Canberra, Iran and a curious photo op

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Hello and welcome to the party room.

I'm Patricia Carvellis.

I'm joining you from Ngunnawal Country in Parliament House, Canberra, which has been the place to be this week as your representatives across the country descended onto Parliament House for sitting week.

And I'm Melissa Clark.

I'm also here in Ngunnawal Country.

It is the hustle and bustle of Canberra.

Nothing like a sitting fortnight with a little midwinter ball squeezed into the middle of the week to get energy levels very high and then subsequently very low.

Very low.

Although you're looking.

Can I say, people know Mel is filling in for Frank Kelly over the next kind of couple of months, actually, holding the fort when I go away too.

But can I say, hats off to you, Mel.

You did what I did when I was on breakfast, where you went to the ball, you looked great, you talked to all the right people, and then boom, you left and then you fronted up, backed it up.

It's almost like I never left.

It's almost like you live in Parliament.

Sometimes you think, should I just do a little swag under the studio?

It has been done, not by me, just to be very clear.

No, I don't know.

Not by you.

Not by you.

Not going to name names.

A little swag.

But anyway, impressive that you've come back.

Look, it's been a huge week.

It sort of started very much on the domestic front.

We're going to talk about that a little later because Ash Raper, who is the network 10 political editor, will join us.

She's our guest to look through the big issues of the week, and there are lots of them.

But I think it's fair to say, Mel, the hugest thing that's happened this week still, although a few other things are bubbling away, you know, it was meant to be the week of delivery.

That's how the government pitched it.

I had a senior government person, just to give you some context, who said, because I said, well, is there going to be stuff on Gaza next week?

As I sniff around at the end of the week, going into the next week, right?

Like, I've got afternoon briefing planning, my daily podcast.

Come on, Tommy, give me an idea.

What should I expect?

What should I be reading?

Someone very senior said to me, look, we're not going to fall into the trap where we're constantly talking about international affairs.

That's why this is funny, right?

Oh, that's aged 12 years ago.

Exactly.

We're not going to fall into that trap.

This is a week of domestic delivery.

Housing, housing, housing.

You'll hear a lot about that.

We did.

We've talked about it on the pod this week.

The 5% deposit being brought forward for home loans and first home buys, crashed a website, environmental law reforms being fast.

So all of this, right?

And it's still been very much their interest and focus, to be fair, but they said they don't want to be derailed.

And then...

Iran has sought to disguise its involvement, but ASIO assesses it was behind the attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 last year and the Addis Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year.

ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well.

These were extraordinary and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confronts the media alongside the Foreign Affairs Minister, the ASIO Director General, Tony Burke, the AFP Commissioner, and announces the first ousting of an ambassador, the Iranian ambassador, since the Second World War.

So very significant.

We've kind of done a bit of diplomatic kicking out, but not of an ambassador at that level.

That level, we've sent out charge d'affaires and

lower level diplomats.

I was having a bit of a look around about international throwing out of ambassadors and looking at what else might have prompted something of this scale.

French spies bombing the Rainbow Warrior.

Did New Zealand throw out the ambassador?

Nope.

Novichok poisonings in the UK.

They threw out 23 Russian diplomats, but not the ambassador.

Wow.

So I think that gives you a sense of, in diplomatic terms, just how significant it is to throw out...

the leading figure of a representative of another country that you do have diplomatic relations with, that's how significant this move was.

Now, the government, I felt, really managed this issue.

We'll talk about it with Ash a little later, too, but really managed this better than I've seen them manage any foreign and then foreign with a domestic angle, because that's the thing about this story.

So, just to remind people, I'm sure you all know, because it's such a big story, but just a reminder.

Yeah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, ASIO allegers, were were responsible for two anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, including the actual torching of the Addas Israel Synagogue in Ripon League in Melbourne, which was a really terrifying event for the community.

Genuinely, and for all of us.

I think it's important sometimes, absolutely, for the Jewish community.

It's targeted at them.

