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The fight for Western civilisation, with Tony Abbott
2.8k Plays1 month ago
Will recently attended the ARC conference in London, which was basically Coachella for conservatives. During the conference, he sat down with Australia’s 28th Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to discuss the small matter of the future of Western civilization.
The interview was released on Spectator TV, the Spectator’s YouTube channel. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction & Interview Highlights
00:00:00
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will from The Spectator Australia, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. I recently attended the ARC conference in London, which was basically Coachella for Conservatives.
00:00:17
Speaker
During the conference, I sat down with Australia's 28th Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to discuss the small matter of the future of Western civilisation. The interview was released on Spectator TV, the Spectator's YouTube channel.
00:00:31
Speaker
If you want to watch the interview on YouTube, you can find it via the link in the show notes. If Tony's dulcet tones alone are sufficient, enjoy the audio version here.
Free Speech: A Core Western Value
00:00:43
Speaker
Without further ado, cue the jingle.
00:01:06
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Spectator TV coming to you live from the ARC conference, also known as Conservative Coachella. I am delighted to be joined by Australia's 28th Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
00:01:18
Speaker
Tony, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Will. I have a list of the world's problems in front of me. I'm confident we can solve them in 30 minutes. I want to start with the erosion of free speech across the West.
00:01:33
Speaker
We are used to seeing the illiberal left now crack down on free speech in this day and age. What concerns me is that i'm not I'm not seeing as much of a pushback as I'd like on the right.
00:01:46
Speaker
If you look in Australia at the moment, the coalition went along with hate speech legislation. They've gone along with the limitations to speech online. lot of the free speech problems in the UK started with the previous conservative government.
00:01:58
Speaker
Has the right given up on free speech? I think the so-called right has been less diligent in defending free speech than it should have been.
00:02:09
Speaker
But no, it is and absolutely core value of Western civilization. i mean, the whole essence of Western civilization is this restless curiosity, this constant desire to be better, this instinct that we are imperfect, this restless instinct that we are imperfect and need to improve.
00:02:32
Speaker
But you can only do that ah if people can speak their mind and then others can speak their mind in response. And then when you give each a fair hearing, you're then able to come to a better position yourself. So um free speech is not just central to Western civilization.
00:02:51
Speaker
It's critical to human progress. So of course, we've got to fight for free speech. So what would you say to someone, well what would you say to Peter Dutton, who has gone along with hate speech legislation in Australia? What would you say to Kemi Badenok, who I don't think is pushing back against looming blasphemy laws in the United Kingdom in the way that she should be?
00:03:11
Speaker
Well, it's not just up to them ah One of the ah brief presentations we had from the ARC conference ah earlier was from Toby Young, who, as you know, has started the Free Speech Union.
00:03:23
Speaker
And he Toby Young has enabled people who have been unfairly persecuted by the British state under various forms of illiberal law ah to fight back and win So it's not just up to politicians to change bad laws.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's also up to citizens to resist bad laws and Thanks to people like Toby Young and the Free Speech Union, ah citizens are now better placed to
Law and Order in the Digital Age
00:03:56
Speaker
resist bad laws. Now, I'm not saying ah that we should um willy-nilly break the law, but if in the exercise of what would otherwise be a reasonable right,
00:04:07
Speaker
um ah you transgress some canon of political correctness and are subject to an unjustifiably draconian penalty, well, then you deserve the best possible defense. And that's exactly what, thanks to the free speech union, um, some of these people in Britain have had.
00:04:25
Speaker
But to get back to, ah the politicians, um, the online world is a wild West and, ah The Wild West always needed a bit of law and order.
00:04:41
Speaker
I don't believe in censoring the internet, ah but I do think that if big tech were regarded as a publisher and had to take responsibility for what appears as opposed to a platform, then um I think we would have a in the same way that the London Times or indeed the Spectator ah has to take responsibility for what appears under the masthead, i think we would then find the situation somewhat improved. And just as if you look at the British media situation,
00:05:21
Speaker
All sorts of views can get themselves out there into the a marketplace of ideas ah through one masthead or another. um We could end up replicating that online.
