Panellist % Jordan Peterson 31 Catherine McGregor 23 Terri Butler 18 Alex Hawke 15 Van Badham 12

TONY JONES

Good evening and welcome to Q&A, live from Melbourne. I’m Tony Jones. Here to answer your questions tonight, political and military adviser, turned author Catherine McGregor, Canadian author Jordan Peterson, whose 12 Rules For Life and stand against political correctness made him a philosophy rock star, Labor frontbencher Terri Butler, the federal government’s Special Minister of State, Alex Hawke and writer, activist and Twitter queen, Van Badham. Please welcome our panel.

Thank you. Now, Q&A is live in eastern Australia on ABC TV, iview and NewsRadio. We’ve had a lot of interest in Jordan Peterson, and more questions than we can possibly answer. So we’ve asked our panellists to keep their answers brief – under a minute if possible. I will be interrupting if they go too long. Let’s go straight to our very first question. It’s from Dean Troth.

DEAN TROTH

My question is for Professor Peterson. Professor Peterson, your rise to global stardom appears to be based largely on, I guess, the millions of people in the West who have been disenfranchised, whose worlds have been rocked and world views have been cracked by global movements that they are powerless to influence, movements like socialism, globalism, and feminism. People, particularly young men, appear to regard you and look to you as a saviour. What is it...what do you think they believe they need saving from?

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson? Welcome to Australia.

JORDAN PETERSON, 12 RULES FOR LIFE

Well, it’s funny to regard me as a saviour, because what I tell people consistently is they have to look to themselves. And it’s not because I believe that people are in full control of their lives. We’re all subject to bad breaks and sometimes to terrible luck, but your best bet is to do what you can, to take care of yourself properly, to treat yourself like you’re someone responsible for helping – which is rule 2, by the way. Partly because I do believe in this ancient, fundamentally Western idea that people are of intrinsic value.

I mean, look, we’re all given the sovereign right to organise our own states, the responsibility to vote. Our very state assumes that you have the wisdom to keep the ship of states sailing straight. And it’s because there’s something about you that at least in principle has the possibility of being remarkable if it can be manifested. And I’m reminding people that, not only do we believe that, but that it seems to be true.

And it isn’t obvious to me that there is anyone, or there has been anyone for the last four or five decades, let’s say, who’s done an incredible of drawing a relationship between the meaning in life that you need to sustain you, and responsibility. And not just for you, because it’s not an individualistic idea. It’s responsibility for you and your family...

TONY JONES

Coming up to a minute there, Jordan.

JORDAN PETERSON

..and your community. That’ll do the trick. And your broader society.

TONY JONES

Before we move on to the other panellists, can I draw you to the final part of the question, because there’s this fascination that many young men have for your message, and I guess he’s suggesting, our questioner there, that it’s something to do with them needing saving from socialism, globalism and feminism. Is there any truth to that in your mind?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, there is truth to the idea that they might need a certain amount of existential rescuing from the idea that the West is fundamentally best characterised as an oppressive patriarchy, which is absolutely... it’s absolutely an absurd proposition. And that, as a consequence, whatever actions they might take that are forthright and ambitious in terms of participating in that system are, by...by the very nature of the system, destructive. It’s very difficult for me to understand how anybody can be properly motivated if that’s the fundamental view of society and male participation in it. And I don’t buy any of that.

I think the idea that the West is fundamentally an oppressive patriarchy is an appalling idea. And the notion that the proper way to view history is as a battleground between ethnic identities, or identities in general, or between men and women is... it borders on the pathological, and so... Maybe it exceeds just merely bordering on the pathological.

TONY JONES

Let’s go round the panel on that, because there’s plenty of time and other questions to explore. Van Badham?

VAN BADHAM, WRITER AND ACTIVIST

I just find it really interesting. Like, I’m a 44-year-old middle aged woman who lives in country Victoria and because I’m a feminist I’m suddenly terrifying. I mean, that’s kind of flattering. But the bigger issue is, looking at disenfranchisement, people aren’t disenfranchised that if you’re being sold that it’s feminism and movement for equality that’s never thrown a bomb, that’s never picked up a gun, that’s disenfranchising you, or globalism or socialism – we haven’t lived in socialistic economies in the West in a very long time. It’s been four decades of neo-liberalism.

And it’s neo-liberalism which has smashed communities, it’s neo-liberalism which has made consumption and material acquisition dominant values in society, it’s neo-liberalism that has destroyed the workplace and made jobs insecure and made our experience of economy so unstable. If people are feeling disenfranchised, if men feel disenfranchised, please let me reassure you that women feel disenfranchised as well, because we are all living in this destabilised economy and we are all suffering from that kind of consumer ideology.

TONY JONES

Alex Hawke? Start with this, do you think young men feel disenfranchised, and is it by those various ‘isms’ that the questioner pointed out?

ALEX HAWKE, SPECIAL MINISTER OF STATE

Look, I do. You know, I’m not sure that’s helping, what Van Badham said there about the destabilising message. I mean, it’s true to say in some ways feminism and things like that haven’t thrown a bomb or committed violence, but the worst violence, you know, can be the violence of the mind and I think men today in our society are told, you know, from... virtually from their young age to now, when they grow up, that they’re doing the wrong thing. That they have done the wrong thing historically. That there’s no place for them.

And I think that’s what Jordan speaks to a lot of young men. And, look, I’m the father of three young boys under five. And, you know, reading a lot of Jordan Peterson’s works through the book, I can understand why people... why it resonates with a lot of people. Because men today have lost their identity. And I think feminism has become a movement to overtake masculinity, and, uh...

VAN BADHAM

I’m a feminist. I don’t want that.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, sure you do. Sure you do.

VAN BADHAM

I don’t hate men.

ALEX HAWKE

Sure you do. Sure you do.

VAN BADHAM

I’m not trying to destroy men. That’s ridiculous.

ALEX HAWKE

But let’s look at the empirical evidence. Let’s look at the empir... In our schools, it’s boys who are falling behind now, actually, in primary schools. It’s boys who are falling behind at universities. It’s young men who are suffering and have the worst mental impacts. It’s the highest rates of youth suicide. Um, you know, it’s a serious issue. And I think, you know, the questioner’s right – I mean, yes, there’s a lots of disenfranchisement in the world, but there are movements persecuting men in today’s world.

TONY JONES

Terri Butler?

VAN BADHAM

Oh, that is not true. That is not true.

TONY JONES

OK, you’ve made that point. Terri Butler?

TERRI BUTLER, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT SERVICES

Well, I mean, Alex, I think that... it’s almost as though we’re talking about a structural issue and you’re talking about a personal issue. And people who take personally the idea that we need to change structures, I think, are misreading what the complaint is that people have. And so, for me, the problem that I have with kind of structural rigidity of gender roles for men and women is that they hurt men and they hurt women – they hurt both. They hurt the men who want to stay home longer with their kids. They hurt men in real physical ways, because we do have a problem in this country where women are more likely to be the victims of violence at home. Men are more likely to be the victims of violence in public.

But in both, the common factor is it’s men committing the violence by and large – not exclusively, but by and large. And so these rigid kind of ideas of masculinity hurt everyone. And so, when we talk about feminism, when we talk about changing those structures, it’s to create an equality for the benefit of everyone and to get rid of some of the things that hold everyone back.

TONY JONES

Do you want a brief response to that, by the way?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, the first thing I would say is that, um, I’m not anti-feminist per se. I mean, I think the idea that the world would benefit from the movement of talent from both sexes into the workplace as rapidly as possible is something that anyone with any sense should share, given the rather... uh, the rarity of talent and the necessity for utilising it. I do stand by my original statement, though, that there’s a brand of more radical feminism that insists that our culture is best characterised as an oppressive patriarchy, and I think that...first of all, that that’s an appalling sociological doctrine and I think it has very negative psychological effects. And they won’t be limited to men. Because in...if it’s true that there’s something toxic, let’s say, about masculinity per se, what that will inevitably mean is that as women adopt more masculine roles traditionally, is that toxicity somehow going to go away?

TERRI BUTLER

But that’s a straw man. Because no-one says there’s anything toxic about masculinity per se.

JORDAN PETERSON

What do you mean no-one says that?

TERRI BUTLER

People use...

JORDAN PETERSON

The term exists.

TERRI BUTLER

No...

VAN BADHAM

No, they...

JORDAN PETERSON

How is that a straw man? Where did the term come from?

TERRI BUTLER

It’s a phrase that’s used about forms of masculinity that are harmful to men and women. It’s not about masculinity per se. You must know this.

JORDAN PETERSON

I read the American Psychological Association Guidelines for the treatment of boys and men, and I know perfectly well that this is no strong...straw man, and it’s not only devoted towards what you might describe as the more aggressive ends of masculine behaviour – it’s aimed at masculinity in a much broader... in a much broader range of... There’s a much broader range of accusations that are underlying... that are under the surface than that. And so I don’t see in what way at all that it’s a straw man.

