Why Bandt and Dutton's losses share 'parallels'

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My message is we have your back.

Are you better off today than you were at the time that Mr.

Albanese was elected?

There are going to be more voices in this parliament.

This is gutless.

This is absolutely gutless from the Albanese government.

I don't assimilate to the colonial structures.

If that is not racist, what is it?

Welcome to the party room.

I'm Frank Kelly on the Gadigu Land of the Eora Nation in Sydney.

And I'm Mel Clark joining you from Ngunnawal Country here in Canberra filling in for PK.

I hope she's getting a well-deserved rest.

Well, I don't know.

I think she's got lost somewhere in the whirlpool of post-election politics.

She's been in perpetual motion.

Anyway, Mel, it's great to have you as co-pilot on the party room this week.

And just listening to our theme there, we're going to have to change it because no more Peter Dutton.

PK will be back next week.

What a week, Mel.

What a result.

And the surprises keep coming.

On the weekend, Labor not only received a ringing endorsement from the public, winning a majority government in a landslide, but also claiming the scalps of not one but two party leaders.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dixon, and now the Greens leader Adam Bant, he's lost his seat of Melbourne.

A short time ago, I called the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Sarah Whitty, to concede, to congratulate her and to wish her all the best as the next member for Melbourne.

We're going to be joined shortly by Claire Armstrong, National Political Editor for News Corp, to look out what's played out here for the Greens and who might be next in the frame for party leadership.

But meanwhile, Mel, you're knee-deep in post-election chatter down there in Canberra.

What are you hearing?

Well, this is a week in Canberra that is really a change from the last five weeks of the campaign that we've had.

You know, this campaign period was all about convincing the public.

to vote for your party, to vote for your party that you were out there campaigning for as an MP or as a candidate.

And that was the contest.

But this week, the contest is all internally facing.

It's all the parties now retreating to look at either the spoils of victory or

the yawning gap of defeat that some parties are facing.

So it's a time when they look at who's to blame, what's to blame, who's to lead and who's not going to lead.

And it's not just the Liberal Party, as you said.

Obviously, the Liberal Party needs to find a new leader with Peter Dutton now not only leading the party to a disastrous outcome, but losing his own seat.

But now we have the Greens in a similar position where they're going to have to figure out who will lead them into a new era.

And then for the Labour Party, they're looking internally too,

jostling for front bench seats.

And even the Nationals have a deputy leader that they're going to have to elect at some point.

So for all the major parties, there's a lot of internal examination to go on.

Yeah, and the Nats are interesting.

And we'll talk about all the others, but the Nats always have their leadership open too.

So that's always an interesting moment.

They often have surprises too at the Nats.

Mel, the Liberals have been trawling through the sort of meagre entrails that remain of their party and their party room.

And, you know, people have been even saying, suggesting that the Liberal brand is facing an existential crisis.

I think it's certainly an existential crisis we're facing yet.

I don't think we should underestimate or understate the gravity of the challenge we're facing.

I'm not sure if that's a little hyperbolic but I guess what we're saying and what we were saying when we were you know I spoke to PK and Jacob just after the election loss.

Are the Liberals asking themselves the right questions?

You know, we know this was not just a Peter Dutton problem.

We know this was not just a bad campaign.

This is something much bigger than that, isn't it?

It is a sort of fight for the centre and it seemed as though the Libs have moved too far away from that centre ground.

There's a few elements of it, but ultimately that, you know, they pushed the wrong, they pulled the wrong levers, they pushed the wrong buttons, you know, hitting, trying to, as we said, very, very, you know, frequently during the campaign, as they tried to sort of speak to their base, hang on to that base, that inexorably meant they moved further to the right, and they've got to figure out what to do about that.

Well that assumes that they accept that proposition, Fran.

And I think we're hearing some in the Liberal Party accept that that is the issue and they need to get back to the centre.

But there are plenty of voices in the Liberals orbit that are saying not that we need to double down but need to triple down and stay with the strategy of focusing on outer suburbs, not pandering to inner-city elites, talk more about cultural issues that shape our nation.

And we need to ignore the loud voices from those people who do not face those economic struggles in their lives to want us to go so-called to the left.

People are saying that right now that we should go to the left.

I worry that we have been gun shy in this last term of parliament in a futile attempt to give the Liberals space or some sort of opportunity to win seats in the city.

