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The decline and fall of Australia(?), with Joe Hildebrand
3.3k Plays28 days ago
Greg Sheridan wrote recently that Australia is a nation in decline. Across every indicator you can imagine – economy, living standards, social cohesion, crime, health, military capability, the creativity and virtuosity of the arts – we’re in serious decline.
He's one of many Australian media and political figures worried about the future of the once lucky country. Are they right, and if so what can be done? Will discusses these questions (with the odd detour into Roman history) with journalist Joe Hildebrand.
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Read The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction of Joe Hildebrand
00:00:20
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, I'm Will Kingston. My guest today is journalist Joe Hildebrand.
Is Australia in Decline?
00:00:27
Speaker
Joe was mentioning to me in the green room of Sky News only yesterday that he is a brave man, he's working his way through Edward Gibbon's masterpiece.
00:00:36
Speaker
the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. He's not the only Australian who is thinking about decline at the moment. Greg Sheridan wrote a powerful piece for The Australian only this weekend, in which he said, and I quote, across every indicator you can imagine, economy, living standards, social cohesion, crime, health, military capability, the creativity of the arts, we're in serious decline.
Will's Observations on Australian Malaise
00:01:01
Speaker
Former Deputy Prime Minister and friend of the show, John Anderson, has said that Australia is entering a structural decline. And in the few weeks I've been back home, I've noticed ah feeling a feeling of malaise, feeling amongst a range of people that things perhaps aren't as they once were.
00:01:18
Speaker
Is the country in decline? Or, to use that great Australian expression, she'll be right, mate. To discuss, I am delighted to be joined by Jo Hildebrand. Jo, welcome to Fire at Whirl.
00:01:29
Speaker
Great to be here, Will. How are you, my friend? I'm good, mate. How far through those six long, torturous volumes are you? This is ah volume two of six, and as you can see from the complimentary bookmark ribbon, I'm about halfway through. So I feel like it's It's like when you it's like when when you become a parent for the first time, no one tells you this, but no one takes you seriously. But once you have two kids, then you can actually say, right, I'm actually in the parent trap.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I think if i was just if I was just into volume one of Decline and Fall, I think I could be dismissed as a lightweight, but I made it to volume two. So I feel like I could sort of stamp my, ah i'm I'm a serious contender.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah.
Does 'She'll Be Right' Mean Complacency?
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, I imagine you won't be getting to six kids and and demographic decline is indeed one of the potential problems that we will get to in this conversation.
00:02:20
Speaker
I have an admittedly somewhat contrived frame for us to use to look at modern Australia. I asked our good friend Chuck GPT what were the main reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
00:02:32
Speaker
Some of them are perhaps slightly less relevant for Australia today. I'm not too worried about ah New Zealand-led barbarian invasion, for example. But some, I think, are useful frames through which we can look at where the country sits today.
00:02:47
Speaker
But there is, of course, I think, a premising question to all this, and it will dictate whether this is ah discussion or a debate, and that is, do you think this is a country in decline?
Global vs. Australian Issues
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, look, I think...
00:02:59
Speaker
but You talk about sort of she'll be right, mate. And I think when everyone takes the attitude she'll be right, mate, that is when you enter into a decline. that it's when It's when great states or empires start to become complacent and enter what is known as the silk slippers phase all ah of of ah of it ah civilization. and That is when you you hit decline.
00:03:19
Speaker
i don't think I think the fact that so many people are actually talking about, are we in decline? Oh, my God, what are we going to do about it? That, I think, is actually the best bulwark against a nation just sort of sitting on itslot resting on its laurels and and gradually slipping off into the exit
Political Stability in Australia
00:03:34
Speaker
lounge. so So that that's my first thing. The second thing, i was i was I'm less worried about Australia than I am about the world more generally. not going to get into the cliched sort of Trump bashing sort of stuff because I think that's that's actually part more part of the problem than than Trump is himself. But but just, again, we're...
00:03:54
Speaker
We're at a stage in world history where we've just come off you know what they call the long piece since the end of World War two And I think that has bred the kind of complacency I'm talking about where people are sort of sitting around thinking, oh, you know, what could possibly go wrong? You know, we don't really have world wars anymore.
00:04:12
Speaker
you know, peace, living standards, running water, you know, all these things we we kind of take for granted when in fact, this is very much the exception throughout human history. and and And now there's at least probably two or three flashpoints around the world, which could, if left unchecked, you know, i very quickly escalate into a regional conflict. Um,
00:04:34
Speaker
We all know what happened with World War I where everyone thought it would all be done and dusted by Christmas and and i had tens of millions dead later. It was a very different story. So so that would be my first qualifier. I think I was more worried about Australia probably in the last sort of 10 to 15 years that I am now, the big thing I was worried about was the the political instability and the churn of prime
Quality of Australian Leadership
00:04:58
Speaker
ministers. I think the fact that we've now had, and I know it's not particularly everyone's favourite colour, but I think the fact that we've now had a prime minister win an election from opposition and then win a second term while still at the helm, I think that has restored the incredible impact
00:05:14
Speaker
the incredibly reassuring banality of Australian politics, where which has made us the most stable liberal democracy in the world. So I'm cautiously optimistic, Will. Well, let's start with political instability then, which of course, as you would now know, being a renowned Roman historian, that that was one of the reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. And I'll go back to my my friend Shadjipiti.
00:05:37
Speaker
As the empire grew, it became harder to govern efficiently. Frequent turnover in leadership, tick. Emperor's offer being assassinated or overthrown, C. Gillard, Rudd, Turnbull et al.,
00:05:49
Speaker
This lack of stable leadership weakened the empire's cohesion and made it difficult to respond to external threats. You're right in saying that we ah have had a return of the Albanese government.
00:06:00
Speaker
Now, I would imagine many, if not most of the Australians listening to this podcast would have serious doubts as to the quality of that leadership. But you're right in saying that it is the first time in some time in recent Australian history where there has been stability of sorts.
00:06:13
Speaker
My question to you would be, though, Albanese, Darton, I kind of see them as being one and the same. And I see them as being a pretty long line now, pretty mediocre leaders. And I know your relationship with Albo notwithstanding, I don't put them in the same category as some of the great figures of Australian political history.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I think it points to a general diminution of leadership talent in Australia. Do you agree? And if so, why? i'm ah I'm a terribly boring centrist, basically. So while my sympathies are sort of, I sit sort probably, you know, within the Labour right kind of spectrum.
