Mike Cannon-Brookes & Osher Gunsberg - GMPOOG - 02

A Rational Fear

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Thrilled to bring you this month’s Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation.

Every 4 weeks on the A Rational Fear feed, Linh Do and I (Dan Ilic) present a climate news update and a long-form conversation with leader in climate action. This month’s chat is excellent.

Two very different brains leading climate conversations in their own powerful way.

Osher Gunsberg (The Bachelor / Better Than Yesterday Podcast) and Mike Canon-Brookes (Atlassian / SunCable)

Osher is using his celebrity to draw his broad audience to his podcast where he has meaningful conversations about climate anxiety and climate action.

And Mike is using his own personal wealth and huge influence in the business community to drive innovation and wedge government into climate action.

Great chat, an honour to speak with them both in the same Zoom call.

Cheers,

Dan Ilic

The first 8minutes of the conversation sound a bit rubbish because I forgot to hit record on my Rodecaster, so we had to use the audio from the Zoom recording which isn’t as high fidelity. So bear with us, it does get better.A NOTE ON AUDIO:

Thanks:

Big thanks to The Bertha Foundation, our Patreon Supporters and RODE Mics. Jacob Round,

TRANSCRIPT BY OTTER.AI BELOW:

Unknown Speaker 0:00

This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation

Dan Ilic 0:04

to the greatest moral podcast of our generation joining me of course as she does for every one of these special greatest moral podcasts of our generations is lindow fellow Bertha Fela gaylin

Linh Do 0:15

Hello, hello, Iris. So good to be back.

Dan Ilic 0:18

This is our second greatest moral podcast of our generation. A huge thank you to everyone who listened to our Kevin Rudd episode, I think had a lot of good feedback from that, particularly around people who love the nitty gritty of climate backstabbing.

Linh Do 0:31

Yeah, the interview was amazing. And I think it just makes me even more eager to wait for when those cabinet files get released. You know, I'll be one of those geeks eagerly awaiting exactly what happened and will finally know who was the liar after all.

Dan Ilic 0:46

This of course, is out on the irrational fear feed every month we bring you an in depth conversation about climate change with climate legends and a little bit more about who is on our podcast a little later on. But first of all, a big thank you to our new irrational fear Patreon members including Nick with a K Lysa Yeager, Shelly Carr Simone Kevin and Tim Stevenson chipping in to help irrational fear jump to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to support the podcast another way to spot irrational fear is to offset the carbon emissions from your car with go neutral for every $90 sticker go neutral by 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets which is about the average yearly emissions for a car and then five bucks that comes to us to go neutral. Click on the link in the show notes. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on gadigal land and your nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show. Despite

Unknown Speaker 1:33

global warming, rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.

Unknown Speaker 1:44

This is called

Unknown Speaker 1:45

Don't be fright, the heat waves and droughts greatest mass extinction when facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate

Unknown Speaker 1:58

shiana ration

Unknown Speaker 2:01

all of this with global warming

Unknown Speaker 2:02

and a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about generation.

Unknown Speaker 2:09

For sure.

Dan Ilic 2:10

All right, listen, let's get into our climate news for this week. Story number one, Australia joins the US China and Russia in refusing to sign our latest pledge on biodiversity. Is this any kind of surprise that we are with the US Russia and China on this lid?

Linh Do 2:26

Never Never surprised. But I mean, last year during the Madrid climate negotiations, we were with Saudi Arabia and given you know, everything that we're hearing about how koalas are going extinct, the billions of animals that were wiped out, unfortunately, during the recent bush fires, you think we'd care a little bit more

Dan Ilic 2:43

than there's a lot of similarities between Australia and Saudi right, but particularly about the way we treat our journalists,

Linh Do 2:47

that is definitely for alarming, but we still call ourselves a democracy. So it's a scary path that we're headed down.

Dan Ilic 2:54

Now. The Morison government said it refused to sign this global pledge, endorsed by 64 other countries committed to reverse biodiversity loss because it was inconsistent with Australia's policies, namely, net zero by 2050, which pretty much the rest of the world is signed up to. Australia has committed to net zero but before 2100, which is absolutely hilarious. I mean,

Linh Do 3:14

we weren't really alive then. So I guess for us, that's how we have to feel better about it. That's how I go to sleep at night.

Dan Ilic 3:21

And can I say thank God, I won't be alive then because it's gonna be too hot to live. kitten joshy, the climate hero on Twitter did tweet some calculations of his own, which were taken from the government's own data a few months back, and he suggested that we're actually on track to meet our net zero targets by 2300. So that's about the double length of Australia's colonised period.

Linh Do 3:42

The numbers at that point are just eye watering. Really, it's really hard to comprehend how our policies account for multiple multiple generations from now.

Dan Ilic 3:53

It's so interesting. This is the latest pledge put together by the WWF and un, I jumped over to the latest pledge page because anybody can sign up to it and sign their organisation up to it so I put you dear listener behind the pledge. So irrational fear is now signed up to this pledge. So putting out 10,000 listeners a month behind the pledge good on us.

Unknown Speaker 4:16

Yay by diversity.

Dan Ilic 4:18

I emailed Terry Butler as well because she had some comments to say about you know, why scammer didn't sign up but she had at this point in time, she hasn't got back to me whether she actually signed up to the pledge herself, but they went to the website and if you are, if you are a head of state of a country, you can actually click through to a form and sign up your country so I actually went through and signed us up as well. But they haven't got back to me is to verify my identity. I said I was the Minister for climate action and in fear That's what I said.

Linh Do 4:50

They ignore that doesn't exist in Australia. Although you know, it's like so funny given her our head of state actually is is that the royal family is all behind by diversity like Prince Charles huge support Well, this

Dan Ilic 5:00

is the thing this is absolutely things have the google doc says Head of State for your country and technically our head of state is the claim. So maybe we are already signed up by default.

Linh Do 5:10

Well, you know, one of the benefits of colonisation and the Commonwealth and the British Empire is potentially we can follow in the footsteps of what the UK is doing right now. I like

Dan Ilic 5:19

that if Tony Abbott was was Prime Minister and Lizzy asked him to he probably signed up to that pledge.

Linh Do 5:25

Her would have thought I used to think I was a Republican in terms of you know, supporting the Republic, but here we are. All for the monarchy

Dan Ilic 5:33

story number two. Exxon's plan for surging carbon emissions revealed in Lake documents now this story is interesting it as the rest of the kind of fossil fuel industry is planning on phasing out its emissions Exxon over the next five years is planning on increasing them by 17%. Are you surprised at all by this lindo?

Linh Do 5:54

I feel like Exxon has written the playbook on big organisations and companies that we can't trust Rio Tinto has just proven that again, in Australia, it almost doesn't matter what they otherwise say they're going to be doing because there's always something that they're trying to sweep under the rug.

Dan Ilic 6:09

This is really interesting bhp. So put out an article or somebody put out an article about bhp actually doing further oil exploration even though they've signed a pledge to get out of the fossil fuel game. But they're still exploring fossil fuels. I guess they're searching for it. So they can go put up a big sign saying don't dig here. I guess this was a finding under protected.

Linh Do 6:27

It wants to know that it's there. It's almost like you know, these big companies, someone in the PR department signing up to all of these pledges, maybe the by diversity one even, but then just you know, there's another part of it where engineers or whoever are going off and exploring new oil fields. It's just really reprehensible really,

Dan Ilic 6:47

shift in person is really significant significant for a company like Exxon, if its plans are realised Exxon would add to the atmosphere, the annual emissions of a small developed nation or 26, coal fired power plants. That's, that's insane over the next five years,

Linh Do 7:06

absolutely wild. It's interesting that you've been encouraging listeners to go neutral with their carbon emissions from their car. Do you think people will now change their mind about where they fill up?

