Another leader bites the dust

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Speaker 2 She was warm, funny, every student's favourite teacher.

Speaker 1 No one ever suspects a woman could do such a thing, especially one with kids.

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If anything was to happen, there would be somebody there. But it was all a smokescreen.

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Speaker 2 The Favourite, a five-part investigation from Background Briefing. Search Background Briefing on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 Is there a safe part of the country to be the leader of a major political party right now?

Speaker 2 It's decapitation season.

Speaker 2 And with another head rolling this morning, this time for the Victorian Liberal Party, just one year out from the big state election in Victoria, things are shaking shaking up and change is definitely in the air.

Speaker 2 Could New South Wales be next? And what's happening in the federal sphere? There's a few things driving all of this disruption. Who says politics slows down at the end of the year?

Speaker 2 Welcome to Politics Now.

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

Speaker 1 And I am Raph Epstein from ABC Radio Melbourne. Don't forget Victoria is always where it is happening.

Speaker 2 Oh, look, he's he's always got his Victorian flag flying, which is fine because, you know, I am a Victorian too, although I do have a very national focus.

Speaker 2 Raph, the timing of you joining our pod is uncanny. You were already locked in to talk to me today, just to be clear.

Speaker 2 You're not just brought in for this, but what a great day to have you here. It's been a huge day in Victorian politics.

Speaker 2 For those that are not across what's happened, there is a new Victorian opposition leader, new leader of the Liberal Party.

Speaker 2 She has replaced a guy called Brad Batten. Now, because we have a national audience, I'm going to tell you that Brad Batten, ex-cop, is kind of like a Peter Dutton-esque type.

Speaker 1 Self-described Bogan.

Speaker 2 Well, that's happy to use the label.

Speaker 2 That makes him likable to me. But yeah, right.
Very, I think politically, in terms of the way he frames himself, there is a real Peter Dutton vibe for my national audience to understand.

Speaker 2 He's been rolled by a cross-factional group, which is why he didn't even contest at the end, for a woman who's only been in parliament for a couple of years called Jess Wilson, who worked for Josh Frydenberg.

Speaker 2 One more fact. She was born in the 1990s, which makes me want to die.

Speaker 2 That's another thing.

Speaker 1 The other parallel that's important for our national friends, Brad Batten used to be a policeman. He is a man of the suburbs.

Speaker 1 If you ever talk about the Republican peri-urban strategy or Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison's outer suburban strategy, strategy. Brad Batten is from those suburbs.
That is the language he speaks.

Speaker 1 He's got the tattoo. He loves a beer.
He sounds like all of those things. He has been rolled by Jess Wilson.
She's been to the London School of Economics. She has worked for Josh Frydenberg.

Speaker 1 She has worked for the Business Council on net zero policies.

Speaker 1 She comes from the leafy, gentrified suburbs of Kew that potentially at the last state election could have gone to a quote-unquote teal candidate.

Speaker 1 She is 35, which would make her at 36 next year if she wins the youngest Premier in Victoria's history. There's a stark contrast in personality.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure there is as much of a contrast in politics, but the other thing to think about when it comes to Victoria, even when they sit there in Canberra, in the Liberal Party room and say, look, whatever you do, don't become like the Victorians.

Speaker 1 What they are talking about, just let me set the scene for Victorian politics in case you're not from Victoria or you've forgotten.

Speaker 1 The Labor Party in Victoria have not had a contest for a leader since the 1990s. The Labor Party in Victoria have hand over from leader to leader to leader.

Speaker 1 That's one reason they have been in power for all but four of the last 26 years.

Speaker 1 The Liberal Party keep on changing leaders. Jess Wilson is the third leader in 11 months.

Speaker 2 Which is

Speaker 2 mind-blowing. Three in 11 months.

Speaker 1 Matthew Guy has come back twice.

Speaker 1 He is the person in 2018 who campaigned long and hard on crime. Crime.
Which is what Brad Batten is campaigning on.

Speaker 1 And when Matthew Guy campaigned hard on crime and Peter Dutton said it wasn't safe to go out to restaurants in Melbourne and there was a lot of talk of quote-unquote African gangs, they still have not recovered the Liberal Party from that smashing.

