Leighton Smith Podcast #302 - September 17th 2025 - Louise Clegg - The Leighton Smith Podcast

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 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 of the US, Now the
Leyton Smith Podcast powered by News Talks B.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts three hundred and two for September seventeen,
twenty twenty five. Louise Klegg is a former barrister with
over two decades of experience in public law, also employment
law and a palette advocracy. Prior to the bar, she
was an associate at a leading national law firm, where
she worked for seven years. She appeared in hundreds of

(00:50):
matters before federal and state courts and tribunals, including the
High Court, the Federal Court and the New South Wales
Court of Appeal. Her practice spanned administrative, industrial, criminal and
anti discrimination law, with particular focus on judicial review and
public law questions. Is also economist and a regular contributor

(01:11):
to national public debate, and has published opinion pieces in
The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and
Spectator of Australia, where she writes primarily on democracy, legal institutions,
public policy and political culture. She is also a director
of the Sydney Institute. Now, as a sort of introduction,

(01:33):
let me quote you just a couple of paragraphs of
an article she wrote for the Australian Financial Review a
couple of years ago. In nineteen eighty nine, as the
Cold War came to a close, a young American political
scientist called Francis fuku Yama made a name for himself
by proposing that the world had reached an endpoint in
political ideology and that liberal democracy was emerging as the

(01:58):
final form of human government. Subsequent events, she writes, particularly
nine to eleven and the increasing deliberalization rather than liberalization
of China, put a dent in Fokyamer's general thesis. Fast
forward to Trump, Rexit and beyond, and Fukuyama changed his

(02:19):
tune in a big way. In his twenty eighteen book
titled Identity, The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment,
Fukuyama posits that fragmentation based on alignment of interest into
identity groups has emerged as a new threat to democracy. Now.

(02:39):
I chose that specifically because it introduces precisely what he
was talking about when it comes to Charlie Kirk. Now
at the back end of the podcast, there'll be a
little more on Charlie Kirk, but I want to include
this at this point. This is some part of a
column written by Jonathan Turley, as in Professor Jonathan Turley,

(03:02):
who we quitte not infrequently and shamelessly, I might add,
but he says he right Below is my column in
The Hill on the murder of Charlie Kirk, the latest
victim of our age of rage. The evidence of Antifa
scribblings and indoctrination of the shooter came as no surprise.

(03:22):
For months, some of us have been warning Democratic leaders
about their dangerous rhetoric and how it would be received
by the most radical elements in the Antifa movement. So
here is the column prove me wrong. For years that
tagline of Charlie Kirk and his group turning Point USA
enraged many on the left. In an age of rage,

(03:45):
nothing is more triggering for the perpetually angry than an
invitation to debate issues. Indeed, someone has now killed him
for it. What is most chilling about the assassination is
that it was not, in the slightest degree surprising This
follows two attempted assassinations of President Trump and the killing
of a pair of Minnesota politicians. I heard of the

(04:07):
assassination in Prague as I prepared to speak about the
age of rage and the growing attacks on free speech.
I was profoundly saddened by the news. I knew Charlie
and respected his effort to challenge the orthodoxy on college campuses.
We all have received regular death threats, and Charlie more

(04:28):
than most, and there is still a hope that even
the most deranged will leave these threats at the ideation
rather than the action stage. This killer left Charlie's wife, Erica,
and her two young children as the latest victims of
senseless violence against someone who refused to be silenced. In

(04:48):
my book The Indispensable Rite, Free Speech in an Age
of Rage, I write about rage and the uncomfortable truths
for many engaging in rage rhetoric. What few today want
to admit is that they like it. They like the
freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass
without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around
us as people engage in language and conduct that they

(05:11):
repudiate in others, we have become a nation of rage
addicts flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition
to our own truths. Like all addictions, there is not
only a dependency on rage, but an intolerance for opposing views. Indeed,

(05:31):
to voice free speech principles in a time of rage
is to invite the rage of the mob. Charlie was brave.
He was brash. He refused to yield to the threats
while encouraging others to speak out on our campuses. He
was particularly hated for holding a mirror to the faiths
of higher education, exposing the het and hypocrisy on our campuses.

(05:53):
For decades, faculty have purged their ranks of conservatives and libertarians.
Faced with the intolerance of most schools. Polls show that
a large percentage of students hide their values to avoid
retaliation from faculty or their fellow students, Charlie chose to
change all that. Tp USA challenges people to engage and

(06:16):
debate them. The response from some on the left has
been to trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently,
at University of California Davis, police stood by and watched
as the TPUSA tent was torn apart. Charlie is only
the latest such victim, and he is unlikely to be

(06:36):
the last. Well, there is a lot more that's only
scratching the surface of the column, but you get the picture.
So we'll have more on that a little later, but
at this point let's just say after a short break.
Louise klegg Leverix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to

(07:03):
the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever and skin allergies
or skin It's a dual action antihistamine and has a
unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief,
and it works in under an hour and lasts for
over twenty four hours. Lebrix is a tiny tablet that

(07:24):
unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing.
Lebrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality.
So next time you're in need of an effective antihistamine,
call into the pharmacy and ask for Leverrix l v
Rix Leverrix and always read the label. Take as directed,

(07:46):
and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Layton Smith.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Let me quote you something. It is de rigueur among
US so called knowledge classes to lament the fall of America.
The refrain is familiar. The United States is in terminal decline,
democracy is all but dead, and a narcissistic authoritarian president
stalks the stage much like Hislo. Meanwhile, we're assured that

(08:25):
our democracies, calmer, more civil, and less polarized, are working
much better. The United States is consumed by chaos, while
Australia and the other Westminster countries are supposedly models of health.
It is a comforting story, especially for the supercilious progressive left. Now,

(08:46):
those words were the opening paragraph of an article that
I read a couple of weeks, back Sliding into Technocracy,
written by Louise Clegg. Louise Clegg is a former barrister.
She's had thirty years experience in the law. She's a
former barrister as she is now doing other things, and
she will possibly explain that to us in a moment.

(09:09):
But that opening captured me and I kept reading and
I thought, this is a must interview. I really want
to do it. Louise. I'm grateful that you agreed to
do the interview, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's a pleasure to talk with you lateron.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
So sliding into technocracy and what I just read, where
does it go from there?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
I have taken the view for a very long time
that this refrain as I described it, particularly from the
left about America, is wrong, or at least substantially wrong.
I should declare I'm a sort of student of institutions,

(09:56):
if you like. I did a law degree, but I
also had practiced and taught public law and constitutional so
I can at this from a very sort of strong
institutional perspective. And I'm also married to a politician over
here in Australia, so our conservative politician, so I sort
of see politics up close and quite personal at the

(10:19):
coal face, and so I sort of get a fairly
bit of sort of vicarious, sort of coal face exposure
to politics in a Westminster democracy. And unlike some Conservatives
I think, who tend to be very pro Westminster and
think that our parliamentary model is sort of perfect and

(10:42):
that the model of democracy in America is not as good,
I've always had a view that the one thing you
can say about America is that they have really good, robust,
open contest. And so I've never really accepted this sort

(11:02):
of strong narrative that is getting stronger, of course, because
of things that are going on in America, that you know,
America is bad and we're.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
In great shape.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
And I guess I've been a member of the sort
of technocratic class as a lawyer and as a lawyer
who worked for governments, and so I sort of have
a sense of perspective on that too. And I'm not
against technocrats or experts if you like, but I think
they have a place. And so my view has been

(11:32):
that while America sort of is having these great debates
and the contest, the political the democratic contest in America
is sort of out in the open.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I think that in.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
The Westminster democracies, particularly in the last decade, as politics
as become more and more polarized, I do think that
we tend to say, well, look, those debates are hard,
we don't like them, and so what we'll get is
we'll get a commission of inquiry or an NGNGO or
a group of technocrats to look at this question and
we'll have it declared settled and we won't have a

(12:07):
political day about it.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
And there is an attempt.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
By Westminster politicians and also part of the sort of
elite class. And I don't use elites in a pejorative
way here later I mean, I think I just use
it in the way that political scientists do. But there
is a tendency for elites, particularly in Westminster democracies, or

(12:31):
that seems to be the way it's playing out at
the moment, to sort of say, well, look, don't you
worry about that. We'll sort out that question of you know,
on whether it's you know, the way our energy system
is conducted, or you know, will will we'll have a
voice to Parliament, or we'll settle all these sort of
quite fundamentally and inherently political questions by the so called

(12:56):
settled science when there's no settled science. And I think
that's going on a lot more in Westminster democracies than
it is in America. So I mean, with those that distinction,
where America tends to be more and more polarized, and
our politics is more and more polarized too, of course,
because a lot of the debates that democracies liberal democracies

(13:17):
are having now quite the global debates. They're the same
issues all around the world. But I do think that
we have this tendency to sort of try to silence
the debate and push it out of the political sphere,
and I've always liked the fact that America doesn't do that.

