Transcription
Have you been approached by any Zionist organizations to sponsor your channel to say specific things? Um, I'm interested to see what is, what is your interaction with lobbying groups like this.
Yeah, I um, me and people in my organization have been approached at least on three occasions. One of them was to um, actually overtly support the state of Israel. One of them was to just feature, just to feature Jewish people on my show regularly. Another one, another one was um, basically a connection to a sponsorship. They were going to connect me with a very big sponsorship to the tune of 300,000 a month. 300,000 a month.
So, I think something that all Australians can agree on is that we want dark money out of politics, which makes sense, right? You don't want to trust a political figure who's received anonymous donations from wealthy donors. But what about social media? A majority of young people under 30 now get all of their news and information exclusively from social media apps. But unlike political parties, which have tight regulation around disclosures, anyone could be paying anyone online.
So this is a multi-part series that we're doing here at Michael West Media. We're going to be looking into lobbying, into social media content creators, both online and offline. And today, I sat down with Turning Point Australia founder Joel Jamal.
I'm the head of Turning Point Australia. Um, we are a licensed offshoot of Charlie Kirk's Turning Point. Um, however, we are independent. We can do basically what we want to do, stand on whatever policies we want to stand on, as long as we don't become communists overnight. Um, and and Charlie entrusted me to help people breathe their values into politics. So, Turning Point is our political arm. I, I also have a um, a very large following online, a combined following of about a million followers across the platforms. Um, over the last 5 years, I, I started during the co uh movement. Um, I got made redundant due to the lockdowns and I started to call out government overreach and um, uh, protecting journalistic rights during the co protests and um, I've accrued a billion views online over the last 5 years from the work that I've done. Um, I'm also the head of the Light Australia newspaper as well, which is something I, I hold very dear to my heart, 'cause a lot of those articles can't get published into corporate media. And um, I, uh, yeah, I have a show, the Ark podcast. I do every couple of weeks, I put a video out and yeah, I just, I really am committed to helping people understand how the political system works and how Christians and conservatives can actually breathe their values into politics. And so obviously today, we're talking about lobbying and uh, specifically lobby groups paying online commentators to sprout viewpoints.
My guess is that uh, what you do is your full-time job essentially. You don't have a day job. You don't have a side hustle.
No, that's right. I um, for the most part, I do some social media consulting for businesses. There are businesses that, you know, they're like, "Oh, he got a billion views. Maybe he knows something about social media." Um, so that, that's something I might do on the side, but for the most part, it's politics. It's very much dominated by um, yeah, just the constant elections we've got on. There's a real gap on the right um that is a bit like a GetUp to help people get volunteers out in elections. And um, that's a void I try to fill. And like we were saying off camera before, um, the tricky thing about being an online personality is that depending on your branding and depending on what you want to put forward, it's very easy to fall into sponsorship traps and pushing agenda traps where if there's money on the line, it could be very, very easy to be persuaded to talk about certain points.
So, what we're going to do today, um, I just wanted to ask you some questions that we sent before on an email, but basically, have you ever been approached by a lobbying group to campaign for them?
Yeah. No, many times I've um, I've been, I've been approached by people from about three countries. I've, I've had a number of um, political parties uh, offer money to be a parrot and I've had um, a number of individuals going to come out and yeah, try and offer money.
And is my assumption is you didn't take the deal. You, you didn't sign the dotted line.
