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Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
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Speaker 2: Welcome to podcast two hundred and fifty five for September eleventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. When John Graham died, it was a
Speaker 2: great loss to many many people and to the country.
Speaker 2: He was an educationalist, headmaster of Auckland Grammar for twenty
Speaker 2: one years. He was a rugby player of the highest order,
Speaker 2: playing twenty two Tests three as the All Blacks captain.
Speaker 2: But most of all, I'd say his greatest achievement was
Speaker 2: the positive influence that he had on so many lives.
Speaker 2: For those who, for whatever reason, are unfamiliar with his name,
Speaker 2: Sir John Graham was a legend one of the greatest
Speaker 2: Maxim Institute, of which he was a founding trustee, as
Speaker 2: being responsible for establishing and maintaining the Sir John Graham
Speaker 2: Annual Lecture. This year was the fourteenth such event. Every
Speaker 2: year Maxim produces a guest speaker of considerable talent this
Speaker 2: year's speaker was Nicholas Herony, Professor of Constitutional Law at
Speaker 2: the University of Queensland. The title was The Compass of Character.
Speaker 2: Sir John would have approved. Nicholas Arony guests in podcast
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty five and we discussed the subject
Speaker 2: of his speech, but only after we traversed a number
Speaker 2: of other issues, beginning with democracy and challenges, of which
Speaker 2: there are many. Layton Smith speaking of character. In a
Speaker 2: few hours and the so called presidential debate will be
Speaker 2: live on TV, and at that point this podcast will
Speaker 2: be ready for release, which will likely be during the debate.
Speaker 2: So I cannot comment on the battle that so many
Speaker 2: people are wanting it to be and hanging out for.
Speaker 2: I can't comment on that because I won't be in.
Speaker 3: A position to.
Speaker 2: But what I've decided to do is to quote you
Speaker 2: an opinion as a way of setup, and you're most
Speaker 2: likely to be hearing this opinion after you've seen or
Speaker 2: heard reports on the debate and how it went. This
Speaker 2: is a commentary written by Carrie Lucas, who is president
Speaker 2: of Independent Women's Forum in the United States. It's intriguing
Speaker 2: because you've got to be able to make a judgment.
Speaker 2: Call on the debate as you've seen it, and compare
Speaker 2: it with this. Kamala Harris's campaign is making women look
Speaker 2: incompetent is the title, Especially to those of us who
Speaker 2: want to see a female president. It's so awful to
Speaker 2: have a candidate who is so obviously not up to
Speaker 2: the job. Carrie Lucas writes, I want every little girl
Speaker 2: across our country to know this. You can do anything,
Speaker 2: even if it's never been done before. Said in August
Speaker 2: twenty six x post from the Kamala Harris Tim Wallson campaign.
Speaker 2: It's vapid and cliche, the kind of feel good self
Speaker 2: help speak that should be avoided during the serious business
Speaker 2: of electing the leader of the free world. Yet it
Speaker 2: speaks to the uncomfortable truth for women. Closely following this campaign,
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris is trading new ground as the first female
Speaker 2: vice president and someone with a serious shot at becoming
Speaker 2: America's first female president. You don't have to be a
Speaker 2: dei enthusiast to recognize that the first female president will
Speaker 2: have a special place in the history books as the
Speaker 2: culmination of the centuries long fight for women's rights in
Speaker 2: the United States. That's also why it's so awful to
Speaker 2: have a female presidential candidate who is so obviously not
Speaker 2: up to the job. Subheading, Americans would elect a woman,
Speaker 2: but this one isn't Ready. Surveys suggest Americans are willing,
Speaker 2: even eager, to vote for a evil candidate. Harris's campaign
Speaker 2: is predicated on this. Publicly, the campaign hand rings about
Speaker 2: how sexism against women is a formidable obstacle that the
Speaker 2: trailblazing Kamala must overcome. In a country of nearly one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy million registered voters, undoubtedly at least a
Speaker 2: few simply will not vote for any woman. Female candidates looks,
Speaker 2: wardrobe decisions, and personal histories likely are generally subject to
Speaker 2: greater press scrutiny than that of the average male candidate.
Speaker 2: And yet it's also clear that Kamala sex is her
Speaker 2: greatest asset. I will skip the rest of this It's
Speaker 2: fairly long subheading the campaign Women Deserve Harris could have
Speaker 2: offered Americans a very different campaign. She could have boldly
Speaker 2: defended the Biden Harris administration as a success that deserves
Speaker 2: another four years, or explained how as president she would
Speaker 2: but on a few critical policy issues, Americans might have
Speaker 2: given her points for admitting that mistakes were made in
Speaker 2: good faith under President Biden and Harris's watch. Americans might
Speaker 2: have appreciated the honesty of saying that three years in
Speaker 2: office taught her important lessons and she plans to course correct.
Speaker 2: She could have fearlessly revisited her twenty twenty primary statements
Speaker 2: and described the process by which she has come to
Speaker 2: moderate her positions subheading deep inside Carmelin knows that she's incompetent,
Speaker 2: and this is worth reading its entirety, which is fairly short. Anyway,
Speaker 2: she enabled the Trump campaign to make Kamala v. Kamala
Speaker 2: ads to expose her competing policy positions and reveal her
Speaker 2: as a chameleon. She confirmed the suspicion that her party
Speaker 2: doesn't trust her to handle serious questions or to articulate
Speaker 2: her party's policy agenda. They believe that she must be
Speaker 2: kept with notes behind a teleprompter. Hillary Clinton didn't not
Speaker 2: act like this. Nikki Hayley didn't ask a man to
Speaker 2: tag along for big interviews. Why is Kamala allowing herself
Speaker 2: to be treated like she's incompetent? It's because of the
Speaker 2: worst truth of all. She believes it too. You can
Speaker 2: see her self doubt during any unscripted moment. Each sentence
Speaker 2: is a dangerous high wire act. She's in her head,
Speaker 2: second guessing every word she utters, hearing herself get tongue
Speaker 2: tied and falling back on the verbal tics that her
Speaker 2: campaign coaches have clearly flagged as poison. Subheading. She can't
Speaker 2: even do a CNN interview herself, and we know the
Speaker 2: story behind that. Yes, many of us, she concludes, many
Speaker 2: of us do look forward to the day that we
Speaker 2: have a madam president, but not enough to buy the
Speaker 2: scam being sold us today. We know we deserve better. Well,
Speaker 2: make your own judgment call based on the comments of
Speaker 2: Carrie Lucas, president of the Independent Women's Forum, and what
Speaker 2: you see or hear of the so called presidential debate,
Speaker 2: because not really in a few hours time now, in
Speaker 2: a moment, Professor Nicholas a'rony Layton Smith, there are essential
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Speaker 2: Farmer Broker Auckland Nicholas Aroni is a professor of Law
Speaker 2: at the University of Queensland, specializing in constitutional law, which
Speaker 2: for me at the moment as one of the most
Speaker 2: interesting legal topics on the planet. He is here for
Speaker 2: the annual Sir John Graham Lecture and that lecture is
Speaker 2: entitled The Compass of Character, and the lecture is very interesting.
Speaker 2: I know this because I got some advanced notes. So,
Speaker 2: Nicholas Roney, it's great to have you on the Latent
Speaker 2: Smith podcast. You're much appreciated, I am told by the
Speaker 2: Maxim Institute for which you are delivering the aforementioned lecture.
Speaker 3: Look, it's a real pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 3: Laden thank you very much for the opportunity to talk
Speaker 3: with you always.
Speaker 2: Now I want to start with something apart from the lecture.
Speaker 2: We'll get to it, of course, because that's the anchor
Speaker 2: for the conversation. I've got a couple of questions for
Speaker 2: you that are very simple. Particularly the first one, can
Speaker 2: you give us your definition of what democracy is?
Speaker 3: Goodness, that's a great question. It's not so much a
Speaker 3: simple question. Actually. I think that democracy has to do
Speaker 3: with participation in your own self government. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's simply something that you do when you vote every
Speaker 3: three or four years for candidates for election. I do
Speaker 3: think that's an important part of how our representative system
Speaker 3: of democracy works. But the very ancient definition of democracy
Speaker 3: is to participate in your own self government. And one
Speaker 3: of the interesting things that goes along with that understanding
Speaker 3: of democracy is that it can only really work at
Speaker 3: that highest level at a local level, ironically, because it's
Speaker 3: only at a local level that people are really effectively
Speaker 3: able to participate in their own self government. Bigger the
Speaker 3: country gets, the bigger the number of people, the more
Speaker 3: distant the government gets from people. So that's my essential
Speaker 3: and underlying definition of democracy.
Speaker 2: What does it involve apart from just voting, I mean,
Speaker 2: i'd start with free speech.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, precisely. So, participating in your own self government
Speaker 3: has to do with engaging in discourse, discussion, debate, speech
Speaker 3: about political matters. That's always been seen as very essential
Speaker 3: and central to the process of participating in your own
Speaker 3: self government, because in a sense, we're talking about politics,
Speaker 3: and we're talking about how we govern ourselves collectively, and
Speaker 3: so to participate in your own self government collectively with
Speaker 3: other people, it's essential that you communicate with those people
Speaker 3: that we all together talk about how we're to be
Speaker 3: governed and make decisions together after listening to each other's arguments,
Speaker 3: the reasons each gives for certain policies and so forth.
Speaker 2: So it extends beyond that, of course, to liberty in general.
