Sussan Ley is 'fighting for her political life'

Speaker 1 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Speaker 2 She was every student's favourite teacher. She would joke around with us more like a friend than a teacher.

Speaker 2 And I remember her saying to me that this is not goodbye, this is see you later, kind of thing. Well, if Ali is able to open up to somebody, that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 But what began as attention became something else.

Speaker 1 She was brainwashing us from the start.

Speaker 2 The Favorite, a five-part investigation into the cost of silence.

Speaker 1 Available now.

Speaker 2 Search background briefing on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. The race for the leadership and perhaps in a way the very heart and soul of the Liberal Party is very much on.

Speaker 2 Opposition leader Susan Lee spent last week negotiating and eventually giving in to antagonisers in and outside her party to essentially hold on to the top job.

Speaker 2 But the Conservative faction smells blood and they're going hard. Is it now all over for Susan Lee? Welcome to Politics Now.

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

Speaker 1 And I'm Jacob Greber. Are we riding her off? We're riding her off on Monday already.
I am. Oh, you are.
I'll tell you why. Do you want to know why? We go straight in here, straight in here.

Speaker 1 We don't muck around here on this pod, do we?

Speaker 2 I think it's not if,

Speaker 2 it is still when.

Speaker 2 And so to say with certainty that she will be rolled in the final sitting week, which is next week, is a crazy brave thing to say.

Speaker 2 But I feel very confident in saying there is a momentum shift in the party and that it will be very hard for her to survive that week. And I'll tell you why.

Speaker 2 So Susan Lee, six months into the job, she has completely capitulated on climate policy. Not a little bit, but a lot.
And that's very important to this discussion, because the moderates had already

Speaker 2 eaten a lot of humble pie and were prepared for a bit of a hit.

Speaker 2 But man, oh man, when she has signed up to climate policy, which essentially allows the bank rolling of coal, she is now in very dangerous territory.

Speaker 2 She also did something on the Sunday when she stood up with David Littleproud and, you know, recommitted to the coalition staying together and then announced her glossy brochure of energy policy, which had very little to do with the environment or emissions.

Speaker 2 It was all about keeping her job and with an eye on sort of consumers. She also talked about migration as being the next front.
Now, when she said that, I thought, oh man,

Speaker 2 she's not even pretending anymore. Like

Speaker 2 the desperation of mentioning something that was gratuitous, that did not need to be mentioned when there was a glossy,

Speaker 2 you know, book about energy showed to me the lengths she's prepared to go to try and keep the Conservatives onside. But guess what, Jacob? You and I know something about politics.
It never works.

Speaker 2 When they smell blood, they go in hard.

Speaker 2 So what I can tell you with confidence based on, you know, obviously the work I do behind the scenes, finding out what's happening, is that the Conservatives have this play, and it's a play.

Speaker 2 They're not going to go in next week and roll her. Hasty's not going to put his hand up.
That's not the way this stuff works. They're waiting for the moderates to abandon her.

Speaker 2 And so that's why this morning something significant has happened that Susan Lee's office is trying to manage. There was a story.
I wrote a bit of it in my column. because I had wind of it too.

Speaker 2 So did the Australian, that there was a shift that moderates were abandoning their support for her.

Speaker 2 When that happened, Susan Lee's office basically has put out a statement, which is also red flag, on behalf of Maria Kovassic, who's a moderate, and also Anne Rustin, a leading moderate from South Australia, saying, nope.

Speaker 2 No problem, no abandonment of her. I don't see them doing interviews.
I don't see them out there. And the reason is they're trying to lock in the moderates, but the moderates are bleeding away.

Speaker 2 So what is happening? The Conservatives are waiting for the moderates, not entirely, but just a couple to fall over, maybe a resignation from the front bench.

Speaker 2 People are waiting for something which will precipitate a move. So they're not going for it.
They're waiting for it to collapse. Jacob, over to you.
That's what I know.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you've mapped it out for us there, what could happen. You've mapped out the reasons it might happen.
The question of that support base that she's relied on.

