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BONUS: An uninspiring choice, with Andrew Bolt
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Earlier this week, Will interviewed journalist Andrew Bolt for the UK edition of The Spectator on the upcoming Australian election. The conversation went beyond politics to a fascinating reflection on modern Australia. Listen here, or you can watch the interview on Spectator TV here.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Spectator TV. My name is Will Kingston. I host Fire at Will, a podcast from the Australian edition of The Spectator on politics and culture.
Election Choices in Australia
00:00:14
Speaker
Australians go to the polls this weekend. In this commentator's opinion, it is an uninspiring choice. The centre-left Labor government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has underwhelmed.
00:00:28
Speaker
But at the same time, the centre-right coalition, which includes the Liberal Party and the National Party, is struggling to convince enough voters that they should become the first opposition in almost 100 years to replace a first-term government.
Discussion with Andrew Bolt
00:00:46
Speaker
To help me understand the choice that Australians face this weekend, I am delighted to be joined by a titan of Australian journalism, the host of the Bolt Report on Sky News Australia, Andrew Bolt.
00:01:01
Speaker
Andrew, let's set the scene for viewers. The Albanese or the centre-left Albanese government was elected in 2022 following a long period of coalition rule, which even conservatives, I think, would concede was mixed at best.
Government vs. Opposition Performance
00:01:18
Speaker
In fact, I think UK viewers would notice some similarities with the recent change in government in the United Kingdom. How has the Albanese government done?
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, this is a remarkable election because it's between a government that that couldn't govern and an opposition that can't run campaigns. And unfortunately, I think the inability to run a campaign counts for more than the inability to run a country for three years. i mean, living standards have fallen.
00:01:47
Speaker
ah The electricity system has got worse. The military has been stripped down a time of high international tension. It's just been incompetent. It's ah let out hundreds and hundreds of illegal immigrants when the the high court said you couldn't keep them indefinitely if they didn't want to go home to countries that wouldn't accept them if they didn't.
00:02:08
Speaker
It turned out many were criminals, including rapists and murderers. So really, what more do you have to do to disqualify yourself from getting
National Identity and Global Trends
00:02:16
Speaker
re-elected? And yet here we are. And again, to put this in a global context, so many of those issues that you just mentioned are issues that are common across Europe, the United Kingdom and and America.
00:02:29
Speaker
ah As a, I guess, a question to zoom out before we look at the nitty gritty of those policy issues, what has this campaign revealed about Australia in 2025 in your eyes?
00:02:44
Speaker
A couple of things. One is It's been extraordinary how issues that appeal to the mass, to things like national pride, national strength, national identity, have been almost totally, totally absent.
00:03:00
Speaker
The coalition, which normally the Liberals would normally pride themselves, for instance, on being strong on defence, particularly now. mean, why wouldn't you talk about defence now?
00:03:11
Speaker
and when you're headed by a guy who looks alarmingly stern, so, you play to his strengths. They didn't reveal their defence policy until a week and half before polling day. And even then it was shown of all details about where they'd spend the extra money they were pricing. So that's quite extraordinary.
00:03:28
Speaker
And to me, it goes to one of the remarkable and I think challenging things about Australia. It's not just that this government has in the last two years and a bit, let in an extraordinary one million immigrants, one million at a rate unprecedented in the West.
00:03:50
Speaker
a But that tops off a whole period of extreme mass immigration to the point where one third of voters in Australia were born overseas.
00:04:04
Speaker
At a time too, when we are preaching that the West is evil, Australia particularly evil apparently, you know, genocidal, racist, theft of land, we're living in stolen land. is a This is quite common now.
00:04:19
Speaker
So the politicians are going around not with a national message because there is no us. There is no we. There is no Australia that you can assume everyone was subscribed to. And they're going around to particular constituency, including constituencies of gender, ethnicity, class or whatever.
00:04:42
Speaker
and promising though those particular people without any regard for national interest, almost no regard for national interest considerations.
Media Influence and Campaign Dynamics
00:04:49
Speaker
So you end up with a shopping bag of various policies that might beggar the rest of the country, but appeal to a key a constituency that they want to win.
00:05:00
Speaker
That is one thing that has really, really struck me. And the other is that we live in a post-truth world. It's remarkable to me that journalists, particularly of the left, and you know most journalists are of the left, um would do frantically fact-check Donald Trump.
00:05:20
Speaker
He couldn't move. He couldn't give a speech without fact-check, fact-check almost every news organisation. And half the fact-cheeks were false anyway. They were themselves fact-free. But here we have a an election campaign built centrally on lies. The Labour Party, which has led Australia for three years disastrously,
00:05:41
Speaker
has campaigned completely on a make-believe world. There is no wider Chinese threat. ah what Russia didn't really yeah ask Indonesia for a military base, an Air Force base, just off our north coast. They did, but they pretend they didn't.
