Why the Liberals could shift to MAGA

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G'day, I'm Thomas O'Reiti, and I'm thrilled to announce I'll now also be hosting Background Briefing.

Over the past few weeks, our reporters have been investigating stories of untold power and hidden influence.

Who's really shifting the dial in Australia?

They're secretive by nature.

From the unlikely influences.

I've rejected probably 15 to 20 politicians in the last month.

To the international businessman shunning the spotlight.

All of his buddies are sanctioned.

The game changers, wielding serious power under the radar.

We are cultivating influence.

Agents of influence, an all-new series by background briefing.

A bombshell defection and a leadership tussle emerges.

Senator Jacinta Nambajimpa Price has left the Nationals party room to sit with the sister party, the Liberals, saying she'll be more effective in fighting for the best interests of all Australians.

It comes as the senator is expected to join Angus Taylor as his deputy running mate.

It's extraordinary.

And as Susan Lee confirms, she's throwing her hat in the Liberal leadership ring.

And there's already been some shock dumping of significant figures in the Labor Party because of the opaque factional system Ed Husick, Mark Dreyfus dumped as Albanese moves to refresh his cabinet.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hello, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm Jacob Greber.

And Jacob, I'm so excited you're here because these two significant stories are actually quite a big deal in the Labour and the coalition parties.

So we need to understand them all.

This is effectively really an emergency podcast because so much has developed since Fran and Mel Clark recorded the excellent party room yesterday.

We have to bring you the latest.

I know it's your day off, but I've just, I have no shame and no respect for industrial relations laws, clearly.

It's fine.

It's only people in private sector media who have days off.

We're at the ABC.

We're here for the people.

We don't stop.

All right, Jacob.

Let's start with what I think is some very juicy news.

news.

That big defection, the Northern Territory country Liberal Party senator, Jacinda Nubajiba Price, defecting from the Nationals party room to sit with the Liberal Party.

She says she feels a responsibility, but Jacob, the backlash to this decision in the Nationals is enormous.

They're saying how outrageous that she's done this, that she's the defection is actually really disrespectful to party members, the people who pre-selected her.

It is causing ruptions.

It's a big deal.

Explain why.

Well, first things first, it's incredibly unusual for coalition people to take shots at each other.

The rule is generally you don't do it.

There's no blue-on-blue violence or whatever colour you want to have.

They take that very seriously.

But the gloves are off.

People are saying things on both sides.

So we can unpack it one by one.

there's the fallout on the national party side and then i think there's the even more important fallout on the liberal party side the the clearly it's a big slap in the face to david littleproud who actually lobbied he said for her to get an additional position in peter dutton's shadow cabinet she was remember the doge minister or i forget what what she was going to clean up the ball they denied it was doge it was government efficiency it was just interesting timing my friend i'm using shorthand and that's very sloppy of me.

But so there's fury on that point.

He went to the barricades because she was a star after the voice campaign.

She rose up.

She's very popular in a lot of the branches, I'm told, across the country.

She's helped them raise money.

She got a lot of leeway in the election itself to say what she wanted.

I had a good piece on all of the fallout from the campaign that we published yesterday.

And there is a dig there just into Price from one of the Liberals.

Anyway, back to this.

She's hurt, Lil Proud.

She's hurt the Nats more generally.

Canavan, Matt Canavan, the Queensland senator, really let rip on Twitter.

He said, she's put her own ambition over the will of voters, and it's exactly why people are sick of politicians.

He pointed out what you just said, Pika.

He was on the National Party ballot paper, or actually, strictly speaking, the country Liberal Party ballot paper in the Northern Territory but she's always sat in the National Party room she is a gnat anyway she's now not a gnat so that's the fallout on the National Party side the fallout on the Liberal Party side they're still sort of playing by the rules of not going on the record and putting their names to it but I spoke to one very senior liberal last night who also didn't miss

He said, and some of you younger ones will have to Google this, it's akin to Joe for Canberra, what she's doing, and that it's really a hostile takeover attempt of the Liberal Party by the Nationals, and we can get into this, PK, by the conservative wing of the movement.

The wing that's normally associated with people like Tony Abbott, Peter Credlin,

who's not in Parliament, but it's that type of idea.

Very influential voice, yeah.

Very influential voice.

So I don't know, PK, that's sort of my 30-second summary of what.

