 Good afternoon, everyone. I believe we're live now. Now, the first thing to say is you might have been expecting Brydie Rice to be moderating this session. But unfortunately for Brydie, she's had some sort of catastrophic computer meltdown. Anyway, we're trying to sort this out. So I have just jumped in to get us underway. Hopefully Brydie can join us before too long. But if not, I'll just keep carrying on because she's very organized and has got some excellent notes for me to follow. Now, first of all, just right at the top here, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners on the land from which I'm joining you. None of our country here in Canberra and I pay my respects to Elders past and present. And I extend those respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be joining us here today. Now, just a few pieces of housekeeping before we get into our discussion. We do want this session to be interactive. We're not together in person, but we are interested in hearing from you. We do want to get to a point where we can have our panel engage with the audience. So post your questions via the question and answer box. If you would like to ask the question yourself, also raise the hand icon. Now, we've been having a few technical issues in promoting people up to get them to be on camera and to have their microphone enabled. And if we do, I'll just read your question out for you. And then if you prefer not to come on camera to ask your question, just type not live. Or can you please read this for me in front of your question? And that will help us to know that you're not going to appear on camera and we'll ask the question for you. Now, for those of you who are Twitter themes and might like to post about the forum, the hashtag is at ACL forum. Now, we have a terrific panel with us today and I'd like to welcome them and to have you join me in welcoming them. So first of all, very pleased to have an old colleague and a friend as it happens from Department of Foreign Affairs days, Mr. Dave Sharma join us. Dave, of course, is now a member of parliament. He's the member of Wentworth, a very old and famous seat, of course, for the Liberal Party of Australia. And before that, Dave was a senior member of Australia's diplomatic corps and served overseas, including as ambassador to Israel. Really glad to have a fellow Canberra joining me here today. That's Darryl Carp AM, Darryl is the director of the Museum of Australian Democracy, a really great little institution. If you haven't come across it before, I really encourage you to have a look at the Museum's website and have a look at some of the work they do. And then lastly, delighted that Larry Diamond can join us all the way from the United States. Larry is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Larry is one of the world's foremost experts on democracy and liberalism, prolific author and commentator, and has been some writing some terrific stuff recently about the state of democracy worldwide and the state of democracy in his own country, of course. So our topic today is liberal democracy and how we gauge its health at the moment and what we can do about going about renewing it. And this is a subject near and dear to my own heart because we know that liberal democracy is the world over, are under challenge at the moment, both from external forces and from internal forces, nationalism, populism, political polarization, identity politics or all issues that challenge liberalism and institutions in democracy. They make governing harder, they make getting things done harder, they make good policy harder and sometimes they erode trust in our democracies. And then overlaid on top of that, of course, we have a very significant new dynamic which is the competition, very fierce, tough competition now between China and the United States and between China and some other democracies. And we're not, we're not in a two block world at the moment, but we are seeing, I think, a hardening separation or a line, if you like, between the world's autocracies and the world's democracies. And the new US President Joe Biden sees this as one of the defining contests of the age and his mantra is that democracies have to prove they can work in this new contest. So with that quick introduction, welcome again to our three speakers. And Larry, if I could begin with you. You've talked about a prolonged global democratic recession and I just wanted you to talk through, talk our audience through that idea and what you mean by it. Well, thank you, Richard. And it's a pleasure to be with you all. I wish I could be with you in Canberra, but this is the next best option. I have very fond memories of previous visits to ANU. What it means is that there are more countries moving away from freedom and democracy than to it. And this is a trend that is now about 15 years old. It's as long as the earlier 15 year trend of democratic expansion following the end of the Cold War and the inflection point was around 2006. We can show that statistically. Levels of freedom as Freedom House has been documenting have been kind of gradually descending since about 2006 or seven. But for most of that period, it was a modest trend. And what I think should be deeply worrisome to us are the following bullet points I'll put on the table to frame some of our discussion. Number one, the trend away from freedom and democracy has been considerably accelerating in the last five years. And the last five years are the first five year period since the third wave of global democratization began in 1974, when significantly more countries left democracy than moved to democracy. And now we're living through a breakdown of democracy in slow motion in the only era of democracy in the world Tunisia. I realize that's a long distance from you and from us. But strategically and symbolically, it's very important. Secondly, as you noted, the advanced industrial democracies have really been experiencing a lot of challenges to their quality and stability. The erosion