Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What Trump's win means for the world, with Joe Hockey
2.8k Plays2 months ago
The American President remains the most powerful person in the world. The collective choice made by a relatively small group of voters in a handful of American swing states will change the lives of people everywhere from Ukraine to Taiwan, from Israel to Iran, and from the UK to Australia.
The question is, how will the world change during a second Trump term? Few people are better placed to answer that question than former Treasurer of Australia, former Ambassador of Australia to the US, and now Founding Partner and President of Bondi Partners, Joe Hockey.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Far At Will' Podcast
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Far At Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. If for some reason you're not already following the show, you can find us everywhere from Spotify to Apple Podcasts to YouTube. If you like what you hear here, please consider giving us a glowing five star review. If you don't like what you hear here, forget I said anything.
Impact of US Elections Globally
00:00:42
Speaker
Whilst some will argue that US global power is on the decline, there is no doubt that the American president remains the most powerful person in the world. Consider this, the collective choice made by a relatively small group of voters in a handful of American swing states will change the lives of how people everywhere from Ukraine to Taiwan,
00:01:04
Speaker
from Israel to Iran, and yes, from the UK to Australia.
Joe Hockey on Trump's Political Strategy
00:01:10
Speaker
Question is, how will those people's lives be changed by the election of Donald J. Trump? Few people are better placed to help me answer that question than former treasurer of Australia, former ambassador of Australia to the US, and now founding partner and president of Bondi Partners, Joe Hockey. Joe, welcome to Fire at Will. Great to be with you, Will. Great to be with you.
00:01:32
Speaker
It's an absolute pleasure. We will get to looking ahead a bit later, but let's get the post-mortem out of the way. Why did Trump win? He won because he was more relevant to everyday Americans than Kamala Harris. And he made himself more relevant because he was the change candidate. He was the one that said he could take on the burden of inflation.
00:01:59
Speaker
and higher prices. He was the one that was going to lower taxes. He was the one that was going to stop illegal immigration. He was the one that was going to bring jobs back to America through higher tariffs. And he is the one that not only hears what everyday people are saying, but he's going to fight for them against the the the swamp in Washington.
00:02:24
Speaker
He was the change candidate and the last 15 major elections around the world. The incumbents have lost in 14.
Democrats' Identity Crisis
00:02:33
Speaker
That's a really telling statistic, isn't it? The interesting thing that comes out of that answer is that he connected with everyday working class Americans in a way that the Democrats simply could not. And this is the despite the fact that the Democrats historically have been the party of the working class and only in relatively recent times have we seen this fascinating inversion where they've become the party of the college educated coastal elites.
00:02:59
Speaker
What does the future look like for the Democrats in the US and are you confident that they can actually try and reconnect with that working class base or is this move, do you think a permanent one? Well, there are a few telling statistics. When you look back on the US, it has had a one-term presidency for the last three elections. It had Trump for one term, Biden for one term, and now Trump, and he will only serve one term.
00:03:27
Speaker
And in 2016, Trump got around 66 million votes against Hillary Clinton. She got a million to two million more. In 2020, Donald Trump increased that from around 66 million to 75 million.
00:03:46
Speaker
So he had a massive increase in the number of people that were voting for him as a result of his first term. And in this election, it's roughly about the same number as 2020. So around 75 million. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got around 67, 68 million. Stunningly, Joe Biden got 81 million in 2020. And then that has fallen.
00:04:14
Speaker
by around eight to nine million under Harris. So what happened was the most telling statistic is that people just did not go out to vote for Kamala Harris,
Campaign Challenges: Kamala Harris and Party Shifts
00:04:27
Speaker
having gone out for Joe Biden. In fact, she lost around 10% of Biden's vote. Now she still got, you know, the second highest ever a Democrat has ever got, but she lost.
00:04:42
Speaker
Why, why is that relevant? It's because Harris, Harris's entire campaign was I'm not Donald Trump. And she built a coalition that stretched on the left from Bernie Sanders right across a massive front to Liz Cheney, the right wing, most conservative of the conservative party. But the only thing that unified them was I'm not Donald Trump. And the American electorate said, we don't care.
00:05:11
Speaker
We just care about our costs of living, our safety and security, our hope and opportunity for the future. And you do not represent any of that. In fact, you have no policies that would give us comfort that you know what you're doing. And that was it. Donald Trump had a proven track record and policies.