00:05:56
Speaker
And instead, they fixated on there being a mythical... $600 billion dollars plan for nuclear reactors, the real cost of government the opposition nuclear reactors is a fifth of that.
00:06:11
Speaker
They would cost $600 billion, and to pay for them, the opposition would have to have secret cuts to Medicare. Well, there are no secret cuts. It doesn't cost that much, but that has been the central issue, apart from one other factor, Donald Trump.
00:06:28
Speaker
He's done to Australia, I think, what he did to Canada. Yeah, well, let's pick up on that because there is an interesting similarity with Canada. The Canadian Conservative Party looked for all money like they were going to win that election before Donald Trump started talking about the 51st state.
00:06:44
Speaker
Similarly, ah Peter Dutton was leading in the polls until relatively recently, last couple of months. There's been a shift and it's been a dramatic shift to the point now where I believe two days out ah the... the the ah The gambling markets are saying that the Liberal Party or the coalition, I should say, is about at $8.
00:07:03
Speaker
ah Talk to me about the Trump effect on the Australian election and how decisive do you think it has been relative to some of the other factors that we can we can throw into the mix? Well, if you ever at the polls, the average of the main polls, you'll see that the four months ago, the Liberal National Conservative sort of Liberal but Coalition, the Coalition, were ahead of foot the ruling Labor Party. They were ahead.
00:07:31
Speaker
That was four months ago. And then when you look at them, you will see almost to the day that Trump was sworn in, literally, At that time, the pulse started to decline, and it's been steady since.
00:07:44
Speaker
Now, obviously, Trump hasn't done to Australia what he's done quite to Canada. But, I mean, you're looking here you're saying and seeing him hitting us with tariffs, for instance. We actually run a, you know, we actually buy much more American stuff than we sell, so we should be the good guys. We had a free trade agreement. Throw that to the wind.
00:08:03
Speaker
But nevertheless, you see a guy that's threatened to even invade Greenland, for instance. I mean, can you believe ah carrying on like a pork chop the insulting of Ukrainian President Zelensky, what he's done to Canada.
00:08:20
Speaker
And Labor actually ran a very deliberate campaign, ads... e quips all the time that the Peter Dutton was ah patsy for Donald Trump. He wouldn't stand up to him. He would sell Australia out. In fact, was a bit of a Trump himself, borrowing ideas from America. They ran that ran that to the point where the latest poll just today by the Red Bridge group. Now, i've got yeah Red Bridge, there's many poles polling groups, so guess you know pick the one that you want your answer from.
00:08:51
Speaker
But they said, they asked people, what is the issue that is most likely to make you vote against someone? Either the Prime
Economic Challenges and Campaign Focus
00:09:01
Speaker
Minister, Anthony Albanese, Opposition, Peter Dutton.
00:09:04
Speaker
And number one was how they'll deal with Donald Trump. Number one.
00:09:11
Speaker
That's really interesting. And again, particularly given that there are so many challenges that Australia faces at the moment, economic when it comes to cost of living. ah You mentioned the mass migration challenge, which again, many listeners and viewers in the UK will be well aware of, and the geopolitical problems, obviously. The fact that that comes out the top ah really is astonishing to me.
00:09:34
Speaker
Oh, it is. I mean, When you think, this goes back to the first point I made about there being no we anymore. It's also an action that is marked by a torrent of spending from both sides. I mean, more from labour, obviously.
00:09:50
Speaker
Now, you think that we actually now live, we've got very low unemployment. We have got growth. It's not strong, but we have got growth.
00:10:02
Speaker
you would and we've got had very good prices for our mineral exports, our main exports. You would think that in such a time, you should be running surpluses to pay off this trillion-dollar debt that we're going to have as of next year. Trillion dollars for a country this size.
00:10:19
Speaker
That's huge. But, in fact, the government is positing ah decade at least of deficits every year, plus that trillion-dollar debt, which would go higher.
00:10:30
Speaker
That's not an issue. Now normally in a healthy electorate, the liberals, the very conservatives, or at least we care for the books, we make the figures that up, you think they could profit from it.
00:10:45
Speaker
But it seems now that you can offer a constituency, any handout you like, including university students, privileged university students, we will pay 20% of your tertiary debt, right? Privileged kids,
00:11:02
Speaker
They signed up for it. We shouldn't be had bailing them out when you've poor people on the streets virtually, where people can't afford to pay. We had a survey. We had Coles, main one of our two main supermarket chains, actually say yesterday, people are now going without meat two times a week because they can't afford it.
