7NEWS Spotlight is a weekly show that presents documentaries and news related content. It’s a pretty sensationalist program that I’ve very rarely watched. However we decided to skip family film night, after watching the first five minutes of this week’s episode. Not because this week was high quality, but rather the ridiculousness of the subject matter was very amusing.
This week’s episode was called Creating Change and focused on the current cost of living crisis. To combat this, they had some of Australia’s richest people lecturing the audience on how to save a few pennies. Essentially every person featured on the show was a wealthy economist or journalist – the suits on their backs probably cost more than my car. These economists openly work for national organizations, companies and even the banks: so the irony is that they are the ones who caused this crisis.
The program ran for about an hour long, including the ad breaks in between: it’s nice to know that the media is financially benefiting from discussing our poverty. The first half of this episode didn’t include any tips for saving money and instead just interviewed poor people about how hard they are struggling. I almost guarantee that these people were not paid for their time to be exploited by the media. In contrast, the presenters and perhaps even the economists were paid a fortune to talk about poverty.
The first half of the program also included a round table discussion with these economists that just repeatedly stated how the supermarkets and banks are not to blame. The reason provided as to why we shouldn’t blame the supermarkets is because despite having over a billion dollar profit margin, companies of that size should actually be making more. And the reason not to blame the banks is because interest rates and inflation has lowered from its peak. It’s almost like these economists that work for the banks and corporations have some sort of interest in not being blamed.
So we finally get our first money saving tip about half way through the show. The suggestion was to download phone apps that provide tips and track your finances. The first issue is that they are just outsourcing any research to a phone app, instead of providing the ideas themselves. The second issue is that these phone apps are probably a form of advertising and the show is once again profiting by exploiting poor people.
The other tips were few and far between. The format was to rant about how bad the economy is, blame no one, then end with a 30 second tip and cut to advertisements. The recommendations boiled down to buying cheaper alternative brands, don’t buy non – essentials like coffee, change insurances and mortgages, improve your risk profile for insurance and don’t get credit cards. These all make sense, but are also so well known that it seems pointless to even mention. We all know to change policies or products if there is a cheaper alternative, I don’t need a team of rich economists and an hour of my time to explain this.
On a side note, it was absurd that they included socks in the non – essentials category that we should stop purchasing. I refuse to be a filthy hippy that does not wear socks. I refuse to buy second hand socks. Give me socks or give me death.
They also interview some country singer named James Blundell: that I’ve never heard of until tonight. This is a guy that’s won multiple musical awards and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his albums. Apparently he declared bankruptcy in the past; however we must understand that a rich person declaring bankruptcy is a lot different than you and me. No one will lend me half a million dollars to just write off as a financial loss. I still owe my neighbor $20 for a gram of weed and he cut off my pinky finger as collateral. They topped off this interview with an advertisement for James Blundell’s national tour, because apparently tickets to a garbage old musician aren’t included in the non – essential purchasing category.
The next tragedy in this episode was their discussion on immigration. They showed a quote from national hero Dick Smith on why we should stop the migrants, and then had three so-called experts attacking his statement. Dick Smith wasn’t there to defend himself and they refused to have anyone else present to represent his defense. The audience was also full of immigrants, which in itself is amusing to see foreigners come here and complain about our economy.
The three people arguing for immigration included a professor, entrepreneur and economist that made the same false arguments we’ve all heard before. The first argument was that migration doesn’t affect house prices, because we saw an increase during the pandemic when immigration was low. This is absurd because the pandemic was such an exceptional economic period in which we saw massive shifts in people fleeing the cities. We also saw an increase in materials because workers and transport was heavily restricted.
The second pro – immigration argument was that there is an essential skill shortage without immigrants. Let me be clear, that most immigrants do not work in essential roles. Of course a professor, entrepreneur and economist wouldn’t know anything about essential roles anyway – they’ve never produced anything in their lives. 737,000 migrants arrived between 2022 – 2023, however only 170,000 houses were built in this period. So it’s just dishonest to not pretend that it doesn’t affect house costs.
The best question the entire night was when an audience member asked if the rich presenters and economists were affected by inflation personally. Out of the many people there, only one had an answer. His ambiguous answer was that he cancelled an insurance policy because it was now to expensive. The economist David ‘Kochie’ Koch than berated him that he should have just looked for an alternative policy with other providers. We must realize that these people lecturing us aren’t affected by inflation at all, and instead actually profit from our misery.
The cream of the crop came when a man asked Kochie about what to do with increasing rent prices. Kochies response was suggesting that the man gets a side hustle through making one of the spare rooms an Airbnb. It’s hilarious because it’s illegal. Residential Tenancy Law in Australia means that it’s illegal for tentants to sub – lease the property without the owner’s consent. Kochie might as well have told this guy to start dealing heroin.
I think I’ll be reporting this to the media and financial regulatory bodies. A millionaire economist getting on national television and telling poor people to break the law seems pretty reprehensible. Also, it will make some great content if I can get a national broadcaster and millionaire to make some sort of retraction. I don’t like the idea of snitching, but I’m pretty confident the worst penalty possible will be making some sort of public retraction – and even that’s unlikely.
So I wouldn’t recommend watching 7NEWS Spotlight. The only exception is this episode and especially if you are in a room with other working – class or poor people and want to laugh at how absurd everything is. The idea of the richest people in the nation explaining how the poor need to stop buying socks is just so insane that it becomes comical.
