Intergenerational Theft | Peter Costello AC

emotion triumphs logic in the modern world right so you can sit down there and you can talk about the importance of gas not just for Australia but for the rest of the world uh and what's the answer oh well look the we've got a catastrophe in the world will end emotion tribes lodging and it will continue to Triumph logic in my view until such time as people are sitting in houses that they can't afford to heat and they'll think to themselves hmm you know this is not a very good situation [Music] Peter Costello who I count as a close personal friend is well known as Australia's longest serving Treasurer During the period from 96 to 2007 he eliminated Commonwealth debt in net terms with the strong support of the team around him after leaving Parliament he served as a member and then chairman of the independent Advisory Board to the world back in Washington he is the chairman of the Australian future fund he's also chairman of the nine entertainment Corporation a public media company in Australia of no little standing Peter welcome back to the show it's good to have you for the second time I wanted to capture your thinking in terms of you having I think an incredible global perspective on what's happening I've known you for 30 years there is no more astute Observer of what's Happening economically but I would say socially too I think the two are related so let me start with a big one Neil Ferguson put it to me a couple of years ago on one of these shows that the greatest threats to Western freedom and prosperity are the possibility of military miscalculation on a grand scale but the still greater threat was a loss of self-belief in the west the rejection of our history the rejection of our values the internal divisions and so forth that arise are we perhaps at a civilizational level it looks it looks to me as if the West has lost confidence in itself actually in in a strange kind of way even even almost at the time that liberal democracy had become had become the preferred model for the world after the fall of Communism and and those societies that were challenging it the West seemed to falter and lose confidence in itself um rather than seeing Western Civilization as an enormous success you know it freed people from servitude it gave them affluence it provided them with individual liberty it gave them freedom of conscience they began to see the West as the legacy of colonialism and slavery and almost in Marxist terms oppression uh and it's really turned in on itself uh uh and you see this with identity politics in particular I think the flowering idea of the West was um a valuable individual who had rights and obligations and could flower identity politics is there's no real thing as as an individual you you can be defined by class or race or sex or whatever it is and once you're born into one of these identities that's it for life um you're either an oppressor or a victim and you play at your little assigned role under the new identity politics I was Guinness on this program a little while ago made the comment that he thought we were at a civilizational moment and he sort of said in general terms there's been many civilizations down Through the Ages all of them have had an engine that's powered up that Civilization and it's run on the fuel of a sort of a common commitment to those values when the fuel starts to run low there's really only three choices you refuel you find an alternative fuel or your civilization Falls away which is what has happened in the past it seems to me that we've seen a very solid rejection of the foundations foundational thinking in the west if you like in our institutions the substitutes you referred to Identity politics don't seem to be a very good fuel for taking us forward if I can put it that way well there'll be a fuel for taking some people forward those who actually believe in it and can prosper under it you know there is a lot of self-interest I think in in pushing this but you know I I think value is uh the most important thing culture is Downstream from values and politics is Downstream from culture brilliantly put uh but but values is where it all starts and you know I think the flowering of the western model was largely based on the judeo-christian views um one of which by the way was that you weren't defined by your your class or your sex or your religion you know there's neither Jew nor Greek uh this was the idea that every person was man or woman slave nor free slave or free uh every person derived their value as an individual because they were made in the image of God that they had to be treated with respect because they were in the image of God that that they should be judged and held accountable as an individual in the image of God now that idea I think found its way into constitutions and laws and eventually into politics um and and and the flowering moment I would say probably was during the 20th century uh but at this moment of flowering success technological success scientific success artistic success cultural success the West somehow lost its confidence in itself and was very very open to a political attack and reversal and I think that's what we're we're seeing now political attack and reversal by people who probably never accepted those values never accepted that culture never accepted that politics they've come along with their own version and they've been very successful I'd say I think that's a very useful understanding you've just said out there that that politics in a way in the in the western democracy should be Downstream of culture and cultures Downstream as you put it values but the values themselves are probably driven by beliefs and as we talk there's been a fascinating bit of research released by The Wall Street Journal that's floating around and it shows that if you go back to those days the very days you were talking about when we were in office um you had that period after the collapse of the Berlin Wall the world is safe for democracy you know that's what's won out Francis Fuki Army saying uh uh you know the end of History the end of History which was a play on Marx Mark said that the end of History would be the Socialist State yeah and he was saying no it's not the same state it's democracy liberal democracy we thought it was safe in 1998 at that time in America according to this work this is really interesting worth just tracing through 70 of Americans said patriotism is important to them now it's under 38 percent 62 percent that's two-thirds roughly of people said religion was very important to them is now down to below 40 percent having children which you've talked about a lot of the country is going to have a future you know it's children Arts future 60 of people thought it was very important and now only 30 do that's a massive shift in 35 years there's also been a collapse in a commitment to community involvement um and interestingly