Speaker 1 How do we characterize it? They've taken a hit. They're very, very unhappy with the position that the party's landed on with net zero.

Speaker 1 They see it as a very difficult thing to sell. There's actually a bit of despondency around about that.
They don't understand the policy.

Speaker 1 You could say many things about Tony Abbott's decision to oppose Labor's carbon tax back way back when.

Speaker 1 Stop the tax, that was the slogan. Nice and simple.
Whether you agreed with it or not, you understood what it was about.

Speaker 1 This is not that, according to some of these moderates that I've been talking to. This is, it would be nice to get to net zero.
We don't have it as a target, but we're still in Paris.

Speaker 1 So Paris is actually about reaching net zero, but we're not into net zero. Blah, blah, blah.
Around you go.

Speaker 1 It's not particularly crisp or clear, that whole thing in the way that the successful Tony Abbott kill the carbon tax campaign was. So there's anger about that among the moderates.

Speaker 1 They're concerned that, as you mentioned, reanimation of coal using taxpayer funds, that's a real problem for them being able to sell.

Speaker 1 And then there's just really the general sense that she didn't lead on this. She was dragged to this position.

Speaker 1 She maintained a kind of silence for a long time on the question and it got filled by people who saw the moment. and grabbed it and ran hard.

Speaker 1 And so there's anger about that, that it should never have got to that point, that she should have been able to hold the line or at least manage this situation more effectively.

Speaker 1 So yes, it's danger zone for Susan Lee, no question. And I agree with you.
There's no obvious logic behind the idea that someone wants to go out there and tear her down because you don't want to be...

Speaker 1 They don't need to. They don't need to.
Well,

Speaker 1 you need to precipitate it in some way if you want the job. And we've got more polling that shows just how dire it all is for the Liberal Party under Susan Lee's leadership.

Speaker 1 Unsurprisingly, I think, given months and months of pretty roiling kind of news stories about what they're doing internally, so I'm not surprised the polling is so poor.

Speaker 1 It would make no sense for it not to be so poor. But unfortunately for the leader, that always reflects on the leadership.
And yeah, so I agree with you.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't put total money on next week, but it's a very, very dangerous two-week period.

Speaker 2 I think it's diabolically dangerous. And

Speaker 2 what I see

Speaker 2 when I see her stand up is a woman who gets that acutely.

Speaker 2 And she is literally fighting for her political life at the moment. And it's coming out sideways, which is often what happens when you feel under that much pressure.

Speaker 2 And I have some personal sympathy for her, to be clear. I'm not sort of gunning for anyone.
I think that... I think that she's in a wicked position, Jacob.
I'm sure you agree, right?

Speaker 2 She is in a diabolically difficult position. Any way she jumped was a lose-lose for her, as I've said on this podcast before.

Speaker 2 She had to make judgments, but she has made some some key mistakes and I think one of them is conviction actually because I think the most important quality in any leader is someone who believes in something argues for something makes the case finds compromise smashes heads together so to speak says to the conservatives hey guys you know I get it you don't want net zero but you need to take some of this stuff seriously because we cannot keep people like Tim Wilson in the tent if you don't give more.

Speaker 2 Like you need to, because this country is bigger than you.

Speaker 2 You know, where I've not heard of any serious conversations where she's sort of stared them down and sort of said to them, you know, there is a, like, you know, there is some serious metrics here that you're missing.

Speaker 2 Like they can't be in government without some of these MPs getting elected. So it's kind of lunacy in many ways to go so hard.
Look, today she's done a gazillion interviews, tried to double down.

Speaker 2 She's used some of the terminology that I've heard from the Prime Minister. This one I find very interesting.
My favorite of the genre, Jacob.

Speaker 1 Go on. Yeah, my favourite of the genre.

Speaker 1 I'm still getting over,

Speaker 1 we'd welcome net zero if it did happen.

Speaker 2 Oh, mate. We haven't talked about that because I did a few pods without you.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'd welcome turning into Brad Pitt, but I just don't think it's going to happen.

