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Boots on the ground as the flood cleanup begins.

The Albanese government has activated further support for flood victims and deployed ADF troops, but the Liberal and National parties are still mopping up their own internal mess.

And with a decimated and divided party room, Liberal insiders are still split on what led to the party's monumental defeat and what's needed to move the party into the future.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi there, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm Jacob Grieber.

And Patricia, we've been getting little hints from you for the last few weeks that you're working on something big.

I gather that's today.

It is the day of the

birth of the story is happening.

I'm no longer in Labour.

The baby is here.

Is it a healthy baby?

Well, it depends on how you view it.

So yes, tonight is the story, 8.30 p.m.

on ABC TV on, of course, Four Corners.

Look, Jacob, you know, because you've had so many chats with people like I do, that the Nationals and the Liberals, which we're going to get into, and their disputes and their spectacular breakup, and then they got back together within sort of a blink, which was wild and says a lot about how silly in some ways the breakup was,

is just one part of a bigger story.

So tonight's story really looks at the issues inside the Liberals, right?

Because the Liberal Party room, lost in all of this as they've been having a Barney with the Nationals, The Liberal Party is divided, I reckon almost in half.

Of course, there are other parts of the party that have different views, like things are a little more complex than just a binary.

But the Conservatives broadly, I I think, believe that the campaign was a monumental

F-up, if I can be really blunt, that it was badly executed.

They largely blame campaign headquarters.

They know that Peter Dunn's office obviously has something to do with it, but they think campaign headquarters ran a bad campaign and that their messages were

basically too simplistic, that they didn't talk about their broader suite of policies, that they delayed and dumped policies.

They've gone on the record to say this.

And the moderates also agree, to be fair, that it's a terrible campaign.

Like everyone agrees, there are lots of problems with the campaign.

No one could dispute that.

Who you apportion blame to is a different thing, but the campaign didn't run very well.

Everyone agrees with that.

But the moderates think that it's an existential deeper issue.

The Liberal Party's policies have been wrong, too far to the right.

They haven't met Middle Australia where they want to be.

But Conservatives do contest that.

They say, look at Peter Dutton's success over the last couple of years.

He was heading into a successful area and then everything went wrong.

That's not because fundamentally the offer was wrong, but actually, substantially, it was about, if I can be blunt, marketing and the way that they communicated that, the way they managed the comms around the minister,

the sort of candidate, sorry, the opposition leader.

I reckon they're pretty different takes and they tell the story about the internal issues inside the Liberal Party.

And until they manage to come to some sort of truce on those different contested stories, I don't think their future will be clear.

What do you reckon?

Well, I think what you've uncovered here and what you're going to demonstrate on Four Corners tonight, that split between those two,

I guess you could call them autopsies, okay?

They're looking at what went wrong, why it went wrong.

And I think it's quite significant that the conservative wing is sort of grabbing onto the polling failures.

Now, the moderates might say, well, that's a convenient excuse because that, you know, the Conservatives don't actually want to change the ideological debate.

They support the more sort of further right type policies.

There's more scepticism around things like net zero.

They're not into quotas for women.

They believe that the outer suburb strategy is the future of the party.

Now, that's certainly something I am confident in saying Angus Taylor believes.

And so it's interesting that, and I think your show reveals this, John O'Dunium, the senator from Tasmania, really is very angry about the polling mistake.

We were, frankly, in a very competitive position at the start of 2025.

And that completely evaporated to the point where we are at an historic low as an opposition.

And I think there are some people who might want to consider their futures as a result of that.

And I guess we should just quickly explain that because I think it's really important.

The pollsters that the Liberal Party was using basically got it wrong.

And the Liberal Party never took evasive action as they headed towards this cliff that some polls were suggesting was happening, but their polls were saying weren't, so they were okay.

They were sticking to their strategy.

They were doing things like chasing Labor seats

that ended up getting swings to Labor.

That's how far off the mark they were.

I think that's a critical thing.

They're grabbing onto that because they're probably reluctant to really

reshape the Liberal Party in the image that the moderates want, which is, and I think George Brandis plays a part in your piece tonight, arguing that the Liberal Party has alienated itself from so many groups, so many important groups of voters, that it doesn't look like Australia anymore.

We alienated women, particularly women who wanted to work from home.

