May 1, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, I sit down with Ro Knox, the Liberal candidate running for Wentworth, going up against independent MP Allegra Spender.
We unpack who Ro really is - her upbringing, schooling, and long career in business - and how that experience shapes her approach to politics. She speaks candidly about the need for stronger economic leadership, concerns around Australia’s credit rating under Labor, and what she believes Wentworth needs from its representative.
We also talk about her support for small businesses, and what she plans to bring to Parliament if elected.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, my Boris, and this is straight Talk Rownox. Welcome
to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You know it's I'm one of your constituents and I've
been driving around for maybe I've been driving around forever,
but I've been driving around the last two months and
I see this photograph of you everywhere alongside others. Yeah. Yeah,
And you know, I'm thinking about the battle that you
(00:28):
are currently engaged in trying to win back the seat
for the Liberal Party, and I thought to myself, I
don't really know this person. I've known previous sitting candidates
are sitting members for the area, and I thought it
would be good to get you on to talk to
Rowe Knox and ask her about herself. And I mean,
(00:49):
I could have googled you, I guess, but this is
our Google.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yah.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So uh Liberal candidate for wentworth a high they regarded
long standing until a more recently liberal seat for all
the obvious reasons. We're all lucky enough to live in
a what would be considered socioeconomically to be a high
(01:18):
number in terms of representation of wealth in the country.
Not all of us grew up there or went to
school there, but Nonetheless, we're living there, and so we're
sort of lucky and very blessed, and most of us
have a fair bit of gratitude for that, and we
shouldn't expect it to be a liberalcy just by virtue
(01:40):
of that, and it isn't at the moment. It belongs
to the Teals. And I thought, let's start there. You're
in politics, you understand this game better than I do.
Why are they called teals?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So? I think the concept behind teals was to say
that they're liberals, but they also have grain policies. They're
blue and grain together. But teal is actually a dark
grain in your viewer, I get it, and I think
actually the definition is it is actually dark grain. Yes,
if we go full Panton, it's actually dark, it's actually
(02:21):
dark gray.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That's quite clever.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And a Legra Spender, who's your opposition. She's a city
member for went Worth, and we will ask I will
ash them. I'm just a define went with for a moment. Yes,
but she's about as liberal as I can imagine as
in terms of her how she grew up. Her mother
(02:44):
was Carla Zempatty. Her father was John Spender, the Attorney
General for New South Wales state government liberal. You know,
a wealthy family. Imagine she grew up in sort of
the best possible conditions, yet she becomes an independent and
(03:04):
forms part of this till group. Can you explain to
your constituents why does someone do that? I mean, what's
the deal? Right way?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, Look, I don't really understand the motivation because I'm
always a person that if you want to change something,
you've got to do it from inside. And you know,
I also worked in New York for a long time
and culture change can happen at organizations, but you've got
to do it from the inside. I think the view
was she wanted to do something that was going to
(03:37):
make a big sort of media splash, which of course
it did. And I think the great thing about being
an independent is not accountable, so you don't actually ever
have to deliver anything.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You don't have a party to talk to.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You don't have a party to talk to. But you
also don't really have to deliver fe your constituents because
you can just say I'm working across the floor, I'm
voting on issues that are important to our community without
actually having to stand up and have a piece of
legislation that goes through the parliament. So the Teals haven't
had one private members bill that's been put through the parliament,
(04:07):
not one, not one, And I would have thought sort
of a key KPI of a member of Parliament is
to have legislation put through, so not one has been
put through. So I think it's quite appealing in some
ways because you can also promise everything. You don't have
to get anything costed out by Treasury. You don't have
to then actually put it into the budget and get
it delive it. And I think that that's quite appealing
(04:29):
sort of space to be in the world that we're
in at the moment, which is so driven by marketing
and talking and not actual delivery.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
On her strap line, it says your values, your voice,
But I guess people are voting for a candidate like
that would like to know what her valiers are and
for her to use her voice to pursue her values
and hopefully hopefully her values are equivalent or somewhat similar
(04:59):
to mine. What are the values of these this mob
like I've never really found out.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, so I think it's very hard to exactly tell,
but if we can maybe one indicator sort of voting
records so on legislation, which I always think is the
way of measuring MPs. Allegra's voted seventy one percent of
the time with Labor, seventy percent of the time with Greens,
and twenty seven percent of the time with the Coalition.
(05:25):
So if you look at that sort of mix, that
feels very much more like values that are more aligned
with the Labor and Greens Party than with the Liberal Party.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Is that the reason they don't actually get up and
say what their values are.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, I think it's easy just to have these big
sort of motherhood and apple pie sort of statements. It's
much easier than saying this is what I stand for.
You know, this is what I'm going to deliver. I
think if you just speak in very broad statements. I
also find it quite interesting a lot of Tail voters
that I talk to, they're all about their own values
and they want their own values presented. And I actually
(06:01):
have a real problem with that because I think your
member of parliament, of course they must advocate for the community,
but they should also be thinking much more broadly about Australia.
They've got a spot at the table to help the
whole country. And I don't think it should just be
representing voice of a very small number of people. I
don't think that's the right way to be a member
of parliament.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's very interesting, and that's another bout allegra. I now
I want to talk about Roxy. I've often wondered what
row stands. Was it Rowena?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It's actually Roane Roan. So my parents both had very
strong views on which name they'd come up for, and
then they just I think one was probably exhausted and
so they just put together this name. And I have
never been called I hardly ever get called Rowan.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I don't think I've ever heard that name, that Rowanne.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, I think it's a bit of a made up name.
It is naturally a very nasty industrial town in France,
so maybe they didn't quite check that at the time.
But I never get over there, get called Roe or Rowan,
never get called Roan.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So let's a little bit of a trip. Now, So
where did you talk about your parents?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Where did you grow up? What'd your parents do?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yees? So I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, but
mum and dad are actually both from New South Wales.
That's okay. I'm not a Victorian strictly, and Dad was
an engineer who started his own company, so very much
a small business owner which became a big business. And
obviously at that time when he was building the business,
(07:32):
they were fighting the union, so that was sort of
part of my DNA, this we should have freedom of enterprise.
I always remember Dad talking about that. And Mum was
a physio. She's half Swedish, so her mother's family were
all Swedish, So Marke if you can imagine a lot
of sport, a lot of fish, a lot of health,
(07:54):
and a very warm I had a very warm upbringing.
But mum also has a very still yearly core so
and I think some of that yearly strong pace has
been really, really helpful during this campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, I was gonna. I asked about the campaign a
little bit later actually, because I'm always I'm always constantly
thinking to myself, I wonder if they knew what they
were getting themselves into, because it looks like it's been
pretty hectic for everybody. But have you got brother and sisters.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I do have a brother who I'm very close to.