Multiculturalism vs. National Unity
00:05:36
Speaker
I want to take what you said about Toby Young as a segue. One case that the Free Speech Union may be taking on in the UK is the case of a man who is now being you prosecuted for burning a Quran in Manchester.
00:05:48
Speaker
It reflects growing unease with parts of the Islamic community in the United Kingdom. ah We have seen attacks in Germany. We've seen, obviously, the cases of two nurses in Australia making very vile anti-Semitic comments.
00:06:02
Speaker
Is Islam incompatible with a Western liberal democracy? Well, any um creed that believes in death to the infidel is incompatible with a ah liberal pluralist society.
00:06:17
Speaker
So the problem is not Islam as such. The problem is ah fanatical form of Islam which ah doesn't believe in the equal rights of others and the equal rights of other faiths. So In the end, um in a tolerant society, you can't be endlessly intolerant you cannot be endlessly tolerant of the intolerant.
00:06:43
Speaker
And the problem with ah the liberal West, particularly over the last few decades, is that we have so lost our spine ah that we are supine in the face of entities, ideas, which are completely inimical to our values and our way of life. this raises the multiculturalism story.
00:07:09
Speaker
and I remember growing up in Australia, going to school in the 90s, early two thousand Multiculturalism was taught as an unimpeachable good. We have now seen some of the devastating consequences of mass migration, both in terms of economic consequences and a fraying of the cultural fabric.
00:07:28
Speaker
ah Has the multiculturalism project failed in the West? And if so, what replaces it? Multi-ethnic societies can succeed.
00:07:40
Speaker
ah Multicultural societies, particularly if there's a doctrine of multiculturalism, have got huge problems. ah In the end, as I often said as Prime Minister, everyone coming to Australia has got to be part of Team Australia.
00:07:58
Speaker
They can't just live in Hotel Australia. They've got to join Team Australia. Now, what that means is that in the short term, there's got to be integration.
00:08:10
Speaker
And in the long term, there's got to be assimilation. And at any one time, what I think we need to be doing in countries like Australia, Britain, the United States, is putting less stress on diversity and more stress on unity.
00:08:26
Speaker
Now, 99.9% of people who come to Australia, they don't come here ah to change us, they come here to join us. um They come to Australia because they actually like the way we live.
00:08:40
Speaker
They think Australians would be good people to live amongst, and sure, they may have a few rallies that they think are going to smooth their path, but But they wouldn't come here for a bad time.
00:08:51
Speaker
They'd only come here for a good time. so So I think there's goodwill, at least initially, on the part of 99.9% of our migrants.
00:09:03
Speaker
What happens is that ah because of a sort of limp-wristed leadership, a kind of a misguided officialdom, which says, oh, you know, Australia in the 1950s was this boring monoculture.
00:09:18
Speaker
Oh, yes, we needed to have all these diverse migrants to make us an interesting society. Yeah. There's this, as you say, ideology of multiculturalism.
00:09:30
Speaker
um The only thing that unites us is our of diversity. All is nonsense. i'm We've got to get away from that. um we're we're We've got to say, look, um Australia is a wonderful country with a proud history.
00:09:45
Speaker
um We have a strong civic patriotism um and everyone who comes to Australia, regardless of his or her ethnic background, ah race or religion, everyone, by virtue of becoming an Australian, participates in our history, our culture and need to respect it, need to live by it, and should try to build on
International Conflicts and National Security
00:10:10
Speaker
it. I think that's very well articulated. And in many ways, the defense of Western civilization and the countries that embody it, like Australia and the United Kingdom, is a theme of this conference.
00:10:21
Speaker
ah The great challenge that there remains this self-flagellating instinct at the heart of Western culture, um the heart of the progressive establishment, ah which means that too many people in our societies are not saying what you've just said. Well, um over time, things will change ah because, as Margaret Thatcher once said, the facts are conservative.
