Leighton Smith Podcast #282 - April 30th 2025 - Ramesh Thakur

the Lowe Institute in Sydney. Ramesh the Kerr is Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy the Australian National University, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and Brownstone Institute. Senior Scott up I was Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations. Educated in India and Canada.

He was a Professor of International Relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, Professor and head of the Peace Research Center at the ANU, and Foundation Director of the Balcilly School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario. He has also served as a consultant and advisor to the Australian, New Zealand and Norwegian governments on arms control, also on

disarmament and international security issues. He was a commissioner and one of the principal authors of the Responsibility to Protect and senior advisor on reforms and principal writer of the United Nations Secretary General KOFE and NaN's Second Reform Report

of two thousand and two and We're Not Done. The author or editor of new, umerous books, chapters in books and journal articles, Professor the Kerr has also been a regular contributor to media outlets, served on the international advisory boards of institutes in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and was the editor in chief of Global Governance twenty

thirteen to twenty eighteen. His books include The United Nations Peace and Security From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect, published by Cambridge University Press twenty seventeen, Global Governance and the un An Unfinished Journey from Indiana University Press in

twenty ten. The Responsibility to Protect Norm's Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics came out in twenty eleven, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy, Oxford University Press, That's No Surprise twenty thirteen, Theorizing The Responsibility to Protect Cambridge University Press, twenty fifteen. And The Nuclear Band Treaty, A Transformational reframing of the Global Nuclear Order, published in twenty

twenty two. Now, I know that was a long, well sort of introduction, but keep in mind that the knowledge and experience that he has guarded over a lengthy lifetime of work in various areas, as you've heard, qualifies him for respect for the opinions that he expresses, and there are many of them in the interview to follow, And here is a shortlist of some of the things that

we touch on. Judicial activity, which is creeping, whiles not creeping in its racing up the scale of concern in much of the world India and Pakistan as a result of the recent heated clash China. The World Economic Forum. You'll be interested in his comments the United Nations, the WHO. Oh, you'll be interested in his opinion on the WHO hospital systems,

mass migration, and the Canadian election. We touch on well, I do briefly in mentioning because that was that was yesterday and we were recording at the time when I think they were about two hours to go before the before the polling closed. So with that in mind, before we get to Ramesh, let me lead with Mark Karney's House of Cards, which is published by American Affairs and its senior editor Michael Suwenka. Two narratives were at play

in Canada's election. Either the Great White Norse was going to continue on its liberal sonder weeg. Sonderweg. It's a word I'd not come across before, so I checked it out. It relates to the Weimar Democracy is the simplest way to put it, anyway, to continue on its liberal sounderweg, rejecting the right populist surge that has erupted elsewhere in the West. Or it was going to take the same plunge into the unknown that their American and British cousins

had taken with Trump and Brexit. And from there I jumped straight to the closing paragraph. At the start of his ministry, Mark Carney made a bizarre gesture. He winked at the camera as if to cross the fourth wall and communicate with someone to those something to those watching on social media. Karne was then compared with the protagonist of the House of Cards, a shrewd Macavelian figure who comes in from the shadows to seize and hold power

against great odds. Instead, what we Canadians got was a house of cards in the more literal sense, a fundamentally unstable structure that can be blown away at any time by a strong gust of wind and a storm is brewing across the border. Then there was my favorite comment from kerch Schlichter, who wrote this on x before the

polls closed. He said, I sure hope Trump does not cause Canadians to elect the guy who is quite liberal, believes in climate change, won't rule out sending Canadian troops to fight in Ukraine, wants massive immigration, and wants to maintain imbalanced trade with the United States, over the other guy who does but who had a couple of videos where he frustrates reporters that amused American conservatives. Although that

was very clever. Now after a short break, Rameshakur. Now, for those of you who've been listening for a few years, and I speak specifically about the radio program, you'd be aware of the name of Lance Green. Lance Green and I have been made for a long time. We established that relationship through doing some joint ventures in tourism, like we would take tours away. We started with the New Orleans.

We ended up in Europe and particularly Italy. Lance has been quiet for the last few years COVID, etc. And he's now emerged with something different and I think enticing one word in his mind he writes best described Sicily extreme in the most beautiful way. Why would he say this? Sicily is a tapestry woven from threads of various cultures that have shaped the island over centuries, resulting in a unique blend of flavors and traditions. I've only been to

Sicily once and I love it. I know other people who've been time and time again. Lance has organized something for the second half of June, and it's very special and it's only for a very small number of people. The journey focuses on two destinations, castell Mare de Gulfo and Palermo, it's designed to immerse us in the environment where we're staying, no rushing from place to place. Now,

this journey is for no more than eight guests. Tolder was small and if you would like further information then you need to contact Lance by email at Lance at Lance Green dot endz, Lance at Lance Green dot en z and he will fill you in with all the detail. But you better be quick, I think, because this is only for a few people.

short pig. But it's very good to have you back on the podcast, and I thank you.

very nervous about where things might be headed. But there are so many things happening, and they're happening, some of them predictable, others are happening from out of darkness. So it seems I'm sure you agree with what I've said. What I'm interested to know from you is what is the connection do you think between things that are happening in different parts of the world that maybe seem to have no connection.

of one major era and transforming into another. So if we are in the midst of a transformative change, and hence the sense of unease and volatility and instability, but that has both domestic and international components, and it spreads across political, economic, trade, environmental, social, cultural issues, etc. And all of that adds to this growing sense of unease and anxiety, even as to aviare headed, who are potential allies and trends on the one side and adversaries and

enemies on the other, Are we in fact going to end up with a major war? Bearing in mind that such major transformation in the past have been unleashed as a result of wars, which themselves have come at the moments of transition. So I think there is justified fear and anxiety. The great unknown is known and knowns if you like, and I doubt that anyone can predict what will come out into in the world on the other side of this turmoil.

