Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson Joins the Pod. And, Robyn Denholm cosplays Founders, Elon a Trillionaire and the great Xero Pay Rip-Off

22:29It makes perfect sense. If he would rather be waking up at – if he'd rather be going to bed at 4 than waking up at 4, why would he rather be waking up at 3.30? No. It has to go forward. No, but I'd rather be 4. So what's – there is a point – I'd also rather go – like, Will, do you understand my question? Waking up – I reckon I never want – this might help. I will never want to be waking up earlier than 6 if I can help it. No, but if you have the choice between waking up or going to sleep, what's worse? 3.30, will you rather be going to sleep or waking up at that time? Going to sleep. Okay, so your point is about 3.45 then.

23:01Okay. We'll watch your point. No, his point's not 3.45. He was at four. He was waking up. No, he said going to sleep. Oh, this is where it went wrong. Okay, we've identified the four. No, I said going to sleep. Why don't you say waking up at four? No, no, I said going to sleep. He wants to go to sleep at four. Oh, Joel was waking up at four. I think 3.30, I agree with you, Adam. I would stay up to 3.30, not four. Give the microphone to Joel. No, it's not his fault. Don't blame him. I'll give you a better question. This is really falling apart. I'll give you a better question. This is something I saw and I thought this was very brilliant.

23:32It was, obviously, there's a trillionaire existing in the world today. There is, we'll get to him. And a trillion, that's a big number, a trillion. Yeah. And so it's hard to understand. Well, it's amazing. Like five, six years ago, there was no trillion dollar companies full stop. I'm not talking about companies. I know, but like let alone person, but there was not even a company. As you said, we'll get to that. Yeah. But this is what I want to ask. I'm going to ask you last. We'll try to hit Mike first and then Joel. At one end is$1 million. That's where the line starts. At the other end is$1 trillion.

24:04That's where the line ends. It's a continuum between those two. Where approximately, tell me where on the line roughly, a billion dollars would sit between a million and a trillion. I'll say 30 % along the way. What about you, Joel? Where do you think it was? Even less than that, I think it's very close to the one million. What do you say? It's one percent. It's very close, right? Because the way to think about it is, and this is the big misnomer of what a trillion dollars represents, the way to think about it is each little step along the line is a million dollars, and it only takes a thousand of those steps to get to a billion, but it takes a million of those steps to get to a trillion.

24:45Like, a trillion is much, much, much, much bigger than a billion. It's kind of... It's a thousand each time, right? Yeah, the difference between having a million dollars and a billion dollars is actually tiny compared to a billion and a trillion. And I think that... The reason I say that is less about money, in fact... Are they both a multiple of thousands? They are, but that's right. And so if you're thinking about it on, like, in scientific notation, for the nerds amongst us, you would say a million is ten to the six, and a billion is ten to the nine, and a trillion is ten to the twelve. and that feels like...

25:16But that is actually a base 10 logarithmic scale. It jumps by a factor of 10 each time, like the Richter scale. But when you actually put it on a continuum, like a trillion is a difficult number to get your head around. And I didn't mean it in the context of Elon specifically, but I saw an article that said... that kind of talked about how the human mind really can't conceive the number one trillion. and once we start getting into big numbers, they start blending into one. And it reminded me of this thought, that if you go back to like ancient Chinese literature, which presumably you don't do, but if one does, occasionally you'll do it.

25:57If just a board on an afternoon, board at 4.30 in the morning, had to wake up, read a bit of Chinese literature. And so they sometimes speak about 10 ,000 things. That was the character they had which represented the biggest number. and 10 ,000 in the world of ancient China, that signified everything. If you said 10 ,000 things, you meant everything. There was no character that was bigger than that. And like if you think about Roman numerals, I was trying to think about this. There were more than 10 ,000 people in the Chinese Empire. I know, but no one dealt with anything where you had to count it that was more than 10 ,000.

26:32Like no one was counting grains of sand. No one was counting rice? No one was counting grains of rice. Who's counting grains of rice? No, you'd weigh it and you would count like, I don't know, pounds or whatever they had, right? And so people didn't deal with big numbers. And if you think about ancient Rome slash Greece, so Roman numerals, I think M might be the biggest. There's 1 ,000. Well, you do multiple M's. You can, but what I'm saying is the single biggest representative character, we could call it, is actually pretty small. What's the current number? Is it Egyptian numbers? What's it called?

27:01I think they're Arabic numbers, you would call them. Yeah, exactly. And so that uses place values. It doesn't use character representation of numbers. but it is an interesting thought to consider that not that long ago when i say not long ago i mean a few thousand years ago we were struggling to get past 10 000 as a conceptual number and now we're into this trillion number really the bright the human mind is not um fit to understand what a trillion actually means can we move on i've got a little question for you so who said this quote uh so this person said in silicon valley nobody's sitting around a table and going oh i I wonder what the government's going to do to help us get this startup off the ground.

27:41You've got to do it yourself. There isn't the light brigade coming. Big Australian companies should be less risk-averse and be buying products from local tech startups to help them succeed. Who said this? Which startup, which seasoned startup? Oracle, who's obviously a great entrepreneur, who obviously plays to give this kind of advice. Who is the person who gave this sage advice? I tell you why I'm scared to guess. Because I'm going to guess. because you're going to rip the arms and legs off this advice in about five seconds. And I'm going to say someone that I might like and I do not want to be wrong because I've just thrown them under the Adam bus.

28:19And so I actually thought it was a politician before you said that. But I'm going to say I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. I'm going to give this person's – I'll give you this. You know how you can give little clues. This quiz gives you a clue and then gives you another clue. It's a bit like Salisbury. I thought I dodged this bullet. I heard it bang and then something whizzed past my head and I thought I dodged this bullet. It was bouncing off the back wall. Yeah, come on. Okay, so he started a career at Arthur Anderson as an auditor. Still don't know. Then was appointed in finance at Toyota.

28:51Still don't know. So not very entrepreneurial at this point. Then became senior vice president at Sun Microsystems. Still don't know. Is it a startup founder? No. Like this person's giving advice on what startup founders think. So you think that would be a startup founder? Oh, I think I know who this is. Are they currently alive? Yes. Very much. This program was made last week. It would be a tragic twist of fate if they weren't. I mean, I know that that's the way. What's that game where you put the stickers on your head with the names? Charades. Yeah, I know that that's a good question to ask in that game.

29:25But in the game where someone said something a week ago, I feel like it might be a wasted question. I think I know who it is. Is it a female? It may be a female. He may be a female. It may be a female. Well, you're really adapting to 2026 with the he may be a female. Do you want me to say who I think it is? Yes. Robin Denho? Yes. Oh, God. I'm not happy that I said that. So, Robin went to Sun Microsystems. While she was there, share price dropped from$2.58 to$9.50, by the way. So, didn't do a great job. It's not her fault. Did old Robin. She's a CFO. I'll play defense for Robin, okay? Which is not going to be easy.

29:57So, senior professional finance. It's not going to be easy in this situation. but I'll try and play defense. Okay, not her fault, some aracisms. Next allegation. Well, if it wasn't her fault, what was she being paid millions of dollars a year for? Do the numbers. Next allegation. COO and CFO at Juniper Networks. That did well, that business, didn't it? Share price was$33 ,000. She started, sold 10 years later for$40 ,000. So I wouldn't say that's great. Okay, well, we can tick that box fine. And then she spent two years as COO and CFO at Telstra. Share price went from$366 ,000 to$338 ,000 in two years.

30:28She wasn't CFO for long, right? She was COO and then briefly CFO. That's right. Until she got the tap on the shoulder. Right. Elon's beard. After people's – I think the way I would describe her role is that she sits between investors and Elon. Yeah. So that he can have a professional face and interaction with investors and can do whatever he wants. I think it wouldn't be unfair to say at no point in time would she be prepared to say to Elon, no, I'm stopping you doing that. Of course not, because she wouldn't have a job. So I don't... And in fact, she won't even speak about Elon. Yeah. Like a journalist is not allowed to ask her a question about Elon.

31:07She's been paid a billion dollars to be Elon's deflector shield. Well, I said to you, I think she might be the... have earned more money as an independent non-executive director than anyone else in history. And she was also criticised by the Delaware Court of Chances, the highest corporate court of law, being effectively incompetent is what they called her. That might have flipped... That might have been the straw that broke the camel's back for you. No, that was one thing. But what my point here is, she's now running the chair of a pair of Senate check council. Like, we've got this horrendous tax that's about to kill everybody.

31:36She's the former chair of the tech council. I thought she was still a chair. No, she handed it over to Farquaad. Oh, Farquaad's chair, yeah, sorry. But what you could say is, she did the review... Sorry, she's the government's innovation advisor. She did the review of the R &D tax incentive. Yes. The primary problem with the R &D tax... It was ignored, I think. Well, no, it wasn't ignored. So, I'll tell you the problem with it. So, the main issue that the R &D tax incentive does, and we should say what this is. So this is, if you spend money on research and development... Mostly technologists.

32:02Well, that fits certain criteria. I'll tell you what doesn't fit the criteria in a second. You'll be shocked to hear. But if it's criteria, you'll either get some money back in cash from the government... If you're less than$20 million. ...or you'll get tax offsets. And so it's a great system. It should be more generous. It's only paid once a year. That's the main problem. I think it's an okay system, actually. I don't think it should be more generous. I think it's pretty generous. It's paid once a year, which means there's lots of very expensive... Consultants make a heap of money. Lenders. Yeah.

32:30No, consultants are right. But there's lenders charging 15 % a year to say, I'll give you money this quarter. You spend it, you'll get even more of a rebate. I'll lend you money next quarter. There's a whole industry of lending money of that. And so the biggest issue with the R &D tax incentive is actually it's completely unclear about whether it applies to software, believe it or not. Really? Yeah. That's the majority. That's the majority. Well, the biggest... So who do you think the biggest – I know I've sidetracked you on your rant, but who do you think the biggest claimants of the R &D tax incentive?

32:59Atlassian and Canva. So Canva's not. Canva's not. So Atlassian I think might be number one. Yeah. Number two is a company that you will not guess, but I'll give you clues. It's not a software company. I would say it's not even a tech company. I would say they don't even make anything themselves. Like BHP or something like that? Well, you're close. It's Fortescue. Okay. And I think number three might be Cochlear. And so one and three have got no issue. CSL should be up there. I didn't look beyond that. There's a lot of international operations. The other big area that we give money to is foreign companies conducting clinical trials in Australia.

33:31We give them lots of rebates on tax. Which itself is pretty weird. And so in the budget that was just passed, one of the things that people didn't pay attention to is that there were some changes to the R &D tax incentive. You were too distracted by all the other horrendous stuff to notice this pretty stupid thing. And so one of the changes is that you can... This was the Atlassian rort, wasn't it? Well, you can now claim$150 million of tax rebates with the R &D tax incentive up from, I don't know, some number less than that,$100 million, I'm going to say, but I don't know. And so there are only two...

34:01I'm sure Scott Farquhar had nothing to do with this. Well, there's only two companies in Australia... Who are at that level. ...to claim, which is Atlassian and Fortescue. Yeah. One is, I don't think we should be paying this for Fortescue. Of course not. It's ridiculous. They're digging your minerals and your backyard. Yeah, they're stealing our minerals and making$30 billion. And so I'm not going to – I'm actually genuinely not casting aspersions here. I'm just going to tell you a coincidence, okay? This is the coincidence. The previous chair of the Tech Council was Robin Denholm. Yeah. The current chair is Scott Farquhar.

34:32Yeah. Robin Denholm went to be the government innovation advisor and wrote the R &D tax incentive recommendation, which said lift it to 150 mil, of which one of the two companies that benefits is Atlassian, of which Scott Farquhar is a founder. And Robin Denham's an operating partner at Blackbird, which is effectively funded by Scott Mike. So there's links everywhere here. So we could say, I'd say what the defence is, because the reason I'm saying it's a big coincidence, not casting aspersions. I'm sure Scott gave some money to the Labor government as well. What I'm saying is this. I'm not sure about that at all.

