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Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

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

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Hello and welcome to the party room. I'm Patricia Carvellis and I'm joining you from Rangery Country in Melbourne.
And I'm Fran Kelly on the Gaddigal Land of the Aura Nation here in Sydney.

And Fran it's been what like two seconds since I last saw you. I know exciting.
What a great week. What a great week to hang out together so much.
We did.

If you came to our Canberra live show and you've had a great time, look, thank you so much for coming. It was such a great pleasure to meet you all or to at least eyeball you from across the stage.

And to those who have sent me many private messages saying you love the night, yes, we'll be back. Okay.
And I thought it was very lovely that many of you did.

What an audience, though. What an audience, Piquet.
They knew more about... domestic politics than we did.
Look, it was very, I felt very Lady Gaga, really. Like, you know,

you looked very Lady Gaga with that idea, especially with that veil thing we wore, which was our hilarious, hilarious joke about weddings.

Now, Fran, what was really nice, watch this segue, you're going to love it, about

this night was the, in real life, the IRL nature, because a key topic of our week is the IRL missing in our lives, which is the social media and the ban for under 16s. A lot of talk about it.

We had the National Press Club address from the minister responsible talking about the way she will deal big tech, putting them on notice. I thought it was quite a significant moment, right?

Yeah, I mean, that was a great segue, by the way. I'll give you that.
Thank you. Yeah, this is a really big one for the government as we head towards the end of the year.

The teenagers of Australia are counting down with dread. Or are they? That's the question, really.
What are you yet to see?

The government's under-16 social media ban comes in next week officially, but some of the biggest platforms have made the move early.

The minister shepherding all this through this world-first technology is Annika Wells. And she was at the press club this week talking up the ban.

As I say, this is a world first, and you know, the government deserves and gets a lot of kudos for this a lot of countries are looking on and congratulating Australia for this but the minister was also talking pretty tough she was warning big tech to to get on board or or else so you know PK it comes a lot of kids today as of today we're recording this on Thursday have already found that they can't access their insta or their tick tock or whatever it is you know this is this is a big thing for the government isn't it it's huge very popular too of course we're going to talk about that on the pod today.

Also, just a couple of things we want to let you know about. That long-awaited Jobs for Mates report was released, scathing findings.

And I think, you know, one of those slow burn things for the government if it doesn't act properly on it that will, I think, cause them kind of longer-term pain. Sometimes it's not so immediate.

There was also the biggest Defense Department overhaul. Well, that's what they're saying in 50 years.
It's kind of contested, but it is a big deal.

Three departments streamlined into one agency so they can get more value for money for cost overruns, big projects, all the stuff that they spend a lot of money on.

And of course, how can we forget it? It happened over the weekend. And we've talked a lot on politics now throughout the week about it.

But that's, you know, the PM's wedding to Jodie Hayden, how he managed that, which I think was a sort of masterstroke. I'll sort of tell you now, but in terms of the management.

So we're going to talk about all of that. And I think we've got someone who was outside the lodge kind of stalking them, wasn't she? Or, you know, trying to get an invite.

So i believe trying to get a scoop as always and that is scoop anna henderson the chief politics correspondent at sbs anna those fences around the lodge are pretty high these days back in the day you used to be able to sort of see through the gates and everything but did you manage to get a glimpse well i think that's the point isn't it hello and thank you so much for having me on fran and pk and no i wasn't looking for an invitation to the wedding but i certainly was trying to understand what the wedding was going to look like because there had been questions about the fact that it was at the taxpayer-funded Prime Minister's residence and what kind of wedding the Prime Minister and Jodi Hayden were going to have.

What I could see was extremely limited. I did see Don Farrell, the Special Minister of State, walking around the long way, the side of the fence, with a very large present.

Looked potentially like a whiteboard, not suggesting it was, but that was the sort of shape of it. Maybe it was a large photo.

Whatever it was,

I'm still curious to know what presents they received and also was really interested to see, yes, the management of the day in these economic times.

