The CFOC Recently had a distinguished privilege of having a in-depth conversation with Australia’s Deputy Prime Ministe rMichael McCormack. He has serving in the Australian House of Representatives since 2010 being elected as a representative for the division of Riverina in New South Wales. Michael has had a varied career from being a newspaper editor to Minister of Defence and eventually Minister of infrastructure and Deputy Prime Minister.
In the past year Australia alongside the globe has suffered drastically during the pandemic but is also have their own trials and tribulations with wildfires in June of last year and floods the previous month, Australia has had a rough year to go through.
The conversation began regarding Australia’s response to the pandemic arguing that compared to the stray Weir has done significantly well in the pandemic having only 910 deaths. McCormack explains that this is due to the good nature of the Australian people abiding to the lockdown rules as well as Australia closing down its borders early. He talked about the lifting of international travel bans by stating that it’s difficult currently to determine exactly when that will be lifted however recently two-way flights have been allowed between New Zealand and Australia.
The conversation moved on to trade between Australia and the UK with Liz Truss and Dan Tehan where McCormack emphasised Australia’s reliance upon foreign trade as he stated that 1 in 4 Australia’s regional jobs rely upon foreign trade. He goes on to say that it is in the benefit of Australia to diversify their trading partners with a notable example of saying that Australia transported a shipment of Bailey to Mexico recently trying to establish a trade link with the country.
McCormack was then asked about his beliefs on the Commonwealth and what role it has in the modern world, he argues that the Westminster system of government and constitutional monarchy is a fundamental part of Australian life. He cites the recent loss of Prince Philip being a loss for all of Australia and of the opinion that even the Republicans within his country would agree. He also argues that the idea of a CANZUK agreement between the states of Canada Australia New Zealand and the UK would be beneficial due to the large amount of collaboration already occurring between the state both through the five eyes as well as security relations.
McCormack moves on to talk about the role of social media in modern day society arguing that”Life is not governed by those on Twitter is governed by those who turn up”. He goes on to say that those on social media do not represent the views of the general public and that what may be bots or trolls on social media harassing those with conservative viewpoints, they have a small following illustrating the lack of real impact. He is also proud that he is within the government that make sure that these multinational corporations don’t just ride over small media corporations in Australia and not pay for their usage of the services.
Mccormack was then asked about whether Australia has had a rise in a far left political group similar to the UK or the U.S. He stats that the tactics of these groups to create outrage does confuse the general public as their outcrying alongside mainstream media coverage creates the mirage that their ideas are thoughts of the general public when truly they do not represent the vast majority. Further he goes on to argue that these left wing governments have been affected by these groups as they wish to socially engineer society to their own political agenda questioning things like Australia day or the union jack on the Australian flag.
Feel free to watch the whole video here : - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJT-7dhJegQ&t=802s