Albanese, Bowen. We are living in a leadership vacuum filled with an air bubble

So much has happened since the last Leadership Matters event in November last year.

It’s been so fast moving, let me list a few to remind you.

Firstly, and most surprisingly the Eagles have won a game.

Donald Trump has dropped some bombs on Iran, and declared war … on Europe.

He’s kidnapped the leader of one nation, knocked off another.

He’s had a crack at the Pope, and posed as Jesus Christ on Instagram.

He also had a crack at annexing Greenland, but when he couldn’t … took Venezuela instead.

Trump has issued a lot of instructions over the past few months to both hostile and friendly world leaders alike. Although it is unclear if the hostile leaders have traded places with the friendly ones.

Aside from dumping Kevin Rudd, the only time Anthony Albanese actually listened to Trump was after a 2am cold call from the President. Trump didn’t ask for military help or an update on AUKUS, he woke Albo up in the middle of the night - inspired by a You Tuber – to insist the PM liberate the Iranian women’s soccer team.

Luckily Albo was on to it. He had already dispatched his Immigration Minister to sort it out.

The frightened and confused women met Tony Burke, he forced them to pose for a selfie, and they quickly decided they would rather live in constant fear of death under a brutal, misogynistic, murderous, sharia law regime, than have to spend one more day in a country with Tony Burke.

They all left immediately.

A LOT has happened in politics.

Pauline Hanson is now the leader of the Opposition.

Angus Taylor is now the leader of what remains of the Liberal Party.

While it’s not going great for Angus. It could be worse - I had to Google his predecessor, and even Google couldn’t remember her name.

In WA we are doing what we always do to prop up the rest of the country.

Let’s face it, while WA keeps the lights on, Canberra argues about how to switch them off.

For the most part we have withstood the madness of the other states, sticking to relatively sensible budget management and more pragmatic policy positions.

Even so, we are not entirely immune from cost of living pressures, and a creeping uneasiness about what’s coming next.

Even Roger Cook is not safe from the same household stress most of us face.

But at least he is doing something about it.

Full credit to him. He was never going to sit back and let interest rates, petrol prices and cost of living ruin lives.

So he did what any good premier would do - he bought a multimillion pad in the city.

No more commute. No more late nights.

And he gets a little lie each morning, instead of sitting in the backseat of a petrol-guzzling limo on the way to work.

Now that is leadership.

It stands in contrast to Albo. His state of the nation address before Easter was a leadership vacuum, filled by an air bubble.

In the hours before he spoke that night, the PM panicked a nation into thinking we were running out of fuel and going to war

In what would have to be one of the most ironic examples of crisis-time leadership, rather than reassure the nation, Easter Bunny Albo … left us feeling disappointed we weren’t marching off to war and into lockdowns.

So much has changed already this year.

Gas is back.

Oil is back.

The unions are back.

Peter Wright is back.

It really is the 70s all over again.

We are living in confusing times.

What are activists to protest about now that the cameras have left, the genocide is over?

The climate emergency is off. They surely can’t campaign against fossil fuels, at the very time as complain about how expensive they have become.

They can’t get upset with Albo for his carbon emissions, flying around the world trading good old Aussie gas! … for more fossil fuels

They can’t even protest rage against the Coalition, when there isn’t one.

Personally I would like to lead the protest against Chris Bowen.

On TV every day talking petrol and diesel, energy and renewables. I don’t know how we could possibly have a fertiliser shortage with the volume of high grade shit that comes out of his mouth.

We should be bagging it up and shipping it to the Wheatbelt.

None of it makes sense, which is why in Canberra it makes perfect sense.

We are drifting into a pivotal time for Australia.

A runaway federal budget, a hapless treasurer likely to choose higher taxes over productivity measures.

A cabinet intent on winding industrial progress back decades, unable to resist the fashionable causes that are tolerable in good times, and a disaster at a time of high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment.

Add to that, technology and AI is rewriting everything at a pace Canberra simply can’t process.

So they will do what they always do: tax what they know and ignore what they don’t understand.

The Government’s idea of leadership is to invent more groundbreaking ways to spend our money and create even more innovative excuses to hike taxes to pay for it.

Which brings us to why we are here this morning.

Good Leadership isn’t about gimmicks. Pic ops and televised addresses.

It’s competent. Calm. Creative. It’s getting things done.

Efficiently. Effectively.

Today we have a modern leader: sensible, smart, thoughtful and productive.

Matt Holcz is a young man with an impressive personal and professional story.

Matt brings a quiet confidence - that everything is under control, no matter what Donald Trump posts on Truth Social this morning.

Matt is running an enormously complex international logistical operation with little fanfare.

But like many in this room, delivering enormous impact for WA and the nation

So we are all looking forward to hearing from him.

This Leadership Matters will be his first major address in this new role heading up iron ore for Rio.

And as you all know Leadership doesn’t just matter, it’s the only thing that does.

Thank you for joining us, enjoy the morning