Source — AITW Ep047 — Heather Smith on the G20, Industrial Policy, Tech Competition¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	47
Title	Ep. 47: Heather Smith on fixing the G20, industrial policy, tech competition, and what economists get wrong
Publication date	2020-05-14
Recording date	Wednesday, 6 May 2020 (Darren: "today, Wednesday the 6th of May")
Guests	Dr Heather Smith PSM
Allan present	Yes
Format	Guest interview — first three-way remote recording in podcast history

Summary¶

First three-way remote recording (Allan, Darren, Heather each in separate locations). Guest is Dr Heather Smith PSM — former Secretary of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science; former Deputy Director-General of ONA, where she first worked with Allan. Topics: the G20's prospects for COVID recovery (Heather); industrial policy and Australia's structural position (Heather); technology competition and the security-economy tension (Heather); what economists miss (Heather). Allan's contributions are mostly as interviewer and interlocutor, but two items stand out: (1) Heather attributes to Allan the formulation "a few small gardens with high walls and keep the rest open with low or no walls" — a framework for managing critical technology supply chains; and (2) Allan's wild prediction at the close: "few countries are going to be changed" by the pandemic, but "America is asking deep questions about how it operates in the world... the thing that's going to be most different for Australia, when this is over, is that the United States will have, in some way, I don't know how, [changed] itself." New biographical detail: Allan and Heather were co-authoring AFR pieces together during the podcast period. No reading segment.

Key Quotations¶

"Few countries are going to be changed"¶

"Look, lots of countries, most countries are going to be affected by the pandemic, deeply affected by the pandemic. But few of them, I think, are going to be changed. Australia is going to come out the other side of this feeling more like Australia... But it really does seem to me that America is asking deep questions about how it operates in the world, and how it deals with its own problems. And the thing that's going to be most different for Australia, when this is over, is that the United States will have, in some way, I don't know how, itself. So the US, I think, is going to be very different for us when this is all over."

— [00:47:17.220 --> 00:48:27.660]

A structurally interesting prediction: he distinguishes between being "affected" (most countries) and being "changed" (few). The affect/change distinction is characteristic precision — damage and transformation are different things. Australia, he predicts, will be "affected" but not "changed" — it will come out feeling more like itself. America, by contrast, he thinks will be "changed" in some way he cannot yet specify. The honesty is notable: "in some way, I don't know how" — he is confident in the direction of the change, not its form. The prediction is held open as a question, not closed as a verdict. This is his most forward-looking COVID prediction in the corpus to this point.

"A few small gardens with high walls and keep the rest open with low or no walls"¶

[Heather Smith, attributing the formulation to Allan]: "...always like Allan's language in this space about how you need to build a few small gardens with high walls and keep the rest open with low or no walls."

— [00:31:13.640 --> 00:34:59.040]

Heather attributes this to Allan as a characteristic formulation — which makes it a third-party confirmation of a phrase he uses in other contexts (presumably in writing or prior discussions). The image is precise: the error is treating all technological and supply chain security as the same problem. Some areas genuinely require protective walls (foundational technologies with dual military-civil application); most do not. "Small gardens with high walls" — limited in scope, clearly delimited — and "low or no walls everywhere else." The metaphor resists both the all-wall (technological nationalism) and no-wall (naive openness) positions. Heather's "always like Allan's language" suggests it is a repeated formulation, not a one-off.

"I can't think of any Australian public servant who's worked so successfully at the highest levels of both economic policy and national security policy"¶

"I can't think of any Australian public servant who's worked so successfully at the highest levels of both economic policy and national security policy as Heather."

— [00:01:14.900 --> 00:02:54.820]

Allan's introduction of Heather Smith. He deploys his standard "I can't think of" epistemic form — a genuine mental scan, not rhetoric — and comes up with no one comparable. The specific combination (economic policy AND national security) is notable: it describes his own career span as well as Heather's. He is valuing the integration of these two domains, which is the analytical approach he has practiced throughout his career.

Biographical Fragments¶

Evidence type: New — Heather Smith as ONA DDG; AFR co-authorship during podcast period

Heather Smith was Deputy Director-General of ONA under Allan: "She and I first worked together when she was Deputy Director General in the Office of National Assessments, and there she spanned both international economic analysis and geopolitics." This is a direct confirmation that Smith served under Allan as his DDG at ONA — establishing her as a member of his ONA leadership team. It adds to the picture built from Ep041 (Maude as successor) and Ep045 (ONA building named after Hope during Gillard government). (Ep047)
Co-authoring AFR pieces with Heather Smith during the podcast period: Heather says "as you and I wrote in the AFR recently" (on the G20 and COVID); she also says "as you and I have written" (on scientific cooperation). Two references to co-authored AFR pieces in the same interview. Allan has been actively publishing in the AFR in the COVID period, not just on the podcast. (Ep047 — corroborates Ep018 AFR interview, but these are co-authored pieces not solo)

Style and Method Evidence¶

The affect/change distinction: "most countries are going to be affected... but few of them are going to be changed." A two-level framework deployed as a prediction. He is thinking about what COVID actually transforms structurally, not just damages temporarily. The distinction is his — Heather and Darren do not use it before he does.
"I can't think of any..." as genuine epistemic scan: Used in the introduction of Heather Smith — the same form as in Ep043 ("I can't think of a global crisis...") and Ep044 ("I can't think of any Australian who's lived in the US..."). Consistent pattern: he makes a claim of uniqueness only after performing a mental check.
Characteristic "wild gardens" metaphor: Third-party attribution (Heather) confirms that "small gardens with high walls / low or no walls everywhere else" is an established Allan formulation in this policy space — likely appearing in written pieces. This is the kind of image he distils from longer analysis and reuses.
No reading segment: This is a guest interview episode. The closing segment is replaced by each participant's one-sentence COVID prediction. Allan's prediction (above) is the most analytically rich of the three.

Open Questions¶

The AFR pieces co-authored with Heather Smith — when were they published? Two pieces are referenced: one on the G20 and COVID recovery; one on scientific cooperation and informal multilateral networks. Both from approximately April–May 2020. Recoverable from AFR archive.
"A few small gardens with high walls" — does this phrase appear in any publicly available Allan writing? The attribution by Heather ("always like Allan's language") suggests it recurs in his written work.
Allan's prediction: "the US, I think, is going to be very different for us when this is all over." Does he revisit this in later episodes, particularly post-November 2020 (Biden election)?
Heather Smith's PhD thesis on the role of government in industrialisation of Taiwan and Korea (1980s) — is it accessible? Allan calls it "strangely relevant again."