Leighton Smith Podcast #322 - April 1st 2026 - Louise Clegg

“The phrase ‘unintended consequences’ rarely passes the lips of our most senior lawyers, judges, or academics.

Like many in the professional classes, lawyers have become cheerleaders for most fashionable progressive causes, abandoning the caution and prudence that once defined the discipline.

Worse, they have become enforcers - shutting down dissenting voices inside and outside the profession”.

Damning words from retired barrister Louise Clegg.

We cover a multitude of issues in a revealing interview; one of which may surprise you.

We take a look at other matters, including climate change. No, the science is not settled.

And we check into The Mailroom with Mrs Producer.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B. Follow
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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 (00:27):
Welcome to Podcasts three hundred and twenty two for April
the first twenty twenty six bagg in September of twenty five.
The name Louise Klegg was not terribly familiar with most people.
Then she wrote an article sliding into Technocracy, and that
article triggered a desire to interview the author, so she
accepted an invitation and guested in Podcasts three oh two.

(00:51):
Now Louise Klegg returns in podcast three twenty two and well,
a lot of water has passed under her bridge. Louise
was a successful barrister when she decided to throw in
the towel and develop a new persona and with that
comes a healthy philosophy of life that could be a
beacon to many young women who feel stymied by the

(01:13):
world in which they live. The conversation was not restricted
to any one topic. It was to be a conversation
and to discuss as much as was appropriate, and we
touched on a number of things, multiculturalism, renewable energy and
net zero, experts who aren't the Iran war Ai media

(01:37):
and a few other matters. Now, just to give you
an indication of her style, this is something she wrote
around the same time as we did the previous hit
of you, but wasn't included well from memory anyway. Talking
about the Australian legal profession today, the Australian legal profession
has given up the ghost on issues of great social

(02:00):
import where there should be furious debates, they're either silent
or being silenced. The phrase unintended consequences rarely passes the
lips of our most senior lawyers, judges or academics. Like
many in the professional classes, lawyers have become cheerleaders for
most fashionable progressive causes, abandoning the caution and prudence that

(02:25):
once defined the discipline. Worse, they have become enforces, shutting
down the dissenting voices inside and outside the profession. It
goes on to give some examples, but you can see
what I mean. She has a rebellious streak in her
and that is to be welcomed so we shall talk

(02:46):
with Louise shortly, but first staying within the bookends of
the legal system. This time in the United States, there
is a story that must be told. Well, the story
has been told, but not in its fullness. And this
is the I suppose you might say, the conclusion, the
concluding part of that story. Lieutenant General Michael Flenn, who

(03:09):
was and I'm not sure that I actually knew this
or remembered this before, but he was a former head
of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA under the Obama administration.
But he was investigated by the FBI beginning in August
of twenty sixteen over alleged ties to Russia. In January
twenty seventeen, he was interviewed by two FBI agents and

(03:31):
asked about a conversation with a Russian official. At first,
he denied the conversation, which was not the truth, then
said that he didn't remember. Intelligence officials and others later
concluded that the conversation did not involve collusion or illegality. Nevertheless,

(03:52):
that exchange became the core of the charge of lying
to the FBI brought against Flynn by the late Special
Council Robert Mueller, who took over the case. In May
of twenty seventeen. Flynn initially pleaded guilty, but then withdrew
that plea, claiming that he did not intentionally lie and
was misled by his attorneys to enter the guilty plea

(04:13):
because prosecutors threatened legal action against his son. Now, this
was the really dirty part of this. Internal emails from
Flynn's first legal team showed that this was true. Prosecutors
informed his legal team that Flynn's son would be left
alone if he signed the guilty plea. Then, in twenty twenty,

(04:34):
then head of the District of Columbia U S Attorney's Office,
Timothy Shay, concluded that it seemed the FBI's purpose for
interviewing Flynn was to illicit false statements and thereby criminalizing
mister Flynn. The DOJ eventually dropped the charge, but the
judge overseeing Flynn's case refused to dismiss it. Remember that

(04:56):
the judge refused to dismiss it. Trump ultimately pardoned him
in twenty twenty. Then in twenty three, Flynn filed a
lawsuit against the DOJ and the FBI, accusing prosecutors from
Muller's others of investigating and prosecuting him for political reasons.
And so we arrive at the present day. Flynn had

(05:17):
sought fifty million from the government for what he claimed
were politically motivated actions against him. Now the settlement brings
to an end a year's long dispute that stemmed from
false claims of Russian meddling in that twenty sixteen presidential election.
Now it has been investigated and covered properly by the
good guys if you like, the truth was unfolded, and

(05:41):
now justice has rectified. Well I say rectified, it'll do
for the minute has rectified that initial charge. And what
it did to Flynn ruined him, bankrupted him. He sold
the house, the family home to pay for his son's
legal defenses, etc. So however much it is, it probably

(06:05):
isn't enough. But at least his honor has been restored
and should be recognized when it will be now after
the break, Now, after a short break. Louise Klegg Buccolan
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(07:09):
but may be used along with the flu vaccination for
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Speaker 3 (07:36):
Layton Smith.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Louise Clegg is a regular contributor to public discussions through
media and academic platforms and now she's appeared on Sky
News Australia to gb Radio and she frequently participates in
lectures at Sydney Institute and the United States Studies Center.
In September twenty twenty five, she appeared on the Laton
Smith Podcast, episode three two to discuss her essay Sliding

(08:03):
into Technocracy, analyzing how unelected experts can slowly re place
democratic accountability. Her insights combine legal understanding with a concern
for civic culture and balance that distinguishes her from typical
political commentators, and in twenty twenty one she joined the
Sydney Institute Panel on Democracy and the Administrative State, followed

(08:26):
by another in twenty twenty four titled Law and Legitimacy
in Modern Governance Now. These engagements demonstrate her sustained involvement
in national debates about power law. Louise, welcome back. It's
great to have you on the podcast again. I've been
looking forward to it and people have been.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Asking Lton thank you for having me. It's very good
to be back. A lot has happened with spok last My.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Next line was going to be there's a lot of
water under the bridge since we last spoke.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
This certainly is, and I must say I've I've never
had a wrap up like that before, and it does
remind me about the things that I was writing in
the lead up to these ruptures that have been occurring,
particularly in Australian politics, but continue to occur everywhere, I suppose,