(13:37):
And fundamentally, I believe as an institutionalist that the reason
it is different in America now to the Westminster democracies
is fundamentally, or at least in part, or at least starts,
I should say, with the differences in our formal institutions.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
I've said for as long as I can remember, that
the American Constitution is the greatest document that has of
its kind that has ever been written. Some people disagree
with that, but I think that that fits well with
your approach. It is the constitution that the Australians, or

(14:19):
that Australia based its constitution on. From your perspective and
being steeped in constitutional law, how close is that to accuracy?

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Well, look, firstly, before I answered.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
That directly, I agree with you. I've always been fascinated
with the American Constitution.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
And so there's been a debate amongst conservatives and progressives
here for.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Many many years.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
I mean when I was a young solicitor thirty years ago,
Conservatives were and remain actually very anti the Bill of
Rights in America, and progressive institutions and academics in Australia
have been pushing for either a constitutional bill of rights
in Australia in our written doctor document, or at least

(15:09):
a statutory.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Bill of rights. And we've actually seen a couple of
statutory bill of rights to merge in.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
The states in Australia, and the Conservatives always rail against
this because we as Conservatives are supposed to be wedded
to the Westminster system, which in which Parliament is sovereign
rather than the document itself. Although our you know, our
constitutional lawyers would say that our document is also sovereign.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
If I might just interrupt, what of the judicial aspect
to it? I mean, Jim Allen from best of memory
is opposed to a bill of rights or bills of
rights because it places it places the power in the
hands of unelected judges.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Well, it does. So.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
It's true that the American system, what it seeks to
do is take the power from the parliaments and even
the government from the executive, and the Congress puts it
in the power. They would say the people, and that
the Bill of Rights and the subsequent many of the
subsequent amendments effectively require the court to adjudicate on what

(16:26):
are inherently political questions. But look, that happens in constitutional
courts in Westminster systems too. They're just less politically loaded
because the whole system, I think is less politically loaded.
But my point, I mean, I'm Jim Allen is a
great friend of mine and I speak to him regularly,
but we tend to disagree on sort of some of

(16:50):
some of these parts.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Of our you know, nothing wrong with that our political views.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
So and what I'm saying, I'm not really saying that
the American system is better.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
And ours is worse.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
They're just pros and cons to both systems. My belief
is that American document at least has the virtue of
infusing people really with a sense of what democracy is,
what liberty. I mean, you can pick it up from

(17:28):
the First Amendment, which entrenship in their document a positive
right to people of freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion,
which are sort of still the lifeblood of political debates
now in.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
The Australian Constitution.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
Getting back to that which is often described by scholars
and other people as a hybrid between Westminster.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
And the American Constitution.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
In fact, we sometimes call it Washminster, which I quite like,
and it really is a hybrid.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
You can find, mind.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
What we call express limitations around religion and property rights
in our Constitution, and our High Court has in fact
implied certain a couple of rights which is effectively a
freedom of political speech.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
That that's the big one that it has done.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
And so in our system, unlike the New Zealand system,
where there's just a sort of a bunch of documents
and conventions which are said to constitute your constitution, we
do have a written document that is quite clear and
which in many respects. While it doesn't have a Bill
of rights, and it does defer primarily to a Westminster

(18:50):
system relying on convention, it still does set out some
very sort of strong guardrails for democracy. And one of
the biggest guardrails actually is that we have in Australia
a very strict separation of powers. And the Constitution doesn't
itself say there shall be a creation of powers, but
like the American Constitution, it is divided into three chapters,

(19:15):
the Legislature, the executive, and the judiciary being those big
power separations, and it follows the American Constitution in that way.
So there's a lot more of America. There's a lot
more of the US in the Australian constitution than people recognize,
and there are quite a few more sort of ballwalks

(19:37):
and protections to Australians than there are in the UK
and in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
So what effect does that have on the legal system,
and I'm talking about practicing lawyers specifically, there appears to
me to be a trend for the loyally world to
swing left.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Well, that's a good question.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
I mean, there's no doubt that that has occurred in Australia.
I don't know what the sort of research would show
in the US, but it does seem to me that
looking at the US from a distance and sort of
listening to constitutional law podcasts.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
And reading cases and following.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Constitutional law cases there, that there tends to be the
legal profession there is probably not as left wing, or
there's certainly there's just sufficient depth and quantity of practicing
lawyers who are prepared to push back. I do think
certainly in the Australian system there has been certainly in
the practice the time that I've been practicing law, the

(20:42):
last thirty years, there has been a strong swing of
legal practitioners, particularly the Again I use this word, but
I think it's appropriate. The elite legal practitioners. They have
swung left. And I can't cite the research that says that,
but I off the top of my head, I'm sorry,
but I did read something in the con when we

(21:06):
were having our recent Voice to Parliament debate over here
that did cite research that found that of all the
professions in Australia, it was Australian specific research, the legal
profession was by far the most progressive. It found that
seventy percent of the profession voted progressive, whereas the other

(21:31):
professions sort of doctors, consultants, and I think they even
included real estate agents, And there was a big sway
of the professions that they looked at they were sort
of at most fifty percent, and then a lot of
the professions, of course were sort of swinging more right.
So the legal profession, certainly in Australia has has swung left,

(21:56):
and I think that has really consolidated in the last
just from my own anecdotal experience in the last ten
to fifteen years. Well, it's not I'm not sure that
that's happened in the US.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, let's let's just let's just talk about this place
for a moment. Here. It's it's happened in New Zealand
as well as has other matters that affect will affect life,
such as judicial activism. Yeah, there are, well I talked
to I talk to lawyers and they when they tell
me it's it's certainly there and you can even read

(22:33):
about it. But there is there is one thing that
you mentioned. You mentioned progressive. The term progressive. Now I
don't I'm not used to people anywhere outside of the
States using that term in the manner that you did,
and I agree with you. The question is why No,
A better question for you is what is a progressive

(22:54):
as far as you're concerned.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Well, I use the word because personally it suits me,
because it explains what I have seen amongst many of
my peers and colleagues as a practicing lawyer for the
last thirty years. Progressive is someone And I must say
I have many progressive friends because I've had a career

(23:19):
in the law and more and more my friends have
become progressive. Now, there are conservatives in the law and
strong conservatives.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Don't get me wrong, but I.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Have managed to maintain some friendships with my progressive friends and.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Who have become more and more progressive. To me, it
just it.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Describes someone who is I see them all as being
a little bit malleable and credulous. Actually, I regard a
lot of my progressive friends as and also fashionable, I
must say, as being inclined to jump on the latest
leftist bandwagon. And that could be in any number of

(24:03):
sort of areas, whether it's sort of the climate debates,
the Hinda debates, the trans debates.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
A lot of it's cultural, some of it's economic.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
But because we're so polarized now, I find that the progressive,
my progressive friends will read only progressive or left leaning media,
and so they tend to just jump on it like
so many do now on media and.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Sort of in.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
The case of academics and lawyers, you know, even papers
that sort of suit them, rather than keeping their mind
open to the other side. And there's this tendency for
progressives to think that any change that is proposed by experts,
or that he's and that he's supported by progressive media,

(24:57):
must be right, and so they grab onto change and
they think that change and all change is sort of
is good for its own sake, that we must. They
tend to be an emotional attachment to the idea that
nearly all change is good and the system needs.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
A shake up. Now.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
That is quite different to the mentality that used to
prevail in the law at the top levels. So I
often cite when I have this sort of discussion that
I'm having with you now, amongst with my progressive friends
and conservative friends. You know, twenty years ago, thirty years
ago at the New South Wales bar there were conservatives,

(25:39):
no one, conservatives and progressives and the power was shared
between them, and various progressives and conservatives would be appointed
by left and right governments and what have you. But
the progressives then, or the labor appointees, if I can
just say it straight, and I'm thinking of you, wouldn't

(25:59):
necessarily your listeners wouldn't necessarily know these people. But a
former Chief Justice of New South Wales, Jim Spiegelman, or
a Michael mckure, a labor appointee.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
To the High Court. Who I mean?

