Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talks it be
follow this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.
It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debate of us now the Layton
Smith podcast cowered by news Talks it b.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to podcast two hundred and fifty five for September eleventh,
twenty twenty four. When John Graham died, it was a
great loss to many many people and to the country.
He was an educationalist, headmaster of Auckland Grammar for twenty
one years. He was a rugby player of the highest order,
playing twenty two Tests three as the All Blacks captain.
(00:49):
But most of all, I'd say his greatest achievement was
the positive influence that he had on so many lives.
For those who, for whatever reason, are unfamiliar with his name,
Sir John Graham was a legend one of the greatest
Maxim Institute, of which he was a founding trustee, as
being responsible for establishing and maintaining the Sir John Graham
(01:12):
Annual Lecture. This year was the fourteenth such event. Every
year Maxim produces a guest speaker of considerable talent this
year's speaker was Nicholas Herony, Professor of Constitutional Law at
the University of Queensland. The title was The Compass of Character.
Sir John would have approved. Nicholas Arony guests in podcast
(01:35):
two hundred and fifty five and we discussed the subject
of his speech, but only after we traversed a number
of other issues, beginning with democracy and challenges, of which
there are many. Layton Smith speaking of character. In a
few hours and the so called presidential debate will be
live on TV, and at that point this podcast will
(01:58):
be ready for release, which will likely be during the debate.
So I cannot comment on the battle that so many
people are wanting it to be and hanging out for.
I can't comment on that because I won't be in.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
A position to.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But what I've decided to do is to quote you
an opinion as a way of setup, and you're most
likely to be hearing this opinion after you've seen or
heard reports on the debate and how it went. This
is a commentary written by Carrie Lucas, who is president
of Independent Women's Forum in the United States. It's intriguing
(02:33):
because you've got to be able to make a judgment.
Call on the debate as you've seen it, and compare
it with this. Kamala Harris's campaign is making women look
incompetent is the title, Especially to those of us who
want to see a female president. It's so awful to
have a candidate who is so obviously not up to
(02:53):
the job. Carrie Lucas writes, I want every little girl
across our country to know this. You can do anything,
even if it's never been done before. Said in August
twenty six x post from the Kamala Harris Tim Wallson campaign.
It's vapid and cliche, the kind of feel good self
(03:14):
help speak that should be avoided during the serious business
of electing the leader of the free world. Yet it
speaks to the uncomfortable truth for women. Closely following this campaign,
Kamala Harris is trading new ground as the first female
vice president and someone with a serious shot at becoming
America's first female president. You don't have to be a
(03:37):
dei enthusiast to recognize that the first female president will
have a special place in the history books as the
culmination of the centuries long fight for women's rights in
the United States. That's also why it's so awful to
have a female presidential candidate who is so obviously not
(03:57):
up to the job. Subheading, Americans would elect a woman,
but this one isn't Ready. Surveys suggest Americans are willing,
even eager, to vote for a evil candidate. Harris's campaign
is predicated on this. Publicly, the campaign hand rings about
(04:18):
how sexism against women is a formidable obstacle that the
trailblazing Kamala must overcome. In a country of nearly one
hundred and seventy million registered voters, undoubtedly at least a
few simply will not vote for any woman. Female candidates looks,
wardrobe decisions, and personal histories likely are generally subject to
(04:40):
greater press scrutiny than that of the average male candidate.
And yet it's also clear that Kamala sex is her
greatest asset. I will skip the rest of this It's
fairly long subheading the campaign Women Deserve Harris could have
offered Americans a very different campaign. She could have boldly
defended the Biden Harris administration as a success that deserves
(05:04):
another four years, or explained how as president she would
but on a few critical policy issues, Americans might have
given her points for admitting that mistakes were made in
good faith under President Biden and Harris's watch. Americans might
have appreciated the honesty of saying that three years in
office taught her important lessons and she plans to course correct.
(05:27):
She could have fearlessly revisited her twenty twenty primary statements
and described the process by which she has come to
moderate her positions subheading deep inside Carmelin knows that she's incompetent,
and this is worth reading its entirety, which is fairly short. Anyway,
she enabled the Trump campaign to make Kamala v. Kamala
(05:48):
ads to expose her competing policy positions and reveal her
as a chameleon. She confirmed the suspicion that her party
doesn't trust her to handle serious questions or to articulate
her party's policy agenda. They believe that she must be
kept with notes behind a teleprompter. Hillary Clinton didn't not
act like this. Nikki Hayley didn't ask a man to
(06:11):
tag along for big interviews. Why is Kamala allowing herself
to be treated like she's incompetent? It's because of the
worst truth of all. She believes it too. You can
see her self doubt during any unscripted moment. Each sentence
is a dangerous high wire act. She's in her head,
(06:33):
second guessing every word she utters, hearing herself get tongue
tied and falling back on the verbal tics that her
campaign coaches have clearly flagged as poison. Subheading. She can't
even do a CNN interview herself, and we know the
story behind that. Yes, many of us, she concludes, many
(06:54):
of us do look forward to the day that we
have a madam president, but not enough to buy the
scam being sold us today. We know we deserve better. Well,
make your own judgment call based on the comments of
Carrie Lucas, president of the Independent Women's Forum, and what
(07:16):
you see or hear of the so called presidential debate,
because not really in a few hours time now, in
a moment, Professor Nicholas a'rony Layton Smith, there are essential
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Farmer Broker Auckland Nicholas Aroni is a professor of Law
(09:13):
at the University of Queensland, specializing in constitutional law, which
for me at the moment as one of the most
interesting legal topics on the planet. He is here for
the annual Sir John Graham Lecture and that lecture is
entitled The Compass of Character, and the lecture is very interesting.
I know this because I got some advanced notes. So,
(09:35):
Nicholas Roney, it's great to have you on the Latent
Smith podcast. You're much appreciated, I am told by the
Maxim Institute for which you are delivering the aforementioned lecture.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Look, it's a real pleasure to be here with you.
Laden thank you very much for the opportunity to talk
with you always.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Now I want to start with something apart from the lecture.
We'll get to it, of course, because that's the anchor
for the conversation. I've got a couple of questions for
you that are very simple. Particularly the first one, can
you give us your definition of what democracy is?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Goodness, that's a great question. It's not so much a
simple question. Actually. I think that democracy has to do
with participation in your own self government. I don't think
it's simply something that you do when you vote every
three or four years for candidates for election. I do
think that's an important part of how our representative system
(10:33):
of democracy works. But the very ancient definition of democracy
is to participate in your own self government. And one
of the interesting things that goes along with that understanding
of democracy is that it can only really work at
that highest level at a local level, ironically, because it's
only at a local level that people are really effectively
(10:56):
able to participate in their own self government. Bigger the
country gets, the bigger the number of people, the more
distant the government gets from people. So that's my essential
and underlying definition of democracy.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
What does it involve apart from just voting, I mean,
i'd start with free speech.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well, yes, precisely. So, participating in your own self government
has to do with engaging in discourse, discussion, debate, speech
about political matters. That's always been seen as very essential
and central to the process of participating in your own
self government, because in a sense, we're talking about politics,
(11:36):
and we're talking about how we govern ourselves collectively, and
so to participate in your own self government collectively with
other people, it's essential that you communicate with those people
that we all together talk about how we're to be
governed and make decisions together after listening to each other's arguments,
the reasons each gives for certain policies and so forth.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So it extends beyond that, of course, to liberty in general.