(09:18):
even since we last spoke. So wow, Yes, that was
an interesting summary, and we live in interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Timeses and the Chinese are trying to influence us more
and more.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Well, look, it does seem that way, but I mean
that's not something that I typically focus on. I'm more
interested in sort of what is really going on at
the cold face, I suppose in our liberal democracies. I'm
interested in what is happening in Australia, of course, because
that is the country I love most. But we're living

(09:53):
through rupture and massive change and push back against the establishment.
And I'm the last person to be inclined to say
I told you so to people generally, because that's not
my style.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
But I have to say, particularly listening to.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
That summary, because I've forgotten about some of those pieces
and appearances, but I have been saying to anyone who
would listen for about a decade now, probably not in
these hyperbolic terms, but I really have effectively been saying
that the revolution is coming. And I straddle a few worlds,

(10:34):
I suppose, but I straddle and have straddled really all
of my since I became a professional in Sydney, I've
straddled that sort of professional knowledge economy world.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
But I grew up in a fairly.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
Remote place in Australia, in a small country town, which
is what we would have said was hardcore National Party territory,
but would now without an election having occurred, but knowing
what the polls are doing and what people are thinking
and saying out there would now be hardcore one nation territory.
And that's where I grew up in my family lives.

(11:10):
And so I've straddled those two worlds. And I've been
saying to people in the knowledge economy, in the economy world,
and in professional classes for about a decade. Actually, look,
people are unhappy. They're getting more and more unhappy. We're
not responding to them sufficiently. And the cost of these

(11:31):
luxury beliefs of the professional classes, the sort of the insiders,
the laptop classes, the cost of their beliefs is being
imposed upon these people who live elsewhere. And the anger
is fomenting, and it's here with us now.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
It is here with us now, and it's arrived surprisingly quickly. Yes,
I mean, what's that what's that saying things? You know, economies,
whatever it refers to economies go break slowly until the
end when they rapidly decline.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Well, I think the one nation rupture in Australia has
been coming for some time. So in fact, I was
just talking to a friend yesterday about this in the
polling booth. Where I grew up in a small town
in western New South Wales called Tottenham, as in Tottenham Hotspurs.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
But it's in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
It's a tiny town, perhaps two or three hundred people
when I was growing up.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
It's declined a bit since then, so.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
It's a village really, and it's you know, at least
an hour and forty minutes from a major center, major
sort of regional city, Dubbo, which is thirty thousand people.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
So it's dry usually and very remote.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
It had a it would typically have a return for
the National Party of about eighty percent. Eight percent of
voters there would just vote for the Nationals election in
and election out. At the last election, One Nation got
a twenty percent vote there, which was fairly significant, and

(13:21):
the election before that it was ten percent, and prior
to that they hadn't run but twenty percent is very high,
but it was overlooked because it's such a small town
and it was balanced out by some you know, lower
votes for one Nation in regional centers. So commentators did
not see this coming, and even commentators you know, on

(13:45):
the more conservative side of politics, really did not see
this coming. But so one Nation has been moving up
and and over the years it's Waxton Wayne, depending on
what's going on nationally. But what happened prior to the
Bondai massacre was that Pauline Hansen went into the Senate

(14:09):
in Australia's parliament with a burker on as a political stunt,
if you like, and she'd done this before, and it
barely got any attention because of course Paulin has done
that before.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
But it was just what Pauline was doing.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
She was making a point about Islamic fundamentalism, I suppose,
and people almost ignored it, to be honest, and she
was suspended from the Senate for that stunt.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
That's what everyone said it was.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
And then, of course, about a month later, the Bondai
massacre happened and suddenly Pauline looked like the person who
was presient, and I think then even after the massacre
throughout January, we had a Parliament recall to deal with,

(14:59):
amongst other things, you know, freedom of speech and to
try and deal with an urgent response and that didn't
go well.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Really for either of the major parties.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
And so so yes, suddenly people voters who rejected one
Nation and this kind of stunt suddenly woke up. And
so Pauline Hanson is having a huge impact in Australian politics.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
At the moment.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Do you think she really realized or recognized where things
were at when she did wear that outfit.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
In Oh, I don't know, you'd have to ask her.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
I think I think she probably sensed I mean, I
think she probably did it again because she sensed that
things were perhaps on a rise for her. So I
think the timing of all of this was just absolutely
terrific for one Nation, And.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
And Lewis has based hold on can you hold on
a second place? One second?

Speaker 4 (16:14):
And so the timing, the timing of the Bondai massacre
in Australia was given what Pauline had just done in
the National Parliament beforehand, was almost cathartic, I suppose. And

(16:34):
so so there has been a you know, a legitimate
and for me expected awakening might say of the Australian
public to that particular issue, and and now others. So

(16:54):
and of course that is being influenced by the rupture
that is happening around the world.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And suddenly the people.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Who feel they've been ignored for a very long time,
who are the furthest away from power, And that is
always like an actual literal geographical matter, but also just
a demography matter too.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
And so the people who.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Have I felt that they've not been sent to for
a long time have had enough and there's a ground swell.
So it doesn't surprise me at all. And I have
a lot of conversations with a lot of people in
Australian politics, on the left and the right. I have

(17:46):
a huge number of friends from all walks of life.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
As you mentioned some of your friends during our last discussion.
I think it was in some concerning concerned mood on
your part.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Oh well, no, I mean I because I do and
have throughout my life straddled these two worlds. I do
have and maintain friends who are reasonably left wing or
very progressive, and who live in the cities and work
in the professions.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
And so I talk to them frequently.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Some of them are university friends, and so we have
robust debates about what's going on. And now I am
saying to those friends, how do they respond? They are

(18:44):
responding sensibly. Actually they can see it, They see it
and and they feel it themselves. I mean, even their
own attitudes are changing with what's going on.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
I mean I have.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
I wrote a piece in the Spectator I think last
year about the the realization about of.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
The loss of the large scale renewable.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
Projects throughout rural Australia and how that was now being
appreciated not just in the communities where the cost of
being felt and these are the sort of economic and
serious environmental costs, but also just a sense of you know,
the impact on people who live close by on their

(19:35):
sense of place and amenity, and knowing the economic and
environmental costs, and knowing that the people who decided that
this was the way to go simply when they did that,
had no idea and didn't care. But that the realization
around those costs are starting to be felt in the cities.