Speaker 2 I went on afternoon briefing, and in one of my, you know, how I do weird things, in one of my like unscripted questions, I said, you know, I would like to be tall and blonde, but like, that's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 So unless I plan for it, you know, have a strategy.

Speaker 1 You don't have to have a target for it, though, okay? No, no. You can't have a target for it.
Yeah. It's true.

Speaker 2 You have to have a plan, but they're like, if it happens, geez, we'll be like, good day, good day at the office. This thing happened, but we're not going to have a strategy.
I mean, it's mad, right?

Speaker 2 Like the whole sentence, the formulation is mad. And if this is the crumbs they've given to their moderates, no wonder the moderates are starting to peel off.

Speaker 1 So what was the favorite line? Or what was your new favourite line? Oh, sorry.

Speaker 2 Thank you for bringing me back to it.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 It's here. Are you ready? I've been underestimated a lot in my life.
Now, that is the Elbow line. Now, Elbow is incredibly successful.
He's at his political peak right now.

Speaker 2 So when he says it, I get what he means, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you underestimate me, but I often pick the things correctly and then I end up going on to win, which is what's happened so far, certainly in the last period, including the last election.

Speaker 2 You know, hats off to him. It worked.
However, she ain't got a lot of evidence of it so far. I mean, she is a bit of a political survivor, to give her some credit.

Speaker 2 You know, she famously lost her front bench position and then rose again.

Speaker 2 So she's managed to keep herself in high office for a long time in her political career. So clearly a big survivor.
But underestimated, okay. really

Speaker 2 interesting backstory she has as a human being i think the fact that she can fly planes is just one element of her broader story which is a woman who clearly is very ambitious, is tenacious.

Speaker 2 I think those things are true about her.

Speaker 1 I just, I'm going to disagree with you here, Pico.

Speaker 2 What do you disagree with? She's tenacious. She can fly a plane.
Can you fly?

Speaker 1 I just don't. I don't.
Can you think these backstories...

Speaker 1 For the record, I can't fly planes. I did once on a computer game.
I was quite good at it. But no, look, I think these backstories...
are not that interesting.

Speaker 1 Yes, you've done some things in your life. What matters is the first impression you give to voters, especially when you get these leadership positions.
That's when the camera goes on to you.

Speaker 1 That's the first time a lot of people will see you up close until you get one shot at it. Look, some of it's her fault, some of it's not, but she hasn't been able to make a good first impression.

Speaker 1 Maybe some of it is because she's a woman. I think you've talked of that before in the past on our podcast.
Maybe it's because she's got bad judgment.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's because her enemies are giving her like zero amount of time to score points. It's always managing that internal pressure.
So this is now unraveling around her, I think, dangerously.

Speaker 1 I think you're right.

Speaker 1 She's reaching for these lines as a sort of, it feels like a bit of a sort of,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 life, life rope. Yes, I've been underestimated.
And maybe, maybe, maybe she still has a way through here. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure I see it, but maybe she does.

Speaker 2 Look, the thing about leadership is that once once things start falling apart, it's a domino effect. So it's really, you're right.

Speaker 2 There is a path i'm not like i i think it's a fool's game to try and predict the future just generally but certainly with politics because you know they might sort of all they're not terribly good strategists quite frankly so things could go not according to their dreams.

Speaker 1 Can we talk about that then, that story today in The Australian, which is partly what prompted that statement that you mentioned coming out of Susan Lee's office to moderates

Speaker 1 saying very clearly that they support the leader and that moderates are behind Susan Lee. That was prompted by a story and you alluded to it in your column as well.

Speaker 1 This idea that the moderates are now switching to drum roll Andrew Hastie, which on paper doesn't make a lot of sense. Andrew Hastie is not their guy in terms of ideas, direction, ideology.

Speaker 1 To me, it looks like, I know, you think you can do the job. You have it.
Knock yourself out. Let's see how you go.
Is that what's going on here or is that too Machiavellian?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's part of the story, but there's another story. So of course everyone's motivated by different things.

Speaker 2 One of them definitely being personal ambition, what people are offering. Don't forget, calls are being made, my friend.
Lots of sounding out.