00:11:23
Speaker
You would think that could add up, but here's the thing. You've now got people saying, Give me a handout, what's mine, and bugger who else has to pay for it. Australia likes so many, and we will get to the to policy by policy issues, but I think what you're almost getting at is that the policy in some respects is almost less relevant to in the decisions that many Australians are making in this campaign.
00:11:47
Speaker
With respect to ah debt and deficit, this is a conversation that is common across the West, and it seems like politicians increasingly have no interest in dealing with structural debt and deficit, and Australia is no different.
00:12:02
Speaker
Do we now, are we reaching a point where the country almost will have to have some form of economic catastrophe in order for the debt and deficit problem to be addressed?
00:12:15
Speaker
And even then, I wonder. I mean, we are so fragmented now. ah We really are little, you know, all little silos asking, where's mine?
00:12:26
Speaker
and Debt is something that someone else pays off. You can complain about the politicians, but they operate in a cultural space allowed to them allowed them by voters and journalists. So if a journalists don't care, then why should a politician?
00:12:40
Speaker
ah On the nitty-gritty of the campaign, this is a two-part question. Let's take them one by one. ah The two questions will be... what issues is ah what issues is the campaign being fought on?
00:12:54
Speaker
And then I think almost the more in quest important secondary question is what issues should the campaign
Political Vision and Media Bias
00:12:59
Speaker
be being fought on? But let's start with what what are the decisive issues that have been been addressed by both leaders during this campaign?
00:13:07
Speaker
The issues that have been addressed, well, Labor's going on this mythical, like i said, they're going on a completely mythical fantasy world where everything can be free, and free healthcare, care free this, free that, cuts to your student debt, and there's a money tree, or who cares? It's just what you deserve.
00:13:28
Speaker
And those wicked, wicked liberals are going to come up and tear up Medicare. Well, they've never promised that. They're making it spend a dollar for dollar. So it's totally mythical. It is absolutely mythical.
00:13:40
Speaker
We're talking about a low information ah voter cohort. They don't care, it seems to me, about the fact that the Prime Minister can lie, lie, lie. And today he was caught up in that lie. He was confronted finally in a radio station studio by unexpectedly by guy called out his $600 billion dollars nuclear reactor plan lie.
00:14:05
Speaker
And he just laughed. He laughed. He was just joking away. i mean, there's no shame. so You know, that's what they're trying to address as for the ah coalition.
00:14:17
Speaker
You know, they're just trying to do an outbid. I guess your tax cuts are going to cut the tax off petrol, right? You know, so nothing, nothing. It's been nothing.
00:14:28
Speaker
this is This is exactly the point. I think that's a really good insight in that the lack of vision, I think, from Labour is bad. But equally, the coalition, in order to win, I think, have to present a bold vision for the future.
00:14:42
Speaker
the A first-term government in Australia has not been booted out in almost 100 years. And the last time it happened was straight after or in the midst of. the Great Depression. Australians almost always give first-term governments a second crack.
00:14:56
Speaker
So I would have thought the Liberal and National parties, collectively the Coalition, needed to take a bit of a punt and offer a really bold vision for the future. Is it fair to say that Peter Dutton has failed to do so?
00:15:10
Speaker
Well, he started to approach it All last year and the year before, he said no to the Racial Division of Australia, a referendum to create an Aboriginal-only advisory parliament in our constitution, effectively dividing Australians by race. Peter Dutton argued against it, and it went from 60% support to 40% support, and he won.
00:15:35
Speaker
And the government looked shattered. So did do that. He also i promised to build... seven nuclear reactors. and Now, look, you might say he should have confronted the global warming scare by done to Tony Blair, but he didn't.
00:15:51
Speaker
He just said they're a bit the the only way to achieve it is by going nuclear, which is true. If you want zero emissions, that's what you have to do. Otherwise, you end up with Spain or Portugal this week, going to the black.
00:16:06
Speaker
So he did all that. And then as soon as Donald Trump was sworn in, he gave up fighting for these things. It's so extraordinary. I mean, promising nuclear power in a country as superstitious about nuclear, as Australia has been, is quite brave.
00:16:23
Speaker
But you've got to argue for it. And it's to the point he was so, he's been so scared of even arguing for it, he deep-sitched this energy minister, that today on radio, when asked about the nuclear reactors, he said it wasn't a major issue. It wasn't a major issue.
00:16:43
Speaker
You know, i was so far in the future, most traders didn't worry about it. fact, you know, it's about number two in their list of very specific concerns about that would force them to change their vote. Number two, that's how scared he was even now of arguing for a policy that he actually was arguing for last year.
00:17:02
Speaker
And what happens then? People think you're not serious. You're just a dilettante. You're just throwing out thought bubbles. You won't stick by them. And that has just been disastrous for this campaign.
