Labor unveils 2035 climate targets. What next?

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Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Government is always formed in the 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 Day Steve or something.

We've always been about the planet, but we've got to make sure sure that people have their daily needs met.

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

Welcome to the party room.

I'm Brett Worthington filling in for PK and joining you from Nunaval Country here in Canberra.

And I'm Mel Clark filling in for Fran Kelly.

Also here in the studio with you Brett, it's nice to be keeping their seats warm while they're away.

It's like we've got the keys to the car a little bit.

That's right and I'm getting flashbacks to covering the state parliament many years ago.

A work experience boy called Brett Worthington goes to Spring Street.

He's put with the capable Melissa Clark.

All these years later Mel, who would have thought we'd be here together talking about...

Engraging both of us with

this anecdote of many, many moons ago covering Victorian politics.

We're in the big house on the hill in Canberra and boy have we got a lot to go through this week.

Obviously, we're on the cusp at this point on Thursday morning of getting the government's 2035 emissions target.

Long awaited, a lot of anticipation and build up to it.

Unfortunately, we don't have the figures just yet.

Hello, it's Brett from the future.

Unfortunately, the news doesn't wait for anybody.

We just wanted to jump back on because now we do have finally Australia's emissions reduction target by 2035 with the Prime Minister having just announced it.

Today I announce that we have accepted their advice that Australia's 2035 emissions target be 62 to 70%.

This is a responsible target backed by the science, backed by a practical plan to get there.

So the target is slightly below what was initially being looked at.

It's come with some extra money for more curbside charging.

There's some extra money to help sporting clubs pay for their bills.

And there's also no shortage of documents that are being released, things like modelling and sector plans as to how the government will look to reach ultimately its net zero by 2050 commitment.

The reactions are coming in thick and fast.

We're going to hear from the opposition leader and the Greens as the day goes on, but we really just wanted to acknowledge the update.

And now we can head back to our earlier recorded program.

There's been a lot building up to this,

including plenty of Pacific relations that have been underway where climate has been crucial.

We've had the opposition still tearing itself apart over net zero, let alone 2035 targets, so we can go through that.

We've also got Susan Lee trying to set up the opposition's economic position for the next three years, so giving us a bit of an outline there.

And of course, Anthony Albanese on his way very shortly to New York to go to the UN General Assembly.

Brett, I'm sure there's a lot more going on, but that's probably the main thing.

Yeah, it's been a week in which a lot of the themes, defence and climate, all come together perfectly ahead of what we're about to see from the Prime Minister on the world stage.

And who better to talk about that than someone who's going to be heading along with the Prime Minister, Tom McElroy, Guardian Australia's newly announced political editor.

And if we're really digging deep into the archives of Brett Worthington's life, as a country reporter I remember going to cover a Victorian state budget and there was Tom McElroy a young reporter from the Ballarat paper I was from the Bendigo paper Tom congratulations on your new job it's lovely to have you here on the party room thank you thank you it's great to be here thank you for your kind words if you guys have got the keys to the car I'm just sitting in the back seat along for the ride

We're all responsibility.

You can enjoy the ride as Brett takes us on a very long meandering trip through memory lanes.

I think by the end of this, you'll have my whole life story, Matt.

That's right.

I just like a good country Victorian connection all around.

Look, I think we need to start today with the 2035 target we will have imminently.

Brett, there's a cabinet meeting going on today.

The government is going to sign off on a target.

Run us through what we know so far.

The climate change authority has given us a bit of a preliminary indication, but what are the parameters we're working with here?

Yeah, we've really seen the laying of the table all throughout this week.

The week starts with the risk assessment being put out by Chris Bowen, really painting a picture of what the cost of inaction looks like, painting the different environments about what one degree temperature increase would look like, two degrees, three degrees, really showing the human consequences that could happen if the world continues to heat in the trajectory in which it's currently going.

Cascading, compounding, concurrent.

That's how the Australian Climate Service describes the impact of climate change.

on every community in our country.

It sits in that environment, no pun intended, of the government putting out then to later today this emissions reduction target.

So we know that the Climate Change Authority has been looking at a target somewhere between 65 and 75 percent.

That would be the 2035 target that Australia would be heading towards.

So we know that legislated already a 43 per cent cut by 2030.

ultimately going towards net zero by 2050.

This 2035 target is important because it's about Australia's role in the world and where we sit within the Paris Climate Accords.

We got some hints, Mel, from the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, saying, well, look, Treasury has looked at the 65 to 75 percent figure.

We've been hearing Chris Boland say, oh, there are virtues in having a range in the figure.

Do you think we've just been getting the public ready for what is to come?

Look, there's certainly been some parameters put out.

I think Chris Boland talking about ambitious but achievable is trying to perhaps please everyone in this process.

Tom, how do you think the government manages all of the competing demands here from

heavy industry in particular that is really worried about the consequences of a high emissions target right through to the environmentalists who want to push for as most ambitious target as possible?

How does the government manage to land somewhere that works for everyone?

I think it'll be very difficult to do that.

Chris Bowen himself says that he's expecting to be criticised from both sides regardless of what number they settle on.

I think the challenge here is a credible number on Australia's commitments in the international arena to bring down emissions, something that is credible with stakeholders in industry and that meets the political challenge that Labor's got.

They do have a bit of room to move here.

They've got a obviously very solid majority.

The coalition's tearing itself apart on net zero.

But if they're going to live up to their responsibilities here, threading the needle on this particular number will be difficult, making the case for it.

I think we've only just started that process.

And the clear signals are it's a middle of the road approach, right?

No one's suggesting you're going as far as the UK or Norway, which are very much out there leading.

I think the UK figure is 78%.

They're 45 down to 55, somewhere around that area is where Canada and New Zealand are sitting.

If you end up in the 60s, you're probably very much going to the Anthony Albanese ethos of we're not going as far as the left want us to do, we're doing more than the right's trying to suggest.

I am here in the middle, middle, just walking a very safe, comfortable road.

It's going to be so hard to prosecute the case, though, because it depends how much attention people are paying.

Because even when we try and look at international comparisons to sit ourselves, we all sort of calculate them in slightly different ways.

You know, many of the countries we compare ourselves to look at where their emissions are compared to their 1990 levels, whereas Australia uses 2005 as a base level.

You have a lot of countries don't include what's called land use or land use change when they're calculating their their emissions because

often

that doesn't benefit their reductions target for Australia.

That's actually one of the key areas where we do reduce targets in what's called land use and land use change, which is many things but includes things like reducing land clearing.

And we do include that.

So it's really hard to do the apples and oranges when it comes to comparison with other countries.

But the government is going to have to keep that in mind, Tom, because we're still bidding to host the COP31 climate talks that will take place next year.

So there's the domestic imperative, but there's an international imperative here, too.

Yeah, I mean, Labor came to office leaning in on the international imperative big time, saying that Australia had not been seen to be pulling its weight in the international arena and that a Labor government would do that to a more effective extent.

They're now the best part of four years into that process.

And as you say, the bid for COP31 next year in Adelaide at the moment is bogged down in this fight with Turkey.

It looks like the support is with Australia, but so far they can't get rid of this roadblock.

If our climate target today fell flat internationally, that could potentially take a little bit of momentum out of the bid, I think.

They'll certainly have that front of mind.

Irrespective of where the government lands here, when we discuss climate and targets more broadly, this sits in many ways as a proxy war for the coalition and its ideological beliefs and direction, as has long been the case for the best part of the last two decades.

But Mel, how unsurprising is it then that as soon as this comes back to the news that you see infighting within the coalition start to bubble over?

I just feel like we're on a repeat of the last 10, 15 years, to be honest.

This is a script I think we're very familiar with, that the opposition is

very much struggling with this issue.

The fact that there is a really concrete government policy decision coming at a time when they are a a very long way away from settling on their own policy position of what to do about emissions reduction, what to prioritise when it comes to the changes we're seeing in the electricity grid.

This is very difficult for the coalition.

It's torn them apart over many previous terms of parliament and it risks doing so again.

It's almost hard to know where to start.

Shall we start with Andrew Hastie?

Yeah, it felt like Andrew Hastie on Monday, it sort of fell out of his mouth.

If Susan Lee though supports net zero by 2050, where does that leave you?

That leaves me without a job.

There's nothing surprising in that you are saying out loud the quiet part that he said after the election told Four Corners that I think net zero by 2050 is a straitjacket that we shouldn't be putting our economy in.

He's made no secret that he's not in support of that.

But it starts, that then becomes a story about.

Key frontbencher threatens to quit if it is that the coalition continues to adopt a net zero policy.

You've got parts of the Nationals,

Matt Canavan, out going, yes, more of it, please.

Lovely.

We love to hear that.

It's also unsurprising then that Matt Canavan would look to jump on that.

But, Tom, it makes for a messy time for the opposition leader who's trying to establish herself as the new leader of this party, setting a new direction when you're so early in that tenure facing these questions.

Yeah, I see it as two credibility tests for Susan Lee and the opposition.

The first is the substantive one.

Anyone who takes this seriously would view net zero as a baseline for serious action on climate change.

Point number two, can she get their team together, pulling in the same direction, present as a credible opposition, a credible alternative government?

So far, absolutely not.

The coalition is pulling itself apart.

The Nationals,

even as supposed policy review.

reviews are underway and proper process is meant to be playing out, the Nationals are blowing the show up on on net zero and people like Andrew Hastie and other senior liberals are putting forward their view very strongly, net zero's got to go.

There was something really fascinating to me though in Matt Canavan's commentary earlier this week.

So he's obviously in the Nationals, he's trying to shape where the Nationals will land on net zero.

His line was suggesting we are at our best when we are closest to our membership.

Every state, in every state, there are Liberal National Party units that have overwhelmingly said we don't believe in this agenda.

We don't think this is the right thing for our country.

And so what I do

very wholeheartedly believe is that we're at our best as a party when we stay close to our membership.

We're a grassroots party.

When we fight for them, we typically do well.

Now, of course, political parties and the MPs should represent the parties that they come from.

But I don't know anyone that would be doing anything based on the membership of political parties because political parties are absolutely, no matter which one you're talking about, do not reflect broader Australia more generally.

I spoke to James Patterson, a leading Conservative in the Liberal Party from Victoria, shadow finance minister, and he very much refuted that idea and said that you need to of course take input from your party

membership, and that's really important to do.

You need to consider their views, but that parliamentary parties and the parliamentary Liberal Party

is what makes policy decisions and they are doing that with the mind of governing for a country, not for a membership base.

I thought that was quite a rebuke from that idea from James Patterson.

And I think that that does tell you that there is a sense of whatever the beliefs and concerns about net zero might be from some in the further breaches of the right of both the Liberal and the Nationals, they both know if they want to get back into government, they need to be pragmatic about it.

And I know, Brett, you had a good chat with Raph Epstein on an earlier episode of Politics Now about the idea of ideological purity or ideological vanity vanity of holding a position that is opposed to the general public view.

But the flip side to that is there is some level of public support for politicians who are seen to stand for what they believe in, even if it's not popular.

And that has, I think, been driving a lot of politicians here.

Tom, how do you see coalition MPs who are wrestling with this question, how do they go about figuring out the balance between needing to reflect the voting public and needing to stand by what they might fervently and truly believe in their hearts is the right thing to do?

Well, I think that's the test of leadership, right?

And so far, the processes are out of line with the politics.

You know, Dan Tian's review of energy policy is going to go well into next year.

There's already private members' bills from people like Barnaby Joyce.

So I think it's very difficult.

I think relying on the Liberal Party membership is a bad starting point in the sense that that is a small group, probably not reflective of the voting cohort that the coalition needs to win back in order to be competitive with Labor.

And I think a key difference with our political system as opposed to a lot of others that it does get compared to, and this is when you talk to some of the more pragmatic heads that sit within the Liberal Party, is you might lose people to your right on a primary sense.

So you look at the primary vote at the moment for the Liberal Party and the Coalition, if the polls are to be believed, is down at 27%.

If you're losing those to One Nation, say, it is most likely they come back to you via preferences that by holding that centre ground is the way in which you can find yourself back onto the government benches.

And I think what has been really interesting to me, and I don't know if this is going anywhere, but the ways in which the language changed as the week went on.

Andrew Hastie does an interview on Sky in which he says a couple of things.

One, I'm in the minority of my party.

So someone who is ambitious about the leadership, how you then are openly saying you're in the minority from your party on one of the big central issues that is going to be contended by future governments, plural, makes for an interesting situation for him.

But also the ways in which we've had Susan Lee come out and say, we are not saying net zero at any cost.

I've said and others have said that we will not have net zero at any cost because the cost can be too high.

You're creating a runway in which you can exist in a world where you, yes, we've got a net zero, but here's a a couple of caveats with which you could exist.

I feel like there's been a lot of playing with this at any cost this week because we also saw John O'Duniam was saying, well, there'd be a mass exodus from the party.

If we just said net zero at any cost by 2050, I think you'd find there'd be a mass exodus.

But net zero at any cost has never been the position from anyone in the Liberals, so far as I can see.

Even the most moderate members of the Liberal Party with very small Liberal values were not saying net zero at any cost.

I feel like that's been used as a bit of a straw man argument in trying to set up where people stand within this party.

Tom, do you think Andrew Hastie's suggestion that he's in the minority with concern about net zero is that right?

It's a good question.

I think increasingly people are moving against net zero.

I don't know exactly what the breakdown is.

I don't think anyone does, but that's part of the issue.

On the strawman argument, I mean, that's the criticism that they make of Labor, that Labor's too committed to renewables and pushing the country in a reckless way.

I think the Liberals should and the coalition more broadly should have taken more time with this.

Really, they don't need a position on this at the start of a parliamentary term where we're three years from the next election.

So they're shooting themselves in the foot in one sense.

The other thing that's going on is the percentage of the party room that is opposed to net zero wants to win the argument even before it's had and they want to bring as many people over into their camp as possible.

It makes it extremely extremely difficult for Susan Lee.

I think they may have to revisit the timeline for their energy review.

It equally makes it difficult on the parameters that she set down when she started as opposition leader, not committing to policies.

I think that position is going to be untenable.

Yeah, you've seen this tension throughout this week of, you know, Susan Lee's whole mission statement is meet voters where they are.

We saw her this week also try to use a set speech, her first as opposition leader, to try and get the debate back onto a topic that she wants to talk about.

She's trying to carve out what her vision is for the budget.

And as a result of that, it's not just about levelling a criticism at, say, the government and the ways in which the Treasurer is spending money.

She's also clearly setting herself apart from Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor and the policies that they took to the last election, not doing means testing on things like fuel cutting of fuel excise and saying, there needs to be change here and I want to talk about the economy.

I thought it was very reminiscent of previous coalition governments, this speech from Susan Lee, this framing of Australians being too dependent on government support.

It had very much

rang back memories of Joe Hockey's We Need More Lifters, Not More Leaners in the country.

It certainly brought back memories of that for me.

Well even Susan Lee before the election saying people only appreciate things when they're paying for it in some regards.

But it's also interesting having just come off the back of an election campaign where there was a promise to have significant public service cuts, which goes to the level of government involvement in your life.

And that, I think, is part of what was roundly rejected by voters at the election campaign.

So it's interesting that this is where Susan Lee is choosing to focus at this point.

We must put guardrails around government spending.

Not as an end in itself, but so that we can strengthen our economy, preserve our capacity to help those truly in need, and ensure that the next generation inherits opportunity.

Tom, it was very broad.

She was talking in themes rather than in specifics.

Principles, I think.

Principles.

We want fiscal guardrails, but not putting any numbers in it.

We want to see tighter, you know, when it comes to means testing, when it comes to caps.

We want all of those things to be tighter to narrow down who really needs help.

What do you make of where she's planting her flag economically for the coalition?

Yeah, I mean pressuring Labor on fiscal guardrails, budget rules.

It sounds a long way away from individual voters' concerns, but it's essentially that the way that the budget is run is probably safe ground for a coalition leader to say that Labor's not being as responsible as they should be on government spending is safe.

She said that they would be relentless in targeting duplicative or wasteful government programs.

I feel like that goes a little bit in the direction of the Peter Dutton mold from before the election.

But as you point out, Mel, the means testing line is quite significant.

I think that sets up a few areas for potential cooperation and potential fights with Labor.

National Disability Insurance Scheme for one.

The coalition has so far been at the table on bringing down the cost of that program, making sure it's sustainable.

And ahead of the next election, we're expecting Anthony Albanese and Labor to craft a universal childcare program.

Susan Lee is saying very clearly here that wealthy households are getting more assistance than they need from the taxpayer and from the federal budget.

So I interpreted that as kind of a pre-emptive strike on a universal childcare plan that I think a lot of voters would find pretty attractive if they're trying to pay for childcare.

And it's come a long way from, say, where Tony Abbott was trying to position the party on a paid parental leave system where ultimately didn't eventuate that some of the wealthiest Australians would have been beneficiaries in the way in which it was.

I think it's very interesting that she is choosing to give a big keynote speech on an issue that, as you say, Tom, this is one that the coalition can unify behind at a time when they don't really have any other policies that they can turn to and much of the debate is about climate, which is a very difficult policy for them.

So I think there is some strategy in setting out these guardrails at this point in time.

But I also think it runs into a bit of a collision course with one of their other firm policies they have, which is to boost defence spending and to lift it to 3% of GDP.

Now, I spoke to James Patterson on afternoon briefing earlier in the week and said, well,

Susan Lee's talked about fiscal guardrails.

You want to trade off any new spending with savings or reforms that are found elsewhere in the budget, but you're also promising a huge amount of extra spending, you know, tens of billions of dollars on defence.

So that means a lot of savings.

And James Patterson's answer was, well, no, no, no, defence spending is in a different category.

We think that that is an increase which is necessary for Australia's national security needs and they are imminent and serious and we're not going to wait to deliver that increased spending on defence to secure our country.

What do you make of that, Tom?

I think we need more scrutiny on defence spending, on the dollars that go into that part of the budget, not less.

I think it's incumbent on the Coalition to explain why that's their approach, if that is what they're taking.

I think both sides of politics, and I really include Labor in this, the current government doesn't answer a lot of pretty fundamental questions about defence.

All sides of politics for time immemorial brush away overspends, waste, lack of accountability, lack of transparency in this particular portfolio.

I'd like to see a lot more proper scrutiny, and that starts with being up front.

I think putting it in a different category because it's so important, and not even having a discussion about it, not to downplay the importance of defence.

I think that's a problematic way to start the debate.

Well, you could also argue, well, isn't health spending pretty essential and something that we absolutely need to commit to being able to support the health of Australians?

But we also acknowledge that that needs to have restraint to an extent as well, despite the fact that health funding could indeed be endless if we reached for the most perfect health solutions.

Yeah, no shortage of medications.

It could be on the PBS, which has said we can't afford to put ex-medication on there because we need to be responsible with the budget.

Angus Taylor, the former Shadow Treasurer turned shadow defence spokesman, was this week saying that, oh no, you can get to 3% of GDP without making any cuts to the budget.

You're trying to have it both ways in a way that does not necessarily square.

And the public clearly had a chance to vote for that at the last election and decided that's not the direction that they wanted to go.

Look, I just want to get in one more observation about Susan Lee's speech and the return to this talk of culture of dependency and the idea that there is a too big a welfare state for Australians, because it is a theme that I think the Liberals continue to return to over successive terms of parliament.

But I think when we look at where we have had some of the origins of the expansion of government support, we can go back to the Howard and Costello years and the development of family tax benefit A and B, which, although there are certainly limitations on that around means testing and the like.

Nonetheless, that was a point at which a coalition government said, we recognise that you as a family member, we want to give you support.

That's not because you're unemployed.

It's not because you've got a health issue.

It's because we see a role in the government supporting families.

This is now the opposite message that we've had in subsequent years.

And they're effectively trying to wind back some of the key policies that a coalition government of 20 plus years ago put in place.

The tides moving in and out over the decades are quite interesting.

And JobKeeper was okay.

JobKeeper was okay in the time.

HomeBuilder, not mentioned at all, where a whole lot of money getting put into households across this country that don't necessarily need that support.

That would not be continuing under a Susan Lee-led government.

Let's bring it back to where the federal government is today, because we have had Prime Minister Anthony Albanese around the Pacific, went to Vanuatu, didn't manage to get the Nakamal Treaty across the line with some concerns within the government of Vanuatu about the provisions within that.

He then went to Papua New Guinea for the 50th anniversary celebrations of independence, where the defence treaty was meant to be signed.

It wasn't.

Plenty of talk of logistical and administrative delays, but reassurances from James Marape, the Papua New Guinean Prime Minister himself, that there was full-throated support for it, that PNG initiated this.

It's just some of the logistics around the celebrations that have gotten in the way.

But nonetheless, we now have the Prime Minister who wanted to sort of tick off those boxes before flying off to New York for the UN General Assembly with some unfinished business left back at home.

Tom, how?

Where does this leave Anthony Albanese?

Is it damaging for him in the Pacific or are these just the road bumps that you hit in diplomacy?

I think it's a bit of a mess.

I mean, Pacific diplomacy is never going to be a straightforward thing.

It's a complicated region.

China is being very expansionist in its approach.

And governments and individual ministers in politics everywhere around the world are always going to have competing claims.

I thought it was challenging that Anthony Albanese went to Vanuatu and the treaty was not ready.

And I think it's probably embarrassing that he's gone to Penji and the same thing has happened again.

The people I spoke to yesterday, people from the Lowy Institute, from the Crawford School at ANU, people with deep knowledge of how Pacific countries, how Melanesian countries work, both said

it's a delay, it's an awkward thing, but it's not a serious problem.

They were of the view that Australia will be able to land these deals and it'll just take a bit more time, a bit more conversation.

But I bet Anthony Albanese was frustrated.

You know, this was supposed to be a landmark deal, change the relationship forever.

Instead, it was a pretty brief communique signed in a ceremony.

That's interesting.

Certainly the people I've spoken to have...

Some of them have sought to draw a line between the situation with Vanuatu and the situation with PNG.

And certainly everyone I've spoken to about the PNG deal has suggested there's no serious trouble here.

It's just maybe the government took too much of the reassurance from the Marape government that everything would be fine.

The celebrations are complicated.

The PNG cabinet isn't easy to corral at the best of times, let alone when there's nationwide celebrations and public holidays going on.

That will happen in due course.

But perhaps a little more concern about the Nakamao Treaty with Vanuatu, given how volatile, particularly volatile, Vanuatu politics is.

So there might be a little more work going into that one.

But Brett, the Prime Minister now heading to New York, it's a pretty big and consequential agenda here, recognising Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly meeting.

It looks like

he is getting a meeting with Donald Trump at some point based on some comments that Donald Trump made to the ABC's John Lyons.

How is this shaping up.

Yeah, it's sort of, and this is where those security packs ahead of that trip were so important to Anthony Albanese.

Doing a climate, having climate announcements and then about a security pack was about going to the US and selling this broader message of, well, of course, Anthony Albanese is not going to be able to say, yes, Mr.

President, we're going to hit the 3.5% spending on defence that you would like to see.

However, look at all the work we are doing more broadly throughout the Pacific.

Look at the work we are doing to support your military, both in Australia, but also the money we're putting into your country, as a way in which you can say this is why deals like the AUKUS agreement need to continue.

I suspect Anthony Albanese's only glimmer of hope he's heard in the last 24 hours has been the king citing the importance of AUKUS to Donald Trump.

But it will be a really big time when Anthony Albanese is in the UN.

Tom will be there.

He's going to be there.

He's going to be talking about Palestinian recognition.

He's also going to be trying to sell social media bans that Australia is looking to bring on under 16s whilst on the world stage.

Then trying to deal with Donald Trump.

It's going to be a high wire act.

This broader week, though, it's had our dear colleague Stephen Jedgetts quoting Oscar Wilde.

He said, to lose one parent, Mr.

Worthing, may be regarded as misfortune.

To lose both looks like carelessness.

What a poet.

I mean, Stephen Jedgetts is

the man knows no bounds.

Hey, I think Shakespeare could apply here too.

Et tu brute is what the Prime Minister might well be thinking when this falls over again.

If it is, though, that the Trump meeting doesn't go ahead, because as we have seen, things get in the way when dealing with Donald Trump, it will have created quite the awkward period for Anthony Albanese in which he is trying to take a bigger role on the world stage.

There are factors getting in the way that are beyond his control, and yet you are the one that's dealt with, left with ultimately a bit of egg on your face when it goes this way.

Look, it's certainly a high-risk period for Anthony Albanese, with a couple of marks against the book going into this trip.

But it is also a time of high opportunity for the Prime Minister to cement his leadership more internationally.

I think in his first term he was sort of a reluctant international traveller.

Domestic politics, his favourite old infrastructure portfolio has always been his preferred territory to act on politically.

But this is Anthony Albanese now with a commanding control of the Australian Parliament, the confidence of a second term in Parliament, but nonetheless still finding pitfalls along the way.

Tom, how consequential could this trip be in shaping the image of this government?

I think it could be consequential.

He's making a big policy move on recognition of Palestinian statehood, and he's, as Brett says, is trying to fix an irritant in the US-Australian alliance over the past months that he hasn't been able to have FaceTime with the US President.

I think it'll be interesting to see the scale of that meeting and to see the dynamic between the two men.

I think probably it will go well.

I agree with you.

Anthony Albanese is showing more confidence in foreign affairs and like Prime Ministers often do in the Australian context, growing into that part of the role and having more fluency and confidence in international relations.

But...

Donald Trump's a mercurial character and international events will get in the way.

So you never know what is going to happen.

I think it could be a consequential trip.

Of course, the PM's also going to go to the UK and see Keir Starmer and look, there's some choppy politics there as well.

And that relationship is fascinating, right?

So you've got two men who have won whopping majorities with very low primary votes in a broader context.

You've also got two men coming to their politics in very different ways.

Keir Starmer, a prosecutor who's late into politics.

Anthony Albanese, lifelong politician.

Starma on the world stage a lot in his first term with domestic consequences.

Albanese, less so on the world stage in the first term.

The ways in which Anthony Albanese and Keir Starmer are forming a relationship is one that I think will be interesting to watch, provided Keir Starmer can keep his job and maybe serves as a trump card to some extent that Keir Starmer is probably the greatest asset Anthony Albanese has in keeping that relationship with Donald Trump working.

AUKUS is going to get quite a workout in how we're looking at it over the next week and a half.

Tom McElroy, thanks so much for joining us on the party room.

Great to be along for the road trip.

Let's do this again.

Let's do it, absolutely.

Maybe we should do an actual road trip where we drive to Country Victoria.

Something else.

Done.

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, and that means it is time for question time.

All right, this week's question comes from David.

It's David here from Bunnarung Land in Port Melbourne.

There have been recently a lot of discussions about the NDIS and budget repairs and matters related.

My question is: when Cabinet discusses the budgets and financial issues, does anyone within Cabinet question the enormous amount of money allocated to AUKUS?

What percentage of the budget is allocated to Defence and AUKUS?

Are those considered when they're looking at where to cut?

Is AUKUS more important than health and education?

I enjoy your show very much and would be very interested if you have any thoughts or

illumination on this question.

Thank you.

So Brett, David is thinking about many of the things that cabinet ministers have to think about when it comes to budget time, that there is a limited pool of money and a lot of demands on where that money goes.

Maybe in answering David's questions, it might help to have some numbers at hand.

And Brett, I know you've got your head around where some of these budget figures are.

Yeah, so we've been looking at, so at the moment, defence, the budget spend is around $59 billion.

Say if Australia was to adopt a 3.5%

in GDP figures as Donald Trump is seeking.

Now that would mean in current terms an increase of $30 billion per year being having to go into defence.

So you're suddenly around $90 billion a year is what would be spent there.

By comparison, NDIS at the moment is costing the budget around just shy of $50 billion.

It's sitting around $49.

On its trajectory, if it was to have that 10% growth that we've been hearing a lot about, by the end of this decade, it would mean NDIS spending would be $107 billion.

So well well and truly above anything that is being spent on defence in the current moment.

However, it's worth noting that the ways in which they're looking to bring back spending within the NDIS does bring that back quite a bit.

And that on the current numbers, then, yes, defence outstrips what goes into NDIS.

But for a Labor government in particular, As much as they committed to AUKUS right from even before the election, before you even run the numbers on it all, this government is so heavily wanting to be seen as a government that is focused on health and education more broadly.

I suspect there are going to be some that might be offering a level of greater scrutiny than potentially parts of the coalition would have when it comes to defence.

But

as we know all too well, there's so little scrutiny of what is going on in the defence space in particular.

Yeah, I think, David, you can be reassured that there is plenty of discussion that goes on in cabinet and particularly amongst a subcommittee of cabinet called the Expenditure Review Committee, which is the run that really makes the hard decisions around what goes in the budget and what comes out of the budget.

They are absolutely having to weigh up if they are spending more on defence.

And the defence figures you gave us, Bredi, include

the current commitments to AUKUS, although a lot of the funding for AUKUS is sort of 10 years plus and don't sort of appear in the budget papers.

But they're absolutely weighing up.

We have to spend more money here.

That means over the next four years, we've got this much money to work with.

We also want to increase childcare support.

We want to make sure that the NDIS is sustainable.

It's still growing.

We're trying to pull back the growth, but it's still growing.

We need to make sure there's funding for that.

Those calculations are absolutely being made.

The problem is everything seems essential and nothing seems able to be expended.

And I think when it comes to defence and national security, there is a real reluctance from either of the major parties of government to take risks.

So a lot of this is around risk appetite.

And part of the reason there is such an intense focus on defence is because the calculation they are making based on the advice they're getting from defence community, from the intelligence community, is that this is a globally riskier time.

And in our Asia-Pacific region, the possibility of an...

outbreak of conflict is much higher.

So the risk is higher.

Therefore, they're less likely to want to rein in defence spending than perhaps some other areas where, yep, there's still competing demands, but what's the risk calculus there?

And I think you do do have a level of unity between Labor and the coalition, although they argue about the scale.

I think they both agree that because the risk is higher, there needs to be a priority on defence spending at this point in time.

Do you think that's a fairly large-scale?

Yeah, I think that's right.

And I think that one of the other difficulties with this is what we don't see are those conversations that are happening at the ERC or at the cabinet level.

And for David's point, like there is an expectation of collective responsibility that comes with sitting at those tables.

So you might thrash it out, but ultimately once the decision is made, if you want to remain a cabinet minister, it is your job to go and sell the line that the government has decided on.

Now, that's frustrating for us to listen to, but it doesn't mean that...

these conversations aren't happening behind closed doors.

And you can bet your bottom dollar Mark Butler as health minister goes into every meeting he can trying to claw more money into his health portfolio, for example.

So the conversations are happening and it doesn't mean one is more important than the other, but it's the unenviable choice of being in government.

I actually think this is one of the reasons I'd never want to be sitting in cabinet because making these decisions are really hard.

Mel, I think governments of this country would be well served with you sitting here.

Please no, please no.

If you, like David, want to send your questions in, please do.

We love getting them.

We're especially fond of voice notes.

You can email them to thepartyroom at abc.net.au.

And of course, remember to follow Politics Now in the ABC Listen app so you never miss an episode.

That's how I listen in.

Enjoyed the chat you had with Raph Epstein and Claudia Long earlier in the week.

If you want to know how diplomacy and Jane Austen link, then go back and have a listen to Brett and Claudia's chat earlier in the feed.

It has been a big week of literary references, but for now, that is it for the party room for this week.

And Dave Lipson will be in the chair for Insiders on Background on Saturday.

He's going to be speaking with the Climate Authority chair, Matt Keane.

That is going to be worth listening to.

Definitely.

See you, Mel.

See you, Brett.