Speaker 2: And on that basis, I'm going to ask you whether democracy,
Speaker 2: in your opinion, is under threats in various places on
Speaker 2: the planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, it's a good question, because, of course there's
Speaker 3: a lot of concern about that possibility and certain developments
Speaker 3: that are occurring in many countries. It seems to me
Speaker 3: that because I define democracy as something that happens best
Speaker 3: at a more local level, the underminding, sorry, the underlying
Speaker 3: challenge to democracy happens when you try to spread democracy
Speaker 3: over too larger compass, and then what happens is the
Speaker 3: government gets more and more distant from people, and power
Speaker 3: becomes more and more centralized in the government, and then
Speaker 3: the people who rule so distantly begin to just govern
Speaker 3: more autocratically or more independently of public opinion. And I
Speaker 3: think that that's the underlying problem. If democracy is under threat,
Speaker 3: I think across the world, and I wouldn't even refer
Speaker 3: simply to the countries that most people think of it
Speaker 3: as being under threat. But even in our favored Western democracies,
Speaker 3: what we're seeing is increasing centralization and an increasing concentration
Speaker 3: of power in what we call the executive government, which
Speaker 3: is distinct from our parliaments. During COVID, for example, across
Speaker 3: the world, we saw virtually all the nations of the world,
Speaker 3: even the Western democracies, relying on and functioning through an
Speaker 3: extraordinary concentration of power in the executive, and parliaments were
Speaker 3: shunted out of the process had little or no say
Speaker 3: at all about how COVID was managed. So if democracy
Speaker 3: is under threat, it's because our political systems have become
Speaker 3: so increasingly centralized that when a crisis comes along like that,
Speaker 3: or a perceived crisis comes along, the executive takes the
Speaker 3: reins and starts to govern just simply on the basis
Speaker 3: of the decisions of the executive.
Speaker 2: Another name for that would be the administrative states.
Speaker 3: Related to the administrative state. Yes, it is. It is
Speaker 3: because when we speak the administrative state, we're speaking of,
Speaker 3: as it were, the bureaucratic apparatus of the executive. Because
Speaker 3: we think of the executive interestingly, we regard the executive
Speaker 3: as a highly unified thing. Ultimately, that executive power is
Speaker 3: a singular power, but then it's exercise through many persons
Speaker 3: who exercise it in practicalities, but they are all in
Speaker 3: principle subject to the rule and guidance and direction of
Speaker 3: the One, as it were. It's interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't think we quite realize that. If stole and looked
Speaker 3: at our systems, he would say, wow, you're not really democracies.
Speaker 3: You are sort of mixed constitutions with an awful lot
Speaker 3: of monarchy. And he would say that because he means
Speaker 3: the rule of the one, and he'd be looking at
Speaker 3: our systems and notice just how much the power of
Speaker 3: just one central focus of authority he plays such a
Speaker 3: very significant role in the politics of our times.
Speaker 2: Now you it wasn't you. There was a little blick,
Speaker 2: and when you mentioned the name, we didn't quite catch it.
Speaker 2: I presume he said Socrates. Oh, I said Aristotle, all right, Aristotle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Aristotle was the great political philosopher of ancient Athens
Speaker 3: who was so good at analyzing systems, and he very
Speaker 3: very insightfully said that we can break down systems into
Speaker 3: whether they involve the rule of the one or the few,
Speaker 3: or the many and the rule of the one he
Speaker 3: called monarchy, And he didn't have in mind the idea
Speaker 3: of a hereditary monarchy, because today we think of monarchy
Speaker 3: as been king of Queen of England and as a
Speaker 3: hereditary position and you don't elect them. But Aristotle, that's
Speaker 3: not really very relevant. What's really most crucial is whether
Speaker 3: it's just one person who rules, a few people who rule,
Speaker 3: or the many who rule. And he analyzed political systems
Speaker 3: in those terms, and I think it's very illuminating because
Speaker 3: we've lost sight of that, and we congratulate ourselves on
Speaker 3: being democracies when we have very, very vast tracks of
Speaker 3: both monarchy and aristocracy in our systems.
Speaker 2: Is a question both Aristotle and Socrates and others, but
Speaker 2: those two in particular lent their intelligence to the world
Speaker 2: for virtually ever. Is there the equivalent today in existence?
Speaker 2: Can you name me somebody or a couple of people
Speaker 2: would be even better, who would fall, who you'd put
Speaker 2: into the same category of intellect and influence as those two.
Speaker 3: Goodness? That is a tough question to ask. I don't
Speaker 3: think I can answer that. The reason why it is
Speaker 3: probably two reasons, and one is that we live in
Speaker 3: a time where the population of the world is immense,
Speaker 3: and so while you know, we think about like Australia
Speaker 3: our population or New Zealand our population, we dwarf ancient Athens.
Speaker 3: And so there are just so many people of great
Speaker 3: intelligence and ability in our world, and how to pick
Speaker 3: which one of them would actually turn out to have
Speaker 3: the sort of stature of an Aristotle or a Plato
Speaker 3: in two centuries time or a millennia. Goodness, it's very,
Speaker 3: very hard to gauge whether there are any like that.
Speaker 3: I really would hesitate to try to answer that question,
Speaker 3: and that might sound like it seemed like a cop out.
Speaker 3: That's my honest and truthful answer.
Speaker 2: And that's what we want. But there seems to be
Speaker 2: a flux of It's not for the first time, and
Speaker 2: maybe it's been more continuous than I realized, but of
Speaker 2: German philosophers, and I'll throw out Jurgen Harbamas for instance,
Speaker 2: who are having a growing influence more than we are
Speaker 2: used to, more than we're familiar with. It might be
Speaker 2: a better way to put it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think so, I mean the inflance of people
Speaker 3: Jigen Harbermarsen and other figures that our minds might go to.
Speaker 3: It turns on the fact that many of these people
Speaker 3: are academics like me, you know, we're full time professional
Speaker 3: philosophers or teachers in the universities. And while it's true
Speaker 3: that people like Harbamus and others are having significant influence
Speaker 3: in the way that people think, what's noticeable it seems
Speaker 3: to me is that if you were to ask me,
Speaker 3: you know who in our times has had influence, my
Speaker 3: mind actually interestingly turned to the founders of the American constitution,
Speaker 3: like James Madison, for example. And why it comes to
Speaker 3: mind is what's interesting about these figures is they weren't
Speaker 3: just pure philosophers. They were practicing politicians. They were statesmen,
Speaker 3: They ran farms and businesses, and at the same time
Speaker 3: they undertook or engaged in philosophy and theoretical reflection on politics.
Speaker 3: So they were more like renaissance men, if I can
Speaker 3: use that expression, broadly educated, but also broadly and practically experienced. So,
Speaker 3: not wanting to pour too much cold water on the
Speaker 3: thought that someone like Jurgen Habermass will turn out to
Speaker 3: be a significant figure, I'm actually not so sure that
Speaker 3: he will in the long run. And what I think
Speaker 3: is noticeable is that. And I suppose I'm being critical
Speaker 3: of my own class, but the academic class we do
Speaker 3: live in ivory towers. That expression exists for a reason
Speaker 3: because really have any sense of what it means to
Speaker 3: put our ideas into real practice. And it shows when
Speaker 3: academics actually are given some responsibility administrative responsibility in universities,
Speaker 3: they don't act necessarily better than the politicians that they
Speaker 3: so like to criticize from the sidelines. So it's the
Speaker 3: people that can actually put things into but also think
Speaker 3: deeply about it that I think I admire the most,
Speaker 3: and the ones that had the most lasting impact past.
Speaker 2: It's not a secret that I have a fascination with
Speaker 2: the American Constitution, a long standing one and an ever
Speaker 2: increasing one at the moment. And I've had a couple
Speaker 2: of letters over the last few weeks suggesting, not criticizing,
Speaker 2: but just suggesting that when I love the podcast, they're
Speaker 2: not really interested in the American situation. I wonder how
Speaker 2: you would justify on my part my interest and its value.
Speaker 3: I think for two reasons. But I have to say
Speaker 3: I'm answering this as an Australian, which is a little
Speaker 3: easier because the reason that's procure or particular to Australia
Speaker 3: is that the design of the American Constitution had an
Speaker 3: enormous influence on the design of the Australian constitution. And
Speaker 3: so that's why Australia has a certain if we're doing
Speaker 3: comparative constitutional law, trying to compare political systems, the United
Speaker 3: States alongside perhaps Canada, the two countries to which Australia
Speaker 3: is just most easily compared. So that's one reason why I, personally,
Speaker 3: and it's not answering your question, find the American system
Speaker 3: very relevant. I think the second one, though, is that
Speaker 3: it's just undoubted that the United States has become the
Speaker 3: dominant power of our generations, and therefore our interest in
Speaker 3: it is driven by its success and its power. I
Speaker 3: think that's why the Roman Empire has continued to be
Speaker 3: a topic of perennial interest, because it was the dominant
Speaker 3: power over Europe as we know it today, and Europe
Speaker 3: evolved out of what remained of that empire, and so
Speaker 3: people look back to their roots and you sort of
Speaker 3: the sort of a gravitational force the powerful and the successful.
Speaker 3: Over time, though there's always an ebb and flow in
Speaker 3: imperial and power and the strength of nations. And so
Speaker 3: you know, probably two or three generations ago, people would
Speaker 3: have thought that the British Empire was the most significant
Speaker 3: objective inquiry, and I think that's only the case. You
Speaker 3: saw that a lot of people very interested in the
Speaker 3: British system of government because it as the British Empire
Speaker 3: spread throughout the world, they established Westminster systems of government.