Speaker 2 No, no, I'm running, but certainly, you know, how is everyone feeling? What is everyone doing?

Speaker 2 What I reckon is happening, though, is one of the things that happens in politics, which is a little counterintuitive, but I want to say, and I've watched it happen, so have you, I reckon, when I tell you okay so Susan Lee's a moderate right so the moderates get her elected because remember their big thing back then is their hatred of Angus Taylor and I say hatred very specifically they really don't like him individually it's not just politics right

Speaker 2 So they wanted to swing behind her. They did want this kind of moderate leadership.

Speaker 2 She hasn't quite been able to deliver it because she's hamstrung by the numbers in my view, not just because she doesn't believe in it, but because it's too hard to do.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 if you are an Andrew Hastie, who definitely is a hardliner on things like immigration, clearly net zero, and you know, is pretty upfront about it, you actually can offer moderates a pathway, some softening on some things more than a Susan Lee can.

Speaker 2 And perhaps are prepared to. Now, I'm not about to, or I'll write a, you know, story.

Speaker 2 I'm not about to reveal like a whole bunch of stuff he's offering, but I think there's a vibe in the way he's communicating with people, which is that he might not be just the entire hardliner you think, that maybe he will be more open to a different leadership style than you would think, Jacob.

Speaker 2 Just saying, right?

Speaker 2 More than she can do, because she is already hamstrung by being a moderate, by being in the minority. He doesn't have that problem.
I'll give you an example. Housing.

Speaker 2 You think Andrew Hastie wants to be a hardliner on taxes and other things on housing?

Speaker 2 Do you think he might be a bit more open to some ideas that might be a little more maybe even radical and more appealing? When I interviewed him on Four Corners and he would back this,

Speaker 2 I reckon that was a bit of a, you know, line in the sand of things he stands for. This is right after the election.

Speaker 2 That's when he first revealed get rid of net zero and look what's happened six months later. He also talked about housing and appealing to young Australians.
He wants that to be a big thing.

Speaker 2 Guess what the moderates also think? Will he be prepared to do things that maybe someone even like Susan Lee won't? Are you getting my gist here? It's not just culture war stuff.

Speaker 2 Maybe they can get other things out of him. Maybe.
And one more point.

Speaker 2 Some of the moderates, people like Andrew Bragg, I'll name them,

Speaker 2 are well known in the political world for having very big issues with someone like Angus Taylor.

Speaker 2 So the reason someone would turn, for instance, to a hasty is that they can lock Taylor out of the leadership. What do you reckon?

Speaker 1 All of those things are plausible, possible. I agree.

Speaker 1 I can also say, though, that

Speaker 1 it does seem to move from day to day,

Speaker 1 what the

Speaker 1 favoured likely winning combination might be. I think it's moving a lot.

Speaker 1 I mean, last week

Speaker 1 there was more chatter that I was picking up of Angus Taylor and Hastie coming together as a team. Taylor, leader,

Speaker 1 Hastie as either deputy leader or even treasury spokesperson.

Speaker 1 This morning, that's not really what people are talking about. So it does move from day to day.

Speaker 1 There's others who are sort of shifting, Ted O'Brien, of course, on net zero,

Speaker 1 shifting to the position of opposing it, which is challenging

Speaker 1 some people's view of what Ted was about. I think they weren't paying enough attention to what Ted's been saying for years and years and years and all of this.

Speaker 1 And he's obviously worried about where he's positioned, whether he can hold on to that treasury position. Maybe he's talking to one of those other two.

Speaker 1 You can be sure that they are. They're all talking to each other about it.
And there's different versions, different ideas bubbling around. Is just Internampa Jimpa Price off the table?

Speaker 1 Does she have a role? I just go back to that photograph last week, that image going into that party room.

Speaker 1 When was it on the Wednesday now? That phalanx of the Conservative side of the Liberal Liberal Party all agreeing to walk into that room together. They planned that.
They made time for it.

