TRIGGERnometry - The West Gave In To Putin - Tony Abbott

00:00:00.720 Over the last decade or so, we've been engaged in a process of military, economic and cultural, unilateral disarmament.

00:00:09.840 And it does have to end.

00:00:12.140 At what point, Tony, are we going to wake up?

00:00:15.480 Because we've been asleep now for a long time.

00:00:18.360 I think it would be a disaster for the world if Putin's aggression succeeds.

00:00:24.340 But it has succeeded, hasn't it?

00:00:25.820 We have allowed Putin's nuclear blackmail to succeed.

00:00:31.360 I think it's obvious that the Iranians are quite close to a nuclear weapon. 0.79

00:00:37.900 It's more a matter of months than years.

00:00:40.460 Months.

00:00:42.960 Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:00:46.900 Lovely to be here.

00:00:47.880 Oh, it's great to have you on, mate.

00:00:49.120 It's so good to have you.

00:00:50.820 There's so much to talk about as well.

00:00:52.820 One of the things that would be very interesting to hear from you, given all your experience, is when you look out at the world today, we're sitting here in February 2025, what do you see?

00:01:04.480 What do you think is important that's going on?

00:01:08.000 I think it's a more fraught and a more dangerous world than at any time in my life.

00:01:13.780 But I am much encouraged by the second coming of Donald Trump, not because I always agree with him, but because I think he is at heart standing against the politics of climate and identity, which has done so much damage over the last couple of decades.

00:01:34.060 And at heart, he believes in America as a fundamentally good society.

00:01:40.960 And I think patriots everywhere should be encouraged by this resurgence.

00:01:50.800 And do you think that is bleeding through?

00:01:53.040 Are you seeing in Australia shifts happening, maybe here in the UK, elsewhere in the Anglosphere and the rest of the West?

00:01:59.080 I like to think that the second coming of Trump marks the moment when woke started to die.

00:02:09.840 I was very encouraged by the Brexit vote, but unfortunately, a defeatist and declinist establishment in this country fought back to substantially negate what should have been a new beginning for Great Britain.

00:02:27.420 I was very encouraged by the result of the referendum on Indigenous separatism in Australia a year or so back.

00:02:46.900 But thus far, at least in our country, green left governments have gone on as if nothing had really changed.

00:02:54.520 I think this time, given that the American public voted quite decisively for Trump, knowing exactly what he's like, knowing his strengths, knowing his weaknesses, notwithstanding all the lawfare that's been waged against him, I think this is a decisive moment.

00:03:15.740 It's certainly an even more decisive moment than those previous fightbacks against the woke mind virus, which is doing so much damage.

00:03:26.200 Tony, you were saying that the world is in a fraught place, possibly the most fraught in your lifetime.

00:03:34.820 Why do you say that?

00:03:37.520 Bearing in mind when you think about the Cold War and blah, blah, blah and all the rest of it.

00:03:41.300 Well, look at the three obvious flashpoints.

00:03:48.760 The Russian aggression against Ukraine, which looks to be steadily succeeding.

00:03:55.900 Look at the Iranian-inspired attacks on Israel, which look to have been rebuffed for the moment, but the future is still extremely difficult.

00:04:13.000 Look at the Chinese communist bullying of all its neighbours. 0.99

00:04:19.280 Consider the array of dictatorships now threatening the West, the militarist dictatorship in Moscow, the communist dictatorship in Beijing, the Islamist dictatorship in Tehran, and their allies and sympathisers around the world.

00:04:38.960 Consider that on the one hand, consider what until very recently has been the defeatism and the declinism, the chronic cultural self-doubt, even self-loathing of the great democracies.

00:04:53.040 I mean, think of America, guilted about slavery.

00:04:59.440 Think of Britain, guilted about the empire.

00:05:03.000 Think of Australia, guilted over indigenous dispossession.

00:05:06.800 Now, there's no doubt slavery was an evil, a terrible evil.

00:05:11.560 There's no doubt that there was a downside as well as a great upside to the British Empire.

00:05:17.180 And there's no doubt that the dispossession of indigenous people in Australia caused much suffering.

00:05:26.340 But despite these things, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia are three of the most wonderful societies on Earth, arguably the best countries there have ever been.

00:05:39.900 And the fact that so many people want to get across the Rio Grande, get across the English Channel, get across the Timor Sea to come to Australia.

00:05:51.200 These things speak volumes.

00:05:55.220 They say that people see our countries as beacons of hope and opportunity.

00:06:03.820 And yet that's not how we see ourselves.

00:06:06.620 And I think that needs to change.

00:06:08.700 And I think it just might be starting to change.

00:06:13.800 Well, that's an interesting point.

00:06:15.300 But if we look at particularly at China, I talk to a lot of Aussies and they're really worried about China because they kind of see and push back.

00:06:24.820 If you disagree with that as the Chinese invasion of Taiwan as inevitable.

00:06:29.920 Well, I always try to make a sharp distinction between the Chinese government and the Chinese people. 0.93

00:06:39.660 The Beijing regime is obviously set on world domination.

00:06:46.500 It says so.

00:06:47.280 I mean, Chinese leaders have been saying again and again over the past few years that the clear objective, their clear objective is to be the global hegemon by mid-century.

00:07:01.980 And their immediate objective is to take back Taiwan, as they see it, by force, if necessary, as quickly as possible. 0.95

00:07:10.320 So I think that it is almost inevitable that there will be a crisis over Taiwan in the next few years.

00:07:20.200 The only way to possibly avoid it and certainly bring it to the least unsatisfactory outcome is for the Beijing leadership to clearly understand

00:07:37.060 that there is a strong democratic alliance ranged against them.

00:07:41.620 And any attack on Taiwan would not pit 1.4 billion Chinese against 25 million Taiwanese, but it would pit China, if not against the whole world, certainly against a strong democratic alliance.

00:07:57.340 How realistic is that, Tony?

00:07:58.660 Because obviously President Trump came into office on the promise of no more foreign wars.

00:08:04.680 Because the talk from him and his team is very, you know, there is a sense that they're, I think, quite rightly, but reminding Europe that European matters are Europe's obligations to deal with.

00:08:19.240 And I heard a friend of ours who's been on the show a number of times, Seb Gorka, who we know very well, who is very anti-Putin.

00:08:27.220 But he was basically saying, look, you know, the future of the Baltic states, we go to the Baltic states.

00:08:34.320 We're very encouraged by the way that they are looking after their defense.

00:08:37.740 It's time for other European nations to step up.

00:08:40.600 And he's basically, you know, I think the message from the Trump White House is France, Germany, Britain and other countries need to step up.

00:08:47.760 But is there that sense of unity among Western democracies now?

