Source — AITW Ep031 — Debating PM Morrison's Lowy Lecture¶
Episode Metadata¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Episode number | 31 |
| Title | Ep. 31: Debating PM Morrison's Lowy Lecture |
| Publication date | 2019-10-05 |
| Recording date | Friday, 4 October 2019 |
| Guests | None (Allan and Darren only) |
| Allan present | Yes |
| Format | "Emergency episode" — rapid reaction to Morrison's Lowy Lecture delivered the previous evening (3 October 2019) |
Summary¶
A short, unusually urgent episode recorded the morning after Morrison's 2019 Lowy Lecture at the Sydney Town Hall. Allan had already published rapid reactions on the Lowy Interpreter blog by the time they recorded, and Darren uses quotes from that piece to structure the discussion. Allan and Darren have meaningfully diverging assessments — Allan more critical, Darren more willing to read the speech charitably — and the episode is one of the more genuinely dialectical in the series. No guests. No reading segment.
Allan's verdict is among the sharpest assessments of a sitting PM in the corpus: the speech represents "a turning point away from something which I have thought for a long time has been a real strength of Australian statecraft" and moves toward "the worldview of Trumpism and Brexit." He names specific rhetorical debts to Trump's "ideology of globalism versus ideology of patriotism" speech, observes sovereignty appearing "four or five times," and quotes Morrison's alliance language as reaching a rhetorical dead end: "the US alliance is our past, our present and our future. That is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end — so there is just nowhere else to go."
Key Quotations¶
Allan's verdict — "a turning point"¶
"This did seem to me to mark a very clear turning point. And what worried me was that it's a turning point away from something which I have thought for a long time has been a real strength of Australian statecraft. That is, both sides of Australian politics have had a commitment to openness... But this speech last night for me seemed to close things down. You could see in it the shadows of that speech that Donald Trump made in New York about the ideology of globalism versus the ideology of patriotism."
— [00:02:43.060 --> 00:05:35.420]
The fastest and most direct verdict on a PM's speech in the corpus to this point. Allan publishes on the Lowy Interpreter and records a podcast in under 24 hours — a rare exercise of speed. The structural complaint is precise: not the policies but the conceptual grammar, borrowed from Trump's "globalism vs. patriotism" framing. He is careful to acknowledge earlier Morrison speeches were "pretty good," making the turn more significant rather than less.
"Poor old bloody rules-based order"¶
"Poor old bloody rules-based order."
— [00:07:45.020 --> 00:07:47.660]
Context: Darren has just said the rules-based order becomes "collateral damage" in the populist backlash "even though... it is not the problem." Allan's three-word interjection. It is the only use of mild profanity in the corpus to this point — "bloody" is standard Australian mild swearing, but it is unusual for Allan's register. The emotional content is affectionate irony: the rules-based order is a concept he has defended for 50 years, a structural necessity for a middle-sized power, now being punished for crimes it did not commit. "Poor old" signals protective sympathy; "bloody" signals the slight exasperation of watching an unjust verdict delivered. The line is both funny and genuinely felt.
"The rules-based order does demand conformity — otherwise you can't have one"¶
"Surely a rules-based order does demand conformity with the rules. Of course. And it's interesting. Otherwise you can't have one."
— [00:09:35.700 --> 00:10:22.340]
Context: Morrison's speech says "it does not serve our national interests when international institutions demand conformity rather than independent cooperation on global issues." Allan identifies this as logically incoherent: an order composed entirely of optional rules is not an order. The sentence structure — "Of course. And it's interesting. Otherwise you can't have one." — is characteristically patient, as though explaining something obvious to someone who has confused themselves. He does not mock Morrison; he simply restores the logic.
Alliance language — "no future PM will outdo Morrison"¶
"His quote was the US alliance is our past, our present and our future. That is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end. So there is just nowhere else to go. So no one who comes after him will be able to outdo Scott Morrison on that particular line."
— [00:16:01.580 --> 00:16:59.980]
Allan quotes Morrison's language back with a literalist's eye. "Alpha and Omega" and "beginning and end" are eschatological — the language of absolute and eternal commitment. His observation is not that the alliance should be criticised but that this formulation forecloses further development: rhetorically, there is nowhere to go from absolute. The conclusion — "no future PM will be able to outdo" — is delivered with dry finality, not outrage.
"I've never thought of myself as Davos man"¶
"I really don't think of myself as a globalist. I don't think of myself as anything other than a cheerleader for creative Australian statecraft that advances our interests and protects our values. I mean, that's always been what I'm about. I've never thought of myself as Davos man."
— [00:21:49.580 --> 00:23:01.380]
Context: Darren challenges Allan directly — "I think you and I are part of the elites Morrison is talking about." Allan does not dispute the elite characterisation (he concedes "by any definition... anyone who has the sort of jobs I've had and is on a podcast with you is a member of an elite of some sort"). But he rejects the specific taxonomy. "Globalist" and "Davos man" are precise labels for a certain species of cosmopolitan elite — rootless, internationalist, indifferent to the concerns of regular people. Allan's self-definition resists this: he has always been specifically an advocate for Australian interests and Australian statecraft, not a borderless technocrat. He calls himself "a cheerleader for creative Australian statecraft that advances our interests and protects our values." This is one of the most compact and revealing self-definitions in the corpus.
On Morrison's China passage — "deliberate obfuscation"¶
"[When the PM concludes that] 'even during an era of great power competition, Australia does not have to choose between the United States and China' — after a speech that more than any other by a recent Australian Prime Minister has done just that, it seems less like wishful thinking than deliberate obfuscation."
— [00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:58.380] (quoting from his Interpreter blog piece)
The sharpest phrase Allan deploys against Morrison. "Deliberate obfuscation" is a strong charge — it implies knowing misrepresentation rather than mere error. The logical structure is exact: a speech full of language positioning Australia firmly with the US and against Chinese-model governance cannot simultaneously assert that no choice is being made. Allan's observation is that the speech contradicts itself — and that the contradiction is not accidental.
"That wildly optimistic note, Darren"¶
"That wildly optimistic note, Darren."
— [00:25:58.620 --> 00:26:01.780]
Darren's closing monologue offers a generous reading of Morrison's speech as a possible "pathway out" through retail political empathy. Allan's response is three words. The phrase is affectionate and ironic simultaneously — he does not contradict Darren, but he clearly does not share the optimism. As closing lines go, it is characteristic: decisive in register while technically noncommittal in content. His final line a moment later — "We must all agree with Tony Abbott that we have people there who can show that they know what they are doing" — is the deepest irony in the episode.
Biographical Fragments¶
No new biographical fragments in this episode. Purely analytical.
Corroborating detail: - Allan published a piece on the Lowy Interpreter blog before recording this episode — confirming him as a regular contributor to the Lowy Institute's flagship commentary platform. This is consistent with his role as founding Executive Director of the Lowy Institute (confirmed Ep023). He is still writing for the platform years after leaving the role.
Style and Method Evidence¶
- Speed as signal: Publishing on the Lowy Interpreter and recording a podcast within 24 hours of a major speech is unusual for Allan. The speed signals the depth of the reaction — this is not the calibrated response of a practitioner waiting for the full picture; it is the immediate response of someone who felt something had changed.
- Logical reductio: "Surely a rules-based order does demand conformity with the rules. Of course. And it's interesting. Otherwise you can't have one." Three sentences doing the work of a paragraph. Characteristically direct.
- Self-definition as precision: "I've never thought of myself as Davos man" is notable because Allan almost never offers compressed self-descriptions of what he is NOT. He is usually more careful to define what he is. The "not globalist, not Davos man" formulation is a response to direct challenge and reveals the underlying self-image.
- Closing irony: "We must all agree with Tony Abbott that we have people there who can show that they know what they are doing" — delivered as though genuine agreement, unmistakably ironic in context. Abbott-as-positive-model is the comic inversion.
Reading, Listening and Watching¶
No reading/watching/listening recommendations in this episode.
Open Questions¶
- What did Allan say in the Lowy Interpreter piece published 3–4 October 2019? The episode quotes several passages from it ("marked a clear step away from the sort of Australian foreign policy articulated in the government's 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper"; "no future Australian Prime Minister will be able to outdo Scott Morrison in rhetorical support for the American Alliance"; "deliberate obfuscation"). The full piece is worth tracking down as a standalone document of Allan's analytical response.
- Does the Lowy Lecture remain, in Allan's subsequent assessment, the turning point he calls it here? Does he return to the speech in later episodes?
- Allan says Morrison's language "echoes Howard" — "we will decide what our interests are." Is the Howard parallel a structural observation or a critical one? Does Allan develop this in later episodes?