He's a school principal in Melbourne, and my kids always
joked that he's clearly the favorite child because he's just
so he's one of those people that's ridiculously good at everything,
more annoying, sickening, and he's also really nice guards very annoying.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It's not my brother. He's good. My younger brother is
good at everything.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It's very annoying, very frustrating, good.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Good at Taller than me, better swimmer than me, better
student than me, better everything. Ever. But I got the
wood on him because I'm older than him, so I'm
actually that's that's the only thing. And he's still he
still looks at me as his older brother. Yeah right,
So where'd you go to school down there?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So? I went to Atte College in mental As and
I was head of my school down there, and it
was great. It was great childhood. The beach is down there,
obviously a lot colder than up here, but we mom
and dad had a beach house up a crescent Head
on the central coast present Head.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, we spent I spent a huge amount of time
up there. That was my whole childhood. They actually just
sold it a couple of years ago because I thought
they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Quite make the drive now from Melbourne too.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
From Melbourne, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Bit of a drive from Melbourne, but not too bad
from Sydney.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I know it's and now with the roads so much better.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, the road is. And where do you live in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We're living We've been in Pennington for over twenty years. Yeah,
so we love it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So you're married.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I am married to John. We actually met at university
and we actually started going out because he was one
of the only people at college that didn't like me,
and I was in treat. I was completely treat. So
he was very much the sporty, hardcore boy kind of contingent.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So you played hard to get Yeah, well I think so.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I think so, But.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I'd like to get his story from So you went
through school. What were you like as a student?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Look, I was pretty big personality, but I was also
I was a hard worker and I loved the academic
side of I love the academic side of school. So yeah,
I loved it. But I was also definitely not the
teacher's pet.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I would say in that was it a girls school?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It was an all girls school.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Does that mean you spoke your mind?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I did speak my mind, but I think also a
little bit of class clown actually, mark a lot of
easy jokes from the.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Back, you know, the back rode. Well, that's been interesting
to have a politician who can actually pull off a
good joke. There's nothing so leaving school, what happened that?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So then I went to Melburene University. I did a
lord great at Melbourne University and an arts degree because
we used to do them. To hear that, yeah, yeah,
so you don't how they used to do that? Combine
and I went to Ormond College, whereas chairman of the
Ormand College Students Club, was the second female chair of that.
So people always say, oh, this politic stuff must be
really hard. Try living with people, you know, because at
(11:06):
college some of the things we had to behaviorally put
in place, and you're living with people. But that was
absolutely fantastic and I'm still my closest friends still come
from that time.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
See what you come out of university with an arsenal degree,
did you? I don't know what they do down Victoria,
but I presume that the College of Law down there,
the College and Knowledge. After the university.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I'd actually been to Israel as part of my law
degree because Melbourne University used to have an exchange and
I sort of fancied myself as a very glamorous international lawyer,
as in humanitarian or international law, and I thought I'd
maybe go and work in the hard or be around
Europe just loving at and so I went to Israel.
(11:49):
But it was that time in Israel where it was
all about entrepreneurship. So they just started this amazing Yachtsam
fund and it was all about innovation, and the whole
campus was saying, why would you go? I can do law,
go and do business. So I finished my Lord Agree,
and then went straight into management consulting.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So did you work for one of the management I did.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And my first project was actually in Chicago, and as
my mum said, that is a bit of a community,
which it was. So then after Chicago John who was
my boyfriend at the time, and I moved to New
York and then I worked with Deloitte Consulting in their
strategy group in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Are you worth with Deloitte's Yes, So that's interesting, Angus
Tana's some somewhat of a similar story to you in
some respects in terms of managed consultant. For those people
who don't quite live in that world, what are those
you know, the boss consulting group Deloitt's, et cetera. What
do they do when it comes to manage consults? What's
(12:46):
that mean?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah? I think it can be somewhat of an esoteric concept.
So I arrived in New York in ninety eight, so
it was all about the gross story. So all the
financial services organizations were trying to deal with this thing
called the Internet. They're trying to make sure that their
staff are really motivated, they're launching new products. And then,
(13:08):
of course by two thousand, every project I was doing
was all cost cunning, like how can we get rid
of all those stuff? And it completely? And then obviously
was September eleventh, there was and in the US that
was a massive, massive recession, particularly in financial services.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah. So but in terms of skills, what are you
going to bring to work? Skills? What are you going
to bring to parliament? So what are the sort of
things you would learn?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So do you one hundred percent understand how businesses work?
And then I went from there to start a small
VC firm where we were backing startups, mention capitalists. Yes,
and it was very small numbers, so we're sort of
between angel investors and Series A and would go in
and actually run the company. But I think for management consulting,
(13:56):
you learn the discipline, You learn the riger around financial
modeling and what businesses work and what don't. And you
also have to be a super super quick study because
the clients are expecting good advice from you, and you
have to be able to learn their.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Business very quickly and work long hours.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Extraordinarily long hours. And I used to wear crazy hours
in New York. But with the guy who is the
managing director of the office, when you had your very
academic interview with him, he'd also take you for a
drink and you didn't get the job unless he sort
of liked you. So the culture he created was extraordinary.
So I used to I loved going to work. We
(14:33):
had a great We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And with a venture capital business, that is a fund,
that's someone who's raised money to invest in your case,
you're to about startups or early stage, pre seed, seed,
et cetera. What types of this in America?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
By the way, Yeah, it was all US based, right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So what sort of businesses were you were you sort
of tending towards because I enough to take Burma to
start up again, or what was going on in those
or where the you know, the so called Internet of
things had kicked off and everyone was talking about that
in terms of sensory stuff. Where were you guys concentrating
your efforts on.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, so we'd all come from the financial services strategy groups,
so all our first businesses were all around financial services.
So this is really going to age me Mark. But
we had a debit card for kids, and this was
when debit cards were just coming out, and it was
called my Plash, my plastic Cash, and the idea was
then the parents could load money onto the card, but
(15:31):
it was capped. And the reason why we did that
is one of our friends was a partner and his
daughter had taken this good only happened in Manhattan, had
taken his black ames with no limit on it. So
that was sort of the genesis of the idea, and
we were we had the biggest market share that business,
and it was one of the first businesses. And now they
still have Spriggy and things that still those businesses are
(15:53):
still existing.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What do you learn What are some of the skills
that you get out of being involved in those environments
in the including the manager consultancy, but importantly into the
venture capitalist environment where you've got like small business people
who sort of come up with a great idea, but
they've got no money, and then it gets some capital
to bring this thing to life. And what are the
sort of things you learned that might be relevant to
(16:16):
why someone should vote for you, for example?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So I think the biggest one you learn, as you know,
is you can have absolutely zero arrogance because the ideas
on the as good as it's how hard you work.
And I think the second thing that I really really
learned in that space, which is why I find the
whole tier value proposition very problematic, is where you used
(16:42):
to say to some of our entrepreneurs, you know, rowe
has fifty ideas, when she's brushing your teeth, it doesn't
matter what can we execute? And I really really learned
the value of execution. And then the other thing is,
as you would know, when you're at that seed stage,
you're actually investing in the entrepreneur, So you're investing in
the person. And so I also am a very very
(17:03):
good charge of character and I learned a lot around that,
and not to do business with people that don't have
anything to lose. You've always got to be high integrity.