People might be more hesitant to go to a lot of war than they were in the past, but that doesn't mean that wars have become history and that the use of force has been ruled out. Exhibit A, Russia and Ukraine, Exhibit B. The Middle East.

or four days time, so give us your thoughts. And I'm particularly interested in in what you picked up from the local body election in Britain.

And as the political atmosphere or landscape changes, they are mounting a ferocious resistance two attempts to reset the balance into a more traditional, to the most traditional center. And we've seen that in Europe and the rise of people like Giorgio Mulioni in Italy, center right parties in the Netherlands, center right parties rising to the four quite dramatically in Germany,

in France. Reformed UK is part of that. Pierre Polieva in Canada was on the ascendant quite substantially for months and months and months until the governing Liberal Party replaced Justin Trudeau with Mark Karney. And I think if it had elections in another month, Kolievo would have been home comfortably. As we speak, it's on the knife page. And in Australia the Liberal should have been in this similar position.

But I have to say this is a single most inept campaign I've experienced anywhere in the world from a center right party that had so many open goals to shoot that maybe is so confused that doesn't know which goal to aim at and as a result is shooting all over the ground that anywherey other, anywhere but the goal. So it looks like Anthony Albanesi and Labor will be

back in. But we have a paradoxical situation where Poles confirm the widespread sense that Labor deserves to lose, but the Liberals don't deserve to win, and that is something again that I haven't experienced elsewhere. So we'll see how

that goes as well. But the issues that are under contention in all these countries are backlash to net zero, and you'll have seen overnight as we speak, the massive power blackouts in Spain and Portugal and the good chance that they result from the switch to unreliables from the good old reliables of fossil fuel and nuclear power. They include elements of DEI and a pushback against that, with

many firms now starting to react to that. They include elements of gender identity and the insanity of insisting that biology is less real than self perception, and the problems that they have caused. And remember for Trump, it's now I admit that that a single most effective campaign slogan against the Democrats was Trump is for you, Kamala Harris is for their them, referring to the pronouns.

and then the Trump policies come into that. But internationally, if the state is back, then inevitably we are witnessing the return of geopolitics and the retreat of global institutions, and the sense that global institutions have begun to dominate the nation states instead of being servant to the nation states. And that also goes across a number of fronts and included the reaction with the policies on COVID management as well.

So there's a lot of disparate issues, but there is a way of connecting the dots in these terms of resetting the normative dominant normative points for governing both domestic and international regimes and political systems and therefore effectively governing

our lives. And they're very pronounced. Desire for citizens to reassert control over the processes instead of being norm takers and value takers and economy takers, etc. And the pushback against technocratic expertise, which has been proven to be not very smart.

is always work in progress. But if you get the illusion of scientific consensus, then you engage in de legitimization of any opposing points of view by attaching the labeled denialism and deniers picking up on the pejorative views of that with regard to those who for example, deny the Holocaust, and COVID fell into that as well, and well credential people who raised skeptical questions about what was being done or quickly pushed away from the public square and deny

the voice and stuff Now if you extend that, then what happens is people with a different point of view. Our treat is not as people with a different but legitimate point of view who need to be engaged within conversation, but people who are science denies at the end of the day, even evil and deserve to be hounded out of the public space. And then political leaders go down that path, you say, well, we can use the law

to put them in jail. So the long efforts to use weaponized laarfare against Trump, the things they're doing in Germany in denying legitimacy and trying to suppress.

and in other places. So yes, there is a sense that law which should be impartial and objective, and no one is above the law, but no one is under the law, and that everyone is equal and deserves the equal protection of the law. That sense seems to have been thrown out, and there is again a lot of unease over that. So I said at the start that democracy is under stress, but I think there is a deep division as to whether the greater threat to demoocracy

comes from the right or the left. And as one example, as one if you like trivia, yet telling example of that is you can have a very interesting and real debate on whether the greater threat to democracy and our freedoms comes from censorship of free speech. And that is something that we are all undergoing as well. But to say that you can't have the debate that there is no compensation. That's what has happened across a range of issues, and people are repelling against that.

pursuing the net zero full force. It's just absurd in the first place.

thesis and the details of the science. Second, even if you agree or have a majority view on science, there's still the question of how you convert that into public policy. And the third part, separate from that, is the politics

of it. If you have a consensus amongst the governing elite and the ruling elite, and the cultural elit and the economists and the environmentalists, you still have to deal with the fact that there are serious empirical consequences of climate change policies which will result in impoverishment and emiseration of people's substantial drop in lifestyles and a transfer of

wealth and power to potential enemies internationally. And then you think, well, what is the contribution of Australia and the UK in the global issue on the global landscape environmental landscape? And the answer it's very very modest. If VIEWO to reach near zero tomorrow for practical purposes, given the existing policies of China, Russia, India and now in the United States, that would not even amount to a drop in the bucket. Now if you extend that to New Zealand, it becomes

even more absurd. So why should we accept substantial drops in our living standards? Then that makes not the slightest different to the overall goal. How many call for stations and are being opened by China and by India every month?

