Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks EDB. Follow
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Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 1: the information, all the debates of us Now the Leighton
Speaker 1: Smith podcast Power by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and seventy six for March nineteen,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Doctor Michael de Percy is a political
Speaker 2: scientist and the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at
Speaker 2: the University of Canberra. He says the education system is
Speaker 2: exhausted and AI is going to replace so many people.
Speaker 2: But he says what he calls the inertia in institutions
Speaker 2: spreads far wider the WHO and the United Nations. For example.
Speaker 2: Now in last week's podcast, I dropped in a short
Speaker 2: paragraph at one stage that read, Trump's art of the
Speaker 2: deal is the most democratic thing we have seen since
Speaker 2: the experts told us to trust the science. Einstein reportedly
Speaker 2: said that one fact, rather than a hundred experts, could
Speaker 2: prove him wrong. Trump has done in less than two
Speaker 2: months what thousands of experts have failed to do in years.
Speaker 2: And that is a fact. And that was the final
Speaker 2: paragraph from an article by Michael de Percy, Trump's Art
Speaker 2: of the Deal, Trump's the Science. And that's how we
Speaker 2: begin the interview and then cover a raft of other
Speaker 2: interesting and pressing topics, but first a covet of other
Speaker 2: things that interest me and I believe interests you connected
Speaker 2: to areas that affect the whole world at the moment,
Speaker 2: well pretty much certainly us and where this story actually
Speaker 2: emanates from. I attended Apple's and your meeting. It was
Speaker 2: a turning point against ESG ANDDI. Keeping in mind that
Speaker 2: ESG is Environmental, Social and governance. I attended Apple's annual
Speaker 2: meetings several weeks ago. I saw many signs of how
Speaker 2: corporate culture is shifting away from ESG and DEEI now
Speaker 2: to understand why. Let's briefly discuss the basics of how
Speaker 2: people actually engage with minor corporations and goes into some detail.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pass on that and skip to the
Speaker 2: final paragraph. The activist class that pushes for ESG, DEI
Speaker 2: and biased corporate policies now has to contend with their
Speaker 2: worst nightmares. Shareholders who want businesses to focus on business,
Speaker 2: not politics. A growing infrastructure is committed to maximizing pro
Speaker 2: fiduciary influence at America's biggest companies, and the political space
Speaker 2: is incredibly ripe for this action. Apple is just the beginning,
Speaker 2: Laten Smith for many across the world. A US Federal
Speaker 2: Reserves decision to exit the network for greening the financial
Speaker 2: system is that central banks can refocus on their primary mandates. Well,
Speaker 2: who would have thought stabilizing economies, controlling inflation and fostering growth. Currently,
Speaker 2: ENNGFS membership includes central banks and financial institutions from twenty
Speaker 2: two countries in Africa, thirty two in Asia Pacific, and
Speaker 2: twenty in the Americas, which may now be emboldened to
Speaker 2: reevaluate and abandon whatever priority they have assigned to climates initiatives.
Speaker 2: It then gets on to another matter, but it's associated.
Speaker 2: For instance, Canada's federal government has implemented a plethora of
Speaker 2: climate policies, leading to higher carbon taxes, more volatility in
Speaker 2: the energy sector, lower export income, and overall disastrous state
Speaker 2: of the economy. Aspiring to drive Canada toward more climate
Speaker 2: idiocy is Mark Karney, recently elected Canada's Prime Minister by
Speaker 2: the ruling Liberal party. However, other Kannadians have different thoughts.
Speaker 2: Major banks across North America relieving Mark Carney's international net
Speaker 2: zero banking scheme, but some Canadian banks remain members. According
Speaker 2: to Rebecca Schultz, Alberta Minister of the Environment in protected areas,
Speaker 2: the remaining Canadian banks must abandon Carne's net zero banking
Speaker 2: alliance and invest in safe, affordable, reliable Canadian energy again,
Speaker 2: according to the minister, isn't that an amazing comment in
Speaker 2: this day and age, how quickly things can turn. By
Speaker 2: the way, Mark Carney will be a disaster. I think
Speaker 2: I've said this somewhere else. He will be a disaster
Speaker 2: and the Opposition leader would make a damn fine Prime minister. Now,
Speaker 2: leading from that, with regard to central banks, let's move
Speaker 2: to our own and Professor McCulloch on the fourth of March,
Speaker 2: which was about the same time that Adrian Or did
Speaker 2: his great walk out the door, never to be seen again,
Speaker 2: and he wrote this, and I don't know whether it's
Speaker 2: before or after the exit, but either way it's very good,
Speaker 2: McCulloch says. Over the past six months, interest rates in
Speaker 2: Australia had barely changed. Their official cash rate was four
Speaker 2: point five percent back then and is now four point
Speaker 2: twenty five. Not so in New Zealand. Our ocr has
Speaker 2: swung from five point five to three point seventy five,
Speaker 2: plummeting nearly two percentage points. How come well, Just over
Speaker 2: six months ago, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was
Speaker 2: doing shock and awe O double ar It was desperately
Speaker 2: trying to engineer a recession to quell the runaway inflation
Speaker 2: that was caused by its runaway printing money program known
Speaker 2: as quantitative easing. Six months later, New Zealand languishes as
Speaker 2: one of the world's worst performing economies. I'm unaware of
Speaker 2: whether you know this or not, of course, but I
Speaker 2: didn't For some reason, I hadn't picked this up. We repeat,
Speaker 2: New Zealand languishes is one of the world's worst performing economies,
Speaker 2: coming in at one eighty one out of one ninety
Speaker 2: country in terms of the IMS Economic growth numbers one
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty first out of one hundred and ninety countries.
Speaker 2: How low can this country slump? So now the RBNZ
Speaker 2: has a new genius strategy engineer a boom. The proof
Speaker 2: is in the Yel curve below. It shows one of
Speaker 2: the wildest swings of any country that I've looked at
Speaker 2: six months ago, our short term rates were way above
Speaker 2: our long rates. Now the situation is reversed. The graph
Speaker 2: shows how New Zealand has gone from panic tightening to
Speaker 2: panic loosening. Yes, the Kiwi economy is characterized by a
Speaker 2: close to zero sloped trend line rate of economic growth,
Speaker 2: but with wild reserve bank induced booms and busts around
Speaker 2: that near zero productivity increasing trend the worst way to
Speaker 2: run a nation. National's response was to renew the contract
Speaker 2: of why Cata University Vice Chancellor Neil Quigley last year.
Speaker 2: The well connected man who has presided over this fiasco
Speaker 2: as Chairman of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand good
Speaker 2: one National. He concludes, what can I add to it?
Speaker 3: Nothing?
Speaker 2: However, there is some housekeeping that I need to deliver
Speaker 2: unto you. For podcast two seven five. Nobody got an
Speaker 2: email on the Wednesday of release. You did get emails
Speaker 2: on this most recent Sunday. I cannot explain it to
Speaker 2: you in great detail. What I know is that I've
Speaker 2: got a notification on Wednesday evening after the podcast had
Speaker 2: gone up. I think that there would be no emails
Speaker 2: because of some technical changes, and those technical changes are ongoing.
Speaker 2: Don't ask me, it's too complicated for my simple mind.
Speaker 2: But there are some further changes that I now would
Speaker 2: like to make you aware of. You will get one
Speaker 2: today if you're on the list. Of course you have
Speaker 2: to subscribe to It doesn't cost you anything to subscribe.
Speaker 2: You can just get yourself listed and you get an email,
Speaker 2: usually on a Wednesday, So there is one today, a
Speaker 2: normal email. Then on Sunday next to twenty third of March,
Speaker 2: there's a further selection of episodes from twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: so far. Then Wednesday of next week there will be
Speaker 2: no email. Please keep that in mind, so you simply
Speaker 2: have to go help yourself to it from Newstalks AB
Speaker 2: dot co dot nz in the podcast section. Next Wednesday,
Speaker 2: no email. They're on Friday, the twenty eighth of March.
Speaker 2: The Wednesday email content will fall into your box. Amazing,
Speaker 2: isn't it? Anyway? They're doing their best to cover this off,
Speaker 2: and it's all to do with improvements they're making too well.
Speaker 2: I don't know whatever they think Opensteed making too pardon
Speaker 2: by ignorance, but I don't care. I do care that
Speaker 2: you're not getting your email, but I don't care why
Speaker 2: that's just the way that it is now in a
Speaker 2: moment or two. Michael de Percy, Doctor Michael de Percy
Speaker 2: is a political scientist and a political commentator. He has
Speaker 2: a long list of credits. Fellow of the Royal Society
Speaker 2: of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Speaker 2: Institute of Logistics and Transport, is a member of the
Speaker 2: Royal Society of New South Wales, editor in chief of
Speaker 2: the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, and a
Speaker 2: member of the Australian Nuclear Association. He is a graduate
Speaker 2: of the Royal Military College of Duntrue. He was appointed
Speaker 2: to the College of Experts which bothers me at the
Speaker 2: Australian Research Council in twenty twenty two. He also was
Speaker 2: a graduate of Australian National University and he is a
Speaker 2: senior lecturer at the University of Canbra's very good to
Speaker 2: have you on the podcast. I read your latest piece,
Speaker 2: Trump's Art of the Deal, Trump's the Science, and I
Speaker 2: thought got to have you. Thank you, great to be here.
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Trump's Art of the Deal, Trump's
Speaker 2: the Science.
Speaker 3: The first thing I'll say is that I teach political
Speaker 3: leadership and a few years ago with my students who
Speaker 3: were looking at how do we measure leaders And one
Speaker 3: of the things we were looking at at the time
Speaker 3: was Barack Obama. And over a period of eight years,
Speaker 3: when you actually lined up what he'd actually achieved, it
Speaker 3: was all symbolic. So symbolism obviously is a big part
Speaker 3: of political leadership, but the actual achievements were very minor.
Speaker 3: In fact, probably Obamacare was his major achievement, which was
Speaker 3: effectively undone in the first Trump administration. So I started
Speaker 3: looking a bit deeper into this idea of achievements and
Speaker 3: what presidents in particular actually achieved, and when we come
Speaker 3: to the second Trump administration, it's very interesting that Trump,
Speaker 3: when he makes a deal, he starts with the worst
Speaker 3: case scenario. So you can imagine, you know, basically the
Speaker 3: strongest man in history at this point in time, and
Speaker 3: if you're dealing with him, he's going to give you
Speaker 3: this apocalypse apocalyptic sort of idea of what the future
Speaker 3: could be like as his starting point. He then uses
Speaker 3: that to create all of this sort of disruption and
Speaker 3: puts the person he's negotiating with into this state of disarray.
Speaker 3: He then sort of dials that back to ultimately achieve
Speaker 3: what he's after. And the unfortunate thing I find is
Speaker 3: that for the leader of the free world, the free
Speaker 3: world's not supporting him. And we have all of these experts.
Speaker 3: Each time he tries to or begins making a deal,
Speaker 3: we have all of these experts. I noted you mentioned
Speaker 3: my membership of the College of Experts of Istralian Research Council.
Speaker 3: But the point that I'm making is that these people
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, presidents of the US, our own prime ministers
Speaker 3: and the like, they're actually elected by a majority of people,
Speaker 3: which is what liberal democracy is all about. And unfortunately,
Speaker 3: instead of having these people being backed by those experts,
Speaker 3: effectively the experts are disagreeing with the voters. And Australian
Speaker 3: Prime Minister John Howard famously said that the voters are
Speaker 3: always right in a liberal democracy, if you get voted in,
Speaker 3: it's the correct solution, that's what the people wanted. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: what we're seeing when Trump's trying to make these deals
Speaker 3: immediately people are jumping on board saying that you know
Speaker 3: this is this is not how things ought to be done,
Speaker 3: you know the president's wrong, or you know that this
Speaker 3: is disastrous for democracy and the ridiculous thing is that
Speaker 3: in every measure, Donald Trump has been elected with an
Speaker 3: outright majority across the board, in every measure of electoral success.