(19:57):
One because the cost of energy is going up and
even the wealthier people notice that. But as I as
I mused, in a Spectator column. Even the polo set
in who live in wealthy eastern suburbs suburbs for instance,
but go to the bush to play polo, are noticing,

(20:22):
and they're listening to their friends who pay polo, and
now they're starting to say, this is not much good. Gosh,
this is really hurting people, isn't it. And so I've
had those sorts of conversations with people who were only,
you know, at the last election, voting for these teal

(20:44):
candidates in our inner cities, who are in fact or
screens in disguise actually, And so they're starting to query
the promises that were made, these sort of progressive promises
that we'll sort this out, will sort out climate change,
and we'll get you lower electricity prices and it will
all be wonderful and we'll live happily ever after. Well,

(21:07):
they're now seeing that those promises are not being delivered.
And what's more, they're creating a lot of dislocation in
our society. So to be fair to them, my friends
in that category are also waking up.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Now.

Speaker 4 (21:23):
I don't think they're voting for Pauline Hanson, but they
are starting to query.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Some of this and I've always.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
Called it populist leftism that we've all been subjected to
for the last ten or fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
I do age that if there was one waking up,
if there was one name in politics at the moment
who was decidedly responsible for much of what you've been
talking about and still doesn't care, could you name that person?

Speaker 4 (22:05):
I think you might be leading me towards a former
prime minister.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
No, No, I'm thinking of Chris Bowen, the Energy minister.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Oh, the in current politics.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
In current politics, there is there is whenever he comes
on the screen. Yes, my wife screams Addy, Well, well
she doesn't. She doesn't scream, but he annoys her so much,
and I have to say that I'm I'm rowing the
other side of the boat on that one.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Look.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
I know you don't like to be critical personally.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
I mean, look, I have a bit of a rule
that I don't get into many individuals and personalities who
are sort of currently operating in the political sphere in
Australia at the moment, because my husband happens to be
one of those politicians at the moment. So whether it's
his colleagues or his opponents, I sort of try to

(23:06):
avoid being down in those weeks. So as you know
late in my husband is Agus Taylor, who's now the
newish quite new opposition leader and so so, but I'm
very happy to say that, Look, the Labor Party has
and it's safe to say this, the Labor Party was

(23:27):
during the sort of Morrison years, sneering at the Morrison
government for not doing enough on climate change, and they
listen to these the so called experts, who told them
that we could just quite easily roll out large scale
renewables all over the countryside and it would be easy,
and that's would fix every problem, without thinking about all

(23:49):
these unintended consequences and the impact on local communities, and
the just the sheer magnitude of the footprint of these things,
and then the unbelievable extra cost of huge transmission lines
having to carry tricity from these, you know what are

(24:10):
effectively energy factories spread all the countryside. They list to
that stupidity, which my husband, who's a former energy minister,
said was effectively stupidity, and they listened.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
To that and said they could do it.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
And now they've tried to roll it out and it's
it's it's a disaster.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
It's a big disaster.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Well it's it's becoming a major economic disaster.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
But the other thing that is emerging now, and this
is quite new here in New South Wales at least,
is that the New South Wales Greens are now starting
to publicly oppose these developments because they have finally realized,
they've finally come on board. They've been out there, they've
looked for themselves, they've listened to the people at the

(25:00):
cold Face and they now realize that these projects are
destroying the environment.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
That's what they're concerned with.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
And so look, I think the Labor Premier has a
big problem with this rollout because the pushback is now.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Huge, and that's the New South Wales Premier.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yes, and the Greens are now supporting the pushback in
the New South Wales Parliament on behalf of constituents affected
and from the National Party and some members of the
Liberal Party who are now whose voices who have been

(25:43):
crying out for attention from their city colleagues are now
starting to be heard, so for the first time they're
taking very seriously. For example, the voice of our local
state MP, Wendy Tuckerman, who has been banging on now
for a couple of years about the fact that there
is no legal requirement for remediation at the end of

(26:08):
the life life of these projects, which applies to any
other similar project project, whether it's you're building a industrial
estate or some sort of mining development. This whole rush
to eighty two percent renewables has been done without that.
And when people over recent years have been saying what

(26:30):
about remediation, what happens at the end of the life
of these projects, they have just been ignored. And the
cost of putting in place funds upfront by developers into
a government run a trust sort of fund to accommodate
remediation at the end of the life would be another

(26:53):
huge impediment to the development of these projects, which is
really why they haven't required it of the developments of
the developers. And so there's adawning realization now finally, after
many years of pushback from local push back from the
MPs who listen to them, that in fact, this sees

(27:13):
a big problem.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
And this is why people at.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
The coal face are so angry, because where we've gone
a long way down this path and it's actually just
incredibly destructive and I don't know how they're going to
resolve it.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Actually, well, that might be up to other people. It
will be after the next election. I just want to
wind up on Chris Bowen. He is, from my perspective,
unfamiliar and this is the polite way of putting it,
unfamiliar with the reality of climate matters, totally out of

(27:51):
link with what the reality is, and like a normal
individual in his category, he refuses to acknowledge it, he
refuses to. We have him here. We've got government members
who are supposedly of the center right who simply don't
want to know. They will not listen to any real experts,

(28:15):
they won't read anything that that counters what they decided
that they believe, and they're screwing the they're screwing the country.
We have the same issue, but not to the same
level that you that you.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Do, I would say, he is just an ideologue and
he's arrogant. Well, I think he really did believe this,
that it could be done and done easily, and it
was suggested that in fact, you know, the center right,
that the liberals and the Nationals were the ideal logues
for simply not coming on board this years ago. What

(28:50):
has happened now is that reality has caught up with
these people and they've gone so far into their progressive
overreach and they they can't step down. I mean, for
for for the Labor Party to now turn around on
this would be enormous and they're stuck.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
To be fair to.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
Them, and yeah, to be fair to them, they have
been sold this by very powerful people who with very
significant interests, who they assumed were experts and that they

(29:32):
knew better than them. And so I think a lot
of the people on the labor and green side of
politics in our country, I think their belief was absolutely
it was belief.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
For them, it was you know, it was religion.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
But they believed the so called experts who told them
this could be done. The problem is that the experts
hadn't really thought everything through. And this gets back to
my theme, my constant theme over recent years about technocracy.
Because the people, the so called independent experts who make
who sort of dream up policy, often with the best

(30:08):
of intentions about how the problems in society should be sold,
and then the politicians standing kind them and say, all
the experts have told us so sciences in the experts
know this is what we must do. The experts actually
don't know because they're too far removed from the cold
face and they haven't thought about the unintended consequences. They

(30:31):
just don't have all the knowledge that is necessary to
plug into their spreadsheets and their models.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
And and they're a bit biased.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
They're their progressive minded and you know they they might
just be also hoping that it would work too perhaps,
But I think there has been this very fashionable progressive
sense of we can do anything if those terrible conservatives
who keep raising problems, you know, would just get out