Your word has to mean something otherwise people don't want
to do business with you, they won't give you money,
and obviously learn how to work like crazy. And I
think they're all. I think they're all very important.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah. I think that's a good one too, that being
able to judge someone's character. But also these startups are
using someone else's money, so to some extent that you've
got to make a judgment as to whether or not
do they actually perceive there's any downside and what is
the downside that they're concerned about, that they'll work hard
(17:46):
towards not happening. And that sort of judgment is a
hard one. That's a tough judgment in parliament, in government
or not government. You know in government, you're in parliament.
In parliament, do you come across those sorts of characters?
Do you think you'll come across those sorts of characters
who have got nothing to lose and therefore don't care.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, I think totally. And I also think that's why
business backgrounds so important. So just on this campaign, I
always say to the team, any piece of money that
we've raised, someone's earned two dollars. They've earned two dollars
that's exactly right to give us, to give us the
one dollar, and I think that's something that should be
in the mindset of every single person that's sitting in
(18:27):
Parliament any of these budget try things. You're taking money
from really hard working Australian so you b to b
spending it in the most effective way possible.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's a point that's sort of been sort of griping
on me a little bit. So when I see the
cash splash, that's sort of been second nature to the
campaign that started, well, the campaign that wasn't announced but
definitely started in January, but it was announced much later
than that. The amount of money of us being thrown around.
(19:00):
As a person who comes from your background, what do
you think of that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I think it's really bad. And I'm really because it's
the young people that are going to bear the brunt
of that debt, and some of the numbers are they're
going to have a trillion dollar debt if they keep
spending like this. I think it's four hundred and twenty
five billion they've already spent over the period in government
and then in future commitments, And to me, that's that's very,
very serious to have that sort of debt level, and
(19:26):
also just the lack of analytical examination of where that
money is going. And I think that's the management consultant
part of me, that they're just throwing money at things.
Nothing's means tested. So we're not even giving some of
this money to the people that need it the most.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
For example, the electricity rebate has been given to everyone.
You're getting it. I'm getting it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
If you've got ten houses, you're getting it.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
You're still getting it. Yes, I mean you're saying in
terms of that being an idea, the execution of the
idea is not very good because it should probably should
be restricted to just one one group. Well, one group
maybe perhaps should get more, that's exactly right, and the
other groups should get less or.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Maybe even more. Fundamentally, why do we deal with why
the energy costs have gone up so much? Let's deal
with the problem instead of dealing with sort of the
symptom and throwing money at the symptom.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So you talk just mentioned something quite interesting that you know,
what would be the assumed levels of debt that are
going to come forward over the next period. And one
thing is for sure, I think even the Labor Party
would admit this and they did talk about it. They've
had two years of surpluses, but now they're going to
have ten years of deficits. And definite is going to
(20:35):
be funded from somewhere either taxpayer is going to have
to pay more tax or they have to borrow the money.
And it looks like they haven't said that they're going
to get that yet, but under the current government it's
more likely they're going to have to probably some combination
of the two. We don't know whether they're going to
implose more taxes on the community, but we'll soon see,
(20:56):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And capital is certainly not cheap at the moment, and.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Capital is very expensive. If one of the things you
might be able to explain to our listeners is I
saw and you come from this world. I saw some
reference to stand and Pause looking at Australia's triple A rating.
So just so, just to be clear, Australia has a
triple triple A rating, as does you say, credit rating,
(21:19):
which is rated by independent rating agencies, one of which
is called Stand and Pause. Their global organizations. These things
are these decisions are made after long, hard examination of
the finances of the country and a lot of people
in our electric might say, well, who gives a damn? Well,
(21:41):
maybe you will give a damn if you understand the
consequences of losing a triple AID rating as a result
of borrowing too much money.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Exactly, and then borrowing becomes a lot more expensive, And.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
As a result of losing the triple A rating, the
cost of money to the government and to the country
exactly becomes much more expensive. Absolutely, And it doesn't take
much to tick up a lot of ongoing interest extra
interest rate which sometimes can end up getting compounded, and
your debt just gets greater and greater and greater. It's
a bit of like if you go and buy a
house and the bank lends it to it five percent,
(22:13):
and then all of a sudden, for some reason, they
don't think you're very good credit. Your credit rating goes down,
and they say, well, you're a bigger risk. I've got
to put your interest rate up. Yes, so as a person,
and therefore and you can't pay it. So you just
keep adding adding to the amount of money. Where As
someone comes out of this sort of world, what do
you think about the money that's getting thrown around this campaign?
(22:35):
In terms of the downside potential downsides for US, So
I think.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
This huge downside by the sort of money that labor's
throwing out, and this, particularly the triple A credit rating
is so important and obviously when the Liberals were in
government for nine years, that credit rating was maintained, and
as you said, it has massive implications for the cost
(23:01):
of financing future debt and has massive implications for our
international standing. I also thought it was very disturbing that
the Prime Minister criticized Standard and Pause today. He did,
and he said that they shouldn't be saying it, and
he was criticizing sort of a very neutral entity that
(23:21):
also has long standing in this space, and I think
that that also was pretty distressing that he was attacking
sort of an institution like Standard.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And Pause well, and they operate under the no fear,
no favor exactly. They're a global organization that can give
a damn who you are.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But also incredibly accredited and we should absolutely be listening
to them if they're concerned about they're concerned about this rating.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Because investors around the world, including Australia, rely on the
rating of the country that we might an investor might
be asked to invest in. So you might have some
mob in America. Who's you know, PIMCO one of the
big super fund managers over there. They're not called that
over there, but let's call them something like that. Who
If Australians to borrow money to fund deficits, they go
(24:11):
to the organizations like this, And PIMKO doesn't care how
good to talk of the prime ministers or how good
a talker doctor Jim is. They're interested in what's standing,
Paul say, because they live by ticking boxes to make
sure that the money is invested under into certain mandates.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Exactly, and by by design, those organizations are completely independent.
Their job is to give the credit rating.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Correct and then and that credit rating and then that
money gets priced favorably. We've been so lucky in Australia
for so long to have favorable ratings like triple A.
And I'm actually never really thought this through, like we
are having this conversation Tod either. But if you put
stand and Pau's offside as a result of running long,
(24:57):
long lasting deficits, you actually put every single tax payer
in the country at risk. That's exactly right, and it's
more likely that they're going to raise the money they
now need instead of borrowing it. They're going to put
taxes up because they will be seduced into thinking that.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That's exactly right. And I also think which we've seen
under this government, we haven't had growth in the economy,
and part of that is a reticence of multinationals to
invest and also local businesses to invest in the economy
because they perceive labor to be anti business And to me,
this is another indication of that. And if we lose
(25:34):
this credit rating, it's going to be even harder for
us to attract people to want to invest in Australian businesses.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Well, it's interesting you and I consider to have this conversation,
but do you think your constituency in Wentworth care or
would you want to say to them something that will
make them care? Do you think they care? Do you
think or do you think? What do you think? What
do you think voters today? I mean, I've just been
watching Australian behavior, Australian's behavior, and think about a lot
(26:06):
and you know, Peter Dutton's been getting hammered and a
lot of good stuff's coming out. But I wonder whether
Australians just get so confused they say, look, that's not
my problem. I've got my house. It's in walk Clues,
it's in Edgecliff. I don't have any data or a
little bit debt. I've got a pretty good job, unemployment's low.