give you two. I'll give you two responses, relatively recently over the last few months, two queries to various people in positions of shall we say unfortunately authority. One answer to a to a serious question was well, you've got your science and we've got our science, and we believe

our science. End of story, end of discussion. I challenged various people too, in particular Prime Minister and the Prime Minister Scientific Advisor, over the years over it, and it was it was The reaction was simply, this is what the science says and that's where we're going with it. And that's the end of it. Again, no discussion. And if you if you put up somebody to discuss somebody of authority, no one will turn up. No one will

take them on. We witness that here on a number of occasions over a good ten years.

back on that after the Supreme Wourt judgment there. But yeah, you're right, it's amazing that they don't see the contradictions and often the hypocrisy in terms of what they proclaim as the science and then the individual behavior.

its output, well we have to do our share. And it's the dumbest, most stupid response that you that you can give for the simple reass as you have explained, the size of the size of the country, the upper of the country and the influence that it has on anything is zero.

It led to my first academic article on returning to Canada, the fate of India's Parliamentary democracy in nineteen seventy six. What effect did that have on you?

degenerate into name calling and vulgarity and abuse. And what has happened since that I wrote that, to my great astonishment, is the walk back from those principles. You know, the famous saying I will disagree with you, but I'll defend your right to disagree with me to the death. We walked back from that and lost our core values in the process, and we need to re establish that. And the media, I agree with you. The media is guilty

of that. But the media is part of the institutions, and as part of the institutional structure, the media has suffered as much, if not more than most other institutions in the decline of public trust, and that has been documented year after year around the Western worldmar the substantial drop in trust of public institutions, including media, including doctors, including governments, experts in general.

taxation to cover core issues. Now in the Australian context, the best example of that is the so called NDIS National Disability Insurance Scheme, which was introduced by the Gillard government a decade ago, and the budget I think for the NDIS now has already overtaken or is set to overtake. The entire Medicare budget is completely out of control. Many of us predicted at the time that because it was based on the field good factor, they would not be

able to control it. More and more groups who want to be eligible for that there will be a lot of routing and fraud, and that has happened. So that's another side to it. Throwing money into all sorts of activist causes means you're diverting money that should be spent

on core health issues into other areas. So I think that whole you know what we've ended up in many countries, including Australia, and then be very surprised if New Zealand was not worse than this is that number of net beneficiaries of government largess is more than half, and that means they can use the voting numbers to keep demanding more. I'm not aware of too many expenditure budget lines that

managed to get abolished. And we've seen the effort by elln Mosque in the stage and the terminal that is created. And yet that's what we need for any additional expendites to propose there should be a requirement to identify equivalent cutback somewhere else. But instead what's granted today is becomes a line in the sand that must not be questioned

in due course. And then other demands crop up and what used to be regarded almost with shame, the need to receive government handout is now regarded as a matter of entitlement. And that has that's a change that has happened within our lifetime. If you think back to it, yes that our parents would never have agreed and will be horrified to think what has happened today. And now you get aggressive demands that you know, it's just a cup of coffee for you, and it's this and this

for me sort of thing. So I think that basic element of balancing books, of restricting government to minimum flow rather than the ceiling in terms of what it should be doing, the idea that it's my right to be looked after over the government, which came to a head again under COVID with massive handouts and subsidies and did a renewals as well. So if you just take energy security, okay, affordable, accessible, reliable, et cetera, et cetera.

fout fire stations. But then when the price of that hits in terms of power, out of this we start directing subsidy again to cold stations to keep going for another few months. Another few years. So the distortions are massive. And if you just take the state out of that and say, let the market decide, we'll get a better idea of where people want to put their own money rather than taxpayer money. But that's across the board. I'm just taking that as an example, but that's across the

board as a problem. So I think we do need It goes back to where I started off. It's a transformational moment in world politics and world economics and world order, and I'm not sure where it'll end up, but I think the sense is that the path we're on was simply not sustainable, and I think the instability and volatility and problems we are encountering is all that coming to a head. As I said earlier, historically these transformational moments in going from one order to the next have come

at the end of major world wars. Unfortunately, given the reality of nuclear weapons, they can't afford that. So where do we go at the moment. The countries that are avoiding the excesses of this insanity are countries outside the West, and so we need to look at that as well. In this Western world, the hope for something new that's most sustainable, not in the environmental sense, but more generally

is the United States. And you see a battle lines being drawn between the United States and Europe on that as well, Europe being the state welface welfare state out of it and the United States being more of the free market and free society side of it. Which is simplifying, but there is enough of a truth and that to make it as a useful generalization. Are going to have to fall into that and decide where you want to go. There.

has just returned from a visit to Poland. And while I can't detail the picture too much, I can tell you that this particular family member was stunned with the progress that Poland has made m h. And it's leaving the rest of it's going to I read somewhere relatively recently that that Poland that Poland was going to be the biggest, biggest or the most successful state in Europe within a very short period of time.

history behind that as well. But countries like Poland Hungary is another one, countries that have emerged from communist rule and are aware of the threats and dangers of totalitarianism and the role of the Catholic Church in sustaining the nationalism of Poland. So you've got let's say, the soft states in the West, which I engaged in an orgy of national self abasement and all the evils of the

world are laid at our own doors. And then you've got others who still want to preserve that national identity, take pride in their history and their contributions to human welfare and progress, through their enlightenment, through the industrial revolution led by fossil fuels, which have raised living standards around the world, which have made education and better health possible. We have made life a lot easier for all of us. We have democratized society, breaking the old feudal system of

law of lords and service. So I think we've lost that sense of perspective. Yes, bad things were done, but the amount of good that Western civilization has brought to the world far out weighs the harms it has caused. And I speak as someone who comes from a country that was colonized, whether British. Now that you know, there were many bad things that were done, but historically speaking, I rather it was Britain that colonized India than some of the others, which I think would have left us

in a much worse state. So so you know, and like before they came, was not idealic uh and living in paradise in Asia. So I think that that that whole issue of perspective and and and and teaching history with a balance that bad things were done, but which was the country that ended slavery and and paid daily for that in both treasure and life. It was Britain. So I think that I think the national self abasement is probably the best phrase in that you know, it

puzzles me. I don't understand it, and you'll see. And I think I've said this in an earlier interview with you as well. Some of the most passionate deferent defenders of the West's role in progregress and freedoms and manifestry humanity are the immigrants, and it tends to be second and third gnimeration immigrants who then want to revise history and the talk of reparations and the evils of the West, etc.

So I don't know you. You well, you could talk endlessly about that, but it is a great puzzle to me aster why we believe we are amongst the most be meaning West Christian West, the most evil people ever in the world.

many others of us do as well. So they're going to they're going to grow up well with the falsehoods and the encouragement to believe other things. And I don't know what the answer to that is, because it's it's not in the media at this particular point of time. It it isn't in the politics really at this at this point of time, the politicians themselves appear to be either unfamiliar or non caring or frightened of actually standing

up and being counted. And I got an email from I got an email from somebody who, well, this will be read in the in the mail room after the interview that we are doing. The author said, well, as well, America has voted for the man of common sense, Donald Trump. And if this was an election year in New Zealand, I think that for the very first time, I'm ready to vote for Winston Peters because like him or not, he has been the man of common sense for literally

literally all his political life. How much of how much? How much of that there there is a wash in the community. I don't know, but I've certainly heard similar comments in numbers. So you know, who who knows what the what the result might be. Because the next election is eighteen months off and Winston's getting on of it.

and Republicans, or labor and Tories, et cetera. It's actually elites versus deplorables, if you like most people what in the States they call eighty twenty issues, in that Democrats find themselves supporting causes that are supported only by twenty percent. It may not be eighty twenty in Australia, but it's certainly sixty forty. The percentage that broke down on the Voice referendum sixty percent of it, forty percent supported it, and I think that will be across the board on

most issues. Again, I don't know what it will be in New Zealand, but where they have had elite consensus across parties and hence the notion of UNI parties, there is great scope politically for disruptive parties and they are derided as populists, but that's because they are identifying with causes that are popular. So far from a term of derision, populist tractly is an accurate empirical description of where the center of gravity lies in the electorate rather than in

the elites. And what you see is people rising and parties rising, whether under charismatical leaders or under normal leaders. If you like to occupy that space and to expand that space, and when that becomes a threat, that's when they start to try and ban them using dubious legal weapons. It's certainly true of the AfD epasion. The last couple of Poles, I think, for the first time, has majority

support nationally in the UK. Not forget about local elections nationally now reform is polling number one, and conserves and labor are buying for number two and three. So this both by an eys of farage that he's going to be the next prime minister, and most recently, I think while I was there he assessed his chances at forty five percent that he'll be the next prime minister. There

is a truth truth to that. It's what explains Trump's remarkable political comeback, that he speaks to the majority view outside of elite consensus in the medi world centers. And that's where Peter doesn't has missed out in Australia. It's been true in Canada. Again, it may be that Winston Peters represents that gathering majority point of view in New

Zealand as well. So I think if the elite parties maintain the uniparty consensus and give the one finger sign to the electorate in terms of what the people want, then there will be others who will rise to take up that space, and they will complain about the far right becoming dominant. Well, the way to avoid the far right becoming dominant is to speak to the political center. So the overturn window that is called what's become possible to discuss and to move on will have to open

up to these movements and these forces. Otherwise I think we're going to head for a revolution which will not necessarily be peaceful. So I think my sense is that the push track is going to intensify, and either one of the established party's senses that and response to that, or they get pushed aside and we'll see the emergence of so called populist leaders movements parties in every country

one after the other. And again Poland is a good example of a party that remains in this sense sensible and prepared to protect what it believes in If you don't have core values and convictions that you're prepared to act on, you're lost to the society and people who demonstrate that. So there is more scope for authenticity, and that is another reason for the popularity of Trump, of

Miloney or Victor oband in Hungary of Nigel Faraje. In the UK, people's sense that at least they say what they mean, they do what they say, and they prepare to fight for what they believe in instead of pandering to the latest fad and the latest outbreak of political correctness.

And there is a great hunger in the electorate for those sorts of leaders who can connect both emotionally and intellectually, explain why somethings matter, and explain what they intend to do and how they intend to get to that shared destination, rather than take the knee and bend to the political cross windsor so.

making America great again. The bigger concern is not that there's no method to his apparent madness, but that the implementation of his ambitious national and international agenda could be imperiled by incompetence and bumbling, as with the amateurish use of signal chat groups for highly sensitive discussions. Pick it up from there and tell us why you wrote a column. Trump's tariffs make sense.

et cetera, which may or may not be correct. But the reality is decades of globalization and opening up your borders and pursuing free trade have resulted in the industrialization wastelands where they used to be thriving industrial production, a loss of manufacturing capacity, and jobless growth. Whether economy grows overall, for the standards of living and wages have not kept pace. Even with the rise in cost of living, so that for the first time, the next generation will be poorer

than the previous generation. And the rebellion against that caused not the least by pursuit of these crazy policies where we want to appoint people not just at a recruitment level, but now we're in senior positions of decision making in public and private institutions based on criteria of race and gender, et cetera, rather than on merit and accomplishments, while providing or creating an infrastructure that encourages equality of opportunity rather

than achieve rather than lifestyle based on inherited attributes. And so he's rebelling against that and has tried to act with a sense of urgency because he's only got one term and he remembers what happened with the elites pushing back in the first term. You see these policies in opposition to DEI, in abandonment of net zero climate change parispact, on the trade front and other areas as well, and

then immigration as a crossboard or on border issue. You know, they don't even know was the ten million or twenty million people who came into the US illegally under the Bible dustry.

any innovation sort of thing? And then internationally, of course, the inexorable slide of wealth and power to China, done with the help of Western countries and the determination to stop that, and if just and how do you say that in my forthcoming article, if we just think of that, one of the things that has been brought home in Ukraine is how quickly Russia was able to upscale its armament's production and move from production in the factory to

delivery on the battlefront, and the glacial speed with which the West has tried to respond to that, so that the assistance that we've given to Ukraine has ended up depleting our own stocks of these munitions, and we can't do that. You think of the time it takes to build one warship today in the US compared to the number they were producing per month during the Second World War,

and you'll get an idea of the difference. Did you know, for example, that in four years recently China has built an entire fleet equivalent to the total British Royal Navy fleet.

products that are failing on the battle, et cetera. So I think if you think of that and you think, well, what it we were to end up in a shooting war with China, short of nuclear war, you will not be able to sustain a military conflict for any length of time because we don't have the capacity to do that today. And that's because we outsourced an offshore and

made ourselves dependent on critical long supply chains. So the tariffs are a way of in that sense, they become a strategic choice for which there is an economic price. But if you're going to engage in a sustain conflict along the lines of the Two Wars to World Wars that lasted for several years. You have to have that sort of industrial capacity at home, and that applies. I mean, obviously you're not in the same skate in Australia and

usually isn't there at all. But our industrial capacity has also holed out all in the name of economic efficiency, lower prices for the consumer, whether or not it produces more jobs at home, whether or not it increases our dependence on potential adversaries. So in that sense, if they're convinced that China is a real enemy, the tariffs becomes a way means and a strategic tactic, a strategic ploy to reverse offshoring and instead reshow manifact in capacity back

in the American heartland. We already know that the United States remains the most innovative and the best balanced economy, but I think they want to make it also once again the manufacturing powerhouse for the world, or at least move away song items from China are two countries like India. Maybe, So in that sense, there is a certain strategic logic to everything he is doing, and that is we have

to restore our self confidence. We have to restore pride in what we stand forward be, meaning both the America and the Western generally, we need to end the orgy of national self amazement, and we need to think strategically and long term about what if we end up in a prolonged trade and heaven forbid milt you over China. Are we going to be able to sustain it so that at the end of it we prevail or are

you going to accept defeat? So if you think that to any situation, and the old logic of military preparations and preparedness, whether you win or lose a war is not answered on the day the war breaks out. It's answered in the years and decads leading up to that. If you have the capacity not just the military, but the industrial capacity and the economic capacity to sustain and prevail in a major war, and that's the way I

think the coherence element comes in. But in implementation it's been surprisingly amateurs and they're paying a political price for that at the moment. I hope they recover in time, but we'll wait and see. But one thing I might add to that is too many opponents have under estimated Donald Trump to their own cost in the past, so I think we need to bear that in mind. He

is not your conventional politician. Everything he says says is in as an opening gambit in a complex protected negotiation, or sometimes I think he's just trolling his abbondance.

rhetoric and take his policy seriously. His critics and opponents takes his words seriously and ignore and discount his actual policies. And that's where the problem comes in. So the effort by the Democrats to keep insisting, and he's sitting even more loudly. Look at his flaws, look at his well guarage, look at his character. He's a convicted fellow. All that was pointless in terms of changing the opinion of the first group, and I think they've ended up in a

very strange position as a result. And we'll see what next year's MITIM elections in Congress.

Davos went from being a forum for debate to a congregation for repeating interventionist dogmas and whitewashing a single extractive mindset. Those who defended economic freedom, attractive taxes, and control over

public spending were gradually ostracized. We have heard enthusiastic applause for those demanding more taxes and greater assaults on job creators, and one sided debates in which all participants repeated cliches and words like resilience and sustainability as trojan horses for predatory statism, where the where the idea of creating value and wealth was repudiated. Forget the last little bit, but the question is was Davos ever really a place of any importance.

And once in power, a surprising number of politicians gave the status of fellow leaders from around the world, even at the cost of their own people's approbation after that, and there is that factor. Now will that change after this I don't know, but certainly in recent times the phrase the divers man has become a presorative phrase rather than something to be admired, and I think in the current elections in Canada, I think it will happen in Australia.

People will run to dissociate themselves from ever having attended a w A forum or meeting, rather than thought that as a credential for voting for them. So I don't know how many people in New Zealand have attended any of these forums, but certainly important networking them and getting them into international positions or advisory boards.

and he returned home. He was co founder of New Zealand's COVID Plan B.

And it also makes it easier now to demand answers from him because he no longer has the defense of I don't want to incriminate myself. He can't be prosecuted, so he has no reason not to answer. And of course one of the things that Trump has done, which I like very much, is he's moved into position at the top levels people who are early and consistent critics of the COVID policy madness, like Jef Dagaria as head of the National Institue of Wealth, like Marty McCary as

head of the FDA, and so on. So I think in time they will want accountability, and certainly the awards like the knighthoods two people in the UK, like the Australian Order of Australia that we've given hearth to people who betrayed the interests of the citizens and imposed unnecessary and before not twenty twenty, unimaginable cruelty in the name of containing COVID. They do need to be held to account, and I hope I lot live long enough to see it, although I doubt it.

the whole range of things. There's not going to be emotional closure to them unless the wrongs that were done are publicly acknowledged and people who were responsible for that are shamed and or otherwise punished. And this is something that I bring over from my professional interest in masatrocities. So that's the second argument for that, and the third

argument is a simple one of returns. Your best antidote or your best strategy for avoiding a repetition of such cruelty and anti scientific policy insanity is to punish those who are responsible. But if you keep grunting them endless impunity, they don't think twice again, they just repeat it. So I think there are three powerful arguments of justice being seen to be done, emotional closure and the terms of

such activities in the future. And if you don't do that, we will suffer repeat of that in endless cycles until someone realizes that we need to take some action against the perpetrators, otherwise it will happen again and again.

interests of the organization. And we see elements of mission creep, and we see elements of compulsion and coalsion, and we see elements of elevating the international order above the member states, whereas they're meant to be servants of states agent. So the principle, if that is the case, what can we do to return to the foundational principles and purposes of the organization? And more importantly, can we reform the existing

institutions or do we need to begin afresh? And I've concluded after bitter experience, if you like that, if you aim for reform, it will be counted the success. If you achieve five percent of what you set off with as your goals because you get caught in the process and it gets taken up by the intergovernmental modalities and prostities, and we end up with the lowest common denominator, which

is just tinkering and no substantial things. And the best example of that is the UN Security Council, which is totally out of line with the existing reality and therefore the odd situation where it's resolutions and decisions have legal force but are increasingly illegitimate as well as most of the world is concerned. And you see that with countries defined, for example, the international Criminal courts indictment of both Plutin

and Nathan Yahoo. So that's one element of that. And if you want to return, on the other hand, to foundational things, you are probably better off in terms of effort to look for a new organization that restores the

balance between international, regional and national level authorities. And if you think of COVID, the striking feature was the regional variation where the big killer diseases in Africa remained the traditional ones for malaria, TV, HIV, AIDS, et cetera, and COVID was a minor bl bloom rather than a major factor, whereas for Western countries for Europe and North America and to someone in South America. COVID was a big factor.

So it's better to return decision making authority to regional rather than international organizations and at the international level use

it for coordination. So we are reverse. You are not averse to that, But the agreements that the International Health Regulations amendments that were passed and the Pandemic Agreement that has been negotiated, I think rewards the WHO for incompetence and mismanagement and gives it a vested interest to expand its resources and authority and powers by declaring emergencies when there is an on necessary reason to do so, and

I think it becomes a matter of perverse incentives. So I think we need an international health organization, but better grounded in terms of the distribution of responsibilities and agency between international, regional, national, and even individuals level of responsibility. So I like to return to the principles of informed consent, the sanctity of doctor patient relationship, reliance on doctors in the clinic rather than bureaucrats in national and international capitals.

For what the policy advice should be. Break the links between financial interest and decision making, break the links between big farmer in terms of funding, structures, et cetera. So there's a lot of things that need to be done if we have big items and what they are going, what they're doing is the wrong way around, and it's rewarding failures, is rewarding mafecens in some cases, and putting

purpose incentives in place. So I'd like to work with David on a project where we look at, as I said, foundational issues and restructure it accordingly so it can return to that. And a good example of what I have in mind is if you look at the shift from the League of Nations in the interwar period the United Nations after the Second World War, many of the items in the Charter of the UN were taken over from

the Covenant of the League of Nations. Many of the structures remain the same, many of the policies and goals remain the same, but for political reasons you wouldn't have got agreement or the powers that be that were important get kept the name the same, so we change and change the name. Other innovations that were put into the constitution of the Charter into the structure, well, I were innovations that in practice had already been initiated under the League.

And then there was a third set, which are ideas that were circulating during the League but hadn't been implemented, which we implemented in the US system. The world quote is an example one that was taken right over from before.

So you can keep the good parts, drop the bad parts, and embed the innovations, but in a much more rational and logical and sensible manner, returning to basic science, reducing the element of politicization, and cutting back the influence of groups that shouldn't have that influence in decision making in

the first place. So yeah, as you can get from that, I think we still believe in the vision of an international organization, but want to return it to a minimalist coordinating role rather than directive command and control with too much power and that too much faith in the discretionary and decision making bodies of run by bureaucrats.

that sense. And the important point of that was not the details of what they achieved, but the message that were sent was there are no limits set by you as to how we will respond, but we will respond in a manner and a time of our choosing, and on targets of our choosing. That said, the couple of things that are different this time. The previous one in twenty nineteen was an attack by militants on the military or paramilitary convoy that killed the last number of people

in the forties, a thing from memory. This time it was deliberately targeting tourists. So while I'll use the word militancy for the previous one. This one, and I think is satisfies all the core definitions of terrorism. It was an ultra terrorism to the point where now remember we're

talking about Hindus and Muslims and Seeks. Mainly, they got the main folk to lower the trousers so they could distinguish the circumcise from the uncircumcised, spared the Muslim malls and went after the Hindu and Seek mills in this attack. I don't think they've succeeded in driving divisions between Hindus and Muslim and Seeks in customery yourself, I think there's a rare unanimility that as far as I can see across the political spectrum and the horror at what was done.

But it's impossible to imagine the Maori government not taking some military action because that will undo decades worth of progress they've achieved in the strategic signaling with Pakistan, and I think politically they believe in for the exposed one. That's for me there's a minor consideration, but obviously for them it might be a bigger consideration, modified by the fact that they don't have to have elections for some time yet, but they're not going to leave themselves vulnerable.

So I think there will be desperate communications between not just Indians and Pakistani authorities, but outside, particularly the Americans as well as possibly the Russian than some of the Europeans. Will it go out of control? I doubt it. I haven't. I mean, I've seen the allegations from the inside, but you haven't got evidence that is independently verified of Pakistani

involvement and the extent of Pakistani involvement. Now, remember in Pakistan it's possible for the intelligence services to act independently of the government as well, so again there's degrees of culpability and deniability. But I just don't see Indian government not doing anything and not retaliating in some military form. And I don't think it will be just a minor thing. I think it will be court substantial.

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And keep in mind that millions of doses have been taken by Kiwis for over fifty years. Only available from your pharmacist. Always read the label and users directed, and see your doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker, Auckland Layton Smith Missus producer podcast number two hundred and eighty two, and the mail room. How are you later, I'm very well, thank you.

the Australian election. But as Nick suggested, it seemed to me that areas like that are consumed by their own elitism and that it's only the Teals, the Greens or labor who really figure in the locals consciousness. What about the diggers, the people who do the real work in Australia. I don't know, but I doubt the existing Liberal party

really represents them either. And if you're interested, I've attached my submission to Phase two of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the New Zealand COVID response which I sent in today ANZAC Day, in that I wanted to stress that the total inversion of medical ethics and morality propagated at the time was akin to the legal profession deciding en mass to discount everything to do with the Magna Carta, or the engineers discounting everything to do with the euclid's

systems of measurements. Well, they've done well. I won't go out of the engineers. It was that insane. Where would the law be without Magna Carta or engineers without EUCLID. Everything that doctors and has stood for was intentionally and deliberately sabotaged for some nefarious and I personally believe evil purpose. I concluded my submission with those two words never again. Just my thoughts for the day, Keep well both of you, and best wishes. Look, this submission that he made missus

Producer is so good. I'm going to quote a little bit of it at the back end of this.

it quote knocked America out of its complacency. But it appeared that America needed an even bigger jolt of sense to really awaken her. I watched a recent Tucker Carlson interview with your brother in law George Friedman, who pointed to a second circuit breaker with immense cultural impact to America and the rest of the world. When Tucker Carlson said, it feels like there's got to be some hard pivot or something, you know, there's some disaster that resets people's expectations.

George instantly replied, it's called Donald Trump. What I'm saying is whether he planned it or just is it. He's the man of the moment. He's the wrecking ball that Lincoln was and the wrecking ball that Roosevelt was and Jackson was. And he's shifting the country by emphasizing two things. One culture wars are untenable, and secondly, you can't keep inventing classes. Equal opportunity is not equal outcome. That was from George. Then George made this brilliant observation. Experts are important,

but they need someone with common sense above to tame them. Well, Americas voted for the man of common sense, Donald Trump, And if this was an election year in New Zealand, I think that for the very first time, I'm ready to vote for Winston Peters because like him or not, he has been the man of common sense for literally all his political life. Winston for Prime Minister? Maybe?

That letter from the Pope was that won't be pulling lapsed Catholics like me back to the church from somebody who lives with armed guards behind walls in a gilded throne, on a gilded throne. What a nerve. Maybe he could have told jd Vance Vatican City would offer asylum to

five thousand murderous thugs from MS thirteen. Where is this call to illegal migrants into Europe to respect the Christian homelands and the people who were giving them shelter, food, clothing, medical care and pocket money instead of rape, murder and knife crime at all time highs, car attacks and church burnings. He could have shown some actual leadership. Instead, he exposes himself as another lefty political creature with TDS. The Holy

See desperately needs strong moral leadership. I wonder if they'd consider electing an actual and actual Catholic next time round. Paul I asked for it, I got it.

son's globalist agenda alive by blocking deportations. Maybe President Trump should change tax and consider relocating illegal alien gang members to a purpose built prison camp in Alaska, rather than fighting for deportation orders through the crooked court system. Give all the illegal aliens the choice of either voluntarily removing themselves from the US or end up on a government

sponsored one way trip to the backwards of Alaska. If that approach proved to be successful, maybe the UK and EU could be inspired to follow suit with similar schemes to thwart the globalists and their resistance through the court system to deportations of illegal aliens. Other than pampering illegal aliens by housing them enforced our hotels at taxpayer's expense, the UK government should offer them the same deal and

colonization and grievances. Everything about the wars was full of Mari language, and TV News had the presenter ran on for ages. In her appeasing Mari intro. The day indicated that maybe our soldiers weren't united but forought and support of Mary, who it appears, dominated our services. When will this end? As the country is being more divided every day, the media are playing their divisive best. I'm sick and tired of this forced narrative where everything must be named

in Maray and everything it's Mari or it's worthless. Time to end this utter nonsense. That's from Steve.

to permeate the New Zealand media. In the weeks, months, and years that followed, the resultant inversion of and absolute perversion of the ethical and moral framework of medicine and healthcare could never have been imagined by anyone of sound mind or anyone who had a modicum of wisdom until

it happened. To put this in perspective, the retreat from reality which medical practice and healthcare adopted was no less extreme than that of the legal profession deciding that the Magna Carta was irrelevant, or the engineering profession deciding that euclid's system of measurement and its derivatives were irrelevant. Medicine turned its back on more than two and a half thousand years of patient centered compassion and everything, I mean

everything that has been the basis of medical practice was upended. Now, coming from a medical person, from a doctor of some considerable experience, you have to say that puts the boot in. Then it's divided. His submission is divided up into the New Zealand response. Give you an example, what was the New Zealand response to COVID? In short, everything was wrong for example, and then runs through who eleven points before carrying on first couple just for interest, quarantining healthy people

was wrong. Number two Using the PCR test as a diagnostic tool was scientifically and ethically wrong. Number three quoted case fatality rates including x the who was wrong. They were intentionally malicious anyway. The next it goes on quite a way. Vaccines is covered. Then we get to flawed science. I believe it's important for non medical people to understand, that's most of us, that the entire premise of mRNA

injections is fraught. In simple terms, mRNA is a protein which, when injected into the body, will immediately be recognized by that body's immune system as being foreign, and over millions of years, immune systems have developed elegant and sophisticated methods

to recog dies and promptly destroy such foreign proteins. Part, but only part, of this sophistication is now understood by molecular biologists, and it was determined that by replacing one of the four bases in an mRNA product with a surrogate, it would be possible to disguise that foreign protein mRNA

so that the immune system would not recognize it. In doing so, not only does that allow the foreign mRNA to enter the cell and execute its function of stimulating the productive the production of spike protein in the case of COVID vaccines that was in brackets, but because it bypasses and disables the immune surveillance system, it effectively makes the cell vulnerable to other infections and similarly impairs the body's response to the recognition of aber and cell behavior,

such as in the development of cancer. As a medical scientist, to me, it is quite astonishing that the Nobel Prize in Medicine in twenty twenty three was awarded to Courico and Wisemann, the scientists who devised this method of disabling the natural immune system. I fear that we are only just at the beginning of the potentially devastating long term results of this research into the undermining of the immune system. Doesn't that leave you stunned? This is the only submission

that they need to consider. They don't need another one. They just need one hundred thousand of these and then it gets to the future for New Zealand. In my view, it would be a not unreasonable stance for the Commission to propose that future pandemics be managed along the lines that pandemic preparedness had been carefully hammered out over the

decades through the twentieth century. In other words, in a diametrically opposite manner in which which the New Zealand government and governments of most of the world, at the behest of the World Health Organization had dictated that COVID should be managed. In essence, the traditional response to pandemics, which had been decided and agreed to internationally over many many years,

was as follows. Quarantine the sick, protect the vulnerable, allow the infection that's the virus to propagate through the healthy population, to allow the development of natural herd immunity. And number four, never vaccinate into an epidemic or pandemic, because by dint of evolution, that is bound to lead to the development of new variants of the pathogen against which your vaccine

will likely be ineffective. In large part, this approach mirrors the proposal in twenty twenty in the Great Barrington Declaration, as proposed by doctor Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, j Baticharia of Stanford and Martin Koldorf of Harvard, all of which were summarily dismissed by the political and media establishment of the Western world. Then this politics and the reckoning at

the end. But it's I mean, it should be read by everybody because it's a brilliant submission and it has authority, and I can only refer to the immediacy that Ramash the Ker responded to my question about the honors and awards that were handed out to people in this country

who did not and do not deserve them. Thank you, Steve, and that is where we'll leave a podcast Umber two hundred and eighty two, and don't forget if you have thoughts, and don't forget if you have thoughts, write them Laton at newstalksb dot co dot nzed or Carolyn at newstalksb dot co dot NZ and I only have left to say thank you for listening as always, and we shall talk soon.