00:10:42
Speaker
um The radical multiculturalists should go should be invited to go and live in Gaza. I mean, the queers for Palestine should go off to Gaza. ah And yeah I think, frankly, a lot of these people need to look at themselves in the mirror.
00:10:59
Speaker
um They just need to ask themselves, does any of this stuff really stand up to reality? I mean, all of these people who have been protesting in favour of Gaza, really in favour of Hamas, mean, what do they think of hostage-taking?
00:11:17
Speaker
and What do they think of the atrocious psychological torture, let alone the physical cruelty that's been inflicted on those hostages and on the families of those hostages? They can't defend that.
00:11:30
Speaker
Well, some of them would say that that is indefensible, but at the same time, the response from Israel has been disproportionate. How would you respond to that line of argument? Well, look, you can certainly argue that it was ah it was a heavy-handed response.
00:11:45
Speaker
The question is, what's the alternative? I mean, you couldn't argue that there should be no response. And indeed, if there is an entity that is in charge of ah of ah of an end of ah of a country, a statelet, if you like, that's pledged to your destruction as a nation, um you are obliged to force that entity either to recant its pledge of destruction or indeed you must destroy it.
00:12:12
Speaker
Simple as that. I mean, hamas as it currently Hamas and its current beliefs and Israel as currently constituted cannot coexist.
00:12:24
Speaker
Simple as that. Hamas is pledged to the destruction of Israel. And for while whilst ever that is the case, Israel is obliged to destroy Hamas. We could talk about the Middle East for hours, but I want to keep rolling with your greatest hits.
00:12:39
Speaker
And arguably, your signature achievement as Prime Minister was on illegal immigration. We've just been discussing more the legal migration side, and you coined the phrase, stop the boats, which became part of the Australian political parlance.
00:12:51
Speaker
The United Kingdom now has its own illegal immigration crisis, its own boats crisis over the Channel. How can they stop the boats? Well, by doing much the same thing, and we made it absolutely crystal clear that if you came to Australia illegally by boat, ah you would never get Australian residency and citizenship.
00:13:15
Speaker
And we also did everything we could to stop you from getting here illegally by boat. um If we could, we'd send you back. So you'd never come within our jurisdiction. Yeah.
00:13:30
Speaker
And if we couldn't, we'd send you off to Nauru PNG, Manus, to be processed there. um But um we would make it absolutely crystal clear.
00:13:45
Speaker
to the boat people and the people smugglers that they were never going to succeed. Now, the difficulty that Britain's got, and Britain is probably in a slightly more parlous predicament than we were, is that the coast of France is rather closer to England than the coast of Java is to Christmas Island.
00:14:10
Speaker
So it's an easier trip and the numbers are very great, but it's essentially the same thing that has to be done. Now, um Britain should make it clear to France that any French conniving at people smuggling will be regarded as a deeply unfriendly, even a hostile act.
00:14:34
Speaker
The equivalent for you was Indonesia. How did you run those conversations with Indonesia? If you enjoy what we do here at Spectator TV, then why not subscribe to the magazine as well? If you subscribe today, you'll get 12 weeks for just £12, plus a free £20 John Lewis and Waitrose gift card.
00:14:49
Speaker
You can sign up at spectator.co.uk forward slash TV offer. Well... um We just made it crystal clear to the Indonesians publicly and privately that this had to stop and that if they didn't stop it, we would stop it.
00:15:03
Speaker
Um, so, so what Britain needs to do instead of picking people up in the English channel and taking them to England and putting them up in three star accommodation indefinitely,
00:15:16
Speaker
ah If um you can't just send them back to France in their existing um boats, um put them in a mothership, and on a suitable night, um land them back on the coast of France. I mean, the Royal Navy has landed on the coast of France recently.