The Prime Minister wanted it to be a private affair, but knew that there'd be a lot of public scrutiny.

It was extremely managed to try and portray both a sort of backyard wedding vibe, but also a lot of class. That's what he was hoping, I think, that it showed to the nation.
Yeah, I think Pico's right.

I think it was handled. politically very well, very smartly, because it wasn't big numbers, you know, there weren't lots of celebrities there, that sort of thing.
It wasn't a big media circus.

It was in the lodge and that's, you know, attracted a bit of attention. But the word is the PM paid for this wedding.

And as you say, a bit of a backyard feel, a fun feel, you know, a little bit funky. There was dancing, there was a dance floor, all of that.
I think they did it pretty well.

Now the PM's on his honeymoon. The parliamentary year is wrapped up.
But there's still,

as we said at the top, Anna, some big business relief for the government to get through, that social media ban. The PM is really proud of this.

I mean, he judges it's a real positive with the electorate.

What John Howard back in the day might have called a barbecue stopper, this issue, how to protect our kids online, how to stop them spending so many hours of their days in their rooms, on their devices.

Parents want help. The PM has stepped up, he's here to give it to them.
But Anna, even the minister responsible, Annika Wells, admitted this week they're not going to get this right from day one.

Yes, there will still be kids with accounts on 10 December and probably for some time after that.

Not only because kids are clever and inherently seek to circumvent systems, but because this law is a world first.

However, if a child has a social media account on 10 December, then that platform is breaking the law. It's not going to work smoothly immediately, is it?

And I think that's the reality of it and the government's really trying to manage the fact that this is quite a messy process to try and work out how to both identify under 16s and then work out the platforms that they're on to try and remove those profiles and also try and make a really big cultural change across the country in every living room and in every bedroom that this is no longer something that under 16s are able to engage with.

We had a chance to go out into the community in Sydney and speak to some families through our SBS Arabic team and chat to kids about how they were feeling about this and some said they were both happy but sad at the same time.

They were talking about losing their online connection and it's sort of an irony but you know these three kids who are all related to each other are all sitting in the same room on their devices and saying you know they really wanted more connection.

Social media gives them that because it broadens their social circle beyond the people in the room.

So I think at the same time one of the parents that we spoke to said, just get rid of it, you know, abolish it now. There's nothing good on social media for these kids.

And so you can see the tension that's occurring and different families have a different view on this.

But there's a reality that we're seeing unfold that as soon as more platforms are added to the list, new ones are kind of popping up. Yeah, there is a lot of people.
It is like whack-a-mole.

Someone said that, wrote that this week. That's exactly what it's like.
But it has to be whack-a-mole, though, doesn't it, guys? Because that's the story of technology. Exactly.
It happens so fast.

It's the cybersphere. So you're constantly, and that's why you're kind of legislating around technology is so fraught, isn't it, Anna? Because of, like, technology is faster and smarter than the law.

And, you know, it's also the case that a lot of young people understand technology and engage with it in a much more proficient and high-level way than a lot of their parents and a lot of the other adults in their world.

So there is already a knowledge and I think an understanding and a concession from the government that this is not going to be perfect.

I would love to know what their internal metric is for the percentage of kids they think that actually end up being offline for this to have worked for them.

Because I'm sure there is on some level some thought, look, if we get 80% off and there's 20% of first movers who are finding the next thing and the next thing, is that considered success?

And when the international community is looking in at this, what they think would represent success in this Australian experiment for young people that's about about to unfold and is really already unfolding.

So I think that there is

now quite a lot of still confusion in the community about how this is all going to work.

And that's why the opposition leader Susan Lee yesterday, in quite a surprising ramping up of her rhetoric, started to say, I have no confidence that this is going to work. We're close to this.

We believe in this. In fact, it started under us.

But it's totally chaotic in how it is being rolled out now. The minister is saying,

can I tell you about what my views are on this? Because I have many.

So what she's doing is this.

