Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
Sep 15, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 12 segments
Is too much political capital being put into meaningless foreign policy platitudes rather than defining what modern Australian security looks like? If Australia's shared values with its allies are…
Mark KennyHost
It's interesting, though, um, we're in a, a, a, an interesting d- uh, sort of domestic moment, a domestic debate about migration, immigration, uh, numbers, uh, you know, it's ...
One Nation's just announced this plan to actually go, move to ne- negative migration, have more people leaving the country than coming to it, and, uh, not provided any costings or modeling around that, and something about which Barnaby Joyce seems quite proud.
He says in, you know, "It's not about economists, it's about what you believe." Well, tell it [laughs] tell it to the employers in the regions that, uh, could go, uh, badly sideways as a result of that.
But nonetheless, that's an example of, in a sense, or at least what is ostensibly framed as domestic policy, which has significant foreign policy implications.
Uh, it is viewed by, it is likely to be viewed by, um, our neighbors, by other countries in the world as Australia essentially becoming more closed, um, less generous.
So it's a, it's a, it's a kind of a moving, almost boundaryless thing, foreign policy, isn't it, in some way?
I mean, I think the thing about foreign policy, in fact, all policy, is that so long as you know what policy is and where it comes from, uh, all aspects of public policy are actually joined together.
But what joins them together is the principles on which public policy is founded.
And, uh, at the risk of sounding, uh, naive and sentimental both at the same time, and I don't mind a bit of naivety and sentimentality-
Um, I actually find the, the, um, preamble to the UN Charter to be quite a nice way of summing up how you li- uh, uh, stretch out and shape the principles on which something as significant as the UN Charter would rest.
And, uh, I'm sure that, that many of the people listening to us, Mark, would know that, that Evatt had a very, very big role to play in the drafting of the preamble and of the charter, and I think that with a great mind such as Evatt sketching out in the opening sentences of the preamble that all human beings have value and dignity by virtue of our shared humanity is a remarkable way in which to begin something as significant as the UN Charter.
So when you come back to migration, you and I have got to ask each other, well, what would it be like to be an old person in Trundle? Uh, that's up near Tamworth, and I thought having mentioned Barnaby Joyce, I'd find somewhere [laughs] in New England, uh, or, or maybe St.
George in Queensland, where Barnaby likes to talk about, what would it be like to be an old person up there? You know, seeing out the last couple of years of your life- Probably with a few disabilities and not able really to look after yourself.
How would that happen? And, and if you look across aged care, just one sector of the-
It's interesting, though, um, we're in a, a, a, an interesting d- uh, sort of domestic moment, a domestic debate about migration, immigration, uh, numbers, uh, you know, it's ...
One Nation's just announced this plan to actually go, move to ne- negative migration, have more people leaving the country than coming to it, and, uh, not provided any costings or modeling around that, and something about which Barnaby Joyce seems quite proud.
He says in, you know, "It's not about economists, it's about what you believe." Well, tell it [laughs] tell it to the employers in the regions that, uh, could go, uh, badly sideways as a result of that.
But nonetheless, that's an example of, in a sense, or at least what is ostensibly framed as domestic policy, which has significant foreign policy implications.
Uh, it is viewed by, it is likely to be viewed by, um, our neighbors, by other countries in the world as Australia essentially becoming more closed, um, less generous.
So it's a, it's a, it's a kind of a moving, almost boundaryless thing, foreign policy, isn't it, in some way?
I mean, I think the thing about foreign policy, in fact, all policy, is that so long as you know what policy is and where it comes from, uh, all aspects of public policy are actually joined together.
But what joins them together is the principles on which public policy is founded.
And, uh, at the risk of sounding, uh, naive and sentimental both at the same time, and I don't mind a bit of naivety and sentimentality-
Um, I actually find the, the, um, preamble to the UN Charter to be quite a nice way of summing up how you li- uh, uh, stretch out and shape the principles on which something as significant as the UN Charter would rest.
And, uh, I'm sure that, that many of the people listening to us, Mark, would know that, that Evatt had a very, very big role to play in the drafting of the preamble and of the charter, and I think that with a great mind such as Evatt sketching out in the opening sentences of the preamble that all human beings have value and dignity by virtue of our shared humanity is a remarkable way in which to begin something as significant as the UN Charter.
So when you come back to migration, you and I have got to ask each other, well, what would it be like to be an old person in Trundle? Uh, that's up near Tamworth, and I thought having mentioned Barnaby Joyce, I'd find somewhere [laughs] in New England, uh, or, or maybe St.
George in Queensland, where Barnaby likes to talk about, what would it be like to be an old person up there? You know, seeing out the last couple of years of your life- Probably with a few disabilities and not able really to look after yourself.
How would that happen? And, and if you look across aged care, just one sector of the-
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