Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / POLITICS: The Future of Right & Left? with Australia's Best Political Analyst, Peter van Onselen

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POLITICS: The Future of Right & Left? with Australia's Best Political Analyst, Peter van Onselen · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  G'day, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. He is a doozy foyer. What will
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  become of the left and the right? What's the future of conservatism? What's the future
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  of progressive politics? One guy who understands it all is Peter Van Oncelon, who's an academic
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  and political journalist. He's worked in government. He's worked in intelligence. He's been
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  the political editor of Network 10, one of the big networks in Australia, and a co-host
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  of the project, which is a panel show about the news in Australia. He's currently a professor
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  of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia. He's a columnist for
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  the Australian, and he's written a ton of books about Australian Prime Ministers, mostly conservative
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  Prime Ministers, and how they met their demise, Peter Van Oncelon. Thanks for being here.
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  G'day Josh, thanks for having me. I like the shirt. If you're not watching on YouTube,
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  he's got a hoodie that says Waystar Roico on it. When I saw Waystar Roico, I thought, is
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  that a real company or no? Hang on a second. That's from succession.
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  Well, I'm just a fan of the show. I didn't like the first season. I thought it took a while
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  to get going, but I loved it by the end, and I'm disappointed that they're not finding
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  a way to kick it on. But I wore this once on another program, and we're talking about
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  the left and the right, and whether they're in demise, got equal amounts of hate from both.
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  The right were criticizing me for wearing it, because they were saying that I was taking
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  the Mickey out of the Murdoch's, who I write a column a week for in the Australian. Obviously,
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  they're the owners. But then the left were attacking me for promoting the show, because
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  the Murdoch's own it, I think. Right. Or at least own one of the networks
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  that it is on. So I was sort of getting equal hate, and the truth was that I just wore
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  it, because I made a mind. I was wearing it the night before for dinner, probably had
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  too much to drink with him, and he basically dared me to wear it the next day.
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  On the telly. On the telly, so I went, OK, fine. I like the fact that people picked it
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  up as well, like noticed it as well, and that the left is so sensorious that they don't
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  think that you should be able to wear even a fictitious, evil giant company. And it was
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  on the ABC, so then there were also just the old-fashioned types, I think, who were concerned
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  that there was a commercialization of the ABC, because it's why you advertising a commercial
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  network. Let's just talk about some recent news, which is while I was away, there was
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  some concern that Orcas, which is this big submarine, they're probably the biggest defense,
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  a strategic shift in Australia in decades, was under threat, because the US has basically
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  halved the number of submarines that they were going to. What was, explained to people
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  what Orcas was, and it is especially to our American. Well, I mean, in essence, from an
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  Australian perspective, it's a chance for Australia, whether you think it's good or bad, to get
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  access to nuclear submarines, the Virginia class, essentially, that the United States
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  manufactures and produces. The technology is obviously highly secret from the Americans
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  perspective. The Australian seers are real boon to be able to get it, because it would essentially
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  create long-range submarine capability, which we don't have with our current submarines
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  with their diesel limitations. So we don't have a nuclear industry, though. In Australia,
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  a lot of countries have nuclear power, even if it's not at a weapons grade. You need nuclear
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  power to obviously have a nuclear submarine fleet, but we won't be importing unless there's
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  some change of policy, that ability to create nuclear power in Australia. That will still
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  come from the US, and apparently the life cycle of the subs can be sort of ever enduring,
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  at least for the foreseeable future, as nuclear subs without needing that domestically.
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  But for Australia, it's about that long-term ability for them to be underwater and at sea,
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  and from the Americans perspective, it's about expanding on the alliance, which is what
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  Australia, the US, and the UK... Where does the UK fit into it?
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  Well, I think they're just part of it, because they turned up here in 1788. I don't know.
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  Why does anyone go to the UK anymore? But it's one of those things...
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  A point of view to how the UK looks like. You're Buckingham Palace is beautiful.
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  Have you been to the tape modern lately? What's going on with Kater?
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  No, no, it's not getting into that. But I don't think it's ever going to happen.
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  Yeah, the whole thing.
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  It's just a point of view. It's not just about the subs, though.
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  It's about the subs, but it's also about Australia basically looking at the strategic environment,
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  looking at China, looking at the threats that we face, obviously where the most vulnerable
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  Western nation and arguably the most vulnerable rich country with the exception of Japan and South
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  Korea, perhaps to any conflict that would happen in the Asia-Pacific theatre, we need shipping
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  lines across the South China Sea to be open, we need to get all our stuff from somewhere.
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  And so the idea was, throw your lot in with the Americans, integrate our defence capabilities
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  so closely and so tightly that those knots can't be unbound, and that they would be inconceivable
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  for America not to be involved in any conflict to put a rise between China and Australia.
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  But there's so many interesting parts to that. I mean, the satirical part you would have
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  seen it, I'm sure, that Rob Stitch episode where he talks about the need to boost military
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  spending to protect us from China because we need to protect the sea lanes of our trade
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  with China. So that's one that you've got to get your head around and there is actually
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  some truth. It's more complicated than that, obviously, but there is some truth to that.
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  We get all our stuff from China and they buy all our stuff.
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  Yeah, so we need a war with them. We need to make sure, we can make sure we can get
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  that material without China blowing up those ships.
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  No, no, when you say that all this may never happen. So there was this huge, huge,
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  hard about the signing of this thing, certainly in Australia because it was a landmark thing
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  and under the previous government in Australia, which was a centre-right government,
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  a conservative government, they basically structured it so that it was going to unfold
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  over a series of years and decades, right? The first step is this and then we get this
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  and then we get that and then ultimately in what? The 2040s or something? Exactly, pays off.
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  Eventually, we start building these submarines here, albeit importing the nuclear technology.
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  But until that happens, the theory is, and this goes to where we started,
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  the theory is that the US will flick us a couple of Virginia class subs of their own
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  before we start the process of building them domestically. And there's all sorts of reasons
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  why experts, this isn't my specific area of expertise, but I was at a really interesting round table
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  last week talking about exactly this. I mean, I was more listening than talking. So now I'm
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  plagiarising, but the experts at the table, they were all, every single one of them was highly
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  doubtful. They were all professors of international security studies. They were highly doubtful
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  that this is ever going to happen. Have they always been doubtful? Or is it because just recently
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  the Americans voted to what? They've always been doubtful. They've always been doubtful,
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  but they see, and this is your point, the Americans have reduced essentially their own capacity
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  to build submarines. It would have to be at a scale of about two and a half a year. They're
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  down to one, I think, or they're about two and a half submarines. Yeah, and for the one submarine,
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  to meet their output ultimate objectives and they're not going to get there.
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  In the second world war, they were pushing out a bomber every 30 minutes or something,
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  a limited day. I remember hearing someone come out, but it's interesting because they are
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  fully behind on that basis alone. But the doubts of these security experts was too
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  fold. One was that America won't want to give up one of their own Virginia class sub-
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  Well, not one. Exactly. Well, they've got a few, but they're not building them quickly enough.
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  But the other reason that they doubt it is that they ultimately aren't sure that the American
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  Congress is going to ultimately approve at that last moment the decision by whoever the
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  president is down the track to actually formally pass the intelligence over for the capability
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  development. They just don't believe that that's going to ultimately happen. And all of this
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  is what's leading to their doubt. The reason that Australia apparently needs these submarines
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  is because, as I mentioned, they can go a long range, but there's a shelf that they want to sit
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  in for months on end underwater, which they can't do with the Collins class, for example,
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  that a diesel fuel. And that gives us some sort of strategic advantage. But again,
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  where is this shelf? Somewhere between here and China. You're right off the coast of Shanghai,
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  perhaps. You're pushing your pushing beyond my expertise there. But look, I was actually surprised
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  that every single one of these experts, I won't name them in fairness to them. But I was surprised
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  that every single one of them was doubtful that it would happen. Was it a necessary strategic,
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  like this? So it was hugely controversial here. So you had fallen. Even though it was by partisan,
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  it was by partisan at the time. And yet there were great lions of Australian politics,
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  like former prime ministers on the left saying, this is bonkers. There's no, Australia should be
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  instead finding a way to essentially play both sides. We should be neutral in all this.
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  It's not Taiwan is not our fight and never will be. We're never going to care about it more than
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  the Chinese care about it, just as we don't care about Ukraine, more than Persian cares about Ukraine.
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  At the end of the day, avoid the loss of blood and treasure and just try to
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  be a Switzerland of the South Pacific and trade with who we need to trade with and have
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  basic defense alliances. But you don't necessarily want to make it quite as overt as Orkis.
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  And that's where the debate comes in. Because most, if you're more hawkish advocates for Orkis,
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  their argument is that this is an arbitrage. We need this just in case. We need the capability
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  just in case the dubs on the other side who are opposed to it, their argument is arbitrage or not
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  by building it and by developing the alliance the way that we are. We are actually increasing the
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  chances of needing that arbitrage because we're upsetting China. Well, I mean, that's in the
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  Tao defense escalation turns into aggression and all the time, right? I mean, the year
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  always trying to second guess is how world war one started. You know, you're just trying to
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  defensively prevent the other side from doing something. And then that turns into a
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  you know, then you're after the race. I mean, I was sympathetic to Orkis. I mean, I sort of feel
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  instinctively like it's not like the Chinese need much reminding whose side we're on.
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  You know, I think they've noticed. And I think they will continue to notice that we're not
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  really part of like their sphere of influence and we'll never, we'll never be what we want them
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  to be. So you might as well just back the West. Look, I'm 50, 50 about it. I've done a lot of
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  reading in the last 12 months about Chinese naval history and the development of the West and the
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  the colonization process as well as the opium wars from the mid 1800s. We won't get into all of that.
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  But I found it really interesting as a sort of a side interest beyond Ospole over the last 12
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  months as recreational politics. That's for Australian politics or Ospole. I should say that.
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  But it, and you know, I'm looking at the title of this uncomfortable conversation. So let me raise
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  this and and see how we go with the important caveat that I'm very concerned about China because
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  they're not a democracy. And I've written a lot about this over the years. They're not a democracy
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  and that profoundly concerns me even if they were to embrace some form of non-Western type democracy.
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  They're a long way from that and they've gone further in the other direction in recent years
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  rather than towards democratisation. So that's an important caveat to what I'm about to say.
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  Having said that, the more I've read about China. To hear the rest of this conversation, go to
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