um it's across all age groups but it particularly applies to young people I think that's right I think young people have been particularly um atomized by by social media I mean the the the funny thing about social media is you'll engage all the time with with a machine rather than with individuals the days of going off to the youth group or the scouts or or or the sporting club you know has been has been left behind by the days of engaging in Tick Tock and promoting yourself to the world what we used to call Social Capital seems to have declined across the board um I I think uh when you come to things like patriotism not only are people probably lost interest in patriotism but they're now being fed this ceaseless diet that there's nothing to be patriotic about right why be patriotic if if your country is really just a colonial society you're inheriting a nightmarish culture you're in you're you're living off Crimes of the past um you can't be proud of of any of that I I think this is and I'll talk about Australia here um you know I I know like nearly all Australians my four Bears came to this country looking for a better life uh they were persecuted people in one way or another it didn't have much opportunity um they came to Australia because they saw this as a place of opportunity and this this was the migrant story of Australia generation after generation you know the Irish Scots English you know and then of course the Greeks and the Italians this was an immigrant Society where where you could do better Vietnamese Chinese the Indians but we're now being fed this sort of view that oh it's all just a racist colonialist Society you can't be proud of that what I'm proud of is that Australia gave my forbears and millions of other people an opportunity they would never have had in life and yeah they didn't they didn't steal land from anybody by the way mostly they came and they they lived in very very poor quarters right they bettered themselves they contributed to society they paid their taxes they got education they raised their kids you know to me it's a wonderful example uh of a success right um and Australia which couldn't feed itself can now feed you know itself and a good deal of the world as well it it it's now self-sufficient in energy and exporting to the world as well this is this is a very very successful Society and and yet uh you're being fed on this idea that uh somehow it's all shameful it was born in original sin uh you know that that you can't be proud of your country So when you say oh patriotisms now of course it's down but what you're being told there's nothing really to be patriotic about uh and I do I do feel in Australia at least um we we should celebrate the successes now you know you can compare even if you want to compare us to other immigrant societies we're going to compare us let's say to Latin America right people came out of Europe and settled in Latin America um it wasn't nearly as successful in terms of political stability in terms of economic growth in terms of of of exports and what's has contributed to the world I mean this was in Australia a very successful experiment you know the the people who for the people who came here now um you'll the the critics will say to you at this point ah but that's for the people who came here what about the people who were already here they will say uh it wasn't so successful for them and it wasn't entirely successful for them of course not but it was successful for many Aboriginal people people forget that it was you know many Aboriginal people including all of the people who are the leaders of the Aboriginal movement today all got good education they've got good health you know they they were enabled to lead Aboriginal people in a modern society it was not all all successful I can see that but it was not all failure either and I just feel that we ought to remember when we're talking about our country and what it's done and where it's been there's a lot of things that should be celebrated we shouldn't brush over the past but we shouldn't allow the past uh we shouldn't allow a version of the past to completely undermine the great successes that we've had by International standards picking up on this idea of um of democracy being the result of a lot of thinking about the value of the individual recognizing that individuals vary in many ways the ideas of a basic freedoms conscience speech assembly property are the result of not only of a lot of hard thinking but also people trying to come to grips with how we live with our differences democracy ought to be the ideal work mechanism by which we resolve our differences find our common ground and move forward and yet now it seems to become a vehicle for division we don't seem anymore to see democracy as the way to handle our our deepest differences yeah I look there's two ways of looking at democracy um the first way is that the majority will prevails so whoever gets more votes in an election becomes the government right but it's not just the will of the majority that prevails in a real democracy minority rights would also be protected uh and that's what the law does the law says even even if there's a majority majoritarian government it can't go and persecute it's the people who didn't vote for it can't go and persecute minority they have the protection uh of of the law and they're entitled to the protection of the law and we've always recognized that and it's one of the reasons why we've always tried to have limited government now this is this is something you won't hear many people talk about these days um I'm a Believer in limited government right I think the government's there for some purposes and should be limited from from from from just taking over every area of life that uh that someone wants it to and the reason the the reason why is that we've got to protect that individual liberty even for minorities they have to be protected you know the government can never take away someone's freedom of speech or freedom of conscience or freedom of religion uh and and that's why government has to be limited um and and what what nobody seems to worry about I do but not many people seem to worry about these days is the expansion of the state I see the expansion of the state as inevitably affecting individual rights and individual liberties and increasingly determining what it's acceptable to say and what it's not acceptable to say and I think we had more freedom when the state was limited government is government is much bigger today in our country and generally speaking in the west than than it's ever been before and yet I don't think it's solved the basic problems that people are really worried about and the problems in their relationships and their marriages and children because the state can't solve those problems there's an area where the state just runs out of power what what the state can basically do is it can tax and spend that's