00:15:39
Speaker
many times in the past, just land them on a beach in France and then let the gendarmerie deal with them. um What if the French were to come back and say, you don't have a right to enter our sovereign territory and do that?
00:15:51
Speaker
Well, I mean, you stop it happening in the first place and then there'd be no need for us to do this I know the former government had this so-called Rwanda solution, which was frustrated in the court.
00:16:06
Speaker
Well, I think and it is important to legislate ah where necessary to avoid the kind of lawfare that stopped the British government from prosecuting things like the ah the Rwanda option.
00:16:23
Speaker
But another option might be to open a camp on Ascension Island or some other British territory, um as we had camps on Christmas Island, for instance. um so So look, there are there are a range of options, all of which should be ah put into practice by ah determined British government.
00:16:45
Speaker
But underlying all of the practical steps has got to be this absolute, absolute determination that that illegal migration will not succeed.
00:16:58
Speaker
The thing about illegal migration by boat is that it's a deadly venture. I mean, dozens, if not hundreds of people have drowned in the English Channel. And as long as this whole people smuggling business is flourishing, there will be a multitude of deaths at sea.
00:17:15
Speaker
So in the end, the safest and fairest thing you can do, ah the most humane thing you can do, is stop this evil trade. Now, if there've got to be some pretty tough-minded things, like landing illegal immigrants back on the shores of France, um taking vigorous action inside France ah to ah break up these people-smuggling gangs, um well, that's just what a serious country has to do from time to time. and I remember you saying something at the time in Australia when the left would come at you saying, well, this is inhumane, it's incredibly harsh.
00:17:52
Speaker
Saying something along the lines of the harshness is the point. It needs to be harsh to be an effective deterrent. How do you make, as a politician, how do you make that argument effectively to win hearts and minds? Well, what do you want? Do you want to see dead bodies washed up on the English Channel?
00:18:08
Speaker
If you don't stop the people-smuggling trade, that's what's going to happen. The alternative, as court of course, is to say, well, Britain is a lifeboat to the world. Anyone who gets here is welcome here, and um and and if you get here, you can stay here and you can draw on welfare and approach the NHS and so on.
00:18:28
Speaker
This is a recipe for ruin um because eventually Britain will be swamped, if that's the attitude, and and every country has a duty to the people who are already here to keep the country's character. I mean, Britain is a wonderful country, um has a magnificent history.
00:18:47
Speaker
It's the bastion of nearly all that's decent and good in the West. And of course, over the centuries, there've been waves of people come to Britain, hu some in warlike a state, like the Vikings and the Normans, ah the Romans going back far enough ah Others peacefully, yeah ah the Huguenots, various waves of Jewish immigration, ah the refugees who came here at different times, including before and after the Second World War.
00:19:18
Speaker
Britain has a magnificent history of hosting people, but It's got to be in ways which are under the control of the British government, and it's got to happen in ways which don't do violence to the fundamental character of the country. And once it turns into a peaceful invasion, well, I'm afraid ah your so your sovereignty is ultimately lost, and that's completely unacceptable.
00:19:51
Speaker
Let's turn to economics.
Fiscal Policies and Economic Strategies
00:19:53
Speaker
ah Debt and deficit is probably the biggest crisis facing the world that not enough people are talking about, in my opinion. I recall in your first budget, you made a concerted effort to try and attack debt and deficit, and it was met with a vicious response.
00:20:08
Speaker
ah The US now spends more on interest servicing their debt than on the defence budget. ah This is a trend across all of the Western countries.
00:20:19
Speaker
my My question would be, how do you make the argument for fiscal responsibility now as a politician, or are we at the point where we need to have an economic catastrophe for there to be a correction?
00:20:31
Speaker
Well, if we don't change, there will be an economic catastrophe, and that will force a correction upon us. But by that stage, ah we could be in even more dire straits vis-a-vis our geostrategic competitors,
00:20:45
Speaker
ah There is enormous economic dynamism in the West, particularly in the Anglosphere. What's holding us back is a surfeit of regulation over high taxes, um rules that make it almost impossible to get anything done.
