I mean, have you been talking to your peers? Was it the similar sort of story amongst your peers within the sector, and are some thinking about moving that capital elsewhere overseas?

Uh, th- th- definitely look at the change in the, the way they're going to invest.

So, you know, the, the changes are not, uh, uh, they also disincentivize, or they, they change the incentives around whether you actually invest individually or you in- you invest into a, a, a group investment such as a fund or something similar.

So it changes that, um, and, and it, and it gives better outcomes for certain types of investment, which generally don't lead to- Economy-wide innovative productive outcomes at the same time.

So people will, will...

Look, investors aren't people.

They, they're not pieces of timber on a chessboard.

I mean, how do we keep up with this changing tech?

Why are grocery items and services rising higher than inflation?

Thanks for having me on, Shari.

Inflation, it's a pretty evil tax, to be honest, so a whole bunch of reasons in there.

From my perspective, we can start from the ground up.

I think that whilst we continue to pursue – one of the cost inputs to rising inflation, I think, is our ruinous energy policy.

Energy inputs affect absolutely everything in there at the same time.

So if you're adding base costs at energy, then you have that issue.

What about

But what do you think this means for our ability to invest in things that actually grows the economy?

Oh, good day, Jamie.

Thanks for having me again.

Look, it bluntly means that we can't.

I mean, I think it's about 30, 29 point something billion dollars we're using to actually service debt at this point in time at the federal government level, let alone other government levels.

So that's, you know, 30 odd billion dollars would go a long way.

And the reality is we don't, we need to fix this.

But when you hear stories like this, what does that tell you about just how difficult it is to run a business in this country right now?

fun? Yeah.

We're probably going to get in uncomfortable territory here, so I'm not sure of your audience.

So we're a licensed fund under Australian Financial Services license.

Yep.

So none of this can ever be construed as investment advice.

But if I was looking from the outside of our publicly available documents, it's a $350,000 minimum commitment.

Got it.

Why is that? Are we still nationally naive in terms of the international strategic situation?

They don't mind using Australian tech if it helps the US, do they?

Not at all.

I would say we have an unnatural advantage.

There's an amazing warm relationship between Australia and the US, and that does give you a slight leg up over other people.

They have a very much increasing defence budget.

When I started this journey a couple of years ago, they were spending about US$850 billion on defence.

They're about to spend US$1.5 trillion on defence.

Is it that we're kind of lacking the confidence or appetite to invest in defence here?

They don't mind using Australian tech if it helps the US, do they?

Not at all.

I would say we have an unnatural advantage.

There's an amazing warm relationship between Australia and the US.

And that does give you a slight leg up over other people.

They have a very much increasing defence budget.

When I started this journey a couple of years ago, they were spending about $850 billion US dollars on defence.

Is it that we're kind of lacking the confidence or appetite to invest in defence here?

Wow

...

if you know what I mean.

So they were very, very accurate weapons, to be honest.

Um, and so, so f- so technical background and we used to go and exercise for, you know, four weeks to four months and, and back then, you know, you couldn't take enough books in four months to not go... 'Cause it's actually really boring.

You go, you drive for three or four days, you dig a hole.

Every few days someone will bring you something to repair, and then that's how it sort of goes and it's really boring.

Yeah.

Mm.

Right? Bunch of, whole bunch of things, how developed your states are, do you have...

what taxes and other bits and support do you have, right? They're trying to equalize it out.

H- how about you have as a large part of that formula a housing supply equation? So it's like if you have more houses than you have renters, then you get a bigger share of the GST.

'Cause right now a lot of the problems are state governments through local governments enforcing some crazy regulations.

Right now the state government's gonna get less GST because them and their st- and their underlying local councils are preventing houses being built, land being released, whatever it might be, then that's gonna hit the...

So this is an incentive.

Mm-hmm.

And it just makes me think, why do we as taxpayers tolerate this level of spending from Canberra?

Well, most start-ups do tear through money like the government does, but they do it with the full support of their investors, and there's a big difference here.

So, yeah, look, I think in general businesses that operate it like the government does with respect to that are in for trouble.

One thing that start-up investors and board members don't tolerate is poor discipline inside those companies.

So they'll have a disciplined plan to spend a lot of money and to burn through cash, but it's a part of the plan.

What annoys me is unfunded, underfunded or uncapped government programs.

The big elephant in the room is the NDIS and there's delays and the Greens have gotten an NDIS concession out of the government for the support of this horrible set of measures.

Do you think that that's going to keep people wanting to have a business here, or do you still think that that's capping ambition? It's the government saying, look, you're doing well, but don't do too well and go past $10 million.

People will, of course.

It's an avoidance, it's an avoidance paradise, to be honest.

So I mean, what-- I mean, to, to me, okay, so they've, they've, they went out on budget night and they proclaimed a whole bunch of taxation, which I think was gonna, over the, the forwards of the ten years, was gonna be seventy-seven or eighty-eight billion dollars in r- revenue, excuse me, in inverted commas, you know, our money.

And, and, and they had no anticipation that people would, would actually react and people would actually, you know, uh, change their circumstances to suit the new situation.

The big problem is that they've already spent that seventy-seven billion dollars on something, but they're not gonna get it.

So, you know, we, we do need to have a sensible conversation around cost.

So we can make the taxation system more complex and more onerous all we want, but un- unless we start talking about costs, unless we start reducing the cost of government and the cost of our society, then, then this is, you know, this is...

Do you think that's alarmist, or do you agree with the n- the people that have made that statement?

People will, of course

... it's an avoidance, it's an avoidance paradise, to be honest.

So I mean, what...

I mean, to, to me, okay, so they've, they've...

they went out on budget night and they proclaimed a whole bunch of taxation, which I think was gonna, over the, the forwards of the 10 years, was gonna be $77 or $88 billion in r- revenue, excuse me, in inverted commas, you know, our money.

A- and, and they, they had no anticipation that people would, would actually react and people would actually, you know, uh, change their circumstances to suit the new situation.

The big problem is, is they've already spent that $77 billion on something, but they're not gonna get it.

Do you think that's alarmist, or do you agree with the n- the people that have made that statement?

So, Steve, I watched that interview this morning and I just thought he just doesn't really get it, does he?

No, nothing quite as galling as being told why people go into a business by a bloke who's never been in business, to be honest.

So we'll probably back to person in business.

So, you know, he doesn't get it.

I mean, the equating of risking with respect to starting a business and showing some entrepreneurial flair and lots of risk.

against a person who, you know, works in that business or works in other businesses, you know, so wage earners as opposed to capital, people earning income from capital.

They haven't understood that.

Are we going to struggle to keep talent here?

mean.

My view is that if you do believe in ESG, that can only exist in a robust Western democracy.

It really can.

It's such a precious, fragile thing, right? and okay so let's have that and have the precious fragile things so you need that right governance around it so the fact that defense isn't carved into the gv is g i think it's a real misalignment to be quite honest so um but you know the tarnish is coming off um how you sell it um you know is is interesting we have a very specific we talk about material military application We talk openly about lethality.

We don't want to see these things fly ever.

But at the end of the day, the reality is you stop the enemy with a robust man carrying something heavy.

So we back people who make heavy things.

to put this on youtube

Do you think the government has fundamentally misunderstood how businesses are built and how economies actually grow?

Well, actually, uh, thanks very much for having me.

Um, I, I actually think they don't care.

You, you've got to look at this, um, th- this sort of left version of government.

I mean, uh, you look at their track record back in 2009 under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, they, they effectively destroyed employee share option plans, which was resurrected by, later on by the incoming coalition government.

In 2019, they then mooted capital gains tax, um, m- monkeying with the capital gains tax to halve the, halve the concession again to 25% instead of 50%.

In the last two years they've, they've attacked the, they call the sophisticated investor or high net worth exemptions to- that, that allow more people to invest.

Can you explain what that is and the impact it's going to have?

Because the states themselves seem to be on the same gravy train, if not being in a worse position, than what the federal government is.

Look, I feel sorry for the states in this debate.

They have very few levers to pull, unfortunately.

It's not like they've got income tax they can deal with.

They can play with payroll tax.

They can give grants out.

I know Queensland has something called Made in Queensland, for example.

What advice are you giving to them right now?

How did that come about?

It was a bit weird.

It was over 10 years ago now when I sort of first got introduced.

So it's been a fair while.

I...

I was actually deliberately going out seeking to increase my public profile for some of the stuff I was doing here in Brisbane.

So I bought a PR firm on with a mandate to get me, I think it was five mainstream articles, TV, radio, whatever it might be per month.

He said, I own the whole thing.

... cultural in a political way.

It's very, very tough.

So look, it has changed.

In the US it changed in a heartbeat, and as soon as, as soon as, uh, Vladimir rolled his tanks into Ukraine, that changed almost instantly, to be honest.

It is change...

It, uh, it's very much on the change in Europe, which is nice.

[laughs] Um, a, a large European bank just, uh, designated, uh, businesses that do societal good in the ESG mandate.

Explain that for me.

... cultural in a political way.

It's very tough.

So look, it has changed.

In the US it changed in a heartbeat, and as soon as, as soon as, uh, Vladimir rolled his tanks into Ukraine, that changed almost instantly, to be honest.

It is change...

It a, it's very much on the change in Europe, which is nice.

[laughs] Um, a, a large European bank just, uh, designated, uh, businesses that do societal good in the ESG mandate.

Explain that for me.

[laughs]

"I'll, I'll fix it and send you three more." So then they use it, and they, there's, so this iteration curve, this innovation cycle has now gone from, in, in, in our society here, it's gone from decades to years.

They do it in weeks and days.

But it gets better yet.

So if, if, if they use a, i- if they, uh, have a verified they've destroyed a certain, if they've destroyed enemy equipment, they get awarded points, so there's in-game currency.

[smacks lips] So they get awarded, you know, 40 points for a tank, and 20 points artillery, and blah, blah, blah.

And there's a leaderboard, all the units, you know, young men in combat, a bit of competition.

[laughs]