35:00And I like Scott. They definitely gave money to Climate 200. They gave money to Climate 200. Indirectly goes to the funds of Teals, which got rid of the Liberals. So indirectly it all ends up in Labor's pockets. This is the, I know, like, I don't want to, I think you might be right. But I just want to say what the opposite case to it is, which is it's a very small and incestuous industry especially at the top of that industry and so all of these people are going to know each other and have interconnected relationships and I think this it's not that I'm even saying I this is what happened I think if you're going to have these interconnected relationships and it's going to involve government and there's going to be one of two companies that benefits and it's going to be your company and you're the head of the so you should be super transparent over and above what is reasonable to show that there that no one can cast any aspersions and i think that didn't happen and it looks it smells fishy and i don't think that's a good look is that right this actually i actually meant to talk about this a few weeks ago but we just got distracted by the even more appalling cgt stuff but this is outrageous that this is a gift to atlassian from the australian taxpayer because atlassian lobbied on behalf of the tech council like what is scott farquaad every tech company australia should be getting rid of these tech council clowns because they don't do anything for us they've done a single thing for us wherever tech company you're a tech company what when have they never spoken to us and do anything they look after the billion dollar into u.s space companies so the last thing's a u.s company so if you really think about who's running the tech industry in australia if you think the tech council has that role and i think there are other industry organizations that have been around for longer that would dispute that role but definitely the tech council is very well known predominantly we're appointing people who are not paying significant amounts of company tax in Australia.

36:38Now, Fortescue is. I just think they should be paying much more tax in Australia. But it is a weird concept. And the reason that the Tech Council has really no power relative to the Minerals Council is because the Minerals Council pays tons of tax. And so that's what gives you power, employing lots of people. So the Pharmacy Guild has lots of power because they have – And they're very smart. Yeah, they influence lots of people. And the AMA, right, the Medical Association. CFMEU, the classic case. Yeah, but the problem with the Tech Council is they don't really pay much tax and they don't employ that many people.

37:07And, like, we're huge advocates of the tech industry, but I think the way they're going about it is not the right way of doing it. And the other problem that happened with this R &D tax incentive is that they raised the threshold. Do you realise that? So the threshold on which you can make an R &D claim has been lifted to$250 ,000. That's actually really high. And so all of these small start-ups in their first one or two years of starting, they now lose access. Yeah. And so at the top of it, they should be getting it. And so that makes me – like, the fact that, like, Fortescue is, like, basically pulling its money out off the taxpayer, it annoys me.

37:46But, like, we're in a country of rorts here, okay? Yeah. But what makes me angry is that these small start-ups that should be supported, they've just lost the ability to make claims. That's how it is. It just shows the Labour government's so out of touch with. It's really terrible. With founders and younger – just going back to Robyn's – I tried to sidetrack you off. Going back to Robyn's quote. How is Robyn's going? nobody's sitting around a table going, I wonder what the government's going to do to help get this startup off the ground. She's never worked in a startup in her life. She started at Tesla when it was a trillion dollar business, I'll give her time.

38:14Who is she to be telling startup founders what they should and shouldn't be thinking? She's the last person who should be advising us on what we should be thinking. Shut up, Robin. Learn your place. Well, her main comment was... She's a billionaire. How dare she lecture founders with no money in the bank who are living off ramen what they should and shouldn't be doing? Well, my guess is that she must have been like a monk of course something in her previous life. Because she's had the smoothest path to a billion dollars. Like there's been no blood, sweat or tears. I mean, who makes a billion dollars with no blood, sweat and tears?

38:43She's got a billion dollars in standover money. She's been away from investors, hard-earned money, and Elon Musk making money. It's like, what is her job? She had a billion dollars for it. So I begrudge her no dollars of that billion dollars, to be honest with you. Like, I think there's a lot of luck involved in business of all sorts. And like, she's got very lucky and she doesn't have... Well, if you look at her history, it's been a porrin. She's destroyed value everywhere. Everywhere she's went, the share price has gone down. She's the black widow. I totally disagree with that. Tesla's side, but she obviously wasn't the executive there.

39:09I totally disagree with that. Well, the numbers are the numbers. I'm just telling you numbers. Juniper went from – Went up. Sun dropped about 97%. Juniper underformed the market massively. Tesla – sorry, Telstra was significantly underformed. Everywhere she went, she's the angel of death. I'll give you your – The black widow. I'll psychoanalyse you. This is the ScarJo of Australian tech companies. This is a psychoanalysis of you. You find very good arguments about business stuff, but then you feel very aggrieved by the individual behind them, whereas I don't really feel aggrieved by the individual at all.

39:42I think there's a lot of luck. I think she's a good operator as an operator. I think she is. And I think she got – I wouldn't put her money in a company that she's an executive of. Well, you should have put it in Tesla. Well, Tesla's just crazy over value. It doesn't mean it's a good business. She's in the right place at the right time, and she took advantage of it. And so my issue doesn't... According to the court of chancery, she's a terrible job. That's not my view. That's the most senior US corporate judge who said this. I know, that's a much better rebuttal of me than you've got. But I will say this.

40:15Like, there's a lot of luck involved in these things, and I'm very happy for people to have luck. My biggest issue with what she said is that she said, I've never, something along the lines of, I've never met a founder who, as you said, Like, I never met a founder who cared about tax when they were starting a business. She met a founder at all other than Scott and Mike? Well, she has. But my rebuttal of that would be pretty simple. The reason you've never met a founder that cares about tax is you've never tried to charge them 47 % before. And like, go charge them 47 % and you just did. And now they're all talking about it.

40:46Like, when you were taking, it's not her, she's not in the government, but when you were taking 23.5 % of founders' gains, founders kind of, I guess, felt, well, that's a lot of the gain. But it doesn't feel unfair. It's fair. We're my money. Let's give something back. It doesn't feel punitive. Yeah. And now you're taking 47%. It does feel punitive. It is punitive. And so now you hear founders complaining about it. And so when she says, I've never heard a founder complain about, think about tax before starting a startup, I would say, listen harder. Yeah. They're all complaining. And not literally all, but enough of complaining so you know it's an issue.

41:20And the ones that can create the best startups, that is internationally focused from day one global businesses, they really can go overseas and i want to read you this from the new zealand minister of something i mean really who cares what i love those but um but you have did you see this comment by the new zealand minister for something it's the new zealand finance minister nicola willis she said australians looking to start or grow a business have an epic opportunity and that opportunity is to do it in new zealand no capital gains tax very simple tax system broad base low rate terrible economy getting paid in pesos oh it's not that bad it'll get better she didn't say those things we keep it simple we allow you to we allow you accelerated depreciation and deductibility on your capital investments which in fairness exists in Australia in some form as well where the bloody hell are you I mean that's politicians if you're Aussie come over she's right she's right it's sad to say but she's right so my daughter had a cheerleading thing this weekend and a dance thing and I just thought about both the and i actually didn't realize the cheerleading she is it's a new club was started by i think a couple of mid-20s a real um gen z 20 25 and 26 year old they've created this incredible it's like a thousand people there they've been making in the millions of dollars of revenue for sure and they're really smart and not only do they start this is a great business not just financially but also it's getting people kids mostly girls but not girls young girls and boys super active really fit it's a really great business in every respect it's ticks every box and they started from scratch they're filling this warehouse out in portmell it's just an amazing business and two just an incredible young couple and let's say they they do really well then they're growing to two three four million dollars revenue and they can sell it for 10 million dollars in a few years time they're getting hit by foot they're the classic 47 because there's no capital involved in this is basically empty warehouse this is sweat equity we talk about tech companies getting then the labor's talked about we're going to give you some tech companies forget let's change the topic away from tech and talk about real small businesses like like this cheerleading business like my daughter's dance coach who's again a young lady who should be you know young 30s created another thousand kids in the class incredible business this is huge risk she took this is like she's run this business for three or four years this is three young great young Australians who created millions dollars of wealth and incredible fitness and you couldn't ask for more from our young people and they're going to be smashed with 47 attacks from from Dim Jim and Albanese so like this is exactly this is who we're going to get a very special guest in later but this is exactly who this capital gains tax smashes it's not the scott farquhar's and the mike adam brooks or the idea shift and adam schwapp's we're fine we get grandpa in it's a young 25 year old who's about to build this significant business doing a great thing for the economy about to be absolutely smashed from the politics of envy and incompetence so those people who listen to what i say which is not you or read what I write which I think you but you forget will remember that we had this debate four weeks ago or so I generally don't remember the past and you tore shreds off me for in any way supporting a modification of the CGT you remember that you killed me you killed me and I said to you there's no chance there's a not no chance there's a very small chance this government is going to flip flop on this CGT I think they're going to ram it and the only chance is for modification.

44:46I agreed with you on that. And you said, go down with the ship. I totally agree. And we've got to get this government out and bring a government who reduces it to 10 % like it should be, like it is everywhere else in the world. In the meantime, if your cheerleading friends sell their business in the next two years, you don't want them paying 47%. Of course, they obviously can't sell your business now. And so we want to get some modification at least. No, I think you're better for making it worse than getting the government voted. I think living, I don't want to live on my knees like you are. No.

45:11You need to take them down. I'll tell you about, like, the issue that we face, I think. You tell me if you disagree with this. Mike can chime in on this as well. Mike, you don't ask me a question. You just give me an answer. I'm ready. You just roll with the punches. You're the mere caliifer of tax polls. You're just, like, constantly on your knees. No.

45:34I kind of knew where that was going. I still couldn't stop laughing. All right. So, I guess let me refocus. So basically, this is the... You know, I've totally lost my train of thought. I can't even ask another question. You're saying how I talk shreds off you two weeks ago. This has been a great episode. So the problem is this. I remember what I was going to say to you now. When we think about what is going to shape votes, and we're going to talk to someone about what's going to shape votes, do we think CGT or tax policy more broadly is going to shape votes in two years? Do you think that is going to shape a material...

46:08Remember, they're going after 25 to 35-year-olds to get their votes. I 100 % think it will show. You saw there was a poll released yesterday. They have got a one trillion seat lead against anyone else. We've seen Victoria's about to be overturned. Maybe. Landslides happen, and this is, I think, a case where it could have. The challenge here is that one nation and Liberals, God knows what's happening there. But you're calling two years out. You're saying, I think the CGT and other tax changes will create a landslide swing of 25 to 35-year-olds against the incumbent Labor government. You don't need every 25 and 35-year-olds.

46:43Landslide swing. And this is what I said a few weeks ago, and I think we're both in the... You should go into politics. Yes or no? We're very much in this category. Landslide swing. Look at the category of... You look at swinging voters. Don't care about the rusted edges. Like the people... I can't ask you. The unionists and the billionaires, forget them. What you want to talk about is what's this middle, what's this 5 % swinging voters going to do? and a lot of those swinging voters went to Labor in the last two elections. They didn't want to vote for Morrison, they didn't want to vote for Dutton.

47:07All right. And they trusted Labor not to lie to us on economic policy. They've killed the trust of this 5 % of aspirational voters. They call it Howard's battlers. And I think they've lost more than that. And we've seen – that's why Albanese is now less popular than Pauline Hanson. People that voted – people that gave up on Morrison slash Dutton and went to the Labor Party. Or the Teals, which brought back to the Labor Party. Yeah. They're not going to be enough for Labor to lose the election. they need to lose 25 to 35-year-olds that maybe have always voted for Labor. Well, it's only because they haven't had a chance to vote for Labor yet.

47:41All right, but what I'm asking you is, do you think this tax policy is going to swing enough of them to roll the government? I think it's less about the tax policy. I think it's more about the fact that you can't trust these guys now. They've blown the trust of the electorate. So do you think the lying about tax, maybe I'll say there will be three things that might swing this vote. And then, Mike, you're going to give us an answer in a second. I'm sitting waiting to give my breath. Yes, we'll come to you. So these are the three things that might swing voters. Number one, the lies. That might swing voters.

48:10Number two, the crappy policy itself. It's the type of lies. Politicians lie all the time. This lie went to the... There's a core and non-core promises. This was a core promise. We won't change a tax rate. I've only got one word, so I call it lies. One lies. Two, tax. Let's call it fraud, not lies. Okay, you can call it that. Three, recession. So we might end up in a recession at the time of the election. Those are my three key words. And you think one or all of those will contribute. What about inflation? You're not putting inflation. That's what cost Biden. Yeah, I'll put it. Possibly Morrison as well.