We offended public servants.

We offended multicultural communities, particularly with this announcement that went nowhere about a referendum on dual citizens.

We insulted people who live in the inner cities.

We didn't really have an offering for young people, particularly students.

We offended other minority groups as well.

It was almost as if we were running out of new people to offend.

So this argument that you're laying out, I think, really points to that that division.

And what each side is grabbing onto tells you that this argument is so far from over.

That's right.

And what's really interesting is that that leadership contest between Angus Taylor and Susan Lee isn't just about individuals.

Of course, personalities are always part of the story.

but it's actually about the direction of the party.

And so Susan Lee offered sort of an almost a moderate alternative version and literally just had the numbers, but it was very close.

Angus Taylor, in running even with Jacinda Number Jibber Price and framing it the way he did,

still continues, not the same carbon copy version as Peter Dutton's strategy, to be fair, that's not quite right, but the broad idea that you certainly run on economics, and they believe that the economic ideas that they had were downcast.

Sarah Henderson puts that on the record.

I mean, taxation policy is not sort of pursued, that if you go with that and continue on what they describe as values issues, issues.

Now, what do people who are more left-leaning or more moderate call that?

They call it culture wars.

But in the capital C conservative side of politics, they see that as values issues.

Now, you might think, what's the difference?

Well, it is in terms of how they frame it, how they understand it.

You know, Sarah Henderson, when she explains her policies on schools, describes it as a broader thing than just indoctrination, although indoctrination is clearly something they believe is happening in schools, right?

But it's broader.

It's about standards.

It's about classroom behaviours, it's about curriculums.

They think that will resonate with Australian people if explained properly.

So that direction is still correct.

They don't think that should be abandoned.

And we know that people like Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister, he believes that very strongly.

He's been putting it on the record and he still has a lot of influence over some parts of the Liberal Party.

There are more modern conservatives like Andrew Hastie who speak to us tonight who, and I call him modern conservative inso much as he's absolutely a a capital C Conservative, but he absolutely sees that there's a bigger problem for the Liberal Party.

Like he hasn't got his head in the sand, as far as I could see.

Like he says we have to appeal to more people.

He talks about multicultural Australia.

Like he gets that this is a big conundrum, but the idea that you go flip and you flip like the position that the party goes in is what they contest.

And I reckon that's going to be a big fight.

So I want to just say that Andrew Hastie says something really significant tonight.

And I know you'll think it's significant because you follow this stuff so closely.

The question of net zero, again, that's a straitjacket that I'm already getting out of.

The real question is, should Australian families and businesses be paying more for their electricity?

Now, straitjacket is not a, I don't know, you tell me what you think of that word.

It's not a subtle word.

It's too confining, he thinks.

So he wants to keep continuing with the line that power prices should be the focus.

That is very different to what the moderates want to do.

And so this is a big contest.

It really is and it's an interesting word to use.

I think it's actually quite an honest word to use from his point of view.

What he's revealing there, I think, my interpretation of that is

the coalition has tied itself up in knots ever since net zero became its official policy at the end of 2021 under Scott Morrison.

Recall Scott Morrison did it because one of his mates,

Boris Johnson, the then UK Prime Minister, was hosting one of those big UN climate summits and was insisting Australia sign up to that.

Ever since then,

half the party or half the coalition movement has felt like that is indeed a straitjacket because it requires you to come up with answers for how you get there.

And that's why they came up in the last term with the nuclear policy, which voters have rejected.

So I don't know where he's going with that.

I don't know what he thinks the answers might be.

But I I think they would like to not be bound by that net zero target because then they can do things like let coal plants run for longer or get more gas into the system without having to.

you know, explain it.

How sustainable that is in 2025 and the years to come remains to be seen.

I'd suggest that's not a sustainable position.

And I think you have people like Jason Filinski, the former MP who lost his seat in 2022, who argues, certainly told me in the past that until the Liberal Party gets serious and actually embraces net zero and all that that implies, they'll always be in trouble.

I think the other part of your program tonight will be the National Party, no doubt.

What have you learnt?

What's been most surprising in the last few days about what I would just call utter shenanigans?

Well, utter shenanigans is the best way to describe it.

Look, the story absolutely focuses on the Liberal Party, though.

So

we don't go into the ins and outs of the Nationals because we made a deliberate decision, which I'm so happy we made actually now, to look at just the sort of senior partner here that's lost so many seats in the cities and look at that problem with a magnifier, if you like.

But

of course, the Nationals quitting the Liberals and then saying, I can't quit you, Innes.

Sorry, that's a line from...

Brokeback Mountain and I use that very deliberately and I hope that stays in the podcast.

That I can't quit you moment and the fact that now they're trying to make up and they're all sort of positioning for positions and the secret emergency meeting of the Liberals on Friday where they in principle, and in principle is the key word here, in principle agreed to the Nationals' demands.

I think that is an issue.

Like, so Bridget Mackenzie joins us on Four Corners.

She really backs in her leader.

David Littleproud argues that his leadership is not under threat.

Now, she would argue that because she is very much aligned with his view about the principled stand of quitting, but I think that the Liberals didn't look too positively, and that's Conservative Liberals as well, on the way that the Nationals handled themselves in all of this.

So if anything, I'm not saying there are no outliers, but broadly, I think the Liberals were quite annoyed, the way that the Nationals managed this issue.

And in some ways, my analysis, I'd love it if you have a different view, because you might.

I mean, it depends how many people you speak to, right?

But I spoke to a lot of people, and I think it's actually in a weird way given Susan Lee a bit of strength because she kind of didn't

blink.

They actually did the blinking.

I know they've agreed in principle to their demands, but in principle is key, Jacob.

There's a lot of detail to work out.

And actually, the Nationals didn't get their original kind of dream of building nuclear power plants, right?

And look, and the things that the Nationals are talking about and that they were prepared to die in a ditch over just a week ago are actually things that most of the Liberal Party agrees with.

Like,

it's not a lot of skin off the Liberal Party's nose to agree to, let's get rid of the moratorium on nuclear.

They've all held that position for the longest time.

The issue or one of the demands around divestment, that is, breaking up supermarkets, the Liberals have put in a test there that probably means that never happens in practice, so they can live with that as well.

There's a whole bunch of things there that were no real cost to the Liberal Party.

I do think actually it was an early sign of how Susan Lee plays raw politics and frankly she ran rings around David Littleproud.

He was the one who was blamed for pulling out of the coalition.

Now anyone who knows anything about partnerships knows there's always two sides to blame, but in the public argument it was very clear clear that it was David Littleproud who made the decision with his party room to withdraw and then subsequently come back into the tent.

She has sort of stood above that.

She's

run a bit of a guerrilla campaign whenever

his supporters started to assert things like the ABC was reporting that they had demanded an ability not to be part of cabinet solidarity if they didn't like the idea of a decision from shadow cabinet while Bridget Mackenzie was claiming that position didn't exist uh Susan Lee's office was busily telling Sarah Ferguson live on air no it's actually there we have it in writing so they played them really really solidly in raw politics terms and that's probably going to help Susan Lee I think consolidate her leadership which is still very young it is still very vulnerable she nominally I guess won that party room vote a couple of weeks ago against Angus Taylor by really a single vote, in effect.

And so she's demonstrated that she's able to keep the coalition together.

She's done it mostly on the terms of Liberals.

And that's got to be a win for her, I would have thought.

I think it is a win, but it's just an early victory.

And look at all of the potential.

roadblocks and

traffic disasters she's likely to walk into.

I mean, you know, like we just said, net zero.

None of that.

None of that's important.

I mean, that's a really difficult thing.

It's really hard to manage a lot of these issues.

You know, quotas, changing the party's base.

You know, she keeps using words like modern Australia.

They're great words.

I mean, who doesn't want to be a modern, anything?

But try and force a very old party with very old traditions back to that sort of

view or whatever that means in a structural way.

That's really hard stuff, right?

And are you talking to voters?

Like, that's ultimately what their whole uh post-election analysis is going to have to focus on they've spent three years and I wrote a piece about this online on Sunday they've spent three years essentially

fomenting and worrying about the end of Western civilization they've talked about everything from woke to

you know all sorts of all sorts of niche issues that wind people up.

Cultural stuff.

I'm not saying those things don't matter to people.

They absolutely do.

But to most Australians worried about the here and now, in an ongoing cost of living crisis, those things were not the main issue.

