#215 Tony Abbott: Australia Has Lost Its Courage & It’s Costing us

Tony Abbott, Australia’s 28th Prime Minister, joins me to talk about leadership, courage, and conviction in an age where those qualities are under siege. 

We unpack his views on what makes a great leader, how Australia has changed, and why he believes we’ve lost our national confidence. We also spoke about :

• His Early life and education
• Understanding Leadership and Courage
• Challenges of Modern Political Leadership
• Handling Illegal Boat Arrivals
• Patriotism and National Sovereignty
• The Role of History in Shaping Leadership
• The Importance of Objective History
• Reconciling Faith and History
• The Role of Faith in Leadership
• The Impact of his new Book

Purchase Tony's new book here: https://www.amazon.com/Australia-Minister-foreword-Geoffrey-democracy-ebook/dp/B0F393W9TH

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tony have it. Welcome to straight Talk, Mark.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's wonderful to be with you.

Speaker 3 (00:03):
You are, by the way, my mum's it sounds very
tried and commonplace, but my mum's favorite politician.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well, your mum must have been a wonderful woman.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Good start mate, Thanks very much for coming in.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
So maybe, if possible, I don't know if many people
know much about you other than the fact you were
Prime Minister of the country for that matter, and there's
some instances where they remember you with you know, the
Budji smuggler's shirt f and the onion and I want
to talk about those things because they're their fun things.
But if we could just go back a bit, you know,

(00:37):
ideology is an important thing in the way we conduct
ourselves and our behavior, all of us, and it's also
what we tend to believe in. And our ideology I
think is formed largely from how we grew up influences
as on ask.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
When we're kids, et cetera. So who's Tony Abbott the kid?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well? I had two wonderful powers parents, my late father
my mum who's still with us at ninety two. I
grew up in a lovely tranquil neighborhood in a house
backing on the bush, Sydney or in Sydney. Mum and

(01:18):
Dad had a good marriage. I had three younger sisters
who claim to worship me, although they don't give that
much evidence these days. Mum reckoned they did. I went
to school, first of all the Holy Family Convent, Linnfield,

(01:40):
then at Saint ala Wish's College, Nelson's Point, then at
Ignacious College Review Sydney University Economics law. Was lucky enough
to get a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Could you just stop then? What is a Rhodes scholarship? Everyone?
He talked to me that no one knows what it.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Is, okay, Well, A Rhodes scholarship is a scholarship funded
out of the bequest of Cecil Rhodes, who was a
mining magnate in the country which was known as Rhodesia
after him. He was the first Prime Minister of Rhodesia
back in the eighteen nineties, mining magnate and when he

(02:19):
died in nineteen hundred and two, his fortune, which doesn't
sound like much in these days money, but it was
about three million pounds. It funded the Rhodes scholarships it's
done that to this day because it's been very well invested.
The Rhodes Scholarship is essentially a leadership scholarship. Cecil Rhodes

(02:41):
said that he wanted men for the world's fight, and
so every year each state, each of Australia's sixth states,
sends a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford. There are three Australia
at large Rhodes Scholarships, so that's nine Rhodes Scholars go
from Australia every year to Oxford. They've got to be bright,

(03:05):
they're supposed to be potential leaders. In the old days,
at least, they were usually people who had achieved a
bit in sport, and so I guess I didn't have
a stellar academic record by any means, but I've been
the president of the student's Counselor at Sydney UNI. I'd
played quite a bit of first grade rugby, so I

(03:26):
guess that's how I got there as a Rhodes Scholar.
Previous Rhodes Scholars in politics included Bob Hawk, Kim Beasley.
Malcolm Turnbull was also a Rhodes Scholar a couple of
years before me. So there's been a lot of Rhodes
Scholars over the years going too public life. And I
guess that's fitting because in his will Cecil Rhoades said

(03:50):
he wanted to produce leaders and the idea was to
bring the leaders of the English speaking world as thirty
odd Rhodes scholar a year from America. There are some
from Canada. There are quite a few from South Africa
as well. For a while there were Rhodes Scholars from Germany.
The idea was to bring the potential leaders of the

(04:16):
major countries of the world, particularly the English speaking world,
to Oxford, where it was thought by Cecil Rhodes, these
young men and subsequently young women would get the best
possible education and would develop the kind of comradeship between
each other that would lead to a more peaceful and

(04:37):
harmonious world.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
That's a probably good introduction to asking you a question,
and I know it's probably bit early because we are
talking about yourself growing up, and I'll come back to
that in a moment, But what do you think about
leadership today? I mean, what do you think Cecil rhads
would think about? And of course Rhodesia used to be
Rhodesia now called Zimbabwe. What would he now think aboutleadership

(05:01):
outside of the Hodes scholarships. But think about leadership and
what does it mean? What does leadership mean? I don't
know what it means to someone like you.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, okay, Well, a leader is someone who can make
a decision that involves people other than simply himself or herself,
and can make the decision stick. So a leader's got
to know his or her own mind, has got to

(05:27):
be capable of turning thoughts into resolutions, communicating successfully those
resolutions to others, and encouraging, inspiring, persuading others to join
in with those resolutions. That's essentially leadership. And whether the lead.

(05:48):
Whether leadership is exercised in persuading your mates that we
should go and see film X rather than film why,
Whether the leadership is exercised in getting together a group
of people to go on a holiday, whether it's starting
a business, whether it's leading a country. Leadership is exercised

(06:09):
in all sorts of different ways, by all sorts of
different people. But without leadership, nothing happens.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
So where does courage fit in in leadership? That virtus?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Because you know, I just don't think we talk about
virtues enough. But where does the virtue of courage fit
into leadership. For rate, say running a country. Let's not
decide who's going to go to the movies. Let's just
say we're running country because that's your area of expertise,
or you're certainly your formal era expertise. And you mentioned

(06:38):
a number of other former prime ministers in the same
category or leaders of the opposition, you would have seen
common traits.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Was courage or common trait?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
I think courage is an important part of good leadership.
I think courage is pretty rare. It was Lord Slim
who said moral courage is a far higher and rarer
virtue than physical courage. It was our old friend, father EMMITTT. Costello,
who used to frequently quote an obscure French cardinal that

(07:12):
I'd never heard of, But nevertheless Emmett loved.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
His phrase, being a Jesuit priest for review.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yes, Emmett kept quoting this cardinal pa from the nineteenth
century who said, prudence is everywhere, courage is nowhere. We
will all die of prudence. And I must say, I
think that's quite a useful reminder that prudence is a virtue,

(07:38):
but it's not the only virtue. Courage is equally and
no less important.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Because I mean, I will come back to you history
in a second because I want to know more about it.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
But just on that topic, I.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Think it was Aristotle said that there was the courage
was He talked about the golden mean, which is the
point between reckless or fearless.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Fearless reckless or I should.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Say, which is down one end of the scale and
on the other end of the scale, was you know
you were coward and courage was the gold means somewhere
that somewhere in between, not in the middle, but somewhere
and different for everybody. But if you're becoming a leader
of a country, it would seem to me that finding
that golden mean as a leader of the country, as

(08:28):
a prime minister leading your party in this case in Australia.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
In america's leading the country a bit different.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
But do you think that we've lost that courage a
little bit?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, if you look at our political leadership, Mark, I
think that it peaked in the Hawk Howard Era Hawk
and Howard each in his own way, they were both very,
very effective and quite brave prime ministers. Hawk defied labor

(08:59):
or that I to I guess deregulate the labor market,
to privatize or begin privatization processes, to reduce tariffs, to
keep the unions more or less in their lane. And
then Howard did things like introduce work for the doll
he brought in tax reform, he reformed the waterfront. Howard

(09:24):
Hawke did most of his reforms with the support of
the Coalition, so at one level they were easier to
do because they weren't opposed in the Parliament the way
Howard's reforms were ferociously opposed by the Labor Party. But nevertheless,
I wouldn't underestimate the courage that both Hawk and Keating

(09:44):
showed in the economic sphere, because frankly, it's a very
unusual labor leader who can get out of the old
Marxist capital versus labor paradigm and appreciate that workers do
best when the boss does well too. So we had

(10:07):
a quarter century of good leadership, really excellent, outstanding leadership
under Hawk and Howard. I think it's been of lesser
quality since then. And that's not because the individuals are
necessarily of lesser caliber, but I suspect there's certainly been

(10:28):
less courage, And I think in some instances less character.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
And how much do you think courage is or courage
derives from what as possible? So it would seem to me,
particularly these days, with the ability to know what people
think polls, polling, and the ability to try and satisfy

(10:53):
as many people as you possibly can in order to
stay in government, because if you're not in government.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
You can't make change.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
How much do you think courage is being diluted by
more information and not as ideologically based as it would
have maybe in the past.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I think political leadership is more difficult today because social
media and the twenty four to seven news cycle means
that you tend to be more distracted. I mean, in
Howard's time, you basically have to worry about the nightly
news and the morning's papers. But you're constantly being besieged
by the media today. So I think in one sense

(11:32):
leadership is more difficult. But what do you want in
a leader? You want character, You want conviction, you want courage,
you want judgment, and frankly, you also want luck. Some
people have it, some people don't. But I think that

(11:55):
far too often these days politicians consult the polls, they
consult the focus group, and they allow themselves not to
give the public what the public needs, but they try
to give the public what the public wants. Now, we're

(12:16):
all human, so we tend to want to have our
cake and eat it too. And the truth is you
can't mostly do that. You've got to make choices, often
hard choices. And in the Hawk Howard era, there was
a greater tendency on the part of our leadership to say, look,

(12:37):
this is what's right for the country. This is the
argument in favor, and they would prosecute the case. That's
much less common. I mean, let's take the vexed subject
of climate change for instance. Now the Liberal Party is
having a huge inter discussion at the moment about energy

(13:04):
and climate policy. One of the reasons why we are
so angst written over abandoning the straight jacket of net
zero is because we think the public have been totally

(13:25):
if you're like, they've basically been brainwashed into excepting that
there is a climate crisis. Now, I don't think there
is a climate crisis. I think reducing emissions is nice
to do, but I don't think it's something that should
dominate our policy making as it does right now. I

(13:48):
think what the coalition should be prepared to do is
to say, look, frankly, net zero is leading us down
a path of economic ruin. We have to abandon it.
My former colleagues are very worried that doing this will
cost them seats and prevent them from winning the so

(14:11):
called Teal seats back. But if it's actually right, I
think the important thing is to make the case and
argue it day in day out between now and the
next election. And if you fail and you still believe
it's right, keep arguing it. I mean, take the GST
for instance. The GST, or at least a general Goods

(14:33):
and Services Tax, was first proposed by Keating at the
time of the tax summit in nineteen eighty five. The
Prime Minister Hawk decided it was a step too far.
That was when I suppose Hawk's caution and judgment trumped
Keeping's innovation and political courage. Then the GST was proposed

(14:59):
by John Houston, as you'd remember Mark in the fight
Back package, and Keating, having supported it back in eighty five,
ferociously opposed it in the ninety three election. And then
eventually the GST was brought in because John Howard had
the guts to take it to the people in the

(15:20):
nineteen ninety eight election. So the GST was an idea
that even its proponents eventually shied away from. Then it
was an idea that was ferociously fought about, initially in success, unsuccessfully,
finally successfully, and now it's totally accepted. So it is

(15:43):
possible to put forward policy initiatives that you think are
right but which are fiercely resisted, and you just argue
your way through to success. And it is the mark
of a six successful country that it can make tough

(16:04):
decisions and that it's leaders can successfully persuade people to
change their minds on things. And I think that if
you believe as I do, that reducing emissions is no
more than nice to do. If you think that the
important thing for the long term well being of our

(16:27):
country is economic growth, more jobs, more successful and more
dynamic industries, all of which requires an abundance of cheap
and reliable power, all of which requires continuing our mineral resources, agricultural,
et cetera. Development. If you think this is necessary, well,

(16:49):
and if you think that the net zero straight jacket
is gravely impeding all of this, well, then you should
be prepared to argue the.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Case and that's leadership. That's leadership, thank you.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
And another example, if I may say so, mark of
successful leadership, initially very much against the odds, was the
whole Voice debate that we had a couple of years back.
I mean, initially the Voice was pitched as just a lovely,
gracious mark of politeness and courtesy towards our Aboriginal fellow Australians.

(17:27):
In fact, this was a trojan horse in the heart
of government. And thanks to courageous individuals, particularly just Enterprise
and Warren Mundine, also Peter Darton and others. Thanks to
those courageous individuals, the public were persuaded that something that
they'd initially supported out of an abundance of goodwill was

(17:50):
something that they should oppose out of an abundance of
political judgment.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
And in your world when you were the Prime minister,
what points do you remember where you had to tap
yourself on the shoulder and say, okay, Tony, it's time
to stand up straight and exercise courage in relation to
leading this country. What's some examples that you experienced.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
What wars are like to doing do you have to
fight within your own party? Where does it go?

Speaker 2 (18:25):
It's a very good question.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Apart from daily.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, I guess one of the biggest fights in my
time was what to do about illegal boat rifles. And
you'll remember that it started up at the end of
the Keeping era. It got worse during the Howard era

(18:51):
after the Tampa business. Effectively the boats were stopped and
then they started up again under Kevin Rudd when Kevin
Rudd closed down offshore processing and abolished temporary protection visas
and so on. And in I think August of twenty thirteen,
we had five thousand illegal arrivals by boat, so it

(19:15):
was a real crisis. We think that during the course
of the Rudd Gillard government, as well as fifty thousand
illegal arrivals in one thousand boats, there were at least
a thousand people who died at sea doing this very
unsafe business of jumping in a leaky fishing boat trying
to cross the three hundred kilometers of open sea between

(19:37):
Java and Christmas Island. Anyway, it was very important to
stop this. What was happening at the time was that
as soon as an Australian naval or customers vessel hove
into view, the people smugglers would scuttle their boats. The
passengers would be in the water, our personnel naturally had

(19:58):
to pick them up to stop the from drowning. Under
Rutt and Gillard, they were all taken to Christmas Island,
where effectively all of them eventually got to Australia and
many of them are still here to this day. I
determined we would do and obviously this was done in

(20:21):
consultation with my shadow cabinet colleagues, particularly Scott Morrison, who
was the relevant Shadow Minister. We decided under Operation Sovereign Borders,
that we would hold the people, the people that would
be illegal migrants. We would hold them on a mother
ship until a calm night when we would put them

(20:46):
in a big orange life raft just outside Indonesian territorial
waters came from with just enough fuel to get back
to Java. And this was hugely controversial at the time.
When I said that we would turn boats around when
it was safe to do so, Kevin Rudtha, prime Minister

(21:06):
at the time, said that this would this was not
only illegal, it was not only immoral, but it was
it would cause conflict with Indonesia, and that certainly was
the view of many of the officials. When I became
Prime Minister and I said, look, no self respecting country

(21:30):
can accept what amounts to a peaceful invasion, No self
respecting country can lose control of its borders. We simply
have to stop this. And frankly, we should not allow
somewhat nebulous concepts like international law which can't be enforced
in any court that has effective control over the actors.

(21:54):
We shouldn't let that stop us. And because it was
so remarkably successful so quickly, a policy that was hugely
contentious at the time is now, however begrudgingly by the left,
is now accepted. And to its credit, the Albanezy government

(22:17):
has largely maintained the border protection practices that began in
my time and that were then continued through the Turmbul
and morrison eras as well.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
And when you when you came up with this idea
to do this, what was your objective was it? Was
it a matter of principle or is it a matter
of principle that people should meag just out to turn
up whenever they feel like it and coming through a
legal processes et cetera. Or was there something else beyond that,

(22:48):
like you know, economically made sense or it didn't make
sense economically, What was the what was your objective behind it?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, Mark, the principle is countries have got to keep
control of their borders. I mean, the mark of a
sovereign country is that it keeps control of its borders.
It controls who comes or doesn't come into the country.
So that was the principle, and the mechanism for realizing
the principle was to stop the illegal boats. And the

(23:17):
best way to stop the illegal boats was to turn
them back. And if the original boats were sunk or
otherwise destroyed, we gave them substitute boats and sent them
back in the unthinkable orange life raft. So the end
was national sovereignty. The means was turning boats around, and

(23:40):
the mechanism was supplying boats where the people smugler's boats
were no longer available.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
And I asked John Howard a couple weeks ago about this,
but is national sovereignty? Is that?

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Should that be a value that gets attributed to the nation.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, Marke, ask yourself this, what might people make huge
sacrifices for even their life if necessary, your family, your faith,
your country. I think that patriotism, love of country is

(24:21):
one of the most powerful emotions that people have and yes,
I think we certainly should respect it and in appropriate
circumstances appeal to it.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
That's very interesting. It's a high order.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Value, very high order value, and maybe one that some
generations might be not that tuned into today these days.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Well, if you go back to the generations that fought
the First and the Second World Wars, they obviously had
a very strong sense of patriotism. Now it's possible, indeed,
it's certain that the patriotism of Australians at the time
of the Two World Wars was, if you like, an
empire patriotism as well as simply a national patriotism. But

(25:13):
I think that Australians today still feel strongly patriotic. I
think that official Australia is less inclined to appeal to
people's patriotism. One of the reasons why I wrote my
book Mark was because I think we've got a proud history.

(25:35):
I think there's far more to look back on with
pride and satisfaction than there is to look back on
with shame and embarrassment. But I think these days official
Australia has very much imbibed what Jeffrey Blainey once called
the black armband view of our history. It's interesting that
many people on the left of politics don't want us

(25:58):
to be particularly excited about Australia Day because they see
that in terms of sorrow more than they see it
in terms of pride and achievement. So I think it
is important if citizens are to feel appropriately proud of

(26:20):
their country, that they have a good understanding of our history,
particularly given that our history is on balance such a
shining success. But yes, patriotism is very important and if
our country is to flourish, people have a need to
have a strong sense of commitment to it and a

(26:43):
strong desire not just to succeed themselves, but have the
country succeed too.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Do you think that one of the reasons perhaps that
patriotism as opposed to nationalism patriots is feeling and feeling
pride in your country has somewhat diminished over the past
maybe ten years, because Australia has done so well economically.

(27:11):
Our unemployment is so low and it always has been
for a long and definitely even during the COVID period,
you know, the government managed to keep unemployment where no
one else was and post COVID austrai as unemployment was
at record levels because you know, generally speaking, unemployment up
in the fives these days are still down before when
it gets the four point five, it's the headline. Do

(27:32):
you think that there's a generation of people here who
have had it so good that they just think this
is a place. Australia is a place and we use
it like a utility, and therefore we don't need to
have any patriotism because we don't work hard enough for it.
Do you think that's a point? Because I'm in you
and I similar generation. You know, important to get your job,
important to work hard, important to respect the boss, is

(27:54):
portant to respect the.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Business that you work for.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
You didn't jump between jobs to job generally speaking state
for period time because it was really important to have
a job. It was jammed into us respect as well
for your boss. But these days people can leave a
job six months and they get another one because there's
unemployment so low. Do you think that there is a
correlation between unemployment and maybe the diminution in patriotism towards

(28:24):
the country that you know that is looking after you.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Mark, I certainly do think that we've had it very
good for a very long time in this country, and
I do think that these and luxury can breed indulgence
and entitlement, and I think their vices, if you like,
I suspect that we might suffer from those vices a

(28:52):
little more than we did, and I personally wish it
were otherwise. I mean, earlier generations of Australians did have
a tougher life physically financially, and I think they were
more alive to the need for sacrifice, to do one's duty,

(29:17):
to be prepared to live a life of service. I
think people were more in tune with that. And again,
one of the reasons why I've written this history is
to remind people today of the strengths of applebears, both
individually and collectively. Because you never know what's around the corner.

(29:40):
We think that the world will continue more or less
as it is, that our country will always be rich,
that our country will always be safe, that our country
will always be free. But look at other countries where
people aren't safe, they aren't free, they aren't rich, or

(30:02):
they might be rich enough, but they're certainly not free.
I mean, the world over the last two hundred years
has basically been shaped by the long Anglo American ascendancy.
We are a product of the long Anglo American ascendancy.
Our institutions, our attitudes, our way of life, all fundamentally

(30:24):
shaped by the Anglo American ascendancy. If the world of
the future is dominated by China, for instance, it'll be
a very different world, much less free, certainly, I would say,
much less fair, and fundamentally in the long run, I
suspect much less rich, because I don't believe that a

(30:49):
basically totalitarian society can be as creative as a free
society such as ours can be. And it's quite possible,
maybe even likely, that tensions between the democracies and the dictatorships,

(31:12):
which are operating in a kind of informal alliance of
the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, it's
quite likely that tensions at some point could boil over
into conflict. I mean, we've got conflict in Ukraine, We've
got conflict in the Middle East, We've got enormous tensions

(31:36):
in East Asia. And as a country, we have to
be prepared economically, militarily, and above all else psychically for
whatever might come. And I just hope that if we
do face much fiercer challenges than we have in recent

(31:56):
times that we will be ready for it, it up
for it.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
Do you think it's often ponder on this particular question,
and in terms of attitude and mindset, do you think
it's often? I think to myself, you and I just
a couple of old blokes who have gone through a
different but I competed to the younger generation relatively speaking,
who have just gone through a different type of upbringing.

(32:22):
We have different set of values, or probably a different
set of values, a different set of things that are
more available to us relative to the younger generation.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
We don't we don't buy and buy. We live on
an island.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
We're nice and safe here and everything's going to be great.
No one's going to come near us, whereas the other generation,
younger generations tend.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
To think that.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Do you think that there's that possibility that there is?
We are over over egging it and we are over
worrying about these things. And because as we get older,
we play more defensive. Do you think that's a possibility
of from wondered myself, will test myself all the time about.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well Mark, I go back to the twenty nine in
election campaign in Warringa, which I lost. I had young people,
often kids still at school who no doubt had been
put up to this by their teachers, but literally quite
a quivering with fear and anxiety, telling me that they

(33:24):
would probably be dead in a few years time because
of climate change that my government was not or the
party that I was part of, was not doing enough
to fix. So young people today, I think are being
scared to death over climate anxiety in a way that

(33:44):
maybe earlier generations were worried about nuclear war for instance.
Now I've got to say, I think major conflict between
great powers is vastly more scary to me than the
possibility of a couple of degrees of warming several decades,

(34:06):
hence which we can easily adapt to. I mean, there
have always been storms, there have always been floods, There've
always been fires, There've always been droughts. And the richer
and stronger we are, the better we will be able
to cope with these things. And if some areas of
agriculture shrink and others grow, well, so be it. Again.

(34:31):
We can deal with it in the future as we've
always done in the past. But a major war, particularly
one involving nuclear weapons, would be a complete catastrophe, an
unimaginable disaster. I mean, imagine Sydney being like Marier Poll.
Imagine Sydney being like Gaza. That's what war does. And

(34:57):
it doesn't matter whether your cause is just. If your
country is subject to bombardment, it's ghastly beyond belief. So
that's the sort of thing that I think we should
be worried about. And the best way to ensure that
it doesn't come is not to be weak, because weakness

(35:20):
is provocative. It's to be strong, not aggressive, but strong
and certain and clear, because the only way we will
deter aggresses is by being strong and certain and clear
in response. I mean, if Ukraine had been in NATO,

(35:41):
Pudin would never have invaded. Pudin only invaded Ukraine because
he thought it would all be over in a week.
And it's immensely to the credit of the incredibly gallant
and heroic Ukrainian. So I think of fighting for everyone's
freedom that they have been able to resist so successfully
for so long. But this is an object lesson in

(36:07):
what to do or not to do. If your country
is to survive and flourish, it is to be strong,
economically strong, militarily, strong, psychologically and if possible to have
strong alliances as well.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
So someone like you, when you see Dan Andrews standing
there in China alongside Putin presidency and the North Korean president,
it must make your blood boil, because isn't that the opposite?
Isn't that to what you just said, that's the opposite?

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Like Well, there was a phrase mark that I think
Lenin used of the capitalists who were going to sell
the communists the rope by which the capitalists were hanged.
The phrase was useful idiots, useful idiots. And I think
there are lots of useful idiots in Australia at the moment.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
So when we come when you look at let's call
it left of politics, it seems to me that there's
a lot of ideology pushed into the left and obviously
ideologies pushed into the right.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Term.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
We were talking about the things that form your ideologies,
and you talked about your schooling, and you talked about
your education, and I might just ask you quickly, because
we know you became the Prime minister, but how did
you get into politics?

Speaker 1 (37:28):
What were you doing before politics?

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Well, my mother, my father, people like father Amer Costello
had well and truly engendered a great interest in history,
in you, in me, In me, I was fascinated by history.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
And Australian history, and history.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
History generally, but not certainly, not excluding Australian history, but
history generally. And I am by the great Man theory
of history that the world is shaped by strong individuals
who make a difference. I think the world gets better
or worse person by person, and if more people make
good choices, things improve. If more people make bad choices,

(38:14):
things get worse. And obviously, the further up the leadership
ladder you are, the more significant your choices become. So
I was interested in history. When I got to university,
which even in those days the mid seventies, was dominated
by the Green Left, I thought, well, this is ridiculous.

(38:35):
Let's do what I can to change that. So I
ran for student politics, eventually became the SRC president. Worked
out along the way that Canes was right to this
extent at leastomists, that Knes the economist was right, at
least to this extent, that practical men are slaves to
the ideas of long dead economists. So I thought, let's

(38:58):
try to enter the battlefield of ideas. I started writing
stuff for the Sydney University paper Honi Swar. Eventually the
Honi Swire editors wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Publish me because.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Left, so I started getting stuff published in the Herald,
the Australian, the Bulletin. Eventually became a journalist and then
I became a political staffer press seguri to John Hewson
when he was leader of the Opposition. Then after the
nineteen ninety three election, for a year or so I

(39:39):
was the initial executive director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy.
And then in nineteen ninety four, when a fellow called
Michael mckeller retired as Member for Ringer, I was on
holidays at the time. A bit bored. I called my
office to see what was happening and I was told

(39:59):
that John I would have wanted to talk to me.
So I rang John and he said, look, Toney, Michael
McKell is just retiring as a member for Ringer. I
think you should throw your hat into the ring for
the Liberal preselection, which I did. The two favored candidates
were Kevin McCann, at that stage a senior partner in

(40:22):
Sydney's biggest law firm, and Peter King, at that stage
a leading barrister now Kevin McCann went on to become
chairman of mcquarie bank. Peter King became for a time
member for Wentworth. But they were the two leading candidates
and I sort of came up the middle and snagged

(40:44):
the pre selection. And I guess then followed twenty five
tumultuous and largely successful use in the parliament.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Would you say you loved being in poond?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
I loved making a difference, and being in Parliament is
probably the pre eminent way of making a difference in
this country.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
And what about the joust that happens every day? Like
you're down there in the mother sheep in camera.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I guess you're walking down the aisles and you're brushing
past various oppositions.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
What about the jousts? Did you love that part?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (41:21):
And no?

Speaker 2 (41:21):
I mean I was regarded as a pretty ferocious parliamentary
warrior because you had to be, you had to be.
These days, I listened to Parliament and I think, geez,
there's far too much mindless abuse, far too much the

(41:44):
other marble all wrong and our marble all right. When
the truth is, no one has a monopoly on wisdom,
no one's judgments are perfect. All governments get something's wrong,
and the truth is best advanced by a civil debate

(42:05):
which at least respects the good will of most of
the participants. And I think that there's not enough of
that in our national conversation these days, and there's certainly
not enough of that in the Parliament now. Some people
will say, oh, but Abbott you were when you were
the Leader of the House. You're always getting up and

(42:25):
having a go at the other side, And that's true.
But I'd like to think that I was playing the ball,
not the man, and I'd like to think that I
was attacking the other side's positions rather than attacking the
other side personally. Although I did once say of Kim

(42:46):
Beasley that he was a sanctimonious wind bag.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Well all jawbone and no backbone, had that go.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
I think I got kicked out of the Parliament for that.
And look, i'vectually got a lot of time for Kim Beasley.
I mean, Kim Beasley is probably that by far the
most substantial figure on the labor side of politics, at
least in recent decades, not to become Prime Minister. And
for what it's worth, I think Kim Beasley would have

(43:17):
been a pretty good prime minister, arguably better than the
people who did succeed him and go on to be
prime minister.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
You'll never be accused of being a shrinking violent in
politics and probably in life for that matter. Once you
famously shirt fronted them and it was over, you know,
the plane going down, and I actually I loved it,
to be frankly, I thought it was fantastic. But not

(43:51):
everybody likes that sort of stuff. And I just want
to ask you about the Australian mindset, the psyche of Australians.
Why wouldn't someone like for example, do well in Australia.
Have we inherited some Anglo Irish thing about people being

(44:11):
too tough or is it a tall poppy syndrome thing? Well,
what is it that you know Trump will sent up
to everybody used it up? I'm not sure whether people
actually in Australia really like that. What do you think
about that?

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Look, our system is different from the American system, and
to become a national leader in Australia, you've got to
be able to secure a parliamentary majority, which means that
you've got to have a degree of respect and perhaps
some level of affection from your peers, yours, your political peers,

(44:51):
your fellow members of parliament in your particular party. The
American system is quite different because the party structures a
much looser. Party discipline is not nearly as tight. The
primary system means that charismatic individuals can emerge from nowhere.

(45:15):
I mean, Donald Trump had never held elective office when
he ran for the Republican nomination. He'd actually been a
Democrat as well as a Republican, as well as neither.
Over the years, he'd created I suppose some kind of
a profile via reality TV, and I guess the fact

(45:37):
that he was a billionaire who was often in the media,
at least in New York, gave him a certain cachet.
But I don't think someone like Donald Trump could emerge
in Australia. I think the most that someone like Donald
Trump could do in Australia would be who perhaps elbow

(46:02):
his way into the Senate, where if you can get
a quota, which is about I think twelve percent of
the vote or fourteen percent of the vote, you're there
as a senator. But I don't think a Trump like
figure could readily emerge in Australia.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Do you think Australians because I mean, I'm not sure,
but I think I feel as though Trump did not
help Peter Dutton in the last election.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Well, it's interesting that Anthony Albanesi is now best mates
with Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
That might worked against.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Because during the election the Labor Party tried to smear
Dutton via association with Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Now you probably didn't even know him.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Well, Look, I'd be very confident that Peter Dutton didn't
know Trump certainly. And our country is different. I mean, yes,
there are a lot of commonalities between Australia and the
United States. I do think that the English speaking countries
are in a sense family. But your brother and your

(47:11):
sister can be quite different from you, even if there
are some things you've got in common. So look, America
is a great country. Americans are great people. Their political
system is quite different from ours. Their political psyche, I think,
is quite different from ours. And Trump plays better in

(47:33):
the United States than he does anywhere else. But this
is not uncommon. I mean, I can remember George W.
Bush didn't play very well in Australia, whereas Tony Blair,
and they were both I suppose very frequently in our
media at the time of the Iraq War. Personally, I

(47:57):
thought Tony Blair was a vastly better advocate for the
policies that Britain, Australia and America were pursuing at that
time than George W. Bush was. And that's not because
George W. Bush was a lesser man. I just think
that American style sometimes doesn't translate very well to other countries.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
So it would not be advisable for any Australians who
are ambitious and aspiring to be perhaps the leader the
leader party in this country to run that type of politics.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Well, I think if you're in Australia would be Australian leader.
On the left, Bob Hawk should be your exemplar, and
on the right, John Howard should be your exemplar.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
It's very interesting. So I want to talk about your book.
I mean, I'm dying to know why you wrote a book.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
I mean it's.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
You're not doing it for the money, because I know
there won't be any money in it. I've written books.
There's any money in.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Books and there, and they take a long time to
do that. It's a mission, it's a massive mission. How
long it take you write for a start?

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Look, I think I was from start to finish. It
would have been probably three and a half, maybe even
four years. I mean it all started when John Roscombe,
the then head of the Institute of Public Affairs, with
whom I was doing an occasional podcast, We were talking
about I guess what ailed our country, and we mutually

(49:26):
decided that not enough people were sufficiently familiar with our history,
and those that were tended to see it all in
black armband terms of dispossession, even genocide against original people,
and I guess. I then decided that I could put
together a general history of the country, a more upbeat

(49:49):
general history of the country, and John very kindly offered
to give me some research assistance. So work started three
and a half four years ago. Eventually I had what
I thought was a good draft. I suggested to Paul

(50:11):
Whittaker that maybe HarperCollins might like to publish. HarperCollins eventually agreed,
and they had various queries suggestions, which involved a lot
of rewriting. If you like, revising, adding, subtracting, and so on.

(50:32):
So I know, if I'm writing a speech, for instance,
sometimes it'll flow very easily, and the first draft is
pretty much the final draft but sometimes I'll write it
and I'll rewrite it, and I'll rewrite it again, and

(50:52):
it might go through three or four major iterations. This one,
this book, I have read it so many times, and
every time I read it, I would change something because
I was thinking to myself, do I really need that fact?
Should I include this fact? Is that the right way

(51:14):
to look at this? Maybe I need to be more
generous about that. So yeah, in the end, these things,
the facts are sacred, and you've got to try to
ensure that all the important facts are there and are
accurately presented. Then of course there's I suppose your interpretations,

(51:39):
and I guess it is in a sense part of
the subjective process deciding which facts are relevant and which
ones aren't. But facts are so important. And this was
the first book I've done which was if you like

(51:59):
a study as opposed to a piece of advocacy, I mean,
if if what you are doing is putting forward an argument,
you can often write it out of your own head,
particularly if it's an argument that you've been making for
a long time. But if it's if it's going to
be a credible study, you've got to do a lot

(52:21):
of research or get a lot of research done.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
So you see, you're you're I think what you're saying, though,
correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
It wasn't you prosecuting any case.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
It was well except for the fact that I think
the Australian story, on balance is a very good one.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
So did you discover that during the research or you
already thought that?

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I have always I have always been that instinctively and
based on my general knowledge of Australian history, I have
always thought that our story was a good one, and
I've always tended to arc up when people have suggested otherwise.
And I thought, well, let's given the degree of ignorance,

(53:11):
given the degree of what might be described as prejudice,
I thought, let's tell the story. Let's tell the story again,
more or less from the beginning right up to the
present time. Let's try to be as objective as possible.
Let's try to respect all the important facts, and let's

(53:36):
see what they amount to to me. When you think
that modern Australia began when fifteen hundred draggled souls were
dumped not far from here, half a world away from
their home, in a completely strange, unfamiliar, alien landscape within

(53:56):
one hundred years, they had created colonies with the world's
highest standard of living at the time. They had become
democratic pioneers. Almost the first places where every man and
then every woman and indeed people of all races had
the vote was in Australia, Australian women absolutely in South

(54:23):
Australia by the eighteen nineties, men, women and Aboriginal people
they could all vote, they could all run for office.
And there's almost nowhere in the world at the time
where that was true.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
What do you put that down to in your research?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
There was a liberal humanity to modern Australia from the
very start. I mean the British government instructed Governor Phillip
to live in amity with the natives. And when Governor
Phillip was speared at Manly Cove quite badly hurt at
Manly Cove on the search for Benelong, instead of mounting

(55:07):
a punitive rate and slaughtering all the Aboriginal people he
could find, Philip put it down to a misunderstanding and
Benelong eventually came back and continued to live with Philip
at Government House and eventually went to England with Philip.
When Philip went back in seventeen ninety two. So there
was a liberal humanity about Australia from the very beginning.

(55:31):
We should never forget that white men were hanged for
the murder of black people after the Mile Creek Massacre
as early as eighteen thirty eight. By the time the
free settler started to come in very large numbers the
eighteen twenties the eighteen thirties, Chartism was very much alive
and well in England, and a lot of the free

(55:54):
settlers were highly influenced by that. Henry Parks in particular,
who became great statesman of nineteenth century New South Wales,
he was a Chartist originally. So there was a strong
instinct in colonial Australia for free institutions. Where Jack was

(56:18):
as good as his master. We were a fundamentally, we
were fundamentally liberal societies.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Liberal you mean, you don't mean as a liberal party now,
you mean liberal thinking.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Liberal thinking, liberality if you like hu humanitarianism. Now, political
liberalism developed slightly differently in Victoria and in New South Wales. Liberalism.
Deacon liberalism in Victoria was statist liberalism. In order to

(56:52):
better secure human flourishing, we need a big state, Parks
Bart Parks read, liberalism in New South Wales was more
small government liberalism. In order to secure human flourishing, we
need government to stay in its lane and allow individuals

(57:15):
the greatest possible freedom. So there were two strains, two
strands of liberalism in colonial Australia, but nevertheless it was
a fundamentally liberal project.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
So in terms of we're talking on modern history, obviously,
how do you treat Indigenous Australia within the book?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Well, I say constantly in the book that modern Australia
rests on three pillars, an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation,
and an immigrant character. And I think that's unarguable. I
think these are simple facts that all must accept, how
much emphasis they wish to place on them as of

(58:01):
a question for people's individual judgments. But I think modern
Australia's I guess mindset owes something to the fatalism, the
laconic endurance of Aboriginal people. These days, it tends to

(58:25):
be very much portrayed as the horrible colonists, oppressing, exploiting,
and often enough killing the innocent Aboriginal people. That's a
total caricature of what happened. Let's take very early modern
Australia and its relationship with Aboriginal people. There was ben

(58:50):
Along who exemplified the cooperation between the settlers and Aboriginal people,
and then there was Pemlowi, who exemplified, if you like,
the conflict between settlers and Aboriginal people. The interesting thing
is that both Benelong and Pemelwe were respected and admired

(59:14):
by the best of the settlers. Pemeilwe was a warrior,
as was Benelong, but Pemilwe was a warrior who often
engaged in acts of violence against the settlers, for which
ultimately he was killed, but he was well respected. I
mean Governor King, who was the governor at the time

(59:36):
Pelwey was killed, said he was a stout fellow who
fought for his people. And as we as our history
develops and the great partial expansion takes place beyond the
Blue Mountains. Obviously on the frontiers there was tremendous conflict,

(59:58):
the mild Creek massacre simply being the best known instance
of a terrible conflict. But at the same time there
was also great cooperation. I mean, none of the explorers
would have got to where they got without Aboriginal guides.
None of the pastoralists would have been able to flourish

(01:00:21):
without Aboriginal stockmen and shepherds and so on. So this
idea that the history of Australia is of bloody conflict
between white and black, it's simply not true. There was
at least as much cooperation as there was conflict, and
at all times official Australia was determined to do the

(01:00:44):
right thing towards the Aboriginal people that every stressed were
as much British subjects as the white settlers were.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Do you think Australians, once I read your book should
be or maybe I'll put it another way, do you
think you're much proud of being Australia, being an Australian
as a result of writing a book.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Well, I think I had a strong sense of the
history already. In the course of writing the book, that
I was reminded of things that I'd forgotten, and I
discovered things that I didn't know. But I believe that
I had a strong sense of a history anyway, and

(01:01:33):
I certainly had a great pride in our country anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Anything surprising, Well, figures who you hardly heard of suddenly
leap out of the page when you go into their
lives more deeply.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
I mean, one person who I think should be better
known to contemporary Australians is John Plankett, who was the
first Attorney General of New South Wales. It was Plunkett
who insisted that the Mile Creek massacre perpetrators be put
on trial, and when the first jury refused to convict,
it was Plunkett who brought fresh charges against a slightly

(01:02:16):
lesser number of perpetrators and persuaded a couple of the
perpetrators to turn queen's evidence, and with another judge who
said it the second trial's close that this was an atrocity,
crying out to Heaven for justice. The second jury did
convict and seven of the perpetrators were subsequently hanged, which

(01:02:40):
was justice according to law in those days. Now, Plunkett
was an Irish Catholic with a strong sense of justice,
a strong sense of the universality of rights, and he
did a lot to try to ensure that the law
was and just fair, but was fairly applied in the colony.

(01:03:04):
And I think that he's a fragrant individual who deserves
to be much better remembered than he is.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
You just talked about some pretty important words there, fairness, justice,
just to pick two. And you mentioned Irish Catholic, and
you know you're it's well known that you're a man
of faith and that you are and faith is really
important to you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Don't put me on any pedestal of virtue, please.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
But I'm not going to put you on a virtuous
And by the way, you know a lot of people
of people of faith, that's the last place I should
be put because sometimes they struggle, you know, with humanity
and faith and everything else. And one of the things
I've always wanted to ask someone like you, if you
don't mind me asking you, is how does somebody who

(01:03:54):
has a strong belief in their faith and probably turns
to their faith often and has been brought up in
that environment, how does something like you reconcile belief with
You're also many history with facts? How do you reconcile

(01:04:19):
those things?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
You know? Do I believe in God?

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
But at the same time, I'm quite practical. I'm now
a person of history and I'm watching the facts and
I'm writing about the facts about the way things happened.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
You know, how do you reconcile those two things?

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Well? Maybe I haven't thought deeply enough about it, Mark,
But I've got to say that I've never had a
particular problem. I think I guess the thing that most
perplexes people are most frequently perplexes people is the problem
of evil. How does a good God allow evil things

(01:05:00):
to have?

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
For example?

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
And I've always accepted that God gave human beings agency,
and often enough flawed agency values. Yeah, flawed infallible human
beings will make bad choices, sometimes downright evil choices. And look,

(01:05:24):
he created a natural world where I suppose nature does
things which hurt people, storms, floods, et cetera. But again,
this is the natural world that God created, and we

(01:05:45):
are in this natural world to make the best of things,
to make the most of things. And it's how we
handle the challenges that we face in our lives, which
I guess is the measure of us. And hopefully we'll
measure up and one day Saint Peter will welcome us

(01:06:06):
through the pearly gates.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Is well, because I often think about someone like Albert Einstein,
who was a Jewish by faith and obviously lived by
that faith, but at the same time, you know, he
was pining on relativity and all sorts of formulas like
equals M three squared working out you know he didn't
quite get to this point, But did you know his
stuff led to sub atomic particles, and all of us

(01:06:30):
are made up of these little bits and pieces that
we can't even see or even contemplate.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
But knowing do you think knowing more? Knowing more? I
think just adds to the sense.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Of war and wonder where did it start?

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
At, how at how it's all come about? And I
guess I don't think something as incredible and as wonderful
as the natural world, and indeed the human world in
the units, happened by accident. I accept that at some
point in time a good God created all of this

(01:07:06):
and our challenges people who are in some way, and
the image of likeness of God is to be our
best selves, to come closer to being our best selves
every day?

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Does Tony Abbott ever struggle with these things?

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Do you ever look at what's going on and say,
place where people are in terrible conditions and dying, do
you ever struggle with that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Well? I lament it, But the struggle is to make
things better, not to despair. So I think the problem
with the problem with atheism, as I understand it, is
that it often leads people to despair, and despair can
lead people to suicide. It can lead lead people to

(01:07:56):
neglect of their fundamental responsibilities. And I mean, for instance,
how many atheist hospitals are there, how many atheist schools
are there. So much of the things that we value
and take for granted the product of religious endeavor, or
more broadly, the inspiration of religious faith. And I just

(01:08:24):
think that's almost self.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Evident making things better.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Do you think that's one of the things that drove
Tony Abbott to one day become or want to become
the leader of this country.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Look, the Jesuits back in my day had this, if
you're like injunction to be a man for others. And
while there are all sorts of different and valid ways
of being a man for others, I always thought that
for me, being a man for others was making a

(01:08:55):
difference in as widespread a way as possible. And I
guess that's what led me into journalism and politics.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
In your book it's called Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Australia a history can ask you about.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
A history, not the history.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Was there some thought about which in definite article or
definite article is going to put in front of the history,
did you decide it should be a history? In other words,
it's an objective and not subjective.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Well, plainly, it is possible to put a different interpretation
on the same facts. I mean, for instance, let's take
fraguments sake the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
American interpretation is that this was necessary to end the
most destructive war in history. I suspect the Japanese interpretation

(01:09:44):
is slightly different. Yes, although to the great credit of
modern Japan.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
They have accepted or reconciled that, And I.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Reconciled very much to the Americans, and have greatly embraced
democracy and the rule of law and concepts of justice
and freedom and so on. So it was, in the end,
you're right, I thought a history was a better title

(01:10:17):
than the history.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
I accept that others might see things differently, but I
have tried to tell the story of Australia as objectively
as I can. And the subtitle how an ancient Land
Became a Great Democracy, I think is an indication of
the fact that I, at at the very least want

(01:10:42):
to see our story as a glass half full rather
than a glass half empty.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
And do you think Tony Abbott today more mature past
those periods in your life where you were a PM
and an active politician is a much more humble person.
It displays much more humility. Do you feel that about yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Well, Mark, I am a little reluctant to put tags
on myself because.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Well, how important is humility to you?

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Then? Well, humility is very important human quality, a very
important human quality. And none of us like individuals who
are full of themselves and who are self obsessed. And
I would not want to claim to be free of

(01:11:38):
the vice of self importance, but I certainly I dislike
it in others, and if it's present in myself, I
should try to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Well, my sense is that it's not present in yourself
in just in terms of this conversation. And I think
as we get older, maybe only one of the few
bet of us getting on is a wisdom sort of
bestows a few of these things upon us, and we
start to be able to reflect on ourselves a bit
better than we ever did when we were younger.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
But I think I think some of us improve with
age because we become wiser and perhaps more compassionate, perhaps
more sensitive, others become more impatient, more difficult. Perhaps in

(01:12:31):
some ways we can be both deeper and less patient
at the same time. I know I'm less patient now
that I was. I was probably never very patient.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
I'm the same. Are you still a member of the
surf Club?

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
I am still. I'm a life member of our surf club.
I haven't done patrols for a couple of years. The
pandemic and the fact that there were no patrols for
ridiculous reasons in twenty twenty two kind of that was
the end of my patrolling. But I'm still a very

(01:13:09):
active member of the rural Fire Service. I'm now a
member of two brigades, the Davidson Brigade, which I've been
in for twenty five years or more, and in more
recent times I've become a member of the North arm
Cave Brigade up at Port Stevens.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
And famously you were, you know, the budget smugglers. Yeah,
do you still get in your.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
Good man?

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
And do you ever I said to you earlier about
the shirt fronting of Putin. I think that was for
me one of the great moments in Austry politics.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Do you think we don't get enough of that today.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Well, I wish I'd been able to do more than
just shirt front Putin, because Putin he's done monstrous things,
absolutely monstrous things. I mean, the initial invasion of Ukraine
in twenty fourteen was was a horrible, horrible, active aggression,
and what he's now embarked upon is effectively a campaign
of extermination against the Ukrainian nation. And I just think

(01:14:10):
that's evil, absolutely evil, and it must be resisted. And
I wish we were doing more to help the Ukrainians.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
As an Australian. Yeah, me too, Well, Tony, it's been
a great pleasure. I'm good luck with the book mate.
I guess people can buy it on book Toby in
all the usual places, all usual places.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
And there's a doco as well that they can get
on the Sky website. They've got the foxtail app they
can get it through that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
The doco three part series, three part.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
Documentary is outstanding, wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
I've actually listened on the radio.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
You can listen on the radios because what happens, the
Sky plays it and you can actually listen to it
as well on radio.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
So I've been listening to it at night.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
But the pictures are worth watching too. I mean it's
been it's beautifully done. Now the book, I take one
hundred percent responsibility for the doco I presented, and the
doco was inspired by the book and it is faithful
to the book. But in the end the credit belongs
to Sky and the producer Alex Garipoli, who did just

(01:15:14):
the most wonderful job.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Is there many illustrations in the book.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
The book's got I think sixteen pages or something of
photographs and if you want to get a rough idea
of where I'm going, flick through the photos because the
captions and the little narrations the bottom of the photos
helps to tell the story.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Thanks for signing, Tony.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
So this is the book How an Ancient Land Became
a Great Democracy Australia A history.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
I really love the cover actually, and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
It's beautifully beautifully presented.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Yeah, it really is something you should be proud of.
Digital and audio book mate, I did in your voice.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
My voice. It was about twelve hours of Narrasian.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
And it's quite hard, isn't it, Because you're sitting in
there as a dude in a box with a soundprov box.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Stating telling you no, you didn't get that right. You're mumbled,
or I think you've mispronounced that word or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
The word you wrote.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
And what's interesting too, when I have found I did
it like again? I wonder what you found is that
when you were reading aloud what you had written for
someone to read, did you think to yourself at any stage, Wow,
maybe I could have changed it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Well, obviously, if you are writing for something to be read,
that is often a bit different to writing for something
to be spoken. Ye, And occasionally I thought this sentence
is a bit too long. It should have been broken

(01:16:42):
up for the purposes of the audio book. But I've
got to say there were fewer moments than I thought
there would be. When reading it out aloud, I felt
that there was infelicity of one sort or other. I
did come across one error, one a grageous error, which

(01:17:04):
I like to think must have been the fault of
the publisher as opposed to the author. But nevertheless, I've
got to say that I think that it's come up
wonderfully well. The publishers have done a great job. The
cover is I think beautiful. Interestingly, Graham Edwards Peacock, the

(01:17:25):
artist whose painting forms the cover exemplifies if you like
the early Australian story. He was a lawyer in London
who was sentenced to death for forgery. It was commuted
to transportation for life. He gets to Port mcquarie because

(01:17:46):
of his education. He's immediately given a ticket of leave
and works in the administration of the penal settlement at
Port mcquarie. He brings his family out to join him.
He then gets a job as effectively a meteorologist at
the south Head Weather Station and while there develops his

(01:18:11):
skills as an artist, becomes one of our more notable
early colonial artists. And his work, as I said, a
dawns the cover. But he is typical of how people
made the most of their second chants, made the most
of the opportunities that life in Australia gave them.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Thank God, because my mother's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
One of my mother's family or mother's side, was on
the series and they first as you know that, they
first arrived in south Head and stopped at place called
Camp Cove.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
And there's a plaque there marking the spot.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
And I live in the very first house ever building
Camp Cove in ninety six and it was given to
a Russian scientist because it was the first marine by
logical station in the Southern Hemisphere. And I feel as
though and the reason why I've always wanted to live
there is because of my mother's side of the family

(01:19:09):
first coming in on one of the ships.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Well, it's a wonderful place to live. I occasionally have
a cup of coffee at Camp Cave when I'm cycling
around the Eastern Suburbs and it's a gorgeous spot.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
You're one of those guys.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
I can hear get in there early in the morning
up the top there up the first place called green Point,
and I can hear voices. I'm going to be looking
out for we next so I'm going to come and say, hey, mate.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Could possibly be there on Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
I might see turning of it. A great pleasure, mate

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Thank you make