what it can do Texans being but can texting and spending fix a relationship you know can it can it give kids goals in life can it can it Empower communities to look after each other I don't think so I don't think there's a tax that's been invented or a spending program that's been invented it's going to fix those things I'm going to take it um and I'd love to come back to this idea of big government impacting on our freedoms because you're now seeing a drift towards a sort of a call for a global government's coming out I think of the wef you know the problems confronting mankind are so great that we've got to magnify but before I do back to young people for a moment there's some emerging evidence that particularly in the English-speaking world that young people who tend to be left of center perhaps when they're at University idealistic and what have you but there's an old saying that by the time they're 30 you know their heads have caught up and they've moved back to the central or the center right it's not happening anymore and there's two interesting aspects of that that I'd just welcome your views on one is in part it's because they can't get their foot on the economic ladder it's so hard for them to get into a house a Californian Joel copkin has done some research on Australia and it's astonishing the number of young Australians who don't believe they'll ever have a home and if they do it'll only be because of inheritances it won't be they don't see themselves as being able to work their way into it so they don't feel invested in you know and there's another follow-on which you've talked about family formation it's now impacting family formation you've got people who can't start a home they don't feel able to start a family with it and in fact their birth rates dropping quite significantly what's happening to young people in terms of their commitment to democracy and why are they tending I think to pursue policies which are actually only exacerbating the very things they're worried about yeah I mean the old expression if you're not a socialist at 20 you don't have a heart and if you're not a conservative of 30 you don't have a head um and I I think when you're young and you don't pay tax you're inclined to the view that whoever else is paying tax should be fixing my problems one way or another and until you start paying tax yourself you don't sort of realize that there's a cost benefit in in all of these policies I think with young people and I agree I think home ownership is very important for young people I always believe that um and and it's always been a big feature of uh of Australia um I think younger people though are doing everything later in life though uh John and are they respecting to live to 90 or 100 they're expecting to have four or five different jobs uh they'd rather travel and put down a deposit on a house I mean that's that's part of it um it's lifestyle I think also if you're a young person and you've grown up in our country you haven't really seen a recession for 30 years and I think as inflation Rises and interest rate Rises it's going to come as a bit of a shock and you know some of these people might begin to think well the economy is more important than than they used to uh and I also think standards have changed um you know if you go back 30 years ago we had much smaller houses but average of four people in them now we've got houses that have doubled in size but the average household uh is is halved in size uh in in these houses so they're expecting a lot more standards uh in relation to the housing but yeah I agree with you I do think it's important to give somebody a little stake and I'll speak for this country all of our research our longitudinal research really shows the the difference between a Secure Retirement and an insecure retirement is owning your own house you can live on a pension if you own your own house but if you're still renting at 60. you're going to be under a lot more pressure if I were to put it to you in part we're talking here today because I have a podcast series and I started the podcast series because during the great financial crisis and the wash up afterwards I became really concerned about the fishes in Western Society we didn't seem to be thinking it through clearly there seemed to be this demand that governments solve every problem I think Western governments lost control of their budget so most of them with the exception of this one listeners will know because we often refer to it even Jordan Peterson's been fascinated by it you led the team that ended the deficits paid the debt out set up the future fund which you've been sharing that's a remarkable story but the GFC the washer you know you really saw people saying the government's got to solve the problem and no I won't wear any pain in now repairing the damage and repaying the debt and raising productivity so but government's realizing that the only way to cope with debt is you know you you either raise productivity uh and and a combination of that reducing expenditure oh the other option sorry is is to try and inflate your way out of it so they went for inflation because that's the easy option and I think we've been doing that for a long time it was always going to trip us up wasn't it oh I think it was so in Australia the link just to expand it for a moment is where we've gone to culturally no we won't wear pain we expect government to solve every problem we're not into resilience and making tough decisions so government went for the easy option which is actually proving to be very dangerous yeah so I I I'd say the the two big events uh in the last 15 years um economically was um financial crisis 2008. uh covert um pandemic of 2020. so the financial crisis of 2008 comes up and what is the lesson that um governments not just in Australia but around the Western World set we've got a financial crisis on our hands we better do two things we better make money easier and we better spend more so in technical terms we'll call that monetary stimulation fiscal stimulation but don't worry about it once the financial crisis is over we'll raise interest rates again get monetary policy back to where it was and we'll balance our budgets and pay off the spending so we go through 2008-2009 but we do know though really we do neither we certainly don't balance any budgets and and half-hearted attempt to normalize monetary policy I mean coming to 2020 covert what should we do oh I know what we'll do we'll do monetary stimulation physical stimulation well by this stage we haven't got any interest rates that we can cut so we'll create money call quantitative easing to make money even cheaper and we'll spend more so we go through covert and we create a whole lot of money and we spend a whole lot of money and the idea is oh don't worry about it we'll we'll reverse this down the track well of course the first whiff of grape shot as we start reversing the