Andrew Dickens: I'm impressed with Mark Carney

I am becoming even more impressed with Mark Carney as time goes on. I said that yesterday on the radio and got a text that Carney is just Trudeau but without Katy Perry - a snappy one liner fed to my texter by the President’s camp, and nowhere near the truth. Carney yesterday gave a speech to Davos that may go down in history as era defining. He said great powers can go alone. They have the size and the money and the military to do whatever they want. But that does not mean the middle powers don’t exist. He made a call for countries like Canada, Australia, South Korea, and others to build strategic autonomy and collaborate to stabilize the global system.  He argued that middle powers could no longer rely on great powers to maintain order - they appear hell bent on sewing disorder. Carney framed the moment as a pivot point: either middle powers coordinate to build a more resilient, cooperative system, or the world slides deeper into fragmentation. And then he said some words that completely freaked out the conspiracy class: he said the old era is gone and it’s time to build a new world order. But his new world order is not built on power and subjugation, it’s built on co-operation. He named the rupture, explained its causes, and argued that the future will be shaped not by superpowers alone, but by coalitions of capable mid-sized nations. He’s brilliant. Trump is not. Trump is a big bully. Carney may be the smart guy who always wins at the end of the movie. We’re not a middle power. We’re not even a small power anymore. The world order has changed and New Zealand’s virtue signalling no longer carries weight. It’s time to find our friends and maximise our relationships with them. The elephants are dancing. Us mice need to find a safe place so we don’t get crushed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.