All Episodes

December 3, 2024 90 mins

Australian journalist and author Nick Cater has been a guest on numerous occasions, beginning on radio in 2013.

Not having spoken for a year, we caught up on Thanksgiving Eve while he was in New York.

The plan was to discuss Australia’s pros and cons (of which there are many), for the benefit of intending migrants.

There is something of a diaspora from NZ at the moment.

As usual it was a relaxed but informative interview.

We make commentary on Auckland Transport and the medical profession and the frustrations therein.

And we visit The Mailroom with Mrs Producer.

File your comments and complaints at Leighton@newstalkzb.co.nz

Haven't listened to a podcast before? Check out our simple how-to guide.

Listen here on iHeartRadio

Leighton Smith's podcast also available on iTunes:
To subscribe via iTunes click here

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debates off now the Leighton Smith
Podcast powered by news talks it B.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to podcast two hundred and sixty eight four December four,
twenty twenty four. Nick Cator who has made numerous podcast
appearances over the last six years, and there were discussions
we had on radio starting in twenty thirteen through to
the end of twenty eighteen. Nick is a journalist and writer,
essentially an analyst and commentator. He's a mixture of all.

(00:49):
His life has undergone some restructuring in twenty twenty four.
I've seen him on Sky News all around Australia. I've
seen him on Sky News from Romania, from London and
some other places that I failed to remember. Now to
include him before the end of twenty four we had
to pick a time and date that suited us both.

(01:10):
So a few days ago, on the eve of Thanksgiving,
we connected in New York and the idea from my
perspective was to target Australia from different perspectives. With the
underlying intent on information for would be migrants or immigrants
from this country. So the discussion ranged through problems facing Australia,

(01:31):
power supply being maybe the most important, which meant including
nuclear power, politics obviously, education, housing, race relations, anti Semitism,
health and hospital care, and that gets even more discussion
after the interview, the ten most dangerous cities and other matters,

(01:54):
and finally we've finished up with well having a bit
of fun expense of the media. As usual, it was
a relaxed and interesting conversation. But first years ago I
tagged Aukland Transport as the best example New Zealand has
of the administrative state, and it proved to be a
correct description. The term administrative state to me means essentially

(02:18):
unelected bureaucrats making the rules rather than elected representatives of
the people. So in New Zealand that means our single
chamber of Parliament and local councils, members of which can
be held accountable by the voting public. Now, in one
of those coincidences that I thrive on, I can provide

(02:40):
an even better definition of the administrative state. Roger Kimball
is a thinker and writer who I admire yesterday I
read an article that he wrote a couple of days ago,
and it was called what is the administrative State? And
here is part of what he wrote. The administrative state
is that quota of political power that covertly fills the

(03:03):
vacuum left and this is very important, left by the
failure of the legislative branch to discharge its obligations. Two
things are critical. One is the displacement of sovereignty. No
longer are the people sovereign. The bureaucracy is. The second
critical thing is the covert nature of the enterprise. The

(03:24):
question what is the administrative state can seem difficult to
answer because it's not supposed to exist in the first place.
You know it only by its actions. You can't look
it up in the statute book, much less in the Constitution.
The very fact of the administrative state violates any number
of constitutional norms, not least its being a sort of
fourth branch of government when the Constitution provides for only three. Well,

(03:49):
that is restricted more to them and not so inclusive
of us. However, the points are still relevant. The shadowy
nature of the administrative state helps to explain why it
is so hostile to free speech and by the same token,
why it tends to be receptive to the deployment of
censorship and police power to achieve its ends and stymy

(04:13):
the ends of its critics. That's why the rise of
the administrative state goes hand in hand with the loss
of public confidence in society's guiding institutions. Talk of democracy
is ever on their lips. Swat teams, prosecutor abuse and
lawfare are out on the street for all to see.
The bottom line, the age of the administrative state is,

(04:35):
at the same time an age of declining legitimacy in
the foundational institutions of civil society. That last sentence is
applicable here as as well as anywhere. Little further on,
he says, I have not yet answered the question posed
in my title, what is the administrative state? A friend
asked me that in the course of our conversation about

(04:57):
my column last week. He said, isn't it possible that
the administrative state, like its scarier sounding cousin deep state,
is just a polysyllabic synonym for state for the complex
activities of government in a complex, technologically advanced polity. Maybe
the administrative state is just an invention of right wing

(05:20):
conspiracy theorists who find goblins where there are only harmless bureaucrats. Now,
Roger Kimball's response to that was, well, it can be
reduced to this conspiracy theorist. And that's a phrase that
is wheeled out when the aim is to end, not
further the conversation. The problem is not conspiracy theories, but
conspiracies in fact. It's a line we should all remember

(05:43):
because we can use it probably frequently. The problem is
not conspiracy theories, but conspiracies in fact. Now, in case
you're wondering why this, here's the answer. Yesterday, Auckland Transport
will be surgically changed to restore democratic control for transport

(06:07):
issues in Auckland, according to the Transport Minister Simeon Brown.
He and the Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown declared that they
were taking back control of Auckland Transport by stripping the
unpopular council body of its policy, strategy and planning functions
and moving them to the Auckland Council. Wayne Brown said

(06:27):
having at focused on running the buses, trains and ferries
is what they should be doing, declaring it to be
a very good result. Simeon Brown said the existing transport
governance model in Auckland is falling short of meeting under statement,
short of meeting the expectations of the government, Auckland Council
and most importantly, Auckland is themselves. By returning decision making

(06:50):
power to elected representatives, we are enabling Aucklanders to directly
influence the transport policies that affect their daily lives. That
is true in how should we say principle, All we
have to do is get off our butts and make
sure that we're heard. And I know a lot of
people up till relatively recently attempted to do that and

(07:14):
basically got nowhere. And I've mentioned stories in the past
of people who've told me of presentations they made to
at at public meetings only to get dumped on. Now
after the mail room, I've connected a couple of different issues,
three in fact, but connected issues remedical, nursing and health,

(07:35):
and I recommend that you don't miss them now in
a moment. Nick cater Leverx is an antihistamine made in
Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever and
skin allergies or itchy skin. It's a dual action antihistamine

(08:00):
and has a unique nasal decongestant action. It's fast acting
for fast relief and it works in under an hour
and lasts for over twenty four hours. Leverix is a
tiny tablet that unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes,
and stops sneezing. Leveris is an antihistamine made in Switzerland

(08:20):
to the highest quality. So next time you're in need
of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask
for Leverix l e v Rix Leverix and always read
the label. Takes directed and if symptoms persist, see your
health professional. Farmer broker Auckland Layton Smith Nick Cata has

(08:48):
been on the podcast on numerous occasions over the years.
He is a very good friend of the podcast and
a good friend of mine. And it's great to welcome
you back because we have not spoken this year and
it was time to rectify it. And here we are
talking to you via your phone, which of course some
is locked into Sydney and you're in New York. What

(09:09):
are you doing there?

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I'm here for conference by the International Democratic Union, which
is an organization of conservative parties from around the world,
including the National Party in New Zealand to get together
and discuss conservatism and how to win these battles. So
that's what I'm here for mainly, and also to visit
a nuclear power plant plant in Toronto or in nearby

(09:34):
Toronto in Ontario, which is one Australia could look at
as a possible model. But I think we're going to
come to that later on.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
We yes, we will come to that later. Very good.
So how was your quote a slip?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Well, I don't know whether this is too much chit
chat for early in the podcast laden, but they, you know,
they always think that you can tran you can change
the flight in an hour and a half having arrived
in America. I don't know why, because it takes you
an hour and a half to get through the passport
cure alone. It'll reclaim your badget anyway. All up, they

(10:09):
gave me nine hours in Dallas Airport, which is not
a bad airport, but it is an airport.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Airports are airports. Yes, Indeed, what would you say was
the biggest problem or if you want the biggest problems
confronting Australia, because every country, it seems now has some issues.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, and we have plenty. It's hard to put them
in order because they're all big. But I would say
a top of my mind at the moment is economic
management and the fact that we've been living off two
decades really of mining boom and getting pretty lazy and
not doing the things which we have to do to

(10:48):
keep our economy competitive Keith. Amongst those is productivity. Productivity
has gone backwards. And then on top of that you've
got the rise of the green lobby, particularly the Green
Tape and now Black tape, which is the indigenous legislation
and is things you have to comply with, which means