TONY JONES

OK, I’m just going to pause that argument a second.

TERRI BUTLER

We’ll agree to disagree, I think, on that one.

TONY JONES

I’ll go to Catherine McGregor. Catherine, I mean, you’ve lived on both sides of the gender fence. So what are your thoughts on these issues? And just go back to the question that was raised...

CATHERINE McGREGOR, AUTHOR AND ADVISER

I don’t know whether that qualifies me or disqualifies me, frankly. Sorry, guys, I ratted on the team, but not... not for any sociological reasons – intensely personal. I gather we might address that, but... Look, I’m not entirely out of sympathy with Jordan’s critique. I...I’m the oldest person on this panel bar you, Tony. And in my lifetime I’ve seen... I’ve seen, you know, rolling institutional crises through the West. You know, the great American settlement based on Bretton Woods, and NATO and the United Nations and so on is fraying globally – in the area that I can talk about with some authority.

We’re seeing a dissolving global order now with the rise of two autocratic totalitarian capitalist states, which is replicating the conditions of the 1930s. I gather we’re not doing the geostrategic stuff, but I think it’s very alarming. When Robert F. Kennedy, who was my political hero, was running for the presidency of the United States in 1968, he addressed disenfranchised African Americans, who were wearing the backlash from many white men who were losing their jobs or perceiving that they were losing their jobs. The deindustrialisation of the West as jobs are exported to the developing world, all of these factors are... Bobby Kennedy said it – it wasn’t Germaine Greer that said it. He said, “When you remove from a man the right to stand before his family as a breadwinner,” and people will say that’s patriarchal...

TONY JONES

That’s your minute, by the way.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Alright, well, I’ll shut up. But the removal of meaningful work amongst, especially, unskilled men has a political consequence. And it’s been washing through the American system since 1980, with the Reagan Democrats. The fraying of the New Deal coalition. I don’t entirely agree with Jordan’s analysis, but the problem can’t be gainsaid. And three million books later, in 50 languages or whatever it is... I bought your book by the way, and you’re outselling Shane Warne. Now, there’s a culturally specific reference. That delights me in two ways, because in Australian cricket, no-one has more bleached blonde hair or has had more work done than I, but Warnie’s a close second.

TONY JONES

We should put that out on Twitter, Catherine. Now, the next question is a video. It’s from Milo Yiannopoulos in Miami.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS

Hey, Dr Peterson, it’s Milo Yiannopoulos. You talk a good game about standing up for men and for boys and you’ve certainly amassed a big army of them, but a few of us have been wondering recently with your silence on Kavanaugh, your silence on the innocent Covington boys. And then when you’ve said things, like, for instance when you told the New York Times’s Bari Weiss that you thought I might be a racist when you know I’m not, that perhaps your actions aren’t matching your words. Can you explain why, although you talk a good game about standing up against social justice warriors and the chaotic feminine, but when it comes down to it, you always seem to either fold, stay silent or betray your allies?

TONY JONES

Jordan?

JORDAN PETERSON

Was that live? Haven’t seen Milo for quite a long time.

ALEX HAWKE

He’s like the intruder on Q&A.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, first of all, I don’t believe that I’m obliged to comment on absolutely everything that happens everywhere in the world. And I don’t think that I am betraying my fundamental base with regards to what happened with Barry and Milo. Milo, I’d probably just as soon apologise to you for that. I don’t think that I did defend you very well at that particular time. I don’t believe that you’re a racist. It’s a question that caught me off-guard in an audience that was exceptionally hostile and surreal. And so, insofar as that might be helpful to you, I’d offer you an apology for that. I don’t think the rest of your accusations are warranted, however. So that’s what I’d like to say.

TONY JONES

Do you see...?

JORDAN PETERSON

I did, by the way, also, Milo, invite you to talk, you know, about a year and a half ago when things first started to collapse around you, and we never did get around to that, and I don’t believe that was entirely my fault.

TONY JONES

We’re not going to hear back from him. It’s just a video, but nonetheless...

CATHERINE McGREGOR

I thought he was live.

TONY JONES

Do you see him and people like him as being in some sort of competition online for the hearts and minds of young men in particular? ‘Cause he obviously sees it as a competition.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I don’t really see that I’m in competition with anybody, particularly. I’m not trying to be in competition with anybody, and I’m also, by the way, not trying to talk to young men. I mean, one of the things... Not specifically. I mean, I’m perfectly happy to be doing that.

And by the way, they’re not all that young. I think the average age is somewhere near 35. Um... I’m trying to talk to people, and, like, as a university professor, 80% of my students, approximately, were women and that was the case for 30 years, and at least 50% of my colleagues have been women. And there’s been this idea generated in the news by news people who keep reading the news that other news people create that somehow I have a coterie of angry young white men surrounding me because they’re angry about feminism and about all these other ‘isms’, let’s say. And I don’t see it like that at all.

I’m trying to suggest to people that their best bet in life – and this is men and women alike – is to adopt as much responsibility as they can for their own lives – and I went through this already – because that’s where the meaning in life is to be found. And the notion that that’s somehow a message that’s limited to young men is... it’s an absurd message. Why would that be limited?

TONY JONES

Not to... Not to kind of interrupt your flow, but your minute is up.

JORDAN PETERSON

OK.

TONY JONES

But also, oddly enough, we have a question from a young man. (CHUCKLES) Ulysses Reid has a question for you.

ULYSSES REID

With modern feminism fighting for equality between the genders, why is it that some self-proclaimed feminists would rather ignore the issues men face when it comes to gender inequality? Why aren’t they doing more to address issues such as how many fathers don’t get joint or any custody of their children at all, or how men are statistically more likely to commit suicide? Why do so many people either disregard this information when seeking to end gender inequality or not even acknowledge that this is in fact a problem?

TONY JONES

Van, we’ll start with you.

VAN BADHAM

Ooh. The fundamental truth we need to grasp here is that men are not oppressed because they’re men. Men will be oppressed in their lives for all kinds of different reasons. They might be oppressed because they’re working class, they might be oppressed because of their ethnicity or their religion or their age or their sexuality or their ability status.

But at no point in human history have all men been judged, oppressed, disenfranchised, kicked out of institutions on behalf of their maleness. That just has not happened. And I think where a lot of feminists get really frustrated is that we are constantly subject to these crazy, literally straw-man arguments about, “You believe in this,” and, “You hate all men,” and, “You...you...” “It’s you. It’s you feminists who are undermining everything.” And yet, where is our control of the institutions? What has happened in the West is that we developed democracy, and democracy actually meant the enfranchisement of all of us.

It means the conversations about what society looks like, what manners are, what behaviour is, what courtesy looks like has changed, because it’s not one group making that decision anymore. And I understand that that’s a difficult transition for people who’ve grown up with narratives where those decisions and those institutions belong to a very narrow demographic of people...

TONY JONES

That’s your minute.

VAN BADHAM

..which, by the way, never included all men – that it’s difficult to get your heads around a new way of behaving and engaging. But it’s necessary, because we are actually a community, we are one society, we all have an equal right to participate. And taking bait from internet misogynists on the oppression of men is not a conversation that I get into. I’ve been on the internet too long to fall for it. Men are not oppressed as a general group. My sympathy to any man who does feel oppressed in...

TONY JONES

Thank you, Van.

VAN BADHAM

..in any other part of his life.

TONY JONES

Alex Hawke.

ALEX HAWKE

Oof. You know, look, I hear what...

TONY JONES

Pick up the core of the question, if you can.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, yeah, I’d like to, ‘cause, you know, some of that, you know, does my head in, I must be honest.

VAN BADHAM

There, there.

TERRI BUTLER

You can follow it.

VAN BADHAM

There, there, Alex.

TERRI BUTLER

You can follow it.

ALEX HAWKE

I’m just a silly male. You know, I don’t get it. But, you know, I’ve got to say, I agree with the questioner. I think tonight we’ve got a couple of women telling us that this doesn’t exist in the West at the moment, but very much it does. I worry about it for my three young boys. I think there is a real identity crisis...

TERRI BUTLER

Sorry – are you saying we’re telling you something doesn’t exist?

ALEX HAWKE

Yeah. Yeah.

TERRI BUTLER

What?

ALEX HAWKE

Feminism, you’re saying feminism is not the... you know, as Jordan has put it, hasn’t gone too far out of its bounds and is sometimes oppressing men. It is.

VAN BADHAM

Oh, I’m sorry if we’ve rejected our bounds, Alex!

ALEX HAWKE

Well, it’s not about equality anymore. It goes beyond the argument of equality. It always starts with equality. That’s fine. Everyone agrees with equality. We agree with equal rights, equal treatment...

TERRI BUTLER

We agree with it in the Labor Party, but...