Speaker 3: He achieved it the most recent US election, And I'm
Speaker 3: finding it bizarre that as he's making these deals on
Speaker 3: behalf of the American people, and with that the Anglo
Speaker 3: liberal democracies, the people just aren't getting on board with it,
Speaker 3: and they're sort of going off in their own expert opinions,
Speaker 3: which frankly are great for advice, but they're not representative
Speaker 3: of the people that voted these people into power.
Speaker 2: Are they expert opinions?
Speaker 3: Though? Well, that's the other thing. If you were to
Speaker 3: look at expertise in particular. Now you know, obviously different
Speaker 3: people have these different views. In the US. Meerscheimer and
Speaker 3: others have even gone against Trump, which I found quite
Speaker 3: bizarre because traditionally they're very much about liberal institutionalism, and
Speaker 3: when we look at liberal institutionalism effective, we were talking
Speaker 3: about the liberal as in small l liberal, not in
Speaker 3: the American sense of the word, but as the individual
Speaker 3: is most capable of making their own decisions for themselves,
Speaker 3: which leads to free speech and other ideas about liberal democracy.
Speaker 3: And in our world order. Traditionally, the United Nations was
Speaker 3: founded on these liberal democratic principles, which of course have
Speaker 3: now been captured by smaller, non liberal democratic countries, which
Speaker 3: means that the UN is effectively moved away from its mandate.
Speaker 3: It's exhausted, it's been captured by other interests. And of
Speaker 3: course the US has let this slide by not funding
Speaker 3: it as it may once have. And of course Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is in the business of undoing the world order
Speaker 3: that effectively is no longer achieving its aim of bringing
Speaker 3: liberals sort of democratic capitalism to the world.
Speaker 2: What is it do you think that prevents other world leaders, commentators,
Speaker 2: experts from appreciating Trump for what he actually istently you do?
Speaker 2: Where are they coming up short?
Speaker 3: It's interesting that this whole idea of woke and look wokeism,
Speaker 3: the wokarati and someone that these terms are not necessarily
Speaker 3: well defined. But I would put it in terms of
Speaker 3: and sorry if I go a bit into history here,
Speaker 3: but if we look at what we love, if we
Speaker 3: look at John Stuart Mill and his classic work on liberty,
Speaker 3: Mill look for the modern reader. If you read on
Speaker 3: liberty now you're thinking, oh, there's nothing new in this
Speaker 3: this this is basically how we live. But in Mill's
Speaker 3: time it was radical. But one of the things that
Speaker 3: there was a critique a quality fraternity. And I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I should should be able to recall this off the
Speaker 3: top of my head, but in effect a critic wrote, uh,
Speaker 3: this this this piece where he argued that liberalism in
Speaker 3: it or individualism in its extreme, would actually be dangerous
Speaker 3: for society. And what we're sort of seeing is that
Speaker 3: the woke movement was about extreme individualism related with identity politics,
Speaker 3: but to the point where the individual no longer head
Speaker 3: for the concept of the common good. And the common
Speaker 3: good is basically where individuals act in their own self interest,
Speaker 3: but they also have this sort of tide of the
Speaker 3: community that enables them to act within their own self interest,
Speaker 3: but in a way where they're basically looking after themselves
Speaker 3: so that nobody else has to look after them. And
Speaker 3: you can imagine that as a society has more and
Speaker 3: more people who need the society to look after them,
Speaker 3: eventually we're going to run out of people who are
Speaker 3: actually doing the heavy lifting. And so this idea of
Speaker 3: extreme individualism at the expense of the common good has
Speaker 3: got to a point where it's so many of us
Speaker 3: are carrying those who are not carrying themselves. Now, this
Speaker 3: originated in the United States, and so it's interesting that,
Speaker 3: particularly here in Australia, we tend to be years behind
Speaker 3: the United States. So any trend, even disastrous trends, that
Speaker 3: start there, we tend to take on years later, even
Speaker 3: when we're seeing the evidence that it's just you know,
Speaker 3: it's a disaster. And so this woke idea of extreme
Speaker 3: individualism through identity politics is something that's been picked up here,
Speaker 3: but also in the UK to some extent, New Zealand,
Speaker 3: and certainly certainly in Canada. And I refer to these
Speaker 3: countries as the Anglo liberal democracies. And in many ways
Speaker 3: what we've got at the moment are leftist governments in Canada,
Speaker 3: the UK, and certainly in Australia. And these governments have
Speaker 3: sort of run full bottle with the extreme individualism of
Speaker 3: identity politics at the expense of the common good, to
Speaker 3: the point where governments are actually funding all of these
Speaker 3: initiatives beyond their means. So in the Australian capital territory Victoria,
Speaker 3: for example, the state government in Australia is well beyond
Speaker 3: its means carrying the debt that is actually now starting
Speaker 3: to affect other citizens in Australia. And of course the
Speaker 3: Australian government has been spending on subsidizing renewables and other
Speaker 3: sort of economic policies that aren't necessarily working because the
Speaker 3: cost of living is just out of control.
Speaker 2: Can I just ask you a question there, what the
Speaker 2: Australian government has been spending money on. We now know,
Speaker 2: of course that if we didn't know before that in
Speaker 2: the US money has been dumped in all sorts of
Speaker 2: places and disappeared forever. In other words, it's not accounted for,
Speaker 2: and it's being handed out to people who don't deserve it.
Speaker 2: It's being wasted. Is it the same to any degree
Speaker 2: in Australia do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure about waste. We haven't had that
Speaker 3: level of transparency which the Department of Government Efficiency is
Speaker 3: looking into in the US. But it's certainly something that
Speaker 3: I hope will be a trend that we do follow
Speaker 3: with sometime in the future. A lot of it is
Speaker 3: to do with green eye ideals about energy and industry,
Speaker 3: and we see this most recently in our Wala steel works,
Speaker 3: where effectively they've been pursuing this sort of green steel idea,
Speaker 3: which hasn't been commercialized anywhere in the world. There is
Speaker 3: a German outfit that's trialing it, but it's not commercial
Speaker 3: it's not standalone at this stage. So Australia has been
Speaker 3: pursuing these green ideals where effectively it's not commercially viable,
Speaker 3: and hydrogen in particular is one of these areas. So
Speaker 3: we've got all of these subsidies going to the renewable sector,
Speaker 3: and we've got all this critique about the potential for
Speaker 3: nuclear to fill this gap to fix the problems we're
Speaker 3: experiencing our energy sector, but unfortunately we don't know how
Speaker 3: much this is costing. So we've kind of got this
Speaker 3: political debate where nuclear is the enemy and it's going
Speaker 3: to cost half a trillion dollars or whatever. We actually
Speaker 3: actually have no idea how much the subsidization of the
Speaker 3: energy sector is costing us in the meantime. And not
Speaker 3: only that, it's one of those inner city versus the
Speaker 3: regions situations where what we have is people in the
Speaker 3: inner city are quite happy to have renewable energy to
Speaker 3: feel good about themselves, while people in the regions are
Speaker 3: actually suffering from the externalities that are caused by this
Speaker 3: change in the energy system. And in fact, what we're
Speaker 3: finding is it's not even cheaper. It's going up again
Speaker 3: by some nine percent in July this year, so it
Speaker 3: just keeps going up and up. It's not achieving its
Speaker 3: original aim.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to say that we're in no better
Speaker 2: condition than you are, but for possibly somewhat different reasons.
Speaker 2: I mean, we rely a lot on water, and there
Speaker 2: is a very deep concern at the moment from anyone
Speaker 2: with any intelligence because we've had a very dry summer
Speaker 2: and we are under threat with electricity supply. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: of course, we're importing because we under the previous labor
Speaker 2: government such as it was, we banned we've banned coal
Speaker 2: mining and searches for oil and gas, etc. And now
Speaker 2: we import cheap crap coal from Indonesia. It's really quite
Speaker 2: an extraordinary scenario. And at this particular moment, if we
Speaker 2: don't get rained very soon, then we're going to go
Speaker 2: into blackout zone. Now you've i think already suffered in
Speaker 2: some parts of the country from blackouts, have you.
Speaker 3: Not, Yes, Yes, that's definitely been the case. We've definitely
Speaker 3: suffered from blackouts and other problems, especially during storms and
Speaker 3: floods and other things. But some of these have also
Speaker 3: been self indue just by a lack of capacity in
Speaker 3: the sector.
Speaker 2: There is a very large exit number of people from
Speaker 2: this country going to Australia, and it's slowed down, but
Speaker 2: it hasn't disappeared by any stretch of the imagination. Give
Speaker 2: you an example, and I get quite a bit of this.
Speaker 2: I received a letter after last week's podcast from somebody
Speaker 2: who said that they are leaving the country again. They're
Speaker 2: going to Australia because their kids are there. They can't
Speaker 2: get work here. All highly qualified at university level, can't
Speaker 2: get jobs here, and so they're in Australia and the
Speaker 2: parents are now going over. Also added by the way,
Speaker 2: and I don't know quite how this fits in that
Speaker 2: they may return to the US, so possibly they came
Speaker 2: from there in the host place. I don't know. They
Speaker 2: may return to the US, but they're waiting to see
Speaker 2: how Trump turns out. But that is one example. Three
Speaker 2: kids all in Australia because they can't get work here,
Speaker 2: and that is what is inspiring so many to live.
Speaker 2: Of our mixed family of four We've got two in
Speaker 2: London and two here. The two here, well, one of
Speaker 2: the two here would like to would like to go
Speaker 2: to the States and will probably end up in Australia.
Speaker 2: Is it noticeable to you. I know that the numbers
Speaker 2: are increasing in Canberra, the population is increasing in Canbra
Speaker 2: some say that it's increasing at the highest highest rate
Speaker 2: of any parts of Australia. But is there a noticeable
Speaker 2: increase Do you think of New Zealand as in Australia
Speaker 2: from your perspective now.
Speaker 3: Not from my perspective, And it's difficult to tell at
Speaker 3: the moment because we seem to be taking on a
Speaker 3: lot of so called refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere,
Speaker 3: and that's been more of a sort of noticeable problem.
Speaker 3: I think the relationship between Australia and New Zealand, you know,
Speaker 3: and the anzac spirit. I mean, you know, we don't
Speaker 3: even think of Australia and New Zealand as separate countries
Speaker 3: or cultures, despite the formalities. So look, I must admit
Speaker 3: I'm not noticing that sort of influx. But it's interesting
Speaker 3: too though that in terms of employment opportunities, one of
Speaker 3: the things that's happening in Australia at the moment is
Speaker 3: employment is quite unemployment is extremely low, but the reason
Speaker 3: is because most of the jobs are government jobs, so
Speaker 3: it's kind of a false economy in that regard. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, Canberra is certainly growing because the
Speaker 3: public service has been growing some thirty six thousand additional
Speaker 3: public servants in the term of the Albanese government. And
Speaker 3: of course the problem for the ACT is that the
Speaker 3: market there is quite tired in terms of housing. It's
Speaker 3: very expensive and they've got limited room to grow as well,
Speaker 3: so it's sort of spilling over into the regional New
Speaker 3: South Wales, creating its own problems for infrastructure and other things.
Speaker 3: But it's very shortsighted in terms of basically manipulating all
Speaker 3: of the economic indicators, including unemployment, through government funding, which
Speaker 3: is you know, on the ground, it's not really helping people.