And on that basis, I'm going to ask you whether democracy,
in your opinion, is under threats in various places on
the planet.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. Look, it's a good question, because, of course there's
a lot of concern about that possibility and certain developments
that are occurring in many countries. It seems to me
that because I define democracy as something that happens best
at a more local level, the underminding, sorry, the underlying
challenge to democracy happens when you try to spread democracy
(12:37):
over too larger compass, and then what happens is the
government gets more and more distant from people, and power
becomes more and more centralized in the government, and then
the people who rule so distantly begin to just govern
more autocratically or more independently of public opinion. And I
think that that's the underlying problem. If democracy is under threat,
(13:01):
I think across the world, and I wouldn't even refer
simply to the countries that most people think of it
as being under threat. But even in our favored Western democracies,
what we're seeing is increasing centralization and an increasing concentration
of power in what we call the executive government, which
is distinct from our parliaments. During COVID, for example, across
(13:24):
the world, we saw virtually all the nations of the world,
even the Western democracies, relying on and functioning through an
extraordinary concentration of power in the executive, and parliaments were
shunted out of the process had little or no say
at all about how COVID was managed. So if democracy
(13:45):
is under threat, it's because our political systems have become
so increasingly centralized that when a crisis comes along like that,
or a perceived crisis comes along, the executive takes the
reins and starts to govern just simply on the basis
of the decisions of the executive.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Another name for that would be the administrative states.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Related to the administrative state. Yes, it is. It is
because when we speak the administrative state, we're speaking of,
as it were, the bureaucratic apparatus of the executive. Because
we think of the executive interestingly, we regard the executive
as a highly unified thing. Ultimately, that executive power is
(14:28):
a singular power, but then it's exercise through many persons
who exercise it in practicalities, but they are all in
principle subject to the rule and guidance and direction of
the One, as it were. It's interesting. I mean, I
don't think we quite realize that. If stole and looked
at our systems, he would say, wow, you're not really democracies.
(14:52):
You are sort of mixed constitutions with an awful lot
of monarchy. And he would say that because he means
the rule of the one, and he'd be looking at
our systems and notice just how much the power of
just one central focus of authority he plays such a
very significant role in the politics of our times.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Now you it wasn't you. There was a little blick,
and when you mentioned the name, we didn't quite catch it.
I presume he said Socrates. Oh, I said Aristotle, all right, Aristotle.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah. Aristotle was the great political philosopher of ancient Athens
who was so good at analyzing systems, and he very
very insightfully said that we can break down systems into
whether they involve the rule of the one or the few,
or the many and the rule of the one he
called monarchy, And he didn't have in mind the idea
(15:47):
of a hereditary monarchy, because today we think of monarchy
as been king of Queen of England and as a
hereditary position and you don't elect them. But Aristotle, that's
not really very relevant. What's really most crucial is whether
it's just one person who rules, a few people who rule,
or the many who rule. And he analyzed political systems
(16:09):
in those terms, and I think it's very illuminating because
we've lost sight of that, and we congratulate ourselves on
being democracies when we have very, very vast tracks of
both monarchy and aristocracy in our systems.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Is a question both Aristotle and Socrates and others, but
those two in particular lent their intelligence to the world
for virtually ever. Is there the equivalent today in existence?
Can you name me somebody or a couple of people
would be even better, who would fall, who you'd put
into the same category of intellect and influence as those two.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Goodness? That is a tough question to ask. I don't
think I can answer that. The reason why it is
probably two reasons, and one is that we live in
a time where the population of the world is immense,
and so while you know, we think about like Australia
our population or New Zealand our population, we dwarf ancient Athens.
(17:11):
And so there are just so many people of great
intelligence and ability in our world, and how to pick
which one of them would actually turn out to have
the sort of stature of an Aristotle or a Plato
in two centuries time or a millennia. Goodness, it's very,
very hard to gauge whether there are any like that.
(17:34):
I really would hesitate to try to answer that question,
and that might sound like it seemed like a cop out.
That's my honest and truthful answer.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And that's what we want. But there seems to be
a flux of It's not for the first time, and
maybe it's been more continuous than I realized, but of
German philosophers, and I'll throw out Jurgen Harbamas for instance,
who are having a growing influence more than we are
used to, more than we're familiar with. It might be
(18:03):
a better way to put it.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yes, I think so, I mean the inflance of people
Jigen Harbermarsen and other figures that our minds might go to.
It turns on the fact that many of these people
are academics like me, you know, we're full time professional
philosophers or teachers in the universities. And while it's true
that people like Harbamus and others are having significant influence
(18:29):
in the way that people think, what's noticeable it seems
to me is that if you were to ask me,
you know who in our times has had influence, my
mind actually interestingly turned to the founders of the American constitution,
like James Madison, for example. And why it comes to
mind is what's interesting about these figures is they weren't
(18:53):
just pure philosophers. They were practicing politicians. They were statesmen,
They ran farms and businesses, and at the same time
they undertook or engaged in philosophy and theoretical reflection on politics.
So they were more like renaissance men, if I can
(19:14):
use that expression, broadly educated, but also broadly and practically experienced. So,
not wanting to pour too much cold water on the
thought that someone like Jurgen Habermass will turn out to
be a significant figure, I'm actually not so sure that
he will in the long run. And what I think
is noticeable is that. And I suppose I'm being critical
(19:37):
of my own class, but the academic class we do
live in ivory towers. That expression exists for a reason
because really have any sense of what it means to
put our ideas into real practice. And it shows when
academics actually are given some responsibility administrative responsibility in universities,
(19:58):
they don't act necessarily better than the politicians that they
so like to criticize from the sidelines. So it's the
people that can actually put things into but also think
deeply about it that I think I admire the most,
and the ones that had the most lasting impact past.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
It's not a secret that I have a fascination with
the American Constitution, a long standing one and an ever
increasing one at the moment. And I've had a couple
of letters over the last few weeks suggesting, not criticizing,
but just suggesting that when I love the podcast, they're
not really interested in the American situation. I wonder how
(20:40):
you would justify on my part my interest and its value.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I think for two reasons. But I have to say
I'm answering this as an Australian, which is a little
easier because the reason that's procure or particular to Australia
is that the design of the American Constitution had an
enormous influence on the design of the Australian constitution. And
so that's why Australia has a certain if we're doing
(21:10):
comparative constitutional law, trying to compare political systems, the United
States alongside perhaps Canada, the two countries to which Australia
is just most easily compared. So that's one reason why I, personally,
and it's not answering your question, find the American system
very relevant. I think the second one, though, is that
(21:31):
it's just undoubted that the United States has become the
dominant power of our generations, and therefore our interest in
it is driven by its success and its power. I
think that's why the Roman Empire has continued to be
a topic of perennial interest, because it was the dominant
(21:53):
power over Europe as we know it today, and Europe
evolved out of what remained of that empire, and so
people look back to their roots and you sort of
the sort of a gravitational force the powerful and the successful.
Over time, though there's always an ebb and flow in
(22:15):
imperial and power and the strength of nations. And so
you know, probably two or three generations ago, people would
have thought that the British Empire was the most significant
objective inquiry, and I think that's only the case. You
saw that a lot of people very interested in the
(22:35):
British system of government because it as the British Empire
spread throughout the world, they established Westminster systems of government.