monetary stimulation a couple of banks roll over Silicon Valley Bank maybe some other Banks so the question is what do we do do we do we sort of keep the easy monetary policy going because even some banks we might be right back into bank failures and and and this is the problem we've now got ourselves into that we have become so used to easy monetary policy so use to fiscal stimulation we kind of get ourselves out of it you know as as as someone said getting yourself out of easy monetary policy is like the hotel California you can check out but you can never leave right yep and and it's and it's the leaving of this extraordinary stimulus that is now proving so difficult now in Australia and it's the same around the world but I'll speak for Australia because I know I'm a lot better um you know we haven't balanced the budget now for 15 years you know we've we've egged up our our total debt to GDP from about 10 of GDP to 60. now if we don't get out of this by the time we go into the next cross it's going to be a next Crisis they come along very very regularly by the way financial crisis and negative instead of going into the next one at 10 debt we're going at 60 right we'll come out of that one at 100. and then we're going to the one after that at 100 we'll come at it 200. now what what are you going to do with all of this debt all right in Australia we're heading up to a trillion dollars of debt well nobody thinks we will will pay it back nobody got a plan to pay it back we'll just ratchet it up through each cycle and this is where I do feel for young people actually um the debt isn't going to go away no it will have to be serviced and who will have to service it well not you and I because you know we'll be off our mortal coil in about 20 years time or whatever the young people that have been born today they'll have to service this debt the debt of 2008 the death of 2020 the debt of 2030 the debt of 2040. and and you've got to remember this is going to bite into their their spending power their taxes are going to be higher uh and and this is where I think you know I would say to you and I always argued this when I was in government low debt is a youth policy yeah low debt is a youth policy I remember what what can we do for young people we can give them a society where all they have to do is pay for their spending not pay for their spending and our spending yeah right agree we're giving them a society where they're going to have to pay for our spending all of the generations that go before them and then turn around and try and fund themselves this is a very anti-year policy every time I hear someone say oh you know spend some more money help the young people actually spending the more money if it's borrowed and it is all borrowed for 15 years every year every year actually that's been deficit every x a marginal dollar has been borrowed uh you're not you're not giving them much of a go and the whole debate in Australia has now become oh well you know we've opened up this big gap between spending and tax so we've got to think of some higher taxes I I want someone to say well why don't we think of going back to the kind of spending we used to have then then we'd be able to do it all on the tax base that uh that we've got but that that argument just seems to be going now here's the point every time you ratchet up debt every time you ratchet up spending and inevitably therefore ratchet ratchet up tax uh every time you do that the government expands yes right the government's texting more the government's spending more the government's borrowing more the government expands and every time you do that you know you are you are creating this huge operation which now has much more reach in all sorts of areas and and and that to me um does impinge on individual liberty you see John I'll say to you I think we went far too far during the covert pandemic yeah no almost further than any other Western Country you know I promise you you know we will look back on 2020 2021 in 10 years time 20 years time and we'll say wow we really close the workplaces you know in in some states curfews you weren't allowed out of your home after nine o'clock we didn't have curfews in the second world war by the way the curfews uh uh we had situations where if you walked around the block on your own you had to have a mask on your own but there's no way you can infect somebody if you're walking around the block on your own by the way right uh we had a situation where you were locked in your house 23 hours a day given one hour one hour to go outside you'll look back on it and you say I mean how did we put up with that infringement of individual liberty well you see the government had enormous reach you know the government had huge media influence the government was running daily press conferences giving out body counts you know all the time you know this idea that if you went out if you went out of your house for more than an hour a day right um you know you could die or worse you could in fact someone who would die but somehow if you only went out for 59 minutes you know you're gonna you were going to be safe I mean we'll look back and and we'll say wow gee did we all do we all you know kids that weren't allowed to go to their parents funerals uh you know I think you were allowed something like seven or eight people something like that um at a funeral right uh you weren't allowed to say goodbye to loved ones who were uh who were dying and to me you know this would have been Unthinkable I think in the Second World War this kind of infringement on individual even though we're at War we didn't have curfews but because the rich of the state now is so much greater the public just by and large took it mind you the police were out arresting anybody who broke any of these rules right yeah a pregnant pregnant woman you know put up on uh on uh social media that there was going to be a demonstration as it turned out entirely lawfully you know police come into a home put her in handcuffs take her off to uh the police station right enforcing the law uh it was just intimidation uh as it turns out there's no charge that the charge got dropped right but it was just intimidation the you know the police might come into your home uh and they might arrest you and you know I think for some people too I better not say anything about this because if I do say something about this you know well I'm not very nice could be reported I I think we'll look back and we'll say this was a massive overreaction now the economic cost is there to stay we'll see that for a a long period of time now what are we going to learn out of this because there's going to be another pandemic by the way of course there is or some sort of Crisis it'll be another pandemic to go back broadly um to the times when you and I were sitting around that cabinet table trying to get down the deck because it was running a just short of 20 of GDP uh