Former Liberal Party members Gerard Rennick (People First Party) and John Ruddick (Libertarian Party) argue that Australia's conservative political landscape requires a merger of right-wing parties including One Nation, Liberal, National, People First, and Libertarian parties to create a unified conservative force. They contend that the Liberal Party is vulnerable to One Nation's rise and has lost its traditional base, while One Nation's meteoric poll success threatens to become the dominant conservative party. The speakers advocate for a democratic party structure with member voting for leadership, similar to the Canadian Conservative Party model, to unite the right-wing movement and prevent Labor from gaining power.
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People First and Libertarians to Unite? Gerard RENNICK + John RUDDICK Call for Minor Party Unity追加:
We just need to merge. We need to get all the people together and we need to build a machine.
My view of Tony is he's yesterday's man.
People have backed One Nation, myself.
They won't necessarily back Tony. He's part of the reason for the decline in the Liberal Party. We need to remove the duplications of roles and responsibilities between state and federal governments. It's absolutely absurd that we have got nine health departments in a country of 27 million people.
My view is we can unite the whole right one nation liberal national people's first libertarians shooters for Christians if we have a big massive democratic tent.
One nation is a big serious threat to the liberals, but it is an extinction event for the national that is true.
There is going to be chaos on the right for a few years and very sadly that is going to result likely in Labor government.
>> Nothing symbolizes more maladministration of this country than Chris Bowen. If you wanted a logo of government in incompetence, you just put a face of Chris Bowen there.
Good day Adelaide. Good day Perth. Good day Australia. This is episode 517 of The Other Side for the weekend commencing Friday, May 29, 2026. Your weekly breath of clarity in a world full of spin. This week on the show, Gerard Renick and John Ruddic. One Nation has had a lot of attention recently and rightly so because of its meteoric rise as conservative and classically liberal Aussies abandon the rudderless Liberal Party. But is there any hope for the old party? Can it survive and revive? And what about the other smaller center-right parties? What's happening with them? Will they join with One Nation to create a new conservative force? My two guests this week are in the perfect position to tell us. Gerard Renick of the People First Party and John Rudd of the Libertarian Party. Both former senior influential liberals themselves, outcast by the old machine.
Both a little skeptical of One Nation and most importantly, both very good men who've proven that they put Australia before politics and their own careers.
They've got interesting ideas. We won't agree with all of them. They don't agree with each other on everything, but they're smart. So, it's going to be a fascinating discussion. Stick around for that in just a sec. But first to the news of the week. Imagine you're an Aussie small business owner. You took risks, maybe risked it all. You battled through the bureaucracy and the red tape. You took the slings and arrows of brutal competition in the marketplace.
You created 10, maybe 50 jobs for your fellow Australians. Perhaps perhaps you conquered new markets, innovated, worked 60 to 100 hour weeks all your life. And despite all the odds, you survived.
You're now about to retire and plan to sell your business. And then the government changes the rules right at the end of the game. Not just a little bit, but radically. So radically that the amount of tax that you're going to pay upon retirement when you sell your business just doubles overnight. It is a massive kick in the guts. And that is what a lot of small business owners in Australia are facing right now. A retiring small business person who was looking at a tax bill of maybe half a million bucks selling their life's work is now looking at having to pay a million bucks. And then to add insult to injury, they turn on the television this week and they see this utter utter garbage from a public service bureaucrat fat cat who makes around half a million bucks every year.
>> Trans women. If someone is uh who applies for a job, for example, >> Yes. and it is a trans woman and she may be asked whether or not she intends to have children and if she replies yes I do and then doesn't get the job because that employer doesn't want to employ women who uh may be of childbearing age then she may have been subjected to unlawful discrimination on the basis of potential pregnancy >> I I'm very confused A biological male can't become pregnant.
>> But the grounds of pregnancy includes potential pregnancy as well as pregnancy.
>> But if they can't become pregnant, how can you then become potentially pregnant?
>> It's about the unlawful treatment by the employer.
If someone is treated unfairly on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy, then that is unlawful discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
>> Yep. Come to Australia, the land of opportunity. Opportunity squandered by the grifting fools of Canberra who'll tie you up in knots with rules and regulations based on utter lunacy and fantasy like that. Then if you dare to still succeed, they'll tax you all your hard-earned wealth to pay other fools who indulge in ideological garbage for a living.
What is just utterly sickening about the Senate testimony of Dr. Anna Cody, Australia's sex discrimination commissioner, whose salary package costs taxpayers over $400,000 a year. Isn't it just that she pedals lunatic ideology for a living? It's the attitude and culture bureaucrats like her represent.
The sex discrimination commission's nonsense is just the symptom of a hideous underlying disease that is destroying this nation. The disease is a suicidal self-indulgence, a spoiled brat culture that most nations could never afford that but we apparently can because we've got so much natural wealth to waste. Although that's kind of gone now, too. So, we really cannot afford this garbage anymore. So, it's not what she says here that's the main problem.
It's the culture of CRA and big government arrogance that permits this rubbish that really should turn our stomachs.
>> If someone is treated unfairly on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy, then that is unlawful discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
>> So if a bloke came in and they said, "Are you going to have children?"
which is the same question really, and he said, "Oh yeah, maybe." Are you saying that he could also claim that ground >> if he didn't receive the job because they can't get pregnant?
>> No. No. Not a a man who is seeking uh a position then it's not going to apply to a man. But how? They're both biological men. It makes no sense.
>> A biological man. Do you you started for a biological man can't get pregnant. Am I correct? Because if I'm not, I've got to go back to school. I seriously do because I missed that lesson in biology.
I went to a convent school. The nuns may not have told me about it. But you said a biological man can't get pregnant.
That's correct, Senator. But someone who is a trans woman may be assumed to be pregnant or to be able to be pregnant.
So what stops a man putting on a dress, walking in, and claiming the protections? He's now a woman. You've admitted that. That would be up to a court to decide whether or not it was discrimination on the >> No, no. And with all due respect, >> your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars being spent by the Albany Labor government, the Canberra class, the people who think it's best if they take your money rather than leaving it to you to decide how to spend it. I mean, you can't be trusted.
You might waste it on silly things like expanding your business to create more jobs, taking care of your loved ones in times of sickness or investing in stuff that might increase our national commonwealth. No, we can't have that. We must tax you and take the money from you because we know how to spend it best on important things like making sure men who can't ever get pregnant aren't potentially discriminated against because they potentially might have been able to get pregnant but didn't get a job because they present as a woman.
What more evidence do we need that this government and this country has gone completely barking mad?
Comedian Mitch Dale sort of summed it up on Instagram pretty well, I reckon. They earn the money, we take some. They spend the money, we take some. And if they buy a property, we'll take some. But if they sell the property, we'll still take some. Now, if they invest their money wisely and grow it, we'll take some. If they invest their money poorly and lose it, I wish we could help. And if they want to get a tiny bit of enjoyment in their miserable lives with cigarettes or alcohol, we'll take even more. Now, the more money they make, the more money we take. Unless they make a lot of money or they're friends of ours, in which case we take none. And then once a year, even though we know exactly how much they should have paid, they need to figure it out for themselves and let us know cuz there's a chance that we could take even more.
You know, every day I wonder what this country would be like if instead of the government we have, we had a government that actually rewarded success. a government that actually encouraged people to go and start a business and supported them in their ventures, giving them tax breaks when they're successful so they can continue to have even more success and expand their businesses.
Wow. We might even have some industries we could export. We might see some real innovation explode. We might see young people having hope and optimism, god forbid. Productivity would flourish.
Wages would rise. Inflation would come down. Houses would be affordable. But we're not allowed to talk about that on TV or in the newspapers or on the radio or even on social media because our audience won't like it. They will leave.
Apparently, Australians do not like to be scolded and they don't like their nation to be criticized. People will tune out. The clicks will go down. Your popularity will fade. Well, that's probably right. What's different about this show is I'm at retirement age. I don't need clicks. I like clicks. I'd like to have a big audience and be influential. I'd like the show to be commercially viable in its own right. It isn't. It's been 5 years. It may never be, but I don't need it to be. So I can say whatever I like. And as a man who's approaching his seventh decade of life, I feel a little fatherly responsibility to scold the family a bit. You see, there's a reason why Australia has the awful government that it does and the problems that it does, despite its ridiculous natural wealth and good fortune. It's because we've become a nation of grifters and takers. There are too many adult children among us who just want to be taken care of by mommy and daddy government. We don't want freedom because with freedom comes responsibility. They'd rather be victims and blame someone else for their situation in life. So they vote not for politicians who've got vision and call us to be our best, but for politicians who offer to give us free stuff. And so that's exactly the kind of politicians we get. But the real problem is much deeper. Aussies would much rather have equal slices of a small pie than grow the pie. We worry far far more about whether someone else is getting more than us than we do about what we collectively have in total. Most Aussies would rather they had just $1 and their neighbor had just $1 than if they had $2 and their neighbor had 10. That wouldn't be fair. Until we're prepared to embrace the success of others above ourselves, we will never grow our common wealth.