We call them Westminster systems after you know that small
area in London called Westminster where the houses of Parliament
are based. So I think our interest in these systems
is largely driven by their power, their success, and the
(22:59):
sense that well, they must be doing something right. So
let's try and understand how it works and see how
much we can emulate that success in our own nations.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Then go back to whether democracy is under under threat
and make mention of immigration, in particular the number of
people who have been pouring into into countries Britain of course, America,
of course, Germany, Europe in general. Not so much in
(23:31):
our part of the world, but we are getting concerned
about it. I think on both sides of the Tasman
is immigration a threat to the lifestyle and the systems
that we have set up. And I'm talking, of course,
because of the because of the competitive nature of those
(23:53):
who are coming in for what they have left behind.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It's a really serious question I think that our country
are having to grapple with at this point in time.
And I know it's a highly charged question and a
highly emotive question as well. I mean, I myself, I've
got Greek heritage. You know, my grandparents came to Australia
from Greece. They were migrants themselves. It seems to me
(24:22):
that well, what's a very interesting thing is when these
debates arise, they sometimes occur in a certain heated environment,
and other points of interest or other issues are sometimes overlooked.
And what I want to draw attention to is this
is that I've done a lot of reading lately about
(24:45):
the relationships between ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity and how
economically successful a country is or how politically stable the
country is. Now, this is very quantitative data. What these
people do, with social scientists and sometimes economists, is that
they try to measure just how ethnically or religiously, or
(25:08):
linguistically or culturally diversit country is, or how polarized it is,
and then they try to work out how stable it is,
how economically prosperous it is, and those sorts of measures,
and they do this for every country in the world,
and they try to do it at particular periods of time,
and they try to look to see whether there are
(25:29):
correlations between one or the other. And so it seems
to me that the very premise of that sort of
an inquiry, and to some extent the findings of that research,
is to say that you have to be very careful
about too much diversity, particularly when it's done in a
way or develops in a way that stops people talking
(25:52):
to each other. And this comes back to the point
about freedom of speech, actually because what is startling? Actually
to me it was, and then I thought about it
while I thought, yes, actually, that makes a lot of sense.
Is that while we sometimes pay a lot of attention
to ethnic difference or religious difference, the biggest factor that
(26:13):
has and can have a bad effect on the stability
of the country and its paticefulness is linguistic diversity. In
other words, people who speak different languages and cannot understand
each other. And reflecting on that, it seems to me
that that's probably the most significant issue that you have
(26:37):
to deal with that. If you have a country with
people speaking different languages not able to communicate with each other,
they lack the ability to engage in democratic discussion. They
become enclave to themselves and they have their own speech community,
(26:58):
and they develop their own ideas independently of the other
people's living alongside them. So it would set me one
of the most important things to think about is ensuring
that people are encouraged to speak one language. One of
the interesting things is, and I had a really wonderful
PhD student who from Ethiopia has done some work of
(27:21):
these questions, and one of the things he discovered, and
some people didn't like him coming to this conclusion, was
that one of the reasons India has been a moderately
quite successful democracy dealing with you know, more than a
billion people now is that it had a language that
could be the language that could unite the nation. English
(27:43):
played a very significant role because sometimes when you have
countries where you've got competing languages, whose language gets the
language of the capri and sometimes it has to be
a language that's neutral as between the different ethnic groups
in order to get the agreement. In order to be
a language around which they can unite, even if in
(28:04):
the case of India, to that extent it was a
foreign language or a language of a colonial power. Now,
I'm not wanting to make a strong argent about India
or anything. I just really want to underscore the importance
of language and a common language and how that has
a very close relationship too, not just freedom of speech,
but actual participation in self government, where people are collectively
(28:29):
in a society freely able to and actually do engage
in communication and discussion. Have you been about their collective concerns?
Have you been to India? No? I haven't, so I
speak with some How do I put a reservation about
saying anything too specific about India name by.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
The same taken, I've noticed, particularly from Australia, there has
been a growing interest in India over the last well
twelve months to two years at least, that's my observation.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Well, I think we're recognizing that like India is like
a world power, it's a very significant country. And I
think also perhaps we're becoming interested in a more given
the rise of China as well, because I mean, realistically,
India presents an account to China in the South Asian region.
(29:22):
And so the relationship between India and China could prove
to be highly significant in the next century, or so,
it seems to me, just given their large populations and
growing economies.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Indeed, let me concentrate momentarily on the New Zealand Australia
relationship and the future, because there is discussion again it
appears and it came out of nowhere from my perspective,
but there is a discussion about the possibilities of well,
(29:55):
the question is a better way to put it, of
whether we become closer, whether we fall further apart, or
whether we actually join up. Now, I say, just quickly.
When I came to New Zealand some decade ago, for
twelve months and here I am, the relationship was between
Malcolm Fraser and Robert Muldoon, a very unhealthy one, but everybody,
(30:20):
everybody survived, and so it has has continued.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
What do you think. I think that asking a question
about relations between countries is one where one has to
bear in mind the significance, but limited significance, of the
particular political leaders at any particular time, and one needs
to look at what are the deeper channels of trajectory
(30:46):
that the two countries, I said, are demonstrating. So in
a sense, it seems to me that it's a little
like you're traveling down a valley and the hills on
either side of that valley determined that the water or
your even your own movement walking through the valley is
going to be drawn towards the center of the valley line.
(31:07):
But politically, under different leadership, you can sort of lift
one side of the valley or the other, and you
can oscillate a little bit from side to side, but
still the main direction of the relationship is down that valley.
I don't know if that's a helpful analogy, but I
think what's important to take that long term view and ask, well,
what are the drivers of the relationship, what are the
(31:29):
drivers of the nature of the two countries. I'd also
say that to think about this, you've got to ask, well,
if we're asking what the trajectory of the two countries
is and whether they're converging or diverging or will remain parallel,
you've got to ask where are they coming from first?
And then where are they going? And I think when
(31:50):
the Australian colonies federated in the eighteen ninety is actually
money under and one, New Zealand took the decision not
to join the federation, and that was a very very
significant choice because in the eighty nineties, when you looked
at it, it wasn't just obvious that the Australian colonies
would become a federation, and even if they did, it
(32:13):
wasn't obvious that New Zealand would not be a part
of it. In fact, New Zealand was part of those discussions, indeed,
And if you look at the way in which the
New Zealanders thought about that question and the way the
various Australian colonists thought about it, they thought about it
in the same way. They were enjoying the benefits of
local self government. They were participating in their own self government,
(32:34):
and they didn't want to give that up quickly sort
of large federation that might just absorb them completely. So
they were very insistent on preserving their rights. And there's
not the New Zealander said, but it's also what the
Queensland has said, or the South Australian said, and so on.