of trust and satisfaction with democracy in Australia, which Cheryl may speak to notwithstanding, I think Australia has not suffered nearly the level of challenge and crisis that we're facing now in the United States, where we have one of the two great political parties, a substantial portion of whom, of whose members in our parliament, our Congress have, I'd say, abandoned democratic principles. And, you know, whose last president, Donald Trump, was contemptuous of democratic principles. So that's the second trend. You've got challenges to democracy and liberalism and tolerance and fidelity to constitutional norms within what we thought was the core of liberal democracy. And then the third challenge, Richard, is what you referred to, that we have the rise of new of new competitors to democracy, and particularly China, which is a, rising rapidly in power, and I think posing an existential challenge to the future of democracy in Taiwan, and b, is increasingly asserting itself as a systemic rival to democracy in the world. It's Larry. I want to ask you one quick follow up question and then come to the rest of the panel. But, you know, do you think then that the period in which democracy was spreading globally, in which more countries were becoming democracies, do you think that's an a historical period that is out of the norm, and we're returning to something that's more like a longer term trend? Or do you think that we can, the trend against democracy can be turned around? Well, I think the first statement is true. And the second one is very much not inevitable. That is, a lot of long term changes in the world begin as a historical developments, right? The Industrial Revolution was an a historical development, and so on, but it doesn't mean they can't be enduringly transformative. So I think what was naive, Richard, was to assume that the expansion of freedom and democracy that began in the mid-70s, and then spread to Asia in the 80s, and then brought down communism in Central Eastern Europe, and so on. It was naive to assume that was just going to go on without interruption, indefinitely, that it was never going to face challenges and reversals. But I think it's by no means inevitable that it's going to slip back to say a pre-1985 reality. I think we can resume democratic progress in the world, but it's going to require repairing and rejuvenating our problems of democracy, certainly in Europe and the United States. I'll let you all comment on Australia. It's going to require a very robust, collective response to both the normative and security and technological challenges that China is posing to freedom in the world. And it's probably going to require some innovation in the forms of democracy. We might hopefully have some time to come back to that point about innovation in democracy, because I think it's an interesting one to dig into. But Dave, I want to bring you into the conversation here. You sit now at the centre of Australian democracy, but you also, as I said in the introduction, had a long and very successful career as an Australian diplomat. I'm interested in your thoughts on this idea that we seem to be entering into a period of what some people call a competition of systems, that is a divide between autocracies and democracies. And increasingly democracies are going to work more closely together, do more things together. And this might not be a rerun of the Cold War, but it's certainly a marked difference to previous decades. What's your own view on that? Do you think that's inevitable? How strongly do you think it's going to shape the world and Australian foreign policy? I think we are certainly heading for a, we're already in a period of heightened strategic competition and tension around the world. To my mind though, it's got much less of an ideological character than the Cold War did. And it's much more a traditional great power character where countries have different interests and a different view of the world order. And there's clash. And you're right to say that I think democracies are cooperating more closely, but it's not so much necessarily because they're democracies. It's more because they share a view about the importance and the value of the underpinning of the current global order, the liberal world order, the rules-based order, the international institutions, you know, the UN and its forums for dispute settling free and open trade and global work. That's all those underpinnings of the liberal world order. Things that democracies are very attached to, including Australia. But we also see countries that may not qualify strongly as democracies. They might be one party states with elections that aren't particularly free or fair, but they also share those views and they're part of that broader camp, if you like. So I think there's something to this, but I wouldn't want to overstate that we're into a period where there are two competing world models here looking for ideological dominance. I think it's much more traditional, great power-based competition that's underway. All right. And a quick supplementary question for you. How then should Australia approach this? The Prime Minister on his way to the G7 meeting recently gave a speech in Perth where he said that Australia's objective was a world order that favours freedom and on the face of it, that would seem to buy quite heavily into the idea of a competition of systems. Look, I think it does, but I'd say when he was using that term, he means sort of freedom in the global sense, the free movement of goods, people, capital, ideas, navigation on the high seas, commerce, all these things that have underpinned the current world order without necessarily having a strong view about how states should govern themselves or organise themselves internally. I think we're well past that high water mark that was really hit during the Bush administration in the United States of thinking to export a model of governance to other countries. It couldn't be our preferred model. We can always be encouraging