(11:10):
that it's almost impossible to start a new mine or
drill for gas in Australia, and that of course is
the like blood of our economy. So I really do
fear for the place, particularly as this starts to kick
in in the next ten years.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Hasn't it already started well either.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
The thing about these mining investment decisions is that there
are at least a decade or a decade and a
half to come to fruition. So I think it is
the next generation that are going to feel it. There'll
be fewer opportunities for them because we don't have that
pioneering quality to us anymore, and particularly the legal institutions

(11:49):
have become very very woke, very you save the planet
sort of a focus rather than looking at the law.
So you know, mining deals are held up for a
long long time if they get through at all. Luckily,
there are still companies that are prepared to fight and
go through that process and hope that perhaps we can

(12:10):
get a government that can smooth things out and really
accelerate investment in this country in the right things.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
How big is DEI in Australia Now, it's pretty big.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
I don't think it's quite as in say the States,
but I see in the States where I am at
the moment, is you say, where things are turning pretty quickly.
You know, there's a big backlash. I saw Walmart only
yesterday dropped a lot of their DEI policies. So companies
are beginning to drop them, and I think they will
in Australia. But they certainly They certainly do drive appointments

(12:49):
in big corporations, which means you're not necessarily appointing on
memic or pointing on some quality about them their gender
or the color or race or something. You know, and
it's big in universities, of course, so it is. It's
really entrenched, and I think we somehow have to get

(13:10):
beyond that thinking and go back to the idea we
just want the best people for the jobs, or the
best students going to university.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
What a surprise I heard a little earlier this morning,
a bit of conversation with I missed. I missed a
lot of it because I was getting in the shower,
but a conversation with a guy whose name I seem
to recall as being Jimmy Starbuck or something very similar,
who has taken up the caudule, and I don't know

(13:37):
his methodology, but has had huge success in destroying DEI
in companies, and a lot of the companies that provide
the DEI service are closing down. There was one in
particular where the woman said, we're just we're just being
wiped out. We can't I've got to close the doors.
I can't. We can't get any work. And that's because

(13:58):
of because of this guy. Now, my name for him
might be slightly wrong, because I know it's it's it
sounds a bit fanciful, but it is a fanciful name.
I'm sure it's Starbus. I'm not sure about the Jimmy anymore,
but you get you get the picture. So there is
a growing success in pushback on the EI in America.

(14:19):
Now my question then becomes, that's where it came from
in the first place, so and then and then rippled
out to the rest of the world, including here, of course,
is it going to be automatically does it automatically follow
that the collapse in our countries?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Well, pretty this way late, and I'm pretty confident now
we've reached peak woke. I wouldn't have said that six
months ago, but I am now. And you can see
it in the States with DEI, as you say, and
they have been well. Two material things have happened in
the States. One was the Supreme Court decision I think
it was last year that overturned the preferential treatment for

(15:00):
on the grounds of race in university admissions and positive
discriminations they call it. So that was a material thing
which shook up the inniverse. The other thing, of course,
is Donald Trump. You know, it matters a lot who
your president is and who your administration is run by,
because they can pull the levers and order a whole
lot of things. And there's talk of Trump defunding American

(15:23):
universities if they carry on with their DEI policies. So
that's happened here and there's definitely a feeling and people
are writing about it quite confidently that this is peag woke.
The SAME's true in Australia. Two things happened there. One
is the Voice referendum, which happened at the very date
November fourteen last year, the day of your election. Of course,

(15:44):
we voted sixty forty against an Aboriginal voice to Parliament.
And although that was a referendum on a specific constitutional proposal,
people really took it really as a referendum on woke
and it's had a big effect and people are being
more confident to speak out about things that they might
have thought, well, get them into trouble eighteen months ago.

(16:06):
So it has been a change in the climate. And
again with the Albanesi government in trouble and the Pospulity
Coalition government think things are changing.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Can you think of one CEO of a of a
decent sized company who has taken a stand against it
from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
In Australia, Yeah, I'm racking my bones now. Well, I
suppose somebody like Gina Reinhardt, who's the well the the
owner of Hancock Search as the big mining and pastoral company.
She's Australia's richest woman. She's been strongly against it from
the start. But because she's she's not not a listed company.

(16:46):
You know, I think when you have a listed company,
the dynamics are different, and you know, you start having
to buy by all sorts of rules from the stock
market about how you should run your company and how
you should report. So it'd be very few, if any publicly.
I mean, I know some privately voiced concerns about it,

(17:07):
but yeah, I think it'll come though later, because you
see the backlash every time they take a woke star stance.
It was a massive backlash against WARS last year when
they decided they weren't going to sell any Australia Day merchandise.
It was a serious drop in sales for them for
a short while there and they had to basically come

(17:30):
very contritely and say, look, we regret that decision. So
there is a backlash now, and you do see it
when they try too hard in the DII area.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
So two things. Then, going back to the only person
I can think of and I did interview him a
couple of years ago. It was Jerry Harvey. Oh yes,
and basically Jerry said screw you, yes, as far as
that was concerned. But there is a guy who is
very wealthy, very successful, a mind of his own and
doesn't rely on the support of anybody that matters for

(18:06):
his company to keep being successful. So he's got the
he's got the courage from from a couple of areas,
but I would suggest it comes from deep down inside
him where he has been successful and all sorts of
things over the years. He's just yeah, and he's just
confident exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
And their chain of stores, having normand chain is very
big in regional Australia. That's a big part of their
market and it would resonate, you know, that sort of
down to earth, no nonsense attitude resonates there. So I
think it's what's good for Jerry's sense of the sense
of sanity is also good for his business.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Like that of sense of sanity, and of course some
having Ormonds is big here too. So is there anything
else that you would put on the list? Well, there
must be of matters confronting Australia that are causing grief.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, I think that, and this lies behind the DEI
woke nonsense, is really a lack of conscious pride in
the country anymore, an understanding of who we are and
what we are. And this is manifesting itself in the
dreadful Jewish hatred which has erupted and been allowed to flourish.

(19:26):
And the government has been very weak on that and
that's not helped at all. You know, we've had only
last week a serious attack on a Jewish residential area
in western Sydney, Eastern Sydney, sorry area you would know
very well, and cars were graffited with obscene graffiti about Israel.

(19:51):
One we set a light damage was committed to buildings
and the most alban easy, the alban easy the Prime
Minister could do, was to come out and say this
is disturbing, like if you couldn't think of a more limp,
weak adjective to describe a dreadful hate crime like that
which had struck fear into the Jewish community who feel

(20:13):
under threat. And so I think that that breakdown, what
we're seeing with the anti seminism is just part of
a broader breakdown of the social fabric. A lot of
confidence and pride in who we are as a nation.
That's very I find that very troubling and in the
long term I think that's very bad for the country.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Alban Easy is arguably one of your biggest problems, if
not the biggest. There's been plenty of criticism, but across
this side of the Tasman, of course, Luxen has been
on the receiving end of some pretty vicious commentary of late.
The question is the question is going to be extend

(20:57):
that last comment of it because we have been going
through just in the last few days, ever since the
so called harker in Parliament, we have been going through
some pretty critical times with regard to discussion and there
are things that there are things that need to be
said that are not really being said well enough at

(21:20):
least to deal with the issues that are at hand.
And you've got yours, We've got ours, but they are
all race based. Now you can't claim, of course, that
there is anything to do with immigration as far as
the Mary contingent are concerned. But when it comes to

(21:42):
the anti Semitism, there has been a substantial amount of
that here. It is a case of in its time
it was confronted a case of allowing the wrong people
into the country. The last time that I recall that
you had something like that in the eastern suburbs of
Sydney was back in the let me think sixties and seventies,

(22:04):
when Yugoslavia broke up and the immigrants that came into
the country brought their problems with them, and there were
buildings set on fire, there were bashings, and I think
they might have even met a death or two.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Yeah, well, and I think but much of that I
think was violence and tension between ethnic groups estentially, particularly
the Serbs and the Croats in that case. So now
it's quite different. What you're seeing is people bringing their
troubles from around the world, bringing their dated, historical grievances

(22:36):
to this country and wanting to fight them out here.
And I say, well, you don't do that, and we
should have be very clear. If we just have much
more clarity from our Prime Minister and other leaders, that's sorry.
That part of the deal about becoming an Australian citizen,
about coming to live from Australia, as you leave those
things at home. We don't do historical grievances here. We

(22:57):
just treat everybody as an equal. If you become a citizen,
you have the same rights as every other citizen, whether
you've been here five minutes or five thousand years in
the case of originals, the longer. There's no difference, and
we cannot be reltigating historical grievances here in Australia.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
All right, So I've got to bug out. I've got
a challenge for you. Then you can say that you
can even apply it to immigration and testing and what
have you. But people will say whatever they want to say,
whatever they think should be said to get them where
they want to go. Let them settle down a little bit,
and before too long there's enough of them to create

(23:39):
the issues that we're now witnessing on your side in
this case more but here as well. So what do
you do with it?