Yeah. No, I, I um, it's totally against uh, my brand to do that. Um, I, I've often found with these offers, they always come with strings attached. And look, I, I believe that I'm the best person to speak to my audience. I, no one knows them better. You know, the comments section, the views, the likes, the, I know my audience and I know my values. And the problem with a lot of these groups is they try to come in all this money, they try to steer you and put words in your mouth that you don't truly believe. And so ultimately, no, I've never taken the offers mainly for that reason. I'm like, look, I'm again, there's nothing wrong with taking, you know, a million bucks from a particular group, but where the line is for me is it's got to fit in with my mission. The mission is to help people breathe their values into politics as Christians, as conservatives, and I'm very clear about the policies we stand for. Once they come in and start trying to change my methods, try to change, you know, um, the, the policy positions I stand on, I'm like, "Look, guys, I, I can't get on board with that stuff." So often these things, they, they fall over. Um, but look, a lot of these, a lot of these groups that that try to do that, they end up, they always end up coming back and saying, you know, having another bite at the apple 'cause they realize they're getting nowhere. And and that's why I say look, you got to trust me to do what I do and you got 'cause I trust you to do what you do and it's got to be a mutual respect uh in the way that we do things. Otherwise, what's the point in approaching me?
So, with these kind of offers that you're getting um, what, what kind of money are we talking about? You know, is it local sponsorship money? Is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? What are we talking? You know?
It's really funny. Not all of them are a straight donation. Some of them, they'll hook you up with like a branding deal. Totally unlinked. Totally unlinked. I mean, the gambling companies are an example where, you know um, a gambling group for responsible gambling might say, "Ah, we love what you're doing. Can you support this country?" And we'll send you, we'll connect you with this other company in gambling and they'll actually sponsor your show. It's like, I'm shocked. Like, I'm actually shocked at all of this 'cause I'm, I'm not from the industry. I'm from construction and property development. Um, and um, and look, my, my dad was was very much above the fray of this stuff. And I just look at this and I'm like, okay, so that's how it works, right?
No, not. We could be talking about like generational wealth kind of money with some of the industries that could be approaching you. Um, obviously being an online commentator, it'd be very easy just to sign the dotted line and just say, "Yep, give me the money. I'll do whatever you want." You know, that, that could buy you a house. That could, well, not in this current economy, but it could, it could set you up for quite a long time. So um, can I ask why you would turn something like that down if it was quite a significant amount of money?
It's not why I got into politics. I mean, I, I got into politics because I got made redundant. My, my construction and and property development job was made redundant at the start of 2020 because of the lockdowns. I, I got involved in politics because I wasn't the only person that was affected. People, you know, families, fathers, mothers with kids lost their jobs. Um, people that like my, people like my father weren't able to get cancer treatment and they passed as a result of COVID. I mean, for me to to take this money and it being contrary to my values, it would be a huge betrayal of the reason I got involved in this, you know, to start with. So, so the money that's offered, I could tap out of politics with this money. But I keep having this internal dialogue with, you know, with God basically saying, "Look, this is your out. Have you had enough? Have you had enough? Are you ready to tap out?" And I, I always come back to that answer. No, I'm not ready to. The job's not done. And um, to give that level of creative control over my platform to these people. A platform that's been built over trust and like we've been through a lot of crap together. My, me and my audience, we've been through a lot of crap together. A lot of people losing their jobs, nurses losing their jobs. Like we've been through a lot of things and and to just throw it away for me personally, it's probably one of the most selfish things I could do.
So by proxy, is that almost a guarantee if you were to accept any kind of sponsorship, you would disclose it? What, what is your process if you were to take money um, because obviously, you know, you're linked to to uh, to Turning Point America as well. So I would assume there'd be some sort of relationship there. How do you disclose any funds coming through your organization?
Oh, well, I'll say from the start, we, we've never received a dollar from the US and we've never.
Okay.
No. A lot of people assume that we, we are literally purely run by our audience. A lot of people get shocked by when I say that to them and I'm like, "No, guys, it's a branding agreement. It's a branding agreement. If anything, we should be paying them for the brand." Um, but we don't. Um, and so, no, I um, I, we are purely audience funded and people get shocked when they hear that. Um, but that's the reality of the situation. And so often we, we'll get comments saying, "Oh, you're funded by the US and blah blah blah." And I'm like, "No, that's, that's actually not, that's actually not the situation. It's never been the situation." Um, but um, yeah, no, no, so, so when it comes to uh, being transparent about money we receive, we are transparent. We do tell people um, at elections, we disclose our donors. We have to show that that's a part of the law, you know, we have to comply with state electoral law and federal electoral law and local electoral law, you know, that's a normal part of being involved in the political process. Um, and so, no, yeah, so it's pretty, I mean, Australia's got pretty good laws like that at the moment.