00:17:16
Speaker
We'll continue on environmental policy, but allow me to detour on this con on this notion of political courage because I'm interested in your thoughts on it. I spoke with former Prime Minister John Howard earlier in the week. He was known as a conviction politician, perhaps one of the last conviction politicians.
00:17:32
Speaker
It doesn't feel like in Australian politics more generally, and you can say this of Albanese, you can say this of Dutton, I think you can say it of pretty much every, well, of every Prime Minister since Howard who left office in 2007 or 2008.
00:17:45
Speaker
seven or right seven seven Why is there a lack of political courage structurally in Australian politics today? Is it harder to be a conviction politician? Have we just been unlucky with a bad crop?
00:17:57
Speaker
What's going on? Well, it depends what your convictions are. Now, if you're a conservative, it is harder, I think. and You're facing a media peck, whatever country you're in, that tends to lean left.
00:18:11
Speaker
And you know Australia is particularly strong here. That's one thing. You've got the social media effect, where the loudest voices do tend to be on the left. You've got the Greek chorus, where the left has got that. i mean, it's a party that appeals the collectivists, so obviously it's going to get a collectivist response, whereas a party that rep appeals to individuals does not.
00:18:32
Speaker
So for all those reasons, and then there are problems with the Liberal Party itself. I mean, maybe nine years in office made them lazy. but also the global warming issue. they There was a very strong move for many years that it was best not to challenge, just go along with it because you'd be destroyed.
00:18:52
Speaker
You'd be called the climate denier and all that kind of stuff. And they got lazy and timid about arguing for their policies, and they didn't even know what their policies were. ah They couldn't agree on them.
00:19:05
Speaker
This is a real problem. So we can criticise Peter Dutton, the Liberal leader, all we like, But for him, hurting his party through some of these issues is like, you know, hurting cats through a dog pound. It's just very, very difficult.
Immigration and Multiculturalism Impact
00:19:21
Speaker
It's trying to keep your party together.
00:19:23
Speaker
i mean, the conservatives in Britain have faced something similar, but I think it's probably even worse here. you know, when you talk about courage of leaders, it's all very well...
00:19:36
Speaker
but they are only allowed to be so courageous before they're destroyed even by their own. And that's that's the issue. It's not like Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump's a force of nature, cetera, et cetera.
00:19:50
Speaker
But as a president, you're not quite as beholden to colleagues as you are in a Western system as a leader of a party. And that really does weaken you.
00:20:03
Speaker
Let's turn to an issue that you flagged earlier, and that was on mass migration and the broader question of multiculturalism in Australia. I think British viewers would be shocked to hear that potentially the the levels of mass migration, at least on a per capita basis in Australia, are even worse than they are in the UK.
00:20:24
Speaker
And and the potentially the cultural divisions that are starting to emerge as a result of multiculturalism ah are also just as pronounced, if not more so.
00:20:35
Speaker
How have both sides of the of this, how has the Labor Party and how has the coalition approached this issue? Well, it's really quite extraordinary. i mean, the Liberals were burned, the coalition, including the National Party, the farmers, you know, the rural sort of party.
00:20:53
Speaker
They were burned at the last election. ah They had stood up to China, and you would think, you liberal democracy should stand up to China. China actually imposed massive trade bans and a ban on even visits from, and calls from Prime Minister, from our Prime Minister and other ministers because they stood up for human rights, including human rights in Xinjiang and in Hong Kong.
00:21:20
Speaker
They are quite, you respectable causes. And ah they also said, our Prime Minister then also said, that China should have an investigation into the origins of the COVID thing. I mean, we had, know, thousands thousands of Australians die. I would have thought that's quite a reasonable ask.
00:21:38
Speaker
Well, we were put in the deep freeze. And by doing this, at the last election, the coalition, the swing against the coalition, was twice as much in seats with big Chinese people minorities than it was elsewhere, twice as much.
00:21:57
Speaker
So in this election, the Liberals have barely mentioned China by name.
00:22:05
Speaker
That may be one reason why they delayed their defence ah commitments, their policy until a week and a half before election day, because why would you build up the military if it wasn't because of, we can't mention China?
00:22:18
Speaker
And also from the Labor side, they have canvassed very heavily the Muslim vote. It's outraged, of course, the Jewish minority, but Muslims in this country outnumber Jews eight to one, and they're also very tightly concentrated in some seats. So you win that, you you win them, you win the seat.
00:22:40
Speaker
And you've seen that very, very much. and To the point, to the point where... We have a how to vote card preference system and like Britain, as you know.