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Well, you do it by reinforcing what a normal patterner
behavior is here, by having people in authority make it
very clear, unambiguously, which what sort of behavior is unacceptable
in this country, and having a police force and adjustive
system that when things get out of hand, is prepared
to come down hard. That's not been the case in

(24:09):
this country with the anti semitism we've seen. It's not
been the case with the Palestinian demonstrations which have taken
the streets, and particularly in Melbourne where they've been enormously disruptive.
They managed to disrupt the opening of a Christmas display
at Myers. You know, kids that come along to see

(24:30):
you know, Santa and on display in the windows of Myers,
and the Palestinians that come to protest and shut that
down for some ridiculous reason. That's fine, but at that
point the police need to step in and say you're
not authorized to do this. You're not authorized to intimidate people.
If you want to demonstrate, you have to seek permission

(24:52):
and approval. You can't just do it any place, anytime.
But they're not doing that. There's a two tier police
system going on here. They take a very very softly
softly approach when it comes to anybody from an ethnic background.
I gues the police just don't want to get into trouble,
but they're not prepared to enforce the law as it stands,

(25:14):
let alone. You know, the kind of hate laws we've
got do not get enforced. So you can have Palestinians
as you did here on November night last year, two
days after the attacks in Israel protesting on their steps
of the Opera house, saying gas the Jews, or if
you listen to the police, they say no, they're actually saying,
where's the Jews. I don't know that there's much difference

(25:37):
between those two chants as to which is most going
to intimidate the Jewish community in this country, indeed, anybody
who thinks that it should be a haven for people
who just get along, regardless to their backgrounds. But there
was not enforced. I don't know. I certainly saw no
arrests as a result of that. There might have been
a few, but there weren't a parent and then and

(26:00):
then most recently, well last week, you know, you had this,
as I say this, terrible anti Semitic violence in the
eastern suburbs and no police press conference. We didn't see
the police commissioner get up and say, look, I'm going
to come down on a ton of bricks and we're
going to get to the bottom of this, and we're
going to set up strike force whatever or whatever, none
of that, which was remarkable contrast to what had happened

(26:24):
only two or three days before, when the police held
a number of pressure conferences in one day to champion,
the fact that they arrested Alan Jones, the radio host,
on what are relatively low order charges if they're proven.
But of course he was a great name. They wanted

(26:44):
to get him on these so called sexual abuse allegations.
An eighty three year old man. They make a big
fuss about that, but not about anti Semitic violence. It's
just a feeling that the police force are not focused
on their role in life, which has enforced the law.
They're being sidetracked with other agendas.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Well, we can match that we've had a very weak
please force for a lengthy period of time. It starts
at the top under a labor government. It was very
poorly led. And we've only just recently, in the last
week or so, we've only appointed a new police commissioner.
And we'll see how things go new police commissioner under
a new government and maybe, just maybe they'll do the

(27:28):
job that they are supposed to do. And let me
just add actually, because I think it was only yesterday,
as we record, a few days before before this is released,
that the police announced the commissioner announced. Let me back
up here a minute. Police headquarters was in the middle
of the city up until fairly recently when it moved

(27:49):
to I don't know whether you know Pons and me,
but it's just on the fringe of the CBD on
the outside, really okay, And that meant that there wasn't
a central city police presence. Now, they used to have
a small police station done on the waterfront. They closed
that down and ever since then, for a variety of reasons,

(28:12):
we have had nothing but trouble in the city with violence, killings, robberies,
et cetera. Now that go back to what I started with.
They announced a new police station for the inner city.
That in itself is an indication that somebody with some
intelligence is now in control.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah. Yeah, but you've got to have a police presence.
It's kind of pleasing, one oh one, isn't it. It's unlure.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Just to give you an idea, a friend of mine
who lives on the thirty second floor of an apartment
in the city watched when try to think how long ago,
but let's say at least a year ago. Last year anyway,
there was a there was an assault, a murdering, a
murderous assault on a building site and he just watched
it from his window. Now I'm what I'm keen to

(29:02):
do is to try and convey to New Zealanders who
are leaving in their droves and will probably continue to
do so to move to Australia as to whether or
not they're making the right choice. Now, I could ask
you straight out, is it the right thing? Is it
a good thing to do? Is Australia still the place

(29:25):
of hope promised land for others? Or would you suggest otherwise?

Speaker 3 (29:32):
It's relative, isn't it? But I think it definitely is
a place of hope. It's a place that compared to
other Western countries, I think puts a check on a
lot of the extreme kind of progressive moves better than
others in most countries. In most cases we've got a

(29:53):
much stronger media, of course, and a more balanced media
in the sense that we have in newspapers and television stations,
at radio stations from right across the political spectrum. Really,
so we are in that sense, I think strong, and
we have you. The fundamentals are great. The economy is
still going well. House prices of course are ridiculous and

(30:14):
it's very hard to buy a home, and part of
that is immigration, which we could come and talk about that.
There's been far too many migrants been admitted to Australia
in the last three years, and surprise surprise, has put
a pressure on housing prices. One of the factor is
driving on housing prices. So there lots of issues here,

(30:35):
but I'd say that there's still opportunities. And if you
go to regional and rural Australia, which is where I
love spending more of my time than ever these days,
then you do find people buying larger, normal, sensible, pragmatic,
hard working people and they haven't got much time for
the elites that are trying to run our lives.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Where's your preference.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
In terms of the country Australia. I love the northern
rivers of New South Wales, but I'm happy to travel anywhere,
particularly it's warm. But yeah, I just find you don't
have to get far out of the place and suddenly
it's a different atmosphere. You know, it's a people. You
know when you I was in Broken Hill, for instance,

(31:22):
working on a story on energy when on the day
of the US elections, and because we were all listening
to it, and I went out in the evening and
chatted to people in the pub, and you knew instinctively
that they would be very comfortable with the Donald Trump victory.
As in teed they were. You didn't have to tread
on eggshells and say which side were you supporting. You

(31:44):
just know that they'll take that view because you know,
they're very much like Trump's people in the States. They're
no nonsense, working people who want to make a living
and want to make the world better for their their families,
you know. So that's the sort of people who tend
to go for Donald Trump. I think common sense, yeah, yeah,

(32:06):
definitely common sense and the elite, which I'm increasingly just
calling them the elite because that's what they are, and
Trump calls them the elites in the States. A really small,
sort of select group of people when you boil it down.
But they're just they're very good at talking, aren't they.
They're very good at fancy words and making arguments and

(32:26):
building narratives, and they can drag you with them, or
they drag some of the population along with their nonsense
if you're not careful. But they're not the majority, and
in the end, they talk nonsense and often, you know,
because they're up there in the clouds, they're talking theory
the whole time. On things like energy policy rather than
the practical aspects of it, the engineering and aspects of

(32:50):
energy policy. Know, they're talking in high fluting theoretical.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Terms, and this is a good place to introduce something else. Momentarily,
question which would be in and don't think about it
too much, just shoot an answer. Which would be the
most dangerous city in Australia, Which would be the least I.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Think the most dangerous, well, if you're talking about crime,
would be Alice Springs without a doubt. And then allied
to that, there are a lot of towns and cities
on the fringes of central Australia where there are large
Aboriginal populations have equal problems, particularly youth crime. And then

(33:33):
after that I'd say, off the Melbourne major cities Melbourne
without a doubt or Brisbane actually is a very high
rated crime in Queensland.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
All right, you're ready for a surprise, Yeah, go on.
I pulled this detail off last night intentionally because no, no,
not at all, just for my own interests sake, And
then when I saw it, I thought, no, I'm going
to include this, So I'm going to work from ten
back to one. Yeah, the least, well, the least most

(34:03):
dangerous of the ten coffs Harbor second, Darwin third, yes, third,
Alice Springs. I wrote down, I wrote down some of
the some of the reasons, some of the reasons that
were given domestic violence in Alice Springs, substance abuse, et cetera.