So the choice of New Zealand not to federate was
based on very similar reasoning that just applied to a
(32:56):
different situation. And what the New Zealanders said, which I
think is very interesting, is they said, look, we've decided
not to join the federation, but we will end into
treaties with Australia to secure the benefits of free trade
and free movement of people and mutual self defense, which
(33:17):
are two or three of the most important things that
a federation achieves, but not actually become part of your
federation and thus preserve an independent capacity to function as
an agent on the world stage. And they said that then,
and it seems to me that that's exactly what has
happened that over the course of the twentieth century New
(33:41):
Zealand and Australia have vented into a succession of treaties
which have united the peoples together in trade relationships, in
migratory relationships, and also in mutual defense relationship, which are
the fundamentals which define the relationship between the two countries
(34:03):
politically and constitutionally and legally. And that then becomes the
foundation of the cultural attachment between the two countries, where
we can have our sporting rivalries and jokes at each
other's expanse and our accents and all of the things
that we know about each other and sort of love
to hate about each other, but mostly love about each
other drives the sort of relationship, and there can be
(34:26):
oscillations back and forth where England might sorry New Zealand
might divert a little bit. New Zealand has diverged in
terms of the relationship to the United States in the
ninety eighties over the nuclear free policy. They seem to
be signs that New Zealand might be beginning to oscillate
back to a little more of a convergent position on that.
(34:50):
But I see those as oscillations within that valley that
I describe the just general trajectory, which is a close
relationship between two countries but running somewhat in parallel parts.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
To my mind, do you think that tas Maybia would
have been better off if it had followed the New
Zealand lead?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Great question, because there's a real interesting analogy actually between
several Australian states and New Zealand in different respects. In fact,
in a certain sort of sense, I a little bit
chicily would compare Tasmania, not so much in New Zealand
as a whole, but the South Island of New Zealand,
and maybe the North Island is a bit like Victoria. Look,
(35:30):
the advantage you get of being independent like New Zealand
or Tasmania on this hypothesis is that you're an independent
nation on the world stage. That means that you remember
of the United Nations, you can make your decisions about
whether you want nuclear ships in your in your harbors
or not. And geopolitically, geographically, New Zealand like Tasmania are
(35:56):
in one sense on the bottom of the earth and
not in a bad sense, but well away from any
centers of geopolitical significance. And so that means that you're
in a sort of a different sit situation where the
threat of some sort of military confrontation is quite diffused
because you're just distant. But the downside of it is
(36:19):
is that you have to be self dependent, you have
to be self sustaining. Oh this is actually something that
Aristotle was very big one too, that you can't become
a political entity without being self sufficient economically and militarily
to defend yourself. And look, it's very hard to know
(36:40):
exactly how Tasmania would have turned out if it didn't
enjoy a federation, but it would not have enjoyed the
benefits of being part of the federation, because under a
federation a sense of obligation develops that we are one
people and one nation to some extent, and so we
have a duty to the people who live in Tasmania
to make sure that they have a standard of living
(37:04):
that is at least in some sense comparable to the
rest of the country. So what happens within a federation
is you have what is called, in technical language, horizontal equalization,
where there are efforts to distribute some tax revenues to
states that can't generate as much revenue because their economies
(37:25):
are not generating as much revenue, to sort of balance
things out a little. That sounds in Tasmania, let does
get that benefit. It sounds like equity to me an extent,
it does. Yeah, which does?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Which is a which is a word that doesn't find favor.
Let us let us then, well, actually I want to
I want to make mention of one thing you did
somewhere draw attention to the fact that that New Zealand
is more politically like Queensland and more and more administratively
(38:02):
like Victoria.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Yeah. Yeah, it's actually an interesting point. So maybe I
put it this way, that New Zealand is constitutionally most
like Queensland. And I say that because they both have
one House of Parliament. All the other Australian states have
houses of Parliament, and that's very significant in Westminster systems
because when you have only one House of Parliament, by
(38:26):
definition in a Westminster system, your Prime Minister or your premier,
the government has control of that House of Parliament. And
that means a small group of people are in control
of two things, the exercise of executive power and the
exercise of the legislative power. They have the power to
make laws and they have the power to execute the laws,
(38:48):
all in one hands. And it was James Madden that
said you should separate those because if you consolidate them
into the hands of one people become too powerful and
there's not a check and balance on the executive power.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
For that reason, I got it round the wrong way,
didn't they?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
In a sense I see you define those terms. So
Queensland and New Zealand suffer from a concentration of power,
I think, which means that governments have so much control
over the agenda they very rarely get seriously challenged while
they are in power. When you have a second chamber,
(39:29):
whether you call it a Senate or a legislative council.
What that introduces is two things. First, one is that
usually the government isn't in control of the passage of legislation.
They have to negotiate with the other parties to get
things passed, and so laws are less likely to be
extreme in the sense of expressing or reflecting the extreme
(39:53):
view of the government. They have to negotiate. The second thing,
and I think in some ways the even more important thing,
is that houses of Parliament have an extraordinary capacity to
interrogate the executive moment during question time, and they can
use those powers to force ministers to answer question They
can force even bureaucrats to produce documents, and they can
(40:15):
ask the questions and den answers to them. And that
again places governments under scrutiny, the type of scrutiny that
they need. And when that happens, then governments have to
be again more responsive and more accountable for their decisions,
and it places a check upon them that is a
very salutary check in most suits. So that's why I
(40:38):
would say that Queensland and New Zealand be similar constitutionally,
and it's not really such a good thing. It would
be better if both countries, I think, had a second chamber.
It happened to Victoria is different if you mention that
as well. Yes, yeah, because Victoria. I would say that
(40:59):
New Zealand and Victoria are comparable, partly because they are
quite discrete states. I think that's similar, comparable climates to
some extent, I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration,
but the most similar that beyond that, I think just
ideologically politically, they're very similar. Victoria is often now seen
(41:21):
today as Australia's most left leaning progressive state in that
sense of the word, and New Zealand seems to have become,
from an Australian point, more left leaning than some of
the other Australian states or even Australia as a whole
in some respects Now, it's a difficult judgment call, and
there's any ditions to that point, but there does seem
(41:43):
to be some comparability in Victoria and New Zealand on
that metric as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Well that frightens me because what Victoria went through during
COVID in particular was arguably even worse than ours our experience. Yes,
and you have a well Victoria had a tyrant in charge.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Well. That goes back to this problem of execution executive control,
and the real scary thing is that, you know, even
though I like the idea of having a second chamber,
it's not a panacea. And the difficulty is the unfortunate
thing I think is that parliaments across the world have
delegated powers to the executive to respond to emergencies. And
(42:27):
on paper, that sounds very sensible. You know, it's an emergency.
Executive has to act and have to act promptly, and
if they have to get the parliament to give them
permission to do it, they won't act least they need to,
and the problem will just get worse and worse. Sounds
good on paper, but what it is is a license
for unchecked power. And the powers delegated to executive agents
(42:50):
like chief medical officers and sometimes ministers of government, but
often just bureaucrats to lock down people, to quarantine people
are enormous powers. Enormous powers, and power can be exercised
people's benefit, but it can also be exercise very excessively,
and I think we did see quite a lot of
(43:11):
excess of power being exercised during the COVID pandemic infinitely
only think I think I saw it. I think all
of us saw videos it was, and I think that
it was a very sad time actually, because I think
the reputation of our police officers was tarnished during that time,
(43:31):
and it continues to be by what we're seeing even
in places like the United Kingdom as well. And because
interestingly the power of the not just social media, but
all of us having phones with cameras on them, the
police aren't really able to do too much without being filmed.
And that's probably a good thing because it exposes to
the public what they do when they seek to enforce
(43:55):
law or their judgment what is necessary, and we see
excessive use what appears to be excessive use of forts.