Speaker 3: We call them Westminster systems after you know that small
Speaker 3: area in London called Westminster where the houses of Parliament
Speaker 3: are based. So I think our interest in these systems
Speaker 3: is largely driven by their power, their success, and the
Speaker 3: sense that well, they must be doing something right. So
Speaker 3: let's try and understand how it works and see how
Speaker 3: much we can emulate that success in our own nations.
Speaker 2: Then go back to whether democracy is under under threat
Speaker 2: and make mention of immigration, in particular the number of
Speaker 2: people who have been pouring into into countries Britain of course, America,
Speaker 2: of course, Germany, Europe in general. Not so much in
Speaker 2: our part of the world, but we are getting concerned
Speaker 2: about it. I think on both sides of the Tasman
Speaker 2: is immigration a threat to the lifestyle and the systems
Speaker 2: that we have set up. And I'm talking, of course,
Speaker 2: because of the because of the competitive nature of those
Speaker 2: who are coming in for what they have left behind.
Speaker 3: It's a really serious question I think that our country
Speaker 3: are having to grapple with at this point in time.
Speaker 3: And I know it's a highly charged question and a
Speaker 3: highly emotive question as well. I mean, I myself, I've
Speaker 3: got Greek heritage. You know, my grandparents came to Australia
Speaker 3: from Greece. They were migrants themselves. It seems to me
Speaker 3: that well, what's a very interesting thing is when these
Speaker 3: debates arise, they sometimes occur in a certain heated environment,
Speaker 3: and other points of interest or other issues are sometimes overlooked.
Speaker 3: And what I want to draw attention to is this
Speaker 3: is that I've done a lot of reading lately about
Speaker 3: the relationships between ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity and how
Speaker 3: economically successful a country is or how politically stable the
Speaker 3: country is. Now, this is very quantitative data. What these
Speaker 3: people do, with social scientists and sometimes economists, is that
Speaker 3: they try to measure just how ethnically or religiously, or
Speaker 3: linguistically or culturally diversit country is, or how polarized it is,
Speaker 3: and then they try to work out how stable it is,
Speaker 3: how economically prosperous it is, and those sorts of measures,
Speaker 3: and they do this for every country in the world,
Speaker 3: and they try to do it at particular periods of time,
Speaker 3: and they try to look to see whether there are
Speaker 3: correlations between one or the other. And so it seems
Speaker 3: to me that the very premise of that sort of
Speaker 3: an inquiry, and to some extent the findings of that research,
Speaker 3: is to say that you have to be very careful
Speaker 3: about too much diversity, particularly when it's done in a
Speaker 3: way or develops in a way that stops people talking
Speaker 3: to each other. And this comes back to the point
Speaker 3: about freedom of speech, actually because what is startling? Actually
Speaker 3: to me it was, and then I thought about it
Speaker 3: while I thought, yes, actually, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Is that while we sometimes pay a lot of attention
Speaker 3: to ethnic difference or religious difference, the biggest factor that
Speaker 3: has and can have a bad effect on the stability
Speaker 3: of the country and its paticefulness is linguistic diversity. In
Speaker 3: other words, people who speak different languages and cannot understand
Speaker 3: each other. And reflecting on that, it seems to me
Speaker 3: that that's probably the most significant issue that you have
Speaker 3: to deal with that. If you have a country with
Speaker 3: people speaking different languages not able to communicate with each other,
Speaker 3: they lack the ability to engage in democratic discussion. They
Speaker 3: become enclave to themselves and they have their own speech community,
Speaker 3: and they develop their own ideas independently of the other
Speaker 3: people's living alongside them. So it would set me one
Speaker 3: of the most important things to think about is ensuring
Speaker 3: that people are encouraged to speak one language. One of
Speaker 3: the interesting things is, and I had a really wonderful
Speaker 3: PhD student who from Ethiopia has done some work of
Speaker 3: these questions, and one of the things he discovered, and
Speaker 3: some people didn't like him coming to this conclusion, was
Speaker 3: that one of the reasons India has been a moderately
Speaker 3: quite successful democracy dealing with you know, more than a
Speaker 3: billion people now is that it had a language that
Speaker 3: could be the language that could unite the nation. English
Speaker 3: played a very significant role because sometimes when you have
Speaker 3: countries where you've got competing languages, whose language gets the
Speaker 3: language of the capri and sometimes it has to be
Speaker 3: a language that's neutral as between the different ethnic groups
Speaker 3: in order to get the agreement. In order to be
Speaker 3: a language around which they can unite, even if in
Speaker 3: the case of India, to that extent it was a
Speaker 3: foreign language or a language of a colonial power. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm not wanting to make a strong argent about India
Speaker 3: or anything. I just really want to underscore the importance
Speaker 3: of language and a common language and how that has
Speaker 3: a very close relationship too, not just freedom of speech,
Speaker 3: but actual participation in self government, where people are collectively
Speaker 3: in a society freely able to and actually do engage
Speaker 3: in communication and discussion. Have you been about their collective concerns?
Speaker 3: Have you been to India? No? I haven't, so I
Speaker 3: speak with some How do I put a reservation about
Speaker 3: saying anything too specific about India name by.
Speaker 2: The same taken, I've noticed, particularly from Australia, there has
Speaker 2: been a growing interest in India over the last well
Speaker 2: twelve months to two years at least, that's my observation.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're recognizing that like India is like
Speaker 3: a world power, it's a very significant country. And I
Speaker 3: think also perhaps we're becoming interested in a more given
Speaker 3: the rise of China as well, because I mean, realistically,
Speaker 3: India presents an account to China in the South Asian region.
Speaker 3: And so the relationship between India and China could prove
Speaker 3: to be highly significant in the next century, or so,
Speaker 3: it seems to me, just given their large populations and
Speaker 3: growing economies.
Speaker 2: Indeed, let me concentrate momentarily on the New Zealand Australia
Speaker 2: relationship and the future, because there is discussion again it
Speaker 2: appears and it came out of nowhere from my perspective,
Speaker 2: but there is a discussion about the possibilities of well,
Speaker 2: the question is a better way to put it, of
Speaker 2: whether we become closer, whether we fall further apart, or
Speaker 2: whether we actually join up. Now, I say, just quickly.
Speaker 2: When I came to New Zealand some decade ago, for
Speaker 2: twelve months and here I am, the relationship was between
Speaker 2: Malcolm Fraser and Robert Muldoon, a very unhealthy one, but everybody,
Speaker 2: everybody survived, and so it has has continued.
Speaker 3: What do you think. I think that asking a question
Speaker 3: about relations between countries is one where one has to
Speaker 3: bear in mind the significance, but limited significance, of the
Speaker 3: particular political leaders at any particular time, and one needs
Speaker 3: to look at what are the deeper channels of trajectory
Speaker 3: that the two countries, I said, are demonstrating. So in
Speaker 3: a sense, it seems to me that it's a little
Speaker 3: like you're traveling down a valley and the hills on
Speaker 3: either side of that valley determined that the water or
Speaker 3: your even your own movement walking through the valley is
Speaker 3: going to be drawn towards the center of the valley line.
Speaker 3: But politically, under different leadership, you can sort of lift
Speaker 3: one side of the valley or the other, and you
Speaker 3: can oscillate a little bit from side to side, but
Speaker 3: still the main direction of the relationship is down that valley.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a helpful analogy, but I
Speaker 3: think what's important to take that long term view and ask, well,
Speaker 3: what are the drivers of the relationship, what are the
Speaker 3: drivers of the nature of the two countries. I'd also
Speaker 3: say that to think about this, you've got to ask, well,
Speaker 3: if we're asking what the trajectory of the two countries
Speaker 3: is and whether they're converging or diverging or will remain parallel,
Speaker 3: you've got to ask where are they coming from first?
Speaker 3: And then where are they going? And I think when
Speaker 3: the Australian colonies federated in the eighteen ninety is actually
Speaker 3: money under and one, New Zealand took the decision not
Speaker 3: to join the federation, and that was a very very
Speaker 3: significant choice because in the eighty nineties, when you looked
Speaker 3: at it, it wasn't just obvious that the Australian colonies
Speaker 3: would become a federation, and even if they did, it
Speaker 3: wasn't obvious that New Zealand would not be a part
Speaker 3: of it. In fact, New Zealand was part of those discussions, indeed,
Speaker 3: And if you look at the way in which the
Speaker 3: New Zealanders thought about that question and the way the
Speaker 3: various Australian colonists thought about it, they thought about it
Speaker 3: in the same way. They were enjoying the benefits of
Speaker 3: local self government. They were participating in their own self government,
Speaker 3: and they didn't want to give that up quickly sort
Speaker 3: of large federation that might just absorb them completely. So
Speaker 3: they were very insistent on preserving their rights. And there's
Speaker 3: not the New Zealander said, but it's also what the
Speaker 3: Queensland has said, or the South Australian said, and so on.
Speaker 3: So the choice of New Zealand not to federate was
Speaker 3: based on very similar reasoning that just applied to a
Speaker 3: different situation. And what the New Zealanders said, which I
Speaker 3: think is very interesting, is they said, look, we've decided
Speaker 3: not to join the federation, but we will end into
Speaker 3: treaties with Australia to secure the benefits of free trade
Speaker 3: and free movement of people and mutual self defense, which
Speaker 3: are two or three of the most important things that
Speaker 3: a federation achieves, but not actually become part of your
Speaker 3: federation and thus preserve an independent capacity to function as
Speaker 3: an agent on the world stage. And they said that then,
Speaker 3: and it seems to me that that's exactly what has
Speaker 3: happened that over the course of the twentieth century New
Speaker 3: Zealand and Australia have vented into a succession of treaties
Speaker 3: which have united the peoples together in trade relationships, in
Speaker 3: migratory relationships, and also in mutual defense relationship, which are
Speaker 3: the fundamentals which define the relationship between the two countries
Speaker 3: politically and constitutionally and legally. And that then becomes the
Speaker 3: foundation of the cultural attachment between the two countries, where
Speaker 3: we can have our sporting rivalries and jokes at each
Speaker 3: other's expanse and our accents and all of the things
Speaker 3: that we know about each other and sort of love
Speaker 3: to hate about each other, but mostly love about each
Speaker 3: other drives the sort of relationship, and there can be
Speaker 3: oscillations back and forth where England might sorry New Zealand
Speaker 3: might divert a little bit. New Zealand has diverged in
Speaker 3: terms of the relationship to the United States in the
Speaker 3: ninety eighties over the nuclear free policy. They seem to
Speaker 3: be signs that New Zealand might be beginning to oscillate
Speaker 3: back to a little more of a convergent position on that.