00:22:51
Speaker
ah So you say, if you don't vote for me, here's your second vote to this person, third to that, so you know, the last person on your list is the one you hate most. Jason Clare, the education minister, has picked the system but as as his second preference, if you don't want me, vote for this guy, or after me, vote for this guy, a Greens candidate who is a Muslim, who is a pro-Palestine radical,
00:23:18
Speaker
and a poet, as lyrics include, flicked the throat throat to the country, who defended Hamas, the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, as something they'd been forced to do forced to do And it was the greatest success they had had.
00:23:38
Speaker
And this guy gets the preferences of a Labor minister In a seat, by the way, where 35% of the voters are Muslim.
00:23:51
Speaker
It's affecting our politics very much. Yeah, let's let's let's explore that because as you know in the UK there is increasing concern about the rise of Islamic sectarian politics.
00:24:06
Speaker
We've seen in council elections for example, ah councillors being elected in and yelling Allahu Akbar at their ah at their miss so audiences after they were elected.
00:24:18
Speaker
This is increasingly becoming an issue within Westminster. ah I also am conscious that Australia has a compulsory voting system. That means I think that i thing that ah one bulwark against that sort of sectarian voting because you can't it's not as simple as as getting one Islamic voting bloc or religious voting bloc and bringing them in.
00:24:39
Speaker
um how How concerned are you about the rise of sectarian Islamic politics in Australia? we're probably further from where you are with our Britain is, where first-past-the-post system, where you have had radical Muslim leaders representatives selected. um But that said, you know, we're at that curve where things go from too few to worry about to too many to confront very, very fast in politics, very fast.
00:25:17
Speaker
And we have had this election for the first time, Muslim pressure groups set up specifically to promote Muslim candidates. And and one actually was backed by a Victorian Turkish Alliance group, which said, back this Muslim, this one, a Labour candidate, because he is Muslim and quote, Muslims know best.
00:25:44
Speaker
Now, It might not have a direct effect and get in terms of getting specifically Muslim candidates selected that otherwise wouldn't it be.
Influence of Minor Parties and Culture Wars
00:25:54
Speaker
But two things.
00:25:56
Speaker
One, you can see the effect on Labor and particularly the Greens party, which is 11% the vote. chasing that vote, radicalising themselves.
00:26:07
Speaker
The Greens have turned from a party of cuddling koalas and saving kangaroos to a party that is pro-Palestine, in fact, and very, very anti-Israel. In fact, they had a big billboard in one seat, which has got a heavy...
00:26:23
Speaker
Muslim minority in Melbourne which said free Palestine. Nothing to do with Australia, nothing do with cost of living, nothing do with national interest, nothing. Free Palestine.
00:26:34
Speaker
I mean, that's extraordinary. So it has that effect of radicalising the left, parties of the left. But the other thing is... It also radicalizes other constituencies. We have now neo-Nazis coming as a so you know to every action. There's an equal opposite reaction.
00:26:53
Speaker
We're now getting neo-Nazis. They had group of them just yesterday in a very liberal once very liberal seat held by prime ministers and treasurers or whatever and in Melbourne.
00:27:08
Speaker
In that seat, Yesterday you had a group of guys, neo-Nazis, dressing up like Hasidic Jews with false beards and a docket liberal insignia with Star of Davids on it ah saying, oh, you know, we're in the pockets of Israel and that's great. you know, we've to be sad. It was just disgusting.
00:27:29
Speaker
I've never seen that before. So that's radicalising. And in total, it is all part of what I said before, this atomising Australia, where there is no national interest, there is only sectarian interest, a zero-sum game, where's mine?
00:27:44
Speaker
I'm against what you've got. If he's got something, I want even better. That is what we see. And of course there's also the, it opens the space for a populist or more populist right-wing alternative.
00:27:57
Speaker
And this brings me to one of the more interesting subplots of this election, which is the One Nation Party led by one of, I think, the most interesting figures in modern Australian political history, Pauline Hanson.
00:28:08
Speaker
ah It's not a perfect comparison, but she is in the same ballpark as figures like Farage and and Donald Trump. She's been in the Australian political ecosystem since 1996.
00:28:21
Speaker
Her party is on track to win something like 8 to 10% of the vote. ah Explain to me the phenomena of Pauline Hanson and and how she fits into this broader story. Well, Pauline is a really fascinating character. I mean, she's made many missteps, but I like her guts. I think the people that support her do like her guts. yet More what's been done to her than what she's done herself.
00:28:45
Speaker
Because what's been done to her, she first got up in Parliament, someone who'd run efficient chip shops being a been a councillor for a little while, gets into Parliament. ah She was running as a Liberal candidate.