48:40I think inflation, if inflation continues like this, then the jobs, unemployment keeps rising. That's more important than recession. Yeah, well, economy. Let's call it. It's the economy, stupid. You know who said that. James Carvell in 1992 for political strategist. And then who stole it? Bill Clinton. It was Clinton's strategist who said it. Yes, and then Clinton stole it as his pitch. Okay, of course you know that. So those three things. You think one or more of those three things will result in the Labor government losing power in two years time? I think it's the trust element's the biggest one.

49:09Okay, that's interesting. You, Mike? So I think that people in my age group, so early 30s are less. Our age group. Our age group, me and Adam's age group. Your age group, Adam's aspiration. You don't like this because it's a tax on aspiration and your aspiration is to be his age. I actually think that people my age group are less engaged with these policy changes than you think. I think that a lot of them don't even really understand how it affects them. I think they're not – you said you and you pointed to me and there's no video on you. But I think they're not engaged. When I go to cafes and I talk to people in your age group and younger, they don't care about this.

49:51So I agree with you. Okay, so you agree with me. and I think in this sort of generation there's just almost like a branding thing of Labour good, Liberal bad. I think that will prevail. I think there will be a bit of swing related to the trust issues that you've said but I don't know if it'll be enough because I just think that there's like a... Well, it's not that polls don't seem to agree with that. It's two years out. I know but there's been a... Clearly poll shame. Dutton was ahead for a point as well but it's not just Liberal. It's one nation. Well, let's ask that question. Is there any possibility...

50:20Joel, you answer this question as well. Is there any possibility? Joel's even younger than me, though. If there's any possibility. I see Joel with you. You know, Joel is so beautiful and quiet in this room. But then I see him on his own podcast online, and you're absolutely going for it, Joel. I mean, hats off, hats off. People should check it out. What's it called? Give it a plug. The Remna Podcast. Cool. Very good. And so is there any chance, Mike, what percentage likelihood, I'll say, that you'll vote for One Nation in the next election? Me, personally? Yep. Probably zero. Zero? Yeah. But what if I are?

50:51He lives in buddy Western Australia. I know, but the question is, what if I asked him when we weren't recording? He might say higher than zero. Because, you know, they've got that problem, right? But I'll take your zero as honest. I'm in a red wig before. Are you also zero, Joel? Yeah, zero, yeah. What's your – do you think that what's happened in the last month with the Labor Party – I'm going to try to ask in a neutral way. What happened in the last month, do you think it's going to have any material effect on support in your age group, your friends, et cetera, for Labor at the next election?

51:18We'll probably analyse it more when it comes closer to the election because when things happen, you know, you want to take a step back and let it sit for a bit. So I'm unsure at the moment. Maybe, though. Maybe. Maybe. So he's probably more similar to you, Adam, and Mike is probably more sceptical on that. I mean, it'll be... It's going to be fascinating. I would say this. If it doesn't, what have we got left? And if it doesn't, one of the reasons will be, as we've spoken about, because all of the jobs growth in this country almost exclusively is public sector jobs growth and they're not going to vote for anyone to the right.

51:53Critical public service theory. Yeah. And so I think, I mean, the thing is, it's two years hours, but if this has no effect or minimal effect on the Labor vote, is there anything they can't do? Like, there could not have been a... It looks like it's having an effect. The question is, is it enough of an effect? And how will that effect translate with One Nation's last Liberal preferences is the question. Well, one of the questions it will be interesting to ask shortly in my view is if the votes One Nation has got lots of votes now but it's likely that a lot of people don't think that One Nation can actually govern.

52:26Yeah. And so when those votes bleed off One Nation at election time how is the coalition going to get those votes and stop them going to Labor? Yeah. I think that is the ultimate political question that everyone should be fixated on right now. Libers need to so where the liberals got killed with Morrison is the Teals. The Teals stole those classic liberals. They lost Kuyong for God's sake. That's right. and Goldstein and heaps of very safe Liberal seats in both Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. But that's what killed the Liberals, really, because they basically held no seats except for Goldstein now.

52:58So can I just move on to something, well, somewhat political, but a bit businessy? But you see the further humiliation for the bankrupt Victorian government with the privatised VicRoads going offline for an entire week as the inept organisation switched over its main database during a long weekend to a new cloud system. people had to cancel driving tests they could not complete hazard perception car deals and unable to obtain roadway this is pretty serious this is a big a big business of course Vic Roads was pillaged and privatized by the horrid Dan Andrews government three years ago sold or created a joint venture for 7.9 billion dollars effectively with aware super Australian retirement trust in Macquarie to purchase the right so it's kind of like effectively privatizing it in all in substance if not form back in 2022.

53:43This is obviously just trying to keep the lights on in Victoria. They've just privatised something. It should never even privatise. And this is my point. If you're going to privatise something, you need to privatise into a competitive environment. You privatise into a monopoly, you're just going to get customers ripped off, or in this case, ripped off in a different sense. It's obviously starving of funds. So how low can the Dan Andrews government, Andrews Sintagallan government actually get? Is there anything they can't stuff up? Well, it's terrible. I don't have anything to add about this. It's like basically I think it just – the human story of this is kids who are 18 that booked in their licence.

54:16Yeah, super nervous. They have to get it postponed for months because it's all booked out. Yeah. So they don't say we're going to put extra people on, we're going to work longer hours. Shocking. They're like, well, we don't care. What if you want to get to work? You can't get to work because these people are so incompetent. Yeah, it's an absolute – it's absolutely a disgrace. Coming on, I was going to go to SpaceX coming up a second. Do you see also one of the worst performed business on the ASX, Zero, appears to have completely lost touch with reality. There's a front page AFR story, knowing that Chairman David Thodey is speaking to shareholders to attempt to rebase Sekinder Singh Cassidy.

54:49This is CEO's lucrative pay packet. Singh Cassidy has unique honour of being both the highest paid and possibly the worst performing CEO in Australia. Zero's price is down a massive 62 % this year alone. Of course, it has been caught up in the SaaSpocalypse. Much of Xero's horrendous performance has actually been due to incompetence with the board and Sincassidy undertaking a horrendous, disastrous, top-of-the-market acquisition of loss-making Melio in a desperate bid to crack the US market. Sincassidy receives a massive salary, much of which actually is based on non-performance-based equity grants.

55:21She also received a huge sign-on bonus. That is actually performance-based because it's based on the share price. She won't get any of that because she's been so incompetent. According to the AFR, Thody has begun meeting with institutional shareholders to discuss adjusting her Sincassi's remuneration to ensure she holds shares worth 1 % of the market cap. Given Xero has a market cap of$12 billion, that's$120 million, despite presiding over a 62 % dumping of the share price. Xero's spokesman said the majority of Sincassi's pay was at risk and tied to Xero's global financial shareholder return results, which seems to be contrasting to our actual rep.

55:53Adia, views on this. You're a good mate of David Thody's. I'm not a good mate of David Thaddeus. I think he's excellent. But in this situation... Excellent in what sense? It will shock me. I think he's smart. I think he's a kind person as a leader. And I think he's got Australia's best interests very much at heart. He's certainly got Cassidy's best interests at heart, paying$26 million a year. I think this was not a good chairmanship to take. And he's severely wedged. And I actually think... He's also chairman of Sydney Uni. Don't forget who's been horrifically anti-Semitic over the past few years.

56:24So he's had a great run, old David. I agree with that. The challenge is that it would surprise me if shareholders don't get very unhappy about this. They got a first strike last year. Shareholders do not like rebasing of executive rem. Let alone when the company's dropped 62%. Because the thing is this. If you start and you say, I've got this great strategy, we're going to drive the share price up with my incredible decision making and execution. Okay, that's fine. I don't even mind if you say, we're going to go backwards before we go forwards. which obviously they didn't want to say because that's not popular but um but definitely if this goes forwards now it will have gone significantly backwards first but if that's your belief if you say this is my strategy and my execution and my mission And then as CEO, and then the share price goes into reverse dramatically.

57:18You need to own it. You can't turn around and say, well, there's no incentive for me anymore to keep doing it. Either you believe it or you don't. If you believe it, then stick with it because you're going to make lots of money in the future when it rockets back up. Catapult's been a roller coaster. We believe in it, right? If you don't believe in it, quit. That's pretty simple. but this idea that says, I had this strategy, investors don't like it, it's run the share price into the ground and now I don't feel motivated anymore. Peter Shea hasn't actually said that, though he's more implying this.

57:51Well, come on. Did he wake up with a brainwave in the middle of the night and say, you know what, I don't want her to feel sad. I'm just going to go and risk my own reputation with shareholders. There's got to be pressure behind the scenes. The worst chairman is the chairman that falls in love with the CEO. We saw Richard Goida with Alan Joyce was probably the classic and he also was Dylan McLaughlin. That's why my mate Richard Gord is such a terrible chairman. And this is David Doty's falling for the same trap. He's falling in love with his CEO, ironically, while the CEO is completely underperformed.

58:17And you can't blame Sikinda completely for Melio because the board's signed off on that clearly. So that's board culpability as much as executive culpability there. They're both a disgrace. But to be even suggesting a pay rise. Look, I don't know who their biggest shareholder is now. I think Rod Drury still has 7%, doesn't he? I'm not sure. but I wonder what instos are in there. There's got to be some institutional investors in there. I think they'd hate this. You know, I'm going to say something very obtuse, but there were times in the past where, not with the current CEO, where, like, I was under some pressure when the share price fell and executives slash CEO wanted rebasing.

58:58Yeah. And the founders were not in favour of it. And it was a lot of pressure as a chairman, I have to tell you, because no one wants to... A CEO failing is the biggest failure of a chairman and a board in a sense. Like hiring a CEO and having them fail. Maybe it's the second biggest failing. The biggest failing is hanging on to a failing CEO because you don't want to have the reputational damage. And like there's a lot of pain and suffering in appointing a CEO when there's an acting CEO. Like investors hate it. I've never had more hate in my life than when I had an acting leader in the role and had to recruit.

59:34like investors hate it okay but i think that um rebasing by 60 percent the pay of the ceo because of a falling share price i think it's unless there's a very very good reason for it i think it's really the only reason you would allow is if the ceo comes in and then six months later the share price gets dumped through no fault of their own like maybe there's been a massive share mark stuff for stuff that was before that right but she's been in for three years she did the merely acquisition like you can't blame three possessions after three years you blame it under a year i've got some sympathy for it but this is just i think david's got to go like he's i think both ceo and chairman have i call this with drone shield and this is the same but chairman ceo gone they have to go i don't think david's going to have another chairmanship again this has been a disaster an embarrassment what was one of the best companies in australia in new zealand it was i would miss the company but definitely have him as a chairman but i think the zero thing the zero thing has uh has not gone well i but it's you know what imagine the poor person that's doing investor relations for this business.

1:00:33Like, that's a tough sell. Remember the Iraqi information minister during the, it's that kind of role? Like, you have to come and literally say the preposterous. Let's move on to the big news. Well, hang on, before we go to big news, I'm going to tell you just a 30-second additional bear case on Firmus. Okay. So Firmus obviously is the neocloud. That's big sales pitch in life is that they're better at cooling data centres than anyone else in the universe. Yeah, literally. No, it's better than NVIDIA. Anyone in the known universe. There could be someone out there with data centres in space, like what Elon wants to do, that are using space as the cooling mechanism.

1:01:11Pretty effective. And so Amazon released an update to how much water they use every year to cool their data centres. This is trying to quell opposition to data centres, essentially, because a lot of people are complaining. A lot of people are complaining about water usage. And I would say it looks like a terrible story, but actually it's a pretty good story. So I don't know if you know how many litres they use or what order of magnitude. It's less than I expected. Do you think it's in the millions or billions? Per data centre. Per year across Amazon. Oh, Amazon. Across the whole of Amazon. Amazon, obviously, or a hyperscale.

1:01:47I would have thought it had to be billions, right? Billions. So they use five billion litres of water a year, which in context, I mean, it sounds terrible. How much does like an aluminium smelter use? Is that huge water use? Well, I think the whole of Melbourne uses a billion litres a day. Oh, okay. As a point of comparison. Oh, so it's that big, yeah. So it's big, but it's not crazy. Yeah. But this is what's more… Amazon would have a lot of data centres. And this is what's more interesting. AWS. It's actually going down. Yeah. So in 2021 or 22, whatever it was, it was double. They used double.