Speaker 1 They need to pick up half as many seats as they have. So that's the scene.
They are everything the Federal Liberal Party do not want to become.

Speaker 1 And installing Jess Wilson at 35 is to try to stop that from keep on happening. It is.

Speaker 2 So what I find interesting about Jess Wilson as the choice, oh, so many things, so many things, is

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 I'll frame it this way. To me, as a sort of outsider, and you know, I live in Victoria, but I don't cover the ins and outs of daily state politics.
I'm a federal girl. But what I see

Speaker 2 is that by choosing Jess Wilson, they have made a strategic decision, which is to match the person they're running to the spirit vibe of the state.

Speaker 2 Now, famously, and I'm going to write a column about this

Speaker 2 because I'll never forget when John Howard, who I quote a lot in lots of columns because John Howard was such an enormous figure in my life politically, such a long-term prime minister for the Liberals, when he said that Victoria is the Massachusetts of Australia.

Speaker 2 And in the last period under Bradbatten, I feel like they weren't reading the room, the Liberals, that he did not match.

Speaker 2 the vibe of this state, especially given we have an old Labor government that is making many mistakes.

Speaker 2 One of my in-jokes that I'm sharing on this podcast is I have lefty friends who want to get rid of Labor. That's how unpopular they've become in Victoria.

Speaker 1 Still ahead in most of the polls, just saying.

Speaker 2 That's my point. So how can this be so?

Speaker 2 Well, maybe it's what you're offering. So they've decided to break glass and go for a very inexperienced woman, right?

Speaker 2 As in, sorry, she's very experienced in her life, don't get me wrong, but in politics.

Speaker 1 First term MP.

Speaker 2 Exactly. She'd have to agree with that.
But who represents a sort of vibe which may...

Speaker 2 meet the expectations. Basically, I'm going to say it and throw it at you.
She's kind of tealish. She's a teal.
Yeah. Yeah.
She's not an independent. She looks and sounds like.
Correct, right?

Speaker 2 Like you're modern woman, 35-year-old modern woman can therefore concentrate on the budget, which is whoa, out of control in this state.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of grievance because of that in the electorate. If she can focus on that and remove them from their obsession with culture wars, like and not talk about trans people, right?

Speaker 2 Which is what that party has become, Like, what?

Speaker 2 Then maybe she has a fighting chance, Raf. What do you reckon?

Speaker 1 She does have a fighting chance. I'm impressed that anybody who doesn't talk regularly to liberal MPs feels like there's something other than personality that is Jess Wilson's selling point.

Speaker 1 It is true she...

Speaker 1 You know, she fought off actually a pretty significant campaign from Attil. I was actually at Jess Wilson's victory party.
To put more federal context on this, she won that seat.

Speaker 1 The Liberals had already won it. She was a new candidate.
The people who were at Jess Wilson's election victory on that night in November 2022, Josh Frydenberg, Jane Hume, James Patterson.

Speaker 1 So there's no doubt federal Liberals see her as the model future leader. They were there for a reason.
Is she the sort of moderate face, the place that the Liberal Party is going to?

Speaker 1 I think, so time will tell.

Speaker 1 I personally feel like the state liberals are a, it is a nest of vipers. You know, it is a whole lot of cats fighting in a bag.
That's a kind description. It is intensely personal.

Speaker 1 They hate each other. To say that they hate each other and there is intense animosity is the political understatement of the year in Victoria.
However, she presents as the way you describe her.

Speaker 1 The problems are in some ways the same.

Speaker 1 She is the, again, to put this in a federal context, she's the only state liberal MP who was willing to go out there and say she was voting yes to the voice now keep in mind their current party platform this has changed for the last two elections 2018 2022 the Liberal Party backed the truth and treaty process in Victoria the Liberal Party now want to rip up the first treaty in Victoria so the woman Jess Wilson who said she voted yes Jess Wilson applauded and acclaimed the Indigenous voices in the chamber when the legislation went through the Victorian Parliament for the treaty.