00:21:04
Speaker
We really do need a bonfire of the regulations, and perhaps the first thing to go has got to be the ludicrous emissions obsession, which has given a country like Britain power prices that are three times those in the United States and are completely crippling ah British industry and completely stymieing British entrepreneurialism.
00:21:28
Speaker
um we if we If you look at Britain in the 1980s and really right up until about the ah the global financial crisis, extraordinary economic innovation, a technical innovation, both in goods and in services.
00:21:46
Speaker
mean, this country has been and can still be the world's economic powerhouse. you genuinely believe that? Look, ah Britain gave the world the industrial revolution. And that was a combination of ah good laws, sensible government, and a wonderful entrepreneurial spirit based on a profound intellectual curiosity.
00:22:09
Speaker
None of that's gone. I mean, the the The entrepreneurial spirit and the intellectual curiosity hasn't gone. What's absent at the moment ah is the right legal structure and a sensible government.
00:22:23
Speaker
The thing is, though, when you when you are trying to reduce regulation, when you're trying to reduce tax, there are trade-offs. And it doesn't seem like there's enough political will to be able to communicate and make those trade-offs. And I would say either in Australia or in the United Kingdom, how do you sell the trade-offs to say there will be winners and losers with debt reduction?
00:22:41
Speaker
Well, let's leave debt reduction for a moment aside. Let's let's look at the net zero craziness. um The attempt to run a power system to reduce emissions rather than to deliver affordable and reliable electricity is crucifying consumers and destroying heavy industry because power is an essential element in manufacturing.
00:23:09
Speaker
And it's also an essential element in any first world lifestyle. now Now, high power prices, I think, are forcing ah reality check even on inner city greens.
00:23:24
Speaker
um And the devastation of our countryside is turning a lot of real conservationists against this whole green transition. I mean, what person who genuinely cares for country would want to see a beautiful landscape scarred by forests of wind turbines?
00:23:43
Speaker
Who would want to see- Dark satanic mills of the modern age. The satanic mills of the modern era. Exactly right. The satanic mills of the modern era. Who would like to see a beautiful vista carpeted ah with solar panels. I mean, no one in their right mind would want that. And we are now seeing throughout regional Australia a kind of a visceral reaction against this.
00:24:06
Speaker
Now, of course, um the renewable rent seekers, ah these these companies which are trying to harvest subsidies to make a quick buck, they're out there trying to bribe individual farmers with the promise of riches.
00:24:21
Speaker
But their neighbours are saying, now hang on a minute, we didn't come ah to these beautiful towns um in order to be overshadowed by a wind turbine.
00:24:33
Speaker
We haven't farmed this land for six generations in order to suddenly give it over to solar panels. And I think, again, um reality is trumping green ideology.
00:24:47
Speaker
recall your response to a lot of the climate hysteria was to focus on a more practical environmentalism, planting more trees, volunteers for green initiatives. Do you still think that is an effective alternative policy framework to the hysteria from the climate zealots?
00:25:04
Speaker
but well Well, look, I've always regarded myself as ah as a conservationist. um I mean, as a kid, I loved walking in the bush. As a kid, I loved the beach. I loved being on the harbour.
00:25:16
Speaker
I still love all those things. I mean, I'm a volunteer bush firefighter, um you know I occasionally go paddling on the harbour, things like that. um I hate to see um remnant bush within the Sydney Basin being bulldozed for ugly housing or factories.
00:25:36
Speaker
um I hate it when um feral animals kill the native wildlife. I mean, one of the best things about Sydney in recent times, I know everyone doesn't share my enthusiasm, but The bush turkeys are back because of extensive fox baiting. Now, good on the National Park Service and local councils for the efforts they've made to eradicate the feral foxes.