00:08:52.720 Is there that sense of, you know, how many people in Western Europe are going to be prepared to really take a strong stance on Taiwan if push comes to shove?

00:09:02.200 Look, we have yet to see how the Trump presidency plays out, although there are all sorts of very interesting early indicators.

00:09:15.920 It's true that Trump is constantly telling the Europeans and others that they need to do more.

00:09:24.520 And I think he's absolutely right.

00:09:26.340 And for decades now, with the partial exception of Britain, the West has been free riding on American strength.

00:09:40.020 I'm not sure that Trump is the isolationist that he's sometimes portrayed.

00:09:47.260 Trump does not strike me as the kind of person who does not want to lead.

00:09:57.320 I think that Trump will want to insert himself into the world's problems.

00:10:03.540 Now, he will certainly in so doing insist that others play their proper part and that others bear an appropriate share of the burden.

00:10:14.380 But does Trump really look like someone who is going to be deferential to Putin, be deferential to Xi Jinping?

00:10:26.000 Does he really look like someone who wants to lead an America in retreat?

00:10:31.980 I don't believe that's a fair reading of his character.

00:10:38.420 He will want to get what he wants.

00:10:41.080 There's no doubt about that.

00:10:42.280 But I think he will want to leave America stronger and more secure than he found it.

00:10:50.060 And I think that means a world where American values, which I like to think are Western values, and I like to think have elements, important elements of universal values.

00:11:03.140 I think he will want to leave a world where American values are more respected and more widely adhered to.

00:11:10.500 And what have you made on the other side of renaming the Gulf of Mexico and talking about annexing Canada as a 51st state?

00:11:20.540 Do you think this is kind of just talk or is there more to this?

00:11:24.880 Well, it's on a par with me saying something like, look, Australia might become the 51st state on condition that America re-embraces the monarchy.

00:11:34.460 I think it's a little bit of braggadocio, if you like.

00:11:41.420 It's a bit of scene setting.

00:11:44.660 It's, I guess, letting the world know that he regards America's near oceans as America's seas.

00:11:55.600 Now, yeah, I think that's part of the Trump style.

00:12:00.900 I don't think it's something that we should be too put off by.

00:12:03.440 And Tony, I presume you've been following what's been happening with Ukraine.

00:12:09.560 That's been a, that came out of the blue, which is really Trump's playbook.

00:12:14.340 He likes to wrong foot people.

00:12:17.960 So, and also the unpredictability, all the rest of it.

00:12:22.220 How do you think he's played that?

00:12:25.520 Well, again, let's see what happens down the track.

00:12:28.820 I think it would be a disaster for the world if Putin's aggression succeeds.

00:12:37.480 And...

00:12:37.760 But it has succeeded, hasn't it?

00:12:39.280 Well, well, well...

00:12:40.520 This is the problem, Tony, isn't it?

00:12:42.300 Because people like me and you who really were, who are very pro-Ukraine, but also are honest,

00:12:49.020 have to admit that we didn't give Ukraine the support they needed to win, right?

00:12:53.600 We didn't.

00:12:54.340 Let's just be honest about that.

00:12:56.060 And when we didn't give them the support they needed to win, they then didn't win.

00:13:00.080 And now when it's time to end the war, which it is, because they're not going to win, because

00:13:04.060 we're not going to give them more support, they're going to have to give things away.

00:13:08.340 So, this is the bit I don't understand, and maybe I'm wrong and you can clarify this for

00:13:13.940 me, but how do we...

00:13:15.960 We can't simultaneously say Putin's aggression can't be allowed to win when on the ground

00:13:22.820 that is what's happened.

00:13:23.800 If the outcome of the talks that appear to be about to start is that Ukraine continues

00:13:37.340 as an independent, sovereign nation with realistic, credible security guarantees, I think that

00:13:46.080 will be enough of a win for the Ukrainians to be able to say, we haven't just survived,

00:13:53.680 but we have had a victory.

00:13:58.000 What wouldn't be a victory at all would be Russia holding on to the 20% of Ukraine that 0.97

00:14:07.540 it's grabbed without credible security guarantees for rump Ukraine?

00:14:14.160 That wouldn't be a victory for Ukraine.

00:14:17.820 It wouldn't be a victory for freedom.

00:14:20.380 It would be a terrible defeat and a sign that bullies win and bullies shouldn't win in a world 0.93

00:14:30.300 that's decent.

00:14:31.380 So, on the security guarantees, I think you're saying exactly the right thing.

00:14:37.540 But the security guarantees is the issue because ultimately that's the question of, if it's

00:14:44.240 words on a piece of paper, it means nothing.

00:14:47.680 Well, there were words on a piece of paper from the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which

00:14:52.440 turned out to be worth absolutely nothing in 2014 and again in 2022.

00:14:58.560 So, you're right.

00:14:59.560 Look, credible security guarantees are serious Western troops on the ground in Ukraine.

00:15:07.540 Ukraine as a meaningful tripwire against any further Russian aggression so that any further 0.84

00:15:13.800 Russian aggression against Ukraine doesn't just pit mighty Russia against relatively tiny

00:15:21.780 Ukraine, but it pits Russia against formidable, formidable democratic powers.

00:15:28.540 Now, perhaps that doesn't mean formal NATO membership, but I would think at the very

00:15:34.900 least it would have to mean significant, say, British and French forces in Ukraine because

00:15:41.960 Britain and France are significant military powers, they're nuclear powers, and I don't

00:15:48.640 believe that Putin would lightly engage in aggression that would involve conflict against British

00:15:54.640 or French forces.

00:15:55.600 Because if you look at the invasion, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it could very easily be 0.83

00:16:03.680 framed as, you know what, Putin's won, and actually what we're doing is we're saying

00:16:11.160 to every other nation around the world and giving them carte blanche.

00:16:15.640 Yeah.

00:16:15.820 Particularly China, because if you can easily make the argument that we did not do enough,

00:16:22.160 we did not push back hard enough, we didn't support Ukraine enough, as Konstantin said.

00:16:26.580 So really what we're saying is, go on, have a go if you think you're hard enough.

00:16:30.880 And a world where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, the choice

00:16:36.960 that the Athenians offered the Melians all those millennia ago is an ugly, brutal, vicious world, 0.96

00:16:44.900 and surely we are better than that.

00:16:47.780 I like to think that the Pax Britannica, the Pax Americana that succeeded it, I like to think

00:16:57.700 that the key feature of both those relatively benign periods of human history have rested on

00:17:07.100 this fundamental belief that there is a decent order, that means that the weak cannot wantonly

00:17:16.900 be oppressed by the strong.

00:17:18.780 But Tony, I agree with you, but if the strong aren't prepared to step up to the mantle,

00:17:25.240 then all you're just doing is leaving a power vacuum globally, and that's going to get filled.