00:05:35
Speaker
And we can get into the policies, but Kamala Harris simply said, I'm not Donald Trump. And the American electorate said, we know everything about Donald Trump. There is that we need to know and we don't care. We just want outcomes.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's interesting you said that Trump was the change candidate, and I think in practice he was the change candidate, but there's no doubt that Harris tried to position herself as the change candidate. And she was in this uncomfortable position of doing so, despite being the incumbent vice president of the United States, and despite not disavowing a single Biden policy. And it was a really difficult balancing act for her to to straddle, which she didn't manage to do so. You are a deeply experienced politician. How would you have advised her to run that campaign?
00:06:17
Speaker
Well, she had to, I mean, she barely had enough time to be honest, to differentiate herself from Joe Biden. And in fact, she compounded the problem by ah saying in a telling interview that if she had a time again, there's nothing she would have changed from the Biden administration. So she couldn't work out whether she was the incumbent or whether she was
Transformation of the Republican Party Under Trump
00:06:38
Speaker
an agent of change. And her confusion was reflected in the campaign. She didn't want to campaign as the first black woman.
00:06:48
Speaker
forming a view that at the end of the day, you know, there is an element of America that is both misogynistic and racist. So she didn't want to focus on that. And really, but she couldn't explain why she was different to Joe Biden, who as an incumbent has the worst reelect numbers of anyone in the last 50 years.
00:07:12
Speaker
On top of all of that, the name recognition is ah is a major issue in American politics. For the last half a century, ah there has been a Clinton, a Bush, or a Biden on every presidential ballot. And this is the first time that people had heard really about Harris Waltz.
00:07:35
Speaker
And they didn't know what, ah who they were, let alone what their policies were. So there was no, there was no strong foundation. And it does illustrate how weak the foundation stones are of the democratic party, because you're absolutely right. Well, the democratic party doesn't know if it's the party of the workers or the party of the elite. It gets its money from the elite. It has elite people standing on stage endorsing their candidate.
00:08:03
Speaker
But at the end of the day, if you don't have the votes of the workers, who do you have the votes of? And I thought it was also very telling that at the Republican convention, the head of the Teamsters Union, which is the white truck drivers of America, and they're basic mostly white, but the the the you know the truck drivers union of America couldn't be more working class. The same union that put John F. Kennedy into the Democratic Party nomination and into the White House back in the sixties. The head of that party endorsed Donald Trump. The membership by two thirds vote endorsed Donald Trump, but then the elites in the membership leadership said, we're not endorsing anyone. They were so embarrassed. So, you know, Trump won the blue collar working vote and Harris didn't know if she was fighting for the elites or fighting for the workers.
00:08:59
Speaker
Well, the the Republicans also have some philosophical questions to address as well. Oh, it's just, it's just that victory covers up for all manner of sins. And that is, if you think about the traditional country
Leadership Traits and Future Projections of Trump
00:09:10
Speaker
club style of Republicanism, low tax, low spend, deregulation, that you could see in say a a Bush administration, for example, or, you know, Reaganism, it probably was also closer to the type of liberal government that you would have, ah that you did serve in.
00:09:26
Speaker
It feels like that side of the party has been vanquished, but that instinct is still very much there on the conservative side of politics in America. Do you think that type of right-wing politics is dead and buried, or is there a pathway for it in a Trump world?
00:09:43
Speaker
Well, it's a great question. ah You know, it really is the Trump party. And of course parties will be captured by very successful leaders. And there is no doubt that Donald Trump has fashioned the Republican party into his own image.
00:10:01
Speaker
you know, the the Magga movement as they call it, the Make America Great Again movement. Of course, ironically, that's a term that Ronald Reagan first came up with and it's been used by a lot of people over the years, but that doesn't stop Donald Trump from appropriating it. And in doing so, yes, he has marginalized traditional Republican values. Republicans have traditionally believed in free trade. Republicans have traditionally believed in smaller government. And Republicans have traditionally believed in America as the global power, you know, the shining light on the hill for democracy and freedom.
00:10:46
Speaker
and Now, that wasn't always the case, of course. ah The Republicans back in 1939 were adamant that they were never going to join the war with Britain in World War II. They were very much isolationists, but it's Republican Party.
00:11:04
Speaker
so has it Has the party changed? Yes, but it's brought in a whole lot of new members and um it doesn't mean that they're not the custodians as well of some of those values.
00:11:17
Speaker
You know, trump Trump is a disruptor and I'm surprised that people are surprised that in politics, you have disruptive forces. If you have it
US Bureaucracy and Presidential Power
00:11:28
Speaker
in media and you have it in sport and you have it in business and everything else, of course, you're going to have a disruptor. What are you going to have a disruptor in politics?
00:11:36
Speaker
And that's Donald Trump. But it's been the disruptors in politics in America that have fashioned modern America. Washington was a disruptor leading a revolution. Couldn't get much more disruptive than that. Abe Lincoln was a disruptor when he fought for freedom from slavery and that the country went to civil war over that.