Dan Ilic 7:20

yet? Absolutely. I'm gonna get a fill up with Shell. Definitely.

Linh Do 7:28

Buddy. Sorry, that was a bit of a question.

Dan Ilic 7:32

Can I say they extremely limited, particularly around bond I'm pretty sure Mobil Exxon is the only place I can actually fill up.

Linh Do 7:39

Well, the idea is to be a good carbon advocate is to drive even further in your heart to the nearest suburb Lin visit, or petrol station. I don't think that logic works out.

Dan Ilic 7:50

Are you telling me I'm gonna have to drive from Bondi to rosebay bp to fill up now? Oh, my God.

Linh Do 7:59

You're carbon neutral. So it doesn't

Unknown Speaker 8:01

matter. It just doesn't. Just doesn't matter.

Dan Ilic 8:04

Okay. Now, Matt Canavan has been slammed for his use of the Black Lives Matter slogan. And he's got a ute. And he's got black coal matters on the back of his unit. Tell us a bit about the story.

Linh Do 8:17

Well, why do we even start sometimes, when I like wake up to the news in Australia, I'm like, of course, that just happened. Of course, that just happened. Um, given the way that we tray, our indigenous people in this country, pretty reprehensible given the way that we have, you know, gone on to other people's country, and like, you know, built new coal power stations doesn't make sense. I think the only good that I could sort of try to say from this is maybe then rules out the argument that we have in this country for supporting brown coal, which, you know, whilst all calls no good ground calls even more inefficient, even more dirty, so at least, we're prioritising within, you know, the scale of bad things we already do.

Dan Ilic 8:58

I can't believe they've appropriated this activist language for their own activist language. It really hurts my head a little bit.

Linh Do 9:05

Yep. Well, you know, they're borrowing from the people who do do things well. So maybe this is a sign that I'm campaigning for Black Lives Matter, really is working.

Dan Ilic 9:14

Just another example of why people aren't ready black culture.

Unknown Speaker 9:18

Yep, never ending.

Dan Ilic 9:20

And finally, let's talk about the 2021 budget. Lin. Katyn Joshi, as we've mentioned before, is a fantastic tweeter on climate. You got to follow him. Ke TANJ. Oh, he did this great tweet this week, while when the budget was happening, he took the budget speech hit Ctrl F and search for the word climate. It appeared only once in Josh frydenberg speech. The sentence was 1.9 billion in new funding as part of our energy plan to support low emissions of renewable technologies, helping to lower emissions and climate change followed by the sentence. We're also helping to unlock five key gas basins, isn't that just doesn't that just symbolise everything that Australia is about when it comes to emissions actually And when

Linh Do 10:00

exactly it feels like that one mention was just say say we did talk about it, don't think about it in context.

Dan Ilic 10:08

I think that was actually my tweet as well off the back of kittens was like, say they did mention it. They didn't say climate. We didn't say climate.

Linh Do 10:14

We said it. They did about us know exactly. You know, it's about making sure that everyone gets represented, even if in this case, representation literally meant nothing.

Dan Ilic 10:25

So chillin. What I love about the budget speech, every time it comes around, it's kind of like our own version of the State of the Union speech, but it's really, really shared.

Linh Do 10:34

And it's way wonky. I have never been invited to a budget party, but I've been to my fair share of State of the Union ones in the US.

Dan Ilic 10:42

Somebody plays invite lindo to their budget party,

Linh Do 10:45

foreign into financial year one, I am open to all super geeky economic party conversations

Dan Ilic 10:51

into financial year ones are the best because often companies use that instead of Christmas. And so they treat their employees very well so that you definitely want to get on that gravy train.

Unknown Speaker 11:01

Okay, good to know. Good to know.

Dan Ilic 11:03

All right. For this week's podcast, we bring you a big conversation I had last week with Asha Gunzburg and, and Mike cannon Brookes at the Smart Energy summit. What I liked about this, it was a good chat with two really random people, you know, Asha Gunzburg, and Mike cannon Brookes. What do these people have in common? Yeah, okay. Well, you know, for those who don't know, Asha is the host of the bachelor, Mike cannon. Brooks is the software developer for Atlassian and and energy entrepreneur. What do you think these people have in common? Lynn? Do they have anything in common at all?

Linh Do 11:34

Well, honestly, on the surface, not so much. I think when I look at the image of like, I am confused. It feels like definitely a sort of a joke of, you know, three very random people walk into a bar, what happens? But I think this is sort of the good thing about what's happening in Australia is we have so many people who you think wouldn't care about climate change getting on board, because they recognise we all have a stake in our future.

Dan Ilic 11:56

I mean, in the chat, I discuss it further. But I feel like the only thing that really kind of draws these two together is that probably a decade ago, climate change wasn't a central part of their work. But now it is, as with all of us. Many of you might be wondering, where are the women on the panel, I asked this as well as from the organisers as well. They said, What do you want from me? I got I got one of the most famous people on TV and I got one of the biggest billionaires and I said, Well, Oracle is either a billionaire woman or a famous woman who could also be on this panel as well. So anyway, that they said that was enough. Without further ado, please enjoy this chat with Mike cannon Brooks and Asha Gunzburg.

Unknown Speaker 12:31

You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation

Dan Ilic 12:37

to many in Australia. Asha is a handsome face and has been in the front of many of the biggest TV moments in Australia, including stuff like channel v Australian Idol, the mass singer, Bachelor franchise, there hasn't been a rose ceremony he hasn't been part of. But what you may not know about Asha is that he is also a student of the world deeply connected with thought leaders around the globe. Asha has been part of s&m think School of Creative Leadership. He's interviewed some of the most interesting brains of culture, science and society. And on his podcast better than yesterday, he's managed to pull that bachelor audience into a very interesting deep thinking space. So don't be fooled by his $70,000 hairstyle. Brain is switched on to climate change, and he regularly profiles activists, entrepreneurs in the climate space. He was even on q&a s climate solutions panel earlier this year.

Osher Gunsberg 13:24

Welcome, Marsha. Thanks, Dan. I'm really grateful to be here. To be a part of this event is a real privilege and looking ally.

Dan Ilic 13:32

And speaking of q&a, our other guests today was on the show on Monday. He's a real jet setter. In fact, when he was eight years old Mike cannon Brookes managed to buy his first computer on frequent flyer points, opting for an Amstrad pay say 20. A choice he still regrets to this very day. He is the co founder of Atlassian team collaboration software company is a passionate clean energy evangelist. He's also one of Australia's great muckrakers, probably in a previous era, we would have called him a larrikin. He uses his change for the better however, Mike has co opted the term fair dinkum power from Scott Morrison and turned it into a war cry for renewables. And using not much more than Twitter and a few phone calls. Mike was the driving force behind Australia getting one of the world's largest lithium ion batteries, which was only superseded by the one they put in the back of Peter Dutton. We welcome Mike cannon Brookes.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 14:23

Thanks Good. Good to be here man. I like that was quite an intro. I don't know we've been over the PC 20 layers of Usher's microphone that he does you guys do have some some good microphone gang during

Osher Gunsberg 14:35

mocking I know a guy. Okay.

Dan Ilic 14:39

Well, before we get away, let's have a message from our sponsor.