Speaker 1 Then they made it happen. And you just look at that photograph.
The people in that photograph,

Speaker 1 it's one of those historic photos, I think, and you'll be able to plot

Speaker 1 who's in the frame here for these jobs

Speaker 1 if they do indeed take Susan Lee out.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, you know, you might listen to this pod and think, gosh, they're really writing Susan Lee off.
I mean, you know, she says she's underestimated.

Speaker 2 Does she have a chance of doing something Machiavellian?

Speaker 1 Well, let's explain that it's possible. Why don't we play the logic out on that? Let's have the conversation where we think Susan Lee actually does survive this dangerous two-week period.

Speaker 1 She gets through next week where there'll be a party room meeting again. Everyone's in the building at the same time, which in leadership...
times is a very, very, very, it's a bad thing.

Speaker 1 You don't want everyone in the building at the same time wandering around into each other's suites and chatting. Chat.
Chat is deadly in politics. But she gets through it.

Speaker 1 She gets through to Christmas, through into the new year.

Speaker 1 She starts to sell this

Speaker 1 change of policy on net zero. It finds some traction in the community.
Maybe this immigration pivot that's coming, this tougher language on immigration, also finds some resonance.

Speaker 1 And the Liberal Party pulls back this drift to one nation. Let's say all of that happens.
That's a plausible pathway for her to survive, isn't it?

Speaker 2 It's absolutely plausible. And, you know, don't forget

Speaker 2 she still has

Speaker 2 some very compelling features. Definitely that she's a woman and that that's one of their problems.
Definitely that

Speaker 2 she kind of carries an image which is perhaps more palatable.

Speaker 2 But if we look at some of the other leadership contenders, and Angus Taylor, clearly by doing that interview with the Daily Telegraph on the weekend.

Speaker 1 Oh, moi? Moi? Not moi. Oh, really?

Speaker 2 Have you heard that his favourite movie is The Devil Where's Prada? Tell me more.

Speaker 1 Tell me more.

Speaker 1 What else did we know? Tell me about that movie. What else didn't we know about that?

Speaker 2 Just letting you know. So, okay, he is clearly a contender, hasn't gone anywhere, trying to come through the middle.
Like, you know, still safe pair of hands, held economic portfolios, right?

Speaker 2 Still there, conservative. Then you got yourself some outliers, which I want to mention.
Dan Tien being one of them. Don't forget him.

Speaker 2 The other one, Ted O'Brien, you know, that theory that he'll come through the middle. I'm not a big backer of that theory, but it does exist.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, the obvious one, Hasty, which seems to be the sort of next generation. Don't forget that.
You got, sure, you've got with Susan Lee, she's a woman, and that's a big issue.

Speaker 2 But there is also, with all the others, a generational problem. Like, don't want to be ageist, but they're getting a bit old, right? And Hasty represents youth.
Like, what is he, 44, 45?

Speaker 2 Like, you know.

Speaker 1 Would you count him as a millennial or a Gen Xy?

Speaker 2 He's a millennial. No, no, he's a millennial.
I've checked that.

Speaker 2 kind of represents that part of Australia, which is, you know, the home ownership story, all of that, yeah.

Speaker 2 So he does, beyond just the sort of culture war stuff, has other credentials, other things to talk about.

Speaker 2 And I want to talk about something that a few Labor people have actually pointed out to me, which is the question of some of his more contentious views, which clearly they'll campaign on, right?

Speaker 2 Abortion being one of them.

Speaker 2 A few people have said to me, you know, as much as that seems at face value toxic, and and it does, especially in a very kind of, I think, very smaller liberal society that Australia is, I don't think we're a particularly conservative country on those sorts of issues.

Speaker 2 But I think the way he will carry that as an argument is, I'm a man of conviction, doesn't mean I'm going to force you to do it, though, right?

Speaker 2 And he did that a bit over women in combat, remember, during the election. That's my lived experience, you know, SAS.

Speaker 2 I'm passionate, I've been to Afghanistan, like, and, you know, these are all true, but I'm not going to force you to do it.

Speaker 2 And I actually think there is a pathway for him to do that, which isn't toxic and works for him.