00:11:58
Speaker
because he was disrupting the status quo. Teddy Roosevelt, another Republican like Lincoln, a disruptor blew up the the the huge conglomerates, had a black man in the white house for the first time, et cetera, et cetera. A big environmentalist. John F. Kennedy was a disruptor,
Economic Issues: Debt and Social Media Influence
00:12:21
Speaker
ah completely changed the fabric of America from the fifties.
00:12:24
Speaker
And of course Reagan was disrupted. So you look at all these people, they've been disruptors. And in their effort to form a more perfect union as defined in their constitution, you have these presidents that blow things up and Donald Trump is just that. He's, he's going to blow it up. He's got nothing to lose. But at the end of the day, the American constitution is so robust and its systems are the end of the day, very strong and robust. They will withstand it, but he is going to make change.
00:12:56
Speaker
And they will be, they will be the values of the Republican party, traditional Republican party that will at the end of the day also endure. I asked this question of everyone who has had personal interactions with Donald Trump. What are your impressions of Trump, the man?
00:13:12
Speaker
Well, Donald Trump, you know, is, is a ah very confident, ah curious person. He is an interesting person. He is, um, he, uh, tends to gravitate towards people that add to his knowledge base. I find leaders.
00:13:33
Speaker
at their best when they have a curious mind and he does have a curious mind. If he's threatened by you, he he needs to prove that he is more knowledgeable and experienced than you. So, you know, if I got onto to the golf course and said, Mr. President, I'm going to, I'm going to whip you a golf. Uh, it would, and it would become annoying until I proved that I couldn't. And, uh, and similarly, you know, he doesn't have enormous faith in generals or in scientists or doctors.
00:14:04
Speaker
He feels as though he should know as much as them, but the way he gathers information is different. He gathers gathers information from a very wide source, people whom he, at the end of the day, needs to be able to trust. And finally, he will run the White House you know and hes his administration in a similar way to everything he's run during his life. I mean, the first year of ah The Trump administration will be seeking some balance and and and yes, some revenge, absolutely, against agencies and and people that have set out to destroy him. He's very scarred by that. But the first year and second year will be about delivering on his promises.
00:14:51
Speaker
And I think towards the end of the second year, he'll focus on his legacy and because he can't run again. And then the third and fourth year will be, there'll be like one long episode of the apprentice he'll be hiring and hiring everyone. And at the end, pretend potentially choosing who his successor is.
00:15:09
Speaker
Let's focus in on those first two years where you said it will be all about delivering on your promises. And you also said earlier that a big component into whether or not that is successful is whether he can overcome the deep state. Now, that term has some baggage, but really there's no doubt that there is this huge administrative state in America that in his first term acted as a roadblock to getting things done.
00:15:31
Speaker
How confident are you that he will actually be able to drive through that administrative state to get stuff done in a way that he was unable to do in the past? Well, if he can get, you know, deliver on 50% of his commitment to disruption, it will be it'll be very sizable and influential. You know, the US Department of Defense has 3 million people, 2 million in uniform, 1 million in public servant roles. It has
Immigration and Multiculturalism
00:16:01
Speaker
in excess of 15,000 lawyers. and The bureaucracy will find every way not to change because so many people, for example, in the Department of Defense and in uniform, you know they have a hierarchy.
00:16:17
Speaker
And the hierarchy dictates that you're an agent against change, not an agent for change. In fact, the US constitution is specifically designed to stop people doing things. It declares all these inalienable rights of freedom and and freedom of the press and and enterprise and so on. But at the end of the day, it the constitution is designed to stop things. So a single senator can stop a reform bill.
00:16:46
Speaker
And um you know they the US Senate has ah a filibuster rule that basically the only way you can get things through a 60% agreement, and unless it's a budget bill. And and and what we need to understand as in the UK and Australia and the Westminster system is when a prime minister or in my case, a treasurer goes down to the parliament, you usually get what you want because your team has the numbers. Whereas even in the US, there really is an equal power base between the presidency and the Congress. So presidents of all persuasions send a budget down to the Congress and the Congress, even if it's their own party, will say, well, thank you, Mr. President. And then they tear up his budget proposal and then they go and do their own budget. And that's why Congress is very protective of their right.
00:17:43
Speaker
to set the budget, and and you know they don't need, if Congress unanimously agrees to something, they don't need the president. They don't need the president at all at all. So the president's power comes from commander in chief, and he has to, it's been him, he he has to share power with the Congress.
