Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The (not so) lucky country, with Adam Creighton
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Australia has often been called the ‘lucky country’. Today, it faces a series of economic, cultural, and geopolitical challenges, seemingly without a political class that is equipped to address them. Has Australia’s luck run out?
Will ponders this question with the Chief Economist at the Institute of Public Affairs, and columnist for The Australian, Adam Creighton.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
Recommended
Transcript
The Seinfeld Election and Political Landscape
00:00:21
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. I was asked on GB News last week to try and explain what we just saw in the Australian election.
00:00:35
Speaker
And I paused. In fact, I was i was temporarily lost for words. The best I could come up with was it was the Seinfeld election. It was an election about nothing.
00:00:47
Speaker
There was no real vision for the country. There was no real charisma from either leader. There was no real differentiation from either of the parties. And I think that's a concern because the country is at an inflection point economically, geopolitically and culturally.
00:01:06
Speaker
At the same time, Australia has always been the lucky country and perhaps we will continue to muddle through.
Cultural and Economic Observations of Australia
00:01:12
Speaker
To help me understand what we just witnessed in Australian politics and perhaps an assessment of where we're at and where we're going, I am delighted to be joined by columnist for The Australian and senior fellow and chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs, returning guest, Adam Crichton. Adam, welcome back to Fire at Will.
00:01:32
Speaker
Will, thanks very much for having me. It's a pleasure to have you on. You're recording this from, is it Sydney? From Melbourne. From Melbourne. That lovely skyline behind me. Yeah, it's a crack up.
00:01:42
Speaker
ah You've, of course, just returned from the United States where you were the Washington correspondent for The Australian. We'll get into the nitty gritty of the election and Australian politics, but I do want to start with a a wider lens.
00:01:57
Speaker
What are your reflections on the country that you have returned to? Well, look, it's very different, I think, from the one that I left four years ago. So I was in the US for four years and I came back in January this year.
00:02:10
Speaker
And, you know, I actually wrote a piece about this. I was just shocked leaving Sydney airport, how it kind of woke ah society to become. There was this big sign over the road saying, welcome to Gamay. And I thought myself, what the hell is Gamay? so I had to quickly Google it. And sure enough, that's the indigenous word for Botany Bay.
00:02:27
Speaker
And then I noticed the news bulletin on the ABC had Aboriginal titles. And I thought this, you know, that wasn't the case four years ago. And so I guess they're just two two anecdotes to illustrate what I've seen since. It's a much more woke ah culture, if you like.
00:02:40
Speaker
And look, I hate that word woke, but it has become a useful ah word to sum it all up. So I noticed that. And also the other big thing I noticed is that I started paying income tax again in Australia after the US s for four years. And it's a lot higher here, a lot higher.
00:02:54
Speaker
And it just made me reflect on You know, if you're a young, you know, a young kind of ambitious, bright person in the US, why on earth would you ever even remotely consider moving to Australia to to start your business or or to work? And I think that's going to be a big challenge for Australia economically over the next 10 years if we continue to tighten that income tax ah noose around working people.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah. So there's a cultural strand there and then there's an economic strand. Let's take both in turn. Cultural strand reminded me of a tweet that I saw only a couple of days ago and I've sneakily pulled it up as you were speaking there.
00:03:28
Speaker
It's a quote from a book called What Happened to the Lucky Country by Damien Costas. I'd like to read you this quote and I want to get your reflections on it. Somewhere along the line, that Australian character got lost.
00:03:40
Speaker
We lost our fighting spirit, our sense of the fair go, our relaxed attitude, our sense of fun. We lost the Australia of the Rum Rebellion and the Eureka Stockade. We lost the Australia that protested the Australia card, and where a hardware store owner named Frank Peneluriak was so incensed by weekend trading laws that he went to jail rather than close his shop on Sundays.
00:04:02
Speaker
We lost the country where kids played in the street and drank water from the garden hose, where motorists would flash their lights to warn each other about a speeding camera up the road. In essence, we lost ourselves and in doing so lost the Australia we loved.
00:04:15
Speaker
Is there something to that or mindless nostalgia? Well, it's very pessimistic, but I think there is definitely something to it. I mean, I think, you know, we had this idea of ourselves pre-COVID as this, you know, Steve Irwin type country, you know, larrikinism.
International Perception and Societal Shifts
00:04:26
Speaker
I think that's what that quote was was alluding to. i think certainly in the eyes of the rest of the world, we've lost that image, um I would say with with good justification. I mean, one, you know, you asked me about my time in the US. One thing that does stick out was the number of Americans in 21, 22, who would come up to me when they heard my accent and say things along the lines, what the hell is going on in your country?
00:04:47
Speaker
And not just ordinary people, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, gave a speech about how shocked he was at what was happening in Australia. And I think it was that was late 21 or early 22. So I think Americans generally noticed what was happening Australia, the images they saw coming out of Melbourne, the water cannons, the police, the yeah helicopters over the beach. I mean, it was all complete madness in hindsight. Well, it was at the time. It's even more so in hindsight.
00:05:12
Speaker
I think we lost our image there, I think, with the rest of the world. And I think we're trying to work out what our new image is. And, yeah you know, I think the explanation for this, you know, much, much more obedient society, you know, we really have become extremely obedient to government. We have this idea that we're not, but we clearly are.
00:05:29
Speaker
And not just obedient, but we'll dob other people in if they're breaking the rules. We saw that through... through COVID, that was that was very upsetting to me. you know What explains that? Well, I don't know. That's a very deep question. You could say Australia became very rich very quickly.
00:05:42
Speaker
I think with the mining boom, you know dramatic. I mean, I think you're coming back to Australia, I still see a very wealthy country. Despite our economic problems, the standard of buildings, the standard of living, standard of healthcare is still very, very high, despite stupid policies, I would argue.
00:05:56
Speaker
So we've become very rich. We're also extremely urbanized. I mean, I think we're one of the most urbanized countries in the world. We're certainly more urbanized than the UK, which is a tiny country. But in terms of the people living in big cities, way more here in Australia and certainly vastly more than the US. s And so we're political parties in the US s and certainly Donald
Political Landscape and Leadership Challenges
00:06:15
Speaker
Trump did this.
00:06:15
Speaker
yeah They can tap into a real rural rage with with the establishment, which is actually quite numerous. Whereas that doesn't exist in Australia, really. It's very, very tiny. And so politically, it doesn't matter. And so you know both of the major parties have to cater to to the suburbs and and to urban people.
00:06:33
Speaker
And all around the world, the more urban a country is, you'll see the more left-wing it is. That's just a fact. That's a really interesting point. Do you think structurally, and I think I saw, can't remember who maybe said, maybe Latika Burke, I think said this on Twitter the other day.
00:06:47
Speaker
I think she said that structurally, Australia is now a centre-left country. And that obviously has a natural advantage for the centre-left party being Labour. Do you think Australia is now structurally a centre-left country?
