[PREVIEW] DERP | Honest Government Ad + UPDATE (Patreon)

Dear PatronsHere's the preview of our next Honest Government Ad - a continuation of our coverage of the global pandemic.After the past couple of episodes focusing on the global situation, I thought this would be a good time to focus our own Australien Government, where - after a brief hiatus of relative competence - the shitfuckery has well and truly resumed. As you know the Australien Government is sort of a placeholder for all shit governments, since many of its policies resonate with many other governments around the world. This is certainly the case with the topic of this video - which applies to all governments who are opting to squander this historic moment to address inequality and the climate emergency, in favour of The Same Old Shit™. While I have your attention, I also have a couple of important updates!1. In the coming days Patreon will send you a message to inform you that due to new laws passing in several countries and US states, they will be required to start charging sales tax on some pledges starting July 1st.  Please note that these changes will not affect you. I won't take up your time with all the details, other than to inform you that I've reported to Patreon that none of the rewards we offer are taxable, which means our Patrons should not be charged sales tax. (If at some stage this should change, I will of course inform you).As mentioned, Patreon will be sending you more details in the coming days; and if you'd like more info, you can find it here.2. I also wanted to let you all know why this month's Honest Government Ads will be a few days late. If you don't care, feel free to skip this. But I thought many of you would appreciate to know some background, so here goes!As you know, we normally stick to a monthly schedule. We just passed the 4 Year Anniversary of this series (!) and we've managed to do that for the past four years.But a few things have changes in the past few months...Firstly, the Covid lockdown caused a bit of havoc in our home since we haven't had access to our usual support with Juno and Luca (newborn and toddler, respectively). Thankfully we are all well and healthy. But recording and filming have been hard without the help of babysitters, which has slowed us down a bit. And thankfully this is slowly coming back to normal as the lockdown eases.Secondly, the podcast has become way more successful than I expected - (wait till you see who some of my next guests are!) - especially since I started publishing it to YouTube. I love doing the podcast and I can see it becoming a really powerful sidekick to the Honest Government Ads. But as it grows, it's also started taking up more time. Which is why I'm currently in the process of engaging an editor to take the production work off my hands.But most importantly, the Honest Government Ads I'm writing this year have been slightly longer and more complex to write because I'm trying to accord the massive issues we face a deeper, more thoughtful treatment. I'm starting to touch on more structural themes, as well as single issues. And I'd like to not only satirise and critique, but also provide some inspiration and solutions, so we don't just end up leaving folks feeling overwhelmed by the shitfuckery!I feel this is an important part of the natural evolution of this series. And I think it's particularly necessary to do it now, a US election year, when there's so much heavy shit going down, and so much at stake. But it also means the writing and production can take a bit more time!Given the above, I thought: rather than getting overly preoccupied with an artificial monthly deadline - which can be counterproductive to good creative output! - I'm better of taking a bit more time if needed to focus on the above approach to writing the HGAs.So whilst my aim is to bring you one Honest Government Ad per month, I wanted to explain why this might not always happen (such as this month); and I hope you'll find that the quality and content of the videos - as well as the podcast - makes up for these small delays.I hope you support my approach. But either way, I would love to know your thoughts.Thank you so much for supporting our work, and I hope this finds you and your loved ones in good health amidst the crazy time.   Catch you very soon for our next Honest Government Ad, which will be coming out around the middle of the week!GiordanoPS. If you don't want to sign in to Patreon, you can listen to the preview of the HGA herePPS. Since the video is a few days late (we filmed it today), I am sending this Preview out to all Patrons