00:18:05
Speaker
So when Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswami says that they're going to cut a budget by 20%, they can say to Marco Rubio, we're going to cut your budget at state by 20%. You've got to close down all these embassies and get rid of all these programs and then Marco Rubio goes to do it and Congress says no, because, you know, we've got a lot of people in these places that vote for us and actually we're not cutting. That's it. Doesn't happen. So.
00:18:41
Speaker
It's going to be a very difficult administrative arm wrestle between the administration headed up by Trump and, and his team and, and the Congress and bear in mind that Congress where they've got a very slim majority, maybe two, maybe three votes in the house, let alone two votes in the Senate. You're going to have rebels that are saying, no, I'm not going to do it.
00:19:06
Speaker
I'm not going to do it, Mr. President. I'm not going to do it. And they're back in the polls in two years' time. It's a good segue to the economy. You mentioned that there, despite this doge efficiency play, there is a bigger conversation around debt and deficit that needs to be had. And it was the elephant in the room, the entire campaign, because Harrison Trump didn't really want to touch it. And this is despite the fact that The levels of American debt are now reaching truly scary proportions, truly scary proportions. You were part of successive Australian governments that took, well not successive, parts of several Australian governments that took debt and deficit incredibly seriously. It feels to me like
Net Zero Targets and Geopolitical Changes
00:19:50
Speaker
America has its head in the sand. Will will it take an economic catastrophe for people to finally address this debt and deficit issue? How do you see this playing out?
00:19:58
Speaker
Well, the answer is yes. In my view, there will need to be, you know, a catastrophe of some sort for the US to take its debt challenge seriously. And, you know, the fact is that the interest bill on their existing government debt is now higher than everything they spend on defense in the United States. And the US spends more on defense than the next 12 nations combined in the world.
00:20:22
Speaker
I had a chat with Sir Neil Ferguson on this podcast the other day, and he's got what he calls Ferguson's law, and he says any great power that is spending more interest to serve as debt than they're spending on their defence will not remain a great power for long, and and the US is now at that point, as you mentioned.
00:20:38
Speaker
Well, the saving grace, this is where I'll ah'll break away from the esteem Ferguson, but you know, the, the difference is that the U S is the only country in the world that really successfully on a widespread basis, marries capital with innovation. There's good innovation everywhere in the world. There's bits of capital, you know, Saudi Arabia and variety has got lots of capital.
00:21:04
Speaker
But it's very hard to marry the two. And and you know it's really got to be a competitive market. And the US has that capacity to to create these incredible innovative companies.
00:21:18
Speaker
from Amazon, Google, and Facebook, and met up you know, and um Apple and all these companies. You can rattle off a dozen that didn't exist 30 years ago. Tesla, you know, the biggest car manufacturer in the world. And, you know, so you can, you can rattle off all those things. And I can tell you in 30 years time, the companies that are leading the world probably haven't been started yet.
Trump's Foreign Policy Speculations
00:21:47
Speaker
And they will come out of America. You know, there will be individual companies like a BYD or Alibaba or something that will come out of China or Japan or Europe, but, but, you know, they've failed to nourish in the way Americans do. So it's where America fails to get the capital it needs for that to to sponsor that innovation. Now, you know, the innovation in America really doesn't come from government.
00:22:15
Speaker
The innovation in America is really not funded by government. It's when government gets out of the way and you have lower taxes and less regulation that America is at its best. And that's, I think, part of the narrative from Musk in particular.
Resilience of Western Democracy
00:22:31
Speaker
And as long as the system is robust and you have a reasonable certainty with the rule of law and stability, then America will continue to innovate and then innovate aggressively.
00:22:45
Speaker
So if it does that, then it can keep funding until the point where it has to tax too much, or at the end of the day, it has rampant inflation. And I think higher inflation is more likely than the the suggestion that they're going to massively increase increased taxes. I mean, higher inflation is the greatest risk with Donald Trump, particularly off the bat.
00:23:07
Speaker
and Question on the politics of debt and deficit, because it feels like politicians, not just in the US, but in the UK and Australia, have just largely given up on it. It's too hard to convince the public. and This is a question I posed to your former colleague, John Anderson, not so long ago. and He made the observation, you do you think that the Howard government initially had a mandate to reduce spending, to reduce the deficit. Do you think it was something that was popular with the people? He said, not really. You had to go out, you had to make the case, you had to tell people why it's important, you had to go out, hit the payment and do that. And your government, Howard and Costello and Anderson did that very successfully. My question is,
00:23:48
Speaker
How have the people changed? Is that message now harder to sell or the politicians that we have in the current batch across the US, Australia, the yeah UK, no longer as good at telling a story about persuading as perhaps they once were? I think that the problem is that political leaders are less trusted today than they were When John and I were there in 1996, social media has changed everything. and yeah What it's done is made the voice of the critic much louder than the voice of the advocate. so When we went out to advocate for that massive tax change in Australia in 1997 for the 1998 election,
00:24:32
Speaker
To get information to, into the hands of people, we basically went to the newspapers and the TVs and we did lots of radio and then we'd do direct mail-outs. And then, you know, we fought for an election campaign and it really was an arm wrestle that 1998 election and we won, but we lost a lot of seats along the way.