00:06:58
Speaker
Look, it's certainly gone that way. You know, i think I think whether you say a country's center-left or center-right does depend a lot on the on the political talent available and the quality of leaders on either side. You know, I think we've seen in Trump's case, I mean, as much as he's hated by, you know, by a large minority of people, he's been a very successful very successful politician. and you could And you could argue that he's kind of pulled the U.S. to the right, I suppose, at least to the, you know, whatever that word right kind of means, but yeah what it means in the U.S.
00:07:26
Speaker
So I think, you know, I think if Australia had better leadership on the right, I think we could, you know, be a center-right country. but i think But I think at the moment we are a center-left country and so is Canada and so is New Zealand.
00:07:40
Speaker
I mean, from what I've been reading, I think the New Zealand elections, are you know, not I think it's this year, but but it looks like that conservative government could be one term and, you know, New Zealand will go back to being center-left. So strangely, in the English-speaking world outside the US, it's all very center-left.
00:07:55
Speaker
And we don't seem to have in the sort of movements that are emerging in Europe, I would say, France, Spain, Germany, large parties that are furious with the establishment. We don't seem to have those in our country. And I don't kind of know why yet, because there's lots to complain about. but But my forecast is they will come. They're just they're just taking a bit longer.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that. I think there is going to be a lane for a reform-style party in Australia, but I think we're probably, to your point, not quite as far down the road compared to much of Europe and compared to the United Kingdom.
00:08:25
Speaker
And we'll return to what the future of the right, again, to use that word ah in Australia, what that will look like. But let's just keep that powder dry for the moment because i want to continue the the analysis of where we are as a country at the moment.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I'll return to what is a favourite bugbear of mine on this podcast, and that is the quality of leadership that we see in the country today, which you just referred to. It does feel like we are at a low ebb, and we have been at a low ebb for potentially since Howard now, in terms of just the quality of talent we have yeah in politics today.
00:08:56
Speaker
Why do you think, firstly, do you think that's fair? And secondly, why do you think the quality of leadership that we have today is lower than what it was, say, in the days of the Hawks, the Keatings, the Howards, the Costellas and so on? It's a really good question. agree. It's a fundamental question. We're not getting the right people into politics in and the right numbers. i yeah i totally agree.
00:09:14
Speaker
I mean, as you'd well know, and I'm sure your listeners know, you know we have this culture of political staffers become MPs. you know Many of them have not worked outside politics their entire lives. that's That's especially true on the Labor side, but it's increasingly more true on the right as well.
00:09:27
Speaker
So the reasons for that are, well... Well, one of the main ones, I think, and it's probably Mark Latham's fault, and I think privately he even admits that now, but I think when he changed the pension arrangements for MPs in 2000, well, sorry, he forced Howard to do it, I think in 2004.
00:09:44
Speaker
So originally MPs in Australia, like many countries, have a sort of defined benefit pension that that was quite lucrative. You only had to be in parliament one term and then you got it. So if you lost, you weren't ruined, basically.
00:09:55
Speaker
So that was a great safety net for very bright QCs and KCs and lawyers and to to basically have a shot at being an MP. And even if they lost... they'd still get this nice pension.
00:10:06
Speaker
So even if they couldn't revive their small business or their their chambers or whatever it was, they weren't financially going to be totally left out. Well, now they are. So, and this is not just my theory. This is, you this is Nick Greiner told me this.
00:10:18
Speaker
he said this is the case in state politics. Because i asked him this question in New York few years ago. I said, you know, we talked about the quality, you know, why don't we have leaders like you, Nick, and Bob Carr anymore? Like, I mean, they were they were great state politicians. And certainly I would argue of a higher caliber than most federal MPs are now.
00:10:34
Speaker
They were great speakers. They were great intellects. Where the hell have they all gone? and Nick's answer was, well, pension arrangements, basically. And I thought that was really, really interesting. But it's not just pension arrangements. I think the scrutiny the media puts on on politicians' private lives and public lives or whatever is so much more intense than it used to be.
00:10:56
Speaker
that a lot of great and talented people have somewhat crazy private lives, just like Winston Churchill was an alcoholic, right? I mean, that would not be colorated now, okay? I mean, you would not even have a drink barely in politics. It's so Puritan.
00:11:10
Speaker
I mean, you know we think we're so you know so accepting of diversity, but actually the media enforces a great Puritanism in public life. the slightest things that that that even could be perceived as sexist or racist or whatever, even if it happened 20 years ago.
00:11:23
Speaker
I mean, remember the story about Don Perrottet dressing up as something when he was 20? That was a huge story. I mean, it's and and it was very damaging to him. Well, at least, well, I don't know. It certainly wasn't damaging to him from my point of view. I thought it was i thought it was funny, but that just goes to show you the puritanism of of the modern media.
00:11:40
Speaker
And if you've done anything wrong in the past, you would definitely think twice that And you know I say wrong in inverted commas, by the way. If you've done anything wrong, you'd think twice about going to politics. And a lot of bright people have done wrong things in the past, so they won't go anywhere near the career, whereas they may have 20, 30, 40 years ago And so there are two, I think, really big reasons why the quality is full. i Also, I think, no, one more. I'll add one more. I'm just thinking of it
Economic Challenges and Tax Policies
00:12:06
Speaker
right now. but And this maybe pertains to Australia in particular. But politics is a very lucrative business in Australia. You get paid very well compared to politicians in other countries. I mean, I'm pretty sure senior staff is more than the British Prime Minister in the in in you know in the Australian system.
00:12:20
Speaker
And that's not just salary. The yeah business class flights, I mean, all the allowances, travel allowances. I mean, it's extraordinary. In fact, just yesterday... You know, it's always annoyed me. The Australian media likes to say, ah you know, what are MPs' salaries? And they say, oh, it's $240,000.
00:12:36
Speaker
It's not. I mean, I used to work in the system. It's much, much higher than that. it's just that they class a lot of the things, they call it different things. So I asked Grok and I asked ChatGPT to work out what the actual equivalent salary is for a federal backpensure. And it's $330,000 a year, okay?
00:12:49
Speaker
Because you get the car allowance, you get the electric allowance, you get all these untaxed allowances, you get travel allowance that's not taxed. It's an enormous sum. I mean, what does a British MP earn? £70,000? Yeah, I think it's something 70 or 80 a year.
00:13:01
Speaker
So you're talking about triple here, right? And so so how is that a reason about why the quality is so low? It's because people get in at a young age because it's so lucrative and they just stay in it their whole career.
00:13:13
Speaker
They won't go in and out. There's no in and out, right? You stay in it, you hold on as long as you can. And I think that also means winning... is much more valuable than it used to be.
00:13:25
Speaker
Right. Because if you win, you get a lot of power and you get a lot more money. You know, there was this big drama in Australia recently about Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic being dumped from cabinet. And I, you know, because I'm such a cynic, I kind of think, look, this is just, you know, people are whinging about who's getting 500,000, who's getting 300,000. That's what this is. That's what this is about. Because if you're a cabinet minister, you're $500,000.
