Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie delivered a must-watch keynote speech last week to the Northern Beaches Liberal Party, which expertly explained the systematic destruction of the Australian economy and society.
Barrie’s speech centres on three broad areas of willful destruction by Australia’s policymakers, beginning with energy.
“If you wanted to cripple a nation’s productive capacity, you’d target its power supply first. Make it expensive, make it unreliable. Above all, make abundant energy resources politically toxic. Take a resource-rich nation and, instead of harnessing its wealth, export it at rock-bottom prices, sometimes without collecting a cent in return. Then force citizens to pay premium prices for unreliable alternatives.
Make people pay third-world prices for first-world power by forcing them to buy back unreliable energy generators made from their own exported resources.
Energy is more than just power — it’s the lifeblood of industry, the backbone of quality of life. The more energy a nation harnesses per capita, the more advanced its economy becomes, the stronger its society. So you’d confuse them. Convince the public that high energy use is selfish, even reckless. Make them accept higher bills, believe that using less is somehow noble. Call it ‘progress’ — or better yet, a ‘sacrifice’ they should make with pride.
Destabilise energy, and you destabilise manufacturing…
Manufacturing needs three things to survive: cheap energy, reliable energy, and the certainty that both will still be there tomorrow and a decade into the future. Destroy all three, and you destroy the ability to produce anything more complex than a meat pie…
The second major area of willful destruction is social cohesion via the housing market and mass immigration.
Turn the housing market into a casino for foreign capital. Make housing so expensive that young couples abandon any thought of starting a family. Force multiple generations to live under one roof, not out of choice but necessity. Create a system so twisted that a child born today could spend a lifetime just saving for a deposit…
While your population struggles to afford rent, you’d flood the country with permanent migrants. Where thousands of new people each day compete for the same homes, the same jobs, the same hospital beds. You’d create a system so perverse that doctors live in shared housing and nurses sleep in their cars…
Here’s where it gets truly diabolical — call it “growth.” Label anyone questioning this madness a “racist”. Gaslight locals, telling them to lower their expectations, convincing them it’s selfish to want a fair chance at housing, education, or a dignified job.
Import a person or two every minute while telling citizens to expect less. Pretend that this influx is useful, call them “students”. Cook the books to count foreign students’ rent as “exports” and call it wealth. Turn the education system into a visa factory…
Tell them we need more migrants to build more houses for more migrants. Claim perpetual “skills shortages.” There’s never enough.
Demoralise the population by forcing them to compete with the world’s poor for basic rentals while the world’s rich buy up their homes. Watch the social fabric disintegrate as young families abandon dreams of children. Erase cultural touchstones: demolish community venues, churches, sporting fields, and cinemas — anything that fosters connection, that embodies the spirit of mateship. Replace them with apartments to house the incoming masses. Call this “progress.”
When they ask “apartments for who?” gaslight them.
Watch as the culture itself fades. Its music, films, and arts become relics of another era. Strip people of a shared sense of place, of identity.
Make the public question their own reality, that they never belonged here in the first place, that it was never their country. Make them become ashamed of their nation’s flag, their nation’s day, their nation’s culture.
Erode the nation’s high-trust society — convince neighbours to distrust each other, pit communities against one another. Where once there was easy camaraderie, you leave suspicion and resentment…
Transform healthcare into chaos. Stretch resources so thin that hospitals, surgeries and clinics can no longer meet basic demand. Attack doctors and nurses that speak up or don’t follow the official line. Encourage immigration without a corresponding investment in healthcare infrastructure. Force citizens to wait for essential services, to tolerate overcrowded hospitals, to feel that their lives and health have been sidelined in the pursuit of economic “growth.”
Barrie identifies government propaganda as the third area of willful destruction being wrought on Australian.
Finally, silence any resistance. Manipulate data. Conceal damage. Create a Ministry of Propaganda. Pass laws punishing dissent. Force people to identify themselves online so you can jail them for speaking up.
Ladies and gentlemen, this isn’t a manual for national suicide.
This is Australia in 2024.
Matt Barrie systematically breaks down these topics in his 80-minute presentation, which I highly recommend watching.
Several of the topics covered by Barrie have been key MacroBusiness themes for more than a decade.
Our policymakers and the general public need to wake up before Australia transforms into another Argentina.