Unknown Speaker 14:42

It's the largest recession in history in the

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Coronavirus stimulus is said to be slash job Kiba was 1500. a fortnight now 1200 or four nights job seeker was 550. a fortnight now just 250 a fortnight economic stimulus for by 3040 and 50% off the unemployed, I've never been more motivated to get a job that doesn't exist. There's more during the largest ever climate emergency is giving billions to the fossil fuel industry for pipelines.

Unknown Speaker 15:17

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Dan Ilic 15:35

Now, fellas, so it is a way of icebreaker so we can get to know each other get to understand our own our own ideas behind climate change, I thought we'd just do a little climate quiz. I've got the answers here that are given to me by Angus Taylor's office, but I want you to answer as truthfully as possible. So first of all, let's get the quiz underway. Folks, what is the best way to lower emissions? I'm sure Mike, what is the best way to lower emissions to jump in whenever you're ready? I shall. I shall go Russia.

Osher Gunsberg 16:07

I dig things out of the ground. Sell them once and somebody overseas and then burn them?

Dan Ilic 16:13

Oh, yes. That's correct. That's correct. Very good. All right, next question. Of course, Angus wrote, the best way to lower emissions is to make more emissions. That's what Angus asked me to let you know. All right. Next question. What is the one technology that's going to save the planet? suffocating from greenhouse gas? What is the one technology's going to save the planet from suffocating with greenhouse gas? Freeze? trace. Oh, I'm sorry. It's gas. greenhouse gas. All right. Well, gas. Yeah. More gas. More gas. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What is the best way to strengthen ties without Island neighbours and security partners in the Pacific? What is the best way to strengthen ties without island?

Osher Gunsberg 16:55

I should allow said Pacific to rise up and swallow them. Yes. That's very, very good.

Dan Ilic 17:02

Actually. You've done you've done your work here. All right. Excellent. Final question. The world is meeting again, a cop 26 in Glasgow next year. What's the best way to impress our global trading partners at that conference? What is the best way?

Osher Gunsberg 17:17

Again, a second shirt fronting

Dan Ilic 17:21

shirt Friday? I'll I'm not. I'm not sure that's quite right. The answer is, I'm afraid it's time to take a hodgepodge of mythical technology solutions not proven to work. And once again, be the bang whale on the supermarket trolley of progress and drag the rest of the world to the 10 items or less line. But arcia Congratulations, you have won the quiz well done.

Osher Gunsberg 17:44

That's terrible. Well, you want to get that wrong?

Dan Ilic 17:48

Oh, it's great to have you both here. Now we're all awake. Let's get stuck into the conversation, a satirist and a TV host and a software engineer, or walk into a bar and decide to make climate change the centre of what they do. How does that even happen for us three. Climate change is now part and parcel of our work. But as entertainers and creators of things 10 years ago, probably no really wasn't as important. Mike, let's start with you. How have you managed to kind of put climate at the centre of kind of what you're doing right now?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 18:17

Look, I think it's obviously a really, really important problem, if not the most existential challenge for humanity, depending on where in the spectrum you fall, I'd be towards the latter end of that spectrum personally. And I don't think it's going to take just, you know, green minded folk to solve. If you ask me, it's as much as an economic problem and a finance problem and a creative problem, storytelling problem. And we need all parts of society to get involved in solve that. Like, I've always been interested in technology, and the economics of things, business and other bits and pieces. So I happen to have some strengths that are super useful. But I, I think it's a good example, on your panel, if you need lots of different types of people to be tackling and attacking this problem.

Dan Ilic 19:03

What was there a single moment for you was like, was there like an aha moment that can you kind of brought you to this issue that you were like, wow, you know, I gotta do something I can I can do something.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:13

Look, certainly the big big battery from the intro was a large turning point for me personally, sort of got myself involved in a bit of a bingo there. And then, you know, when we got it solved, again, the reason I think that was such an amazing event is rarely have we had a lot of people shit on an ID, then the idea get built in Yeah, it gets proven in such a short period of time.

Dan Ilic 19:38

Right? If you've never worked, if you've never worked in television, like you've never worked in television that happens all the time.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:42

Well, but it was really instructive for me it because I had to learn a huge amount of content personally and got much more into the electricity system and how it works and why it works and how that affects climate change and emissions. And it was sort of a big startup a big journey for me, I suppose. But secondly, To see all of the stories in politics and other things behind it, and then to have that sort of laid, laid bare really quickly was was just a fascinating exercise. For me as someone who just says, that's just broken. Like I like fixing things that are broken.

Dan Ilic 20:15

That just seemed unjust. That was not right. People weren't saying the correct things. And I was perhaps naive before that. I think that is a really beautiful phrase like fixing things that are broken. Our show, what about you? How does how does someone go from hosting television shows in Hollywood to kind of being a climate change communicator?

Osher Gunsberg 20:33

I think, for me, it's because it became an undeniable problem, Dan, you know, became something that it was just, I was no longer able to ignore. If you'll allow me to virtuous virtue signal for just a moment, it was about 22 years ago that I stopped eating meat. When I, you know, I saw I started to struggle with how much resources were required to create the same sort of calorie of plant protein versus animal protein. And I just couldn't get by with that in mind, that's a bit weird. And that was kind of coupled with, you know, I seen with my own eyes or guns, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef in 1992. And again, in 2004, in on the same spot, and I was just bamboozled and horrified at what I saw, and, and as the years roll on, and the conversations aren't getting any more progressive, the need to start to talk about this stuff is bigger and bigger. I think, for me, oh, we can talk about it later, as far as you know, the kind of conversations that I've had around this. But Mike's got a really important point there that there's so much more going on. That trying to drive conversations about it is is really, really the only thing that I'm possibly able to do. I mean, I'm not Mike, I can't organise a massive battery to happen, you know, the way that he was able to do, but I can't have conversations and I can, like, if it gets to the point where the bloke accounts, the roses on your television and talking about climate change, it's time we did something. Okay.

Dan Ilic 22:02

I really love that. That's great. Um, Mike, did you? This is a kind of a strange question to be asking. But I, you know, I certainly ask it from a good faith position. As someone who has worked in climate kind of activism for a while. There may be some people out there who feel like you're a Johnny come lately to this space. Do you feel any kind of resentment from from folks out there? I mean, are you out to steal climate campaigners Limelight?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 22:30

I mean, simple answer is No, man, I'm trying to help people solve a problem. I've been lucky enough to get myself in a position where when I speak my mind, people listen, which is great. And like Asha is for a totally different reason. Right? When he speaks, people listen, and to solve the problem, as I said, I think you need a lot of different things. Right? And so while Yeah, sure I get on Twitter every so often, and cause a bit of a stink, I mean, have a very large fund. Now, I think we're north of a billion dollars in personal investments between my wife and I and sustainability initiatives. So you know, whenever people say and put your money where your mouth is, I'm like, that's not quite true. And, you know, fortunate enough to be able to back large projects and really make a difference and change things. Have a very different storytelling ability to Asha, because you come from a technology and economics point of view, where you can say, Hey, I firmly believe solving this problem is is an economic problem. It's as much a finance issue as a wholesale thing. I'm glad you said, Mr. Owen before, as it is a technology issue, right? I firmly we don't need a another panel, we need ways of getting more panels out more quickly. And that becomes a finance equation. Right? We can talk about that. But the nexus of technology and science and economics is a really important point to have communicated

as well as that I've got, you know,

Unknown Speaker 24:03

I don't know, I

Mike Cannon-Brookes 24:04

suppose abilities to to, you know, talk to politicians and talk to opportunities. You call them amazing opportunities, right. And, and it's great. Often when I talk to them, I'm like, trying to convince them to see how the future is going to be it's almost the as I said to someone else, the curse of people that live in technology is we see what's going to happen 1020 years down the line, but we live in a disruptive, constant world. That's what we do. And you're like, well, this is how it works. And they're like, Oh, no, but you know, the power stations have been like this for 30 years and you're like, no, you're operating on 1982 economics like this is not this is just not how it works today. So I just

Dan Ilic 24:38

love I just love watching you on q&a Monday and just the ability to cut through politicians speak with just in effect effectively. You didn't say what you're saying is bullshit but the way you said it said Oh, sounds like bullshit, but

Unknown Speaker 24:55

I was warned not

Osher Gunsberg 24:56

use the word bullshit, which is why use the word buncombe

Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:00

I would I was just one on this one. So I hope that was all right.

