Episode 143- How Covid Played Out Down Under-

Editor’s Note: We hope you enjoy the video above. If you’d rather just listen to the podcast, click this link to Apple Podcasts: The Common Bridge. It is also available on all podcast platforms. We have included the transcript to this program below. We offer this program in it’s entirety to our paid subscribers, and welcome all to subscribe below.

Announcer

Welcome to The Common Bridge where policy and current events are discussed in a fiercely non partisan manner. The host, Richard Helppie, is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and political analyst who has over a million listeners around the world. The Common Bridge is available on substack.com and draws guests and audiences across the political spectrum.

Richard Helppie

Hello, and welcome to The Common Bridge with one of our favorite guests from Australia today, Mr. Robert Greenfield. Robert, great to see you.

Robert Greenfield

Wonderful to see you, Rich, where are you today?

Richard Helppie

I am in the western part of the United States. And I understand you're in the western part of Australia.

Robert Greenfield

Yes, we seem to both be on the edge of the continents there. I can see some mountains in the back for you.

Richard Helppie

Indeed, we are nominally open here in Riverside County, but a little bit to our east not quite the case and what an interesting time. For those of you that might be new to Mr. Greenfield, his bio will be on Substack. It will be on RichardHelppie.com. He is a businessman with some re-known. He is also very insightful about foreign policy, having lived in Asia for many decades. Was born in the United States, but has become a dual citizen of both Australia and the United States. I understand now you've been traveling throughout Europe for a period of months. Is that right?

Robert Greenfield

We were able to leave Australia, which we'll talk about in a moment, it was very difficult to get out of Australia actually, until recently, in Western Australia, you had to petition—actually send in documents, significant documents, to the government—to petition to leave the country. So it wasn't just about not being able to get in, you couldn't actually get out.

Richard Helppie

Could you write one for someone else to ask them to leave, because I could see a couple people [that] I'd like to write them for. [Laughter].

Robert Greenfield

One way, one way tickets, okay, that's it, we will even contribute to the tickets. So, basically, we left early August, we were able to come over to the US and to meet with you, which was a tremendous pleasure to be in Ann Arbor, Michigan [in the] late summer. So I was able to do quite a bit of travel considering that it was COVID. There were a lot of times where things would close and then re-open. We were in several states in the United States, and I was based pretty much in Europe following the Ukraine crisis, as well as many other things, up until mid January. In January, after half a year, we returned first to Sydney, Australia. Sydney, Australia is very different, it had opened up to the world. And then finally, to get back home here to Western Australia, we had to petition again to get back into the state. We were fortunate, as residents, to get into the state and now we're back home.

Richard Helppie

Well, I hope that things are settling in there. I hope that all of our viewers, our listeners and our readers on all our platforms, on Substack, on podcast platforms, YouTube TV, and on Mission Control Radio, we'll be sure to read your column. You wrote a fascinating piece about what Australia is like today versus when you left. Robert, you're very attuned to things socially but maybe we should start with some of the basics; that Australia is a big country. And one of the things I learned from your column is that the Western Australia state is three times the size of the state of Texas. I can't even get my head around that. That's one state government.