00:13:44
Speaker
If you're not, you're on $300,000. So quite honestly, you know, quite obviously you'd be really, you'd be really annoyed if you've got a $200,000 pay cut, but that's what all this is kind of about. And not just the pay cut, you know, they probably went from 15 staff to five, right? I mean, so if, so so let me get back to the point. If winning is super important, you will say or do whatever, your principal's out the door, you will say or do whatever to get in.
00:14:09
Speaker
Whereas, you know I remember Arthur Colwell, well, I don't because I wasn't alive, but he used to be a labor opposition leader for a very long time ah during Menzies, I think almost the entire period. And he used to say things like, you know, I don't care if we lose every time. I'm not, I'm not changing what we stem for.
00:14:24
Speaker
And that, right I mean, is an unheard of idea, right? I mean, you know, Arthur certainly took it to the extreme because he never won. Menzies always won. But you've got to credit a politician like that for actually believing, believing in something, right?
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. enough I'm giving you three reasons. And I think that third reason is interesting and counterintuitive as well. but I've often thought, let's just raise MP salaries as a way to incentivize good people to come in from the private sector. But that's an interesting point say, well, that actually may minimize the meritocratic and competitive element of politics by just keeping mediocre people there.
00:15:00
Speaker
Really interesting. let's Let's turn to the economic side, because to me, it it would appear that Australia is facing systemic, structural economic challenges, really big challenges, some of which are, particularly when it comes to debt and deficit, mirrored in other Western countries, and some which are unique to Australia, particularly our reliance on natural resources and and what will happen if that tap is turned off with geopolitical instability with China, for example.
00:15:27
Speaker
Explain to me where we sit as a country economically and whether that concern is justified. No, look, I think the concern is justified. And I think what's what's been extraordinary, what i've what I find interesting, I want to write a column about it in a few weeks, is just how no one's really talking about the end of the resource boom in Australia.
00:15:42
Speaker
Like, we certainly talked a lot about when it started, you know, 10, 15 years ago. And we talked about it. But, you know, there are signs that but China's demand for iron ore is starting to wane. Okay, we're still selling lots. The boom is still going. We're still making a lot of money from our resource sales, both energy sales and also our iron ore.
00:15:59
Speaker
to China, but China is actively looking for other sources of iron ore around the world in Africa and South America. It has been for quite some time because it doesn't like being dependent on Australia, right? You know, it's when they crack down on our exports, the Chinese, they they they left iron ore alone because they really, really need it, right? They can't go anywhere else, at least not it not at economic prices. But there are signs that...
00:16:20
Speaker
Both the Chinese economy is slowing, as I'm sure your listeners know, and it may slow even faster if you know, a bit of the tariff war with the US, that's that's that's not great for Australia. And not only that, but they're looking for iron ore elsewhere. So, you know Australia should be quite concerned that our biggest export, the revenues from it are going to slowly dry up or maybe rapidly. Who knows?
00:16:39
Speaker
So I think that's a real concern because, you know, that's kind of how we pay our way in the world, the sales of energy and and resources to the rest of the world. youre Certainly the left doesn't like that fact, right? And they they don't like the industries, but ultimately that's what sustains their their living yeah their very nice living standards in Melbourne and Sydney.
00:16:57
Speaker
So, so I think it is a big problem that we're not talking about that. There's the, there's a real head in the sand attitude I find in Australia that, oh, we're just going to remain rich all the time, but no, we're falling down the league table pretty rapidly.
00:17:09
Speaker
I mean, know I, you know, growing up in my, you know, kind of when I was in my twenties and started traveling the world, I was really proud of Australia climbing up that GDP per capita ladder. And we were, you know, because if you go back to the nineties, we were a rich country, but we weren't as rich on paper, at least as the U.S. and many European countries. Then we started to accelerate. The boom happened.
00:17:31
Speaker
And, you know, remember our currency went to $1.12 U.S. s I still remember shopping in New York in 2014, feeling like, you know, that I was from, you know, from Qatar or something. I was so rich, you know, because I had the Australian dollar.
00:17:43
Speaker
um But it's certainly not the case now. At the moment, I just checked this morning, the Australian dollar is 48 pence, which is just pathetic, and 64 US cents, which is not great either.
00:17:54
Speaker
And mind you, we've got those exchange rates when the boom is still going. The resource boom is still going. So just imagine what they're going to be when it ends, right? and And the rest of the world marks marks down our value.
00:18:05
Speaker
you know And they will commensually. So I think there needs to be you know more discussion about what our next great export industries are going to be. And look, you know resource and energy are going to be important for decades, but maybe not in the same quantity, especially if the world does you know does pursue this kind of net zero idiocy.
00:18:20
Speaker
In my view, they will try to phase out our energy exports because of their you know their future carbon emissions. that's That's what the Greens want to do here. So I don't know how they know, the but i don't think they understand economics because, you know, we we need income from somewhere and tourism is not going to cut it, I'm afraid.
00:18:36
Speaker
And also you don't want to be a nation whose main export is tourism. i mean, that's just embarrassing, right? I mean, that's, you know, like Italy and Spain, you just become a museum for rich foreigners. It's really, really bad, I think. for So we don't want that.
00:18:48
Speaker
But yeah, look, the action the yeah know the economic facts, you know, we had the biggest fall in living standards, measured living standards in the OECD since 2022, which is pretty staggering stuff. And I haven't looked at those league tables I just mentioned before, but we would have dropped down without a doubt, a few runs without a doubt.
00:19:05
Speaker
And the gap between the US and us in terms of wealth is growing. It's getting bigger and bigger. And you know so what are the solutions to this? Well, I think the government seriously needs to to you know lower income tax to try to attract bright people and get Australians to work harder and invent things and come up with new businesses and so forth. Because at the moment, there's very little incentive to do that. I mean, there was this great article in Reuters I tweeted last week, and it was about how how the top marginal tax rate in the US, Trump's considering lifting it.
00:19:33
Speaker
to 40% for those earning more than two and a half million US dollars a year. And then I thought, okay, 40% at two and a half billion US. So we have 47% at $122,000 US, right That's that's, it's just crazy, right? the difference is extraordinary. And then of course people are like, oh, but state taxes. Well, and Florida and Texas don't have any state income tax.
00:19:55
Speaker
So if you live in those two enormous states, each of which is, you know, larger or about the same size as Australia, you know, that's your tax rate. You hardly pay any income tax. So that's where you go. And people do go there. They move there.
00:20:06
Speaker
You know, I know Australians have moved there from here because they just don't want to, you know, be paying such an absurd amount of income tax. You know, we have great weather in Australia, but lots of places have good weather. So, you know, we shouldn't think that's, you know, that's going to keep people here.
00:20:19
Speaker
Sorry, I'm just waffling. You'll have to tell me to stop. No, not at all. I think this is interesting, particularly around the tax side. And you see this in the UK as well, where we we know from hundreds of years of economic history, thousands of years, that the way that you grow an economy is by lowering taxes, it's by reducing regulation, it's by having a smaller state.
00:20:41
Speaker
And yet, if you look at the UK, which is probably even in a worse state, i would say, economically than Australia, They just seem to be in this death spiral of regard of low growth, a bigger tack or a bigger burden coming through benefits.