We have to be very careful with those videos because
they can be edited and they can be framed to
make things look bad and not in the full context
of maybe the violent behavior of the person being apprehended
prior to the video. But on the other hand, there
(44:17):
are too many cases where the person is plainly not
acting in any way violently, but a man handled in
a very violent man on very questionable grounds and it's
it has I think, broad the public attitude to the
police force. You know, it's had an effect on our
(44:38):
view about the police, which I think is it all
healthy because we do need police officers and they're you know,
by and large they're trying to do the right thing
and they're good people, but we do get these excesses
and they're very concerning.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
I think that that brings us onto the subject of law,
which has encompassed in the in the speech that you
that you delivered or will deliver as we speak at
makes them the compass of character. Of course, there is
an introduction to it, but then you concentrate on three
separate areas law, education, and religion. But it's all about character.
(45:18):
And I don't know whether this is going to be
made available to all on Sundry after the speech is delivered,
but I hope that it is. So let's spend a
bit of time on this speech. In the Compass of Character,
give us a brief definition of what character is.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Okay, Well, look, the definition of character, I adopt, is
very well established. I think in what I would like
to call the intellectual or tradition in which we are
part of as Western democracies and Western countries. It's the
idea that characters to do with your internal orientation, your
(45:59):
internal motivations, your internal ways of thinking and acting. In
one sense, it's got to do with your moral habits.
The old language that used to be used that I
think we need to recover, even though some people might
find the term in some ways off putting, is the
(46:20):
word virtue and its opposite vice. Virtues advices are our
character attributes, either good or bad. And if people don't
like the expression's virtue and vice, let me give you
some examples. Because key virtues are things like courage, prudence, wisdom, justice, patience,
(46:50):
good judgment. Now, those sorts of character qualities or virtues
are the good virtues or the good character qualities that
oriented person to habitually respond well to a situation and
act well. Whereas vices like greed, envy, malice, hatred, those
(47:12):
sorts of things are again bad habits of mind and
practice that orient us towards responding very badly to situations
and acting very badly. And it seems to me that
the argument of my paper at its core is that
(47:32):
our character in this sense determines the way we respond
and act both as individuals and collectively. And I think
that in our time we've lost touch with this, we've
forgotten this. And because we've forgotten that these character qualities
are what really drive the quality of our lives and
(47:55):
the goodness or the badness of our behaviors. Because we've
forgotten that, we have turned to other mechanisms or other
tools to try to deal with the lack of good character.
And so we've turned to two things in particular. We've
turned to law and we've turned education, and we've tried
(48:16):
to use law and use education to make up for
the absence of character where it doesn't exist. And the
problem is that the argument of my lecture is that
law and education are good and can do really good things,
but they have to stay within their wheelhouses, and they
(48:39):
can't actually of themselves produce good character. They can restrain
people from doing bad things. The law education can give
us good information, good knowledge, and good skills to do things,
but neither of those actually give us the character to
(49:02):
act well. And in my argument in the lecture is
that it is what we used to call and still
call in some sense religion that actually is most formative
of our characters. Because religion is that which forces us
to ask those deepuestions about our personal characters and challenge
(49:26):
us about the extent to which we are driven by malice,
driven by anger, driven by greed, driven by envy, or
whatever it might be, whatever vices actually do inhabit our
minds and our hearts and do shape our behaviors, and
(49:46):
the extent to which rather we embrace and seek to
inculcate within our own souls good virtuous character qualities like generosity, fairness, justice, patience, courage, fortitude,
and so forth. So, you know, the my lecture, that
(50:09):
the gift of my lecture is to say that let's
not think that law and education are the only tools
to produce a good society, and let's not over use
them because it actually becomes counterproductive. Let's realize and recover
the importance of what I'm calling religion for shaping our
characters in that good way. And that's the main point
(50:31):
of the lecture.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
That's a very good point. A quick question, is common
sense a virtue?
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Or can it be? I think so? I think so. Yeah. Look,
it's actually a really great virtue because it's common in
the sense that I mean, I have a lot of
respect for people with common sense. And I particularly need
to say that as an academic, because I think common
sense is not common amongst academics. Why is that, Well,
(51:05):
it seems to me that academic wisdom is valuable, but
it tends to be very intellectual, academic, for want of
a better word, abstract and detached from reality in a
very practical sense. Whereas the good friends that I have
who've got a lot of good sense in any conversation
(51:27):
always take it to a practicality and say, well, what
happens here and here? What do we do here and now?
And those sorts of people also demonstrate by their actions
in real life what it means to live a life
of good character or good common sense. So I think
that common sense is a virtue in that sense of
the word, and a very valuable one.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Let me so education, there's law and education, and then religion.
Let me give you a little break for a moment,
you get your breath, and I'll quote you. You refer
to vocational orientation. Occupational specialization enables the vision of labor
in which each person and contributes to the good of
(52:09):
society through the application of their particular knowledge and skills.
We're all better off as a result. But if that
is all that education is about, then it doesn't grapple
with the problem we identified earlier. It does not necessarily
produce good people. And that is the goal of this
as well, Is it not this paper to lead us
(52:32):
down a path will at least give us some advisories
of how we can produce good people to make a
good civilization a good country.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
And you go on.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
It merely produces people who are clever and skillful. Being
clever and skillful is good as long as it's accompanied
by good character. Without good character, being clever and skillful
can be done right dangerous. This problem runs very deep.
Take this commonplace belief. The better educated you are, the
more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to
(53:02):
form your views on the basis of well established evidence
and careful logical reasoning. And consider also the corollary. The
more ignorant, the less intelligent, the more poorly educated you are,
the more likely you are to be driven by emotion, prejudice, superstition,
and dogma. These are widely shared views. However, the cognitive
(53:23):
and behavioral science literature suggests that this is simply not
the case. Rather, as one, Or to put it, those
who are highly educated, intelligent, or rhetorically skilled tend to
be significantly less likely than most to revise their beliefs
or adjust their positions when confronted with evidence or arguments
(53:45):
that contradict their priors. And that was a mouthful, what
else would you say?
Speaker 3 (53:51):
Well, when I looked into that matter, I had some
intuitions to that effect, but not well formed ones. But
the intuitions were based on my observations about being an
academic myself and working with fellow academics, and also having
close friendships and working with people who are not academics
(54:14):
in what we often call everyday life. And it never
occurred to me that academics were in any sense morally
superior to my friends who were not academics at all.
But what I'll also notice was is that and even
just I suppose, if I can be just really honest
about myself, looking into my own heart, I knew that
(54:36):
I had an ability to make clever arguments, to think
quickly on my feet, and to deliver rhetorically effective rapusts
to anything anyone might say to avoid the plain truth
that they might be speaking, or to rationalize my own positions.
And so when I looked at this literature, which is
(54:57):
in a rigorous way examined whether academics, if I can
put it that way, are any more likely to revise
their views when confronted with the contradictory evidence, it was
in one sense startling, but also did sort of reflect
my intuitions that the more intelligent you are, and the
(55:20):
better or the better educated you are, the more ideologically
extreme you can be, and the quicker and more capable
you can be. It's sort of shoring up your position
without really coming to grips with some point of evidence
or some line of argument that undermines your position, and
(55:40):
so that all just then boils down to real character.