ALEX HAWKE

And we agree with it in the Liberal Party as well.

TONY JONES

OK. OK. He let you answer. Van, he let you answer, so hold on.

ALEX HAWKE

I’m the only one getting interrupted tonight.

TONY JONES

Well, I just put a stop to that.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, you can interrupt anybody. Other than you.

TONY JONES

I interrupted to let you continue.

TERRI BUTLER

So oppressed.

ALEX HAWKE

No, well, my point is this – if you want to make a political point about it, Terri, the Liberal Party is a party of the individual. Individualism is the only antidote to some of this. Identity politics is on the march. It’s eating away at Western society, treating people as a collective. You know, all men are the same, or all women are the same, or all of one ethnic group are the same and we all behave or think the same way. It’s just not true. And so...

VAN BADHAM

You’re right. It’s not true.

ALEX HAWKE

..identifying people as individuals is the only way... Well, if you want to join, I’ll get you a form, but, um...

VAN BADHAM

I’d rather eat glass.

ALEX HAWKE

I know. I know. You don’t have to say it. But identity politics is a real thing, and at the moment, we’ve certainly gone from a 50-50 equality argument into...

TONY JONES

That is your minute.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, OK. That’s my minute. Alright. I’ll abide by the rules.

TERRI BUTLER

He can have some of mine, since I interrupted him.

TONY JONES

Terri, it’s your turn...

ALEX HAWKE

It’s back to you.

TONY JONES

..and then I’ll want to hear from Jordan on this, obviously.

TERRI BUTLER

Well, it’s back to you. Well, I guess, Alex, the problem I have with what you say about, “Everyone agrees with equality, with addressing inequalities,” is that agreeing with the need to address inequality is one thing, but actually doing something about it is another. And I did have a bit of a cheeky go at you about the Liberal Party, but that’s because your representation is down around the 17% mark in the parliament and ours is up near the 50% mark, and that’s because we didn’t just acknowledge that inequality is a problem, we did something about it. We changed the way that our rules work. We got more women into parliament.

Interesting fact about doing that, by the way – we changed our rules and then no-one ever had to use them because suddenly, when you change the structures, suddenly women feel like they can run, they’re ready to put their names forward, and that’s what happened in our party. It’s almost impossible to find someone who ever had the benefit of our quotas in a strict way because we didn’t need to. We changed the culture by changing our rules. And I am a very strong proponent of more Liberal women in parliament as well, because I think... I mean, obviously not at the expense of our women, but...

ALEX HAWKE

Yeah. Sure. Sure.

TERRI BUTLER

But I think...

TONY JONES

Just about out of time.

TERRI BUTLER

I think that once we do have all of the parties becoming more equal, then it will be a more respectful place, because people will have more of an opportunity to understand where each other are coming from.

TONY JONES

I’d like to go back in a minute to our questioner, Ulysses, if he’s there, but, Jordan, go ahead.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I think we don’t address a lot of this systematically. We talk a lot about equality, but there’s various forms of equality. There’s equality of opportunity, which we discussed briefly, which I think is a very admirable goal, and then there’s equality of outcome, which I think is a... well, I think it’s an imposs... I think it’s a totalitarian impossibility, and I think it’s often conflated with equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome, of course, is the doctrine that every...every occupation should be occupied by people in precise proportion to their proportionality in the population.

TONY JONES

So, quotas in politics, for example, or quotas in business...

JORDAN PETERSON

Quotas...

TONY JONES

..as to how many women should be on boards, how many women should be politicians? That’s what you’re talking about?

JORDAN PETERSON

Yes. Yes. Quotas on the base of group identity, let’s say. So, for example, in Canada, our prime minister, an enlightened soul... decided that he would, um... he would make 50% of the cabinet women, despite the fact only 25% of the people who were elected in his party were female, which meant, certainly from a statistical perspective, that he did not hire the most qualified people for the cabinet. And he did that to virtue-signal to his...to his base, and it turned out to be a very big mistake.

TONY JONES

That’s your minute, by the way.

JORDAN PETERSON

That’ll do.

TONY JONES

We’ll come back to these points. I just want to hear quickly from our questioner. Now, Ulysses, did you get an answer to your question, first of all, do you think?

ULYSSES REID

I think that my question was more painted as why do you believe that certain people – not feminism as a broad spectrum, but certain feminists in general... not in general, but specifically – choose to ignore these statistics and disregard them when they are brought up in arguments against them, regarding gender equality?

TERRI BUTLER

Like who, Ulysses?

ULYSSES REID

Like, for example – and this is just off the top of my head – in the January Gillette ad, when all these people were going either against or for Gillette for their so-called toxic masculinity attack, when people started pointing out real facts, like how men are more likely, in Australia alone, at a minimum of a 3:1 ratio, to commit suicide in our states, they would disregard this information and just start attacking them as being misogynist and anti-feminist.

TERRI BUTLER

So, women on the internet?

ULYSSES REID

Yes. Women on the internet.

VAN BADHAM

Yeah, older women? Mature women? Or young women who are testing out ideas?

TONY JONES

Actually, I think, to be fair, we shouldn’t just be cross-examining our questioner. Catherine? Catherine?

CATHERINE McGREGOR

These are all large questions. But, again, the point Van made is very difficult to argue with, in the sense that if we all started on a level playing field... It’s no coincidence that women have only been largely voting and participating in democracy in Australia in the 20th century. You know, is that a total lack of intelligence capacity, or fairness, or...? I don’t know. It strikes me that you only have to look at most of those metrics to realise that the empowerment of women, the emergence of women from life beyond child-rearing... And this is not to derogate child-rearing at all. It’s a foundational... vital foundational institution.

But as women’s horizons have expanded in a finite number of opportunities, some men have lost out. Especially with automis... You know, as we’ve automated, the expansion of technology that has removed a huge amount of emphasis on traditional masculine attributes of physical strength and so on, the workplace has changed. It’s a fluid, dynamic environment. Men are feeling threatened by this, and there is a sense that some men are translating it as they’re losing.

The point I made about the Afro-Americans in the last wave of this in the United States with affirmative action and so on – that’s evened out to some extent. I’ll close on this, ‘cause I don’t want to take up too much time. We’ve got much more ground to cover. But I think it’s a lazy term – ‘identity politics’. All politics is identity politics. Parties campaign on identity. It’s...it’s whether they say we’re a party of individual freedom, that’s an identity, that’s a concept. The idea that identity is purely clustered around, you know, rainbow politics or feminism or race... And, again, I sound like I’m having a bet each way, and I probably am, because I’m torn on this. I was a bloke this day seven years ago... so I’ve been on both sides.

I don’t believe I was toxic as a guy, but, you know, I could go back through my career, and there are plenty of times I didn’t cover myself in glory. Locker room talk, the whole lot. So, I’m not going to... You know, I’m not going to pretend that we’re all on a level playing field. But, likewise, I just think this identity politics thing now...

TONY JONES

Yeah.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

..is a lazy slogan that’s eliminating real differences, and politics is about these symbols. And it’s terrific we’re all here having this disagreement tonight, because that’s the great strength of the West, is that we do this in public...

TONY JONES

Indeed.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

..and that no-one de-platformed this gentleman, which would have been reprehensible. And I’m thrilled that we’re here having this discussion.

TONY JONES

I don’t know that was ever in prospect, to be honest with you.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Oh, there’s a change.org petition out there.

TONY JONES

Next question comes from Taryn Batten.

TARYN BATTEN

This is a question for the panel, but mostly for Jordan Peterson. Do you believe that a stay-at-home full-time mother is adequately valued in today’s society? As a stay-at-home mother myself, I don’t feel valued by wider society, as most of what I hear focuses on women getting back to work as soon as possible, and you don’t hear anything about the benefit of staying home and the benefit for the children.

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson, I’ll start with you.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I certainly noticed that when my wife had small kids. And we used to go out together, you know, and... Of course, I had the small kids too. But it was... I mean, I stated it that way for a purpose. You know, when we would go to restaurants and so forth together, she was often treated with less respect than she would have been had the kids not been with her, and that was very bothersome, because, you know, it’s... it’s quite a sacrifice, and a very useful sacrifice to have small children, and people who have them should be treated with respect. I think that we do an awful lot of lying to women in our society, and I think that’s a better answer to your question, because I think... And I think the data indicates this too, that...

TONY JONES

What kind of lies do you mean, Jordan?

JORDAN PETERSON

That career is the most important thing in life, and it’s most likely to be the case that way for men and for women. I think it is important for more men than for women because women take the primary role for very early child rearing. But it’s clearly the case, as far as I can tell, that for most people – and the statistics bear this out – that family is by far the most important commitment that people make in their lives. And I think we lie to 18-year-old to 19-year-old women nonstop, especially in universities and educational institutions by...