00:28:56
Speaker
They saw her views about immigration, was so horrified they threw her out. Too late, she was really on the ballot, got elected, sat as an independent. She gave a speech saying, there are too many Asians. well, it all hit the roof and blah, blah, and she became enemy number one. and and But it essentially was saying there's too many immigrants, really, and too much wealth of culture. I didn't it prove appreciate how she put it.
00:29:18
Speaker
as I didn't appreciate some of these so-called facts she had, but she was on to something. This this was in 1996.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yes, and she was persecuted. She was even thrown in jail and trumped up charges. It was such an abortion of justice that she was later freed on appeal. But, I mean, that is traumatising for her mother, you know.
00:29:40
Speaker
ah And she's just stayed on, staying on. But now, as you say, 8% the vote, considering that the media still treats her like trash, and for a long while it was seen as, oh, look, the Liberals, they had to put a last on their list, you know.
00:29:55
Speaker
Apparently Hamas loving Greens, that's not too bad, but you've got to put One Nation last on the list because they fly the Australian flag. But this election, the Liberals quietly made deals that favoured her party in various ways, but also that 8% vote, now whether it translates to the actual vote on election day, who knows.
00:30:17
Speaker
But compared to the same time before their last election, that is more than double the vote. At the same time that Labor has the historic lows for its primary vote, not the two-party preferred, but the primary vote, and the Liberals down on nearly record lows with their primary vote, they can and only command the loyalty each a third of the voting public.
00:30:41
Speaker
8% vote. That's pretty good.
00:30:45
Speaker
Let's turn to the broader culture and the culture wars. They obviously played a big part in, well, they played a part in the election of Donald Trump. And we've heard a lot about the subsequent vibe shift in America around the culture.
00:30:59
Speaker
There has been in the UK recently a shift when it comes to gender ideology specifically, spurred by the recent decision in the Supreme Court. ah Have the culture wars played a role in this campaign?
International Relations and Senate Challenges
00:31:11
Speaker
Yes, by scaring the Liberals off fighting them. They fought them last year. This time, for instance, and the verdict of the British Supreme Court that a woman was someone born a woman, not born a man.
00:31:30
Speaker
You would have thought normal times, that would have some impact, that would encourage some conservative politicians in Australia to say the facts themselves. Say, what a biological fact, except for millennia.
00:31:45
Speaker
But Peter Dutton, the Liberal leader, was too scared to get involved. He didn't even get involved in that. He might have last year, he didn't this. And this is the Trump effect that is seems to have delegitimised pursuing some of these issues, they'd now say oh, you're just doing a Trump.
00:32:04
Speaker
You're importing ideas from overseas. You know, you're a Trump. If you've been strong enough before, if you had a strong enough personality now, you might get away with it.
00:32:15
Speaker
But I think Donald Trump has been so radical and so shocking so many people, it is very, very hard to do it now. i mean, Pierre Polyev is someone who seemed to have, know, quite the gift of the gap and...
00:32:30
Speaker
didn't lack courage in putting his point of view, he was swept away. And if he was swept away, i mean, obviously, Canada was hit harder by Trump than anyone else, but you can imagine. And, you know, that's the thing about Nigel Farage.
00:32:44
Speaker
He has escaped this, but he was lucky in a sense that Elon Musk unfairly
00:32:53
Speaker
yeah yeah could declared war on him so he was unworthy leader, should step aside, blah, blah, it was no good. And but that was like taking on Trump by proxy, really, to resist what Elon Musk had said.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I think they sent him to power of good. I hadn't considered that, actually, how that may have been a blessing in disguise for Farage, but that's a really good point. ah The final broader area of policy before we get your thoughts in aggregate on what is a ah ah pretty dispiriting story, if you have any interest in in the future of Australia, I would suggest, and that is Australia's place in the world, defence, and particularly ah the fact that we are a critical player in the Pacific.
00:33:36
Speaker
ah What has been the approach of both the parties on international affairs and specifically ah defence issues when it comes to to China and the Pacific?
00:33:47
Speaker
Look, both sides are scared of China, but neither now really, well, certainly the Labor Party doesn't dare say so. In fact, the Labor Party is priding itself for making us even more dependent on China by yeah hill It held Australia being punished by trade bans from China as a mark of failure by the previous government.
00:34:13
Speaker
It did not question of, well, that's the price of standing up for our values. It's like, how do you lose all that money and we are going to restore it? Restore it, yes, that's good for some exporters, but the point is it's made us even more dependent on China.
00:34:27
Speaker
And fact, there are stories now of reports, allegations of groups, patriotic groups in Australia, like the Hubei Association, linked to China's propaganda arm, who have been interfering in the election or sending volunteers to help Labor and the left-wing ming-teals.