It suggests that virtue and character are really relevant to
the academic enterprise as well, because the search for truth
is not just something that is an intellectual enterprise. It
requires good character because you have to be prepared to
(56:03):
admit that something you assume to be the case was
actually not correct or false, and you need to be
prepared to change your opinion about something when the evidence
suggests that your opinion was wrong. But it's not very
clear that without well, but I suppose the point is
without good character, we as academics can be just as
inclined to just hunker down in our opinions and find
(56:26):
what to rationalize our positions in spite of evidence to
the contrary. So it all comes down to good character
as well as good intelligence, and both are needed to
be the sort of academics we need to be to
contribute to our society.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
So society in general is reliant on truth on every
front in life. Now, as a result of that, I've
got a drag in the media, and I'm going to
use Victoria as an example again because truth was hidden
from most people in Victoria by the media. The media
did a very, very, very poor, i'd say corrupt job
(57:06):
of covering this era, and that includes here and other
places as well.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Agreed, I think there was evidence of that, Yes, so
do I think perhaps one way of putting it or
thinking about it, at least this is how it certainly appeared,
was that. And I'm trying to understand this in the
best light possible, is that the view may have been
that we live in a crisis. This is a very
(57:33):
dangerous disease. We need to band together, We need to
adopt one policy, We need to pull together in one
way to solve the problem. Our governments are there to
lead us through this. Our governments are advising us to
do this. We need to support them in this. We
need to make sure that our message is the same
(57:56):
as the governments. And I think that dominated the media
and the politics of much of the world for that period,
and it was outside the mainstream media that criticism occurred.
And yeah, it was really tragic in a sense because
it meant that the sort of contestation that ought to
(58:17):
happen in public debate about what to do just didn't happen,
or didn't happen effectively, and it generated a condition of
fear through the society, and you saw people thinking and
speaking and acting in a way that wasn't supported by
the facts. I was startled, actually, you know, two three
(58:40):
years later, now people are being a little more truthful,
even of those who exercised power at the time. You know,
even journalists sometimes and politicians now, and even bureaucrats beginning
to admit that they were wrong about things. But I
found that startling because I was trying to form a
view based on all the information that I could glean
(59:01):
from experts across the spectrum of views, and I thought
it was pretty obvious and well known or well established,
very very early on. But COVID was a disease that
sadly had the worst impact for the most elderly, and
fortunately for the young and the very young, had very
little of any impact at all on my health basis,
(59:24):
and that that should therefore shape how we view it
as a disease. But it seemed like that was just
not well known. And when I have noticed a few
people either in the media or in politics, or someone
saying two three years later, I didn't know that at
the time, but now we realize, I thought to myself, well, no,
(59:45):
those of us who were reading this material became aware
of that almost straight away. And that's an example I
think of a very strange thing that happened there where
for some reason that open contestation and weighing the actual
evidence didn't occur. I mean, I also remember, even just
(01:00:05):
simply the fatality rate from the disease. I remember very
early on a debate between epidemiologist experts, one from Stanford
and one I think from Dale University that was held
in I think in Canada, very very early on, and
the Stanford professor was saying, my recollection serves me correctly
(01:00:27):
that the actual fatality rate from the disease was going
to be less than half a percent in his estimation,
that was his best estimate based on the evidence he
had in front of him, whereas from memory, the Yale
professor was saying it's in excess of three percent or
upward to five percent or something like that. Now, that
might not sound like a lot, but a half a
(01:00:49):
percent of three or five percent is of orders of
magnitude different. Now, the Stanford professor I think has been
proven correct, is undoubted. But the number of people that
I asked, just colloquially, you know, how what do you
think the fatality rate is? People would say, oh, ten percent,
fifteen percent, twenty percent of people will die if they
(01:01:10):
catch the disease. And it's just simply wrong. And it
created a climate of fear which stopped people from being
able to exercise their critical faculties and to think rationally
about the disease and to think about how to protect
the people who really were vol who are the very elderly,
or those who already had certain comorbidities that made them
(01:01:32):
very susceptible.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
You make mention of being surprised and I suppose frustrated
at those who are now coming out from various backgrounds
are now revealing that, well, they got it wrong, we
didn't know that at the time, etc. Most of that,
I would suggest, was caused by the fact that they
(01:01:55):
weren't interested in finding out. It was authoritarianly led in
many parts of the world and falling into line was
an appropriate, an appropriate thing. And the only reason they're
now now revealing well pleading sorrow is because they have
no choice, because the statistics and the associated understandings are
(01:02:21):
now revealing what the truth always was.
Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
And I think the really critical question now is what's
going to happen next time?
Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Because can I suggest to you that it will partly
depend on when next time is how far away, but
whenever it is, we'll get a repeat of the same
of the same scenario, with a big farmer doing the
job it did last time, and everybody else falling into line,
(01:02:50):
partly because of forgetfulness and partly because well, we don't
know any better at this point.
Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Look, I think that could be true to some extent.
In fact, it really is something right for really decent
social science research to actually measure and gain an appreciation
of what people think out there, because look, I don't
mean any disrespect, but I still see people walking around
with masks, and with masks that are not effective. Like
(01:03:21):
the evidence seemed to be that there are different types
of masks, as I'm sure you wouldn't know too late,
and some are relatively more effective than others, and their
overall effectiveness is all determined by how properly use them
and a whole lot of other facts. But to see
people still walking around in masks of a type that
are just not effective at all in open air, walking
(01:03:42):
down the street, I think to myself, Wow, that's actually
really very sad that that person probably although they may
have some certain circumstances that I don't love about, but
you do see it, and you think that fear has
become very widespread. But the countervailing consideration, which I think
needs to be tested and measured, is the extent to
(01:04:02):
which our population has become more skeptical as a consequence.
I do do you think that the next time it happens,
and if it happens within as it were, practical living memory,
and so that's a very good point you make. You know,
if it happens long in enough time we will have forgotten.
But it does seem to me that enough people have
(01:04:23):
sort of realized that there was a whole lot of exaggeration,
a whole lot of fear mongering, and a whole lot
of disinformation from governments this time to make them more
skeptical the next time around. I do think the dynamic
will be a little different, but I hesitate to predict
exactly how it work out. But it seems to me
it will turn on just what proportion of our population
(01:04:46):
through that process have changed their minds about how they
think about these matters, And I think that will be
a critical question going forward. I don't know the answer
to that, because I don't know what proportion of our
populations how they're thinking about, how many people are thinking
everything was fine, we did the right thing. I still
believe everything they said, and what proportion had have come
(01:05:09):
to doubt that, and what proportion always doubted it, or
you know, there's a whole lot of scales of response.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I don't know whether I don't know whether you whether
you heard the news yesterday or it might have been
the day before. Kansas, the state of Kansas is the
first of five so far states to file papers against Pfizer,
and they're going in for the big hit, and the
other four will follow on automatically. And I think that
(01:05:38):
that's going to be extremely interesting because I think that
I think they're riding a winner. In conclusion, I'll give
you the last word and you finish up saying religion
understood as a conversion of the soul. Would you care
to wind up on that?
Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Yeah? Sure, sure, Laton. Well, the interesting thing is that
the legal definition of religion tends to reduce it to
a type of law and a type of ut It
tends to define religion as belief in a series of propositions,
sort of like education and adherence to a set of rules,
(01:06:20):
a sort of law. And while that definition works for
the law, it doesn't really work for our society or
our culture, because it's not what is distinctive about religion
as I'm defining it and using the term, because religion
goes to our deepest motivations, It goes to our deepest habits,
(01:06:43):
It goes to the way we think in our minds,
It goes to our attitudes and our dispositions. It addresses
the extent to which our habitual response to situations is
typically anger or malice, or hatred or envy, or whether
our habitual response to a situation is one of patients endurance, kindness,
(01:07:10):
and so forth. The question is are we a generous
people in our souls or are we miserly in our souls?