That obviously didn't work.

The first reckoning that has to come is a broader consensus on which way to go.

I think it's been really interesting.

We've seen straight out of the blocks it's been the moderate Liberals who've been the ones willing to speak at length about this more.

Right from the beginning we had Andrew Bragg talking about the party having fundamentally misread Australian society and not having strong enough economic policies.

That was right from the beginning.

Likewise we've seen Maria Kvasik point out that policies like nuclear are not serious for addressing climate change and if you want to convince anyone who thinks climate change is a problem that you're willing to address it, that was not the way to go about it.

We have lost very good members of parliament, we have lost our party leader.

We have lost shadow cabinet ministers.

So the message from the community is very, very clear.

And that's why I believe that this nuclear policy has to go.

These are very serious concerns for the moderates of the party who want to regain that centre ground.

But there are others in the party who I don't think have necessarily come to that position yet.

Maybe they will after a review process.

I mean, what we are hearing is a bit like what we heard from Simon Birmingham after the 2022 loss, which is we need to reckon with where our party sits in a modern society.

But that didn't lead to change this time around.

Are they going to listen this time around?

Yeah, as you say, they didn't listen last time.

Mel, there was also, I think, the undeniable reality that the Liberal Party's women problem has overwhelmed them at this election.

You know, women, young and old, deserted them.

They didn't have enough female MPs.

They didn't have any strong policies to attract women.

And at the ballot box, women, young and old, just deserted the Liberals.

They lost much of their female representation.

Reduced now.

I'm not sure the latest numbers, last time I looked, it was looking like fewer than 10 in the lower house.

I mean, that is a shocking result.

It should have come as no surprise to them because, as you mentioned there, they've done reviews, election reviews in the past in 2022 and a long time before that.

They've all shown the same thing, we have a problem with women.

And it didn't used to be that way, Mel.

In 2001, more women voted for the Liberal Party than the Labor Party.

And that was the norm, the long time norm in Australian politics.

That's completely turned around now and

become entrenched.

Meanwhile, the Labor Party has just had six new female MPs elected in Queensland.

Their party room was already over a 50% female representation.

It'll be more than that now.

There's got to be a lesson in here, Mel, one they've been

sort of told before and refused to learn.

How do you think they're going to tackle this?

Well, there's certainly a recognition from the women within the party that this is a problem, but the party base that is adamantly opposed to the idea of quotas or even enforced targets in some way has been a perpetual barrier to trying to actively overcome this problem.

I found it really interesting to hear from Charlotte Mortlock this week, who's the head of the Hilmers Network, which is an international...

She was.

So this is an internal group that really tries to get women nominated into or pre-selected into positions within the Liberal Party.

She's long been strong on the need for quotas in the party, but she said this week the party needs to stop pussyfooting around and they need to use quotas and targets to get there, pointing out that all the previous efforts have failed.

But she also made the point the average party member of the Liberal Party is a male in their 70s, whereas the average voter is a female who is 37, and that there's a disconnect there.

We cannot be beholden to a membership that is, you know, the average Liberal Party member is a male in his 70s, the average Australian is a 37-year-old female.

And if we are going to continue to be hamstrung to a membership that is that disconnected from society, then we deserve to keep losing.

Yeah, and that was a point Linda Reynolds, our going Liberal senator, made too, basically getting as close as I've ever heard as suggesting that they need to change this pre-selection model, change the way the democratic processes within the Libs work, open them up more.

We do have to have the hard conversations now about how do we become more gender balanced, but also a broader diversity and how do we then make our party relevant again.

Getting very close to say yes we need quotas.

I haven't heard many of them actually say it yet but they're saying yes we need to look at that again and obviously they do.

We should tell you that David Spears is going to be interviewing Charlotte on Insiders on Background and that podcast will be in the Politics Now feed on Saturday.

But Mel, this brings us inexorably to the Liberal Party leadership because if there's going to be change, it needs to be led by the leader, endorsed by the leader.

We know who the contenders are.

Publicly, they've been keeping pretty quiet.

you know Angus Taylor, Susan Lee, Dan Tehan.

Under the surface though, Mel, we keep hearing, I keep reading, all sorts of shenanigans are going on.

There's lobbying, there's shit sheets, the whole shebang.

What is happening, Mel?

I think Susan Lee is in the box seat, and I think that for a number of reasons.

