Are the Liberals in a civil war?

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Opposition leader Susan Lee has been in damage control, trying to mend relations following Senator Jacinta Namajiba Price's comments about Indian migration with me on afternoon briefing a week ago.

And while Susan Lee stopped short of apologising on the senator's behalf, the fallout from the remarks has exposed deep rifts within the already fractious Liberal Party.

And as the tensions grow, Senator Numberjiba Price has accused her own colleague, who is the leader of opposition business, Alex Hawke, of cowardly and inappropriate behaviour and threats.

This has been diabolical for the Liberals.

Welcome to politics now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm Jacob Greber.

And Jacob, the tensions inside the Liberal Party are so deep at the moment, you could cut them with a knife.

I kid you not, my friend.

So the backstory, which I'm sure most people who listen to this podcast know, is it all happened in an interview with me on afternoon briefing on Wednesday last week on the parliamentary sitting week.

Jacinta Napajipa Price came for an interview and we really kind of tried, well in terms of my approach, I was trying to tease out the kind of issues that were motivating this move against migration.

In it she made some pretty inflammatory comments and since a tsunami of trouble has hit the Liberal Party.

There's been such a big mess.

Like I mean a big mess.

Susan Lee tried to walk a lot of it back on the weekend, but it's really descended a little into what you would have to describe as kind of chaos, Jacob.

Why has this gone off the rails like it has?

So I think there's two bits to this.

One is the debate and argument around

the Liberal Party's attitude to migration and the view that Jacinta Nambajima Price has, that somehow Labor is favouring certain categories of immigrants, as in Indians, because they vote Labour

and she has no evidence for that I haven't seen any that's actually what Susan Lee asked from her and then that prompted her to backtrack really within the hour of that interview with you that she had made a mistake there's this debate about all of that and the Liberal Party's ability to win voters in those communities and there's material around today pointing out I think it's from Cos Samaris the 50 most ethnically diverse seats, the Liberal Party holds just two of them.

And if you expand that to the most ethnically diverse 70 seats, there's a whole bunch of other ones where the Liberal Party might now have a bit of a problem on its hand, Deacon, Aston,

Spring to Mind, among many others.

So there's that argument.

What is the Liberal Party doing?

What's it messaging to those communities so that it can win those communities to its cause?

And she is seen as having severely damaged that, caused a massive hole in that argument.

And then the second piece, Piquet,

this is now also about Susan Lee's leadership.

How strong is she about one of her own when they say these sorts of things?

Is it her fault that Jacinta Price hasn't apologised, for instance?

That's been going the last sort of day or so, this issue of should she apologise and why isn't she apologising?

That's now become Susan Lee's problem.

And I think that's now fallen into the category of chaos that hurts Susan Lee as a leader.

I know, what do you think?

Okay, so all of that is true.

So you're right.

There are two fronts.

So there's the front on how to deal and talk about multicultural communities while also saying you're against, and I quote, mass migration.

I want to park the word mass because that is highly contested, whether we're actually really witnessing.

mass migration, but let's just accept it for the purposes of the podcast, How to have that discussion or prosecute that view for the Liberal Party in a way that liberals like Susan Lee and moderates want, which is to be race-blind, non-discriminatory, and absolutely confine it to a broader issue of infrastructure and not make it about the people.

And there's a reason for that.

There are a million Indians in this country, Indian Australians.

I mean, for goodness sakes, like the maths doesn't lie.

You want to offend that many people you are in dire straits if you do that and boy boy oh boy I have spoken to labor people who tell me honestly they're like wiping their hands about you know already planning their ads with some of this stuff right they're like this is

this is seriously it's almost like one person said to me it's like she's a plant for us just in an upper jupiter price this you couldn't script this stuff now this I want to go back to the original interview because the idea that it's just some sort of mistake or that,

you know, that the media has misinterpreted or, and I will say this, this one bothers me, that I somehow am responsible for this.

Like, no,

I put to her that there was an anti-Indian sentiment, which there was in the materials for this protest movement.

The reason I asked is because she said largely nice things about the protests.

She denounced the Nazis on the side, but the protests broadly, she was pretty positive about it.

So I naturally put to her that actually a lot of the rhetoric linked to it is anti-Indian.

And that's how that exchange kind of comes forward.

Do you know what I mean?

Because you need to answer that question.

If you say nice things about this protest,

with the exception of the Nazis, which we accept that she's denounced, and I want to make that clear, but I mean the other sentiments, then you do have to quiz politicians, all politicians, not just her, about

the anti-Indian sentiment and how they are going to approach that, because that's the contentious bit, right?

So they are dealing with trying to change their image in multicultural communities at a time when loose rhetoric like this from one of their front benches is honestly like causing an inferno in those communities.

You don't have to trust me.

Just look at the Indian community.

They've made it crystal clear that they're really red hot with rage about this.

And you can understand why they would be right.

Just senten up a jip of price.

She's tried to say, I like the Indian community.

It's not about the Indian community, but at the same time won't apologise.

So I think the way she's handled it makes it a bit difficult because she's kind of saying two things because she doesn't want to completely retreat from her broader position.

And it would be easier, of course, if she did.

And then on the other front, the proxy war around Susan Lee and the factions.

Let's just call it for what it is.

We talk about Labor factions, but boy, this is a liberal factions issue.

Now, Alex Hawke, who apparently berated, if you believe, Jacinta Number Jibba Price, her staffer and, you know, tried to sort of make her fall into line over her comments after they were made on my program.

He's the numbers dude for Susan Lee, right?

He's the factional operator behind the success of Susan Lee.

So the Conservatives,

not just Jacinta Price, but the rest of the Conservatives aren't very happy with him.

So it's become a proxy war for broader issues inside the Liberal Party.

That's how I see it, Jacob.

And the reason it's so dangerous is

there's the migration front, which is huge because we have such a diverse country.

That's electorally poisoned for the Liberals if they get that wrong and they are getting it wrong.

Look, there's a storm.

And then there's the inside internals.

And clearly this has opened up

how unresolved they are.

I mean, Jacob, this is civil war.

Let's just say what it is.

Like, we have front benches actively fighting in the media right now as a result of this interview.

I think that's right.

I think civil war is a good description of it.

And then Jane Hume as well now has taken

offence to a suggestion it was, or it seems that Alex Hawke said to her office, Jacinto Price's office, this is what happens when you get this stuff wrong.

So to remind people,

there was a comment during the election campaign about the Chinese community.

Jane Hume has, she's a moderate herself, has faced a backlash from moderates within the Liberal Party who were very, very angry about her saying that.

And now, Alex Hawke has sort of apparently raised that again in the context of the Indian community.

So, she's got her nose out of joint as well on the way through, even though she's a moderate.

So, it's a real mess in all sorts of directions internally.

The problem for Susan Lee is it's very easy for these headlines to explode into a very ugly situation.

There's the other side, of course,

who wants this debate.

They are saying things like Jacinta says, and Jacinta was very close to advance during the No campaign for the voice referendum.

Now,

what she's sort of reflecting is pretty much what they are advocating for, which is to stop immigration.

They call it mass immigration, destroying the Australian way of life, and it's time to stop it.

So that's straight from their website.

And is that what Jacinta Price is arguing?

Is that her thing?

And

she sort of goes there, and she did in your interview.

And you're right.

You're not to blame for that.

You asked her a question and followed it up.

She was unable to answer it in a way that didn't blow this thing up.

And that's on her.

That's not on you.

You're doing your job as far as I'm concerned.

And it actually, it actually says she's not, the fact that she then did go on and blame you in some way, I think there was a sort of, a sort of

an attempt to suggest you had forced the issue.

I mean, that's frankly ridiculous.

If you're a politician and you get in front of the microphone and you're actually wanting to be on the front bench,

you've got to handle it.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, that means

you're not a serious person if you're going to blame the journalist for that question.

Oh yeah, for sure.

And also it's a totally logical, reasonable question.

Like if there is an anti-Indian sentiment in the movement,

I mean, you're not doing your job if you don't ask, what do you make of the anti-Indian sentiment?

You know, do you agree with it?

Like, that's a pretty reasonable question.

And the answer, I would have thought, I mean, if you want to be a mainstream political leader, is no, I don't agree with any anti-Indian sentiment.

I think it's wrong, right?

So let's go back to the fundamental issue.

Yeah, there's the civil war, but the act immigration issue.

We are now in territory where the Liberal Party do want to try and continue with an anti-immigration campaign.

I challenge the wisdom of that full stop, actually.

When you say they want to have an anti-immigration campaign, what do you mean by that?

What's the...

Well, they're campaigning around...

I mean, Susan Lee as well, that we have our immigration levels are too high and our infrastructure isn't ready for it and we can't do it, right?

Okay, that's not new.

Peter Dutton tried it.

Do I have to remind them of the 94 lower house seats?

It was a big issue.

Peter Dutton championed it.

It was a failure.

This idea that there is mass concern about immigration.

I will challenge that.

I don't think there's mass concern about immigration.

I'm not saying there's no concern about immigration.

There clearly is.

That's why people have protested.

But the idea that there is a mass movement in this country, which is anti-immigration, I'm going to challenge that.

I don't know the wisdom of pursuing this full stop.

The smart thing would be, this is a political podcast, like we're not just only analysing, like what is the smart thing to do?

to go hard on the lack of housing, to go hard on the settings that allow this to happen.

Absolutely they should be doing that.

But their focus on the immigration side

as being, you know, so deeply linked, I do think is problematic for them because I reckon we've got a really good example of how it's problematic for them.

The last election and also the demography.

They're trying to pursue this kind of lower immigration campaign, hoping that it can be completely kept separate to the elements of who those immigrants are.

I'll put to you, Jacob, that that is possible to do, but it's so so hard to do, wouldn't you say?

Well, what do you think?

Possible to do.

Without being out and out racist, you mean?

Very hard to pull off, right?

It's always a trap, is my point.

It's constantly going to be a trap.

Like, if I was a liberal strategist right now, and I know some of them are doing this, by the way, but I'd be like, okay,

how can we cultivate the Indian community so that they know that we're a great political party potentially to vote for and make them, you know, loyal liberal voters in the future and so I actually think it's kind of nutso but so that they're even not not just focusing on the on that part of it like politically Jacob what's going on here like that should be the only aim and you know I have no doubt and I'm of course I'm not I'm not Indian not in the Indian community but I can bet you I'll be prepared to put money on it that they are just as worried as anyone else about housing.

I bet they're just as worried about their kids buying houses and having access to the property market.

They'd be just as worried about their kids and hex debt.

They'd have the same questions and issues as everyone else does in the country.

And they're just two areas where the Liberal Party might be able to have a story that appeals to a broad number of voters.

If they did come up with something that would solve some of that housing tension, I can't see why if you're from the Indian community, you wouldn't vote for that if it matched what you wanted for your kids.

Am I wrong?

Oh, you're not wrong.

You are dead right.

So it's just weird.

It's generally weird.

And I mean, I've been talking to some of the libs just in the last couple of hours about it.

And they are really quite shaken

by this.

They are worried about what it does.

Even in some of the seats where there is less ethnic diversity, they're worried about this.

And there's this view that the party room just doesn't get this.

And this is what one person said to me just a short time ago.

The pathway back to government is multicultural metro.

Now, those are the seats that the Liberal Party used to have.

It was like their blue wall that's gone.

Some of it's gone teal, some of it's gone to Labour.

They are all incredibly diverse seats.

And this kind of story, you know, they're quite beside themselves, this particular person I was talking to from the Liberal Party about what that all means for the coming election, which is, I don't know, three years away, two and a half years away.

But the damage you do here is very, very lasting.

People tend to remember this stuff.

They do.

And the political cycles are so short that it's not silly for us to be talking about the next election.

And even if some of them rely on...

It did feel weird, PK.

It did feel weird to already be talking about the next election.

It does, but in Australia, you kind of can, right?

The point is, of course, they'd love to win the next election, but the realists think, okay, we probably can't, but my goodness, they need to win back some seats, right?

Like, so if you can't make headway in these key areas, then it's going to be problematic.

I just think that I think they're going to fall into traps when they talk about immigration unless they really work out exactly what they mean here, what they want here, what the standard of immigration they want is going to be.

Susan Lee says she wants it to be lower than Labor's number.

What is that?

And what is that meaningfully, Jacob?

I think we are right to try to pursue some of that because it's easy to throw it out.

Look, I think there is a legitimate debate about the level of immigration.

That should be a constant debate.

Because if you get that wrong, then you do erode the social contract or the support people have for your proposition that most Australians are not bothered by this.

You know, they're not sitting there going, we must slash migration.

But when those infrastructure pressures are there, we should be having that debate.

Why aren't we able to address that?

We're not dummies.

We're not a, you know, we don't have it.

It's not like we don't have resources in this country to try and address those concerns.

And that's where the debate should go.

Funnily enough, it doesn't tend to go into that space.

It

goes to a much darker place about whether so-and-so is a racist or not.

And just one last thing.

It's funny.

While we were recording this, I just got an email from a bureaucrat, a very, very senior bureaucrat, who points out it's actually bureaucratically impossible to do what Jacinta Nambajin Paparaisis suggested when she said Labor is favouring certain types of migrant groups.