Speaker 2 And again, as counterintuitive as what I'm saying about C is, is still more powerful than someone who doesn't tell you what they think, Jacob.

Speaker 2 Susan Lee's biggest problem is she doesn't tell you what she thinks. And boy, oh boy, we live in a world where increasingly people are so over chameleons or people who sit on the fence.

Speaker 2 People like people to be clear and that he has in spades. And that I think gives him a real edge.
I really do. That's how I see it.
I don't know. Have I lost my mind? Do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 1 I do think... Don't agree with me? I'm not sure.
I'm not sure I know what he stands for, actually.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a bit of a problem because he's really only been defining himself in the last, what, five, six months more aggressively.

Speaker 1 He's been in this building, I think, at least as long as Angus Taylor. I might be slightly off on that, but they've almost been in the building the same amount of time.
But maybe it is his moment.

Speaker 1 Maybe it is his moment. Maybe it is time for the Liberal Party to try something different.
Go for the younger generation. Go for someone who, as you say,

Speaker 1 is trying to demonstrate more clarity in positions like that.

Speaker 1 The problem is, though, that those, you can do that when you're a backbencher. You can do that when you're doing memes on social media.
Leadership is a five-dimensional chess challenge.

Speaker 1 It's so difficult. And I, you know, we'll see.

Speaker 2 Well, we will see. And just to be clear, I'm not backing anyone for leader.
Like it sounds like I'm just talking about the leadership.

Speaker 1 I'm putting a headline out there. PK for Hasty.
It's on.

Speaker 2 You would. No.

Speaker 2 I just think politics is very much about defining yourself. And I think some of your critique, by the way, I can see.
I do think there are some weaknesses.

Speaker 2 Why do you think the guy wanted an economic portfolio? He got that clearly. He wanted to start defining himself on other terms, not just the sort of musley things.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And actually

Speaker 1 even on the car key stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, and even on the economic portfolio, his one big statement that I would say relates to what he might believe in terms of economics is to complain that we don't make cars in Australia anymore.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, the reason we don't make cars in Australia anymore is because we stopped subsidising the manufacture of car making in Australia and it was no longer competitive.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, is that his big economic idea that we're going to go back to subsidising the car industry? And hell, it wouldn't be the wildest idea

Speaker 1 for someone

Speaker 1 seeking to excite voters than that. I mean,

Speaker 1 there are more bonkers ideas out there and the Labour Party's busy doing...

Speaker 1 It's doing its own forms of subsidies for various industry. They tend to be more in the green industry space, critical minerals.

Speaker 1 Now, really, really, we can go back to making cars, but you're going to have to tip in a lot of support to make it even vaguely possible.

Speaker 1 He hasn't fleshed that out. Or we can only go off what he sort of said in these social media posts, but that's the economics behind what he's saying.
That's right.

Speaker 2 And a social media post is not, you know, a sort of blueprint for governing a country, right? Like, and if it is, God help us all.

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, as I've got a mate that says, you know, social media should be actually banned for adults too.

Speaker 2 Like we're walking, you know, because it's like, if you think you can make policy like that, you're stuffed. One more thing.

Speaker 2 Yesterday, Susan Lee to me, and I think I mentioned it at the start, like did my, when I saw her mentioning immigration as being the next front, I honestly thought, like, what is she doing?

Speaker 2 Like, this is energy day. What is she doing?

Speaker 2 And I do know what she's doing. She's trying to

Speaker 2 neutralise this issue with the people trying to roll her. Okay.
She argues she thought this too when she got elected and mentioned it. Yep, she mentioned it.

Speaker 2 But what does she do by mentioning immigration?

Speaker 2 And that point that Penny Wong made to David Spears on Insiders, you know, can you out Pauline Hansen? Can you really? Because you know what?

Speaker 2 Pauline Hansen on energy says just completely withdraw from Paris. Don't just tell us, you know, you don't believe in its net zero.

Speaker 1 No, she calls it a smoke and mirrors position at the moment. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you can see why. And what's she going to say on migration? Same deal.
Like they cut it a bit. She'll say it's not enough.
What are they going to do?