Speaker 3: And if I can give you an example of that,
Speaker 3: there's a neighbor of mine who is now in his sixties,
Speaker 3: and he said to me when he was nineteen, he
Speaker 3: was living week to week and he thought, I've got
Speaker 3: to do something about this. I can't live like this forever.
Speaker 3: And he basically trained himself to budget and to save
Speaker 3: and to live within his means. And he said to me,
Speaker 3: here he is now in his sixties and he's living
Speaker 3: week to week again. But there's nothing he can do
Speaker 3: about it. It's not a lack of discipline. It's just
Speaker 3: a simple fact that he can't afford to live as
Speaker 3: within his means. It's basically impossible. So you know, on
Speaker 3: the one hand, we've got these economic indicators which look great,
Speaker 3: but the reality of living in Australia is extremely different
Speaker 3: to that picture that's being painted by the government.
Speaker 2: I think he made a mistake a little while ago.
Speaker 2: I think you meant the Abaloni government didn't.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, baloney. Anyway, that was that was that was
Speaker 3: doing the rounds over the weekend from the from the
Speaker 3: Saturday Australian cartoon.
Speaker 2: Talking of the federal government. Of course, it doesn't include
Speaker 2: the position of the state governments, and they seem to
Speaker 2: be a bit at sea. I don't know which state
Speaker 2: government you would nominate as being the best one at
Speaker 2: this point of time, but from my perspective, none of
Speaker 2: them seemed to be firing on all cylinders.
Speaker 3: Look, yeah, that's that's true. And look, you asked me
Speaker 3: earlier about Trump, and I wanted to just sort of
Speaker 3: come back to that idea of why I see what
Speaker 3: he's doing is so important and it relates to what
Speaker 3: we're talking about with the state governments here. But I
Speaker 3: mentioned the critique of John Stuart Millan. It's actually James
Speaker 3: Fitzjames Stephen in his work called Liberty, Equality Fraternity, and
Speaker 3: it was a really interesting critique of John Stuart Mills's
Speaker 3: work which effectively outlines what we're seeing in terms that
Speaker 3: woke identity politics when it comes to the state governments.
Speaker 3: When it comes to the state governments, what we're seeing
Speaker 3: is the state's effectively playing the same electoral game that
Speaker 3: the federal government is playing, and we're seeing things like,
Speaker 3: for example, in Queensland, we saw this idea of fifty
Speaker 3: cents trips on public transport and it's interesting because that
Speaker 3: effectively plays to Brisbane because the public transport situation and
Speaker 3: the rest of Queensland is abysmal. So in effect, people
Speaker 3: in the regions are once again subsidizing those people who
Speaker 3: live in the cities and have all the access to
Speaker 3: public infrastructure. And we see the same sort of game
Speaker 3: being played in New South Wales and elsewhere in effect,
Speaker 3: what they're doing is buying votes and people seem to
Speaker 3: be going along with it. Now, that wasn't necessarily a
Speaker 3: case in in Queensland the recent state election there, but
Speaker 3: it's certainly been the case in Victoria and to some
Speaker 3: extent in New South Wales. In New South Wales we
Speaker 3: see the premiere talking tough on anti Semitism and other things,
Speaker 3: saying all the right things, but at the same time
Speaker 3: we're not seeing any action. And this really brings me
Speaker 3: back to that Trump Trumpian argument that Trump is all
Speaker 3: about the action. He's making these deals, he's making things happen,
Speaker 3: whereas we look at Barack Obama symbolic, you know, really
Speaker 3: important symbolism in terms of the first African American president
Speaker 3: of the United States, which in effect shows how our
Speaker 3: system works. It's about merit as opposed to identity, but
Speaker 3: then going full swing where it's all about identity now
Speaker 3: it's not about merit, and then Trump coming along and
Speaker 3: trying to turn that on its head. And we're seeing
Speaker 3: the governments of Canada, the UK and Australia not being
Speaker 3: real happy about following this is changed. But look at
Speaker 3: the change that's coming because we can't afford to keep
Speaker 3: living the way that we have. And like I said,
Speaker 3: it was James Fitzjames Stephen who actually warned about this
Speaker 3: in John Stuart Mill's time, which I find extremely interesting.
Speaker 2: Let's go back a little too, what you were saying
Speaker 2: about the speed with which philosophies have traveled through the
Speaker 2: English speaking world, in particular our two countries. As you wondered,
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to recollect your words, but you wondered
Speaker 2: whether or how long it would take to eradicate that.
Speaker 2: My contribution to the discussion over a number of years
Speaker 2: has been, if it happens in America, particularly in California,
Speaker 2: it'll get here, and it'll get here sooner than you think.
Speaker 2: And political correctness was the beginning of it, and it
Speaker 2: romped in here. I remember buying in the States some
Speaker 2: small books of Christmas stories written by satirist. They were
Speaker 2: send ups of regular stories like Little Red Writing Hood,
Speaker 2: et cetera, but they were adapted for the appropriate politically
Speaker 2: correct approach. And we're going back to the late eighties here,
Speaker 2: and I brought the books back and I read some
Speaker 2: stories on radio, and I got abused. One guy I've
Speaker 2: never forgotten said I'm never listening to you again if
Speaker 2: you're going to quote that stupid stuff because he didn't
Speaker 2: get it, he didn't understand, he thought it was he
Speaker 2: thought it was genuine. So that's an aside. But my
Speaker 2: question to you is, if it gets here that quickly,
Speaker 2: why shouldn't it's eradication Once started in America, as it has,
Speaker 2: why shouldn't that spread here equally as fast?
Speaker 3: Well, one could hope. I think economic circumstances are going
Speaker 3: certainly going to help. But it's interesting that it's almost
Speaker 3: like there's this latent sort of socialist concepts and people
Speaker 3: refer to the long march through the institutions, which in
Speaker 3: many ways we're kind of living, particularly in the education
Speaker 3: sector in Australia and the US and elsewhere. But it's
Speaker 3: kind of like this ideal of not so much multiculturalism,
Speaker 3: but that it's not about your identity, but at the
Speaker 3: same time, it's all about your identity. And I think
Speaker 3: vested interests have become so embedded in these institutions that, look,
Speaker 3: my research really does focus on institutions, and when we
Speaker 3: look at institutions, we're talking about the formal and the
Speaker 3: informal rules of the game. If you like. That can
Speaker 3: include organizations and so on. But in effect, institutions are
Speaker 3: very difficult to change because they're meant to be decision
Speaker 3: making tools that make things more efficient. You can imagine
Speaker 3: if you had to vote for which day your garbage
Speaker 3: would be collected every week. It would be ridiculous. Right,
Speaker 3: So we have this institution where it just ticks along.
Speaker 3: It takes care of business and hopefully in the interests
Speaker 3: of the common good. But because the common good has
Speaker 3: become less of a focus, these institutions have started to
Speaker 3: focus on achieving the aims of identity, politics, and other things,
Speaker 3: and in doing so, the institutions start to replicate themselves,
Speaker 3: where they're bringing in people who have these same ideas
Speaker 3: and on it goes. Now, typically institutions can't change themselves.
Speaker 3: They have to be disrupted by an exogenist or an
Speaker 3: external event. And in many ways I've argued this in
Speaker 3: teaching leadership that leaders actually can be a force for change.
Speaker 3: They can be a great disruptor that disrupts the institution,
Speaker 3: and usually that's through their ideas or approaches to particular things.
Speaker 3: So basically what we're seeing is Trump is now like
Speaker 3: the great disruptor, which is disrupting these institutions. But having
Speaker 3: said that, the institutions within states but also at the
Speaker 3: UN system level, these institutions are exhausted. They're no longer
Speaker 3: achieving the purposes that they were meant to achieve, which means,
Speaker 3: and again on the theoretical idea, that they can't change
Speaker 3: themselves otherwise they know. It's kind of like an institution
Speaker 3: that's designed to keep the status quo. It can't change
Speaker 3: itself otherwise, it can't keep the status quo, so it
Speaker 3: has to be recreated, it has to be disrupted. Wars
Speaker 3: are a great disruptor, of course, but like I said, Trump
Speaker 3: is a disruptor as well, So there's a little bit
Speaker 3: of inertia in institutions as well. And I think sometimes
Speaker 3: it's easier to even disrupting the institution means that it
Speaker 3: takes some time to change, whereas that incremental change that
Speaker 3: occurs over time within the institution tends to be much
Speaker 3: more difficult to overturn. It kind of creeps in. And
Speaker 3: as you said about political correctness, and I remember that
Speaker 3: exact book that you're talking about from the late eighties.
Speaker 3: It was almost funny back then, but it was a
Speaker 3: precursor to things that if we'd been more conscious.
Speaker 2: Of we might have it was prophetic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, but yeah, so look in terms
Speaker 3: of institutions, I think that's the reason. It's the inertia
Speaker 3: that it creates, and you basically have to undo them.
Speaker 3: And what we're seeing at the moment if we have
Speaker 3: these leftist governments in the rest of the Anglo West,
Speaker 3: and of course give it a few years before Trump's
Speaker 3: ideas come through here and look, in many ways, if
Speaker 3: we can see I mean, I'm hoping that JD. Vance
Speaker 3: will become president in twenty twenty eight, and if that's
Speaker 3: the case, we might be able to see the continual
Speaker 3: undoing of this identity politics that is creating all of
Speaker 3: the problems for us at the moment.
Speaker 2: I quote you something I know before I do. Tell
Speaker 2: us what you teach each subject.
Speaker 3: So I teach leadership in our MBA program. I having
Speaker 3: been an Army officer, It's something that I've sort of
Speaker 3: theoretically understood for a long time but also practically in practice,
Speaker 3: and I teach this overseas in Bhutan and China. Locally,
Speaker 3: I teach political leadership at an undergraduate level and I
Speaker 3: also teach one of our subjects, which is called professional orientation,
Speaker 3: and professional orientation is basically teaching my students how to
Speaker 3: set up themselves during the time of their degree instead
Speaker 3: of waiting till getting to the end and then wondering
Speaker 3: what they're going to do with it. And I sort
Speaker 3: of see it as my university is very much my students,
Speaker 3: very much my people. I'm a Western Sydney boy then
Speaker 3: grew up in far North Queensland. I live in the
Speaker 3: regions now. A lot of my students are from similar circumstances,
Speaker 3: and many of them, like me, are first in family
Speaker 3: university graduates. So I work with my students in particular
Speaker 3: to develop social and cultural capital, which means that instead
Speaker 3: of going to your parents, who might have just been
Speaker 3: working class, hard working people who don't understand university or
Speaker 3: other advanced ideas of careers, you actually have a network
Speaker 3: of people that can assist you. And that was certainly
Speaker 3: the problem. That or not problem, but that was certainly
Speaker 3: the circumstances that I grew up in, where the people
Speaker 3: around me had no idea about these sort of high
Speaker 3: falutant ideas of the academy and being an intellectual or
Speaker 3: even journalism and things like that. So I try and
Speaker 3: do my students. But that's currently I've been doing it
Speaker 3: for some twenty years now, so it's changed over time.
Speaker 2: What it quotes you something that I pulled specially for you.
Speaker 2: Political scientists who dabble in the field have contributed to
Speaker 2: the problem by providing empirical justification for the ideological tilt
Speaker 2: to the left. It's often said that political scientists are
Speaker 2: closet animists, who, in their deepest dreams, admire strong states
Speaker 2: with well read bureaucrats who have the authority to order society.
Speaker 2: Stanford's Francis Fukuyama is exhibit a of this tendency, having
Speaker 2: intellectually drifted from supporting democracy to putting a quasi Leninist
Speaker 2: emphasis on political order. Where did you go wrong?