(34:25):
Next surprised me. Number seven Hobart. Then then came Sydney
at six, Brisbane at five, Perth at fourth place. In
fourth place third is Melbourne. Adelaide is second. Adelaide is
the second most dangerous city in Australia according to this survey.

(34:47):
And first of all, you never guess it, so I'll
tell you the Central Coast. Now I wouldn't call the
Central Coast a city, but they've included it as such,
gang violence and drugs being the most the most prominent.
But the Central Coast, which is between basically between the
northern Sydney, just to make it simple, up up to

(35:13):
Gosford and a bit beyond.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, well, yes, actually the Central Coast doesn't surprise me.
But it's got a lot of a little welfare pockets.
There were a very high number of people on welfare
and people are doing it tough.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
But yeah, So moving on, education has been a problem
in both our countries. Education in Australia I think has
maybe had the biggest problem because you've got states playing parts.
What has happened COVID disrupted of course a great deal,
but what's happened to education overall? Do you think since

(35:53):
we got released from jail?

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Well, as you say this big hangover from COVID, there
are all sorts of problems with mental illness to put
a broad brush answer on that, and children lowest, low
school attendance rate, like a lot of kids are having
trouble getting back to school, so that's a problem. But
we continue to see every year, every year when we

(36:17):
get the latest scores and that plan scores and the
piece of scores, you see a further decline in standards
relatives to other countries. We continue to go backwards because
I think New Zealand does actually and this is despite
the fact that we've had massive increase in investment investment

(36:41):
per child in schools at both private and public schools,
and that's been going on really for at least fifteen
or twenty years. You know, we've been a reduction in
the school in the pupil to teacher ratio, so more
teachers for fewer pupils, and in a great investment in

(37:01):
school buildings right up and down the country, some of
that funded by the federal government, but none of that
is actually rood outcomes. So we've got to ask what's
going wrong or what are we doing wrong? How do
we fix that? And there's a massive continues to be
hemorrhaging away from the public schools towards private schools.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
What would your what would your first answer be to
a question of what would you do to overcome the
issue that you've just arrived at.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I think you're going to address teacher training, really, because
they're spending in our four years I think to get
it qualified as a teacher used to be only one year,
and now they've made it four years. And the teachers,
I think, are getting diverted with a lot of things
that are not really core curriculum. You know, they're not
they're not They don't come in every morning thinking what

(37:52):
are the first three most important things I've got to
do today? Obviously reading, writing, and arithmetic. They don't seem
to have that clarity. So I mean teachers, my experience,
most teachers are very good, very conscientious people, but they're
being diverted and also by imustration as well. But we
have to get them back to square one. And there's
a very interesting initiute which I came across going on

(38:14):
in one Christian based school in Newcastle where they've actually
decided they're going to train their own teachers rather than
see them go to university and get them back after
four years, they're going to train them on the job
at the school and they'll get an academic component to
that provided by another college. But basically it turns it

(38:37):
from a university academic degree into an apprenticeship, you know,
like learning on the job, and that's really I think
what teaching used to be. So I think taking this
out of the universities and making the education for teachers
more practical and focused on the basics would help. Plus
changes to the curriculum are the big things. I think.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
What religion is the school.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
It's a Christian school that's I'm not really certain it's
on I visited a place I'm trying to think of
them that name of it, but it was very very
well run and very good non denominational Christian school. It's
very popular. They have a big waiting list to get
into it. And it's always the sign of a good
stool and waiting lists, not just from Christian families, but

(39:25):
from others who've just heard it does a good education.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
I went to a religious school for a couple of
years that I'm thinking I'm in high school. The teachers
were trained at school. It was a combination, you know,
it was an apprenticeship situation and they'd learnt And we
covered this off in a previous podcast over this particular issue.

(39:49):
They learnt on the job like an apprenticeship and with
an overseeing authority that was not always there but was
keeping an eye on things, and I think it turned
out some well, as far as I can tell some
pretty good teachers.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
One thing it does later is it gives them immersion
in the classroom very early on in their training. So
they will learn pretty quickly whether that's for them or not.
You know, they will know that they've got a chance
to get out of it if teaching is not quite
what their cup of tea, instead of doing four years
in training and then finding out. So I think that's

(40:30):
one very good practical aspect of teaching teachers that way.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
I'll tell you something of interest. At that school, there
was the son of a person in the media, the
man trying to think of his name. He was the
manager of TWGB and Sydney when it was in Phillip Street,
So this is back in the sixties and he was

(41:00):
sent there because his father knew the school's reputation. Now
other matter that's causing a lot of trouble here and
at both ends of the enterprise is healthcare and hospitals,
or hospitals and health We have a great shortage of

(41:21):
nurses and doctors. We were told a couple of days
ago that we were getting I think fifty new doctors
coming to the country. I don't know. I don't know
the circumstances at this point, but we have had a
short shortage and they are still leaving the country, and
most of them would be going to Australia, but not all.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Well, this is a problem the world over, actually late,
and it's rute. The underlying problem is we don't have
enough people anymore. You know that the population population growth
is declining almost everywhere in the world. It's below replacement
rate in almost every country in Asia, for instance, as

(42:03):
it has been for some time in New Zealand and Australia.
So you know, it just is not such a large
supply of skilled migrants, or even unskilled migrants for that matter.
So we're going to find it harder and harder to
sort of make up for our own lack of training
enough doctors and teacher and nurses by just importing them.
That's going to be harder. If I remember to focus hard,

(42:25):
if I.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Remember correctly, you did a piece on that. Didn't you procreate.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Or or perish? Yes, I mean, yes, it is. It
is a massive change that nobody's talking about, and it's
been going on for probably sixty or seventy years. You
remember that that famous book, The Population Bomb in early seventies. Yeah,
well it was very at the time, it was the
best seller. He was concerned about how the population was

(42:52):
going to explode and we were all going to start
because it'd be too many people. Well, actually the opposite
is happening. It's taken a while for that to filter
through into overall population numbers because we're getting older, you know,
thanks to medical science, we're living longer. But now populations
in places like Japan have started to decline, have been
declining for some time, in say Hungry and in Korea,

(43:16):
which has one of the lowest birth rates in the world,
and India surprisingly is below replacement rates. So all these
places we thought were going to provide keep producing human
beings and training them up to provide our doctors and
so forth, und well, it's not going to happen. So
we have to at some point to come to terms
with that.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Seeing that you've done the work on it. When you
mentioned India not replacing the population, is that a bad thing?
When you consider the number of people who live in India.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
It's probably not a bad thing. But you have to
be able to adjust to it eventually, you see, because
we still need productive people in the workforce, making things
and earning money, especially as people get older and you've
got a larger number of people or the higher dependency
rates they can you know, the number of people out

(44:10):
of the workforce because they've grown too old compared to
the ones that are in it paying the taxes. So
that if it happens too rapidly and we're not prepared,
we haven't improved productivity, for instance, and learned how to
make things better and smarter with fewer people, then it
is going to be a problem. It'll come through in
all sorts of ways, and what I understands happening in

(44:32):
injury is they've still got a slightly higher birth rate
in the south of India, so there's a big migration
from the south to the north, which is where most
of the industrial production is carried out.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Speaking of productivity, we've had a problem with productivity for
as long as I can remember on this side of
the tasma is AI possibly the answer.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
I'll reserve my judgment on that.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
That's a very diplomatic answer.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
I just have to put my hand on the out
and say I just don't know, and I can't even
I can't even bluffin unswer on this one. It's too
to say. It is fascinating, it's exciting in some ways,
quite scary in others. But I think we're all just
learning to work out what it can do. I don't
think anybody really knows what its overall effect is going

(45:23):
to be on productivity. Will it replace journalists? For example?
I tend to think not, because sure I can get
Ai to write an opinion piece for me. I could say,
write an opinion piece from a conservative perspective on this topic,
and it will spew something out, which is you've probably

(45:43):
got fewer spelling mistakes in the device rushing it off.
But it's just not something slightly not there's no humanity
in it, there's nothing to surprise you, there's nothing quirky,
you know, it's I don't know that I'll ever overcome that.
And my example of this is the drum machine. If
you remember in them, when would it be in the