And how we respond to people and how we act
in the world is shaped by those dispositions. Religion, I
think well understood, is all about that, and it requires
(01:07:31):
self examination. It requires us to ask ourselves, what are
my motivations? And it requires us to actually acknowledge or
even confess that we've got bad motivations to ourselves and
even to our God. And to confess that and to
use an old fashioned word, repent, to say I don't
(01:07:54):
want to be like that. Help me not to be
like that. That, to me is what religion is about.
It's about that reformation, as it were, of our souls.
And it seems to me that in losing sight of
that in our public clive, we place so much more
weight on law and education to make up for it,
(01:08:14):
and we don't ask ourselves and we don't talk about
those deeper motivations in our hearts that really do determine
the way we behave and the way we treat each other.
And I do hope my lecture and even this conversation
with you today Laton contributes to us all reflecting on
that question. For each of us individually, it's already done it.
Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Nicholas, thank you, and I hope that we get to
do this again sometime. In fact, I'll manipulate it. It's
been a real pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Thank you. It's been wonderful talking with you, and I'd
be delighted to talk with you again soon.
Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
So here we are with podcast number two hundred and
fifty five and the mail room with Missus producer Layton.
Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
How on earth are you well?
Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
You'd ask that, so I prepared an answer, but I
can't remember.
Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
Half full or half empty.
Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
I'm not sure which side of the equation the moment,
It's got to.
Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
Be half full, baby, go Laden Chris says this morning,
I felt sick when I read about the open letter
from Christian leaders to all members of Parliament. The parallels
to pre war Nazi Germany are as follows. One particular
race is favored. The churches have forgotten what scripture says.
The churches have chosen a political side, and there is
(01:09:49):
deep internal division about what is really important. For the
most part, churches in Nazi Germany look the other way
when terrible things were happening to innocent people, rather than
speaking out as the moral conscience of society. For the
four hundred and forty leaders who have signed this open
they have forgotten that quote. There is neither jew nor gentile,
(01:10:13):
neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Once church
has choose to avoid conflict with the ruling political powers,
it will not be long until they are forced to
look the other way, as the how they have willingly
supported threatens their existence too. It's not too late to
(01:10:33):
decide as a nation if we are truly one people
under the law, or if we want to go down
the path of racial division, which will only fuel the
fires of injustice.
Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
And that is from.
Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Chris Chris brilliant actually very good. Dear Carolyn and late
Elon Musk. Endorsing Donald Trump has created a mindset for
a lot of our media in New Zealand, so when
they do something news related about him, they want to
handle it in a belittling way. This shows that worldwide,
anyone supporting the center right of politics, like Musk, has
(01:11:07):
to have strength of character. I think you should talk
about strength of character to today after the interview. Another
thing what Carolyn said in the last podcast about reading
the Herald, I do the same, and that was if
I remember correctly choosing your bylines. Also a thing I
(01:11:28):
sometimes do is to read the last couple of paragraphs
of an article first to make sure the writing is
correct to a positive headline and not a negative response.
There is one person that the Herald has that lists
under his name all the things the paper gives him
the authority to write on. It seems to make him
a left leaning handyman writer. I wish the paper would
(01:11:51):
allocate some of those things to someone else to get
a diversity of professional opinion. I still support enzed Me
by your podcast Radio zed Me and the Herald as
well as the local newspaper by nz me when out
of town regards Colin oh and more a bit of reaction.
Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Actually, yes, I think it did, didn't it? Laden Steve says,
Yet again we find our country, New Zealand, is under
a full attack by those who presume they speak for
all New Zealanders and who manipulate the treaty and believe
only they can interpret a near two hundred year old
document written for that age and never imagined by the
(01:12:31):
authors to reflect on life as it is today. We
now have supposedly four hundred church leaders writing to stop
the treaty's principal bill. Who are they to presume they
speak for all New Zealanders? Who makes them think or
believe they know or have the right to say only
they know what that archaic document written and translated in
(01:12:51):
three days by an Englishman for a purpose to suit
the eighteen forties, what they think it could mean today?
These religious groups are entitled to an opinion as individuals
and under free speech. But yet again the left media
enjoy sensational as they forget how religion is also a
dying entity in today's world. I vote them out and
(01:13:15):
their dying opinion null and void, says Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Null and void. I like it from Simon A Latent.
I note a comment in the last podcast where you
assumed I've never forgotten a woman who dressed me down
once told me how to pronounce it, not assumed assumed
that Trump would be elected the next president of the US.
(01:13:39):
He is up against a left media that praises Carmela
Harris as a competent and successful leader. They never report
anything negative about the Democrats, but trash Trump at every opportunity.
The fact the polling shows Trump and Harris's neck and
neck proves either Americans lack intelligence or are believing the
(01:14:00):
narrative the media wants them to believe. Also, on the
transgender nonsense. As a child, I wanted to be a pirate.
My parents didn't take me to have an eye and
a leg removed Keep up the Great podcast, so I
thoroughly enjoyed the simon there's a response to your email
was reart to Trump that I'm going to park at
(01:14:20):
the back end.
Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Leyden Jin says in September twenty twenty one, I made
an oral submission against the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships
Registration Bill, which was being ram rated into law by
the last Labor and Green's government. This bill allowed anyone
to change their sex on their birth certificate, thereby permitting
anyone to lie about their history right from birth. I
(01:14:45):
argued that a birth certificate is supposed to record facts,
not feelings. I remember the panel asking me why this
was so important to me. I said it's because I
have a daughter and I want to protect her and
other girls. As expected, they ignored me and passed this
law despite countless others who voiced similar concerns as mine.
(01:15:08):
The previous government knew that the bill gave them leverage
to force us to permit men to compete in women's sports,
open up women's bathrooms to men who identify as women,
and mispronoun boys and girls. And yet now that we
have a more conservative government in power, that as of
a law remains with us. This proves James Allen's point
(01:15:31):
the right never appeals bad laws that the left ram through.
If it took the misinterpretation of rov Weighed over fifty
years to get corrected, we might have to live with
the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill for decades
until it gets corrected when more conservative judges are appointed
(01:15:52):
to replace the current lot of communist judges. Thanks Shane
Jones for the Moniker, or when this bad law is
so heavily enforced that New Zealand does deeply feel the
pain it inflicts. As Abraham Lincoln said, the best way
to get a bad law apare field is to enforce
it strictly.
Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Let me give you a bit of a conspiracy theory.
Talking about that law being with us for that long,
what do you think the changes would ring to such
a law. The answer is that we would have fewer
people on the planet because the growth of sterility would
mean it wouldn't be so many children, so therefore the
numbers would decrease. And that is one of the alleged
(01:16:36):
agendas of the globalists, is it? Yeah, it is actually
okay globalists. Laden Phillips says, I was only responding to yours. Oh,
if the law can make them, well, here we are.
This is this is quite appropriate. If the law can
make a man to be a woman, then an active
(01:16:59):
parliament can declare that I have the powers of superman.
I look forward to being able to fly to the
moon and back by my own power without a spaceship
or space suit. Josh, that's I think brilliant. Let me
know when takeoff.