Okay, that's a bit of a breath of fresh air, especially with how much, you know, dark money there is around elections um from all sides of politics as well. I think a lot of Australian citizens just want to get the money out of politics in a lot of sense, or at least be open and transparent about it. Um, obviously here at Michael West Media, we have um one major corporate sponsor that's Ian Melrose from Island Optical owns a bunch of optical warehouses. Um, he's a very publicly available figure and we, uh, are very upfront with um, his contribution to the industry and you'll quite, you'll find that a lot of mainstream outlets don't have uh, uh, uh, those disclosures. For example, News Corp um never, never talks about their share in domain.com when it comes to real estate and you never have, have nine and seven talk about their gas um projects with Gary Stokes and all of that. I think Australians really, really want to have transparency, especially in the political sphere.
Something that I do want to go down is you mentioned that like you've had, you've had three foreign countries talk to you about possibly giving you money. Obviously us here at Mahawia, we talk a lot about the Zionist lobby and the Israel lobby in politics here in Australia. Is there anything that you would like to talk about um regarding the foreign influence as they're asking you to talk about them?
Yeah, I mean, China, Israel, and India are the countries, the three countries.
Um, and look, I think, I think there's a big argument to understand why China would want to do it. Uh, why India would want to do it. And um, you know, Four Corners did a big thing on India stacking the Liberal Party with with members. Um, and um, and obviously China for, you know, defense and and coercive control. Um, but but Israel as well, they, they hinge on, you know, the evangelical right in America and the Christian movement in Australia. I'm a Middle East Christian. I can't support Israel. I, you know, look what they're doing to southern Lebanon. Look at the land grab south and north of the Litani River. Look at what's going on in the buffer, in the buffer zone in Syria. I'm Lebanese Syrian. Like this is, I, my family wouldn't be in Australia if Israel was never created. Like, how could I support the creation of a country that is literally the reason why so many Christians are being dispossessed from the Middle East? And so this was something that, you know, Charlie and I for many years didn't see eye to eye on. It was never a problem. Um, but he was changing at at the end of it. He was actually shifting and understanding what was going on. And and that's something where um, I, I definitely take the the Turning Point USA to task on with a number of things more recently. And so it's been an interesting time since he's passed. Unfortunately.
It's been almost about a year now, hasn't it?
September. September. Yeah. September. Yeah. September 10. And and the thing about with um, so the Zionist lobby in Australia is that there is a difference between, you know, criticizing a foreign nation and criticizing a foreign state and being genuinely anti-Semitic or anti-Islamist or anti-whatever, whatever label you want to put on it. There's a, there's a difference. If I want to criticize the Chinese government, you know, I'm not a racist because I don't like the policies of Xi Jinping. Um, why is why do we see that so much in the discourse for Zionism?
But something I do want to ask is I noticed that um, obviously you're a proud Christian with a lot of the in evangelical right in America. We always see them repeat the phrase uh Judeo-Christian values, but I haven't heard you say that once. Can you, can you break that down a little bit for me?