00:24:56
Speaker
And we had the capacity to lose seats and still hold government. Today, Anthony Albanese can't lose it many seats at all. His majority was wafer thin. Donald Trump's majority is wafer thin.
00:25:11
Speaker
And so the appetite for reform when the the voice and and and and loudness of a no case or the voice of the critic is so powerful is much harder. In my view, we are now in an era where ah governments just need to get out of the way. The private sector will drive productivity growth.
00:25:33
Speaker
You know, it is a name for people to talk about, oh, government's got to deliver high productivity. Government's got to do this and do that. Stop with the answer being government. We've got to stop with that because it doesn't work anymore. Everyone got back into that slipstream of the government is the answer with COVID. You know, where there was just this assumption that government's going to protect me and government has all the answers and And it's true. Government said that. and And in some countries like Australia and Britain, they said, yeah, okay, we want the government to do that. In parts of the US, it was exactly the same. In other parts of the US, it was, no, just give me my freedom. I'll take care of myself. It varies from culture to culture. But the problem was after COVID, there wasn't a reckoning, you know, because government started not only being on the
00:26:24
Speaker
the the collection side, so the government traditionally has collected taxes and then spent where necessary, and then gradually got more and more into the regulation of everything from TV and gambling and alcohol distribution and so on, even distribution in newspapers. Now, as a result of COVID, government is on the income side. Don't worry, if you don't have any income, we'll give you income.
00:26:49
Speaker
So government is on all three angles. It regulates your business, it collects what you earn, and it gives you the money in the first place. And people thought, this is great. Hey, I don't even have to go to work. In fact, now I still have to, don't have to go into work. I work, but I don't even have to go and into an office.
00:27:11
Speaker
So there hasn't been a reckoning and that's yeah reckoning is always usually manifested itself in higher unemployment and we haven't had higher unemployment. Uh, and the irony is we've had higher interest rates and no higher unemployment. So all the traditional economic levers are not working and therefore we're not having the normal reaction to economic leaders, but there has to be a reckoning because at the end of the day, governments can't keep borrowing money.
00:27:40
Speaker
to spend. They can't keep printing money to spend. It either results in higher taxes or higher inflation now. They're close to the highest taxes they can go now. You go higher taxes now, you're not going to collect more money. You're just going to get it off a narrower base.
00:27:59
Speaker
So what do you end up with? Inflation, which at the end of the day, as we've learned through all these elections, higher inflation is deadly for the most vulnerable. For the lowest income people in our community, higher inflation is like a hidden tax. It's brutal and it's unfair and it's cruel and no one's worked out how to solve all that.
00:28:21
Speaker
I think there's two pieces here. Like I would argue, yes, we haven't had an economic correction, which has forced a changing mentality for how we think about the state. I would also argue that right wing governments, sorry, right wing parties in recent times have forgotten about Liberal ah liberalism and they've forgotten about how to argue for liberalism effectively. Particularly the case in the UK where I don't think the conservatives argued for it effectively over 14 years. I would argue in Australia at the moment I think probably the kind of classical liberal side of Menzies equation is not nearly as strongly argued for as as the social conservative side is now.
00:28:57
Speaker
How can right-wing parties reconnect with those values of individual freedom and liberty and classical liberalism in a way which for mine they're not doing at the moment?
00:29:08
Speaker
Well, Will, every great political movement in history has been a reaction to an event. you know And whether it's you know Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations, or um or any number of philosophies, the philosophy might be there, but there's always been a reaction to an event. Even the advent of um At least, for example, when they brought down a czar in Russia, they reacted with something sort of off the shelf in the form of communism that Marx and Engels had developed. And fascism was a reaction, arguably, to the demise of Germany and Weimar Republic. So, you know, everything in history tends to get its greatest momentum when it's a reaction to something that has occurred.
00:29:59
Speaker
You know, I think the coordination of the world economy through the G20 and, let's a degree, more political coordination through the G7 and the globalization of markets has meant that governments can react in a more nuanced way to events as they occur. And they can react in ah and a more measured way to economic events, black swan events, and also to political black swan events.
00:30:28
Speaker
And then they become more nuanced with their reaction. We can bumble along for a certain period of time, but there has to be a new way. And the new way has to focus again on getting empowerment from individuals in the community rather than telling them what's in their best interests.