and other Western countries likewise will becoming worried about theirs which were typically around that 40 45 percent the other major Western economies much higher than ours we got ours under control we're not as to zero so this is a big point we got ours to zero we just paid off all of the debt the Brits did the Americans didn't right so we went into these crises from an incredibly strong position and even to the covert spending you were talking about in a sense that was done on the shoulders of work oh absolutely absolutely well you know you go back to 2006 2007 what was our net debt to GDP ratio zero actually it was minus it was minus yeah that's right we actually had money in the bank you want to go and have a look at uh the Brits or the Americans they were already up around 30 40 right so we're not losing control which is the point we're at 60 now yeah further shocks we'll lose control just like they did yeah and so if we'd have gone in at the levels that uh they'd have gone in we'd be at 100 now right but we didn't we went in at zero right so we're we're it was total federal and state 60 Federal 40. uh but next time we'll come out in 100. when you hear people say always you know fascinates me people you know often big spending people say oh we can afford to borrow more because you know by comparison you know our debt to GDP ratio is low it's only low because we actually paid it all off in 2007. if we hadn't have done that if we'd have emulated the Brits of the Americans or anything it would be exactly the same as theirs and of course mostly the people who say oh it's low we can afford to borrow more with the people who are opposed paying it off yeah you know so oh let's take the benefit of the policy we oppose back then oh okay I mean that's politics and but my response to that is to say just understand we are at the point where other major economies lost control yeah you lose control you know and see here's here's the other point uh uh it's one thing to borrow a trillion dollars as we in Australia not quite there but pretty close uh uh at one percent yes it's another thing to borrow a trillion dollars at four percent right yeah so even if you just held your debt steady in a trillion the cost of it the interest cost is going to go from about 10 billion to 40 billion it's going to go up 30 billion dollars right by about what 2030. well yeah as it rolls around as it rolls around right I'm just talking about projects yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so six or seven years time now yep yep before some of it's already rolling up by the way yes because it's when your bonds roll off you know and some of it won't roll off through uh another five years and some you're very small amount one roll off for 10 years but on average over time you know what we were borrowing at one percent we'll move to whatever the rates are now four percent let's say that's 30 billion dollars of extra interest right well 30 billion dollars is to put this in context that's that's the Medicare system yeah that's right so before you've done anything that's just your cost of the most recent budget right here in Australia's here's a trick question fastest growing area of government spending in the last year interest interest costs yeah yeah and and for those of my beloved listeners and I say this really sincerely who whose eyes are glazing over saying that's just an argument about economics a sweet set of numbers it's not you're closely tying it to outcomes for people particularly young people that's the point young people this is the point this is the point the young people that debt that trillion dollars debt which they didn't borrow well it wasn't borrowed when when they were adults in the world that trillion dollar dead becomes their debt and the 40 billion of interest payments becomes their payment year after year after year after year right so that's that's what you need you know that you need another 40 billion dollars in addition to their schools their hospitals their defense and then none 40 billion so what happened back here I think these things are incredibly important that as you think and as I think and I think one of the problems to pay you a compliment and tentatively nervously say there's perhaps even your predecessor and we might have disagreed anything politically but you explain things no one's explaining this now so young people are inclined I don't want to be down on them that's not my objective but they've been fed a constant diet of government can solve this problem no one points out the obvious it's actually governments don't have money and when they spend money it belongs to taxpayers and if today's taxpayers don't live within their means then the children that's right when they're adults and this is going they're worried about flatlining wages and increasing asset prices now all of this simply prompts us to make it worse yeah so what's happened Thomas Soule made a fascinating comment the American Observer he said the problem is not that little Johnny can't think he can think problem is not that little Johnny can't feel he can feel the problem is that little Johnny thinks feeling is thinking you know what's happened to our ability to think critically the way accumulate and weigh the evidence and the facts Peter and I guess I'm asked a little bit here it's not just a cultural question what's happened in our education system yeah well emotion is cooking people no emotion is King these days so um the way you resolve any dispute is is with emotion and by and large the people who make the biggest emotional claim tend to win most of the arguments and and you know you can see this particular I think on social media um or or Twitter um Twitter is not the place for a reasoned argument uh you know for and against Twitter is the place for an emotional claim and the more emotional the claim um the better and so you know we are raising young people on social media where you resolve an argument with an emotional claim right and we we now surprised that they don't want to resolve an argument with reasons and logic debate you know the attention span John was like that right and um you know I I for for all the good social media has done um it's done a lot of bad too I think it's it's shortened the attention span it's coarsened the debate it's it's it's led to I think the promotion and the normalization of extreme views um and the point about it is you see there's there's no editorial there's no editorial on social media right uh the newspaper there's needed the editor says you can't say that because it's defamatory or it incites a crime on on social media you can defame whoever you like you know you can incite crimes you know maybe if it's a really bad crime somebody will try and chase you down you you can meet um similar criminals and normalize your behavior um you know there there is there is no filter and uh you want to look at some of this stuff