TONY JONES

That’s your minute, by the way. Sorry.

JORDAN PETERSON

OK, well, by telling them that career is going to be the fundamental... give the fundamental purpose to their life. And for most people, that’s simply not the case, nor should it be.

TONY JONES

Terri Butler, going straight to the question. Stay-at-home mum who does not feel valued in society. What is it that’s caused that feeling, do you think?

TERRI BUTLER

It’s actually really fascinating to me, because I just speak to a lot of different people who feel that their group, the people who share their identity, talking about your identity, don’t feel valued. And so, women who go to work often feel undervalued because they feel stretched. Or women who stay at home for longer feel undervalued because they go to a party and someone says, “What do you do for a living?” and they feel like they’re being judged for staying at home.

But one of the great things about being a feminist is that you want everyone to be valued for the inherent dignity that they have as a human being. It’s pretty similar to something that Jordan said earlier, of course, and I think sometimes think that in these debates we’re arguing about things from different perspectives without really understanding each other’s perspective. So, can I say this? I think, at the same time as saying that perhaps we lie to women – and I don’t accept that, of course... But to go back to the question of what’s the difference between toxic masculinity and masculinity, it’s toxic masculinity to tell boys that they must be providers, that it’s somehow weak to stay home with the kids, that the people who take... the men who take a year off to look after children in early childhood are somehow lesser than men who are out there aggressively fighting for their career. These strict gender-based roles damage everyone. I was a mother.

TONY JONES

That’s your minute, by the way.

TERRI BUTLER

You know, the breastfeeding wars, Tony. You know, does she breastfeed? Does she not breastfeed? You’re judged for breastfeeding. You’re judged for not breastfeeding. You’re judged for breastfeeding too long. You’re judged if you go on to formula too soon. If you go onto...if you go onto solids at four months, that’s a bad thing. Is it a good thing? The constant politics of motherhood are deeply frustrating...

TONY JONES

OK.

TERRI BUTLER

..but it’s all rubbish because, ultimately, we all love our kids.

TONY JONES

Terri, I’m going to throw to Alex now.

ALEX HAWKE

No, look, I agree with everything, I think, that’s been said there, but, you know, again, I think the pendulum might have swung a bit too far, and sometimes, we don’t value motherhood and mothers staying at home, or indeed fathers staying at home at any stage. And sometimes, this manifests in the political realm in the sense that you can’t even raise these issues as matters of policy. We subsidise day care, child care – 50% and higher, you know, increasing, depending on your income levels – but we can’t sort of discuss policies like perhaps do we create tax incentives for people to stay at home of equal value? To value not strangers looking after your kids, even when they do a fantastic job, even when it’s absolutely necessary ‘cause you need two incomes to sustain your household. But plenty of people would make the choice, if we had that tax incentive, to stay at home and parent their own children. Um, but we can’t even discuss this topic in today’s environment. I think that’s a big problem.

JORDAN PETERSON

And why can’t we discuss it?

TERRI BUTLER

But we can, and...

TONY JONES

I mean, it is a free world. You can discuss anything you’d like, and you can come up with whatever policy you like prior to the election.

TERRI BUTLER

And you just did it on national television.

ALEX HAWKE

I love to hear that on the ABC – “It’s a free world.”

TONY JONES

If you’d like to come up with a policy now, Alex, for the next election, go ahead.

ALEX HAWKE

I prefer to say it’s a semi-free world.

TONY JONES

Alright, OK.

ALEX HAWKE

It’s not all free.

TONY JONES

I think that’s a semi-policy that we haven’t really heard the detail of. Remember, if you hear any doubtful claims on Q&A, let us know on Twitter. Keep an eye on the RMIT ABC Fact Check and The Conversation website for the results. The next question comes from Kath Larkin.

KATH LARKIN

Hi. My question is also for Peterson. And while I very much stand with the women’s advocates in the room, my question is sort of on a different topic. You have a whole lot of fans, or former fans, kind of so-called now ex-lobsters – people like Bernard Schiff – um, and a lot of these people talk about you have very simple answers to complex questions. You know, I think you often, you know, talk about, you know, individual responsibility over things that it’s impossible for individuals to actually have responsibility over. You look at the extortionate housing market, the precarious gig economy – like, things that are well out of our control.

So, I want to know what is your answer to young people for some of the really big problems facing humanity, like the, you know, climate catastrophe, like economic crisis, like the precarious job market? ‘Cause I just don’t... Like, you talk all this much about individual responsibility. Most of us are never going to be able to afford to have all of these assets to have responsibility over. So, what is your advice beyond banal comments, like, “Clean your room”?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, you know, it’s actually rather difficult to answer a question that ends with, “Your comments are banal” politely. So, you know, I would consider that more of an opinionated personal and political statement than actually a question. So, why don’t you try reformulating that so that there’s an actual question there?

KATH LARKIN

What is your...? So, what is your advice to young people when you talk about, “You need to be individually responsible,” but when there are things that are so far out of our control, like climate catastrophe, like the precarious job economy, like, you know, the economic crisis...

JORDAN PETERSON

They’re not as far out of your control as you think.

KATH LARKIN

What is your answer to people who are facing these questions?

JORDAN PETERSON

Do you think that you’re worse off than your grandparents?

KATH LARKIN

I think there are different challenges.

JORDAN PETERSON

Do you think you’re worse off than your grandparents?

KATH LARKIN

I think that...

TONY JONES

Um, Jordan, once again, we’re not going to cross-examine our questioners.

JORDAN PETERSON

No, sorry.

TONY JONES

So, try answering the question about collective responsibility on climate change, for example. Pick one part of that because the argument, I think, is that individual responsibility does not change the climate, does not fix the problem that needs global collective responsibility. So, I think that’s the core of the question. Do you have a theory about that?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, fundamentally, I’m a psychologist, and my experience has been that people can do a tremendous amount of good for themselves and for the people who are immediately around them by looking to their own inadequacies and their own flaws and the things that they’re not doing in their lives and starting to build themselves up as more powerful individuals. And if they’re capable of doing that, then they’re capable of expanding their career. And if they’re capable of expanding their career and their competence, then they’re capable of taking their place in the community as effective leaders, and then they’re capable of making wise decisions instead of unwise decisions when it comes to making collective political decisions.

I’m not suggesting in the least, and have never suggested, that there’s no domain for social action. I’m suggesting that people who don’t have their own houses in order should be very careful before they go about reorganising the world, which happens in many ways.

TONY JONES

So, can I just...? Just to... If a young person believes that the global warming, um, problem on the climate is something that needs to be tackled quickly, and they can’t wait until they grow up and become prime ministers to do it, do you think collective responsibility overrides individual responsibility in a huge issue like that?

JORDAN PETERSON

No.

TONY JONES

OK.

JORDAN PETERSON

I don’t. I think that, generally... I think that, generally... I think that, generally, people... I think, generally, people have things that are more within their personal purview that are more difficult to deal with and that they’re avoiding and that, generally, the way they avoid them is by adopting pseudo-moralistic stances on large-scale social issues so that they look good to their friends and their neighbours. That’s what it looks like.

TONY JONES

OK, Catherine, jump in.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

I’m going to get flamed more than you tonight, Jordan, because I’m...

JORDAN PETERSON

That’ll be a good contest.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

..taking your... I don’t see this as binary in one sense. And the point Jordan makes is self-evidently true. When I was young, after I left the military, I went through a very belated youthful rebellion and flirted with the Communist Party of Australia. I didn’t join, thankfully, which would have made my subsequent life in the Labor Party more difficult. But I was inducted into a cell in Canberra by people who were smoking their own body weight in marijuana. And there’s a reason they call it ‘dope’, not ‘smart’. Fair dinkum, you know.

These guys were saying, you know, “Your military training will be invaluable,” and started... The alarm bells started to go off ‘cause I didn’t see myself as the pointy end of the revolution. But when you can’t make the rent and you can’t keep the power on... you make a pretty poor revolutionary. And I... That’s flippant, but it’s the truth, you know, that whatever... whatever will we attempt to impose on the world has to come from some kind of... authentic life that is... that we’ve, in some ways, dealt with our own defects and...

TONY JONES

Catherine, that is your minute, I’m sorry to say.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Yeah, OK.

TONY JONES

I’m going to go right across to the other end of the panel. Van.

VAN BADHAM

We have to recognise we’re not powerless, and the example of insecure work is a really good one. There is a mass mobilisation against insecure work in this country and it’s called the trade union movement. And the trade union movement realised a long time ago... And so many of the things that we really value about Australia, you know, like equality in the workplace, equal pay, the right to occupational health and safety, were won by the mobilisation of working people through trade unions. And if you’re feeling disenfranchised and you’re feeling powerless, whether it’s about the workplace or whether it’s about climate change, the vehicles for change for you to add your own individual gift to a mass movement, they exist for you. We are not powerless in a democracy. The fact that anybody thinks they’re powerless has to do with relentless attacks by corporate interest to smash the structures that can resist greed.