(31:04):
of the way.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
And it's now catching up with them.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
So look, I don't know how the current Labor Party
is going to get out of this predicament there, but
there is now a cacophony lining up against them on
the right of politics in this country. You can put
to one side the split in the right between one
Nation and the Coalition and even others. There is now

(31:31):
a cacophony of noise.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yep is trouble is that it's a long time for
the next election.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
That is a very big problem. However, in Australia we
only have two years until the next election. I think
our shorter election cycles can sometimes be a bad thing
because it's very hard for governments to get governing if
you like, and and sort of take unpopular decisions when
they need to and let the sort of impact sort

(32:04):
of play out. But the UK, their election was way
before hours was it still much further away. So it
is two years, but it will go quickly. And I
think we're going to see the Labor Party in for
a world of pain as the pushback against the progressive overreach.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Jim Chalmers is the treasurer,
is not much better than Chris Bowen, though right, well
again here we go. So I realized that, but you've
announced it. So Angus Taylor, your spouse. He's an economist
by education, and he was a champion economist.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Well, he has a pretty impeccable economics credentials, but he also,
then I think you would say, throughout his career, then
applied those credentials in the real world. I mean he
was a management consultant of in sort of the resources
and agriculture sectors, and in fact, as a management consultant consultant,

(33:16):
he helped turned fon terror or create fon terror and
create the co op that is your fon terror. There
or years ago in New Zealand, so he's had a
bit to do with agriculture in New Zealand too. So look,
he's yeah, he's not an academic economist, but he's you know,

(33:40):
he still reads all the economics papers and he does
understand economics fairly well.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
And no, jimm is not an economist. Now.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
I mean there've been great Australian treasurers who aren't economists.
I mean, whether it's Peter Costello on our side, or
some people might even have some sort of fondness for
poor Eating didn't go to university and was a fairly

(34:11):
good treasurer, a reforming treasurer. So I don't think you
need to be an economist to do well in economics
in politics. John Howard had a terrific grasp of economics,
but I don't know that he may have studied it,
but he certainly wasn't an economist and was a lawyer

(34:34):
by training. So look, I think the problem with the
identities in the Labor Party at the moment, with the
key people in the key portfolios, is that they all
fell for this progressive overreach, for these great promises that

(34:54):
we could just change the world and change it quickly
if those silly conservatives would just listen. And it is
not working and it is backfiring, and instead of doing
things in a balanced way, they've just completely overreached and
it's not going well. And that's been happening all around

(35:14):
the West. It has, all right, so it's not here
just in Australia that we're seeing that.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Now, all right, let's turn attention to to something else.
Since we spoke in three h two, Bondai happened, and
it was only a few weeks after that that I
was in well, missus producer and I were both in Bondai.

(35:43):
But Bondai was as quiet as a mouse. The streets
were not full. They weren't they weren't totally empty, but
there was just a lack of people and everyone was
being quiet. Didn't matter where you went around that Bondai area,
there was just quietness. People didn't want to make a noise.

(36:07):
It was a very, very moving experience. Now I won't
stay like that, of course, because Bondai is Bondai. But
that leads me on to the question of multiculturalism. Yes,
but I'm interested to know your thoughts on the future
of multiculturalism in Australia.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Yes, well, this is a very big and incredibly important
question for our country. Actually, look from the right, there's
a big pushback against multiculturalism all across the world, and
that is understandable because there are people who are saying

(36:50):
we've lost our country. I don't recognize it anymore, and
this is mostly from conservatives and older people. Now I
understand that I personally as an Australian though, and as
an Australian who knows a little bit about our demographics
of understand the fact that our country, along with Switzerland,

(37:14):
has the highest number in the world of overseas born
people living in it at the moment, and that is
the thirty percent, which is very high. Now some of
those are citizens and non citizens. I think about ten
percent non citizens, but that is incredibly high, and it's
equal with Switzerland.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Now.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
People would be surprised to know that in America that
number is only at around fifteen percent, and in the UK,
until not so many years ago, it was around fifteen
percent too, and it's hovering now towards twenty percent because
they've had a massive influx just in recent times. But

(37:58):
it's interesting that Australia is actually a lot higher than that,
and that is because we have been a great immigrant
nation and the most successful immigration immigrant nation in the
world until now, and it has by and large worked

(38:18):
incredibly well for us until now, and Bondi has now
the Bondai massacre has sort of raised that question about
whether we've gone too far or not now. I think
in Australia, I mean I have friends and my children
have friends who they've been through school and university, who

(38:41):
are every color of the rainbow and from every every
kind of extraction from every country around the world, who
are great Australians and from great Australian families. I like
to think I'm colorblind and I know my children are
where that's the way they've been raised.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
So it has been very successful for us.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
And that success started with the Snowy Mountain Scheme when
we had the biggest engineering project in Australia to build
these hydroelectric power scheme that solved our energy problems that
were dire.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Post World War Two.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
And it was massive.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
It was huge.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
It was the biggest engineering project in the world at
the time and remained the biggest project I think for decades.
I think it's been surpassed now and I'm not sure
which projects have surpassed it. But just another little family
anecdote for you later is that my husband, Angus Taylor's
maternal grandfather was in charge of that scheme, and he

(39:48):
was a New Zealander. His name was William Hudson. He
was later knighted for his role in that scheme. So
he is or was Sir William Hudson, and his official
title was the Chief Engineer of the Snowy Mountain Scheme.
He was appointed by the Chief Lely government, but the
Chief Engineer was effectively the CEO two and so he

(40:11):
held that position for twenty five years, and he ran
that scheme as an unbelievable leader of people. And he
was behind the idea to bring out all of the
immigrants from Europe, a huge number for the times, and

(40:34):
throw them onto the scheme because we needed them. And
there were thirty three different nations who worked whose people
were represented on the Snowy Scheme, and a lot of
them wanted to because it was just after the war.
A lot of them had been fighting each other in
Europe and they wanted to go into ethnic camps. They

(40:55):
wanted the Serbs wanted their camp, and the Italians wanted
their camp, and the Germans wanted to be here. And
he insisted that they all worked together, that he would
not allow them to the cause they all lived in
camps around in the mountains. And he pushed them all
together deliberately because he said they all had to learn

(41:17):
to work with each other.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
And it was a huge success.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
And then they, of course, after the scheme has finished,
they went out into our country and became great Australians.
And so that is, that is the success story upon
which our our multicultural nation was founded, and I think
that's got to be the model going forward. I mean,