(26:26):
I'm not at risk. It's like it's beyond me. I'm
not going to worry about this stuff. And do you
think they say that? And if so, maybe you might
never say why they should be thinking about these things,
why it is potentially a problem.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So I think also because it feels like a hypothetical,
so it's hard for voters to understand what the implication
of that's going to be. What else say though? In
Wentworth and I've spoken to thousands of people, everyone is
feeling cost of living pressures, without doubt, and that's right
across that's right across the seats, sort of in slightly
different ways because it's also quite a leverage stage. So
(27:01):
people do have mortgages. So the fact that sort of
the average mortgage has gone up by over fifty thousand
under this government with the interest rates, if you amplify
that into some of the bigger mortgages mortgage positions in Wentworth,
it's a big issue. So I think cost of living
is definitely a massive issue. It's whether people can then
understand that this is going to heighten that even further.
(27:24):
But small I would say small businesses in when we
certainly understand the implications of this, and so to entrepreneurs
because they're already saying access to capital has shrunk so
much under this government.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
And it's interesting too, like most people don't realize even
though the governments will have to borrow or does borrow
from globally from overseas banks to too, of all banks
gets comes from overseas and those Australia's credit rating is
really important in terms of the cost of the money
to the banks and banks in this country because you know,
five banks control the joint banks, and those five banks
(27:58):
in this country will just pass that pass that extra
crossed on absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think part of though labor understands this sugar heat
sort of strategy does work and when worth voters are
very sophisticated, but there is a there is a portion
of people that just think, oh, that's great, we're getting that,
and they're doing this and they're taking the hextead off
and they don't think about the implication of that further
(28:22):
down down the road. And I think that that's something
everyone needs to be thinking about if they're going into
the ballot box.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So something I can't I can't avoid talking about. But
for our area is of course the Israel Palestine issue.
And of course there was a large Jewish contingent in
our area. Yes it might imagine as big as anywhere
in Australia. What of you? What does row Knox and
(28:52):
the Liberal Party want to say to that community.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So we actually have the biggest number of Jewish people
in our elect of any electorate in Australia. And I
obviously studied in Israel, as my children tell me very kindly,
in the early Middle Ages. Thanks kids. So, and I
was in Israel actually in December last year and met
with a whole series of startups which was incredible. They
(29:16):
have the most unbelievable startup ecosystem. It was great meeting
with them. And obviously also then going down to the
October seventh attacks on the Gaza envelope. So I've been
extraordinarily proud to be Liberal during this time. We've been
so consistent right from October seventh through to the rights
(29:37):
on the Opera House on October ninth. Peter Dutton then
was calling for national Cabinet and both a Legraspender and
the Prime Minister at the time said it was stupid idea,
it was politicizing. There was no anti Semitism, and of
course we saw with when the guard rails got moved
and there was such weak leadership, that's when we saw
all this behavior. And obviously a lot in Wentworth had
(30:00):
fire bombs of cars, we had graffiti. We've had a
huge number of posters, my posters in particular this election
that have been graffetied with yeah, with Nazi symbols and wow, yeah,
I'm absolutely unprecedented amounts of those this election, and I
think there's no doubt the Jewish community in Wentworth have
(30:22):
felt abandoned. They also felt they were very very upset
by the fact that Ellegro Spender signed the letter to
restore the funding when Israel and twenty two countries around
the world had already said that they were physically involved
in the October seventh attacks. So the Jewish community very
much feels insecure at the moment. They're very very concerned
(30:46):
of the possibility of a Labour Greens minority government, extremely
concerned and I've been very proud to be a liberal
we've been so strong and even a couple of weeks ago,
Peter has signed on to Dunton has signed on to
the ecaj's fifteen point planned to counter anti Semitism and
the Prime Minister's not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So is that something that if lib will get into
that's something that they will will implement put into place.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yes, and it sort of deals with anti semitism where
it lives. So university is national security arts organizations. And
also we have to not only be prosecuting people, We've
also going to be driving education and.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
That's pretty important. So where does where does your area
extent to obviously goes from Okay, I'll leave it to
you tell me, I know, will you tell me?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So is Clavelli's sort of the border. We've actually now
got a piece of Ramwick which came from Kingsford Smith
and we've added So we've added this piece of Ramwick
and then we have Pott's Point, Willhemloo and darling Hurst.
So parts of Sydney have also come into the seat.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Very different environments. You've got to sort of look at
a little bit of into Sydney. We do, Yeah, how
do you go there? Because generally speaking they don't go
liberal also probably don't go labor to some extent, they
do light the Greens, they do like.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
The Grand So I'd say Ramwick's great for us. We've
got a lot of small business owners who are really
feeling the pain of this government of the last three years.
And because they're small business owners, so they're action focused.
So to them that teals proposition just doesn't make any
sense because they want to say what's actually happened, which
is obviously not a huge amount. And so that's a
(32:30):
great area for us. Pots points really good. We've got
a lot of empty nesters there, a lot of very
engaged members of the political very engaged in politics. In
Pot's point, will will lose actually fascinating. I've spent a lot,
quite a lot of time there, so there's a lot
of housing commission there and these are really hard working
people and to them they feel quite let out, their
(32:52):
traditional labor voters and they feel very let down. Or
speaking to a woman the other week who was working
three jobs so her daughter could go to Since you
near eleven and year twelve, and I mean, these are
the Australians we should be supporting. They should be rewarded
for working so hard, and I think we'll get quite
a few of those labor voters who want to come.
They're the sort of Howard's quintessential Australian battlers. And then
(33:18):
Darlinghurst is green and quite brutal. It is brutal, right,
it's pretty it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
So I'm going to ask you what I've asked all
the other politicians have been into this process. Why vote
for Ronox in the seed of Wentworth.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah? So I think in Wentworth we need real action.
I've obviously spent my whole career delivering businesses, delivering outcomes,
and that's very core to my DNA. I don't just
talk about things. I like to get things done. And
from my standpoint, for a seat like Wentworth, to have
sort of an adjacent politician who's not in the party room,
(33:57):
who's not influencing policy is a way to vote. And
that's why I think people have to vote liberal this
time in Wentworth.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's interesting a waste to vote.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I think it is because I think the tials off
running an agenda that haven't put one piece of legislation
through that haven't been able to influence the politics or
the policies of the day and to me, we should
absolutely given given the seat that we have, we should
absolutely be helping Australia be a better place to live.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Well, just following you now is going to be Peter Dutton,
and I have heard that he said that Ronox could
be someone who gets a ministerial position if he wins government.
That sounds pretty exciting.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It does sound exciting. I have to say, Mark, I'm
not focused on that at all. It is such a battle.
We will need every single vote and I'm just so
focused on getting to Saturday and delivering this seat for
Peter Dunton.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Actually, well, good luck on the upcoming election on Saturday.