Bureaucratically impossible.

Because if you've come here as a permanent resident, it's the bureaucrats who've chosen you to come here based on the skills you've got and clearing security and all the rest of it.

It's run by bureaucrats.

So it's not even the government that is supposedly doing this conspiracy.

It's the public servants.

That's how silly this is.

Anyway, I thought it was a good point.

Yeah, yeah, it's a very good point.

The point is, there's just absolutely like we genuinely, genuinely have a non-discriminatory migration policy.

That's a fact.

I actually put that to Senator Price in the interview.

And long may it be that way.

And there is one other part of this which is worth mentioning.

Jacinta Numberjiba Price has said in many cases, and certainly said it to me, that there are migrants who are concerned about immigration levels.

That is not to be downplayed, that they believe that's where the traction lies, right?

Their argument is that the idea that multicultural Australia all wants mass so-called migration is

like problematic and not true.

I agree with them on that, by the way.

I think that there are pockets and different parts of the immigrant community.

You know, that old thing, Jacob, I know that from my own community.

You know, you want the door open for you and then you want to slam it shut, right?

Because you're like, oh, I like it here now.

This is about right for me.

Thank you very much.

There's that age-old thing too, isn't there?

Oh, we had it tough.

There was no support when we got here.

Oh, way too.

We had to.

I hear a lot.

I've heard a lot about that in my world, right?

You know, oh, we need to do some job.

The truth is, you know, we've always needed immigration in this country since we set up this, you know, colony of Australia.

Like, this is what we've needed to build this place.

But that's what they think they can try to work on, that there is anti-immigrant sentiment amongst immigrants as well.

I think the danger though, back to the point I was making,

is that your language has to still be so super tight to be able to walk that fine line every time.

And that's where the problem is for them.

They are mending relations with the Chinese Australian community, now the Indian community.

Susan Lee has spent her whole weekend setting up videos and, you know, like trying to get into those communities, hanging out with Indian Australians, trying to say, hey, we're not like this, but as you say, it'll still play.

Just one question for for you, which kind of sort of pivots.

But I've watched this debate about migration and I've thought, how hard is the net zero one going to be next?

Like if they're having so much trouble with this one, Jacob, it just shows to me that, I don't know, it's going to be hard to keep this party together.

I'm putting it out there.

I don't know how they're going to keep this party together.

It was interesting.

I had a couple of conversations over the weekend and late last week where

there is this question, like,

has the coalition bottomed out?

Are they at their worst now?

And,

you know,

is it now from here possible to see that there's a way for them to improve their standing?

And

one of the people I was talking to, a very, very senior strategist in the coalition,

said that he keeps asking that question of everybody in the party and the movement.

and has come to the conclusion that it can still get worse from here

before it gets better.

As in,

they're still so far from settling these real threshold issues and climate change and whether to have a policy that strives for net zero by 2050 is back on the table.

Dan Tien is doing a process.

He's the shadow climate change spokesman minister.

He's off to Utah as we speak to look at a nuclear energy research centre.

So they're not going to drop nuclear.

They're going to try and get nuclear back to a position of, isn't this something we can just discuss as a country?

Let's get rid of the moratorium, let the market do it.

They're not going to do the Dutton model of state-funded nuclear power stations.

That's dead for now.

But they're trying to get to this position where they can still talk about that.

But we haven't resolved net zero.

That's still up in the air.

And by the way, the government's about to put its 2035 target out.

As you mentioned, how does the Liberal Party engage with that target when it itself has not yet established whether it's pursuing a broader mid-century target?

Very interesting.

Absolutely very interesting.

Final comment from me.

I mean, we have spent so much of the time talking about the

massive and quite ugly internals of the Liberals in this difficult debate.

It must be another happy day for the government, don't you reckon?

Another happy day.

I've barely talked about the government at all in this

pod.

Happy day.

And that's a happy day for them, right?

Because it means

they just can quietly get on with their work, being a government, doing their stuff.

They will have, of course, some things to focus on this week, including the PIF, the Pacific Islands Forum, which we'll get into throughout the week.

So do not despair.

The scrutiny and the talk will be there.

That's it for politics now today.

Raph Epstein will be with me tomorrow to unpack the day and the party room, of course, on Thursday.

Send your voice notes to the partyroom at abc.net.au and Mel and I will answer them on Thursday.

See you, Jacob.

See you, Patricia.