(41:43):
I like to think of I mean, we all come
from somewhere. I'm from you know, mostly English and some
Irish stock exclusively, but.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
We all come from somewhere.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
But I do like to think that most Australians, even
if they bring another culture with them, another identity, even
another faith, are Australians for and then they bring some
of that with them. So now is that breaking down
a bit too much? And are there some faith some
groups that are living in enclaves and not you know,

(42:21):
not being properly Australian.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yes, that's that's definitely happening. Should we try to stop that.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, it's a matter of it's a matter of culture
rather than race.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Absolutely, of course it is, yes, and it must be
going forward. So look, we're about to have a big
debate going into the next federal election about immigration and
levels of immigration, and that is I think less about

(42:55):
a rejection by most Australians of multiculturalism. I just don't
think that's broadly speaking who we are. But it will
be a legitimate debate around just bringing too many people
in and the impact on the economy and in particular
on housing, which is like the rest of the West,

(43:18):
in a complete crisis, but in Australia he's becoming very acutet.
We just don't have enough homes for the people who
are living here and it's created an affordability crisis along
with another you.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Know, well we both countries have the same problem. Yes,
I want to impose this if I may so. William Hudson,
civil engineer, born on twenty seven April eighteen ninety six
in East Nelson, New Zealand, seventh of eleven children of
James Hudson, a medical practitioner from London, and his new

(43:56):
Zealand born wife Beatrice Jane Nie Andrew and doctor Hudson
kept a tight reign on his family and expected Bill
to study medicine. Bill enraged him when his matriculation year
at Nelson College, he said he wanted to be a
civil engineer. In a classic case of parental misjudgment, the

(44:17):
father told the son destined to become a world leader
in his profession, Bill, that is about aud your bloody
well good for anyway. He moved to Australia in nineteen twenty.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Eight, Yes, via Scotland.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
I think he'd been building dams in Scotland when he
arrived here, and then I worked on the Nepean Dam
or somewhere up there for a while, and then there
came this idea to build the hydro electric scheme. And
I think legend has it, and I think it's true.

(44:53):
It was reported somewhere that chiefly said to his minister,
I've forgotten who the minister was at the time, bring
me three names. And the minister at the time brought
three names to cabinet on a piece of paper.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
I know what they said, and it.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Said Hudson, Hudson, Hudson. So that there are some great stories.
There are some wonderful stories about him and the kind
of leader he was. There is a there's a book
on leadership where the author, I think it's a book

(45:30):
that's been around for some time, looks at different models
of leadership and he gives a whole chapter to William Hudson.
I think he called him a model leader. He was
a very astute man, but he also led by example.
He was a workaholic, and so I think I don't
think this is recorded, but there is a legend in

(45:53):
Kuma where he lived. He lived in a house on
a right at the top of a hill where most
people in the town or a lot of people could
see that his bedroom or his office light on, and
people used to say it was the life last light
to go off in Kuma, because he'd be up for
all hours of the night just working, communicating, writing letters.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
He was very good.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
I mean every single piece of that project, because there
were different dams built. It was an enormous project that
went over, as I said, more than twenty five years.
I think thirty years. Every single project came in on
or under budget and under time.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
I tell you what we need work, but he work.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
We do.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
And he was a bit of a slave driver, but
he cared a lot for his people. And so Angus
has been approached by so many people through his time.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
He's sort of twelve years so far in politics.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Who will approach him in the street or at an
event or at a country show and say, your grandfather
helped my grandmother or my father or my and there
was this act of kindness, you know, And so he
was just respected and imbired by the people who worked
on the scheme.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
He was an amazing leader.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Well for those who are interested, and they will be
so William Hudson, do a search and choose the Australian
Dictionary of Biography as your goal comes up right right
near the top. And it's an amazing It's quite a long,
but it's an amazing story. I've been listening to you

(47:40):
and trying to soak up some of that at the
same time. Anyway, I'm so pleased you raise that's that's magic.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
It is magic, and.

Speaker 4 (47:53):
It's so I mean, look, I've been profoundly interested and
impacted by that. It helps me because I'm married to
Angus his grandson, to better understand the Australian story. But
also you know, see a way through for our immigrant nation.
There's this, you know, there's this terrible strain of anti

(48:18):
immigrant sort of almost white supremacy coming through some of
our more virulent right wing you know, podcast influencer politics,
particularly out of America. I don't like that, and we
can't we can't go back to that sort of that,

(48:39):
those kinds of attitudes, and so I think the only
way forward is for our country in particular to embrace
you know, all of us together and work together and
and be proud of that legacy that we have, but
also insist I think that those who do not share

(49:03):
our values are not welcome.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
We need to be much more kere. Okay, So who comes.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
In Absolutely, what I'm going to suggest is, from my perspective,
it's lack of it's lack of leadership in New Zealand
and Australia, in Britain I won't include America, but in
the anglosphere it's it's just a weakness of strength of character,

(49:35):
is the way I put it.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
Yes, Look, it's just been easy for politicians and treasurers
to sort of keep bringing immigrantcy in because it helps
with the numbers, it helps with growth, It makes those
big sort of macro economic numbers look better, and to
be fair, until recently, the unintended consequences were not evident.

(50:03):
There are evident to some of us, but you know,
the problems on the ground, the impact on infrastructure and
health and housing, was being felt again by the people
who were further removed from power and starting to cry

(50:23):
out saying, hold on, well, there's not enough room. I've
got a queue up at in an emergency room for
too long. You know, I can't my kids can't buy
a house. That's been going on for a while, and
now you know, it's quite clear that too much immigration
has contributed significantly to that, and now the political parties are.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Paying the price for that. It's happening everywhere.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
It's easy to say that this was really obvious for
a long time because it wasn't that obvious to a
lot of people. To be honest, it was obvious to
the people who were not being listened to, but it
just wasn't obvious to others.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
And you're you're quite right. I want to make reference
to last night's Sky Australia News, which we get here
and the subject of the Liberal Party, which is the
party that you're part of. Anger certainly is the I

(51:34):
don't know whether you saw it or not. No, the
discussion about now I don't have the names in front
of me, and that's my that's my failing here. There
was somebody who was elected to be leader I think,
and was gone before midnight because it was discovered that

(51:56):
he's written a letter of support to a for a pedophile.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Oh yes, no, that is That is a very upsetting
thing that happened. There was a pre selection in Victoria
for the state parliament and a people were extremely upset
about the outcome because the fellow who won the pre

