In this special series of Watercooler podcasts, we’re attempting something big: to define the virtues that unite Australian Liberals in the 21st century.

The True Believers podcasts are the start of what we hope will become a wider conversation about the ideas that bind members of the Liberal Party as it approaches its 80th birthday.

Our starting point is the We Believe statement issued by Robert Menzies in 1954 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Liberal Party of Australia. The 17 points express inspiring values and principles, but in language that may sound strange to some Australians today.

In this episode Nick Cater, Freya Leach and Louise Clegg discuss the Crown, national unity and the Commonwealth beginning with the first of the We Believe statements:

We believe in the Crown as the enduring embodiment of our national unity and as the symbol of that unity and as the symbol of that other unity that exists between all nations of the British Commonwealth.

Read the 1954 We Believe Statement in full: https://www.menziesrc.org/we-believe

Subscribe to the Menzies Research Centre from $10 a month https://www.menziesrc.org/subscribe1

Nick Cater is senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a former executive director. He is a columnist with The Australian and the presenter of Battleground on ADH TV.

Freya Leach is a research fellow at Menzies Research Centre

Louise Clegg is a lawyer with a special interest in constitutional law.

With Nick Cater, Freya Leach and Georgina Downer.

In this special series of Watercooler podcasts, we’re attempting something big: to define the values that unite Australian Liberals in the 21st century.

The True Believers podcasts are a forum for free-ranging discussion that we hope will promote a wider conversation about the things we really believe in - the ties that bind us as a political movement - and the principles from which we can develop policy.

Our starting point is the We Believe statement issued by Robert Menzies in 1954 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Liberal Party of Australia. The 17 points express inspiring values and principles, but in language that may sound strange to some Australians today.

Each podcast will focus on a different point as we attempt to delve below the surface to identify the Liberal values that underpin it. And we'll be asking if it is possible to compose a similar statement today, one expressing the beliefs to which every Liberal can subscribe.

Read the 1954 We Believe Statement: https://www.menziesrc.org/we-believe

Subscribe to the Menzies Research Centre from $10 a month https://www.menziesrc.org/subscribe1

Nick Cater is senior fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and a former executive director. He is a columnist with The Australian and the presenter of Battleground on ADH TV.

Frey Leach is a research fellow at Menzies Research Centre

Georgina Downer is executive director of the Robert Menzies Institute, a joint venture between the Menzies Research Centre and the University of Melbourne.

Liberalism does not have a use-by date. Its principles are tuned to the abiding human condition, rather than the particular circumstances of the day.

But the telling of the Liberal story has to evolve to suit the language and temperament of the new millennium.

The Liberal agenda must be constantly refreshed to address contemporary policy challenges.

The verdict at recent elections is that Liberalism is failing to connect with the millennial generation and subsequent generations.

Menzies Research Centre Senior Fellow Nick Cater and Executive Director David Hughes discuss the challenge of relevancy with Young Liberal Freya Leach.

Support these podcasts by subscribing to the Menzies Research Centre from just $10 a month: www.menziesrc.org/subscribe

Email Nick Cater: [email protected]

Watch Nick Cater’s Battleground on ADH TV https://watch.adh.tv/nick-cater-s-battleground

Australians face the prospect of a referendum here in Australia in as little as six months time where they’ll be asked to decide there should be a new institution to represent the views of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people in the corridors of power.

It will be known as the Voice, its members will be unelected, and its existence will be enshrined in the constitution making it difficult to abolish.

If I sound a little hazy about the detail it’s because I am, along with almost every other Australian I suspect, up to and including the Prime Minister.

The process of forming this proposal has been chaotic, the timetable rushed, the debate has been driven almost by emotion and legitimate questions have been brushed aside by those supposedly in the know.

To add to that, advocates of the voice are split along multiple lines. It is, to say the least, confusing.

In a bid to make sense of the Voice, Nick Cater is joined by Amanda Stoker, a constitutional lawyer, former federal assistant attorney general and now a distinguished fellow at the Menzies Research Centre.

Nick Cater is Senior Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre

Support these podcasts by subscribing to the Menzies Research Centre from just $10 a month: www.menziesrc.org/subscribe

Email Nick Cater: [email protected]

Watch Nick Cater’s Battleground on ADH TV https://watch.adh.tv/nick-cater-s-battleground

For the Liberal Party of Australia, the loss of government in May after nine years was dispiriting, but hardly a novel experience.

It was the nature of the loss that shocked - the loss of seats not just to their old rival, the Labor Party, but the loss of once-safe conservative seats in wealthy inner metropolitan districts to a new socially progressive movement known as the teal independents.

Henry Olsen joins Menzies Research Centre Executive Director Nick Cater to discuss the great realignment in democratic politics. He draws comparisons between the political dynamics in Australia, Europe and the United States.

Profound changes to the political topography like this are happening across the world in almost every democracy.

Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre and a columnist for the Washington Post. He visited Australia as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies.

Support these podcasts by subscribing to the Menzies Research Centre from just $10 a month: www.menziesrc.org/subscribe

Email Nick Cater: [email protected]

Watch Nick Cater’s Battleground on ADH TV https://watch.adh.tv/nick-cater-s-battleground

The modern world’s dependence on hydrocarbons won’t be ending any time soon, says Mark P. Mills.

He says it is physically impossible to switch from coal, oil and gas to solar, wind and batteries in any meaningful time frame.

“It is a dangerous delusion to base policies on the idea that such a transition is possible,” he says. “A different understanding of ‘transition’ is required, one that recognises that new energy sources should be considered additives, not outright replacements.”

Mills joins Nick Cater for this conversation that was originally conducted for Nick Cater’s Battleground on ADH TV.

Nick Cater is executive director of the Menzies Research Centre, a columnist with The Australian and the presenter of Battleground on ADH TV where this conversation was first broadcast.

Support these podcasts by subscribing to the Menzies Research Centre from just $10 a month: www.menziesrc.org/subscribe

Email Nick Cater: [email protected]

Watch Nick Cater’s Battleground on ADH TV https://watch.adh.tv/nick-cater-s-battleground

Mark P. Mills is a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s engineering school, and a partner in Montrose Lane, an energy-tech venture fund. He is author of the book The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s (2021), and previously: Digital Cathedrals (2020), Work in The Age of Robots (2018), and The Bottomless Well (2006). He served as chairman and CTO of ICx Technologies, helping to take it public in 2007. Mills served in the Reagan White House Science Office, and before that he was an experimental physicist and development engineer in microprocessors and fibre optics.

Download Mark P. Mills's Paper, The Energy Transition ‘Delusion': A Reality Reset https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/the-energy-transition-delusion_a-reality-reset.pdf

The election of a Labor government in Australia has dramatically raised the stakes in the energy debate. Labor’s 2030 target requires the closure of 60% of our coal generation capacity over the next eight years, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator. If we cannot replace this with reliable and affordable fuel sources, the consequences for this country will be dire.

Wind and solar have their place to be sure, and batteries can assist at the margins, but the engineering challenge of replacing a dependable source of dispatchable energy, like coal or gas, with weather dependent generation and storage is so enormous that we have to find another way.

Michael Shellenberger is a California based thinker and author who writes about the intersection of climate change, the environment, nuclear power and politics. He visited Australia earlier this month to address the Conservative Political Active Conference in Sydney. Shellenberger's arguments are clear, logical and incisive. We replay his session in this special Watercooler podcast in cooperation with CPAC and the official broadcasters, ADH TV.

Watch the video of Michael Shellenberger's presentation: https://watch.adh.tv/cpac-2022/season:2/videos/cpac-2022-michael-shellenberger

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Fifty years ago in December, a Labor government led by Gough Whitlam signed an historic agreement with Communist China establishing diplomatic relations between Canberra and Beijing.

The price China demanded was that Australia agreed to the One China policy, which demoted the independent nation of Taiwan to the status of a renegade Chinese province.

Half a century later, the Communist government demanding that Australia sticks to that agreement, recognising the right of the People’s Republic of China to bring Taiwan under its control.

But is Australia bound by the terms of its 1972 agreement? Or should we follow our conscience by standing by Taiwan in the face of potential aggression from the mainland?

Kevin Andrews served in Federal Parliament for 31 years serving as a minister in the governments of John Howard and Tony Abbott, before retiring at the May Federal Election.

He is a frequent visitor to Taiwan from where he recently returned from a fact-finding trip.

He joins Menzies Research Centre Executive Director Nick Cater for this podcast conversation.

The intergenerational wealth gap, driven partly by rising property values, is changing expectations and limiting life-style choices for younger Australians.

The security of home ownership is arriving later in life, if it is achieved at all. Family formation is delayed as the 2021 Census shows through a sharp rise in single people aged under 35s.

Emilie Dye is a Sydney-based economist and economic adviser who's personal experience of saving for a mortgage deposit is indicative of the home-ownership challenge faced by her generation.

In this conversation with Nick Cater, Dye looks at the issue from an economic, cultural and personal perspective.

Dye puts forward policy proposals based on Liberal principles by which state and federal governments could begin to bridge the wealth divide. The goal is to encourage wider home ownership and an Australia this is both more prosperous and fair.

Nick Cater is Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre, presenter of the Watercooler podasts and video conservations and the host of Battlegrounds, a weekly program steamed on ADH TV and also available as a podcast.

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Malcolm Fraser is Australia’s fourth-longest prime minister, taking office in controversial circumstances amid the turmoil of Gough Whitlam’s dismissal in 1975 and exiting seven and a half years later when Labor’s Bob Hawke thwarted his ambition to gain a mandate for a fourth term.

Yet the manner in which he came go power, and the disputes with his own party after he left power, have clouded perceptions.

Alan Jones worked for Fraser during his challenging time as Prime Minister. He delivered a fascinating, frank and generous assessment of our 22nd Prime Minister at the Sydney launch of Fraser in Office by Denis White.

This podcast includes Jones' tribute, some words from author Denis White, and some closing remarks from John Howard, Australia's second longest serving prime minister who served as Treasurer in Fraser's government.

The podcast is introduced by Nick Cater, Executive Director of Menzies Research Centre.

Purchase Fraser in Office by Denis White: https://bit.ly/3Al5tKb

Email Nick Cater: [email protected]

Support these podcasts by subscribing to the Menzies Research Centre from just $10 a month: www.menziesrc.org/subscribe