But I think in a nice, beautiful, and I love my country and my city, we are a multicultural community.

It does affect us all.

Like, I mean, you know, I'm Greek Australian, but I can tell you in my family, we were very upset about the Jewish community being targeted this way.

Like, I think there was that sense in Melbourne.

It's terrifying.

I used to live just around the corner from it in Ripon Lee for a while and to think, hang on, a place near the train station I was at every day is firebombed.

Absolutely, you're right.

It has ripple effects in the world.

And my partner and I, for instance, went to look at it.

I don't know, since not in a sort of ooh, but more like how.

And we were just

respect.

Yes.

And we were just really upset about it.

Just to give you a sense of just, it was really shocking.

So now, AZO says we're sure it was Iran through their proxies, their cut-outs.

The government takes this strong action.

They also want to list

the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

And these are the two steps that the government took.

And for something that they announced with no notice because they couldn't, because they needed time for Australia's diplomats to leave Tehran safely.

So having announced this, it is a really big shock to the community at large, but also quite a big political move to throw out the ambassador and to

indicate a terrorist listing for an organ of another state government.

Now, when it comes to throwing out of the ambassador, that's something that the coalition readily backs.

Foreign interference are brazen attempts to cleave apart our social cohesion, to turn neighbour against neighbour and Australian against Australian.

I therefore want to make it abundantly clear on behalf of the coalition that while we sit opposite from the government in this chamber, we are entirely united behind the measures announced today to expel the Iranian adults.

And did right from the announcement having been made publicly.

The listing though, or the intention to list the IRGC

has become more caught up in politics.

And this is where it gets a little bit messy for the opposition, and where I think the government's been a little more deft in being able to handle it.

So ultimately, the coalition agrees with the listing of the IRGC and is willing to support legislation to make it easier.

That's been one of the big blocks to doing it in the past is that there needs to be a change in the legislation because it is a part of a state architecture of another country that we recognise, which is a bit different from a standalone terrorist group.

So the coalition has agreed with that but also wanted to criticise the government saying, look, we talked about this years ago.

Why didn't you do it years ago when this was pressed upon you and you didn't follow this route?

Mr.

Albanese, we have a clear message to you.

Bring on the legislation to list them urgently and just like we told you two and a half years ago, we will work with you to do this.

It got a little bit messy because it became clear during the 24 and 48 hours that followed the announcement that when you unpick that, there had been similar pushes to list or prescribe the IRGC when the coalition was in government and they decided

not to.

That's for whoever was in government then to explain.

I had discussions with members of the committee, including Labour members who wanted to list it at the time.

And at that time, there were different views amongst senior ministers, coalition ministers, about whether that was the right approach or not.

So that left the coalition in this awkward position where it was criticising the government for not doing it in the past,

despite themselves not having done it in the past,

but agreeing that it's the right thing to do now and supporting it going forward.

Do you think that actually cuts through to PK?

Look, what does the average voter, not you and me who are sitting here watching every detail?

What are they taking it away?

What are they taking it away?

What they're taking away is broadly just headlines.

Oh, we've kicked the Iranians out.

Oh, they did something really bad.

Oh, they're sowing violence here.

Yeah, bad.

Is the government doing something about that?

Yep.

Yep, they seem to be taking action.

Good.

Because we don't want the Iranian

government intervening into our country.

That's what they think.

Did they, the coalition two years ago, was there a Senate committee report that recommended, did this minister, I mean it's just noise and I don't think it lands at all so why is the coalition doing it well because you know in the case of Michaelia Cash you know she she likes to you know turn it up to 11 and really really play hard opposition politics right here was name-checking Penny Wong Mark Dreyfus

and Claire O'Neill in very firm language.

She wants to hold them to account.

And remember, there's one extra angle here, someone like Julian Lisa, who is and has been pushing for this stuff for a very long time and he's extremely passionate about it.

So I don't question his bona fides, right?

Or his passion for this.

I think he very much has that.

He came on afternoon briefing with me and basically suggested that if these laws, if it had happened, the listing, you know, we...

potentially could have even avoided some of this.

And I was like, well, how though?

Because I don't know if there's clear evidence that even if you'd done that listing, you could have avoided what we saw.

Impossible to prove to.

Totally impossible to prove, but he was mounting this case.

And so he's trying to hold the government to account for lack of action and the consequences.

I don't know if it landed, but that's what he tried to do.

And they're not all at one on this.

Look, another thing worth mentioning is, of course, and we're recording on a Thursday, he is still at large, the man

who's been the sovereign citizen.

Behind the Paul Punkers shooting that saw two Victorian police officers killed, another injured.

It's a pretty extraordinary and devastating event to happen in the community.

The fact that we still have someone at large, apparently with a fair weapons cage,

and a real uncertainty about what that's going to mean for the local communities that remain in lockdown while this is happening out of fear that they might be in danger.

Obviously, devastation for the police community in particular, that has been felt well beyond the local area where it happened.

But again, it has been another incident that has forced the government to change its focus.

It is difficult to defend against individuals.

We know that that is the case.

And this person, Jesse Freeman, who remains on the run in the world.

I think there's a bit of a pause on this while this man is still at large.

And I think there's a limit to what we can do.

But I do suspect we're going to be having a conversation about firearms and firearms, the first one, and also the resourcing and focus on this version of extremism, which has been growing post-COVID.

Anne Arli, who is a radicalisation expert now, of course, multicultural affairs minister, talked about it with me on afternoon briefing.

She was really articulate about just what a big, growing problem this is.

The sovereign citizens movement is largely, largely embedded in conspiracy theories.

Now, terrorism in all its forms historically and most recently has always had an element of conspiracy theories.

But in a world where we have rising misinformation, disinformation, the capacity of AI to

emphasise and increase misinformation and disinformation, conspiracy theories are more and more becoming part of a

radicalizing narrative.

And so you're right about the pause, but I think they'll have to be bigger focused.

So just watch that space.

Look, just finally, as we record this morning, and let's love to talk to Ash about this a bit too, but this Pentagon brouhaha in relation to.

Ridiculous word, good description.

I love that word.

I really do.

Thanks for noticing.

I just, I love this statement for how ridiculous it is.

Hang on, let's just set it up a little bit here.

We've had Richard Miles, the Defence Minister.

I'll let you say it.

I'm going to psych it up so you can lob it down.

So we've had the Defence Minister, Richard Miles, fly over to the U.S.

with a very big retinue with him of defence industry officials, flagging that he's going to be meeting with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Even once he was over there, there then was quite a bit of a question of, is this meeting actually going to happen?

There wasn't a time set down for it.

It was very rubbery as to was it going to happen?

If it was, when was it going to happen?

But then it seems that it did happen.

All right, now take over.

What happens?

So it happens.

Or did it?

So the Pentagon has officially denied that Defence Minister Richard Miles had a formal meeting, that's key, I think, with U.S.

counterpart Pete Hegseth.

I say formal because there is a picture of them together, right?

So Richard Miles and his office sent through pictures of Richard Miles, Pete Hegseth, J.D.

Vance.

They're not AI, they did happen.

They were all standing next to each other.

Not made up.

We got a bit of information that they'd had a discussion about a whole range of issues, covered a breadth of defence industry issues that had been discussed, expressions that he was very pleased to have had the meeting.

So in-person meeting.

And And that's all uncontestable.

The nature of the meeting, though, very contested now.

Because asked for information about the meeting, the Pentagon said the photograph that's been run was a happenstance encounter.

Now,

wow.

Happenstance.

Happenstance is just...

Is a happenstance encounter a meeting?

Let's talk dictionary definitions.

Well, I'm just going to Google happenstance.

They're going to sound different now.

Because they sound different to me.

Okay.

Well, let me just give you to the politics.

The opposition defense spokesperson, Angus Taylor, has called on Richard Miles to come clean on whether an official meeting had taken place.

You know, the statement, the happenstance, has been an issue because

it does call into question kind of

the nature of the, you know, how significant it was.

A happenstance is this in the dictionary.

Essentially is a coincidence.

Yeah?

Like it just, it happens, it's the circumstances.

It's like Mel.

Since you happen to be loitering outside

my office.

Exactly.

So

I love you, Mel.

I often say, would you like to come and have a coffee with me, right?

And that's not happenstance.

I ask you, you say, yes, we go to the coffee.

It's called standing orders now.

It's no longer that.

It's a great name of a little coffee spot inside Parliament House.

So we do that.

And that's not happenstance.

Happenstance is I walk past your desk, which I do.

Yes.

And we just have a little chat.

And then I say, I had a really deep and meaningful meeting with Mel and you're like, she just walked past my desk and said, hi, right?

I waved while I was reading emails.

I mean, she's really reading into the nature of our relationship, that Carvellis.

I think that's kind of it, but at a higher level, if I can give it some sort of...

I appreciate the office-level analogy.

I think it's most appropriate.

But now...

Did they just walk past or did they have a deep and meaningful?

I want you to do something that you might not be comfortable doing.

Probably not.

I want you to get inside the mind of Pete Hegseth.

Oh, okay.

Fox News weekend host,

and I love the weekend too.

And I say that, I've said it before with great respect.

I'm a former Sky News weekend presenter.

High level of respect.

My point is, I do not mock people who start on the weekends.

He has a questionable background, right?

He now has this key role.

That means Australia has to engage with this guy.

He's an official of great standing in the Trump administration.

Get into his mind.

Well, he didn't put that out statement.

You know, I don't even know if he would have had a check with him.

I doubt it.

That's the Pentagon putting it out, right?

Now, of course, I'm not saying that's not linked to him, but we don't know the level of engagement from...

Where exactly did the SAS come from?

Exactly.

But it does seem to me, and in a moment, we'll bring in our guests, but that there is...

a little bit of a power play here from the Pentagon, from the Trump administration, and the thesis that's been put for some time from the opposition and some others that perhaps we're in the sort of naughty corner or we're not sort of besties with the Trump administration.

Need to reprove ourselves, maybe.

I mean, it must be incredibly frustrating.

I'm going to get in the mind of Richard Miles now.

I'm a Geelong supporter, Geelong Cat supporter in the AFL, so at least I can channel that.

Oh, that's good.

That's helpful.

That's Richard Miles and I.

Because I cannot help you with that.

It must be incredibly frustrating to hand over checks worth hundreds of millions of dollars and then to receive a backhanded slap like this when you're over there talking about a joint defense initiative.

That's not the behaviour of your closest strategic ally.

That must be incredibly infuriating and more to the point, incredibly embarrassing.

It's definitely embarrassing, but I think it's infuriating for our country because we are handing over these checks.

We do have a deal and the U.S.

might ask for more money and, you know, for defense and all of that.

But this is, I think,

deeply, deeply disrespectful from an ally and should be called out for that.

That doesn't mean that there's no questions for the government, though.

All right.

Well, I'm keen to find out what our guest Ash Raper finds out.

So maybe it's time to bring her in.

Let's do it.

Ash Raper, Channel 10 Network Political Editor, welcome to the party room.

Thank you very much for having me.

Very exciting to have you, Ash.

Look, sitting week, still early on in the government's term.

they started the week as we were saying kind of wanting to be on domestic issues housing housing housing we're going to do it faster epbc we're going to do that faster too they they're really you know foot on the accelerator they're unlocking everything and then all of a sudden they're kind of smashed by big international issues they kick out an iranian ambassador they've got this thing going on which we can unpack we've talked about it a little not much but with um richard miles and whether or not he and heg pete hegseth had a meeting meeting.

What's a meeting?

Is it happenstance?

Just walk me through how they really want to stay focused on the bread and butter issues, but international affairs keep smashing this government.

Absolutely.

It was a really strange feeling heading into this sitting period.

On Sunday and then, you know, Monday and even Tuesday morning, and we had, after caucus with the party room, we were trying to work out there is really not much happening here.

I feel like we jinxed it.

We jinxed it because by one o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, it changed.

But just going into this week, in terms of the government, it wasn't particularly exciting because it's just this head-down focused on delivering.

And it's stuff that we have heard before.

But just in terms of their legislative agenda, it's just really not there in terms of bills that they're pushing through.

We're kind of here in Canberra thinking, what is actually happening?

Now, there was a sneaky bill that went through that a lot of people missed, the home affairs legislation.

That's a whole other story, which will become problematic.

But I just think it just thought the cupboard looked really bare.

So we've got the federal government that doesn't have a huge amount of legislation that it really wants to get through this year.

We haven't got a lot of sitting days.

They've put a lot of attention on the economic reform round table last week.

This week was meant to be incrementally rolling out little developments from there, a push for housing here, a push for housing there.

Look, we're making a bit of progress on environment laws here.

But events just sweep that away.

So is that a problem for the government, do you think, Ash?

Do they lose control of the agenda they want to let people know that they're working on?

Or is this just, well, this is what happens in government.

International events take over and it's not that big a deal because the government was really working on tinkering around the edges anyway.

Yeah, I think that is right.

And this one is a specific one that actually works well for the government on lots of different...

It's not as if this has been derailed by something that's a distraction that they don't want to to you know I don't know what the word is but yeah

and so I think for this one you know the Prime Minister made decisions here it's made him look decisive

you know it's pretty extraordinary steps that's that has been taken you know there's the whole intrigue of really the story of getting the the embassy officials out in Iran overnight

and and in terms of the political fallout

you know they knew there was support especially for the listing of the terrorist organization the IRGC the the coalition had called for it previously the greens have called for it previously so so the left and the right wanted this yes and and also you know Iran is not a significant trading partner it's not our ally so

there wasn't going there wasn't a lot here for the government to lose.

So this was a good thing for the government and sent a very strong message to the Jewish community here, how seriously.

it was well executed even though I personally think it was quite well executed the way they had their ducks lined up absolutely from getting the advice to announcing that they kept it secret so well I mean we we have seen last term and this term they are able to hold confidential information yeah they don't tightly they don't they don't overly leak they can occasionally leak but they don't overly leak especially on the really consequential stuff yeah

but that didn't stop the opposition who were a bit confused we're going to get to some of their other issues with you I really want to pick your brain.

I mean, you know, how the sausage is made.

Ash and I did a lot of brain picking walking away from a Susan Lee press conference this week, so let's do it on the record too.

The opposition did try to extract politics here, though.

They're like, we wanted this.

We've been pushing for this.

Did it work?

Did it land?

I don't think so.

I think because the government was very dominant in this narrative.

And it also just shows, especially with the coalition, with their numbers, that they're really not really landing any blows.

They're not really touching the government.

And I think there were just such broader issues here that were bigger than what the coalition were pointing out.

You know, the big questions that people want to know, why Australia, why would Iran want to

target Australia?

All those questions just overrun this

politics really that was playing out here in Canberra.

I just don't think it resonated and really went further than this building.

Yeah, they did give it a red-hot go.

But I think there's that thing too, which is, well, it's changed now.

Like that thing about arguing about retrospective stuff is always hard.

They have landed at a point that the coalition agrees with.

So the only argument they can pick is, well, you should have done it sooner.

And it becomes more complicated because they had an opportunity to do it and didn't.

And there were different views when they were in government about whether or not they should or shouldn't.

So it's not a clear-cut argument that they can make, and it's not a point of contest going forward.

And there was something very significant that happened that led to this action now.

So it's sort of a moot point, you know, really what the coalition is.

I think that's right.

But it does bring us to the coalition and they're fascinating.

I don't know even if it's fascinating.

It's a show I've watched so many times.

It's like the rerun that, you know, you're like, do I want to watch this episode again?

And you're like, okay, all right.

It was, I suppose, it's kind of interesting.

That's how I feel about the climate wars inside the coalition.

And they bubbled up again this week, in a sense, to really challenge Susan Lee's leadership.

I reckon there's something going on here.

Now, I'm not saying anyone's got a spill motion, and she's about to, you know, but I do feel like this is becoming a proxy war for how she handles it.

What's your take?

Absolutely.

The whole point of this,

they're a very small group, this small group that is vocal in the coalition party room.

They just want to disrupt and undermine.

And it's just, it's quite simple tactics from them.

You go, you'd be noisy in the party room.

From what I can gather, it didn't go on for very long at all.

Everybody, it's the same things that they've been saying.

Everyone knows where everyone else stands on all of these issues.

Leak it to the media.

It gets up there.

It fills airtime in a 24-hour news cycle when there wasn't much happening at this point.

This was pre-the announcement of the Iran situation.

And so, and it was purely just to show Susan Lee doesn't have a handle on things.

See, look,

we're here,

we're flexing our muscles.

And I think we're seeing that with a number of shadow ministers who are quite happy to proclaim what a policy position is when we know there hasn't been a formal adoption process of a policy.

The lack of strength in that leadership is giving people space.

to play up.

Or they're taking advantage of the lack of that strength, I think, when we have

different positions put around, well, what do we think climate change should be, but also how do we handle some of the current national security issues where we're getting different shadow ministers say different things.

So is this a fatal problem for Susan Lee's leadership or is there a prospect that she can crack the whip and get them back in line?

What do you think, Ash?

Well, at the moment, I think it is quite...

It's very clear who is doing it in terms of their motivations.

And it is a fringe group at this moment.

And Susan Lee is still very much protected.

She's still got, even though they don't have a lot of numbers, the moderates around protecting her.

And I do think, I think time and time again, and this is true for Susan Lee, don't underestimate her.

She's such a survivor in the Liberal Party as a woman to get to the top.

I do question, would they be doing the same thing

if it wasn't a female leader?

And I think no.

I think that they think that they can get away with it more because of that.

I don't really like playing the gender thing in Will's case, but I do think that it would, I do think, compare the pair, if it was exactly a person exactly like Susan Lee, but his name was Sam, I think this would be very different.

I think it's a good point.

Look, the only comparable moment, because we've got it, is, of course, Melcolm Turnbull and he's the undermining that happened.

to him, which so I'm sure if some of those people were here, they go, well, we pressed Melcon Turnbull too.

And I think that is true if you, you know, follow the facts right the point is not not at this pace not not this not like straight away like where was the honeymoon yeah

and also if you look at susan lee

she's not you know she's probably the public doesn't have a formed view about her but she's not unpopular she's probably still the best thing going for them actually

uh absolutely and they knew that and that's why they installed her and look we're still waiting for a number of reviews to happen and that might settle everybody down well i want to slightly i want to to push you on this because the reviews.

So we've got this long review for net zero and the energy policy.

Dan Tihan's a minister responsible.

I don't know, 500 committees.

I'm exaggerating, but there's a committee and another committee and a joint committee.

Everything and there's the joint committee.

And then, you know, there's the shadow cabinet process.

My point is, it's complex.

Middle of next year is when Dan Tien says, I spoke with Andrew Hastie, who is a very senior frontbencher, right?

With a lot.

He says it needs to be resolved within a month to three months.

So there is pressure to fix it and to have a position now.

And he said he thinks they need policy differentiation, i.e.

drop net zero so we can campaign hard on this.

Yeah, and I do think that that looks like where everybody's heading.

It's very clear that that's what the nationals want.

You know, even David Littleproud, who is saying we still have a review, he's making it very clear that that's where he wants to go.

But there's also, there's not just the net zero review, there's the review from the fallout from the election that's being done uh externally you know the new south wales liberals they've got their own processes happening and the big thing and at some point and you know this group that is being disruptive they don't care about this but at some point there has to be some people within the party saying the longer this goes on

the more we just don't look like we don't have it together.

And three years will come around quickly.

And yes, they're not looking like they'll get close enough, but they need to make up seats, especially in the city.

And the Prime Minister is right when he talks about that net zero, whatever your views, people translated, especially in city seats, to you don't believe in climate change.

And that's a very simple message.

And the bigger picture here, at some point, the grown-ups in the room need to think, what's the strategy of winning back metropolitan seats?

I spoke to one Liberal MP this week, a moderate who does want to see action on climate change.

And their point of view was, well, the thing with politics is

you don't get to choose what issues people care about.

What you get to choose is how you respond to issues that people care about.

And we have plenty of evidence to show that the electorate does care about this.

So the question is what you do and how quickly they can thrash that out is at a point here.

And whether that's going to mean they need to have an explosion and someone needs to lose or whether some kind of compromise position that keeps everyone together, that's still the really big question here, right?

But we're going to get to a point in a couple of of weeks, probably in the next two weeks, where the federal government releases its 2035 emissions reduction target.

The opposition is going to want to have something to say about it.

Ash, what can they say about it right now when they don't have a policy?

Well,

that's the big question.

And this is as well, if they don't have a policy, the problem for the coalition is that Matt Canavan, Barnaby Joyce comes out and they have something to say.

And they will have to do it.

They've got a policy.

They absolutely have something to say about it.

And that probably might be a reason where they're like, okay, we actually need to get some sort of semblance of a policy together here.

Look, I think it will be quite interesting.

They'll just criticise it.

I think that they will just be critical anyway of the target that comes out and switch to, you know, we're not on track for the renewables.

All, you know, it's very easy.

But at the moment, all the airtime that's being filled by the coalition is by the people, the Matt Canavans, the Barbie boxes.

Look, Ash, we mentioned it at the top of the podcast,

this meeting that was maybe happenstance or maybe not between Miles and Heg Seth, which is...

I suspect we record the party room.

Most of our listeners who are diehards love you all.

No, we record it on Thursday morning.

So I reckon it'll play out very much in question time.

The coalition, if their brains are functioning and hopefully they are after the parliamentary ball,

will zero in on this.

This is quite embarrassing, isn't it?

Very.

And I'm not sure that Richard Miles is the person who is going to explain this.

Well, we all know Richard Miles' style.

So I'm actually quite interested to see

what happens here.

But look, there is a picture.

They were together.

There's a picture of them.

Happens together.

Yeah,

they were standing next to each other talking.

But

they definitely met.

They definitely, they look like their mouths are open talking, you know, where they're standing next to each other.

Okay, so, so, and we'll hear more.

And, you know, if you've heard more since this recording, whatever.

But the real question is, what are the Yanks doing here?

Like, what's going on here?

Like,

that's not the behavior of a friend.

Or a friend.

Yeah, you want to embarrass and just assert your dominance.

And look, I do think this has so much to do with coming back to Australia coming to the table on defence spending and, you know, resisting that.

And that's why you know we're not seeing you know aucuses up and all these things and I think it very much comes back to this defence spending issues and look Miles and Hegsworth have had two meetings this year so it's not as if that he's being snubbed or anything by it but this is it is it is weird like this is not how Richard Miles to come home to and it is interesting he is doing something this morning but there's no press conference it's just it's just a pickback so he doesn't want to take questions from the media on it.

But yes, I think it will certainly play out in question time.

Well, it certainly will.

Ash Raper, thank you for taking us through the many entrails of this week in politics.

It's not the week that we thought it was going to be at the start of the week, but boy, at the end of the week, it was certainly something.

Ash, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ash.

Questions without notice.

Are there any questions?

Members on my route.

The Prime Minister has the call.

Thanks very much, Mr.

Speaker.

Well, then I give the call to the Hon.

The Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

The bills are ringing.

That means it's time for question time.

This week's question comes from Richard in Victoria.

Hi guys, Richard here.

Long-term fan of your podcast.

Often we hear the term that we should have a public debate on a political issue.