in those countries, but I think certainly the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the Middle East and the way wash up of them, the Arab Spring shows us that trying to change a country's system of governance or its own internal political order is an immensely difficult task and can really only ever emerge in a sustainable way through an organic fashion, the ground up fashion. Okay, excellent. Thanks, Dave. Now, Darrell, as I said, you and your institution spend a lot of time looking at the health of Australian democracy. I'm just interested in your perspectives on where you think Australia's democracy sits. Is it being subjected to the same kinds of pressures that we see in other Western democracies? Clearly, we're not America, nor perhaps even the UK. But where is Australia? How healthy is our own democracy? Well, I like to sort of frame it in a museum context, which is this magnificent photograph that we have in one of our exhibitions, which is this flat farmland Horizon Goes On Forever. And there in the middle of it is a bridge table, a kelpie, and a little sign that says polling place, and a farmer is voting. And he's standing out there. He's the only person to be seen for miles around. And this is in the middle of God knows where in Australia. And I think that gets to the heart of some of the real strengths that Australia's system has, which is not to say that it's perfect. It's not like all of the democracies around the world. There are stresses that are coming at it. But we do have a world class democracy. We were the first constitution that was written by the people and voted on by the people. We were the first to embrace universal suffrage for, I will say, white men and women in 1902. We're one of the only a handful of democracies that have had peaceful transition since federation between governments. And we have really critically important and independent electoral commission, which sets our electoral boundaries, which checks the voting systems. And so we have a number of processes in place that allow us to actually manage that and an independent high court. So all of these are extraordinarily critically important components of how our democracy works. What I would say, though, is as a museum, we talk to tens of thousands of visitors every single year. I mean, this is an unusual year because of COVID. But nonetheless, we have 90,000 students that come through and we survey every single one of them as they go through on what they think about democracy and where they see it all going. The good news is that young people are incredibly pro young Australians are incredibly pro democracy as a mechanism and a methodology for the future. But probably the single biggest comment we get through a series of interactive experiences that we have is that people feel that they are not being heard that their voice doesn't count. And that is reinforced by some of the research that the ANU's, I can't remember what it's called, the ANU's electoral commission or electoral study does, where they talk about how much people trust politicians and how much people trust the system. And the data, the data from 2019 is that only 25% of people believe that government can be trusted. And 75% believe that people in government look after themselves. Now, we don't see that in quite the same way. We have a lovely little series of interactives become a political pundit tell us what you think. And we ask them, what should we expect from politicians? How would you improve Australia's democracy? And the critical comment all the way through is they want to be heard more. They want people to act are not just in terms of their own themselves and their own political advancement, but really to take into account the people that they represent and to act for the whole of the country as opposed to just themselves or their party. That is the main comment that we get coming through. And if we have some time, I can read some of them because they're terrific. Some of the thought and the intelligence that goes through them, honesty and a will to vote in a bipartisan way is really important. Those are the sorts of comments that people are making. So I think in answer to your question, I think we're doing substantially better, but I would add two dot points to Larry's. And those are in terms of the key challenges. I think there is that media shift, the really extraordinary shifts we're seeing in terms of technology, social media, and the way artificial intelligence is selecting what people get to see. And as I said a little bit earlier, that narrative of being unheard, those are two additional points I'd add to it. Well, thanks very much, Darrell, because you've actually touched on an issue that's engaged a couple of our audience members. So Glenn Barnes, Glenn, I'm glad you couldn't join us, has a question or a comment really about the point you raised about lack of credibility or loss of credibility and trust. Another audience member also talks about polling showing antipathy towards democracy or lack of confidence in it. And Glenn asks, what are the best ways of reengaging the community and rebuilding faith in the system? And Darrell, you gave one a couple of good examples on the way. If you have another one or two, I'd be interested in hearing them. And then I might ask Dave also to comment on ways of reengaging the community and rebuilding trust and faith. And then Larry, after that, I'll come to you because I've got a question about America's democracy as well. So thanks for that question. Look, I would say two things. The first is obviously civics education and understanding the system and knowing the power that you have as a citizen as a voter. I think what I would say at Moad, at the Museum of Australian Democracy, is for us, the narrative of democracy is much bigger than just turning up to vote. It is an active, you know, for us, we define it as active informed civic engagement. And that can cover a whole spectrum of experiences, whether you're standing for Parliament, whether