As ambitious as Angus Taylor is, he has been damaged by his

role in...

this term of parliament that's just finished and particularly the campaign.

The economic failings are considered by many within the Liberal Party as part of their problems, that they didn't have a better policy to take to voters on taxation,

that opportunities that were there to take it up to Labor on things like the policy that Labor wants to increase taxation on superannuation accounts over $3 million and tax unrealised gains, that that was a huge opportunity to campaign against Labor that was missed.

A lot of that blame is being laid at the feet of Angus Taylor.

I have concerns about his capability.

I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell.

I don't know what he's been doing for three years.

There was no tax policy.

There was no economic narrative.

So even though, in theory, to start with, he was one of the frontrunners with strong factional support, that has damaged his case.

Dante was always going to struggle with the numbers, I think, but he has a position where whomever he chooses to support could well end up being a deciding factor.

So he has quite a lot of power in that regard.

Cynically, I have also heard some chatter that there are Liberal MPs who think Susan Lee might be a good interim leader, recognising that having a female to be the face of the Liberal Party as it tries to rebuild and win back female voters is a good thing.

But that's sort of tinged with the asterisks of, oh, but by the time we get closer to the next election, let's face it, that's a tried-true model.

When things have fallen apart, give the women the hospital pass.

I mean, we've seen that quite a lot before.

Absolutely.

And we've seen the unfortunate leaders do the clean-up job only to be turfed out when it comes time to election.

Hello, Brendan Nelson, as an example there.

So there's also a bit of longer-term wargaming in this scenario.

The other element that I have heard some in the coalition mention is that they think Susan Lee would be a good leader because it would be harder for Anthony Albanese to attack her, that it would look bad if Anthony Albanese went in hard to really, you know, particularly in question time and in parliament when things get really robust, that he would have to be a little more restrained in dealing with a female opposition leader than he would if it were Angus Taylor or Dan T.

And now, make make of that what you will, but that's certainly the view of some coalition MPs, that that might give them a little bit of a strategic advantage in the next parliament.

Yeah, and there are others who point out that she's more experienced.

You know, she has held cabinet positions in the past when they're in government as well for quite a long time.

I note that former Premier, New South Wales Premier Nick Griner says the Libs need to set a course to be warm and dry.

And what that means is, you know, economically dry and socially a little more progressive or closer to the centre.

And that's a better description you'd think of Susan Lee than Angus Taylor.

But they'll make this decision.

Before we go to Claire, I think we should probably mention Labour to the victor goes the spoils, which in Labour's case are bountiful.

Every time I check the seat tracker, it's up one or down one, bouncing around 90 seats.

I'm not sure where it is right now.

But that's a lot of seats.

It also presents challenges to a leader, though, doesn't it, Mel?

Because it means more people in that party room feel like they'd have a claim to promotion.

Some of them have really outperformed expectations in the election.

Labor Party factions and states wrestle for positions on the front bench.

That's how it works in the Labor Party.

There will be winners and losers.

At the same time, Anthony Albanese, I think, will be tempted to maintain stability or maintain that loose arrangement between the factions, I think.

But I also think he will hang on to most of what he's got in his ministry.

And I think maybe add some new names, particularly women, I think, to highlight the advantage Labor has there to make a statement over the Liberals.

I'm not sure if you're hearing any more specifics, any new names?

Yeah, I think you're right on a lot of those fronts.

So we do expect there'll be more women to come in, particularly in the outer ministry.

They have had 50-50 representation in gender terms in the cabinet, but not in the outer ministry.

And they're really pushing to get to that level.

So that means there's some women in the wings who will be hoping for promotion.

Rebecca White, as the former leader of the Labor Party in Tasmania, Tasmania who's been elected

is expected to be one of the ones who might get one of those outer ministerial positions.

It would also help with the fact that Tasmania is now a sea of red and they would expect more representation for Tasmania in the ministry.

Can also point to the fact that this is an opportunity for many in the Labor Party who are frustrated by the dominance of the New South Wales right and in particular the men of the New South Wales right to try and rebalance that.

So a lot of senior positions in cabinet are held by men from the New South Wales right.

So we're talking about Tony Burke, Chris Bowen, Jason Clare and Ed Husick.

New South Wales right you also have Michelle Rowland, Christy McBain on the outer ministry.

Now it seems unlikely the women would be moved given they're trying to make sure they have the gender parity but that puts a lot of pressure on the four men who are remaining and I have heard a lot of discussion from within Labour circles that Ed Husick should be the one that should go, but he will fight that tooth and nail, having previously been asked to step aside to make way for Christina Keneally, if you can remember in the past when that happened.

So he feels like he's already had his term on the outer to make way for others.

But it's also hard to see how you could demote someone like Tony Burke or Jason Clare or Chris Bowen.

So there's a really thorny issue here that the Prime Minister is going to have to solve.

I thought it was really interesting that he said on 7.30 this week when he was interviewed by Sarah Ferguson just the other day that he did give deference to this process of the factions deciding their split.

Well the leader always gets to allocate portfolios under our system

but I'm someone who's consultative.

Part of the reason for our success at the election is the way that I have brought back cabinet style government.

You're right, he's got a lot of political capital after this leading the party to a win of this size, but he's still showing deference to that process that's already in place.

So I think he's being cautious not to upset that process more than he has to.

He'd like the factions to sort it out so that he doesn't have to.

Yeah, I think he'll let them try and sort it out, but they always say that and then they get who they want if there's someone in particular.

Tanya Plibisik, of course, there'll be a lot of focus on what happens there.

I think the PM has committed to keeping her in cabinet.

I've talked about this with a lot of women over the last year, the position position and the tension apparently on display between the Prime Minister and Tanya Plibasek and they don't like it, then they're not happy with it.

So if he does drop her from environment and you know perhaps there is a case to do that given that there's been tension in that portfolio, I just don't think he can be seen to be demoting her.

He would have to give her something positive, I would have thought, like education or maybe women back as well, or I'm not sure.

But I certainly can't see him dropping her.

No, and if it's going to be a senior role, then she's previously held education, currently environment.

There's only so many senior portfolios that are at that level or above.

So she will have to play a significant role unless he wants to face enormous backlash, not just from the public, but even from within his own party, because Tanya Plibisik is very, very popular with the Labour Party faith.

Yeah, yeah.

And look, as we mentioned at the top, there is another battle for power set to get underway in the Greens, by the look of things.

Adam Bamp projected to lose his seat i think we should bring in our guest let's get claire

claire armstrong national political editor for news corp welcome to the party room and have your feet touched the ground yet you have been on buses for the last five weeks it feels like yeah i i have a lot of washing to do and i sound a little croaky but i somehow survived the entire election without getting a cold which is actually quite an achievement for most travelling media excellent you've obviously got some depth to the wardrobe too.

Claire, first Peter Dutton, now Adam Bant.

Labor's red wave has swept away two party leaders.

Anthony Albanese is suddenly the giant killer.

To win in Melbourne, we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined.

And it's an Everest that we've climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short.

What's happening inside the Greens right now?

Interestingly, I think it's pretty obvious that Sarah Hanson-Young, the senator from South Australia, one of the longest serving, if not the longest-serving, I think, person in the Greens party room at the moment, she's sort of the obvious front-runner to replace Bant.

There's talk that Larissa Waters, the Queensland senator, is maybe in the mix as well.

And of course, Maureen Faruqi from New South Wales is deputy leader now, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that she might put her hand up, but it's going to be whoever I think can convince the party room that they've got the vision to essentially make it so that the 2025 result was a blip rather than just a cost correction, and 22 was the blip.

Certainly, Sarah Hanson-Young has been out there saying that a more collaborative and consensus-building, even compromise, you might say, approach to legislation over the next three years with labor and power is maybe the best path forward for the Greens compared to what they've done the last three years.

So, does that suggest that some of the Greens think they were too hardline on some of those issues?

And I'm thinking the Middle East in particular, but also housing, that that has lost them some vote is that is that the pitch yeah I mean I think it's pretty obvious that that is exactly what has happened because before Adam Bent had lost his seat six months or so ago we had the Queensland state election where the Greens lost seats they held in that state partly due to different preferences but also that was at a real kind of peak I think for the Greens taking quite hardline stances not just on the war in the Middle East you had Max Chandler Mather the former member for Griffith standing on the stage with the CFMEU there was heaps of legislation around housing and other things that the Greens had held up for months, if not years.

And almost overnight after that, you saw a real change from Adam Bant, where he said, oh, this is all about getting rid of Peter Dutton.