Your summary is excellent, and I can add to it to say that, yes, they do see it as a hostile takeover but even nationals see it the same way so I've spoken to lots of people I'm working on a big story on all of this you know that's why I've been a bit busy and you see me on and off sometimes the podcast and TV and what I can tell you is inside the nationals you know one very senior national said to me they're also blowing up the Liberal Party brand like the smart nationals understand that the liberals have to be a distinctive brand they said you know in the cities recruiting jacinta Numba Jimpa Price gets them not one single extra vote, you know, where they need what, right?

So in terms of branding, it is deeply problematic for renewal of the Metropolitan Liberal Party

because of these are different issues.

So right now, there is a massive fight inside the Liberal Party.

really for the heart and soul of the party, for what the party should be.

And the moderates have swung their support behind Susan Lee to be the leader of the Liberal Party.

And Angus Taylor now, with this attempt, and he hasn't confirmed that Jacinta Nubajiba Price is his deputy running mate, hasn't confirmed it.

She hasn't confirmed it in an interview she's done, but they haven't denied it.

And most people in the party say

this is clearly what's happening.

And then the backstory is they feel that this is a long build.

This Jacinta Napajiba Price recruitment didn't happen overnight.

A few people have said to me.

It's been, people have been working on this.

So they see it as very treacherous.

And all fingers are pointing to Tony Abbott.

And as you mentioned him, Jacinta Napajiba Price was asked about this on 2GB.

We're recording this Friday.

She was asked about Tony Abbott's role.

She confirmed that she'd spoken to him, that he thinks she should join.

So clearly, this is absolutely what he thinks, but denied that somehow he's some mastermind.

And sure, she has agency.

I think, you know, she's making decisions herself.

So I think the language of mastermind, that's my word, but you know, like the idea that he's pulling strings

is over-egged.

But is this the direction of the conservative wing?

The ones who believe,

because this is the point here, they believe these culture wars should be extended.

In fact, right now, Jacob, the critique of Peter Dutton, and I think our listeners should understand this,

is that he didn't go hard enough on culture wars, that he was too restrained, that he was listening to the moderates too much.

And one of the misunderstood stories about Peter Dutton, as everyone's tried to throw him under the bus, is that actually, while some of the things he said sounded culture war-ish, which I think were in his own DNA,

it was never enough for the Conservatives.

It was never enough for them.

And he held back on things like trans rights, as you know.

He held back on abortion.

He thought those things shouldn't be daily issues.

Now the Conservatives are angry.

Enter just into Nuppa Jimper Price.

Angus Taylor potentially on this ticket.

That's the direction they think the Liberal Party should also argue on.

They also think it should be economics, but the moderates,

the sort of city liberals, if you like, they're arguing the message from Middle Australia is we need to be a centrist party.

We need to go back to that.

We need an

economic narrative.

We need to be talking about restructuring the economy and delivering tax reform and all of these sorts of issues.

So I think this is a fundamental fight for what the Liberal Party stands for.

And I don't think it's just a fight that's going to go for a week.

I think this is now the new normal for a while as they settle who they are.

That's how I see it.

And so this leadership thing

is a story within a bigger story of what their brand is.

And I reckon it's an important argument for them to have.

It's the argument they failed to have after the last election.

Don't you reckon, Jacob?

I couldn't agree more with you, Piquet.

And

you've explained that exactly right.

The moderates are going to push back and they're going to say, well, I'm sorry, but your strategy of leaning into culture war, of

remembering that last week, Dutton, he egged on the whole welcome to country issue.

And the voice.

He tried to resurrect that too.

And the voice.

Their social media advertising lent into that.

They had photos of labor people with no t-shirts on.

They were trying to bring that memory of the voice campaign back into the electorate.

Now, we've discussed this on the podcast before.

I suspect that actually made moderate liberals in seats like Bradfield angry about the Liberal Party, and they went to independence.

And this is how the moderates will push back.

They will say, well, no, Peter Dutton followed your strategy, Tony Abbott, and other people.

He actually did.

Without saying it officially, he actually did say, to hell with the inner cities, we are going for the outer suburbs.

Well, it didn't work.

You didn't win the outer suburbs.

And while Labor's primary was low, they got all the preferences that they've now got this 90-seat majority about.

And that's going to be the pushback.

I think it actually goes even more.

I think this is even more important an event, what we're going to see over the next few days.

The meeting itself will be on Tuesday morning in Canberra, in Parliament House.

They're going to hash it out in the Liberal Party.

But I think this is now an existential question for the Liberal Party.

This is about whether it is viable as a political movement.

If they don't get this bit right, they're in deep trouble.

And that's why you're seeing the moderates muscle up because they know that, right?

And some of them privately have conceded to me,

they didn't fight hard enough in the past, you know, they let things through.

They rolled over.

Yep, they did, and they know it.

And they need to actually fight for the center now.

Now, they'll be accused by the Conservatives of being labor-light, that they're pushing to be labor-light, that they're not values-based.

Now, they're saying, yeah, our values are about small government, government out of your life, you know, the opposite of talking non-stop about, you know, government intervention

between doctors and patients for things like abortion and trans.

You know, the values of the great centre of Australia, that's who they say they are.

I don't know.

I mean, I certainly wasn't around at the time, but a lot of people have alluded to this being on the same sort of scale as the Labour split in the 50s when Labour broke in half.

The DLP, the Democratic Labor Party, went in one direction.

At that time, it was over communism and whether to allow communism in Australia.

This is almost as an extreme a rupture.

And it's a really, really dangerous moment for the Liberal Party at the moment.

And they all know it, don't they?

They really do.

And they all are kind of ready to battle.

And it's so fascinating.

So, just one more point on that before we move to the other and arguably more important story.

And I'll explain why I think maybe more important because they're actually in government.

But the

other part of this is Susan Lee has spoken finally, confirmed she's going to run, but also said some really interesting, I think, and important things, saying that they'd really let women down,

that they needed to learn those lessons, still playing a really straight bat, not attacking anyone.

I think a very smart strategy actually from Susan so far far of just making sure she doesn't get into the mudslinging and making a lot of calls and obviously making that case with the moderates.

There's probably a bit of a tactical thing going on here as well, if you think about it.

This idea that Jacinta, Price and Taylor are on a unity ticket has really annoyed a lot of people.

They feel that's a premature step that that's come out so hard.

They are, and I was told, so the party rooms, probably about 20, 20, 20 and about 12, give or take, given we don't know the final makeup of who's made it into this parliament.

But it's pretty finely balanced.

20 for the moderates, 20 for the Conservative, and then there's 12 sort of roughly floating in the middle.

This would have annoyed a lot of them in that middle area, I'm told, because

they feel they're getting sort of steamrolled here by the right.

So fascinating how this plays out.

It really is.

So then on the other side, and actually the dominant side, if if you look at just how many seats these people have, I think the latest count is about 90 for the Labour Party.

That's huge.

They want a landslide.

It's enormous, right?

Those numbers have meant, as you heard in the party room, that they have to move things around based on their factional system.

And yesterday it was confirmed that

the factions are dumping Ed Husick, the industry and science minister, who is, I I think, one of their best communicators, and Mark Dreyfus.

And as one person said to me in the Labour Party, oh my goodness, we're knocking off

a Jew and a Muslim in our cabinet on the same day.

What are we thinking?

Now, that's...

That's the only Jewish person and the only Muslim in cabinet, as far as I can tell.

Yeah.

Now, you know, some people would hear that and think, well, why does their identity matter?

Well, actually, they're both very good ministers, so that identity is not the key thing but given the issues we've had in Australia over the last year and and diversity matters too it's not just about gender in my view you know you have to reflect the diversity of Australia it is extraordinary so that's what someone told me off the record but you don't have to worry about off the record there's someone who's gone on the record PJK he was

certainly a prime minister that was well loved by the Labor faithful.

Paul Keating

put out a statement about this, which is again extraordinary, Jacob, and knocked my socks off when I read it.

And he didn't miss, did he, Jacob?

Oh, he goes for it.

As he always does, we can always rely on him to wind things up.

He's sort of had a bit of a dig at the Prime Minister's notable captain's call

in a number of otherwise rule-based pre-ethelection ballots.

So he's saying, actually, the PM does get his hands dirty in these matters, but he's not on this case.

In this case, he's going to let both of them go.

And he's saying it's an effective endorsement, and I'm reading here from his statement, of a representative of another state group.

In this case, and here we go, the Victorian right faction led by Defence Minister Richard Miles, quote, a faction demonstrably devoid of creativity and capacity.

So he's

PJ's PJ's letting rip.

And there's a lot of red-hot anger around about it.

Obviously,

Ed Husick, we haven't heard from him yet, but I can reveal that he will be on Insiders on Sunday morning.

And on Q ⁇ A on Monday night, which was a commitment he'd made.

He'll be there.

He will be forthcoming is the tip, yeah, on those shows.

So look to that.

I would describe Ed as a very passionate man.

He usually wears his heart on his sleeve.

So, you know, he will have a view, I'm sure.

I think it's interesting just on two fronts, right?

In terms of...

You know, we talked about, I tried to say it's not just about identity, it's actually about the work they've done.

I've just spoken to a couple of nerds.

I also have nerd friends who were like, he's been an excellent science minister.

Oh, we're devastated.

So, sometimes I know this is actually, you know, on the label, Politics Now, we're talking about the political ramifications, but actually, policy-wise, I was like, I knew he was well regarded, but they were really upset.

You know, he's done a lot of work in this area.

It's really disappointing to us that he he's being moved on.

So, there's those elements.

I'd actually, so just push back on you there a a little bit, PK, there is also a counter-narrative that Ed was,

and maybe this is a good thing, but that he was actually a thorn in the side of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister.

Oh, that's absolutely right.

He really upended a whole bunch of stuff around the gas.

response in that first year, that first nine months.

He was really the reason they ended up with gas caps on the prices.

There was a deal done with the industry.

Ed came in.

In fact, on your show when you were doing RN Breakfast, and I remember the morning when he pretty much blew that up.

He's also been involved in debates about greater ambition.

There should be greater ambition around, for instance, lowering company tax to get more investment into the country.

That very much upset the treasurer.

And so he's kind of been in and out of favor in the inner circle.

And look, Ed's, like I said, Ed's a passionate guy.

He stands up for what he believes, but he's also taken bark bark off others, and maybe that's part of what's happened here.

Politics, a ruthless, ruthless business, and people get revenge in all sorts of ways.

And you can't help thinking it's that, don't you?

I think you're dead right.

I think you are absolutely right that he's that all of that has certainly annoyed the Prime Minister and other senior cabinet members.

Absolutely.

You know, that he's not playing by the rules, you know, and that he is outspoken.

Can I say on some of those things, particularly gas, though, probably saved the government in many ways, on a key issue where they needed to stand up.

So you can see that sometimes when you have people who push the envelope, you can get good outcomes as well.

You don't want everyone just to nod along, right?

And then one other thing, which I do think is worth mentioning because it's significant.

At a time when Labor...

was playing it very safe on the war in Gaza, as the only Muslim cabinet minister, he did speak up against

the actions of Israel.

He danced an incredibly delicate line.

He did, in a respectful way where he still

always emphasized, which I think matters very much,

the devastation of October the 7th and what that means for Jewish people.

But equally, he actually spoke to the concerns in that community.

And do you know that's quite important?

He's also like that community was in incredible pain.

He spoke for them.

So did Ann Arlie like these people spoke.

And they voted for Labor in the election.

It looks like they brought Labor home in a lot of those seats where perhaps you might have thought someone like Fatima Payman was going to have a movement, which turned out to be frankly a fart in a hurricane.

You know, it was Ed Husick and

his sort of movement that kept those people in the Labor camp.

Our wonderful Lara is giving us the wind up because

just I think

the one last thing that surprised me was Dreyfus.

And I think that's a function of the fact that this is a good problem that the Prime Minister ultimately has.

He's got 30 cabinet spots, give or take.

He's now got a caucus of 90.

Jim Chalmers reckons 40 to 50 of them would be good enough to be in cabinet.

So it's a really tough numbers game.

He's now got a four-dimensional chess puzzle to solve, which is balance the factions, balance the states, balance the gender, and build a team that's coherent.

So I think there's actually going to be quite a lot of surprises in the next few days when we see the full ministry.

There's going to be

some of the standard players will keep their roles.

But Piko, what do you think?

Are there going to be some shifts of important people into

very new areas?

Absolutely.

Yep.

And that, I think, makes makes sense, right?

I think he does need to do a big shake-up, reposition areas,

make decisions about priority areas that the government needs to really deliver on.

Remember, I've like been harping on about this.

Government won a thumping victory, but you've got to be very careful to make sure that you deliver on these lofty, lofty, big ambitions because the electorate turns quickly.

And the Prime Minister knows that better than anyone because he had a tough couple of years.

And so he does need to refresh, give people portfolios that are perhaps new and challenging, that are good communicators.

So there will be lots of change.

But mark my words, you never do something that's consequence-free.

So back on Dreyfus and Husick, there will be consequences.

That's my take, Jacob.

I think that's it.

I think that's it.

No easy answers on a lot of these things.

And hey, governing gives you calluses.

It just does.

You've got all the good lines today.

Government gives you calluses.

Jacob, thanks for hanging out with me on your day off.

I know it was very rude for me to interrupt you at like 6 a.m.

or something.

I started texting you.

I have no shame.

But I was like, these stories, we need to give these stories to people.

So that's it for politics now.

See you, Jacob.

See you, Pika.

And of course, tomorrow in your feed, David will be here with his podcast.

We'll be back again.

Well, Jacob and I, Monday.

See ya.

See ya.