Speaker 1 So there's no doubt where her heart is on those issues. Does this sound familiar to you?

Speaker 1 The same as your discussion yesterday with Jacob Greber about being able to speak about the things that matter to you. She now has to prosecute the idea that the treaty is the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 And not only is it the wrong thing, but one of the first things the Liberal Party might do when they get into power is they would rip up that treaty.

Speaker 1 So I'm not sure that her elevation solves those those problems. I do think the ideological divide in the Liberal Party in Victoria is not the same as really significant things like net zero.

Speaker 1 Climate change has just terrorized the federal liberals since 2009, right? I don't think the ideological divide is as important. It is much more about personality than politics.

Speaker 1 You're right to say they've switched to Jess Wilson because she,

Speaker 1 you know, she's innocent.

Speaker 1 I would disagree though. I think Brad Batten, Brad Batten's problem was not his palatability.
Brad Batten's problem is the same problem Jess Wilson has. It's the horse, not the jockey.

Speaker 1 Now, there are people in the Liberal Party, and does this sound familiar federally, who say, oh, Brad Batten didn't have enough policy.

Speaker 1 He didn't have enough ideas about the budget that you mentioned and about economics. It's not that easy to come up with those ideas.
They have been trying.

Speaker 1 And when you talked about Victoria's budget and the issues with debt and how big it is compared to, say, other state budgets.

Speaker 2 It's a joke.

Speaker 1 Make whatever judgment you like.

Speaker 2 It's an issue. It's a really issue.

Speaker 1 In 2014, in 2018, and in 2022, the Liberal Party in Victoria said that Victoria's budget was a joke. Dan Andrews was going to destroy the budget.
It is terrible.

Speaker 1 We're worse than other states, cited a whole lot of economic figures. And every time they've prosecuted that argument, Victorian Labor's majority has grown in the parliament.

Speaker 1 They keep on getting more seats. So that is the quandary that they face.
And every time I see Anthony Albanese not really being quizzed much about climate change or anything

Speaker 1 or anything at all, because the Liberal Party and the Greens are seeking what I call ideological purity

Speaker 2 and sucking up all the oxygen.

Speaker 1 And I just say, hello, welcome to my life, because this is Victorian politics writ large. So

Speaker 1 it is the test tube experiment of where the Liberal Party are ending up. Can you paper over those problems? Can you solve those problems with a new team?

Speaker 2 Well, if you let them, if you let them

Speaker 2 minimise, neutralise some of those big issues like treaty, perhaps pivot. Dare I say it, it's happened now.
Are you really going to go repealing it? Perhaps pivot and then focus on the economics.

Speaker 2 I get your point that the economics haven't kind of

Speaker 2 gone off for them in the past. I do think we're in a different position though.
We may be.

Speaker 2 We may be. I reckon we are.

Speaker 1 But we'll know in a year's time.

Speaker 2 We'll know. Okay, I just want to make the point that there is something bigger happening that we think is worth noting on this podcast.
Because,

Speaker 2 okay, the Victorians, as you say, went first and they did it. They've now changed their leader, contentious.
But over in New South Wales, which is the biggest state

Speaker 2 and very significant, I think.

Speaker 1 Don't big up them that way.

Speaker 2 I love them. I've lived in Sydney.
So have you.

Speaker 2 I love them both. I love all of my Australians.
Hello, people in Adelaide.

Speaker 1 i love you too perth should point out wa is the biggest physically just yet but just for the fact checkers

Speaker 2 um but what i can say is that in new south wales by the end of the week they may have rolled in the liberal party their leader as well mark speakman now i think this is a bit of a different story also rolled him potentially for a woman called kelly sloan uh who again represents a leafy tealy part of sydney another first term mp another first term MP.

Speaker 2 So similar vibes. The difference being I think Mark Speakman, you know, he isn't sort of a tough bogan, as your word.
He wouldn't just go. That's Brad Batten's word.