00:06:50
Speaker
And so to me, you know, I often say, to to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy and Anna Karenina, you know, all good governments are the same. ah You give two different people from either side of the political fence the same set of problems. And if they're half smart,
00:07:07
Speaker
they're probably going to come to something resembling a similar conclusion because that is what, you know, if you strip away the ideology or you strip away some of the insanity, then you actually get to the same solution. So, yes, that does that result in, you know, the Libs being Labor-lite or Labor being Liberal-lite and both of them being criticized by their sort of you know, more hardline basis. Yes, it does.
00:07:30
Speaker
But I'm a big fan of the, you know, and again, that's why Australia is so successful historically, that that we have a system of government that produces not necessarily the best leaders, but the least worst because we have compulsory voting and preferential voting.
00:07:45
Speaker
So it's it's, you know, it's a bulwark against extremism. And the payoff of that is that you get pragmatists. You don't necessarily get those kind of great, you know, either iconoclastic or populist style leaders like a a Donald Trump or indeed like, you know, the the the crazy sort of figures on the left who, the left lion eyes. I mean, someone someone once said of Albanese when he was in opposition, said, oh well, he's no Gough Whitlam.
00:08:12
Speaker
I said, well, thank fuck for that. Yeah. three years of of madness and chaos. And again, was gone, you know, gone to you three years later because he couldn't. the better The better argument would have been he's no Bob Hawke, for
Political Boldness in Leadership
00:08:25
Speaker
example. And you can certainly say that Peter Dutton is no Robert Menzies or no John Howard. So the question goes to why, and again, you may disagree with the premise, but why we not creating the types of leaders that we once did?
00:08:37
Speaker
I think, well, again, going to your your point about the leadership churn and the leadership ability, when you have, I mean, if you want to talk about decline and fall, Gibbon defined the golden age of not just the Roman Empire, but all of human histories, the second century AD, which was characterized by you know what they call the four good emperors, each of whom each of whom ran the joint for about 20 years, give or take, and each of whom critically organized a really strong and stable succession plan. So as soon as they died, there was someone waiting in the wings who had been trained to be emperor.
00:09:10
Speaker
ah These were not hereditary positions. These were often you know kids who were adopted but and identified because of their talent and then trained and schooled in how to actually you know develop that and utilize it and what they would need to do.
00:09:23
Speaker
And that was that resulted in a century of peace, which Gibbon called you know the greatest period. And now another long piece, if you like, whereas as long as you were living inside the boundaries of the Roman empire, and as long as you're a Roman citizen and not a slave, which life wasn't too crash hot for, life was good.
00:09:41
Speaker
Now, the benefit of that kind of stability is that it gives you ah platform, a solid bit of ground underneath your feet for you to be able to make kind of bold decisions, if you like, or or take stands and do things that you might know to be the right thing to do.
00:09:56
Speaker
but that might not be politically popular in the short term. So, you know, John Howard's GST is probably the greatest example. But the thing is, you have to remember that John Howard did that after winning a landslide election.
00:10:08
Speaker
And when he went to, very courageous, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, but when he went to the next election seeking a mandate for the GST, which was incredibly courageous, He nearly lost government. He only just scraped home. He lost about, ah think it was 16 seats or something thereabouts, a huge amount.
00:10:25
Speaker
And he lost the popular vote. And it was only because of some extraordinary campaigning in in the outer suburban marginal seats by some of his MPs. that he just scraped home over the line. Now, again, if you are, certainly, if you're an opposition, that completely and utterly rules out anything bold and courageous. And I and i think that's exactly what we saw happen to Peter Dutton.
00:10:46
Speaker
and And again, and if you look at the, you know, how it stayed on for, you know, the next 10, 11 then Kevin Rudd comes in and You know, he basically, he doesn't get a CPRS, his carbon pollution reduction scheme through the Senate.
00:11:02
Speaker
And next thing you know, his head's on the chopping block and he's dead. So if, you know, if the Greens being able to block your bill in the Senate is grounds for a political execution, then clearly politicians are going to very quickly re-evaluate just how, again, to use Sir Humphrey Appleby's favorite criticism, courageous,
00:11:23
Speaker
they're going to be. and and And this happens again and again. I mean, obviously, energy and climate change is the big giant killer in Australian politics. And it's basically been responsible for the death of every single prime minister until, basically until Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese in just the last few years.
Liberal Party's Identity Crisis
00:11:41
Speaker
And albert i mean put in perspective the dangers of instability, Albanese, first first-time prime minister to win re-election since John Howard, since that GST more than quarter of a century ago. So that's how bad it's been.
00:11:56
Speaker
You mentioned climate change and some revisionist of historians have pointed it to climate change being a reason for the fall of the Roman Empire, except I would argue the yeah the bigger problem for Australia is the response, policy response to climate change as that are opposed to the climate itself.
00:12:11
Speaker
Park that for now, because I think it's probably a lower order up ah lower order issue than this political question. And I want to go specifically to the Liberal Party here. It was interesting. On the show that we were on last week, Parnell McGinnis said one of the real problems that the Liberal Party faces and one of the reasons why it felt like they just there was no real point to them in that campaign. There was no real underlying philosophical thread that held them together.
00:12:38
Speaker
is that they never had a conversation around where they need to go after John Howard lost in 2007. There's always been this debate in the party as to whether they are more classically liberal or more socially conservative and put together. John Howard called that the broad church that you need to form a coalition around in order to be a successful centre-right party in Australia, probably around anywhere in the West. Right.
00:13:02
Speaker
That debate now needs to happen because it feels like there is no real guiding purpose to the Liberal Party. And we've seen with the Conservatives in the UK that if you don't solve that problem, it is very possible for a charismatic leader on the centre-right to consign you to oblivion, which may very well happen.
00:13:20
Speaker
Where should the Liberal Party go from here? Well, John Howard was absolutely right. And just mathematically, it is impossible for the Liberal Party to win government unless it is able to unite or find at least enough common ground between between the the the classical liberals and the the social conservatives and bring those two sides together. So you need to you need to be able to have Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull and combine them into one.
00:13:45
Speaker
like that. That's right. Stitch them together down the middle. And somehow put it together. And there are few very few leaders that can do that without the whole thing falling apart. John Howard was one.
00:13:56
Speaker
You could, I suppose, argue that maybe Scott Morrison was another, surprisingly enough, despite the um enmity that a lot in the left had for him. But he was obviously seen as a least worst candidate for them than Peter Dutton.