A vote for the Greens is a vote for getting rid of Peter Dutton.

And we saw over two kind of big weeks of Parliament, the Greens capitulate on almost every piece of legislation they'd been holding out on and allowed Labor to wave through a bunch of measures in a big guillotine, which basically means they do it all at once, which was a total 180 on his approach of the last two years.

I think that was a really notable shift that you point out, and I think it's an acknowledgement that their approach during the term of parliament had been one that wasn't winning them any extra votes in the public.

I guess the question for the Greens now is: how do they reconcile how they might want to approach the best parliamentary politics and figure out where do we oppose the government, where do we push for more, where do we compromise and accept.

And how does that play with the Greens' membership base?

Because the membership base has held up quite well.

Its national vote has remained almost steady, a small drop.

But the party base is very active in pushing their parliamentarian representatives to speak out on issues like the Middle East and Gaza.

How do you think the Greens are going to go balancing those competing demands of wanting to be successful in achieving things in parliament, but also

giving an image that its party base wants its elected representatives to give.

It's super interesting, right?

I don't know if this is blasphemy to say, but there are some real parallels between what the coalition of the Liberals are going through and what the Greens are going through in that you would argue that their parliamentary activity is quite reflective of their membership base.

And that is a problem when you're trying to be a mainstream party, which is essentially what the Adam Bant project in his leadership of the last five years has been, is to bring them into the mainstream.

Because you then need the support of people that aren't necessarily in that sort of narrow base.

And what we saw in the result, and the Greens will talk about a lot, is that their overall result in the Senate actually went up.

They had an increase in support.

But this was explained to me beautifully by a pollster the other day.

They've essentially had what he called a pancaking effect, where their amount of support has grown, but it has spread out over a larger geographical area.

area, which has increased their support in things like the Senate, but obviously had a detrimental effect in concentrated geographical contests like in the inner city seats that they've lost.

And that's largely because Gen Z is increasingly supporting the Greens and obviously Gen Z lives everywhere.

So they have got this mandate in a sense to keep doing what they've been doing.

But if they want to be politically effective, they need seats in the House, they need seats where they can get them across the states.

I think they are going to have to work out a way to balance the desires of their base with being more pragmatic if it is still their goal to be a mainstream political party in Australia.

And I think that's a tension the Greens have had for a while of how to do this transition from being an insurgent party to being a party of establishment and mainstream.

And we're really seeing that play out.

And I think it's hurting them in other cases.

If we look more broadly, I think there is some backlash of disengaged and disenchanted voters who don't think the system as a whole or politicians as a whole are working for them.

The Greens are now somewhat in that category.

They're seen as part of the establishment.

And I think the results in the ACT are really interesting because there is a high level of support for the Greens in the ACT.

It's an area where they have shared government with the ACT Labor Party in the past.

But when given the option of an independent candidate in the seat of Been, where Jessie Price is looking like she might come close to unseating the Labor member there, people have flocked to vote for her, but they haven't flocked to vote for the Greens candidates in the other ACT seats.

People are given an alternative, an outsider alternative, for many that seems more attractive than a political party of a different persuasion but still part of the Canberra establishment as you might see it.

So they're not necessarily getting the vote of people who want to really shake things up, but they're also not necessarily getting the vote of a bit more down-the-centre mainstream swinging voter.

I think it's a hard transition.

What do you think, Fran?

I think what we're seeing in Bean is actually the Pocock factor.

I mean, I was, you guys live in Canberra.

I was down there recently walking around.

I swear, every block I saw a Pocock sign in a front yard.

He apparently had 100% name recognition in the ACT.

Doesn't surprise me.

His popularity is enormous, and he reflected that for Jesse, too.

And I think that's what that is.

In a sense, there's you can't extrapolate that too far beyond Pocock.

We're seeing people want more from our politicians.

They don't want this sort of small target government.

We actually need to get on with some serious reform.

But interestingly, Pocock will be less present and less obvious and certainly less influential, I think, in the Senate, in the new Senate.

And the Greens will be more so because the way the numbers have gone, with Labor winning more Senate seats, they've won four, the Libs have lost four.

The Greens have held on to their Senate votes, so they've still got 11 seats.

They are a sole balance of power party now in the Senate.

So that means less opportunity for David Pocock, Jackie Lambie if she gets returned and other individual senators to have any kind of impact on that Senate.

So I think that's what we've seen in Canberra, that David Pocock is an incredibly, incredibly popular independent.

You know, his backing has helped the independent perhaps win that seat of being.

It's too early though, that's not quite decided yet.

I think that's indisputable, Fran.

The Pocock power in Canberra is quite phenomenal.

Mel, as promised, the Prime Minister got straight back to work day one.

The Treasurer told us he was taking calls with the Treasury Secretary at 6.50am on the Sunday.

They're all making a big pitch about humility and hard work.

trying to project the image that they're not going to fall into hubris, which is, let's face it, a real danger for a party with a super majority.

But there are already questions circling about how this Labor government with this big majority may use this undeniable mandate.

And they will be under pressure to tackle some sort of significant difficult issues, starting first with the economy.

There's mounting pressure on Labor already to take on the massive debt that is projected, but that would mean some major spending reforms and some major tax reform.

Is there any appetite for that?

As far as I can see, the Prime Minister is still sort of preaching steady as we go.

We'll do what we promised and that's what we'll do.

My view on this is that they will do the work this term and seek a mandate in a third term, most likely.

I just don't see a situation where this iteration of Anthony Albanese, who's quite a departure from maybe the young minister that Australians remember from 15 odd years ago, he brags about saying that he never promised a revolution.

He's a reformer.

And that to me says he will maintain that cautious and steady approach.

Even when you look at the one sort of tax reform that they introduced last term, the taxing on super balances over $3 million, increasing that tax rate, even though, and that didn't pass, but even if it had, they were making it so that it only came into effect this year, which essentially would allow them to reverse engineer a mandate over the course of the election.

Given the hoops they jumped through for something as relatively minor as that, I can't see them suddenly tearing up the mandate they have now.

My view of where Anthony Albanese will go this term is more that he will seek to create some kind of legacy.

I think that that will end up being around universal childcare.

That will be his sort of structural productivity kind of economic reform.

And the rest in terms of budget

addressing the structural budget deficits that is going to come incrementally and if there are any major reforms that work

will be be done and the conversation will be had but I doubt we'll be seeing huge cuts and changes to tax in the next three years.

I think you're probably right.

There's a very deeply embedded fear in the Labor Party as being painted as reckless on economic issues and I don't think anything can happen to change that fear that's embedded within the Labor Party of being painted as reckless with the economy.

And so this idea of needing to build trust with voters that you're not going to spring a surprise on them when it comes to taxation is one that is deeply held by the Prime Minister and that softly softly approach I think is one that he'll continue to take.

But I guess the situation could get a lot more challenging because of what we're seeing in the global outlook and what the current status quo of the economic situation is, could be upended if Donald Trump's global trade war keeps causing more market mayhem.

So is there more the government can do to make sure that it's in a strong position to face those challenges if they crop up in this term, not in a third, potential third term?

Yeah, because, you know, going slowly, being cautious is all very well, but there are major structural problems that people want action on.

And housing is a number one.

We're going to come to that, I know.

But they have opportunity in the face of what Mel just raised there, the international global economic impact of this changing order we're seeing under the Trump administration, not to mention the wars that are going on and still breaking out.

You know, there's going to be demands for them to spend on defence, that's one thing.

There's going to be demands for them to manage an economy at a very difficult time and at the same time deal with significant issues like housing, like growing inequity in our population.

These are labor issues.

Labor people would expect the government to do something significant about that.

And, you know, Anthony Albanese said he wanted a second term so they could do stuff, really.

And now's that time, surely.

The frustration that you feel is how I feel every single press conference with Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese where I ask these where we all ask these kinds of questions and get shut down.

So I think it's like that is a very real issue right is that they have created they have essentially gone small target again for a second term

and have set made a rod for their own back with how strict they've been on what is and isn't within their mandate.

Obviously external events can potentially be a way around them essentially breaking or going further than a mandate.

We saw that when they first came to office and there was the invasion of Ukraine that had a huge impact on gas and they were quite interventionist in the gas market, forcing that code and other things through in a way that was well beyond what they had promised or even planned to do.

So I think absolutely external events will give them license to be more interventionist and act on some of those issues.

The other thing though is that there does seem to be this social license to talk about licenses a bit too much, but

that the public has given governments of all stripes at this point since the pandemic to spend a lot of money and deal with the consequences later.

