TRIGGERnometry - The West Gave In To Putin - Tony Abbott

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Tony Abbot is a former Australian politician and served as its Prime Minister from 2013-2015. | SPONSOR. We use Ground News to escape the echo chamber and stay fully informed. Go to https://ground.news/triggernometry to save 40% on the Ground News unlimited access Vantage plan. SPONSOR. In partnership with Alphacell Labs: visit https://alphacell-labs.com and use code TRIG20 for 20% off. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 06:13 Is The Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Inevitable? 12:03 Has Putin Already Won? 24:05 The Question Of Nuclear Weapons 34:10 Net Zero Effect On The Economy 38:56 Why Is There Not More Support For Nuclear Energy? 47:38 Are There Signs That We Are Waking Up? 54:31 Thoughts On Reform And The Conservative Parties 59:51 The Populist Wave 01:06:12 Why Is Australia Importing So Many People Just Like Western Countries? 01:08:03 What's The Thing We're Not Talking About That We Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the last decade or so, we've been engaged in a process of military, economic and cultural, unilateral disarmament. And it does have to end. At what point, Tony, are we going to wake up? Because we've been asleep now for a long time. I think it would be a disaster for the world if Putin's aggression succeeds. But it has succeeded, hasn't it? We've allowed Putin's nuclear blackmail to succeed. I think it's obvious that the Iranians are quite close to a nuclear weapon.

It's more a matter of months than years. Months. Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, welcome back to Trigonometry. Lovely to be here. Oh, it's great to have you on, mate. It's so good to have you. There's so much to talk about as well. One of the things that would be very interesting to hear from you,

given all your experience, is when you look out of the world today, we're sitting here in February 2025, what do you see? What do you think is important that's going on? I think it's a more fraud and a more dangerous world than at any time in my life. 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. And at heart, he believes in America as a fundamentally good society. And I think patriots everywhere should be encouraged by this resurgence.

And do you think that is bleeding through? Are you seeing in Australia shifts happening maybe here in the UK, elsewhere in the anglosphere and the rest of the West? I like to think that the second coming of Trump marks the moment when woke started to die. I was very encouraged by the Brexit vote, but unfortunately a defeatist and declineist establishment in this country fought back to substantially negate what should have been a new beginning for Great Britain. I was very encouraged by some aspects of Trump Mark II, but the swamp eventually got him. I was very encouraged by the result of the referendum on Indigenous separatism in Australia a year or so back,

but thus far, at least in our country, green left governments have gone on as if nothing had really changed. 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, certainly an even more decisive moment than those previous fightbacks against the woke mind virus, which is doing so much damage. Tony, you were saying that the world is in a fraught place, possibly the most fraught in your lifetime.

Why do you say that? Bearing in mind when you think about the Cold War and blah, blah, blah, blah and all the rest of it. Well, look at the three obvious flashpoints. The Russian aggression against Ukraine, which... looks to be steadily succeeding. Look at the Iranian-inspired attacks on Israel, which look to have been rebuffed for the moment, but the future is still extremely difficult. Look at the Chinese communist bullying of all its neighbours. 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 sympathizers around the world. Consider that on the one ad and then consider what until very recently has been the defeatism and the declineism, the chronic cultural self-doubt, even self-loathing of the great democracies. I mean, think of America, guilted about slavery. Think of Britain, guilted about the empire. Think of Australia, guilted over indigenous dispossession. Now, there's no doubt slavery was an evil, a terrible evil. There's no doubt that there was a downside as well as a great upside to the British Empire. And there's no doubt that the dispossession of indigenous people in Australia

caused much suffering. 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. 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,

these things speak volumes. They say that people see our countries as beacons of hope and opportunity, and yet that's not how we see ourselves. And I think that needs to change. And I think it just might be starting to change. Well, that's an interesting point. 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 if you disagree with that, as the Chinese invasion of Taiwan as inevitable. Well, I always try to make a sharp distinction between the Chinese government and the Chinese people. The Beijing regime is obviously set on world domination. It says so.