00:14:09
Speaker
And again, Australian politics is all about producing the least worst candidate. And that is probably why the Libs got one extra term in 2019. And again, it was because Scott Morrison, you know, did and said a lot of things that he probably didn't wholeheartedly believe in as a conviction politician, but that he knew had to be done if he was going to keep his party united and have a chance of finding a path to victory. So So so that that is the first thing. And the Labor Party has its own issues with that as well, you know, coming from a traditional working class, often Irish Catholic base historically, then a lot of migrant working class people in the post-war years, and then combined with the kind of post-Whitlam...
00:14:52
Speaker
tertiary educated inner city, upper middle class left. And Labor has to somehow stitch together something that resembles the mutual interests of those completely different groups who often should be, are and should be completely at odds with each other.
Election Strategies: Pragmatism vs. Ideology
00:15:08
Speaker
And has to basically you know stitch together some kind of coherent narrative that it can take to the people. And so this is you know so it's not necessarily... just a matter of, it's not necessarily just doing or saying anything it takes to get elected.
00:15:21
Speaker
It's firstly being able to stitch together enough of your base so that you are you know a single political party that can say, well, this is what we believe in, and then being able to take that offering to an electorate. And the problem, I think the problem with...
00:15:35
Speaker
Peter Dutton's campaign was, A, a lot of the things I think his supporters most passionately believed in were the things that were least popular in the electorate. And so, and again, I have no problem with nuclear energy. I think that some of the arguments against it, absolutely ridiculous.
00:15:52
Speaker
Certainly the arguments that it's horrendously unsafe and all these idiotic figures from you i lay the left putting up pictures of three-eyed fish was just stupid. and And I think it's telling that they were very, very quickly ordered to stop doing that because they looked like idiotic children.
00:16:06
Speaker
but But again, you just have to accept, you know you can't, I mean, it's it's a natural small C conservative position that you that you look at the status quo, you see where people are, you meet them where they are. And then if you know if there is a case to be made for big, big structural reform, well, you need to make it. But chances are you need to make that case in government like Howard did with the GST, famously abandoning it in opposition and then saying, no, it's actually something we have to do.
00:16:35
Speaker
And you have to do it at a time when you have the the political capital to expend. So talking about, you know, we need to make bold decisions and be stronger on this and stronger on that, I actually think that was taking Peter Dutton off a cliff.
00:16:47
Speaker
Well, I i think that's that's perhaps fair, but you've you've skirted around the probably oversimplified question. oh yeah but if the The oversimplified question is some people are saying, well, you need to move more to to the right.
00:17:02
Speaker
Now, this is difficult because what the right means in 2025 is a bit difficult to ascertain. But nonetheless, some people are saying you need to kind of become more conservative. let's Let's use reform in the UK as a template, not necessarily the Trump template.
00:17:17
Speaker
And some people are saying you need to go back to that sort of Turnbull style of, you know, soft, wet, liberal politics. Where do they need to go? Or is that a false dichotomy? It is in Australia. So obviously the Conservatives in the UK are in all sorts of trouble. But again, that is the sort of thing that often happens after a very long period in government. And then you often can have a sort of domino of of leaders as you're trying to save the furniture. And you're just, and you know, often in politics, you win one election too many.
00:17:44
Speaker
And, you know, you could you could argue that this a similar thing has happened in Canada with the um the Canadian Democrats and now the Conservatives there. So, you know, so these things...
00:17:55
Speaker
do happen ah The difference in Australia, though, and again, this is why compulsory preferential voting is the be all and end all. this is ah Trump cannot really happen in Australia because in Australia, you don't have to worry about getting out the vote. You don't have to worry about energizing people, putting their feet to the fire, hitting them with a cattle prod and saying, you've got to get out...
00:18:18
Speaker
going to get off your ass and vote on polling day. So people do not, you know, 30, 40% of people in the US stay home on election days or they didn't until recently, until Trump came along.
00:18:30
Speaker
and And so that just changes everything. It means you're already dealing with you know, quite political people and politically energized people. And by definition, those people are already going to be pretty well, you know, you're going to have fewer apathetical undecided voters who just want to forget about politics and get on with their lives.
00:18:50
Speaker
Same again with the UK and you've got to first pass the post system that, you know, it brings its own kind of weird challenges. In Australia, that just cannot happen because Even if voters go to One Nation, Palmer United, whatever right-wing populist might pop up, all those votes are going to flow back to the coalition parties, yeah or the vast majority at least, before they end up going elsewhere. So you might have Labor voters who vote for One Nation and then come back to Labor, but you're not really going to have, you're not going to have disaffected Liberal voters who vote for One Nation and then put Labor
00:19:27
Speaker
before we come back
Viability of Tax Cuts in Politics
00:19:29
Speaker
to the liberal. So it's it's it's not inspiring, but again, it's just structurally how our system works. It's the same with Labor. It's why every time people say, oh Labor needs to stand for something or you know go harder to the left on X, Y, and I just say, are you fucking kidding me?
00:19:45
Speaker
Well, well let let me make it tangible then. There are three or four policy positions in my mind that I think that the Liberal Party, and by the way, I think every centre-right political party in the Western world should be taking to the public.
00:19:57
Speaker
I want you to tell me if you think that they could be politically successful with the right people selling Number one, a general platform of reducing taxes and then having lower spending and cutting benefits as a way of funding that in the short term before you see the benefits of growth and catch up with that temporary reduction in revenue.
00:20:19
Speaker
Can you run on reducing income tax in Australia in 2025? Yeah, well, one of the the clever tactical things that Labor did in the last election was to to just put out a tax cut in the last election that they weren't planning on having, but did, and then pulled that out of their back pocket.
00:20:35
Speaker
And because Dutton had been boxed into a corner on another couple of po policies like Medicare and the the cash rebate for the the electricity bill rebate,
00:20:46
Speaker
He then felt he had to sort of oppose something and stand up for something and ended up standing up against the tax cut, which was the one thing he should have stood up and supported because, of course, and so suddenly, you know, Albanese had switched, you know, yes, it was only five bucks a week or whatever or the price for cup of coffee, but it meant that he was, out or a day, sorry, and but at least he was able to say,
00:21:08
Speaker
no, this is, you know, we are the party that has given you the tax cut and this is the party and standing in the way it. And in addition to that, at least for the two-year forward estimates, you had a Liberal Party that was promising to spend more money than the Labour Party.