00:20:55
Speaker
As a result of that, they raise taxes. As a result of that, more people leave. And so, therefore, the total tax revenue goes down. I agree. and How do you try and tell the growth story now? Because it doesn't seem like both Australia or the UK are capable of doing it.
00:21:08
Speaker
Well, it's a more serious problem for Australia because unlike the European countries that have all those problems you've just said, they're all next to each other. So they all say you can't really easily leave. I mean, so what, so you're upset with the UK, you go to France? I mean, it's kind of like you may as well just stay in the UK. They're all as bad as one another, basically.
00:21:25
Speaker
Whereas Australia is surrounded by countries with much, much lower tax rates. Now I get... You know, they're not as nice, to you know, Indonesia, no one's going to move there. But in the in the, you know, from Australia, that's not going to be a place to go. But the the taxes are a lot lower.
00:21:38
Speaker
And eventually that will be a factor as those countries get richer. mean, one fact always like to mention is that China's top marginal income tax rate is lower than ours, right? Theirs is 45%. Ours is 47%. our is forty seven percent you know And we constantly say China's communist country. Well, so what does that make us then?
00:21:55
Speaker
I mean, one of the things Karl Marx talked about astonishing in is in his work is that a sign of ah of a good communist state is ah is a very progressive tax system system so a very progressive income tax system. So you know so ours is more progressive. So so maybe we're the communist ones. i you i don't know. I'm being facetious, but that should you know it should make people think, hang on, what you know why is it so high in Australia? Yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
How do you tell the growth story? Look, sadly, I don't think people want to listen to it at the moment in Australia. You've got huge numbers of people, influential people employed either directly or indirectly in the public sector. you know you know They don't care about economics because ultimately their jobs are not based on economics. They're based on kind of regulatory fiat or legislation or whatever.
00:22:37
Speaker
Their salaries certainly aren't free market salaries. They're set by the state you know in a communist fashion. And yeah know they don't want to hear about the growth story because if if it was free market, their jobs might not exist.
00:22:48
Speaker
So i think I think we'll notice more when yeah the boom starts to end that I referred to earlier, the resource boom, the currency falls more. There's more concern in the press about about economic risks, people start to get a bit scared maybe. you know I wish people were taking more notice now, but you know Labor just had this emphatic victory. And you know I try to look at the silver linings for that victory. It's very hard. But I am quite pessimistic about yeah the next three years. I mean, this this Labor Party now is not the Labor Party of the 80s at all. And although I've been a bit heartened by some of the promotions, Andrew Charlton and and Daniel Molino, both you know good economists, they've been promoted,
00:23:26
Speaker
ah so don't know. is that enough yeah ah don't know i think the the the incentives of modern labour you know is to is to govern in its you know in its own interests you're not the country's interests and and to be fair that's that's true of all political parties but so that means there's going to be more industrial regulation which means less productivity and means we're going to be flooded with more immigrants because they tend to vote for labor ultimately And, you know, that's that's very depressing to me.
00:23:51
Speaker
And is there going to be, you know, any kind of micro-economic reform? Well, Jim Chalmers just this week said basically not a lot. I mean, he said, yes, we're interested in productivity, but it's going to take six years.
00:24:02
Speaker
Well, I mean, you know, we don't have six years really. i mean, they have a big majority. They should do tough things right away and they should do things that upset their base, like reform a tax system. You like I've always argued, it's really only center-left parties that can cut and income tax.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's very hard for parties of the right to cut income tax because they will get viciously attacked, right, from the left. And it's
Immigration and Multicultural Dynamics
00:24:22
Speaker
it's hard to do. I mean, i as much as I'd like this this new coalition two yeah know to advocate for a top lower marginal rate of income tax, it'd be political suicide.
00:24:31
Speaker
Absolute suicide. I mean, can you imagine the next election if Susan Lee's right, right, we're going to cut it to 40%? They'd lose. They'd lose the election, in my view, because Labor would mount this ferocious campaign based on jealousy, which would work.
00:24:44
Speaker
Uh, whereas if the left does it, the right just agrees. So, you know, my, so that's where it's got to come from. so that's why I'm trying to be hopeful that some rational people in labor may say, Hey, this noose is now too tight, right? Even for us, right? We need to loosen it.
00:24:57
Speaker
want to pick up on your comment on immigration in that answer. We've seen in the last 48, 72 hours in the UK, the most extraordinary shift in the Overton window after a speech from Keir Starmer, in which he basically has said the quiet part out loud, which, well,
00:25:15
Speaker
No one on the left wanted to say in the UK, but so many people on the right have been saying for a long time that mass migration has led to cultural fracture. ah It has been a net detriment economically.
00:25:26
Speaker
It has turned the country into an island of strangers, or at least risk turning the country into an island of strangers. Yeah, it's extraordinary. I agree. It was extraordinary. It is extraordinary. and And that is largely driven by the pressure coming from reform, the new, I would argue, centre-right political party in the UK,
00:25:41
Speaker
despite Australia on a per capita level having a considerably higher number number of immigrants over the last five five for five or so years, it doesn't feel like we're we're at that point, that groundswell yet.
00:25:53
Speaker
do you think Do you think it is a concern that should be being raised in a stronger way ah in in the political sphere? Well, look, think it will be eventually. I mean, the first thing to say, firstly, is just the cynicism of Politicians, I mean, as you say, suddenly Keir Starmer's anti-immigration purely because of political pressure from reform and he's looked at the polls.
00:26:11
Speaker
So does he actually believe anything? I don't know. I don't know what he believes. Obviously he wants to stay in power. And I guess the next general election's kind of getting closer and they're getting worried about there being another wipeout against them this time.
00:26:23
Speaker
But I think it's obvious that that was going to come. I mean, you you raise a good point that Australia's, you know the share of our population was born overseas is much, much higher than the UK. And yet there's, you there's certainly disquiet here with high levels of immigration, but it's nothing like in in the yeah UK or France or places like that or Germany.
00:26:39
Speaker
We haven't reached that that level. And I think, you know, why is that? Well, Australia has just been such so successful at integrating people for many decades from all around the world. we we You know, I think it's you it's ah it's a cliche, but I think we you know we have we have done multiculturalism better than any other country, I would say, probably. If you just look at the empirical facts, it's a fairly harmonious country. Of course, we certainly have our moments.
00:27:02
Speaker
And, you know, the Israel-Palestine thing is a good example of that. You know, we've imported these these foreign conflicts into Australia and, you know, who knows what's going to happen with India and Pakistan. We've certainly imported a lot of people from both of those countries too.
00:27:13
Speaker
But it's been very successful ah so far and I think people are proud of that so they don't want to criticise it yet. But... yeah The rates of immigration over the last few years are quite extraordinary. I mean, I think something like in three years, 1.3 million anne net overseas immigration into Australia.
00:27:30
Speaker
I mean, we that's far more than the yeah UK, I would say. i mean, I don't have the figures here, but bet it is. And the UK has three times, you know, kind of two and a halflf times population of Australia. So, I mean, you know, i don't know what they're complaining about over there. but was we have a It's much greater here.