00:17:30.300 Well, correct.

00:17:33.840 This is why peace through strength has got to be our underlying aspiration, our motto, if

00:17:45.300 you like, peace through strength.

00:17:49.600 The good will not flourish if they are not prepared to stand up for themselves.

00:17:56.600 I mean, I know the good Lord said that the meek will inherit the earth. 1.00

00:18:00.300 I think he was perhaps speaking of a different world, not this one.

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00:19:33.060 I mean, because what I'm worried about, Tony, is that if we continue down this path,

00:19:41.500 then unfortunately we're dealing with people and nations far more unscrupulous than our own. 0.67

00:19:48.780 The Ayatollah is not someone who will look and go, you know what, peace through strength.

00:19:55.200 That's not what he's interested in.

00:19:57.100 Well, Francis, you're dead right.

00:19:58.620 I mean, the difficulty for us, conditioned as we are through living in pluralist democracies

00:20:08.280 where national leaders are interested in getting elected and getting re-elected by better schools,

00:20:15.780 better roads, better hospitals, more generous social security, et cetera.

00:20:21.880 We are conditioned to think of politics in a certain way.

00:20:26.840 The leaders who are not accountable to the people have a very different mindset.

00:20:37.240 And it's hard for us to grasp that.

00:20:40.420 Putin is consumed by dreams of recreating the Russia of Peter the Great.

00:20:46.740 He burns with shame at what he sees as the national humiliation of Russia over the last couple of decades.

00:20:57.920 Xi Jinping burns with the desire to make China the world's number one nation, the Middle Kingdom.

00:21:06.420 I mean, there's a combination of traditional Chinese exceptionalism with Marxism, Leninism.

00:21:13.340 This is at the very core of his being.

00:21:16.140 And likewise, the Ayatollahs in Tehran, they dream of a new caliphate.

00:21:22.780 And if that means death to millions or even billions of infidels, well, so be it. 1.00

00:21:30.200 Indeed, if you take them seriously, the immolation of the whole world is not so much unthinkable as desirable.

00:21:42.340 It is desirable if it is some kind of a return to Allah. 1.00

00:21:46.440 So I guess my question to you is, at what point, Tony, are we going to wake up?

00:21:55.080 Because we've been asleep now for a long time.

00:21:57.900 And you can be asleep at the wheel for a period of time and it doesn't really affect anything.

00:22:03.400 But pretty soon you're going to come crashing hard into reality.

00:22:06.340 As anyone who has had a micro sleep at the wheel knows, you might be able to get away with it once or twice.

00:22:14.540 But once you've genuinely dozed off, you're soon in dreadful, dreadful trouble.

00:22:20.120 And I do think that for too long we have been sleepwalking through Lotus Land.

00:22:24.620 I do think that.

00:22:26.100 And this whole concept that took hold after the fall of the Berlin Wall of the end of history,

00:22:35.600 the kind of permanent triumph of liberal market capitalism,

00:22:39.800 we might have comforted ourselves with that thought that we could relax, lay down our burdens,

00:22:48.100 beat swords into plowshares, reign of universal peace and goodwill to all men.

00:22:55.620 And that's not how others saw it.

00:22:59.420 As I said, Putin regards the end of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

00:23:10.440 Xi Jinping says that the century of humiliation as he sees it has to be overcome.

00:23:17.980 The Ayatollahs, they think that the whole period since the fall of the Ottoman Empire has been catastrophic.

00:23:32.300 We have to appreciate the mindset of our foes and we need to adjust ourselves accordingly.

00:23:39.400 Now, we cannot sacrifice our values.

00:23:42.160 We cannot give up on our ideals.

00:23:44.300 But nevertheless, we have to appreciate that our values and our ideals are not shared by powerful people who can do us great harm.

00:23:55.520 They might ultimately be the universal yearnings of mankind, but they are not necessarily shared by the leaders of other governments.

00:24:06.200 Tony, and how do nuclear weapons play into all this?

00:24:09.360 Forgive my ignorance.

00:24:10.260 Does Australia have nuclear weapons?

00:24:11.720 We don't even have nuclear power, let alone nuclear weapons.

00:24:18.360 Let me just elaborate on the question a tiny bit.

00:24:21.480 Because when you talk about the need to stand up and be strong and peace for strength, I guess it seems to me that in the world in which we have nuclear weapons, I think this is one of the biggest issues with Ukraine. 0.99

00:24:35.160 Look, I can sit here and say we didn't give them enough support.

00:24:39.460 And it's true, we didn't.

00:24:40.300 We didn't give them the support they needed to win.

00:24:41.920 But one of the reasons we didn't is Putin kept rattling the nuclear saber.

00:24:46.160 And so the Biden administration were trying to give Ukraine support, but also wary of going too far too quickly.

00:24:53.620 And the result is what the result is.

00:24:55.260 So in a world that there are nuclear weapons in, how do Western democracies that don't want a global nuclear holocaust, how are we going to say to China, which has nuclear weapons, you can't do this? 0.78

00:25:10.240 How are we going to say to another country, to Russia, you can't do this, you can't do that?

00:25:13.900 How do we negotiate that?

00:25:16.600 Well, notwithstanding the existence of nuclear weapons, the world prior to 2020, let's say, was more free, more fair, more safe and more rich for more people than at any time in human history.

00:25:31.940 Notwithstanding the Cold War and the nuclear arms race and so on, because for all the faults of Soviet communism, there was a rationality to them.

00:25:47.860 Yes.

00:25:49.280 And no rational person would want to see wide-scale use of nuclear weapons.

00:25:58.420 The real problem, I think, with nuclear weapons is if they fall into the hands of people who are not rational or whose rationality is apocalyptic.

00:26:12.980 This is why I think it's absolutely critical that the Ayatollahs in Tehran never get their hands on a nuclear weapon.

00:26:21.460 Because what even to the commissars in Beijing, even to the militarists in Russia, would look pretty diabolical, might actually look desirable to the Ayatollahs. 0.98

00:26:40.280 So I think the world can successfully live with nuclear weapons because we've done that since 1945. 0.98

00:26:47.880 What I don't think we can successfully do is live with nuclear weapons in the hands of people who might exult in using them.

00:26:58.200 Because in using them, they might, for argument's sake, wipe Israel off the face of the earth. 1.00

00:27:05.460 Or in using them, they might, for argument's sake, deal out death to hundreds of millions of infidels who deserve death in accordance with some extreme versions of Islam. 1.00

00:27:17.240 But what I'm asking, Tony, is a slightly different question with respect, which is that if we live in a world in which Vladimir Putin effectively used the threat of nuclear weapons to prevent us from helping Ukraine enough to win...

