacy system, what is one traditional institution or old-fashioned way of doing things that is actually perfect and should never be disrupted, regardless of what the tech sector says? This is, I've got the shortest answer ever. Question, what is the thing that is just perfect the way it is and shouldn't be altered by disruption? Adir's answer, nothing. There is nothing that fits that bill whatsoever. However, there is nothing that should stagnate long term.

16:49There is nothing that we should constantly be reappraising to try to figure out how can we incrementally, continuously improve this. That goes to everything from tech, to religion, to how you raise your kids, to sports, to everything. So I think there is, in my view, there should be no completely sacred cows that you are not trying to continuously improve somehow. Yeah, I agree. I think if you look at great businesses, they generally improve incrementally. It's not sort of zero to 100. It's zero to one to two to three to four to five to six to 100 slowly. So I think I totally agree. I think we need everything we do.

17:26How do we make it better? And if you look at living standards, if you look at life expectancy, look at almost every metric. People in poverty over the last century, it's improved massively. So I tend to agree. I can't think of much. there are probably some religious practices that have survived that can be said are probably okay there's some very old religions that i think have done done serve that purpose um if you believe in that so i think that that could be one area where maybe change is a bit more tricky uh but but yeah well you say that but like you know the christians at the turn of the first millennium They now are rampaging through the Middle East on the Crusades.

18:08I mean, that's not great. I'm pretty happy that got disrupted. I'm talking more a couple of hundred years, not a thousand years. But yeah, I think it's improved since then. I'm most disappointed about your answer because I thought you were going to say the thing that is perfect and can never be improved is a deer. How come that wasn't your answer? Well, those biceps can't be improved, but I think there's other areas that probably can't. The only way is up with those biceps. it's a really fascinating question not one that i expected obviously and as always our listeners continue to to stump us with fantastic questions which we love so thank you everybody for your questions thank you mike for asking them so well as always thank you idea we'll be back on tuesday with our long episode see you then