you're working for parties, being part of the system, working for the public service, handing out how to vote cards. But for me, the big one is to be an informed voter, to actually think through what you're standing up for to be a critical media user. But it is about an active informed engagement. And the best thing we can do is to educate our citizens about, you know, how one goes about doing that. Okay, Dave, do you want to jump in? Sorry, Richard. And the curious thing is that teachers are quite uncomfortable teaching civics. That's probably one of the big pieces of research that we've discovered in doing some of the research that we've been doing over the past 12 months due to people not coming to us. How can we support teachers? Civics and democracy is something that they find quite difficult to teach. So that's the second part of it. It's teaching students and ensuring we've got the resources for the teachers. Dave? Yeah, there's two things I'd say. I think Darrell makes some very good points, Richard. One is, in my experience, at least, I mean, politicians are always desperate for people's views and perspectives. This is the currency by which we live. If you're always engaging the proverbial taxi driver to see how they think things are going, if someone stops you in the streets to raise an issue with you, you take that as a data point. And I always find it remarkable how non-empirical we are, really, as a profession. People will all gather in Canberra and their data set will be, you know, the neighbor they spoke to, the kids' birthday party, they're out at the weekend and what the taxi driver said on the way to the airport. So we're all desperate for this, I think, as a class. And often I find that, and if you're as a politician, a retail politician, as we all are, if you're asked to something, you'll turn up. If a group of 10 people say, hey, we want to talk to you about this, you jump at that chance because this is a great way for you to connect with voters. So I think politicians, in my view, are very keen to listen and to hear anyway. It doesn't mean we're always going to agree. It doesn't mean there aren't going to be complications in whatever policy is being offered. But the disconnect seems to be where people don't know how to bridge that divide, you know? How do they get their voice heard? And it's quite simple. I mean, you send an email, you ask a politician to a meeting, you turn up to a community forum they're having, you dial into the Zoom that they're doing. But I think there is something there because, generally speaking, I think our system is very willing to listen. As I said, it doesn't always mean that agreement is wholehearted and nor should it be and nor would we expect it to be. But politicians, and this is a non-partisan point, all the ones I deal with, they're always desperate to hear more views and desperate to be as close to their communities. They can be and understand what makes them tick, which means they want people, you know, getting in touch with them and putting their issues on the table. Okay. Thanks very much, Dave. Now, for those of you who might have come into the session just a little bit of late and were expecting the wonderful Brydie Rice to be moderating this session, Brydie, rather sadly, had a catastrophic computer failure shortly before being due to come online. And she put a lot of effort into preparing this session, engaging the panelists, and now I'm rampaging and trampling my way through that carefully session for which apologies, Brydie, but we'll get there. Larry, I want to come to you. You know, many Australians, looking at the last few years of American democracy, I think would have been thoroughly alarmed, even those of us like myself who have great faith in the power of American renewal, in the power for America to reinvent itself and to recover, really deeply worried about the state of American democracy. So can, as Joe Biden says, can U.S. democracy prove it can work? Can it fix itself, overcome this incredibly deep political polarization we see between, even in American society? Well, Richard, I shared the sense of alarm, but I also have many currents of hope. And let me explain both parts of that. I think the defection from basic democratic norms on the part of a significant swath of our political class has been shocking, first of all. Second of all, we have been drifting into deeper and deeper political polarization and political correctness and ideological litmus tests on both the left and the right. If you read Ann Applebaum's brilliant new essay in The Atlantic called The New Puritans, you'll see what we're dealing with on college campuses and in other realms, maybe not Darrell's museum, but other museums in the United States in terms of basically intolerance and closure of debate and just difficulty in hearing one another, not just in politicians hearing their constituents, but people listening to one another. And the polarization is without precedent in the last at least 130 years in American democracy. So political scientists, I feel on solid ground in making that argument. And there are many drivers that we know about. We're in a much more competitive period in American electoral politics. When two political parties are much more finely balanced in their competition, it contributes to polarization, but social media and cable television without mentioning any challenges, any channels or personalities are certainly contributing to this. On the other hand, I think we have entered an immensely fertile and creative period in American democracy that is similar in some ways to the progressive era in the early 20th century that resulted in women getting the right to vote and us getting the referendum and the voter initiative and a number of states and led to many good governance institutions being established at the national and state levels. And I'll simply mention that the number of democracy, defense, reform and renewal organizations, both of politically experienced individuals, former