Inside the Liberal Party, there is a growing backlash to this ban, which is kind of funny. Why? I'll explain.
Oh, yeah, it's coming.

The funny backstory is, of course, it was Peter Dutton that read the room on this first.

And, you know, that's back when I think his political radar was a bit better. And he thought it was a very good thing.
Well, it was actually David Coleman, wasn't it? He came up with it early on.

That guy, he was all over this, though. Yeah, and but you know, like the under the Duttons' leadership, to be fair, they spoke first on it.

We talk a lot at the moment about the PM and his world first reforms.

If you think about where all this came from, in terms of the chitter-chatter about it all, Peter Malinowskis, the South Australian premier, actually first put it very much on the agenda, and then the PM made it his thing.

So, you know, the PM kind of followed quickly, but I think it's fair to say followed, if you're going to be accurate. So the Liberal Party was all,

you know, all going for it. There has been a shift and there's a reason for that.

Remember, we're talking of free speech, free speeches kind of libertarian, anti-government, anti, there's a real sort of sentiment in the right.

the right wing of politics, which is anti-government regulation and anti-the government telling you what to think or not what to see. And you might think, think, but this is kids.

No, they think it's equivalent that kids are still being targeted with all of this social control is how they see it. And I've spoken to you.

Right. And I've spoken to many frontbenchers who have said to me, watch this space.
So I'm giving you a scoop A on the podcast.

They say to me, this is the biggest complaint we're getting at the moment.

And so if you follow the language of Melissa McIntosh, the communications shadow, now Susan Lee, they are following the backlash they're getting. Anna, am I right or am I right?

PK, there is a nanny state concern. There is also a concern, as I'm sure you're picking up as well, about how far this could go with egg on the face for the opposition if this largely ends up working.

And even if it doesn't end up working on a kind of broad scale, that you know, it has the appearance to parents that's sort of wishing it not to work.

And there is a huge groundswell of support for something to happen to get kids kids off social media.

So is that judgment being made by the right actually going to resonate with the majority of Australian voters?

Is the concern within the moderates now about taking this tack, which is quite controversial for Susan Lee to have done.

Yeah, I mean I think clearly the answer is no, it's not going to resonate with the bulk of Australian parents and that's why the government is happy to say things like we're on the side of parents, not platforms, you know, it's a moral imperative here, all that sort of thing they they know the polling they know the fear in the you know every parent

understands this issue. Now they're not convinced this will work but

some of the parents I've spoken to say well it gives us just another sort of arrow in the quiver really.

You know we can say to the kids look it's illegal and it just gives us a bit of that moral imperative if you like.

But there's another thought.

You know if the if the right within the Liberal Party and more broadly is arguing free speech, libertarian, it's some of those same people who are happy to intervene on the women and their bodies, control of their bodies in terms of abortion, isn't it?

You know, so they don't want to give women the right to choose, but they want to give kids the right to be on social media in free speech. Fran.
Bang that. It's a feminist segue like no other.

I love it. Well, it struck me as you were saying that there are contradictions.
There are. The political risk is...
there for the coalition rather than for the government on this at the moment. But

there is a sort of an outside risk, which is that the U.S.

President Donald Trump, who's had such an impact on our politics this year you know if you if you look at the internal report done for the coalition their post-mortem on the election

and it was there writ large for all of us to see during the election that the election of Donald Trump really was a major factor in the landslide that Anthony Albanese achieved I think at the election I think that's you know not really disputed but Donald Trump if he hears about this and he will and he has and he takes Australia on in the name of protecting US tech companies which is what he's threatened to do.

A government just never knows where that's going to end up.

You know, I wonder, Anna, if the government's worried about that at all, the impact this might have in terms of pushback from Donald Trump for the US in terms of tariffs and other taxes.

We've got the whole PBS thing looming. Do you think this is an out-and-out winner for Labor and the Prime Minister's legacy?

Or is there some risk here, not necessarily internally from the coalition so much? There is definitely nervousness about how Donald Trump could retaliate.

And I think that nervousness was quietly bubbling away even during the time that I was at the White House earlier in the year when you know Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese held that joint event in the cabinet room and there were a few sort of jitters will the social media ban be raised and it probably was you know in a perfect world something that should have been asked in the room to try and get a direct answer and to get a direct understanding of what the recriminations could be.

Though I think there is a positive relationship at the moment between the Prime Minister and the President, so there is a way to potentially ameliorate some of that.

But we know the President doesn't necessarily count on personal relationships to stop him making big points and that he has those big tech companies in the room for dinner with him.

So he is interested in standing up for what he sees as their interests.

I think

there is also the potential that other countries watch how this unfolds and then sort of retreat and then that looks bad for the government as well. But I don't think that's

the mood internationally. I think the mood is: let's see what Australia can do to stand up.

And Annika Wells, the communications minister, has been quite strong in her rhetoric, saying we'll stand up for Australians and for Australian families when she's asked directly about these international issues.

So I think that there's also a plus internally, as Labor sees it, to showing sort of a sense of strength to stand up for something that Australian families care about despite international pressure.

Yeah, and on that,

so the minister turns up to the National Press Club to give that, you know, big statement piece about the social media ban in December.

But she ends up, instead of this being the dominant story, I think they wouldn't have loved that the dominant story became the 100, more than $100,000 flight bill for her.

and two staffers to attend the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Now, it's linked to what you were just saying, because they went there to spruke internationally the social media ban.

But that is a very big bill. And she's asked questions about it.
And, you know, she kind of tried to really straight bat them. We're going to be very, very clear.

I mean, but if you listen to the criticism, most people are like, doesn't pass the proverbial pub test. And it kind of doesn't.

How does it cost that much for three people to fly to New York and back? I mean, they weren't even flying

four or something. Yeah, but still, I mean...
I don't know. I've never spent that much on flights because I'm a bargain hunter.

They desperately wanted Annie Kawells to be there, and the Prime Minister was very invested in having this social media event to be a success and for it to create an international groundswell.

Annie Cowells was actually in the room on the floor of the UN General Assembly during some of the critical speeches from the Prime Minister as well.

She was very much a part of the very visible side of the government during their whole New York experience.

It was extremely expensive to be in New York at that time across the board for the media as well.

However, these flights just seem utterly extraordinary and from a media management point of view, the fact that these numbers were out there and that the minister was taking the podium,

I think they should have had a much better, more fulsome explanation to what was going on because the story now carries forward and it will eventually have to be fully disclosed and it doesn't make sense.

And also the event, which is separate to the flights, $70,000 to host an event in New York to promote the ban as well seems extraordinary too.

And in the end, I think it was something that they should have really been better in preempting and more upfront about in that room after multiple questions were asked to not have a clear answer and explanation, just own it.

And to be frank, when we were in New York, because the optus outages issue was happening in Australia and it was hugely controversial and problematic.

There were a lot of questions being raised about the fact that the minister had made the trip anyway. So there's been scrutiny on her over that decision and the fallout over that time.

They should have expected these questions to be asked. Yeah, I mean, I get them wanting to have the showcase at New York.
I get that, and you're right, it's 70,000 seems a lot.

But with the optus outage and then with the flights going to cost that much, maybe that's the point you say, look, I'm sorry, Annika, you've got to stay home and deal with this and let the PM fly the kite, you you know?

Yeah, I know, but

the kind of, oh, Annika, you know, like, I think it's a government-level problem that they thought this was a priority so much that they didn't think about just how much it looked weird to normal people.

Well, not weird, extravagant, wasteful. It's when you start getting used to free stuff so much

that you don't even, there's no thought put into what that looks like. Exactly.
And you know what?

When politicians have been around in the parliament for a long, long time at senior levels, and certainly RPM has that I mean yes he's got a log cabin story genuinely does you know working class kid did it tough you know he gets a lot of cred for that Anthony Albanese but you know there were advisors in his office before the election just a little worried about not just him but some in the government been around such a long time they just got a little bit used to free stuff you know and it maybe blunts their antenna and is this what happened here i don't know but it's distracted from the minister's press club.

That's a pretty big moment for a minister to have a national press club address. And that wasn't the only thing, Anna, too.

Because Annika Well, she's responsible for steering this under 16 social media ban. That's a big ticket item for the government.

But she was also ambushed a bit by the whole gambling ad ban issue, too. That's also in her portfolio that comes her way.

The Labor government is definitely under pressure here from within and without, isn't it? And

that was clear yesterday, too. There is major public support for this sort of issue.

I think it's not unreasonable to ask where your starting point on this would be.

It's not unreasonable to ask, and I imagine that you and others will continue to ask, but it's also not unreasonable to say there will be further measures.

And again, the minister wasn't, in the way she addressed that issue, which was raised multiple times, she wasn't able to give a clear answer on what happens next.

The government is keenly aware of this issue.

The fact that the Labor backbench is exercised about it, the fact that people are getting questions from their constituencies, the fact that there is a very strong push happening in parts of the community for change.

We're about to go into school holidays where families are going to be sitting down on their couches and watching much more sport and potentially going to be subject to much more of this advertising and asking the question after two years of this government saying it was going to do something on this, how has no action happened?

So they're very aware of that.

Why isn't the government doing anything on this, Anna?

I mean, the polls couldn't be clearer and there's growing pressure and even sort of speaking out from the caucus and that's only going to get more I think. Why isn't it?

I think it's a really good question. I think there's a perception that

well the Prime Minister said he's fearful about the impact on jobs and different sporting codes that have this as part of their business model, you know, the advertising revenues required, regional jobs as well.

You know, he's made this case that it's sort of so embedded in Australian media in in a sense, and in some of the sports, that it's very hard to suddenly, you know, sledgehammer unpick.

And also, that there is

a delicate balance to create here amongst

over-regulation in this space. But at the same time, when you have the likes of Dr.
Mike Freelander, who's always very careful in his interventions and very considerate in how he operates.

And has a lot of credibility in things like this. Absolutely.
And has a a lot of experience dealing with the repercussions of these things.

When he quietly, as he did, he didn't hold a press conference and do 10 interviews, but he did quietly raise the question of a conscience vote.

And then the Prime Minister's response in Parliament and then during a press conference when he's asked about it is to really kind of fob it off

and get really frustrated about the fact that he's being asked what is a pretty fair question to ask, given it's being raised by his own party.

And one thing to mention around that that I think is interesting, and you guys no doubt noticed it as well, in one of those final caucus meetings the Prime Minister had, it was briefed out that he was very appreciative and then he said he was very thankful for all the contributions of his party room and how they'd worked together.

I think that's a signal that he is aware that that large backbench that he is corralling and they've swung in behind him and been so disciplined all year, that they also have their own thoughts, feelings, political views, things that they campaigned on as part of Labour,

and that they all exist and go back out to their electorates now. And that he wants to try and keep a good faith relationship, even though these kinds of issues remain completely unresolved.

But I think it's worth noting in the fact that we've talked about the under-16 social media ban.

We know that it was Labour that ran kind of cigarette plane packaging and that they've run these campaigns about the public good, about you know, harm in the community, and Labor

acting to stop that. And that's why it just seems so incongruous to many people that at the same time they wouldn't act on gambling harm.
Yeah, great point.

Now, the other thing that happened this week, which, and there'll be more of this, so the Senate estimates is running, lots of things are coming out.

And at the same time, we are really in very much Christmas party zone, like we really are. And I feel like it happens earlier and earlier all the time.

You used to have to wait a bit deeper into December. Now it's like December the 1st, it begins.
And anyway, that's a whole other podcast, but it really freaks me out.