I guess you're up against it. You probably underdog in
this fight and it's going to be interesting to see
whether or not a Liberal gets back in to run
its constituency in the Seed of the Seed of Wentworth.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Thank you so much for having me
Hi, my Boris, and this is straight Talk Rownox. Welcome
to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You know it's I'm one of your constituents and I've
been driving around for maybe I've been driving around forever,
but I've been driving around the last two months and
I see this photograph of you everywhere alongside others. Yeah. Yeah,
And you know, I'm thinking about the battle that you
(00:28):
are currently engaged in trying to win back the seat
for the Liberal Party, and I thought to myself, I
don't really know this person. I've known previous sitting candidates
are sitting members for the area, and I thought it
would be good to get you on to talk to
Rowe Knox and ask her about herself. And I mean,
(00:49):
I could have googled you, I guess, but this is
our Google.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yah.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So uh Liberal candidate for wentworth a high they regarded
long standing until a more recently liberal seat for all
the obvious reasons. We're all lucky enough to live in
a what would be considered socioeconomically to be a high
(01:18):
number in terms of representation of wealth in the country.
Not all of us grew up there or went to
school there, but Nonetheless, we're living there, and so we're
sort of lucky and very blessed, and most of us
have a fair bit of gratitude for that, and we
shouldn't expect it to be a liberalcy just by virtue
(01:40):
of that, and it isn't at the moment. It belongs
to the Teals. And I thought, let's start there. You're
in politics, you understand this game better than I do.
Why are they called teals?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So? I think the concept behind teals was to say
that they're liberals, but they also have grain policies. They're
blue and grain together. But teal is actually a dark
grain in your viewer, I get it, and I think
actually the definition is it is actually dark grain. Yes,
if we go full Panton, it's actually dark, it's actually
(02:21):
dark gray.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That's quite clever.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And a Legra Spender, who's your opposition. She's a city
member for went Worth, and we will ask I will
ash them. I'm just a define went with for a moment. Yes,
but she's about as liberal as I can imagine as
in terms of her how she grew up. Her mother
(02:44):
was Carla Zempatty. Her father was John Spender, the Attorney
General for New South Wales state government liberal. You know,
a wealthy family. Imagine she grew up in sort of
the best possible conditions, yet she becomes an independent and
(03:04):
forms part of this till group. Can you explain to
your constituents why does someone do that? I mean, what's
the deal? Right way?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, Look, I don't really understand the motivation because I'm
always a person that if you want to change something,
you've got to do it from inside. And you know,
I also worked in New York for a long time
and culture change can happen at organizations, but you've got
to do it from the inside. I think the view
was she wanted to do something that was going to
(03:37):
make a big sort of media splash, which of course
it did. And I think the great thing about being
an independent is not accountable, so you don't actually ever
have to deliver anything.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You don't have a party to talk to.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You don't have a party to talk to. But you
also don't really have to deliver fe your constituents because
you can just say I'm working across the floor, I'm
voting on issues that are important to our community without
actually having to stand up and have a piece of
legislation that goes through the parliament. So the Teals haven't
had one private members bill that's been put through the parliament,
(04:07):
not one, not one, And I would have thought sort
of a key KPI of a member of Parliament is
to have legislation put through, so not one has been
put through. So I think it's quite appealing in some
ways because you can also promise everything. You don't have
to get anything costed out by Treasury. You don't have
to then actually put it into the budget and get
it delive it. And I think that that's quite appealing
(04:29):
sort of space to be in the world that we're
in at the moment, which is so driven by marketing
and talking and not actual delivery.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
On her strap line, it says your values, your voice,
But I guess people are voting for a candidate like
that would like to know what her valiers are and
for her to use her voice to pursue her values
and hopefully hopefully her values are equivalent or somewhat similar
(04:59):
to mine. What are the values of these this mob
like I've never really found out.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, so I think it's very hard to exactly tell,
but if we can maybe one indicator sort of voting
records so on legislation, which I always think is the
way of measuring MPs. Allegra's voted seventy one percent of
the time with Labor, seventy percent of the time with Greens,
and twenty seven percent of the time with the Coalition.
(05:25):
So if you look at that sort of mix, that
feels very much more like values that are more aligned
with the Labor and Greens Party than with the Liberal Party.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Is that the reason they don't actually get up and
say what their values are.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, I think it's easy just to have these big
sort of motherhood and apple pie sort of statements. It's
much easier than saying this is what I stand for.
You know, this is what I'm going to deliver. I
think if you just speak in very broad statements. I
also find it quite interesting a lot of Tail voters
that I talk to, they're all about their own values
and they want their own values presented. And I actually
(06:01):
have a real problem with that because I think your
member of parliament, of course they must advocate for the community,
but they should also be thinking much more broadly about Australia.
They've got a spot at the table to help the
whole country. And I don't think it should just be
representing voice of a very small number of people. I
don't think that's the right way to be a member
of parliament.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's very interesting, and that's another bout allegra. I now
I want to talk about Roxy. I've often wondered what
row stands. Was it Rowena?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It's actually Roane Roan. So my parents both had very
strong views on which name they'd come up for, and
then they just I think one was probably exhausted and
so they just put together this name. And I have
never been called I hardly ever get called Rowan.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I don't think I've ever heard that name, that Rowanne.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, I think it's a bit of a made up name.
It is naturally a very nasty industrial town in France,
so maybe they didn't quite check that at the time.
But I never get over there, get called Roe or Rowan,
never get called Roan.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So let's a little bit of a trip. Now, So
where did you talk about your parents?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Where did you grow up? What'd your parents do?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yees? So I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, but
mum and dad are actually both from New South Wales.
That's okay. I'm not a Victorian strictly, and Dad was
an engineer who started his own company, so very much
a small business owner which became a big business. And
obviously at that time when he was building the business,
(07:32):
they were fighting the union, so that was sort of
part of my DNA, this we should have freedom of enterprise.
I always remember Dad talking about that. And Mum was
a physio. She's half Swedish, so her mother's family were
all Swedish, So Marke if you can imagine a lot
of sport, a lot of fish, a lot of health,
(07:54):
and a very warm I had a very warm upbringing.
But mum also has a very still yearly core so
and I think some of that yearly strong pace has
been really, really helpful during this campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, I was gonna. I asked about the campaign a
little bit later actually, because I'm always I'm always constantly
thinking to myself, I wonder if they knew what they
were getting themselves into, because it looks like it's been
pretty hectic for everybody. But have you got brother and sisters.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I do have a brother who I'm very close to.
He's a school principal in Melbourne, and my kids always
joked that he's clearly the favorite child because he's just
so he's one of those people that's ridiculously good at everything,
more annoying, sickening, and he's also really nice guards very annoying.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It's not my brother. He's good. My younger brother is
good at everything.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It's very annoying, very frustrating, good.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Good at Taller than me, better swimmer than me, better
student than me, better everything. Ever. But I got the
wood on him because I'm older than him, so I'm
actually that's that's the only thing. And he's still he
still looks at me as his older brother. Yeah right,
So where'd you go to school down there?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So? I went to Atte College in mental As and
I was head of my school down there, and it
was great. It was great childhood. The beach is down there,
obviously a lot colder than up here, but we mom
and dad had a beach house up a crescent Head
on the central coast present Head.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, we spent I spent a huge amount of time
up there. That was my whole childhood. They actually just
sold it a couple of years ago because I thought
they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Quite make the drive now from Melbourne too.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
From Melbourne, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Bit of a drive from Melbourne, but not too bad
from Sydney.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I know it's and now with the roads so much better.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, the road is. And where do you live in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We're living We've been in Pennington for over twenty years. Yeah,
so we love it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So you're married.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I am married to John. We actually met at university
and we actually started going out because he was one
of the only people at college that didn't like me,
and I was in treat. I was completely treat. So
he was very much the sporty, hardcore boy kind of contingent.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So you played hard to get Yeah, well I think so.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I think so, But.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I'd like to get his story from So you went
through school. What were you like as a student?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Look, I was pretty big personality, but I was also
I was a hard worker and I loved the academic
side of I love the academic side of school. So yeah,
I loved it. But I was also definitely not the
teacher's pet.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I would say in that was it a girls school?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
It was an all girls school.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Does that mean you spoke your mind?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I did speak my mind, but I think also a
little bit of class clown actually, mark a lot of
easy jokes from the.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Back, you know, the back rode. Well, that's been interesting
to have a politician who can actually pull off a
good joke. There's nothing so leaving school, what happened that?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So then I went to Melburene University. I did a
lord great at Melbourne University and an arts degree because
we used to do them. To hear that, yeah, yeah,
so you don't how they used to do that? Combine
and I went to Ormond College, whereas chairman of the
Ormand College Students Club, was the second female chair of that.
So people always say, oh, this politic stuff must be
really hard. Try living with people, you know, because at
(11:06):
college some of the things we had to behaviorally put
in place, and you're living with people. But that was
absolutely fantastic and I'm still my closest friends still come
from that time.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
See what you come out of university with an arsenal degree,
did you? I don't know what they do down Victoria,
but I presume that the College of Law down there,
the College and Knowledge. After the university.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I'd actually been to Israel as part of my law
degree because Melbourne University used to have an exchange and
I sort of fancied myself as a very glamorous international lawyer,
as in humanitarian or international law, and I thought I'd
maybe go and work in the hard or be around
Europe just loving at and so I went to Israel.
(11:49):
But it was that time in Israel where it was
all about entrepreneurship. So they just started this amazing Yachtsam
fund and it was all about innovation, and the whole
campus was saying, why would you go? I can do law,
go and do business. So I finished my Lord Agree,
and then went straight into management consulting.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So did you work for one of the management I did.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And my first project was actually in Chicago, and as
my mum said, that is a bit of a community,
which it was. So then after Chicago John who was
my boyfriend at the time, and I moved to New
York and then I worked with Deloitte Consulting in their
strategy group in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Are you worth with Deloitte's Yes, So that's interesting, Angus
Tana's some somewhat of a similar story to you in
some respects in terms of managed consultant. For those people
who don't quite live in that world, what are those
you know, the boss consulting group Deloitt's, et cetera. What
do they do when it comes to manage consults? What's
(12:46):
that mean?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah? I think it can be somewhat of an esoteric concept.
So I arrived in New York in ninety eight, so
it was all about the gross story. So all the
financial services organizations were trying to deal with this thing
called the Internet. They're trying to make sure that their
staff are really motivated, they're launching new products. And then,
(13:08):
of course by two thousand, every project I was doing
was all cost cunning, like how can we get rid
of all those stuff? And it completely? And then obviously
was September eleventh, there was and in the US that
was a massive, massive recession, particularly in financial services.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah. So but in terms of skills, what are you
going to bring to work? Skills? What are you going
to bring to parliament? So what are the sort of
things you would learn?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
So do you one hundred percent understand how businesses work?
And then I went from there to start a small
VC firm where we were backing startups, mention capitalists. Yes,
and it was very small numbers, so we're sort of
between angel investors and Series A and would go in
and actually run the company. But I think for management consulting,
(13:56):
you learn the discipline, You learn the riger around financial
modeling and what businesses work and what don't. And you
also have to be a super super quick study because
the clients are expecting good advice from you, and you
have to be able to learn their.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Business very quickly and work long hours.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Extraordinarily long hours. And I used to wear crazy hours
in New York. But with the guy who is the
managing director of the office, when you had your very
academic interview with him, he'd also take you for a
drink and you didn't get the job unless he sort
of liked you. So the culture he created was extraordinary.
So I used to I loved going to work. We
(14:33):
had a great We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And with a venture capital business, that is a fund,
that's someone who's raised money to invest in your case,
you're to about startups or early stage, pre seed, seed,
et cetera. What types of this in America?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
By the way, Yeah, it was all US based, right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So what sort of businesses were you were you sort
of tending towards because I enough to take Burma to
start up again, or what was going on in those
or where the you know, the so called Internet of
things had kicked off and everyone was talking about that
in terms of sensory stuff. Where were you guys concentrating
your efforts on.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, so we'd all come from the financial services strategy groups,
so all our first businesses were all around financial services.
So this is really going to age me Mark. But
we had a debit card for kids, and this was
when debit cards were just coming out, and it was
called my Plash, my plastic Cash, and the idea was
then the parents could load money onto the card, but
(15:31):
it was capped. And the reason why we did that
is one of our friends was a partner and his
daughter had taken this good only happened in Manhattan, had
taken his black ames with no limit on it. So
that was sort of the genesis of the idea, and
we were we had the biggest market share that business,
and it was one of the first businesses. And now they
still have Spriggy and things that still those businesses are
(15:53):
still existing.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What do you learn What are some of the skills
that you get out of being involved in those environments
in the including the manager consultancy, but importantly into the
venture capitalist environment where you've got like small business people
who sort of come up with a great idea, but
they've got no money, and then it gets some capital
to bring this thing to life. And what are the
sort of things you learned that might be relevant to
(16:16):
why someone should vote for you, for example?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So I think the biggest one you learn, as you know,
is you can have absolutely zero arrogance because the ideas
on the as good as it's how hard you work.
And I think the second thing that I really really
learned in that space, which is why I find the
whole tier value proposition very problematic, is where you used
(16:42):
to say to some of our entrepreneurs, you know, rowe
has fifty ideas, when she's brushing your teeth, it doesn't
matter what can we execute? And I really really learned
the value of execution. And then the other thing is,
as you would know, when you're at that seed stage,
you're actually investing in the entrepreneur, So you're investing in
the person. And so I also am a very very
(17:03):
good charge of character and I learned a lot around that,
and not to do business with people that don't have
anything to lose. You've always got to be high integrity.
Your word has to mean something otherwise people don't want
to do business with you, they won't give you money,
and obviously learn how to work like crazy. And I
think they're all. I think they're all very important.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah. I think that's a good one too, that being
able to judge someone's character. But also these startups are
using someone else's money, so to some extent that you've
got to make a judgment as to whether or not
do they actually perceive there's any downside and what is
the downside that they're concerned about, that they'll work hard
(17:46):
towards not happening. And that sort of judgment is a
hard one. That's a tough judgment in parliament, in government
or not government. You know in government, you're in parliament.
In parliament, do you come across those sorts of characters?
Do you think you'll come across those sorts of characters
who have got nothing to lose and therefore don't care.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, I think totally. And I also think that's why
business backgrounds so important. So just on this campaign, I
always say to the team, any piece of money that
we've raised, someone's earned two dollars. They've earned two dollars
that's exactly right to give us, to give us the
one dollar, and I think that's something that should be
in the mindset of every single person that's sitting in
(18:27):
Parliament any of these budget try things. You're taking money
from really hard working Australian so you b to b
spending it in the most effective way possible.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That's a point that's sort of been sort of griping
on me a little bit. So when I see the
cash splash, that's sort of been second nature to the
campaign that started, well, the campaign that wasn't announced but
definitely started in January, but it was announced much later
than that. The amount of money of us being thrown around.
(19:00):
As a person who comes from your background, what do
you think of that?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I think it's really bad. And I'm really because it's
the young people that are going to bear the brunt
of that debt, and some of the numbers are they're
going to have a trillion dollar debt if they keep
spending like this. I think it's four hundred and twenty
five billion they've already spent over the period in government
and then in future commitments, And to me, that's that's very,
very serious to have that sort of debt level, and
(19:26):
also just the lack of analytical examination of where that
money is going. And I think that's the management consultant
part of me, that they're just throwing money at things.
Nothing's means tested. So we're not even giving some of
this money to the people that need it the most.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
For example, the electricity rebate has been given to everyone.
You're getting it. I'm getting it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
If you've got ten houses, you're getting it.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
You're still getting it. Yes, I mean you're saying in
terms of that being an idea, the execution of the
idea is not very good because it should probably should
be restricted to just one one group. Well, one group
maybe perhaps should get more, that's exactly right, and the
other groups should get less or.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Maybe even more. Fundamentally, why do we deal with why
the energy costs have gone up so much? Let's deal
with the problem instead of dealing with sort of the
symptom and throwing money at the symptom.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So you talk just mentioned something quite interesting that you know,
what would be the assumed levels of debt that are
going to come forward over the next period. And one
thing is for sure, I think even the Labor Party
would admit this and they did talk about it. They've
had two years of surpluses, but now they're going to
have ten years of deficits. And definite is going to
(20:35):
be funded from somewhere either taxpayer is going to have
to pay more tax or they have to borrow the money.
And it looks like they haven't said that they're going
to get that yet, but under the current government it's
more likely they're going to have to probably some combination
of the two. We don't know whether they're going to
implose more taxes on the community, but we'll soon see,
(20:56):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And capital is certainly not cheap at the moment, and.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Capital is very expensive. If one of the things you
might be able to explain to our listeners is I
saw and you come from this world. I saw some
reference to stand and Pause looking at Australia's triple A rating.
So just so, just to be clear, Australia has a
triple triple A rating, as does you say, credit rating,
(21:19):
which is rated by independent rating agencies, one of which
is called Stand and Pause. Their global organizations. These things
are these decisions are made after long, hard examination of
the finances of the country and a lot of people
in our electric might say, well, who gives a damn? Well,
(21:41):
maybe you will give a damn if you understand the
consequences of losing a triple AID rating as a result
of borrowing too much money.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Exactly, and then borrowing becomes a lot more expensive, And.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
As a result of losing the triple A rating, the
cost of money to the government and to the country
exactly becomes much more expensive. Absolutely, And it doesn't take
much to tick up a lot of ongoing interest extra
interest rate which sometimes can end up getting compounded, and
your debt just gets greater and greater and greater. It's
a bit of like if you go and buy a
house and the bank lends it to it five percent,
(22:13):
and then all of a sudden, for some reason, they
don't think you're very good credit. Your credit rating goes down,
and they say, well, you're a bigger risk. I've got
to put your interest rate up. Yes, so as a person,
and therefore and you can't pay it. So you just
keep adding adding to the amount of money. Where As
someone comes out of this sort of world, what do
you think about the money that's getting thrown around this campaign?
(22:35):
In terms of the downside potential downsides for US, So
I think.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
This huge downside by the sort of money that labor's
throwing out, and this, particularly the triple A credit rating
is so important and obviously when the Liberals were in
government for nine years, that credit rating was maintained, and
as you said, it has massive implications for the cost
(23:01):
of financing future debt and has massive implications for our
international standing. I also thought it was very disturbing that
the Prime Minister criticized Standard and Pause today. He did,
and he said that they shouldn't be saying it, and
he was criticizing sort of a very neutral entity that
(23:21):
also has long standing in this space, and I think
that that also was pretty distressing that he was attacking
sort of an institution like Standard.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And Pause well, and they operate under the no fear,
no favor exactly. They're a global organization that can give
a damn who you are.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But also incredibly accredited and we should absolutely be listening
to them if they're concerned about they're concerned about this rating.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Because investors around the world, including Australia, rely on the
rating of the country that we might an investor might
be asked to invest in. So you might have some
mob in America. Who's you know, PIMCO one of the
big super fund managers over there. They're not called that
over there, but let's call them something like that. Who
If Australians to borrow money to fund deficits, they go
(24:11):
to the organizations like this, And PIMKO doesn't care how
good to talk of the prime ministers or how good
a talker doctor Jim is. They're interested in what's standing,
Paul say, because they live by ticking boxes to make
sure that the money is invested under into certain mandates.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Exactly, and by by design, those organizations are completely independent.
Their job is to give the credit rating.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Correct and then and that credit rating and then that
money gets priced favorably. We've been so lucky in Australia
for so long to have favorable ratings like triple A.
And I'm actually never really thought this through, like we
are having this conversation Tod either. But if you put
stand and Pau's offside as a result of running long,
(24:57):
long lasting deficits, you actually put every single tax payer
in the country at risk. That's exactly right, and it's
more likely that they're going to raise the money they
now need instead of borrowing it. They're going to put
taxes up because they will be seduced into thinking that.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That's exactly right. And I also think which we've seen
under this government, we haven't had growth in the economy,
and part of that is a reticence of multinationals to
invest and also local businesses to invest in the economy
because they perceive labor to be anti business And to me,
this is another indication of that. And if we lose
(25:34):
this credit rating, it's going to be even harder for
us to attract people to want to invest in Australian businesses.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Well, it's interesting you and I consider to have this conversation,
but do you think your constituency in Wentworth care or
would you want to say to them something that will
make them care? Do you think they care? Do you
think or do you think? What do you think? What
do you think voters today? I mean, I've just been
watching Australian behavior, Australian's behavior, and think about a lot
(26:06):
and you know, Peter Dutton's been getting hammered and a
lot of good stuff's coming out. But I wonder whether
Australians just get so confused they say, look, that's not
my problem. I've got my house. It's in walk Clues,
it's in Edgecliff. I don't have any data or a
little bit debt. I've got a pretty good job, unemployment's low.
