He spoke exclusively with Xavier Smerdon.

The sounds of magpies squawking in the background can be heard across the phone line as Andrew Forrest calls from a decommissioned old people’s home in the Perth suburb of Dalkeith.

The building sat vacant for 25 years before Forrest took it over, tearing down barbed wire fencing and boards across the windows to transform it into the new centre of philanthropy for his Minderoo Foundation.

It is symbolic of the way Forrest approaches many things in life, from his efforts to transform philanthropy, to the way he tackles the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and the global issue of slavery.

The Chairman and CEO of Fortescue Metals Group, Forrest and his wife Nicola became the first Australians to sign Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge in 2013 when they committed to give $3 billion to charity.

He also authored the Forrest Review, which aims to create parity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians; founded the Walk Free Foundation and the Global Freedom Network which brought together leaders of the world’s faiths to fight modern slavery.

What do you think some of the greatest challenges facing Australia and the wider global community are?

It’s a really broad issue. We’re in pretty good shape.

But we’re becoming complacent about things which do impact upon us long-term.

I think engagement with Asia – and that’s not only Asia where governments traditionally tend to concentrate like Japan – engagement with Asia is absolutely critical and we cannot take that for granted.

If we use China for example, their ability to have a greater impact on the standard of living of every man, woman and child in Australia is a multiple of (the potential) Japan had (when engaging with Australia as a trade partner) and Japan had a very real impact.

I think we shouldn’t be caught in this Japan and America balance of power politics with China, we should have everyone as our best friend and not pick sides.

That would be one comment, the second comment is political stability. That is a reputation which this country has earned over 100 years and we don’t want to start trading it in the last couple.

I would also like to say that it’s important how a nation treats its least privileged, and that’s not by throwing money, that’s actually giving up on people if you do that.

How a nation treats its most vulnerable and least privileged is a judgement of the quality and the heart of its society.

Before everyone reaches for the chequebooks I’d say, ‘no, no, that’s what leads to the dependency which you see all across vulnerable Australia, Indigenous and non-Indigenous’.

What we need to do is actually remove the causes of alcohol and drug dependency and vulnerability and it fits strongly with the challenges which it takes for a vulnerable Australian to become fully independent.

That’s why I wrote the 256 page Creating Parity review, which we read unofficially is going to be largely adopted, but they’re policies which were aimed to solve the Indigenous disparity completely as a holistic approach, but each policy has to be applicable to all other aspects of vulnerable Australia. What did you think of the results of that report and what do we need to do going forward?

I think that was pretty fertile ground to reinforce what Creating Parity states, that only seismic change has any hope of ending disparity.

If we keep on chiseling away at it and doing what I indicated to you earlier, throwing money instead of heart and leadership at issues, giving up on our fellow Australians by just writing them a cheque, if we keep doing that then we are leading to greater isolation and more empty schools.

We’ve been given a statistic that the West Australian Government alone spends some $50 million on schools with hardly any or no students and if they’re doing that, be assured that every other State is in the same boat to a lesser or greater degree.

That means that wholesale failure is evident in existing services and policies and we must do an about-face.

You’re probably known equally as much for your philanthropy as you are for your business success, so I wanted to ask you what motivates you to give to certain causes?

We would really love to help everyone.

We get asked to support probably hundreds of worthwhile causes and I’m sure we’ve disappointed, and in some cases, although I don’t think it should, offended people who we’ve been unable to help. People who want to restore great buildings or do up museums or help here and there or back certain sporting events.

In the end we’ve decided that we’re going to do what we do in business and that’s strive for the greatest value and benefit possible [that] we can for the amount of money we have available.

Where that’s led us is to help the most underprivileged and the most unrepresented people in Australia, and there’s clearly vulnerable Australians, and in the world, which is clearly the unfortunately rapidly growing modern slavery community which now numbers some one and a half times Australia in population.

That’s where we’ve decided we can get the greatest leverage for our leadership which is our time and our capital.

So that’s what we’re pursuing most vigorously and it’s driven by creating the greatest good we possibly can with limited capital and with limited time. And I said ‘none’.

He told me ‘therefore you’re denying the society you serve the privilege of encouraging a philanthropic community within its heart and I really strongly think Andrew you should think about that and think about setting an example as well’.

So we were persuaded to do that and we did it tentatively at first in very small steps at first.

Malcolm McCusker, who actually went on to become Governor of Western Australia, now serves as a Director on Minderoo’s Board, so I was clearly moved by his insights and advice.

I actually think he’s correct there’s a massive philanthropic powerhouse that pumps in the heart of almost every American yet here we still suffer a tall poppy syndrome.

I remember the first time I came out with a donation, and I had to do it because it was a donation of shares in a public company and I was Chief Executive.