00:27:31.480 Well, I don't think we should have been bluffed by Putin out of helping Ukraine more by that threat because I believe, in Putin's case at least, it was an empty threat.

00:27:45.720 But what I'm asking is, in the world in which we have done that, that's really the big issue here, isn't it?

00:27:53.100 Because what's to stop the Chinese saying, you're trying to help Taiwan, we've got nuclear weapons.

00:28:00.140 What's to stop everything, Pakistan, India? 1.00

00:28:02.300 I mean, there are other countries that have nuclear weapons.

00:28:05.220 Israel allegedly has nuclear weapons.

00:28:07.060 Israel could be saying, well, we want to do this and this and that, and don't you dare try and interfere.

00:28:11.500 So how do we put this nuclear thing back in the box?

00:28:17.080 Well, we certainly cannot accept that just because a country has nuclear weapons, it cannot be resisted.

00:28:28.620 Because once that becomes, if you like, accepted, then every country will try to get nuclear weapons as quickly as it can so that it can threaten anyone and everyone with a kind of a holocaust. 0.86

00:28:45.360 Now, one of the difficulties, one of the reasons why I think the Ukraine thing has been mishandled by the West, at least until very recently, is that we have allowed Putin's nuclear blackmail to succeed.

00:29:04.660 I think his bluff should have been called, certainly it should have been called more forcefully than it has.

00:29:10.880 I mean, I think it should have been made absolutely crystal clear that the objective was not to invade Russia.

00:29:18.860 The objective was simply to restore Ukraine and all necessary force would have been permitted up to that point, the restoration of Ukraine.

00:29:33.500 Unfortunately, the Americans and the Europeans, I think, have been too susceptible to that nuclear blackmail.

00:29:42.740 And Tony, how close are the Iranians to getting a nuclear weapon?

00:29:47.480 Because obviously, the moment they get their hands on one of them, the game changes completely.

00:29:53.780 And for a nation that has been, let's be pretty blunt about where they see Israel's future, that's terrifying, isn't it?

00:30:02.720 It is absolutely terrifying.

00:30:05.260 Absolutely terrifying.

00:30:08.380 I have no inside knowledge.

00:30:11.240 Come on, Tony.

00:30:12.040 You're a former Prime Minister of Australia.

00:30:14.140 You know everything about this.

00:30:15.480 I probably have the opportunity to talk with more very well-informed people than most, but I don't claim to have any particular inside knowledge.

00:30:32.620 I think it's obvious that the Iranians are quite close to a nuclear weapon. 0.79

00:30:39.260 Why do you say that?

00:30:39.980 Just because if you listen to what people whose business it is to know as much as we can about this, if you listen to them, they seem convinced that Iran is more a matter of months than years.

00:31:07.060 Months, months, months.

00:31:10.160 So we are months away from the Ayatollah, potentially, right, maybe from...

00:31:19.340 Unless, unless, unless something can be said or done that interrupts, interrupts their obvious march towards it.

00:31:35.600 Well, the weird thing about it is, it's like you say months and I'm horrified and shocked.

00:31:40.940 And at the same time, I do think, you know, you talk about them not being rational.

00:31:45.120 And of course, we know the ideology behind them is, to our mind, not rational.

00:31:49.280 But from a simply nation perspective, getting nuclear weapons for Iran is the most rational thing possible to do from their perspective, because they then secure themselves against the potential for American aggression.

00:32:05.620 They can threaten Israel in a totally different way. 0.84

00:32:07.860 They can threaten Saudi Arabia. 0.67

00:32:09.040 So they would be going at it very hard.

00:32:12.540 So what, what, what, if you were, you know, if you were advising the president of the United States, what would you be saying about Iran?

00:32:19.580 Well, I would be saying what I've said to you, that I think that nuclear proliferation is bad.

00:32:31.240 But proliferation, but proliferation into the hands of a regime which is not rational by our standards, which, at least in terms of its public statements, often seems to exhibit a kind of an apocalyptic approach to, to things.

00:32:53.140 So that's a problem on a much higher, deeper level.

00:32:59.540 Because what you're talking, I mean, if they get a nuclear weapon, well, we'd say they're not rational by our standards.

00:33:07.920 Let's just call them what they are, which is they're Islamists. 0.99

00:33:11.800 They believe in the complete destruction and evisceration of Israel and the Jewish homeland. 0.97

00:33:20.380 And why, if you think like that and you have that worldview and you are rabidly anti-Semitic, why wouldn't you fire a nuclear warhead into Israel? 0.75

00:33:33.000 Well, this is exactly why I think it is critical that the Iranians, under their current leadership, not get nuclear weapons. 0.96

00:33:44.780 But how do we do that?

00:33:46.120 Well, that's something that I am sure the Israeli prime minister and the Israeli leadership is thinking about almost all the time.

00:33:59.920 And I suspect that it's something that whatever else might be on his mind, the new president and the new administration will be thinking about.

00:34:11.020 Tony, moving on slightly, but it's actually the same conversation in a way, which I'm sure you'll recognize.

00:34:16.480 One of the challenges for Europe in particular, I don't know to what extent it is in Australia, is that in order for us to be better at defending ourselves, protecting our neighbors, et cetera, we have to have strong economies.

00:34:31.600 This is something most people don't understand about military and military conflict and war, et cetera.

00:34:36.780 You've got to have a strong economy and a strong industrial base to be able to build up your military, to be able to defend yourself.

00:34:45.740 And as you well know, we have been doing exactly the opposite.

00:34:49.480 Our economy is stagnating.

00:34:51.200 Most of our manufacturing is now made in other countries.

00:34:54.840 We're closing down steel furnaces left, right and center.

00:34:58.740 We're closing down oil production, all of this.

00:35:02.000 Do you think we're going to have a wake-up moment when it comes to things like net zero?

00:35:08.720 Well, there's no doubt that over the last decade or so, we've been engaged in a process of military, economic and cultural unilateral disarmament.

00:35:20.540 And it does have to end.

00:35:22.920 There does need to be a rebuilding of military strength.

00:35:26.800 There does need to be a return to economic vigor.

00:35:31.640 And there certainly needs to be much more cultural self-belief amongst the democracies, but particularly in the Anglosphere.

00:35:40.700 Now, this is where the whole climate cult has done enormous damage, enormous damage.

00:35:48.260 Britain has effectively de-industrialized in the name of reducing emissions.

00:35:52.060 Australia is in grave danger of doing the same thing.

00:35:58.320 Perhaps we aren't quite so far along the path as Britain is.

00:36:02.320 But I'm all in favor of protecting the only planet that we've got.

00:36:07.400 But this idea that we must at all costs and almost immediately reduce our emissions to net zero is doing us enormous damage.