Speaker 3: But I see those as oscillations within that valley that
Speaker 3: I describe the just general trajectory, which is a close
Speaker 3: relationship between two countries but running somewhat in parallel parts.
Speaker 2: To my mind, do you think that tas Maybia would
Speaker 2: have been better off if it had followed the New
Speaker 2: Zealand lead?
Speaker 3: Great question, because there's a real interesting analogy actually between
Speaker 3: several Australian states and New Zealand in different respects. In fact,
Speaker 3: in a certain sort of sense, I a little bit
Speaker 3: chicily would compare Tasmania, not so much in New Zealand
Speaker 3: as a whole, but the South Island of New Zealand,
Speaker 3: and maybe the North Island is a bit like Victoria. Look,
Speaker 3: the advantage you get of being independent like New Zealand
Speaker 3: or Tasmania on this hypothesis is that you're an independent
Speaker 3: nation on the world stage. That means that you remember
Speaker 3: of the United Nations, you can make your decisions about
Speaker 3: whether you want nuclear ships in your in your harbors
Speaker 3: or not. And geopolitically, geographically, New Zealand like Tasmania are
Speaker 3: in one sense on the bottom of the earth and
Speaker 3: not in a bad sense, but well away from any
Speaker 3: centers of geopolitical significance. And so that means that you're
Speaker 3: in a sort of a different sit situation where the
Speaker 3: threat of some sort of military confrontation is quite diffused
Speaker 3: because you're just distant. But the downside of it is
Speaker 3: is that you have to be self dependent, you have
Speaker 3: to be self sustaining. Oh this is actually something that
Speaker 3: Aristotle was very big one too, that you can't become
Speaker 3: a political entity without being self sufficient economically and militarily
Speaker 3: to defend yourself. And look, it's very hard to know
Speaker 3: exactly how Tasmania would have turned out if it didn't
Speaker 3: enjoy a federation, but it would not have enjoyed the
Speaker 3: benefits of being part of the federation, because under a
Speaker 3: federation a sense of obligation develops that we are one
Speaker 3: people and one nation to some extent, and so we
Speaker 3: have a duty to the people who live in Tasmania
Speaker 3: to make sure that they have a standard of living
Speaker 3: that is at least in some sense comparable to the
Speaker 3: rest of the country. So what happens within a federation
Speaker 3: is you have what is called, in technical language, horizontal equalization,
Speaker 3: where there are efforts to distribute some tax revenues to
Speaker 3: states that can't generate as much revenue because their economies
Speaker 3: are not generating as much revenue, to sort of balance
Speaker 3: things out a little. That sounds in Tasmania, let does
Speaker 3: get that benefit. It sounds like equity to me an extent,
Speaker 3: it does. Yeah, which does?
Speaker 2: Which is a which is a word that doesn't find favor.
Speaker 2: Let us let us then, well, actually I want to
Speaker 2: I want to make mention of one thing you did
Speaker 2: somewhere draw attention to the fact that that New Zealand
Speaker 2: is more politically like Queensland and more and more administratively
Speaker 2: like Victoria.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's actually an interesting point. So maybe I
Speaker 3: put it this way, that New Zealand is constitutionally most
Speaker 3: like Queensland. And I say that because they both have
Speaker 3: one House of Parliament. All the other Australian states have
Speaker 3: houses of Parliament, and that's very significant in Westminster systems
Speaker 3: because when you have only one House of Parliament, by
Speaker 3: definition in a Westminster system, your Prime Minister or your premier,
Speaker 3: the government has control of that House of Parliament. And
Speaker 3: that means a small group of people are in control
Speaker 3: of two things, the exercise of executive power and the
Speaker 3: exercise of the legislative power. They have the power to
Speaker 3: make laws and they have the power to execute the laws,
Speaker 3: all in one hands. And it was James Madden that
Speaker 3: said you should separate those because if you consolidate them
Speaker 3: into the hands of one people become too powerful and
Speaker 3: there's not a check and balance on the executive power.
Speaker 2: For that reason, I got it round the wrong way,
Speaker 2: didn't they?
Speaker 3: In a sense I see you define those terms. So
Speaker 3: Queensland and New Zealand suffer from a concentration of power,
Speaker 3: I think, which means that governments have so much control
Speaker 3: over the agenda they very rarely get seriously challenged while
Speaker 3: they are in power. When you have a second chamber,
Speaker 3: whether you call it a Senate or a legislative council.
Speaker 3: What that introduces is two things. First, one is that
Speaker 3: usually the government isn't in control of the passage of legislation.
Speaker 3: They have to negotiate with the other parties to get
Speaker 3: things passed, and so laws are less likely to be
Speaker 3: extreme in the sense of expressing or reflecting the extreme
Speaker 3: view of the government. They have to negotiate. The second thing,
Speaker 3: and I think in some ways the even more important thing,
Speaker 3: is that houses of Parliament have an extraordinary capacity to
Speaker 3: interrogate the executive moment during question time, and they can
Speaker 3: use those powers to force ministers to answer question They
Speaker 3: can force even bureaucrats to produce documents, and they can
Speaker 3: ask the questions and den answers to them. And that
Speaker 3: again places governments under scrutiny, the type of scrutiny that
Speaker 3: they need. And when that happens, then governments have to
Speaker 3: be again more responsive and more accountable for their decisions,
Speaker 3: and it places a check upon them that is a
Speaker 3: very salutary check in most suits. So that's why I
Speaker 3: would say that Queensland and New Zealand be similar constitutionally,
Speaker 3: and it's not really such a good thing. It would
Speaker 3: be better if both countries, I think, had a second chamber.
Speaker 3: It happened to Victoria is different if you mention that
Speaker 3: as well. Yes, yeah, because Victoria. I would say that
Speaker 3: New Zealand and Victoria are comparable, partly because they are
Speaker 3: quite discrete states. I think that's similar, comparable climates to
Speaker 3: some extent, I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration,
Speaker 3: but the most similar that beyond that, I think just
Speaker 3: ideologically politically, they're very similar. Victoria is often now seen
Speaker 3: today as Australia's most left leaning progressive state in that
Speaker 3: sense of the word, and New Zealand seems to have become,
Speaker 3: from an Australian point, more left leaning than some of
Speaker 3: the other Australian states or even Australia as a whole
Speaker 3: in some respects Now, it's a difficult judgment call, and
Speaker 3: there's any ditions to that point, but there does seem
Speaker 3: to be some comparability in Victoria and New Zealand on
Speaker 3: that metric as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that frightens me because what Victoria went through during
Speaker 2: COVID in particular was arguably even worse than ours our experience. Yes,
Speaker 2: and you have a well Victoria had a tyrant in charge.
Speaker 3: Well. That goes back to this problem of execution executive control,
Speaker 3: and the real scary thing is that, you know, even
Speaker 3: though I like the idea of having a second chamber,
Speaker 3: it's not a panacea. And the difficulty is the unfortunate
Speaker 3: thing I think is that parliaments across the world have
Speaker 3: delegated powers to the executive to respond to emergencies. And
Speaker 3: on paper, that sounds very sensible. You know, it's an emergency.
Speaker 3: Executive has to act and have to act promptly, and
Speaker 3: if they have to get the parliament to give them
Speaker 3: permission to do it, they won't act least they need to,
Speaker 3: and the problem will just get worse and worse. Sounds
Speaker 3: good on paper, but what it is is a license
Speaker 3: for unchecked power. And the powers delegated to executive agents
Speaker 3: like chief medical officers and sometimes ministers of government, but
Speaker 3: often just bureaucrats to lock down people, to quarantine people
Speaker 3: are enormous powers. Enormous powers, and power can be exercised
Speaker 3: people's benefit, but it can also be exercise very excessively,
Speaker 3: and I think we did see quite a lot of
Speaker 3: excess of power being exercised during the COVID pandemic infinitely
Speaker 3: only think I think I saw it. I think all
Speaker 3: of us saw videos it was, and I think that
Speaker 3: it was a very sad time actually, because I think
Speaker 3: the reputation of our police officers was tarnished during that time,
Speaker 3: and it continues to be by what we're seeing even
Speaker 3: in places like the United Kingdom as well. And because
Speaker 3: interestingly the power of the not just social media, but
Speaker 3: all of us having phones with cameras on them, the
Speaker 3: police aren't really able to do too much without being filmed.
Speaker 3: And that's probably a good thing because it exposes to
Speaker 3: the public what they do when they seek to enforce
Speaker 3: law or their judgment what is necessary, and we see
Speaker 3: excessive use what appears to be excessive use of forts.