Speaker 4 (26:11):
These are both magisterial lawyers who were progressives of that era, There's.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
No doubt about that.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
But as lawyers they were great Black letter lawyers, and
they never abandoned that, and I don't see that that
same thing happening in the law now. I think the
progressives in the law in Australia now have not exclusively
and again i'm generalizing here. There are some progressives who

(26:42):
are still sort of on track and accept that sort
of our institutions should be preserved and don't necessarily buy
into the latest progressive ideal, But more and more the
progressives are inclined to sort of deal with the sort
of abstraction that progressives I think.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Now a notorious form.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
So the classic example is that many of our progressive
lawyers jumped on our Voice to Parliament bandwagon, which was
by any definition an assault on the basic principle of
equality of citizenship. And they said, well, that's okay because

(27:29):
this is a special case.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
But it was so fundamental what they were trying to do.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
It required serious consideration and serious debate. Yet so many
of these progressive, very accomplished lawyers simply said that doesn't matter,
we don't need a debate. In fact, we'd rather shut
it down. And this idea of equality of citizenship, really

(27:55):
it doesn't apply in this case. And that is a
classic example and by far the most prominent example of
what tends to be going on.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
In the law.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
And I think that's a bit scary, frankly, that the
legal profession is veering sharply left. Very scary because the laws,
the law should always follow society, you know, and generally
defer to parliaments who have judges should generally speaking, defer
to parliaments where they can, because the legislature has more

(28:29):
directed accountability to the population.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Most people would understand what I was driving at when
I asked you about your thoughts on the term progressive,
for the simple reason that I'd be quick about it,
because everybody knows this that when you Cinda ra durn
was was appointed as the as the leader of the
Labor Party, she did an interview with the breakfast host

(28:52):
on the station that I was then on, and she
was asked, what are your politics? You know, how do
you She said, quite proudly, I'm a progressive and nobody
here knew what that was. Seriously, nobody knew what it was.
And I tried to tell people that they were in
huge trouble. I knew from that moment on that this
country was in strife, and I don't think I need

(29:16):
to say any more to prove it. Yes, so it's
a It's a term that has a long history, of course,
particularly in the United States, going back over one hundred years,
but in other parts well.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
In the United States, of course, progressives are also known
as liberals, which is confusing for some Australians because in
fact our Conservative Party is a liberal party here.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
So listen, let's get back onto this, onto the article
sliding into technocracy, and just briefly cover these these three things.
You say, Australia is increasingly a place where governments and
technocrats muffle debates before they even begin. Consider three examples
from an increasingly large pool. Then you then talk about

(30:01):
South Australia, the Voice that you had a lot to
do with you you went to war on that, and
then on renewable energy. Now each one of those has
implications for other English speaking and the Westminster based countries.
Am I right?

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yes, Well, I mean I could go through them all,
but I've spoken about the voice. There are very concerning
signs in all manner of public policy where things are
either just happen without any debate or shifted off to
so called experts. Now I have to again say I'm
not anti expert. Experts are necessary, but where I do

(30:39):
have a problem with experts is when they are regarded
as I guess sovereign, where they make the decisions about
things that are inherently political, and I think we've seen
that happening throughout the West, particularly.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
In the climate and energy debates.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
And again I don't think most experts are malignant, that
I think they have good intentions. It's just that often
experts come to solving a problem with certain values attached
to what they regard as facts. And so that is
problem at the moment with so called expertise because many

(31:20):
of our experts a sort of tend to be more
left leaning, less conservative, and they sort of approve of
change and be changed quickly. And the other thing that
I think is a difficulty with experts, and particularly in
the experts that governments rely on in our climate and
energy debate, is that they don't They know about a

(31:44):
lot about what they know, but their expertise is narrow
and they don't know what they don't know. So in
Australia at the moment, this is not having a New
Zealand or Canada where there's sort of significant hydro power
and other ways to reach net zero. But we're rolling
out what we're supposed to be rolling out an eighty

(32:06):
two percent large scale renew ambition for our energy grid.
And whilst this was all decided it could be done
by experts, by various experts, a cacophony of experts all
singing from the same hymn sheet, it's really hit some
significant barriers because what they didn't think. They just didn't

(32:26):
anticipate that there would be serious impacts on the environment,
serious impacts on agricultural land, like huge waves of agricultural
land in Australia will be tied up with hosting these
large pale renewables. And they didn't think about the impact
on the communities that were going to bear the brunt

(32:49):
of it. And again this is not just a handful
of communities, but great sways of rural communities across the
sort of Eastern Seaboard and beyond the Mountain range in
the Eastern States are going to be littered with solar
panels and winter turbines.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Read I read that you are very close to one.

Speaker 5 (33:14):
Yes, how we have one?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
How big is it? Remind me?

Speaker 3 (33:18):
It is?

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Oh, I've forgotten the Mega four hundred, four hundred megaw
It's seventeen hundred acres on the edge of a We
own a farm that is close to a rural regional
city called Golden between Sydney and Canberra, and it is
only a few kilometers from the outskirts of this regional city.

(33:41):
So there are two proposed in close proximity, one on
one side of a road and one on the other
and together it's about three thousand acres.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
And so you know, you can imagine.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
The people and the people who live in this part
of our rural area are not large scale farmers. They're
often hobby farmers or farmers. Often you know, call them
BLOCKI is that as people who have these lifestyle blocks
and so a lot I mean, I think when the
renewable energy sort of things started, the vision was that

(34:18):
it would be out on the back of Beyond and
on big ridge lines and a long way from where
it would interfere with the with property rights and land
use that sort of mattered and or amenity. But this
is being proposed right in the middle of a very
built up area where people have built homes and rock

(34:40):
balls and gardens and their whole rural outlook will be
disturbed by these in this coast solar panels.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
So look, that's what's going on in Australia, and there
is a huge pushback. Now getting back.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
To the technocrats, all the experts, they just did not
consider this.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
They set on the sorry so do they care?

Speaker 4 (35:05):
I think a lot of them don't. But the other
thing they can't consider. Their models were about the economics
of it, were sort of based on pre pandemic sort
of finance, I suppose where money was once keep and
they didn't think about inflation and all the other and

(35:26):
this sort of overregulation of development. And so what has
also happened on the economic side, where you would think
the experts would be at least a little bit more
adept foreseeing these problems, is that the cost of the
transmission network, which because renewables are just a bunch of

(35:46):
effectively power stations all over the shop rather than being
concentrated in a big a nuclear or a cold fire
powered station, they have to connect them all up with
transmission lines. And so this is another new huge problem
and the cost of the transmission for this renewables orgy,

(36:09):
if you like, across Australia is just blowing out. And
again they seem at the moment because there's pushback on
the economics and on the social license issue right now,
what the current government is doing is declaring it beyond politics.

(36:29):
So the current Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has for instance,
there's some pushback and so what he is now saying,
in I think quite a desperate bid to try and
make it go away, is that Look, the people who
are against this are just climate deniers, and of.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Course that's not the case.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
So I think the experts, I mean, they don't set
out to harm anyone, that's for sure, and they are
usually very qualified.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
In a narrow field.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
But if you're going to start embarking on sort of
economy wide you know, convert this move to net zero
has massive social and economic implications. It sort of requires
a reordering of our economies, and it would by definition

(37:22):
be so hard. I just the reliance on a very
narrow cohort of experts to get to that place is
proving to be problematic. And I think perhaps later and
the reason you were attracted to my peace and the

(37:43):
reason I've actually I've had quite a few, quite a
lot of positive feedback from the piece in the Spectator
magazine is that government is just getting.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Bigger, and the administrative.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
State or the welfare state is now promising to do
more and more for citizens. And it seems that citizens,
I mean, this is a big problem for all of
the West, want that.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
And demand more.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
And there are plenty of politicians around who will just
keep saying, yes, we can give more. But because there's
now so much government, and government so big, and government
pretends that it can solve all of our problems, that
does mean there's just more and more sort of expertise
technocrats being relied on, and of course they're just not

(38:27):
going to get it right.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Look, there's a book. There's a book called Unmasking the
Administrative State by John Mariney, and that was an introduction
to me for for precisely that, uh, and in my library.
It's followed up with a book by professor Thomas Harrington
from the University of Austin, The Treason of the Experts.