00:34:50
Speaker
right so I don't know that that's a coincidence. So the thing is they know it's a problem. They know we've got to increase our defence. They don't speak about it.
00:35:03
Speaker
They don't do it enough. In fact, Labour has stripped our defence to pay find the money to pay for the nuclear subs we committed to as from America. And we are now so weak, so weak,
00:35:16
Speaker
that China could send three ships in February to circumnavigate, almost circumnavigate Australia, firing weapons at one stage without any warning, right under flight paths, causing some 50 flights to be diverted.
00:35:33
Speaker
It could do all that, and we did not have a naval ship that could track it because our two supply vessels were out of action.
00:35:44
Speaker
We had to ask New Zealand, to send a frigate to do it for us when it was off Sydney, for goodness sake. And New Zealand only has two frigates.
00:35:56
Speaker
So they gave us 50% of their frigates to do this. And even then, it took a Virgin pilot flying above the exercise to first warn the government, oh, by the way, they're firing guns. Maybe it's not safe for Australian aircraft to fly over this.
00:36:12
Speaker
It is pathetic, pathetic. And yet that didn't feature almost at all in this election. I didn't even know that New Zealand had a Navy, so that's pretty terrifying that we're having to rely on it. Eight ships. They had nine, but they drove one into a reef last year and it sank.
00:36:33
Speaker
So sad. Yeah, typical New Zealand. Although, again, maybe maybe Australians can can no longer do the silly New Zealand act anymore, given some of the things that you've said around modern Australia. And that's where I want us to to finish. Actually, just before we do, putting the cards on the table, I'm assuming that you ah you think that the polls and the markets are correct and that we are heading for a Labour victory ah on the weekend? Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
I think you'd have to. I mean, that said, I mean, people were predicting that Scott Morrison would lead the Liberals to defeat his first election. And him being a fervent Christian follower,
00:37:15
Speaker
One surprising victory declared the first words, I believe in miracles. And he meant that literally. I think a second miracle, not likely.
00:37:26
Speaker
So then the question becomes whether or not it will be a majority government, so the Labor Party governing in its own right, or having to rely on the crossbench or heaven forbid the Greens.
00:37:37
Speaker
What is more likely there, do you think, in in your eyes? Well, In a sense, it's a distinction without much difference. It is a difference. but Look, they might like have to rely on Greens votes to get things through the lower house. That's true.
00:37:54
Speaker
And that would involve horse trading and negotiating with an extremely radical party. Like I said, if it only believed in so saving koalas and kangaroos, you'd think, all right, I can do that. you know But no, this is really extreme now.
00:38:12
Speaker
But unfortunately, we also have a Senate. And the Senate has now made Australia essentially ungovernable. If you are a party of the right, you will almost...
00:38:27
Speaker
It's almost hopeless to think of getting anything through ah that isn't to the left's liking.
Identity Crisis and Cultural Fragmentation
00:38:33
Speaker
So the Greens will have a huge say in the upper house of what goes through. So with most pieces of legislation, they will have to ah consider ah who do we go for, for support for this, the Greens or the Liberals and Nationals?
00:38:50
Speaker
So either way, yeah it's a Senate constituted to to support anything that is big on spending, nothing that's big on saving, and that'll include that' include probably higher taxes. It'll be in favour of higher taxes to spend to the it says pay for the savings.
00:39:16
Speaker
And it certainly will not abide a retreat on the global warming policies, the kind of policies that left Spain and Portugal in the dark for eight hours on Monday. My final question, Andrew, you have been one of the most prominent voices, not just in Australian journalism, but the Australian public discourse more generally for a long period of time now. I won't put a number of years on it. I don't want to ah ah want to to ah to to to give your age away.
00:39:44
Speaker
but ah During that time, Australia has been the lucky country. For most of that time, we've seen sustained economic growth up at least till the the GFC. ah And it has been a wonderful, a wonderful story.
00:39:59
Speaker
You've painted at various points in this interview a negative picture of the country. It's a country which is losing its sense of identity. It's a country which is facing severe structural economic issues. and it's a country which is being reshaped by changing the changing demographics and of mass migration and the negative consequences that come from that.
00:40:19
Speaker
So my question to you, Bea, is as you probably approach the home stretch of of your journalism career, or perhaps, ah how do you feel about where Australia is at the moment and where it is heading? Well, maybe, you know, I am...
00:40:34
Speaker
66 now and maybe it's a curse of people of that age to always think uh you know things were better in my day it's all going to wreck and ruin sometimes sometimes it happens to be true there must be people of 66 in berlin in 1933 thought things were going to rack and ruin and they were right okay um this is not berlin 33 but gosh it's got a smell of it a bit um I do think it's bad.