So maybe they will attack the issue of housing, maybe they will address some of those structural social issues.

But I think when it comes to making hard decisions about the budget bottom line, this is not going to be the term.

And the public is probably going to let them get away with it because they expect healthcare, they expect housing, they expect all of these things.

And that system of all debt is bad debt or that notion that all debt is bad debt, I think, is well and truly gone post-pandemic.

In some ways, there's even a risk of more spending given that the focus of cost of living.

It's going to take a while for the initiatives to help renters in particular.

I think we'll see a strong campaign from some of Labor's natural allies to push on things like Commonwealth Rent Assist and social services payments as well.

So that's yet more pressure on the spending side.

And then you add that with the AUKUS spending as well, which

has has significant down payments that need to be made all the way through.

The one thing I would just add actually to that is

anyone worried that the coalition hasn't got enough of a front bench to form a proper opposition to hold the government to account need not worry because for the next three years Labor will well and truly be able to be its own opposition and it has enough people in that caucus of their AUCUS in particular.

There will be a left flank, there will be a right flank and they will be fighting really hard.

Like there will be more leaks out of this caucus than there's been in the last three years.

I can guarantee you that.

And that will be probably where any further reform or pressure on Albanese actually ends up being the most effective.

And you'll probably on AUKUS have a better debate within the Labor Party than you would have had if it were Labor versus Liberal, where there was just furious agreement not to be outflanked by each other.

Very good observation, Claire.

Well a great observation, particularly as, you know, Donald Trump reveals himself to be an even more unreliable alliance partner than people anticipated.

And that's probably not going to change.

So yeah, I think that's a great observation.

Claire, thank you.

It's great to have you on the party room.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks, Claire.

We'll move to questions without notice.

We'll give the call to the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you very much Mr.

Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

Order.

Not from him anymore.

Who will be the one asking the questions?

Well in the short term we are.

It's question time and this week's question comes from James.

Hey guys, James from Sydney here.

Love the podcast.

As the Liberals look for a new leader, my question is, why don't the major parties, if you can call the Liberals slash coalition that anymore, look to make senators party leaders?

Look, that's a great question from James, because I think especially when you look overseas at what's going on in Canada and you go, hey, the Prime Minister doesn't even need to be in Parliament.

Like, what's going on?

How strict are some of these rules around where people can and can't come from?

So technically, you could have a Prime Minister who is a senator, but it would just become very difficult to lead a government if you're placed in a chamber where government isn't formed.

You know, government is formed by the majority in the lower house.

That is where you can ensure that your legislative agenda is passed.

It's also where you need to have enough votes for what we call confidence and supply.

So, confidence in the formation of the government and

through that, supply of funding for ongoing government activities.

And a lot of that confidence, if it came under question, would come down to the leadership of the party.

So if you were, for example, in a minority government and asking crossbenchers to give your government confidence and supply, then who the leader is and being able to hold that leader accountable is pretty important to that equation.

So technically, you could have a Prime Minister in the Senate, but practically, I just don't think it would ever really work.

Yeah, that's right.

And it gets asked often, and it's being asked again now, in a sense, because you perhaps James Patterson, the Liberal senator who performed so well as the party spokesperson during the campaign, you know, people are saying, well, why not James Patterson?

Because he's in the Senate.

It's also because that's where the sort of battle is fought daily.

And so you want your leader there in question time, in the House of Reps, in that bullpit, to really lead that battle.

I mean, you could, in theory, do it with the leader of the House, but it's really just practicalities for all those reasons that Mel said.

But James, it's a good question.

All your questions are great questions.

We love getting them.

So don't forget to send them in.

We especially love the voice notes, which you can email to thepartyroom at abc.net.au because Mel, we're at the end of the podcast.

Oh, it's a bit sad, but thank you for having me.

It's been great.

I'm glad we could get this podcast out to talk about what's been such a fascinating week.

And of course, there's all the other Politics Now podcasts that you can listen to as well on the ABC Listen app.

I know I've been tuning in, so it's great to be able to help have a chat about this with you, Fran, but also be able to listen to all the daily updates from our wonderful colleagues.

And the pollsters might have got the election result wrong, but one thing they didn't get wrong was that there'll be still a lot of counting to be done in the days and weeks after, and that's what we're seeing.

So, there'll be more to talk about every day for the coming week.

See you, Mel.

See you, Fran.