(38:51):
Don't know whether you're familiar with it or not.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
No, I don't know those I don't know those particular books.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Thomas Harrington's The Treason of the Experts fits very nicely
into into your your outbook, and the fact that there is.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
I think, I mean there's there is a I'm a
great follow of Francis Fukiyama, who is a renowned political scientist,
as you would know from America, and he famously wrote
a book in nineteen ninety two called The Rest is
the End of History where he proposed that the liberal

(39:26):
democratic world order was the sort of end of political
ideology and that every most nation states would move to
that in the coming years. And of course it's sort
of proved to be wrong, although he did qualify it.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
And Francis Fukiyama is sort.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
Of regarded I suppose he was regarded as right wing
when he started out. Now he's sort of now regarded
as more progressive. But I consider him a bit of
a centrist, and he's a very thoughtful man, and he's
still prodigious and worth listening to. He places a lot
of faith in the administrative state, in a well run
administrative state. Now I'm more skeptical than him, but I

(40:09):
do accept that we can't sort of overhaul the way
we do government sort of in some sort of crazy
revolution where we remove all technocrats and experts in running
the state. It's just that more and more they seem
to be getting it wrong. And as I said, my
central thesis is that Westminster democracies are more prone to this. Now,

(40:38):
I think most New Zealanders and Australians would look at
America right now and look at the extreme polarization and say, all,
I prefer to live here where I live because that
looks ugly, and I mean in the wake of the
terrible assassination of Charlie Kirk, people would think that even

(40:59):
more so. My point is not so much that America
doesn't have problems, because it clearly does, and things are
seem to be escalating at the current time. But my
point is that people think in this sort of and
the way the left does, in their super serious way,

(41:19):
that look, we've got it all sorted. Because with technocracy
there is a great hollowing out and a great and
it creates distrust in institutions and gives rise to what
the progressives derisingly call populism amongst the masses.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
But there is a reason for that.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
They feel completely disconnected to the decisions that are being made,
and they know instinctively. People know instinctively that the wrong
decisions are being made, and that their voices are not
being heard.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
How difficult would it be to you, Okay, how difficult
do you think it would be for Australia and Australians
to do a one eighty in enough numbers to alter
the direction.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
I think this is sort of it's a pandemic.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
It's an obscure question.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
I've just asked, no, well, I mean to alter the
direction again.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
I think we are at the moment still, it seems,
broadly speaking in Westminster democracy, and this is a problem
in America too. We still seem to be adding to
the national debt and promising that governments can continue to

(42:37):
solve all the problems of the citizenry.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
We still seem to be doing that.

Speaker 4 (42:43):
And frankly, even the even President Trump has in the
Big Beautiful Bill, hasn't sort of looked like he's going
to make many changes to changing much difference to changing
the size of the state. I mean, there's a lot
sorts of things going on there, but it's a question

(43:03):
of distribution and where things end up there's causing some
of the problems.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
I can't see a.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
Huge appetite at the moment in any liberal democracies for
the state to get smaller, and that is a big
problem I think.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
So to your question about how you could do a.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Quick reversal, I think it would be difficult, and it
seems to me that we might need some pretty serious crises,
and I mean serious political crisis where you could sort
of and particularly economic crises I suppose where you could
start to mount a good argument to withdraw some of

(43:48):
the state support that is happening. I mean, I think
there's a lot of appetite for more efficient government, but
that requires experts. I think we do need to get
better at directing experts and understand their limitations.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
I want to disagree with you there about the experts.
I don't think it takes experts. I think it takes
a breed of politicians who understand the real problems and
have the wherewithal to put it politely, to carry them out,

(44:28):
to stand up to the to the ludicrousness of the
Victorian type politicians in Australia and the present Prime minister
have the have the I mean, if we I think
we all know, those of us who are interested in
the Australian election just gone, we all know that they
should have won, The Liberals should have won, or could
have won if what I just said had had been adopted.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
Yeah, well, there was a lot going on there. I
think there's a distinction. There's in my mind, I separate
the issues into sort of economic issues and cultural issues.
I do think. I do think we have a problem
at the moment amongst the population in terms of reliance

(45:15):
on the state.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
We've got huge problems.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
And with our NDIS, for example, it has just completely
blown out in ways that weren't anticipated and which you
would think the experts might have foreseends, meaning the National
Disability Insurance Scheme, So we now have one in either
six or seven boys aged five to maybe twelve it is,

(45:42):
who are receiving government help for disability, and it's basically
all autism or ADHD, and so it has basically there's
a massive incentive for young children to be diagnosed to
be on the spectrum or something and then get government help.
And it is killing not only the economy but also

(46:07):
our society because there is a mentality that if there's
any problem with a child or some minor sort of
developmental disorder, then they quickly need to go off to
the government to solve this problem. And there's just huge
amounts of money being spent on solving problems that were
never really intended to.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Be solved by that scheme. And yet.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
In the context of an election campaign, I just think
the Liberals felt that if they said they were going
to somehow scale this back, which incidentally the Labor Party
has started to try to do.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
In its new term of government.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Because everyone who's sensible recognizes that the thing has become
a beast and is out of control and is being
routed and overused. The Liberals felt they, I assume, could
not go to an election promising to take money away
from families and children who really shouldn't be receiving taxpayer

(47:10):
money to solve what were a fairly minor issues.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
There's also an over diagnosis problem.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
Of course, is an incentive if you're going to get
something from the government to be diagnosed.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
So these are complex problems.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
So I really and the Liberals here, that is our conservatives,
I think, felt they could not win an election in
the face of a Labor Party that was prepared to
just keep spending on these massive social programs. They couldn't
win an election if they went to the election promising

(47:44):
to take some of that away. And I have to say,
just to push back a bit. You know, Donald Trump
did not promise to sort of attack or take away
any of the social programs in the US. What he
did promise to do, and which he did do with
the help of Elon Musk for a while, was to

(48:07):
go after waste for government spending. But that is not
where the big spending is. The big spending in society
is on medicare here in the US, disability pensions, those
big social programs and defense, I should say, is obviously
becoming has always been big, but about to get bigger

(48:27):
for everyone. And I do think the essential problem here
is how conservatives, who are obviously far more interested in
fiscal restraint and imposing guidelines, it's difficult for them to
win elections going to the people saying we're going to
take away something that you have. The progressives, who are

(48:52):
more prepared to spend generally certainly in the Westminster economies,
simply they run it, they weaponize it in order to
win the election.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
And I think it's this is an ongoing problem.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Well, we've seen the same thing here. I'll give you
an example. In the two thousand and five election, Helen
Clark was losing she at the last minute pulled the
rabbit out of the hat. Couple of them actually and
introduced interest free student loans, and the other one was
called working for Families, and there was a tax arrangement

(49:26):
and anyone who earned under a certain amount, which was
way higher than it ever should have been because it
just was. It was drafted to include so many people
and they were getting tax breaks, and she romped in.
But then in two thousand and eight, when John Key
won for the National Party, he refused to touch it

(49:50):
where the opportunity was there, but he refused to touch
it because he didn't want to disturb the disturb the scenario.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
And later, and I think it's getting harder and harder
now exactly to do this, because I mean that was
two thousand and eight. I mean, how is policy exchanged
since then, But particularly with the advent of social media
and modern campaigning allows parties to target very closely individuals

(50:20):
and cohorts in society and to misinform them. I mean,
we had the mother of all misinformation sort of campaigns
from the Labor Party in our most recent election. And
what they did was they pulled together Peter Dutton from
the Conservatives, the Liberal Party was running a pro nuclear

(50:45):
policy to sort of slow down this crazy sort of
eighty two percent renewable energy proposal. And it had been
costed by the Liberals by a very very qualified expert
as coming in much lower than the alternative that the
Labor Party was presenting. Now, the Labor Party simply ignored

(51:08):
that they came up with a costing that they said
it was going to cost six hundred billion or something crazy.
They ran that as a scare campaign and said the
cost of that will be taken out of your Medicare.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Now, there was just.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
No basis for that campaign. It was an outrageous set
of lies sort of pulled together to attack both the
energy the energy policies and to say completely dishonestly that
the Liberals were going to attack Medicare rights. And this
is what the Labor Party has been doing now for

(51:47):
quite a few elections. They run these scare campaigns on
Medicare and they work. And it was one of the
things that worked for them in this campaign. And so
this scares the bejezus out of conservatives who would want
to restrain crazy state spending. And I've got to say,
it doesn't look to me like the US is on