And that was one of the problems that Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party had in this campaign.

And it's not yet obvious how they're going to resolve that tension.

They need their base.

They need the people who are...

who are locked on to them, not least because those people show up the polling booths and hand out how to vote cards and raise money for them.

So if you don't have the base, you don't have a party.

And part of the argument of the Conservative side of this party room is the base is crumbling.

They don't have the people.

The base is getting old.

It's not energised in the same way that, say, the Climate 200 movement's supporters are.

And so they're real structural problems.

The membership numbers themselves, I'm told, are collapsing in places like New South Wales.

So all of those things...

are still things that she has to resolve.

And they won't be easy.

I mean, I don't know.

Do you get a sense from your conversations with them in this show that those are the front of mind issues?

Not culture war things which keep your base happy, but how you broaden the party so that you are

the John Howard broad church?

Or is that era gone?

Well, I think there are some people who absolutely think that that should be the priority, and others who don't agree.

And I think that's at the heart of the problem: that there is not unity on the way forward.

And that my prediction, and that's based on not just the interviews you see tonight, although definitely they're part of it, but what I consider to be honestly more got like my ears hurt from how many conversations I've had on background, you know, with so many diverse

and really interesting people from all walks of life in Liberal Party contemporary world, history, backroom shenanigans, like so many layers.

And there is not

one

diagnosis for this.

And so, they need to have this out.

And the one thing that I do think there's unity on is that in the rush to look unified after the 2022 election, in the rush to unify behind Peter Dutton, they did not do the hard yachts.

They did not do the substantial work you need to do to be a party of government about who they are, who they appeal to.

It was superficial at best.

Do you think actually, and this just occurred to me, one of the things that we heard during the election campaign was in explanation for why a lot of these policies were being announced so late in the piece, was, well, Peter Dutton actually succeeded in keeping the party together throughout those three years.

And one of the reasons he did that was because he didn't have big policy debates that split the party open.

He was probably right, given what's happened since.

Oh, look, it looks easier to unite the Liberal Party

unless you've tried it, I think.

And like, so yeah, he had success in pressing mute on a lot of people.

Because look, the other thing about the policy, can I just say, is some of these policies were developed.

It was just that they didn't want to amplify them.

And that's what I learnt from Sarah Henderson, for instance.

On Thursday night before the election, the policy was uploaded onto the website.

My media release was withdrawn and a lot of incredible hard work by my team and many others right across the coalition unfortunately didn't see the light of day.

And I think you've got Andrew Hastie frustrated at how long it took for his policy to come together.

Defence.

And there was detail that he wanted announced with, you know, we want to spend it on this and we want to do this.

They didn't want to announce that and there was a reason for that.

They wanted to focus on cost of living and that was campaign headquarters actually.

And that's why some people are frustrated with them.

They thought that

is the issue we want to frame Albanese on.

But it just shows, like, there's one last thing before we move on.

There's one anecdote, for instance, in my online story.

It doesn't actually make it into the TV story because we have to, you know, there's so much material I was dealing with, but it was about, and I thought you'd find it interesting, Jacob, and that's Peter Dutton, who in the middle of the campaign was trying to push for ads that called Albanese a liar.

And campaign headquarters were like, no, we don't think that will work because people don't think he's a liar.

That's not what our research is showing.

And so it won't land.

Like, what's the point of spending money on a message that doesn't preexist?

But if you looked at that campaign, we had Peter Dutton every day saying that the Prime Minister was a liar.

So he clearly was going on his own through his words on a campaign message that the headquarters didn't think was a meaningful message.

That's that's mad, isn't it?

And I think there was a lot of that, frankly, Pika.

There was a lot of that going it alone.

You know, we've talked about it before, but bringing his son to a press conference where he then couldn't give him a straight answer about whether he'd support him into a home, you know, eventually, that was, there's no way that was from central HQ.

They would never have allowed such a thing to happen.

And the lying thing, it was him going with his instincts, but unfortunately, if you're going to slur your opponent, you need actual bits of evidence that you can then build on.

That's just how politics works.

That's how communication works.

And the only

hard evidence that they could point to was that weird answer the Prime Minister gave when he fell off that stage.

He sort of said, no, that didn't happen.

So that was elevated and they talked about it ad nauseum for weeks and weeks and weeks.