00:41:00
Speaker
The character of Australia, whether you think that's great or it's not great, just as a matter of... Empirical fact. The character of Australia has obviously changed in, say, the last 30 years. You cannot import that many people that fast without, of course, changing the character of the country, particularly if you believe in multiculturalism.
00:41:22
Speaker
You preach the virtues of keeping your culture rather than assimilating. Assimilate is a dirty word. And then you get the mass... effect When my parents first came out here, there were very few Dutch people in Adelaide where we were. yeah had to learn English.
00:41:38
Speaker
You just had to. And they did. Now you can, with a few ethnic groups, you can settle in a place Say if you're mainland Chinese in in Melbourne in around Box Hill or if you're in the western suburbs of Sydney in some of the Muslim suburbs, you don't need to even speak English because the butcher will be speaking Arabic.
00:42:03
Speaker
The newspaper's in Arabic. The clothes shop over there is in Arabic. The same thing with Chinese shops as well. You can do all that and you can go home you can tune your satellite like dish to Almanar or whatever. Your satellite program straight from Egypt or Lebanon or Syria or wherever.
00:42:23
Speaker
You can do all that. When my parents came out here, they couldn't do that. You had to save up for six months to be able to afford a three-minute phone call. Now it's all there. It's all there. You get get free communications on your iPhone, well, on your phone to the homeland.
00:42:40
Speaker
There's no need to assimilate. and The government says you don't have to assimilate and the mass of it, you don't have to assimilate. So now the idea of one culture with all these myths, a lot of people don't even know those myths. So it is a problem, whether it's good, whether it's bad. I think It's a real problem if you're preaching a hatred for this country. You're flying now three flags, two tribal flags plus the Australian flag.
00:43:06
Speaker
I think it's problem getting consensus on things. To this point, and this is only a hard beginning of the future, like I say, things go very fast from too few to worry about to too many to confront.
00:43:18
Speaker
When the Islamic State arose in Syria and Iraq, Australian soldiers were sent to help deal with that. An Australian Major General, a friend of mine, went over there to command US s Joint Forces and Australian forces there as a sort of Chief of Staff, whatever he was.
00:43:41
Speaker
At the same time, there were more Australian Muslims fighting for the Islamic State than there were in the entire Australian Army.
00:43:52
Speaker
And you think, if this war with China, for instance, how would that work out? We've got 1.4 million Chinese here, or Australians of Chinese descent. A lot of them have been longer in this country, found to be longer in this country, speaking with broader accents, some related by marriage to a lot.
00:44:09
Speaker
Patriots, a lot fled to Hong Kong. they yeah There's not one mass, but there's enough from mainland China, influenced or threatened by mainland China to be their real concern.
00:44:20
Speaker
Are we going to go into war on China with that sort of concern? I don't know.
00:44:29
Speaker
it it goes to the point of what is your national identity? What are your national values? What are national interests? To the point where if you get ah considerable number of Australians voting against you for standing up to the world's most powerful dictatorship ever on the grounds of free speech and you're punished for it.
00:44:47
Speaker
What does that tell you?
00:44:50
Speaker
I think it's a question that all Australians need to ponder and they need to ponder quite quickly. And I would add, actually, I think it's a question that everyone in Western liberal democracy today should be pondering.
00:45:02
Speaker
Andrew, this has been... Yeah, but ah just, I'm sorry, ah you just do a great segue to the farewell, but and now stuffed it up. But here, it's at a time when the left, of course, has lost faith in free speech too.
00:45:17
Speaker
They feel they're in the cultural ah power now, so they don't need to fight for free speech. It is better if they deny free speech. That's the thing. And the faith in democracy is also much less on the left. So in many ways, there's a whole... Let's talk about intersectionality. i think the conservative side it certainly exists.
00:45:38
Speaker
There's an intersection of so many movements now...
Conclusion and Values Promotion
00:45:42
Speaker
that militate against standing up, you know, standing for free speech and standing up for biology and standing up for just about anything that you once thought were your country's values, even the flag in Australia, even the flag, to the point where the Greens Party, 11, 12% of the support in the polls, the Greens Party,
00:46:04
Speaker
as its leader refused to stand before an Australian flag at press conferences, standing front of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag as they.
00:46:15
Speaker
Well, it goes to show why it is so important that there are brave people who continue to promote both Australian values and freedom of speech in the country, and you are a leading voice in that regard, Andrew.
00:46:27
Speaker
Thank you for your efforts there, and thank you for coming on Spectator TV today. Well, the reason I do it, Will, as you know, I've been begging you, begging you to come home, E.T., come home, and actually take over from me. So I live for that day.
00:46:44
Speaker
Thank you for the offer. Thank you, Andrew.