Dan Ilic 25:04

No, I think you're allowed to say what

Unknown Speaker 25:07

your look looks like

Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:08

politicians have a tough job though, because they, they're trying to get elected, right, almost like their primary goal is to get elected. And then their second goal is to get something done. Yeah. And I don't think it should be that way around. But that's the reality of, of what's going on. Right. And so if you don't have to get elected, you can say, well, the correct answer is actually to do this. Let me explain to you why that answer is correct. Rather than, like, let me give the answer that's correct enough to get me elected, but we'll make some form of progress.

Dan Ilic 25:38

You You both both of you, Mike, and I should have been on q&a, Mike, last night. On Monday night, you were you're very much facts and figures, driving home, what you know, and driving home a vision of what could life could be Asha, your experience was a little different on q&a. It was it was had different kind of words attached to it, you know, very emotional kind of hope and grief are all tied into that. What What was that experience like being on q&a and kind of talking about climate on q&a for you?

Osher Gunsberg 26:07

Well, for me, if anybody knows my story, it was initially it was quite terrifying. Because I actually had quite a horrible episode of climate anxiety that tipped up into the actually episodes of psychosis and manifested as paranoid delusions. And I was actually when I was living in North America at the time, I was living in Venice Beach and I would go for run down the beach, and I would I try to see the oceans swallowing the houses along the boulevard, there it was, it was really, really horrible. And so it's still Yeah, it's tricky. You know, feeling anxiety having this conversation right now. But for me, being with that discomfort being with that is the only antidote that there is to this and being an action is the only antidote that there is to climate anxiety. You can pretend that it's not there, like a cancer diagnosis, you can wish it doesn't exist. You can carry on buying packs of diaries, you can just keep going and pretend everything's gonna be fine. But you know, that thing is messed metastasizing inside your body is eating you from the inside. Similarly, we just kind of have to be with it. We have to be with how grievous we need to fail, you know, and I did say it across the summertime when I started to see it in other people's eyes, people were talking to me because I've read my book and now like, are you are I actually am because I can see the fear that I saw in myself and other people now. And I get the feeling that I'm not I'm not alone, you know, obviously down experiencing what I was experiencing, because my fear was an irrational fear, Dan, but they get it. And the only antidote, once you've had that time to grieve, and you, once you start to realise it, I think this is what conversations about climate are so hard, because once you start to realise, like, hang on, we've done what, and even if we did everything tomorrow, it would still be worse for like, 20 years. What, like, that's a horrible thing to suddenly realise. And of course, it's confronting, and people don't want to talk about it. And giving people space to feel that is important, and allowing them to be with that grief, because it's only once you've sat in it and gone right then, well, I guess waterfalls of crises are a good thing. Um, what can I do? And then you move into action. And that's really the only thing and that's really what I was trying to talk about on q&a was like, being inaction is the only antidote to climate anxiety.

Dan Ilic 28:19

Yeah. And, Mike, you are a person of action, you were just talking about kind of your ability to kind of leapfrog competitors and innovate. And to use that overused Wayne Gretzky quote, you know, skating where the puck is going to be, is Australia skating where the puck is going to be?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 28:35

Look, I don't think we are, but I think we should be. I think perhaps,

I think that the climate change problem, let's face it, the climate crisis writ large is an incredibly hard problem to solve. Right? And part of the reason it's incredibly hard problem to solve is because it's a prisoner's dilemma by nature, right? Anytime you have someone bullshit you and say, oh, we're only like a couple percent of the problem. So why do we bother? Let's Let's write it. It's like, okay, you can get upset about that. But it's going to require the entire world to come together and solve this run. However, for Australia, we have this amazing opportunity, which should frustrate us even more, because we actually have an opportunity in this. It's not just doing our 2%. It's the ability for us to build, literally the future of our country. And I think when we talk about skating, where the puck is going to be, it's not about solving again, this is where, you know, long ago now I was all about 200% renewables because just literally it is a thing that makes people think, what do you mean 200%? It's because this is an opportunity for us. We've never been able to have more energy than we need, until you think about it and go Actually, that's all we do. Export is energy. Well, that's all we export. But when I talk about fossil fuels, we are exporting energy. All we're saying is we were evolved that to export a different type of energy. That's an opportunity for us and we have just such an amazing opportunity, not just resources, you've probably had lots of people in the last two days. He's talking about sun and wind and how it could power the entire world five times over from Australia, etc. That's all totally true. We also have the opportunity in the finance community, in the talent we have here. If you think about anybody that's built large scale infrastructure projects, I care if you're building a coal mine, or a large energy export project of a different kind, you need large scale project management, you need project finance, you need engineering, you need electricians, you need all sorts of different bits and people to make this. We have all that expertise in Australia. And we have the resources and the talent. And we need to get people back to work in massive numbers. We're talking about skating where the puck is going to be the single greatest frustration at the moment is that we don't see this as an opportunity and economic opportunity that we should be embracing, which is like never before five years ago, it wasn't true, right? We didn't have the cost models and stuff that we do today.

Dan Ilic 30:54

that that would be scanning with the puppies. I think, you know, the the notion of 200% renewables or 500% renewables totally blows my mind. It's like, yeah, of course, like, it totally makes sense. And it really annoys me when you when we hearing at the moment, particularly with hydrogen that came out in the Technology Roadmap, and how hydrogens can be made with gas, brown hydrogen, and there's like, what do you like? What are you doing when we've got all this other energy we could use to make hydrogen and we've got the water, we are good by water. We are good by the resources that we need. We like we're good by Sun and water, like good. We think good. Dory anyway. So anyway, I get really annoyed when I hear these, you know, myopic ideas that kind of lock us into into fossil fuels when it's so obvious that that we could execute on something far more innovative.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 31:45

I should say that we have a sundrenched land with boundless less planes that a windswept? Yeah, well, you can, you can keep going down lots of poetry and be like, we literally want this a long time ago.

Dan Ilic 31:57

Do that someone will write it, write it down and put it in Comic Sans and email to their uncle. And it'll be used as irrefutable evidence against climate change. So I'll share for you who is someone who is kind of globally minded yourself, like what what would you like to see Australia take to Glasgow next year in terms of in terms of plan?

Osher Gunsberg 32:18

Um, look, I think the most important thing as as extraordinarily humongous as the the investment that Mike is working on with his wife, and you know, the other people that we've heard over the last two days, we really are going to have to make our country safe for foreign capital, in the in long term policy, we really going to have to make it safe, because if we're gonna get out of this, we are absolutely 100% going to need foreign investment, we're going to need investors to feel safe, and that their investments will be good for 2030 more years here in Australia. And that's what that's what's gonna have to happen. When I first went overseas to study a couple years ago. Anyone that's talked to a Dutch person will understand the directness. Hi, I'm from Australia. Oh, really? What's going on with your country? Why does the carbon tax Why? Why do you still dig up so much coal, and I found myself like having to apologise to this classroom for the people. We are at enormous risk of being overlooked by the international community and the international investment community. I think the days of Australia being like, oh, that kind of scruffy larrikin that gets a roof over here and a pat on the back and off you go, you know, the little schoolboy that's gone over, if we're not clever, we're just gonna get left out of the opportunity, the extraordinary global opportunity that's ahead of us. And countries with sun and wind and bandwidth plans to stay will they'll be the ones that that get the cake and we will be sitting around going. Alright, I guess it is yes. Pacific bass. Oh, yeah.