00:30:49
Speaker
You will not win an election, let alone win the hearts and minds of the community. If you tell them what's good for them, you've got to take them with you. And that's very hard in this environment. It's very hard without a cataclysmic event that would cause it. So I don't know what that cataclysmic event is.
00:31:08
Speaker
All I can do is hope and pray that I've prepared my my family, my community for for that cataclysmic event. and The best best way to do that is make sure that you've got low debt. If you can, low debt and you've got a stable environment and that's pretty pretty challenging at any rate. Every generation has to have its challenges. i mean The greatest generation had two world wars in the Depression. The next generation, arguably part of mine had you know the uncertainty of Vietnam and a range of others. and Mate, you're a couple of generations after me, but you know every generation will find its challenges, and it's a question of how we deal with them.
00:31:50
Speaker
And the political movements will respond to that. That answer looked at some of the economic implications of globalisation, but there was of course cultural implications as well. And this is a segue into multiculturalism and immigration. Now, when I was growing up in Australia, multiculturalism was almost this quasi-religious belief. It was this, you know, just good thing that was not questioned.
00:32:13
Speaker
It was underpinned by increasingly I would say mass migration and that is obviously also the case in the UK and Europe except to an even greater extent. We're now seeing in the UK and Europe some of the social upheaval that has come as a result of those policies and some would argue in Australia you're starting to see that social fabric fray a bit as well as a result of those policies.
00:32:36
Speaker
do we need to reconsider how we think about multiculturalism in the west and then some of the mass migration and open border policies that have underpinned that multicultural ideology? Well the starting point is your immigration system needs to have the confidence of your people and in the US for example where 11 million people legally came across the border from Mexico over the last four years, including over 300,000 unaccompanied children. So children coming across and unaccompanied and 30,000 known convicted murderers come across. you know People just don't feel secure. And if you invite someone into your home,
00:33:24
Speaker
You want to feel that you're secure and safe. You don't want to invite people into your home that you don't know, have a history that you're unaware of. You want stability and safety and certainly I think what has completely rattled a whole lot of stable countries.
00:33:42
Speaker
is unsolicited, uninvited guests coming in. Now, all of us have, ah well, most most countries have a proud history of bringing in people that we know. And Australia, for example, has for many years, like Canada, had the highest per capita refugee program in the world. But we've invited them in, and we've provided a safe haven for them, and we've known their history.
00:34:11
Speaker
And that has helped to integrate where it falls apart is where bad eggs come in and cause harm to your families, to your community. And so America must control its borders. Europe needs to control its borders. If you're expanding the borders in Europe, you're no longer Italy, you're no longer France, but you Europe, yeah you know, someone needs to control the borders. And if you don't control the borders, you lose people.
00:34:40
Speaker
You lose your communities and then you do get, and when there is resentment and frustration in the community, naturally enough, new immigrants will gravitate to the protection of each other because they're finding that it's a hostile environment in which to enter.
00:34:56
Speaker
That's the first thing. The second thing is, i you know I'm all for you know immigrants that are talented and and and wealthy and well-educated, but I also want immigrants that are going to work on a building site and are going to go to the pub after work, and they're going to learn about a football team, and they're going to share with an Aussie or a Brit, their love of Indian food if they're Indian, or their love of Lebanese food if they're Lebanese. And that immigrant will also learn about what Britain or Australia or the US is really like. So when my father came in on the 3rd of September 1948 as a refugee from Palestine,
00:35:41
Speaker
He went and set up a small business and he made, he had to make Delicatessen. So he had to learn to engage with the Australians coming into his Delicatessen at Bondi Beach. That's why my firm's called Bondi. It started there, right? And and that's where one of the people that came in, thankfully was my mum, at Bondi Beach. anglos And um you know, that, that's the fabric where every part of the community embraces it, but most importantly, the immigrant embraces it. And where it falls apart is when you have ghettos and when you have people that don't want to be there.
00:36:20
Speaker
And when you have, you know, where every doctor is one culture, every doctor in our community and is is is, you know, ah ah an Asian that studied at Australian university and drives a big Mercedes Benz and has lots of money and buys the biggest house in the suburb. That, you know, that, that's a stereotype, but it's the one that does not work.
00:36:48
Speaker
We need to have diversity across professions and diversity across interests. And by the way, the Asian community in Australia has been there a lot longer than I have or my family has. And we can't let stereotypes like I talked about become mainstream.
00:37:08
Speaker
Well, the elephant in the room in this conversation is that multiculturalism has been incredibly successful for most of the 20th century in Australia. You had kind of people coming from Asia, you had people coming from from the United Kingdom. We have seen those demographics change both in Australia and the UK.