TONY JONES

Just about out of time there. Um, Alex... can you fix a global problem like climate change without global action rather than individual action?

ALEX HAWKE

Well, obviously, global action is necessary to fix a global problem, and that’s part of the problem – that we don’t have real global sign-up from some of the biggest polluters and the biggest economies, so, obviously, global action’s necessary. But, I mean, you know, I was an Army Reserve officer. I never found any Communists and, you know, I... I hear what Van Badham’s saying, but that sounds like a Communist attack on the free market as well. Um, you know, and this is the problem. You know, constantly, the West is under this pressure. You know, we’ve got people assaulting what makes your life, as Jordan was about to say, you know, so much better than your grandparents’ life.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter who you are in our country today. We have it so good in this country compared to the rest of the world, and... We do. You know, we’ve got more information at our fingertips. We’ve got more prosperity per person than anyone else on the planet. Sometimes, we get obsessed with our own individual problems. But you go to most of the world, it isn’t a free world, Tony.

TONY JONES

Just about out of time.

ALEX HAWKE

It’s a non-free world, most of the world. They live in oppressive regimes. They don’t have more than $1 a day to live off. People die of all sorts of bad things. And people forget that, in a Western democracy, in a neo-liberal society, we actually have great benefits at our fingertips. You can do a lot in this country.

TONY JONES

OK, that’s your minute.

VAN BADHAM

Mm, low wages. Insecure work.

TONY JONES

OK, Terri Butler.

VAN BADHAM

The inability to buy a house!

TERRI BUTLER

Well, I didn’t think I’d hear Alex say anything to top the idea that, while on national television, debating an idea, that we’re somehow not allowed to talk about that exact idea. You do have a platform and you can debate issues and we do it all the time here in Australia, so I was pretty shocked by that comment, Alex. But calling the trade union movement a Communist assault on working...

ALEX HAWKE

Well, historically, it has been. It’s been very connected with the Communist Party.

TERRI BUTLER

Come on, Alex.

ALEX HAWKE

If you know your Labor Party history...

TERRI BUTLER

I’m sure you remember very well.

VAN BADHAM

There hasn’t been a Communist Party in this country since 1990.

ALEX HAWKE

If you know your history, the connections between the unions and the Communist Party...

TONY JONES

Now you’re doing the interrupting. I’m just going to let Terri Butler finish her minute.

TERRI BUTLER

Well, I think this idea that, suddenly, we all need to be scared of democratic institutions like the trade union movement, that somehow it’s a Communist plot, is pretty ridiculous. And I say that with great respect because I’m very fond of you, Alex, as you know, but it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.

But I do want to say, I guess, this – for me, I don’t think there’s a distinction between personal responsibility and collective responsibility because it is out of a sense of duty and personal responsibility that we give up our weekends, that we give up our early mornings to go out and be part of a big movement. It’s not to make ourselves feel better. I mean, with respect, it’s just kind of an Ayn Rand formulation that all altruism is really about yourself. It’s not. It’s because people feel deeply, deeply passionately and concerned about the big challenges of our time. My six-year-old talked to me about drought and climate change the other day. He’s not doing it out of a sense of wanting to feel better and have his neighbours like him. He’s genuinely concerned about this.

TONY JONES

OK, that is your minute.

TERRI BUTLER

And the... Well, can I say, the people in the AYCC – the young Australians who spend their weekend often protesting me... Fine. Thanks, guys. You’re still great. um, they’re not doing that because they want to be liked by their neighbours. They’re doing it because they have courage and they have the commitment to do it.

TONY JONES

OK.

TERRI BUTLER

And that’s brave.

TONY JONES

Alright, we’re going to move on. We’ve got so many questions. We want to get to as many of them as we can. Next question comes from Craig Pett.

CRAIG PETT

Martin Luther King’s dream was that there would come a time when, um, people would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. How is today’s identity politics consistent with that vision?

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I don’t think it’s consistent with that vision at all. I mean, the problem I have with identity politics as a mode of philosophical apprehension is that it’s predicated on the idea that the appropriate way to classify people is by their group identity, in whatever fragmentary formulation that might take and the multiplicity of ways that people can be divided into groups. And the classical postmodern, and I would also say Marxist way, of viewing the world – even though those two things shouldn’t be allotted together, they tend to be – is that group identity takes priority over individual identity, and I think that’s precisely the opposite of what Martin Luther King was hoping for and working for.

And I think it’s unbelievably dangerous because... partly because when you assume that people should primarily be identified by their group, then you can also attribute group guilt to them by their group, and then things go downhill very, very rapidly. And we’ve had no shortage of evidence of that sort of thing happening, say, throughout the 20th century.

TONY JONES

Are there particular groups that you are more concerned about than others? For example, the Liberal Party, as Terri Butler said earlier, is a group. Are there groups that you think are more dangerous?

JORDAN PETERSON

There isn’t a problem with groups. The problem is with assuming that the fundamental way that you should categorise people is with their group identity. Obviously, we all belong to groups. The issue is whether or not the individual identity is primary and the group identity is secondary, or the group identity is primary and the individual identity is secondary. If you’re a proponent, for example, of equality of outcome, of quotas, then you de facto accept the proposition that it’s the group identity that is primary, and there’s all sorts of dangers that are associated with that that far outweigh whatever good you’re likely to do.

TONY JONES

OK, Van...

TERRI BUTLER

Or maybe you just...

TONY JONES

Go ahead.

TERRI BUTLER

Or maybe you just think that representative democracy should be representative. Maybe you just think that women should be equally represented in the decision-making of our nation. Maybe that’s really just about having proper equality in a body that’s meant to be representative?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I do believe that women should have... I don’t understand your question, I guess.

TERRI BUTLER

Well, I guess you don’t. That’s pretty obvious, unfortunately.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, how about if you phrase it more clearly, instead of just insulting me? Look... Look at it this way. Let’s talk about quotas for a minute. So there’s a very wide array of jobs that are fundamentally done by men. So, for example...

TERRI BUTLER

Member of Parliament.

JORDAN PETERSON

..99.9% of bricklayers...

TERRI BUTLER

I’m sorry, Alex, I’m going to stop sledging you now, I promise.

ALEX HAWKE

I’m happy to give my minute to Jordan.

JORDAN PETERSON

99.9% of bricklayers are men. Should we have quotas for women?

TERRI BUTLER

Is brick laying representative democracy?

JORDAN PETERSON

That has nothing to do with the question. The question is if there’s evidence of structural inequality and oppression, because women aren’t precisely represented at 50% in all professions at all levels, then why don’t we have a conversation about having women represented in all professions, at all levels? Why do we talk about the C-Suite, for example? Why do we talk about politics and positions of power? Why don’t we talk about it across the board?

TONY JONES

OK, let’s just pause and...

TERRI BUTLER

We were talking about politics.

JORDAN PETERSON

Yeah, but that’s because it’s power.

TONY JONES

You pose a question to Terri Butler. Go ahead and answer it, then we’ll hear from the other panellists.

TERRI BUTLER

His question to me? About bricklayers?

TONY JONES

Well, yeah, if you’d like to answer the question.

JORDAN PETERSON

There’s nothing wrong with bricklayers.

TERRI BUTLER

Of course there’s not. It’s just...

TONY JONES

I think you were trying to draw a distinction between bricklaying and running the government.

TERRI BUTLER

And I was suggesting that a representative democracy should be representative, that was the point I made.

JORDAN PETERSON

Representative of it by quota?

TERRI BUTLER

Sure, if that’s what it takes. I mean, it’s working for us.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, that’s exactly what you would say. That just means a dreadful strategic inadequacy on your part.

TONY JONES

The Liberal Party has steered away from quotas.

ALEX HAWKE

I’m loathe to interrupt this, but I’m actually quite enjoying it.

TERRI BUTLER

I’m really enjoying it.

VAN BADHAM

No, they have quotas for the National Party.

ALEX HAWKE

Look, this assault on the Liberal Party from people that don’t care about us at all...

VAN BADHAM

Oh, we deeply care.

ALEX HAWKE

..is quite mystifying. But the absurdity of the position that Terri puts in this quota-based argument over time, it is a reductive, absurd argument. It’s like saying no women vote for men and no men vote for women. It is not true. People vote for the best person to represent them in parliament. So quotas...you say quotas are a fabulous thing in the Labor Party ‘cause they’ve helped you meet a target. But there may be a day in our Australian Parliament, and it’ll probably come some time, where we have 75% women in the Parliament. That won’t be a problem to me.

TERRI BUTLER

Do you mean in 300 years’ time when you guys finally get some women there?

ALEX HAWKE

It won’t be a problem if that occurs that way, and it should occur that way if that’s what people want. This question of identity politic fails...