Speaker 3: We have to be very careful with those videos because
Speaker 3: they can be edited and they can be framed to
Speaker 3: make things look bad and not in the full context
Speaker 3: of maybe the violent behavior of the person being apprehended
Speaker 3: prior to the video. But on the other hand, there
Speaker 3: are too many cases where the person is plainly not
Speaker 3: acting in any way violently, but a man handled in
Speaker 3: a very violent man on very questionable grounds and it's
Speaker 3: it has I think, broad the public attitude to the
Speaker 3: police force. You know, it's had an effect on our
Speaker 3: view about the police, which I think is it all
Speaker 3: healthy because we do need police officers and they're you know,
Speaker 3: by and large they're trying to do the right thing
Speaker 3: and they're good people, but we do get these excesses
Speaker 3: and they're very concerning.
Speaker 2: I think that that brings us onto the subject of law,
Speaker 2: which has encompassed in the in the speech that you
Speaker 2: that you delivered or will deliver as we speak at
Speaker 2: makes them the compass of character. Of course, there is
Speaker 2: an introduction to it, but then you concentrate on three
Speaker 2: separate areas law, education, and religion. But it's all about character.
Speaker 2: And I don't know whether this is going to be
Speaker 2: made available to all on Sundry after the speech is delivered,
Speaker 2: but I hope that it is. So let's spend a
Speaker 2: bit of time on this speech. In the Compass of Character,
Speaker 2: give us a brief definition of what character is.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, look, the definition of character, I adopt, is
Speaker 3: very well established. I think in what I would like
Speaker 3: to call the intellectual or tradition in which we are
Speaker 3: part of as Western democracies and Western countries. It's the
Speaker 3: idea that characters to do with your internal orientation, your
Speaker 3: internal motivations, your internal ways of thinking and acting. In
Speaker 3: one sense, it's got to do with your moral habits.
Speaker 3: The old language that used to be used that I
Speaker 3: think we need to recover, even though some people might
Speaker 3: find the term in some ways off putting, is the
Speaker 3: word virtue and its opposite vice. Virtues advices are our
Speaker 3: character attributes, either good or bad. And if people don't
Speaker 3: like the expression's virtue and vice, let me give you
Speaker 3: some examples. Because key virtues are things like courage, prudence, wisdom, justice, patience,
Speaker 3: good judgment. Now, those sorts of character qualities or virtues
Speaker 3: are the good virtues or the good character qualities that
Speaker 3: oriented person to habitually respond well to a situation and
Speaker 3: act well. Whereas vices like greed, envy, malice, hatred, those
Speaker 3: sorts of things are again bad habits of mind and
Speaker 3: practice that orient us towards responding very badly to situations
Speaker 3: and acting very badly. And it seems to me that
Speaker 3: the argument of my paper at its core is that
Speaker 3: our character in this sense determines the way we respond
Speaker 3: and act both as individuals and collectively. And I think
Speaker 3: that in our time we've lost touch with this, we've
Speaker 3: forgotten this. And because we've forgotten that these character qualities
Speaker 3: are what really drive the quality of our lives and
Speaker 3: the goodness or the badness of our behaviors. Because we've
Speaker 3: forgotten that, we have turned to other mechanisms or other
Speaker 3: tools to try to deal with the lack of good character.
Speaker 3: And so we've turned to two things in particular. We've
Speaker 3: turned to law and we've turned education, and we've tried
Speaker 3: to use law and use education to make up for
Speaker 3: the absence of character where it doesn't exist. And the
Speaker 3: problem is that the argument of my lecture is that
Speaker 3: law and education are good and can do really good things,
Speaker 3: but they have to stay within their wheelhouses, and they
Speaker 3: can't actually of themselves produce good character. They can restrain
Speaker 3: people from doing bad things. The law education can give
Speaker 3: us good information, good knowledge, and good skills to do things,
Speaker 3: but neither of those actually give us the character to
Speaker 3: act well. And in my argument in the lecture is
Speaker 3: that it is what we used to call and still
Speaker 3: call in some sense religion that actually is most formative
Speaker 3: of our characters. Because religion is that which forces us
Speaker 3: to ask those deepuestions about our personal characters and challenge
Speaker 3: us about the extent to which we are driven by malice,
Speaker 3: driven by anger, driven by greed, driven by envy, or
Speaker 3: whatever it might be, whatever vices actually do inhabit our
Speaker 3: minds and our hearts and do shape our behaviors, and
Speaker 3: the extent to which rather we embrace and seek to
Speaker 3: inculcate within our own souls good virtuous character qualities like generosity, fairness, justice, patience, courage, fortitude,
Speaker 3: and so forth. So, you know, the my lecture, that
Speaker 3: the gift of my lecture is to say that let's
Speaker 3: not think that law and education are the only tools
Speaker 3: to produce a good society, and let's not over use
Speaker 3: them because it actually becomes counterproductive. Let's realize and recover
Speaker 3: the importance of what I'm calling religion for shaping our
Speaker 3: characters in that good way. And that's the main point
Speaker 3: of the lecture.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point. A quick question, is common
Speaker 2: sense a virtue?
Speaker 3: Or can it be? I think so? I think so. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 3: it's actually a really great virtue because it's common in
Speaker 3: the sense that I mean, I have a lot of
Speaker 3: respect for people with common sense. And I particularly need
Speaker 3: to say that as an academic, because I think common
Speaker 3: sense is not common amongst academics. Why is that, Well,
Speaker 3: it seems to me that academic wisdom is valuable, but
Speaker 3: it tends to be very intellectual, academic, for want of
Speaker 3: a better word, abstract and detached from reality in a
Speaker 3: very practical sense. Whereas the good friends that I have
Speaker 3: who've got a lot of good sense in any conversation
Speaker 3: always take it to a practicality and say, well, what
Speaker 3: happens here and here? What do we do here and now?
Speaker 3: And those sorts of people also demonstrate by their actions
Speaker 3: in real life what it means to live a life
Speaker 3: of good character or good common sense. So I think
Speaker 3: that common sense is a virtue in that sense of
Speaker 3: the word, and a very valuable one.
Speaker 2: Let me so education, there's law and education, and then religion.
Speaker 2: Let me give you a little break for a moment,
Speaker 2: you get your breath, and I'll quote you. You refer
Speaker 2: to vocational orientation. Occupational specialization enables the vision of labor
Speaker 2: in which each person and contributes to the good of
Speaker 2: society through the application of their particular knowledge and skills.
Speaker 2: We're all better off as a result. But if that
Speaker 2: is all that education is about, then it doesn't grapple
Speaker 2: with the problem we identified earlier. It does not necessarily
Speaker 2: produce good people. And that is the goal of this
Speaker 2: as well, Is it not this paper to lead us
Speaker 2: down a path will at least give us some advisories
Speaker 2: of how we can produce good people to make a
Speaker 2: good civilization a good country.
Speaker 3: And you go on.
Speaker 2: It merely produces people who are clever and skillful. Being
Speaker 2: clever and skillful is good as long as it's accompanied
Speaker 2: by good character. Without good character, being clever and skillful
Speaker 2: can be done right dangerous. This problem runs very deep.
Speaker 2: Take this commonplace belief. The better educated you are, the
Speaker 2: more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to
Speaker 2: form your views on the basis of well established evidence
Speaker 2: and careful logical reasoning. And consider also the corollary. The
Speaker 2: more ignorant, the less intelligent, the more poorly educated you are,
Speaker 2: the more likely you are to be driven by emotion, prejudice, superstition,
Speaker 2: and dogma. These are widely shared views. However, the cognitive
Speaker 2: and behavioral science literature suggests that this is simply not
Speaker 2: the case. Rather, as one, Or to put it, those
Speaker 2: who are highly educated, intelligent, or rhetorically skilled tend to
Speaker 2: be significantly less likely than most to revise their beliefs
Speaker 2: or adjust their positions when confronted with evidence or arguments
Speaker 2: that contradict their priors. And that was a mouthful, what
Speaker 2: else would you say?
Speaker 3: Well, when I looked into that matter, I had some
Speaker 3: intuitions to that effect, but not well formed ones. But
Speaker 3: the intuitions were based on my observations about being an
Speaker 3: academic myself and working with fellow academics, and also having
Speaker 3: close friendships and working with people who are not academics
Speaker 3: in what we often call everyday life. And it never
Speaker 3: occurred to me that academics were in any sense morally
Speaker 3: superior to my friends who were not academics at all.
Speaker 3: But what I'll also notice was is that and even
Speaker 3: just I suppose, if I can be just really honest
Speaker 3: about myself, looking into my own heart, I knew that
Speaker 3: I had an ability to make clever arguments, to think
Speaker 3: quickly on my feet, and to deliver rhetorically effective rapusts
Speaker 3: to anything anyone might say to avoid the plain truth
Speaker 3: that they might be speaking, or to rationalize my own positions.
Speaker 3: And so when I looked at this literature, which is
Speaker 3: in a rigorous way examined whether academics, if I can
Speaker 3: put it that way, are any more likely to revise
Speaker 3: their views when confronted with the contradictory evidence, it was
Speaker 3: in one sense startling, but also did sort of reflect
Speaker 3: my intuitions that the more intelligent you are, and the
Speaker 3: better or the better educated you are, the more ideologically
Speaker 3: extreme you can be, and the quicker and more capable
Speaker 3: you can be. It's sort of shoring up your position
Speaker 3: without really coming to grips with some point of evidence
Speaker 3: or some line of argument that undermines your position, and
Speaker 3: so that all just then boils down to real character.