00:21:22
Speaker
So it was almost like the traditional roles were reversed and the Labour Party offering tax cuts and still high spending, but relatively low spending, and the Liberal Party doing doing the opposite. And I think that was such a critical component for a lot of people to say,
00:21:35
Speaker
What is the point of view? What is your purpose? That's right. So that that was a sort of tactical outmanoeuvring, and that's before you even get to what did that actually stand by? mean, you could argue building an entire taxpayer-funded state-owned nuclear industry from scratch is is a kind of strangely Stalinist concept in the moratorium and letting the market decide. I've i've called for that publicly.
00:21:58
Speaker
But again, it's very strange. And I think horseshoe politics takes you in strange directions, which is again is why you know i'm ah i'm I'm a labor sort of guy, but very much in the the Keating tradition. You deregulate, unleash those kind of animal spirits oh of capitalism or the market or whatever.
Should Australia Lift Nuclear Moratorium?
00:22:18
Speaker
And then you you harness that kind of strength and where it does need to be reined in slightly or redirected for the public benefit, that's fine. but Other than that, you just skim off the top and you use that economic growth to help people who aren't benefiting from it and help people who need it through no fault of their own, whether it's you know disability, whether it's because their dad walked out, whatever. you know so and that that was and And that is very much, you know I think, where Labor's future lies and what it should be doing.
00:22:46
Speaker
some but i mean, Some of the handouts, obviously, that happened during the election were almost a bit kind of ridiculous. But generally speaking, I'm pretty comfortable that Labor is back in the center now. And again, i I just love the fact that Labor has become the party of tax cuts and Yeah, it's a crazy world. Well, you mentioned nuclear there or nuclear, depending on the particular Australian politician that you are listening to.
00:23:12
Speaker
And also, I'll throw the second policy position at you. i don't think the argument on the liberal side should be, how do you get to net zero? I think that should be following reform in the UK. They should be following New Zealand recently, following the US, following what I would argue is the global trend pretty much everywhere now.
00:23:30
Speaker
And that is ditching net zero because it would be a purely symbolic position. the i would argue that the benefits of this new green sector is less on balance than having cheaper energy, and it is now increasingly out of step with the rest of the world, should the Liberal Party position themselves to ditch net zero.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and net zero, it's a bit of a MacGuffin in many ways. I mean, the the main thing with net zero is that, and this why Scott Morrison and and the the coalition in government signed up to it, is that it unlocks sort of all these trading markets. So you have to be, if you party to these these treaties and these international agreements, it means that you get more favorable terms of trade.
00:24:09
Speaker
And, you know, will half the countries who have signed up to net zero actually hit net zero? Well, you'd be a pretty brave person to bet your house on it. when youre but But again, it's it's it is, like you say, it's aspirational. What really matters in terms of your national economy is how you get there and and what you're doing.
00:24:27
Speaker
and And again, that's why I think we should be you know we shouldn't be fighting with one hand tied behind our back. we should be The moratorium on nuclear power is just ridiculous. It's an overhang of a kind of you know, Springfield-esque sort of small-town parochialism that Australia has, you know. and And again, sometimes there are things that are just baked into a national culture.
00:24:47
Speaker
or now I mean, you know, negative gearing is something that, for better or worse, is baked into Australia's economy. It is something that is baked into individual Australians, middle-class Australians' aspirations. It's something think, this is how I'm going to get ahead, but blah, blah, blah. And, you know, you go to a country like Sweden or whatever where they're all renting apartments or whatever,
00:25:07
Speaker
I go, what the hell? This looks crazy. But it's just part of where we are. but So for better
Defending Free Speech
00:25:11
Speaker
or worse, there are different things. And one of the things that has always been characteristic of Australia, and I don't know if it's because we're an island you know an island nation or you know but you know our biosecurity measures, Everything's got to come out. No, you can't let it in. Actually, let it in. Everything's going to go crazy.
00:25:26
Speaker
And it's a bit like that way with nuclear. So we have this absolutely ridiculous position, as of course you know, that we have these hugely rich uranium deposits, which we sell overseas, but we're not actually allowed to, to you know, and we've got the three-mine policy because three is the magic number, like the Holy Day, which is a Catholic I support.
00:25:45
Speaker
But, you know... but it It's completely irrational, but it is something that, and as we've seen, you know, Labor was very good or the left were very good at mounting a scare campaign about nuclear that clearly really resonated with the electorate. You know, there were still people seeing those three-eyed fish. So I think lift the moratorium, let the market decide. That's the most important thing. And, you know, number one rule of, you know, with classical liberalism, I would have thought, is that the government doesn't pick winners. You let...
00:26:14
Speaker
You let the market do it. And you know if you look at solar panels, people said, oh, solar power is never going to take off. It's going to be prohibitively expensive. Within a few years, the price had just plummeted for solar panels because they're all making them with slave labor in China. But we'll leave that to one side.
00:26:30
Speaker
and if A fair few subsidies in there as well, i would suggest. That's right. And suddenly, you know, ah ah people, you know, the suburbs of Australia are absolutely covered with them. and And again, Australia is now, you know, getting in to try to kickstart its own solar panel industry to address some of those concerns about what China's doing. So, you know, again, if you do it right and you give it a nudge here and there and the government sort says, all right, well, let's see what's working over here. Hydrogen, maybe not so good. Solar powers, solar panel, good.
00:26:57
Speaker
You know? Mm-hmm. Number three, and this one is one which actually, you know, particularly on that more conservative wing of the right, they would take issue with. But as i classical liberal, something which I find very troubling in the United Kingdom in Australia is what I see as an assault on civil liberties, particularly an assault on free speech.
00:27:16
Speaker
I think it is more pronounced in the UK at the moment where it is genuinely scary. But in Australia, you're seeing the Liberal Party now support hate speech laws. ah You're seeing Liberal Party support increasing restrictions on social media and the online world.
00:27:30
Speaker
If I was the leader of the Liberal Party, I would say we need to rediscover the value of free speech and civil liberties. We need to get better at arguing that whilst there may be things which are morally abhorrent to say,
00:27:43
Speaker
It is still on balance better to allow people to say them because the alternative of having a government telling you what you can and can't say is worse.
Impact of Multiculturalism on Identity
00:27:51
Speaker
It doesn't seem like we have that many people on the right now who are willing to make that sort of argument.
00:27:56
Speaker
Can you argue for free speech in today's society and why aren't the right really doing it, perhaps as they once did? Yeah, you absolutely have to argue for free speech because once that goes, then the whole gig is up.
00:28:07
Speaker
yeah know If there's no free speech, then there's basically nothing to stop whoever's in charge staying in charge forever and ever. So yes, that is a hill worth dying on. The question, of course, is always you know where is the line drawn between you know the but old cliche, free speech doesn't mean shouting fire in a crowded theater. So incitement to violence has always been something that's sat outside, that sort of thing. Fine with yeah yeah well i've done of course As you would be and as am I. The problem happened is being the last sort of 12, 18 months, you've had ah really highly charged environment where there's been extremely vile, largely anti-Semitic attacks, but of course it can go both ways.
00:28:48
Speaker
and And there was just a huge amount of fear, I think, in the community where people were saying, well, hang on, that's the Jews? Where's the Jews? Is that free speech? Is there nothing we can do about this?
00:28:59
Speaker
So I think it was – and so it's the way that you the why didn't you frame these laws and the way that they're – the devil is in the detail and the devil is in the way that they're actually enforced. And on that, I would suggest there has been hypocrisy on the right because you've heard a lot of people who have looked at Islamic hate preachers and said that we should know under no circumstances be allowed to say that sort of disgusting stuff but at the site as it or or anti-Semitic stuff.
00:29:23
Speaker
But at the same time, when it has been commentary on on Islam, for example, it has had more wider reign. So I think there is an element of picking and choosing on the right what and isn't acceptable just like there is on the left.
00:29:37
Speaker
And that is, I think, that is troubling. Okay, let's move let's move move forward to other reasons why this country may be in a Roman-esque spiral. And Chatgeppet tells me of the cultural decay of a Rome, loss of civic virtue, class divide, and interestingly, and one which I want to extend on, is the decline in Roman identity as the empire became more diverse and multicultural.
00:30:01
Speaker
which people from all but corners of the empire integrating into Roman society, traditional Roman identity began to fade. This fragmentation undermined the sense of unity that had once held the empire together.
00:30:13
Speaker
Now, I think a lot of people listening to this, and this was what, 2,000 years ago, think a lot of people listening to this would say if you change the words Roman Empire to Australia, they would see a lot of that.
00:30:24
Speaker
How do you feel about Australian identity today and do you think it has become diluted as a result of multiculturalism? Yeah, well, that's a a very Gibbonian idea, which is that the the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic was at its height when it was governed by you know democratically elected consuls who you know would serve only for a brief period of time. And then you know then there'd be another vote and people could... out The problem with that was that all these guys were shameless aristocrats.
00:30:52
Speaker
and It was completely unworkable. And that's why you just had a series of civil war after civil war after civil war that ended up resulting in Augustus and then leading to an empire that was in no way democratic. It did produce some really good emperors in the golden age of the second century.
00:31:08
Speaker
But but i think that there's all i I think one of the most powerful human drivers is nostalgia and and this idea that that you know things were always better in the past. And clearly, things were better you know for the Romans.
00:31:22
Speaker
Things were much better in, say, the second century than they were in the third century.
Success of Australia's Multiculturalism
00:31:27
Speaker
But there were also different factors at play. They extended Roman citizenship to people from all over the place, and the and and the the the the the emperor's role ended up going to... um going to people who were you know you know Eastern European warlords.
00:31:45
Speaker
and Balkan barbarian yeah bararian warlords, yeah. that's But that's also because these were the guys who could actually lead an army and defeat the other barbarians who were threatening Rome. And so I actually see that as a story, so very being very convoluted, but I actually see that as a story of Rome being something and Roman values being something that were so attractive that but people wanted in. People wanted to become ah part of this society. They wanted to they wanted to you know the privileges of being a Roman citizen, of being able to have you know it's fair fair trial at court, for example, um and face a semblance of justice, which was incredibly sophisticated and
00:32:27
Speaker
for its day, have the benefits of the protection of the empire. So you're not constantly warring with the tribe next door. And so these people, these warlords who were coming in, they were actually fighting for Rome against other barbarians. So I don't think it was them.
00:32:42
Speaker
and there and there were and you know And the Senate back in Rome you know was completely, doubly ignored. There were a bunch of rich, old Italian aristocrats who were more than happy to kick back in their villas and let all the... um all the barbarians do the fighting on their behalf. And the barbarians kept them safe for another, you know, another couple of centuries. So, you know, go the barbarians.
00:33:02
Speaker
Let me pull you back to Australia then. One in three Australian voters in the last election were not born in Australia. Is that a good bad thing, a bad thing, or just a thing? It's just a thing. It's just a thing. And it doesn't, you know, there's there's nothing inherently good about being born overseas. There's nothing inherently good about being born in Australia. You're certainly much luckier. I'm just incredibly grateful I was born in Australia because it's just a...
00:33:24
Speaker
It's incredibly, um mean, I honestly think it's the best country to live in in the world. has the best system of government in the world. It's the most stable. I think it is actually the most successful multicultural nation in the world. I don't think, if you look at some of the problems that they're having in Europe, we are not having them here. We do have our problems, but nothing like the extent that is happening over there.
Integration and National Cohesion
00:33:44
Speaker
Obviously, you need you cannot have unchecked migration. and It is up to the sovereign government to decide, as John Howard said, who comes into the country and who doesn't. It's not up to people smugglers or whoever else.
00:33:55
Speaker
But providing it's done it's done well and we're getting the migrants that we need and want to fill the skill shortages we have and we're making sure our humanitarian program goes to the most genuine refugees in the most dire need and it's not just a sort of death race by boat and, you know, first press to land on the beach wins.
00:34:15
Speaker
I think it's a really good thing. And I think we're we're very lucky. There is obviously, though, a lot of people, and and this is the thing with the immigration conversation, is that the impacts of immigration are felt differently in different parts of the country.
00:34:27
Speaker
So I have this conversation with friends who live in Paddington, and then they head into the CVD every day. And then they say, what a wonderful, tolerant, multicultural society that we are. And yet, I dare say they've never been to Lakemba, for example, and if they have, it was certainly a long time ago.
00:34:43
Speaker
the regional ah the The outer suburban areas obviously have high proportions of of migrants than, say, more affluent city areas. And many of those people in regional areas you're hearing concerned that many of the more recent migrants do not have the same either desire or ability to assimilate in the way that potentially, for example, the bloke who set up the Chinese restaurant in the and 1990s and says, G'day, mate, and puts up NRL posters in the the shop once did.
00:35:13
Speaker
Is that something that we should be concerned about? i think, well, if you look at all those previous cohorts that came up, and obviously, you know, you cannot have people sort of importing, you know, overseas vendettas here. and And we did run a really close thing and still have to make sure that we don't let it get out of control in terms of, you know, fighting the war in Gaza in the suburbs of Sydney. Yeah.
00:35:36
Speaker
But all that, I mean, the exact same things that are being said about Muslims now are the same things that were said about, you know, Lebanese Christians 20 years ago, Vietnamese, you know, they were all joining criminal gangs. And I actually spoke to a couple kids 20 years ago who came from Vietnam and there was a huge panic and a genuine panic, like a fear about Asian gang crime, um which almost exactly mirrors the fears we have about Middle Eastern gang crime or or extremism now. And this is not to say they're not real. They're very real and they have to be tackled.
00:36:08
Speaker
But again, after about a generation, it seems this sort of goes away. So I think you know you were already seeing have seen ah Muslims who are completely and utterly fully integrated into mainstream Australian life. And it's i think I think for those who don't live in those communities and who often see it just from afar, it's obviously the more extreme examples of of Islam and more extreme Muslims that get attention. Like you said, it's the hate preachers at the mosques.
00:36:41
Speaker
in South West Sydney that are on the front pages of the newspaper. And again, rightly so, because they need to be exposed and condemned. But you know for the most part, people bopping around.
00:36:52
Speaker
This is why this is such a frustrating conversation though, because the people who are supportive of immigration from Islamic countries will point to the good Muslims who are fully integrated.
00:37:04
Speaker
And in fairness, the people who not supportive will point to the hate preachers. And you basically have argument by anecdote and no one really is more right than the other. think the ah one argument would be that because of particular ingrained beliefs in certain Islamic countries, for example, the inability to differentiate between mosque and state, the positions towards minority groups and towards women, as two examples where the fundamental beliefs in Islamic countries are more likely to be adopted by people who live in those countries and therefore more likely to be brought into Australia um compared to someone coming from Vietnam or China or India, for example.
00:37:45
Speaker
How do you think about just that as ah as a logical question, if nothing else? Yeah, I think obviously, there i mean, there's there's a nauseating amount of hypocrisy on the left, for example. I you could sum it up as queers for Palestine, you know, that the
Immigration's Effect on Infrastructure
00:38:00
Speaker
where where all these things are overlooked and, you know, the Christians or the Catholic Church will get you know i pilloried for having a conservative or traditional position on and i whatever it may be, same-sex marriage or whatever. and And it gets completely ignored that you know in certain other theocracies, you know such people are thrown off the tops of buildings.
00:38:22
Speaker
And its ah ah the the hypocrisy is clearly nauseating. I think you have to make sure that there is no way in Australia that there can be the introduction of, for example, a parallel in religious law like Sharia law that you know is being implemented either, you know it obviously it happens sort of somewhat under the radar.
00:38:44
Speaker
um are Are there Sharia courts in Australia? I know that there's about 70 now in the UK. Yeah. No, there's not. The only thing that there is, I believe, is yeah like if people want if pinkle wanted yeah do it for their own reasons. I've got two people who want to get married under Sharia law or whatever.
00:38:59
Speaker
you know They can go and see an imam or whatever who can say whatever, whatever. But there's there's certainly no question that that these things operate in competition with or outside the bounds of the Australian legal system. So there is absolutely none of that. The only case where I think anything like that happens is, i think there was in I'm not sure if it's even still happening, but I think the know in the Northern Territory there was a sort of binary system where a traditional Indigenous law could be applied in some cases if all parties consented to it and that could take the place of that. But anyway, that's a separate issue. But um but yeah, no the Australian rule of law has to be one rule of law, obviously, for all and and we cannot tolerate that.
00:39:39
Speaker
And again, I welcome people exposing you know examples of of Sharia law being applied to people against their wishes. you know That needs to be exposed. you know Things like underage marriage, that sort of stuff needs to be exposed.
00:39:53
Speaker
But again, i think i think that it gets exposed and it is shocking because it is the it is the exception, if you like, that proves the rule. I mean, for one thing, if you are a really hard hardcore extremist, Wahhabist or...
00:40:12
Speaker
Islamic State jihadist or whatever, you don't really kind of want to be in Australia. yeah You don't want to be in a and like in a country like this where you're seeing evil and the work of Satan on every street corner. That's why you had the perverse example of, you know, in sort of about 10 years ago when the horrendous, and and the the when sort of ISIS was at its death.
00:40:33
Speaker
You know, were coming in the other other direction. They were leaving the safety of Australian suburbs. for these shithole war zones in Syria where people could be stoned to death and they're slaughtering people. So again, I think if you're a Muslim and you want to go to Australia, and yes, there will be hardliners and they need to be exposed, but chances are you're someone who's much more moderate and outward looking and more secular in your political beliefs.
00:41:01
Speaker
than someone who's yeah i'm living it in Saudi Arabia, in Iran, and know you know you name it. so So we can't have unchecked migration. And again, we have but we bring in people because of you know we've got skill shortages. I mean, I think the biggest problem with migration is how much pressure it puts on infrastructure and housing prices.
00:41:24
Speaker
And there's always a payoff because, of course, there's a we've got a shortage of people to build the houses as well. Yeah. A shortage of other essential workers like aged care workers and you know medical workers, all that sort of stuff. So it's it's hard, but I think done well, it's it's not a problem and and it's and it's ah it's for the benefit of all of us.
Decline in Religious Adherence
00:41:42
Speaker
Okay, let's move to a couple of civilis civilizational decline factors, which I think are probably common to Europe, the UK and Australia today. I don't think they're Australian specific problems.
00:41:54
Speaker
The first would be religious transformations. So one of the classic arguments, I believe Gibbon said this, was was Christianity made the empire weak effectively.
00:42:05
Speaker
Now, for Australia and indeed Europe and the UK, it would be the inverse problem. We've seen a decline of religiosity or declining Christianity and the Judeo-Christian faiths in over the last 50 years, maybe more.
00:42:20
Speaker
You're not religious, I believe. I'm a Catholic. Catholic. You're a Catholic. Okay. You're Catholic. I'm an atheist. But how do you see the decline in religiosity in Australia and and indeed the West as playing into this story, if at all?
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's ah it's a good question. So Gibbon's argument was that the problem with Christianity is that it took religion sort of behind closed doors. Obviously, Christianity was illegal for much of the early empire and and and Christians refused to do what... and think The strength of Rome, and again, getting back to the multiculturalism or whatever, is that Rome would you know take over, annex another...
00:43:00
Speaker
you know, province or whatever, go to war, kill all the people, enslave the rest, whatever. But when once they sort of had control, they basically said, look, you've got to pay your taxes and on special holidays, you've got to do these rituals for our gods. So we avoid, you know, plagues and pestilence and whatever, whatever.
00:43:18
Speaker
But you can do whatever you want. You can do you do whatever you want. You can, you know, Jews, you can go to your temple and build your temple. They're often aided in doing that. Of course, if they refused to pay their taxes and arced up, then they would be to ground, which is what ah ended up happening. But you know the Romans basically said, look, as long as you give us your money...
00:43:37
Speaker
you can do whatever you want. And as long as you pay lit service to our gods, you can do whatever you want with your gods. And and in the ancient world, it was believed that every different person would have, a every different sort of community would have a different religion and you'd go from one city to another go, oh, right, saw this girl's earth and this, that god. And sometimes they'd match them up and say, oh, this is like our Jupiter, that's Arman Ra, that's Zeus, you know, and whatever.
00:44:01
Speaker
So, But what gibbon and what Gibbon was saying was that with Christianity, the Christians refused to worship any other gods because, of course, thou shalt not worship any other idols before me.
00:44:13
Speaker
and And this sort of took them out of the civic space. and And so they no longer had a stake in the Roman state and they no longer had, you know, that they were no longer sort of part of it. So it was sort of a social cohesion argument. And and And again, I think in some ways, given overly romanticizes how great it was back in the day. But I think, so I'm being very long, move but I think one thing we do have to do is make sure that we are not ashamed of traditional Judeo-Christian values. And I think if you look at things like compassion, you know multiculturalism, justice, all these things that the left
00:44:56
Speaker
proclaimed so loudly on social media, all these things have their foundations in Judeo-Christian belief. I mean, the idea that every single individual, no matter where they come from, no matter how rich or poor they are, is equal in the eyes of God, that is a radical, radical idea that was put forward by in the very first draft of Bible in his letters.
00:45:20
Speaker
like the very first draft of the bible in his his letters yeah He was saying there is no Jew or Gentile. There is no you know slave or free. we are all We are all equal. So I think you have to respect those values in that tradition. Well, let let let me put this question to you then.
00:45:35
Speaker
And I've asked this question actually of several Christians on this podcast, and most of the time they say no. Do you think a society like Australia can still maintain the Judeo-Christian foundation and those Judeo-Christian values without a critical mass of people over time actually believing in the actual deity of those religions? As in, can you have the values without the actual religion?
00:46:02
Speaker
I think you can because people are so religious, they don't even know they're religious. Does that make sense? This is the Tom Holland argument. you know relate Christianity is just part of the water.
00:46:15
Speaker
it's it's a that's That's right. So all these people who would think that they're atheists, ah In fact, take for granted these values, which 2,000 years old, they come from a very, very specific source, and they were extremely radical at the time. mean, what Paul was saying was radical to even the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and Nazareth. He said, no, no, this is just this is just us being better Jews and we're going to heaven and you guys can all get funded.
00:46:46
Speaker
He was like, no, no, this is for everybody. This is for everybody. was like, hey, you never met the guy. you know He was my brother. These were fights that were happening in real time in the early church.
00:46:58
Speaker
So i think there is ah I think ignorance of history is ah much bigger problem. Absolutely. Absolutely. And people just not knowing, A, how lucky we are to be living in the long peace, how fragile it is, and also how lucky we are that our society, that liberal democracy is in many ways the exception, not the
Teaching of Australian History
00:47:21
Speaker
rule. And it is not something to be taken for granted. it is not something to be... Western civil civilization is also something that I think is, for all the so whatever bad stuff has happened to people in the past, I don't know, that is something that you want to bring people into.
00:47:36
Speaker
and and have them share the benefits of and not tear down. let let Let me throw this grenade into the conversation then, because I think history is taught atrociously in Australian schools. I've developed a love for Roman history, for example, entirely after I finished school and university, yeah know through popular podcasts like The Rest is History and through you know popular history books like the Tom Holland books, that sort of stuff.
00:47:58
Speaker
I don't remember anything about Julius Caesar from school. I don't remember anything about ancient Greece and and the cradle of civilization. I remember a lot about the rainbow serpent. I remember a lot about ancient mythical traditions of our indigenous peoples.
00:48:13
Speaker
And look, there is a place for that. But my question would be, have we got the mix wrong in how we talk about history? And then perhaps as a follow on, how can we teach history better in schools in Australia?
00:48:25
Speaker
Very good question. and um And it's one I've been thinking about really, really. It's something I think about just all the time. I'm like you. I'm just history obsessive. I think about it nonstop all the time. i And again, a bit like yeah I majored in history at uni, but felt like I never really even scratched the surface and I didn't really appreciate what was out there and and didn't have really ah deep understanding of it.
00:48:46
Speaker
one of the One of the great things about Gibbon and Decline and Fall is it's incredibly judgy. There is simply no there is no delineation between right and wrong and what happened.
00:49:03
Speaker
So it will always be, you know, these noble people or they this weak loser or this blah, blah, blah. And that has always been one of the most critical roles that history history has had for any society. So every so every society throughout, you know and often it's bound up in myth and legend, and that's why these things are sort of in the moment, has foundation stories that it tells about itself.
00:49:29
Speaker
And it tells it for a very, very important reason. It tells it to bind people together and say, this is why we are the way we are. It's generally speaking, it says, this is why we're good.
00:49:41
Speaker
Sometimes it's this is why we're better than other people. But it says, this is why you should be proud to be Roman, proud to be out proud to be American, you know proud to be British, proud to be Chinese. The Chinese do it incredibly well.
00:49:53
Speaker
The Indians frame their own narrative. Even the Indonesians, I studied Indonesian nationalism at uni, and i had to stitch together this crazy narrative. narrative of how even though we speak 20 billion different languages and 20 billion different religions on 20 billion different islands stretched across this archipelago, actually, we're all the same people. And that's why in 1945, we're going to be independent.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yay! And yeah it's a fantasy, of course, but that doesn't make it unimportant. So obviously, we have to teach the facts about history. We have to teach what actually happened.