(52:09):
top of this one either under under Trump, which is
which is why I mean the tariff. There is there's
an economic and political basis for the tariffs. And of
course President Trump has liked tariffs all of his life,
which is sort of at odds with a lot of
conservative economic thinking. Of course, but he the view amongst

(52:33):
most sort of thoughtful people is that.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
The primary reason that is driving the American his.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
Policies on tariff, it's just for revenue generation because he's
not prepared really to take away the social programs.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Okay, look, so that's a that's a problem, and we.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
Strayed a little bit away from technocracy can get this
economic discussion, but.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
This is not unusual on this podcast. I want to
hit hit on something that we don't have long for
unless unless you've got the afternoon free you were giving.
You were giving a speech last Friday night, and you
sent me a copy of the You sent me a

(53:20):
copy of it basically mm hmm, and then you didn't
give the speech. And I only found that out just
before we started recording. You didn't give the speech.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
That's right, it was. It was postponed.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
But here is here is the here's the title of it,
overall the values masquerading as facts the real threat to
freedom for Westminster democracies. Now it's divided into different parts,
and those parts are very interesting, but I'm going to
go for the for the for the for the big
hit in all that you've written, and you would and

(53:54):
you will say when you deliver this, have you provided
pathway for those who are willing to pursue to help
escape this destination that we all seem to be headed into.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
That's that's the big question I think. I think my
husband would say to me, Look, you're a great armchair.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Critic, like so many people, so.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
I think what I'm doing is diagnosing a problem. But
you're right to say that in both that speech and
in the we and in the Spectator piece that I
wrote about this, that I've not sort of set out
to say, well, look, there's a simple solution to this,
and this is how we solve it. And I don't

(54:44):
think there are simple solutions because otherwise, and all popular solutions,
because otherwise politicians would have jumped them on them already.
And I do think the problems that I've exposed with
the sort of the lack of legitimacy of a kind

(55:06):
of expert or technocrat driven democracy. A democracy, it's still
a democracy, I suppose, if people are voting, but it's
sliding towards technocracy. I do think this is quite endemic
because of what modern democracies, you know, how they're trying
to do too much and the way they try to

(55:26):
do it.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
But I do think.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
That particularly the non progressive parties, the conservatives, could quite
easily change the way they govern to include a series
of experts when addressing the big problems that society faces.
And the very best example of this, I suppose is

(55:51):
the whole of the Western world sort of response to
the pandemic. What happened in most liberal democracies or in
states where there were serious lockdowns, so I'm thinking about
the United States and in Australia too, the differences in
the way states within federal systems approached the pandemic. But

(56:16):
the worst responses, and this takes us back to Victoria,
of course, were the governments that relied on what I
would respectfully say was sort of second shelf medical experts
that sort of already resided within the departments of health,
and so they would run out and in the media

(56:38):
say the health advices, when really what they needed to
do was bring in not just their bureaucrats but serious
globally qualified epidemiologists, economists, educators, social workers, ethicists and pull

(57:00):
them together and then bravely as a government, balance out
all that advice was and arrive at something which would
generally be, you know, something that was more sensible, more proportionate,
and which took into account the basic rights and needs

(57:21):
of all of the citizens. Now landing in the sweet
spot there would have would have been a difficult thing
to do. But we were so far from the sweet
spot in our response to the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
And that's the classic as you were, as you're probably aware,
so was this country. Oh yes, yes, but none of
your people that you're you're referring to got themselves a
knighthood or a damehood out.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Of it, which people referring John.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Talking about the people who came from the bowels of
the department and took center stage and in one case,
of course, the Prime Minister of this country.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
Oh that's true. I'm sorry about yes, that is quite right.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
Well, look, Jacinda is a darling of the global elite.
I mean she is, you know, one of the high priestesses.
And even though the results of her government or governance
of New Zealand for those two terms and particularly through
the pandemic was disastrous for your country, she is nonetheless

(58:29):
and this is a result of just the complete tribalization
now of our politics, and particularly at a global level.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
She's been canonized and will remain.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
So I suppose it doesn't matter that she failed economically
and that the place sort of blew up over co governance,
and that it all was overreach and went too far,
and that nothing that was done in the pandemic was proportionate.
It doesn't matter to those global elites who basically look

(59:03):
at her and they say her values are right and
they can be questioned, and they're our values.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
I mean, look this at that level, it's becoming religious.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
I think it's a good, very good way to put it,
actually that I think you're I think you're dragging your
heels though and saying it's becoming.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
Yes, well, look, I like to be fairly even in
the way I approach things and not I don't like
to think in catastrophic terms, because there's you know, there's
always a quid quote pro and balance. But look, the

(59:46):
I do often say to people who say to me, Luise,
because I'm married to a politician, so I'm involved in
politics at the cole face locally, and they say, Louise,
what's going wrong with our society? And I often the
first words I usually say are, we've stopped going to
church on Sundays. Now I have to I'm not particularly

(01:00:10):
religious myself, but I'm a strong cultural Christian and I
grew up in a society and in a place, in
a small country town where that's what a lot of
us did, and there was you know, we would all
come together and commune and listen to a sermon that
everyone agreed with. It was about values that everyone agreed with,

(01:00:30):
and that has gone from the lives of most people
in level democracies, less so in America. America Who's US
is far more Christian than Australia and New Zealand, even
though many of us sort of subscribed to those strong
Christian values. But I do think that without a strong

(01:00:52):
set of moral and social values, there is a vacuum,
and I think that vacuum has been filled for the
progressive left by these these views on in particular climate
climate overreach. I would say just catastrophism and gender in

(01:01:16):
particular is huge and equality, but their equality is now
sort of ground in sort of what identity politics. So
they've split everyone into tribes and racial tribes and gender
tribes and it's not pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
What would you say the future was for Australian multiculturalism.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Oh gosh.

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
Look, we're one of the most multicultural, if not the
most multicultural country on Earth, and to date it has
worked very well for us. But like all liberal democracies,
at the moment, we're facing serious problems with mass migration,
and so that, you know, then we're getting into big

(01:02:04):
debates about multiculturalism. You know, whether a pluralistic society on
steroids can work. I mean, my retort would be that
in theory, it should be able to work if people,
if most the bulk of the citizenry, subscribe to the
same values and accept that the institutions which govern us

(01:02:25):
are legitimate. But I'm not sure where it goes for
us from here. I hesitate to say. I mean, we
I do say to people at the moment that the
extreme anti immigration surges that are informing ordinary people in

(01:02:50):
the UK and in the US at the moment are
driven primarily by mass illegal immigration and legal immigration. But
they haven't yet had their stopped the boats moment that
Australia had in twenty thirteen when it elected Tony Abbott and.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
When we we were.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Facing and enduring at that point mass illegal immigration, and
of course the Abbott government did fix that that it
got on top of that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
It was very popular.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
And it's only now that the governments in the UK
and in the US the Mexican border and then of
course the boat problem in the UK are.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Having their own moment.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
So I think mass immigration generally is a big problem
across the West because there's a sort of sense, particularly
from the left, that really we should just let anyone
in who wants to come here and accommodate them and
just have a wonderful society that is pluralistic and multicultural
and we can.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
All get on all vote for the left.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Well that's right, certainly in the first place. I mean
I don't. I mean, we have migrant cohorts in Australia
that conservative vote for sure, and over time become more
conservative voting. I mean a lot of our margrant cohort
are socially conservative. They tend to be churchgoers or people

(01:04:22):
of faith. More generally, a lot of them were like
running small businesses, and so for a lot of our
Margrant cohort here, they are natural conservative voters. And certainly,
I mean Donald Trump found that he could access much
more of that margrant vote for those reasons, I think

(01:04:44):
in the last election than the Republicans have been able
to for a long time. But the key to it,
I think for the Conservatives is maintaining the basic values that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Sort of established our wonderful societies.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
And you really go back to the First Amendment in
the American Constitution to look to the basic principles on
that in a speech freedom of me impress.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Freedom of speech is under threat everywhere it is, which
brings us to another matter. But before before we get
to that, and I want to issue an invitation to
you to make a return once you've made the speech
that you didn't make last Friday. Values masquerading as facts
the real threat to freedom for Westminster democracies. I'm going

(01:05:34):
to quote the different chapters if you like. Part one
Anecdote and Philosophers, Part two Nitzske and Hayak, Part three,
USA and Institutional Comparison. And I, having read it, know
the value of it and I want to share it.
You were happy to commit.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Oh yes, I'd love to come back for another.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
I'm chair chash great now, so.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
We can where we can.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
We can diagnose the problems, but not quite solve them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
No, I think we could solve it. I do, but
they wouldn't be popular. The question that I've saved till last.
You've touched on it briefly the turning point for the
United States or is it the turning point for the
rest of the Western world in particular Charlie Kirk. How

(01:06:28):
much of an influence was Charlie Kirk on Australian use
do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
Look, I don't know that anyone could measure that, because
no one's sort of watching to what extent Australian youths
engage okay with him and.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Like minded people.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
But I know it's strong now I have I have
four young adult children, two boys, two girls, young men
and women, and certainly my sons and their cohort, both
left and right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
I think.