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I've attended a few of Francis Fukiyama's events,
Speaker 3: and of course in the nineties he was talking about
Speaker 3: the end of history of the last Man, which was
Speaker 3: kind of like a slant on Marx, who saw historical
Speaker 3: processes as undoing the institutional framework. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 3: but it's interesting that Fukiyama went from suggesting that liberal
Speaker 3: democracy had won the West and the rest to then
Speaker 3: saying that, well, oops, you know, after September eleventh in
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, that's sort of through. And I
Speaker 3: don't mean to laugh about that, but it was the
Speaker 3: situation that he had sort of made this statement that
Speaker 3: it was the end of history, and then history just
Speaker 3: came back to bite him and he had to change
Speaker 3: his ideas and admit that he was wrong. And he
Speaker 3: then started saying that identity politics was the greatest threat.
Speaker 3: So I'm not quite sure that he would be exhibit
Speaker 3: A in that way. Look, the thing for me is
Speaker 3: that I'm very much a liberal Democrat in the way
Speaker 3: that I believe that individuals are sovereign that they can
Speaker 3: make the best decisions about their own welfare, that they
Speaker 3: ought to be supported in that the role of government
Speaker 3: is not to give us a vision, but to create
Speaker 3: economic and social conditions that enable us to pursue our
Speaker 3: own visions. So very much about the individual, but also
Speaker 3: with a strong sense of the common good. And one
Speaker 3: of the things that I've noticed, particularly in the academy
Speaker 3: in the university sector, but they don't represent the ordinary people.
Speaker 3: They represent their own elite and their own elite ideas.
Speaker 3: And you know, we can go back to the London
Speaker 3: School of Economics in the UK, which was established by
Speaker 3: the Fabians in effect, and so a lot of that
Speaker 3: sort of intellectual leftism, if you will, stems from that era.
Speaker 3: But again it had as its basis looking after the
Speaker 3: ordinary people, and of course that has since changed and
Speaker 3: it's now about virtue signaling for the wealthy, inner city
Speaker 3: elite at the expense of those ordinary Australians what Menzies
Speaker 3: would have called the forgotten people. But the interesting thing
Speaker 3: now is the forgotten people are a completely different group.
Speaker 3: It's the traditional working class that are being left behind
Speaker 3: by those who supposedly had their interests at heart. And
Speaker 3: I guess for me, well not, I guess they know
Speaker 3: for me. As soon as I sort of had my
Speaker 3: damascene moment, so to speak, and I started representing and
Speaker 3: writing for the people in the regions of a region Australia,
Speaker 3: I found my audience and in many ways found my voice.
Speaker 3: And you know, it actually feel like I have a
Speaker 3: sense of purpose, whereas before it seemed to be this
Speaker 3: sort of fake intellectualism that had at its roote not
Speaker 3: looking after ordinary people, but in effect like you say,
Speaker 3: a closet Leninist designed to create the sort of the
Speaker 3: dictatorship of the proletariat that would then teach the players
Speaker 3: how to think. And we're sort of seeing that in
Speaker 3: many ways, whereas a liberal Democrat would be looking at
Speaker 3: learning how to think as opposed to telling people what
Speaker 3: to think.
Speaker 2: There are two two professors who have taught in this country.
Speaker 2: Jim Allen is one and the other is Ramasakur, both
Speaker 2: of whom you'd be familiar with, and they have taken
Speaker 2: themselves off to Australia and been there for some time.
Speaker 2: We missed them, I my dad, as far as the
Speaker 2: education system here is concerned. But I know that I
Speaker 2: know that Jim struggles to some degree amongst the literati
Speaker 2: at university from her well where he doesn't quite fit in.
Speaker 2: He's very brave man. And Ramesh has called it quits
Speaker 2: in Canberra. And did you know him by the way
Speaker 2: in Canberra?
Speaker 3: No, not personally, but we've certainly corresponded.
Speaker 2: You, yeah, and has moved farther north to a bit
Speaker 2: of climate. They have survived and they continue to contribute
Speaker 2: as you are. But what I'm wondering is how you
Speaker 2: get away with being to the right as you are,
Speaker 2: however you want to describe it. You're a standout and
Speaker 2: I would have thought that you would be on the
Speaker 2: receiving end of some considerable objection.
Speaker 3: That was certainly the case in this but that not
Speaker 3: so much rejection, but the being told what to do,
Speaker 3: I guess doesn't really sit well with me, even though
Speaker 3: I was in the military. It's quite kind of an anomaly.
Speaker 3: But I found that it was just by sticking to
Speaker 3: my digs over time. And look, I must admit, like
Speaker 3: I said to, my university were very much focused on
Speaker 3: giving ordinary Australians a practical education that helps with their
Speaker 3: employment and other things, and so I fit in extremely
Speaker 3: well with that university. And our school has prided itself
Speaker 3: on its diversity of opinion as well, which is quite unusual.
Speaker 3: So in many ways, aside from some initial reluctance that
Speaker 3: was later on embraced, and I think that's the case
Speaker 3: with many people. You basically have to establish yourself and
Speaker 3: once you've done that, people just have to get on
Speaker 3: with it because they're not going to change. So I've
Speaker 3: had that experience, and look, I'm very grateful to my
Speaker 3: university for that experience. And it hasn't been what I've
Speaker 3: seen certainly in other places. And again that's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why I've worked there for twenty years. But
Speaker 3: to be honest, I'm actually finishing up in July. I've
Speaker 3: been there twenty years. I'm feeling rather stale, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to move on. And one of the other emeritus
Speaker 3: professors said that I'm probably the last of the conservative academics.
Speaker 3: But look again, I think our education system is exhausted.
Speaker 3: Artificial intelligence is going to replace so many people, and
Speaker 3: I'm seeing it already. I'm dabbling in the area at
Speaker 3: the moment in terms of using it as a personal assistant,
Speaker 3: using it for conducting literature reviews. And it's not going
Speaker 3: to replace the intellectual rigor that's needed for research, but
Speaker 3: it's certainly going to reduce the staffing requirements that traditionally
Speaker 3: were very expensive. But also I think that there's going
Speaker 3: to have to be some sort of change in things
Speaker 3: because those the old institution that has been captured by
Speaker 3: the left is not actually producing people who are useful
Speaker 3: in the economy. You know, we've got business skills that
Speaker 3: have exclusively focused on gender studies, focusing absolutely Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: we've got to give.
Speaker 2: Me, give me one or two so that people will
Speaker 2: know to avoid them.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I mean, I guess you'd have to discern
Speaker 3: this from your own sort of reading of the media.
Speaker 3: I probably wouldn't. I wouldn't just yet. Maybe after July
Speaker 3: I'll speak a bit more freely, I guess. But my
Speaker 3: point is though that instead of focusing on key things
Speaker 3: like the mining and resources sector in Australia, we have
Speaker 3: academics who actively think that that's morally wrong to actually
Speaker 3: support this industry. And this is where it becomes really bizarre,
Speaker 3: because without the mining and resources sector, Australia be a
Speaker 3: third world country full stop. And people just don't appreciate that. So,
Speaker 3: you know, it's all well and good to have these
Speaker 3: sort of high moral principles, but to forget the fact
Speaker 3: that you can only have these high moral principles because
Speaker 3: of a particular sector of the economy is just ridiculous. So,
Speaker 3: you know, for me, I think we ought to be
Speaker 3: focusing more on these major sort of elements of the economy,
Speaker 3: like transport, telecommunications. There's hardly anywhere that's teaching these things now.
Speaker 3: Economics is probably one of the most in demand careers.
Speaker 3: Yet people are moving away from teaching it properly by
Speaker 3: incorporating mathematics and statistics. So we're like taking the easy
Speaker 3: path in so many things, and we're not producing the
Speaker 3: skills that are needed. So these skills still have to
Speaker 3: come from somewhere. So I think there's an opportunity for
Speaker 3: disruption in higher education in particular.
Speaker 2: And yet this was from the Australian over the weekend.
Speaker 2: A law degree needs to teach serious, complex content, not
Speaker 2: imposed mind bending in doctrination, as is the case at
Speaker 2: Macquarie University Law School. Students in law s or Laws
Speaker 2: five five will fail part of their degrees if they
Speaker 2: deliver an acknowledgment of country in an oral presentation with
Speaker 2: insufficient passion and sincerity.
Speaker 3: Please. It's yeah, this is identity politics in its extreme.
Speaker 3: I mean, firstly, you know there's no law against you
Speaker 3: not doing an acknowledgment of country. And you know, look,
Speaker 3: I find this bizarre. My great grandmother was Camillroy and
Speaker 3: she was committed to being in Australian. I guarantee you
Speaker 3: she would have voted against the voice a referendum in Australia.
Speaker 3: But you're not allowed to say that you're not allowed
Speaker 3: to be that type of you know, INDI genous person
Speaker 3: has been proven. And it's again what we're seeing is
Speaker 3: this sort of the wok araty embracing these concepts, forcing
Speaker 3: it on others. But really they're not doing anything to
Speaker 3: you know, fix the problems or the circumstances that are occurring.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously in indigenous people throughout the world have
Speaker 3: had a raw deal historically, and you know, there are
Speaker 3: things that need to be done to improve that. But
Speaker 3: you know, these having an acknowledgment of country and then
Speaker 3: assessing somebody on the passion that they displayed. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is the most subjective thing I've ever heard of.
Speaker 3: How do you do that? You know, and people are
Speaker 3: passionate in different ways. It's like grief. People grieve in
Speaker 3: different ways. So but again this is just showing how
Speaker 3: extreme this is becoming. But look that I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: we're going to see that that gets undone rather quickly
Speaker 3: because it's embarrassing and it's certainly it certainly is not
Speaker 3: about liberal democracy, is it. I mean, it's effectively telling
Speaker 3: you what to think and how to behave, which is
Speaker 3: you know, what we'd usually refer to as a dictatorship.
Speaker 2: Well, so much of it has sunk into the business world.
Speaker 2: And I think of Qantas just as the first example,
Speaker 2: and the way that public companies are run and they've
Speaker 2: and they've got away with it.
Speaker 3: Is it retreating, Yes, it's starting to. But you can
Speaker 3: see some resistance, particular in Australia in the UK. But
Speaker 3: in effect, as soon as Donald Trump, you know, came
Speaker 3: in and made some executive orders around genders and around
Speaker 3: DEI and all this sort of stuff. As soon as
Speaker 3: that happened, some of the major companies in the world
Speaker 3: started backtracking. And I think, you know what, Look, it's
Speaker 3: not unusual for businesses to want to work in with
Speaker 3: a particular government. We saw that in Australia. I remember
Speaker 3: seeing Chris Bowen with the Business Council of Australia in
Speaker 3: tow wherever he wins. And now we're starting to see,
Speaker 3: because of the economy and because of the failures of
Speaker 3: their energy policy, the business community is starting to say, well,
Speaker 3: hang on a minute. You know you promised all this stuff.
Speaker 3: It's not working. We supported you, it's not working, and
Speaker 3: we're seeing that with DEI and other things.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to AI as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: because there were a couple of things that spun off
Speaker 2: from that. This was a literal conversation yesterday with somebody
Speaker 2: to do with editing of television news. So you've got
Speaker 2: scenes coming out of Ukraine, for instance, that are really
Speaker 2: unsuitable for the public and they have to be edited.
Speaker 2: How would you How would you because I said there's
Speaker 2: no way you can you can do it? How would
Speaker 2: you train a machine AI to do the editing on
Speaker 2: its own, of editing out the bits that weren't that
Speaker 2: weren't appropriate. How would you train at the start of
Speaker 2: a certain spot and cities at a certain spot.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not involved in that technical side of things,
Speaker 3: and in terms of all of the technologies. Look, I
Speaker 3: was using Facebook and my teaching back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, so I'd probably more of a superuser as
Speaker 3: opposed to somebody who designs or develops these systems. I
Speaker 3: think the thing with AI, it's much like an institution.