Until we can say, "Good on Fred or Jane for making 10 times more than I did this year," and be truly happy with that, nothing's going to change. But envy is powerful stuff. And politicians, particularly those on the left, know it.
And they're happy for us to all be equally poor than unequally rich because then they can stay in power. But the real problem is most of us agree equality is everything, right? No. total commonwealth is.
I don't really think it's going to change. Do you? All a politician has to do is point out some inequality and people go nuts. The ABC starts demanding more government to fix it. But inequality is fair and equality is unfair. Oh, come on, Damo. Have you lost your mind? No. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine you're a high school teacher. Your student's average score is 75% on most assignments. There's a range from 40 to 99%. Some kids fail badly, some struggle, most do okay, and a few really excel. It's very, very unequal, but it's totally fair. But imagine you've got a colleague, let's call him teacher Jim Charanesi, or Jimbo for short. Jimbo hates inequality. He's vowed to stamp it out in his classroom.
His classroom is a place where nobody gets to feel better than anyone else ever. where there's no ups and downs, just endless happiness. Jimbo decides to tell his students that no matter what, everyone will get a B in the assignment because that's fair. It's equality. It's equity. But something funny happens.
After a couple of weeks, the students who used to get A's, they start to not bother putting in the extra effort because there's no reward. The kids who used to get B's start slipping a little bit too since there's no need to really bother so much. And the ones who failed, well, they just keep on doing right what they were doing. thrilled at this excellent new arrangement. What do you think happens to Jimbo's overall class score? Does the average go up or does it go down? Does the collective common wealth get bigger or smaller? Oh, it gets smaller. A lot smaller. And that folks explains socialism and Australia right now. The old A students have decided not to bother or they're leaving for another school. One that gets it.
The old B students are cruising their way down to what would have once been a C-grade and the failures aren't bothering to try any harder. But the sad reality is that because of this obsession with equality and our love of big government socialist policies and our fear of inequality, everyone is worse off. The Commonwealth is fast disappearing. Now, you might want to live in a country like that, but I don't. Thanks. So you can take your equality and your equity and shove it up your nose ring because there's nothing fair or just about it.
Coming up, Gerard Renick and John Rudd will join us. But first, we have our PM on the line. Welcome to Q&A.
Prime Minister, um, a few weeks ago, Commissioner Bell handed down her interim report into the Bondi massacre.
You initially refused a royal commission. What changed your mind?
>> The polls. I'll listen. That's leadership.
>> The report had 14 recommendations. Will you implement them?
>> We've accepted all 14. That shows how seriously we're taking this.
>> Have you read them?
>> Reading slows things down, Damon.
>> Well, recommendation seven says you should personally apologize to every victim's family.
>> And we've accepted that. Doing it is a separate process with its own timeline.
What I won't do, Damian, is what the previous government would have done.
Form a committee, issue a discussion paper and kick the can down the road.
We'll skip all that and we'll implement them very sensitively.
>> The way you implemented the Jillian Seagull recommendations.
>> Exactly. Sensitivity is very important.
Commissioner Bell noted that the report deliberately avoids the intelligence failures that led to the attack. But that's the bit that everybody actually wants answered, >> which is the bit that might embarrass us. What's your point?
>> My point is a former AIO undercover officer says he warned the agency about the attacks years before. Bomb >> former key word. You see, he's not serving now, which means technically he no longer knows what he knew. I had Penny Wong explain it to me twice.
>> You've been criticized for showing no emotion after the attack.
>> I reject that completely. It's generally recognized. I'm the most empathetic prime minister this nation's ever had.
But empathy is a finite resource. You can't deploy it everywhere. I reserve the quivering lip for really important occasions >> like Bondi >> Nadok week GMA when the Rabbito win as I said important things >> so what could the government have done better prime minister >> look we appointed an anti-semitism envoy and in the interest of balance and anti-Islamophobia envoy they meet weekly to not speak to each other over mentees very productive >> in parliament you apologized that you couldn't protect the Jewish community, not that you failed to. Is there a difference?
>> There's an enormous difference. Couldn't means it was impossible. Failed to means we didn't try hard enough. One of those is my fault. I chose the other one very carefully. That's accountability.
>> Prime Minister, thank you for your time.
The brilliant Robert Das there sketch written by Peter O'Brien and Robert Das.
You can check all of Robert's comedy out on Instagram. Das is spelled D E G A S.
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One Nation has had a lot of attention recently because of its meteoric rise in the polls. That's translated to real electoral success in South Australia state election and the federal bi-election in Susan Lee's old seat of Farah in New South Wales, which was won by One Nation's David Farley a few weeks back. Conservative and classically liberal Aussies are abandoning the Liberal and National parties because of their endless identity crisis. But is there any hope at all for the old parties? Can the Liberals survive and revive? Our two guests this week are in the perfect position to tell us. Gerard Renick of the People First Party and John Ruddic of the Libertarian Party of Australia. Both former senior influential liberals, outcast by the old machine. Both a little skeptical of One Nation and most importantly, both good men who've proven that they do put Australia before politics and their own careers. Gentlemen, welcome to the other side once again. Good to have you both back.
>> Thanks, Damian. Good to be here.
>> Um Jared, I'll I'll start with you. Um just point blank. I mean, do you think that the Liberal Party is salvageable at this point? Does it have a future?
>> Look, it it's potentially has a future.
Uh my view is is that most people have moved on though. So, if the current trend continu continues with One Nation, the Liberal Party will be decimated at the next election along with the Nationals. That won't be the end of them because they do have substantial assets behind them and infrastructure. Uh, but I think they're Yeah, it's going to take one hell of a turnaround to see them come back.
>> John, what what about you? What are your thoughts? Revivable, survivable?
>> Well, look, what what's happened here is that a big part of political success is people in their 20s and 30s that become activists. The activist class used to join, if they were on the right or something, they used to join the Liberal Party. They'd get heavily involved.
Those people are not now getting involved.
According to the poll, the only people left voting for the Liberal party are people like my mother who's up up in Brisbane and at nursing home and she told me the other day she said she will always vote Liberal. She loves Liberal.
She's she might be terrible. But now can it can it cut can it be revived? What we've seen in the UK which is pretty similar political culture to us the complete collapse of the Tories. Okay, replaced by Nigel PR. Now in the United States the old establishment of the Republican party, the Bushes, the Cheney, the Romney collapsed. Okay. Now, it hasn't been a new party, but it's effectively a brand new party. So, the Liberal Party is sitting here vulnerable. Very vulnerable on the right to One Nation. Extremely vulnerable.
It's already had its heartland lost on the left from the Teals. So, it doesn't know which way to go. Do we try and plankate the Teals? Do we try and move one? Now, there is a solution. It is possible Liberal Party could just become extinct. That is definitely possible.
Now, I believe it can be revived. I believe the whole right side of Australian politics can be revived. Now, someone like me and uh Senator Renick, okay, me and Jared were born on almost the same day in the same year. We've got a surname, which means that we're probably six cousins, okay? Someone messed up their spelling, okay? And we also we also agree on 90% of policies.
Now, that's pretty good. If if I agree with someone on 70% of policies, we should be in the same party. But with Jer, I agree with him on 90%. Now let's say we then try and had a discussion about merging our parties and people would think we're going to merge it and we've got to merge it over policy. Now that's the wrong mindset. My my view is we can unite the whole right one nation liberal national people's first libertarians shooters the the Christians good people there if we have a big massive democratic tent. Okay. So, and that now now there's no country on earth more similar to Australia than Canada.
Our constitution, the Australian Constitution, we we're told it's a combination of Washington and Westminster. Not true. We did in the 1890s exactly what the Canadians did in the 1860s. They happily left Britain.
They retained a constitutional monarchy by Cameal Parliament to federation.
Australians in the 1890s, you read Henry Parks and Alfred De and all these guys, they were referring to the con the Canadian situation all the time. We've just forgotten, but that's what happened. So, we are their twin. We've got their constitution basically. Yeah.
>> And they their Canadian Conservative Party has 700,000 members for a population of the country little bit bigger than Australia, but not that much bigger. Why do they have 700,000 members? And how many members of the Liberal Party are there around Australia? It's knocking on the door and get down to 10,000 people. Because in Canada, you can pay $15, become a member, and overnight, next time they have a ballot for the parliamentary leader, it could be the the opposition leader or the prime minister, you get to have a vote. Now, you know what they do in Canada when they have these big leadership votes? It goes on for five months, those televised debates, and it's a big debate about policy. So Jared Jared and I could theoretically be in the same party.