it's a sewer oh yeah absolutely and you know in a way we're finding new ways to not to deny people their freedom of conscience for fear they'll be canceled it's some things get canceled very easily if if you you know if you have a non-political view apparently that can be canceled on Facebook or Twitter but you know there's all this sort of what I regard as you know quasi-criminal activity it never gets canceled yeah that's right uh and it can be unbelievably damaging even to the point of people ending their own lives young people oh yeah I've looked this as I think this is a really big thing in our society online bullying yeah because if you're a young person and you've grown up in a society where you get your validation from likes you get your validation from followers the moment you know you you your likes um disappear or your dislikes come in or your followers say something nasty your whole self-esteem is pulled apart and it is a big issue with young people suicide self-harm out of social media and and it also empowers bullies see you're in public life you know somebody starts twittering to you and saying you've done this or you've done that wrong but you tend to believe it right person that's sending it is probably a fake name is probably somebody who who has no real expertise in the area and they're starting to bully you and and it's just been made an absolute campaigning weapon uh of bullying for people in public life uh you know once upon a time I would read comments about myself I don't all you're doing is you if you're letting the bully get into your head that's all you're doing um if if if you read that stuff um now that if that bullies for example wanted to write a letter to the newspaper the the letters editor would say well who is this person is this a reasoned argument no it's not it's just emotion it's just bullying it wouldn't get published but you see on these platforms there's no editorial and some of these people operate under multiple names and then you know if you want to raise it to the the nth degree it can be done by Bots yep uh and and now you you you you can even have state sanction bullying the face of all of this in one sense what we're talking about is disengagement people pull back they say I'm not going to be engaged so they withdraw from the public debate and we're seeing that in the in the Juvenile and overly emotionalized debate about public finances for example which we've just touched on but there's another even more serious problem I think people are actually disengaging uh from involvement in the Public Square I think that's right they're going home I think that's right um you think of the numbers that used to stand for pre-selection quality people large numbers for a seat in Parliament yeah uh they're not doing it anymore yeah um I'm told that the two major British parties had between them three million members until quite recently it's just collapsed now there are more members of the Royal Society bird watchers in Great Britain and there are members of the political parties but it's not just that it's more relaxing I did well um uh you know you talk to school councils I've had I'm surprised how often can you help us Identify some people no one wants to come onto our school council anymore uh you talk to Country shows and there are not enough young people coming through you everywhere people are not coming forward in this age of fear of being canceled and this age of radical individualism of identity politics I think that's a major threat yeah it's it's funny you're not getting your engagement face to face they're engaging on social media by the way but they're not engaging well young people are yeah a lot of pulling out uh well I hope they are because I think as I said there's a lot of risk but you see if if I join um a school council um I deal with other people I I hear disintian views I mean hopefully we do it in a respectful way I pull out of all that because I'm not allowed to put my view or my dissentian view is not respected um you you lose that sort of moderation that human interaction gives you and I think that'll make our society poorer it's not just the political parties by the way John oh no no I'm not saying it is the rotary it's the scouts it's the church it's the synagogue it's I don't know about the mosque I mean it is it is that's my point people are disengaged that's across the board yeah yeah and that shows up in that American survey where we're beginning about you know and it goes to the heart of you talking about a strong Civil Society neither wanting nor tolerating big government well you see and again you see this creates the void right so Civil Society is retreated well who do you think is going to fill the void government oh absolutely um the government will now you you you you you may not learn your your mores and your views from the school council or from the scouts or from the church so you know who's going to tell you what they should be now again yeah and you can see that now in their attempt not only in the state public school system yeah but in gaining control over the Independent Schools at the very same time that parents are flocking to The Independent Schools yep States who don't care what parents think or want are now trying to make sure that they can control they can effectively raise the children through that state system it seems to me um to um to come back to a couple of economic questions and then a couple of I'd be interested in newer views on a couple of geopolitical matters globally um it seems to me one of the things that's being left out of the debate about interest rates is the role of government so we're all saying Oh The Reserve Banks made a terrible mess or depending on your Precision on it it's got to get this thing under control nobody is holding governments to account for overspending I agree with them so you've got if you're like two arms of officialdom In conflict with one another well see though yeah there's almost they were they're in lockstep in 2008 as I said easy money fiscal stimulation they're a lockstep in 2020 easy manifestal stimulation now inflation takes off is it all as it as it always will if you if if your money is too cheap and too easy Reserve Bank rightly says well we've got a Titan monetary and normally a government would rightly say well we've got a Titan spending right I'm going to bring in a few balanced budgets there's no constituency for it anymore well you see John you've got to make a constituency I don't think there ever was really a constituency for balanced budget surplus budgets you know but a few of us decided to make one and you know I've I've heard people in politics I can't find a constituency for this anymore what do you think I found one you found one yeah we went out there and we spoke to people we we talked to them about why this was a problem we created a constituency you know if you let these things go by default