Speaker 2 And what is Susan Lee going to deliver that's going to make the Conservatives apparently so happy on immigration?

Speaker 1 In a way that doesn't destroy the Liberal Party's standing in a whole bunch of ethnic communities. I don't know.
I don't know how you get there.

Speaker 1 There's no, as one of the people in this whole game said to me recently, there's no nuance.

Speaker 1 There's no possibility for nuance in the immigration debate.

Speaker 1 Once you poke it in there one direction, you tend to go one way or the other when you're having a political fight about these issues.

Speaker 1 I thought we'd sort of figured this movie out before over the last 20, 30 years where One Nation has always been in the wings.

Speaker 1 Does seeking to meet or beat One Nation on policy, has that ever worked for the Liberal Party? That is a questionable idea, I think, history shows.

Speaker 1 Whether it's at the state level or even federally, you do get these sort of moments where people think that One Nation is on the, you know, is picking up these votes from the Liberal Party.

Speaker 1 And that poll that was in the Financial Review today shows One Nation is 18% primary vote. If it's 18% across the country, that's just an average for the whole country.

Speaker 1 It must be huge in some of these electorates.

Speaker 1 And other polling I've seen tends to show that the people who are feeling most of the pain from the energy transition, who are, I guess, energy poor, tend to be One Nation voters.

Speaker 1 There's a link there. And that would be a similar group that would have concerns about the level of immigration in the country.
So, yes, does

Speaker 1 Susan Lee now pursue that 18% in the hope of lifting the coalition's 24%?

Speaker 1 Maybe that works, but does it come at the risk of opening up a whole bunch of ground in the middle that Labor can then see?

Speaker 2 Look, I think that that's a really pertinent question.

Speaker 2 Just before we end, like just zooming out, the Nationals and the Liberals back together, but they weren't really broken this time, but like solidifying that they're back together.

Speaker 2 I just want to say that the way David Littleproud has handled this

Speaker 2 has been

Speaker 2 so self-serving.

Speaker 2 When he stood up on Saturday, Jacob, this is before they got back together, but like, you know what I mean, before they did their agreement, and showed off that the Liberals were following his policy just like they did on the referendum.

Speaker 2 I thought,

Speaker 2 well, it was clear to me, this was a message to his party room so that he can be retained as leader, right? Like I've had another victory.

Speaker 2 But he will never ever become deputy prime minister in this country, which is the role he aspires to, you'd think,

Speaker 2 if he can't help the Liberals in some ways win some city seats. We know that.
That's a fact. That's just like me speaking basic maths about politics.
So he cannot be deputy prime minister.

Speaker 2 So he stands up and puts salt in the wound of the moderates who are already being depicted as following the nationals on everything and says in words coming out of his own mouth on the tape that we can quote, that I can put in a column, that this is what's happened.

Speaker 2 And when I saw him do that, I thought, these people can't be helped. They can't be helped from themselves.

Speaker 1 I think he used the phrase.

Speaker 1 took them by the hand. We've taken them by the hand.
Yeah, you're right to say that his chances of being deputy prime minister are really very, very low.

Speaker 1 Does he not want to do it? If the Liberals can't win seats, I mean, that's bottom line.

Speaker 1 There just ain't enough other seats around at this point in time.

Speaker 1 Does he overcook that influence of the National Party at the risk of those moderates? It does look that way.

Speaker 1 He has actually led them that way. I mean, that is the reality.

Speaker 1 The Liberal Party might have got to this position, but history will show the National Party got there one week and the Liberal followed them the next week.

Speaker 1 And there was a time, really only three or four weeks ago, where most of the Liberal Party party room was happy with net zero.

Speaker 1 A very short period of time later, we've got two-thirds going the other way. And what happened in between? The National Party aggressively, loudly, proudly adopted a policy of ditching net zero.

Speaker 2 That's right. And Susan Lee, and that goes back to her, wasn't doing, as far as I can see, or it didn't work if she was trying,

Speaker 2 to lead them through at least a middle path, right? Because, yeah, okay, there were some strongly held views.