But that's frankly just not enough.

And that's...

No, no.

And it didn't affect people's material world, right?

It was like some guy fell off a stage.

We don't actually care.

And,

you know, it wasn't, it was just sort of sideshow stuff.

Look, Jacob, all of these shenanigans happen and I hope people watch the story and obviously there'll be more.

I'm actually back on afternoon briefing today too so I've got quite a bit going on there too, right?

So there's a lot of stuff happening.

But in fact in Australia at the moment the biggest thing happening is the flooding disaster and you can just sort of see adults in the room vibes here because we've got the Albanese government actually dealing with that.

New South Wales East Coast has been in the midst of this really deadly natural disaster.

Let's just look at the stats here.

Five people have died.

Flooding has devastated parts of the New South Wales mid-north coast, surrounding regions too.

The Albanese government announcing that they were going to send the ADF in to help with the cleanup.

So the Prime Minister escalating this, as is his job, by the way, like important job, but the optics are pretty wild, aren't they, in terms of the contrast?

He was at the, I think it's the Crisis Management Centre here in Canberra this morning where he did a press conference, you know,

sort of making the making the case that he's sort of on top of it and working out how to get relief out there.

The stories you're hearing, we're hearing them on the ABC network of farmers saying they've never seen flooding of this scale.

And these are people who are kind of repeatedly in the gun for these floods.

2021, there was a big one in this particular area,

and it's back, but even more extreme than ever before.

And so

that is in the back of people's minds, once again, raising this question of how much does climate change affect the frequency of these events, let alone the severity.

You can't ascribe climate change to an individual event, but they are now just part of life.

This is now such a tick-tock in our daily life.

And again, just to circle back to the Liberal Party, that question, that loop, Hastie doesn't want to be put in a straitjacket on this topic.

And maybe Australia's response on climate change will not resolve these problems of more flooding and climate change-driven events.

But voters do link the two.

Am I wrong on that?

No, you're absolutely right on that.

And all evidence points to that, particularly in the cities where most Australians live and most votes need to be actually obtained by anyone who seeks to form government.

And that's the problem for the Liberal Party.

That there,

the idea that climate change is real and is making, of course, events like natural disasters more significant, more frequent, is well established and not contested.

And so that is at the heart of all of this, right?

That people see it that way.

And I think you're right, that, you know, can Australia resolve climate change on its own?

Well, no way, obviously not.

Even people who believe in strong action on climate change know that.

But I think the view in some parts of the community and I think a dominant part of the community is that doesn't mean you drop your commitment to it though.

So that is a conundrum for them and I think all of that timing is not helpful.

And look and the government will also come under pressure here.

The default offer for electricity is going to go up by 10%.

So glad you mentioned that.

Significant story today.

And that's that regulated

price increase that the power companies can pass through if you are one of those people who doesn't sort of go through the fine print and find a better deal for yourself, which you should do.

So that's there.

There'll be people who will say that's caused by the push to renewables.

Either way, whether we do more renewables or go down the road to more nuclear, it's all going to cost more.

Repairing these floods are going to cost more.

Well, that's the truth.

It all costs more.

And that's the truth that politicians have for too long not been able to look people in the eye and say, like, the transformation, full stop, is going to cost.

And how that cost is

dealt with in the community who actually gets that like lumped on them whether it's you know working class Australians or whether it's you know big business like who bears that cost is I think a very pertinent question in policy debates and and we should be having that discussion and we should not be snobbish about having it it's an important conversation right that's the point of the subsidies and all of that like how do we help people deal with their cost the i've got to say the other thing that's just come up up this morning that I think is quite notable and worth looking at, what the Prime Minister said in response to what's happening in Gaza at the moment.

I don't recall his language being quite this strong really in many, many months.

He said Israel's excuses and explanations for blocking aid into the Strip are untenable and that it's an outrage that a democratic state would withhold aid.

He's echoing what some of our allies are saying, chiefly the UK, France and Canada.

And it's a clear escalation in language.

And we're seeing images and reports, of course, out of the strip of people and children in particular starving.

And so

I think the sort of emotional reaction to that is getting stronger.

Obviously, am I being slightly cynical here?

The Prime Minister's no longer looking over the shoulder at an election and how this might play out in different audiences.

So he's just going for it.

I think a majority helps any leader say what what they really think.

So I think that's right, that not looking over your shoulder is adding to a different dynamic.

We also had Ed Husick, who was dumped, of course, from the front bench, Pennsylvania.

And now free to spend on all sorts of things.

And he had a pretty strong piece for The Guardian on Israel's actions and Gaza.

And now with that freedom, I mean, I think he was kind of saying what he really thought mostly anyway.

He often broke ranks on this issue.

Yes, he did.

And he suggested that that might be part of why he's no longer in cabinet.

He's not been shy about that.

That's right.

So is the Prime Minister also aware of the pressure there?

I suspect he probably is.

And

I'm going to say it because it's what I really, you know, I reckon you think it too.

It's probably exactly what he really thinks.

This is the man who he's from the left of the Labour Party, unless he's completely had a lobotomy.

And the last time I checked, he hasn't.

This was his view.

At the same time, he's tried to walk a very, very narrow pathway and tried to still talk about the importance of Israel and its right to defend itself because Australia believes, and so does the Prime Minister, and I believe he does believe this actually, in the right of Israel to exist, but not in the right to Israel to behave in any way it wants to.

That's a different right.

And that is what he's contesting.

Yeah.

And I think the question now for the rest of the day and cabinet is meeting as we record this, Patricia, they are definitely discussing Gaza.

The question now is, does Australia join some of these more concrete actions that other allies have undertaken

in terms of pushing back against the Netanyahu government and this,

it's not really clear, but this plan to have a sort of alternate supplier of aid.

into the Strip, which is raising questions about who will ultimately govern the Strip.

And there is a lot of pressure on Labor to do that.

And don't forget, the election might be over and he doesn't have to look over his shoulder.

But there was backlash from Muslim, Islamic, Arab communities in their heartland.

The Prime Minister would be aware and acutely aware of that.

They were also, of course, expressing unhappiness that Ed Husick had been dumped.

I think they need to think about that and I suspect they will be thinking about that.

And of course, the question of aid is one of those questions, Jacob, that a lot of Australians, even if you're not exercised on the streets about Gaza, that is a simple humanitarian question that I think a lot of Australians who are not necessarily exercised or politicised on this issue, because you know, there are a few Australians who are.

I'm not saying they're not passionate, but

they're not the massive middle.

But the massive middle doesn't like to see starving children either, I would say.

And so they would expect their government to kind of advocate in that space as well.

So watch that space.

I think they probably will harden or strengthen, harden, whatever word you want to use, their line on that.

i don't think you can be the pm saying those kinds of things and then not have something more tangible to back it up with i think that's right so watch that space look we're going to end now but i just want to say that um other breaking story which watch that space is the australian electoral commission has actually agreed to to a recount in goldstein that zoe daniel the independent had asked for uh tim wilson actually is in our program on four corners tonight i mean what would i know i don't um i don't work for the electoral commission but he did win by 260 votes.

It would be pretty hard.

It's unusual, though, to actually then go and have a recount on this.

I think the AEC

is that she'd asked for one.

So that's why Bradfield, for instance, which was eight votes, can you believe it, on Friday,

that's being recounted now.

It takes a couple of weeks, yeah.

Yes, you're right.

And then there's every prospect that potentially one side even challenges the ultimate outcome.

Yeah, you can see that one turning turning up in the, what is it, the court of disputed

returns, yes.

But I think Goldstein's a lot safer for the Liberals, just that margin is a lot bigger.

But, you know, like it's a recount.

I don't know.

Like, I don't know what they're going to, what they'll be able to determine.

But I will say they're heavily scrutinied votes, though.

It would be a pretty stunning story to turn around that many votes.

But watch that space.

Jacob, Monday's, my favorite day of the week.

Get to talk to you.

Me too.

See you soon.

You've got a big night tonight.

Four corners, 8.30.

Don't forget, or however else you get it, iView.

What's the have I missed anyway?

Always pumping up our tires.

That, Jacob, yes.

Um, of course, yeah, it's online whenever you want to see it.

Although, live's always best, and that's it for politics now for today.

You can send questions in to me and Fran for Thursday with the party room at thepartyroom at abc.net.au.

Uh, and

yeah, watch the show tonight.

See you, Jacob.

See ya.