of course nobody will sort of put their hand up for it we're talking about these upcoming expenses interest rates are most rapidly growing the interest cost of the debt you've got others you've got an out of control ndis which might as well have been designed with tabooby trap and future taxpayers not saying the objectives went right but talk about badly design you've got expenditures everywhere with demands for more we've already got a horrendous gap opening up between receipts and and government expenditure and a lot of people saying we've got to raise taxes which will be counterproductive because we know that will restrict growth then in the midst of all of this now we're saying the left particularly are saying we can't afford these submarines I just sort of think frankly at a 300 million what price freedom for a start but we spent more than that in one year on Covert yeah well it's 300 billion over 30 years in our dollars in so that that's that's not a lot of money in in defense spending actually uh you know we always used to think we should spend uh two percent at least two percent of GDP on on defense so it's eminently doable uh you know when when you gather it up as a 30-year number it sounds a lot but I could gather you up a 30-year number on the ndis which would be a lot bigger than that yeah so uh you know the the critical thing there I think is to get value for money though um this is the one I'm in favor of the nuclear subs but the one thing I learned yes in doing defense acquisition over a long period of time is you know they don't necessarily come on time these things they don't necessarily come up come in on budget and and I I think there's going to be a lot of rear and a lot of discipline around the delivery of that now there's another challenge for further finances and it does go to the heart of geopolitical issues in my view we we are now committed to Net Zero by 2050. it seems to me that I can see personally no technological or political path to Net Zero by 2050 as I stand as I sit I'm not a climate change denier but I just think this is where we're not thinking clearly enough there's going to be a lot of tough choices made if we make bad choices we will we'll actually be effectively doing what we did in covert government will be in the business I think of reducing economic activity I think that's right it's it's one thing to agree on the target it's another thing to actually deliver the target I was in that school that always used to say let's figure out how we can do something before we announced we're going to do it right these days you just announce you're going to do it and they're good no idea I mean for example in this country we we now know we're going to have to rebuild the whole transmission yes system right because transmission towers essentially come from coal-fired Power stations to Big Metropolis right well they're going to have to be rebuilt so they come from huge solar Farms or wind farms or something to Big Metropolis it's got to be rebuilt you'd have to put these transmission towers over Farmer's land you know you you wait till all this goes off environmental course no one's thought about this you know five years ten years in the court system before we sort of start building there's the cost of the whole thing you know this is this is an enormous transformation right uh and in the middle of all of this you know prices are going up and and and the public rightly inflation's going up power prices going up gas prices are going up you know my wages aren't going up my taxes are going up this is going to be you know it's all very well to sort of say oh you know I I I I love a pie in the sky I think there's a lot of more serious think he's got to go on as to how do you deliver that pie frankly the reason that I say it goes to Global geopolitics is that if we're not careful in the west I believe we will damage our economies I mean one pointer is Germany another is Colorado I I think about in California see California's got the wealthiest people that have ever walked the surface of the Earth in absolute and relative terms at the top they've driven out with their energy policies the middle classes because it's gone with industry it's gone to Miami it's gone to Utah it's gone to China and the only 80 of the jobs emerging Untold in California now are low paid so you're actually setting up a new feudalism yeah look I think I think this is the thing Australia's really got to get to groups with you know we are a a a gas Super Pair and gas unquestionably is the transition energy source you know there's going to have to be a lot of gas uh available to power up electricity on short notice uh when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine and it's not just us in Australia but countries around the world need our gas I mean the Germans need our gas they're not going to be getting it from Russia I don't think uh in a reliable way so we would be mad frankly from our own point of view but also from the world's point of view yeah that's an important point to not just stop the export of gas and Matt and yet the greens will tell us because it suits them hang on they'll say you've got it on the ABC frankly you've got to listen to the science and we've got a climate change emergency oh but the scientists are telling us we have a gas the only way we'll get them but no we don't listen to that so the greens know more about our than about well again it comes back to what we were saying before a emotion triumphs logic in the modern world right so you can sit down there and you can talk about the importance of gas not just for Australia but for the rest of the world uh and what's the answer oh well look the we've got a catastrophe and the world will end emotion tribes lodging and it will continue to Triumph logic in my view until such time as people are sitting in houses and they can't afford to heat and they'll think to themselves hmm you know this is not a very good situation you've got to have some realism you know I think to start to start thinking of the consequences of all of this well I agree with that and that was the point that I was wanting to draw out but no let's let's come to the greens for a moment and defense I amused myself over the weekend by reading the greens defense policy now they want to defund the Australian Defense Forces they're completely opposed to the Americans I mean they're the only country listed as a bad actor not from ourselves the Americans yeah no it's not the Chinese not the North Koreans it's not it's not um the Iran it's not Russia um I would have thought that if you were worried about climate change you'd want the Western based liberal rules-based order if I can put it that way to survive you'd think so you would think so wouldn't you what do they say I'm sort of amazed by this what what do they say should be done in Ukraine all conflict must be resolved uh by peaceful means yes we need to