(46:05):
in the eighties when electro drummer machine started to replace
real drummers and you listen to those songs and you think, no,
you know, when there's an electric drummer, sine when there's
a real drummer. Even now you can tell a difference.
It's got no life in it. So I don't know,
that's not that's not a very comprehensive look at the

(46:27):
whole thing of AI, but it is a way to
see I think as far as we.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Know well, I asked somebody once whether AI could be hijacked,
because it would be very hard to tell. But if
it was, what could it be? What could it be
trained to do? What attitudes could it be trained to
introduce without anybody really knowing? And the answer was along

(46:52):
the lines have not never happened. And I think that
was a very bad answer, because if you're going to
talk about AI, it's a major it's a major breakthrough
simpy in itself. Its usage can be abused like so
many other aspects of development of life without question for me.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yeah, I think that's right now. So well, the jury's out,
I guess latent.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, okay, do you want to sit on the jury?
That's the question now. You mentioned at the beginning that
you were going up to see a nuclear a nuclear development.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, a nuclear power plant up in Ontario, a place
called Darlington, which is very interesting from an Australian point
of view as a kind of technology we should be
looking at. But it will be the third nuclear plant
I visited this year. Actually, because the whole debate is hot,
hot it up in Australia. You now have the opposition,

(47:55):
the Coalition, going to the next election with a policy
to lift the moratorium on nuclear powers. You know, we
can't have nuclear power in Australia, it's illegal and the
bata's really rolled on very quickly on this. Most people,
I think, if they're not in favor of nuclear power,

(48:15):
they're certainly in favor of considering it as part of
our mix because they know how much trouble we're in
with energy, and younger people in particular don't have the
same hang ups over nuclear for instance. They're not obsessed
with Three Mile Island and churnobil in the way that
the baby boomers are. So yeah, it's a live debate
in Australia and I've become, i suppose, quite an advocate

(48:36):
for nuclear power. I'm now quite convinced that it is
what we need to do in Australia and probably in
New Zealand. Actually, to be honest, I think there's less
pressing need for it there for a number of reasons.
One is that you've got a lot of water and
a lot of hydroelectricity.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Well actually, actually you'd be surprised. A few months ago
we were very close to having blackouts instituted on us
and if it had got there is one private electrical
engineer who has had a lot of exper in this country.
Everyone knows who I'm talking about because he's been a

(49:12):
guest on the podcast on a number of occasions. He
has experienced from all over the world and he is
pretty much a leader in the field, and he thinks
that New Zealand's electricity supply is in very very grave
danger and there's some well it's being kept alive at
the moment my importing coal from Indonesia.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Dammit, well, there you go. There's a problem for you.
But I think, yeah, the thing about it is we
also need to bear in mind that our demand for
electricity is increasing and will continue to increase. We've already
mentioned reason part of the reason why that is, and
that's AI and computer storage, which has become massive pusher

(49:55):
of growth for energy demand across the world because that
demands such large amounts of electricity to store data and
to process AI, exponentially higher than normal computing. There's a
new data center actually just a few kilometers up the
road from me and Sydney drive past, and it is

(50:18):
the scale of it is massive, and right down the
side of it there is big it's probably about a
seven story high building you're can imagine, which is just
full of computer storage with these great air conditioning pipes
running on the outside because they need to be kept
cool the whole time. And they have diesel generators installed

(50:39):
as part of the thing, so that the normal electricity
supply goes down, they'll kicking diesel generators. So yeah, New
Zealand needs to be prepared for that because without data
storage and AI facilities close to the user, you can't
rely on this from overseas, you're going to be in trouble.
So that's one good reason why you probably should be

(50:59):
looking at a new solid source of power like nuclear
and with the new small modulary actors which I'll be
looking at in Canada, they may be a good solution
for parts of New Zealand away from the big cities.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Yes, I would think so, and I think more and
more people are realizing how desirable it's going to be. Now,
maybe we should end up with something that's near and
dear to both of us, and that's the media. Let
me give you a very quick brief on here on
the situation here. New Zealand's media is in trouble. There

(51:33):
have been a lot of job losses and they continue,
and there are mergings and there are foldings, and it's
not a good thing overall. But I've declared in different
circumstances that I have little sympathy for some of them

(51:55):
who are losing their jobs because of the stand that
they've taken over a lengthy period of time now, and
that is a stand of lockdown on subject matter. And
if you deprive, if you deprive a very large section
of the community from having their being able to read
matters that concern them, that they're interested in your newspaper

(52:19):
or on your television screen or wherever it might be,
then it serves you right because this has a this
has become a campaign against climate change, against COVID matters,
et cetera. And you have the same in Australia, but
you don't have the same restrictions.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
No, well, no, generally that'll be true. But it is
about we have a very competitive, beautifully competitive media system,
now more competitive than ever. I mean the barriers rentry
are much lower, but the amount of competition is much higher.
So you have to change your model. And that that's
been happening in Australia. It meant some most media companies

(53:00):
have had to slim down, become more efficient, be what
they're doing, look at what they're doing, work out how
they can do it better. So in that sense, that's
been happening probably for twenty years, but increasingly in the
last ten years. And what you've seen is that companies
that do adapt are surviving and will thrive, and those

(53:22):
who just stick by the old model, won they'll go
out in the back door. So it's capitalism really, it's
raw capitalism in the end, the fundamental thing you put
your finger on it. Unless you provide people with something
they can't get elsewhere that's really precious to them and valuable,
they're not going to put their credit card across across

(53:44):
online and pay for the content because they'll just suck
up yours and other free content along the same lines
quite easily. It's very easy to pick up commentary from
the left for nothing but good solid conservative commentary. Well
we should be we should be asking people to pay
for that because it's valuable to them, and we are

(54:06):
increasingly know The Australian now is behind a pay wall.
It's very hard to yeah, and quite rightly so, I
mean I write for the Australian and they do send
me a small rebiddance every every month, so that's that's
important you. I mean, if you're a chocolate factory saying
you decided, oh, we don't want to put our chocolate

(54:28):
behind a paywall, you'd be nuts, right. So it's the
same with news, but the quality of that news has
to be good and reliable and trustworthy. Otherwise you won't
be able to build a business out of it. But
there is there is a way out in the other side.
I think New Zealand's abiding problem is the size and
the size of the market. It's it's very difficult to

(54:51):
make something work on that scale.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, and I think there are more people who would
agree with you now than I would have in the
in the past. But there's a sector of the of
the media that I want to raise with you, and
that is journalism in the essay form. And you write
for You've been flitting about quite a bit lately. Actually,

(55:17):
you've expanded your environment. You write for The Australian. You
are writing now for Quadrant magazine, which has undergone management
change and an overhaul. I don't know that I've seen
your name too many times in Spectator though.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
No, I haven't writen for Spectator for a while. It's
just time, really, I'd love to. It's a great publication,
but Quadrant. I should, at a matter of disclosure, say
that the editor of the new editor of Quadrant is
my wife, Rebecca Weiser, So my opinion of Quadrants altered
by that. But it is a very it's been going

(55:58):
since nineteen fifty six. It's a very very solid publication
that's always been firmly aligned on the size of side
of free. It started out the Cold War, you know,
fighting the communist nonsense, and now it's fighting the woke nonsense.
So but it drives debate a lot and helps influence

(56:21):
the debate, and I'm very committed to Quadrant to see
it expand and grow to a new audience. And I'm
very happy to write for it because to write those
longer form pieces, you know, it allows you to do
more in an article than you will just in a
normal newspaper column. And this is a lot of that
stuff around as you know, I mean on substack also

(56:42):
right on Substack, and that's a thriving environment now for
really good journalism as well as.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
I've watched it expand over here too in the I've
had two substect writers on the podcast in the last
six months.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Well that's I mean, that's the way forward, isn't it.
For a country like New Zealand. You don't have the
barriers for entry in that you've got to fire up
a printing press, but you can reach a reasonably size
audience on there and you have nobody's sensors here. Really,
you know, there's nobody your sense of yourself. You're your
own editor, and the readers decide whether you're you're worth

(57:20):
reading or not, and whether they're going to pay for
you or subscribe to you in some other way and
keep the thing going. So Substacks, you know, Substack and
other sort of similar platforms, I think a great success.
And I think, you know, as we've been talking for
some time, I think there is great scope to have

(57:40):
one of the Australian digital networks like ADHTV, which I'm
attached to, really start growing its market in New Zealand too.
Whenever we run something on New Zealand on eighty h
you know, now and then I might interview somebody yourself.
Even we get a huge pick up in audience, and
most of that from your side of the tasmum because

(58:02):
there is a hunger there. So there are ways around this.
I mean, I doubt if you're ever going to have
a competitive center right newspaper come out daily on the streets,
but that's not the way people consume news. For instance, yesterday,
only yesterday, when I arrived in Dallas and I had
nine hours to kill at the airport. You wouldn't believe

(58:24):
how hard it was in an airport, a major airport,
to find a printed newspaper. I did find one eventually.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Which one was it?