(52:21):
selection was I suppose, you know, unpopular or not well
known amongst I suppose it was a conservative of the
in Australian politics and he beat a very well known

(52:46):
and very popular woman who has he Well, there's a
bit of a there's a very long history. But broadly speaking,
this youngish woman nomin she's not that young.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
She's a suburban.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Housewife and mother who sort of came into Victorian state
politics quite a few years ago now with a bit
of a sarmp because she was just very authentic and
real and very attractive and could articulate the concerns of
Western Melbourne and seemed like a great star. But what
happened some time ago is that she went off to

(53:23):
a rally where she was there in support of women's rights,
and the rally became sort of nasty and there were
Nazis there nearby her rallying for women's rights, effectively against
transgender rights. So she was a conservative woman rallying for
women's rights. And after that incident, Victorian politics since then

(53:49):
has sort of the knock on effect.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Of that has been very, very unfortunate.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
I think the then leader of the Victorian State Liberal
Party was against her, and I don't know the detail,
and I don't because I haven't followed it that closely
other than from instance, but he criticized her and indicated
and said that he had she was associating with Nazi
sympathized sympathizers. That led to a flurry of terrible things,

(54:20):
her being suspended from the Liberal Party, that led to
her suing him for defamation and winning that trial. This
all took months, good Yews, and so there's this. It's
been the cause of a effectively a civil war within
the Victorian State Liberal Party as people, you know, not
just members of parliament, but members of the party and

(54:45):
factional people became involved and took sides and it just
continued and it's continuing now unfortunately. And this latest eruption
when she stood for pre selection to be renominated to
go back into Parliament and was and did not win.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Against someone who.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
Was is unknown and considered by the Conservatives, I suppose,
and in fact many moderates to be nowhere new as
an effective representative for not only for the area but
just for the for the whole of the party going forward.
And of course this woman more redeeming is her name.

(55:34):
This woman is someone who a lot of One Nation
supporters would admire and like because she's she's been fighting
hard sort of grassroots conservative battles and so it's not
a great development for the for the Victorian division. It's

(55:55):
not surprising. It just seems to continue. They can seem
to keep shooting themselves in the foot and it's a
great It's just a shame and it very makes it
very difficult for our very capable new leader down there.
So look, I think there might be a resolution because
this fellow who was pre selected was immediately outed as

(56:18):
having given a reference for a pedofile and it has
now withdrawn, so I don't know where it's at, but
I'm hoping that this that Moira will be asked to
reconsider and suddenly be given pre selection so that she

(56:40):
can stay in the Parliament and this mad, absolutely crazy
episode in Victorian state politics for the Liberal Party can
finally be put to rest.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Well, there are articles today encouraging her to go to
one Nation, go straight to one nation there.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
I hope that doesn't happen because she does have a
huge number of fans in the Liberal Party.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Well, I should also mention that there was some talk
of the party headquarters taking over the Victorian division. I
don't know. I'm not asking for an opinion on it,
just that things were so bad that it needed some
upstairs control.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
Oh, I don't know about that. I know I couldn't.
I can't help you with that. I mean, it's a
terrible situation. We've just had the Liberal Party in your
South Wales in administration where there's where there's been taken
over and it's about to go back to a newly
elected state executive to control with you know, with democratic accountability.

(57:48):
So hopefully some of the problems we've had there in
yourself wells will be resolved.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I want to ask you about a couple of other things,
just briefly AI. If I said to you that I
thought that AI was evil, would you laugh or agree?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Neither.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
I don't know where it's going, and I don't think
the experts know. I use AI for lots of things.
Whether you know how much to put in my as
yesterday I chat gpted how much chemical I should put

(58:33):
in my backpack when I was spraying some weeds in
the garden. I mean, it's unbelievably useful because it's intelligent.
It's not just a case of googling and sort of
searching through links to find information. I use it in
research for my writing. It saves me enormous amounts of time.

(58:57):
I have to fact check everything that it gives me
because I know that it hallucinates and makes mistakes, so
I'm very careful.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
How are you it?

Speaker 4 (59:09):
But it is a massive productivity enhancer for people like
me who are writing for professionals, who are loiling for consultants.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
It's huge. It's huge.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
Now there are massive implications there for the white collar classes,
because the white collar classes sort of used their minds
constantly every day, and AI is helping them to be
more productive. As I say, it can hallucinate, it can

(59:45):
go down a burrow, So it's not as effective for
someone who doesn't know what they're doing. So it's very
very good for experts because if you know how to
drive it and ask questions and interrogate it, it is
very very effective because it So there has to be
some good in that. But where it takes us as

(01:00:07):
a societ with already too many people I think with
university degrees.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
And well unnecessary ones.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
And yes, and then you know, the economic sort of
lag from the pandemic has still not played through, particularly
in Australia, and now we've got this energy crisis around
the world which is going to raise inflation again, and
so we you know, we are now facing more economic

(01:00:41):
hardship I think over the coming months, if not years,
And so you then think about the impact of AI
over that, particularly in the professions and the knowledge economy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
That could get very ugly.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
So if you mean, if you think if you're talking
about that being evil, I think, well, yes, potentially evil.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
But I'm not a.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Technologist technologist and I'm not an economist, so this is
not really my Baliwick.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
No, but because so many people doing it, that's not
it's you can say that it's not their bally Wick
or or it is because because you're using it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
No, I'm just I'm just uncertain about where it plays out.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
And I mean even the.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
The people who are expressing views about this, you know,
whether they're academics or commentators, whether it's Elon Musk or
you know, people who really understand it better than any
of us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
When you have these big technology leaps in, you know,
throughout all of history, it causes huge disruption. And so
when the disruption occurs, there are there are often big
segments in society who lose out and who become poor.
But the general consensus is that technology eventually increases productivity,

(01:02:08):
things level out. It causes disruption and cost and economic costs,
hardship for a while, but overall enhances.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Human experience and development and wealth.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Now some of the experts are saying at the moment
that this is the time when this won't happen because
it's just too enormous, and so we're going to end
up with a society and where we have just a
massive numbers of people who won't be employed. I hope
that's not the case, but I don't I don't feel

(01:02:44):
equipped to speculate on that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
I know somebody I'm very close to who uses it
all the time now for the same sort of things
that you do, and I've seen, I've seen more than
one misleading result. That's all. That's the that's the lengths
of my experience with it. Have a very good ex

(01:03:10):
workmate who I'm going to be seeing very shortly, not
today but soon, who is on top of it, and
it's now his game and I've got some questions for
him on this next next occasion. Let me make this
the last thing we touch on. The last question, the
Iran War. How do you feel about it? Can be

(01:03:32):
as brief brief as you like, but just how do
you feel about it?