00:50:27
Speaker
But The inheritance, for example, that we have, I mean, I remember when I was, maybe it was too far down the other direction, but remember learning about King Alfred when I was had learning history in high school. And now I'd go back and listen to King Alfred and go, ah, there he is again.
00:50:40
Speaker
But i again. I didn't get Alfred. but But surely you think that the black armband view of Australian history now probably takes precedence in the way that history is taught about Australia than perhaps it did in our parents' generation, for example.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's more sort of, you know in my experience, maybe I'm too too long out of school. think, yes, it certainly does. And yes, it certainly does at a tertiary level. So kids studying history today are all studying about how evil colonialism is and imperialism is and and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah And that's kind of,
00:51:15
Speaker
and And again, that comes with its own. That's not just examining the facts. That is coming with its own particular lens and applying cultural values to that.
00:51:26
Speaker
and And again, that and I think that just ends up being quite corrosive. Certainly at school, like my kids at school, there's there's indigenous stuff, but it's really touchy-feely stuff. It's not, you know,
00:51:38
Speaker
we're sorry we stole your land. It's like we pay our respects, and we touch the ground, you know, and it's actually very sweet, everything, and they're learning about different cultures and stuff, different, you know, cultural practices that they do displays and they all get really excited by it. There's nothing sinister about it at all.
00:51:50
Speaker
But I do think that this ah This idea that you know that we have to do nothing but uncover the evils of the British Empire, for example.
00:52:03
Speaker
I mean, sure, that's fine, but all empires perpetuated shitloads of evil all the time. and few you know some There's probably an argument that the British Empire was the most benign and and did more good than of the other big European colonial powers. I mean, you look at what the Belgians did in Africa. You look at what the French did in South America.
00:52:27
Speaker
You look at what the French did in Africa and Indochina. I mean, the French, they have got a lot to answer for. They are absolute. They are the worst. I hate that. My millions of French listeners are tuning off right now.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. But um but you get okay if you're going to look at look at the Chinese empire, look at the stuff, that look at the Mongols. No, if you want to have a crack at empire, fine, have a crack at empire, have a crack at all of them.
00:52:52
Speaker
but they But this kind of very, it's almost not just a black armband view, but it's this sort of incredibly blinkered view where you have people who sort of know an incredible amount about one particular angle of Australian history. Yeah.
00:53:08
Speaker
to the exclusion of all else. And and even even just sort of subtle things, like you had horrendous amounts of settler violence in Australia and and you know frontier violence and all that stuff.
00:53:19
Speaker
and you know And people go, and this wasn't even reported. This wasn't even, no one ever, and they covered it up. It's like, yes, they covered it up. Yes, it wasn't reported because it was illegal. Because if the people who did this were caught by the government, they would be hanged.
00:53:36
Speaker
And they would. and And again, this is not to say it didn't happen or that it wasn't terrible and and sickening, but this was not, you know, i mean, this was not the government coming in saying, right, we're going to enslave and kill all these Indigenous people, you know, much more There's a much more sort of enlightenment view.
00:53:57
Speaker
There was a much more perhaps even naive kind of view that we could all be friends and help them out when Arthur Philip first came. But you just don't see any of that. And if you told that story, you would find reconciliation would actually be much, much more within grasp because we didn't come here to till to just to kill black people. we that was ah yeah know We brought diseases that decimated them. That was terrible. We brought booze that decimated them.
00:54:21
Speaker
That was terrible. But this idea that, oh, you you just came here for genocide. We want our land back. That's yeah not really going to progress things very much.
Optimism for Australia's Future
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Joe, the title of this episode will somewhat provocatively be The Decline and Fall of Australia. I'm unsure whether to put a little question mark in brackets after that.
00:54:44
Speaker
Oh, question mark. Well, this is this is my final question to you. This is my final question to you because that framing is obviously inherently negative and and some of the challenges we've been talking about do potentially paint a ah bleak vision of the country and where it is going. So,
00:55:00
Speaker
what do you How do you feel about the future of Australia, both in the, let's say, the short term, but then the the longer term as well? think was W.B. Yeats in his poem about the First World War said, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.
00:55:13
Speaker
And that has always been my great fear, that we would end up in a society in Australia and the West where it was the extreme left and the extreme right, fighting with each other, each thinking that the other one was all-powerful and taking over the world or taking taking the country in this terrifying direction and that they had to be stopped by any means necessary. And so things just escalate into ever more, you know, potentially even violence, you know, as we've seen in the US.
00:55:41
Speaker
So that has always been my fear and my mission to allow myself to sleep at night without the aid of copious quantities of alcohol, ah yes was to make sure that the Labor Party didn't fall down that rabbit hole. The Labor Party, which I think is ah the the best hope for a kind of centrist, and know people will disagree, but but the Labor Party had to hold on to the centre, could not be captive to left-wing ideology or left-wing interests and that it would be a centrist, mainstream, moderate party. And I know a lot of people think that, you know, a lot of conservatives think that it's way too far to the left. i can promise you a lot of people on the left think that it is way too far to the right. So,
00:56:26
Speaker
and And I know the PM himself firmly, believes whatever other people think, he firmly believes himself to be and prides himself on being centrist. So that's how he sees himself. And that gives me great comfort. And the fact that he's just won, that Labor's just won such a huge majority on a very kind of boringly mainstream, nuts and bolts, not ideologically charged,
00:56:52
Speaker
um sort of agenda, that gives me great hope. So boring normality is back in Australian politics and that's just the way I like it.
Promotion of The Real Story Podcast
00:57:01
Speaker
Get shameless plug in. Tell me about the podcast and where can people find it?
00:57:04
Speaker
ah The Real Story with Joe Hildebrand, wherever you get your podcasts, and it's just me basically revealing all the secrets that I'm not allowed to tell in the mainstream media. So I just, um all the little political goss, what's really going on behind the stories, who's doing what, how all the little machinations work. It's, um yeah, it's just my my little obsession. Apart from ancient Rome, which often get to mention, that's all I really care about. So come and have a look.
00:57:31
Speaker
It is terrific, mate. I really enjoy it. Thank you for that. And thank you for coming on today. Thank you very much. My second favorite podcast, Fire and Will.