When you refer to public debate, what exactly do you guys mean?

I'm often surprised that what passes for public debate in Australia seems less about exploring and improving an idea and more about one side proposing something while the other simply tears it down.

Is this just the way politics works now?

Where our idea of debate has shifted away from constructive discussion towards point scoring and slagging off?

Great question, Richard.

I think what do we mean?

Well, I suppose different people mean different things.

We're not all one, are we?

But what do we mean about a public debate?

I think it means one that, yeah, I suppose is had

through the public sphere of the media as mediators in many ways, or all the places that people engage in public debates, to bring in as many people and as many perspectives to ventilate something deeply to come to some conclusions.

Not everyone will agree with the conclusions, but to work something out.

I'll give you an example of one that I don't agree we're having in a point-scoring way at the moment.

We have in the past, but I think now it's a lot more nuanced, is intergenerational inequality.

We're hearing different perspectives.

different economists speaking.

We do still center, you know, some people who might be

the political back and forth about what about this

superannuation tax, right?

There's a lot of tearing down of ideas there, but it's still part of the public debate.

I think this is part of what public debate is.

I think even as sometimes that can appear to be a negative, the attacking and testing of a policy is

a part of public debate.

It is a contest of ideas.

It is a testing of integrity.

It's a testing of boundaries.

So I wouldn't want that to be the only public debate we have, but I do think it's an important part of public debate.

But I think it goes beyond that.

It does go to what discussions are being had, maybe through formal discussions like the roundtable or parliamentary hearings.

It can be

through other organs of public debate.

What are think tanks talking about?

What's in the opinion pages of the newspapers?

What's kicking off discussion on the local Facebook group for your primary school about the social media ban?

That's part of the public debate as well.

And I think think it's all of those elements.

I think there's one example that jumps to mind for me of one that we never had that I think we should have is given we've been talking about AUKUS related things is we never really had a public debate about using nuclear-powered submarines and establishing a civilian nuclear, a civilian nuclear, well not sorry, developing a military nuclear application.

Now, that was announced very quickly from the then coalition government.

Labor immediately agreed to it.

There was no big political divided or nationalism.

Bipartisanship.

Because of bipartisanship, there was never actually a discussion about, hang on, do we as a country want nuclear-powered submarines to be part of our port visits as part of our military infrastructure.

It was just immediately accepted and moved on.

And there's still a whole lot of questions around how we manage nuclear waste,

how we build that infrastructure within the country.

And it's not to say we can't deal with those things, but we never really had the public debate.

So I think that's somewhere where if there had have been a bit more aji-baji between the major parties, we might have had a bit more public acceptance of the idea, if that's what...

the party in power at the time.

Or not advanced with it.

Or not advanced with it is the opposite.

We just never really had that debate.

We didn't have that public debate.

So sometimes the tear down the ideas is actually a means of establishing whether or not the community wants or is willing to accept a change.

And we look at resistance negatively, and it can be negative, I'm not saying it's not, but you look at sometimes resistance, the GST is a good example.

There was many years before John Howard revisited it in government where it was proposed, tore down, all of that.

And then eventually, look, it's part of our architecture now.

We rely on it actually as a big funder of big programs that, you know, like not, you know, you know what I mean?

Like it's a big source of revenue for our country.

And sometimes ideas after a long period of debate through the public discussion which you ask about then become normalized.

So yeah, that's our take on it.

That's it for the party room.

Send in your questions.

I want to get more of them.

I really like the audio notes if you can send them through too.

But email them to send them to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

And remember to follow Politics Now on the ABC Listen app so that you never miss an episode.

Remember that our colleague David Spears will be in your feed on Saturday for Insiders on Background.

Joining him this week, Associate Professor Josh McIntyre on Sovereign Citizens, which, of course, we touched on today, but a big deep dive by him.

So that'll be really interesting.

Make sure you listen to it.

We'll be back in your feed Monday with Politics Now and of course next week together.

See you, Mel.

See you, PK.