TONY JONES

I’m going to let you finish your point and let’s hear from Van Badham.

VAN BADHAM

Well, two things. One, there is an organisation that’s campaigning for equal representation of bricklayers and women in trades and I’d like to do a big shout-out to WIMDOI, which is the organisation that promotes women’s participation in trades. They do incredible work. And I’d like to acknowledge unions like the ETU, who do a lot of work to encourage women to become electricians.

TONY JONES

Come on, Van, we’re not doing ads here. Let’s go to the point.

VAN BADHAM

But this is the thing, you know. It’s this pretence, it’s this insistence that things don’t exist that do. For example, the empirical evidence which exists, there was a longitudinal study that was reported in the Harvard Business Review – hardly a repository of doctrinaire Marxism – that talked about...there was a longitudinal study that looked at 40 years of affirmative action in the workplace and the companies, organisations, governments, committees that did have a quota policy. And do you know what they found after 40 years? Those organisations were in better shape. Companies with more diverse decision-making structures actually made more money. Organisations that had more diverse decision-making structures actually had higher productivity. Outcomes were better when more people were involved and that is a matter of science.

TONY JONES

That is your minute. We’re going to go to a related question. It’s from Peter Sheehy.

PETER SHEEHY

Thanks, Tony. This is for Jordan initially. There has been an increasing trend here in Australia that anyone who has a counterview to the socialists, PC lobby, Greens, communist brigade...

TERRI BUTLER

You’re literally on national television right now.

PETER SHEEHY

..are shouted down literally and called racists or homophobics, so that any form of rational debate is difficult, if not impossible, to now have. How can we counter this?

TONY JONES

Peter, I assume you’re making exception for Q&A, I dare say, because we are having that debate, as we speak.

PETER SHEEHY

I haven’t been shouted down.

TONY JONES

There you go.

PETER SHEEHY

So you’re making progress, Tony.

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson.

VAN BADHAM

Or you’re wrong.

TERRI BUTLER

Possibly you’re just wrong. That is possible.

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well... Look, I’ve been called every pejorative in the book, I think, except paedophile. Well, I’ve tried to keep track of them. One day last year, I was called a Jewish shill and a Nazi the same day, which was, I guess, a high point. Your claim that if we engage in certain types of discussions this kind of reaction emerges, is absolutely the case. I mean, for at least six months after I made what you might describe as my initial political stance, I was swarmed by people who were using every possible pejorative to take me out so that none of my arguments needed to be taken seriously.

How do we deal with that? Well, hopefully we stop calling each other cheap names. That would be a nice start, rather than addressing the issues. But I would also say a certain amount of persistence is called for. If you’re mobbed on social media, a brief bit of advice by people who are doing exactly the sort of thing that you’re describing, I would say two things. The first is, be careful about what you’ve said and what you’ve said in the past, and maybe it’s a bit too late for that. The second thing I would say is, if you haven’t done anything wrong, do not apologise.

TONY JONES

That is your minute.

JORDAN PETERSON

And then wait two weeks. And it’ll go away.

TONY JONES

Terri Butler. Do you accept any truth to the basis of the question, from your point of view?

TERRI BUTLER

I mean, my job is I go and hear different points of views all the time. All I hear is debate, all I hear is people with different opinions. I just don’t accept that you can’t have an opinion in this country without being shouted down. I mean, it just seems so silly.

PETER SHEEHY

We’ve had a number of right-wing people come to this country and then they’ve had their venues targeted, they’ve had to leave the country because of the radicals of the left that won’t let them put a point of view that’s different to the socialist left. And it’s getting worse. I’ve got a lot of grey hair. This didn’t happen in this country 15 years ago.

TERRI BUTLER

I have to say, I’ve got a lot too but it’s pretty well dyed in my case. We have, right here on national television tonight, Professor Jordan Peterson, who you might know is a figure of some controversy, and I say that with respect. I don’t mean it in a pejorative way.

JORDAN PETERSON

It sounds a little pejorative to me...

TERRI BUTLER

It’s a figure of...

JORDAN PETERSON

..especially given the company that you put me in.

TERRI BUTLER

Well, I don’t know which company he’s talking about but we’re here having a very civilised conversation, I think.

PETER SHEEHY

Correct.

TERRI BUTLER

And there’s people having very different views. I don’t think it’s true that people can’t say things in this country and I think that those who say that are going to have a very disproportionate...

PETER SHEEHY

Terri, you come from north of the border, so I can make an exception.

TERRI BUTLER

..a very disproportionate impact on whether people are willing to speak out. If you keep telling people they can’t say things, they can’t ventilate ideas, which is what you’re doing, then they’re going to be scared to do it. So you need to take personal responsibility, I would venture, for what you’re saying.

PETER SHEEHY

Which country do you live in again?

TONY JONES

OK.

TERRI BUTLER

I think you already know.

TONY JONES

Let’s hear from Catherine.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Yeah, look, pulling a couple of things together here, I think there’s merit in Jordan’s assertion that we are living better than our grandparents and to keep walking both sides of the street. That in no small part is due to the Australian trade union movement. Just to get this clear, I haven’t cast a Labor vote since 1998. I’ve voted for the centre-right tradition in Australia for this entire century.

But I have enormous respect for the trade union movement. I’m not anti-union. And the Coalition, for reasons of ideology and so on, opposed every national wage case when there were national wage cases and, Terri, I’m grey too, I can remember when they had them. The trade union movement has placed a great deal of ballast underneath living standards in Australia and more strength to it. And the trade union movement, Alex, that was a poor rendition of Labor history. The Communist Party was broken by right-wing trade unions.

TONY JONES

I think we might be slightly off... Could you just address... The point of the question is that people with certain views are being shouted down. Do you agree with that or not?

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Well, OK, I can give you... Have a look at my Twitter feed some time if you want to talk about vituperation. I’m called... By the way, I found out I was Jewish yesterday too.

JORDAN PETERSON

Congratulations!

CATHERINE McGREGOR

You can fact check that on the ABC Facebook page. It does require some resilience. And by the way, I actually do think we are approaching... And Robert French, an extremely eminent and progressive former Chief Justice to the High Court, thinks we’ve got a problem with freedom of speech on campuses. I’ve taught in the university sector. Fear of offence, trigger warnings and so on, don’t have a place in the academy. They don’t. There are very few views that are so repugnant they can’t be ventilated. I really believe that.

And I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of very fast bowling, some of which has been very hurtful, but I haven’t sued anyone for defamation...as yet. I’ve been threatened by such free-speech warriors as the online editor of Quadrant magazine for making fun of him, no more, and others, and I’ve sucked up a fair bit of it. So I have skin in this game and I’ve put my money where my mouth is. But I do think there is merit to your point. I think, especially in the university sector, we have got...there has got to be some more resilience. We’ve got to hear viewpoints we don’t agree with.

TONY JONES

OK. I’m going to actually... Thank you very much. Clap quickly because we’re running out of time. The next question comes from... It actually takes us back, in a sense, to where Jordan Peterson’s prominence began. It comes from Tara Parkhill.

TARA PARKHILL

Yes, this is directed towards Jordan Peterson. You’ve stated before to the BBC that by adhering to people’s preferred pronouns that it’s the starting point to an authoritarian regime or society. Is it possible, however, that it’s more about giving people more rights and liberty or even something as fundamental as respect?

TONY JONES

Jordan.

JORDAN PETERSON

No, I never said that. What I said was that I wasn’t going to allow the contents of my speech to be dictated by a virtue-signalling government when in no...never in the history of an English common law society had a government dared to regulate the actual voluntary contents of someone’s speech, except in a commercial situation.

TONY JONES

Just explain, Jordan, to those in the audience who don’t know precisely what you’re talking about what it was the Government of Canada tried to legislate.

JORDAN PETERSON

The Provincial and Canadian... They did legislate it. The Provincial and Canadian Government... Or the Provincial and Federal Governments in Canada mandated the use of personal pronouns and made it a criminal offence not to use them, at least under some circumstances. And there has been a variety of negative consequences of that, including the persecution of a teaching assistant at a university known as Wilfrid Laurier. And it isn’t a matter of respect at all.

Look, in the 1940s, the American Supreme Court – and Americans have a very tight, what would you call, control or tight respect for free speech – decided that it was not constitutional for the government to place mandatory requirements on what people were required to utter in terms of their voluntary speech. There are certain things you can’t say but the government’s not to mandate what you have to say. And respect and altruism and all of that is completely irrelevant as far as I’m concerned.

TONY JONES

So just to clarify that point, if the government had said... made it a kind of voluntary thing but with advice that that’s what should happen, would you have gone along with that?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, they’ve been doing that for years.

TONY JONES

Yeah.