Speaker 3: It suggests that virtue and character are really relevant to
Speaker 3: the academic enterprise as well, because the search for truth
Speaker 3: is not just something that is an intellectual enterprise. It
Speaker 3: requires good character because you have to be prepared to
Speaker 3: admit that something you assume to be the case was
Speaker 3: actually not correct or false, and you need to be
Speaker 3: prepared to change your opinion about something when the evidence
Speaker 3: suggests that your opinion was wrong. But it's not very
Speaker 3: clear that without well, but I suppose the point is
Speaker 3: without good character, we as academics can be just as
Speaker 3: inclined to just hunker down in our opinions and find
Speaker 3: what to rationalize our positions in spite of evidence to
Speaker 3: the contrary. So it all comes down to good character
Speaker 3: as well as good intelligence, and both are needed to
Speaker 3: be the sort of academics we need to be to
Speaker 3: contribute to our society.
Speaker 2: So society in general is reliant on truth on every
Speaker 2: front in life. Now, as a result of that, I've
Speaker 2: got a drag in the media, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: use Victoria as an example again because truth was hidden
Speaker 2: from most people in Victoria by the media. The media
Speaker 2: did a very, very, very poor, i'd say corrupt job
Speaker 2: of covering this era, and that includes here and other
Speaker 2: places as well.
Speaker 3: Agreed, I think there was evidence of that, Yes, so
Speaker 3: do I think perhaps one way of putting it or
Speaker 3: thinking about it, at least this is how it certainly appeared,
Speaker 3: was that. And I'm trying to understand this in the
Speaker 3: best light possible, is that the view may have been
Speaker 3: that we live in a crisis. This is a very
Speaker 3: dangerous disease. We need to band together, We need to
Speaker 3: adopt one policy, We need to pull together in one
Speaker 3: way to solve the problem. Our governments are there to
Speaker 3: lead us through this. Our governments are advising us to
Speaker 3: do this. We need to support them in this. We
Speaker 3: need to make sure that our message is the same
Speaker 3: as the governments. And I think that dominated the media
Speaker 3: and the politics of much of the world for that period,
Speaker 3: and it was outside the mainstream media that criticism occurred.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was really tragic in a sense because
Speaker 3: it meant that the sort of contestation that ought to
Speaker 3: happen in public debate about what to do just didn't happen,
Speaker 3: or didn't happen effectively, and it generated a condition of
Speaker 3: fear through the society, and you saw people thinking and
Speaker 3: speaking and acting in a way that wasn't supported by
Speaker 3: the facts. I was startled, actually, you know, two three
Speaker 3: years later, now people are being a little more truthful,
Speaker 3: even of those who exercised power at the time. You know,
Speaker 3: even journalists sometimes and politicians now, and even bureaucrats beginning
Speaker 3: to admit that they were wrong about things. But I
Speaker 3: found that startling because I was trying to form a
Speaker 3: view based on all the information that I could glean
Speaker 3: from experts across the spectrum of views, and I thought
Speaker 3: it was pretty obvious and well known or well established,
Speaker 3: very very early on. But COVID was a disease that
Speaker 3: sadly had the worst impact for the most elderly, and
Speaker 3: fortunately for the young and the very young, had very
Speaker 3: little of any impact at all on my health basis,
Speaker 3: and that that should therefore shape how we view it
Speaker 3: as a disease. But it seemed like that was just
Speaker 3: not well known. And when I have noticed a few
Speaker 3: people either in the media or in politics, or someone
Speaker 3: saying two three years later, I didn't know that at
Speaker 3: the time, but now we realize, I thought to myself, well, no,
Speaker 3: those of us who were reading this material became aware
Speaker 3: of that almost straight away. And that's an example I
Speaker 3: think of a very strange thing that happened there where
Speaker 3: for some reason that open contestation and weighing the actual
Speaker 3: evidence didn't occur. I mean, I also remember, even just
Speaker 3: simply the fatality rate from the disease. I remember very
Speaker 3: early on a debate between epidemiologist experts, one from Stanford
Speaker 3: and one I think from Dale University that was held
Speaker 3: in I think in Canada, very very early on, and
Speaker 3: the Stanford professor was saying, my recollection serves me correctly
Speaker 3: that the actual fatality rate from the disease was going
Speaker 3: to be less than half a percent in his estimation,
Speaker 3: that was his best estimate based on the evidence he
Speaker 3: had in front of him, whereas from memory, the Yale
Speaker 3: professor was saying it's in excess of three percent or
Speaker 3: upward to five percent or something like that. Now, that
Speaker 3: might not sound like a lot, but a half a
Speaker 3: percent of three or five percent is of orders of
Speaker 3: magnitude different. Now, the Stanford professor I think has been
Speaker 3: proven correct, is undoubted. But the number of people that
Speaker 3: I asked, just colloquially, you know, how what do you
Speaker 3: think the fatality rate is? People would say, oh, ten percent,
Speaker 3: fifteen percent, twenty percent of people will die if they
Speaker 3: catch the disease. And it's just simply wrong. And it
Speaker 3: created a climate of fear which stopped people from being
Speaker 3: able to exercise their critical faculties and to think rationally
Speaker 3: about the disease and to think about how to protect
Speaker 3: the people who really were vol who are the very elderly,
Speaker 3: or those who already had certain comorbidities that made them
Speaker 3: very susceptible.
Speaker 2: You make mention of being surprised and I suppose frustrated
Speaker 2: at those who are now coming out from various backgrounds
Speaker 2: are now revealing that, well, they got it wrong, we
Speaker 2: didn't know that at the time, etc. Most of that,
Speaker 2: I would suggest, was caused by the fact that they
Speaker 2: weren't interested in finding out. It was authoritarianly led in
Speaker 2: many parts of the world and falling into line was
Speaker 2: an appropriate, an appropriate thing. And the only reason they're
Speaker 2: now now revealing well pleading sorrow is because they have
Speaker 2: no choice, because the statistics and the associated understandings are
Speaker 2: now revealing what the truth always was.
Speaker 3: And I think the really critical question now is what's
Speaker 3: going to happen next time?
Speaker 2: Because can I suggest to you that it will partly
Speaker 2: depend on when next time is how far away, but
Speaker 2: whenever it is, we'll get a repeat of the same
Speaker 2: of the same scenario, with a big farmer doing the
Speaker 2: job it did last time, and everybody else falling into line,
Speaker 2: partly because of forgetfulness and partly because well, we don't
Speaker 2: know any better at this point.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that could be true to some extent.
Speaker 3: In fact, it really is something right for really decent
Speaker 3: social science research to actually measure and gain an appreciation
Speaker 3: of what people think out there, because look, I don't
Speaker 3: mean any disrespect, but I still see people walking around
Speaker 3: with masks, and with masks that are not effective. Like
Speaker 3: the evidence seemed to be that there are different types
Speaker 3: of masks, as I'm sure you wouldn't know too late,
Speaker 3: and some are relatively more effective than others, and their
Speaker 3: overall effectiveness is all determined by how properly use them
Speaker 3: and a whole lot of other facts. But to see
Speaker 3: people still walking around in masks of a type that
Speaker 3: are just not effective at all in open air, walking
Speaker 3: down the street, I think to myself, Wow, that's actually
Speaker 3: really very sad that that person probably although they may
Speaker 3: have some certain circumstances that I don't love about, but
Speaker 3: you do see it, and you think that fear has
Speaker 3: become very widespread. But the countervailing consideration, which I think
Speaker 3: needs to be tested and measured, is the extent to
Speaker 3: which our population has become more skeptical as a consequence.
Speaker 3: I do do you think that the next time it happens,
Speaker 3: and if it happens within as it were, practical living memory,
Speaker 3: and so that's a very good point you make. You know,
Speaker 3: if it happens long in enough time we will have forgotten.
Speaker 3: But it does seem to me that enough people have
Speaker 3: sort of realized that there was a whole lot of exaggeration,
Speaker 3: a whole lot of fear mongering, and a whole lot
Speaker 3: of disinformation from governments this time to make them more
Speaker 3: skeptical the next time around. I do think the dynamic
Speaker 3: will be a little different, but I hesitate to predict
Speaker 3: exactly how it work out. But it seems to me
Speaker 3: it will turn on just what proportion of our population
Speaker 3: through that process have changed their minds about how they
Speaker 3: think about these matters, And I think that will be
Speaker 3: a critical question going forward. I don't know the answer
Speaker 3: to that, because I don't know what proportion of our
Speaker 3: populations how they're thinking about, how many people are thinking
Speaker 3: everything was fine, we did the right thing. I still
Speaker 3: believe everything they said, and what proportion had have come
Speaker 3: to doubt that, and what proportion always doubted it, or
Speaker 3: you know, there's a whole lot of scales of response.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether I don't know whether you whether
Speaker 2: you heard the news yesterday or it might have been
Speaker 2: the day before. Kansas, the state of Kansas is the
Speaker 2: first of five so far states to file papers against Pfizer,
Speaker 2: and they're going in for the big hit, and the
Speaker 2: other four will follow on automatically. And I think that
Speaker 2: that's going to be extremely interesting because I think that
Speaker 2: I think they're riding a winner. In conclusion, I'll give
Speaker 2: you the last word and you finish up saying religion
Speaker 2: understood as a conversion of the soul. Would you care
Speaker 2: to wind up on that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, sure, Laton. Well, the interesting thing is that
Speaker 3: the legal definition of religion tends to reduce it to
Speaker 3: a type of law and a type of ut It
Speaker 3: tends to define religion as belief in a series of propositions,
Speaker 3: sort of like education and adherence to a set of rules,
Speaker 3: a sort of law. And while that definition works for
Speaker 3: the law, it doesn't really work for our society or
Speaker 3: our culture, because it's not what is distinctive about religion
Speaker 3: as I'm defining it and using the term, because religion
Speaker 3: goes to our deepest motivations, It goes to our deepest habits,
Speaker 3: It goes to the way we think in our minds,
Speaker 3: It goes to our attitudes and our dispositions. It addresses
Speaker 3: the extent to which our habitual response to situations is
Speaker 3: typically anger or malice, or hatred or envy, or whether
Speaker 3: our habitual response to a situation is one of patients endurance, kindness,
Speaker 3: and so forth. The question is are we a generous
Speaker 3: people in our souls or are we miserly in our souls?