1:02:15Wow. It might have even been more than double. Amazing. And so actually what they've discovered is there are lots of different ways to cool data centres and pumping water through it. We can have closed systems that don't use as much water. We can use air cooling. my point is this the data center hyperscalers they're on to the idea of cooling they're not stupid they're on to cooling they're like cooling that's important and like it's working like they're using less water and i'm not advocating for data centers actually the power is a bigger issue for data centers than the power is water because you need water to create power power is water and power is also power like you have to generate the power right and so and you have to burn something to generate the power or use renewables, solar, right?

1:02:55Or hydro. Or hydro. Either, well, I mean, the way I think about electricity is either something is turning a turbine or there's a photovoltaic cell involved with solar. Or it's nuclear, which is... Nuclear is turning a turbine. It's just a different way of turning a turbine. And so something has to spin it, water, coal, steam, or the only other one that's completely different, as far as I know, is like a photovoltaic cell, which just the solar creates a reaction at the electron level. And wind is turbine as well, right? Yeah. And wind turns a turbine. Everything turns a turbine. And so I think electricity is a big issue.

1:03:30But, like, the thing is this. Everyone is focused on cooling. It just feels increasingly implausible, if there was any gap left for me, that firmness could have a long-term competitive advantage over cooling data. I know, but, like, I'm always sceptical about my own judgement. and so I always want data points to try to reinforce whether I'm right or wrong and when I saw this thing with Amazon and how effectively they're reducing water usage whilst hyperscaling the number of data centres, it feels to me these hyperscalers are all over. Well, it never made sense that a couple of dudes from Australia who run, one ran a bra business, one was like a lingerie salesman, one was just a finance guy, how these guys could be better at tech than real genius technologists out of like Silicon Valley.

1:04:17It didn't make any sense. Speaking of genius technology down the Silicon Valley, SpaceX completed a world record IPO last week, raising US$75 billion. SpaceX is now one of the world's most valuable businesses. And as you said, Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire. The IPO was priced at$135 US per share, traded up to$173 and settled back at$161, which is basically a 19 % premium. That's kind of considered the perfect pop. you know you ipo is a bit of a marketing event obviously only selling five percent of the equity so you can afford a bit of the dilutions effectively close to zero anyway so this is and you want a bit of good sort of goodwill publicity so this is a perfectly priced did you buy a stock no of course not i would have bought i would have shorted rather before i bought it no you would have shorted it i would have sold it on day one oh as in i'm not i'm not a holder of the stocks i just wouldn't have been bothered i just knew that i was not going to get any stock like yeah you got one tenth of what you asked for it's not all it's a must retail fan base was a cruise component of the deal they placed uh more than a hundred billion dollars in orders of course not everybody's so excited legendary short seller jim chaynor also famously exposed enron said spacex was a hopes and dreams ipo driven by enthusiasm for musk and ai rather than fundamentals of a company that's yet to post a profit uh anthropic and open ai two of uh obviously spacex's ai competitors are now expected to go public in the next year, seeking$1 trillion valuations each.

1:05:40Of course, the performance of SpaceX will be scrutinised by venture capitalists and investors before that time. Adi, what are your views on this float? It's hard for me to communicate how much this feels like the dot-com boom. I was thinking the same thing. It's just... Exactly the same thing. It's almost identical. Yeah. Like, the fact that... And what is SpaceX? If you go back in time, what would you compare as the company most close to SpaceX? I mean, it's... The reason there's no perfect equivalent is because SpaceX is all about one person. It's singularly about one person. It's one person with all of these hopes and dreams businesses.

1:06:17So Tesla, that's a real business. That's not in SpaceX yet, but that will end up in SpaceX. And so Tesla's a real business, just massively overvalued, and a business that never quite reached the potential that its investors were hoping for or hasn't yet reached it. Early investors, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Early investors, yes, but not in the last five years. It's become a meme stock now, yeah. And then it's got these other businesses that are not businesses, right? So this AI business. Starlink's a business. Okay, Starlink is a little business. No, Starlink's a great business. It's a little business by US stock exchange listed company standards.

1:06:54Starlink and Tesla have actually rough, not that different. They're real businesses. Just small. Agreed. Small businesses by US listed company standards. That's right. And then there's some non-businesses, like the artist formerly known as X. That's a non-business. And like XAI, which is now part of it, that's a non-business. In fact, that's a negative business. Actually, now it's a couple of big deals to sell compute to Anthropic and I think maybe OpenAI is the other one. Coincidentally, good timing. Yeah, so they're basically now almost, I think the losses drop significantly because they built these two massive colossus data centres.

1:07:29They can now rent them out. Maybe a small profit. So they now become effectively a property play. Yeah, they turn massive capital expenditure, CapEx, into revenue, but unlikely to be making any return on the CapEx. It's like buying a factory, essentially. It's like buying a factory and renting it out in an amount of money that makes you a terrible, terrible, terrible return on the factory. And so the reason I say that bit of background is it's easy to mistake this as being unlike the dot-com boom because the businesses are making revenue. Yeah. But what is the same is that the valuation and the economics of the businesses are completely disconnected.

1:08:07It's easy to see that they're disconnected when you're trying to price eyeballs in the dot-com boom because the eyeballs don't have a dollar sign in front of them. They've got a dollar sign in them but not in front of them. I think that people could say, oh, dot-com was ridiculous because of eyeballs. But in a sense, it made sense because what the principle was, look at Meta. Meta had a lot of eyeballs and then it was able to later monetize. So people were completely stupid back then. And they basically thought, we'll get traffic to the site and we'll figure out a way to monetise the traffic. Meta was a perfect example of that.

1:08:34Google was another example of that. Google always had barely any revenue when it listed. So maybe the way I would, of course, phrase that from a business point of view is I would say the eyeballs were seen as an input metric that would eventually drive revenue. Exactly. And so if you got enough of them, built them up, there would be scale benefits. And very minimal incremental costs when you hit that scaling point. And it was true in a couple of cases and almost entirely false. And so now I think it's easy to mistake this because of the revenue. But what you've got is a business that cannot possibly be worth this on an economic basis.

1:09:07Not just because the multiple of revenue is 100 or something, but because there is actually not an addressable market large enough to support this kind of valuation. For the business they do. For the business they do. Well, you might argue for any business because their TAM is getting to be the size of the global economy pretty soon. Nvidia's a much more valuable business, and it's somewhat legitimate based on the current CapEx spend. But this is about tomorrow's promises, the SpaceX business. Nvidia is more about today's performance. Yeah, but SpaceX's specific business doesn't have the TAM, is what you're saying, whereas Nvidia's and Microsoft's and Amazon's do, and Apple's do.

1:09:44But Nvidia is not promising the TAM that SpaceX has. So what I'd say is, because Nvidia has... Oh, because SpaceX's TAM's ridiculous. Because Nvidia has today, they can be a bit more realistic about tomorrow. By the way, I think Jensen has become a cheerleader for the AI boom and has detached from being a level-headed CEO. But I think because Elon has virtually nothing to sell today to justify valuation, he has to sell tomorrow. He's the master of bringing forward the story. And so I think people will look back on this in X number of years, and I'm evasive about what X is, because it could be five and it could be one.

1:10:19I don't think it's one. It could be one. I think OpenAI and Anthropic will now go to market and they'll be massively oversubscribed. And you never really know what pops the bubble. It's not even really obvious in hindsight. What's obvious is it's unpredictable. But I think this has got some time to run. But ultimately, I think that we'll look back on this and say, what were these people thinking? And the last comment I want to say is this. Now when I read very smart people, putting aside Chanos, very smart people, like people that are doing deals in Goldman Sachs okay they've got a vested interest but not just that really smart fund managers and I sent you one example yeah so very smart people are now saying very dumb things drinking the Kool-Aid yeah I remember that from the dot-com and I was young and I remember thinking hang on am I really dumb I must be really dumb I invested in a business called Nutella I remember in like 1999 oh Nutella I remember that business and I remember thinking eventually I was like I sold most of my stuff before the crash Actually, I did generally arrive.

1:11:20That's impressive. There was a couple of things. Newtel was one of the things I held. And the reason I held it is I saw Pratt was still invested. There was someone else. I thought, these guys are smarter than me. They must know something I don't. I'm not going to sell that particular stock. And it dropped 100%. It literally collapsed. And that was probably when I realized these so-called smart people, be it analysts, be it investors, be it rich people, they're actually dumber than anyone. Well, they're not dumber than anyone, but they are very close to the fire. and the glow and the heat and the excitement.

1:11:49And what I would say is if you're sceptical and cynical about what's going on, do not second guess yourself based on smart people. And if you're not cynical and you think you're right, don't draw any sucker from smart people agreeing with you. Like I saw almost every smart person being wrong in the dot com. Definitionally that makes them not smart. But what does it? Because there were people that rode NVIDIA from$300 million valuation, let's say. And they've made 15x on their money. A billion valuation, sorry. $300 million valuation. But it wasn't$300 million. Yeah, that's true. I don't think anyone, VCs wrote them from there.

1:12:29But$300 billion, you're right. And so they've made 15x of their money. Yeah. And let's say they sell now. Were they dumb or smart? I think they were smart. They understood how the system works. They're smart because they've now realised it's overpriced. So like it's, like, and that's the smart because they sold. But I'm talking about the ones that don't sell. Do you think someone that buys in on the bigger fool theory, which is, I'm a fool for buying this, but a bigger fool is going to pay more in the future, dumb or smart? That was when I bought our house seven years ago. I'm overpaying for this, but I think people are stupid.

1:12:58And it's doubled since then. I thought it was 50 % overvalued. Now I think it's 400 % overvalued, whatever it is. And so that's even smarter because you've got to live in it in the meantime and got all of that benefit. But I think there are lots of different emotional dynamics that make markets work. And there is, you know, this thing, I always quote this to you, Ecclesiastes, Kehelet. It's like in the Jewish Bible. And there's a time for this and a time for that and a time to kill and a time to stop the war, whatever it is. And so there's a time to plant and a time to reap. That's one of the lines.

1:13:32Yeah. And so I think we're in the time to reap now. Totally. But there was still time to plant two years ago when I was scared to plant because I thought there were problems with the soil. I was claiming that whatever was the FAANGs, Mag7, was Massimo price and it kept going up another 18 months. It's pretty much plateaued now. I think contrarians spend more time being wrong than right. But when they're right, they're really right. And so you've got to be able to hold on. And I think there's a time for growth investing and a time for value investing. And I think that at the moment, it is safer to look through the lens of a value investor because you'll avoid the bubble.

1:14:15But you need to accept, I'm sure you do accept this, you might miss out on two years of growth. Nvidia, it's not impossible that Nvidia is going to be worth$20 trillion. I think they're, well. No, it could. It could forex from here. If SpaceX can be worth a gazillion dollars. No, but I think the problem is when you start making money, it's hard to get these regular valuations. Start getting a profit multiple. Nvidia, so SpaceX. We've always been a victim of that here. Elon is the Pope of tech. Yeah. So he's a Pope. So that's a religion. And NVIDIA is another, just a bit of a smaller religion. Yeah.

1:14:50But once a religion is worth$5 trillion, it can be worth$20 trillion. We've left the domain of economics. As I've said, the problem with booms and bubbles is pricing is caused by the marginal moron. So you've got a lot of marginal morons out there in a bubble. So in a bubble, you get more and more morons. Maybe you've only got 5 % of people who are morons. but you only need 5 % because they're the ones pushing the price up. The person who bids that massive price at the auction, they're the ones who set the price at the house. Then everybody claps. But you call them the marginal moron and I'm much less inclined to call them morons because they've been playing this game for three years and they've made more money off this bubble than I have because I've been scared for three years.

1:15:30Yeah, but you can still be wrong and make money. Making money and being right slash being smart aren't certainly mutually exclusive. So some of these players, these marginal players that are buying they see things as clearly as we do their risk appetite is just different and their preparedness i tell you what you're scared of i'm this is the psycho free psycho analysis session today i tell you what you're scared of you're scared of buying into this it's absurd then it crashes and then you're like what a moron i was i knew it was absurd by the way i'm scared of the same thing i knew it was absurd how could i ever have been dumb enough to buy this but lots of people don't feel that thing they're like who cares I'll make all this money on the way through we both lived through 99 and experienced that lots of people did lots of people did and they're buying today people have short memories either people weren't born it could be Mike who was three years old then or you have short memories and people have intentionally short memories because greed overcomes or so I'll say this if we were smarter we would say we lived through this we got to see it we know what the dynamic or the trajectory of a bubble is we can when we think it's a bubble well, we've got three years to ride this thing and make an absolute fortune.

1:16:40And I can tell you, Sandisk up 10x this year. The cooling businesses, I called the cooling businesses six months ago. I was nowhere near going to buy those things. They've all gone up multiple x. Like there was plenty of time for us to make money. It's just not our personalities. On that, we've got a very special guest coming up after rake. Do not switch off your dial.

1:17:10And we're back. We've got a very special guest in the studio. We've got a man who's a heartbeat in an election away from the Prime Ministership. Tim Wilson, obviously the Shadow Treasurer, spent seven years at the IPA and became Australia's Human Rights Commissioner for, I think, five years or so. The appointment was for five years, but I actually did two years before I ran for Parliament. Of course, 2016, you ran for Parliament. Yes. Goldstein, which is... Goldstein. Goldstein. Is that how you pronounce it? It is. It is. He's named after a woman by the name of Vida Goldstein. And when I was doing research for my first speech, I actually found an article where she was complaining about how her name was pronounced and specifically that it is Goldstein.

1:17:49Well, I want to flag this, but she is wrong. Like, that is not how you pronounce it. So you pronounce it the way she pronounced it. It's great. But it's the only time I've ever heard that pronounced in that way. So well done. I can assure you that that is explicitly how it is pronounced. I don't want to be difficult about it. I know we both live in the seat. I would be – I mean, I was going to vote for you anyway. But now that you've got the pronunciation right, there's another few votes. There you go. So, Tim, you're elected in 2016 and you're in parliament for six years and then in the Tealpocalypse of 2022, across the Scott Morrison disaster.

1:18:22You lost your seat. But you're the only person to actually get your seat back off a Teal in 2025. So that was an incredible effort. What was that like, getting back – did you think you were done? Did you think you were going to make it back? Well, it depends. If you asked me on 23 May 2022, I thought I was done. If you asked me in the year leading up, I was absolutely convinced I was going to win. But as it got closer and closer to election day, I felt it slipping. And then on election day when the numbers were coming in and my opponent was celebrating her victory and we were looking at the numbers and saying, this doesn't look right, we can see a path to victory, I wouldn't be calling it this early.

1:18:59And so basically from election night onwards, I absolutely believed I was going to win. It took a month. Well, that was one of my favourite parts of the entire election because there was not much to be happy about. And it was the early celebrations that had to be recanted. I mean, that's an awkward moment I would have imagined for someone. I would say it's a very awkward moment for somebody, but it's also self-inflicted. I didn't do anything. In fact, I generally stayed pretty shtum throughout the entire thing because you've just got to let the votes fight, work and act for you. Well, I know I've known you for quite a while.

1:19:32It's nice to see you again. And I'm going to lay you into a false sense of safety with some nice questions now, but we'll ask some tougher questions soon. Just like being on 7.30. Identical. We're insiders. I'll tell you the difference. We'll stick to facts. Nor we taxpayer funded, but that's the idea. Oh, yeah, that's all true as well. We're not taxpayer funded. Good idea. But I do want to say this. You know, a lot of the time we speak about start-ups or people that have built businesses, and one of the hallmarks of those people is they basically get metaphorically punched in the face every day and find a way to get back in the gutter, find a way to get back up every morning, get punched again, and they just persist, persist, and it's the resilience and persistence, ultimately, that leads to success.

1:20:12There was no one between the election you lost, that election, and the election where you were re-elected into the seat that worked harder and was more persistent, that was out of office and had lost their seat harder than you worked, and I think that that has got to be one of the key contributors to you being re-elected. A lot of people were voted out and quit politics. A lot of people were voted out and kind of just were depressed. But you just kind of hung in there and kept fighting. And nobody doubted that you were going to be giving it another red hot shot at the next election. I think it's really impressive.

1:20:51Well, that's very kind. My husband regularly reminds me he feels like we're punching the face often and get down and get back up. but one of my favourite quotes is of course by Oscar Wilde which is we're all in the gutter and some of us are looking up at the stars and so I think that's kind of like the start-up culture and attitude, right? I'm just applying it to politics is you just can't accept if you believe in what you're doing and it doesn't matter whether it's making a buck in your different way and your ideas and your values, nothing will show up more than persistence and endurance because in politics it's not for the faint-hearted it we all understand that and i understand setting up a business is also not for the faint-hearted at times you're often living off your credit card or borrowing uh just to stay alive but people can see that sense of commitment and belief and it's actually transformative because then other people want to join the journey with you and what's the thing that is most different today as we sit here you think back to when you won your seat back at the last election and how you thought this term was going to play out yeah now we're sitting here today what a year later or something um what's the biggest unexpected difference as we sit here today?

1:22:01Well, if you ask most people, they would say what's happened with the federal budget, whereas for the most part, I expected them to do this. I probably didn't expect it to be as brazen in terms of breaking promises as they did, but I was expecting this sort of a change. But I don't think a lot of other people could say that, particularly when the Prime Minister said 50 times over, I'm not going to do X, Y and Z. There's obviously also, let's be honest about it, the rise of what I call the orange paddock of despair, which is another political force. But, you know, it remains very much a question about whether that's got endurance.

1:22:37I'm not dismissing it. I respect, you know, voters' views on these things very clearly. But I think what people want is a different direction for our country and we need to be the agents for change. Well, since you are hesitant to say One Nation, I'm going to say them. Well, you know what it's like. You never broadcast your competitor. That's true. But they are quite well known at the moment. I don't think I'm introducing anyone to them. But I will say this. So I'm not a supporter of One Nation and I would love to have Pauline Hanson on the podcast, which hopefully we'll get, to ask her some very pointed questions.

1:23:14But the bottom line is that there are many disaffected voters in Australia and she's getting them. And why are you not getting them? Why is she getting them and not you? Well, I'll be blunt, which is in the lead up to last election, people expected us to win. We then lost very badly. I wasn't just the only one who won a seat back from a teal. I was the only one who won a seat, period, on my side. And people are disappointed. And I think they have every right to be. I'm disappointed. And so I think we need to prove to people, one, that we're worthy of their vote. Second, we need to put forward a clear program about where we're going to take the country.

1:23:51I was chatting to somebody in the car on the way over here and he was sort of saying, well, I don't understand why people are going there. And I said, mate, if you're earning 60 grand, 120 grand combined household income and you're paying thousands of thousands of dollars a month in mortgage and it just keeps going up and up and up, you get shitty. There's no point pretending otherwise. And people are feeling the pinch much harder. They're going to the supermarket, they're getting less in their red basket and they're saying something has to change but at the moment and you know we're trending there and there's a lot of work to do but at the moment they're just looking for a sense of almost of exasperation um for an alternative and she's come along and said i'm a bright in one sense a bright new shiny thing another level i've been around a long time but the challenge is she actually the answer to the problem um and ultimately i understand the case for change but we need to get back to making sure we're credible change that's actually going to improve people's lives let me just ask you this last question so i mean you lost good people over the last couple of years i'll give you a few names that i think you've lost good people jason falinski up on the northern beaches a good man great guy um you lost josh obviously in kuyong um you lost keith wallahan who i think he's also hopefully he makes the comeback as well i think i think he will and the thing the thing is this i'll make another blunt comment to you when people think about the values of the Liberal Party and the coalition more broadly.

1:25:15They don't think about your values. What if I said to you, the values that you have are not the values that people think of when they think of your party? Well, that doesn't shock or surprise me. I think we need to be very clear-eyed about who we are and this is why I don't believe in being One Nation light and I don't believe in being Labor light. I believe in being big liberal, which means we're pro-enterprise, pro-family, pro-community and pro-small business getting ahead. And if we're not enlivening that with our policy every day, we're not going to be in the position to win. I consider that to be central.

1:25:52I lied about having one. Because we're on One Nation. He's a constituent. I'm sorry. I'm going to take it right. One Nation. So I saw a quote. There was an article that talked about One Nation getting traction because effectively they're calling Elbow a liar. They're a big liar. I mean, it's not a shock that this was the article they're calling... And there was this quote in that article that said, the coalition claims... I think this was a sympathetic publication, by the way. It might have been The Australian or The Finn. The coalition claims it can't run the same liar campaign because, as it is part of the perceived political establishment, such a move might backfire, which I'd say to you, Adam, this is counter-positioning at its greatest, right?

1:26:30You literally... The argument here is you can't replicate the upstart because it damages you. Do you agree with that or not? No, I don't. I mean, we have actually been very explicit in talking about the Prime Minister lying and breaking promises, and we've done it in Parliament, but I think there's something different. Labor has divided the country, particularly through this budget. They literally, in the let-up to the budget, tried to encourage families to have fights around the kitchen table. They've since turned people who've invested in SAVE and got ahead or in start-ups and pitted them against young Australians on a false promise that it's going to achieve greater homeownership.

1:27:07then you've got um you know the orange paddock over here and they're not focused on uniting the country either they're focused on fueling the rage and dividing australians as well we've got to be the solution which unites the country talks about a way forward and gets people to put their energy towards growth and opportunity again because when you have a country that's only fighting over who gets what share of resources it's not just misdirected energy but it feeds resentment division and that isn't what I want for our country that isn't what I think Australians want for their country but they need to see a clear path to get ahead and we have to provide that you got in your two minute answers tick the box on that but I I'm very sympathetic to what you just in terms of the attack politics I invented the dim gym name and I think I've seen in a few headlines or we invented it it wasn't I mean don't give me credit for that one of my favorite quotes is I know I'm big on quotes but is from Ronald Reagan and Truman and There is no limit to what a man can achieve nor for how far he can go if he does not mind who takes the credit.

1:28:07So you can take the credit. I take the credit for a lot of things around here. They should be using your credit. Your credit's great. I've got another name. I've got another one for you. Hopefully, if you do use this, and you may mention something's a shit idea, but if you do use it, obviously just credit The Contrarian's podcast. Sure. You can't say fire the liar because apparently it's too far. Well, our nation's got that. How about you change it from said Anthony Albanese, Anthony Albalire? Can we just talk about that? I think if you're going to do that, it's got to kind of work. I think it kind of works from a linguistic perspective.

1:28:38I think maybe we can go over sneaky Albanese or something like that. It doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Anthony Albalire. Trump got a few good hits in. Trump's amazing. This is one of Trump's real skills, I think. He's coming up with these names. I don't think governing's his greatest skill. I think nickname is his greatest skill. Why do you think, you know, we talk a lot about this liar thing. Sure. Why does it – I'm trying to ask this question because I don't want to give you free hits with these questions. But it is an intriguing question to ask. So we just spoke to these guys at the end of the table and they're in a slightly younger demographic.

1:29:13And their view is it's not really – what happens – We're still young. Well, at heart. Adam definitely thinks he's young. How old are you now, Adam? We're about the same age. All right. We're definitely young. Adam's 25 at heart. And so they, if you talk to Mike and Joel, they would say, we don't think the blatant lie, I say it's a blatant lie because of the 50 times saying it's not going to happen, we don't think the blatant lie is going to have much of an effect at the next election on our age group and demographic. I've heard that a lot. And so the question is whether that's true. And if it's true, like how, like what does that say about the need for any integrity in politics at all?

1:29:52Because if that doesn't have any effect, then frankly Bill Shorten should have lied to the electorate as opposition leader and made sure he was elected and then done whatever he wanted subsequently. So trust takes a long time to build up but when it's broken it's very hard to repair. So the challenge for somebody like Albo is all right he's lied are people going to vote on the lie? No I don't think they are going to vote on the lie but everyone is going to look at every single thing he says from here on with a high degree of distrust. So there's two parts to any sort of political story or voter behaviour.

