The National Conservatism Institute of Australia Podcast

Jordan and Dan catch up to discuss the US Election (with joy)!

Among other things we discuss:

• Why Gen X and Gen X swung strongly behind Trump
• How Trump 2024 differs from 2016
• What the new coalition of Tech Bros (Elon, Theil, etc), Media Bros (Rogan, Tucket, etc) , Health Bros (RFK Jr, etc), and Thinking Bros (JD Vance, Vivek, etc) make the MAGA agenda stronger and more durable
• How the Australian mainstream media and the political class still don't get it
• How the UK political class are especially clueless
• How it could all go wrong and right over the next 4 years

Interview with Hon John Ruddick MLC has been a Libertarian member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 20 April 2023. He is the first member of that party to be elected to the NSW Parliament.

Before entering parliament Ruddick was a long-standing member of the Liberal Party and prominent proponent of reform. He is the author of a 2018 book "Make the Liberal Party Great Again". In this episode we discuss:

• How The Libertarian Party plans to influence the Liberal Party of Australia in a similar way that the Greens influence the Labor Party
• Whether open primaries for selection of leaders and representatives can work in Australia
• Where the libertarians differ and agree with the Trump programme on trade, immigration and foreign policy
• Whether libertarianism is in conflict with the nation-state

We interview noted Australian liberal economist Dr Alan Moran about his recent piece in The Spectator regarding the unprecedented demographic decline Australia and other nations are experiencing.

We discuss amongst other things:

• Causes of this decline and possible carrot and stick solutions
• What the true economic costs of raising kids is and how this should be compensated
• Why treasury forecasts with population have been so wrong and whether economics has treated demographics seriously enough
• The problems of baby bust happening at the same time as mass immigration
• Whether neoliberalism is in part responsible for the decline and whether current policy setting need to be readjusted
• What a Trump victory means for trade and liberalism generally
• The Spectator piece here: https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/can-subsidies-help-australians-make-more-babies/

Dan Ryan, Executive Director of NatCon Australia and Jordan Knight, Founder of Migration Watch get together for regular catch-up:

We discuss among other things:

• Thoughts on recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) event in Sydney which we both attended - pros and cons, best and worst speakers, etc.
• The high end arts and culture style of ARC - pros and cons
• The extent to which national conservative themes were touched on by speakers on stage (not much) but which were discussed at length by many attendees on sidelines
• How real threat to US and West is descent in to South American politics rather than Cold War or WWII
• How battles of the future less about ideology and more about demography
• Thoughts on upcoming US election and what it means for Australia

We speak with Isaac Stone Fish the founder and CEO of Strategy Risks - a business intelligence firm focusing on geopolitical risk.

He is the former Beijing correspondent for Newsweek and worked in China for many years. Amongst his many other current roles he serves as a contributor to CBS News, is an adjunct at NYU's Center for Global Affairs and has positions on the Atlantic Council and the Council on Foreign Relations

He is the author of America Second: How America’s Elites are Making China Stronger (Knopf) and lives in New York City.

https://www.isaacstonefish.com/

https://www.amazon.com.au/America-Second-Americas-Elites-Stronger/dp/0525657703

Among other things we discuss:

• What US-China relations would look like under President Trump or President Harris
• His book "America Second" and the history of influence peddling by former senior American officials in China
• Key issues such as Xinjiang, Taiwan, TikTok, Telsa, China and US Tech entrepreneurs
• What a more ethical and sophisticated approach for companies "engaging" with China should look like

We speak with UK academic Dr Kit Kowol about his newly released book, "Blue Jerusalem: British Conservatism, Winston Churchill, and the Second World War"

We discuss among other things:

• Why did British public vote out in a landslide Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party in 1945?
• How might the United Kingdom and the British Empire have been different if the Conservatives had won in 1945?
• Lord Beaverbrook and how his realist views were reflective of a significant part of the Conservative Party
• Other myths about WWII and the early post war period that should be discarded

Book available here:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Blue-Jerusalem-British-Conservatism-Churchill/dp/0198868499

We chat with Jillian Spencer a child and adolescent psychiatrist based in Brisbane.

In April 2023, she was stood down from her job as the senior staff specialist at the Queensland Children’s Hospital for raising concerns about gender interventions for children. Since that time, she has spoken out in the media about her concerns which led to further allegations of breaching the Code of Conduct. She remains suspended from her job.

We discuss:

• How she became increasingly concerned about "gender affirming" treatment in Australia
• Why the Australian gender clients have ignored the Cass Review in the UK which recommended against puberty blockers and gender affirming care
• What explains the increase in the number of kids presenting with gender dysphoria
• What she has learnt about her colleagues and her profession, people generally, and about herself during this process
• Her recently released paper criticising the Queensland Gender Service evaluation (which essentially dismissed the Cass Review) can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10398562241280351

Regular catch up between Dan Ryan and Jordan Knight Among other things we discuss:

• CPAC and Quillette functions we respectively attended, their pros and cons, and to what extent they these existing organizations get NatCon and the new right
• The recent admission by the Assistant Immigration Minister that migrants to have provided only "marginal economic benefit" to Australia
• A discussion of some of our respective media appearances, NatCon podcasts guests, and articles
• Whether Australian governments are really implementing any serious change on immigration and whether they get the new reality at all on trade
• The various ways the immigration system is being rorted and how bad things are with illegal immigration in the United States

I speak with social commentator Bettina Arndt - who famously started off as Australia's first public sex therapist and "the person most strongly identified with Australia's sexual revolution", but who has now become a controversial critic of modern feminism.

Among the topics we cover:

• Bettina's family history, why that shaped her view of the world, and how she and her father were very much at the heard of modern Australian liberalism
• Why she first got interested in sex, academically speaking
• Whether he attitude towards the sexual revolution has changed
• Whether there is a concerned campaign to delegitimise her and her work
• Why has the relationship between the sexes has become so politicised and whether it should necessarily be so
• Whether there ways the relationship between the sexes can be improved
• What her top issues are now

We speak with well respected Australian liberal academic, Dr William Coleman about Australian Federation in 1901 and Australian nationalism more generally.

Our discussion centres around Dr Coleman's book, "Their Fiery Cross of Union - A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889-1914", which is critical of federation project and many of those involved.

Topics we cover include:

• Whether there were really any practical alternatives possible?
• Whether the Australian constitution is really as flawed as claimed and how it could have been better?
• Whether Dr Coleman is too hard on the Australian Founders (compared to the American Founders and other nationalist leaders)?
• Whether our national immigration and foreign trade policies implemented at Federation, which liberals bemoan, were necessary at the time and important for the development of Australia?
• The relevance of Australia's founding to today's discussions about nationalism and importance of nation-state, trade, and immigration policies, being conducted as part of the "national conservative" movement in US, Europe and elsewhere.