00:36:24.220 And it's not going to save the planet, even if you accept the emissions thesis, because China, India and Russia are increasing their emissions willy-nilly because they put national strength ahead of emissions reduction.

00:36:43.920 And under Trump, America is obviously going to put its perceived economic interests ahead of emissions reduction.

00:36:55.440 So why inflict harm on yourself if it's not going to do any good?

00:37:03.660 And that's even if you accept this idea that the only thing that matters in terms of the climate are human carbon dioxide emissions, which I think is a deeply implausible thesis anyway.

00:37:17.220 I love how diplomatic you were about the Americans.

00:37:19.800 Their official policy is drill, baby, drill.

00:37:23.200 And look, good on them because they should be making the most of their resources.

00:37:27.320 And one of the weird things about contemporary Australia, under the current government in particular, is that we are ideologically opposed to those things which are the foundations of our wealth.

00:37:43.900 Our three biggest exports are iron ore, coal and gas.

00:37:49.320 And we should eliminate our coal and our gas exports.

00:37:57.240 And yet, what will we do to replace them?

00:38:01.240 We don't really have any ideas.

00:38:05.080 We talk about Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower, as if no other country has wind or sun.

00:38:13.380 In fact, the only renewable energy superpower is China, because it's making the wind turbines and the solar panels that we are rapidly installing to replace the reliable coal and gas fight power that's been the basis of our prosperity.

00:38:31.720 So, look, this is, as my old mentor, Bob Santamaria used to say, a moonbeam from the larger lunacy, and yet it is so widely accepted.

00:38:43.560 And again, one of the good things about the Trump ascendancy is that he's speaking very bluntly about the general insanity of this.

00:38:56.140 The thing that I never understand about this, and it's a question that I'm sure you've been asked many times, if you're concerned about this, if you're concerned about rising CO2 leading to rising temperatures, leading to rising sea levels, political instability, global instability, if that, then why are we not going all in on nuclear?

00:39:19.960 Why are we not putting all the money into nuclear power? Because that seems to be the one source of power that is consistent, that is reliable. Why aren't we doing that?

00:39:31.600 Well, that's correct. That's correct. And look...

00:39:35.960 Especially in a country like Australia that both has uranium and is very large and not densely populated, where, you know, the safety issues are not quite like in Britain, where it's a tiny country, it doesn't have uranium.

00:39:48.740 But the safety issues of nuclear have been enormously overinflated.

00:39:54.120 Yes.

00:39:54.540 The nuclear industry has demonstrated itself to be incredibly safe over many decades now.

00:40:02.120 And you're right, if it really is essential to reduce our emissions to net zero, the only way to do it and keep the lights on and remain an industrial economy, remain a first world economy, is through nuclear power.

00:40:16.920 So, on the one hand, you've got, if you like, the climate catastrophism, and on the other hand, you've got this irrational fear of nuclear power, as if a nuclear power station can somehow explode like an atomic bomb.

00:40:33.340 Now, I think both of these are just quite wrong, and we need to try to dispel that.

00:40:43.060 But I sometimes worry that dispelling the climate catastrophism and dispelling the nuclear fear, it's a bit like medieval people trying to dispel the fear of witchcraft.

00:40:56.040 I think it sometimes is, if you like, a modern version of these medieval superstitions.

00:41:03.460 Yeah, I think we can't let ourselves get into that mindset, though, Tony, because I feel like the people who are making the point that you're making, you know, I made it in my Oxford speech, and I think that's why it got so shared, is that this is not rational.

00:41:18.160 This is not rational behavior, right?

00:41:20.440 And, ultimately, I just don't think we've made the argument well enough to win the argument.

00:41:26.080 We haven't even tried.

00:41:26.900 There are a lot of people who have the views that you have who don't even dare to utter them in public.

00:41:32.560 Some of these people are even on the right of politics, as well as on the left, even more so.

00:41:38.420 I just don't think we've taken the fight on.

00:41:42.620 And do you think maybe now is the opportunity to have a rational conversation about energy?

00:41:48.640 Well, I think you make a fair point.

00:41:50.380 I think a lot of people have been too silent for too long, have treated too many subjects as taboo, because they don't want to create unnecessary, in their eyes, difficulties for themselves.

00:42:07.060 And yet there are some fights we just have to have.

00:42:09.640 And we cannot operate as a modern world without 24-7 electricity.

00:42:22.460 I mean, the modern world absolutely depends upon 24-7 electricity.

00:42:27.080 The modern world depends upon energy abundance.

00:42:31.480 I mean, poor countries experience energy poverty.

00:42:35.100 Earlier ages were poor.

00:42:39.340 Life was miserable, brutish, short, in part because people lacked the energy that gives us all of the things we now take for granted.

00:42:50.300 So I think we do have to have the necessary arguments on these topics.

00:42:57.480 Now, I was often told when I was a party leader, there's no point arguing about the science, because you're not a scientist.

00:43:07.000 I'm pleased to say that there are many highly reputable scientists who question the anthropogenic global warming thesis.

00:43:22.560 And I certainly think that we need to pay more attention to people like that.

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00:45:01.180 Right, now back to the show.

00:45:03.360 But it's so interesting that what has happened now is that we are in this place where we are effectively saying we're going to get poorer.

00:45:17.640 We are poor people are going to suffer more.

00:45:20.280 There are going to be people who can't afford to pay their heating bills.

00:45:24.100 They're going to be the oldest and most likely to be the oldest and most vulnerable.

00:45:29.560 And they are sacrificial lambs and we're okay with that.

00:45:34.160 I mean, how have we got to this point?

00:45:37.720 Well, we've tried to have our cake and eat it too through devices such as saying that there will be a green jobs bonanza as part of this transition to net zero.

00:45:52.520 Well, look, in Australia, if you are a coal miner, you are probably earning $200,000 a year, maybe more, simply driving a truck and a coal mine.

00:46:06.980 But we are actually, in the pursuit of this so-called green transition, replacing well-paid, respected blue-collar jobs in factories with a will-o'-the-wisp because these green jobs simply aren't eventuating, except in China, where they make the solar panels and the wind turbines.

00:46:34.160 Well, this is the point I was going to make, Tony, because, you see, when you make the argument in that way, I can hear somebody saying, well, look, technology advances.

00:46:42.640 We're going to lose, you know, the Luddites were trying to stop history in its tracks. 0.92

00:46:46.720 It didn't happen.

00:46:47.840 You can't stop the progress, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:46:50.920 But that isn't what's happening.

00:46:52.640 Those manufacturing jobs, those driving jobs, all those jobs, I saw it when I was in Australia.

00:46:57.060 You know, the fly-in, fly-out people who make a load of money, right, do very well.

00:47:03.080 They can sustain a family on one income.

