In this interview, Adam Creighton appeared on Mornings with Chris Smith – 2SM to discuss the IPA’s research on Nuclear Energy.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Chris Smith:
Adam Creighton is a former Washington correspondent and economics editor at The Australian newspaper, an award-winning journalist. I love his insight, his analysis on, well, every topic he writes about. He’s a great thinker. He’s now a columnist with The Australian, but in the early part of 2025, took up the roles of senior fellow and chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.
He has been watching not only what’s happening in Australia during this election campaign, but what’s happening over these first 100 days for Donald Trump. And I thought we’d get him on the radio today and have a chat with him. Adam Creighton, welcome to the Super Radio Network.
Adam Creighton:
Thanks very much, Chris. It’s great to speak to you again.
Chris Smith:
Yeah, good to have you on. The furor over scheduling an acknowledgement to country at the Key Dawn Service in Melbourne melted my Talk Back lines down yesterday. My argument is, among others, that if we value our freedoms, why are we only dedicating a couple of days each year to remember the sacrifice of our soldiers? But every other day, we’ve got to remember elders past and present. It is way over the top. Peter Dutton is right, is he not?
Adam Creighton:
Yes, look, he’s certainly right, but I think it’s probably too little, too late. I think he should have come out with a harder line on Anzac Day itself. He equivocated on that day, and I think he’s lost a lot of primary vote support for that incident, I would say, because the vast bulk of Australians and certainly the vast bulk of servicemen and women and certainly veterans, they would not think it’s appropriate to have a Welcome to Country, especially on Anzac Day.
That would be the vast majority, and yet the elites in the media and the chattering classes, and then sadly on that day, both major parties supported the Welcome to Country on Anzac Day, I thought it was bad politics on his part. But look, he’s come around to the right view now. I think that’s great. But I do question whether it’s a bit late in the campaign.
Chris Smith:
Yeah. You sometimes get one chance to jump on these things and if you don’t get your timing right, what you say afterwards tends to have less of an impact.
Adam Creighton:
Yes.
Chris Smith:
And I understand exactly what you’re saying. If it’s so necessary that we need to have these acknowledgements to country at school assemblies, at conferences, local council meetings, why do these acknowledges charge money to do it?
Adam Creighton:
Yes. Yeah, $5,000 to $10,000 a go, I’ve read.
Chris Smith:
Wow. It’s unbelievable.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, some people were telling me the one on Anzac Day was 10,000 because it was a little bit longer than normal. That’s a pretty good hourly rate.
Chris Smith:
But then I go more than five minutes anyway.
Adam Creighton:
No, no, they don’t. But just on the Welcome to Country, I mean, I was in the U.S. for four years as you alluded to. I got back in January. And when the plane landed, for the first time I experienced this Welcome to Country. It was a Qantas flight. And I thought to myself, what is this? I’ve never heard this before. And then I quickly realised that the country’s changed so much in my four years away. There’s these Welcome to Country’s everywhere, and it’s just shocked me. Not just that, but the ABC News bulletins, they have Aboriginal names now when they start.
Chris Smith:
Every bulletin, every bulletin.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. It just shocked me. It’s just so silly. And in the U.S., even politicians in the Democrat Party would not carry on with Welcomes to Country and that sort of thing. And I know the left-wing comedian, Bill Maher, he’s been making fun of Welcomes to Country just recently on his show. It just goes to show you how different Australia is in this regard and how these virtue signalling religious rights, which is really what they are, are so rare and strange overseas.
Chris Smith:
Okay. Let me ask you a question as an overseas expat. Now that you’ve come back and you’ve been here for four or five months, have you noticed how infatuated with virtue signalling Australia has become?
Adam Creighton:
Oh yeah, certainly. It’s been a huge change. Also, when I landed that day too, I saw this big sign coming out of Sydney Airport that said, “Welcome to Gamay.” And I thought to myself, what is Gamay? And then I had to look up, it’s the Aboriginal word for Botany Bay. I’d never seen that sign before. So that’s just another example of all this virtue signalling. But I mean, it wasn’t just the cultural change, which I think is significant, but I think Australia faces really big economic problems too.
I mean, we’ve had a huge collapse in the exchange rate while I was overseas, about 20 cents. That’s a sign that the rest of the world doesn’t think we’re so crash-hot anymore. We’ve got the resource booms ending. And of course the size of government is growing ever larger every year, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.