Dan Ilic 33:47

It I mean, it is so strange seeing how Bacary out a whole bunch of things. Mike, you you have been having conversations with a lot of politic politicians. The Liberal government is all of a sudden becoming a market interventionist, you know, with what they do with guests, but out of chat with us, as well as energy minister Matt Cain on my podcast a few weeks ago, and he actually said very few, very few liberals are actually into fossil fuels. If that's the case, why do we have the situation today where the federal government is really backing fossil fuels, but the states and territories are leading the charge in renewables? That what is that? What does that disconnect between the states and the federal, federal politicians?

Unknown Speaker 34:27

How many hours? Do you have the answer that I

Dan Ilic 34:28

think we've only got 25 minutes. But

Mike Cannon-Brookes 34:31

look, look, I think for sure the states are taking charge, which is awesome. You could argue to be to be charitable. It's one of the positives of the way that our Federation is constructed, that we do have different groups that can kind of move forward in different ways. I think obviously mats doing a great job in New South Wales. We have a lot of other states are doing an amazing job. I would remind people that the AC T is 100% renewable now. And that's where the parliamentarians federally sit in Parliament House. So that always makes me Ah, feel good that we have one of the

Dan Ilic 35:04

few only I'm sad. Often houses in the world, in fact markets, the wind from all those politicians that gets those windmills going. So

Osher Gunsberg 35:12

thank you, Dan. Thank you. You can see yourself as my

Dan Ilic 35:14

Yeah, I could write for The Daily Telegraph with puns like that.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 35:19

Look, I think it's it's a it's a complex issue, right. The federal issue obviously involves lots of different complexities that the state driven issues don't. Right. But we have to, we have to work this out. And, again, we have netzero commitments, I believe in every state and territory now, but not federally. So there's a lot of argument about whether it matters federally, does it actually matter? And the answer is, I think it still does matter. But it doesn't matter as much as it would have done if we didn't have one. Right. So I do think we are getting that moving in the right direction. There are certain things that are federally controlled, that we need to move forward on and and to be fair to them they've done put the gas stuff aside for a second. The renewable any energy infrastructure investments, they're making transmission was there great. Like we totally need those and they have to be legit federally done. They announced, you know, for Star, the south and other things that they are federally. Finally, you and I either took too long. Okay, great. wherever we are, we're gonna move forward. framework for offshore wind and offshore other things. Again, we have massive offshore resources, price of offshore has converged to basically the same as price of onshore now. So they are moving in the right direction. Would we like them to move faster? Sure. Does it help to talk and keep pushing and keep moving? Yes, I think it really does. I think the

you know, what, great state and federal we need by

Dan Ilic 36:52

Yeah, I understand that. But I mean, with all this the state with the state territories with the states and territories or committing to net zero by 2050. It shouldn't be hard for the federal government government said, yeah, we are going to commit to net zero by 2050. Because the states are doing it. So we're going to absolutely do it. And it's it's it's like pure leadership play. And it doesn't it doesn't dog whistle to fossil fuel industries or their bass or anything like that. But having a flag in the ground, everyone can run towards it. And coal is still going to be mined, there's gases still going to be pumped. But it's a federal signpost that says yeah, we're we are also good actors in the world. Like it feels like this. It's an opportunity completely missed. And it sends the wrong signal to our neighbours and other people where you know, other people in the world we have to deal with.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 37:39

Absolutely don't I mean, don't get me wrong in Madrid, we were an international prime. Right, three countries blow up those towards us, Saudi Arabia and Russia. And that not a club that you generally want to be a member of when it comes to basically what what you're doing international diplomacy, etc. Right? Why did we do that over Kyoto credits? Right, like for all the bullshit you want to put around it, that is the literally the reason that we did that. Europeans were trying to make the credits that we're trying to apply for which by the way, should never have been, they were not written into the agreement. It's total bullshit. I forget. It was on was it on q&a, someone else said, it's like, going to your second marriage and saying, Oh, I did a lot of dishes in the first one. In the second marriage, I was like, that is the best. That's why we need crave storytellers like Oscar. And that was like, the explanation. That is literally what we're trying to say is it's a different accounting system in Paris and Canada, like they're completely different. Yeah, but we were not good internationally. How many years? Can you turn off and be not good internationally, and then ask for other things, and we need strategic international diplomacy in our region. We want to be a world leading group. We have to have that. Yeah. We had shut up in Glasgow, and that should have been right now. Without anything, we would have been locked out of the room. I

Dan Ilic 38:59

Ah, yeah, I get a feeling I get. I get I get the feeling we're still gonna be left at the room with this technology roadmap, but I don't know if that'll change between now then.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 39:08

I'll show up with just the Technology Roadmap in Glasgow in 12 months time and expect to have any respect on the international community when it comes to climate and emissions.

Yeah. We can Trump adjust that

Dan Ilic 39:22

will lose all that power. Again, I'll shut in the space leadership is hard. And especially in you know, the climate space. Everyone has the ability to unlock their own personal power to affect change. You're a solo operator, though, but but you have enormous power in reaching audiences. Can you kind of paint us a picture of how you use your personal power to try and affect change in the positive ways in space?

Osher Gunsberg 39:45

I'm just another middle aged white guy in the public eye talking about something that you know he feels is a you know, compassionate thing. Yeah.

Dan Ilic 39:53

As many people have pointed out to me on twitter at this is what this panel is Yes,

Osher Gunsberg 39:58

yeah. The three whitest dudes in the room. Look, I've been in one way or another in the corner of people's television, like in the corner of people's living rooms for the past 21 years or so. So, I that buys me about an extra four seconds of your attention, you know? Because I that's that guy. Oh, yeah, the thing, what's he talking about? That gives me about an extra four seconds and a lot can happen in that four seconds, a lot can happen as far as getting people to consider, there might actually be something going on here, you may actually have a lot more power than you then you realise. And, and just try to I guess, you know, model through. I mean, I've had a lot of success on my podcast through having conversations about like, just modelling what a conversation about mental health can look like. And that has been extraordinarily helpful to a lot of people, and has been quite profound as far as effecting change. Similarly, I tried to have conversations on my on my podcast that actually sound like two adults discussing this challenge and the incredible opportunities because I think as a nation, we plant like I'm just trying to fill a gaping, aching chasm of getting the feeling like as an adult in the room that causes extraordinary anxiety in the community. We know that our government believes in science, that's how we crushed the curve on COVID. All right, we know that they're willing to spend money on things that mean something to them, they just don't want to spend money on this. We know they're not people who don't believe in graphs. There are graphs. There's current, there's there's curves, there's curves, there's things there's capacity of hospital capacity that we're all very aware of shiners they know how to read a graph. So here's a similar graph, different colours, similar capacity for sustaining life. So don't tell us you don't know what it's about. I think it's just the feeling that there's, you know, there's this kind of feeling of dread within a community that, that mom and dad just too busy arguing in the front seat, and I don't know where we're driving the kids in the back of losing their mind, we as a nation, we just want to know that mum and dad have got this, we want to know that the adults in the room are taking charge, and we'll be cool, we'll be alright. That's all we need. And we'll be fine. All right, we'll get on with doing our jobs, you get on with doing yours. And I think through that through my ability to have a conversation and a rational conversation in public on Well, this is what it sounds like to talk about the reality, to discuss the grief of what we're losing what we will lose what we cannot ever get back. And then to talk about the opportunity, extraordinary chance we have right now to rebuild that country, for our children, for our grandchildren. It's astonishing, that we don't have these conversations on a wider level and have

Dan Ilic 42:26

Can you tell us what your audience is feeling when you have these conversations? What kind of feedback you get, particularly on your climate conversations? What like, what are they saying to you?