00:47:05.200 That's an amazing thing.

00:47:06.340 Absolutely.

00:47:06.860 An amazing thing for a man to be able to have a not highly skilled, necessarily, job where he's sitting in front of a laptop all day and provide for a family of four and have a nice house.

00:47:16.360 That's an incredible thing.

00:47:17.860 Absolutely.

00:47:18.260 And a society rests on those people having those opportunities.

00:47:21.120 Correct.

00:47:21.280 But what's happening is we're not losing those jobs to the technology of the future.

00:47:26.620 We're just shipping them to China and then feeling good about ourselves. 0.99

00:47:30.400 Correct.

00:47:31.280 And this is a delusion.

00:47:34.800 It's wrong.

00:47:35.900 And we've got to wake up to ourselves.

00:47:39.600 And I guess the question is, can you see signs that we're waking up slowly but surely?

00:47:47.180 Or are we still deep in slumber?

00:47:49.000 Well, I don't claim to follow every utterance of British politics.

00:47:58.560 Obviously, the current energy minister here in Britain, Miliband, is still a slave to the emissions obsession.

00:48:08.780 But I do think I recall the current Chancellor, Reeves, saying that we could not pursue net zero at the expense of economic growth.

00:48:20.640 So if there are the beginnings of this kind of a debate inside the current green left British Labour government, maybe there is hope that people are finally waking up to our problem.

00:48:36.340 Do you think it's going to be the only real way to win this argument is when people realise what is happening?

00:48:45.360 By people, I mean, just the ordinary person going about their day realises a connection between soaring energy bills and this pursuing of green technologies.

00:48:56.560 Looking at an economy that is stagnant and realising that it's partly or largely due to deindustrialisation and then going, you know what, sod this.

00:49:10.140 And getting rid of every politician who advocates for it.

00:49:14.820 I think eventually something like that will happen.

00:49:18.340 I just hope things don't have to get disastrously worse before we wake up to ourselves.

00:49:24.820 I mean, in the end, facts trump theory.

00:49:27.620 And the facts are that the more intermittent renewable power we have, the higher our energy prices go, the less industrialised we are, the poorer we become.

00:49:41.900 And when in the pursuit of net zero, the green zealots tell us that we have to get rid of our petrol and diesel powered cars, we have to get rid of our gas boilers, we have to stop eating meat, we can't get on a plane and go for a holiday in Portugal.

00:50:04.760 When all of these things start to happen, and they are very much starting to happen now, I think people start to think, hang on, this really is pretty crazy.

00:50:17.020 So, Tony, this revolution that's happening in America, how do you think that we can encourage some of that to spread?

00:50:24.260 And this is where people mishear a lot, because I don't think a figure who can do similar things in Britain is going to look and sound like Donald Trump.

00:50:33.020 This is what people get very confused about, I think.

00:50:35.000 I think it's a big mistake.

00:50:36.940 Donald Trump is American.

00:50:38.560 He speaks like an American.

00:50:39.940 He conducts himself like an American.

00:50:41.880 And if you spend time in America, as all three of us have, you recognise it's a cultural thing.

00:50:46.780 So he's very offensive to the British chattering classes.

00:50:51.200 And I'm not saying we need someone like him who speaks like him to come in.

00:50:55.520 But from a policy perspective, I mean, you know, government efficiency, this is something that left and right used to love, by the way.

00:51:03.680 So I saw a clip someone posted of Obama and Bill Clinton talking about, you know, reducing waste and really being keen on it.

00:51:13.160 And to me, that's not a partisan thing, right?

00:51:15.640 Right. So with that in mind, how is that, how do we translate that into Australia, into New Zealand, into Britain?

00:51:25.420 How do we take the best of it?

00:51:26.640 I'm not saying we've got to do everything that they do and copy every single thing, but it just seems to me that with our economies being in the state of they are,

00:51:34.060 we need a bit of that American oomph and a risk taking and a slight loss of risk aversion that we've all been, frankly, too accustomed to.

00:51:41.900 Well, on a different topic, Boris Johnson was able to transform the debate and have a wonderful political success.

00:51:54.820 I mean, Boris Johnson seized Brexit, made it his own and won a thumping victory at the 2019 election.

00:52:08.220 Now, yes, the victory was squandered.

00:52:12.200 Yeah.

00:52:12.640 And on issues like climate, I think, and energy, Boris was fundamentally misguided.

00:52:18.280 But nevertheless, that exemplified the ability of a strong politician, even in the British system, to go against the establishment grain and succeed.

00:52:36.160 Well, what you're going to need now, though, is someone.

00:52:39.560 See, it's the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2, isn't it, Tony?

00:52:42.580 Because Boris did what Trump 1 did.

00:52:45.100 He came in, got elected, and then was largely stifled in everything he tried to do and ultimately failed.

00:52:51.860 Let's be honest, right?

00:52:52.880 That's what happened.

00:52:53.620 Boris Johnson is not a popular figure based on his performance in office. 0.94

00:52:58.840 And it's not the party gay and cake gay and all this other stuff.

00:53:02.660 He would have not had any issue with that if he'd been really able to deliver everything else.

00:53:07.460 So whoever is elected next is going to have to take on the vested interest.

00:53:11.920 They're going to have to take on the civil service that's bloated and wasteful.

00:53:15.520 They're going to have to slash NGOs like they're doing in America. 0.83

00:53:19.100 How does that happen?

00:53:22.700 Well, in Britain, the parliament remains sovereign.

00:53:27.040 And a sufficiently brave prime minister with a sufficiently robust party behind him or her

00:53:36.200 could take bills into the parliament that would make an enormous difference.

00:53:44.200 You could legislate away the Equalities Act.

00:53:48.720 You could legislate away all these quongos. 1.00

00:53:52.980 You could, even now, using Crown prerogatives, be much more robust in terms of turning over recalcitrant civil servants.

00:54:05.880 Because what's been lacking up till now has been sufficient conviction, courage, and character.

00:54:17.740 And I suppose we are looking for the modern-day equivalent of Churchill.

00:54:25.740 I thought we might have found him with Boris.

00:54:28.140 I thought you were going to say in Keir Starmer.

00:54:29.640 Tony, look, I'm sure you have very close links to the British Conservative Party.

00:54:38.780 But do you see reform as a necessary force, either in its own right or at least to get the Tories to wake up?

00:54:46.400 Well, if the previous Conservative government had been a better government, there would be no reform.

00:54:54.540 So reform is a reaction to the perceived inadequacies and failures of the former Conservative government.

00:55:05.760 If the Conservative Party were what it should be, my guess is there would be no Reform Party.

00:55:14.520 I'm not going to get deeply into what Nigel should do and what Kemi should do.

00:55:25.000 I'll leave that to them.