>> Yeah.
>> And let's say we wanted to for the parliamentary leader. Jared can get up and say, "Vote for me." and you know I agree with all these things and he supports the people's bank whatever and I'd get up and say no vote for me I agree with everything Jared says except I don't support the people's bank and then we let the people decide who's going to be the leader and then we get behind whoever wins >> right so okay so so John we yeah I mean let let's that that Canadian comparison you know we've made it on the show before it's a really important comparison because it basically indicates what's wrong with the Liberal party and why they probably don't have a future is because yes they are probably sitting around 10 to 20,000 members Max at the moment. Um, >> yeah, >> Jared, I mean, do you do you see a potential in what John's saying, I mean, it sounds like there's an olive branch going there. I mean, you guys, a lot of people tell me on this show, why don't all the minor conservative parties get together? Why don't they all support one another? Um, can you guys start working together? Can you work with one nation?
>> Yeah. Okay, great question, Damian.
Absolutely. So, and as we as I said to John before the show, you know, let's let's be honest. I said we need to merge. Um, and I'm willing like on behalf of people first, we're merging with the Citizens Party over the next few months. And then once that's tied down, I'm going to go back to the Heart Party and and the Libertarians. Yep.
>> Uh, and try and merge with them as well.
>> Okay. So, Citizens Party, Heart Party and the Libertarians. Yeah.
>> Citizens Party and Heart Party. I don't know a lot about.
>> Yeah. Small parties, but you know, the Heart Party is the old Mop party. The Citizens Party been around for 30 years.
But long story short, we just need to merge. We need to get all the people together and we need to build a machine.
But we need to build a democratic machine as John said because this is one of the reasons why the coalition has fallen over was that they stopped listening to their own members. Uh and they had a thing like state council whereby so much energy was expanded within the party to try and get delegates on the state councils. That needs to stop. It just needs to be one vote, one value. Now in regards to your other question with One Nation, uh that's a very good question and yes, we should merge there as well. Couple of things. One Nation now don't really need to merge with anyone. I mean, it's all about One Nation. Uh, and if if the current trend continues, they will be the party of choice as in the major party after the next election. If if the polls stay where they are, right? So, we still got two years to go. Things can change.
>> Um, uh, step one. So, at this stage, I wouldn't blame them if they said, "No, we don't want to, you know, merge with anyone else at this stage. We want to try and take every, you know, winner takes all type of approach." And that's fair enough as far as I'm concerned. But my view is we still need a minor party.
So when I have members come to me and say, "Jared, what are we going to do about One Nation?" I said, "Look, don't worry about it. They're now a major party. We're a minor party. We need to be the best minor party we can be because we need to be able, we always need a minor party to hold the majors to account." Okay?
>> I don't care what sort of major party it is, left or right. The lobbyists, the vested interests are always going to infiltrate into those things. And you need a smaller party, high quality, professional, polished party, uh, you know, and myself and John, you know, can can be a part of that. Uh, that needs to hold the major party of the day to account for whatever they do.
>> Okay. So, all right. So, you you you would say obviously that the Liberal Party um are probably going to be the second tier Conservative party. Um, One Nation will be the dominant conservative party by the time the election comes around. Uh, we need a smaller party to to to help with that. The National Party's probably done and dusted at this point, would you say, John? What's your take on the Nationals?
>> Well, One Nation is a big serious threat to the Liberals, but it is an extinction event for the Nationals. That is true.
>> Okay. So, what what what do you see as Matt Kennavan's future then?
Well, he better have one. Um, look, the Conservatives owe Matt Canavan a very big uh um debt because, you know, and and this is one of the things I'll be honest here, you know, like this is, I guess, personal for me as well. I I was there when Matt Cannavan would stand up every week in the party room and say, "We've got to get out of uh net zero."
Right? He took a, you know, I don't know if it's 150,000, but he took like a six figure pay cut when he had a mortgage and children to make sure he because he he couldn't stay in the cabinet. I still remember his words. No one can hear me scream in cabinet, right? To stand up against net zero, right? So Barnaby, who's now left the nats and and remember Matt also stood down to give Barnaby the numbers to beat Michael McCormack, right? So Barnaby has now ran, you know, not backed Matt, shown the same loyalty to Matt that Matt showed to Barnaby.
It's highly likely Barnaby's going to be in a very strong position at the next election. So they need to make sure there a deal is done there to keep Matt in the parliament. He's very aerodite.
He's very polished and he has been and and a and a person of great conviction who has to stay in parliament. So yeah, and there's a couple of other good nats out there as well, right? So >> there needs to be a bit of reciprocal respect.
>> Yeah. For those gnats that stay true to the cause, you know, like O'Brien Boyce and a couple of those guys as well. Uh so yeah, >> what what do you think will happen if I go to John? What what do you think will happen with the uh the more conservative prominent uh liberals like Alex Antic in South Australia? Uh do do you see Alex sort of eventually joining with Cory Bernardi and becoming part of One Nation? What's the vibe there on the ground?
>> Look, it's look putting aside the welfare of the country and the good of the country. Okay, this is a fantastic political drama. Okay, it's really really hard to predict. Uh but I do think I think one thing we can predict is there's going to be chaos on the right for a few years and very sadly that is going to result likely in Labor governments. Now you look at the recent polls and you add up the one nation vote, the liberal vote, the national vote, other little minor rights, we're getting more than 50% of the country but we're institutionally couldn't be worse. Could not be worse.
So I think I think I I'm I expect sometime in about five years time after we pro after Labour's probably won another two federal elections that'll be four in a row and you know before before Hawk and Keing who won five five in a row Labour had never won more than two in a row but they're now looking like they're going to you know bad for the country. Now I think at the end of it what's going to I sus I hope there's another Aubry type conference like Robert Menses did in 1944 brought together various groups and we can have another meeting in Aubry. We're not ready there yet. Look thinking's thinking she's going to be the prime minister. She might be I think she'll be I think she'd be a pretty good prime minister you know on most things and she so so she's not going to be interested in having an awkward discussion now.
She's going to think why would I stop now? But I think what will happen is that there will be people will realize look we got an impass here. We've been governed by bad labor uh and because we're not uh we're not got our act together. So I think we need sort of like a Robert Menses figure to cut to get together do it at Aubry where he did it nice nice and symbolic with a big convention center down there and say look we can all unite not over policy because we all look you >> minor disagreements on policy. Yeah.
Yeah. Unite on values.
>> Yeah. But but we will Jared and I we try and sit down and and thrash out a policy agreement that we can both sign off and we're going to argue and argue and argue about three or four little points. Yeah.
>> So I'm saying let's not argue about the policy. Let's have a really democratic structure. Now under a democratic structure, sometimes a people first person will win. Sometimes a libertarian will win. Sometimes a Christian will win. But it won't just be their politics. It'll also be their personality, their popularity. It'll be a better process. That's what And I think we should probably just call it the conservative party. It's a nice vague broad name >> and have a democratic process behind that that's going going to work. All right. Well, look, obviously the Liberal Party going to play a part in in in that process and that shift uh eventually if it happens. I don't think Pauline's in a position to be as much as as excited as everybody is at the moment and that's great to see. We still are in a situation where the polls are saying that on a two- party preferred basis, Labor is at 53. Whether you pit it against the Liberal Nationals or whether you pit it against One Nation, that's the situation. and they're still at 53 and 53 means they're staying pretty much in power. So, um let's have a look at what's happening on the Liberal Party side of things this week. Of course, we've had Tony Abbott uh saying that he's well, he is going to be formally appointed president this weekend. Um he went on to uh Peter Kredland's show on Sky News Australia earlier in the week.
Uh and she asked him directly, you know, you're you're starting to put the armor of politics back on. You're moving back in. Um, let's have a listen to to that quick exchange there on Sky News Australia. Salt 6. Thanks, Aaron.
>> You're putting back on the the political armor, if I can call it that. Um, I was going to say you're running to be the federal president, but nominations closed. Uh, on Friday, you will be elected unopposed this weekend at the Liberal Party Federal Council in Melbourne.
I got to ask you, why would you do it?
>> Well, no one should do these jobs for the money because there is none. or volunteer power because there's not much essentially you only do these jobs because you want to help the party and ultimately to help the country and I want to help Angus Taylor to become the 32nd prime minister because by God we need a change of government in this country.
>> Okay. So I'm not sure I fully buy I mean I get that he doesn't get paid but I'm not sure it's all just altruistic. John, um what what is Tony Abbott doing there do you think? Is he looking to be that that mensy that uh that sorry figure is going to pull a mens he's pulling the party together?
>> Yes. Yes. Now look I look you know Tony Abbott's about 65 years old. Okay. Now I I saw him recently in person. Okay.
>> He's so healthy. Okay. He's a guy that from about you know how we all wake up think I've got to do some exercise.
>> He's a guy that since the age of five has done exercise every day.
>> Look he's very smart. Okay. Look. got some pretty strong disagreements with him over foreign policy, but we'll put that aside. Um, but look, I look, I reckon Tony, look, I I I really wish Angus Taylor all the best. So, I don't So, because I think he's a really smart guy and I hope he he might if he if he can win the next election, it'll be a miracle. Okay, but but he might be able to pull it off. But, if that doesn't happen, okay, look, Tony could be the guy who could unite all the little groups in the right because we all all v to varying degrees have some unity around. Now, would Tony if if we let's say we had 400,000 members of a right of center big mass party in this country and and if Tony had to step forward, I reckon there's a good chance he'd get a majority of that 400,000 people. That's what I reckon.
>> Oh, so you see him back on the parliamentary side of things, not just as the president guiding this new birth of a new generation. But you but actually going back on the parliamentary side himself.
>> That's what I think he wants to do. Now, now, now this federal presidency of the Liberal Party sounds like a really impressive role, but let me tell you, it's nothing. The Liberal Party, >> but there was the United Australia Party before the Liberal Party. Now, Mensy says that he brought all the all these little groups together. The truth is the UAP largely just rebranded itself the Liberal Party. That's what happened. But the one major administr that Menses did bring in is the UAP had no federal body. They were all just state parties. Now then Mensy said, "Oh, we're going to create it." And so that's what the federal council is and it does nothing. It has no power. But it they could change under Tony Abbott's leadership, they could change the constitution of the federal constitution. They need a two-thirds majority and they could say that the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party must be elected by a vote of all the members of the Liberal Party. That's the pack. Now, no one's really thought of that before. All it's all in this all in this fantastic book.
>> Yeah, I was going to say I don't want to forget your book. So, make the Liberal Party Great Again is your book, John, where you outline a lot of that. It goes back into all the You wrote that, I think, what before you left the party, right?
>> 2018.
>> Yeah. So, and that's available on you.
You're a generous man because you're giving it away for free online. Is that right, >> mate? I I It's going to transform the country that it's absolutely I'll pay people to read it almost. Okay. So, totally. You don't have to give me your email address. You go to john.com.au I think. Click on the link, read the book, and take you about three hours.
>> Uh Jared, you look the Liberal Reform Assoc Association, they've been on the show before. Um uh Graeme Hayoft's organization. They've been quite open about the fact that they want this Canadian model that they think Tony Abbott might be a guy who could I don't know how close they are to Tony Abbott, but what what's your insight on what's going on here with Tony Abbott and with this whole thing?
>> Not a lot. I mean, I've been out of Liberal Party now for almost 2 years.
But my view of Tony is he's yesterday's man. Uh he's part of the establishment.
One Nation people, the people that back One Nation myself, they won't necessarily back Tony. He's part of the reason for the decline in the Liberal Party. His decision to award Prince Philip the Australian of the Year award that then, you know, the week before Campbell Newman went back into re-election and saw him lose this, you know, we got what, nine years of Anna Palache. um uh he's not the right guy.
We we need a whole new fresh start. Um >> yeah, I mean I hear that criticis Tony's been a great ser service to the country of course and but yes, there is a feeling that >> and me personally I called him throughout co to ask him to speak up and he wouldn't do it. Yeah, he'll speak up about getting involved in the Ukraine war and and all these other wars offshore, but when it mattered here, he went and hid behind a rock just like they all the others did.
>> So you don't see him as a coming back politically. You also don't see him as a potential leader of a of the conservative movement resurgence sidelines.
>> He might try and come back. I'm not saying he won't. Um but my vibe is I think you're reading the room wrong if you think that uh Tony Abbott is going to lead people have left the liberals and gone to the likes of One Nation and and people first. Uh and I can tell you as Alex Antic said at at a conference last year and I think he nailed it. It's 19 not 1996 anymore. a lot of the views the old establishment view and this is we often talk about you know the moderates and the and the conservatives within the liberal party but there's a what I realized when I was in the Liberal party there's actually a born to rule element inside the Liberal party and then as I want the government out of out of my life faction in the Liberal party right I'm from I want the government out of my life faction of the Liberal party where I wanted small government I wanted to promote the individual and and family >> things like that but there is a genuine born to rule And we saw it in co when they all said, "Oh, no, no, no, they all adopted we know better than you." We saw it with the whole let's privatize everything. So this these are the people that, you know, want to be the want to be establishment types. You know, they go to university, they buy their penguin suit, they go to every ball for the next decade, you know, waste their 20s sucking up to other people uh instead of actually getting out and getting a life.
So >> a bit out of bit out of touch.
>> Yeah. They they live in a world, you know, fantasy world of politics and not in the real world. This new party needs to be very much entrenched in the real world cost of living almost like you know it it's it is literally you know as as I describe myself I'm 33% blue collar labor 33% small business liberal and 33% you know regional farmer right and 1% hippie and that's you know and that hippie part >> seen that 1% well it's a contained beast that's waiting to get out of its cont cage I can assure you but but that's the thing right whereas on the other side it's you know what what would be that hippie is that authoritarian arian uh >> anti- athoritarian.
>> No, no, no. Pro athoritarian. There is an author author authoritarian streak in this born to rule establish and Tonyy's a part of that you know he wants to go and get involved in every war offshore and you know he'll argue and Angus Taylor is doing it now making a big mistake saying we shouldn't have tariffs you know we've got to promote free trade Robert Menses himself said in the forgotten people's speech we should not go back to the old selfish notions of free trade right like I I've been you know in in accounting for 25 years I never saw a freedom statement I saw a profit and loss statement the name of the game is to make money and get a a return on your risk, right, and on your effort, right? So, that comes at a cost.
There's no such thing as a free market.
I've never been to a market that's free, right? The name of the game is to make sure those people that get out of bed every day and put their nose to the grindstone are rewarded for their efforts. And that's the language we've got to be using, not this highutin neoliberal stuff that, you know, saw us sell off all our infrastructure and let you know, foreigners own most of the country.
>> Well, as I say, I mean, we got we're still in a situation where Labour's at 53% on two party preferred on the polls and that's not going to change. And I think One Nation's focus is on getting the working-class vote over from Labor uh to to to crack that. And maybe maybe Tony's not not the guy for that or the old Liberal Party regime is not the the the organizational structure for that. I want to just someone else that needs to get a little attention here for being um someone from the past. Uh is is uh Mr. Turnbull um who astounded me with his appearance on ABC radio this week. I nearly drove off the road. Um I want you to just have a listen to what he said.
Um he's talking uh here about um well he was he was he was basically uh asked about the teals forming a political party which I want to get your thoughts on but also just sort of saying that you know the Liberal Party needs to shift further left to to restore its uh its lost glory rather than further right.
Let's have a listen to this from Malcolm Turble.
There is absolutely an opportunity there. I mean people feel the Liberal Party has you know moved away from the center. Uh that is why the Teals were elected and the the more the Liberal Party tries to chase and emulate and copy One Nation the more it builds up the vote for One Nation.
>> Yeah. Okay. John, thoughts on that?
Look, hate to be a broken record.
However, if the members got the toe to the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party and Malcolm Turble, it was Malcolm, let's go back to 2015. It's Malcolm Turble versus Tony Abbott and there's 300,000 members of the Liberal Party and they get to vote who's the leader. Now, we know what's going to happen. Tony Adam would have got 93% of the vote and Malcolm Turble would have if you've gone to the bother of ringing up the Liberal Party and saying you want to join the Liberal Party there's pretty good chance you're a pretty right-wing type person so you're not going to like Malcolm Turbo and you are going to like Tony Abbott more than Malcolm Tur >> he's saying he's saying there's a vacuum there's a vacuum for a center right party and he thinks that the Teals the Teals are center right I mean the Teals are center left >> I hope that the Teals do start a stupid party I because at the moment they can sort of get away with it, right? But when they actually have to have a agreed upon policy platform and they got to elect a leader and they all these other all these other little perks and and then then what will happen is their shallowess will be exposed very quickly and they'll start having a a fight.
They'll start internally fighting and they won't have the institutional structure to make the fight not blow them up. So I hope they do start a party. Well, Zali Stigle and Allegra Spender have said and others have said that they'll they'll happily look at a party. Kate Cheney and Monique Ryan, uh Kate's from WA, Monik Ryan, of course, Ku Yong in in Melbourne. Uh not so enthusiastic about the idea. Um but you know, I mean, it would be nice and honest, wouldn't it, for a change if they actually uh did get together and admit that they are a political party and they are centrally funded and centrally marketed.
>> Yeah, look, I I agree with John. I mean, if they have to start a party, then they've got to pick a leader. Uh, and then there's a pecking order and and ultimately uh this and this is why I do believe in the party system. There's a lot of people out there that think, you know, party shouldn't exist at all and we all should be 150 different uh politicians sort of going our own way and and obviously we've got to obvious vote without conviction in my view. But at some point to form an executive, right, which is the third arm of government, you've got your judiciary, your parliament, your executive, which by the way should be under the Washington executive in my view should come from outside of parliament, but that's a discussion for another day. You you've got to work out who's who's going to take those roles. So you do need some type of process to work out who the executive is because we tend to and and especially people who aren't really on the inside of politics, they don't realize that there is a distinction between ministers and backbenches. Uh and that's a really really big difference because you know it was something that I never really caughten on to early on but a lot of backbenches who started with me their entire focus was then going to the next level of becoming a minister whereas my entire focus was on reading the bills and calling out what was right and wrong. Uh so they of course shut up said yes to everything and now some of them are shadow ministers right uh but this is what the teals don't have to encounter is and and one nation in many respects will have to face this in in the near future too is that they're going to actually have to have credible alternative solutions and cost them in a way that you know isn't going to inflict pain on someone else. Uh so I I agree.
The sooner they form a party, uh then they're going to be take, you know, started to be scrutinized a lot more.
>> Well, and also just scrutinized around electoral laws and things like normal other parties have to be like your parties have to be. I mean, it's a little bit unfair that they've all been able to run around saying we're independents yet they're centrally clearly centrally marketing marketed. So the marketing side and we know uh the money, right? There's a lot of money behind the teals. a point that Tony Abbott made uh also in that interview with Peter Kredlin. If we could play that one now.
>> When I was the leader of the Liberal Party, uh we won 25 seats from Labor. Uh when Malcolm was the leader of the Liberal Party, we lost 14 seats to Labor. Now, uh the reason why the Liberal Party has been in trouble is because we have lacked courage and conviction. I think we are regaining courage and conviction under Angus Taylor. I think it was there for all to see in the budget reply. And as for the teals, well, they are a political party.
>> They should make honest people of themselves and admit it.
>> And what they really are is the big money party. The big money party because there was some $12 million of climate 200 money uh that went into them in 2022 when they had their big their big success.
Yeah, that's a lot of money, Jared.
Right. Uh $12 million. I mean, the average campaign, I don't know, Liberal Party spends what, about 300 to 500,000 per seat or something?
>> Oh, something like that.
>> Yeah. And this is like this was like I think the Australian did a story where they showed it was like a million per seat for the Teals. And it was 700,000 of that million in almost every case was coming from Climate 200. What is Climate 200? I mean, it's >> Well, I'm not sure exactly, but they seem to be able to raise a lot of money.
But yet again, you know, we had Clive on our side who dropped tens of millions of dollars on billboards, right? I mean, the Teals are actually very smart how they spent their money. They paid people to go doornocking and get involved at the grassroots level. I mean, most of the Teal representatives were unknown before they came into parliament, right?
And you know, until you have been tightened up now, but Labour's got big money. The Liberal Party's had big money in the past. So, I'm not going to buy into Liberal Party complaining about the Teals having big but I mean they you Labor Party either, right? with the union money and the buckets of money that they get from the private sector.
But the the that's a whole other issue how much money is in and whether we can never get rid of it. But um the or whether we should but the you know the Teals were smart in the fact that they spent they spent that money on on professional marketing rather than what Clive does.
>> Yeah. And the Liberal Party look look this this money thing is a fallacy. The Liberal Party's gone backwards because they became all focused on the parliamentary wing and not their members. Okay. And there is no substitute for getting out there and doing the hard work on the ground. And that's when I started People First and when I start, you know, we we started branches. I know Libertarians had branches, but One Nation didn't have branches for 30 years. They've copied us because we got more people on the ground on on the federal election last year in the booze than they did up here in Queensland, which put, you know, put the wind up them. Uh but at the end of the day, I'm a big believer that, you know, it's that grassroots campaigning that makes a huge difference. You do need the mainstream media exposure, but the Liberals got lazy. They focused too internally on themselves. And and can I say like to be honest, I stopped listening after where Tony said, "Oh, the Liberals, they're getting their conviction back." No, they're not under Angus. No, they're not. They're just basically acting desperate now trying to do what was going on years ago. Like a great example yesterday in estimate was M or the day before Malia Cash was asking questions about what is a woman again, you know, and trying to get the the gotcha moment. I mean, Alex Anti asked that question 5 years ago and of course he was ridiculed by people inside the party then for asking that question.
Now we've got this desperate side of you know what I mean is a friend of mine but let's be honest she's been around for 20 years. Uh she's now desperately and and the Liberals are now desperately trying to do what we were doing years ago. Uh and and this is what I mean. We had this disc discussion before the show started.
They're yesterday's news. Okay.
>> Uh so they can complain about the money.
They have been the beneficiary of big dollars over the years. They've still got big dollars, you know, tens of millions of dollars in assets. They willingly, you know, stop smaller parties like People First from getting any funding or the Libertarians because we get get less than 4% of the vote. Uh so I don't really want to hear the Liberal Party or Tony Abbott complain about the Teals basically having more money than because guess what? You got outbeaten by the Teals because they were a better side on the day. You need to admit it. You need to admit you didn't have a ground game. You need to admit you didn't have conviction. And you don't have conviction now. You're only doing it to save your own skin.
>> And people are seeing through it. John, you think people are buying it? It's the lacks authenticity, doesn't it? That people are seeing through it a bit.
>> Um, look, Angus Taylor came out with an immigration policy which was the best liberal immigration policy since Robert Bensics. So they are clearly tacking to the right after tacking to the left since at least 2019 when Tony lost his seat and Karen Phelps one went with Malcolm's lost seat. So they were they've been tacking to the left and then surprise surprise. Yeah. They they lost their base. You know, it was almost 10 years ago the day that Mark Texter, Malcolm Turbull's campaign span, he said to he said to uh to to Malcolm, he said, "Look, we don't we can move to the center and yes, the right the right base will get upset with us, but because of forced preferential voting, they have to vote for us in the end. So there's no harm in moving to the center." That was Malcolm Turble's strategy. And how that how'd that play out for them? What's happened now is they've lost they've lost their heartland. they lo and and so so then they were thinking that when they lost the heartland to the left they were thinking well we got to move to the left now what's happened is they've lost their base and one nation's come up here bigger than the liberals now according to the polls and I think well now we got to move to the right so Jared there is no principle here okay they it is just you know self-preservation and self-interest but if people are saying good policy I say let's encourage it and let's not let's not let's put the motives aside, we can we can sort of discuss that. But it's good that good policies are being suggested and Angus Taylor look Angus Taylor is a good right-winger and he's very smart guy and very very nice guy. Now you know it's difficult environment he's in. Okay. And not he might be able to pull off a miracle. I hope he does.
>> There's a lot of good people in there but yeah I mean they're hamstrung by the uh you know the I guess the games that they want to play and their career aspirations and goals and all sorts of things. I want to just take a look at the just to stomp on this Malcolm Turbo philosophy once and for all because I think it's insane. Let's just have a look at a graphic that we showed you about a month ago on the show. This is a chart of the Roy Morgan polling going back to 2024, December 2024, when Peter Dutton was riding high and the election had been called and it was coming up for May. uh and it looked as though he was going to do really well and then people started saying to him, "No, Peter, you know, we can save some of these inner city seats if we shift a little left." And you start seeing Peter Dutton losing his footing and not having any strong messaging to be able to deliver uh and looking like he's flip-flopping and having to be wishy-washy on what he's saying and he starts to slide. And then we get to the election and by election time as you can see there where it says election on the chart May 2025 you've got him underneath the red line uh which is the Labour party line. So a big decline there. Then we see Susan Lee come in with the approach they took after the election when they said oh no we need to go even further to the left and they put Susan Lee and what happens down it goes even further. Um, and then we move into 2026, uh, and it starts to go weekly here on the chart, but then you see the point where Barnaby Joyce came into One Nation. You see One Nation's rise there in late 2025. You see Barnaby come in. There's a little spike again. Then you see Angus Taylor appointed. Um, and and he's now waning again. That's going back down. Um so you know it doesn't it doesn't look like that approach that Malcolm Turbo was talking about is actually anywhere near um the the right approach and the polls seem to be bearing that out and uh here we are but we are still in a situation where the two party preferred is 5347.
So you guys are saying basically that go ahead John.
>> It's interesting occasionally there's been a more than occasionally there's been a few of these two party prefers where they include not just liberal vers Labor they include Labor verse One Nation and it's very similar the result but more often than not One Nation is having a better chance of winning than the Liberals. Now what what was initially happening with One Nation it was coming from disaffected Liberal Party voters Sky News watchers etc. Well, what's been happening in the last sort of month of the polling is it's now the Labour votes coming down one or two, three points each poll and One Nation's going up one or two. So, and that but the Liberal vote has sort of stabilized. That's good news. That's fantastic that Pauline can appeal to people uh who've been traditional Labor voters and she can she doesn't need that many. she can bring over a few of these Labour voters and and they and these are people who've grown up in a family and they just cannot vote liberal. Grandpa hated liberal, uncles hated liberal, everyone hated a liberal. They might be coal mineral, but they're probably very conservative people. They probably like Donald Trump, but they can't vote liberal just out of tribalism, but they can vote for Paul.
>> All right, gentlemen. Thank you. We're going to take a quick break. We will come back and then I want to get into some policy stuff just very quickly and just get your thoughts on the the current uh budget and the tax situation.
Uh we are being joined by John Ruddic from the Libertarian Party, New South Wales, member of the Legislative Council uh in in New South Wales and also former Senator Gerard Renick uh who is the founder and leader of the People First Party. We'll be back in a moment.
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Welcome back to the other side. We are joined this week on our special panel by in the studio Gerard Renick, former senator for the Liberal Party and for People First and now still a leader of People First, of course, and uh the founder of that political party. And uh joining us on the line from the New South Wales Parliament is uh member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, John Ruddic uh from the Libertarian Party of Australia.
Gentlemen, um we've just seen the uh legislation introduced into the federal parliament for the tax changes. Um we are heading to be uh one of the highest tax countries in the world with a capital gains tax that is the highest in the world. This is a direction that's in complete odds with small government with a libertarian and classical liberal approach. Um Jared, to you firstly, uh how do we get into this mess and what do we do about it? Well, we got into this mess because we've got a treasury that's completely divorced from reality. I mean, you've only got to look at the voice referendum back in 2024, was it?
Where the ACT were the only people to vote yes to the voice. Well, when it comes to taxing policy, uh the Treasury Department's completely just completely botched this. Now, look, I I would have supported abolishing the 50% CGT if they brought back indexation plus averaging. So, if you made a million dollars over uh 10 years, you work out the average rate on $100,000, which is about 20 cents in a dollar, and you apply that 20 cents, right? The longer you hold the asset, you should be given credit for holding that asset.
>> Well, especially if the assets your business that you've built up, it's your equity and energy.
>> The thing that's been lacking in this debate, there's been no distinction between active and passive investing, right? So, if you're out there building a business, creating genuine wealth, uh I think that, you know, you you deserve at the very least a a low rate of tax and not a punitive rate of tax because we want to encourage people to get out and build genuine assets, right? If we want to, you know, leave our children not just a good good set of infrastructure, but also a good vibrant economy which, you know, is largely in the private sector that generates, you know, high volumes of turnover so that we can keep the tax rate low. Uh but they they've got a minimum tax of 30 cents which is just absurd. I do not know where they got that from. Uh because that's extreme extremely punitive uh especially for low income earners. Right.
>> That that's the one that really grinds my gears. Uh and and the other thing that you know that needs to be discussed here is yet again there's been no significant income tax cuts. Now this has damaged the Liberal Party considerably. It's going to damage the Labor Party. had the Labour party I mean and I don't agree with the 30 cent minimum tax just just to be clear how clear here but if they'd have gone along and said we're going to get rid of the tax rate you know lift the tax rate threshold of 45 grand and we're going to lay and then you know lower the income tax between 45 and 100 right so we're going to cut income tax you might have been able to say well look we're cutting tax for 20 million workers there's a couple of million people are going to pay a bit more in capital gains tax to do that right and these will be at the top end but no no they they've given this measly $275 rebate which is what look and treasury have got this obsession with this oneoff offset rather than giving permanent tax cuts right which is what you know anyone understands the ler curve you've got to constantly you know cut taxes just to you know deal with inflation what they call bracket creep so they they've completely botched it >> well the ler curve is is basically that you know after a while um you start generating less tax revenue for the government because people start giving giving up >> well and and and we see that with tax a good example of That's a tobacco tax whereby people are now just turned to the black market.
>> So, John, um, as a libertarian, I'm I'm assuming you're not too happy about this this taxation increase, which is really what it is at the end of the day.
>> Well, I have to start off by repeating the the libertarian mantra, which is taxation is theft. Now, what happened what happened in this, you know, that Australia had the world's best performing stock market in the 20th century. United States had the second best, but the Australian all ordinaries had the best performing from 1900 to 2000. And why is that? Because we were known around the world as a low taxing country. We had lower taxes than the United States across most of the 20th century. Now, the glory period was 1949 to 1972. We had 23 years of a federal liberal government, mostly under Robert Mey. And the federal government's tax take at the end of that 23 years was 18% of all the wealth created in this country every year was taken by the federal government. Then got Whitman came in and it raised up about five or six points up to about 23%. Malcolm Fraser kept it steady. Every prime minister since Whitm has seen it gone up except for Bob Hawk. Okay, but we dropped because Bob Hawk was following Margaret Patrick. Now then and now now what is it today? Well, the center for indep I think federally it's about sort of 29% of the federal government is taking the world out of all the wealth produced in this country every year are taking 30 knocking on the door 30%. But the center for independent studies a very good think tank here in Sydney >> about five years ago >> had a really detailed report on how much tax are we paying in total. And they look at the taxes, the GST, the company tax, income tax, excises, state government taxes, uh you know, pokey taxes, land tax, stamp duty. It doesn't end. Local government taxes, they're being hyped up at the moment. Now, the Center for Independent Study concluded this very good report and they said, "Look, >> it's actually hard to come up with a precise figure, but because it's just so such a mess, such a maze of taxes and excise and everything else." Yeah, >> but their best guess was 55%.
>> Right >> now that was 5 years ago.
>> 55. So what if Alba with all of his stuff, we're up to 60%. Now when you get over 50%, what are you? You're a democratic socialist country and that's what we are.
>> Well, I've been saying that for ages. We are a democratic socialist country.
There's no question about it. I mean, you can't have this level of taxation. I mean, and I think the problem is though that people don't understand what tax is and they don't understand economics and they don't understand what wealth is and what money is. And that with taxation, all you're really doing is you're not creating anything new in the economy in terms of creating any wealth. There's nothing productive about it. You're just moving the control of that wealth and that money in our shared commonwealth from uh the private sector who probably manage it and spend it a lot better and invest it a lot better to the public sector to the government who don't tend to spend it very well, tend to waste a lot of it and tend to not have a clue about how to invest it wisely. Let's have a look at um a chart of the capital gains taxes around the world and you will see now that Australia is right at the top at 30 to 47%. Now a lot of people with these capital gains are going to be in that 47% tax bracket. So a lot of them are going to be paying 47%.
But why would you if you can move to New Zealand and pay zero which is the situation we might see a lot of people moving to New Zealand in the next few years. The United States 0 to 20% even China communist China 0 to 20%. Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, all 0%. Over in the higher taxing side of the equation, you've got the UK at 10 to 24, Spain 19 to 28, Germany 26, Italy 26, Canada around 26, and France, one of the highest taxing countries on Earth, is at 34%. We are above all of those. Even the minimum rate at 30 is above all of those. This is massive. And I it's I mean it's political suicide, isn't it?
>> I mean, they're finished. This has got to be >> Well, let's see. But can I just point out something there, though? You had our tax at 30 to 47%. You missed a really big factor in that, and that's our superenuation capital gains tax, which it's people aren't quite sure yet, but if it stays the same, the superanuation capital gains tax is 15 cents or 10 cents after you've held for a year. Now that's important and this is a big issue >> inside your super.
>> Yeah. Now this goes because a lot of wealthy people have a lot of money inside super. So this is where you know we've got to get a flat if we want a lower tax rate we've got to have a flatter you know it's got to be broader so it can be flatter. So um I know a lot of people I won't name names who are going to pour a lot of money in the superanuation to beat that capital gains. You can put up to $100,000 a year. I think it's 110 now of non non deductible n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n non-consessional super. So families will be pumping in mom and dad 220 grand a year.
>> This is a bit of a trap, Jared, isn't it? Because they want us to put all our money into super because the treasur has already indicated they're going to start dipping into super to pay for stuff the government ought to be paying for out of the other tax revenue because they're going to get the super funds to invest in infrastructure that they should be.
>> Absolutely. That that is right. you're going you're going to superanuation and those of you that follow me know that I can't stand superanuation uh this is the risk right so this is inc and and a lot of people who don't have self-managed super funds will stick it into industry funds so it's pushing more money under the superanuation rules so so yet again we have got such an inherently complex system of trusts companies superanuation funds which is a form of a trust and the individuals and then we've got and the other big big thing in all of this is we completely missed the massive amount of leak leakage of profits uh on our withholding tax regime. And just slightly off topic here, but there's this discussion lately about tariffs and everyone goes, you know, Angus Taylor included, oh, we can't have tariffs. Well, I'd hate to break it to you, but we have tariffs in this country. We have reverse tariffs and we've had them for decades whereby if you make $100 in this um in Australia, you pay $30 cents in a dollar uh on your company tax, but yet you can shift that profit offshore and pay between 0 and 15. So we encourage even Australian companies and I've worked for them to shift profits offshore. So instead of actually, you know, what we should be doing is yet again bringing our company tax rate down, our income tax rates down and raising the rate of tax and and funding that by raising the rate of tax on uh profit sent offshore because we're punishing Australian companies who can't compete with foreign companies because they're not on a level playing field because they pay, you know, a third half to a third of what Australian companies pay. So you know yet again when we shut down the car industry never want no one and there were issues genuine efficiency issues in the car industry. I don't want to ignore them but no one ever asked the question how much in interest royalties and rent did General Motors pay back to Detroit or Mitsubishi pay back or back to Japan.
And I can tell you how much it was. It was enough to make sure they never made a profit here. Because if you pay your profit in Australia, you pay 30 cents in a dollar. Whereas if you shift the profits offshore, depending on the tax treaty, you'll get a 30 cent tax deduction here, pay no tax. Yep. And then you might pay between zero and 10 cents as it goes out the door. So yet again, >> I don't know that Mitsubishi were making too or some of the car companies were making too much money before they had to close up. I mean I >> would have liked to have seen the books because you know a lot billions is going offshore like and you know it's I've pointed out with FISA with Netflix with Meta the idea for example that you know we we you know we're here in Brisbane we look for a plumber here in Brisbane that somehow Meta Island and we Google that um so or or we you know find it on Facebook that somehow that income belongs in Ireland is absolutely >> absurd. Yeah. Yeah. And that's got to that has got to stop >> you know and that's the thing and and these guys have not built the transmission lines. If they'd built the transmission lines between Australia and uh Ireland, you know, the telecommunication couples cables under the sea, maybe they've got an argument, right? But, you know, we built a lot of this infrastructure when we owned telecom. You know, telecom was a publicly owned company decades ago, right? So, you know, we are just being shafted big time. And the reason why we've got such a high uh capital gains tax is because we are letting these foreign multinationals rip us off. John, um, your thoughts on on the, uh, on the CGT, uh, also just taxation in general.
I mean, are we I mean, it's all just so complicated now, right? It's it's every time they're always just trying to be all too clever and and government trying to, as a libertarian, should we just be more transparent? Uh, just let it all be simpler and clearer and >> do it. Yeah. Harvey Malay. Absolutely.
There was a very good guy who ran for president in the Republican primary in 2012. He was leading the poll, black guy, Herman Kaine.
>> Yep.
>> He was terrific. He was the boss of Domino's or something. His policy was very simple. 9% income tax, 9% GST, 9% company tax. Simple, simple, simple.
Now, you know, before I before I got into poverty, I've been a political activist one way or another since my early 20s, but I had to keep bread on the table. So, I had a little mortgage broken business for 23. Another similarity I have with Jerry Ren. He was the count mortgage broker. Now, and I love being a mortgage broker and you know when you do a mortgage with someone, you get to know their income, their bonuses, their their debts, their cash. You get to know everything about it's a very intrusive process, okay? But that's what you have to do to get the bank approved. Anyway, so I got to know hundreds thousands of people very, very well. And the two things that really upset me the most, >> the two things that upset me the most were someone started a successful business and and this would happen quite frequently. Someone would start a successful business and after a while they would say, "John, I'm ringing up to let you know we're relocating to Singapore." I said, "Oh yeah, okay. I know why you're doing that because of the low tax rates." And and and they would tell me when they get up to Singapore. It's easy for wealthy people in the world today to move around our countries. Okay? and that wealthy Australians, entrepreneurial Australians who creating jobs and yep paying taxes to the government, they can easily go and relocate to Singapore and the taxes there 10% tax. And then the other thing that upset me as a mortgage broker is I would see people have a go in business and they would struggle in business because they're too much tax and everything else. And then they would say, "John, we've sold the business. I'm now working for a government department." And I say, "Okay, cool."
Now, they were never happy about it, but the government departments pay well these days.
When I was growing up, if you work for the government department, you had job security, but you got paid less. Yes.
>> Well, now you got the job security and you get paid more, >> which makes it very hard for the private sector to compete for talent, >> right? Because you got you got to pay more. You got to be competing with the bloody government. Yeah. It's crazy stuff. Um, and look, I mean, are you getting that sense on the ground in in in Sydney and other elsewhere that you you're that people are saying, "Look, I'm I'm ready to up and leave because I'm hearing it up here in Brisbane. A lot of people I know are saying looking at ways that they can move their small business and operate offshore or move their family offshore. It's not a good thing.
>> It's a terrible thing. It's a real brain drain. But look, I do want to sort of say this, okay, that look, Australia is still a fantastic country. We've got amazing immense potential. When I was born in 1970, just to the north of us, there was one Asian war after another.
Pakistan and India, Vietnam, Cambodia, >> Indonesia had a million people dead in the 1960s. Now, >> halfway through my life now, what's what's a what's being on the doorstep of Asia now? It's a good opportunity because they're all peaceful now and stock markets are going up, prosperity is going up. Good. So, we've got enormous potential. Could you imagine how great Australia could be if we just half the size of the government? We'd explode.
>> How great Australia could be. Yep. How great Australia could be if we could just >> going to happen.
>> Yeah. I hope so.
>> Pessimistic. But we're going to turn it around everyone. We're going to turn it around. But we need everyone to roll up their sleeves and get involved in the political process.
>> We need Yes. We need to get people involved in the political process because we got to get government out of the way.
>> Yeah. And look, you know, we need a federation convention like we had in the 1890s. We need to get I called for this in my maiden speech. We need to remove the duplications of roles and responsibilities between state and federal governments. It's absolutely absurd that we have got nine health departments in a country of 27 million people while maternity wards are being shut down in small country towns that are growing, not not declining. Uh, you know, we've got two education departments, two water departments, two environment departments. We've got to fix up the Franklin Dams decision because the federal government gets to come in and override every decision that's ever made by any state government because of the Franklin Dam decision. If they've signed a treaty, that's it. They can use the treaty's power to override any state government. We saw that in New South Wales just recently out at Orange.
Yep.
>> Um, >> what do you make of Western Australia's uh chatter about secession once again? I heard that coming up in the news this Uh yeah, look um I Western Australia is great, you know, a great state, you know, u makes a massive contribution to Australia. I don't want to see them succeed as in, you know, leave exceeding >> succeed and seceding.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, it I mean, you know, you can understand the federation was brought about, the Commonwealth were brought about because the populations were in Sydney and Melbourne, but all the mineral wealth was in Queensland and WA.
So the deal was, you know, but but you can see you can sort of take understand where they're coming from over in Perth if they >> Yeah. I mean, but you know, a lot of money money was pumped into WA early on when it was an initial colony. Uh and look, you know, WA Yeah. Look, they've got an abundance of resources. But then, you know, I would argue that many uh Australians died in World War II defending all of Australia. Uh and you know, there's a question is had there been two separate countries, you know, would have Western Australia survived?
Um I I don't like the idea. I'll be honest. I want us to stay as one country and I'm not against certainly reforming our federation as I just pointed out and you know in some respects that'll be pushing more you know especially education. I want to see that pushed back into local communities policing you know law and health is in terms of you know how hospitals are run. I mean, one of our ideas is to actually on your council elections, elect your magistrates, elect your hospital boards.
Um, so that there's more accountability within the judiciary and hospital boards at the local level. Good idea. Um, but we we don't need eight health bureaucracies, right? I mean, you can all use we can get rid of payroll tax.
>> There is an argument of course keeping the states. I mean, people say abolish the states, but the states give you competition, right? John, I mean, the states are are good for that. I guess they they >> Yeah. So, so replace it with super regionals of, you know, 100 super regionals, a quarter of a million people up to between a quarter of a million, 500,000 people, right?
>> Um, you know, you need that the the hard part there is it's always a question of degree, Jim. How big is that super regional?
>> Right. So, you still you still get the the competition then and you can still see who's doing really well, who is, and we can copy the ones that are doing really well.
>> What are your thoughts on all that, John?
>> I wish the Western Australian secessionist movement all the best. I am a deferist. Now the uh I have spent a lot of time reading original documents from the 1890s when we were debating federation and there was a seventh British colony in this part of the world that was part of that negotiations called New Zealand.
>> New Zealand >> and halfway halfway through halfway through look New Zeal New South Wales is closer to New Zealand than Perth. Okay.
So New Zealand was very much part of the family. Yep.
>> They came along to the first few conventions in Melbourne and Sydney then they said ah look we think we might be our own country and they made the right call. Now, the best call would have been in the 1890s if we all become independent from Britain. Queensland its own little country, Victoria it own little country. We're all our own little country. Now, we'd all be best friends.
It'd be like Scandinavia today, even closer than the Scandinavian country. We have a mutual defense pack. We have a free trade, a free trade and free population movement. Maybe not the one.
Uh but we can then have our we can and as you was just saying Damian the benefits of having states rights is and I'd be talking about it go further but we learn from each other and someone might experiment way to do hospitals this way or education this way we can learn from each other what what they there was a hell of a lot of opposition to federation particularly in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia and New South Wales voted against Federation and they had to give us all these BS concessions And what the big fear of of New South Wales was if we create a central government, it will become a monstrosity that will basically take over everything. And that's exactly what's happened.
>> All right, we got to we got to have a show on this. We got to sit down and talk about the history. John knows so much about the history. I love it.
>> All right, guys. Just one final topic I want to get your thoughts on this week, and that is um our wonderful Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment, and Water, which shouldn't be energy, and climate change really shouldn't be in the same department, but that's another story. uh $150 million they're spending for our role in COP 31, the United Nations uh in climate change conference process. Turkeykey's going to be holding it. Uh we dropped the bid to host it in Adelaide, but Australia has the president of negotiations role and that is Chris Bowen and uh it's going to be held in November uh in Antalya, Turkey. Um and Chris Bowen was on ABC television this week justifying the $150 million budget. Um saying that it's going to cover staffing for the uh Australia COP 31 president's role. It's going to cover diplomatic and regional teams. It's going to cover overseas travel and logistics. It's going to cover support for Pacific Island nations to be participating. And it's going to cover administration for Christopher Bowen's COP 31 office of 70 to 100 staff. Uh he says it's very good value for money compared to APEC and other big conferences. 150 million bucks. Have we got 150 million bucks to throw around?
Have we? Cuz I didn't think we did.
>> Look, nothing symbolizes more the uh maladministration of this country than Chris Bowen. I mean people first we've got a logo of map of Australia and a couple of people and one guy's got a southern cross you know so we you know you got a logo right? If you wanted a logo of government in incompetence, you just put a face of Chris Bowen there in his murky, arrogant um and this guy's called me out. I'm still waiting for you to debate me and bring it on, Bowen. You won't, but I'll destroy you when I get the chance. Um is Chris Bowen. I mean, just my blood pressure is going through the roof right now as I think about this guy. He is just everything that is out of control in this country and he epitomizes it to a tea. John, your thoughts on that? 150 million bucks.
It's a lot of money.
>> You know, it was 20 years ago this week that Al Gore came out with the movie The in An Inconvenient Truth. Okay. Now, that guy was the Pied Piper who tricked the world. Tricked the world. You know, you know, in the 1980s, Al Gore was anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro guns, pro tobacco. He was the last of the southern Democrats who were like, you know, the Confederacy, right? He that's what he was. Then he realizes, oh, I've got to turn left wing. So he invented this global warming thing as a political issue. Now then after he lost in 2000 George W. Bush, he reinvents himself six years later with this. He's the he's the Mahatma Gandhi of climate. Okay, this he's almost a saint and everyone fell for it. And John Howard in this country, he went along with it. He didn't fall for it. He was too smart for it. But he cowardly went along with it. and Liberals. You go to a Liberal party branch meeting anywhere in the country, 80% of them don't believe in climate change, but all their stupid MPs get up there and say, "Oh, climate change is so important." Okay, they don't they don't believe it themselves. They're just saying it because they think there's votes in it. Okay, but the good news is the global warming BS is. Did you see Tony Blair last night? Just last night, Tony Blair came out, >> very successful British prime minister, as we all know, had about three or four terms. He's come out and publicly said to K star, his mate, we got to end we got to end the renewable roll out. It's killing us. Tony Blair said it unequivocal. Okay. So, and it wasn't a passing comment. He said, so it's ending everywhere. The Canadian guys given up on it.
>> Not before they spent 150 million bucks on a junket and a half. That's disgusting. It just makes me want to throw out. That's right. Yes.
>> Anyway, all right. People keep voting for them. 53% two party preferred. The the the left have still got there. But um Jared, you know, you're optimistic.
You think the One Nation thing is going to happen.
>> Yeah. I I think, you know, I I I hope that and I hope it does happen. I think it's the change we need qualifying it with one thing that don't abuse the opportunity that you're going to be given. And we saw it yesterday. Pauline was photographed up here with Clive.
Now, a couple of people pointed that out on social media and they got hammered for it. Right. If we get into this situation or One Nation gets into this situation where they can either form government or become the the official opposition, they have to make it work because if we get it wrong, it'll be another 1998 scenario whereby we end up handing power back for Labor for even longer, right? So, you know, Pauline, you've got four senators. You're one of four senators. There's four committees at any one time. You should have a senator watching every committee and you need to be getting your staff up to speed so that you can be the best opposition you need to be.
>> They've done some good work though. I've seen some good stuff.
>> Yeah. But you know the the the response of her followers was you know this was a genuine you know in my view a fair cop right call because we need people like you you want you know you want the best people and you want to be a if you're the opposition you got to hold the government to account. the government, you've got to be able to ask questions of your ministers in a way that you get the best out of them and your bureaucrats. Right now, Pauline didn't go to estimates when I was a senator.
Right? She's got if you want to run the country, you've got to be able to ask the hard questions to the bureaucrats and practice because, you know, like I I engage on social media and some people say I shouldn't, but what it does is it, you know, I get to hear their arguments.
>> I I do it too. I do all my testing of stuff on arguments on social media.
>> Yeah. You get to hear the arguments and then and then you'll you won't have an argument a reply straight away and then sometimes you think oh I should have said that and then you know next time but you get >> I get people say to me why are you engaging with these people that you know they're the fringe they're crazy they're off the wall you shouldn't even be talking to them I'm like no this is how you hone your debate challenge your uh point I'm not arguing for them you're not arguing for them you're arguing for the audience to see the debate unfold to see the arguments challenge and for yourself to sort of learn about how you can >> so when you're in a in a position of respons responsibility running the country or in the opposition. You you need to be able to be able to go bang to the bureaucrat, right? I don't believe you. You got bureaucrats coming, you know, like a revolving door through your office every day. You need to be able to go, no, you need to know enough to know that's not right. Like, I need to stop you right there because if you're not up to speed on that stuff, you you just won't know what's going on. And you also need to know the right questions to ask.
>> So, it's that professionalism that we've got to see. There's got to be a bit of modesty and humility there to try and make sure that they don't they don't blow what they the opportunity that they've got right now. John, just final comments from you on how you see it all playing out. I mean, do you see a future where One Nation is the dominant Conservative party and the leader in government?
>> I think it's definitely possible for the short to medium term, possibly the long term. I do think we will end up with an awful convention in five or 10 years.
But Jared is right. There's a really good chance that they could end up with at least the leader of the opposition.
They only need to get more seats than the Nationals. Is that possible? Very, very, very possible. Now, if they're going to be the leader of the opposition and they want to become a long-term force, well, they obviously need a very good opposition leader. Now, who's that going to be? Well, it's either going to be Barnaby or Pauline, neither of them said they're going to run for the lower house. Now, I'm sure they're you thinking about it. They don't need advice from from me but they you know they need some now the the problem with one nation over the years has been candidate selection and generally had good policies but it's been getting better. Cory Bernardi huge boost that's why they went so well in South Australia because he's a really credible guy. Now then they had the Nepan bi-election down in Victoria where they didn't go real well because the candidate was not ready for prime time. But then they had the bi-election in Farah. That guy was fantastic. David Farley >> he he's sharp smart high quality y >> if he'd been in the how cabinet in the how government he would have been a senior cabinet minister he's very very so but one nation has had this problem I think it's getting better and they're getting high quality candidates but it's so important to get the high and hopefully they'll they'll be able to attract them because now one nation can say be a one nation candidate and you might win >> well it's going to be an interesting couple of years because the left are going to be sharpening those knives in the next couple of years and they're going to be fighting like crazy. Um but they're boy, they're not doing so well at the moment. So on the left I'm talking about. Yeah. All right, gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us. Really great to have you both. Um that was terrific. Um and I'm sure um everybody out there would has appreciated your contribution and time and I'd love to have you both back on uh a lot more regularly. So uh great to see you again, Jared.
>> Yeah, thanks.
>> And great to see you again, John. And I'm I'm glad you didn't get called away for the division for the vote there in New South Wales Parliament, so you were able to stick with us. But >> and that's it for this week, folks.
We'll catch you again next week on the other side. Uh new show drops every Friday night at 7:00 on YouTube. We'll see you on the socials during the week.
Heat.
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