Speaker 3: It can only deal with the past. It can't deal
Speaker 3: with the future. And that's where I mean. Look, it
Speaker 3: can help in terms of planning, it can help in
Speaker 3: terms of all sorts of creative solutions to problems, but
Speaker 3: it's a resource. It's not the be all and the
Speaker 3: end all, and I think that's part of the issue
Speaker 3: is that you can't use AI. It's artificial intelligence, it's
Speaker 3: not false intelligence, so you need a level of human
Speaker 3: intelligence to be able to use it as a tool.
Speaker 3: So the thing about AI is that it makes things
Speaker 3: more efficient. It could be the case that you could
Speaker 3: train it to go through footage, and based on that, look,
Speaker 3: we can already see that if you want to search
Speaker 3: a photo in your phone, you can put in a
Speaker 3: topic and or bring up all of your pets or
Speaker 3: all of your travels or whatever it is. So you
Speaker 3: know that we can see already that this does work.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean it's going to select the exact
Speaker 3: photo that you wanted. You'd still have to It basically
Speaker 3: narrows it down and enables you to then find what
Speaker 3: you're looking for. And I dare say, in terms of editing,
Speaker 3: that would be the case where you'd be presented with
Speaker 3: less of the raw footage that you could then tweak minorly,
Speaker 3: as opposed to having to scroll through. So just give
Speaker 3: you an example in the past, if I was conducting research,
Speaker 3: So going back to my undergrad degree, where my assignments
Speaker 3: were handwritten, I'd have to go to the library and
Speaker 3: read all these books and highlight them and produce cards
Speaker 3: and so on. And then, of course, when Google came along,
Speaker 3: divided that the references were available online, and increasingly they
Speaker 3: are now through library databases at universities. I could do
Speaker 3: Google searches or search the catalog and find these resources
Speaker 3: and draw on them. Now the thing is now I
Speaker 3: can actually get AI to do that, and I'm finding
Speaker 3: that a year's worth of work just in finding the
Speaker 3: sources that I want to look at, a year's worth
Speaker 3: of work is taking twenty minutes. Now, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: that's an incredible level of efficiency. But it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that I can just let AI write what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I still have to, you know, I'm still in control
Speaker 3: of what's happening. But it does all of that sort
Speaker 3: of grunt work. And traditionally too, I would have employed
Speaker 3: research assistance to go and do that work. I would
Speaker 3: then look at what they'd done and sort of narrow
Speaker 3: it down from there. But what I'm finding with AI
Speaker 3: is it's replacing those people. They don't need to hire
Speaker 3: somebody to do it. Now I can get AI to
Speaker 3: do that, but you can't take away that, or at
Speaker 3: least not in our lifetime or my lifetime. I don't
Speaker 3: think in terms of of I don't think it's going
Speaker 3: to do everything for us, but it's certainly going to
Speaker 3: make things more efficient. And I'm finding that already in
Speaker 3: the most incredible ways.
Speaker 2: You don't think that, And we've reached or we're on
Speaker 2: the verge of reaching the point where they can self create.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not sure about that, and I guess now
Speaker 3: we're starting to talk about cybernetics. You know, that crossover
Speaker 3: of humans and machines, and it's not really my sort
Speaker 3: of specially.
Speaker 2: Does it frighten you?
Speaker 3: No, No, it doesn't. And it's interesting because we use
Speaker 3: we use AI around the house. We have the those
Speaker 3: Google Nest speakers throughout the house, and it's incredible. You
Speaker 3: need to know about the weather, you ask it a question,
Speaker 3: it gives you the answer. Now, the answer is not
Speaker 3: always great, and it's not it's extremely imperfect. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, when you don't have that tool, it's
Speaker 3: amazing how much you miss it. So you know, look,
Speaker 3: I just find that it gives us this incredible amount
Speaker 3: of access to information. But again, it's not going to
Speaker 3: it's not going to do the hard work for us,
Speaker 3: and I think the hard work. It's interesting that there
Speaker 3: was a book Deep Work came from a professor of
Speaker 3: computer science in the US, and he was talking about
Speaker 3: needing to do at least four hours of deep work
Speaker 3: per day that added value to something, and he was
Speaker 3: saying that if you didn't do this in the future,
Speaker 3: what would happen is you'd be replaced by some sort
Speaker 3: of machine or program. And in many ways, people who
Speaker 3: receive emails and then forward that email onto someone else,
Speaker 3: they're effectively going to be replaced by some sort of
Speaker 3: routing system, and we're seeing that happening already. So there's
Speaker 3: still that requirement for deep work, but it's much more creative,
Speaker 3: it's much more intellectual, and in many ways it's much
Speaker 3: more interesting. So look, I just find that it's it's fascinating,
Speaker 3: but it's also very helpful, and for those who are
Speaker 3: not sort of getting into it, they're going to be
Speaker 3: left behind, at least initially. But look, having said that,
Speaker 3: I realized that in around two thousand and seven, when
Speaker 3: and Twitter sort of came online. Now X, there was
Speaker 3: this belief that it was going to democratize the world
Speaker 3: and democratize the media and all the rest of it.
Speaker 3: Pretty soon well a few years after, Yeah, the legacy
Speaker 3: media effectively redominated all of those new areas. But we're
Speaker 3: seeing that happening again now, not because of this desire
Speaker 3: for democratization, but the simple fact is that the old institutions,
Speaker 3: the media institutions, are so expensive. Like your podcast, you
Speaker 3: can do this now more efficiently and better because you're
Speaker 3: more hands on and involved in it than if you
Speaker 3: had this sort of team in a legacy environment where
Speaker 3: you have to pay for officers and studios and all
Speaker 3: these different things, and the legacy media is finding it
Speaker 3: too expensive to produce the content that people want.
Speaker 2: You recently had some issues with a government department on misinformation.
Speaker 2: Disinformation tell us the story briefly.
Speaker 3: So briefly, I was arguing that what we're seeing in Australia,
Speaker 3: the most successful political party, the Liberal Party, established by Mensis,
Speaker 3: brought some eighteen non labor groups together, and we're starting
Speaker 3: to see that group fracturing into smaller conservative parties. And
Speaker 3: one of my concerns is that whenever the conservative parties
Speaker 3: fracture in this way, the vote fractures, which means we
Speaker 3: tend to end up with a labor government. On the left,
Speaker 3: they tend to all sort of vote as a group,
Speaker 3: whereas on the right we tend to think for ourselves
Speaker 3: and therefore we might want to punish a group who's
Speaker 3: not doing what we expect them to and so on.
Speaker 3: So I wrote about that because I was concerned about that,
Speaker 3: and I looked at some historical processes in terms of
Speaker 3: primary votes, and traditionally the coalition party, the Liberal and
Speaker 3: National parties in Australia have to get more than forty
Speaker 3: one percent of the vote and also beat of the
Speaker 3: primary vote and also beat the Labor and the Greens
Speaker 3: primary vote in order to win government. And the only
Speaker 3: time this hasn't happened is when the left has been
Speaker 3: fractured in a similar way. And somebody took what I'd
Speaker 3: written as saying that I didn't understand the preferential voting system,
Speaker 3: and I was saying that I had said that if
Speaker 3: you didn't give your primary vote to the coalition, the
Speaker 3: candidate couldn't win, which is absolute nonsense. I didn't say that.
Speaker 3: I said, based on the historical situation, giving your primary
Speaker 3: vote to anything other than the coalition is a suboptimal
Speaker 3: way of ensuring that you end up with a conservative government.
Speaker 3: And so I was taken to task on Twitter. Mind you,
Speaker 3: so I don't know who this person was, what they're
Speaker 3: qualations were, anything like that, but I was taken to
Speaker 3: task by them, and I requested an apology from the department,
Speaker 3: and of course I received no such a policy apology,
Speaker 3: but I was effectively defamed by them, And in their
Speaker 3: response they basically went from saying that it was disinformation,
Speaker 3: to then misinformation, to then saying that these statistical possibilities
Speaker 3: were so vast that nobody really knew, you know, what
Speaker 3: the result could be. And I just thought that this
Speaker 3: was so bizarre that this government department, an anonymous person
Speaker 3: on social media could effectively defame me and uh and
Speaker 3: then just doing you know, nothing could possibly happen about it,
Speaker 3: and all under the guys of misinformation and disinformation. In effect,
Speaker 3: what happened to me mirrored the critiques of the misinformation
Speaker 3: and disinformation laws that effectively people could use these to
Speaker 3: achieve their own political lends and there'd be nothing that
Speaker 3: citizens could do about it. So I'm extremely glad that
Speaker 3: none of that has been approved in terms of legislation.
Speaker 3: But what's interesting is that the coalition government that effectively
Speaker 3: I was suggesting people or to give their primary vote
Speaker 3: to if they wanted a conservative government, they've been backing
Speaker 3: some of these moves as well, and so it's a
Speaker 3: real sort of chicken and egg problem is that if
Speaker 3: the conservative major parties won't actually stand by their principles,
Speaker 3: then people are going to vote for conservative minor parties,
Speaker 3: which means that we're going to end up with a
Speaker 3: labor government. But they just can't sort of seem to
Speaker 3: see this, and that's what concerns me, because nobody can
Speaker 3: afford another three years of this current government.
Speaker 2: Okay, that takes me to something I was going to
Speaker 2: ask for and then decided I've asked it so many
Speaker 2: times in the last few years. I wouldn't repeat it.
Speaker 2: But I'm going to explain to me pleased if you can.
Speaker 2: I was born in Melbourne. My grandfather was a mare
Speaker 2: of Preston for a number of years. I cannot understand
Speaker 2: how Victorians could vote for the labor governments they have
Speaker 2: had for so long. It drives me insane to what
Speaker 2: has happened in Victoria. Why is it so why did
Speaker 2: so many Victorians time and time again vote for an idiot?
Speaker 3: I wish I knew the answer to that question, but
Speaker 3: I suspect what we're seeing a lot of it is
Speaker 3: about the vibe. And what I mean by that is,
Speaker 3: you know, there's this idea that you can fix the
Speaker 3: energy problem by having government run everything. Now that may
Speaker 3: well be the case, but not under the current system.
Speaker 3: It would have to be a new sort of technology
Speaker 3: or some other disruption to the existing institutions. But I
Speaker 3: think too the practice of buying votes, and particularly through
Speaker 3: virtue signaling, has what's been attractive. The other thing, too,
Speaker 3: is that Victoria has had one of the most ineffective
Speaker 3: oppositions in its history. So there's a lot there that
Speaker 3: relates to the conservative parties trying to outlabor the Labor Party,
Speaker 3: and of course they're no good at this because it's
Speaker 3: not what they do and their base is not interested
Speaker 3: in that. So they move further and further away from
Speaker 3: their base, which means the base abandons them, which, as
Speaker 3: I say, it results in a labor government being re elected.
Speaker 3: And I think this is the tragedy because Mensis, when
Speaker 3: he established the Liberal Party, brought these groups together. He
Speaker 3: was able to function in terms of what was a
Speaker 3: broad church. But Mensi's never envisioned factions within the Liberal Party,
Speaker 3: and now we have basically formalized factions within the Liberal
Speaker 3: Party in Australia, which is a leftist socialist concept. It's
Speaker 3: rather bizarre. So an ineffective opposition and a labor government
Speaker 3: that's prepared to spend money that it doesn't have on
Speaker 3: certain segments of the community is effectively buying those votes.
Speaker 3: But the reason those votes are for sale is because
Speaker 3: the conservative major Conservative parties have abandoned their base.
Speaker 2: Would you put the federal Liberal Party in the same
Speaker 2: bag at the moment.