Speaker 2 Thank you, just to be clear. You know, he is a kind of more moderate figure, but his issue is he's not cutting through.
Again, Chris Minns, the New South Wales Labor Premier,

Speaker 2 is a great retail politician. He really is.
He has incredible cut through and has a lot of power, really, at the moment.

Speaker 2 And so what we're seeing again over there is the same sort of, you know, they kind of got booted out after a long period.

Speaker 2 They went through their premiers as well. Like old government got kicked out and they're having some trouble finding their feet.

Speaker 2 It's a bit different as well because the Liberals in New South Wales are new to being opposition, I think, ish, new-ish. Whereas in...

Speaker 2 Victoria, I mean, we have had a one-party state for such a long time.

Speaker 2 The whole sort of composition of things is different.

Speaker 2 What I I want to put to you, though, is, so potentially we could see two kind of tealish, I'm going to say that, whether I'm allowed or not, teal-ish, till-esque women of the Liberal Party potentially as leaders by the end of the week, one's already happened, the other one could, federally.

Speaker 2 A totally opposite story where the woman who represents maybe a bit of that vibe, not entirely, I think.

Speaker 1 So that's a broad, that's a broad definition, but yes.

Speaker 2 Yes. that's why i said maybe a bit yeah maybe a bit definitely more than uh andrew hastie yeah

Speaker 2 she looks poised to be rolled now my latest mail on that because i got some

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 that the so the conservatives are waiting for something bad to happen a moderate to do something and then that will allow them to galvanize a movement against her the moderates As I checked this morning, we're recording on a Tuesday, their view is, well, we're not going to help them.

Speaker 2 Like, we can see problems, but we're not going to go helping them. They can take her out themselves.
Thank you very much, which means she might be safe for another week, right?

Speaker 2 If no one moves, because they're waiting for a moment.

Speaker 1 So she gets another week. Good for her.

Speaker 2 But either way, there they're looking to turning to the right.

Speaker 2 So what's going on?

Speaker 1 I think your analysis, not that it ignores, I think.

Speaker 2 Are you about to diss me?

Speaker 1 No, I'm not dissing you.

Speaker 2 I'm the main host of this podcast, so just don't go dissing my main mindset.

Speaker 1 A lot of what you say is valid. However, I think

Speaker 1 what we're not looking at is the reasons this is happening.

Speaker 1 The centre-right of politics is getting reshaped around the world. It's worked for Trump.
It hasn't worked in Britain, and they're in all sorts of trouble.

Speaker 1 In Australia, what does the Liberal Party stand for?

Speaker 1 And again, to turn to Victoria, and it's a template that Anthony Albanese has picked up. And in fact, senior Labor people will say to you, can I swear on your podcast? I think I can.

Speaker 1 Labor gets shit done, right? Yes, yes, yes. And that template, Labor gets shit done.
The other side spend all of their time talking about the culture war and talking about themselves.

Speaker 1 And let's be honest, for a lot of the voters that count at election time, it is that simple. Labor gets stuff done, and the other side of politics is faffing around talking about themselves.

Speaker 1 Victoria is an extreme example of that. I don't know if it applies perfectly to New South Wales and the Federal Party, but what does Susan Lee stand for?

Speaker 1 If she came into Parliament and was part of the Parliamentary Friends for Palestine and Netsuro was really important, she loved the environment, koalas, and she was big on the environment and she initiated the review that Labor is using to change the environment laws when she was environment minister.

Speaker 1 What does the Liberal Party stand for? The Labour Party seems to have worked out a couple of answers, a couple of signature policies, especially in the states.

Speaker 1 Chris Minns has got his signature policies, Dan Andrews had them.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 the way you try to group Susan Lee with Kelly Sloan and Jess Wilson is valid, but I think it ignores the subterranean stuff.

Speaker 2 It's the broad group.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's the immediate solution to long-term problems. The long-term problems, they have not solved.
New South Wales is a bit of an outlier, but across the country, state liberal parties are stuffed.

Speaker 1 Like they are chronically broken and look like they're in an unwinnable position. Dan Andrews reposted to John Howard's observation.

Speaker 1 You said Howard used to say that Victoria was the Massachusetts of Australia. Dan Andrews used to say, no, no, Massachusetts is the Victoria of the United States.