Yeah, I, I used to say Judeo-Christian because, you know, I, I went to the King's School. I was, you know, it was an Anglican school. It was just a thing you said, you know, um, when you delve into it a bit deeper, the first Christians were Jews. It is baked into the name Christian. You know, the idea of Judeo-Christian is, is it's a bastardization of the history of the church. It is not a thing. You know, um, it was apostles like Paul, before he became the Apostle Paul, he was Saul. He was one of the, you know, those Judeo people that were hunting down Christians until Jesus intervened on the road to Damascus. And so, look, it's such a bastardization of church history and it's such a disgusting phrase to the history of all the martyrs that died for the name Christian. Christians, you know, weren't even allowed to use like the word Christian didn't really exist at the time. Um, you know, the idea of the followers of Christ, uh, there's a reason why he was crucified. You know, the Romans, let's say the, the Zionist lobby were the ones that went after the Romans and and were the reason why Jesus wasn't let off. You know, we got to be very clear about this. Now, look, that doesn't mean all Jews are bad. It doesn't, Jew to be a Jewish person is to be of an ethnicity. You can't judge someone for something they can't change. But the, the idea that all Jews support Israel is simply a lie. It is not true. And the idea that me saying that is anti-Semitic is also another lie. And it's another way they've weaponized language. I am Semitic. I'm not Jewish, but I'm Semitic.
Region.
I'm from the region. Semitics talks about specific languages. You know, Arabic is a Semitic language. Aramaic is, is the language of Jesus. That is a Semitic language. That's what they say at my church, uh, Bishop Mar Mari's church in Western Sydney. They speak it in Aramaic. It's one of the few places they still do it. You know, the idea that you're going to demonize and come in and just, you know, um, parasitically almost take over this identity of people in the Middle East and just take over their land and set up settlements in southern Lebanon. This is a big problem for Middle East Christians and for all Christians that proclaim to be, you know, apostolic Christians, people of the true faith, people that are OG Orthodox Catholic Christians. And I think that's why so many Orthodox and Catholics are just like, what the hell is going on with Israel? Like, is anyone going to call this out? And so.
It's interesting to see the.
Yeah, interesting to see the separation there 'cause quite often you don't, you don't get that in the modern political discourse. They try and squeeze Zionism and and uh Christianity together, not Judaism, Zionism. Um, but to kind of bring it back to the point of this episode and just to wrap up as well, um, have you been approached by any Zionist organizations to sponsor your channel to say specific things? You don't have to go into specific details unless you want to, but um, I'm interested to see what, what is your interaction with lobbying groups like this.
Yeah, I um, me and people in my organization have been approached at least on three occasions. One of them was to um, actually overtly support the state of Israel. One of them was to just feature, just to feature Jewish people on my show regularly. Another one, another one was um, basically a connection to a sponsorship. They were going to connect me with a very big sponsorship to the tune of 300,000 a month. 300,000 a month.
A month.
A month.
That's generational wealth, man. That's.
Who has that kind of money? And um, and look, man, I don't have 300,000 a month coming in, just so you know. Um, and so.
If you start wearing Rolexes, we'll, we'll find out soon.
Yeah. Yeah.
But and and look, I see that and I'm like, "Huh, right." You know, Satan is the king of this world. You know, he's, he's the sorry, the prince of this world. And I just look at that and I'm like, "Mate, you know, you're not going to get away with it. You're not going to get away with it. This stuff, it only works in the short term, but it's not good for a marathon." You know, people work it out in this online world. And I think that's why, you know, they buy things like TikTok and other things. They try to shut this stuff down. Doesn't work. This is the, we are in an online world now. We can share information like herpes across the internet. Like it is just insane the amount the truth will, you know, defend itself and get out there and you can't just cover it up with money. Um, you know, people will work it out eventually. And so, and people will be angry when they work it out. And so, no, it's a very unforgiving environment, but I think that's just what, you know, democracy is meant to look like. And obviously, there's, there's a side conversation there which we might get you back on for another episode about the freedom of speech in Australia and the crackdown of the anti-semitism laws in both New South Wales and Queensland. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that, but that's not the scope of this video. Um, Joel, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it. Is there anything that you'd like to say before we sign off?
No, my pleasure, Josh. Look, at the end of the day, we're all Aussies and we're going to have to work out how to live with our neighbors and move this country forward so we can have the basic things our parents and grandparents had. And I, I encourage discourse like this. I really appreciate you having me on, Josh.
No worries, Joel. Thank you very much.