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
When push comes to shove.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
I hope America and Israel win, and I hope they
ring win quickly. I do think you can question whether
they knew precisely what they were getting in for, whether
there has been some miscalculation as to how difficult it
might have been. But I also say to those who

(01:04:02):
are critics of the US and Israel, well, all that
has done is exposed how advanced the Mathers are in
their desire to wreak havoc on the West. Because the
pushback that has occurred, the revelation that there are undersea

(01:04:26):
drones in the Hummus Straits, and the fact that there
is there seems to be so much determination from Iran
is terrifying. And so I think it has revealed, you know,
whether you think it was wise to do it at all,
or wise to do it when they did it, it
has revealed, I think, the threat to the West, and

(01:04:50):
therefore I think it is it was an inevitability anywhere,
and so we just have to hope that the good
guys prevail and succeed. Now I'm not quite sure what
the definition of success is. Again, not a national secuit
already expert, but I hope it finishes very quickly for

(01:05:12):
all of our sakes, because it's impacting all of us.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
But I'm loath to.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Hile in on the Americans and the Israelis for taking
the decision that they did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
I think that's very very easy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
It's very easy for the commentators like us, without knowing
all the information that was before the people who took
these decisions, to criticize.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
I think that that's a very good summation of things, Louise.
It's been a pleasure, thank you. I can only say
that I think that there will be a considerable number
more New Zealanders paying attention to the next election in
Australia the lead up to it on two fronts, one
your domestic one and the other one your grandfather in law.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Well, there is a nice connection there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Angus does feel a very special connection to New Zealand
because of that, and he loves we love New Zealand
as a country, and we've visited there a few times
of course, so there is you know, he almost feels
like a key week, all right. But yes, but yes,
the broader political scene here is incredibly interesting, likely to

(01:06:29):
stay so for some time, and just a reflection of
what is going on around the world. And for that reason,
I think, you know, we all have to accept it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Whilst all politics is local, there's.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
A lot of what is going on now that he's
very global and sort of structural if you like.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Indeed, all right, as I said, a pleasure, thank.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
You, Thanks Layton. Great to talk to here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Thanks Louise. On Podcast three twenty two Into the Ball room,

(01:07:15):
missus producer is ready in waiting. Hi Layton, are you well?

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
I'm great. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
I knew that before I asked, but I thought of polite,
so I invite you to go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
I shall start, Jin says.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
Australian voters are obviously fed up with having to choose
between a militantly woke Labor Party and an impotently incompetent
Liberal opposition.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
This can only be good for.

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
The One Nation Party, as demonstrated by the recent South
Australia elections. Pauline Hanson has been tirelessly fighting for Australians
for three decades. Her fires of conviction have never dimmed,
and her ability to stand out as spectacular in the
age of disillusionment season campaigners of third party parties can

(01:08:02):
really shine our own. Pauline Hanson is, of course, Winston Peters.
Barry Sober described to Winston as a campaigner extraordinaire in
his recent interview with Heather and You've got to hand
it to Winston. He is adept at listening out for
the rising tides of sentiment and expertly rides the sentimental
waves like a political surfer. I certainly cheered when he

(01:08:24):
permanently ruled out working with Chris Hipkins, rejected the legally
binding WHO international health regulation and appointed the well respected
Alfred Naro into New Zealand first. However, if Winston wants
to garner more votes, he needs to be much more
transparent about his choice of political bedfellows early in the

(01:08:46):
election cycle in order to ensure us he will never
empower another just cinder a durn.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Again indeed and very well framed. I thought. The other
thing he has to do is, well, anybody has to
do if they want my vote, is to dump on
net to zero. And there's more on that before the
end of the podcast. The Paul rights, so glad you
raised the UN's assault on our personal health sovereignty. It's

(01:09:14):
so good we rejected the who's proposals. I'll chew it
to that. It's rare to get a win pushing back
against this multi headed leviathan. It would have been it
would have been great to go further and note the
UN wanted to link their overriding of national sovereignty by
the WHO with their push for global digital id so

(01:09:38):
overriding individual sovereignty as well in partnership with their buddies
at the WAF, of course, and this is where we
need to realize the UN is just a vehicle to
promote global left wing ideology and authoritarianism. Recall the quote
O'Sullivan's first law, all organizations that are not expressly right

(01:10:00):
wing will over time become left wing. For decades, these
collectivists have worked to korl, disarm, and disenfranchise particularly Western citizens.
Under their preferred left leaning government partners, they literally set
an agenda that nearly all governments now slavishly follow, regardless
of being colored red or blue, or what the public

(01:10:23):
actually voted for. Anyone remember voting for the sustainability goals
that force you out of your car through climate taxes,
force councils to spend millions on cycle ways, the anti
meat narrative, the migration compacts, and indigenous rights. They have
the nerve to tell us how to run New Zealand

(01:10:44):
when they clearly don't even know what indigenous means. Then
they support and protect terrible regimes under their fictitious international
law quote unquote, promote abuse of governments to their Human
Rights Council and invite failed energy experts like I don't
want to say it, and invite failed energy experts like

(01:11:10):
jasindradn to speak and tell the world freedom of speech
is a weapon of war. Now they're trying a new
grift reparations for slavery, but only the Western linked Transatlantic slavery,
of course, not the Arab Subharan or slav or Barbary, Indian, Chinese, Turkish,

(01:11:32):
Mongol or those indigenous people's slave trades. It was hard
to get through, but it was worthy because it's correct.
It's time for UN exit. But in true globalist uni
party fashion, no mainstream party will ever put there that referendum.
To the people, cheers Paul, Well, Paul, Mostly you're right

(01:11:52):
and I accept what you say.

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
Layton Gary says after listening to the episode with Patrick Basham,
can I conclude that he believes the US invading around
would be a mistake and that the US or should
I say, the Republicans would lose the war and the
midterm election. He seems to be ignoring one major factor
which you already brought up to Patrick, whether Iran may

(01:12:18):
or already does have a nuclear missile. If they do,
Israel would be wiped out and millions could die. How
do they justify that point? And if the US doesn't
act now, how would they respond if Iran launches a
strike at that time? One important thing after your interview
is that over the weekend, Iran fired two mid range

(01:12:40):
missiles at the Diego Garcia military base. I wonder if
his view will change because of that. Love to listen
to your podcast. Keep up the good work. And that's
from Gary.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Thank you Gary. I've read that somewhere else, actually on
some other part of a podcast, this one or the
other one I can't recall now. Missus producer read an
email from Jin a little earlier, and I have one
to conclude with reason being that the one that she
read was from last week, but we missed it. I

(01:13:12):
overpassed it somehow and wondered where Jin was. He is
the most regular of all writers, even though we've got
some very regular writers. He never misses a week unless
he apologizes, usually in advance. But it was our fault
that we missed it last week. So realism must be

(01:13:32):
tempered by idealism in order to retain the confidence and
faith of the people quote unquote, And just like that,
Ramesh the Kher seared his indelible quote deep into the
recesses of my psyche what a profound statement. Indeed, realism
breeds confidence and idealism breeds faith, but you need both

(01:13:57):
because realism without idealism is just slog without purpose, and
idealism without realism is just well leftism or progressivism. Jurastone,
the Australian economics writer, pointed this out in her Beautiful
Spectator article titled move Over Saint Jacinda, where she said

(01:14:19):
that the progressive mob keeps canonizing new saints of their
kind because adherence to left wing shibalus requires faith, unquestioning faith.
Saint Jasinda Adern has apparently been replaced by Saint Mark Carney,
the idiot who just got Bill C nine, also known

(01:14:41):
as the Combating Hate Act passed in the House of Commons.
It's effectively a hate speech law that could see preachers
in Canada thrown in jail for preaching specific passages of
the Bible. Mark Carney ain't no saint, He's an Antichrist. Doctor,
Jordan Peterson, You're needed in the world again. God rescue

(01:15:03):
us from these progressive anti saints. And yes, God defend
New Zealand disselection she is Jim Leighton.

Speaker 5 (01:15:11):
Chris says, I heard your comment re some people thought
World War three had broken out on Podcast three twenty
with Patrick. I never thought that was the case. I
thought you were both civil and respectful of each other. However,
I did think that Patrick seemed to be on edge
and less composed, less composed than usual as usual. I
liked your interview with Rummish the ker and Podcast three

(01:15:33):
to one, and that's from Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Everybody says that Chris, and they like, they like people
like Rummish. Actually people like a lot of the people
I interview. But specifically I say that because only somebody
just yesterday evening said said it to me, missus producer,
thank you. We'll see you, Thank you Layton next week
without struggle. Now to take us out for three hundred

(01:16:07):
and twenty two, I want to drop in a couple
of references to climate matters that help straighten things out.
In fact, they've got more than a couple, but are
restricted to that. Let me start with the Victor Davis Hanson,
who's not a scientist, he's a historian, proclaims the end
of climate change. Quote end of climate change. By the way,

(01:16:31):
anything that Victor Davis Hanson says or writes or claims
is well worthy of inspection. Decades of consensus around so
called climate catastrophe are now running into new economic, technological,
and geopolitical realities. Mix in AI and the unprecedented demand

(01:16:52):
for large scale electricity generation. Mix in AI and the
unprecedented demand for large scale electricity generation, and we have
a global climate conversation that demands to be reckoned with.
Victor Davis Hanson breaks down how the foundations decades of
green orthodoxy are shifting the people quote. The people who

(01:17:14):
have been avatars for climate change never suffer the consequences
of their own ideology. Barack Obama said the planet would
be inundated pretty soon if we didn't address global climate change.
Why would he then buy a seaside estate Marty's Vineyard
or one on the beach at Hawaii if he really

(01:17:36):
did believe that the oceans would rise and flood his
multimillion dollar investment quote. The inconsistency of the global warming narrative,
the self interest in the people who promote it, and
the logic that they have not presented empirically the evidence
that would convince us that we have to radically transform

(01:17:58):
our economies on the wishes of a few elites that
do not have the evidence, but do have a lot
of hypocrisy in the process.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Number two new book relatively called Sunset on net zero
describes in detail while why net zero CO two is
pointless and unachievable, It explains in understandable terms the up
to date thoughts of the greatest minds of today in physics, meteorology, economics, engineering,

(01:18:30):
and the geosciences. Net zero CO two is pointless because
we have now confirmed by satellites that ninety percent of
CO two warming has already happened. CO two is not
an existential threat, but clouds, El Nino and human habitation
are significant drivers of global warming that are often ignored.

(01:18:54):
Net zero CO two is unachievable because the green technology
alternatives are unreliable and unaffordable. Aren't we all learning that?
Shouldn't we have learned by now, if not personally, then
by what we see and know on a daily basis.
Almost wind and solar power triple electricity costs. Building fully

(01:19:16):
electric vehicles produces at least one half of CO two
emissions that they are meant to avoid, and heat pumps
will leave you dangerously cold in the winter. Green hydrogen
air capture CO two and carbon capture and storage are
prescriptions for national bankruptcy. The supply of key metals and

(01:19:38):
minerals required to achieve net zero need to be at
least doubled, some much more, and are often controlled by
a very few. Net zero comes with huge environmental and
agricultural costs. And concluding, we have been through similar climatic
temperature changes before, more recently than you think, our efforts

(01:19:59):
to control it are futile. Would you like the last one?
Why climate science is not settled? The repeated claim that
climate sciences settled overlooks myriad uncertainties, competing mechanisms and computer
models that missed the mark when tested against reality. Declaring

(01:20:20):
finality in such a field reflects political confidence, even arrogance,
not scientific maturity. Computer models based on faulty premises are
the bible for the modern climate movement. This despite the
United Nations in a Governmental Panel on Climate change describing
climate as a coupled nonlinear chaotic system. A coupled nonlinear

(01:20:46):
chaotic system where long term prediction is effectively impossible. Policies
costing trillions of dollars rely entirely on outputs of these
digital simulations, But a model is only as good as
its assumptions. When those assumptions this is the final, when
those assumptions fail to match the physical world and on

(01:21:08):
a scientists discards the model. The climate establishment instead discards
the data. Lis more, but you'll find it under why
climate science is not settled on the site of Climate
Change Dispatch. That is enough to take us out for
podcast number three, double two. Don't forget to drop us

(01:21:30):
a note, write to us anytime latent Deus talksb dot
co dot nz caroln also at newstalksb dot co dot
NZED leave out the also right ah and we love
hearing from you, so as always to conclude, let me
say thank you for listening and we'll talk very soon.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
Thank you for more from News Talks B. Listen live
on air or online, and keep our shows with you
wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio O