Is Sussan Ley's leadership in trouble?

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Hi, it's Sam Hawley from ABC News Daily, the podcast that brings you one big story affecting your world each weekday in just 15 minutes.

Recognizing Palestinian statehood, it's very unlikely that it would change anything on the ground, but it would continue to put pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Today, the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Government is always formed in a sensible centre, but our Liberal Party reflects a range of views.

Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic, but no one's going to vote for you who don't stand for something.

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People are starting to see that there is actually a different way of doing politics.

Hello and welcome to the party room.

I'm Patricia Carvallis and I'm joining you from Runderie Country in Melbourne.

And I'm Melissa Clark joining you from Ngunnawal Country here in Canberra in our Parliament House studios.

I can see it.

I can see you on the video.

We can watch each other even over the airwaves.

This is the last party of you and I together for a little while because next week I'm heading to the motherland for some European sunshine and you know family time and all that stuff.

It's going to be glorious PK.

I'm very jealous.

It's going to be wonderful.

I know.

And you'll be hosting afternoon briefing, which is excellent because, you know, just quietly, it's been a bit of a time on afternoon briefing lately.

It has.

The wonderful Brett Worthington will be.

your co-host on this podcast.

So party rumours are in very, very safe hands.

But before I dive into, you know, the beautiful waters or whatever I'm going to do, first it's time to dive into this very messy political week with the ever-insightful Anna Henderson, SBS News Chief Political Correspondent.

Anna, welcome to the party.

I'm so appreciative to be here.

I'm ready to dig into this quite unbelievable week with you guys.

It's been quite wild, and it's absolutely stolen the oxygen from so many other things that I think are very important.

Not to say this isn't important, I think this is very important, but it just shows how big it is.

On Wednesday afternoon, Liberal Senator Jacinta Nambajimpa Price was demoted to the backbench.

Serving in in my shadow ministry is a privilege.

Senator Jacinta Nampajimpa Price has failed the test of high standard that I have set for members of my shadow ministry.

This move from the opposition leader came after the Senator's bombshell press conference on Wednesday afternoon, where she refused to endorse Susan Lee as leader.

Do you have confidence in her leadership?

Look, again, those matters are for our party room.

Those matters are for our party room.

My focus is to go forward and to ensure.

Okay, backstory.

It all happened after a particular interview.

More than that.

Was that with PK?

That was with me.

That was with Napa Jimper Price.

And of course, there is a focus from this government to be getting them from particular countries over others.

And so

isn't it a non-discriminatory policy?

Well,

I mean, you know, I don't,

I think Labor like to be able to ensure that they're going to allow those in that would ultimately support their policies, their views, and vote for them.

Kicked this all off a week ago.

I did.

It was quite, and I knew it at the time, guys, like an insight.

People often want to know, you know, what happens?

I'll tell you how the sausage is made.

At the end of the interview, I thought that was, that was, wow.

And I think I told you all in the bureau.

I said, something just, oh my goodness, has just happened.

Tell me, Anna, from your perspective, when you heard it, right?

It was pre-recorded for me, bit of the backstory, that interview.

So it was an hour later it went to air.

What did you think?

So I listened to it as it went to air because that's sort of a sweet spot where we're filing our stories for the evening news and I like to tune in and see what the afternoon commentary is throwing up.

And of course, there was already, as we know, in the lead up to the anti-immigration rallies and the focus in those pamphlets and flyers on the Indian community, a lot of upset and disappointment in the Indian diaspora that was being reflected through to our SBS audiences around the fact that they were being targeted and that they felt

really worried and confused about why they were at the focus of some of the attention at rallies attended by white supremacists.

So there was already a really febrile atmosphere.

And then for Jacintan Abajimba Price, when she was pressed by you to go kind of behind the slogans of this anti-immigration process and actually be tested on some of the meaning of what this group was trying to achieve, as diverse as that group was who attended those rallies, when she said that line

and suggested that Labour was prioritising Indian migrants to come to this country because they would vote for the government,

it immediately was really quite a state of shock to hear her say that, primarily because there's no evidence to back that up, but also because in that already difficult atmosphere,

that comment immediately had a reaction.

And there were members of the broader community who were getting in touch with me quite immediately, as well as, of course, we have our own Indian staff at SBS who run a lot of fantastic radio programming for different language groups.

And they too were getting that feedback quite quickly.

And I I think the reason that they were getting that feedback is not just because of what Senator Price said, but also because it was very quickly picked up on by the Labor Party and then put in front of a lot of people in terms of social media content, in terms of flagging that she had said that.

So it sort of radiated quite quickly into the community.

So Anna, what do you make of how

both major political parties have responded here?

There's been a lot of questions about Susan Lee's approach.

She said that she had

spoken to Jacinta Numpajimpa Price.

We know that one of her key lieutenants, Alex Hawke had, which sort of spectacularly blew up through the course of the last week as well.

But there was a lot of pressure on Jacinta Numpajimpa Price to apologise, which she didn't do.

Susan Lee didn't apologise on her behalf until today, but maybe we'll come back to that.

But as you say, there's also been the Labor Party making reference to this circumstance and calling on Jacinta Numpajimpa Price to apologise for that.

She should apologise for the hurt that has been been caused and her own colleagues are saying that.

But even more importantly, leaders in the community are asking for that as well.

What do you make of the balance the parties have made between recognising that harm has been caused here and wanting to reassure the community, but also various parties seeing political advantage in this process as well?

I mean, it's a pretty long-standing tenet of politics that if there is someone in an opposition party who makes a misstep misstep of this magnitude, and we can't, you know, be beating around the reality of this issue.

The coalition already has a massive problem connecting with migrant communities, connecting with people who weren't born in Australia, and being a party that represents them, even though a lot of kind of their economic policies seem to match up with people's thinking.

We heard this in the most recent election campaign, in particular, as we travelled around, that there was a sense that the opposition or the coalition had, you know, in its rhetoric and its way of approaching national affairs and national security issues, had been quite alienating.

This is well known.

Susan Lee knows it, the head of the Liberal Party knows it.

Any liberals out on polling booths would know that.

And so, when you have a member of the front bench who is very well known in the community, just into Nabajimpa Price, has a huge personal following, who says something like that, I think it's immediately going to get picked up.

In some ways, you know, the opposition

appeared to be be quite flat-footed in how to deal with

the crisis management at that moment, I think.

And then Labor

used what is a really tried and tested approach of theirs, which is if somebody says something that amplifies what people already think around the Liberal Party's view of different migrant communities, it should be well known.

So what happened in the next week, I think we need to sort of explore.

Because it's taken a full week.

So we record this on a Thursday.

It took till Wednesday evening, which is exactly seven days from the original interview, for Susan Lee to sack Jacinta Nabajiba Price.

So why did it take so long and what's your understanding of the trigger for why she sacked her and the repercussions of that for the Liberal Party and the way it goes forward, Anna?

Well, it's slightly different depending on who you speak to.

And I'm sure you have some insights, both of you here as well, PK and Mel, in terms of some of the the thinking.

But there was a period of time that elapsed where the pressure was really on Jacinta Nampajimpa Price to really consider that she may not in her own kind of assessment of what she said, and it was one sentence in an entire interview, and you know, she

herself really didn't see it as the issue that others could see it becoming.

And partially that might be because she's a senator, she's in the NT, people in electorates with big Indian Australian communities.

Not that the NT doesn't have a big Indian Australian presence, but they were seeing it in real time.

It was hitting their Facebook pages.

It was hitting their

electorate offices and she perhaps didn't have as much visibility on that.

But initially, she wasn't willing to apologise.

She didn't see that she needed to.

She wanted to use the chance to be on the front page or in the limelight to then push her mass migration fear message.

That was her strategy.

But then as time went on and other colleagues were urging her to apologise and there were urgings coming from the top through intermediaries to consider that an apology would just be a quick way to deal with this.

And Susan Lee didn't want to go ahead of

Senator Nampajimprice.

She wanted her to go first and then to be backed in.

So when it gets to the point of deciding, as we know with this press conference yesterday, that not only was Justin Nampajimpa Price, despite that pressure, from some within the right faction as well, encouraging her to think about just a form of words and language to just kind of of get it off the agenda.

When she clearly, in that six-minute or so press conference, didn't do that, and then was asked if she, you know, supported Susan Lee as leader and wouldn't reply to that question, which was put

multiple times.

That's it.

You know, at that point in time, the opposition leader had to

take offensive action.

you know, relegate this member of the party and come out herself, as she did this morning, and make the apology that the leader of the party, in her view, now needed to make to try and deal with this massive,

it's not a voting base, it's a group of people who make up the Australian community who have been, you know,

not everyone, but many of them very hurt.

It's questioned their identity, it's questioned their sense of being Australian.

It's really tapped into something quite deep and hit a nerve amongst many Indian Australian community members I've spoken to.

Yeah, I agree with you.

There's an interesting element here that I really want to explore.

When Jacinta Nubajimpa Price stood up and didn't apologise again and didn't back in Susan Lee's leadership on Wednesday, basically before she was sacked, so a week later, she mentioned all the overwhelming support she was getting for her comments.

Now, I think that is really worth exploring.

Jacinta Numbajimpa Price is living in sort of a bubble of reinforcing views.

She is getting so much positive reinforcement from people who have hostility towards, well, some of them multiculturalism, some of them migration, this movement, that I actually think instead of her, you know, doing the thing that would have meant that she'd stay on the front bench, which is kind of saying, sorry, didn't mean it, it kind of emboldened her.

And I think it's worth mentioning another thing that happened yesterday.

Jacinta Numpa Jimpa Price is known also to be quite close to Tony Abbott.

Tony Abbott has spruked and pumped up her ties for a long time.

In the moderate wing of the Liberal Party that currently is in charge in many ways because Susan Lee's the leader, they believe that Tony Abbott is behind a lot of these ideas too and that they're pushing for the Liberal Party to be more

sort of vigorous in its problem, you know, in its opposition to immigration with a harsher tone.

And I want to read this line because I feel like it has not been amplified enough.

It was yesterday Tony Abbott commenting and he says, it's more than possible to be pro-migrant without supporting an ever larger and an ever more diverse immigration program.

Guys,

so we've got the mainstream part of the Liberal Party, the Lee leadership, saying, oh, it's not about diversity, but there is another part of the party, not just one offhand remark, guys.

It's not rogue from Jacinta Napajipa Price, a broader view which is questioning immigration from parts of the world that they have issue with.

Look, PK, I think what you're tapping into is some of the broader debate that goes on outside the mainstream of Australian politics when it comes to the issue of migration.

And I think it's worth pointing to some of the history here of the far-right anti-immigration movement.

And I don't think it's a surprise that this has, it has been the Indian Australian community that has been targeting this because one of the sort of seminal texts of the extreme right internationally that is against migration is this 1970s novel which portrays a dystopian future in France where France is inundated by Indian migration.

And

without suggesting that anyone here is pointing to that text specifically, the fact that this is a very seminal part of the international anti-migration movement is influences like this, and it strikes a chord with that community, with the anti-mass migration,

pro-nationalist community, when references are made like the ones Jacinta Numpa Jimpa Price, like the comments that she made.

It might not directly link to that, but it taps into a part of the community that has these views and are influenced by these sorts of texts that are shared internationally.

So, I mean, you can see why this has become so

scary for Australia's Indian Australian community, knowing that

they have been put in such an invidious position

by these right-wing views.

One of the community leaders I was speaking to, who wanted to remain in this comment anonymous, was saying to me, you know, in the election campaign, we're called by the major parties, we're asked to open our doors, we're asked to welcome them in, we're asked to, you know, bring them into

our cultural practices, and we welcome that because we want better understanding of what it is to be Indian in Australia and to hold both cultures in our hands.

But at the same time,

the Liberal Party did that too.

And then for these kinds of comments to be made and for it to appear to many in the community like a long time elapsed before the leader of the party made it really clear that they were unacceptable and needed to be apologised for

was certainly something that didn't resonate very well with those communities at all and kind of sent a message that we're used as wallpaper in political pick facts rather than actually being genuinely engaged with as part of Australia.

I really want to pick up on what you said there, this question of Susan Lee not apologising on behalf of those comments, on behalf of the party for those comments for a good week, because I think that also goes to some of the factional play that is the undertone here.

So, firstly,

Susan Lee had sort of declined to say publicly at any point that she thought Jacinta Numpa Jimpa Price should apologise and even in demoting her on Wednesday afternoon didn't say that.

It was only Thursday morning that she has come out and apologised on behalf of the party, despite other senior liberals like Julie and Lisa being willing to do that earlier in the process.

Why?

And being willing, sorry to break your phone there, but Anne being willing to then post that apology online to make it very clear and

at multiple events to multiple Indian Australian community leaders.

He wanted that message out there.

So why did it take Susan Lee so long?

And what does the relationship between how Susan Lee has handled this with Jacinta Nampa Jimpa Price, as you rightly identified, Anna, a really prominent figure of the Conservative side of the party that is not Susan Lee's side of the party, does it give us any indications about how that split in the Liberals between the Conservatives and well not necessarily name the moderates, but the moderates and then the slightly less conservatives as a grouping.

What does it tell us about the factional underplayings there?

That there is huge concern within the Liberal Party that even though they've got multiple reviews already conducted and one coming of the last campaign that are going to very likely, well, we know, going to tell them they need to reconnect with these communities, their huge voter bases and the millions of Australians who have heritage in another country.

But at the same time, that there is huge support for Jacinta Nampajimpa Price as a politician, as a public figure in the Liberal Party, and that at the same time, Susan Lee's got to try and find a way to be electorally viable and still hold the band together, even though, you know, Jacinta Nampajimpa Price is probably arguably in some parts of the Liberal Party more popular than the opposition leader.

Oh, for sure.

In the base, absolutely.

My view is this has actually weakened Susan Lee's leadership.

She may have some prominent Conservative backers.

For instance,

we've heard James Patterson come out and say, no, she made the right call because he's a traditionalist, a Conservative, and believes, you know, because Jacinta wouldn't back in her leader or whatever action had to be taken.

And I'm institutionally someone who is very conservative and they're there for good reasons.

If you can't support the leader, then you can no longer serve on the front bench.

So I support the action that Susan has had to take.

But I know privately, because I speak to so many of these people, that there is a view that Susan Lee and her office didn't manage this well.

And I do think, watch this space.

I think that's even been said publicly, PK.

You know, we've seen Jane Hume suggest that.

If the leader wanted an outcome, she probably should have picked up the phone herself rather than sending a henchman.

We've seen Sarah Henderson suggest that.

I don't think it's any surprise that it's a very prominent,

you know, some conservatives who are on the back bench are the ones who are making that point.

Funny point.

Also, that it means that it's a sort of long-term, perhaps, leadership destabiliser for her.

I think it probably is.

Without a doubt.

I think there's two quick points I'll make before we move on.

One,

Susan Lee has been very ambiguous or declined to say whether or not she had directly asked Jacinta Numpajimpa Price herself to apologise.

And I think whether she did or she didn't, it ends up looking bad for Susan Lee because if she did, it shows the defiance with which Jacinta Numpajimpa Price Price approached that request and if she didn't it raises a question of well why the hell didn't you?

So I think Susan Lee is in a weakened position for how she's handled those conversations with Jacinta Numpajimpa Price which ultimately only the two of them know how that really played out.

But secondly whether she had to deal with a recalcitrant senator who didn't agree with her point of view staying in the shadow ministry or had to send her to the backbench, which she ultimately decided to do on Wednesday night, she now has on the backbench someone who's made it very, very clear that they are going to use their freedom on the backbench to campaign openly on issues including mass migration.

She specifically named that that's something she will continue to campaign on on the backbench, which is not going to make Susan Lee's life any easier.

And we've now got this growing cohort on the backbench of senior prominent figures.

whether it's Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack from the Nationals or Jane Hume, Sarah Henderson, and now Jacinta Numpa Jimpa Price from the Liberal Party.

That does not help Susan Lee's efforts to try and hold the party together while they try and figure out agreed policy positions they can reach.

And the brief asterisk to that, or the addition to that, would be Alex Hawke, who she selected to be her manager of opposition business.

His performance has been given, you know, one star by many this week.

And the way he conducted himself as like a key ally and lieutenant of hers has also raised a lot of questions about his future.

All right, we're going to get a lot more on this, I'm sure.

The story that just keeps rolling on, I think it's got a little more rolling to do.

Oh, there's there's rolls, there's rolling to happen.

Let's scrutinize the government a little.

It's kind of overshadowed what is a big thing, which is, of course, the Pacific Islands Forum in the Solomon Islands.

The Prime Minister was rubbing shoulders with leaders, committing to climate resilience funding, $100 million there, peace and regional security agreement.

This is a pretty important

arena for us, isn't it, Anna?

What do you make broadly, let's start macro, of the way the PM's handled it and what's come out of it?

As much as we know on Thursday morning?

Well, I've got a shout out to my colleague Naveen Razik on the ground in Honiara, who's been

talking to me every day and keeping me updated.

Of course, working closely with ABC Stephen Jedgets.

It's a different world over there that they're kind of in a bubble trying to unpick at the moment.

I mean, the Prime Minister flew in to Vanuatu, hoping to sign a deal, didn't get the deal.

He then flew into

Honiara to then, you know, begin the main Pacific Islands forum process.

And at the same time, a story appeared in some Australian media in the Financial Review suggesting that approval of the North West Shelf gas project could be coming at the end of this week.

And so, you know, there is clearly concern within the Pacific around Australia's

keenness to be the partner of choice and whether that's overstepping the mark in the Vanuatu case of trying to keep those lines of communication and flow of money open with China.

And then on the climate front, whether Australia is walking the talk.

This story coming out this week about the Northwest Shelf has been a problem.

Vanuatu's climate change minister was speaking in Honiara, raising concerns and raising questions about why Australia wants to have the COP31 at the same time as it's got fossil fuel exports so clearly on its agenda as a key budgetary measure.

So on the one hand the Prime Minister seems to be saying the right things and the engagement seems quite positive but these critical push and pull points are there and after going to the Garma Festival and speaking to some Pacific leaders who travelled to that festival ahead of Pacific Island Forum, they were members of various governments.

You know, this brings them to tears, what happens with climate change in the region.

This is everything about their community's future, and it is hard for them to reconcile what the Australian government is saying it wants to do to support the Pacific with what they're actually doing.

I think that's a really good point, and there's a lot to unpick from climate and security, but to really narrow in on the climate argument, the Pacific Island countries have long been calling for an end in investment in new coal and oil developments.

They have seen that as, from many Pacific countries' point of view, that's a no-brainer.

So to have such a prominent extension like Northwest Shelf to be something that flies in the face of their request, particularly when

the Pacific countries have been really focused on this ICJ ruling that was initiated by Pacific legal students

that meant there is advice from the ICJ that suggests countries are responsible and have a responsibility to limit and also to support countries that have suffered from climate harms.

And they are pointing to this ICJ ruling saying, look, even at the highest levels of international law, there is a responsibility here.

And while the public language hasn't been perhaps as forthright as it was during the Morrison government years, where tensions were very high, there is still a very strong undercurrent of frustration from Pacific leaders, right, PK?

It's huge.

But I was saying yesterday with David Spears, my view, though, still is that Labor kind of coasts because the Coalition is so out of step on climate change with the needs of the Pacific, right?

So they kind of get away with a bit, don't they, Anna?

Like,

yeah, there is pressure on them.

It's going to get, I think, pretty difficult when they do reveal the 2035 target.

And it's sort of a wide range potentially.

And there's a lower end that's not impressive to some people.

That's where I think it might be going.

I don't know, correct, maybe.

Well, you know, this is very loosey-goosey.

And I'm not saying there won't be pressure, but the optics of what the predecessors were like still counts, and Labor really leans into it.

And I think we need to spend a bit of time focusing on the security agreements that have and haven't been signed over the last week.

So as we mentioned before,

there'd been sort of a preliminary agreement with Vanuatu for a security deal that would give Australia input into security and critical infrastructure investments in Vanuatu.

That at the moment, the Vanuatu Vanuatu Prime Minister, Yotham Naput, cannot get all of his government MPs over the line to support.

So the Prime Minister went for what was meant to be a signing ceremony, but they couldn't actually sign it.

But then once the Prime Minister got to Honiara, he announced in a meeting with Siddhveni Rambuka, the Fijian Prime Minister, that they were looking to upgrade an existing partnership agreement between Australia and Fiji to potentially a security treaty.

Now, that's a promise of what's to come rather than a finalised deal but there's obviously a lot of manoeuvring going on here.

Anna how do you see how the government is managing its desire to make sure that Pacific countries work with Australia on security issues but also doing enough to respect their sovereignty?

It's such a careful

line to tread and the Prime Minister is making so clear in his public comments, you know, when he's standing next

to leaders in the region that that is a critical point that he is making constantly, that this is not about Australia putting its own demands onto another sovereign nation, that these different sovereign nations need to decide their own policy.

But the pressure is there and the hope that Australia has that

that continual

open commitment comes from all these countries, that Australia is the security ally of choice, Australia is the partner of choice.

That is sort of the first expectation in a lot of these engagements.

And there has been a lot of concern amongst, I think, both diplomats and departmental types who are watching this closely, as well as analysts, that because the war in Ukraine and because the conflict in the Middle East have been such huge international affairs and long-running and awful sagas, that what's happening in the Pacific has slid off the agenda a little and that China is working to capitalise on being under the radar and working really hard on making those links with lots of different Pacific nations that might not be as open or seen or have as much attention paid to them or have as much media

focus on that.

And also some of the relationships we're seeing between other Pacific countries that we're giving very little attention to, but I think something that slid under the radar this week was the deal between Fiji and Solomon Islands on security and an agreement for Fijian police to be able to operate on the ground in Honiara if needed.

And that's really significant, even though it doesn't involve Australia in the agreement.

It means that if there is a need for security, there's a way to keep it under what's termed the Pacific family, not necessarily having, say, Chinese police offer that security if it's needed.

So there's a lot of complexity here that is getting a little bit lost.

But little moments sort of bubble up, don't they?

Like the Prime Minister gets off the plane in Honiara and he they've just both China and Australia have gifted these vehicles to Solomon Islands, you know, official vehicles, and Australia's leader gets picked up by the Chinese

car.

And the symbolism is very strong.

I'm so annoyed at that question.

Oh, who cares about what cars I'm in?

Like, didn't he?

Yeah, what did he say, Adam?

This is just what gets you from A to B.

It's just a car, it's not a big deal.

Just a car, but it is a big deal.

It did feel like a death protest-a lot moment.

And while it's totally inconsequential to everything, apparently, the Prime Minister did accidentally wear the wrong shirt to one of the sort of family photos.

Oh, the bullet shirt is important.

That is important.

So it was just a little moment of, uh-oh,

But I think, you know, all these little diplomatic engagements and appreciations of cultural exchange are important as well.

Yeah, they are.

Look, just final comments.

We're not going to labor on it because,

you know, it's still very much playing out, but something very disturbing happening in the United States, which has been a trend towards violence there, political violence.

The popular American right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk has died after being shot while speaking at a university campus in Utah.

Now he is a key kind of MAGA dude, close to Donald Trump.

Just shows, Anna, doesn't it, that the political tensions in that country are boiling over in the most

dangerous way.

Absolutely.

It's just, you know, to wake up in the morning and hear that news,

it's, you know, extremely sad and worrying.

And, you know, don't forget the Prime Minister is on his way to New York in the coming weeks.

This is not something that's just happening in another country.

We're about to engage with a whole lot of leaders in the US in the upcoming weeks, and there will be a lot of world leaders around New York.

Of course, security will be

on the highest level, but this is America, and this is American politics, and sadly, this is not something which is historically without precedent.

I think that's a good point.

I've been struck this last couple of hours seeing a lot of the outpouring of statements from high-profile American politicians from all sides of the spectrum saying there's no place for this violence in American politics.

There's certainly no place for it, but there is a very long history of it.

And it does seem that we're having an uptick for it.

And given what we see in American culture often permeating into other Western nations, while we certainly don't have the gun culture of the US,

elements of political debate ideas do permeate beyond American shores.

And it's deeply concerning for everyone, including us here from a distance.

For sure.

Guys,

talking about the political week with you both has been so awesome.

Anna, thanks for joining us.

Such a pleasure.

Thank you.

Thanks, Anna.

Questions without notice.

And I give the call to the Honourable, the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

The bells are ringing.

That means it's time for question time.

And this week's question comes from Jan.

Hey, party rumours.

My name's Jan.

I'm from Sydney.

And I love the party.

I love your parties, they're great.

I come every week.

Now I've got a special question for you because we're often told that the media are the ones that are responsible for kicking up right-wing and left-wing populists.

Like, for example, I didn't know the name of the leader of the Nazi party in Australia until this week, and it's through the media.

So I'm just asking, is that because there are empty news days that the media need to fill with political junk?

Or is it because these people are important?

Should I know these names?

Jan, that is just such a great question.

And it's a bit more complicated than just a slow news day, though, in my view.

Yes, there are deep conversations we have as a profession.

about

what has become kind of commonly known, I think, in the zeitgeist as platforming and therefore giving too much of a stage to people who are dangerous and extremists and how we manage that in a way that still reflects, I think,

our primary job, which is to tell you what's happening in our community.

And when there is, you know, a rise in right-wing activism and there are new people leading these things, to pretend they don't exist is also problematic.

So first answer is,

are we responsible?

Well, I don't think we're entirely responsible, but I think we have a responsibility to think carefully about the way we do it.

I equally think that we need to tell people the news and not censor it.

I'll add one more element to this.

We live in a kind of new world.

We are not the gatekeepers like we probably were in the past.

So the idea that if we don't talk about some of these people, that people won't hear them is silly.

People are on their phones all the time.

They have access to this information.

So I think it's more about us speaking in a responsible way and telling the complex story of these people rather than what the implication might be, which is putting them on a pedestal, which I don't believe we do.

Mel?

I couldn't have put it better myself, PK.

I think you've nailed it.

It is something that newsrooms wrestle with every day in trying to balance between what we give prominence to, knowing that in some cases, and this comes across a range of activist areas as well.

I mean, you could equally ask a question about, for example, Extinction Rebellion, when many of their activities are designed to generate media coverage.

The same we're seeing with the National Socialist Network.

Many of their activities are designed to generate media coverage.

So we have to give the balance between not wanting to play into that, but also where there is a significant change in something that's happening in our community, we need to recognise that.

And if that's because traffic is being disrupted, if that's because

a radical right-wing group is indeed gaining popularity, we can't ignore that.

And we can't pretend that by not giving it coverage that it's not happening.

That would be a dereliction of our duty if there was a social trend taking place that we were ignoring because of fears of bringing some attention to it.

And Pika, you're absolutely right.

We certainly do not have the power as mainstream media organisations that we might have in the past as well.

There's a

lot of different ways to to get traction and when things are happening outside of the mainstream media,

we're probably one of the last ones that could be pointed to as fueling them when they're doing a very good job of generating attention and interest themselves on a range of platforms.

But I think there is, I think we can say, rest assured, this is something that we think about, that our media colleagues think about very carefully all of the time in trying to strike that balance.

Yeah, we talk about it a lot, actually.

So we are giving you an insight in our newsrooms.

It's a big, big theme of what we do because we want to make sure we get it right and we don't feed into kind of

the tricks of some of these people because there are tricks.

And I think to go to one specific part of the question, do you need to know the name of the person who's leading the National Socialist Network effort in Australia?

Do you need to know the name?

Maybe not necessarily.

Do you need to know that they are organising, that they are actively trying to recruit?

I think that's something that citizens should be aware of, that there is a push here.

So there's always a fine line, but

I think their increase in activities is something that you, as an informed citizen, should know about.

I absolutely agree.

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That's it for the party room this week and for a couple of weeks for me, but I look forward to listening to to you, Mel.

It'll be great.

And there's also going to be David Spears back in your feed for Insiders on Background on Saturday.

And then, Pika, I know you've got one more Politics Now episode to go before you jet off.

So I'm looking forward to that and I'm excited for you getting a break.

Yeah, thank you.

Mega episode with Jacob.

See you, Mel.

See ya.