Speaker 4 (01:17:14):
Lighton. Philip says, I had to laugh at your lack
of defense of the New Zealand Herald. Carolyn saved you
ensure your thought provoking and informative podcasts listen to you
and living in Australia for twenty years and the ten
years we have been back in New Zealand. Thanks for
your efforts. And that's from Philip.
Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Well, that's dedication. If ever, I yes, if ever I
came across.
Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
Nice, nice to know that you came back. Well, one
person has actually come back. That's a good thing. Well,
and why Philip, we would like to know.
Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
Well, if you go back to nineteen eighty five, you
might remember that I came back to So that's two.
Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
Of us, two of you have come back.
Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
This is good.
Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Now from vic Ana, Vic wrote last week you might
remember missus producer Vic was making some comment and all
will be revealed as I read this. He says, thank
you for accepting Mike comment and for the right of reply.
With the help of Professor James Allen, an expert in
Australian law, I now understand that Justice Bromwich was apparently
(01:18:19):
a political appointee, and he had other somewhat obscure options,
facts of which I was obviously unaware. I suggest the
vast majority of your listeners were also unaware of his
status and those options. Such is the advantage of having
experts on your podcasts, and your astute choice of such experts.
(01:18:40):
He's quite right there in both counts. Have I changed
my mind? Let me say that I was not happy
with Bromig's judgment in the first place. I still think
the labels such as idiot and moron, which I am
applied to Bromich. I still think the label such as
idiot and moron are somewhat inappropriate, but that is just
my opinion. I now hold out some hope for an appeal,
(01:19:02):
but Giggles will need an exceptional lawyer with a similar
depth of knowledge to them of Professor Allan still an
avid listener, I beg. I knew you would be because
you wrote with You wrote with a style that I recognized.
But there was something I was going to add there.
Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
What was it? Now? Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Yes, let me just say that the words idiot and
moron are thrown around with gay abandon these days in
the world. I've realized the world has changed dramatically, and
you can sort of hang in there and refuse to
say what you think in terminology that you understand and
(01:19:43):
like to use.
Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
It's never been you though, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Anyway you can you can. You can choose to do that,
maybe get a job on national radio, but elsewhere elsewhere
in the world. It's loosened up, and it's loosened up dramatically,
for better or worse. I say for better or worse,
and I put it. I put one more thing to
you with regard to Trump. Trump is a man for
the times. End of story.
Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
John says, I have followed all your podcasts and enjoy them.
On episode two five three, I listened to your discussion
in part on the Virgin Mary. Back in the early
nineteen eighties, I did theology studies. What we understood a
virgin woman to be back two thousand years ago was
a term given only to a high society woman, and
(01:20:33):
over time the term then became the sexual connotation it
is today.
Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
That's from John John. I don't know that I accept that,
but I don't deny it either, because I also somewhere
in my past remember that that sort of interpretation being
put on the word, but I've never followed it up.
So I actually got to do that as best I
can and report back to you. But thank you as
(01:20:59):
a producer.
Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
That'll do.
Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
Thanks later we've done.
Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
I'm off for this one.
Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
No, you're not. You're never off. If you mean you're
leaving that, I accepted. See you next week.
Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Now, what I'm about to quote you is something that
belongs in the mail room, but I take them out
of the mail room sometimes for various reasons, but they
all have something in common. This is a long letter
and it's deserving of a little more attention than I
might have given it or been able to give it
in the mail room. And I want to respond to
(01:21:44):
it as we as we read. Evelyn wrote this and
it got me. Well see if it gets you the
way it got me, it says says. I received an
email from Family First regarding submitting a response to the
Law Commission's review of transgender anti discrimination laws. I inwardly
groaned at the thought and mentally put it to one side. However,
(01:22:08):
yes day afternoon I started to listen to your podcast
in brackets, as I do each Wednesday. Thank you so
much and you're welcome, And after listening to your interview
with Professor Allen, decided to revisit the Family First email.
The Law Commission document is over two hundred pages long,
and it's full of mention of aete rower New Zealand
(01:22:30):
marine names and terms and confusing jargon at a very
detailed level. The submission form is also very detailed and
one specific replies to each chapter. I attempted to write
my thoughts in the boxes. It was a lengthy, tedious
process where you had to keep switching from the submission
form to the document to understand the context of each question.
(01:22:55):
They also state somewhere that they will not accept any
disrespectful comments or words to that effect. I never thought
that that would be an issue for me, but I
felt it took some effort to remain polite and not
resort to sarcasm. I just refer back to my comments
to this assignment earlier with regard to language. I am
(01:23:17):
a professional and self employed and of sound mind. However,
as I began wading through what I believe to be
this load of nonsense, I've felt my patience waning and
my frustration growing, asking myself, how did we get to this?
A lot of people are asking that question in various ways.
I've heard many people refer to the Left as living
(01:23:39):
in an echo chamber and have wondered if I, too
was living in my own Clearly, I have been as
I felt I had landed on another planet. Reading the
Law Commission review and submission questions and I have no
desire to listen to any more of this nonsense. We
are in very shaky financial times and I am constantly
(01:23:59):
astounded as to how we have the time and resources
to even consider investigating issues like this one. It seems
so far fetched to be doing so while driving over
potholes in our roads and seeing many qualified young people
struggling to get into the workforce, as every job advertised
is seeking applicants with experience, not to mention the work
(01:24:22):
needed to improve education, health, law and order, and much more.
The document discusses privacy for transgender people, and I can't
help but think of how everyone's privacy went out the
window when COVID vaccine passes were issued and required to
be shown just to enter a cafe. The document discusses
privacy for transgender people. I don't see how you can
(01:24:46):
have anti discrimination laws for transgender people without removing the
same protection for women or employers. And by the way,
I do not like the term cisgender. I Commendjuloven's as
someone from the left for standing up to this. I'm
unsure if I can face completing the submission that I
started by the deadline of five pm today, which was
(01:25:11):
five September. It raises so many broader questions, like why
is the Law Commission referring to our country as aetiro
row and New Zealand. It not only grates on my
nerves but adds unnecessary words to an already wordy document. Jeez, Heavelyn,
I'm with you one hundred and ten percent. I do
(01:25:31):
not want to take any of it seriously, and with
all the commentary on the issue, all I can think
of is the Emperor's new clothes. I so enjoy your
podcast and love Carolyn. We have never met, but feel
we could be great friends. Kind regards, Evelyn, and then
a ps. I have drafted several emails to you over
(01:25:52):
the years, but they usually stay in the draft folder
and never get sent. It's a shame because you write well.
I can only agree with you. I find nothing in
what you've said disagreeable, and I wish that more people
would exp well. I wish that more people would make
their expressions felt.
Speaker 3 (01:26:12):
How do we do that? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
There are a myriad of ways, really, but many of us,
many of us are just a bit embarrassed to do it. Unfortunately, Evelyn,
thank you and make sure that that's not the last
letter you said, Leighton Smith, and with that we conclude
podcast number two hundred and fifty five. If you would
like to correspond with us, very simple email Layton at
(01:26:36):
newstalks ab dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalksb
dot co dot enz. We do love getting e mail.
I know I keep saying that, but it's true. It's
always a bit of an adventure. Latin at newstalks ab
dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalks Ab dot
co dot nz. We shall return shortly with podcasts number
two hundred and fifty six. Until then, as always, thank
(01:26:59):
you for listening and we shall talk soon.
Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
Thank you for more from News Talk st B. Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio