Leighton Smith Podcast #246 - July 10th 2024 - Anthony O’Brien

One of the best and most interesting interviews we’ve done.

Tony O’Brien was born and raised in New Zealand. His life has followed a fascinating path, working in Australia, Britain, Canada, Hungary and beyond in a variety of capacities.

In his work he "did not have a plan, just took advantage of opportunities as they presented."

He is intelligent, articulate and successful but also modest. We discuss many different aspects of NZ’s current circumstances and issues, starting with education.

You will be encouraged!

Carolyn will be back for podcast 247.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debates of the US Now the
Layton Smith Podcast powered by news talks it B.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to podcasts two hundred and forty six for July ten,
twenty twenty four. His name is Anthony and he is
one of the most interesting and productive interviews that I've done.
Anthony's worked all over the world, including Sydney, London, Vancouver,
Budapest and made multiple trips to China. He has degrees
in science and law. Now, while there's many matters that

(00:51):
concern him, it is arguably the New Zealand education system
that concerns him the most and it drew my attention.
We shall talk with Anthony O'Brien very shortly, but first
a minor matter about one that involves coincidence, and you know,
oh how I love coincidences. I got off about six
o'clock this morning and went downstairs to make a cup

(01:13):
of tea. Now, usually it's a pot of tea with
six dilmar tea bags in it, but on this occasion. Well,
for the last three weeks, since I've been batching, I've
been making single cups with a single tea bag. And
it occurred to me a couple of days ago that,
just pondering things, my mother lessa used to make a

(01:34):
cup of tea exactly that way, and then she would
squeeze out the tea bag and keep it and make
a second cup later. Now this used to bother me
because she didn't need to do that. It was just
the way that she was brought up and the position
that she found herself in life. And so it is
with many people. So my little problem used to be

(01:55):
paper towels. I didn't buy them. I thought there are
a waste of money. They were unnecessary. No paper towels
at my place. And then the circumstances changed, and with
it so did my attitude. So now I'd like a
good roll of paper towels sitting on the stand. And
this morning I went down and, like I say, made
a cup of tea, and I looked at the paper towels,

(02:18):
which are right by the kettle, and I thought, I'm
going to have to replace them shortly. I better take
it easy. As I pulled a big sheet off, and
I must admit that I've been using them, sparing me.
So with the tea, I went back to bed and
opened up the computer for the first time and sprawled
through the mail. There was an email there from Jeffrey

(02:39):
Tucker of Brownstone Institute Fame. Well, I'd been communicating with
Jeffrey and talking with him. He was a couple of
times on the podcast before Brownstone became an event. But
the headline caught my attention. It was a question saving
your aluminium pie pans. Yet a friend has stopped buying
paper towels, not for environmental reasons, he just finds them unaffordable.

(03:04):
Now curious, writes Jeffrey. I took a closer look. Sure enough,
in my own buying history, I've documented a seventy percent
increase in prices over sixteen months. That's seven zero. Others
are seeing this too, and balking at spending two dollars
fifty year roll. At these prices, it makes more sense

(03:24):
to re use cotton kitchen towels for quick cleanups. This
is a consequence of substitution in light of price changes.
Examining official data, that is, producer price index or PPI,
which is more accurate than Consumer Price Index or CPI.
Examining the official data on wood pulp products, what do

(03:45):
we find a huge increase in the twenty one to
twenty three years, followed by a crash, then a small
increase for an overall increase of fifty percent since twenty twenty.
That is substantial, he writes, added serious and clearly gets
passed on to consumer products. The CPI does not reflect that. However,

(04:07):
we are seeing this ever more people are shifting their consumption,
regardless of the claims that inflation is gone. We see
our bills and no otherwise. Therefore, people are substituting meat
for pasta and rice, and brand name items for store
brands and generics. The thrift stores are doing a bang
up business, and people are searching for evermore ways to

(04:29):
cut costs. This has a powerful impact on a whole generation.
It affects what we consider to be valuable as versus
that which we consider trash. I never imagined that I
would save plastic food containers for storage, but I'm leaning
this way now. I'm sure you can come up with
your own examples of how your personal estimation of value

(04:51):
is changing. And he then goes on with a quick story.
About twenty years ago, an elderly lady next door died
and her extended family came to clean out the house.
They found a room that was oddly filled with containers,
mostly aluminium pipeans. They were astonished. As we talked, I
made the case for her seemingly strange habit. She grew

(05:12):
up in the Great Depression and then faced wartime rationing.
This is what formed her sense of what was and
was not valuable. She held on to that for her
whole life. My mother was much the same. This is
not eccentric or crazy. It's just evaluation, estimate based on

(05:33):
an older sense of supply and demand that had not
been updated in light of changes. To her, it was
simply unthinkable to throw away a good pipeam. Back during
World War II, the Office of Price Administration issued coupon
books for adominium. If you wanted a pan or foil,
you had to present a coupon before you could get it.

(05:54):
Such an experience leaves a permanent impression. This lady never
let go of it. We only think it's a bit
nutty because during those years adaminium was ubiquitous. Once used,
it all seemed like trash that always be true, not
so much. I'm looking now at a one year increase
in aluminium prices and see that they are up one

(06:17):
d seventy eight percent. You see, this is the price
of foil. In other words, the bad old days could
in fact return. In fact, they have in part returns.
And we all know it because we all go shopping
at some stage and we see what we see, what's happened.
I'm very careful now when I walk walk around the
supermarket and I look at all the details it's happened.

(06:42):
I think it comes with semi retirement, by the way,
but nevertheless it's something that I have come to enjoy doing.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Now.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Just to add to the drama, we have a little
Suzuki parked in the driveway at the moment. Belongs to
one of my stepdaughters, and she's with her mother and
her sister in London in Greece. I my dad, but
I was asked to It's an old model two thousand

(07:11):
and four I think, and I was asked to turn
it over a couple of times so the battery wouldn't
go flat. So I hopped into the car after about
a week and turned it on. The First thing that
hit me was that the petrol tank was virtually empty.
It was into the reserve, and I didn't want to

(07:33):
run the engine on that. I didn't want to drive
it down to the petrol station. Why because I'd also
noticed that the two days after she left, its registration expired.
So you could see what could happen, couldn't you? You run
out of petrol? Cops come along and say, what's the matter,
Let's have a look. See that you're driving an unregistered car.
It's and your and your in lock up for a

(07:56):
week or something. So in the end I ended up
going down a few days later and bought a jerry
Can and then went and put seven eight liters of
ninety two petrol in it. I did so, I watched
the price of it, and I put ninety eight in
my AMG engined car, and I thought, I wonder if

(08:18):
I could save money by moving down to ninety two
for a while. Would anybody notice? And then it occurred
to me that actually going in for service shortly, and
they might very well notice, and they might get very upset.
Putting in a petrol of that different ratio would be