JORDAN PETERSON

And I’m perfectly... Look, I’ve dealt with all sorts of people in my life. I treat people very politely as a matter of course. If I’m dealing with someone reasonable, I address them in the manner that seems to be most appropriate to the social situation and most conducive to their, let’s say, wellbeing mutually agreed upon. But as soon as the government decides that they have the right to decide what I have to say because of some false altruism on their part or some underlying and unexpressed ideology, then the answer to that is “No damn way.”

TONY JONES

Catherine McGregor.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Obviously Jordan’s point on free speech has weight and should be attributed weight. And my experience of this has been... And I’ve lived it. I’ve been called “he” and “it” more often. I’m being called it as we speak tonight. I know because I get that most days in one form or another. I think my Adam’s apple is trending on Twitter if my last glimpse was any indication. I would pick up a couple of points on jurisprudence, though, Jordan, if I may, and one is that the government in common law jurisdictions has prescribed speech in all kinds of ways.

The reason William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and Richard III and Macbeth was that it was an offence punishable by death to compass the death of the sovereign. So any of his plays in which the regal figure was killed, during the reign of Elizabeth I, you could not actually write an English-based play. Encompassing the death of the sovereign is a massive infringement on free speech, satire.

Try telling a flight attendant when you leave town tomorrow that you can’t remember whether you packed your bomb in your luggage or not, and see how that goes in terms of whether you get your collar felt for a satirical jest, potentially. So, there are all kinds of regulations of speech. I don’t believe, as a minority, the trans community can legislate our way to acceptance. We can’t. We have too often, in my experience, inverted the power relations where a telephone booth minority, despite the arguments that there’s an epidemic of transgenderism, we’re more visible and that is destabilising to people’s notions of binary gender. I get that.

I just think your first point in your opening remarks about the individual dignity of the human being being a Western concept, and I agree with you 100% on that, I would love to think a day will come when we don’t need codes like C-16 to mandate this. The experience I’ve largely had, by the way, and especially humbling in the world of global cricket, where some of the most alpha guys around have treated me with just enormous respect and it’s a given. I’ve been very blessed. I’m more privileged than most trans people...

TONY JONES

Some of them actually suggested you play for the women’s cricket leagues, but you rejected doing that.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

No, I didn’t. I wasn’t good enough. Greg Chappell was an enormous supporter of that. So was Pat Howard, who suggested I moved to Hobart. And I started netting in Hobart, hitting balls three days a week down there right through the winter. I didn’t get picked up. I’ve had a lot of support. Jason Gillespie and Bronnie Klei from the Adelaide franchise were willing to have a look at me. Darren Lehmann offered me a net with the Australian team. I had a rails run. I wasn’t good enough. I’m straddling the gap between the first class system and grade cricket.

And I don’t disagree with Jordan on the fact that, you know, born males have an enormous advantage in sport. I’m averaging... Before I cooked my shoulder, I was averaging 115 in grade cricket. You can fact check that on the MyCricket app.

TONY JONES

I think you’ve made that point. Let’s move on. Alright. We’re going to move on to religion. The next question comes via Skype. It’s from Gabriel Khaicy in Greystanes in New South Wales.

GABRIEL KHAICY

Hey, Tony.

TONY JONES

Go ahead, Gabriel.

GABRIEL KHAICY

Thanks. My question is to Catherine and also to the whole panel. So one thing I’ve noticed is that the topic of human dignity seems to be one that the whole panel agrees on – that people, whether in groups, or as individuals, we have dignity. My question is, do you believe in God? Because, as a Catholic, especially, I don’t see any other way where we can have a universal dignity beyond there being a God who has created us.

TONY JONES

Catherine. And Jordan, I think. But the rest of the panel too.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Look, this is a huge topic and I’m not going to duck it. I believe in God and my belief has deepened even through my gender transition. I was talking to Jordan about his primary academic interest. I drank way too much. I nearly died from the disease of alcoholism. I was raised a Catholic. I still have enormous fondness of Catholicism, especially its rituals.

In the lead up to what happened in my life and the gender transition and feelings coming to the fore that I had wrestled with and dealt with in maladroit ways right up to the age of 56, I went through a number of stages. I was a militant atheist. I went into quite exotic left-wing politics as a young person. That might seem rather strange to people now but I was on the Committee for the Acquittal of Alister, Dunn and Anderson, the East Timor Solidarity Group – you name it, I was in it. And I didn’t ever get around to the revolution... But I... But I do believe and I base that on experience in the sense that there was a... I can only describe as phenomenon in response to a very desperate prayer when I was dying in delirium tremens and I’ve not had a drink since the day that I uttered that prayer.

I then became more devout and went back into more organised religion. Clearly what has happened, what I’ve done – and I won’t use passive voice – what I have done has placed me outside organised religion. I’ve been welcomed in some Anglican communities and I go there because I like the ritual.

TONY JONES

You’re nearly out of time, Catherine, I’m sorry to say.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

But without beating my breast in the public square, I pray daily. I pray in the morning on awakening, I pray at intervals throughout the day and I try to meditate and try to centre myself and I try to pray. I don’t pray for specific outcomes.

I’ll close on this because it is a worthwhile story. A former Test cricket captain of Australia, a beautiful man with whom I shared a platform ahead of a match, a guy called Brian Booth, who’s in his 80s, a very devout Pentecostal from the Shire, down where the Prime Minister operates. Brian reached out to me through cricket. I’d offered to step aside from a panel, given his age and that I didn’t wish to... I didn’t want it to be confronting. The guy is a Test cricket captain, he’s entitled to be the speaker without the distraction, and he embraced me and said, “We’re all broken. We’re all sinners.” He and I read Psalms to one another in a phone call on Saturday, a very moving moment bringing together two defining elements of my life. And one is a belief, and it’s not an unreasonable belief. I act as if I don’t proselytise about it. I don’t run around with a sandwich board telling people to repent but it’s the foundation of my existence, frankly.

TONY JONES

Thanks, Catherine. Van Badham... I only learnt today that you’re a Christian.

VAN BADHAM

I am. I’m very devout.

TONY JONES

A Christian and a Marxist.

VAN BADHAM

Yes, both at the same time. In the great Western tradition of being able to hold two positions at once. The foundational approach of Marxism is the concept of the dialectic, that we have thesis, antithesis and synthesis. So I found that my Catholicism and my Marxism is an excellent tension to come to a moral decision and to think about how to live a good life.

TONY JONES

And do you believe in God? That was the literal question.

VAN BADHAM

I absolutely believe in God and my faith sustains me through darkness. My faith gives me meaning and I draw succour from my faith community and meaning. And these positions are not irreconcilable. I get very worried about this clash of civilisations thesis, the idea, for example, that feminists must be this and communists must be this and socialists are evil, and this polarity. We are all simultaneous identities. We all contain multitudes and my belief in God is absolutely integral to my commitment to socialism and my sense of serving good works and the social justice mission of the Catholic Church.

TONY JONES

Well, thanks for a lesson on simultaneous identity politics. Alex, what do you think?

ALEX HAWKE

Well, look, I believe in God. I’m a Protestant by tradition and I’ve married a Catholic, so all my children have been baptised Catholic. So my protesting has failed in one sense. Look, I’m not sure you can be a Christian and a Marxist together. And I say that because...

VAN BADHAM

Then I cease to exist.

ALEX HAWKE

They’re mutually exclusive. They’re mutually exclusive. But the point I want to make, a broader point about the West, one of the great successes of the West was that we separated the church and the state and religion is a private matter. And it’s matter for individuals and it’s a matter for how individuals want to choose to practice their religious faith, and we separate it from the operation of the state. That is a new concept in human history. It’s been very successful and I think, you know, when you look at societies that still have religion and the state intertwined, they’re not successful. They are wholly separate things.

TONY JONES

Terri.

TERRI BUTLER

Well, I’m agnostic. It’s a matter... My husband makes fun of me about it, actually, because he’s like, “Why are you having a bet both ways? You’re not going to get into heaven that way.” But I’ve always been agnostic, I’ve always identified that way. But to the questioner’s point about, “Can you believe in the inherent dignity of human beings if you don’t believe in God?” You absolutely can, and there’s a great secular humanist tradition that says that people are inherently valuable because they are people, and that you can do the right thing because it is your moral duty to do the right thing without that moral duty being conferred upon humanity by a god.

And I want to do the right thing because I believe that every person is as valuable as me, and that they deserve that I treat them well, and that it’s my duty as a human to other humans to seek to meet that moral standard.

TONY JONES

Jordan, I’ve actually heard you... asked this question a number of times. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard you give a definitive answer.

JORDAN PETERSON

I don’t like the question.

TONY JONES

How come?

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, I don’t know exactly. I think part of it...

TONY JONES

Is it too personal?