Speaker 3: And how we respond to people and how we act
Speaker 3: in the world is shaped by those dispositions. Religion, I
Speaker 3: think well understood, is all about that, and it requires
Speaker 3: self examination. It requires us to ask ourselves, what are
Speaker 3: my motivations? And it requires us to actually acknowledge or
Speaker 3: even confess that we've got bad motivations to ourselves and
Speaker 3: even to our God. And to confess that and to
Speaker 3: use an old fashioned word, repent, to say I don't
Speaker 3: want to be like that. Help me not to be
Speaker 3: like that. That, to me is what religion is about.
Speaker 3: It's about that reformation, as it were, of our souls.
Speaker 3: And it seems to me that in losing sight of
Speaker 3: that in our public clive, we place so much more
Speaker 3: weight on law and education to make up for it,
Speaker 3: and we don't ask ourselves and we don't talk about
Speaker 3: those deeper motivations in our hearts that really do determine
Speaker 3: the way we behave and the way we treat each other.
Speaker 3: And I do hope my lecture and even this conversation
Speaker 3: with you today Laton contributes to us all reflecting on
Speaker 3: that question. For each of us individually, it's already done it.
Speaker 2: Nicholas, thank you, and I hope that we get to
Speaker 2: do this again sometime. In fact, I'll manipulate it. It's
Speaker 2: been a real pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's been wonderful talking with you, and I'd
Speaker 3: be delighted to talk with you again soon.
Speaker 2: So here we are with podcast number two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty five and the mail room with Missus producer Layton.
Speaker 3: How on earth are you well?
Speaker 2: You'd ask that, so I prepared an answer, but I
Speaker 2: can't remember.
Speaker 4: Half full or half empty.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which side of the equation the moment,
Speaker 2: It's got to.
Speaker 4: Be half full, baby, go Laden Chris says this morning,
Speaker 4: I felt sick when I read about the open letter
Speaker 4: from Christian leaders to all members of Parliament. The parallels
Speaker 4: to pre war Nazi Germany are as follows. One particular
Speaker 4: race is favored. The churches have forgotten what scripture says.
Speaker 4: The churches have chosen a political side, and there is
Speaker 4: deep internal division about what is really important. For the
Speaker 4: most part, churches in Nazi Germany look the other way
Speaker 4: when terrible things were happening to innocent people, rather than
Speaker 4: speaking out as the moral conscience of society. For the
Speaker 4: four hundred and forty leaders who have signed this open
Speaker 4: they have forgotten that quote. There is neither jew nor gentile,
Speaker 4: neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female,
Speaker 4: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Once church
Speaker 4: has choose to avoid conflict with the ruling political powers,
Speaker 4: it will not be long until they are forced to
Speaker 4: look the other way, as the how they have willingly
Speaker 4: supported threatens their existence too. It's not too late to
Speaker 4: decide as a nation if we are truly one people
Speaker 4: under the law, or if we want to go down
Speaker 4: the path of racial division, which will only fuel the
Speaker 4: fires of injustice.
Speaker 3: And that is from.
Speaker 2: Chris Chris brilliant actually very good. Dear Carolyn and late
Speaker 2: Elon Musk. Endorsing Donald Trump has created a mindset for
Speaker 2: a lot of our media in New Zealand, so when
Speaker 2: they do something news related about him, they want to
Speaker 2: handle it in a belittling way. This shows that worldwide,
Speaker 2: anyone supporting the center right of politics, like Musk, has
Speaker 2: to have strength of character. I think you should talk
Speaker 2: about strength of character to today after the interview. Another
Speaker 2: thing what Carolyn said in the last podcast about reading
Speaker 2: the Herald, I do the same, and that was if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly choosing your bylines. Also a thing I
Speaker 2: sometimes do is to read the last couple of paragraphs
Speaker 2: of an article first to make sure the writing is
Speaker 2: correct to a positive headline and not a negative response.
Speaker 2: There is one person that the Herald has that lists
Speaker 2: under his name all the things the paper gives him
Speaker 2: the authority to write on. It seems to make him
Speaker 2: a left leaning handyman writer. I wish the paper would
Speaker 2: allocate some of those things to someone else to get
Speaker 2: a diversity of professional opinion. I still support enzed Me
Speaker 2: by your podcast Radio zed Me and the Herald as
Speaker 2: well as the local newspaper by nz me when out
Speaker 2: of town regards Colin oh and more a bit of reaction.
Speaker 4: Actually, yes, I think it did, didn't it? Laden Steve says,
Speaker 4: Yet again we find our country, New Zealand, is under
Speaker 4: a full attack by those who presume they speak for
Speaker 4: all New Zealanders and who manipulate the treaty and believe
Speaker 4: only they can interpret a near two hundred year old
Speaker 4: document written for that age and never imagined by the
Speaker 4: authors to reflect on life as it is today. We
Speaker 4: now have supposedly four hundred church leaders writing to stop
Speaker 4: the treaty's principal bill. Who are they to presume they
Speaker 4: speak for all New Zealanders? Who makes them think or
Speaker 4: believe they know or have the right to say only
Speaker 4: they know what that archaic document written and translated in
Speaker 4: three days by an Englishman for a purpose to suit
Speaker 4: the eighteen forties, what they think it could mean today?
Speaker 4: These religious groups are entitled to an opinion as individuals
Speaker 4: and under free speech. But yet again the left media
Speaker 4: enjoy sensational as they forget how religion is also a
Speaker 4: dying entity in today's world. I vote them out and
Speaker 4: their dying opinion null and void, says Steve.
Speaker 2: Null and void. I like it from Simon A Latent.
Speaker 2: I note a comment in the last podcast where you
Speaker 2: assumed I've never forgotten a woman who dressed me down
Speaker 2: once told me how to pronounce it, not assumed assumed
Speaker 2: that Trump would be elected the next president of the US.
Speaker 2: He is up against a left media that praises Carmela
Speaker 2: Harris as a competent and successful leader. They never report
Speaker 2: anything negative about the Democrats, but trash Trump at every opportunity.
Speaker 2: The fact the polling shows Trump and Harris's neck and
Speaker 2: neck proves either Americans lack intelligence or are believing the
Speaker 2: narrative the media wants them to believe. Also, on the
Speaker 2: transgender nonsense. As a child, I wanted to be a pirate.
Speaker 2: My parents didn't take me to have an eye and
Speaker 2: a leg removed Keep up the Great podcast, so I
Speaker 2: thoroughly enjoyed the simon there's a response to your email
Speaker 2: was reart to Trump that I'm going to park at
Speaker 2: the back end.
Speaker 4: Leyden Jin says in September twenty twenty one, I made
Speaker 4: an oral submission against the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships
Speaker 4: Registration Bill, which was being ram rated into law by
Speaker 4: the last Labor and Green's government. This bill allowed anyone
Speaker 4: to change their sex on their birth certificate, thereby permitting
Speaker 4: anyone to lie about their history right from birth. I
Speaker 4: argued that a birth certificate is supposed to record facts,
Speaker 4: not feelings. I remember the panel asking me why this
Speaker 4: was so important to me. I said it's because I
Speaker 4: have a daughter and I want to protect her and
Speaker 4: other girls. As expected, they ignored me and passed this
Speaker 4: law despite countless others who voiced similar concerns as mine.
Speaker 4: The previous government knew that the bill gave them leverage
Speaker 4: to force us to permit men to compete in women's sports,
Speaker 4: open up women's bathrooms to men who identify as women,
Speaker 4: and mispronoun boys and girls. And yet now that we
Speaker 4: have a more conservative government in power, that as of
Speaker 4: a law remains with us. This proves James Allen's point
Speaker 4: the right never appeals bad laws that the left ram through.
Speaker 4: If it took the misinterpretation of rov Weighed over fifty
Speaker 4: years to get corrected, we might have to live with
Speaker 4: the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill for decades
Speaker 4: until it gets corrected when more conservative judges are appointed
Speaker 4: to replace the current lot of communist judges. Thanks Shane
Speaker 4: Jones for the Moniker, or when this bad law is
Speaker 4: so heavily enforced that New Zealand does deeply feel the
Speaker 4: pain it inflicts. As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way
Speaker 4: to get a bad law apare field is to enforce
Speaker 4: it strictly.
Speaker 2: Let me give you a bit of a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2: Talking about that law being with us for that long,
Speaker 2: what do you think the changes would ring to such
Speaker 2: a law. The answer is that we would have fewer
Speaker 2: people on the planet because the growth of sterility would
Speaker 2: mean it wouldn't be so many children, so therefore the
Speaker 2: numbers would decrease. And that is one of the alleged
Speaker 2: agendas of the globalists, is it? Yeah, it is actually
Speaker 2: okay globalists. Laden Phillips says, I was only responding to yours. Oh,
Speaker 2: if the law can make them, well, here we are.
Speaker 2: This is this is quite appropriate. If the law can
Speaker 2: make a man to be a woman, then an active
Speaker 2: parliament can declare that I have the powers of superman.
Speaker 2: I look forward to being able to fly to the
Speaker 2: moon and back by my own power without a spaceship
Speaker 2: or space suit. Josh, that's I think brilliant. Let me
Speaker 2: know when takeoff.