Osher Gunsberg 42:34

I think it's a two handed thing, because I don't think you can fully appreciate, you know, the way I try to talk about it, Dan, it's I think that it's not like we don't have the ability to discuss this, we have all the ability to handle the psychology behind inaction on climate already. Okay, it is the same denial. And I can speak to this from my own experience as someone who's been sober 10 and a half years, it's the same denial that you have around alcoholism on the signs, and all you have to anything you're addicted to the amount of justification, the amount of manipulation, the amount of lying, the amount of I don't know should be right should be right? The amount of constantly using this thing that you know, is ultimately going to kill you. But you're so terrified of change, and you just can't picture any other way you keep doing it. That is that's the type of alcohol gambling, sex, whatever. Here we are, folks, here we are. But the thing about being addicted is it's a life of restriction. When you're addicted to anything, things just get smaller and smaller and smaller. Once you find your way into sobriety from that addiction, once you become recovered from that addiction, the opportunities just explode. All right. And I've seen this time and time and time again, the same psychological things that we have within our brains, that we've used to find help for people who are addicted to substances we can use to help people find out of this situation.

Dan Ilic 43:51

I totally agree with you there. Like just even having a summit like this is really important by having people who are knowledgeable and understand what the future could look like to be able to paint what that future looks like, can unlock a whole bunch of hoping everyday people like you, like you wouldn't make sorry, might not count counting you like an everyday person because you're in this industry. But like, you know, regular Joe's to kind of think big about what the future could look like. Mike listening to this for you, who has someone who has put climate at the centre of their business and their businesses, and someone who has really put their money where their mouth is, what should other businesses do? Like what's what's a great way a great simple way to get the ball ball rolling, if you if you run teams or you you run businesses, what's the great way to kind of get the ball rolling in this space to really start applying pressure to change the way they do things.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 44:46

Um, probably depends on which sort of business you're running, I suppose for large businesses, I think, and again, this is what for me it comes down to economics. I I'm a deep believer. I should say that Start that the money like that drives things. Economics drives things like economics is a study of human behaviour. Actually, it's not a study of money, right? It's about utility. And you know, when you get into supply, demand and etc, we have rational actors and game theory and everything else, right? The best way to solve this problem, if you ask me is solving the economics. And what's frustrating is we've gotten to the point that the economics is favourable. So just like if you have a house in Australia, and you're not one of the 3 million households that has panels on the roof, and you own that house, I realise if you're insisting upon building, we've got to solve those problems separately. Putting panels on will save you man, like, it's almost like, there's enough financing options out there to get those panels for free onto your roof, that you're just kind of giving away money by not having them on your roof, right, that's an economic problem that's in a good spot, not quite as batteries, but we will get there, right? If you're running a business, for some reason, people go to the business and don't think the same way. Right. One of the things I've done a lot of work with Ari 100, which is a great group trying to drive globally started by IKEA and Microsoft and Lego and others. Atlassian was one of the first members in Australia. And now we've got, I think all of the big banks and a whole bunch of other great members, john D, runs out has done a fantastic job driving large scale corporates to join. The biggest reason that convinces him to join is they will save money for their business, a business will run cheaper, right? And if you want to talk to business and get them to move, that's often the best way to do it. Right? is like, hey, what if you build next he was $8, not $10. Like, Hey, I'm interested, now I'm listening. He so I do think people's businesses can benefit from this in a financial way, right. And you can feel good while doing it. There's nothing wrong with feeling good about what you're doing. But the same problem for the the nation of Australia in terms of this could create shitloads of jobs. Oh, hang on, man. I've seen the guys into my visit. And they're not they're not doing renewables. I'm like, most of the hottest jobs being created today are in renewables. Like, we're gonna have a debate about narrow bar versus renewable energies. And in terms of jobs, the energy on when

Dan Ilic 47:09

I don't know, whoever's running Smart Energy summit sound video right now, if you could just go back and capture Mike's last 30 seconds, that'd be a great gift.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 47:18

It is the frustration. But you should take that home your business, I guess is what I'm saying is the economics of what we have in terms of today's technology is really good for your business, for your household, and for the nation of Australia because of the resources we have. And that is what the story that we need to keep telling. And it takes people a long time to understand that that is the story. And understand that that story will be better every single year. But it's already positive economics for the country. The business there. So

Dan Ilic 47:51

is that kind of what you fundamentally believe that others don't believe Mike, what's is that the disconnect?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 47:58

Yes, I believe it's a finance and economics problem. That's the best way to solve it. There's probably one thing I fundamentally believe that often others don't believe how to speak for everybody else. It's a bit like for me, it's like recycling, right? If I tell you that you should recycle 5% of population will be the do gooders and do the right thing. Soon as I pay five cents a bottle, it's like 80% of people will recycle or something. And so financial incentives and utilities actually do make a big sense in the economic world. So I do think it's a finance problem, we should remember that almost all almost all renewable technologies are large capital low input, if not zero input. What that means is all the money is spent upfront. And you know, you put panels on your roof cost you five to 10, grand, and then it's free after that you can get up with a shimmy and walk them every so often if you want to. So the 20 years are free. That's what financing does. Financing loans, etc, is about how do we make it so that you can get those panels cheaper, quicker, it's like a credit card or a mortgage. Right? These are exactly the same devices, we invented the mortgage in the Depression of the 1930s, to help people buy houses. And we said, You know what, you can live in that house for 30 years, we're gonna work out the financing equation, you're gonna pay twice the price of the house, or whatever it is over the time, but you're gonna like having a house. So this is really good. We invented the mortgage. We're constantly trying to do financing activities for all clean technologies, because the generally zero input cost, large scale capex up front, where finance is perfect. The second thing that I think I believe in is I believe in learning rights of modular technologies. deeply, deeply, deeply as a technologist. This is super important, and I believe far too few people understand this.

Dan Ilic 49:37

What is this elaborate on this? I don't know what you're talking about.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 49:41

It's all the panels batteries.

Wind turbines. These are modular technologies, right? By that I mean, if I have one panel or a million panels, I just make more of the same thing. Right? It's why chips get cheaper is because we make slightly better chips and we make a bigger factories that make more chips right naturally. A lot of That ends up being more important, right? More of the reduction of the cost of a solar panel now is coming from manufacturing scale. And installation costs then from bit asides and building better panels. But these are modular technologies, they will always win once they reach the point of scale that begets the learning rate, which makes them cheaper, which means that they get more scale, which means that they get more money, right? If you're in technology, we've seen this in chips. We've seen it in cameras, the camera in your mobile phone in 10 years, improved quality per pixels per dollar a thousandfold. Right, so we got either 1000 times cheaper, or it got 100 times cheaper and 10 times more powerful or some combination, right? This is the way that technology works when that technology is modular. Lots of technologies are not modular, and that is unfortunate. So those learning rates do not apply to everything, but they do apply to solar batteries, etc. And they are like Moore's law and chips Swanson's law and solo. These laws aren't laws of physics, but they will happen next year, I've had discussions with politicians where I say Do you realise that batteries have gotten like 10 times cheaper or three times longer lasting or twice as light, or any of these sort of facts? Now I gave it you don't know that will happen next year. And I'm like, ah, but I do. I can't tell you in the next three months. But I can tell you if I look 234 years that will absolutely continue.