JORDAN PETERSON

Yeah, I think it’s private. You know, there’s a statement in the Old Testament about the, uh...about the... What would you call it? immorality of praying in public, let’s say. To make known your good works, your faith because of the benefits that that might confer upon you that have absolutely nothing to do with the moral actions that might... might allow you to truly deserve them. I mean, I think a lot... I think of religious matters a lot. I would consider myself a deeply religious person. I would say, and I have said this before, that I act as if God exists and that I’m terrified that he might. And... But I don’t consider myself an authority on metaphysical issues, and I don’t believe that my belief in God is... It’s not something that seems to me to be fit for... There’s something wrong. There’s something wrong that I can’t put my finger on, on triumphantly declaiming my belief in one manner or another.

And so it’s something that I prefer to leave in the manner that I’ve left it. So I act as if God exists. I try to do my best as a person who’s obsessed with religious matters. But I’m not willing to place myself conveniently in a box. So I’m going to leave it at that.

TONY JONES

Fair enough. Um... The next question... We really are running out of time. We’ve got time for one last question. It’s from Tom Siemer. Go ahead.

TOM SIEMER

Yeah, actually I’ve been listening to everybody... Actually I want to totally change my question but I’ll keep it to what it is. And so this is a question to Professor Peterson. You said that trying to improve things that about how things can go terribly wrong, and even if you have good conditions, is it easier for things to go wrong than things to go right?

But the question is, the question is to you, why are conservatives called all kinds of names, demeaning humanity, vangeli – or what’s it called? – vandalised, harassed, simply just because they’re cautious? So I’ll just... I’ll break it down real simpler, ‘cause if I wore... So I’m not a... I wouldn’t do it, but what if I were to wear a Trump hat? How many people would punch me? How many people would beat...?

So, I was in American politics for three years. My dad, he’s a lobbyist in New York...in Washington, DC. So what if I wore a Trump hat, how would you respond in this room? How would people respond in this room? That’s my question. How would you respond if I wore a Trump hat, Professor Peterson?

TONY JONES

First question... First question... I think you’ve made history there. I don’t think anyone’s actually acted out their question before in quite that way.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, the first thing is...

TONY JONES

I’ll come to you at the end, if you don’t mind, Jordan. I’d like to hear from Van on this. I mean, we sort of touched on this before, but there’s a sense among conservatives that... and if you did wear a Trump hat, that you would be howled down and maltreated. That’s what the point is. Do you think that’s correct?

VAN BADHAM

I think that, you know, if you make a statement, you open yourself up to criticism. It’s very interesting to hear people talk about free speech and a need for free speech that implicitly denies the free speech of other people to respond to that. You know, if you were wearing a Trump hat in my company, I would leave. I’m not interested in Trump hat beliefs or Trump hat-ism. And... that is an act of free speech as much as anything else. I think when people...you know, it’s a new experience for a lot of conservatives to be criticised. You know, to not be part of the... to not be part...

TOM SIEMER

Yeah, right!

VAN BADHAM

..of the dominant culture anymore. And the idea, you know, this manifestation of these, you know, socialist Green feminists, like, the Greens only poll 8%. Like, this is not a mass movement of people. The fundamental lesson here for everybody, and I say this as much to myself as to anybody else, the internet is not society. And how people behave on the internet is not how we behave in our homes, it’s not how we behave in our workplaces, it’s not how we behave in the street. And to take as a representative sample of anything what happens on the internet is the literal modern definition of madness.

TONY JONES

Alex Hawke.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, um... look, if I was critiquing your performance, I’d just suggest you should have brought out the cap at the end and put it on. That would have added to it. Look, I’d say the problem is in the world today, I agree with you, I think if you did had your cap on, I have no problem with Van leaving, but in America... I didn’t mean it like that! That came out wrong. This is real live television. I’m sorry.

VAN BADHAM

Well, I can’t wait till the election, Alex.

ALEX HAWKE

I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant I have no problem with someone leaving, but the problem is, we saw in the US, a young boy who was wearing the cap was attacked, and then he was portrayed as a perpetrator of violence until it was all corrected. And in the US, which is supposed to be a bastion of free speech, I think it’s sad today that people feel the need to, A, do physical violence, or to immediately respond to seeing a supporter of Donald Trump by attacking them.

VAN BADHAM

Like Trump supporters beating up black protesters.

ALEX HAWKE

Well, I don’t believe there’s any evidence of that.

TONY JONES

We’re running out of time, guys.

VAN BADHAM

Maybe you should look at the internet, Alex.

TONY JONES

I have to allow everyone to speak. Sorry, we’re just about out of time. Want to finish your point, quickly?

ALEX HAWKE

No, well, look, I think you’re right to raise it, it’s a problem in the West today, people are shouting. The Prime Minister talks about this, the shouting in Canberra. He doesn’t mean the politicians, he means the whole shouty political class where the public switch off from it because they’re not listening, and they’re shouting at each other.

TONY JONES

Terri.

TERRI BUTLER

I mean, the Prime Minister doesn’t need a microphone, he’s that loud in Parliament, let’s be honest. I don’t think he should be talking about shouting. Back to your point...

ALEX HAWKE

Not what he meant.

TERRI BUTLER

..um, I think this – I think that if you wore a Trump hat, nobody would punch you here. Everyone is listening to each other. And if I wore a pro-choice T-shirt, nobody would punch me here, everyone’s listening to each other, respectfully. And if someone was here wearing a hijab, nobody would tell them, “Take it off and let me set it on fire.” But these things... And that happened in my electorate to a woman wearing a hijab once. It was a terrible, terrible situation.

So we know that there are situations where we can have meaningful, respectful disagreement and debate. And what we all need to do is be better at that. I think that’s just a fact. But we also need to not assume that everybody else is personally victimising us for our beliefs all the time. Like, what I’m hearing from you guys is that a lot of people in this audience feel personally victimised by feminism. I don’t feel personally victimised by anti-racist movements, even though I’m a white person, because I know that it’s not about me personally or what I’ve done. It’s about trying to change structures so that people get more freedom and more equality in our society. And so if we could all stop taking everything so personally and just listen a bit more, then I think we’ll do a little better.

TONY JONES

Catherine.

TOM SIEMER

I’ve been beaten up because of my... Actually, I’ve been beaten up by my faith. I’m not some...you know, having a lot of ideas and everything, because of my value system, I’ve been beaten up. Not because I was vulgar to somebody, but because things that I wore. People actually beat me up for it.

TONY JONES

OK, we’ll take that as a comment. Thank you very much. Catherine.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

Maybe trying to end it on a slightly lighter note. If you wore a Trump cap, I wouldn’t see it from here which is... See the previous answer about age of panel and why I didn’t play Big Bash League Cricket in the women’s league. Eyes aren’t what they used to be. But, look, I think it’s all been said. If that were to happen, it would be reprehensible. I suspect, in Australia, more trans women are bashed for presenting in their affirmed gender than males wearing Trump hats. But I could be wrong, and fact check it if you wish. But I... If you wore a Trump hat, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, I can assure you. I’m the last person who’s going to upbraid someone about their...

TONY JONES

OK.

CATHERINE McGREGOR

..choice of presentation.

TONY JONES

Jordan Peterson, we’ll give you the last word as you’re our international guest.

JORDAN PETERSON

Well, 50% of the Americans voted for Trump, approximately, which has been about the same right through the last four or five elections – it’s pretty much a 50-50 split. It seems to me that there’s no excuse whatsoever for vilifying someone for wearing a piece of clothing that indicates alignment with... well, in this particular situation, with elected majority. It does happen and it’s appalling. And I think mostly it’s a consequence of a very small number of very well-organised, very radical people who have far more power, for reasons that have a fair bit to do with the universities, than they should.

However, you know, having said that, I would say the Trump types and the Republicans in the US are doing a pretty good job of hanging on to their fair share of power, and that my observation in the US is that the political system there is actually quite nicely balanced. And so, despite the fact that you’ve run into personal trouble for the sorts of things that you’re describing, the political debate between the right and the left, which is a very important debate, seems to be moving forward in a manner that indicates the fundamental robustness of the institutions of democracy in the United States. And I think that’s the case in most of the Western world. So I don’t think that there’s any reason to despair on a broader scale, even though you may have encountered some things that were quite nasty, personally.

TONY JONES

We’ll end on that optimistic note. That’s all we have time for tonight. Please thank our panel – Catherine McGregor, Jordan Peterson, Terri Butler, Alex Hawke, and Van Badham. Thank you very much.

Now, you can continue the discussion with Q&A Extra on NewsRadio and Facebook Live where Tracey Holmes is joined by Iain Walker of the newDemocracy Foundation. Now, next week on Q&A – the manager of Opposition Business, Tony Burke, Liberal Senator and architect of the Operation Sovereign Borders, Jim Molan, the author, relationship counsellor, and the man described as America’s best-known rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, Liberal Party Vice-President Tina McQueen, and writer and academic Ruby Hamad. Until next week, goodnight.