(08:38):
murder for the car with the engine that I've got,
So I didn't, obviously, and I won't. But the fact
that it occurred to me that I might do it
in the first place, and I thought about it was
another sign of the times. And as Jeffrey Archer says
to his audience in writing, I'll say to you, we
all have our examples, and we all know exactly what

(09:02):
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Farmer Broker Auckland Anthony O'Brien otherwise known to his family

(10:56):
as Aunt O'Brien or Tony if you like ant, is
a writer, a thinker, a man who was raised in
New Zealand with a large family seven kids, where they
loved to debate everything and taught to play ball. Not
the man educated in science and law. His career was
mostly spent outside of New Zealand in trade promotion, manufacturing

(11:19):
management and TVET education. It's a great pleasure to have
you on the podcast. I think it's a privilege. Chant oh,
thank you for having me later, and it's great to
be here. You came to my attention by a roundabout
way that I won't go into, and I was actually
quite thrilled. The part that I want to start with
because it intrigues me. You did a degree in New

(11:40):
Zealand in the eighties in the earth sciences, and then
the following decade you did a law degree at Sydney University.
Why did you do that?

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Well, Look, in the eighties when I left school, most
of my friends actually had a plan. I had a
friend who went on to be a pharmacist and other
a doctor. I really didn't know what I wanted to do,
and I also was a little bit impetunious at that point.
Staying in the way Kettow and going to the local

(12:10):
university seemed like the most logical thing to do. I
was actually caretaker at that stage of my father's primary school,
so I was making some income from that. So I
put myself through university and started a science degree, and
I just found earth science or geology the most fascinating
of the sciences that I did and I had a

(12:30):
hope of going into that field and going to Australia
where my brother had already gone ahead of me, and
he was encouraging me to do that geology study as well.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
So then he went and did law. Why did you
choose law?

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well, the funny thing is just let me feel in
a little bit there. When I went to Australia, it
was in the mid eighties and there was certainly no
work in geology in New Zealand. So I went to
Australia looking to work in the outback. But I loved rugby,
so I was actually playing for Randwick, trying to get
into the Randwick Seniors. They were known as the Galloping Greens,

(13:06):
the best rugby club Australia actually rugby union.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
This is.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
And as much as anything, that was a pursuit that
I wanted to go after as well. But I was
a Johnny could have been, to be honest, I was
never quite going to get to the top. And I
saw a job at IBM, the computer company in the
what did they call it, the Commonwealth Enployment Service window.
I went in and talked to the lady and she said,
you're too qualified for that, and I said.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
I don't care, it's what I want to do.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
I want to join a good company, but this enables
me to practice my rugby do a lot of fitness training.
And I went along and I became a forklift driver
in the IBM Weirdhouse in Roseberry and Sydney, and frankly,
having joined IBM, my boss at the time, Jack Black,
leaned across the table and said, you've got a job
for life, because I think at that stage IBM had
never laid anyone off. And then I got promoted from

(13:59):
there into the city where I became an account administrator.
So I actually did that with an intention of being
an IBM for a a long time. And I have
to say it was a fantastic training ground and credible
company to work for. But then they went through their
problems in the early nineties and at that stage it

(14:21):
kept occurring to me that science wasn't my thing, that
perhaps law was more what I wanted to do. And
I actually started a course which is part time. What's
a course through the Legal Practitioners Admission Board in Sydney, Yes,
which allowed me to It's actually a diploma in law later,

(14:42):
not a bachelor's degree, but it's done in conjunction with
Sydney University.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Let me just tell you I did twelve months of that, Okay,
about ten years before you.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
Okay, Well you know that it gives you the right
to become a solicitor in Australia. And when I started
that course, just through happenstance and through a friend who
i'd met as a flatmate, I saw an opportunity to
go and work for the New Zealand Trade Commissioner in Sydney,
just to fill in for someone for six weeks.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Someone had gone off on sick leave.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
After that six weeks and I was studying law at night,
they offered me the job of locally hired Trade Commissioner
and that was the start of my career with Trade
New Zealand. And for the next I think five years,
I did law every night and did that job every day.
And it was probably the hardest five years I've ever
done in my career, to be honest, because it was long,

(15:40):
long days and nights indeed.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
And from there you went and let me run through
a list and you tell me if I'm wrong anywhere.
You became New Zealand Trade Commissioner in Sydney, New Zealand
Trade Commissioner and a Consul general in Vancouver, followed by
Senior Trade Commissioner in Europe based in London.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Correct. The only additional thing is in between.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Between ninety six and two thousand, I had to come
back to New Zealand and I became an account manager
for the marine industry just after we won the America's
Cup and so I worked with what was known as
Joint Action Group back then Merrick's and the Auckland Marine
Industry to assist them developed World one worldwide market. So

(16:28):
that was my time in New Zealand. I had to
put in that time in New Zealand to be considered
to be posted formally as a trade commissioner.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
The local hires were a different thing.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
But then I got posted to Vancouver in two thousand
as Trade Commissioner in Consul general.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
And you ended up at one point being well working
for Fletcher's in Hungary.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Well that's an interesting story in itself because when I
left the Senior Trade Commissioner role in London, I was
working a little bit with Fletcher's. At that stage it
was Ahi Roothing actually you probably remember that name, and
Fletcher had bought that company, and the incumbent in Europe

(17:11):
approached me, knowing that I was thinking about leaving, and said, look,
we are going to either acquire our competitor or build
a new manufacturing facility in Europe. Would you be interested
to lead that burning? So I said yes, I flew
down to New Zealand interviewed with the CEO.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Of Fletcher Building at that time and.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Got the job, and so I began as the sale
as a marketing manager based in London. We did try
to acquire the competitor, who we also licensed the Decra
tile to, which was a company called I Capel out
of Denmark. That fell through, and then the next step
was to build a manufacturing facility and that was initially

(17:58):
going to be in Slovenia, which was very attractive to
me because my wife is Croatian of heritage, but in
the end it went to Hungary and off we went
to Budapest where the factory was built. The Kapex case
for that was done in two thousand and seven. The
factory opened the doors in two thousand and eight, just

(18:20):
as the financial crisis hit. So we then went into
a very very difficult period and I continued in that
role for four years as the bottom fell out of
the market in Eastern Europe. So I gained a very
challenging time in my career, to be honest, but a
fascinating time, a time where I learned well.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I've also got connections in Budapest in Hungary, Okay, and
I love the place.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
It is a great So.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Let's bring it. Let's bring it up to the present.
You came You came back to New Zealand when your
kids were hitting school age or important school age might
be the right way to put it correct.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yeah, Look, I think one of the big issues for
us in Hungary was our kids were ten, eight and
six at the time, and we were very conscious of
the issue of third culture kids. Our kids didn't have
a home base in Hungary and its language was never
going to be an easy place for them to actually
identify with as their home.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
So we brought them home and I.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Had the opportunity at that stage to come right back home,
which I wasn't expecting at all. But I came back
to Hamilton, back to the Way Institute of Technology as
a business development manager at that point, and yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
A surprising journey for me.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
But I'd lost my father a few years before that,
just at the same time as the factory opened, actually,
and just made sense to come home to give the
kids a base.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
In New Zealand, to give them a New Zealand identity.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
And the New Zealand education because you knew from experience
how good it was, or at least that's what you thought.
You're also a board member on the Waycatto Chamber of
Commerce from twenty thirty to twenty nineteen. I understand. So
you have been very active. You've lived a life to
this point at least that many people would be envyous
of because of the travel and the different experiences involved.

(20:17):
So you come back to New Zealand and you put
your kids into school, and now you are apart from
it in whatever else you might be doing. Having just
turned sixty last weekend, by the way, you have taken
up substack writing. And this is what in part caught

(20:41):
my attention, and you discovered you're writing specifically on kids
and education at this point, and I don't know where
you might continue on and go to was your writing,
but at this particular point of time, you are almost obsessed,
if I may say, with the education system or the

(21:02):
lack of education system in this country. How did you
become well? Can I read this? Let me read this.
We enrolled our son in a very well regarded country
school in the Waikato four years after we returned home.
When my son was then in his second year at
high school, what I used to know was form four.
We were shocked when he said one night, we are

(21:25):
finally doing maths equivalent to what I did in year
six in Buddapest. Clearly we had not been paying attention.
I was genuinely shocked and I'm surprised, Why weren't you
paying more attention? I have to ask, well, that is
a good question. I mean I just had assumed that
he was learning more.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
And I think one of the reasons it's difficult to
discern that is that the reporting in the New Zealand
education system is so opaque you almost need a degree
to understand the progress of children. And it wasn't until
our son told me that that I started to really think, well,
hold on, what's going on here. It became even more
apparent with my younger two because they had less time

(22:08):
in that system in Hungary, in the International British School
in Hungary, and I began to realize that they didn't
have any knowledge. They didn't know about things, and so
that's when I did start to really start to investigate it.
I was working obviously at the Wacatto Institute of Technology
at that point and was seeing almost as zealous attachment

(22:33):
to inquiry based learning. But I then began to realize
that this was right through the system, and the imparting
of knowledge to our kids wasn't happening as it had
happened in Budapest.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Did you at any stage regret returning home?

Speaker 3 (22:50):
I did it, to be honest.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
I came back to the education system here thinking that
I could add a lot of value, and I found it.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
I had to button my lip. So that was the
first thing.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
A lot of the time I think my views, and
I'm someone who will state their views, but you are
in a position where you have to sometimes run with
the narrative or risk risk your job. And I think
that's a big problem and USI and I think a
lot of people know that the education system is not
working that well, but.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
They're scared to speak up.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
It's also a very hard journey to come back to
your own country after the life we have lived they
say it's the hardest journey for the expect to come home.
But on the other hand, look, I deeply believe in
this country. I've worked for a long time for this country,
and I still believe we can turn this around. And
so I'm here and I intend to stay here, and

(23:42):
I intend to keep banging this drum about education, although
I do want to write about other things as well.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Last and I've got a fairly eclectic set of interest.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
At the age, at the age of sixty, are you
still interested in them? Gainful employment?

Speaker 4 (23:57):
That's the big question at the moment. I've set myself
up as Tony O'Brien consulting. I think some of my.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Views may make it difficult for me to be employed
by some groups.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
But I think if people genuinely want to have a
robust debate about how where we head as a society,
then you know, I'm very keen to add my two
pennies worth and support that endeavor.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
So yeah, I look, I'd like to work, but I'm not.

Speaker 4 (24:26):
Likely at this stage to go back into the corporate culture,
into a corporate in New Zealand, at least overseas, it
might be a different story.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
My kids have all left home.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
Now my youngest is now at Canterbury University doing engineering,
and the other tour off at Otaga University, both studying,
so you know there's an opportunity again now too.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
May I ask what they're studying.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
Well, my son's doing an honors in law alongside a
BA where he's doing the classic politics for philosophy and economics,
the old PPE degree that Oxford run and Otager offer that.
So he's he's doing very well and has just picked
up an internship with him to Allison for the summer.

(25:10):
My daughter was a very good dancer, did a year
at the New Zealand School of Dance, but she's quite
an academic as well and she's decided that she wants
to go down that path. So after a year at
the New Zealand School of Dance, she started this year
at Otago doing a BA with a major in psychology
and philosophy.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Are you concerned about the target?

Speaker 4 (25:30):
I'm concerned about all of our universities, to be honest,
I think the prevailing view of all the university vice
chancellors is concerning.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
I'm not sure where they head.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
They've got financial issues, the loss of the international students,
and we haven't an unlikely to pick up the numbers
that we had in the past. Is going to be
difficult for them from a fiscal perspective. But the fact
that they run with this postmodernist sort of view and
the identity politics that are being expressed by these universities

(26:06):
really concerns me because there should be bastions of free speech.
And you know, I was reading Jonathan Aling's latest or
one of his latest emails that came out I followed
the Free Speech Union, and he was commenting on the
fact that the vice Chancellor of Victoria literally went out
to his academics and asked for information on Ailing and

(26:31):
or doctor Michael Johnston, who's of the New Zealand Initiative,
as examples of their racism, so that he could potentially
cancel them from the event that was to occur at
that university. This is an anathema and it's unbelievable that
that should have happened in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, Michael Johnson, of course was at Victoria University before
he joined the initiative, which is wasn't that long back,
so that in itself was surprising when you said it.
The reason I'm interested in it is because my son
went through and did a course very similar to yours

(27:07):
with Laura and Art. And if it was now that
he was wanting to go to a Tiger, I wouldn't
be paying the bills.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Wow, okay, And why why do you feel that way.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Particularly precisely for the for the for the reasons that
you gave only only probably extended ones.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, I mean the new, the new the.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
New vice chancellor is I mean seriously, someone someone who
helped destroy the country financially is now going to run
a university could.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Be a break Well.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
This is this is a problem that we've experienced in
the New Zealand before. There's there's various people being put
into positions from having been in political power and and
it isn't an issue where the person has the requisite experience.
But Grant Robinson is you know, he's a politician, but
I'm not convinced he has the background or experience to

(28:03):
be to be a vice chancellor. But it seems latent
that it. You know, meritocracy is the thing that is
sadly lacking here. We've seen so many examples in New
Zealand where people are appointed into positions not because they
actually are the best person for the role, but because
they fit some sort of identity characteristic that is required.

(28:29):
And that may not seem like a major problem initially.
And you know, I'm the first one to sort of
believe that we do need to have role models from all.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Areas of our society in various jobs.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
But when it becomes a situation where a person's merit
is not considered and someone is appointed simply on the
basis of their identity, You're going to see a situation
over time where that lack of confidence in so many
different parts of the country, in so many different institutions,

(29:03):
starts to lead to poor decision making and starts to
lead to the failure of their And it's.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Something that New Zealanders should be really concerned about.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
We have the talent in this country to run the
place well, but we may not have the right people
running the place.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Do we have the talent to run the place well?
And I asked that question based on the number of
flights leaving the country full of full of those people.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, that's a real question, you know, that's a really
good question.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
I think it is a big concern that we educate
people here. As you say the education system is changing.
They have the same concerns that you do. But then
our best and brightest go and where they used to
come back, I'm not sure they will in the future.
And I think you interviewed Stephen Jennings at some point

(29:55):
in an earlier podcast and he was saying similar things.
I think he was saying similar things about education actually
that he was really concerned for New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
So I'm not sure that we will have the capacity
of New Zealand going forward.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Well, let me put it this way to you. You
have the ability and the capacity and the background to
involve yourself, if if, if you could in the areas
that you're concerned about and to and to give gift
your talent and knowledge and history to help develop what

(30:31):
we might consider a successful contemporary system of education. Except
you can't because they don't want you.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Well, that remains to be seen. But I suspect you're right.
I get the feeling that when I've spoken, I'm not
speaking in the right narrative. So yeah, they there's a
danger that people like me start to withdraw. And that's
how I feel a little bit. It's like, Okay, I'm
not not going to be heard, so what's the point

(31:03):
and it's it's it's very disappointing because I do look
at my experience and I sometimes wonder, what on what's
going on here? Why is my view someone who's been
in these roles around the world. I've worked both in
senior management and in trade promotion for the country. I
understand how our export sectors work, and yet I understand

(31:24):
how the education system works.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
I've got a science degree.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
I've got a law qualification, but I'm just not the
right age or color to be appointed into certain roles.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Okay, now there's more than that, but I want to
go back to this is the first article you wrote
as far as some aware, the problem statement, basically laying
out your approach to education in New Zealand and where
you see it faulty and praising some people who deserve
to be recognized more than they are. And I pick

(31:57):
it up. Firstly, our teachers are taught to adhere almost
religiously to what is known as constructivism, even social constructivism,
which is rolled out under the term Students sent Learning.
To be sure, constructivism is or as posited by Jean Pierge,
has its merits, but it needs to be tempered by

(32:19):
other pedagogical styles. As my father would have said, to
teach a child, you need to do what it takes,
and you go on. Erica Stanford, the new Minister of Education,
has listened and seems to be adopting many of the
recommendations put by the New Zealand Initiative in this space.
She's pushing, for example, the use of explicit instruction in

(32:39):
the form of structured literacy fancy that in helping children
to read. As she is to be commended, but she
needs to be supported again. As you've made mention of
this organization listening to Radio New Zealand, the pushback has
already started, and you go on to encourage all in
Sundry to back Erica Stanford and give her support. Have

(33:04):
you met with her?

Speaker 1 (33:06):
No?

Speaker 3 (33:06):
I have not. Actually I I did have.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
A teleconference one night prior to the election with some
people and I think Erica might have been on that call,
and that was through my association with the Wackado Chamber
of Commerce, which i'd left by that stage as a director.
But there are people within the Chamber who think my
views need to be further heard. But I'd love to

(33:30):
do so. I'd love to talk to her about this,
because I think at the end of the day, you
know there is a place. Jean Pierreet when he said
children are scientists is right. They are very good. We
all humans have an inate ability to problem solve. We
learn how to talk without being sent to school. But

(33:51):
John Sweller talks about biological secondary information, not primary information,
but secondary information that we will only learn if we
go to school, and the idea that we need to
discover these things for ourselves to that all the best
learning happens when students discover things. Tends to come from
almost a counseling view of the world that you have

(34:14):
insights and we all do. But the fact of the
matter is you can't discover something if you're ignorant, not
of the world's knowledge. And a classical traditional education of
the past, ironically, the sort of education that the people
who are making the decisions in Wellington today got but
are now denying to the younger folk, gives people information

(34:36):
and once you have knowledge, as Ed Hirsch, an American
educational psychologist, says, knowledge begets knowledge. Another one, Dan Willingham,
who's a great educational psychologist out of I think Michigan.
He talks about the fact that teaching knowledge is teaching
reading because you need knowledge to disambiguate what you might

(35:00):
be reading and understand it. So you start from the basics,
you build, and then you start to become creative and
cit in your thinking once you have knowledge. Critical thinking
as a skill doesn't make sense. It's not something you
can teach. It's innate. But once you situate that critical

(35:24):
thinking in a domain, then you can critically think. It's
actually hard latent to transfer critical thinking across domains. A
doctor can critically think about the illness of a patient,
but if he doesn't know anything about engine, he can
stand there in the front of his engine and you
won't have a hope in hell of critically thinking about
what's wrong with the engine unless he has the knowledge

(35:47):
of how that engine operates. And yet we in New
Zealand seem to think that kids are going to go
to school and sit in front of in a group
and discover the knowledge because the primary thing seems to
be engagement. Now, look, engagement is important, there's no question,
you know, you really do want to engauge kids and learning.

(36:11):
But look, if I refer to the Machaya's School in
London and wonderful principal there I can't remember. I think
Catherine berber Berbersing. You know, she explains that they in
part knowledge to these inner city London kids, and the
kids lap it up. They like to be taught. And

(36:33):
I can't imagine that it's any different in New Zealand
that children want to learn.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Have you have you? Have you come across a school
in Sydney, a Liverpool called the Marsdian Road Primary School No.
About a month ago, five weeks maybe I interviewed the
headmaster or mistress if you like. The principal Miniesia Grizzouola

(37:01):
born in India and she has adopted pretty much the
same approach as the London school you referenced, and that principle.
I don't know whether she I don't think she stole
it from them. She grew up in much of her
younger life were spent in India and she learned things

(37:21):
for herself and she has run this school in that
manner and the school's rankings, the results have gone through
the roof. I can imagine and guess what. While she's
still there and an operating, there's concern in the system
that this might be catching.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
You were why is that latey?

Speaker 4 (37:45):
And why why are people scared of our children understanding
the knowledge of the world.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Well, I think we both know the answer, and so
do I think most people who are listening, and there
are other there are other alternatives that are preferred. Is
a simple way to put it. Let me move on
to because you've written I think eight articles so far
on the subject. Now, I don't know which ones you

(38:12):
think are the most important. I will make mention of
the teaching kids to love reading, but I think I
think that that that has become fairly fairly obvious. And
it's the shortest one of all. It's two pages, whereas
you're writing others like too much Zeal for co construction

(38:32):
in New Zealand classrooms is nine pages, and there's a
couple more that are at least that long. So what
did you Why did you move on? Just give us
an outline of what you were saying in article number two,
too Much Zeal.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Well, this goes back to this issue that we've been
talking about that I guess a good place to start
with us is my role at win Tech. I was
bringing teachers from China down to New Zealand. To show
them how we teach our polytechnics. And if you think
about education as being on a continuum, at one end

(39:10):
a road based learning instruction and didact what we call
didactic learning, and at the other end being you know,
discovery or inquiry based learning, which is based on construction
or in the New Zealand model, social constructivism, a sort
of a diological approach to teaching. The Chinese were in

(39:31):
our way up the one end of that system, the
didactic road based learning, and we very want to criticize
the Chinese for this, that there's no imagination in their students.
Bringing these teachers down from China, we were impressing upon

(39:53):
them the importance of getting students to think for themselves.
But what I started to see was as these Chinese
teachers were here, they started to ask questions about but
you know how these students don't seem to know stuff.
And eventually I got onto a discussion with some pretty

(40:13):
senior people in China who took the view that New
Zealand's gone too far. They they will absolutely introduced some
inquiry based learning, project based learning into their into their
education system, and there's a place for it, but to
do that without first and parting the knowledge just doesn't

(40:35):
make sense.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
And this is this is where New Zealand it seems
to have gone wrong.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
It's what what doctor Michael Johnston and others are picking
up on.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
I think I refer to John Sweller earlier.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Also, both these gentlemen are talking about the fact that
you know, the when you learn to discover it all
yourself is a very very inefficient way to go about it.
When when you're taught knowledge, when you actually are young
and you've given that knowledge, it gives you the basis
to be creative and critical in your thinking in the future.

(41:10):
And we've just lost that. And I believe we've lost
it partly because there seems to be an ideology around
you know, the knowledge that's come from the age of reason,
the knowledge that's come from the Enlightenment, which ironically is
the sort of knowledge that has actually enabled modern states.

(41:32):
Modern liberty has freed women from the chains of servitude,
allowed them to enter the education system. And yet the
flood of women into education in the late nineties and
then their tendency to latch onto postmodernism, which rejects objectivity,
rejects any sort of objective morality, and rejects the patriarchy

(41:59):
in the Western system.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
I think this is.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Where it's sort of the ideology combines with the concept
of co construction to cancel out any teaching of the
knowledge of the West. And that's a real problem because
you know, whether it's Newton or Galileo or Descartes or
Hume or Adam Smith, these thinkers have changed our world.

(42:25):
And you know, if you listen to someone like Stephen Pinker,
he'll talk about the fact that our world is a
far far better place than it was in the seventeenth century.
There's far less violence, there's far more opportunity for people,
and although the West has benefited from that more than most,
until recently the rest of the world was starting to

(42:47):
catch up, which Laden goes to in issue around you know,
globalization that I would like to talk about if we could,
but because we're heading into a period of deglobalization away
from free trade, and I know I'm going off on
a tangent here, but I think it's very dangerous.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
For the world. But look, coming back to this issue
of too much zeal.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
There's why I'm saying that is anybody who sort of says,
why don't we get kids to do a bit of
drilling on the Times table or on history. Why don't
we impart this information? You tend to sort of get
looked at as if you're talking some strange sort of language,
like why would we do that? But I think underneath
that as an ideology.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
How would you describe that ideology?

Speaker 4 (43:36):
It's definitely coming from a Marxist base. It's kind of
a Marxism rolled into postmodernism. And you mean you hear
that the education departments or universities, they're big fans of
fu Co and a writer and all of these thinkers
who see everything in terms of power.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
And you mean like the you mean like the Democrat Party.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
Yeah, look, the American medical system is beyond my comprehension.
To be honest, I can't quite believe we've got a
situation where, too, you know, geriatric candidates are running for
power in a country where there's three hundred and fifty
million people. But certainly the Democrats seem to have lost

(44:25):
their minds and the Republican Party has lost its.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Mojo.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
It's been taken over by Trump. For whatever you think
of Trump, he now owns that party. And I think
they're in a mess as well, so, yeah, I sound conscious,
I'm sounding a bit negative on everything, but it is.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
It is a very challenging environment over there.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I'm not responding to you because I have an idea
and I will explain it before we conclude the other
articles that you've written, of those which to you are
the most relevant for our purposes.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Oh, look, they're all They're all relevant. I think I
think that the just very quickly.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
On the modern learning environments or the innovative learning environments,
that the amount of money that's been spent on this
country creating barns that are going to be very difficult
for children to learn in is just astonishing. Going back
to John Sweller, his theory around cognitive load suggests that
two really critical things.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
One that our.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Working memory is limited in its capacity, but if you
have information loaded into your long term memory, then you
can easily access that back into your working memory without
too much cognitive load. Other things that can put cognitive
load on the working memory.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Just give us, sorry, just give us a definition of
cognitive load.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
So so you know, the minds and the mind's an
amazing thing, and some of these things are sort of
illustrative of how it works rather than actually how it works.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
But in the you have it. You have a working
memory where the work.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
Is done, where an executive executive level your brain is operating,
and then in your long term memory, where we've got
a lot of memory stored in our brains, that the
working memory can access that long term memory, so that
the load he's talking about is in the executive functionary,
in the executive function in the working memory. When it

(46:28):
comes to distraction, sorry, when it comes to the modern
learning environments, one of the problems that they create is
the noise and the visual distraction of so many children
in a modern learning environment actually adds to cognitive load,
which is a problem because it does then overwhelm a child,
and particularly children with problems like ADHD. They just can't

(46:54):
handle that environment. And I also suspect the teachers find
it extremely difficult to handle the environment of being in
a room with sixty kids all day long, all competing
for their attention and in a discovery based mode, not
listening to them, but being told to get on and
do things and work in groups. So anyway, the point
there is that there's been a lot of money spent

(47:19):
building these monolithic structures that align with the discovery based
learning model, which modern.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Science says is not a good way of teaching teaching children.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
In the other articles, and particularly my most more recent articles,
I'm talking about issues that go to social media and
some of the damage that's been caused. The education industry
here in New Zealand seems to think that children need
to learn how to use the technology. Ignore the fact
that most of us are aware that our kids can

(47:52):
actually use smartphones and iPads and most software more insuratively
as digital natives than any of us. I don't need
more time on these things. They need to be taught
the basics. So I'm a big fan of Jonathan Height
in this area books. On his latest book on The
Anxious Mind, talks about four norms which I wrote about

(48:14):
us adopting if we could in one of my more
recent articles, and he's Those four norms that he's talking
about are no smartphones before high school, no phones at school,
no social media before sixteen, and more independent and free
played out in the real world. He cites research that

(48:40):
shows that the average, not not some teenagers, the average
teenager in America spends nine hours a day on social media.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Hard to believe.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
It is hard to believe, but not not when you've
seen teenagers playing video games and other things at night.
But if we take that time away from kids and
redirect them into the real world, we all have to
make an effort to allow that to happen and put
the scaffolding around that to allow that happen. And that
goes back to us, back against the community and and

(49:13):
you know, not being afraid to put out our kids
outside and.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Say go on your bikes go.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
You know, look at look at the number of schools
around New Zealand where it's a bridlock to get into
school because every kid is going to school in an suv.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
In case they.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
Get you abducted on the streets. Well, is that is
that really going to happen? And if it is, why
is it happening? You know, have we lost our communal
values that we can't look out for each other's kids.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well, I think there's more than that. I think there's
the danger of traffic that deserves a lot of a
lot of parents, plus the fact that some of them
I don't I have no idea on I can't put
a figure on it. But some of them live quite
a distance away from schools where where in this day
and age. Going back to the traffic scenario, it really,

(50:05):
it really is unnerving.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
Look, I don't doubt that I and I sound somewhat disingenuous,
even to myself, because I'm guilty of this helicopter parenting myself.
And you know, and but we somehow need to convince
ourselves that and start with the small things. There's a
there's an organization that I refer to in one of
those articles called Let Grow in the United States, and

(50:30):
they are starting to just encourage parents to do the
smallest things to get their kids to be a little
bit more independent and take take trips, go into the
shop themselves, those sort of things, just just to build
that independence and agency. Otherwise, you know, it may be
that our kids will get killed or injured on the roads.
But there's a there's a growing suicide problem in New Zealand,

(50:52):
which is the tip of a mental health problem which
is which is growing rapidly. That our kids have anxiety
and depression because they've been taught by parents that the
world's not safe, that they aren't competent to go out
into the world.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
And we all, we all.

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Just need to be a little bit more optimistic about
our ability, our kid's ability to cope in the world
and let them go and scrape their knees. I'm not
I'm not disagreeing with you about you know, the roads
we need. We the traffic does move fast, and so
you have to be sensible. But there are opportunities for

(51:30):
us as a society to collectively ensure that our children
get more free and independent play.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
And I agree with you completely by the way, falling
off swings and breaking your arm or something which one
of mine did is a lesson in life exactly. And
it's not pleasant to break your arm, not that I'd know,
but by the same token, that's how you learn through experience,
and you can transfer that learning breaking your army by

(51:56):
being silly on a swing to other things as well.
There's something that you you mentioned that's that's triggered off
a question I had when when I was reading and
I have read pretty much all of the articles that
you've written so far. Are our boys failing school or

(52:19):
are the schools fading our boys? Now, before you jump in,
the question that I that I have is the boys
are supposed to be the ones who are falling behind.
But when it comes to social media and the influence
that it has. The influence is far greater on girls

(52:43):
negatively on that it is on boys. And I can't yes,
I can remember the figures girls. There's a big growth
in girls having psychological problems, and the figure I was
thinking of was thirty percent, and the boys, by comparison.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Are.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Twelve Yeah, twelve percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's in the
United States.

Speaker 4 (53:08):
You're absolutely right when it comes to when it comes
to social media.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Girls are really vulnerable.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
And you know, there's there's a growing body of evidence
that suggests that the you know, the negative impacts of
a constant requirement for validation, the constant exposure to what
other people are doing in the world leads to kids,

(53:38):
and particularly girls, become becoming a little bit more neurotic
about what's going on and worried that they're not going
to cut it. They're also, you know, prone to being
cyber bullied. So in that respect, yeah, there is a
problem for girls, and that's that's a good reason to
ban social media for people under sixteen.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Two things I want to sorry, yeah, no, go ahead.
Two things I want to string together. The collapse of morality,
that's a question for you. And sex in teaching because
the two the two are very closely logged in together.

(54:21):
Have we had a collapse of morality do you think
in Western society?

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Yeah, well, I think we have. And I think one
of the issues that that's a real problem for our
society is and it's one of the issues that kind
of counters the Age of Enlightenment. If you are a
religious person. The Age of Enlightenment really taught us all
to be skeptical, to think of ourselves as universal people,
but also to obviously, you know, question God. You know,

(54:48):
as Nietzsche's premasy said, we've killed God. And as people
have come away from religion as their sort of arbiter,
a God is their arbituter of their lives. In following
the prestrict of the structures of a religion, everyone's been
searching for a new set of ethics.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
And you know, there are the new atheists like.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Dawkins and others, and various ethicists around the world Peter
Singer out of Australia who are pointing to a new
set of ethics, but they're very hard for people to
latch onto, and it's much easier for people to latch
onto the new religion of postmodernism more than the new
religion of you know, really a name. Stuff like that

(55:35):
comes across on TikTok so. I think people are a
little lost there. It does seem to be a movement
back towards religion.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
I'm not sure what the answer is.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
Later, and I was brought up as a Catholic, I
very much became agnostic and almost an atheist, and now
I don't know where I am.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
To be honest, I always find.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
It impossible to reject the possibility of a god. But
as a society, we have such a plurality of thinking
on this that it's difficult to get and shared values
around what the ethics and society should be. Albeit that
if we went back to the basics, I think nearly

(56:16):
every society does agree on something that looks close to
the Ten Commandments.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
I think that's a rather wise summation. Actually, sex and teaching.
Is there a place in schools for sex education?

Speaker 4 (56:31):
Yeah, I absolutely think there's a place in schools for
sex education. You know, the world changed, what is it,
you know, in the sixties when when women finally got
control of their fertility. It's probably the biggest sociological change
in the history of humans of humankind. There's no doubt

(56:54):
that you know, we should put our heads in the
sand and ignore the sexual revolution.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
And I think in the.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
Modern day world we need to be clear that the
world is operating differently. So kids do need to be aware,
particularly young girls, They do need to be aware of
their sexuality. They need to understand contraception, they need to
understand the basics. The problem I have is there seems
to be a growing push to do that at a

(57:23):
younger and younger age, and it just seems insane to
me to be teaching kids before puberty, at a very
young age, about all sorts of sexual practices that you
and I wouldn't have known about until we were quite mature.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Well, I can give you a reason for it. It's
very simple. Whose are being run by introduced and run
by devians? Well, you may well be right, and and
they're getting away with it, specifically in the States. Look,
I've I lied a long time ago that what happens
in America it used to be starting in California, but
now that it can come from anywhere almost. But what

(58:03):
happens in America finds its way into the rest of
the world, particularly the Western world. Countries and you can
see it in advance, and of more recent times it's
become something of a surprise to me at the speed
at which it moves. Now I'm about to give you
an example of what I'm talking about, and it is

(58:26):
something that stunned me over the weekend. In the weekend
Australian a woman who is qualified to cover this sort
of thing about a situation in Wales of all places,
where boys have been asking teachers in class, how do
we conduct choking during sex? And the answer is pornography. Essentially,

(58:52):
they're seeing it in pornography. She even indicates in the
article that the girls themselves are if not believing there,
then they're they're in motion to accepting that this is
part of it, and the boys are believing that the
girls wanted m hm m it did head. No, it

(59:16):
does my head. And I think you know, and this
is clearly down to pornography. This is clearly down to
there seems to be.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
I think it's well known that, you know, as as
people use pornography more and more, they have a tendency
to go to more and more extremes, and of course,
like any of these algorithms that it's operating on a
on a app or on the internet. The algorithm, algorithm
is designed to tatilate and trigger you more and more.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
And the same is true of porn.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
So where once porn might have shown a beautiful expression
of love. And you know, I'm not totally condemnatrip. I
don't condemn pornography entirely, but it certainly should.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Be used by adults.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
But where where people are being shown more and more
extreme porn, and especially at very young ages, of course,
they're going to start to normalize that's what you do.
And and choking is an extremely dangerous thing to do,
and the fact that our young children even know about

(01:00:21):
it is just astonished.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
One question you mentioned was a boy asked the teacher,
how do I bring my girlfriend round after she's passed out?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Oh? My god, exact there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
It's astonishing, but not really surprising when you think about it,
especially on the back of your explanation A mo bit ago.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
No, well exactly. And this is the great irony of
all of this is.

Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
We're trying to keep our children safe in the natural environment,
and we expose them to these sort of things online.
We have This is where height is right. We need
to get kids off this stuff until they've got a
level of maturity that they can understand what's happening here.
I mean, you're seeing the same thing with the hookup
culture in in young people there, you know, and I'm

(01:01:11):
sure that girls ultimately understand that this is not good
for them. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that,
you know, the top twenty percent of boys get to
pick from all the girls because the girls want to
be with the nicest looking, most sporty boy. If there's

(01:01:31):
a belief that those girls have and they you know,
the girls genuinely want love, but the boys will just
keep moving on and they're eventually going to be left
feeling neglected, sad because they've participated in a culture that
is just so shallow. And we need to get back

(01:01:53):
to a situation where you know, they have a word
for it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
These days, you know that you meet in the wild
so many boys.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
I've talked to boys at universities who can't find a
girlfriend because the girls say, well, if I wanted to
have sex, I just go on tender you know, so
back off. So, you know, even just to chat up
a girl as a young man these days is problematic.
Where does that leave our young men. They're both kind
of over feminized by their education and then presented with

(01:02:22):
an impossibly difficult task of finding a partner.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
It's not good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Give me a brief on the feminization of education.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Well, like, it's always a difficult one to go into.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
And I would say at the outset that it's you know,
in danger of being accused of a being a misogynist.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
But you know, I think I've always believed that there's a.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Balance between the sexes, between the masculine and the feminine.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
There are two biological sexes.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
By the way, later maybe there may be more fluidity
and gender, but there are just two biological sexes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Well, I'm a fellow traveler.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
And at the end of the day, our schools have
become flooded with particularly primary schools, with women and women
both teaching and in leadership roles, and women quite rightly
are the cares in society when when you know, women
evolved to look after young children, to nurture those children,

(01:03:25):
and there's a stage in every mother's life where she
has to start to back away from that naturing and
allow the child to explore and grow. And that's and
that's why men in fathers are so important. They play
a different role. They push their kids, they encourage them
to get out and compete. I'm not saying women don't,
but there's there's more tendency to nurture and to discuss

(01:03:49):
from women.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
That is what is happening in our schools. We're seeing
more and more leaders and teachers in the schools men.
Men are scared to go into primary schools these days
for reasons we both know, and and so there's this
over nurturing of children and an over an emphasis on
cooperation and discussion and a whole lot of things that

(01:04:14):
actually leads the boys feeling like they have to sit
down on the carpet with the girls and do nothing,
which they'll happily do if you give them an iPhone
or some sort of smart device that they can just
get absorbed in. But we're losing that balance between the
masculine and feminine that should be there, and the only
way we can resolve that, by the way, is to

(01:04:36):
get more men back into the teaching profession, particularly at
the primary school level.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Which lead leads to another subject, really not one that
you've covered as horis I'm aware at this point, but
co ed or single sex school's best.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
That's a hard one.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
I went to a single sex school, Saint John's College
in Hamilton. I must say, having come from a full
country school to a place where there were no girls,
I found it very discombobular at the start. And actually,
I'd have to say I think I suffered a psychological
deficit at the end of that time because I really

(01:05:16):
didn't know how to approach approach girls when I went
to university. So look, I know these evidence that suggests
that that single sex schools are better for education.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
My view is.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Keeping the two sexes together through school is the better,
the better way, because I think that that period of
puberty is such a great time for socialization between the
two sexes and to understand each other.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
That's just my opinion. I know this will have but
I was interested in your opinion. I experienced both, and
I could argue either way to be honest.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
All right. So I mentioned that I had a suggestion
to make to you, And now it would appear to
be the time you mentioned globalization and you mentioned American politics,
and I think there is another podcast on both those
topics for us to cover sometime in the not too
distant future.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
You say, I'd love to do that. I'm fascinated in it.
I think we're in danger of the world economy contracting
Judah deglobalization, and New Zealand's in a particularly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Vulnerable situation in that regard.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
I mean that kind of hitches back to education as well,
because we have to have a highly educated, innovative society
in New Zealand And with such a small country, such
a long way from anywhere, that we need the benefits
of free trade to do well in the world. And

(01:06:53):
you know, I've got lots of thoughts on that from
my years in trade development.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
But I'd love to love to have a deeper discussion
on those topics.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
And we might we might make it a trifector and
throw media into it as well.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:05):
Look, just on that note, and as you talked about it,
I did listen to your podcasts with Oliver Hartwich, and
I think Oliver is a very good thinker. I love
some of this thinking about how New Zealand might become
a little bit more Swiss in its democracy. That's not
an easy leak to make. The one thing he did
touch on and I was cheering alongside, was foreign direct investment.

(01:07:29):
New Zealand needs to understand that it doesn't really matter
that much where the money comes from.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
We need capital.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Our firms in New Zealand have consistently been undercapitalized, so
we need the factors of production and obviously human smart
humans is a big part of that education, but capital
is another thing. And we've done a really bad job
over the years of trying to protect the economy from
foreign direct investment while trying to open up other economies

(01:08:00):
to our products. We need to we need to be
a little bit more balanced about that. And he did
site Ireland, which is a country of my ancestry, and
you know that have the advantage of being situated in
the middle of Europe, on the edge of Europe. But
they've done a fantastic job of attracting foreign direct investment
and in the education system and they're moving, you know,

(01:08:21):
well ahead of others as a knowledge economy, and I
think New Zealand needs to do something similar.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
You know, I've never been attracted to Ireland in any way,
shape or form until Oliver made those comments, and by
the end of it, I was ready to pack up
the house and leave.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
Well, they got great crack over there.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
You know, they love to talk, but they're good thinkers,
and you know they've been placed in a difficult situation
because of Brexit. I might add Laton that you know,
Island is a place that actually demonstrates for me that
we have to look to the future, forget about the
past and all the injustices and everything that's gone on

(01:09:00):
in the world where we could have a grievance. It's
so important that a society pulls together and comes together
around under a vision and a goal. And thank god
Island has done that. They've moved on from the troubles,
although you know it really worries me that the Brexit
thing might stir that up again. But New Zealand has
to be very careful on this front. We need to

(01:09:21):
understand that we're all New Zealanders wherever we came from,
and we need a common set of values and some
national pride in being New Zealand as not being in
our groups, whatever they may be, but being New Zealand's
first and foremost and proud of our country. And as
people would say, all throwing the walker in the same direction.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Would you allow a walker from anywhere in the world
to come.

Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
In that's a hard question. I'm not a stag again.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
I was going to say hold the thought because we
can throw that in with the other lot. Yeah, it's
building now your work. What is the best way for
people to find it?

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
Well, look, I'm still building that up at the moment.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
But if they go on to substack, look up substack
and look for intology. I've also been posting my work
to LinkedIn and Twitter. I've got a little bit of
work to do there late in getting that a bit
more in shape.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
I don't use Instagram. I don't like that platform.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
But if they simply look me up on substack, they'll
find antology.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Antology on substack, yes, not anthology, antology a n T antology.

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
And I encourage everyone to do it and spread it around.
It's it's very deserving of your attention. And I want
to thank you Tony.

Speaker 4 (01:10:48):
Well, no, thank you for giving me this time and
in this platform. It's not often someone like me gets
the chance to have a discussion like this later and
it's been it's been really pleasurable, So thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Well, we shall meet again in the not too distant
future at a time and date to be arranged.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Perfect I look forward to it. Likewise, Thanks Laydon.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Thank you Tony. Now, it was only last week that

(01:11:30):
I was referring to the wonderful benefits of wet and forget,
mass mold, lichen, black fungi, and l g remover.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Coincidentally, I received a couple of days later a text
from a friend of mine who I've made mention of before,
who lives in Sydney. He's an academic, and he said,
believe it or not, I'm in Poughkeepski in New York,
visiting my best friend. And he told me that he
had a muss problem on his roof. So I asked
him what he was using, now, being a man who
believes in communication efficiency, and that was all. But there

(01:12:00):
was an accompanying picture of a container of wet and
forget and a scrubber broom and something else behind that
I can't quite see. So I have a word of
advice for your friend, and that is, make sure he
reads the instructions and applies it properly. Don't need to
scrub it. The rain will take care of it. Does
rain in Poughkeepski. I presume don't forget that you can
get wet and forget products in many, many places in

(01:12:22):
all of the twenty one standalone stores nationwide. In New
Zealand on the phone at eight hundred and three zero
three thousand wetinforget dot co dot NZ in Australia and
in England, and particularly in Poughkeepski in New York, as
well as the rest of America. Layton Smith now into
the mail room for two forty six. Actually it's more

(01:12:43):
of a male box, isn't it? Much smaller and not
nearly as much fun. Missus producer aka Carolyn will be
back next week and we're all looking forward to that.
So feedback on last week with James Bovard two forty
five was very entertaining interview. I'd say that he was
spot on with his analysis, in line with all the

(01:13:04):
alternative news that I listened to. I could not, for
the life of me his humorous delivery on such dire topics,
but I thank him. Cheers from Rod from Colin. I
was disappointed that James Bouvard did not pick up on
your opinion of Donald Trump. All the years that you
have been interviewing people has given you the ability to

(01:13:25):
be a very good judge of personality. I think having
followed you for some time. I agree with what you said,
as I feel Trump is an orator with a strong
extraversion of personality that makes him very articulate and expressive.
The thing is behind this persona as usual, is a

(01:13:47):
very intelligent mind. Therefore he has the qualities of a
good leader. It's a pity the Democrats are able to
bend so many rules to discredit him. Maybe they might
be able to bend another rule and parachute Michelle Obama
into the contest. Goodness me, I hope not, says Colin
is asking and answering his own question and from breat

(01:14:12):
I am behind in your quality podcasts. Well, that's I suppose,
one way of putting it. It was nice to hear
epigenetics and sell consciousness make an appearance. Human biology is
far more complex and interesting than we understand. Wisdom and
knowledge are two different things. We're doing things without the

(01:14:33):
wisdom and thinking ourselves clever than were cleverer than we are.
We in fact know so very little and understand even less.
Ghost in the Genes was a documentary now many years old,
that introduced epigenetics. Epigenetics is in fact a very large
field with many tangents. Yet more branches off it into

(01:14:55):
other areas to explore all interwoven, including our very spirituality,
human consciousness, quantum nature revolution. With a shift lift in consciousness,
amazing things could start to happen alas we have chosen
to devolve or decline as a nation rather than evolve
our consciousness. Enjoy everything you do. Was that a comment

(01:15:20):
or an instruction?

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
I'm not sure?

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
Do I have time for this? Yes? Or thoroughly enjoyed
this episode? Later in great banter and insight between the
two of you, just one glaring omission a presidential candidate
not mentioned even once, one who mainstream media have elected
to ignore, much to my surprise. You are you, who

(01:15:43):
I do not consider to be mainstream in the slightest
have ignored to my knowledge so far. Rfk JR. Robert
Kennedy is most certainly in this presidential running, and running
as an independent should not preclude him from the debate
nor from the media's consideration. He is a threat to

(01:16:03):
the hegemonic status quo in America, all the more reason
to be tuning in. CNN did not allow him on
the debate floor, so he answered all of the questions
on a stream on Twitter much more eloquent than the
other two. Also, I might add the states that Biden
is in makes you wonder who was actually running the show.

(01:16:25):
It is certainly not him, but I think we have
the answer to that now. Thanks Hank, appreciate it, and
I might address your Rah Kennedy comment to another time
that takes us out for podcasts two hundred and forty six.
We shall be back next week with missus producer in
tow and in the meantime if you'd like to correspond
Latent at Newstalks AB dot co dot nz or Carolyn

(01:16:49):
with a y at NEUSTORGSB dot co dot nz. As always,
thank you for listening and we shall talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Thank you for more from Newstalks B Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.