But what happened is the release of the so-called Jobs for Mates report, kind of a shorthand title for it, conducted by esteemed former Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs.

It's actually titled No Favourites. Now, again, Anna, it was commissioned by Labour not long after they won government.
So it's not about their government.

It's a broader look at political appointments and the sort of transparency around them and whether there is a, yeah, jobs for mates sort of system where you just kind of, you know, you know this person and they'll put you on that board.

It was quite significant, though.

It found six to seven percent of board appointments were political in nature with Australians believing, and this is the really full-on thing, that the government is appointing overpaid hacks.

They have to fix it, don't they, Anna? But do they have an appetite to do it?

It's really awkward when you commission a review of something and then it comes back and you find yourself out of favour with the reviewer, isn't it? And that's basically what the government did.

They wanted to look back over the culture, the issues that had existed under the coalition.

They were really focused on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which has a lot of appointments of people who've previously been in politics and many other parts of the public service.

And when they got the report back in August of 2023, and it pointed out all these failings in the current government and how they were making decisions and criticised them.

It was just then parked for all this time.

Which is a dead giveaway, right?

Well, that's, and that's, I'm sure we'll get to this, but that's why it became an issue in the Senate.

But now it's finally been put out there after it was a demand of the Senate, no less.

This is not, you know, just a nice gesture from the government, like they were under the Senate's guidance that they had to release it.

It hasn't been sort of taken on in full in terms of recommendations.

So a framework has been announced by the government, but some of the kind of key things around not appointing heaps of your mates before an election to ensure they've got a job afterwards or

having timeframes around that to kind of protect the integrity of these appointments, that hasn't been accepted by the government.

No, and the government's not going to legislate on any of those regulations, which are on any of those recommendations from Lynnell Briggs.

So, you know, basically, they've just said, nah, we're just going to keep control of this and keep doing what we want.

I think, you know, it was a real stinker for the government and that they wanted to make political capital out of it. That's why they announced it.

They were trying to have it blow back on Scott Morrison, but it's blown back on all of them and they're not going to shift. They're not going to budge.
They're not going to give it up.

But I thought the most serious finding from the Commissioner was that

she said that the situation is so serious, it has, quote, reduced confidence in the government and fed into a climate of public disquiet.

You know, that's a really heavy sentence to fall out into the public domain at a time when trust in government is, you know, governments are lower than ever,

support for major parties lower than ever. Remember at the 2022 election, that was the big campaign from the Teals, trust and accountability, transparency and accountability.

And I just think that was a really big warning there from Linnell Briggs and the government has just sidelined it.

Timing is everything and commissioned at a time when, of course, they loved these stories, didn't they? They loved them.

You know, the Morrison government, its appointments, Mark Dreyfus, when he was attorney general, going nuts about it all. Do you remember? It was such a thing.
And now we're four years later.

And it's like, hmm, yes, we're working on that. I mean, everything changes based on the optics around that, doesn't it, Anna? It's just like entirely different

because of that. They're now like an embedded government.
That's the truth.

But this is a sticky issue isn't it it's that sticky issue of transparency uh and when you are a prime minister who came into office saying he wanted to you know

throw away the cobwebs, he wanted to bring in the disinfectant, he wanted to be very transparent with the Australian people and made that a point of difference to Scott Morrison, very keen to highlight, you know, the multiple ministries scandal, the sense that the former government didn't have that integrity.

But then over time, as you say, PK, like a government becomes embedded, we're into a second term, it becomes quite clear that some of these things are much more politically expedient to not have out there as negative stories or to be confronting for a government when it doesn't really want to have negative press out there.

Yeah, and I'll just add something to that. It's not just about expediency.

It's, you know, John Howard famously said when he came to government that, you know, what's important is to stay in for two terms because that gives you time to embed your people, your values, your directions into all the agencies of government.

And that's what this is about. You know, they want to have that control and maintain it.
And this is a key element of that, a key vehicle for that.

But, Anna, just before we finish up, another big announcement this week came from the Defence Minister Richard Miles announcing a major defence overhaul.

This is one of the most significant reforms to defence that we have seen.

It will greatly change the way that defence operates and it will make sure streamlining defence acquisitions to one independent agency.

Now governments for decades have been trying to do this, get a handle on spending basically because how often do the big purchases that get announced with much fanfare either never happen or happen, you know, 25 years later and happen at 10 times the cost.

And Defence in the past has really fought hard against trying to be, you know, constrained around this. I remember

Labor Minister Stephen Smith made an enemy of himself with Defence because he came in promising to and really trying to clamp down on Defence acquisitions and procurements and didn't in the end make much ground.

Here's the government trying to do that. They need to do it.
Is this the big deal that the Minister was making it out to be?

It depends who you speak to.

And it is a big deal in terms of control over spending in this area. So if you think about a defence budget currently around 56 billion, in the next 10 years it's going to go up to 100 billion.

Not what Donald Trump had requested, by the way, which is a 3.5% of GDP, but it's really big numbers and huge spending, mind-boggling to the Australian

person at home. And in terms of the way this is going to carve out, like these three agencies or groups that are going to become this agency will control about 40% of the budget, I'm told.

So that's a really significant amount of money that's now pulled out of direct control of the Secretary of the Defence Department and has more engagement from the Minister around how projects are put together.

You know, in the sense of bureaucracy, it's probably

a reality that part of this is to remove some of the public service approach to procurement and decision making and costing and securing projects, big projects, and trying to over time and natural attrition, they're not saying redundancies, but to recruit people in that have more of a commercial mindset and more experience in the commercial sector to try and have a better process of working out how much a project will cost and how to keep it on budget.

So, that's a bit of a convoluted way of saying I think the Defence Minister wants to have more control over what happens, and that there is always this tension between the department and the minister about how things are run.

And that frustration has led to this decision. Yeah, I think that's very well put.
Anna, just final hot takes from you.

we're entering as i said like the total the bells are ringing you know get your christmas hat on try not to humiliate yourself at the office christmas party

do our best yeah go go with the zero alcohol uh option i always say you know as we get into this period what do they have to do over the summer like the pm said you know keep working to his uh uh to his caucus because he's obviously worried about potential complacency and i think he's right to be susan lee is going to absolutely cane it isn't she?

She's going to work every day to try and entrench herself.

Absolutely. I mean she's got to try and become the visible name recognition opposition leader over the summer.

That's what I think you can see the constant media engagement that she's doing compared to Peter Dutton's media agenda, which is so careful and refined.

And he's basically spoke to sort of four journalists only in the whole country for most of his time in the job. Susan Lee is out there on every podcast, news

interview, and press engagement she can get to, with a lot of lead time for journalists to try and embed herself and become Susan Lee, the opposition leader.

Like, I can go out into the street with the microphone and say, Who is the opposition leader? and people will know the answer.

A lot of people don't seem to at the moment when we go out and ask that question.

And for the government and for the Prime Minister, well, they think they're desperately hoping that this summer is not a summer that is defined by people feeling that they don't have enough money to enjoy the school holidays with their kids on any level and that they can't afford their power bills because that is just a huge issue that's looming for the government around the economy.

So they'll sell that messaging, they'll try to be out there

in a way that's sort of cabinet government, not the prime minister only, but there's just this looming economic issue for them around interest rates, around the cost of power, around the genuine view that it's a real struggle for a lot of families over the school holidays and that they are looking for someone to blame if that happens.

Yeah and Anna I think that's a great point you make about Susan Lee being out there and the name recognition trying to make it more difficult for her to be knocked off by those who are in that coalition party room, the Liberal party room, who clearly want her job.

So I think that's a really great point. Anna, as always, you're full of great points.
Thank you so much for joining us.

And if I don't see you before the end of the year, the actual end of the year, you've had a bumper one and you have a great break. See you.
See you guys. Thanks so much.
It's been a pleasure.

Prime Minister has the call. Thanks very much Mr Speaker.
Well then I give the call to the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition. Thank you Mr Speaker.
My question is to the Prime Minister.

The bells are ringing. That means it's time for our question time and this week's question comes from Vish.
Hi Fran Piquet.

With the government striking a deal with the Greens instead of the Coalition on Environmental Reform, do you think this is reshaping how important bipartisanship is for the big issues?

I'm a millennial voter and the coalition is losing votes left, right and centre, literally. So does having them agree with the Labour Party bear much weight in the quality or longevity of policy?

Or is it kind of like the reverse litmus test where if they're against an idea, it's probably going to be widely accepted and positive for the broader electorate? Thanks.

That's a good point to make, Vish, because we've just seen, of course, this happen with the environmental legislation and the government was in a way publicly begging the coalition to do the deal

but in the end they did it with the Greens and that just shows that they can get things out without bipartisanship but I don't think it will in the end finish the need for bipartisanship or the sense that governments would prefer a bipartisan support for key legislation because

it's linked to longevity. What you don't want in any democracy, any well-governed country, is for a change of election to mean big changes in major policies that have already been bedded in.

You don't want to see that. And that's why governments always say it's better to have bipartisanship on some of these big changes.

Whether that's going to change over time now that we seem to have

bedding itself in this third block of votes, you know, the electorate's basically split three ways between Labor, the coalition and independents and minor parties. So that may change that.

But even so, it's a lot simpler for any government to just do a deal with one major party and they sell that to the electorate on the basis that that represents stability. I don't know.

I don't expect that to change anytime soon. But what do you think, Pikachu?

I don't think it's likely to change. No.

I think, you know, just going to the substantive, like the first bit of your question in terms of striking a deal with the Greens.

instead of the coalition. I mean,

so much of that decision itself, Ran, obviously was just the pragmatics of what to get through. We know that.
They wanted it through. Yeah.

But also, you know, that left flank and trying to make sure that they inoculate themselves against the perception that they're doing deals with a party they say are climate deniers.

Like, you know, they need to seal that. message, don't they? That's key, too.

And isolate the coalition out on that flank, you know, where that government can call them science dinosaurs and climate deniers and all the rest of it. Yeah, that's right.

Vish, thank you for asking the question. And to all the people who generally have been throughout the year asking questions, you're excellent.
We just love getting your questions.

We're especially fond, as we say, of the voice notes, like we can hear you. And it just reminds us that you are real people out there listening.

And if you are the guy, I have to say this, Frank, because it was so funny. I don't know if I've told you this story.
If you're the dude, I was walking with my partner, like

by the park and at like 6 a.m. or something hideous, as we do, because we're middle-aged now and the girls sleep in.
And I was ranting really loudly. You know, I have a very distinctive voice.

You laugh. It carries.
Yeah, your voice carries. And Peter is very, she was listening.
She was absorbing my constantly. Quietly.
Yes, as I say to her, giving her a bespoke podcast on a walk.

And this guy. Oh, my God, it's 6 a.m.

She loves it. What do you mean? And he pulls out his headphones and he's like, twice.
It's happening twice.

And I said, Are you listening to the party room? And he goes, Yes.

And I heard it twice. And I said, Oh, you don't need me twice, mate.
But if you are that guy, thank you. That was a delightful moment in the morning that we laughed about.

Also, Pete said, Don't speak so loudly on the walks, it's getting embarrassing.

That's it for the party room this week. Remember to follow Politics Now, that's the feed where this podcast, the party room podcast, lives.

It's there on the ABC Listen app, so you never need to miss an episode. And I'll be back for Politics Now on Monday.

Of course, you can listen to David Spears with Insiders on Background on Saturday, the final one of the year. He's speaking to the Race Discrimination Commissioner.

It's more than 12 months since he delivered a comprehensive plan to eliminate racism. So, what's happened to those recommendations? See you, friend.
That'll be a good one. See you, PK.