00:37:31
Speaker
And you have more people coming from ah traditionally Islamic countries. The question that I have is, is multiculturalism still, ho can it still work when you have people coming from cultures which may not share the same values as a Western liberal democracy? It can work, but it can't become a majority viewer. It can't become a disproportionate viewer.
00:37:55
Speaker
You know, if, if your tribe, it's one thing for your tribe, and I'm talking about, you know, tribe Australia. If you take tribe, you know, the tribe in Australia, and we have our culture, we have our values. We're, we're, we're, we're not immovable in our ways, but we also have our ways and our traditions. And if you invite someone into your home, they should respect those traditions.
00:38:23
Speaker
I don't even mind them arguing against those traditions or arguing for change, but the change has to be better. And we'll make a decision about whether that change is better or not. Not someone who's just appeared on the scene. And I think it's very, very hard to to get the balance right. I think you've just got to make sure that people don't feel overwhelmed anywhere. It's an issue for every community around the world.
00:38:52
Speaker
Except Japan where they don't have any immigrants really, but they're declining population as like China, a declining population. And they're not particularly tolerant of view immigrants either. So I think there's a balancing act because the one thing I do say in defense of multiculturalism, there's a few I could, but in defense of multiculturalism, it makes us more tolerant. And I think that has made the world a safer place.
00:39:17
Speaker
So all of a sudden, you know the stereotype that I talked about before is not every day. I love it when I see you know a an Asian Australian with a broad Australian accent.
00:39:32
Speaker
and i might how i and ah i just It's just so disarming and I love it because that's what Australia is about. I mean, it's diversity of population. It's how we behave to each other that makes us and treat each other that makes us Australians, not the colour of our skin or or our heritage. Let's turn to environmental policy. So we are chatting in London at the moment, UK and Australia actually increasingly feel like outliers and that they are still going headfirst towards this net zero policy. Both countries can't make meaningful differences to the global climate, so it is
00:40:12
Speaker
you can argue a symbolic policy and it's costing a bucket load of money for both economies. yeah UK energy is incredibly expensive compared to the US and indeed the rest of Europe as well. Is it time for countries like the UK and Australia to ditch net zero in absence of now the US taking global leadership ah in that space? I think again it's a balancing act and I don't think, you know,
00:40:40
Speaker
I mean, the more you can you can invest in technology, the better. We've got to be very careful about creating false gods. And if if there's no pathway to net zero, then accept it and find other solutions. My my view about climate change is Look, the majority view around the world is it's real and I'm not a scientist, but I can and sense it's real. And I've been part of this debate in Australia, oh God, now 20, 24 years, I think it's been going on as as long as I can remember in that sense. And, you know, we've got an obligation to to to move towards net zero, but the question is, how do you get there? and
00:41:28
Speaker
I think you know the Peter Dutton's suggestion about nuclear energy is a no-brainer. In America, at a democratic convention that I went to, the leaders of the Democratic Party ah are talking about the reality of small nuclear reactors because they're the only thing that's going to power power the AI revolution and power all these you know these massive demands.
00:41:53
Speaker
for ah for for data storage, right? So the only way they can get there is with small nuclear reactors over the longer term. And yet somehow in Australia we think we're going to build windmills and solar panels to make demand. And I see that rightly, you know, these wind turbine companies are pulling out everywhere around Australia.
00:42:18
Speaker
So it seems like the renewables program in Australia is a disaster. I mean, and when I was there, I heard, this is on the ABC, so I can't force anything, but you know, I heard that basically in order to meet our renewables target in Australia, every foreshadowed program or project needs to be delivered on time and on budget but between now and is it 2050?
00:42:45
Speaker
and And then a vast proportion of them, I separately heard on the ABC as well, that a vast proportion of them are on um on land that needs indigenous approval. So I ah don't know how both of those are going to marry together, but it makes the zero emissions target or current targets pretty unrealizable. So what's the next step? Well, the next step is undoubtedly, you know, increase the amount of gas.
00:43:14
Speaker
that we have vast amounts in and and certainly in you know invest in nuclear technology, small nuclear reactors. I don't know what other options there are. I'm rapidly running out of time, so I'm going to get you to solve the world's geopolitical challenges in under 10 minutes. things China and Taiwan. How likely is it that China will make some sort of a move on Taiwan in this Trump administration for the next four years? Economic blockade or military?
00:43:42
Speaker
less likely now than it was if Harris had a been elected. Why so? Harris was unproven on international policy and people always test a new president in one form or another as they did Obama as every president. And Trump's not for testing. And his volatility and his lack of predictability are not the friends of people behaving in a volatile, unpredictable fashion.