Speaker 1 And that was his way of saying, no, no, you're ignoring something fundamental about what Labor stands for. Labor's been around a lot longer.
I think this is Dan Andrews' thinking.

Speaker 1 I think this is Anthony Albanese's thinking in some way as well. The Liberal Party was created after the Second World War in opposition to Labour.

Speaker 1 There'd been a whole lot of movement in the centre and on the right and you know Billy Hughes, et cetera, et cetera, decades of history. The Liberal Party was created in large part to oppose Labor.

Speaker 1 It worked for a significant period of time. Is it still working? It's a newer creation.
It has a newer mission. Has anybody adapted that mission to the times?

Speaker 1 It's clear that the Conservatives in Britain are flailing.

Speaker 1 It's clear that a lot of Republicans in the United States are unimpressed with where Donald Trump is taking them, although he's had remarkable electoral success.

Speaker 1 So I think these battles, you know, Kelly Sloan, they are turning to new people in New South Wales, they're turning to new people in Victoria because they're hoping, because the Liberal Party love the idea of a messiah, if I just bring in the new person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a messiah complex.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 And just like my football club, the Carlton Football Club, they eternally believe that if they just bring in the right leader, all of the deep fundamental problems that we are failing to address will magically go away.

Speaker 1 They might in Victoria because yes, the budget and crime, they're significant issues.

Speaker 2 It's a very old government.

Speaker 1 But it's a really experienced government. Jacintra Allen's been in government, the Premier in Victoria, since she was 25 years old.

Speaker 2 Yeah, don't write her off. I agree.
Don't write them off. Don't write her off.
Don't write her off. But having said that, the conditions are a bit different.

Speaker 2 Look, I just want to say, just on the kind of

Speaker 2 vibe of Labour gets stuff done, all of that, I think that's absolutely correct. And that's become the kind of playbook for Labour's success at a Victorian level for sure.
And absolutely, the Albanese.

Speaker 2 Don't forget Albanese was, and the Libs love to say this, you know, because they know Dan Andrews is very now unpopular in Victoria because he is. But, you know, he was his roommate.

Speaker 2 He, he practiced the debate with him during the federal.

Speaker 1 Dan Andrews does a good Peter Dutton, apparently.

Speaker 2 Right, as we've all heard, I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it. Man, have I heard about it? I don't play golf, so I don't ever mix with Dan Andrews.
You know, chicks like me don't play golf.

Speaker 2 Some chicks play golf. I don't play golf.
But what I can say about Labour is I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1 I've never swung a golf club ever.

Speaker 2 No, you're so my people. You're so my people.
So what I can say about Labour is they, all these ideological wars and this In some ways, Labor's become rather limp on these things.

Speaker 2 Let me explain on two fronts, which I think is why they are able to sort of keep it together, but equally can be a problem on another front.

Speaker 2 In Victoria, they they have just announced a crime policy which is so to the right

Speaker 2 to deal with the idea that crime's out of control.

Speaker 1 It turns out actually you can outpauline Pauline if you labor in Victoria.

Speaker 2 Thank you, right? This, I mean, my partner was like, are they putting children in jail? Like it's...

Speaker 1 No, no, they're putting 14-year-olds in jail for life

Speaker 1 for a carjacking. It's a bigger sentence than rape and manslaughter.
Right.

Speaker 2 So that is like, whoa, like, I'm going to fall off my chair. That is so full on.
And yet they were prepared to do it. Now, I don't know.
Maybe I've missed the story. Help me, Raph.

Speaker 2 But where is the left of the Labor Party losing their minds about the principle of the kids?

Speaker 2 Is it happening? Have I missed it? Labor.

Speaker 1 is about winning power.

Speaker 2 Correct, is my point. So where's the ideology is my point? Where's the fight?

Speaker 1 Why do you need ideology when you can be in power?

Speaker 2 Okay. And on the federal level, right, we've got, you know, Labor's about to put more gas, more fossil fuels in the system.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Where's the arcing up of the left about, hang on a minute, we need to be even

Speaker 2 more hardcore when it comes to renewables?

Speaker 1 Isn't that why Labor hates the Greens so much and the Greens hate Labor so much?

Speaker 1 Because the fight that used to happen, which might have died when Kevin Rudd announced the Pacific Solution in the dying days of his second term as Prime Minister, that fight that used to happen in Labor, the sort of thing you're talking about when it comes to jail terms and youth justice and Indigenous affairs and that little thing called climate change that just happens to be an existential threat to us all.

Speaker 1 They've contracted that out to the Greens. It works electorally.

Speaker 1 Ideological purity, it's Whitlam, right, who said the impotent are pure, right? That line from 1967.

Speaker 1 He's right. The impotent are pure.
If you want to be in power,

Speaker 1 you focus on winning power. And to return to what you said, the Liberal Party have taken not one in Victoria, not one leader, but two to court.
So that's the thing that concerns them.

Speaker 1 I think people see that. They don't actually have a view on the trans stuff, but they do go, those guys aren't interested in me.
Labor is boom, end of the story. We will see in Victoria if it works.

Speaker 1 And the biggest test for Anthony Albanese's second term will be how big and bold can he go. I think every time I've had the PM on, to be honest, I have asked him a version of the question.
You have.

Speaker 1 Why aren't you bolder? Some of the people who voted for you.

Speaker 2 And, sorry, and will you get buried with Toto? Which is dead set my favourite question you've ever asked

Speaker 2 of a Prime Minister.

Speaker 1 Can I say the law changed? Because the PM said that law was absurd because in Victoria you can't be buried with your pet.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry to pivot, but that question, I was walking.

Speaker 2 It's a good question. It's a valid question.

Speaker 1 Do you want to be buried with Toto? Because in Victoria, the cemeteries are breaking the law. People die and then the dog gets stuck in the plot with them a few years later.

Speaker 2 It matters to people. Look, it was a great question.
I made jokes with a PM. I was like, I cannot believe you actually dealt with a question about Toto.

Speaker 1 It's called Talk Back, Patricia. It's called Local Radio.
We ask the questions that's on everyone's mind.

Speaker 2 I like a good time too, Raph, okay? And I'm well known for liking a good time. Look, I want to.

Speaker 1 Just don't bury Patricia with the cat or the dog.

Speaker 2 So, finally, I was just thinking about it.

Speaker 1 Actually, flashback, you had to be persuaded to get a dog pick.

Speaker 2 I know. I remember.
And let's

Speaker 2 tell people behind the curtain, my teenage daughter is watching us record this right now and

Speaker 2 shaking her head at what a sort of... Mum doesn't really like it.
Mum's full of it. Mum doesn't really like.
Mum's unbearable, and yet she's here.

Speaker 2 So let me tell you, let me ask you rather, I'm not going to tell you anything. Let me ask you.

Speaker 2 Jacob made the point on the pod yesterday that it wasn't all the leadership drama that we should be focusing on or just more the observation that big things are happening, including...

Speaker 1 And we're not focused on them.

Speaker 2 Well, no, because

Speaker 2 we love bit of drama. This is a political podcast, though, so I'm defending myself.
Like, I'm going to talk about leadership change. Like, people expect it.
It matters. We say it on the label.
So

Speaker 2 we're talking about things like the government's agenda at COP. COP full stop, whether it's worth the cost, but we're not really, are we?

Speaker 1 The Conference of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, they're all in Brazil. They still haven't resolved it.
I think when you spoke to Jacob, the PM hadn't ruled out co-hosting with Turkey.

Speaker 1 I'm just trying to remember the timeline. We should be talking about whether or not the Pacific is a good stage to work out what is the biggest international and local problem that we all face.

Speaker 1 I think it'd be great if we could focus on questions like, okay, the science is real. And the Liberal Party say

Speaker 1 they accept that climate change is real. What is the best solution to those problems?

Speaker 1 It's the Liberal Party that took us all on a journey, not about the policy, but on whether or not you could call their policies net zero or not. They are crucial questions.