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Well, I got the I got the Wall Street Journal
in the New York Times and the Dallastribute is at
the local Dallas paper and they cost me between them,
they cost me fifteen US puck. That's clearly not the
way most people consume the media. Now I'm just some
old fogy who likes to sit down and turn pages.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Well, I joined you in that. And one of the
privileges of being in Sydney at any given time is
to take coffee and a cave or breakfast in a
cafe where there's usually a bunch of newspapers to read
for free. There's still four newspapers in Sydney.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Well yeah, I mean, and the Australian. It finds its
print edition is very important to its business. I mean
it's costly, Sure, it's costly, but the market for it
isn't going away because I think there's something there's just
something different about the way you consume news from a

(59:35):
printed newspaper from online. And one of the big things
is that you come across unexpected things in the printed
newspaper much more frequently that you come across anything unexpected
and online where you tend to go down a channel
and look at this and then a related article maybe
you turn the page and you'll go, oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
I didn't know that, you know. So yeah, I think
they're going to be around for a fair bit longer.
I wouldn't like to say how long, but they will.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Be indeed, and that draws us I think to a close.
It has been has been a pleasure. Well, having a chat.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Exactly a joy is ever. And as I'm in the
United States, I should wish you happy holidays and happy Thanksgiving.
But more than that, you know, thanks again for all
you do on your podcast over the years late and
it's one of the ones that I've always got on
my regular search when I go to listen to something
at the weekend. So keep it up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
It's going to run a bit longer. So there is
this one more thing I wanted to clarify though you
mentioned ADH. Can you just tell everybody what ADH is?

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Yeah, eighty h stands for Australian Digital Holdings and it's
really a startup television station that began online and through
and up about three years ago and is just really
now beginning to take off. We've got some new studios,
for instance in Sydney which used to belong to Channel

(01:01:09):
nine where they used to do their cooking shows. So
there's actually a whole kitchen at one end of the
studio which we cover up and a sort of a
smell of stale food. It's quite an unusual place, but
it's a probably a quick studio, and it shows the
fact that the old networks like nine are now struggling

(01:01:30):
and then closing down facilities, and people like us are
snapping them up because our audience is growing and we're
finding ways to make them work online and we've got
great plans coming up for twenty twenty five. So eighty
h Television if somebody wants to check it out. My
show is called Reality by Ites and it's it's online too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Can get it. I see that the lead personality is
still the same, hasn't changed.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Who's the guy? It may just be our websites out
of date. Alan Jones was with it, but he had,
as you know, health issues and he's he hasn't been
broadcasting for p a year or so, so we've got
a whole news stable of people Christmas. It does a
regular show. He's a former radio presenter. Here myself, Daisy

(01:02:19):
Cousins and anyway worth checking it out. I think I'd
be very surprised if you didn't find something worth watching
on there, even if it's not my show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
I'm sure I can say comfortably. Actually I can stay comfortably.
Your show is worth watching, so appreciate it, Thank you,
and I wish you were merry Christmas and a much
better twenty twenty five. I don't care how good this
one was. I want next to you to be better. Yes,
let's hope, Thanks late and all the very best, missus producer.

(01:03:05):
It is one of the better days that we've had
this season, so you must be feeling fantastically.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Flesh Laton. I always feel fantastic, but today is the
icing on top of the cake, isn't it beautiful? Let's
hope there are many more of these days to come.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Exactly, why don't I lead this week? Just for a change,
It's no wonder to send her a durn labeled David
Seymour an arrogant prick. David Seymour is a conviction politician,
which makes him a great politician as he relentlessly fights
for what he believes in. While a Dern believed in
government controls, Seymour believed in individual freedoms. Personally, I have

(01:03:42):
a love hate relationship with David Seymour. I love it
when he fights for what I believe in, such as
the Treaty Principles Bill. I hate it when he fights
against what I believe in, such as his use in
Asia Bill. He is a great ally to have, but
he also makes a ruthless opponent. Despite that, I preferred
David Seymour over Chris luxm because, as a conviction politician,

(01:04:04):
Seymour is willing to tackle what really matters and doesn't
pussy for. Like Luxan, David Seymour joins the ranks of
what Ramesh the Kerr calls creative disruptors. Creative disruptors are
people like Trump in the US, Maloney in Italy, Milay
in Argentina, Polaver in Canada, and Farage in the UK.

(01:04:26):
Creative disruptors are the only kind of leaders who can
successfully wage war on woke. The Treaty Principal's Bill is
to New Zealand what the First Amendment is to the
United States. It's all about equal rights and freedoms for
all citizens, regardless of skin color. In fact, this issue
is so important to me that I will vote for

(01:04:49):
the act Party if they end up being the only
party willing to die on this hill. Soldier on, David Seymour,
We're with you on the Treaty Principle's Bill.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
Leyton Tim says, thank you for your interesting and enlightening
chat with David Seymour with regard to the Treaty Principal's Bill,
I have to say I haven't been a fan of
mister Seymour since his stance on the COVID vaccine. But
not everyone is perfect, and he has redeemed himself lately
with his backbone under relentless pressure from the activist class,

(01:05:21):
gutless politicians, and the activist legacy media. But I repeat
myself as a National Party activist for nearly forty years
and now in exile, I'm extremely disappointed in the current
leadership at both political and organizational levels that are too
focused on not creating offense and being labor light in

(01:05:43):
case they get off side with someone for a so
called Christian Luxen has weak on issues that middle of
the road Christians and non Christians alike are concerned about.
Why Luxon and others are afraid of standing up for
one standard of citizenship and for standing up to issues
such as the transgender nonsense is beyond me. It was
a winner for Trump. Your semi regular retired National MP

(01:06:08):
corrrespondent was again on the money with his letter last week.
I believe National needs to look across the Tasman and
see how Peter Dutton has been differentiating the Coalition from
Labor and see what happens when you stand up for something.
I'm of the opinion that Dutton will be Australian Prime
Minister in twenty twenty five with the Labor Party being

(01:06:28):
a one term government. I could go on, but that
will be a letter for another day. Please keep up
your excellent work late and I wish you, missus producer
and your family all the best for Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Ensure your break.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
It's lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Thank you, Tim, Tim appreciate it very much, and likewise
to you from Rick. It was very small print. I
may stumble enjoyed your interview with David Seymour today. Last
week I sent the below letter to Luxelm. I'm sure
that you will like it, and I'm happy for you
to read it out if you wish so, without having

(01:07:05):
actually read it. Let's read it out, High Prime Minister. Oh,
not formal enough. I am appalled you are tolerant of
a small minority of married activists that are taking over
our country. They do not represent real Marie Kiwis. What
happened in Parliament was appalling and should never have been allowed.

(01:07:27):
These clowns do not speak for Mary and they certainly
do not speak for me. Man up. These radicals are
destroying our beautiful country and you, sir, are allowing it.
You are being wimpy at best. You are making and
allowing these racist people to divide New Zealand, and you
are making the majority of Kiwi's become unnecessarily racist. This

(01:07:49):
is evil. I have been informed by a person who
had to clean up the mess on a number of
rail stations as a result of this protest. These activist
Maris have no regard or respect for property belonging to
the public or anybody but have or anybody but have
trashed it with them rubbish and beer bottles. I have

(01:08:10):
seen the photos just outright vandalism on the stations where
they have been sleeping as well. They don't care. But
what is more important is the government does not care,
and the media is feeding us rubbish and not telling
us the truth of what is really going down. Highways
being blocked and people people's cars being poked with their flags, etc.

(01:08:33):
Prime Minister, wake up, we'll remember the next election. Just as
an aside, you are saying that there are two classes
of Kiwi's Mary and non Mary, and the mary have
special rights. That is racism, separatism apart eid.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Wake up.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
I don't want to live in a country like this.
From Rick, she'd say it as he feels.