civil servants, scholars and so on, as well as grassroots activists is mushrooming tremendous philanthropic resources are going into supporting them. The campaign to get various versions of your preferential vote in Australia, which you may yawn about, but which many of us envy, because we think it could give voters new options other than a Republican to the far right and a Democrat perhaps to the far left. That is gathering steam and I'll just close by saying because I think it's relevant to the question you raised previously about how to rebuild faith in the system and the point that Darrell made about people being unheard. We've got new tools and technologies that we're developing to facilitate and call forth active informed civic engagement. And one that I'm involved with that I think is exhibiting a lot of promise is the deliberative poll or the tool of deliberative democracy. We gathered 523 Americans together in Dallas, Texas in 2019 to deliberate on some of the most divisive issues in American politics. We gave them balanced briefing papers, access to experts with different points of view and immersed them in small groups of 10 to 12 people with radically different views. And we achieved dramatic shifts in opinion on some issues, but more importantly dramatic shifts in polarization. Now that was 523 people. I think we can scale that up through media to make that a national conversation, but I'll just close by saying we can also scale that up in utilization by bringing it as we are doing to the schools and to young people and to community organizations around the country. We have actually developed an online platform for deliberation not unlike what we're using right now that could enable ultimately tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people to deliberate in this way. And I think it carries it's just one example of innovation in order to generate more active informed civic engagement. Thanks Larry. I did read that Ann Applebaum essay. I try to read everything that Ann writes because she's brilliant and it was rather frightening I have to say. And of course we see a little bit of that here in Australia no doubt about it not quite as bad I don't think. We actually have questions flooding in which is great to see. So I'm going to pick a couple of questions. Here's one I think for both Darrell and Dave perhaps in that order it's something that we actually discussed briefly in our pre-forum get together. So the question from James Kel is a federal corruption commission is understandably awkward to create but isn't it important for democracy's credibility. So Darrell and perhaps then Dave. Look it's certainly from a museum perspective it's certainly something that is continually put forward in terms of some of the ways you know how much you improve Australian democracy you know it's up there with fixed terms and a bunch of other similar sort of difficult concepts to manage but you know I think that the strength of Australia's democracy is that it does evolve and change over time and certainly some of the work that we're currently doing we're activating some research into an audit of Australia's democracy and having a look at some of those sorts of things but I would be much more interested to hear from Dave in terms of the challenges that something like that would present for for the government. I think I guess I've been slow to be convinced of the need for this. I'm sort of probably a conservative in the sense that I don't like to change institutions unnecessarily. I'm always cautious about upsetting the balance of power within a system because often you can create a new institution with the view to fixing something and you have an unintended consequence but I think the case has been made for something like this and I think there's certainly as Daryl indicates pretty wide public support. I guess what I just want to ensure that happens with this is a lot of this will be that the the important stuff will be in the detail and what level of power does this body have and I guess I just want to make sure that the separation of power sort of remains intact and that the areas where the parliament is meant to be sovereign where elected representatives who are the ones who are accountable to the public take decisions are still able to take those decisions rather than that decision-making being supplanted by a body of experts that decides they would have reached a different conclusion. That's where we need to make sure that I think the lines are quite clearly drawn and I think you know we have these bodies nearly universally I think at a state government level in Australia and I think in some states they've worked well and in others they've been issues so I think we've got a pretty diverse body of practice that we can draw on now when we're designing is to make sure it does what it's intended to do which is police misconduct but also restore public faith or help improve public faith in the political system without encroaching upon things that should rightly be the decision-making of elected representatives. I think that's the challenge here with the design of this body itself. Okay thanks Dave. Now I'm going to stay with you if you don't mind. I've got a very interesting question here from Andrew Podger. The question is Daryl rightly highlighted the role of institutions such as the High Court and the Electoral Commission. She might also have mentioned other institutions such as the Public Service, the Australian National Audit Office and so on. So question for Dave Sharma, where is the conservative voice emphasizing the role of such institutions in the administration of government services? It's here with me Andrew. No look I think that's a very good point. I am an institutionalist. I've spent my career in the public service. I'm a big believer in the separation of powers. I'm very uncomfortable when people attack independent institutions be it the you know the police, the public service, the Australian National Audit Office, the High Court. I think we've all got a role to play in making sure we've got a healthy system of government and a healthy democracy. I think in Australia and Daryl rightly pointed this out. This is one of our great strengths. Because we've got trusted institutions we still have an agreed basis of truth. So we don't have after an election people accusing the AEC of stuffing ballot boxes or using voting machines that came from Venezuela that changed the whole swathe of votes. But even through this pandemic and we don't have people saying well the numbers are wrong or just because you said there are so many positive cases. Where did that come from? I've heard a different set of numbers. We still have an agreed version of truth here in Australia I think from which our political debate proceeds. And a large part of that is because of the strength and the credibility of our institutions. So I agree with the premise of the question that is it's a very important part of our political system. And I think sometimes you can overlook these things that play a less prominent public role but have an equally important balanced function in your system. Thanks Dave. Daryl I just wondered if you had any observations on that question and then Larry I'll come back to you. My observation is actually more in relation to Dave's response regarding an agreed set of facts which is absolutely critical. And there's a body of research that was done by the Rand Institute in the USA which coined a phrase truth decay which is one that I would speak very much to me as somebody who comes from previous life a media background. And what they were talking about these key trends that we're starting to see which is increased disagreement about facts and data. The blurring of the lines between opinion and fact. The increasing relative noise of opinion over fact. And declining trusting previously trusted institutions and sources of information. And all of those together I think are creating some of the problems that we're starting to see in Australia and that certainly has happened in the USA. Because it's leading to uncertainty, paralysis, alienation and the big one for me which is where again the museum keeps on coming into this erosion of civil discourse. Because if we can't sit down and have a conversation around different points of view and find some way through and certainly deliberative democracies one really powerful way to do so. We actually have a problem with this system moving forward because we're unwilling to hear opposing points of view at the moment. Thanks Daryl and yeah as Larry said you just see this so forcibly of course in America as he and many others including I think Ann Applebyne have said if you can't agree on a set of basic facts how can you actually have a conversation about something if you can't agree on what the basic truth is in a matter how can you then go about developing policy and winning support for it. Larry I don't know whether you had any further thoughts on that question but the the other question I wanted to ask you was again we talked or I think I sent you an email about this in the run-up to the panel but I was struck by a piece in the New York Times after the last US election by Tim Woo and that he argued the premise of his piece was that actually America's formal checks and balances congress and to some extent the court weren't all that effective in checking Trump's autocratic instincts and in certainly and certainly not in eventually saving the election outcome if you like and that what really saved the republic was a set of informal limits and he named three the separation between the president and federal criminal prosecution process the traditional political neutrality of the military and the person personal integrity of state election officials some of whom of course were republicans and who stood up in the face of immense pressure so how how you know how important are those informal types of protections for democracy in America and how much under threat aren't they? They're under serious threat. Let me just say in response to Daryl's last point a kind of word of warning I would I'm cheered by the fact that things aren't nearly as bad in Australia as they are in the United States not to mention in Poland or Hungary but pay close attention to what's happening in the US because in terms of the media and the truth decay and the alienation and the polarization you know our present could be your future if you don't act proactively and it's not that we can't ameliorate it we're certainly not going to eliminate it but I think we can contain it and improve it but the more this gathers momentum the harder it is to do and you get into this this absurd stuff of the traction that QAnon conspiracy theorizing is gaining now and the destructiveness the dangerous destructiveness of you know denialism about vaccines for example we've got a really shocking proportion of the American public mainly on the right but also on the left who just believe incredibly stupid and factually baseless things about these vaccines. I don't entirely agree with Tim Wu on the first point I think that it actually was the American judiciary more than the other things he mentions or as much is probably a better way of putting it as the other things he mentioned that saved our election process in 2020 because even very Republican judges found the Trump lawsuits completely baseless and refused to give them any credibility I think Trump and his campaign challenged the election outcome at the state and local level and more than 50 judicial proceedings and lost all but one of them and failed to lose only on a technicality and the other one and some of these as in Pennsylvania were Trump appointed judges who ruled against him so will the courts hold next time I think part of the problem we're facing now I'm sorry to keep further alarming people in Australia is that we're dealing with a set of militant anti-democratic actors who are learning from their failures and going after all of these quote informal