(26:26):
I'm not at risk. It's like it's beyond me. I'm
not going to worry about this stuff. And do you
think they say that? And if so, maybe you might
never say why they should be thinking about these things,
why it is potentially a problem.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So I think also because it feels like a hypothetical,
so it's hard for voters to understand what the implication
of that's going to be. What else say though? In
Wentworth and I've spoken to thousands of people, everyone is
feeling cost of living pressures, without doubt, and that's right
across that's right across the seats, sort of in slightly
different ways because it's also quite a leverage stage. So
(27:01):
people do have mortgages. So the fact that sort of
the average mortgage has gone up by over fifty thousand
under this government with the interest rates, if you amplify
that into some of the bigger mortgages mortgage positions in Wentworth,
it's a big issue. So I think cost of living
is definitely a massive issue. It's whether people can then
understand that this is going to heighten that even further.
(27:24):
But small I would say small businesses in when we
certainly understand the implications of this, and so to entrepreneurs
because they're already saying access to capital has shrunk so
much under this government.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
And it's interesting too, like most people don't realize even
though the governments will have to borrow or does borrow
from globally from overseas banks to too, of all banks
gets comes from overseas and those Australia's credit rating is
really important in terms of the cost of the money
to the banks and banks in this country because you know,
five banks control the joint banks, and those five banks
(27:58):
in this country will just pass that pass that extra
crossed on absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think part of though labor understands this sugar heat
sort of strategy does work and when worth voters are
very sophisticated, but there is a there is a portion
of people that just think, oh, that's great, we're getting that,
and they're doing this and they're taking the hextead off
and they don't think about the implication of that further
(28:22):
down down the road. And I think that that's something
everyone needs to be thinking about if they're going into
the ballot box.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So something I can't I can't avoid talking about. But
for our area is of course the Israel Palestine issue.
And of course there was a large Jewish contingent in
our area. Yes it might imagine as big as anywhere
in Australia. What of you? What does row Knox and
(28:52):
the Liberal Party want to say to that community.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So we actually have the biggest number of Jewish people
in our elect of any electorate in Australia. And I
obviously studied in Israel, as my children tell me very kindly,
in the early Middle Ages. Thanks kids. So, and I
was in Israel actually in December last year and met
with a whole series of startups which was incredible. They
(29:16):
have the most unbelievable startup ecosystem. It was great meeting
with them. And obviously also then going down to the
October seventh attacks on the Gaza envelope. So I've been
extraordinarily proud to be Liberal during this time. We've been
so consistent right from October seventh through to the rights
(29:37):
on the Opera House on October ninth. Peter Dutton then
was calling for national Cabinet and both a Legraspender and
the Prime Minister at the time said it was stupid idea,
it was politicizing. There was no anti Semitism, and of
course we saw with when the guard rails got moved
and there was such weak leadership, that's when we saw
all this behavior. And obviously a lot in Wentworth had
(30:00):
fire bombs of cars, we had graffiti. We've had a
huge number of posters, my posters in particular this election
that have been graffetied with yeah, with Nazi symbols and wow, yeah,
I'm absolutely unprecedented amounts of those this election, and I
think there's no doubt the Jewish community in Wentworth have
(30:22):
felt abandoned. They also felt they were very very upset
by the fact that Ellegro Spender signed the letter to
restore the funding when Israel and twenty two countries around
the world had already said that they were physically involved
in the October seventh attacks. So the Jewish community very
much feels insecure at the moment. They're very very concerned
(30:46):
of the possibility of a Labour Greens minority government, extremely
concerned and I've been very proud to be a liberal
we've been so strong and even a couple of weeks ago,
Peter has signed on to Dunton has signed on to
the ecaj's fifteen point planned to counter anti Semitism and
the Prime Minister's not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So is that something that if lib will get into
that's something that they will will implement put into place.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yes, and it sort of deals with anti semitism where
it lives. So university is national security arts organizations. And
also we have to not only be prosecuting people, We've
also going to be driving education and.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
That's pretty important. So where does where does your area
extent to obviously goes from Okay, I'll leave it to
you tell me, I know, will you tell me?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So is Clavelli's sort of the border. We've actually now
got a piece of Ramwick which came from Kingsford Smith
and we've added So we've added this piece of Ramwick
and then we have Pott's Point, Willhemloo and darling Hurst.
So parts of Sydney have also come into the seat.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Very different environments. You've got to sort of look at
a little bit of into Sydney. We do, Yeah, how
do you go there? Because generally speaking they don't go
liberal also probably don't go labor to some extent, they
do light the Greens, they do like.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
The Grand So I'd say Ramwick's great for us. We've
got a lot of small business owners who are really
feeling the pain of this government of the last three years.
And because they're small business owners, so they're action focused.
So to them that teals proposition just doesn't make any
sense because they want to say what's actually happened, which
is obviously not a huge amount. And so that's a
(32:30):
great area for us. Pots points really good. We've got
a lot of empty nesters there, a lot of very
engaged members of the political very engaged in politics. In
Pot's point, will will lose actually fascinating. I've spent a lot,
quite a lot of time there, so there's a lot
of housing commission there and these are really hard working
people and to them they feel quite let out, their
(32:52):
traditional labor voters and they feel very let down. Or
speaking to a woman the other week who was working
three jobs so her daughter could go to Since you
near eleven and year twelve, and I mean, these are
the Australians we should be supporting. They should be rewarded
for working so hard, and I think we'll get quite
a few of those labor voters who want to come.
They're the sort of Howard's quintessential Australian battlers. And then
(33:18):
Darlinghurst is green and quite brutal. It is brutal, right,
it's pretty it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
So I'm going to ask you what I've asked all
the other politicians have been into this process. Why vote
for Ronox in the seed of Wentworth.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah? So I think in Wentworth we need real action.
I've obviously spent my whole career delivering businesses, delivering outcomes,
and that's very core to my DNA. I don't just
talk about things. I like to get things done. And
from my standpoint, for a seat like Wentworth, to have
sort of an adjacent politician who's not in the party room,
(33:57):
who's not influencing policy is a way to vote. And
that's why I think people have to vote liberal this
time in Wentworth.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's interesting a waste to vote.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I think it is because I think the tials off
running an agenda that haven't put one piece of legislation
through that haven't been able to influence the politics or
the policies of the day and to me, we should
absolutely given given the seat that we have, we should
absolutely be helping Australia be a better place to live.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Well, just following you now is going to be Peter Dutton,
and I have heard that he said that Ronox could
be someone who gets a ministerial position if he wins government.
That sounds pretty exciting.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It does sound exciting. I have to say, Mark, I'm
not focused on that at all. It is such a battle.
We will need every single vote and I'm just so
focused on getting to Saturday and delivering this seat for
Peter Dunton.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Actually, well, good luck on the upcoming election on Saturday.
I guess you're up against it. You probably underdog in
this fight and it's going to be interesting to see
whether or not a Liberal gets back in to run
its constituency in the Seed of the Seed of Wentworth.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Thank you so much for having me
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