Speaker 3: I would, But I'm hoping. No formal election date has
Speaker 3: been announced, so technically the campaign hasn't commenced even though
Speaker 3: they're campaigning, and so I'm hoping that mister Dutton has
Speaker 3: an arsenal prepared that's going to start hitting the ground
Speaker 3: as soon as the formal campaign begins. And I think
Speaker 3: in many ways this is a really smart strategy. And
Speaker 3: again this is a bit like coming back to Trump.
Speaker 3: Instead of supporting Trump and trusting in the person that
Speaker 3: is in charge and that was democratically elected, people start
Speaker 3: sort of getting their own ideas and complaining and you know,
Speaker 3: not sort of seeing what's going on. And I would
Speaker 3: hope that mister Dutton has this ass or prepared and
Speaker 3: it's going to be deployed as soon as the campaign begins,
Speaker 3: because one of the risks in politics particularly is an
Speaker 3: opposition if you expose all of your tactics and techniques
Speaker 3: and the approach that you're going to take too early,
Speaker 3: you're given the incumbent government time to prepare and to
Speaker 3: counter those arguments. So I'm hoping that that's the case.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, in the meantime, people are sort of jumping
Speaker 3: to the minor parties, and the minor parties are obviously
Speaker 3: encouraging this because in Australia at least I think it's
Speaker 3: three dollars twenty five or something per primary vote if
Speaker 3: you get more than four percent of the primary vote
Speaker 3: goes to these political parties. So there's a vested interest
Speaker 3: in the minor parties to actually get a hold of
Speaker 3: that electoral reimbursement funding via the government. So look, in
Speaker 3: many ways, this competition, particularly on the right, is causing
Speaker 3: the problems that is enabling the left to keep getting
Speaker 3: returned into power and that's what concerns me about the
Speaker 3: upcoming election. And you know, look, the coalition is certainly
Speaker 3: moving away from its base. I don't think it's looking
Speaker 3: after its base and the way that it ought to.
Speaker 3: But I know for a fact that our economy is
Speaker 3: going to be much better under a coalition government than
Speaker 3: it currently is in what, in my view is the
Speaker 3: worst government Australian history.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the coalition, the term Uni party has caught
Speaker 2: on recently. I think recently. Am I right? I wasn't
Speaker 2: familiar with Uni party as a term.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really yeah, yes, well.
Speaker 2: So it's they refer to it in America and they
Speaker 2: refer to it here. What is the Uni party?
Speaker 3: The Uni party is a term that captures a concept
Speaker 3: that's been around for a very long time, particularly in
Speaker 3: the United States, and traditionally it would be shown in
Speaker 3: a cartoon with like a sort of monopoly style cap
Speaker 3: businessmen holding out two hands with the Democrats on one
Speaker 3: hand and the Republicans on the other hand, and so
Speaker 3: in effect what we're seeing in Australia. I heard it
Speaker 3: referred to as double haters the other day, that people
Speaker 3: hate both of the major parties and they're looking to
Speaker 3: the minority minority parties to you know, to capture their base,
Speaker 3: so to speak. But in effect, it's a suggestion that
Speaker 3: corporations or some other elites are controlling both parties, so
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're going to
Speaker 3: look after their own interests and not yours. So that
Speaker 3: concept in liberal democracies has been around for a very
Speaker 3: long time. But the idea of the UNI party is
Speaker 3: interesting because there's enough evidence to say that it's a thing,
Speaker 3: and we can look at that in terms of particularly
Speaker 3: around energy policy, in the focus on ideas around the climate,
Speaker 3: we can see that there's sort of this majority rule
Speaker 3: that fits in with and I don't want to be
Speaker 3: sound like conspiracy theorists, but you know, it fits in
Speaker 3: with the ideas of the World Economic Forum and the
Speaker 3: UN and others, particularly around the climate, and people are
Speaker 3: sort of thinking, well, you know, it doesn't matter who
Speaker 3: I vote for, they've both got the same ideas. Who's
Speaker 3: actually going to represent my ideas? And that's where we're
Speaker 3: seeing that sort of fracturing, particularly on the conservative side
Speaker 3: of politics.
Speaker 2: I have a very strong feeling that the net hero
Speaker 2: is going to fall apart worldwide very shortly.
Speaker 3: Look at it. It has to economically. So look, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm not a climate scientist and I'm not interested in
Speaker 3: getting in those debates. But what I find really interesting
Speaker 3: is that if this is about reducing carbon emissions, then
Speaker 3: nuclear is a no brainer, you know, but that for
Speaker 3: some reason doesn't enter the argument because they don't want nuclear.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like that. It's not like they
Speaker 3: want to address carbon emissions. They just want to have
Speaker 3: wind and solar as the dominant power source, which of
Speaker 3: course leads you to think, well, if you follow the money,
Speaker 3: where does this take me? And I agree with you
Speaker 3: about net zero. I mean, you've got China and India
Speaker 3: who don't really seem to care about this concept. Why
Speaker 3: should Australia and why should New Zealand be so concerned
Speaker 3: about their outputs when it's not going to make a
Speaker 3: link of difference? I think too. Trump is going to
Speaker 3: undo a lot of that as well. But look, in effect,
Speaker 3: we just can't afford to sort of take this ideal view,
Speaker 3: and if it was actually about reducing carbon emissions, then
Speaker 3: nuclear should be front and center.
Speaker 2: Except those who will object to any downsizing, shall we say,
Speaker 2: are still being taught in schools that their life depends
Speaker 2: on and the planet depends on CO two being eliminated.
Speaker 3: How this is sorry?
Speaker 2: How long will it take for that to be corrected?
Speaker 2: Do you think? I mean, first of all, he's got
Speaker 2: to persuade the teaching staff and the unions that they're
Speaker 2: barking up the wrong tree, and that's very unlikely.
Speaker 3: The thing that I find problematic is that a liberal
Speaker 3: education is helping citizens to think for themselves, and we're
Speaker 3: not experiencing a liberal education. We're experiencing in doctrination and
Speaker 3: that's pretty clear. We're even seeing at universities as you
Speaker 3: mentioned Macquarie and the Law School just previously. So again,
Speaker 3: I think what we're seeing is the institutions that are exhausted.
Speaker 3: They're no longer achieving what they were established to achieve.
Speaker 3: If you look at public education in New South Wales
Speaker 3: in particular, the Henry Parks was one of the champions
Speaker 3: of primary public education in Australia because of the bush rangers,
Speaker 3: who were living without the moral influences they needed, thought
Speaker 3: they could just go off and robin kill people whenever
Speaker 3: they felt like it. So you know, we've kind of
Speaker 3: gone from this establishing a moral base, which is important
Speaker 3: in our youth, in particular to now actually telling them
Speaker 3: what to think, which is the complete opposite of the
Speaker 3: purpose of education. So I think it's going to take
Speaker 3: a disruption. It's certainly starting with Donald Trump. Whether that
Speaker 3: infiltrates in Australia, I think we'll see that if we
Speaker 3: do have a coalition government return to power, if not
Speaker 3: another three years of labor, it'll take longer because I
Speaker 3: think it'll embed more. Having said that, the market always
Speaker 3: swings things around, because eventually we're going to have people
Speaker 3: graduating from universities who've had indoctrination rather than education. They're
Speaker 3: not going to have the skills that they need to
Speaker 3: function in industry. Industry is going to need to get
Speaker 3: those skills from somewhere else, which means those people with
Speaker 3: their sort of woke education or indoctrination are not going
Speaker 3: to be in the not going to get the jobs
Speaker 3: that they need to continue their virtue signaling or whatever.
Speaker 3: And it's going to turn around. Now, that's an imperfect
Speaker 3: way of doing things, but liberal democracies are imperfect because
Speaker 3: often our economic rights and our political rights sort of
Speaker 3: butt up against each other, and we have to satisfy
Speaker 3: us as opposed to satisfy all of those different needs.
Speaker 3: But again, I think eventually, even with net zero all
Speaker 3: these other things, it's going to have to correct itself
Speaker 3: soon otherwise we're not going to be able to afford
Speaker 3: to keep going as we are.
Speaker 2: And I think, finally, i'd like your opinion because you
Speaker 2: have a military background. I saw a headline over the
Speaker 2: weekend in Australia with regard to an appeal for the
Speaker 2: ANZAC forces to come together and establish themselves much more solidly.
Speaker 3: What say you used to do that? When I was
Speaker 3: at the First Field Regiment in Brisbane, were actually had
Speaker 3: a New Zealand Gun detachment. They came and worked with us.
Speaker 3: It was fantastic. Look they shared history there is remarkable.
Speaker 3: It's really important. I agree that we should continue to
Speaker 3: and strengthen those ties. And continue to strengthen those ties.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting. You know, I'm sort of the
Speaker 3: chapter representative of the RSL here in my small village
Speaker 3: of Gunning in regional New South Wales, and despite the
Speaker 3: population only being some eight hundred people, we get at
Speaker 3: least five hundred people turning up to our ANZAC day service.
Speaker 3: Is about one hundred in the morning dawn service and
Speaker 3: at eleven am we get five hundred plus, so and
Speaker 3: the skill children involved, it's really important. I don't think
Speaker 3: that's going to go away anytime soon from our sort
Speaker 3: of shared history in that space. But I think the
Speaker 3: biggest problem is not so much the relationship, but it's
Speaker 3: the lack of the lack of spending on defense. We
Speaker 3: saw recently the Chinese navy off Sydney, you know, creating
Speaker 3: all sorts of issues for both Australia and New Zealand,
Speaker 3: and I think in many ways our response was completely inadequate.
Speaker 3: So we've been found wanting in that regard. Trump's calling
Speaker 3: out other countries. Look even Canada. Canada to remain a
Speaker 3: member of NATO needs to spend at least two percent
Speaker 3: of its GDP on defense, and it's spending less than that.
Speaker 3: I think New Zealand's in a similar boat. Australia is
Speaker 3: just over two percent, but it's clearly not enough. So
Speaker 3: this whole sort of focus on defense, which you know,
Speaker 3: traditionally we've had that problem. Even in the Second World War,
Speaker 3: Australia wasn't capable of defending itself. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: people forget that without the Americans, Australia would have been invaded.
Speaker 3: You know, whether they were here for them or ask
Speaker 3: it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: But did they get taught that in school these days?
Speaker 3: No, no, they don't. And it's something I really pick
Speaker 3: up on all the time because it was you know,
Speaker 3: we're talking tens of thousands of Americans who died in
Speaker 3: effect in defense of Australia, and you know that that
Speaker 3: sort of shared history between US and the US is
Speaker 3: really important, but it's just not it's not emphasized. It's
Speaker 3: sort of like this idea that we're no longer culturally similar.
Speaker 3: The two countries are, you know, these separate entities and
Speaker 3: that's the end of it. We ought to be independent,
Speaker 3: but we don't have that capacity. It's almost like we're
Speaker 3: in that phase of appeasement before the Second World War,
Speaker 3: where appeasing one's enemies was enough and you'd be fine,
Speaker 3: and of course that led to the disaster of the
Speaker 3: Second World War. Whereas I think if we had much
Speaker 3: more credible capabilities in terms of defense, which is the
Speaker 3: whole idea of defense in itself, it's the deterrent capability
Speaker 3: as opposed to its offensive capability and we're just not
Speaker 3: building that. And again too, we see even in recruiting,
Speaker 3: people are just not interested in their own countries. They've
Speaker 3: been sort of taught that they're global citizens and that,
Speaker 3: you know, the Nation States are old fashioned. I mean,
Speaker 3: all of this is late nineteen ninety stuff, which is
Speaker 3: part and parcel of Fukiyama that's been discredited. But in
Speaker 3: many ways, I think there's we've kind of got this
Speaker 3: two speed cultural understanding of our past. We've got some
Speaker 3: who are you know, definitely support the memory of the ANZACs,
Speaker 3: but then we have these others who think we don't
Speaker 3: need the US as an ally and they just simply
Speaker 3: forget that the role that the Americans played in Australia's defense.
Speaker 2: And that's wrong. Michael has been an absolute pleasure. I've
Speaker 2: got to say that it's so good to be able
Speaker 2: to just roll from one topic to another and back again.
Speaker 2: On occasions. It's been most informative, and I hope that
Speaker 2: we will get a chance to do it again. Maybe
Speaker 2: after July when you when you have departed from the
Speaker 2: University of Canberra, we can get together again and discuss
Speaker 2: some things. Because you can be certain of one thing
Speaker 2: we will never run out of topics to talk about.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Thanks late, it's been a pleasure. Lat and Smith.
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Speaker 2: and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland.
Speaker 2: They enter the mail room for two seventy six and
Speaker 2: missus producer. It's interesting that Muriel Newman and Rodney Hyde
Speaker 2: both paul commentaries of such enthusiasm that it's extraordinary. Really,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Latent.
Speaker 4: They're both they're both thinkers, and they're both based in
Speaker 4: New Zealand, which often people.
Speaker 2: Like, well, if you based in New Zealand, you probably
Speaker 2: have a better idea than most of what exactly what's
Speaker 2: going on. Let me kick off a great chat from
Speaker 2: Murray great chat with Rodney Hyde, and it brought back
Speaker 2: memories of Rodney Hyde MP. I was a new stringer,
Speaker 2: a cameraman for one of the two main networks, and
Speaker 2: was on assignment when I interviewed Rodney and from memory
Speaker 2: Richard Prebble. We shared a car. We shared a car
Speaker 2: ride across town, and I recall this Rodney had an
Speaker 2: antipathy toward naive young Christians with puritanical views. There was
Speaker 2: a degree of snorting and stickering. The reason this stuck
Speaker 2: with me is that I had recently become a Christian
Speaker 2: and it felt quite uncomfortable. Now I say this, he says,
Speaker 2: not to deride or humiliate Rodney, but as an ironic
Speaker 2: anecdote on hypocrisy and shallow beliefs. I too, once thought
Speaker 2: of Patricia Bartbert as a pathetic prude without any introspection.
Speaker 2: So I understand the hypocrisy of my own form of views,
Speaker 2: and when I think about it, it's a personal failing
Speaker 2: all of us find impossible to eradicate. I loved the
Speaker 2: honesty of Rodney's stories and views. You really did yourself
Speaker 2: proud with this extraordinary interview. Now enclosing, our extended family
Speaker 2: lost a thirty three year old in perfect health within
Speaker 2: a few days of the infamous jab. The clincher for
Speaker 2: me of this being medicinal misadventure was evidenced by the
Speaker 2: cover up from start to finish. This quote couldn't possibly
Speaker 2: be vaccine related. No coronial inquiry, no acknowledgment, just a
Speaker 2: deafening and defiant silence. I'll leave it there, despite my
Speaker 2: fury at what our leaders did to my former country.
Speaker 2: God bless from Murray, who is now living in Queensland Layton.
Speaker 4: That's very sad, Wayne says. I'm sorry, Wayne, I've just
Speaker 4: edited you a little bit because it's so such a
Speaker 4: good letter, but so long, he says, I'm so thrilled
Speaker 4: to have heard Rodney Hyde's discussion on podcast two seventy five.
Speaker 4: Over the years, I've listened to so many wonderful discussions,
Speaker 4: but this one and killer has compelled me to write
Speaker 4: for only the second time to try and express the
Speaker 4: joy it engendered it hearing such common sense. The enlightening
Speaker 4: exposure of the perverted so called sex education was of
Speaker 4: course greatly disturbing. Rodney's statement that this is a hill
Speaker 4: we need to die on is indeed a call to
Speaker 4: battle that I have been wanting to answer. I have
Speaker 4: contacted let kids be kids as a start. We must
Speaker 4: all do what we can to eliminate this generational corruption
Speaker 4: of our precious children and grandchildren. Rodney's personal testimony of
Speaker 4: becoming a follower of Jesus for just one year was spellbinding.
Speaker 4: It follows on from President Trump's statement that America must
Speaker 4: return to its Christian founding roots. Rodney spoke so clearly
Speaker 4: and well for someone only a Christian for such a
Speaker 4: short time. I'm also aware of the many liberating historical
Speaker 4: stories of the local tribal ma. They welcomed the treaty
Speaker 4: and rule of law, oftened by the written Westminster system
Speaker 4: that gave them stability, not the infinitely variable Teacunger. I'm
Speaker 4: also mindful of my grandparents coming to New Zealand from
Speaker 4: Scotland and Ireland over one hundred years ago to escape
Speaker 4: the class system and to enjoy the galitarian society. Rodney
Speaker 4: so eloquently described, My grandparents and parents worked hard to
Speaker 4: make their way in life, and that is a fine
Speaker 4: example to me. It grieves me to see that to
Speaker 4: Party MARII and Green's creating a false narrative of class
Speaker 4: systems when the opposite color blind society I grew up
Speaker 4: and was such a foundational part of all of our lives.
Speaker 2: I found a conversation with Rodney Hyde very interesting. Rights
Speaker 2: Chris I particularly liked the discussion about the Judeo Christian
Speaker 2: ethic at its place in Western society. Also of interest
Speaker 2: to me was Rodney's conversion to Christianity. He showed that
Speaker 2: he under stands Christianity well. At one stage, Layton said
Speaker 2: that Jesus didn't figure in Judaism. Rodney said the Old
Speaker 2: Testament recognized that the Messiah was coming. The belief in
Speaker 2: a Messiah was at the heart of Judaism. However, as
Speaker 2: Rodney said, the Jews didn't recognize him. The connection between
Speaker 2: the two religions is Jesus, who said that I have
Speaker 2: not come to abolish the law that is the Jewish
Speaker 2: law or the prophets. I came to fulfill them. Anybody
Speaker 2: wants to know Matthew Chapter five, verse seventeen. Christ was
Speaker 2: a Jew but not a Christian. However, he was the
Speaker 2: founder of the Christian religion. His followers were Jews who
Speaker 2: became the first Christians. The Catholic Church recognizes that it
Speaker 2: has its roots in Judaism, as wishes christ As. We
Speaker 2: got a lot of feedback, a lot of feedback on
Speaker 2: last week with Rodney. It's roll again.
Speaker 4: Laden Pete says, thanks for last week's anonymous correspondent letter,
Speaker 4: withheld until you could read it. The letter was well
Speaker 4: worth the weight, if only for the clear and easily
Speaker 4: supported statement that Mari and Pete says. I see it
Speaker 4: as primarily the treatist activists and government pandering to those
Speaker 4: activists are holding the country back economically. The bloke and
Speaker 4: his wife along the street are fine, as are their children.
Speaker 4: They are doing their bet. I do not wish to
Speaker 4: see us move to an ethno state riven by ethnic
Speaker 4: and interethnic division. I do not see a need for
Speaker 4: Mari seats in Parliament or Mari wards in local body elections.
Speaker 4: The division is not helpful, nor the forced spirituality and
Speaker 4: suggestion that those with some Mari DNA know more about
Speaker 4: the water, the environment and families than anyone else. The
Speaker 4: issue extends to government failure to attend to sorting out
Speaker 4: the courts and the White Tangi Tribunal. To remind both
Speaker 4: that Parliament is sovereign. Enacting necessary legislation to resolve the
Speaker 4: coast water and the currently oversized public service via the
Speaker 4: Treatyised Public Services Act twenty twenty is essential and required smartly,
Speaker 4: they can keep up the good work. That's from Pete.
Speaker 2: Pete's appreciated, thank you and glad you are. Glad you're
Speaker 2: enjoying so from Bronwin. I'm behind scheduled, have just listened
Speaker 2: to James Raguski and looking forward to rolling onto Rodney's
Speaker 2: episode next. Isn't James amazing? I've heard him speak about
Speaker 2: the Wow before, but he has so much more to offer.
Speaker 2: I do hope that you'll have him on again sometime.
Speaker 2: I'll be listening a second time and looking up the links.
Speaker 2: He provided kind regards, Brodwin. And then about four hours
Speaker 2: later I got the following Please may I add a
Speaker 2: PostScript to my earlier email. I have now listened to
Speaker 2: the following episode, also excellent with Rodney.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: And I'm grateful to the doctor who wrote in explaining
Speaker 2: the impossibility of a nasal PCR test breaking the barrier
Speaker 2: protecting the brain. I've always been skeptical of this claim
Speaker 2: that many people make, and it's very good to have
Speaker 2: that explained. Thank you, Bronwan. And it's the first time
Speaker 2: I've ever had a follow up so quickly.
Speaker 4: Leyton Jin says, I sensed something different about Rodney Hyde.
Speaker 4: I wanted to confirm my suspicions, so I went back
Speaker 4: to listen to podcast one eighty eight, where you interviewed
Speaker 4: him almost exactly two years ago. I can confirm there
Speaker 4: is definitely a subtle but detectable change in the Rodney
Speaker 4: Hide of today. He exhibited a certain depth and seriousness
Speaker 4: in the content of his dialogue which I've never heard
Speaker 4: in the past from him. The clincher for me was
Speaker 4: when he said he used to think of his children
Speaker 4: as clever animals and his marriage as a mere agreement,
Speaker 4: but now he views his children as gifts from God
Speaker 4: and can considers his marriage sacred. That speech could only
Speaker 4: come from a person with new conviction. His involvement in
Speaker 4: let Kids be Kids proves as convictions Let kids be
Speaker 4: kids is a good way for parents to realize they
Speaker 4: are not alone in wanting to protect kids from destructive
Speaker 4: gender and sexual ideologies. Family firsts Bob McCroskey warned us
Speaker 4: three years ago about the Ministry of Education's wicked and
Speaker 4: insidious Relationships and Sexuality education, which targets primary age kids
Speaker 4: with confusing and dangerous idea viruses such as sex changes, pronouns, transgenderism,
Speaker 4: and other evil gender ideologies. Doctor Muriel Newman recently warned
Speaker 4: that while National is making good progress on some issues,
Speaker 4: they are making almost no progress on many of those
Speaker 4: other issues that motivated New Zealanders to vote for change.
Speaker 4: In other words, National is not eliminating woke the title
Speaker 4: of her article. This is in stark contrast to Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: who's doing everything in his power to eliminate woke. Muriel
Speaker 4: Newman suggests that National would be wise to pick up
Speaker 4: on Winston Peter's Public Service Amendment bill to remove diversity,
Speaker 4: equity and inclusion regulations from the public service. I agree
Speaker 4: with her. Either Luxeon kills woke or woke will kill
Speaker 4: his political ambition. Wake the heck up, Luxom. That's from Jimmy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll double down on that. Don't miss what
Speaker 2: comes after the mail room in this podcast. Finally from
Speaker 2: me in twenty seventeen, I knew that New Zealand was
Speaker 2: in trouble. One of the first announcements was about banning
Speaker 2: single use plastic bags. Not only would we be banned
Speaker 2: from using them, but the government was going to control
Speaker 2: us by banning their production. The message was clear, New
Speaker 2: Zealanders are stupid and you need us to tell you
Speaker 2: what to do each day. Along came COVID and with
Speaker 2: it vaccine mandates and rules around contact that were at
Speaker 2: best supposedly designed to save lives, at worst utterly in humane.
Speaker 2: I began to wonder when the poster of regulation haircuts
Speaker 2: used in North Korea was going to become mandatory in
Speaker 2: the workplace. Fortunately, the Empress of that era was finally
Speaker 2: found to have no clothes and she resigned, with many
Speaker 2: of us hoping that we would never see her or
Speaker 2: her colleagues ever again. One bad pole for National has
Speaker 2: me seriously doubting the intellectual capacity of my fellow New Zealanders,
Speaker 2: particularly the MSM mainstream medium. Almost hourly they're foaming at
Speaker 2: the mouth, bursting to tell us that Luxon will be rolled,
Speaker 2: while Chippy continues to bark at every parsing opportunity to
Speaker 2: tell the party deluded that he is back and poised
Speaker 2: to win in twenty twenty six. Do I think Chris
Speaker 2: Luxon is an inspirational prime Minister. No, but he's still
Speaker 2: better than past notable disasters like Adern, Hipkins and Shipley
Speaker 2: in that order. Luxon is a businessman who is used
Speaker 2: to leading working groups of largely like minded individuals who
Speaker 2: are focused on a common goal that keeps the wheels
Speaker 2: of commerce turning, which is what we need in our
Speaker 2: country's economic engine room right now as we navigate the
Speaker 2: mess that addourns, Hipkins and Robertson and their merry band
Speaker 2: of fiscal duncers and idea logs left behind them. Chris
Speaker 2: Luxon is at his best in front of other business leaders,
Speaker 2: an impressive, action driven speaker. If we are to avoid
Speaker 2: another election backflip, his communication style needs to be addressed
Speaker 2: by an expert with urgency. The people he needs to
Speaker 2: appeal to, most those that swing at every election, just
Speaker 2: don't get him. I have no wish to return to
Speaker 2: the daily handwringing, the murdered vows and the hangdog expressions
Speaker 2: from the pulpit of doom style of leadership. I do, however,
Speaker 2: want someone to help Luxon, save himself and above all,
Speaker 2: our country before it's too late. Heaven help us if
Speaker 2: we wake up late in twenty twenty six to a
Speaker 2: labor to party Mari and Greens led government. Best wishes
Speaker 2: Liz superbly put together. I hope it was superbly read
Speaker 2: or at least passes, and I congratulate you. And that's
Speaker 2: what we need more of. Say it, folks, great letters,
Speaker 2: put it in writing.
Speaker 4: And thank you to all of you for that very thing.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and we shall see you next week.
Speaker 4: You will thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you cardly, and don't miss what's next. No, I
Speaker 2: guess she could say that what I'm about to deliver
Speaker 2: is at least consistent with the topics that we've spoken
Speaker 2: about the last couple of podcasts with Rodney Hyde. In
Speaker 2: two seven five, of course, we talked about sex, education,
Speaker 2: school and other scholastic things. And this week, of course,
Speaker 2: we just concluded a conversation with Michael de Percy on
Speaker 2: well much of it was on education, and so is
Speaker 2: what is about to follow. For those of you who
Speaker 2: don't know who Amy brook Is. She made her name
Speaker 2: as a children's book writer. A long time ago, she
Speaker 2: published a book called one Hundred Days, which is an
Speaker 2: attempt on her part to persuade us that the Swiss
Speaker 2: system of governance would suit this country better than anything
Speaker 2: else that we've adopted. And I don't want to say
Speaker 2: that she's failed in convincing us, because quite a few
Speaker 2: people have her book. The one hundred Days is still
Speaker 2: available anybody who wanted to get through Amazon. But let
Speaker 2: me quote you, one of the most unfortunate things that
Speaker 2: has happened to New Zealand is that we no longer
Speaker 2: have a quality magazine examining what is happening in this
Speaker 2: part of the world from a socio political point of view.
Speaker 2: Given this, fine Australian magazine such as Newsweekly and Quadrant
Speaker 2: are well worth support. I'm not familiar with Newsweekly, but
Speaker 2: Quadrant I certainly am. I checked my backlog of Quadrant
Speaker 2: magazines prior to recording this, and the oldest ones that
Speaker 2: I can lay my hands on are from two thousand
Speaker 2: and three. And as I was waiting for missus producer
Speaker 2: to come to the mail room, I was looking through
Speaker 2: to mail and there was a quadrant for today and
Speaker 2: lo and behold a disappointment called Chris Luxen written by
Speaker 2: Amy Brook. Given the extraordinary damage done to the economy
Speaker 2: of this country by the former Labor government, the National
Speaker 2: Party's initiatives to attract investment can only be applauded. However,
Speaker 2: the voting public can be particularly ungrateful, especially when the
Speaker 2: government's focus, no matter how important in economic terms, is
Speaker 2: not taking into account issues of considerable importance to the
Speaker 2: majority of New Zealanders, and public perception is everything. We
Speaker 2: all know that what is being taught in our schools
Speaker 2: is a travesty of a genuine education, as Kevin Donnelly confirms,
Speaker 2: is likewise the case in Australia, and no one Minister
Speaker 2: of Education, no matter how well intentioned, has a chance
Speaker 2: of restoring standards. Given that the Ministry of Education has
Speaker 2: become an institution where neo Marxist controllers of the curriculum
Speaker 2: have long become entrenched. There will be no chance at
Speaker 2: all for genuine education reform until the Ministry of Education
Speaker 2: is disbanded and the decisions on what should be taught
Speaker 2: in schools are left to parents. Decentralizing education so that
Speaker 2: in every province education is establishments are set up with
Speaker 2: parents in control, not the bureaucrats nor the left wing
Speaker 2: teacher unions, would facilitate a return to what needs to
Speaker 2: be taught and taught well. This goes on Former Labor
Speaker 2: leader Chrysipkin's left wing mother will have had considerable influence
Speaker 2: on the dumbing down of the curriculum. Chief researcher for
Speaker 2: the New Zealand Council of Educational Research, she is one
Speaker 2: of the strongest advocates for the new Science curriculum, with
Speaker 2: its politicized agenda, prioritizing quote matters of concern close quote
Speaker 2: over actual facts. Under this last Labor government, Latin, which
Speaker 2: I later regarded as the most important subject I studied
Speaker 2: in school, was conveniently removed. It necessitated academic standards high
Speaker 2: enough to challenge board pupils such as I was, to
Speaker 2: change their attitudes. In fact, it wasn't so long ago
Speaker 2: in England that one could pass all other exams but
Speaker 2: would not get into some top universities if one failed
Speaker 2: to pass in Latin. So much was it valued. So
Speaker 2: from here I will quote only briefly from the remains
Speaker 2: of the article. Moreover, most parents would not be mandating
Speaker 2: the celebration in schools of LGBT identification as a source
Speaker 2: of great pride, and would certainly be in favor of
Speaker 2: removing from the curriculum the highly graphic sex education which
Speaker 2: is today encouraging teenagers toward well. We spoke with Rodney
Speaker 2: Hyde about this. He went into some detail, and you
Speaker 2: can duplicate that here parents are going to have to
Speaker 2: object more strongly, as is now happening overseas, where, for example,
Speaker 2: strong opposition is now being mounted against drag queens being
Speaker 2: allowed to perform in front of children in libraries. In
Speaker 2: spite of the inevitable media frenzy, many New Zealanders will
Speaker 2: be quietly applauding the protest the Destiny Church has mounted
Speaker 2: against this. Moreover, in the next paragraph, Prime Minister Christopher
Speaker 2: Luxen is now under fire, as the Conservative Party points out,
Speaker 2: because of his dismissive response to an early childhood educator
Speaker 2: who raised the alarm over a growing number of preschool children, yes, kindergarteners,
Speaker 2: requiring they be addressed as they them rather than as
Speaker 2: boys and girls. Rather than acknowledge such growing concerns and
Speaker 2: the effect on vulnerable children of the transgender movement, the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister dismissed this concern instead instead issuing a generic
Speaker 2: statement of support for the LGBT community, thus completely ignoring
Speaker 2: the particular issue at hand. Moreover, a previous government's decision
Speaker 2: to ban conversion theory from being accessed to help youngsters
Speaker 2: wanting to free themselves from same sex relationships should never
Speaker 2: have been a government decision. And then she refers to
Speaker 2: the fact that New Zealand is now hundreds of teachers
Speaker 2: short and no wonder when writing some usback for Ian
Speaker 2: Wishart's Investigate magazine in relation to the deliberate dumbing down
Speaker 2: of education in this country. I was contacted by so
Speaker 2: many teachers and principles and even lecturers and former professors,
Speaker 2: appalled at what was happening, some writing in the trade
Speaker 2: journals to object. I would try to encourage them to
Speaker 2: write to the mainstream media, where what was happening would
Speaker 2: then be more widely known, only to be told their
Speaker 2: articles were always refused publication. And those of us in
Speaker 2: the business know that this is essentially true. There has
Speaker 2: long been a battle for the minds and hearts of
Speaker 2: young New Zealanders, and indeed their parents and conservative parents
Speaker 2: have lost because the long march through the institutions by
Speaker 2: neo Marxists that is basically communist influences, was well underway
Speaker 2: by the nineteen sixties. At any way, where are the
Speaker 2: replacements going to come from? The teacher replacements? No intelligent,
Speaker 2: academically qualified graduates, even those keen to share enthusiasm for
Speaker 2: their chosen subjects of physics, chemistry, history, languages, etc. None
Speaker 2: of them will want to enter a profession which compels
Speaker 2: them to learn and inflict upon their pupils that almost
Speaker 2: completely fake language to Rao, which bears little resemblance to
Speaker 2: the original Marri language that is spoken nowhere else in
Speaker 2: the world. Amy has been butting her head against that
Speaker 2: for as long as I can remember. Anyway, taking all
Speaker 2: these things into account, is quite obvious why teacher shortage
Speaker 2: is going to remain. There are so many issues this
Speaker 2: conservative coalition is failing to address. Both the destructive Jasindra
Speaker 2: Adirn and Christopher Luxon's governments have set a mission targets
Speaker 2: so ridiculously high that they would impinge on agricultural productivity.
Speaker 2: I was on looking ahead and seeing CO two and
Speaker 2: omissions and what have you. I was tempted to get
Speaker 2: into it a bit today, but I've decided not to
Speaker 2: because I want to do a podcast on it very shortly.
Speaker 2: What a part of state we have come to? And
Speaker 2: why is this supposedly conservative government not representing the wishes
Speaker 2: of the majority of New Zealanders but operating with such
Speaker 2: blinkers on that it would lose the election if it
Speaker 2: were to be held tomorrow. Luxon is no longer viewed
Speaker 2: as a leader with a finely tuned attennae. On the contrary,
Speaker 2: he is costing the National Party votes. And no, we
Speaker 2: do not need a four year parliamentary term. It's this
Speaker 2: is quite obvious if we reflect upon the further damage
Speaker 2: that Adern's and Grant Robinson's governments would have done had
Speaker 2: they been allowed to proceed for a year longer. A
Speaker 2: three year term is quite sufficient.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I hope and cross
Speaker 2: my fingers for what it's worth, that Christopher Luxen will
Speaker 2: come to life at some stage, that someone will be
Speaker 2: able to penetrate his brain and let him know what
Speaker 2: he's doing wrong and certainly what he's not doing right,
Speaker 2: and persuade him Accordingly, this country cannot afford another term
Speaker 2: like the Adern regime and that will take us out
Speaker 2: for podcast two hundred and seventy six. Now, if you'd
Speaker 2: like to write to us latent at newstalksb dot co
Speaker 2: dot z or Carolyn C. A R O. L y
Speaker 2: n at newstalksb dot co dot z. We do love
Speaker 2: getting email and we appreciate it, so go for it.
Speaker 2: We shall return in well a few days for podcast
Speaker 2: number two hundred and seventy seven. Until then, as always,
Speaker 2: it's a case of thank you for listening, thank you
Speaker 2: for your correspondence. This week is really good. Thank you
Speaker 2: for listening, and we shall talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from Newstalks EDB. Listen live on
Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
Speaker 1: you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio