Skip to content

Source — AITW Ep038 — Gordon de Brouwer on Economics vs Security, Climate Change, and Effective Policymaking

Episode Metadata

Field Value
Episode number 38
Title Ep. 38: Gordon de Brouwer on economics vs security, climate change, and effective policymaking
Publication date 2020-01-16
Recording date Mid-January 2020 (not stated; shortly before publication)
Guests Gordon de Brouwer (economist; former Treasury/PM&C; Secretary, Dept of Environment and Energy 2013–2017; Thodey APS Review panel member)
Allan present Yes
Format Guest interview — Allan introduces de Brouwer, questions with Darren

Summary

Allan introduces Gordon de Brouwer — ANU Professor of Economics 2002–2004, Treasury 2001–2008, Deputy Secretary PM&C, Secretary of the Department of Environment and Energy 2013–2017, Thodey APS Review panel member, Public Service Medal recipient, honorary ANU Professor. The conversation runs across three arcs: (1) how to integrate economics and security thinking in Australian policymaking, with a third dimension de Brouwer calls "social harmony" (specifically the position of 1.2 million Chinese Australians, 5% of the population); (2) the Thodey Review of the Australian Public Service and digital/data transformation; (3) Australia's conspicuous failure on climate change policy. Allan is in host mode throughout — disciplined questions, short interventions — with two notable exceptions: a brief PM&C biographical corroboration ("when I was head of international division in PM&C, a long, long time ago") and the sharp closing question on climate failure ("Why has Australia been so conspicuously bad at developing effective public policy on climate change?"). The episode ends without a reading segment. Allan's closing line — "tribalism seems to be becoming a theme of this podcast in various ways" — connects back to Gruen's "two different tribes" in Ep025 and to the political tribalism of climate policy just discussed.

Key Quotations

"Why has Australia been so conspicuously bad at developing effective public policy on climate change?"

"Well, look, that describes the problems and the way you address them. But we've just seen an extraordinary, dramatic beginning to a summer of drought and fire. Why has Australia been so conspicuously bad at developing effective public policy on climate change? You know, the underlying national reason why we're unable to develop an effective response?"

— [00:38:00.060 --> 00:38:27.760]

The sharpest question Allan asks in this episode. De Brouwer has just laid out the structural landscape of Australian climate policy — mitigation disputes, adaptation as fallback, the lived reality of a 1°C rise already in the system. Allan's question is not analytical; it is diagnostic and slightly accusatory: "conspicuously bad" is an unusually strong phrase in his register. It forces de Brouwer off the policy framework and into a more personal answer. De Brouwer's response begins: "I really don't know, Allan." The exchange illustrates Allan's technique as interviewer: frame the issue carefully, let the guest develop the framework, then push with the question the framework has been building toward.

"I really don't know, Allan"

"I really don't know, Allan. We didn't have to have been in this situation. It was particular political circumstances around Rudd, then around Gillard and then around Abbott and Turnbull that just made the politics work really well to divide and make this a [tribal issue]..."

— De Brouwer [00:38:27.760 --> 00:40:19.060]

De Brouwer's intellectual honesty — "I really don't know" from someone who worked on climate policy under four prime ministers from inside the bureaucracy — is the most honest answer Allan gets in the episode. He goes on to explain the mechanism (political tribalism locking each side in), but the opening concession is striking. It echoes Allan's own epistemic habit of naming the limits of his knowledge before proceeding.

"Tribalism seems to be becoming a theme of this podcast in various ways"

"Well, tribalism seems to be becoming a theme of this podcast in various ways."

— [00:40:19.060 --> 00:40:29.460]

Allan's closing line. The surface reference is to de Brouwer's analysis of climate policy failure as political tribalism. But the word "seems to be becoming a theme" is a meta-observation: Allan is threading this episode's de Brouwer "tribalism" back to Ep025's David Gruen ("two different tribes" — economists and security analysts) and to the Australia-China identity politics discussions across multiple episodes. This is how Allan operates across the corpus: he collects thematic signals across different conversations and names the pattern when it crystallises. The closing is characteristic economy: a single sentence that closes the episode, acknowledges the conversation, and gestures at something larger without elaborating.

"When I was head of international division in PM&C, a long, long time ago"

"Yeah, this goes back a while now. But when I certainly when I was head of international division in PMNC a long, long time ago, to work at PM and C. And I've always thought that was a sensible arrangement rather than relying on so comments."

— [00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:57.540]

Context: de Brouwer argues that DFAT officers seconded to PM&C should work for the Prime Minister, not for DFAT. Allan's response corroborates from personal experience. "A long, long time ago" repeats the time-elapsed distancing formula he uses throughout the corpus — compare "a few years ago" for 1969 (Ep011) and "in another century" for his Melbourne University years (Ep033). Both the PM&C International Division role and the secondment model are already confirmed in Ep019; this adds the "long, long time ago" qualifier, consistent with the role being in the Keating era or earlier.

"The degree of commitment from people that you see"

"...the degree of commitment from people that you see. But I go back to this thing of exhaustion and licence, people's sense of licence."

— De Brouwer [00:28:58.100 --> 00:32:47.240]

Context: de Brouwer reflecting on the Thodey APS Review — what surprised him was not poor performance but exhausted commitment. The review heard from 11,000+ public servants. Not captured here because it is primarily a de Brouwer observation, but worth noting as part of the episode's institutional portrait.

Biographical Fragments

Evidence type: Corroborating

  1. "When I was head of international division in PM&C, a long, long time ago" — corroborates the Ep019 confirmation of the International Division role ("I ran the International Division in that department for a while"). The "long, long time ago" formula is consistent with a Keating-era or earlier placement. No new dating information; already captured. (Ep038)

Style and Method Evidence

  • The sharp diagnostic question: Allan builds questions carefully and saves the pointed one for the moment it will be most productive. "Why has Australia been so conspicuously bad at developing effective public policy on climate change?" follows a long, careful development of the structural landscape — making it land harder because the answer cannot easily be deflected.
  • Meta-thematic closing: "Tribalism seems to be becoming a theme of this podcast in various ways" is characteristic of how Allan's mind works across episodes. He notices cross-cutting patterns and names them without over-explaining.
  • Restrained hosting: This episode shows Allan at his most disciplined as interviewer. His questions are precise and short; the guest does 80% of the talking. He lets de Brouwer develop his framework fully before pressing.
  • Institutional memory in passing: The PM&C International Division reference is introduced as corroboration of de Brouwer's institutional argument, not as self-disclosure. Allan's habit of grounding current debates in personal experience without making the personal the focus.

Reading, Listening and Watching

No reading/watching/listening segment. The episode closes directly after de Brouwer's final answer and Allan's one-sentence closing.

Notes on Guest: Gordon de Brouwer

De Brouwer is notable in the AITW corpus as an economist who worked at the intersection of economics, national security, and climate policy across four prime ministers. Key positions: - ANU Professor of Economics, 2002–2004 (Crawford School precinct) - Treasury, 2001–2008 - Deputy Secretary, PM&C - Secretary, Department of Environment and Energy, 2013–2017 - Thodey APS Review panel member, 2018–2019 - Honorary ANU Professor

His argument for integrating economics, security, and social cohesion (the Chinese-Australian community as national asset rather than security risk) maps onto themes Allan has been developing across the series — notably the "boring pragmatists" position (Ep032) and the concern about the "othering" of Chinese-Australians through the foreign interference debate.

His "social harmony" third dimension — the question of what the debate does to Chinese-Australian community cohesion — is the strongest explicit statement yet in the corpus of this argument. Allan does not comment on it, but his choice to include the episode (and this framing) is itself meaningful.

Open Questions

  1. De Brouwer served on the Thodey APS Review (2018–2019). Did Allan engage directly with the review's recommendations? He seems aware of the results but was not a panel member.
  2. De Brouwer's structural proposal — a higher-level strategy committee of senior security, economics, and social ministers under the PM — does this emerge in later episodes as a reference point for Australian national security reform discussions?
  3. "Tribalism seems to be becoming a theme of this podcast in various ways" — does Allan develop this observation in later episodes? The cross-cutting use of "tribes" (Gruen's economic vs. security tribes; climate policy tribalism; China debate tribalism) suggests a recurring analytical frame.