Speaker 4: Lighton. Philip says, I had to laugh at your lack
Speaker 4: of defense of the New Zealand Herald. Carolyn saved you
Speaker 4: ensure your thought provoking and informative podcasts listen to you
Speaker 4: and living in Australia for twenty years and the ten
Speaker 4: years we have been back in New Zealand. Thanks for
Speaker 4: your efforts. And that's from Philip.
Speaker 2: Well, that's dedication. If ever, I yes, if ever I
Speaker 2: came across.
Speaker 4: Nice, nice to know that you came back. Well, one
Speaker 4: person has actually come back. That's a good thing. Well,
Speaker 4: and why Philip, we would like to know.
Speaker 2: Well, if you go back to nineteen eighty five, you
Speaker 2: might remember that I came back to So that's two.
Speaker 4: Of us, two of you have come back.
Speaker 3: This is good.
Speaker 2: Now from vic Ana, Vic wrote last week you might
Speaker 2: remember missus producer Vic was making some comment and all
Speaker 2: will be revealed as I read this. He says, thank
Speaker 2: you for accepting Mike comment and for the right of reply.
Speaker 2: With the help of Professor James Allen, an expert in
Speaker 2: Australian law, I now understand that Justice Bromwich was apparently
Speaker 2: a political appointee, and he had other somewhat obscure options,
Speaker 2: facts of which I was obviously unaware. I suggest the
Speaker 2: vast majority of your listeners were also unaware of his
Speaker 2: status and those options. Such is the advantage of having
Speaker 2: experts on your podcasts, and your astute choice of such experts.
Speaker 2: He's quite right there in both counts. Have I changed
Speaker 2: my mind? Let me say that I was not happy
Speaker 2: with Bromig's judgment in the first place. I still think
Speaker 2: the labels such as idiot and moron, which I am
Speaker 2: applied to Bromich. I still think the label such as
Speaker 2: idiot and moron are somewhat inappropriate, but that is just
Speaker 2: my opinion. I now hold out some hope for an appeal,
Speaker 2: but Giggles will need an exceptional lawyer with a similar
Speaker 2: depth of knowledge to them of Professor Allan still an
Speaker 2: avid listener, I beg. I knew you would be because
Speaker 2: you wrote with You wrote with a style that I recognized.
Speaker 2: But there was something I was going to add there.
Speaker 3: What was it? Now? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, let me just say that the words idiot and
Speaker 2: moron are thrown around with gay abandon these days in
Speaker 2: the world. I've realized the world has changed dramatically, and
Speaker 2: you can sort of hang in there and refuse to
Speaker 2: say what you think in terminology that you understand and
Speaker 2: like to use.
Speaker 3: It's never been you though, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Anyway you can you can. You can choose to do that,
Speaker 2: maybe get a job on national radio, but elsewhere elsewhere
Speaker 2: in the world. It's loosened up, and it's loosened up dramatically,
Speaker 2: for better or worse. I say for better or worse,
Speaker 2: and I put it. I put one more thing to
Speaker 2: you with regard to Trump. Trump is a man for
Speaker 2: the times. End of story.
Speaker 4: John says, I have followed all your podcasts and enjoy them.
Speaker 4: On episode two five three, I listened to your discussion
Speaker 4: in part on the Virgin Mary. Back in the early
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties, I did theology studies. What we understood a
Speaker 4: virgin woman to be back two thousand years ago was
Speaker 4: a term given only to a high society woman, and
Speaker 4: over time the term then became the sexual connotation it
Speaker 4: is today.
Speaker 2: That's from John John. I don't know that I accept that,
Speaker 2: but I don't deny it either, because I also somewhere
Speaker 2: in my past remember that that sort of interpretation being
Speaker 2: put on the word, but I've never followed it up.
Speaker 2: So I actually got to do that as best I
Speaker 2: can and report back to you. But thank you as
Speaker 2: a producer.
Speaker 3: That'll do.
Speaker 2: Thanks later we've done.
Speaker 3: I'm off for this one.
Speaker 2: No, you're not. You're never off. If you mean you're
Speaker 2: leaving that, I accepted. See you next week.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: Now, what I'm about to quote you is something that
Speaker 2: belongs in the mail room, but I take them out
Speaker 2: of the mail room sometimes for various reasons, but they
Speaker 2: all have something in common. This is a long letter
Speaker 2: and it's deserving of a little more attention than I
Speaker 2: might have given it or been able to give it
Speaker 2: in the mail room. And I want to respond to
Speaker 2: it as we as we read. Evelyn wrote this and
Speaker 2: it got me. Well see if it gets you the
Speaker 2: way it got me, it says says. I received an
Speaker 2: email from Family First regarding submitting a response to the
Speaker 2: Law Commission's review of transgender anti discrimination laws. I inwardly
Speaker 2: groaned at the thought and mentally put it to one side. However,
Speaker 2: yes day afternoon I started to listen to your podcast
Speaker 2: in brackets, as I do each Wednesday. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much and you're welcome, And after listening to your interview
Speaker 2: with Professor Allen, decided to revisit the Family First email.
Speaker 2: The Law Commission document is over two hundred pages long,
Speaker 2: and it's full of mention of aete rower New Zealand
Speaker 2: marine names and terms and confusing jargon at a very
Speaker 2: detailed level. The submission form is also very detailed and
Speaker 2: one specific replies to each chapter. I attempted to write
Speaker 2: my thoughts in the boxes. It was a lengthy, tedious
Speaker 2: process where you had to keep switching from the submission
Speaker 2: form to the document to understand the context of each question.
Speaker 2: They also state somewhere that they will not accept any
Speaker 2: disrespectful comments or words to that effect. I never thought
Speaker 2: that that would be an issue for me, but I
Speaker 2: felt it took some effort to remain polite and not
Speaker 2: resort to sarcasm. I just refer back to my comments
Speaker 2: to this assignment earlier with regard to language. I am
Speaker 2: a professional and self employed and of sound mind. However,
Speaker 2: as I began wading through what I believe to be
Speaker 2: this load of nonsense, I've felt my patience waning and
Speaker 2: my frustration growing, asking myself, how did we get to this?
Speaker 2: A lot of people are asking that question in various ways.
Speaker 2: I've heard many people refer to the Left as living
Speaker 2: in an echo chamber and have wondered if I, too
Speaker 2: was living in my own Clearly, I have been as
Speaker 2: I felt I had landed on another planet. Reading the
Speaker 2: Law Commission review and submission questions and I have no
Speaker 2: desire to listen to any more of this nonsense. We
Speaker 2: are in very shaky financial times and I am constantly
Speaker 2: astounded as to how we have the time and resources
Speaker 2: to even consider investigating issues like this one. It seems
Speaker 2: so far fetched to be doing so while driving over
Speaker 2: potholes in our roads and seeing many qualified young people
Speaker 2: struggling to get into the workforce, as every job advertised
Speaker 2: is seeking applicants with experience, not to mention the work
Speaker 2: needed to improve education, health, law and order, and much more.
Speaker 2: The document discusses privacy for transgender people, and I can't
Speaker 2: help but think of how everyone's privacy went out the
Speaker 2: window when COVID vaccine passes were issued and required to
Speaker 2: be shown just to enter a cafe. The document discusses
Speaker 2: privacy for transgender people. I don't see how you can
Speaker 2: have anti discrimination laws for transgender people without removing the
Speaker 2: same protection for women or employers. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I do not like the term cisgender. I Commendjuloven's as
Speaker 2: someone from the left for standing up to this. I'm
Speaker 2: unsure if I can face completing the submission that I
Speaker 2: started by the deadline of five pm today, which was
Speaker 2: five September. It raises so many broader questions, like why
Speaker 2: is the Law Commission referring to our country as aetiro
Speaker 2: row and New Zealand. It not only grates on my
Speaker 2: nerves but adds unnecessary words to an already wordy document. Jeez, Heavelyn,
Speaker 2: I'm with you one hundred and ten percent. I do
Speaker 2: not want to take any of it seriously, and with
Speaker 2: all the commentary on the issue, all I can think
Speaker 2: of is the Emperor's new clothes. I so enjoy your
Speaker 2: podcast and love Carolyn. We have never met, but feel
Speaker 2: we could be great friends. Kind regards, Evelyn, and then
Speaker 2: a ps. I have drafted several emails to you over
Speaker 2: the years, but they usually stay in the draft folder
Speaker 2: and never get sent. It's a shame because you write well.
Speaker 2: I can only agree with you. I find nothing in
Speaker 2: what you've said disagreeable, and I wish that more people
Speaker 2: would exp well. I wish that more people would make
Speaker 2: their expressions felt.
Speaker 3: How do we do that? Well?
Speaker 2: There are a myriad of ways, really, but many of us,
Speaker 2: many of us are just a bit embarrassed to do it. Unfortunately, Evelyn,
Speaker 2: thank you and make sure that that's not the last
Speaker 2: letter you said, Leighton Smith, and with that we conclude
Speaker 2: podcast number two hundred and fifty five. If you would
Speaker 2: like to correspond with us, very simple email Layton at
Speaker 2: newstalks ab dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalksb
Speaker 2: dot co dot enz. We do love getting e mail.
Speaker 2: I know I keep saying that, but it's true. It's
Speaker 2: always a bit of an adventure. Latin at newstalks ab
Speaker 2: dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalks Ab dot
Speaker 2: co dot nz. We shall return shortly with podcasts number
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty six. Until then, as always, thank
Speaker 2: you for listening and we shall talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from News Talk st B. Listen
Speaker 1: live on air or online, and keep our shows with
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