00:26:00
Speaker
Foxes are the most vicious thrill-killing animals ever. ah because the bush turkeys are back. And while they sometimes play havoc with your garden, isn't it wonderful to watch their natural industry? So so look, I am a conservationist, but a real environmentalist does not obsess over emissions because let's face it, carbon dioxide is not pollution.
00:26:21
Speaker
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring trace gas which is necessary for life. And if carbon dioxide ever dropped below about 200 million parts ah per million, 200 parts per million, we'd be in deep trouble.
00:26:35
Speaker
We would be in deep, deep existential trouble. Whether it's 400 parts per million or 500 parts per million, I don't think is all that serious one way or another, but in order to prevent this hypothetical catastrophe, God, we're inflicting damage on ourselves.
00:26:53
Speaker
The problem today, it's not the damage of climate change, it's the damage done by climate change policy. do you Do you regret not making that argument as perhaps as strongly you a strongly worded a fashion as what you just had when you Prime Minister?
00:27:08
Speaker
Well, I think I did. um There weren't podcasts in those days, Will. That's a fair point. So maybe I didn't have the chance. It's a fair point. In the time we've got left, I want to look at the future of conservatism.
Conservatism in the Modern Era
00:27:21
Speaker
Along with service to your country, it is the cause that you've dedicated your life to.
00:27:26
Speaker
And the reality is, if you look at where conservatism, even if we can court still that, is changing since the days of the Howard government, in which you're a minister, since the days of your own government, particularly on economics, where you look at the level of protectionism, it would have been anathema to the Howard government.
00:27:41
Speaker
What does the future of conservatism look like for you in a Trump and then post-Trump world? Well, um I don't think ah there's been a radical change in conservatism.
00:27:54
Speaker
um I think circumstances are somewhat different. I mean, the rise of China, I think, makes so trade questions somewhat different. um I mean, ah I don't resile from the free trade deal that I did with China in 2014, because it was still easy to be optimistic about China liberalizing then.
00:28:17
Speaker
But I don't think ah anyone would say today, had we not done a trade deal with China, that we would do one, given and what we now know about China's trade policy and the boycotts that they inflicted on us in Australia, notwithstanding that deal.
00:28:34
Speaker
But let's look at let's look at Reagan conservatism. I mean, Reagan-Thatcher conservatism was ah profoundly patriotic, deeply respectful towards traditional institutions and values that have stood the test of time, and keen on economic liberalization because capitalism had been damaged by over-regulation.
00:28:58
Speaker
um Trump conservatism, if I might call it that, I think is deeply patriotic. I think it's reasonably respectful of ah institutions that it understands.
00:29:15
Speaker
And I think it likes capitalism. It's just that it thinks that capitalism in America has been damaged by unfair competition from China.
00:29:27
Speaker
And i can understand that because what we now know, and we in Australia know it better than anyone else, is that China has taken advantage of free trade without ever practicing itself. so So I can understand why Trump wants to whack on tariffs against China.
00:29:49
Speaker
I can't understand why he wants to whack on tariffs against Mexico and Canada, because Canada in particular is America's friend. Now, as a bargaining chip to try to get the Canadians and the Mexicans to take the border issues more seriously, it's a pretty brutal way of waking them up, but maybe it was fair enough.
00:30:08
Speaker
but it would be very destructive for the United States to put tariffs on against Canada and Mexico. Tony, my final question. I've thrown a lot of challenges and problems about the state of the world today at you.
00:30:21
Speaker
Do you remain optimistic about the future of the West?
Conclusion & Future Outlook
00:30:24
Speaker
Well, we must be. i mean, if we wake up every day and obsess over our problems, um we might stay in bed and that would be a terrible thing to do.
00:30:36
Speaker
um and These aren't daunting times, although they are difficult times. They should be thrilling times because it is given to us ah to rise to these challenges and overcome them.
00:30:54
Speaker
Tony, thank you joining us on The Spectator today. Thanks, Will. Good on you.