Source — AITW Ep025 — David Gruen, Australia's G20 Sherpa¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	25
Title	Ep. 25: David Gruen, Australia's G20 Sherpa
Publication date	2019-08-02
Guests	David Gruen (Deputy Secretary Economic, PM&C; Australia's G20 Sherpa)
Allan present	Yes (as host interviewer)
Format	Guest interview; Allan and Darren both question; no reading segment

Summary¶

Interview with David Gruen — economist, former Reserve Bank and Treasury official, Deputy Secretary Economic in PM&C, and Australia's G20 Sherpa. The episode covers the G20's structure and the Osaka summit outcome, the China shock and decoupling debate, and — most analytically interesting — the differences in mindset between economists and security analysts when addressing issues with both economic and security dimensions. Allan is primarily in host mode; the episode is content-rich on multilateral economics and economic diplomacy but yields no new biographical fragments for Allan. Allan's own voice comes through most clearly in his observation about the speed of US-China deterioration being his greatest surprise of recent years, and in his view that senior public servants should engage more as public intellectuals.

Key Quotations¶

Allan: "the thing which has surprised me most"¶

"In a sort of five years' worth of surprises every morning — from Brexit to the election of Donald Trump — the thing which has surprised me most, I think, is the speed with which the US and China have moved from engagement through competition and to talk now of decoupling and even a new Cold War."

— [00:33:48.420 --> 00:34:46.420]

Allan's own analytical horizon: after five years of geopolitical surprises, it is the pace of US-China deterioration — not the direction — that has most surprised him. He expected the trajectory; he did not expect the speed. This is consistent with his earlier observations about the emergence of bipolarity (Ep001, Ep012) but adds the element of surprise about timing.

Allan on senior public servants as public intellectuals¶

"You're the nearest public servant I can think of to what in the university world is called a public intellectual. That is, you've been willing to engage — within the proper constraints imposed on any public servant — with the broader community in discussions of the work you do and the issues that you're wrestling with... I've long believed that public debate in this country would benefit from more engagement by senior public servants helping to illuminate some of the underlying issues that policy is dealing with. But you're very rare."

— [00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:53.500]

A direct statement of Allan's view of what senior public servants should do. This connects to the podcast's own mission — and to Allan's career as a practitioner who chose to engage publicly. He models the behaviour he is praising in Gruen.

Gruen on economists vs. strategists — "two different tribes"¶

"Security analysts and economists bring some very different mindsets to bear on these issues... economists are impressed by the capacity of decentralised markets to organise economic activity... take the contrast with military and security fields where authoritarian regimes operate without the constraints imposed on democratic governments. And that has implications for their capacity to mobilise military and security power. So the things that security analysts look at, there are perhaps benefits in having centralised control... there are things about doing things in a centralised way that impress security analysts because that's the way that you project power."

— David Gruen [00:46:05.420 --> 00:50:39.020]

The most intellectually substantive exchange in the episode. Gruen characterises the economist-strategist divide as a structural difference in what each discipline optimises for: decentralised markets vs. projected power. Allan draws this out and closes with: "One of the purposes of the Australia in the World podcast is to bring those various tribes together." The framing of the podcast's mission as bridging these epistemic communities is explicit.

Australia's bipartisan openness — "almost unique"¶

"We're really unusual in the world at the moment in both sides of politics here still [holding] the values of openness. I think we're almost unique, really, certainly among the G20 countries, in that being the centre ground still of politics, rather than the ground over which you fight."

— [00:43:41.420 --> 00:44:04.940]

Allan's assessment of Australia's comparative position: bipartisan support for trade openness is rare internationally in 2019. Gruen agrees: "I think long may it continue." This is characteristically non-alarmist — Allan identifies Australian exceptionalism without inflating it.

Gruen on G20's no-secretariat model¶

"One implication of having a standing secretariat is that it becomes a distinct centre of power... there is a sense in which this is a very different model. This is a model where the governing body, to the extent that there is one in the G20, is called the troika... And so I think it's a distinct feature. I don't know whether it's a feature that's going to spread to other organisations, but I think it definitely has benefits."

— David Gruen [00:26:31.100 --> 00:28:47.420]

Useful institutional design observation. Allan had said "bleak" about G20's future in Ep023; Gruen here explains why the G20's light institutional footprint may actually be a structural advantage.

Gruen on Australia's G20 rationale¶

"If you were to reconfigure the G20 in a smaller entity, Australia might well not be there. But we so we have put forward suggestions and the G20 has to be careful not to become a Christmas tree with endless initiatives."

— David Gruen [00:26:31.100 --> 00:28:47.420]

Australia's G20 stake explained plainly: it is the seat at the table. Gruen is candid about the self-interest embedded in Australia's G20 multilateralism — something Allan consistently endorses throughout the corpus (structural interest reasoning).

Biographical Fragments¶

Evidence type: None new for Allan. Guest interview episode.

Style and Method Evidence¶

Framing the guest: Allan's introduction of Gruen is notably warm and intellectually substantive — describing him as a "public intellectual" among public servants, and explicitly advocating for more like him. This is Allan doing what he always does: naming the exemplar and generalising the principle.
The podcast's mission stated explicitly: "One of the purposes of the Australia in the World podcast is to bring those various tribes together" — economist and strategist, analyst and diplomat. This is rare directness about what the podcast is for.
Allan's big surprise named: The speed of US-China deterioration, not the direction. Consistent with his broader analytical framework but more precise about what actually surprised him.
Characteristic deflation: "that's dramatic" — on Shiro Armstrong's claim that Osaka may be remembered as the moment the rules-based order was lost. Allan is sympathetic but gently places hyperbole in context.

Open Questions¶

How often does Allan engage with PM&C's Economic group in his other roles (AIIA, ANU)? The conversation suggests familiarity with PM&C's internal structure beyond his own time there.
The "almost unique" bipartisanship on openness — does Allan return to this as the 2019 election result settles? He is recording this six weeks after the May 2019 Morrison win.