1:30:30One is who they have to be off first. They're off the government and Labor Party now. The question then is, as you said before, who's the beneficiary and who's going to offer the compelling case about a way forward for the country? I don't think Labor's got answers. I don't think the Orange Paddock has got answers. But we then have to fill that void and then actually excite people and energise people. Because if you're a start-up or a small business or people who want to get ahead. You know, we should be backing in a self-starter economy, but we need aggressive policies that show that. And if you say trust takes a long time to build...

1:31:02It does. I would say trust goes up the stairs and then off the cliff on the way down. Fair enough. And so what do people not trust the coalition with right now? Well, I don't think we've post losing that last election because there was a lot of hope that we would win it, that we have our act together. There's no point. I would agree. It looks... As someone on the outside, like with some visibility inside but on the outside yeah it looks it looks like this is a party that is not yet organized to govern that look what it looks like from the outside sure i'm not going to seek to dissuade uh that's what we have to demonstrate over the remainder of this year and next year um we've got our act together that we're focused and that that's enlivened by policy i think one of the great areas of politics is you think you unite a person a political party or a voting constituency around a person, very rare and it always ends up imploding.

1:31:55You can do it around a policy program because it's actually then not about the individual. It's about what you're trying to achieve together and what you're trying to achieve for the public. That's what's important. We talk about the branding point. We talk a lot about brand on the show and we talk about three characteristics of what makes a great brand. One is acquisition costs, one is billy charge premium, none of which is really that relevant for politicians. but one that is really relevant is forgiveness and great brands have lots of forgiveness and you say that there are two great brands of Australian politics, Liberal and Labour and I would say one of those brands the Liberal brand trashed itself through Scott Morrison and to an extent Peter Dunn I know you are on a certain side of the Liberal Party and not necessarily aligned with those guys and you're an assistant minister in the Morrison government so I don't hold you personally responsible for any of this but the Scott Morrison government destroyed a lot of faith and people like me, people call it centre-right or maybe centre-left, call it radical centrist.

1:32:49With the multi-ministry game. No, no, not even that. That was irrelevant. That wasn't great news. Partly what I did during climate. Just to be clear, I'm not forgiving it, that only came out afterwards. So the voting behaviour happened before. But I think that does. He was hated well before. Yes, but the brand kept getting damaged by him after the election. But forget that. He was voted out. He didn't lose his own seat, but everybody else lost their seat and he was in a pretty safe seat. But the problem with the Liberal Party now is liberals were the highest spending, highest taxing government through the Morrison era.

1:33:17Maybe now it's gotten a bit higher, but certainly to that point it was the highest spending. And this is pre-COVID even, when we didn't have this ridiculous emergency. Then we had JobKeeper, it was a disgrace for policy that was the biggest spending policy ever, that was actually miscosted. So you had the Liberal Party, which was always the brand of, we're going to be fiscally responsible, and the Liberal Party trashed this brand. I think the voters have just said, well, I can't trust Labor with the economy now, because for reasons we'll get to, I can't trust liberals, because what we did over COVID, or maybe we've got this poor enhance and she can't be any worse than these guys.

1:33:46Is that not what's happening? That's part of it. And as somebody who sat inside that government and argued for us to curtail JobKeeper, particularly in the second year when it was clear that it was being overpaid, and I don't want to breach confidences, but getting a lot of pushback on that, we spent too much money. There is no point pretending otherwise. And I think we need to be honest about it. I think one of the most important things going to point of forgiveness is you actually need to start by acknowledging errors that were made there were errors made and some of that was driven by the the moment being people didn't know particularly in the early days what was going to come with COVID I don't think that's acceptable in the second year of COVID just as I don't think what happened to the state government level was acceptable in the second year of COVID so to rebuild that trust you have to start by acknowledging that.

1:34:35When I relaunched my campaign for Goldstein in 2022, while I acknowledged that most of the factors that drove votes away from us didn't come from me personally, the first thing I did was acknowledge it, thank the electorate for the lesson, and that it was learned. Because it is really important that people hear that, so then they're interested in what you've got to say going to the next point. So yes, we need to rebuild our economic credibility. It's about acknowledging that too much money was spent, and I believe that very strongly. If you look at this particular area now, and I'm going to talk about tax policy in a second, but we've got a deficit, call it a loan to banks, to creditors, so to bondholders of a trillion dollars, getting 1.2 trillion in the next three years.

1:35:17That's effectively a massive intergenerational debt bomb being passed over to the next generation. So we've got this massive debt we've got to cover. And then Australia's not alone here, clearly. Actually, Australia's relatively low compared to most other countries. But that doesn't matter. We're still high. We should judge ourselves against our own performance. 2007 we were net positive yeah now we're trending towards by the end of this decade 1.25 trillion and i couldn't agree more but to fix that you got to do probably two things you got to spend less and you may or may not have to tax more but you certainly have to spend less definitely spend less where do we start spending less so the first thing we have to target is the um naked corruption and i say this very deliberately you've got between the ndis fraud and corruption which depending on which estimate you use, is between 10 % to 20 % of a growing budget.

1:36:02Now, you know, comfortably above$50 billion. You've got replication of the activity going there to home aged care packages. You've got phantom children enrolled in childcare, et cetera. Just targeting waste and corruption would save you tens of billions of dollars. But at the moment, the schemes are just completely open for doing so. You know, we can then go through specific measures. We'll take this one out and that one out. but it's got to start with addressing where honest taxpayers' money goes to dishonest activity. Think about the$15 billion that was handed to organised crime through the CFMEU labour cartel.

1:36:36I just find it extraordinary that that is not consistently unfeasible. Would you cancel the SRL, the$100 billion SRL? That's a state project, so I can't cancel it. But I wouldn't give any money to it, no. Very clear about that. And you've got Dutton in the last election had a sort of half-assed policy of reducing public service, running back work from home, all very sensible policies. He was completely massacred by everyone. These were hardly controversial. We suggest that people who get paid by taxpayers actually rock up to work. But he couldn't – the electorate seemed to hate it, but it wasn't sold right.

1:37:06Would you back this again? Well, I think it's a long way of looking at it. I look at policy based on what is the outcome we're trying to achieve. And so, you know, you need a number of public servants you need to deliver a public outcome. I think AI, a lot of public servant jobs, are process-driven. So there's, one, an opportunity to say, well, how do we do some things more efficiently? I said this at the National Press Club recently, and that we need to be honest about the fact that if someone can do a job more efficient, or AI can do a job or remove a process, then we should be looking first and foremost at can we be redeploying that person towards an outcomes-orientated role to improve outcomes for the Australian people?

1:37:46Because I think a lot of good money is being thrown after process that we could drive further, faster forward. But let's ask that question in a more brutal way. So basically there's a big federal public service. Public service jobs are driving almost all employment growth in Australia. Unfortunately. Health and education. The Liberal Party is never going to be the Premier of the ACT ever again in my lifetime. Maybe I'll be wrong, but it ain't looking good for you. Mark Parton is a great leader in the opposition. I'm sure he is great. And there can be fantastic people that flap their arms really fast, but they're never going to fly, okay?

1:38:24And so that's the reality. I've never heard that expression before. And so I think I just might have made it up now. But the bottom line is this. These public servants, they don't vote for you. And there's a lot of them and more and more and more and it seems to me they don't vote for you. Am I wrong? Do they vote for you? What percentage are voting for you? Some do. What, 20 %? Well, breaking down public servants and their voting behaviour in the ACT is challenging. But at the end of the day, I get the point you're making. Yes, they may or may not vote for us, but is that really a determinant which we should be governing?

1:38:58I don't think so. It means you can significantly reduce their numbers once you're elected because they aren't voting for you anyway. That's also why I say right from the get-go, our focus in the public service should be what should be necessary to achieve an outcome that's consistent with what we want for people. If we have people needlessly employed, doing nothing, contributing nothing, that are just there to prop up the voting block of the ALP or the TEALs or anything else, of course I don't believe that's the basis in which we should employ people. What's the outcome we're trying to achieve?

1:39:32I think AI has an enormous opportunity to streamline the public service and actually do something really powerful. Because at the moment if you're an ordinary Australian, as it were, an everyday Australian, and you're engaging with bureaucracy, your job is to conform to the bureaucracy. AI enables the bureaucracy to wrap around you and actually give you support on your needs. And I think that's actually really exciting. We shouldn't be afraid of it. I agree. So we talk about needing to cut costs, which I think we all agree. I think most Australians agree on this. Then you've got the revenue side.

1:40:03And part of the revenue side is taxing people more. But the other part of the revenue side is… It may have to involve that. It could also involve growth. Well, the other part is, and this is where probably I've had my biggest disagreement with you, and this is back in your last campaign with your namesake, Jeff, I think it was 2019, where you killed Labor's suggestion to – especially how it works with superannuations. If you're a superannuation and you own shares in a company that pays dividends, because you're not paying tax, the government sends you a cheque because you can't get your dividend.

1:40:31We'll give you money for what would have been the dividend. Basically, you get a rebate for the tax the company paid because the amount the company was charged at the percentage is higher than your percentage and you're considered to be the shareholder. So why should the ultimate shareholder who owns shares in a company be taxed at a higher rate just because the profits pass through the company first? That is a little introduction to dividend imputation, everybody. Yes, exactly. So let me talk about broader superannuation. Although I'm not saying I agree. I'm just saying that's the philosophy.

1:41:00So that was essentially giving money to really rich people is part of the problem there. But if you look at superannuation… Well, that's part of the folly is actually that thinking. But anyway, keep going on. If you look at superannuation in general, so this is obviously a Paul Keating Labor Party… it was introduced in I think it was in the early 90s the Superannuation Guarantee. Ostensibly the PJK's argument for superannuation is we've got this big pension problem. If we get people to save their own money we'll pay much less of a pension. If you do some really, this is some really rough numbers.

1:41:27It's taxation by a different mechanism essentially. Instead of the government having to pay pensions you force employers to pay a superannuation tax to individuals that means governments don't have to pay pensions in future. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. What now is bigger? the amount that's paid out in the pension, if everyone got a pension, or the tax concession. What you need to look at is how much has the pension dropped, as in percentage of people on the pension dropped. No, no, I've asked a question. Hang on. You're dealing as politician to politician. Neither one of you is going to answer the other one's question.

1:41:57No, no, no. I'm happy to answer your question. I'm happy to answer your question. But the reality is that we now pay more out in superannuation tax concessions if we've driven more and more behaviour into super than we now pay out in the pension or if everybody... Well, I think we're talking the same thing. And so the argument that somehow it saved the taxpayer money, you know, and foregone tax is not the same thing as money going out, but every country needs some sort of pension-based or superannuation-based system to support people in their older age. People are now dying with more, basically their entire principle intact.

1:42:33And that's one of the big challenges of superannuation because people actually have more than they need and we continue to increase the amount people contribute. I think we're talking the same thing. What's your problem? I think my point is the pension has gone from 77 % people when Keating introduced it to 67%. So about a$10 billion cost reduction and supercost is about$50 billion a year, partly because of the stuff that you were able to stop in 2019. This is the greatest tax reward in Australia. This is$40 billion being given to people who obviously are too rich to be on the pension and this is excluding their principal residence because it's not counted for the pension.

1:43:07There's a lot of people in part pensions as well. But regardless, this isn't people who are on the verge of poverty, can't afford to have their house. Sorry, can I just clarify? This is the great folly of what Labor didn't understand in 2019. They said, oh, it's all just people who are rich with yachts. But what they wouldn't listen to was the people who had turned up to our inquiry who said, actually, my income is$25 ,000 a year. $8 ,000 of that is the refundable franking credits and I would be pushed below the poverty line if you change the law this way. And they just said, nah, you're all rich, forget about it.

1:43:42And the thing was there are a lot more of those people than you realise. Yes, there are absolutely some self-managed superannuants who are doing well just like there is in the rest of the economy. But a lot of people, it was the difference between whether they're above or below the poverty line and Labor wouldn't listen to them. And I would really counsel, listen to them. That's almost a side point though. The point is superannuation is a$50 billion cost to the economy by the way of people paying less tax. and it saves us$10 billion, so this is$40-plus billion we're out of pocket, that's 10x what the capital gains tax discount removal is going to cost.