sit around the table and Australia should put together an international team of or an internationally respected team of Peace negotiations yes uh with uh which is politically correct yes in terms of its competition and and and and Putin will just sit down and say you were right I shouldn't have invaded Ukraine yeah oh okay let's fix it there you know that easy but they're educated people all over the people in Australia and Australia you know I saw someone say oh you know the worst thing about the Ukraine war is that it will lead to increased emissions which of course it will with with armaments and tanks and everything as well okay I mean I'm not in favor of increased emissions but you know if you if you're being bombed down in a city in Ukraine you might think you've got more immediate problems at the moment than the increased emissions that these Torpedoes are bringing as you know I'm deeply invested in agricultural research and I'm I'm to this day uh deeply interested in how we see people we're doing a stunning job we're feeding five billion people a day every day more than we were 50 years ago we're dramatically cut stunting of children and malnutrition those sorts of things it's an incredible success story but you know it's dependent on cheap energy and ammonia the four Great emitters everybody focuses on electricity but it's steel concrete electricity and ammonia half the world's grain production depends upon ammonia we don't have a substitute half the world's going to die but you see these are logical arguments this is the problem you know I don't if you were if you were in a debate with a green now and you put that that's a logical argument the answer would be but the world's going to end which is not by the way what the icpp of course it's not of course it's not and and I I was present at one of these sort of debates and uh the green was having trouble explaining um why we couldn't have nuclear power and in the end the green just said well we've got to listen to the children and the children are against nuclear power and you know I thought to myself it's a funny world isn't it one for most of the world's history the idea was you listen to your elders because they had experience all right now you listen to the children who don't have experience right because I guess they're purer they're they're untainted by original sin they they they they they they know the truth they're not they're corrupted by education we well the the readily being corrupted by education but uh a different kind of Education now so to the hardness so the hard-nosed end of all of this is that as we know now the autocrats look at the west and say they're in terminal decline they're degenerate here's the opportunity for adventurism the good news is that the um the West has pulled together in the face of the Ukraine and it must have been a real check in Beijing you know we haven't lost our way completely Peter you know I think that's right they're the reaching than they expected the American armaments have been well not just American but mainly American they've been they're very high quality but we're still I think in grave danger I agree with that not want to take the foot off the pedal things like orcas must be supported they must be driven we can't go back to emotively thinking about our Safety and Security in the world yeah the dictators look at the west and say the West is weak the West is soft it's our opportunity to rewrite the global rules I think it's a big part of it um but you know dictators made that mistake about the West before yes Hitler made that yesterday too yeah uh that that democracies are slow to Rouse but pushed far enough what we learned in the in the 30s and the 40s pushed far enough they could be roused um can they still be roused yeah uh this is the question isn't it um I think there can be if if it's a direct enough attack so you take 911 a direct attack that roused America um would they still have the fighting spirit that uh that that they eventually showed the democracies the anglo-democracies in the in the 30s and the 40s my suspicion is we're softer that we wouldn't have the staying power but if the if the threat is direct enough I think we can still be roused would be my assessment I think the dictators I think Putin thought that they couldn't be aroused you know he and and bear in mind he he'd had more or less a free hand in Crimea so freehand in Crimea would take a free hand here actually you know the people who really roused the conscience and are really doing the finding of the ukrainians themselves so I should take it back we've supplied weapons but but it's the ukrainians that have been roused and comparing the brunt to be fair Beijing would also be looking at the sanctions though thinking gee if the Yanks managed to coordinate that we did something in Taiwan if they managed to get the Europeans as well as themselves to impose economic sanctions that'd be a bit of a problem it'd do immense damage to the Chinese economy it could but you see the thing about the Chinese economy is if if it turns down obviously the Chinese people wouldn't like it but the Chinese government is not really susceptible to public opinion despite the fact that they backed off with covert in the end didn't play out too wasn't working it wasn't working I mean I locked everybody down you know I think I think but they hadn't eliminated covert we know that people were still dying you know you know they don't run through the Chinese leadership doesn't run for election every three years they don't have newspapers that sort of um criticized the government they've got a large immunity from public opinion I think I'm not saying things are terribly bad you could have a revolution but I I would say a large immunity from public opinion which means they've got staying power for much longer than Western countries have in my view um but but I you know the whole thing about uh Taiwan is is strategic ambiguity um you know you don't want the Chinese to know what the response is going to be because you you want them to think it could go badly therefore don't try it this is this is the nature of a uh a deterrent of course the thing about a deterrent is you hope you never have to use it uh but you want your energy to believe you will um that's the theory of deterrence Peter thank you I think we both agree that this is a wonderful country it's worth fighting for its soul and we particularly wanted an environment where our children and our grandchildren you and I both have grandchildren can enjoy some of the opportunity and and benefits of being Australians thank you for your content thank you very much thank you for your time today and thank you for your contribution [Music]

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 54,615

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: hqseSmFkC28

Length: 63min 48sec (3828 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023