High Steaks: Dick Smith on why he voted for The Voice and how he’s going nuclear, backing Dutton

The Aussie multi-millionaire has opened up on why he has thrown his support behind the Coalition’s bid for nuclear energy in a wide-ranging High Steaks interview - watch here.

“Failure” isn’t a word you readily associate with Dick Smith.

He built the electronics store synonymous with his name from a humble car radio installation start-up into a multimillion-dollar business before selling to Woolworths in the 1980s.

Likewise, the Dick Smith Foods brand he founded in a bid to pump up the sale of Australian-owned and produced products became a household name, before falling in the face of foreign, undercutting companies like Aldi.

Add in a slew of aviation world records – including the first solo helicopter flight around the world – and tens of millions of dollars spent on philanthropic causes, and there’s not much Dick has missed when he’s taken a shot at it.

But there’s one major issue he feels he has failed to shift the dial – closing the gap.

“In most of what I’ve done for Aboriginal people, I failed at – that’s a hard one (for me),” he said, adding while he voted for The Voice, “I didn’t think it would do any good”.

“But I voted for The Voice because I’ve failed (at) everything I’ve tried to do to help Aboriginal people … I’ve built buildings, I’ve financed radio systems … I’ve put many millions of dollars into Aboriginal causes.”

His latest effort – a $1 million donation for scholarships for Aboriginal students – may work, he says, but “it takes years to know”.

Australian businessman Dick smith pictured at Sandstone Cafe in Terrey Hills with journalist Lachlan Leeming for High Steaks. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“I’ve tried to do lots of things to close the gap with our Aboriginal people, and I’ve failed,” he said.

“(But) I’m hoping that by funding Aboriginal education, tertiary education, we’ll start getting some more Aboriginal leaders who will say, ‘No, you white people are doing the wrong thing’.”

Dick tells me this while we tuck into our steak sandwiches – sans bread – at the Sandstone Café in Terrey Hills.

We’re a couple of minutes’ drive from the acreage in Sydney’s leafy north which he’s called home with wife Pip for 40 years.

Dick Smith had a steak sandwich ... without the bread. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Australian businessman Dick Smith and journalist Lachlan Leeming eat steak sandwiches at Sandstone Cafe in Terrey Hills. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

At 80, he’s still fighting fit – which he attributes to daily bush walks, trekking the equivalent of a hike to the top of Mt Everest every 45 days.

The rest of his day is busy managing his own charity – he hopes to donate another $20 million before the end of his life, to go with the $80 million already pumped through it – while backing causes he’s behind.

That includes advising 18-year-old Will Shackel, the founder of Nuclear for Australia.

“I’m quite concerned about climate change. I’m not a (climate change) denier. I believe we are changing (the) climate and it’s not going to affect someone my age, but it will affect my grandchildren and other people’s grandchildren, and so I’m convinced the only way we can get carbon down to low levels is to go nuclear,” he said.

“We have the largest reserves of uranium in the world, and it’s quite hypocritical to be selling uranium (to other countries) but then banning it here … If it’s that bad, we shouldn’t be selling it.”

Will Shackel, 18, founder of Nuclear for Australia.

Australian businessman Dick Smith. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Nuclear, primarily, is why Dick nominates Peter Dutton’s Coalition as the party likely to get his vote.

“I think both Peter and Anthony Albanese are good people. They’re honest. I think that’s important. I don’t think they are greatly different … I’d rather (Labor change their mind on nuclear) sooner, not later, but if they don’t change their point of view by the election, I’m going to be supporting Peter Dutton,” he said.

The Coalition’s pledge to temporarily cut down migration is something else that appeals to Dick, who has long railed against a “big Australia”, fearing that huge migration will lead to plummeting quality of life, which he said is already evident in the country’s dire housing market.

He fondly remembers himself and Pip buying their first house in Greenwich, 15 minutes from the Sydney CBD, for $32,000 with an $8,000 deposit.

“(It had) a backyard where the kids could build a cubby house and a front yard where we built a swimming pool,” he said.

“Young people, (in) each generation, should be better off than the generation before, but that hasn’t happened with house prices, and that’s really bad.”

While he has made millions from investment and management of commercial properties, Dick said he has never invested in residential for income.

In 2023, Dick Smith gave $1 million to the Tax Department after he wasn’t required to pay anything. Picture: Nikki Short

Dick smith launches into cheese Picture: SUPPLIED

Dick Smith and Co-Pilot John Wallington wave before their beach landing at Ten Mile beach north of Illuka. endurance records ballooning.

He says residential property being used as a tool to get wealthy was part of the reason the major parties are uninclined to hamper major migration.

“The fear is, we’ll end up like India, with just far too many people and lots of poor people,” he says.

“We can have 100 million (people living in Australia) but there will be a lot of very poor people crammed like termites in termite-mound high rises.”

Originally published as High Steaks: Dick Smith on why he voted for The Voice and how he’s going nuclear, backing Dutton