1:44:14So there's far better ways to create an equitable... I think the biggest problem with what Chalmers and Albanese have done is they've tried to claim this as a fair tax system. We're trying to make it fair. We've actually made it more unfair is part of the problem. And part of the great unfairness is this huge superannuation cost of$50 billion to people who, in many cases, are quite wealthy because the$10 million of Orkloose House isn't counted in the calculation. But it's your sales pitch. By the way, I just want to say this. Everyone, each side has got their extreme examples. One's got yachts.

1:44:42One's got without the$4 ,000 I'm eating, you know, stale bread or whatever it is. The truth is always somewhere in between these things. But is your point basically dividend imputation should be progressively reduced to save tax money? I think dividend imputation is like the thinnest of the reg. The superannuation as a whole needs to be looked at. Like how can we be ignoring something that costs so much when we're stuffing around with$4 billion? Because that is Tim's constituency. So what's your view on the untouchable nature of superannuation concessions? Well, I think any conversation around tax reform has to start with the baseline, which is what are we trying to achieve?

1:45:19I keep coming back to that central proposition, what are we trying to achieve? Because at the moment we have a thicket or a patchwork of policy that is all based on interest. Labor Party is the party of industry super funds. And look at it. Every time they make a decision, it's how do we get maximum amount of money into the industry super funds, which then get paid out through marketing expenses. There's about half a billion dollars over the past decade of your retirement savings, which, oh, what shock, goes to the unions who then campaign to keep Labor in office so that they can compel legally more people to contribute more money into industry super funds.

1:45:49It's just a giant money laundering washing machine. You're preaching to the choir on that. I know, I know. But I'm not just really sure that every listener or viewer understands that. So I think there's that one problem. And then, of course, the other side is you've got self-managed superannuation who vary. Some people have a lot less than even half a million dollars. But I actually think what we should be aiming for is to encourage people to have their own self-managed superannuation fund. They should be incentivised, of course, to make life decisions that contribute to it. But I think we've also got the priority around superannuation wrong, where at the moment we say superannuation is the most important financial imperative in your life.

1:46:30It's simply not true. The most important financial imperative in your life outside of good education is actually to buy your home because you get the benefits of that in your working life and retirement. And a retirement system relies on three pillars. One is your superannuation. The other is a pension for those who are less well off. And the third one is that it's assumed you own your own home because nobody will retire in greater poverty than people who are renting in retirement. And why could – I mean, you're a great policy campaigner and Geoff Wilson is a surprisingly good policy campaigner and frankly, you had a big role in flipping the policy that Adam referred to but you couldn't flip this CGT slash negative gearing stuff.

1:47:10It seems to have not penetrated the armour of Labor and my view is, you can comment on this or not, but my view is Labor saw what happened in Albury, Wodonga, that electorate where you guys lost the seat and went to One Nation and thought no one's going to listen to the coalition anyway no matter what we do, and I think they've largely... Do you think they've proven to be correct on that? Like, why weren't you able to flip it with Geoff this time? So, firstly, November is when they made this decision, well before the Farabay election. So you think it's an older decision than they said it was? Yeah, well, they started the conversation earlier.

1:47:45They might have made the decision later. But, remember, the franking credits inquiry was led up to the 2019 election. They weren't in government. So what we did, by flipping it, as you put it, was we defeated them getting elected to government. This time they're in government. A budget's been handed down that includes these measures, but that doesn't mean that that's the end of the process because to me what it reveals is a fundamental lack of engagement with our politics. Politics is much about what you believe in as who you mobilise and what the real problem in this one is, the self-starting community, the start-ups, the small businesses, all the people that hit are disorganised.

1:48:28You know, you're all busy getting on with your life. And so they've gone, we can hit them and what are they going to do? And I'll be polite and say, every time I have tried to engage with small business to organise them, saying this is the sort of stuff that's coming at them, it's like, ah, we don't worry about it, we'll be right. And now all of a sudden people are realising that this is a serious deal. We can't change the law till the next election. We've made a commitment that we're going to repeal these measures. But we also need to talk about how we're going to build a tax system, an economy that's outcomes orientated because what we actually need is an economy that's geared towards growth again because I don't want to increase taxes.

1:49:01I think you already work hard enough and pay enough taxes. What I want is a growing economy that's a bit more dynamic than it is now where people are contributing because they're earning more, they're growing and we're succeeding together as a country. We should pay less. I'm sure we agree. We should pay less tax but I'll say something that you'll be very excited about me saying which is not only is the tech industry not well organised but where it is well organised like with the Tech Council, the immediate past president is now an advisor to a government organisation. And so it's going to be pretty tough to get some hate directed towards the government from that corner of society.

1:49:35I mean, you've got to understand Labor Party is a corrupt patronage network. And it really is. They put their people into positions to silence those organisations. So the gas industry is a classic example of this. The entire Australian energy producers, which is the gas industry, I'm not arguing for or against them, is filled with Labor Party people and so they do nothing, they leak information to the Labor Party against the gas industry even though they're paid by the gas industry. The tech council, I won't say I have evidence of the same sort of behaviour. If you want people to take you seriously, particularly as an industry association, you need to stand up, be counted and fight for your members.

1:50:13Instead what they do is acquiesce. A lot of tech council members went off and backed the teals to remove liberals and now turn around and say we want Liberal policy. Guys, you made your bed. Time to stand up, lead and fight for a future. So you're obviously scathing of the Labor Party. And the teals. And it's not for me to defend any of them. But I will say this. Like, we would love to get someone from the Labor Party. We asked. Jim Chalmers would be great. We asked your colleague in the Labor Party to come on. The other one would come on, which says a lot. These are taxpayer-funded people who won't speak to Australians.

1:50:46Labor knows who they govern for. Labor governs for public servants, the unions, and welfare recipients. I'm not criticising them, but they know who their constituency is. I think what we've lost, and I've said this publicly many times, is we have lost sight of who it is we stand for. I don't believe I have, but others have. We fight for small businesses in particular, and the self-starters of this country, the people who grow the economy, employ Australians, back themselves in, and that's who I want to support. And so I'm not surprised Labor's turning around saying we don't want to talk to that.

1:51:18I would love to have Jim Chalmers or Charlton on here telling me how terrible you are and how hopeless the Liberal Party is. And I'll let them say that as well. But the thing is, it's basically impossible to get them to come on. And I'm a centrist. Like, I'm sympathetic to some policies in the Liberal Party. And frankly, in the past, I've been sympathetic to some policies in the Labor Party. That's because you think for yourself. It's just impossible. It's impossible to get them on. We'll vote for whoever's... I think both of us are for you as well. We'll vote for whoever's close to the centre.

1:51:46and if you look at the last election. Exactly. That's a great way of saying it. How do you define the centre, by the way? Because this is, I think, one of the great – everyone says that. This is the party I would love to see. I think you personally probably are very aligned with this but unfortunately there's a big MAGA element of the Liberal Party that isn't. But it's a party that balances the budget, that taxes people fairly, that doesn't impose 47 % taxes for a high-risk asset. Or income. Or income. Or 30 % taxes to middle-class people. and that is also called socially progressive, that is in favour of abortion, that favours gay rights.

1:52:21Would you say progressive or would you say socially respectful? Because I don't want to run your life. How you live your life is up to you and I respect that and I also don't want it in return. But I would say more than respectful because there are some people in society, I think it's actually a relatively thin layer, that can't survive for themselves and I think you have to take care of them and I think public health care should be free for people if they want to use that and I think education should be free if people want... I believe in those things. To a degree. Presumably you don't support the NHS.

1:52:51No, I don't. Which is the worst health system in the world because it's free. If you go back 20 years... Well, the NHS's problem isn't that it's just free. It's to do with the lack of flexibility within the system and they basically don't have a private system that co-locates alongside... Anyway, we can talk about the NHS. That is the problem. But 20 years ago in Australia, you would say... I mean, I don't want to say 20 years ago, but look, this is a fact. Like, there was a... Look, I know a bit about the public health system. there was a public health system that was government funded people always complain there's not enough money not enough beds that's life okay it was government funded it worked well it was apolitical that's a big thing it was there was no politics in the like there might have been party politics but there was no fighting against the enlightenment politics in the in the medical system so that's part of what i mean by centrism like i don't think leave it all to the market economy and like god we'll take care of the rest like i think you need to provide a safety net for some people who really do need a safety net.

1:53:45Sure, but I think everybody accepts that. The question is, where are the incentives? And if the incentives are to sit down or simply to wait to receive or be dependent, that's something I can't sort of support. The incentives, particularly for those who can, should be, how do you get ahead? How do you provide for yourself and your family? Because if we don't have a nation of people who aspire to stand up on their own two feet, they'll never be in the best position to help others. Everyone talks about tax. Adam's the boss of this podcast so i always have to ask permission to ask questions am i allowed to ask questions you can't well you're good at asking questions you've been very candid so i'm going to ask you a bit of an obtuse question but i think you'll get the gist of it so we're talking about tax take and we've got a particular view of something i'm going to mention which is this so i'm going to ask you a hypothetical if you own a property and you've got a backyard and i go into your backyard yes dig holes in it and pull out the minerals inside your backyard should I give most of the profits to you for taking out those minerals?

1:54:43Well, so currently the law is established that you pay it to the state governments. I don't pay much, though. I pay 7.5 % of my revenue to the state government. What about offshore gas? Let's put it in your backyard. It was an offshore. It was an ocean. But broadly, I just want to ask you, because I'm not going to say... I think the gas example is a better one. I'm not going to say come and define policy on this podcast, but I'm saying hypothetical. It's a bit of a political. Yeah. Maybe I'll say it like this. The Norwegians, what they think is the resources of the country belong to everyone, including future generations that haven't been born yet of Norwegians, and so whoever they let immigrate into their country.

1:55:21And so we will make sure that there's money for them. Yep. And they have a particular way of taxing, which is effectively taking most of the profits of the company. And so philosophically, how do you feel about what is fair for Australians to receive of resources that are really owned by current and future generations of Australians? So I absolutely believe that the resources of this country belong to this nation. The question is we need to get the companies to get in and extract them. The government doesn't have the technology to do that, nor the expertise. So we need to work with partners to do it and to do it in a way that exports them and or uses them for domestic consumption where royalties are paid to the Australian people.

1:56:02That isn't in dispute. We're all in agreement with that. We're all in agreeing with that. And so let's use the example of the gas sector, which is a topical conversation, and it's misrepresented that they pay only a small amount of tax from the petroleum resource rent tax, ignoring the fact that the PRRT is one of the smaller taxes, and that means there's more company tax paid at the other end at a higher rate of 30%. And so the question then is, do we want taxes paid at the higher end when people make a profit or do we want them to pay through a much more narrow royalty scheme? What do you think?

1:56:38Well, all I want is revenue to be paid. 40 % of the revenue of the gas industry is paid in taxes. So it's not how it's represented, but that's actually the truth. That's demonstrated by ATO data, et cetera. And so 40%, you know, roughly seems about right, unless we want to shift as they do in Norway, the risk. What they do in Norway is they say the government's going to take all the risk, therefore they take all the reward, where we say the company should take the risk, therefore they take a chunk of the reward. And Norway has a massive sovereign wealth fund. Yes. And we've got a joke of a sovereign wealth fund by comparison.

1:57:15That's not true, actually. It's just how you want to characterise it. One, we have things like the future fund, but we also have superannuation. Superannuation is a sovereign wealth fund. It's just that we hold it in individual accounts rather than giving government all control over it. That's where there's this misunderstanding. There's a massive divide about how we run our systems and so just drawing simple comparisons doesn't work that way. Because the whole point of a sovereign wealth fund is to provide for future generations. What's the point of a superannuation scheme? Well, to obviously manage people's challenges and future generations.

1:57:49And so there's lots of complexity with all of these bits and pieces. But I'll say this in the simplest possible way. The people that – so those two guys at the end of the table, all those young guys, they own the iron ore in Western Australia along with all other Australians. No, actually the iron ore in Western Australia – oh, hang on, you've got to get dependent upon which type of mineral because they're mostly owned by state governments, not by the federal government. But ultimately I think the stuff in the ground in Australia is owned by Australians. Yep. Yet the richest people in this country are the people that dig holes and pull our resources out of the ground and sell them as rocks.