Speaker 4 (01:08:53):
Later, Nicki says many thanks for your podcast this week
with David Seymour. Great timing for those of us who
intend to make a submission. First up, I disagree with
David's ambivalence on our country's name. In our circle, we're
off and found correcting the news media on their use
of out here are New Zealand, we shout into the abyss.

(01:09:14):
The second is his term fucker putiah hey fucker butanga
Heyfukaputanga was the Minority Northern Chiefs Initiative which was never ratified,
nor did it prevent further into tribal warfare. It was
superseded by the treaty five years later. Third, the representation
question MMP is in Therefore race based seats are out

(01:09:38):
both act in New Zealand first or in general agreement.
Perhaps National could grow a democratic spine. Lastly, David's expressed
a view that the National Party has more important things
to worry about, like the economy, than correcting fifty years
of mistruths, which resulted in the establishment of the co
Governance Partnership. Thee for cultural engagement. Is this political expediency

(01:10:01):
towards the next election or satire? New Zealand's EWE already
have a seventy billion dollar economy of their own. Perhaps
it is time they contributed corporate bracket taxes and refunded
extortionate engagement fees that would aid our economy. Aren't we
all equal citizens under the treaty and not partners in
our constitutional monarchy? What is it called when welfare becomes wealthfare?

(01:10:27):
Interesting times? Says Nicki.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
It is interesting times all over. Change of subject from
George editing Nuclear and New Zealand just doesn't go together.
Quote unquote so says Paul Beck, New Zealand Herald at
twenty eight eleven twenty four. The question of whether it
was appropriate to establish a nuclear waste facility on a

(01:10:51):
site without notifying neighboring property owners is valid. However, for
Beck to say that we should shun anything nuclear is
simply folly. Nuclear technology plays a significant role in modern medicine,
including some cancer treatments and in providing scans for diagnon
nosing a raft of medical conditions. The development of this

(01:11:11):
technology in recent decades has saved many lives and has
delivered the quality of life to countless patients which would
not have been possible otherwise. Current research in nuclear technology
is also providing solutions for future electricity needs as demands
for more capacity grows worldwide. Some will agree that anything

(01:11:35):
nuclear should be avoided at all costs. So are we
to bury our heads in the sand and deny ourselves
the considerable advantages of technological progress? Or shall we get
over our irrational paranoia of all things nuclear? George, I
think I agree with you wholeheartedly pretty much. I'll tell
you what bothers me elsewhere in this podcast. I've may

(01:11:59):
mention of people leaving the country going to Australia. I
am concerned that the country's IQ is dropping like a
rock at the moment.

Speaker 4 (01:12:09):
Leighton Stephen says, thank you for interviewing David Seymour for
yesterday's podcast. I gave act my party vote because I
wanted them to deal with this chaotic situation with the treaty. However,
David lost more than a few points from me when
he stated his ambivalence about the name of this country.
It has been New Zealand since the time of Abel Tasman.

(01:12:30):
It was not the British who named the place, and
to even contemplate changing the name at all is not acceptable.
The name of a country is the label of its soul.
It is not something to be flippant about. While I
have a lot of respect and regard for David, his
las a fair attitude towards the name brings into question
his commitment to his other policies. I enjoy your podcast,

(01:12:54):
says Stephen, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
He lost a few points on that commentary. We got
more mail on it, but we can't read it all.
You know, there is a thing called bracket creep. It's
usually applied to Texas. Tried to say this to him.
I'm going to try and do it better now. But
there is this thing called bracket creep, and if you're
not aware of it, you get robbed. You know what

(01:13:20):
I'm talking about, bracket creep inflation and you find yourself
moving into higher tax brackets. Same principle with this, you
will allow whatever creep it is. In this case it's
racial creep. You're allowed to get a foothold, and before
you know it, you're moving up the latter at a
rate of knots. And that the longer you wait, the

(01:13:41):
more difficult it is to rectify, as we are finding
out now with the Treaty Principles Bill. Now from Allen. Now,
this is actually written to me and separately to his
own address to David Seymour. I want to congratulate Layton
allowing David a lengthy, yet succinct, informative opening statement overview

(01:14:03):
of salient points of New Zealand's constitutional history and podcast
to sixty seven. David's comprehensive answer was both informative and apt.
Unlike Layton admitted at the end of that answer, I
believe all of us listening learnt at least a few
facts previously likely unknown that's opening set the scene through
a uniquely interesting podcast discussion, being catalyst by the introduction

(01:14:28):
of the Principles of the Treaty of Whiteangi Bill twenty
twenty four to the New Zealand Parliament by Coalition Partner Act.
Whilst I suggest an alternative viewpoint see copy attached to
my submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee hearing of submissions
on the Bill. I commend you both on providing a
most useful discussion session to listen to. But you get

(01:14:50):
the picture. By the way, Allen's a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
Knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Well, not all lawyers, do you know? That's not that's
a that's a whole lot of pot. I've got a
reflection on Allen, but not all lawyers do.

Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
Leydon Brett, this is a lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
So of them become judges even still don't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:07):
This is my final email and a lovely one to
finish on. Brett says warm wishes to you both as
you remind us another year will soon have passed in
the lives of yourselves, guest contributors and listeners alike. Before
I get further taken over by life's challenges and happenings
that I may forget one simple task. I wish you

(01:15:29):
a very merry Christmas and most happy New Year. Have
a great, adventurous and rewarding year to come, a present
which you get to unpack every day of your lives.
You are indeed wealthy people in the journey and rich
tapestry of life. Are wealth shared with those lives you
touch upon and touch upon you. As I keep saying, Brett,
it's nothing to do with me.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
I just.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Sworn in every now and again. Well, I feel touched
for both of us, and Brett.

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
Says, by the grace of God, go I and us
all have a wonderful break. Brett, thank you so much.
It's really lovely of you. And merry Christmas and happy
New Year to you too.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Think you have a lovely break. We got a three
months off or something? Or am I mistaken?

Speaker 4 (01:16:14):
You don't want three months off? You You'll be champing
at the bit after about four weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
You think, Okay, So we'll see you next week, Yes
for the grand Final, Absolutely, yes, Tony astall look forward
to that. Now. This segment comes in three different parts.

(01:16:49):
We start with part one, which was a press release
on Tuesday, of this week from ACT ACT is warning
that new standards of competence for registered and enrolled nurses
will distract from individual patient needs and make it harder
to attract and retain nurses. The role of the nursing
count is to protect the health and safety of the

(01:17:10):
public and ensure nurses are competent and fit to practice,
but new standards of competence set to be implemented on
January twenty will veer the nursing profession badly off track,
according to the ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stevenson. Stevenson goes further,
Once upon a time, being a nurse was a matter

(01:17:31):
of having the right skills and a kind heart. Now
we're asking nurses to have the correct views on the
Treaty of White Hangi and to make assumptions about patient's
needs based on their ethnicity. The six planned pillars of
competency for registered nurses are Mari health. Example, nurses must
use terrao and incorporate tikangamari into practice. Number two Cultural safety.

(01:17:56):
Nurses must be able to describe the impact of colonization
and advocates for cultural and spiritual health. Part three A
word that I can't pronounce going to get plenty of
criticism from it. I haven't come across it before, but
I'm going to. I'm not going to buger it up,
so to speak. So it comes under the heading basically
of communication. Example, nurses must use culturally appropriate communication in

(01:18:22):
all interactions. Part four Evidence informed nursing practice. Nurses must
support far our choice of alternative therapies, such as the
use of wrongeye as herbal remedies and massage and spiritual healing.
Number five. People centeredness. Nurses must integrate relational and FOCKERPAPA

(01:18:43):
centered care to meet the needs of people and parno
and leadership is number six. Nurses must support the constant
assessment and improvement of sustainability practice or practice says so.
Back to Todd Stevenson, rather than seeing patients as people
with basic humanity and individual needs, nurses are being told

(01:19:04):
to focus on their patient's ethnic identity. Clinical needs are
sidelined in favor of a focus on the treaty, cultural safety,
and even spiritual concerns. According to Stevenson, I have been
contacted by nurses who are bewildered by the standards and
are concerned they will be required to take extensive additional
trainings when they would rather focus on improving individual nursing skills.