00:55:27.360 But I can just go back to Australia.

00:55:31.000 In the late 90s, there was a breakout on the right in Australia,

00:55:37.600 led by someone who is still around in Parliament, Pauline Hanson.

00:55:42.420 And her party was called the One Nation Party.

00:55:45.880 And basically, the Hanson thesis back then was that political parties had let down decent ordinary Australians,

00:55:55.400 that government was failing.

00:55:58.360 Now, the impact of One Nation was, in practical political terms,

00:56:03.240 was to destroy a coalition government in Queensland

00:56:07.700 and to threaten the survival of the Howard government in the 1998 election.

00:56:15.160 So even though One Nation was a deeply conservative movement,

00:56:21.180 its political impact was to threaten conservative governments,

00:56:27.380 imperfectly conservative governments, but nevertheless broadly conservative governments.

00:56:31.180 Now, John Howard's response to Pauline Hanson and One Nation was not to attack Pauline Hanson,

00:56:39.840 not to criticise One Nation voters,

00:56:42.540 but to address in his own decent, fair-minded and reasonable way

00:56:49.860 the issues and the grievances that Pauline Hanson was articulating,

00:56:56.160 often in an unreasonable or less reasonable way.

00:56:58.660 So that was how Howard dealt with this.

00:57:03.320 Eventually, the One Nation challenge dissipated.

00:57:07.800 Now, Pauline Hanson has subsequently come back into the Senate,

00:57:11.480 but it's a very different Pauline Hanson, I think a much better Pauline Hanson.

00:57:16.880 And interestingly, in its current incarnation,

00:57:20.060 the one minor party in the Senate that pretty consistently supports the coalition,

00:57:27.580 the conservative coalition, is in fact Pauline Hanson.

00:57:31.340 So there might be some lessons there from Australia of some application to Britain.

00:57:37.720 Well, I'm thinking with that example in mind,

00:57:40.080 if you have a situation in which the leader of the Conservative Party in this country

00:57:44.200 is attempting to keep together two wings of a party that are diametrically opposed at this point,

00:57:50.120 right?

00:57:51.180 You know, there's a Lib Dem wing of the Tory party and keeping them on.

00:57:55.300 How does a leader, you've been a leader of a political party,

00:57:57.800 I'm sure it's true in Australia too,

00:57:59.340 how do you keep people together who fundamentally,

00:58:03.340 you know, there's a wing of the Tory party that has no desire to be anything close to what reform is.

00:58:08.420 And there's a wing that would like to move on that.

00:58:10.620 How do you keep that?

00:58:11.400 How do you make that work?

00:58:13.260 Well, again, let me make two points.

00:58:17.900 First point, sometimes the leader just has to say particular positions are unacceptable.

00:58:26.560 And if you hold that particular position, I'm afraid you're no longer part of the team.

00:58:33.520 And this is what Boris Johnson did prior to the 2019 election with some of the more fervent

00:58:39.680 Remainers inside the Conservative Party, including some cabinet ministers.

00:58:45.320 The other thing that you do is rather than obsess about ideological purity in your own party,

00:58:56.940 because all parties are, in a sense, broad churches,

00:59:01.280 because all parties are coalitions, internal coalitions,

00:59:04.660 rather than obsess about purity internally,

00:59:10.720 you focus on the real opponent,

00:59:16.400 which in this case is a very poor Labour government.

00:59:20.680 So you look at all the mistakes that the Labour government is making,

00:59:25.640 you campaign ferociously against them because the one thing that wet Tories and dry Tories

00:59:34.040 will normally agree on is that Labour's no bloody good.

00:59:38.560 So if you can successfully point out the failings of a bad Labour government,

00:59:46.960 that is the best way of keeping your own party united.

00:59:51.480 And Tony, when you look at the Western world, we've seen Trump,

00:59:56.520 we've seen Farage in this country, we've seen the rise of the AFD.

01:00:02.160 How do you, what do you think of this populist wave?

01:00:06.040 Are you broadly in favour of it?

01:00:07.820 Or do you think there's something quite sinister,

01:00:11.340 particularly when you look at parties like the AFD in Germany?

01:00:14.480 Look, I don't really know very much about the AFD,

01:00:19.280 so I make no comment positive or negative about them.

01:00:24.860 When established political parties fail to respond to real movements in the electorate,

01:00:36.140 sooner or later there are outbreaks.

01:00:37.780 And this is where it's important for politicians,

01:00:44.340 both of the centre-left and of the centre-right,

01:00:47.280 to stay grounded and respond intelligently

01:00:51.260 to what's happening inside their own societies

01:00:54.900 and what's happening that might quite understandably cause people alarm.

01:01:01.600 Now, that doesn't mean agreeing with extremists.

01:01:05.040 What it does mean is responding intelligently

01:01:10.000 to the issues that might be producing an extreme reaction.

01:01:14.900 And if the best people don't respond intelligently

01:01:18.580 to something which is a real problem,

01:01:21.260 well then, less qualified people will respond less intelligently.

01:01:27.520 And this is where I think serious leaders

01:01:32.020 have an obligation not to neglect something

01:01:36.920 just because beyond ponsance might think it's beyond the pale.

01:01:44.440 I mean, this is, I mean, take immigration, for instance.

01:01:47.240 For a long time in countries like this,

01:01:51.340 it was regarded as almost racist,

01:01:54.580 if not actually racist,

01:01:56.380 to have any concerns at all about immigration.

01:01:59.240 immigration, all immigration was good.

01:02:02.880 Of anyone from anywhere, immigration was good.

01:02:06.920 The truth is that that's wrong.

01:02:11.620 And we have an obligation to our people

01:02:16.060 to try to ensure that immigration is in our interests, 0.90

01:02:20.660 not just in the interests of the particular immigrants

01:02:24.640 or the particular immigrant groups.

01:02:27.860 And that means we have to have policies in place

01:02:30.780 which ensure that we get the right people

01:02:34.940 at the right time in the right numbers.

01:02:38.320 Now, yes, we should also be humane and decent,

01:02:43.240 but that doesn't mean allowing anyone

01:02:45.400 who wants to come to waltz in.

01:02:47.500 It doesn't mean saying that anything goes

01:02:52.560 when it comes to the values and attitudes

01:02:55.080 of newcomers to our country.

01:02:57.200 And it's really interesting you say that

01:02:58.900 because we were having dinner with some Aussies last night

01:03:02.260 and they were saying to me

01:03:03.940 that the rate of immigration into Australia

01:03:06.460 has skyrocketed over the last couple of years or so.

01:03:10.720 I mean, the number, and I don't know if this is correct

01:03:12.880 and clarify if I'm wrong,

01:03:15.260 they were saying something like over a million people.

01:03:18.640 And I was listening to this and I'm going,

01:03:21.060 they're making the exact same mistake

01:03:23.860 that Europe and the United States have made.

01:03:27.960 And the United Kingdom.

01:03:29.640 Look, essentially,

01:03:31.780 in many respects, in recent years,

01:03:38.420 immigration has become completely out of control. 1.00

01:03:42.380 completely out of control.

01:03:45.780 Now, my government was able to successfully stop

01:03:50.680 a wave of illegal immigration by boat

01:03:54.360 and that makes my government almost unique in modern times.

01:04:00.860 But in Australia, as in Britain,

01:04:04.320 legal immigration is almost completely out of control.

01:04:08.180 almost anyone can come to Australia

01:04:13.400 if they say they want to be a student, for instance.

01:04:21.500 It's very easy for businesses to bring people into Australia

01:04:26.200 by claiming that they have skills that are otherwise unobtainable.

01:04:31.080 And with an immigration policy that's driven

01:04:36.680 by often unscrupulous education providers

01:04:41.580 and sometimes unscrupulous businesses,

01:04:47.640 we've had something like a half a million plus people

01:04:51.320 coming in every year for the last couple of years.

01:04:55.220 For a population of what, 25 million?

01:04:57.040 20, now 27 million.

01:04:59.400 And quite apart from any impact on productivity,

01:05:04.160 quite apart from any impact on social cohesion,

01:05:08.000 we simply haven't got the houses.

01:05:09.660 We simply haven't got the infrastructure

01:05:11.260 to cope at immigration at this level.

01:05:15.960 And it creates all sorts of problems.

01:05:19.320 I mean, it puts downward pressure on wages,

01:05:21.640 puts upward pressure on housing costs,

01:05:24.280 puts massive pressure on infrastructure.

01:05:26.280 And it's simple common sense to say this can't go on.

01:05:33.180 And yet, again, it's been a taboo topic

01:05:36.080 amongst right-thinking people, in inverted commas,

01:05:40.580 for the best part of a couple of generations.

01:05:43.080 We do need to have honest conversations about these things.

01:05:48.400 And so...

01:05:48.780 That's all we've got on the wall there, Tony.

01:05:49.880 Honest conversations.

01:05:51.140 The red one on your left.

01:05:52.640 Honest conversations.

01:05:53.720 You're looking at the poster of the two of us

01:05:55.460 looking a lot younger than we are.

01:05:56.960 Yeah.

01:05:57.400 Don't look at that.

01:05:58.280 You almost, Konstantin, look like new Soviet man in that.

01:06:01.880 Exactly.

01:06:02.640 Exactly.

01:06:03.100 We did decide to give it a Soviet style.

01:06:05.600 And Francis, you look like a pretty cool Brit of the Beatles era.

01:06:08.700 Yeah, that is true.

01:06:09.900 That was me in my younger days.

01:06:11.280 Yeah.

01:06:11.780 With Les Gray.

01:06:12.440 But I guess the question, everybody who is listening or watching this,

01:06:18.740 still looking at the poster, mate, loves it.

01:06:20.260 We'll get you a copy.

01:06:21.420 But everybody who's listening or watching this is going,

01:06:25.720 look, Australia economically is crushing it,

01:06:29.740 or doing very, very well, particularly compared to the West

01:06:32.800 and so on and so forth.

01:06:35.080 Why do you need all these people?

01:06:37.320 Why are you importing all these people? 0.99

01:06:39.180 You've got a housing crisis.

01:06:41.800 I was talking to these Aussies last night. 1.00

01:06:43.560 They were telling me about how much it costs to buy a regular family home

01:06:47.740 and not even in an affluent neighbourhood,

01:06:51.260 just in a decent neighbourhood.

01:06:53.920 So you're going, why have you imported all these people? 1.00

01:06:59.360 Well, for a whole host of reasons.

01:07:02.840 Partly, it's the thought that immigration is an economic and social good,

01:07:11.200 regardless of the numbers.

01:07:14.960 Partly, it's, I suppose, a sense of guilt about being a rich,

01:07:21.740 largely Anglo society in a world where lots of other people

01:07:27.000 are not nearly so well off.

01:07:28.720 Partly, it's, I suppose, an idealistic desire

01:07:32.520 to give more people the kind of wonderful opportunities

01:07:35.820 that Australia, at its best, provides people.

01:07:40.440 And much of that is, has some, much of that is not bad.

01:07:50.380 But again, we've got to run the reality ruler over all of this.

01:07:54.200 In the end, does it work?

01:07:58.480 And if what you're currently doing doesn't work,

01:08:02.480 well, then you've got to change it.

01:08:04.300 On that note, Tony, we're about to head to Substack

01:08:06.460 where we ask you questions from our audience.

01:08:09.040 But the last question we ask is,

01:08:11.020 what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

01:08:13.120 Well, we never talk about the need for, I think,

01:08:21.480 a military resurgence by the West.

01:08:25.400 I mean, I don't want to see Western armies waging war,

01:08:30.620 but I do want to see Western military strength sufficient

01:08:34.220 to deter potential aggressors.

01:08:37.520 If you want peace, prepare for war.

01:08:39.220 Peace through strength.

01:08:42.840 Hope for the best, but be ready for the worst.

01:08:45.740 All right, head on over to Substack

01:08:47.140 where we ask Tony your questions.

01:08:50.760 Tony, why did you conspire to send Pauline Hanson to jail

01:08:53.920 and do you regret it?

01:08:55.720 Kemi said we can't do the same thing with the boats that you did.

01:09:00.040 In our interview.

01:09:00.880 In our interview.

01:09:01.980 Is this true?

01:09:04.040 When you were doing Operation Sovereign Borders,

01:09:06.400 did any people die?

01:09:09.220 The Neil Diamond Musical

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01:09:43.920 Get tickets at murbish.com.

01:09:45.760 Broadway's smash hit,

01:09:50.800 the Neil Diamond Musical,

01:09:52.220 A Beautiful Noise,

01:09:53.640 is coming to Toronto.

01:09:55.100 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn

01:09:56.940 destined for something more,

01:09:58.620 featuring all the songs you love,

01:10:00.360 including America,

01:10:01.660 Forever in Blue Jeans,

01:10:02.820 and Sweet Caroline.

01:10:04.340 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful,

01:10:06.160 the next musical mega hit is here.

01:10:08.420 The Neil Diamond Musical,

01:10:09.740 A Beautiful Noise,

01:10:11.140 April 28th through June 7th,

01:10:13.200 2026,

01:10:14.260 the Princess of Wales Theatre.

01:10:16.160 Get tickets at murbish.com.

TRIGGERnometry - February 19, 2025

The West Gave In To Putin - Tony Abbott

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