Speaker 1 The big question I have,

Speaker 1 will the Liberals in Victoria and New South Wales go to state elections where climate change matters or does the economy trump that? And really,

Speaker 1 just over, what is it, just over two years from now, when Anthony Albanese goes to the polls against Angus or Andrew or someone else with an A in front of their name,

Speaker 1 is climate change going to be important? The problem's not going away. The cost of not fixing it just rises with time.

Speaker 1 But if the subject of climate change has been buried this week and last week, other than internal ruptions in the Liberal Party, what does that mean is going to matter to voters in the future?

Speaker 1 And I don't think it's at all clear that climate change is going to get on the agenda. I think that's a problem.
I think it should be on the agenda, but I don't. set the agenda.
No.

Speaker 1 The politicians do.

Speaker 2 No, they do. Or the public, like based on the things that they're concerned about.
So where the economy is at, it's the economy is stupid, right? So what's going on?

Speaker 1 James Carville was right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's such a compelling man, that man. But what happens in two and a half years?

Speaker 2 What state is the economy at? That will determine everything.

Speaker 1 And how big and bold will Anthony Albanese's second term have been? And will Jim Chalmers, as treasurer, be happy with how big and bold Anthony Albanese's agenda has been?

Speaker 1 They are actually really important questions for how much money you get when you get your pay packet each week, how much extra you're paying if you're forced into private health,

Speaker 1 whether or not the type of car you're driving takes petrol or gets charged. They are not abstract questions.
They are real questions.

Speaker 1 Just like Jess Wilson and Kelly Sloan will have to answer, okay, if I get a bus or if I go to school or I need to call the police, will all of those things work? Will they be on time?

Speaker 1 Will I get what I need? It is worth saying that all of our interest in these people is because we we need good answers to those questions. Will climate change be an issue at the next election?

Speaker 1 There you go. You can talk about that for the next,

Speaker 1 well, for the next couple of years.

Speaker 2 For the next couple of years. Yeah, I think so, because I put this thing out a lot, don't I? So I'll probably talk about it.

Speaker 1 I've got Susan Lee later in the week, so I'll ask her if she's still up for climate change.

Speaker 2 Well, she says that she's very committed to the environment and reducing emissions.

Speaker 1 How do you reduce emissions without a target?

Speaker 2 I think the policy is incomprehensible, but that's what she says. So let's hear how you unpick that, because that's the argument they're making.
And it is quite incoherent.

Speaker 2 And I feel very confident saying that. You could fact check that.
It's incoherent to be putting more coal in the system and somehow magically reducing your emissions. It's quite wild.

Speaker 1 Well, how do you stay in the Paris Agreement that talks a lot about net zero when you don't believe in net zero? That's a little bit.

Speaker 2 Curiouser and curiouser. Hey, Raf, I love hanging out with you.
Thank you so much for coming on the pod today.

Speaker 1 Always an absolute pleasure, PK. Don't forget, Victoria, it's where it is happening, baby.
All the politics, all of the time in Victoria.

Speaker 2 Yeah, can't wait till my fast train starts. All right, that's it for politics now for today.
Tomorrow, David Spears joins me on the pod to unpack what he's hearing in the corridors of Canberra.

Speaker 2 If you have a question for us, send it to the party room at abc.net.au. We're going to attempt to answer it on Thursday.

Speaker 2 And speaking of the party room, remember we have a live show coming up at the Canberra Theatre on the 2nd of December. Tickets are selling like hotcakes, they tell me.
And so we have a few left.

Speaker 2 You can click on the show notes, grab them. Yes, people are like, where's Fran been? Fran's been doing stuff, but Fran's coming back for the live show.

Speaker 2 I plan to call her this afternoon and plan our coordinated outfits.

Speaker 1 Apparently, knee surgery is painful.

Speaker 2 Has she told people that?

Speaker 1 It was on the radio yesterday.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay, good. Okay.

Speaker 2 I was just about to punch her in the middle. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 She broadcasted. She broadcasted it.
Okay, good.

Speaker 2 All right. Yeah.
Okay. So knees and outfits.
See you, Africa. See you later.