Chris Smith:
And we’re getting rid of base load power at a great rate of knots. Which brings me to this question, this election campaign, Adam, I see very little in the way of productive reform. Now, what I mean is changes or policies, which will increase our productivity, thereby lifting wages and our living standards, which have fallen. It’s all just about one big fat bribe-a-thon.
Adam Creighton:
Yes.
Chris Smith:
There’s nothing about I’m going to restructure this part of our economy and we are going to boom because of it.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. Well, on the contrary, we’re increasing taxes and regulations on our most productive and important parts of the economy. The net-zero transition being the worst thing of all really. I mean, we obsess about Trump’s tariffs on Australia, but they’re only 10%. Really, they’re just a rounding error. It doesn’t matter. They’re not going to make much difference to Australia. But the net-zero tax, if you want to think of it that way, and it certainly is a tax that is far, far more damaging on Australian industry and jobs and productivity because it’s basically aiming to snuff out our biggest export industries, all our energy industries, coal and gas, which we rely on for our living standards, not just directly, but also indirectly because of all the money it makes that’s on the foreign markets.
It’s a real worry. And then, of course, the coalition to me has been very disappointing on the tax front. I mean, they won’t promise to stop bracket creep, where they really just should say, I mean, recently Peter Dutton said that bracket creep was insidious and it hurt productivity. Well, if that’s true, do it now.
Chris Smith:
Do something about it tomorrow, exactly.
Adam Creighton:
Yes.
Chris Smith:
And the other thing you should be doing something about, instead of backing off his support for nuclear power, how about selling it a lot better? He hasn’t been, as I understand it, to one location where that’ve earmarked for a nuclear reactor to be built.
Adam Creighton:
Yes.
Chris Smith:
Not one location. So that is running away from a policy that has the potential, Adam Creighton, to increase that productivity we miss so badly.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, certainly that’s right. I mean, we need lower energy prices, but just on the nuclear and the renewables, et cetera, I mean, I hope the opposition leaders out there today pointing out the example of Spain and Portugal and what happens if we keep going down this renewable path. We’re going to have experiences like that too. They’re absolutely devastating. Losing power, I mean, from what I’ve read so far, it was grid instability, I think, caused by solar and wind in Spain and Portugal that caused this shocking blackout, which went for hours. I mean, this is the stuff of horror movies, actually, when all the power ceases for days. It’s just..
Chris Smith:
But we’re not far away from it here, mate. At the extreme of weather in winter and summer, in the last four seasons, we have got awfully close to having similar blackouts.
Adam Creighton:
Yes, and we’ll have more. And it may take a few blackouts for some people to realise that this is not the path we want to go down. That’s a very costly way to find out.
Chris Smith:
Yeah. You have done a wonderful job in recent years following the change in government in the United States and what that might mean, not only for the U.S. but for the world. Donald Trump’s first 100 days in power for the second time, you can’t say it’s been uneventful, can you?
Adam Creighton:
No, it’s been extraordinary. I mean, I don’t have the figures at hand, but I think in the first two weeks he issued 150 Executive Orders, and then in the first few weeks of his first presidency, it was about 12 or 13. It’s been extremely busy. It’s certainly been a wild ride if you have shares in recent weeks.
Chris Smith:
Yeah.
Adam Creighton:
But look, in my view, the reason I’ve argued this in all my columns is that overall it’s a force for good. I think the system needs to be shaken up. He’s a controversial man, obviously, but he’s his political comeback is arguably the greatest of all time. I mean, I was over there at the end of 2022 when he launched his campaign again and everyone was making fun of it, making fun of him saying that it was going to be Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, blah blah, blah. And then, of course, he won the primaries and then he won what was a landslide really in the Electoral College, all seven swing states, and now he’s doing what he promised and people are upset about it.
Chris Smith:
You talk about a comeback, and he survived an assassination attempt, a very serious one.
Adam Creighton:
Yes. Yes. Sorry, I forgot that. That was incredible. It’s a marvellous historical event, really, for his supporters.
Chris Smith:
Yeah, you’re not wrong. Adam Creighton, great to have you on the programme. All the very best with the IPA. And no doubt we’ll talk again. Thank you, mate.
Adam Creighton:
Thanks very much, Chris.
Chris Smith:
All right. Columnist with The Australian and now a senior fellow and chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs, a lot of common sense. I think we award an honorary doctorate of common sense from the cast…
This transcript with Adam Creighton talking on Mornings with Chris Smith – 2SM from 29 July 2024 has been edited for clarity.