institutions and of course the neutrality of our system of electoral administration is not an informal institution it's a formal institution but it's a formal institution with many trap doors and I repeat again and I've worried for a long time by the way before I had reason to worry but just as a result of my study of other democracies around the world about the vulnerability of the United States system of electoral administration as a result of the fact that we do not have a national independent electoral commission or if you accept the logic of the more radical American federalism that we have compared to your federalism we don't even have 50 state independent electoral commissions which would be a big improvement on what we have now we have as the chief electoral officer at the state level a partisan elected official the secretary of state and we just kind of lucked out in Georgia that a very conservative republican Brad Raffensperger wouldn't do the building the bidding of people who wanted to undemocratically erase the outcome of a democratic election what the radical republicans are doing now is running candidates for secretary of state in some of these states like michigan and against Brad Raffensperger in Georgia who deliberately intend to politicize this process and one of the problems is that you know if you get electoral administration making these decisions the next time around the courts may be more reluctant to reverse them and I'll just tell you one final nightmare scenario which some of you may be aware of and others are not and that goes into the very big basket of the misfortune of the united states being the first democracy and therefore are having so many antiquated constitutional provisions that we've never bothered to or succeeded in removing any state legislature could by constitutional prerogative decide not to award automatically the state's electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in the state they could pass a law saying that the popular vote for president in Arizona in Georgia will be advisory and we'll make a final decision on who gets the electoral votes in the state and that would be of course radically undemocratic but constitutionally very likely permissible so that is the ultimate informal norm is Levitsky and Zblot right in their book how democracies die so much of democracy is about forbearance not utilizing all of the power that you potentially could it requires more forbearance in the united states because our our institutions are older less modern less visionary you know less nationwide and so we've been more dependent on the norms and now the norms are breaking down and we haven't revised the institutions all right well we are definitely at wrap up time so I might go Larry Dave and Darrell give you the very last word just a minute of any additional thoughts you might have on what we should be doing to leave us with some more hope today well one hope on the geopolitical front is the quad I know this is not a conversation on security but if we don't meet the challenge in security terms posed by China we can't achieve anything else that we're talking about now it's going to loom larger and larger over time so I'm encouraged that this is moving forward and that partnership in Australia's role in it I consider crucial and I will repeat and not only with respect to the U.S. it sounds like in Australia I've got to look up Glenn's organization I took a note of it and here in the U.S. there are all sorts of democracy reform organizations that are really working now at a grassroots level for change with some very intriguing ideas for reform of our electoral system reform of our districting reform of campaign finance maybe even will eventually get reform of our of our system of electoral administration I think we're entering a period in the U.S. where the stakes are going to be much larger but the civic engagement is going to be much more vigorous and broad-based probably than it has been at least since the American civil rights movement all right excellent thanks very Dave look just two observational points I think they've come up through this conversation and what is that you know that the strength of any political system is only only as good as its constituent parts and that you know in a citizen's democracy like what we've got that depends upon the active engagement of citizens I think too often in Australia and perhaps it's self-serving at me to say this but people sort of outsource the dysfunction and the problems to the political class to say it's all their fault there's nothing I can do about it those guys are all crooks and liars and charlottes as well you know we're only as good as the people that put us there we're only as good as the parties that people join we're only as good as the civil society we engage with so if you if you're unsatisfied with the system of government you've got you know get involved because ultimately we all own it collectively yeah yeah okay well said Dave Dara you get the last word on this big topic my last word is democracy is not innate it's not in our you know immediate instincts to act for the common good so practice it you know be aware of it as picking up on what Dave said immerse yourself in it and practice it because it's not something that comes naturally to us all all right well on that positive and hopeful note I will call it quick so I want to sincerely thank all three panelists for being so generous with your time and insight we really ask a lot of our panelists not just to be with you today but to do the pre-form organization to get their heads around big subjects like this and it's been a really rich and fascinating discussion I've really enjoyed it despite being parachuted in at the last minute to manage it I hope our audience got something out of it there is in my mind no more important issue right now for Australia and for our alliance close alliance partner and friend America and so with that note thank you all again and hope you enjoy the rest of the conference