I mean, Chinese leader, 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, and their immediate objective is to take back Taiwan, as they see it, by force if necessary, as quickly as possible. So I think that it is almost inevitable that there will be a crisis over Taiwan in the next few years, the only way to possibly avoid it and certainly bring it to the least unsatisfactory outcome is for the Beijing leadership to clearly understand that there is a strong democratic alliance

ranged against them 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. How realistic is that, Tony? Because obviously President Trump came into office on the promise of no more foreign wars. 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 the European matters Europe's obligations to deal with. And I heard a friend of us who's been on the show a number of times, Seb Gawker, who we know very well, who is very anti-Putin. But he was basically saying, look, the future of the Baltic states, we go to the Baltic states, we're very encouraged

by the way that they are looking after their defense. It's time for other European nations to step up. 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. But is there that sense of unity among Western democracies now? 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? Look, we have yet to see how the Trump presidency plays out, although there are all sorts of very interesting early indicators. It's true that Trump is constantly telling the Europeans and others that they need to do more. And I think he's absolutely right. For decades now, with the partial

exception of Britain, the West has been free-riding on American strength. I'm not sure that Trump is the isolationist that he's sometimes portrayed. Trump does not strike me as the kind of person who does not want to lead. I think that Trump will want to insert himself into the world's problems. Now, he will certainly, in so doing, insist that others play their proper part and that others bear an appropriate share of the burden. But does Trump really look like someone who is going to be deferential to Putin,

be deferential to Xi Jinping? Does he really look like someone who wants to lead an America in retreat? I don't believe that's a fair reading of his character. he will want to get what he wants. There's no doubt about that. But I think he will want to leave America stronger and more secure than he founded. 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. I think he will want to leave a world where American values. are more respected and more widely adhered to. And what have you made on the other side of, you know, renaming the Gulf of Mexico and talking about annexing, you know, Canada as a 51st state? Do you think this is kind of just talk or is there more to this? Well, it's on a par with me saying something like, look, Australia might become the 51st state on condition that America reembraces the monarchy.

I think it's a little bit of braggadocio, if you like. It's a bit of scene setting. It's, I guess, letting the world know that he regards America's near oceans as America's seas. Now, yeah, I think that's part of the Trump style. I don't think it's something that we should be too put off by. And Tony, I presume you've been following what's been happening with Ukraine. That's been a, that came out of the blue, which is really Trump's playbook.

He likes to wrong foot people and also the unpredictability, all the rest of it. How do you think he's played that? Well, again, let's see what happens down the track. I think it would be a disaster for the world. if Putin's aggression succeeds. But it has succeeded, hasn't it? Well, well. This is the problem, Tony, isn't it?

Because people like me and you who are very pro-Ukraine, but also are honest, have to admit that we didn't give Ukraine the support they needed to win, right? We didn't. Let's just be honest about that. And when we didn't give them the support they needed to win, they then didn't win. And now when it's time to end the war, which it is, because they're not going, to win because we're not going to give them more support, they are going to give, have to give things away. So this is the bit I don't understand. And maybe I'm wrong and you can clarify this for me, but how do we, we can't simultaneously say Putin's aggression can't be allowed to win

when on the ground. That is what's happened. If the outcome of the talks that appear to be about to start is that Ukraine continues as an independent sovereign nation with realistic, credible security guarantees. I think that will be enough of a win for the Ukrainians to be able to say, we haven't just survived, but we have had a victory. What wouldn't be a victory at all would be Russia holding on to the 20% of Ukraine that it's grabbed without credible security guarantees for Rump Ukraine. That wouldn't be a victory for Ukraine. It wouldn't be a victory for freedom.

It would be a terrible defeat and a sign that bullies win and bullies shouldn't win in a world that's decent. So on the security guarantees, I think you're saying exactly the right thing about it. But the security guarantees is the issue, because ultimately that's the question of, if it's words on a piece of paper, it means nothing. Well, there were words on a piece of paper from the Budapest memorandum of 1994, which turned out to be worth absolutely nothing in 2014 and again in 2022. So you're right.

Look, credible security guarantees are serious Western troops on the ground in Ukraine as a meaningful tripwire against any further Russian aggression, so that any further Russian aggression against Ukraine doesn't just pit mighty Russia against relatively tiny Ukraine, but it pits Russia against formidable, formidable democratic powers. Now, perhaps that doesn't mean formal NATO membership, but I would think at the very least, it would have to mean significant, say, British and French forces in Ukraine, because Britain and France are significant military powers, their nuclear powers, and I don't believe that Putin would lightly engage in aggression that would involve conflict against British or French forces.

Because if you look at the invasion, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it could very easily be framed as, you know what, Putin's one. And actually what we're doing is we're saying to every other nation around the world and giving them carte blanche. Particularly China. Because if you can easily make the argument that we did not do enough, we did not push back hard enough, we didn't support Ukraine enough, as kind of. Constantine said. So really what we're saying is, go on, have a go if you think you're hard enough. And a world where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, the choice that the Athenians offered the Melians all those millennia ago is an ugly, brutal, vicious world. And surely we are better than that. I like to think that the Pax Britannica,

the Pax Americana that succeeded it, I like to think that the key feature of both those relatively benign periods of human history have rested on this fundamental belief that there is a decent order that means that the weak cannot wantonly be oppressed by the strong. But Tony, I agree with you. but if the strong aren't prepared to step up to the mantle, then all you're just doing is leaving a power vacuum globally. And that's going to get filled. Correct.

This is why peace through strength has got to be our underlying aspiration, our motto, if you like, peace through strength. the good will not flourish if they are not prepared to stand up for themselves. I mean, I know the good Lord said that the meek will inherit the earth. I think he was perhaps speaking of a different world, not this one. The news we consume doesn't just inform us. It shapes our perspective on the world. But with so many hidden agendas and echo chambers,

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Supporting ground news is more than just staying informed. It stands for media transparency and a more balanced understanding of the world. I mean, because what I'm worried about, Tony, is that if we continue down this path, then unfortunately we're dealing with people and nations far more unscrupulous than our The Ayatollah is not someone who will look and go, you know what, peace through strength. That's not what he's interested in. Well, Francis, you're dead right. I mean, the difficulty for us conditioned as we are through living in pluralist democracies

where national leaders are interested in getting elected and getting re-elected by better schools, better roads, better hospitals, more generous social security, etc. We are conditioned to think of politics in a certain way. The leaders who are not accountable to the people have a very different mindset, and it's hard for us to grasp that. Putin is consumed by dreams of recreating the Russian, of Peter the Great. He burns with shame at what he sees as the national humiliation of Russia

over the last couple of decades. Xi Jinping burns with the desire to make China the world's number one nation, the Middle Kingdom. I mean, there's a combination of traditional Chinese exceptionalism with Marxism, Leninism. This is at the very core of his being. And likewise, the Ayatoll is in Tehran. They dream of a new caliphate. And if that means death to millions or even billions of infidels, well, so be it. Indeed, if you take them seriously,

the immolation of the whole world is not so much unthinkable as desirable if it is some kind of a return Dula. So I guess my question to you is, at what point, Tony, are we going to wake up? Because we've been asleep now for a long time. And you can be asleep at the wheel for a period of time and it doesn't really affect anything. But pretty soon, you're going to come crashing hard into reality. As anyone who has had a micro sleep at the wheel knows, you might be able to get away with it once or twice, but once you've genuinely dosed off, you're soon in dreadful, dreadful trouble. And I do think that for too long we have been sleepwalking through Latest Land. I do think that.

And this whole concept that took hold after the fall of the Berlin Wall of the end of history, the kind of permanent triumph of liberal market capitalism, we might have comforted ourselves with that thought that we could relax, lay down our burdens, beat swords into plowshares, a reign of universal peace and goodwill to all men. That's not how others saw it. As I said, Putin regards the end of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Xi Jinping says that the century of humiliation as he sees it has to be overcome.

The Ayatollahs, they think that the whole period since the fall of the Ottoman Empire has been catastrophic. We have to appreciate the mindset of our foes, and we need to adjust ourselves accordingly. Now, we cannot sacrifice our values. We cannot give up on our ideals, but nevertheless, we have to appreciate that our values and our ideals are not shared by powerful people

who can do us great harm. They might ultimately be the universal yearnings of mankind, but they are not necessarily shared by the leaders of other governments. Tony, and how do nuclear weapons play until all this. Forgive my ignorance, does Australia have nuclear weapons? We don't even have nuclear power. Let me just elaborate on the question a tiny bit. 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, right? Look, I can sit here and say we didn't give them enough support. And it's true, we didn't. We didn't give them the support they needed to win. But one of the reasons we didn't is Putin kept rattling the nuclear sabre. And so the Biden administration were trying to give Ukraine support, but also wary of going too far too quickly. And the result is what the result is. 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? How are we going to say to China, which has nuclear weapons, you can't do this. How are we going to say to another country,

to Russia, you can't do this, you can't do that? How do we negotiate that? 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. 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. Yes. And no rational person would want to see wide-scale use of nuclear weapons. The real problem, I think, with nuclear weapons is that.

if they fall into the hands of people who are not rational or whose rationality is apocalyptic. This is why I think it's absolutely critical that the aayatolls in Tehran never get their hands on a nuclear weapon because what even to the commissars in Beijing, even to the militarists in Russia, would look pretty diabolical. actually look desirable to the Ayatollahs. So I think the world can successfully live with nuclear weapons, because we've done that since 1945. 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, because in using them, they might, for argument's sake, wipe Israel off the face of the earth. earth or in using them, they might, for arguments sake, deal out death to hundreds of millions of infidels who deserve death in accordance with some extreme versions of Islam. 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...

Well, I don't think we should have been bluffed by Putin out of helping Putin. helping Ukraine more by that threat because I believe, in Putin's case at least, it was an empty threat. 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? Because what's to stop the Chinese saying? You're trying to help Taiwan. We've got nuclear weapons.

What's to stop everywhere? Pakistan, India, I mean, there are other countries that have nuclear weapons. Israel allegedly has nuclear weapons. Israel could be saying, well, we want to do this and this and that, and don't you dare try and interfere. So how do we put this nuclear thing back in the box? Well, we certainly cannot accept that just because a country has nuclear weapons, it cannot be resisted because once that becomes, if you're 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. 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.

seed, I think his bluff should have been called. Certainly it should have been called more forcefully than it has. I mean, I think it should have been made absolutely crystal clear that the objective was not to invade Russia. The objective was simply to restore Ukraine and all necessary force would have been permitted up to that point, the restoration of Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Americans and the Europeans, I think, have been too susceptible to that nuclear blackmail. And Tony, how close are the Iranians to getting a nuclear weapon? Because obviously, the moment they get their hands on one of them, the game changes completely. And for a nation that has been pretty blunt about where they see Israel's future, that's terrifying, isn't it?

It is absolutely terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. I have no inside knowledge. Come on, Tony. You're former Prime Minister of Australia. You know everything about this. 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.

I think it's obvious that the Iranians are quite close, a nuclear weapon. Why do you say that? 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. It's more a matter of months than years. Months. Months. So we are months away from the Ayatollah, potentially, like, maybe from...

Unless something can be said or done that interrupts their... obvious march towards it. Well, the weird thing about it is, it's like you say months and I'm horrified and shocked. And at the same time, I do think, you know, you talk about them not being rational. And of course, we know the ideology behind them is, to our mind, not rational. 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. They can threaten Israel in a totally different way. They can threaten Saudi Arabia. So they would be going at it very hard. So what if you were, you know, if you were advising the president of the United States, what would you be saying about Iran? Well, I would be saying what I've said to you that I think that nuclear proliferation is bad, 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 things.

That's a problem on a much higher, deeper level. Because what you're talking, I mean, if they get a nuclear weapon, we'd say they're not rational by our standards. Let's just call them what they are, which is they're Islamists. They believe in the complete destruction and eviseration of Israel and the Jewish homeland.

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? Israel? Well, this is exactly why I think it is critical that the Iranians, under their current leadership, not get nuclear weapons. But how do we do that? Well, that's something that I am sure the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli leadership is thinking about almost all the time. 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.

Tony, moving on slightly, but it's actually the same conversation in a way, which I'm sure you'll recognize. 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. This is something most people don't understand

about military and military conflict and war, et cetera. 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. And as you well know, we have been doing exactly the opposite. Our economy is stagnating.

Most of our manufacturing is now made in other countries. We're closing down steel, furnaces left right and center, we're closing down oil production facilities, all of this. Do you think we're going to have a wake-up moment when it comes to things like Net Zero? 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. And it does have to end. There does need to be a rebuilding of military strength. there does need to be a return to economic vigour,

and there certainly needs to be much more cultural self-belief amongst the democracies, but particularly in the Anglo-Sphere. Now, this is where the whole climate cult has done enormous damage. Enormous damage. Britain has effectively de-industrialised in the name of reducing emissions. Australia is in grave danger of doing the same thing. Perhaps we aren't quite so far along the path as Britain is. But I'm all in favour of protecting the only planet that we've got.

But this idea that we must, at all costs, and almost immediately, reduce our emissions to net zero, is doing us enormous damage, 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. And under Trump, America is obviously going to put, put its perceived economic interests ahead of emissions reduction.

So why inflict harm on yourself if it's not going to do any good? 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. I love how diplomatic you were about the Americans. Their official policy is drill, baby, drill. And look, good on them, because they should be making the most of their resources. 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. Our three biggest exports are iron ore, coal and gas. And we should eliminate our coal and our gas exports. And yet, what will we do to replace them? We don't really have any ideas. We talk about Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower, as if no other country has wind or sun. 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-fired power that's been the basis of our prosperity. So, look, this is, as my old mentor, Bob Santa Maria used to say, a moonbeam from the larger lunacy, and yet it is so widely accepted. And again, one of the good things about the Trump is that he's speaking very bluntly about the general insanity of this. 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? 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?

Well, that's correct. That's correct. And look... Especially in a country like Australia, that both has uranium and is very large and not densely populated where the safety issues and not quite like in Britain where it's a tiny country, it doesn't have uranium.

But the safety issues of nuclear have been enormously overinflated. Yes. The nuclear industry has demonstrated itself to be incredibly safe over many decades now. 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.

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. Now, I think both of these are just quite wrong, and we need to try to displace,

that, 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. I think it sometimes is, if you like, a modern version of these medieval superstitions. 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. This is not rational behavior, right?

And ultimately, I just don't think we've made the argument well enough to win the argument. We haven't even tried. There are a lot of people who have the views that you have who don't even dare to utter them in public. Some of these people are even on the right of politics as well as on the left, even more so. I just don't think we've taken the fight on. And do you think maybe now is the opportunity to have a rational conversation about energy?

Well, I think you make a fair point. 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. And yet there are some fights we just have to have. And we cannot operate as a modern world without 24-7 electricity. I mean, the modern world absolutely depends upon 24-7 electricity.

The modern world depends upon energy abundance. I mean, poor countries experience energy, poverty. earlier ages were poor. Life was miserable, brutish, short, in part because people lacked the energy that gives us all of the things we now take for granted. So I think we do have to have the necessary arguments on these topics. 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.

I'm pleased to say that there are many highly reputable scientists who question the anthropogenic global warming thesis, and I certainly think that we need to pay more attention to people like that. You know how coffee gets you going in the morning, but a few hours later that caffeine crash hit, What if I told you there's a way to make your coffee work smarter for you? That's where alpha cells neuromagnetium comes in. It's a game changer because it combines magnesium with elthienin,

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They're committed to quality. No artificial sweeteners, no plastic packaging, just glass bottles to keep microplastics out of your body. They even post third-party lab results for total transparency. So whether it's for sharper focus, better hydration or more rest, sleep. Neuromagnetium is the way to go. Visit alpha-cell-hyphen labs.com or scan the QR code on the screen. Use code trig 20 for 20% off. That's alpha cell dash labs.com code code trig 20 with their 30-day money-back guarantee. You've got nothing to lose except maybe the crash. Right. Now back to the show. 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, we are poor people are going to suffer more, there are going to be people who can't afford to pay their heating bills, they're going to be the oldest and most likely to be the most oldest, the oldest and most vulnerable. And they are sacrificial lambs, and we're okay with that. I mean, how,

How have we got to this point? 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. 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, we are actually in the pursuit of this so-called green transition replacing well-paid, respected blue-collar jobs in factories with a will of the wisp because these green jobs simply aren't eventuating, except in China, where they make the solar the panels in the winter. 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. We're going to lose, you know, the Luddites who are trying to stop history and extracts. It didn't happen. You can't stop the progress, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that isn't what's happening. Those manufacturing jobs, those driving jobs, all those jobs, I saw it when I was in Australia, you know, the fly-in, fly-out people who make a lot of money, right? do very well, they can sustain a family on one income.

That's an amazing thing. Absolutely. An amazing thing for a man to be able to have a not highly skilled necessarily job where he sit in front of a laptop all day and provide for a family of four and have a nice house. That's an incredible thing. Absolutely. And a society rests on those people having those opportunities. Correct.

But what's happening is we're not losing those jobs to the technology of the future. We're just shipping them to China and then feeling good about ourselves. Correct. And this is a delusion. It's wrong and we've got to wake up to ourselves. And I guess the question is, can you see signs that we're waking up slowly but surely, or are we still deep in slumber? Well, I don't claim to follow every utterance of British politics. Obviously, the current energy minister here in Britain, Miliband, is still a slave to the emissions obsession. But I do think I recall the current Chancellor Reeves saying that we could not pursue net

zero at the expense of economic growth. So if there are the beginnings of this kind of a debate inside the current. green left British Labor government, maybe there is hope that people are finally waking up to our problem. Do you think it's going to be the only real way to win this argument is when people realise what is happening 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, looking at an economy that is stagnant and depressed and realizing that is partly or largely due to deindustrialization and then going, you know what, so this,

and getting rid of every politician who advocates for it. I think eventually something like that will happen. I just hope things don't have to get disastrously worse before we wake up to ourselves. I mean, in the end, facts trump theory. And the facts are that the more intermittent renewable power we have, the higher our energy prices go, the less industrialized we are, the poorer we become. 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. 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. So Tony, this revolution that's happening in America,

how do you think that we can encourage some of that to spread? 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. This is what people get very confused about, I think. I think it's a big mistake. Donald Trump is American. He speaks like an American.

He conducts himself like an American. And if he spend time in America, as all three of us have, you recognize it's a cultural thing. Sure. So he's very offensive to the British. British chattering classes. And I'm not saying we need someone like him who speaks like him to come in. But from a policy perspective, what, I mean, you know, government efficiency.

This is something that left and right used to love, by the way. So I saw a clip someone posted of Obama and Bill Clinton talking about, you know, reducing waste and really being keen on it. And to me, that's not a partisan thing, right? So with that in mind, how do we translate that into Australia, into New Zealand, into Britain? How do we take the best of it? 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,

we need a bit of that American umph and a risk-taking and a slight loss of risk aversion that we've all been frankly too accustomed to. Well, on a different topic, um, Boris Johnson was able to transform the debate and have a wonderful political success. I mean, Boris Johnson seized Brexit, made it his own and won a thumping victory at the 2019 election. Now, yes, the victory was squandered. And on issues like climate, I think, and energy, Boris was fundamentally misguided. But nevertheless, that exemplified the ability of a strong politician, even in the British system, to go against the establishment grain

and succeed. Well, what you're going to need now, though, is someone, see, it's the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2, isn't it, Tony? Because Boris did what Trump 1 did. He came in, got elected, and then was largely stifled in everything he tried to do, and ultimately failed. Let's be honest. That's what happened. Boris Johnson is not a popular figure based on his performance in office. And it's not the party gay and cake gay and all this other stuff.

He would have not had any issue with that if he'd been really able to deliver everything else. So whoever is elected next is going to have to take on the vested interest. They're going to have to take on the civil service as bloated and away. They're going to have to slash NGOs like they're doing in America. How does that happen? Well, in Britain, the Parliament remains sovereign. And a sufficiently brave Prime Minister, with a sufficiently robust party behind him or her,

could take bills into the Parliament that would make an enormous difference. You could. legislate away the Equality Act. You could legislate away all these quangos. You could, even now, using Crown prerogatives, be much more robust in terms of turning over recalcitrant civil servants. What's been lacking up till now has been sufficient conviction, courage and character. And I suppose we are looking for the modern day equivalent of Churchill. I thought we might have found him with Boris. I thought you're going to say in Kirstama.

Tony, and look, I know, I'm sure you have very close links to the British Conservative Party. But do you see reform as a necessary force either in its own right or at least, you know, I'm sure you have very close links to the British Conservative Party? I'm, you see reform as a necessary force, you know, to get the Tories to wake up? Well, if the previous Conservative government had been a better government, there would be no reform. So reform is a reaction to the perceived inadequacies and failures

of the former Conservative government. If the Conservative Party were what it should be, my guess is there would be no Reform Party I'm not going to get deeply into what Nigel should do and what Kemmy should do. I'll leave that to them. But I can just go back to Australia. In the late 90s, there was a breakout on the right in Australia, led by someone who is still around in Parliament, Pauline Hanson,

and her party was called the One Nation Party. And basically the Hansen thesis back then was that political parties had let down decent ordinary Australians, that government was failing. Now, the impact of One Nation was, in practical political term, was to destroy a coalition government in Queensland and to threaten the survival of the Howard government

in the 1998 election. So even though One Nation was a deeply conservative movement, its political impact was to threaten conservative governments, imperfectly conservative governments, but nevertheless broadly conservative governments. Now, John Howard's response to Pauline Hanson and One Nation was not to attack Pauline Hansen, not to criticize One Nation voters,

but to address in his own decent, fair-minded and reasonable way the issues and the grievances that Pauline Hanson was articulating often in an unreasonable or less reasonable way. So that was how Howard dealt with this. Eventually the One Nation challenge dissipated. Now, Pauline Hansen has subsequently come back into the Senate, but it's a very different Pauline Hanson, I think a much better Pauline Hanson. And interestingly, in its current incarnation, the one minor party in the Senate that pretty consistently supports the coalition, the conservative coalition, is in fact Pauline Hanson. So there might be some

lessons there from Australia of some application to Britain. Well, I'm thinking with that example in mind, if you have a situation in which the leader of the Conservative Party in this country is attempting to keep together two wings of a party that are diametrically opposed at this point, right? You know, there's a Lib Dem wing of the Tory party and keeping them on, how does a leader, you've been a leader of a political party, I'm sure it's true in Australia too, how do you keep people together who fundamentally, you know, there's a wing of the Tory party that has no desire to be anything close to what reform is. And there's a wing that would like to move on that. How do you make that work? Well, again, let me make two points. First point, sometimes the leader

just has to say particular positions are unacceptable. And if you hold that particular position, I'm afraid you're no longer part of the team. And this is what Boris Johnson did. prior to the 2019 election with some of the more fervent remainers inside the Conservative Party, including some cabinet ministers. The other thing that you do is rather than obsess about ideological purity in your own party, because all parties are in a sense broad churches, all parties are coalitions, internal coalitions. Rather than obsess

about purity internally, you focus on the real opponent, which in this case is a very poor Labor Government. So you look at all the mistakes that the Labor Government is making. You campaign ferociously against them because the one thing that wet Tories and dry Tories will normally agree on is that Labor's no bloody good. So if you can successfully point out the failings of a bad Labor government, that is the best way of keeping your own party united. And Tony, when you look at the Western world, we've seen Trump, we've seen Farage in this country, we've seen the rise of the AFD. How do you, what do you think of the populist way? Are you broadly in favour of it, or do you think there's something quite sinister,

particularly when you look at parties like the AFD in Germany? Look, I don't really know very much about the AFD, so I make no comment positive or negative about them. When established political parties fail to respond to real movements in the electorate, sooner or later there are outbreaks. And this is where it's important for politicians, both of the centre left and of the centre right, to stay grounded and respond intelligently to what's happening inside their own societies and what's happening that might quite understandably cause people alarm. Now, that doesn't mean agreeing with extreme. what it does mean is responding intelligently to the issues that might be producing an extreme

reaction. And if the best people don't respond intelligently to something which is a real problem, well then less qualified people will respond less intelligently. And this is where I think serious leaders have an obligation. not to neglect something just because beyond poncants might think it's beyond the pale. I mean, take immigration, for instance, for a long time in countries like this, it was regarded as almost racist, if not actually racist, to have any concerns at all about immigration. All immigration was good of anyone from anywhere. immigration was good. The truth is that that's wrong. And we have an obligation to our people

to try to ensure that immigration is in our interests, not just in the interests of the particular immigrants or the particular immigrant groups. And that means we have to have policies in place which ensure that we get the right people at the right time in the right numbers. Now, yes, we should also be humane and decent, but that doesn't mean allowing anyone who wants to come to waltz in. It doesn't mean saying that anything goes when it comes to the values and attitudes of newcomers to our country. And it's really interesting you say that because we were having this, dinner with some Aussies last night. And they were saying to me that the rate of immigration into

Australia has skyrocketed over the last couple of years or so. I mean, the number, and I don't know if this is correct and clarify if I'm wrong, they were saying something like over a million people. And I was listening to this and I'm going, they're making the exact same mistake that Europe and the United States have made. And the United Kingdom. Look, essentially, in many respects, in recent years, immigration has become completely out of control. Completely out of control.

Now, my government was able to successfully stop a wave of illegal immigration by boat, and that makes my government almost unique in modern times. But in Australia as in Britain, legal immigration is almost completely out of control. Almost anyone can come to Australia if they say they want to be a student, for instance. It's very easy for businesses to bring people into Australia by claiming that they have skills that are otherwise unattainable. And with an immigration policy that's driven by often unscrupulous education providers and

sometimes unscrupulous businesses, we've had something like a half-a-half-a-microus million plus people coming in every year for the last couple of years. For a population of what, 25 million? Now 27 million. And quite apart from any impact on productivity, quite apart from any impact on social cohesion, we simply haven't got the houses, we simply haven't got the infrastructure to cope at immigration at this level. And it creates all sorts of problems.

I mean, it puts downward pressure on wages, puts upward pressure on housing costs, puts massive pressure on infrastructure, and it's simple common sense to say, this can't go on, and yet, again, it's been a taboo topic amongst right-thinking people in inverted commas for the best part of a couple of generations. We do need to have honest conversations about these things. That's what we've got on the wall there, Tom. Honest conversations, the red one on your left. Honest conversation, you're looking at the poster of the two of us looking a lot younger than we are. Yeah, don't look at that.

You almost, Constantine, looked like new Soviet man in that. Exactly, exactly. We did decide to give it a Soviet style. And Francis, you looked like a pretty cool Brit of the Beatles era. Yeah, that is true. That was me and my younger days, yeah, with less grey. But I guess the question everybody who is listening or what, watching this, still looking at the poster, mate, loves it, we'll get you a copy.

But everybody who's listening or watching this is going, look, Australia is economically is crushing it or doing very, very well, particularly compared to the West and so on and so forth. Why do you need all these people? Why are you importing all these people? You've got a housing crisis. I was talking to these Aussies last night. They were telling me about how much it costs to buy a regular family home. And not even in an affluent neighbourhood, just in a decent neighbourhood.

So you're going, why have you imported all these people? Well, for a whole host of reasons, partly it's the thought that immigration is an economic and social good, regardless of the numbers. partly it's, I suppose, a sense of guilt about being a rich, largely anglo society in a world where lots of other people are not nearly so well off. Partly it's, I suppose, an idealistic desire to give more people the kind of wonderful opportunities that Australia, at its best, provides people. is, has some, much of that is not bad. But again, we've got to run the reality rule over all of this. In the end, doesn't work.

And if what you're currently doing doesn't work, well, then you've got to change it. On that note, Tony, we're about to head to substack where we ask you questions from our audience. But the last question we ask is, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Well, we never talk about the need for, I think, a military resurgence by the West. I mean, I don't want to see Western armies waging war,

but I do want to see Western military strength sufficient to deter potential aggressors. If you want, peace, prepare for war. Peace through strength. Hope for the best, but be ready for the world. words. All right, head on over to Substack where we asked Tony your questions. Tony, why did you conspire to send Pauline Hansen to jail and do you regret it? Kemi said, we can't do the same thing with the boats that you did. In our interview, is this true?

When you were doing Operation Sovereign borders, did any people die?