1:58:30That means relatively unprocessed. I was shocked when I found out a few years ago there's basically ships full of rocks that go over to China. That's what we're selling. This is news to you? Well, it was a few years ago. I never would anticipate so little was done with the rocks. These are the richest people in Australia. How can these be the richest people in Australia? Doesn't it say, like, I want to do that. I want that job. Let me pull out your minerals from the ground and be the richest person in Australia. Sure. I mean, the decisions that are made in past generations, because a lot of these decisions were made a long time ago, we can't just unpack and undo.

1:59:03But the question is why. Firstly, they've invested and they've created the pathway to export the minerals. There's no point pretending otherwise. They've had record high prices for a long period of time. That's another reason why, from other countries buying them in, which we get a benefit as Australians too by the revenue that goes into state and federal budgets. But if you process it onshore, does it necessarily have the same demand from other countries because then you've got to process the – pay for the processing and then the demand has got to be there and you've got to pay for the shipping of freight.

1:59:37I don't know. Like, this is not my industry. What I know is I want the richest people – you complained, Adam, when the richest guy in the world or France or something is a luxury goods dude, right? Bernie Anno. Bernie Anno. It's not good, right? It is not good in this country that the richest people dig holes. I agree with you on that. And the answer isn't solely just about tax. We also need to increase the competitiveness and dynamism of our economy. We've done the complete reverse. And I said before, one of the things I wanted was a more dynamic economy, which is one of the reasons why the federal budget is so bad, because it directly targets and attacks the startup community.

2:00:14And when you think about it, you know, there was a study by the E61 Institute that was done a while ago that looked at which companies were most likely to be productive, and they were those in the first five years. Which ones were disproportionately likely to employ people, companies in their first two years. And the ones that were most likely to be productive were also those that had employee share ownership schemes, because you get interest in alignment. I want interest in alignment to grow the future of the economy, and instead they're being targeted. Does the rest of your party agree with you?

2:00:45I think they do, but I think I'm more laser-like focused on this point. I think one of the great problems with the budget, well, was – and certainly in the explanation of it is what Charmers and Albanese have tried to do. And I don't think they've really succeeded. They have succeeded with some people as they try to make this look like this is an intergenerational budget. We're coming to the rescue of young people. But in reality, they're actually – pretty much every single policy is anti-young person. They've kept super, as I said, untouched. I know that's a liberal policy as well, but Labor's kept super untouched.

2:01:13They've grandfathered negative gearing. So if you're old and rich, you can keep your negative gearing. And you've also grandfathered the CGE valuation. You can be younger, Rich, and keep your negative hearing as well. Realistically. And they've also grandfathered valuation. So Adir and I, fine, because our business gets valued next year. But if you started a business now, you're stuffed. Unless you're a valuer. And if you're a valuer, it's a great one. But you're starting a valuation business. It's going to be a good year. It'll be a good year for service providers adding agency costs to the economy.

2:01:39You know full well that the lawyers and the accountants always win. Yeah. So if you look at the – virtually every policy that Labor has done, it's really been an anti-young person policy and a pro-old person policy. but one of the great criticisms of the Liberal Party has been, you've been the same. Are you willing to actually take a view that really does try and break this intergenerational inequity? And it's going to be a hard decision. Are you going to hit super? Are you going to hit the primary residents? Are you going to hit negative gearing for everyone? It's going to be one of those hard decisions that is going to be unpopular for a cohort of the population.

2:02:05Well, I'll start where I keep coming back to. What's the objective? Which is I want whatever generation of Australians you're in to be in a position to get ahead and to be able to work hard and that hard work actually pays off. and then I'm interested in how you then design a tax system that empowers you. Now, I'm but one person. You know, you need another at least 75 votes in the House plus another 37 votes in the Senate to get something through but I think we need to – I think the big thing out of the last election was too many of my colleagues tried to play a small target strategy. I disagree with it then.

2:02:40I disagree with it now. I have a very strong view we need to be a big target and we need to offer a compelling vision where young Australians, older Australians go, doesn't matter how hard you've got to apply your effort, you'll get ahead because hard work should pay off. People should be respected and they should feel in control of their lives. So Joel at the end of the table, he's the one on the left with the long hair. And the orangey type. So Joel, I think Joel might be 25. Is that something in that vicinity? I'm 27 on Saturday. Happy birthday. This is a nice birthday present because your birthday present is that the shadow treasurer is going to get you a house.

2:03:17That would be really good. So when you're the treasurer of Australia, how is Joel going to be able to afford a house in ways that he can't today and has no hope of being able to buy a house today? Where does he want to buy? He wants to buy in the city. Right, and what does he want to buy? He wants to buy a two-bedroom apartment. Is that right, Joel? A townhouse apartment. Could go Brunswick, Coburg, I don't mind. He wants to be North. So he's probably not going to vote for you realistically. But that's okay because, you know, being elected is all about making things better for all Australians, not just the people that voted for you, right?

2:03:54I agree with that. Unlike the government in Victoria does not agree with that, as you know. Labor knows who they govern for and it's for a narrow subset. But so what – I know I'm putting you on the spot, but, like, realistically speaking, there's all this talk about all sorts of ways that Joel is going to be able to get a house or his townhouse or his apartment. How's it going to be different when you're the treasurer? Well, the difference is, one, we've said that we're not going to allow migration to continue to overshoot while we haven't got the volume of housing stock. And that's a balancing act because we need people to be able to build houses and the skills to do so.

2:04:28But if you keep overshooting migration, which is what we've been doing, while not building new housing stock, you only get one impact. So we should ask Joel as you say this thing. So, Joel, would you be comfortable with migration being reduced if there's an argument that it makes housing more accessible for you? Yeah, I resonate with the Balancing Act rather than migration bad, and that's the only reason. So we're sophisticated people here, right? No, he's very sophisticated. But I think most people are very reasonable, like Joel, where people want a balance. They understand that the job of the country is first and foremost to provide for its citizens, but that is not absent generosity and wanting to work with people.

2:05:08Don't lose Joel with the politics stuff. You've got him on the hook right now. You've got him on the hook. So keep going. What else? Well, I was going to say he's probably not interested in our$5 billion for building new housing stock in new suburbs if he wants to live. That's why I asked. Would you be prepared to live 15 kilometres away from the CBD? Is that about the right distance? Well, it depends on which city you're in. 25 kilometres away. 25's losing me. Because there's no transport infrastructure in this state to get people into the city. That is one of the biggest problems, one of the greatest acts of negligence of the state government, particularly when I was going around, because the suburban rail loop starts in my electorate just, and I'm always amazed the number of people say, people in the north and west have no public transport infrastructure.

2:05:51Why are we getting this epic money pit when they haven't even got basic infrastructure? So he agrees, but he's not going to be sold on living 25 kilometres away, so keep going, what else is he going? So is he got – are you a good employer who offers employee share ownership schemes? Well, we don't at the moment because it's early days, but tell me about that. That's interesting. Well, there's a current system where you have employee share ownership schemes and as part of the income that Joel earns, part of he gets his equity in the business. And so as a consequence, he would normally pay it at the capital gains tax discounted rate of essentially 23.5%.

2:06:27Under labour, it'll be 47%. We'll reduce it back down to 23.5%. So if you were a good employer and he was working hard and he was able to secure an equity share in the business and cashed out an exit point, you would be successful. You would be successful. But Joel would also be successful. But I think he's even better for you because unless I'm wrong, Joel, you run your own business effectively. There you go. Is that right? I contract for Mike here. Yeah. And so Mike is the other guy. Is that Mike? Right. Mike's the president. Does he offer him please, Sharon? Mike's the president. He miraculously managed to buy a house.

2:07:00And so what is going to be good for Mike? So Mike owns a house. He runs his own business. What are you going to do for him as treasurer? It goes back to the same point around CGT. But if you cash out your business at the moment from a future date, it will now be indexed versus saying it should be 23.5%. So he's going to pay more tax on selling this. He's going to pay more tax. And so a lot more tax. So that's important. but you said he's already bought his house, so why am I going to encourage him about how to buy another house? What do you think is going to happen to his interest rates under your treasurorship?

2:07:35The primary driver of interest rates at the moment is federal and state government spending. So we're going to cut that, and I've already gone through some of the examples of what we need to do, which will put downward pressure on interest rates. Because, you know, the Reserve Bank is meeting tomorrow. I don't know when this is broadcast. It'll be broadcast as the Reserve Bank, isn't it? but whatever it does we will not get inflation interest rates down if you don't get inflation down you're not going to get inflation down unless you actually contain public spending australia is suffering is one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed world it's been persistent and it's going to continue in that trajectory until you get public spending under control we've got other factors internationally as well going on but they're a distraction from the core problem which existed before those international events and do Can I just ask both of you guys something?

2:08:25You can say no to this, right? It was an honest podcast. Does this conversation change your perception of the Liberal Party at all or not? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it's fantastic that you're coming on the pod and it's very interesting hearing your thoughts, like direct from the horse's mouth, I guess. It's really interesting. So I appreciate you coming on. And Joel, it might be fair to say you're not naturally a coalition voter. I'm making a assumption. Not naturally, no. And so does this change it or is this consistent with your existing views? Like how does it relate? I'm fairly on the same page with Mike.

2:08:58It's nice to humanise it because the algorithms that I'm fed, it's very demonising of all kind of liberal activities. So it's always nice to talk to a voice. Can I actually – you just touched on a really interesting point, which is the algorithms that's being fed to you. And like I get algorithms fed to me too and I actually often, shall we say, cross-reference or check because some people say All I'm getting in my algorithm at the moment is content from Labor or the Orange Paddock or somewhere else. You'll see a lot of Contrarians podcast in your algorithm. Do I follow it? You comment on every post.

2:09:31And what is the handle? How do I know? I'm the least involved in this podcast. You'll see every bit of contribution I make, you're currently experiencing. On LinkedIn, it's just the Contrarians podcast with Adam and Adir. And I'm sure if you search it, you'll find it everywhere. There you go. We'll make sure we find it. That's why he gets the big bucks. But I think this is a really big problem with modern society where we have this reinforcement of our value sets or ideas. And I noticed that particularly post-budget, I made sure that I actively followed every single small business voice, like on Instagram.

2:10:05And so now you get constant reinforcement on that, which, you know, I love. But you've also got to make sure you don't fall into the echo chamber. And that's why – and with the media market, at as fragmented as it is now, much more fragmented. Believe it or not, guys, Mike and Joel, there was a time where you picked up the newspaper and everybody basically read the same thing and six o 'clock news came on and everybody basically heard the same thing. And now we're all being fed our own individual media and it just makes it impossible to know what people are actually saying or doing. That's amazing, Tim.

2:10:35We're so grateful for you being so generous with your time, spending an hour on the pod. We're certainly kicking you home in the next election. We think you're going to be an amazing treasurer and hopefully Prime Minister one day. Oh, that's very hard. Hopefully quite soon at this rate. I do. Absolutely agree. Yeah, it's fantastic to have you here. And hopefully, I mean, we just try to have, like, very open kind of conversations. I think you've heard from these guys. Like, there's work to do if the coalition and the Liberal Party is going to rehabilitate their brand amongst young people. I couldn't agree with you more.

2:11:03In fact, I wrote a book in 2020 called The New Social Contract, Renewing the Liberal Vision for Australia. And it was explicitly about how we achieve intergenerational fairness and particularly around how we empower young Australians to own their own home. And it's about how we get our priorities right, our incentives right, so that we can grow the economy and give people a sense of hope because that's what people need to keep going. We've all got to be fed and watered and have a home and I'm not disputing that. But hope is central to young Australians wanting to get ahead. And just to reiterate, we'll be very fair to a Labor Party person, to a One Nation, to a Teal.

2:11:41Not to a Green. Well, we don't want them on the podcast, to be honest. But anyone else will be fair and fair. Tell you about Joel. We love to hear. Joel will not be – don't tar Joel with that brush. Don't tar Joel with that brush. Is the orange a secret sign? No, I feel like that's possibly equally unlikely. Thank you, Tim. It's great to have you on. Hopefully you get you on before the election. Look forward to it. Thanks, Adam. Thanks. Thanks, Tim.

2:12:13Thank you.