00:27:45
Speaker
But, well, you know, that's that's another thing. Walking around, know, coming down to Melbourne, coming back to Sydney, the share of population that's from China and India is much, much higher noticeably for me coming back. I mean, so you know, I've moved to South Bank in Melbourne.
00:28:00
Speaker
You know the share of the population there with Chinese ethnicity would be, you know, would be over half, I think, I would say. It wouldn't have been that way four years ago, five years ago. So it is, so the so the cultural makeup of Australia is is is certainly changing rapidly.
00:28:15
Speaker
But we just haven't reached the point where where people are too upset about it yet. Sure, you have your One Nation party saying, let's let's slash immigration. But you know neither major political party in the election really said anything about immigration.
00:28:27
Speaker
The Liberals said a bit, but they wouldn't specify how much they'd cut it. And frankly, looking at the track record of the coalition, they're just as bad as Labor, basically. I mean, you know we had massive immigration before COVID, you know much of it driven by the higher education sector because they won all their juicy fees.
00:28:44
Speaker
And I think there's a real naivety in Australia that these people are coming here, you know, for our wonderful educational standards. No, I don't think so. They're coming because they can, know, the universities are basically selling, you know, selling citizenship ultimately.
00:28:56
Speaker
They're kind of laundering, laundering it, you know, and they, and they clip the ticket in a really big way. And that's why you have all these, you know, vice chancellors on $500,000 a year because, or more, but because there's just so much revenue.
00:29:07
Speaker
yeah And so that's a very corrupt system. But look, you know, I've, that's a very long way of saying, I don't know why we haven't reached the yeah UK point of disgruntlement yet, but it will certainly happen, I would say.
00:29:17
Speaker
It's just that we're that we're lagging. Yeah, well, one one reason I would suggest is the mix of immigrants is on balance ah more conducive to integration.
00:29:30
Speaker
Again, elephant in the room when it comes to immigration to the UK is a huge number of people coming from fundamentalist Islamic countries, coming from third world countries, coming from Africa, where it is plain as day that you're not going to be able to integrate them or at least integrate kind of many of those people.
00:29:47
Speaker
I think Australia, particularly with the immigrant mix coming from Asia, there they at the very least, there are less problems again on balance. Yeah, that's a good point. yeah But we are seeing a rise of Islamic sectarian politics in Australia.
00:30:01
Speaker
Is that something as well that we should be concerned about? Yeah, look, I mean, it's interesting your point about fundamentalist Islamic countries. I mean, I think Australia has a lot of yeah a lot of immigrants proportionally from Islamic countries too. I mean, you know India, Pakistan, and we have a lot of immigrants from those countries. Are they as yeah as fundamentalist as other countries? I don't know. I'm not an expert on that. The African ah segment of immigration is growing rapidly, I think, into Australia.
00:30:27
Speaker
And that's caused some friction in ah Melbourne, actually. I believe the Sudanese community has rightly or wrongly been blamed. it's It's used for the for a spate of crime. you know I don't know the details of that, but certainly that's been the view in the press.
00:30:41
Speaker
So, yeah, look, I think i think you're right. The yeah the composition is is is probably better here. But look, I mean, i I just don't have the stats on that. I don't know.
Net Zero and Economic Implications
00:30:51
Speaker
if Before going to the political landscape on a more granular level, I'd be re remiss if I didn't pick up on your mention of net zero earlier.
00:30:59
Speaker
ah This is another one i struggle with and why this somehow is enduring in the ah in a bipartisan way when there are some obvious facts that we all know, and that is that You cannot grow without cheap, reliable energy.
00:31:13
Speaker
And you add into that that the change that Australia can make to the global climate is negligible. you know This is a symbolic exercise. And yet still, I understand the ideological capture on the left, but the right in Australia continues to push this net zero agenda forward.
00:31:31
Speaker
Why? Well, I think most people think net zero is this nice sounding thing and it means less pollution. you know I think most people don't know what it actually entails.
00:31:42
Speaker
And it is popular. 60, 70% of people... yeah Chris Bowen had a piece in The Australian Today. I haven't actually read it yet, but but the headline was Everyone Loves Renewables. And Sadly, from my point of view, that's true.
00:31:53
Speaker
The word renewable is very appealing. It's a brilliant, brilliant marketing on the part of of the climate change people. And so is net zero. is It sounds like zero pollution. Even though it's actually got nothing to do with smog, it's about carbon dioxide, which is hardly a pollutant, but that's that but people think it is. So look, it's been great marketing that's made it very popular.
00:32:12
Speaker
i so i saw your I saw your tweet on that article. It said something to the effect of everyone loves cigarettes before they realized the harm that they did. ah That's right. I mean, that's right. You know, cigarettes were popular too until people realized the damage they caused. And I think they will realize the damage that it's caused. I mean, the UK is a good reference point, right? Because I think you guys are further down the renewable path than the we are ah in Australia. And even Tony Blair...
00:32:35
Speaker
You know, a very sensible kind of elder statesman of the Labour Party has looked at the figures rationally as anyone you can do if you've got a few hours. And you realize that not only is net zero not going to happen, but trying to get there is going to be unbelievably costly and damaging.
00:32:50
Speaker
And it will hurt the the people that will hurt the most to poorer people who who traditionally vote for labor because their their cost of living will go up so much. And of course, as you're seeing already in Australia, the government tries to hide that by quasi-nationalizing people's electricity bills.
00:33:05
Speaker
right And I think you're going to see more of this, which for people who don't want net zero is bad because the government's realized they have to cover up the damage being done. right They have to basically directly lower everyone's power bills, everyone's all the time, more and more.
00:33:19
Speaker
And that's going to be very expensive, but hey, just put on the national credit card, just, just, you know, borrow a bit more. So no one feels the cost of rising energy. That's what they're going to do, I think. And that's, that's unfortunate, means more debt, more deficit, you know, worse for the future. But that said, I'm, you know, I'm optimistic that, that it's a, that it's a,
00:33:39
Speaker
that it's a fad. And actually, i'm um I'm kind of looking through Australia's budget papers recently over the last 10 years and you know looking for mentions of emissions and climate change and net zero. And what I did find interesting, and you know I don't think it necessarily reveals anything, but you saw you know since Labor was elected in 2022, mentions of net zero and and emissions just went from like 12 to 150 in the budget, like just absolutely surged.
00:34:02
Speaker
Bang, bang. And then in the, but in the in the budget before the election, sorry, the budget, yeah, yeah, the budget before the election, they didn't mention it anywhere near as much. So I think there is quite rightly in my view, and Labor are very good at politics. They know what's going on.
00:34:18
Speaker
I think they're taking the foot off the accelerator a little bit. too And that's anyway, that is that is my forecast with net zero. I think it's becoming less popular. And I also think part of the reason driving that, and we don't want to talk about this, but I think people are becoming more skeptical of climate change.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yep. Because more and more forecasts are wrong, right? And the longer, you know, the years go on, people just keep saying, hang on, didn't you say the polar bears were going to die? Didn't you say the Arctic would melt? Blah, blah, blah.