00:44:11
Speaker
My understanding is that Xi has instructed his generals to be ready by, I think, 2027. Yeah, and that's long standing, that's right. But, you know, a full kinetic invasion of Taiwan is highly, highly improbable. But, you know, there could be a Python squeeze in the form of trade embargoes and and mass cyber attacks and so on. And if Xi raises the temperature, I think the US will respond. Not particularly Trump, but the US Congress is very, very, the US Congress is further leaning, forward leaning on defending Taiwan than any of the presidents, either Biden or Trump. So I can say to you, and the US Congress would not tolerate Chinese invasion at all. On Ukraine, Trump said he'll sort it out in a day. We'll hit.
00:45:01
Speaker
Well, I mean, the fact that, you know, I was assuming that first day is, you know, after the inauguration in January, but certainly there's a lot of activity going on at the moment and it's a meat grinder. I mean, 1500, 2000 men are dying a day on that front for, you know, I think the last I heard is after a year of fighting and, you know, four or 500,000 deaths, the total game by the, um,
00:45:28
Speaker
by the Russians is a net one mile. I mean, seriously, for the sake of humanity, we need a solution fast. And this is also an area that's had a lot of history and there's a lot of deep set emotions, but ah the status quo does not work. And the third hot zone to discuss is the Middle East. How does Middle East regional geopolitics change as a result of an incoming Trump administration?
00:45:54
Speaker
Well, there's no ambiguity about Trump's support for Netanyahu and Israel, but also I think Saudi Arabia is is very close to Donald Trump. And, you know, my, my guesstimate is that Israel will be sorely tempted to totally decapitate Iran's ability to fund and support Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as its own ambitions outside of Iran and potentially its nuclear ambitions. Secondly, if that's the case, and Hamas and Hezbollah are decapitated,
00:46:32
Speaker
Then there's room for Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and others to go in and rebuild Gaza, the West Bank, and potentially Lebanon off the back of a nearly signed Abraham Accord, which has been, you know, mooted for a while and which was initiated under Donald Trump. And in exchange, I think the US will give security guarantees.
00:46:56
Speaker
to those countries that go in and help rebuild. All the while, basically, you know after all these years, perhaps even giving Palestinians the opportunity to have a ah decent quality of life and a stable government. They're only radicalized because they have no hope for the future and they've had no hope for the future because they've had a leadership, whether theyre under Arafat or anyone else, that is just you know more focused on the war than focused on living, lifting quality of life for their people.
00:47:25
Speaker
My final question on the small matter of the future of Western civilization. There's been this self-loathing instinct amongst several Western countries for some time now. Some people have seen the Trump vote as a sign that maybe things will turn around. How confident are you about the future of the West? Very confident. Very confident. In fact, arguably never more confident. And why? Because our institutions are robust. We get it right. At the end of the day,
00:47:56
Speaker
You know, at the end of the day, day we get there. Our quality of life is better than what our parents had, and their quality of life is even better. We just need to be sure that there's a pathway going forward. And the only pathway, mate, the only pathway I'm backing is freedom and democracy, enterprise and and and community.
00:48:19
Speaker
I'm not backing communism, I'm not backing authoritarianism, or socialism, or any otherism that seems to be about taking away from people, not giving people what they need and what they want. and you know Marry that with innovation and and capital and you know, a deep desire. When people are prosperous, when they're doing well, they actually have a deep desire to keep going. When they're missing out, that's when they lash out. They want more. And, you know, I, I, look, some of the narratives that have been written about Trump are absolutely absurd. I mean, Peter Archer in the Herald and the Age wrote that it was sort of the end of democracy. I mean, what utter crap.
00:49:10
Speaker
It actually was democracy at work with Trump's election. I mean, ah you know, you might not agree with him. I'm not an apologist with Donald Trump under any circumstances, but actually he was voted in, then it was voted out and then he was voted in again. Actually that's what democracy looks like, you know? And when he was voted out, even though he complained and winched and so on, he was voted out. He left.
00:49:37
Speaker
And Joe Biden had a majority in both chambers and away he went. So, you know, like it works. You might not like it, but it works. joe Thanks for coming on Fire at Will. Thanks Will. Thanks for listening to this episode of Fire at Will. If you enjoyed the show, why not consider a subscription to The Spectator Australia. The magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivalled books and arts reviews. A subscription gets you all of the content from the British edition of the magazine, as well as the best Australian political commentary
00:50:13
Speaker
Subscribe today for just $2 a week for a year. No, I'm not joking. $2 a week for an entire year. A link is in the show notes.