Speaker 4 (01:07:05):
Certainly knew who he was and watched him and listen
to him some more than others, I would say, But
I would say it's fairly significant. It's certainly on social
media amongst those people and amongst the left and the right,
because of course there've been different responses shockingly to the assassination.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
It's had a huge global impact, the assassination.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
But I do think there is without doubt a move
amongst young men in particular who feel sort of left
out of the focus on young women that is now
just completely I think, out of control. And I think
they are subscribing and looking for a set of values

(01:07:53):
that helps them to make sense of the world.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
In fact, I.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Did read a piece in The Australian by an American,
a professor of American politics from the University of Melbourne,
published yesterday online. His name is Professor Timothy Lynch, and
he deals with the kirk assassination and he talks about
how Austrai university campuses have been colonized by the left

(01:08:23):
mostly and I'll just read for your listeners a very
short sentence which struck me.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
He said, he said progressive eighteen year olds. And there's
that word progressive again.

Speaker 4 (01:08:35):
So it is certainly creeping into the lexicon. But this man,
of course is a political scientist. Progressive eighteen year olds
appear in O week and we coddle them. How super
you go to climate rallies. Quote your preferred pronoun badge
looks great, quote.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Be safe quote, and you go girl right. And then
he goes on.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
To say their conservative peers, in contrast, are inadvertently taught
some crucial survival skills. They must stuck and weave, choose
their battles wisely, know when to win race and resist
the orthodoxy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
It's a brilliant.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Summation of you know, it puts Charlie Kirk in context brilliantly.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
And of course it's.

Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
By an academic, an Australian academic who clearly leans slightly
center right.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
I would say, so, but that is what's going on.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
But of course there is pushback and it's growing amongst
I think youth more generally, but particularly young male youth,
because they've been left out of the conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Everything's about girls, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
I went to a local theater production that was a
school based production here in my hometown over the weekend,
and it involved getting representatives, young representatives from the schools
writing a script and then the local theater group would
run these little plays, mini plays for ten minutes each.

(01:10:07):
So it was the competition in the schools, the playwrights
in that production.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
I think.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
Of the six competitors, five of them were young girls.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
There was only one young man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
I'm surprised at that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:22):
And that's the sort of thing we're saying. So you
would expect young men by now, this has been going
on for a long time. You would expect young men
to be feeling that they need to find something to
sustain them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
So I do the likes of Charlie Kirk online.

Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
Though I don't particularly like that online world, there's not
enough thoughtfulness in it, but the likes of him, I
am sure.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Just to round it off, we have a thirty year
old young woman. It's part of our family, and she
and her friends were distraught when they got the news,
and it's something that I was really unaware of, this

(01:11:08):
involvement or attention being paid. And I have to say
that I was disturbed at the reaction because it was
a very ugly thing, but I was very pleased that
was the outcome instead of I mean the verbal outcome,
instead of or emotional outcome, instead of some of what's
been recorded as going on around the world in other quarters. Yes,

(01:11:33):
sickening anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
Well, we could spend a long time talking about that.
But there is a political scientist, an American data scientists,
actually over the weekend published I think he published it before,
but he in a blog identified an increasing trend at
the moment in America of political assassination, which is the

(01:11:58):
trend line looks to be greater than the late sixties,
where there was an equivalent sort of spike.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
So we are seeing in America.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
Of course, in the US you know, significant instability and
precariousness and the democracy. But of course America has always
sort of had these big arguments often for the rest
of the world, and it convulses and we all look
on and say, wow, look at that. But I'm hopeful
that it will sort of come out the other side
in better shape than it went in. We have to

(01:12:30):
hope that, because if America sort of does not pull through,
then that would be catastrophic for the Westminster democracies, because
of course America the US is the loadster democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Absolutely. Let me thank you for the time you've devoted.
I'm very pleased that you've agreed to come back whenever
this is and I hope it soon and on behalf
of them. Everybody, I think it's been very good talking
with you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
I really enjoyed it. Later and thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Miss producer for the mail room in podcast three to two.

Speaker 5 (01:13:18):
You will in late and I'm fantastic, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Being a bit sad around the place for a bit
and I don't, well, not you just people have been
a bit upset.

Speaker 5 (01:13:28):
Oh, yes, well, it's been a shocking week, really, hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Well, it was very frustrating because it happened after we'd
done last week's podcast, so we had to wait for
a week. Anyway, there's been a substantial amount of commentary,
some of which we have selected. May I lead? And
I do so because this one starts at the beginning,
dated September eleven. Late and I heard the news this

(01:13:54):
morning that Charlie Kirk had been shot, and later learned
that he had subsequently died. This afternoon, my wife and
I have been watching Fox News, which is covering the
situation thoroughly. Some people might say, well, it's only in America,
but I believe it'll turn out to be much more
than that. Who would have imagined that a personable, smart, erudite,

(01:14:14):
young family man, a Christian and a conservative might be
assassinated for encouraging open debate at a university. It's a
threat to democracy and freedom of speech everywhere, not just
the US, and I hope his loss will be some
sort of turning point for us all veil Charlie Kirk

(01:14:35):
never forgotten everything that Barry has said is actually accurate.
And let me just clear something up because some people
seem to think that there is a You can't call
it an assassination. You certainly can, and that's exactly what
it was.

Speaker 6 (01:14:51):
Layton Ross says finally had the opportunity to review the
podcast three oh one Okay. Great talks about a lot
of things that would all be wonderful to have, but
as is stated, you need to have the productivity to
support all of these things, and currently nothing is changing
because of the cost of energy. And this is the
fundamental issue. All the rest of it lovely stuff, but

(01:15:13):
nothing will change without the energy cost reduction. Here is
where I am. You can have a highly paid workforce
and hence all the social welfare stuff taken care of
with a low cost of energy, so you can produce
things value add and then sell to the world marketplace.
You cannot have a highly paid workforce and a high

(01:15:34):
cost of energy, because then you cannot produce anything that
will enable reinvestment of capital at an acceptable level. Look
at the de industrialization of Europe and Australia. Trump recognizes
this and is trying to change the paradigm in the States.
The rest of US have caved to China and Asia
manufacturing over the last thirty years. New Zealand is a

(01:15:57):
medium to low wage economy, but we are getting higher
and higher energy costs. So why manufacture things here? Good lord, Look,
you cannot even keep a lumber industry running. We produce food,
probably more efficiently than anyone else, but by and large
we send it offshore with minimal value add because of
processing costs. And Ross goes on to give you his solution.

(01:16:20):
He says, gas industry stuffed, Who is going to come
and redevelop the fields? However, Number one, we need a
bipartisan agreement in government for the future to realize we
need low cost energy. Number two, get on the plane
to Washington and get an agreement from the USA on
a modern coal fired power station and a nuclear power

(01:16:41):
station sized to power Auckland. And then number three, Ross,
I can't quite make out what you're trying to say.
Here or perhaps it's me not understanding, but build a
power station in the South Island for running for twenty
five years and then total cleanup. People have to realize
it so much more more is going to be so

(01:17:02):
much more efficient than currently huntly emissions negligible in comparison.
And then number four builds nuclear Kipra and will take
all of the time. And then when running decommission the
coal fired power station. There is the solution for the
twenty thirties energy issue people are ignoring. Ask your energy

(01:17:24):
guy you have on, says Ross. And then ongoing for
the next one hundred years for the country. Continuing to
ignore this just ads cost and continues the blame game
and the excuses.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
You know what, I've decided. I've come to the conclusion
New Zealand is actually the winner of the gold medal
in self defeat. Australia is running a pretty tight second
at the moment too. Now from Brett, it goes back
to something that he sent me and we utilized last
week to do with the Remember I said something about

(01:17:57):
the Hamas tunnels and there were more tunnels. There were
more miles or kilometers than there were in the tube
in London, and I questioned it, so he says tunnels. Yes,
that would be the better part of five hundred kilometers
of tunnels Hamas has constructed over many years under their
main city. So I understand it has been said the

(01:18:18):
entire city population a generalization, could have been protected from
the bombing above with very few casualties. Albeit a tight
fit Ukraine death toll of civilians is relatively small in
comparison because they take shelter just as Londoners once did.
Now at the heart of the issue is Hamas doesn't
allow the civilian population to take shelter in the tunnels.

(01:18:42):
As I currently understand it, they use civilians as a
human shield and fodder for the propaganda war which so
many of us wilfully buy into. Hamas is very difficult
to root out. They deliberately provoked this war in a
most horrendous manner for their own purposes, in full knowledge
of what they would bring down on the heads of
the civilian population. Hamas deliberately prolonged the war for as

(01:19:06):
long as possible because it serves them. Do not want
the cycle of war to ever end, and will do
everything that they can to keep it going another generation.
Has been deliberately exposed to the horrors of war so
her mass can twist more souls with the sickness of
hate which hermess itself fuels. There is more, but I
think that will suffice.

Speaker 6 (01:19:26):
Laden Jin says, today the woke culture is being pushed back,
and it's kicking, screaming, and even killing in protest. Charlie
Kirk's assassination was a sickeningly gruesome depiction of how the
left wants to kill free speech. They hate free speech
and truths so much that the sons of devils are
willing to kill a thirty one year old, loving conservative

(01:19:47):
Christian husband and father of two children. In a recent
interview with Megan Kelly, Victor Davis Hansen said that this
is the first time in my memory that a major
journalistic figure has been targeted for assassination. The left has
no idea, says jin what they've done when they shot
Charlie Kirk. He says, be strong and courageous, don't be frightened,

(01:20:11):
do not be dismayed. The tired is turning, and it's
time to take out our surfboards and ride on the
incoming conservative tsunami.

Speaker 5 (01:20:20):
That's from Jin.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
Jin is always pretty good, very good Nathan. Nathan has
a history with me, I mean, with the program, but
I don't think i've heard from him for a while.
He says, I'm sure you'll get many emails about Charlie
Kirk's death. However, I would like to lodge my thoughts
about it, and as you can see two full pages,

(01:20:44):
the political assassination of Charlie is not just an attack
upon him. It is an attack on the good citizens
of the USA and the world. It's an attack on
freedom of speech and non partisan ownership of the public square.
I was deeply sorrowfuled by his loss and felt very
deeply sad because of it, as if he was my
own family member. I'm still in mourning. I was initially

(01:21:07):
surprised by the extent and sheer number of people mourning
his death, not just in the conservative lane but also
from the left, But as I had more time to
think about it, I was not that surprised because his
death represents what is wrong with the world in general.
Many people on both sides of politics have sensed the
serious precedents set by the actions of the misinformed and

(01:21:29):
misguided shooter. Most people seem to understand that this precedent
could be bad for everyone. Both sides of the political
spectrum mostly still want to feel safe when they express
their beliefs, their dislikes, their feelings about issues, and so forth. Unfortunately,
this event has also revealed a very terrible truth. There

(01:21:50):
are some among us who seem to have no conscience
about his death, celebrating like it was a gold medal
win in the Olympics. They're so cold and disconnected from
any decency, respect, compassion, or sympathy for any suffering. The
family friends and supporters of Charlie Kirk and gloat over
their suffering. I quickly discovered that with such cold, disconnected people,

(01:22:14):
there is no reaching them. Whether they're family, friends, colleagues,
or strangers, whoever they may be. There is a common
pattern that I recognize that defines them. They are clueless
always in every case, they make claims that are completely
false because they're not able to use truth and facts
to justify their claims. When the truth or facts are

(01:22:34):
presented to them, they'll not believe it, but will explain
away those facts with more inventions of fake scenarios or possibilities,
or they will simply wipe the slate of their minds
and start on something else they erroneously construct. They literally
live in a complete world of fantasy that doesn't exist

(01:22:57):
in reality. Now that's the verse page. Let me cut
to the last couple of paragraphs. I would expect that
the shooter feel superior to Charlie Kirk, though the imagined
immortality he thinks he is guilty of is not as
serious as the murder he committed. Those who celebrate Charlie's
murder are in the same frame of mind. They will

(01:23:17):
point out the fascist people, their evil right wing ideals,
and their alleged bigotry as if it is worse than murder.
I have vowed not to labor for such people for
my own sake, I'm taking action to omit these people
from my life as of today, including family members. This
event has shown me who these people are. The world

(01:23:39):
now knows who these people are and what they are.
This realization seems to be non partisan. Many Democrats in
the US are abandoning their party because of the atrocious
behavior of their former compadres. Some of these disgusting people
are losing their jobs, losing family and friends. But will
that be enough. I'm not so sure. He concludes, whatever happens,

(01:24:04):
this seems to be a pivotal moment in history, and
people of all war box of life appear to sense it.
There is a new, more defined division happening in the
world as we speak. Thanks for your time, Nathan.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):
Leaden.

Speaker 6 (01:24:19):
Jill says, I was so thrilled to read Christian was
going to be on the podcast. To have forgotten to
write and thank you does not reflect my huge thanks
to you both. Huge congratulations to Christian for winning the
award for the category of his podcast. I was horrified
to listen to some negative tool poppy comments. It points
out how ignorant some people are. My husband and I

(01:24:41):
arrived in London in nineteen seventy three for a couple
of years. The first flat we looked at was in Brixton,
which even in those days was a very mixed population.
I'm so very sorry to hear about your son in
law's dreadful accident. Having been a travel agent, I've heard
some dreadful stories, but that is the worst. I wish
him a full recovery. Jill, thank you so much. He

(01:25:03):
is getting better by the day. Were pleased to say.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Yeah, Jill, as I think I said last week, something
along the lines of the two youngsters, well, they're in
their early thirties. The two early thirties took on the
top rate of insurance based on something that happened last
year when they were traveling, which was nothing to do
with nitthing physical, and as a result benefited from it.

(01:25:28):
It's just that the public system in Greece was a shocker,
so we won't bother with that anymore. And the result
was that once he got to Athens, he went into
a private hospital and got superb attention, and his recovery
is proving that to be so.

Speaker 5 (01:25:45):
And the lesson learned is pay whatever you have to
for the.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Insurance, don't short change yourself.

Speaker 5 (01:25:51):
And we paid a fortune, didn't we.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Is it interesting the number of people, not a lot,
but a few who have told us since how they've
done the same thing up to their insurance, and they're
so glad they did well.

Speaker 6 (01:26:02):
I was telling the story recently to somebody I know,
and she regave a story that had happened in her
own family about thirty years ago, where the young man
didn't have insurance and it cost her family very dearly
and their parents who had to fork out for their child.

(01:26:25):
The bank balance certainly wasn't the same anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
No, and the physical damage was long lasting. That was
a real sad So thank you. We'll let's see you
again next week.

Speaker 5 (01:26:36):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
You will excellent. I don't forget if you'd like to
write to us Latent at newstalk ZIB dot co dot

(01:26:58):
nz or Carolyn at newstalk ZIB dot co dot Nz.
It's always good if you can get your email in
by Tuesday morning at the latest, well thereabouts lunchtime Tuesday,
because we've taken to recording it on Tuesday afternoon. Now.
The reason I wanted to mention your correspondence is because

(01:27:21):
I want to make a brief comment on a matter
that some of you will want to respond to. That
is the death penalty. Is the death penalty warranted in
any circumstance? The answer is, how could you say it's not.
It depends on the circumstance or the circumstances. If there

(01:27:42):
is no question about something that somebody has done, if
it's simply a fact undeniable, how can you argue against
the death penalty if that person has taken another life,
and so we have it, and in this particular situation,
already of course, you've had all on Sundry calling for
the death penalty in Utah. By the way, did you

(01:28:03):
know that the death penalty in Utah is legitimately a
firing squad. I'm not sure whether that's the only method
they use, but it's still in play, and I think
the last I think I read the last one was
in twenty ten, so it hasn't been for a while.
But in this particular case, you'd say, at this point,
would you not, even if you want to throw the

(01:28:23):
word allegedly in somewhere that it's some cut and dried
now there will be a defense, of course, and the
defense will be something to do with psychology, undoubtedly, But
I don't think there is a defense in this particular case.
And if you don't, if you don't draw the line,
if you do not commit people to punishments that they

(01:28:46):
justly deserve, it's another input into why you have a
problem with law and order in the United States or
any country for that matter. Now, having got that off
my chest, let me quote you something from Michael Snyder's substack,
which I get delivered into my box. I'm not a subscriber,
but I have a look at his opinions over his

(01:29:08):
driving forces. There is no question that his logic is
very very good, far better than some people depending on
the subject matter. Our society has produced a lost generation
that does not have any hope. How can we possibly
undo the severe, long term damage that's been done to

(01:29:29):
an entire generation of young people over the course of
several decades. One of the most powerful pieces of evidence
that our society is a failure is the fact that
we have produced a lost generation of young adults that
does not have any hope. We shipped most of them
off to public schools where they're trained to believe that
they came from monkeys. There is no purpose to their lives,

(01:29:52):
and when they die, nothing waits for them. On the
other side, this sick philosophy is endlessly pounded into the
heads of our young people, and many of those that
have adopted it have come to the conclusion that they
may as well live as hedonistically as they can while
they're here. Of course, that doesn't give them any meaning
or purpose eye them, and so a lot of them

(01:30:14):
end up sort of drifting through life seeking anything that
can fill the painful emptiness they feel inside. It isn't
really a mystery why so many of our young people
have gone completely insane. Our modern liberal society urges them
to constantly chase after things that will never satisfy them.
As a result, we have a national epidemic of loneliness,

(01:30:36):
a national epidemic of depression, and a national epidemic of
drug abuse, and a national epidemic of suicide. A young
people are offered one hamster wheel after another, each time
they're told that if they'll just run hard enough, they
will finally be happy. Of course, that never actually happens.

(01:30:58):
It all starts in the public schools. Parents send their
children to these schools believing that they will receive a
quality education. But the truth is that the quality of
education in our public schools just keeps getting worse. And
did I mention this was America? Of course? Did I
need to. The reading and math scores of twelfth graders

(01:31:19):
have plunged to their lowest level in over twenty years.
The scores, part of a test from the National Assessment
of Education Progress, showed that average reading score for twelfth
graders dropped to the lowest level since the NAP first
administered the reading assessment in nineteen ninety two. The average

(01:31:40):
score for twelfth graders in math in twenty twenty four
was the lowest since two thousand and five, when the
math assessment framework changed significantly. He writes, I went to
public schools all the way through high school, and then
I attended two public universities for a total of eight years.
The quality of the education that I received was a joke.

(01:32:03):
The entire system is a fraud. It is about time
that we all finally admit that the Emperor does not
have any clothes on. But what our public schools are
good at is in doctrinating young minds. For example, just
consider what's been happening in the state of Maryland. And
before I get there, you might remember that Maryland has

(01:32:26):
one of the highest crime rates in the USA. And
it's right attached to Washington d C. Schools of subverting
students mental health by endlessly hectoring them to doubt or
despise their own bodies. These school antics reached epidemic level
even before the start of the COVID pandemic. In twenty nineteen,
the state of Maryland issued regulations to promote viewing each

(01:32:50):
student's gender, identity and expression as valuable. The government officials
and political appointees arrogated to themselves the prerogative to redefine gender.
In the state of Maryland, Montgomery County, the larger school
system in the state, announced that it would choose books
for the curriculum through an LGBTQ plus lens and ask

(01:33:15):
whether the books reinforced or disrupted stereotypes, cys, normativity, and
power hierarchies. According to a brief filed at the Supreme
Court by parents who successfully challenged the school system. That
brief also noted that teachers are told to frame disagreement
with pro LGBTQ ideas as hurtful and to counter with

(01:33:38):
examples of men who paint their nails or wear dresses.
The gold is to instill in children a new perspective
not easily contravened by their parents. As the school board admitted,
the introduction produced a five hundred and eighty two percent
increase in the number of kids self identifying as non
binary in Montgomery County schools. Disrupting children's thinking has been

(01:34:01):
so successful that almost half the students identified themselves as
non binary. Sadly, most parents have no idea what is
really going on in these schools. They just assume that
their kids are being prepared for life in the real world,
but instead they're having leftist values systematically shoved down their throats.

(01:34:22):
Needless to say, it gets even worse at the next level.
Our colleges and universities are completely and utterly dominated by
radical leftists. And that's where I'll leave that particular advisory. Now,
if that depressed, you don't go anywhere, because we might
do a bit of lifting. Now, this was published on

(01:34:43):
the first of September, so it's very current. The value
of thinking deeply why your education should be about more
than a paycheck. Now, I'm going to relate this to
situation here in New Zealand, but this is from Campion
College in Australia, which is I gather pretty new. At

(01:35:05):
some point every student faces the question. It comes from
well meaning parents, teachers, and even friends. So what are
you going to do with that? If you're drawn to
studying history, literature, philosophy or theology, you've probably heard it
more than once, sometimes with genuine curiosity, sometimes with thinly

(01:35:26):
veiled skepticism. The underlying message is clear, education should be
a stepping stone to a stable, high paying job. Anything
else is a luxury. It's easy to see why. In
today's world, career paths are mapped out early, and universities
often market degrees as direct pipelines to employment. A agree

(01:35:46):
that does not lead to a clear job title can
feel risky, even indulgent. But is that really all education
is meant to be? What if university wasn't just about
getting a job, but about shaping how you think. What
if the true value of your education wasn't just in
the paycheck it's secured, but in the way it prepared

(01:36:09):
you for a lifetime of curiosity, adaptability, and meaning. At
Campian College, we believe that deep thinking is not just
a luxury, it's essential. In this post, we'll explore why
an education rooted in big ideas and critical thought is

(01:36:30):
not only fulfilling, but also a powerful advantage in today's
unpredictable world. We live in a world that moves fast.
New industries emerge overnight, automation reshapes the job market, and
entire career paths disappear within a decade. In this rapidly
changing landscape, universities often respond by doubling down on job
training and pushing students toward degrees that promise immediate employment.

(01:36:55):
But here's the problem. Technical schools can become outdated. The
most valuable employees in the most successful people are not
those who learned one specific task in university. They're the
ones who can think critically, solve complex problems, and adapt
to whatever comes next. This is why deep interdisciplinary thinking matters.

(01:37:20):
The ability to connect ideas across history, literature, philosophy and
theology is not just intellectual fluff. It's what allows people
to understand human behavior, navigate ethical dilemmas, and make decisions
that stand the test of time. There I desert this

(01:37:41):
piece because it goes on for three times as long
as I've read, but you get the picture. If you
want to find it, Campion dot edu dot au is
where you'll find it. The value of thinking deeply. Campion
dot edu dot Au. Now it is in the western

(01:38:02):
suburbs of Sydney, but it's full of ideas, and I
know that there are schools in this country doing the same.
It doesn't matter where they are or who they are.
If they're taking an approach like this, that's where your
kids belong. Now. I said at the beginning that I
was going to connect it to something here in New Zealand.
I remember years ago, in fact, decades ago, when Bob Jones,

(01:38:26):
as in Sir Robert Jones, would tell all in Sundry
that the only people he was interested in picking up
out of out of university were people who had done
just those subjects that were mentioned a moment back, philosophy
and history and psychology maybe other things. Why because they

(01:38:48):
knew how to think. I've never forgotten that they knew
how to think. Others didn't. They were restricted, restricted by
the narrowness of the degree that they got, which is
really quite extraordinary when you think about it. But then
on the other hand, it does make a lot of sense.
So I'd be very interested to know whether that same

(01:39:08):
approach is employed these days by employee, especially big companies.
So that takes us out for podcasts number three hundred
and two. Let me repeat if you'd like to correspond
Latent at NEWSTALKSV dot co dot nzd or Carolyn at
the same address NEWSTALKSB dot co dot nz which leaves

(01:39:29):
me only to say thank you for listening and we'll
talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:39:42):
Thank you for more from News Talks EDB. Listen live
on air or online and keep our shows with you
wherever you go. With our podcasts on iHeartRadio.

All Episodes

Leighton Smith Podcast #302 - September 17th 2025 - Louise Clegg

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #302 - September 17th 2025 - Louise Clegg