(01:19:29):
You have to wonder how we're meant to attract overseas
trained nurses when our bespoke local standards send the message
that their skills and experience are not valued. Here on Monday,
I wrote to the Minister of Health asking that he
assess the impact of the proposed competencies. In fact, during
the election campaign, Act propose giving the Health Ministry power

(01:19:50):
to override decisions of regulatory authorities like the Nursing Council
if the Minister believes those decisions go beyond what is
necessary to protect public health and safety. Now that's the
end of the Act release, and so do Part two.
Now this was and by somebody I know quite well,

(01:20:11):
a friend of mine in fact, and it was published
a couple of days ago prior to the Act release.
And it is entertaining in and of itself. And so
it begins. The first week in November promised a lot.
On the Tuesday, the liberal women of America were going
to show men that they would reclaim the right to
abort their babies at any time and place they wished.

(01:20:34):
And the educated elites on campus and in the media
were set to prove that lies told often enough constitute
the truth, so long as they are told by the
right people. By Wednesday, according to smart people, Donald Trump
would be holed up at marri Lago with his idiot
savant newby Elon Musk, licking his wounds and sharing hamburgers

(01:20:54):
with RFK Junior. On Wednesday, my grandson would turn two
and receive a bright red fire engine to add to
his collection of trucks. It was going to be quite
a week. Unfortunately I missed it. On Monday night, Nature
sent its silent assassin to visit me. Sepsus arrives invisibly

(01:21:14):
and without warning. By Tuesday, I vomited fourteen times, to
the point that water came back out of my mouth
as quickly as I tried to sip it, and nausey
appeals couldn't get past my pharynx. Being a male, I
lay down to let it pass. It didn't. On Wednesday,
I crawled to the room where my cell phone sat
on its charger and tried to alert a political junkie

(01:21:35):
friend that I couldn't keep our date. To pore over
the entrails of the election as planned. The text read,
have hav she waited for more? There wasn't any more.
The cell phone lay on the floor, and so did I.
When the building valet staff, concierge, and ambulance crew arrived,
they spread me out like a starfish and bared my

(01:21:57):
chest for the cardio version machine, as if none of
this had anything to do with me. I collected snippets
of conversation for clues as to the scene taking place.
Let's get the catamine in quick. Tell any one who
needs to know we may not make it in time.
Ain't going to die on our watchman, one of the
ambulance bros said, reassuringly, No way, bro, not no way,

(01:22:21):
no how. His fellow bro replies, they write rap lyrics
in their spare time. I thought, then the good part.
I'm looking down at this person who looks a lot
like me, who was lying prone on a Stanley Kubrick
or George Lucas spaceship set while I give increasingly frustrated directions,
as if being the actor, a cameraman and director is

(01:22:44):
too much of one person to handle. The set is great, though,
and the transition to the next scene is seamless. Now
I'm looking down at myself, traveling at the speed of
a sushi train through dry white mist, illuminated by a
strong light. My face is serene to the point of
being dopey. I'm never serene. I have a moment of anxiety,

(01:23:04):
wondering if it's true that finger nails and toenails continue
to grow after you who cuts them. The light goes out.
When I woke, my best friend was holding my hand.
She looked at me as though this time I'd gone
too far. I peered through a forest of catheters and
tubes coming out of my neck, my arms, and my chest.
Beeping monitors competed with each other for attention. Apparently, the

(01:23:29):
first words I said were that ketamine baby. My daughter
arrived from Australia, my son from Nelson. My grandson loved
his fire truck, but the siren was driving them mad.
Removed the battery. I suggested you were dead on arrival.
She replied, don't do that again. The cliches are all true.

(01:23:49):
Then we get into the parth that's relative. The cliches
are all true. Nurses are angels. They come from the Philippines, India,
Asia and the Pacific Islands with ready made smiles on
their faces. We pay them nothing. The young doctors travel
in threes, visiting every four hours to read the charts

(01:24:09):
and hypothesize about the meds and their dosage levels. I
doubt if one of them is over thirty, working fourteen
hour shifts, carrying the weight of hundreds of sick and
dying people on their shoulders. The administrative bureaucracy, of course,
lets send down. I could write a list. So that

(01:24:30):
was my November. In Michele Wellmeck's latest novel, Annihilation, the
French health bureaucracy separates health from humanity until end of
life care becomes a punishment subservient to systems. This inspires
the establishment of a volunteer group called CLASH, the Committee
for Liberation from Assassination in hospitals. They rescue people in

(01:24:54):
the dead of night and return them to the people
who love them after a week in recovery, listening to
the fog horn snoring and the obsessive recounting of a
dying man's life as he searched for a version of
himself that he could accept. At the last I was
lying in bed, desperately seeking a snatch of sleep, when
a marry woman visitor to the ward decided to conduct

(01:25:15):
a telephone conversation in terreo at full volume, as if
she were in a shopping ball. It lasted an hour
and a half, barely two meters from my curtained bed.
On his next ward rounds, I told my brilliant young
Chinese doctor about clash recovery. I mused, relies equally on

(01:25:37):
the spirit as it does to the body. In order
to preserve my spirit, I intended escaping. He nodded his
head and smiled. I'll need an hour or so at
the end of my rounds to write you a discharge
and arrange a meds. Back home and feather bedded comfort
fussed over like a visiting celebrity. I feeled at a
call from a friend in Sydney. What's it like on

(01:25:57):
the other side, he asked. I assured him that it
is painless and peaceful. The pain is on this side.
My political junkie friend brought me up to date with
a presidential election. A mass sociogenic hysteria had broken out
among liberal women, causing them to cut off their hair
and gather in lakeside mobs to howl hysterically at the moon.

(01:26:19):
Four year cruise packages were being offered to Democrats, allowing
them to stay away from America until the madness had passed.
Mark Zuckerberg, who had banned Donald Trump from his social
platforms in twenty twenty and fed his sights with false
information from the state intelligence community, had gone down to
mare Lago to kiss the new monarch's ring. It had

(01:26:40):
been a clean sweep. The pain is on this side,
as I said, but for the woke allergic majority, the
pain has eased a little a I Faber. If you
want to copy it for yourself and share it round,
it's worth it, I reckon Ai Fabler, substack, help yourself.

(01:27:00):
It's free, and it's a true story, and it covers
more bases than he intended to in the first place.
If you go back to I haven't finished yet. But
if you go back to the list of the pillars
that they're installing as of January twenty, you can see
that at least fifty percent of them. Well, I'll let

(01:27:22):
this follower tell the story. Because I sent that release,
the act release, to Ai Fabler, I said, would you
care to comment on it?

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Please?

Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
I didn't know what he'd say, but I suspected this
is late in my experience during an extended period in
ice you followed by recovery in a four patient ward
was that the majority of nurses were from the Philippines, India,
Asia and Pacific Islands. Without exception, their competence and devotion
to patients was exemplary. Shortness of staffing, particularly at night,

(01:27:53):
meant that nurses had an informal agreement to cover for
each other in neighboring ICEEU rooms, and sometimes Philippine staff
or Indian staff would call to each other in their
own language to attract attention under urgency, but would always
advise the patient in English as to what was happening.
I was never conscious of my ethnicity being a factor

(01:28:16):
in any treatment, no matter how sensitive that treatment. There
may have been reference to my ethnicity in the record
of my NHI number, but never on any records of treatment.
During my period of stay. I never encountered a Mari
nurse or doctor, but did observe the treatment and expectations
of married patients and visitors, which I would rather not

(01:28:37):
comment upon. The Nursing Council list of expectations has no
relevance add all to the health, safety, or cultural well
being of eighty five percent of patients who have no
desire to be addressed in terraea or to be treated
with reference to so called Marii custom. And he finalizes
with this sentence, which is most important. Further, it would

(01:29:00):
be a burden on dedicated staff of other ethnicities who
have been trained in Western medicine and put their faith
in itslutely regards. Make of it what you will. It's
just another example of this country going inch by inch,
step by step in an undesirable direction. At least that's

(01:29:21):
my take. And that will take us out for Podcast
two hundred and sixty eight. We shall return in a
few days with podcasts to sixty nine, the last for
the year, and it's got to be a great discussion
with Tony Astral from Antoine's Restaurant. As it was that
is no longer so in the meantime, the only thing
left to say is if you'd like to, if you'd

(01:29:42):
like to contact us Latent at newstalksb dot co dot
nz or Carolyn with Y at newstalksb dot co dot
NZ as I say back in a few days. Until then,
thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
Thank you for more from NEWSTALKSB listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.