Dan Ilic 51:25

Like Don't take this the wrong way. But with with your hair and stuff, it looks into your hoodie, you could be like a wizard of technology.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 51:33

But this is like if we understood this, again, we would never build any more fossil technologies at large scale, because 30 years from now, it won't make sense, right? 10 years from now what makes sense. And we kind of know that based on today. But we seem to we struggle with that future pricing equation. A lot. The learning rate of modular technologies has to be understood, as has the financing question

Dan Ilic 52:01

asked, what about the scalability of podcasts? Are there enough a podcast and to reach enough people to convince them to jump on board this clean energy train?

Osher Gunsberg 52:09

I don't know how many middle aged white men are there? Because we all need a podcast? Look, honestly, I'm just just just just vibing on Mike cannon Brookes extraordinary, like Alan Malala is kind of ability to restructure and recreate our, you know, this problem and looking at it like an engineering problem, I really have to agree with what Mark was talking about there. As heartbreaking as it is, and you're here on this resume, because you have seen the graphs and you know what's going to happen. So you are here from an emotional reason, probably all right. There's very few people here from a financial reason, once it becomes a financial reason, this will change overnight. And I've got to acknowledge at how much it sucks to wait for that economic reason to become viable. But unfortunately, that is the way of the world. And we just have to wait. But it will absolutely. Mark's already talking about these tipping points where things the cleaner, greener option is the cheaper, scalable, more replicable option. But we just have to wait for that. Which is really, really horrible if you're an endangered species. But that's you know, that's that's the truth. That's where

Mike Cannon-Brookes 53:12

we've already got that point. It's coming. Right? Like we've already gotten on a number we should we all need to stop saying it's coming. It's here. It is here today. Yeah, right in a lot of technology. And we need to say that that we've reached that point. We are beyond that point. When people talk about the cheapest source of new power generation being renewables, they're telling the truth, but they're also a couple years late. And so as a community or whatever, we need to stop saying these things are coming in the future. These both will create jobs and cheaper energy. And this is like today's world, not Tomorrow's World one Exactly. To get thrown around is fun. I'm not saying it's wrong on the fly. But why politicians is Yeah, we need some more technology, like in five years or 10 years or 20 years. We'll get there. I'm like we're fucking there right now. Yeah, we need to keep saying that. I can't stress that enough.

Osher Gunsberg 53:58

I'm agreeing. I'm agreeing with you market just yet. Which is like the I'm what I'm doing is I'm agreeing saying like the idea of pushing people to understand that the financial decision is the right decision right now. It's the emotional decision. That's the thing that people reacted, that's they will go, Oh, no, no, no sort of thing on Facebook. If it's an emotional decision, people want to shut it down and reject it. But if it's financial decision, people go, hang on what I can save money. And then that's the way that's the way and so to answer your question, Dan, I don't know how many podcasts but definitely conversations and it's everyday conversations. And it's literally is when someone says, gee, it's a nice day today. Yeah, it is. It's 30 degrees. It's the fourth of September shouldn't be 30 degrees.

Dan Ilic 54:37

question here from Christine mill. Mike. Have you considered the batteries on on the mainland? will eclipse pumped hydro storage based in Tasmania, and we'll leave the lettuce stranded.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 54:50

Ah, look, that's a deep nuance energy question. I don't do my Tasmania and I believe that leaves a lot of stranded because there it's already built. so pumped hydro has a 50 year lifetime. And if you've already kind of paid off the capex, then you should be okay with that. pumped hydro is a good example of a non modular technology. Every time you build pumped hydro, largely, the pumps are modular. But the engineering required to work out this piece of water, that bit of water, the pipes, the pumps, the the the angles, like it's an engineering project engineering projects are not very scalable. I can find any field and roll out solar panels with, you know, very, very quickly. So, yes, they will. I think one of the big things for Australia is probably about snowy Hydro and snowy hydro two, and specifically, whether that's a good investment or a bad investment. I generally fall down that that's a good investment, not a great investment. It is not the best thing we could have done with that amount of money. But it's not a terrible thing to do with the money. Right. From the point of view of storage. Will batteries be cheaper by the time that is ready? That is a great question.

Dan Ilic 55:57

Yeah, another question about the New South Wales government, which today has announced the neraby the narrabri gas project is going ahead, Mike, what are your thoughts on that project? Does it have a chance of being found?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 56:09

You're gonna get a shitload of hot water here? Um,

firstly, I think it was the independent planning commission that said they could go forward from what I understand not the New South Wales, I'm not sure how the relationship between those two To be fair, but I'm not sure if it was New South Wales Government stamp that I can I can ethically disagree with that. At some level, I have to hope that they've all done their correct work on planning and everything else and have the right controls. I don't know if the project will go forward from a financing perspective. If I was Santos, and looking at the finances, I would think that would be a struggle to get up and running. You know, you need to be betting on $1 A Giga Joule gas a long time in the future for that to all make sense. Look, if they're going to put private capital and we've done the environmental concerns, that's fine. I don't have to agree with it personally, right. But at some level, you can't just always be tearing down the structures that we have that said, Do I think it's necessary? We're gonna bring Australia's power prices down? Absolutely not like let's, I'm very clear with gas. Give me the word off the gas.

Dan Ilic 57:13

And then let's separate all these concepts because the blurring of the stories gets very confusing, like I said, on q&a. There's the extraction, there's the transport, there's the price is a

Mike Cannon-Brookes 57:24

totally different things and totally different timescales. Right, if you're talking about the next three to five years, and beyond any of that three or five years, right, they'll probably still be debating various concerns about groundwater and salt and all absolutely valid things to be debating three years from now,

Dan Ilic 57:41

do you get you get phone calls from the guest lobby? Mike, do you get phone calls saying Hey, Mike, let's turn maitain into us thing get on our side? I just wanted to say that jack, another question from Blair heavy

Mike Cannon-Brookes 57:52

told me that we've got call in the coalition and I'm gonna tell you there's also lithium ion

Unknown Speaker 57:58

high

Mike Cannon-Brookes 58:01

in there, right, we've just got to flip it from one to the other.

Dan Ilic 58:03

Blair asks my cow can the current government refuse to even see the economic benefits and pick a polluting now done energy source such as gas when it so clearly does not make financial sense? So like, what what is that? What decision Do you think in your mind that they've made?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 58:22

Look, this is where a politician has very different job than that's how our society works, right? I understand that they are trying at some level to navigate themselves away from coal and get two other things right. And and the way they did the transition fuel is also a transitionary policy platform of fossil fuels that gets you kind of away without any elegant this dismount. I don't think we need that dismount. Right, but you might need it. If you're trying to get elected, that's totally different. We don't need it from an energy point of view. We don't need it from a country point of view. We don't need it from an economic point of view. However, they are, we should give them credit. Again, sometimes people like to make these things black and white. And the answer is always a bit of grey, we should give him credit. The largest announcement made two weeks ago was a couple of hundred million bucks for renewable and energy infrastructure, transmission infrastructure. That was the largest dollar commitment. The largest job commitment was the same thing. So sometimes the announcement it's important gets buried in the, you know, the other stuff. Secondly, I think it's really important and what I would like to keep repeating, there was an implicit, we're moving to 100% renewables. In those announcements. This is the first time the government has said that on the other side, we had Alba's saying we're going to be renewable energy superpower. Let's focus on the long arc of time. That was a stratospheric shift from our current government to implicitly say whether they said we're moving to hydrogen, you definitely need gas. Let's spend a lot of time talking about gas. Wait a second. Let's go back to what you just said. Up front. You admitted we're moving on grid to 100% renewables and beyond. That's a big step. I get why you didn't like that the headline, even though I would make that the headline, and you can argue it's took too long. Doesn't matter. Yeah, we're gonna get there.

Dan Ilic 1:00:09

Is it gonna be like the NBN? Like it? They'll say that in 50 years time, they'll be like, Oh, you know what we were wrong back then we're actually actually gonna really go

Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:17

down again. Again, one of the reasons we're trying to keep them honest, I suppose about this Ladell replacement thing, and they've already come down from 1000 megawatt hours, which by the way, is a classic. If you're a politician, You make it sound bigger. You can't make it one gigawatt.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:29

What are they? What are they 1000 megawatts because

Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:31

it sounds bigger. I'm like, well, let's make it a million kilowatt plant. It's a billion watts. I don't understand the numbers. But anyway, let's just say it's already gone from 1000 megawatts to 250. Right? Wow. I put my money that never gets built.

Dan Ilic 1:00:44

I think it was seven times a court who said that he read a tweet from his last week that a 250 megawatt plant was run by 13. People think of all the job it will create.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 1:00:55

Hundred 50 megawatt plant. We instal that much residential solar every month in this country. Wow. 250 megawatts a month. Right. So let's go forward three and a quarter years. That's 10 gigawatts of residential solar installed without any growth whatsoever. If it flatlines from here, and it's growing like this. So if it flatlines, we'll get 10 gigawatts, two or 50 megawatts as much as people want to say it's big, it's fucking tiny. Right? It's a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of our grid, it won't get built, unless the government forces it in with subsidies. And if they do, tell us how much the subsidy is or how much the investment is, and I'll give you 345 better options. straightaway.

Dan Ilic 1:01:35

They were sending something really telling I think on insiders when spezia was interviewing skybow talking about not committing to the net, net zero 50. And scomo was like oh, yeah, no, we'll get in it serious 50 by the end of the century,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:49

it's like God, it's so frustrating.

Dan Ilic 1:01:50

And I think kitaen Joshi wrote a great piece saying, well, by the government's own admission, their emissions will get to net zero by 2300. I don't think I don't think that's a don't think we have a long arc of time, is what is what particular Blair's replied to me saying we don't have a long arc of time as well. I don't think we have that long arc of time to actually make these changes. How can we accelerate that? Or how can we put pressure on as, as voters to get our politicians to accelerate those changes to push for net zero 50 or net zero by 30? In the process,

Osher Gunsberg 1:02:24

it's got to be where you spend your money, Dan, we vote every three years or whatever down the state schools, but we vote every single day where we spend our dollars. I think there was a like a 2014 study out of Princeton that show that public protest often has a like a near zero impact on on government policy. What makes people stand up is where people are suddenly not spending their money. That's where decisions get made. And we have that choice. As a nation, we have the choice of we all decided to go like one day a week without buying petrol. People would lose their minds as a whole nation when when that's it. We're not buying petrol for a week, because when upset about the way the fuel lobbies done, it would be changed overnight. All right, we have that power, we absolutely have that power. It's just in the organisation. And it's where you spend your money. As Mark was saying, if you start if the rooftop solar keeps going in that direction. There's no way that the industry won't adjust to that. But that's people making a decision on the bottom line of their household budget, hundred percent. And that's where we have the ability to affect change every single day. You are not powerless. Every dollar you spend is a vote.

Dan Ilic 1:03:29

Thanks, Ayesha. That was brilliant. I think we're out of time. So big thanks to Mike and and Brooks and Asha Gunzburg. It's been a real privilege talking with you and yelling with you about climate change and energy transitions. I had a real wonderful time. And really, this is a highlight of my year so far. And let's face it, it's 2020. So low standards, but still pretty good stuff I have to say.

Osher Gunsberg 1:03:51

Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Mike.

Dan Ilic 1:03:52

Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot, everyone.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:56

GM, great, a small podcast

Osher Gunsberg 1:03:58

of our generation. Well in what did you think of that?

Linh Do 1:04:00

That was great. I was surprised by how entertained I was. I mean, it makes sense. You had one of Australia's most famous TV people, although that said, given given that Asha did name dropping university, I feel I need to name dropping university as well. So I'm going to name drop Harvard. So there's a Harvard academic called Erica Genworth, who actually believes civil disobedience is not only the moral choice that we have for combating climate change or any sort of other social issue, but it's one of the most powerful ways of shaping world politics. So her research, one of the things I've geeked out on, looks at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, and it's found that it's 3.5% of the population engaged in a social issue. It has never failed to bring about political change. So yes, it's important where you spend your money for sure. But actually, that's really important in Australia, what what does that look like? That looks like 900,000 people actively engaging. So you know, last year school strike alone, we had 300,000 people attend and you know, there were many people who couldn't make it. myself included, I have the flu. As you know, even pre carpet, I knew it wasn't good for me to go and spread my germs. But we look at some of the populations around the world that you know, have taken measurable action on climate change. And what do you know, 3.5% of a population has engaged so cambre, which is you know, as mentioned, 100% renewable energy paired with now. They had over 3.5% of their population go to the climate marches last year. The same is the case in New Zealand as well and a bunch of other places around the world. So, dear listeners, never forget political action is still important. But other than that great interview.

Dan Ilic 1:05:37

Lynn, can we get Erica chin was on the show.

Linh Do 1:05:40

That would be amazing. I don't think she's a billionaire. And I don't think she's very famous on TV. But I think she has like some phenomenal thoughts around. Actually we can do more than just far and we can do more than just spend our money, how we show up and how we use our voices. I think Matt is just as much

Dan Ilic 1:05:57

Big thanks to rode mics Bertha foundation go neutral, Jacob round on the tepanyaki timeline. Also Big thanks to the Smart Energy Council for letting me publish this audio from this session here. irrational fear is back in two weeks, we're having a little bit of a break because we've been so flat out with Nina ayama, and Gretel a Jackson and the week after that with Zoe combs, ma and Concetta Cristo. And we'll be back with the greatest moral podcast of our generation in November, where we chat with YesI moseby. And Sophie marjanovic, who are organising a gigantic campaign for the Torres Strait, to take the Australian Government to the UN to fight them on their lack of climate action. It's a fascinating chat. You'll be in tears. I've just started editing it now. It's, it's really great.

Linh Do 1:06:39

I can't wait to listen to that, given our track record, I would think that they have a really good chance of winning. And there's so many cases again, around the world of people taking the government's to action. So got on the crew up north.

Dan Ilic 1:06:52

One of the interesting things about that chat I've had with those folks is that Sophie was saying that it doesn't matter if the UN comes down on the side of the Taurus, right? And Australia does nothing. It's often just a preset and like setting that precedent will allow other populations to take their countries to court and get the same result. And then those countries can take action. So even if we do if I call that something special we can give to the rest of the world.

Linh Do 1:07:14

Great. It's the least we can do given we won't even sign a biodiversity pledge.

Dan Ilic 1:07:18

Thanks for listening to irrational fears greatest moral podcast of our generation. Until next time, there's always something to be scared of. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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