00:34:44
Speaker
No, no. You know, didn't you say that, you know, summers would be unbearable? Well, no, they're the same as they were 20 years ago. And I think the more that that happens... I think people will say, so, you know, why are we doing this crazy thing? Whereas as you pointed out, you know, I think i think human induced emissions of 4% of the global total.
00:35:01
Speaker
Australia is 1% of that, ah right? Yeah. And we're trying to reduce 1% of 4%. I mean, it's completely insane rationally. It's a religion. It's really a religion. You've got to look at it as a religion.
00:35:12
Speaker
It's a state religion and people don't like heretics, but it has all the hallmarks of religion. Like you're doing this thing in a self-flagellating sense. You know that it won't make a scrap of difference. but But just for you know for for you know personal contentment, that's that's that's why we're doing this crazy policy.
00:35:29
Speaker
But like I say, I think the cost of pursuing it, they're increasing, increasing over time. you know yeah You have your wind and solar farms a little bit, that doesn't cost much. But you know as you start to you know make it more than 50% of the energy supply, the costs become extraordinary.
00:35:45
Speaker
And there'll be blackouts. It's the actual financial costs, the investment. so So i think I think it will all collapse, but we just have to try to minimize the amount of damage on the way. Well, that's just one of you know a laundry list of problems that we've identified over the last half an hour in this country
Election Outcomes and Political Strategy
00:35:59
Speaker
and help me out with this question, which I have not answered well on the podcast I've been on and the TV I've been on recently, where they've said, look, we hear you pointing out all these problems in Australia, both structurally and then also the short-term reduction in standard of living that you mentioned, worst in the world.
00:36:16
Speaker
And yet, what we saw was the incumbent government win one of the most comprehensive victories in modern Australian political history. How did that happen? Well, look yeah, look, at you know it was an incredible victory. I mean, I think i think Labor's going to have 94 seats or 95 even, which is more than John Howard got in 996 in that huge landslide. It's more than Tony Abbott got in 2013.
00:36:36
Speaker
But I would point out that Labor's primary vote, 35%, is not you know particularly overwhelming. That's the number of first preference votes. And it was lower than Julia Gillard got in 2010 when she only just won.
00:36:53
Speaker
So the point that I'm trying to make is that it was very much an artifact of preference flows, which is the, you know, which is the Australian system. And actually, I think it's a good system. I mean, there's a lot of people on the right who's, who you say, oh, preferential voting is terrible.
00:37:06
Speaker
And look, I think it should be optional. Like it is in New South Wales. You shouldn't be forced to, to rank your choices one to seven or one to eight, you know, kind of in the lower house. I think that's wrong, but some people might just not care. They just, okay, I want that. And that's it.
00:37:18
Speaker
I think that would be a big improvement. But I think in general, the preferential system is much better than the UK system, for instance, because yeah you get all this strategic voting in the UK. People are not voting who they you know for who they really want. They're voting based on who they think might win and you know whether they need the help or not. And so you don't really get a good indication of what people actually want.
00:37:35
Speaker
Whereas in Australia, you do. So I like our voting system, except for the compulsion bit, but that's a that's another story. So look, why? Well, I think the cost of living decline, I think is really noticeable, I think through inflation, but I think people quite reasonably, in my personal view, blame the coalition for it just as much as labor. Now, I know we had that big 10% decline since 22, but what was the cause of that? It was the COVID response, obviously.
00:38:00
Speaker
At least anyone who's, you know, I don't think you need to be an expert or a commentator or someone that thinks too greatly to understand where the inflation all came from around the world, in Australia, around the world. It was obviously the response to COVID.
00:38:12
Speaker
You know, we did it. There's a cost to everything. And printing, you know, who would have thought printing hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars and pounds and euros is going to lead to, you huge economic dislocation, huge inflation.
00:38:23
Speaker
And Australia did that in spades, right? I mean, we we had some of the biggest money printing of any country. And which government oversaw all that? Well, the coalition did. mean, it wasn't that long ago. And so I think i think the problem is the coalition...
00:38:38
Speaker
you know, was in power so recently for what, nine years, 10 years or something? Yeah, nine years, which is quite a long time. And A, I think people remember that government and they don't look back on it particularly fondly, you know, especially the later iterations.
00:38:49
Speaker
So i think I think that was a problem. And, you know, as I mentioned, I think that the living standards decline is blamed as much on on the coalition as Labor. And so I don't think that really worked And of course, the coalition in their campaign, they couldn't talk about COVID because they did all the measures. So they couldn't yeah they couldn't use that to blame labor because they introduced the measures.
00:39:10
Speaker
yeah they So they could really just say, oh, cost of living, you know, but but they couldn't say why. Because the reason why is they caused it. Yeah, and it felt felt felt to me like they were trying to rely on that old brand equity in the liberals on the liberal side of politics around economic management, and people weren't buying it this time. So I asked, for example, Michael Kroger on Spectator TV the other day about what does the long-term future of the Liberal Party look like, and is it existential risk?
00:39:38
Speaker
And he fell back on that old, I would say, trope of, well, no, because we still have that great brand equity in economic management, defense, and industrial relations reform. And then I had to push him and say, well, Michael, what has the Liberal Party done on any of those areas since Howard?
00:39:55
Speaker
They're scared. They're still scared on industrial relations since work choices. I think the defence policy came out a week before the the election almost as an afterthought. And there hasn't been any economic reform in ah well over 20 years. And they were going to spend more than the Labor Party in the ah the two-year forecast following the election. Yeah, I know. That is extraordinary. Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
So so i guess to pull that together, you know what is the point of the Liberal Party anymore? And have they lost those traditional brand equities? Well, it's certainly very tarnished. And I think that goes to the point of why Labor had that big victory. I don't think they have that reputation anymore. They had nine years in office. I mean, Josh Frydenberg's legacy is the biggest spending treasure in history, by far the biggest increase in you know in debt.
00:40:36
Speaker
That all happened on the Liberal Party's watch. That's extremely embarrassing. you know, it's interesting you measure you mentioned IR. Nothing was said about that incredibly important area of policy the entire campaign.
00:40:47
Speaker
And I'm not an expert in IR law, but i have I have some close friends who are IR barristers. And they say what Labor's done in the last three years is even worse than and what Julia Gillard did in the Fair yeah the fair Work Act more than 10 years ago.
00:41:02
Speaker
In terms of re-regulating in a really micro way, you know, not only wage rates, but all the other matters associated with with employment that that is going to slow employment growth and not just slow employment growth, because let's face it, the unemployment rate in Australia is pretty low and that's a good thing.
00:41:17
Speaker
but just stifle innovation as you've got businesses having to worry about IR laws far more than they worry about their own you know their own expansion and so forth. So yeah, so there was no discussion of IR.
00:41:28
Speaker
There was no discussion of lower tax. And actually just on that, the Liberal Party's policies on tax, in my view, were worse than Labor's. I mean, Labor had a certainly piddling and pathetic tax cut of $5 a week, I think.
00:41:41
Speaker
But at least they were going to cut one of the marginal rates from 16 to 14 in two years' time, and they legislated it. So that's now law. So that's something. I mean, look, it's pathetic, but it's something.
00:41:52
Speaker
And not only that, they also had a standard tax deduction of, I think, $1,000 for all taxpayers. So again, that's out of the Henry view. That's a good thing. I support a standard deduction, reduces complexity. It's a benefit that goes to all taxpayers, not just the politically favored group.
00:42:05
Speaker
And then the coalition said, okay, well we're going to reverse the tax cut, which is very strange politics for the coalition. We're not going to have a standard deduction and we're going to going to allow first home buyers to deduct interest against some first home buyers, just some, for five years.
00:42:21
Speaker
And we're goingnna cut going to cut fuel excise for 12 months. I mean, I think they were but they were really bad policies. They were not long-term policies at all. They were meant to bribe people electorally. It didn't work.
00:42:32
Speaker
And I think that's a good lesson for the coalition. 12-month cuts in taxes or 12-month handouts don't work. Let's not do those. ah And yeah know the other point I want to make is that there's a lot of criticism from the moderates in the party and from other commentators that that yeah somehow they they they ran right-wing campaign or a Trumpian campaign. I don't think there is any empirical evidence whatsoever that there was anything right-wing about about the Dutton campaign.
00:42:59
Speaker
Nothing. It was a Labour-like campaign, as as I argued the whole time. And you know maybe if you've got labor and Labour and Labour-like, you go for the real thing. Vote for Labour. Because at least they believe it.
00:43:10
Speaker
Whereas, you know, half the people in the coalition don't believe it, but they have to say it. So, you know, it's going to interesting to go on.
Liberal Party's Identity Crisis and Leadership Challenges
00:43:18
Speaker
Well, I was going to say, you know, I would have thought that the lesson would have been learned by now that you can't out-Labour-Labour and you can't out-Teal the Teals.
00:43:27
Speaker
And yet what we saw from the Liberal Party room yesterday was the election of Susan Lay as the new opposition leader. She has been described as a moderate in the party. She probably looks closer to the the Malcolm Turnbull style of Liberal politics than the more conservative wing.
00:43:47
Speaker
Does that point to potentially the Liberal Party not having learned their lessons or not having learned the right lessons? Yeah, look, ah ah Susan Lee's press conference is is worth worth watching. I thought she spoke really well yesterday. She came across well, I thought. I don't know Susan that well, but I was shocked to learn that she's been in parliament so long, since 2001. Yeah, so was And I have no... you know So it's when she won or when she was mooted as a leader, and like, what does Susan stand for? I don't really know. Yeah.
00:44:13
Speaker
yeah So i think I think that suggests she doesn't yeah she hasn't been a strong advocate for either the moderates or the or the right of the party. So I think she can probably believe anything just think publicly.
00:44:26
Speaker
So that could be a good thing or a bad thing. I don't know. She was careful yesterday not to not to not to attach ah you know her flag to any particular policy ah yet. She's not ruling anything in or out. And that's that's fair enough.
00:44:38
Speaker
So I think it's not necessarily the case she's going to... ah lead the party in a in a moderate direction. Because as I said, I think she'll do whatever she thinks is pragmatic. And if she decides that the pragmatic path is to take it more right, she will, I think. And I think there's enough in her past and her voting record to suggest that she could be a conservative liberal or she could be a moderate liberal. In fact, there were a lot of a lot of lefties on Twitter you know slamming how conservative she was.
00:45:03
Speaker
So you know it depends on your vantage point. I mean, I wish her well. It's going to be really hard job. She only won by four votes, right? That's really close. So that suggests the party's basically fractured in two.
00:45:15
Speaker
And she's got next to no chance of winning the next election. That's even if she lasts until then. So it's you know it's not going to be fun for her. Yeah.
00:45:26
Speaker
so So I don't know. Look, i've I'm kind of heartened the National Party. And I think we can credit Matt Canavan for this. I know he lost the leadership. and And full disclosure, he's a good friend of mine. But I think he pushed the National Party to dump net zero.
00:45:39
Speaker
Well, they haven't they haven't formally done it yet. But I think Little Proud's thinking of it. And I think that's because of Matt's agitation. Even though he's you know he's lost the leadership, I think he's... And I think if the Nationals dumped it, that would be good. I mean, the National Party, remember, did quite well in the election. They got swings to them in some seats.
00:45:55
Speaker
They didn't lose any seats or maybe they lost one. I'm not quite sure there, but they certainly did a lot better than the Liberal Party, vastly better. And so in that you know in that historic partnership, they are now you know almost as strong as the Liberal Party or not not almost, but much, much relatively stronger.
00:46:09
Speaker
And if I was leading the National Party, I'd be thinking about, hey, why aren't we running candidates against the Liberals in some seats? Because we might win them in the outer suburbs. And I reckon that's probably, that might happen actually. Yeah. Do you think do you think the coalition will split?
00:46:22
Speaker
Well, that wouldn't necessarily, well, I suppose it would mean they split, but but if you're running the National Party and you think you've got a better chance of winning these seats than the Liberal Party, in the interest of the party, you would you'd try to run the candidates. I think they might split or at least have a looser arrangement.
00:46:37
Speaker
But, you know, I don't think that matters. I mean, i ah there's this obsession with unity. Yeah. I just, you know, I wish there was more debate, not less, right? I think if there was a debate between the Nationals and the Liberal Party you on net zero, that would be great. And if it was in the public, that's good because people will hear the arguments of both sides.
00:46:53
Speaker
I think, you know, parties are a necessary evil in the Westminster system or and indeed in any system because they they lead to factionalism and and, you know, party hatreds and and and not governing in the interest of the country but governing in interest of the party, right?
00:47:08
Speaker
you know I wish we had a you know house of reps of 150 independents. That'd be much better because they'd have much more agreement and much more sensible policymaking. but Well, I would have suggested that that the downside of that would be that nothing would ever really get done. But I think you could possibly argue that nothing's really getting done at the moment. um There's always going to be parties form. It's just natural. They always do. But but factionalism is a real problem both between and within parties. so And, you know, I think more debate is good. I mean, you know, it's a whole other debate, but, you know, parliaments themselves used to be used to be debating chambers. They're not debating chambers now. They're complete waste of money. All of the arguments done in private within the parties.
00:47:47
Speaker
And then they form their view. The public doesn't get to see that argument. It'd be fascinating if you actually saw the debates in Labor caucus or the Liberal Party room, real debates when people are actually angry and yelling at each other.
00:47:58
Speaker
that's That's what you want to see as as someone paying all the, you know, as a voter paying all these salaries. And instead you see this absurd display in the parliament in question time where, you know, people stand up and ask Dorothy Dix. I mean, it's just pathetic. It's utterly pathetic. it's all for TV.
00:48:13
Speaker
And it's extremely expensive and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't enhance our democracy at all. Anyway, that's a whole other debate. Anyway, I forgot what you asked me now. Well, no, but so I think... What you've just said, i think, is interesting. i agree about the need for debate and discussion. I think you're right in saying that that unity is perhaps overrated.
Conservative Movement and Policy Debates
00:48:33
Speaker
At the same time, it feels to me like there is an identity crisis on the right, or again, whatever that means, the conservative side of Australian politics. And you can see that by a potential split in the coalition.
00:48:46
Speaker
You can see that by this existential conversation going on the Liberal Party. You can see it by the mishmash of minor parties that have emerged on the right of Australian politics and the libertarians, the Trumpet of Patriots, whatever they believe. yeah you know Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
00:48:59
Speaker
It feels to me that in the age of Trump where there's been a change in the US, in the age of in in the UK where the conservatives are very at very real risk of fading into nothingness,
00:49:15
Speaker
There's this question of what does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? This is a choose your own adventure question, but but what does the future of conservatism in Australia look like or what should it look like?
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think the big problem that parties of the right are facing all around the world, and and and you raise a really good point, and Trump's at the vanguard of this, he's been an instigator in many ways, is there is all the intellectual kind of revolution, if you like, is happening on the right, not the left.
00:49:43
Speaker
It's the right, both in Europe and and the US, and And increasingly here, there's a lot of internal debate. You know, there's more there's more debate within the right than there is between the the official right and left.
00:49:55
Speaker
You know, the so-called uni party basically agrees on everything, right? And that's the bulk of the Labour Party in Australian context, the bulk of the Liberal Party and maybe minority of the National Party. I would turn the uni party, basically agree on everything.
00:50:06
Speaker
Just slight little differences around the edges, but it's red team, blue team. That's all. And it's just about winning. but But on the right side of politics, you do have these huge intellectual arguments about you know nationality, you know ethnic identity, tariffs, you know tax policy.
00:50:23
Speaker
you know There's far more debate within the Republican Party in the US about about about tax policy than than in the Democratic Party. I mean, and and half of Republicans want to increase tax on the wealthy, actually.
00:50:35
Speaker
and said That's often forgotten. But the Trump base is poor, right? They are the old Bernie Sanders left. And they couldn't care less about Wall Street. And actually, I don't think Trump really cares less about Wall Street either, to be quite honest. I mean, he's painted as a friend of billionaires, but i don't think he's I don't think he's been governing for them yet.
00:50:52
Speaker
Indeed, the report I mentioned earlier, he wants to lift the top marginal tax rate, right? rather The Democrats didn't even do that. So- So I think there's a lot of intellectual debate on the right. And I think it stems from the fact, too, that the left, which used to be the protest movement and you know it's throughout most of the 20th century, it was rarely in office in Australia.
00:51:10
Speaker
i mean, yeah, I think since 45, Labor's not been in power much, actually. if you If you add up all the years, I think they've only been in power 30% or 40% or something of the time. But now it's the establishment. The Labor is – the left is now the establishment.
00:51:22
Speaker
it It runs all the universities. It runs all the big corporations. ah It runs the media. You know, you forget, if you go back to the 1960s, the mainstream media was very conservative, you know, right? And very conservative.
00:51:35
Speaker
And it still was even in in the eighty s and 90s. Look at the Sydney Morning Herald in the 1980s was still quite a conservative newspaper. Now the media is very left-wing, right? And it supports parties the left. So my point is that the protest parties are now the establishment.
00:51:48
Speaker
And so we talk about conservatives... Well, that that implies they want to conserve, but actually they don't want to conserve because the current system is not what they want. So the parties of the right are now the protest parties, right?
00:52:02
Speaker
They are against the establishment. And I think that is that is intellectually hard because there are remnants in the in the conservatives who are still very wealthy and they quite like the system as it is. And then there's your younger right-wing people who hate the system.
00:52:15
Speaker
right? And this is the Trump base and they want to tear it all down. And they would kind of just as easily fit in the old left, actually. ah you know I remember having a chat with Steve Bannon, just one-on-one. And you he's I think he's extremely impressive figure intellectually and you know a great force in the Trump movement. And you know He's like, we have to nationalize the pharmaceutical industry.
00:52:34
Speaker
This is evil, basically. yeah And I'm like, wow, that's not a very Reagan Thatcherite position. And also he said that he thinks income tax should be much higher on the wealthy than it currently is. ah so that And yet he's right wing. So you know my point is there's a great deal of fluidity on the right.
00:52:51
Speaker
And you see that the tension between Bannon and and you Musk over the visa issue in the US about immigration, a lot of tension over that as well. But on the left in Australia and and the Democrats, you don't see, at least I don't see much debate at all, right? yeah Basically just keep the status quo, keep the status quo. And you know anyone that wants to change the status quo is, you know, a fascist or, but you know, a Hitler or something. mean I mean, because that that's the sort of language they use to shut people down.
00:53:16
Speaker
So, yeah. So I think that's why, i do to answer your question, why the rights in kind of dire straits is because there's so much intellectual debate. They don't know what they stand for. And I don't know when that's going to be resolved. Well, maybe in the minutes or two we have left, give them a hand, Adam. And I know the IPA has often, in the course of its history, been at the leading edge of right-wing thought.
00:53:37
Speaker
What advice would you give to the Liberal Party in 2025? What does it need to be? What should that identity look like? How would you communicate that to them? Well, we have to keep the Liberal Party honest. I mean, of course, the IPA and the Liberal Party are totally separate institutions, despite what some some of our critics say.
00:53:56
Speaker
But we're certainly the preeminent conservative or libertarian think tank in Australia. And I think we have to you know stay true to our principles of small government and yeah individual liberty and free speech. yeah know that's That's something we haven't discussed, but we probably should have. But maybe that's something for another time.
00:54:12
Speaker
and we have to keep the coalition honest. So i think I think we have an even more important role, I would say, in light of a Labor's victory than we did earlier, because the Liberal Party you know risks going in this Labor direction, and then what's left? Well, it's just going to be just going to be the IPA and the Australian, ah basically, on the on the right.
00:54:30
Speaker
So let's hope that doesn't happen, but you know we have to keep the flame of those ideas alive. you know Advice to the Liberal Party would be dump net zero, maybe not right away, wait a year, but But that's the way the world is going, right? I mean, it definitely is. Look at what look what Tony Blair said.
00:54:46
Speaker
He's definitely going that way. But I wouldn't do it right away. I'd be more pragmatic. I'd kind of wait a year and then dump it yeah sometime before the next election and then really go hard on how it's causing the cost of living problem and just blame it for all of it.
00:55:00
Speaker
And I think that will be effective next time because there'll be more inflation between now and then. There'll be more house price increases between now and then. And they can blame the whole thing on net zero. And Labor, think, will struggle with that. That's my advice.
00:55:11
Speaker
but Well, let's just hope they listen. Adam, typically insightful, interesting conversation. Thank you very much for ah your contributions to the debate in this regard. And thank you for coming on today.
00:55:21
Speaker
Okay, thanks all very much. i enjoyed it.