In this interview Daniel Wild appeared on Credlin – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research into Australia’s National Defence.
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.
Caleb Bond:
Joining me now is Deputy Executive Director at the Institute of Public Affairs, Daniel Wild, and Sky News contributor, Karalee Katsambanis. Welcome to you both. You saw a bit there of how question time played out today. Now, we’ve only had two sessions so far, Karalee, but this far in, two days in, how do you think the opposition has gone, particularly when, of course, now it’s a sea of red in the Lower House?
Karalee Katsambanis:
Look, I think that the opposition really need to tighten up their questioning. As we know, Albanese has announced a couple of changes, that members can be ejected, not just for the hour but for three hours. But also the number of questions that the opposition is allowed has been reduced, not to the crossbenchers or the Independents, but to the opposition, which means they need to tighten up their questioning.
Yesterday, I thought it was quite disappointing. We knew that there would be Dorothy Dixers that we given. I think that they should be got rid of. Like in the Victorian Parliament here, you’re not meant to have Dorothy Dixers, and they’ve gone. Same as in the United Kingdom. But you just knew that there were going to be free kicks as well. You’ve got to tighten up your language as well.
Sussan Ley, naturally there’s a bit of nervousness of any new leader. I thought Milton Dick, who was unanimously returned as Speaker by both houses, I thought he did actually very well yesterday. But I just think that Sussan Ley, you just need to get straight to the point. And that’ll come as well. She has to grow into the role, no matter what anybody says. I know that she’s been in Parliament for 24 years, but she’s now the leader. And I think you need that certain amount of sharpness with those questions and you need to prosecute the point.
The one thing that I would say is there’s no point having a myriad of questions to ask if you’re not actually getting the answer that you need. Because as we know with reduced questioning, it means that there’ll be less transparency that people will be able to see through in this government. So, nice short questions. I’ve probably been a bit wordy tonight, but you get exactly what I’m saying.
Caleb Bond:
And the problem is, I mean, it’s very hard to look cohesive and have a message to take to the government when you haven’t really even settled on your policy platform yet. I mean, everything’s on the table. As I said last night on The Late Debate, that table must be groaning under the pressure of all these things they have to consider. And of course the other big political story today was the government lifting its long-standing de facto ban on US beef, which Labour would actually have us believe has nothing to do with Trump’s tariffs.
Julie Collins:
This decision has been purely based on science and a rigorous assessment by my department. This is a decision based on science. But this decision is based on science.
Caleb Bond:
What a coinkydink. And I mean, funnily enough, the Trump administration sees it differently. They’ve already claimed this as a massive win. And in terms of what this means for our farmers, the Nationals are not happy.
Kevin Hogan:
We just don’t want any of the biosecurity measures and protocols to be weakened. We don’t know if they have been yet. We haven’t been given assurances yet that they have been. They’ve leaked this through a journalist.
Caleb Bond:
I mean, it’s pretty good, Daniel, to try to pull the wool over. “Oh, it’s got nothing to do with Donald Trump.” We know it’s all about Donald Trump and the United States. I think we can all call BS on that one. But have they made the right decision nevertheless?
Daniel Wild:
Well, no, they haven’t. I mean, what’s happened here, Caleb, is they’ve completely bottled the relationship with the United States, and now they’re basically offering Australian farmers up as a sacrificial lamb, if you like, to the president as a way of trying to paper over what they’ve been doing or not doing over the last few months.
And what struck me, really, about the approach of this government towards the United States is they’ve had a lack of curiosity about Donald Trump, about how he managed to become president, win, lose, win. He’s the only president to have not had prior office or have been in the military. And so they’ve never really studied why it is that he’s been so successful politically, and I don’t think they’ve been prepared for how to deal with our most important ally.
So I think this is an example of a short-term measure. They think it’s going to placate the Trump administration, but we all know ultimately what Trump is demanding of the allies of the United States is an increase in defence spending and to improve the allocation of that defence spending. So until that happens, I don’t think we’re going to see much of an improvement to that relationship, Caleb.
Caleb Bond:
And they say it’s based on science, but they haven’t really showed us the science. So we’ll wait on that one.
Now, Andrew Twiggy Forrest’s Fortescue has abandoned two of its green hydrogen projects, which surely means we are close to putting the final nail in the coffin of this thing, even though the PM still swears it’s the future. And amongst the litany of reasons they’ve cited, one is to blame Donald Trump and the change in energy policy in the United States.
Karalee, I’ll get into Twiggy and all the business he’s been talking about with Beijing with a security expert in just a moment. But it’s pretty rich to blame Trump, isn’t it? Given even projects in Australia he was trying to get off the ground, which had a lot of taxpayer money propping them up, they’re not going ahead either.
Karalee Katsambanis:
Exactly, Caleb. And the thing is, it is a little bit rich. I mean, Andrew Twiggy Forrest is a businessman. He was saying how wonderful green hydrogen is. Of course, the Trump administration has changed direction from the Biden administration. They’ve worked out that they’re going to allow coal, oil, gas, fossil fuels to flow so that Americans can get access to cheap, reliable power. Whereas, we see in Australia, we keep being promised all these green hydrogen and renewable schemes and our power bills keep going up and there are pensioners without heating, et cetera.
The interesting thing is though, that the primary source of income for Andrew Forrest is Fortescue, iron ore. He does a lot of exports. He’s a billionaire. But the thing is, and I don’t know, I don’t know whether you know either, I’m sure you do though, but he received about $60 million, as you said, in both state and federal grants for the project in Gladstone. Now he’s pulled out of it, what happens to that money? Does he have a legal responsibility to pay it back? I don’t know. He said that I think they’re going to do about $227 million in pre-tax write-downs. But what actually happens when somebody gets all those subsidies? Because as you say, it is actually taxpayers money. And for a billionaire, it’s chump change, isn’t it?
The other thing also is you mentioned about the green hydrogen, will it be the final nail in the coffin? I certainly hope so. Because you had Trafigura, I think that’s how you say it. It was a $750 million project in Port Pirie for green hydrogen. That’s now gone. You’ve had Woodside pull out of their green hydrogen projects in Oklahoma in the last 24 hours. And you’ve also got Origin Energy, the $432 million taxpayer-funded project that Chris Bowen gave last October. Origin’s pulled out of the Hunter Valley. That’s more than a billion dollars worth into green hydrogen. It actually doesn’t work. The Industrial Revolution happened for a reason, and we’ve got to just stop with this folly because it’s actually making Australians a lot worse off.
Caleb Bond:
It’s just become stupid. And while we’re on these matters, Daniel, the International Court of Justice, so the world’s highest court, has now paved the way overnight for countries to, in effect, be sued for not doing enough to address climate change. Failing to take enough action could lead to, and I quote here, “full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation, and satisfaction.”
So I guess the question now, Daniel, is, I mean, how can this be enforced? Is it possible that we could have countries saying Australia owes us a billion dollars, or whatever it is, for climate change. Do we just tell them to get nicked, or are we forced to pay this money?
Daniel Wild:
We tell them to get nicked, Caleb, is the short answer. I mean, international law doesn’t really exist in the sense that we live in a world of sovereign nation states. So we can decide what we do in our own backyard. But what I find so fascinating about this is it’s got no credibility whatsoever. I mean, seriously, does anybody think that this ruling is going to be enforced upon China or India or the United States, which is no longer a party to the Paris Climate Agreement? Of course, it’s not going to be enforced on those states.
And the other point I’d make is this legal action was brought up by Vanuatu, or at least the political leaders of Vanuatu. Now, if you look at Vanuatu, it’s 146th on the Human Development Index. So it’s got a lot more problems than whether Australia is burning coal or not. And I just feel sorry for the people of Vanuatu. They’ve got their political leaders gallivanting around the world saying that the western world are full of bad people that are causing sea levels to rise. They should be doing more in their own backyard to fix up the problems that are there. So once again I think this just shreds the credibility of the United Nations and the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats that enjoy the free ride that’s associated with that organisation.
Caleb Bond:
Hear, hear. Daniel, Karalee, thank you for joining me tonight.
This transcript of Daniel Wild speaking on Credlin – Sky News Australia from 24 July 2025 has been edited for clarity.