Speaker 2 I think it was pretty hard for her to make them adopt a sort of wet, moderate, entire view, but they could have been.

Speaker 1 Wet moderate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there could have been.

Speaker 1 Did they choose these titles, by the way? They just don't sound good, do they?

Speaker 2 They don't, but I'm going with them.

Speaker 2 I like it. Look, Jacob, the next week, pretty unpredictable, right? Worth saying that, you know, at the same time, government, easy week against.
Oh, what?

Speaker 1 There's a government? Yeah, yeah. Is there a government out there? Are they doing things? What are they doing? What have they done for us?

Speaker 2 Let me confirm one thing that's happened. There's been a stand-up between the Prime Minister and Jacinda Allen, who is the Victorian Premier, who's got her own issues.

Speaker 2 And the Prime Minister has rejected this idea of a joint COP bid with Turkey, which has been offered by Turkey, which is a wild idea, by the way. Like, look how far that place is.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't know how that works. It would be confusing.
He says no. So, okay, we know that they don't want to do that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if it wasn't for the Liberal Party, we would have spent this entire podcast probably talking about Australia's bid for

Speaker 1 next year's climate summit. That would have been the number one topic.

Speaker 1 And I think those things are actually related in a couple of ways. One of which is

Speaker 1 does this government actually, given where the Liberal Party is now going on climate policy, do they want to host a summit at a cost of, we've seen reports, $2 billion,

Speaker 1 where a large group of people come to Australia and tell us we're a terrible fossil fuel exporting country or that we're not doing enough on climate while people are struggling here with energy bills.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 that's not a super comfortable thing for the Labour Party if they get this wrong.

Speaker 1 But by the same token, Patricia, are they out there arguing the merits and benefits of hosting the COP? Are they telling us all the good things that happen when you host one of these things?

Speaker 1 It's a big giant trade show. You get to demonstrate where you are moving, you get to draw attention to where you might want to put capital in this country.
None of that's happening,

Speaker 1 or very little for a government that would otherwise be seeking to win this bid.

Speaker 2 Look, I'm just hoping, and I think there is a little bit of evidence, that

Speaker 2 during this time where there is so little focus on the government because of the insanity of the opposition, that hopefully they're working very hard on some big seismic reforms that might actually take our nation forward, lift productivity, lift our living standards and they'll unveil it all and we will be happy campers.

Speaker 2 All right, that's it for politics now today. Thank you Jacob.

Speaker 1 My pleasure. You've got a nice fun week ahead of you with your next guests, I guess.

Speaker 2 I do have a very interesting week and next week I'll be in Canberra with you for the last sitting week. I'm pretty stoked about that because I'm working on some secret projects.

Speaker 2 You know how I do that? Got a few secret projects as well as my day job. So I've got lots to do there.

Speaker 1 Oh, and will be revealed. Yeah.
Aren't we doing something as well in Canberra? Can I talk about that, Dan?

Speaker 1 You can.

Speaker 2 We have, no, not never too soon. Here it is.
Canberra Theatre, 2nd of December. Fran and I, the party room, and you

Speaker 2 are our star. What are you going to wear?

Speaker 1 You got me there. I have no idea.
I've never done one of these before. Oh, that's so good.

Speaker 2 I want you to be in your best bling and we will work out the outfits later. That's what chicks do, Jacob.

Speaker 1 There's nothing worse than a middle-aged bloke trying to bling it up, isn't there?

Speaker 2 No, well, there's nothing worse unless they're as lovely as you, Jacob. Tomorrow, Raph Epstein is with me.
We're going to talk about whatever has happened tomorrow.

Speaker 2 If you want to send us a question, the partyroom at abc.net.au. And yes, very excited, Jacob, to have you on board.

Speaker 2 In the show notes, we've got where you can get the tickets. There are still some tickets left.

Speaker 2 We've got a good crowd, though, so it's going to be a good vibe.

Speaker 2 So, if you're one of those people that only likes to come to things if you know there's a good vibe, I can guarantee it's there, mainly because of Jacob's outfits. See you, Jacob.
Bye.